By Sarah Stites | December 29, 2015 | 11:40 AM EST

Planned Parenthood supporters might be surprised to discover the newest use of their donations — funding Christmas presents for journalists.

On December 28, Vox’s deputy managing editor for visuals Sarah Kliff tweeted a photo of her gift with the caption “Planned Parenthood sends a holiday gift to reproductive health reporters: Emergency Chocolate.” 

By Tom Blumer | December 12, 2015 | 10:47 AM EST

The callousness towards human life at Planned Parenthood is such that it believes that the remains of preborn babies killed during abortions are just like any other "medical waste," and that sending them to landfills — or, perhaps even incinerators — is therefore "humane."

That's what one must conclude from reading an Associated Press report Friday evening which strived mightily to play defense for the beleaguered group. The wire service's headline only described State Attorney General Mike DeWine as an "official." The opening sentence from Andrew Welsh-Huggins only conceded that DeWine "criticized" the practices at Ohio's Planned Parenthood's locations, when his press release clearly contends that it has been violating state regulations (bolds are mine):

By Kyle Drennen | December 11, 2015 | 10:52 AM EST

In a hostile interview with Carly Fiorina on CNN’s New Day on Friday, anchor Chris Cuomo accused the Republican presidential candidate of inciting violence with her criticism of abortion provider Planned Parenthood: “Do you feel any sense of regret about how you characterized what was going on at Planned Parenthood after the attack in Colorado? Because of what the man said, which seems as though he was influenced by some of the rhetoric that was coming out of you and others that painted a very ugly picture, an unfair one, about Planned Parenthood?”

By Tim Graham | December 7, 2015 | 2:35 PM EST

USA Today released a poll on Monday that repeated a poll from just two months ago to underscore a majority oppose defunding of Planned Parenthood. But to update it, the newspaper decided to ask if “Heated political rhetoric about Planned Parenthood and abortion bear some of the responsibility for what happened" in the Colorado Springs shooting. They found 46 percent agreed to blame pro-lifers, and 36 percent disagreed.

Susan Page explained how they built on accused shooter Robert Lewis Dear’s alleged words about “baby parts” to blame rhetoric for the violence:

By Tom Johnson | December 6, 2015 | 12:17 PM EST

In a column posted last Monday, two days before the San Bernardino massacre, Heather Digby Parton warned of Americans with “violent desires” who might find “inspiration” to stage mass-casualty attacks not in jihadist propaganda, but in rhetoric used during “a Republican presidential debate.”

Parton linked the fatal shootings at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs to remarks by GOP presidential candidates and declared that those politicians “should have paused before they…exploited [the Planned Parenthood sting videos] for political gain. After all, gory illustrations of dismemberment and mutilation are the propaganda stock in trade of our most hated enemies. They are considered the gold standard for terrorist recruitment. You would think mainstream American politicians would think twice about going down that road…But they don’t.”

By Brad Wilmouth | December 2, 2015 | 7:41 PM EST

On Monday's The Nightly Show on Comedy Central, host Larry Wilmore used clips of GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina from Fox News Sunday to deceive viewers into believing she referred to the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood attacker as merely a "messenger" and a "protester."

By Brad Wilmouth | December 1, 2015 | 7:27 PM EST

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's At This Hour with Berman and Bolduan, CNN political commentator Errol Louis dismissed GOP presidential candidate Ted Cruz's assertion that Democrats are more likely to commit violent crimes than Republicans by theorizing that prison converts some GOPers into Democrats because, after spending time in prison, they become "a little bit more respectful toward civil and human rights."

By Matthew Balan | December 1, 2015 | 1:18 PM EST

On Monday's AC360, CNN's Randi Kaye played up how the hidden camera videos from the Center for Medical Progress triggered "anger-filled rhetoric" from the Republican presidential candidates in the months before the Colorado shootings. Kaye touted that CMP's David Daleiden "told CNN that...he did get creative with the video — admitting that it was edited — a critical detail that seemed to be lost on all the GOP candidates." This, of course, ignores the hours of footage that does show Planned Parenthood officials "bargaining, negotiating, pricing, and arranging the sales of body parts," according to her network's own reporting.

By Tom Johnson | December 1, 2015 | 12:56 PM EST

Anyone fascinated by strident pro-choice rhetoric finds that Marcotte seldom disappoints in that regard. In a Monday Salon piece pegged to the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shootings, the lefty pundit asserted that “terrorism…is the logical end point of [the pro-life movement’s] deep sense of entitlement over others’ bodies,” and that the movement “has been built on a lie: That it is about ‘life,’ when it’s clearly a movement of religious prudes who want to sneer at women they think are sluts.”

Marcotte added that “a movement built on a lie is bound to be one that’s wicked and dishonest in all its tactics, and that is what we see with the anti-choice movement. People who are willing to lie to get their way are not going to apologize and grow a conscience just because some people get killed for their lies…This shooting should be a reminder that the pro-choice side is the moral one, and not just because you never have to worry about some pro-choicer shooting up a crowd under the delusion of religious righteousness.”

By Brad Wilmouth | November 30, 2015 | 11:47 PM EST

As Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards appeared as a guest on Monday's Anderson Cooper 360, host Cooper prodded her to "directly link the rhetoric" coming from GOP presidential candidates to the Colorado Spring shooting spree after she complained about "hateful rhetoric" being aimed at the abortion provider.

When she declined to make such a direct accusation, Cooper pressed her a second time, wondering if she believes "some of the language" has "led to violence."

By Brad Wilmouth | November 30, 2015 | 5:54 PM EST

As Monday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello devoted a segment to whether political rhetoric against Planned Parenthood's practices inspired an attack on a Colorado Planned Parenthood office, host Costello began by asserting that GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina had "falsely" claimed that the abortion provider "was guilty of harvesting a live baby's organs" as the CNN host wondered if such "rhetoric" is "fueling" violence.

And Daily Beast contributor Dean Obeidallah took aim at Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, and Dr. Ben Carson as he made charges of politicians "legitimizing hate," and charged that most extreme language comes from the right more than the left.

By Mark Finkelstein | November 30, 2015 | 12:16 PM EST

Ruth Marcus has come close to blaming Republicans for the Colorado Springs shootings. Appearing on Jose Diaz-Balart's MSNBC show today, Washington Post columnist Marcus said that "the Republican candidates . . . have been part of the inflamed and inflammatory rhetoric about Planned Parenthood, about the sale of baby parts, about dismembering live babies . . . I think it's a fair conclusion, especially based on his . . . alleged mentioning of 'no more baby parts,' that this kind of rhetoric helped create this environment."

Really? Is there no room for people--without being accused of inflaming people to commit murder--to express their opposition to abortion and to the largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood? To state what the videos indisputably demonstrate: that among other things that PP was in the business of selling baby body parts?