Shonda Rhimes Joins National Board Of Planned Parenthood | 16 States Join Fight Against Ohio Abortion Law

Shonda Rhimes, the creative, business genius behind 'Grey's Anatomy', 'Scandal' and 'How To Get Away With Murder' will now become a voice for one of America's most trusted health care providers: Planned Parenthood. 

Already serving on the PP board out in Los Angeles, and now explaining her response when Planned Parenthood Federation of America president Cecile Richards called, Rhimes says she didn't hesitate. 

"When someone you really admire...calls on you to serve, you say yes," she explains. (It's mutual, says Richards: "I've been so, so impressed by everything she's ever done.") "The fact is that women's health is under fire right now," Rhimes says. "And so to me, it feels like it's important to help fight back."

"I just want to be of service," she continues. "And I'll do that any way I can."

The assault of the Trump Administration on Planned Parenthood is relentless, as is its expanded crusade on women's health clinics worldwide. Attorneys general from 16 states, led by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (D)  joined a lawsuit challenging an Oho law that would deny state and federal funds to organizations providing abortions -- even though the suit acknowledges that no federal funds go to pay for abortions. Ohio wants to cut off any federal funds to pay for HIV tests, cancer screenings and infant mortality prevention. 

A federal judge blocked the law from taking effect last year, agreeing that it violated the First Amendment rights of two Planned Parenthood chapters in Ohio. The Ohio Department of Health appealed the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit.

The Ohio law focused on health care providers beyond Planned Parenthood. The Columbus Public Health Department warned last year that it would be unable to sign contracts with any of the city’s hospitals because they either provide abortion services, contract with clinics that do so or refer patients to other places where they can find such services, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. 

O'Reilly Accuser Rebecca Diamond Breaks Silence, Slams Trump

Rebecca Diamond, one of the three previously unreported accusers of Bill O'Reilly featured in this week's earth-shaking expose by the New York Times, fought back by blasting the US president for adding ignorant comments about legal cases in which he knows nothing. Diamond took to her barren Twitter feed for the first time in four years, blasting Trump.

Frankly, men have blindly stood up for men in other sexual harassment or sexual assault cases for thousands of years.  As well over 50 sponsors have fled 'The O'Reilly Show', ratings have risen 14% since the scandal broke almost a week ago. We should not assume that it's only men standing for O'Reilly. As we learned in our recent presidential election, millions of non college-educated white women are all in for the boys club. Hillary carried college-educated women by 10 points but lost badly among white women without a college degree. 

In 2011, according to the Times, Diamond revealed to her Fox bosses that she had secretly recorded conversations with O’Reilly. The conversations were inappropriate enough that she left the network, reportedly bound by a confidentiality agreement, and was paid a settlement of an unknown amount.

“President Trump, the women were forced to settle, not the other way around, because of employment agreements prohibiting court trials,” she explained on Twitter—one of her first posts on the social-media site in nearly four years.

Diamond added: “If you don't believe in settlements, get rid of forced mediation employment agreements and women won't have to settle.”

“President Trump, I have personally met and interviewed three of your children several times while I was a host at Fox Business,” she concluded. “I'm saddened reading your comments. Truly disappointed and vilified all over again.

“Such comments tell women they won't be believed.”

Ivanka Trump Met With Cecile Richards Of Planned Parenthood

Cecile Richards' meeting with Ivanka Trump has gone previously unreported, writes Politico. It happened when the Trump daughter was on her own listening tour with Democrats and progressives. Given Ivanka's total silence -- ONE NOT MAINTAINED BY THE BUSH WOMEN AS FIRST LADIES -- has created a bitter fissure between her and Cecile Richards.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood, pretty perfectly articulated the problem with this meeting, which appears to not have done anything to influence Trump's actions for and within the administration. "You don’t get to have it both ways," Laguens told Politico in response to Trump's public persona and private actions. "You don’t get to say women should have great child care when maternity benefits are on the chopping block.”

I wrote about this very issue of Complicity on Ivanka's part yesterday. Personally, I will not give her an inch on her refusal to stand for women. Instead she spews this upper class bs far and wide, and she is every bit the Stepford daughter as Melania is the Stepford wife.

Millions of women's lives in the US and around the world -- including millions of women who will die -- will be buried in Ivanka Trump's silence over her father's expansion of the Mexico City policy, aka the global gag rule. None of us are saying that she could change her father's mind and the Republican party in their anti-woman agenda.

But as an activist on behalf of poor and lower-class women worldwide for years, I have no respect for Ivanka Trump -- especially when the Bush women have quietly -- not with front page headlines -- have continued to stand for Planned Parenthood over the years.

Ivanka Trump does not deserve my respect, and I will not give it to her until she stands for poor and lower-class women wherever they live. Presently, she is on a blonde ambition tour, planning her own run for office. Only a privileged, rich white daughter could find her in this enviable position when her father seats her next to Angela Merkel, while hiring only four female cabinet members -- the lowest since Ronald Reagan. ~ Anne