How many times have we heard about our tax dollars paying for government workers who spend their days watching porn at work?

Which city in the United States is home to the most pornography viewers? The answer is Washington, D.C., the seat of the nation’s power players. Do you ever wonder why the Department of Justice does not enforce obscenity laws? Could the viewing habits of D.C.’s denizens influence the lack of enforcement?

The source of this information is PornHub, a XXX website. The New York Daily News carried the story about the study and noted that the rate of online pornography watched in D.C. is 14.18 videos per person in a year. While that may not sound like a lot to some, consider that the D.C. rate is nearly twice the rate of the second highest porn viewing state, Hawaii, where it is 7.57 per person.

We know that not everyone watches pornography, so that means the people actually watching online pornography in Washington are watching a lot more videos than 14.18 each. Who is watching them, and are they doing so at work? Does it influence their work?

How many times have we heard about our tax dollars paying for government workers who spend their days watching porn at work? One Washington Times article lists these agencies that have employees with porn problems: Pentagon, Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, U.S. State Department, Department of Homeland Security, Securities and Exchange Commission, and the Missile Defense Agency. The article quotes a cyber-security expert who warns, “Many pornographic websites are infected and criminals and foreign intelligence services such as Russia’s use them to gain access and harvest data.”

You would think that national security nugget would be a good enough reason for prosecuting obscenity producers and purveyors, but evidently it is not.

In 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder shut down the Obscenity Prosecution Task Force, which was established under Pres. George W. Bush’s Administration. A Politico article quoted Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in reaction to this move:

“Attorney General Holder told the Judiciary Committee last year that this task force was the centerpiece of the strategy to combat adult obscenity,” Sen. Hatch told POLITICO in a statement Friday. “Rather than initiate a single new case since President Obama took office, however, the only development in this area has been the dismantling of the task force. As the toxic waste of obscenity continues to spread and harm everyone it touches, it appears the Obama Administration is giving up without a fight.”

According to the PornHub statistics, obscenity blankets Washington. The lack of adult obscenity prosecutions is harming everyone. While the Department of Justice focuses on prosecuting cases of child pornography, those who are watching adult pornography may turn to child pornography when the adult material no longer excites them. If adult pornography prosecutions are non-existent, a gateway to child pornography is left in place to ensnare new viewers.

So, while some of D.C.’s denizens turn a blind eye to punishing the producers and distributors of obscenity, others are glued to their porn-filled computer screens. The key to why obscenity, while illegal, thrives in D.C., and beyond may be one mouse click away on screens hidden behind closed doors and cubicle walls in offices throughout Washington.

In Planned Parenthood Action Fund’s latest end-of-year appeal, Cecile Richards wrote, “It seems like every day the attacks on women’s health get louder and more extreme. … Women and men across the country are beginning to realize just how dangerous our opponents are, just how extreme their agenda truly is.”

Extreme?  Please.

We’re not the ones aiding and abetting child rapists by telling their victims to lie about their age so they can get an abortion.  In 2008, Live Action exposed your staff’s rampant sexual abuse cover-ups and blatant medical misinformation — in fourteen different states!

We’re not the ones aiding and abetting sex traffickers. In February 2011, Live Action caught your Planned Parenthood of New Jersey manager side-stepping the law by coaching a man and woman who were posing as sex traffickers on how to be as “legit as possible” in obtaining secret abortions and contraception for their underage female sex slaves.

And we’re not the ones encouraging women to have an abortion based on the sex of the child.  ProtectOurGirls.com recently exposed a Planned Parenthood Chapel Hill clinician supporting a mother seeking sex-selective abortion of baby girls in the hopes of having a baby boy instead.

And yet, we’re extreme? No, that’s YOU, Miss Richards. That’s YOUR Planned Parenthood.  We’re not extreme; YOU are.

Our guest blogger today is Christian Shelby, a volunteer with Concerned Women for America.

Carlson Wagonlit Travel: One of the white hats of the business world.

With the Penn State child rape scandal (and now Syracuse) still in the news, child sexual exploitation is a growing concern across the nation.  In addition to pedophiles abusing children for their own sick sexual kicks, there is a whole industry of pimps and criminal networks that provide children for those whose sexual obsessions drive them to rent the bodies of younger and younger victims.  Every year, thousands of children are trapped in sex trafficking, prostitution, pornography, and sex tourism – all victims coerced into a vicious cycle of abuse that robs them of their innocence.

According to the Department of Justice’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section on Trafficking and Sex Tourism, “Each year an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are bought, sold, or forced across the world’s borders [2003 U.S. State Department estimate].  Among them are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, and others as young as 5, who fall victim to the sex trade.”

When faced with such daunting figures – which represent not just sheer numbers, but young lives ravaged by a very real, and often undetected, kind of slavery – it is easy to get discouraged, particularly when there are so many who choose to remain ignorant to the facts or who throw up their hands in defeat. Thus, it is encouraging to see shining examples of those who are willing to take a bold stand, especially in the private sector.

One recent example is Carlson Winglit Travel (CWT), a $27.8 billion travel agency that caters to business and leisure travelers; CWT has joined the fight to help protect children against trafficking and child sex tourism.  On Nov. 16, CWT began inserting advisories on their electronic itineraries (issued in the U.S.) for passengers traveling to countries where child sex tourism is widespread, providing them with a hotline by which they can report suspicious behavior.

The advisory states the following:

UNICEF REPORTS THAT TRAFFICKING IN CHILDREN FOR PURPOSES OF SEXUAL EXPLOITATION IS A GLOBAL PROBLEM.  THE U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT ADVISES ITS CITIZENS THAT ENGAGING IN SEXUAL CONDUCT WITH MINORS IS A CRIME AND IF COMMITTED OUTSIDE THE U.S. IS PUNISHABLE UPON RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES. TRAVELERS CAN HELP BY REPORTING SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO THE NATIONAL HUMAN TRAFFICKING HOTLINE:  1-888-373-7888.  WHEN CALLING FROM OUTSIDE THE U.S.: +1-202-507-7966. CARLSON WAGONLIT TRAVEL SUPPORTS THE PROTECTION OF THE WORLD’S CHILDREN.

The effort of this travel agency is commendable.  CWT’s ability to influence travelers is substantial, as it provides services to some of the biggest and most profitable corporations worldwide, issuing hundreds of thousands of itineraries on a daily basis.

“As I read it, it just made me very happy to be a part of my company,” said Tammy Conderman, service center manager at CWT.  “Just knowing that our company is taking a stand and putting effort forward against these horrible crimes brought tears to my eyes.”

“This is most definitely a praise [report] and the timing could not be better,” said Debra Kohl, field coordinator for Concerned Women for America of Missouri and a personal friend of Conderman.  “Bringing awareness to a problem is the first step to solving the problem.”

Perhaps such examples of privatized corporations taking action to make a difference are exactly what our nation needs right now to serve as wake-up calls to those who sit around or occupy parks, waiting for government to solve all our problems.

Our guest blogger today is Lauren Levy, an intern with Concerned Women for America’s (CWA) Ronald Reagan Memorial Internship Program.  Click here for more information on internships with CWA.

A small town near Seattle seems an unlikely place to earn a six-figure profit from sex trafficking, but 32-year-old Shacon Fontane Barbee reportedly made at least $192,000 in eight months from his prostitution ring, and he drove around in one of his two luxury vehicles — a Jaguar XJR or a Mercedes S420.  Steve Hunter, a reporter in Kent, Washington, described the charges that the pimp faces: “promoting prostitution, leading organized crime, promoting commercial sexual abuse of a minor (under age 18) and several other charges.”  Hunter also tracked the pimp’s career in organized crime and some of his victims’ stories.

One of the prostituted girls (age 19 at the time) told the detectives that she gave all her earnings (about $2,000/week) to Barbee.  The detectives figured that Barbee probably had at least two other girls working for him (if not more) which meant that during one eight-month period of time, he made close to $200,000.

As is typical, while he was raking in the money, the girls who were his sex slaves received only meager handouts.  Many of the girls were minors when they first met Barbee and were convinced that he “loved” them and “needed” their “help.”  The detectives reported that Barbee started pimping in 2007 and had lured more than 40 girls to work for him.  Four of the women were interviewed by Kent Police.

• One interviewee is an 18-year-old who was first associated with Barbee at age 13 and was prostituted at age 16.  She not only met clients at hotel rooms, she helped recruit other girls for Barbee.
• A 19-year-old met Barbee through another victim who became her friend through Internet social networking.  She averaged 5-6 men a night and the assignations were made through backpage.com.
• Another interviewee, 20 years old, also met Barbee after being recruited by a girl she met online.  She ended up working as a street prostitute for Barbee for only eight months.
• The final interviewee only worked for Barbee for one night, as a “two-girl special,” but she didn’t stay because she was convinced that Barbee “really didn’t care about her and he had a violent reputation.”

That last testimony summarizes the problem with criminals like Barbee: The pimp used young women as commercial commodities to make money. As long as the victim was profitable, she was treated well enough to keep her “within the fold.”  Under the thumb of their pimps, these vulnerable girls think that he truly cares for them, and the pimp uses that myth to control her and use her for his own financial benefit.

Barbee is currently in jail with bail set at $500,000.  He has entered a “not guilty” plea and is scheduled for trial on September 19.  He faces up to 15 years if convicted of all the charges against him.  Most people think 15 years is not nearly enough punishment for criminals like Barbee.

It’s a sad day in America when our president is so beholden to the abortion industry that he defaults to talking points when confronted with evidence of child abuse and sex trafficking.  That is what happened recently when, in an interview with a Richmond, Virginia, TV station, President Barack Obama was asked about the controversy surrounding Planned Parenthood, caused by the release of several undercover videos by the pro-life group Live Action.

Rather than show horror, concern, or disgust, Obama resorted to talking points on the economy.  According to LifeSite News, he responded, “I will tell you, the vast majority of people right now, what they’re thinking about are jobs, the economy — I think sometimes these issues get manufactured, and they get a lot of attention on the blogosphere.”

This is not the response we want from our political leaders when confronted with video footage of Planned Parenthood staff members at seven different facilities offering advice to an undercover investigator disguised as a “pimp” on how to obtain secret abortions, STD testing, and contraception for his underage prostitutes. 

The president also felt compelled to add that he believed Planned Parenthood “in the past has done good work.”

It appears as if, even as president and leader of the free world, standing for what’s right is just one more thing “above his pay grade.”

See all the Live Action videos here, www.exposeplannedparenthood.com. Concerned Women for America (CWA) is one of the coalition members.