It seems that GOP Presidential candidate Donald Trump and Sussex County Assemblywoman Gail Phoebus have something in common. Both make outrageous allegations that have no basis in fact.

According to James Farmer, who was Attorney General on September 11, 2001, Trump fabricated his preposterous tale that Jersey City Muslims joyfully celebrating the twin tower tragedy. Farmer says, “I was in charge in N.J. on 9/11 and Trump's claims never happened”.

Like Trump, Phoebus utters outlandish statements that a minimum of inquiry would belie. Recently she did so at a meeting of the Sussex County Board of Chosen Freeholders. She boldly asserted that Planned Parenthood of New Jersey facilitates abortions by drug addicts in order to provide a source of fetal body parts for sale.

Her attack has no basis in fact. Phoebus was attempting to ride on the coat tails of a scurrilous campaign by anti-abortion groups to undermine Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides gynecological services, most to women who are poor. As with Trump, Phoebus does not trouble to check the facts. Instead, having made no inquiry whatsoever, she trumpets innuendo as fact, with reckless disregard for the truth.

With minimum effort, Phoebus would have learned that Planned Parenthood does not profit from the sale of fetal tissue. In fact, the agency no longer seeks reimbursement for any of its costs from the research and other medical organizations to which it and its clients donate fetal tissue. In the past, it requested a donation of $60 per sample from researchers and such to cover handling and shipping of the samples.