Odds & ends, Tuesday, 15 February - read 'em and weep...

yeah, i know, i talk a good story but i sometimes don't follow through... back in early january, i said i was going to "post links to things i've come across in my day's reading that i think might be worthwhile to share with others but don't quite grab me enough to bother putting up a dedicated post"... yeah, well... < cough, cough > i think i managed to put up two or three posts along those lines and then i sorta drifted away...

well, today, as i'm getting ready to depart for africa on friday, and given the increasing number of stories that are pointing to the imminent dissolution of the country i've known and lived in all my life, i am wondering just what i will find when i come back at the end of may... it's looking really grim, i gotta tell ya...

GOP Sending Women Back to the Back Alley

South Dakota Wants to Legalize Murdering Abortion Providers

Missouri GOP Wants to Repeal Child Labor Laws

Tuscon Minuteman Found Guilty of Murdering 9-Year-Old Mexican-American Girl

Wisconsin Governor Launches Attack on Public Sector Employees and Unions; Threatens to Deploy National Guard to Quell Labor Protests

President Obama to award George H.W. Bush the Presidential Medal of Freedom

Obama's Budget Betrayal

what THE FUCK, he asked, is going on here...? oh, never mind... we're all being hung out to dry... silly me...!

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More on the domestic terrorism of the anti-choice movement

meanwhile, there's a flock of folks locked up in guantánamo who haven't been charged, have spent over seven years there, and have no prospect of being released... why...? "suspicion" of terrorism... what about these other folks...? aren't they to be "suspected" of terrorism too...? not that i recommend putting one more person into the perpetual detainee netherworld, but aren't we incredibly vulnerable to accusations of gross hypocrisy...?

jill filipovic in the guardian...

Not surprisingly, [George Tiller's] killer is strongly suspected to be affiliated with the "pro-life" movement. If that's the case, it makes Tiller the 10th person in the United States to be murdered by anti-choice terrorists.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg. Since 1977, there have been at least 17 attempted murders, 383 death threats, 153 incidents of assault or battery and three kidnappings [PDF] committed against abortion providers in North America. Tiller himself survived an assassination attempt in 1993.

Some pro-life groups are issuing statements of condemnation and attempting to paint this murder as the work of an extremist. But this latest act of terrorism is, sadly, not an anomaly. It is part of a clearly-established pattern of harassment, intimidation and violence against abortion providers and pro-choice individuals. And mainstream pro-life groups shoulder much of the blame.

Pro-life organisations routinely refer to abortion as "murder", a "genocide" and a "holocaust". They post the full names abortion providers on their websites, along with their addresses, their license plate numbers, their photos, the names of children and the schools those children attend (sometimes with helpful Wild-West-style "Wanted" posters offering $5,000 rewards).

When you convince your followers that abortion providers are the equivalent of SS officers slaughtering innocents by the millions, tell them that "it's all-out WAR" against pro-choicers and then provide the home addresses and personal information of the "monster" "late-term baby-killer" abortion providers you're supposedly at war against, you can't act surprised when those followers conclude that it's morally justified to use the information to kill doctors.

These are not fringe groups. Conservative television personality Bill O'Reilly called Tiller's clinic a "death mill", referred to Tiller as a "baby killer" who was "executing babies about to be born" and said Tiller was doing "Nazi stuff" for which he "had blood on his hands."

[...]

Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, who had this to say about Tiller's assassination:

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name: murder.

Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

That's some definition of "peacefully protesting."

[...]

While individuals who self-identify as pro-life may be well-meaning and against violence, mainstream pro-life groups and the people who run them do not care about life, before or after birth. And while today anti-choice groups are half-heartedly condemning Tiller's murder, they continue to use the same outlandish and inflammatory rhetoric that inspired and enabled it.

Words mean things. Anti-choicers should certainly have every right to express their views, but they must also realise that actions have consequences and their rhetoric is not harmless. If you yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, it's reasonably foreseeable that people will panic and someone will be injured. And if you yell "Murderer!" "Baby-Killer!" and "Holocaust!" long enough, it's reasonably foreseeable that someone will take it upon themselves to make sure that vigilante justice is done (especially if you provide the name and address of the person who you claim is committing "genocide").

This was not the act of a lone extremist. It is one more act of violence to add to a long, long list of crimes committed by anti-choice terrorists, and it is the logical outcome of years of increasingly violent, dehumanising and threatening rhetoric and action on the part of supposedly mainstream pro-life groups.

why isn't action being taken against groups that incite to violence...? why isn't action being taken against bill o'reilly...?

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Domestic terrorism

and i dare you to tell me it's not...

Abortion Provider Shot Dead In Church

George R. Tiller, the nation's most prominent provider of controversial late-term abortions, was shot and killed yesterday in the lobby of his Lutheran church in Wichita, where he was serving as an usher.

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Kansas R's dumping abortion in favor of immigration (and the violence and hypocrisy that comes with it)

interesting...

from the la times...

[A]s the political season revs up, the executive director of the Kansas Republican Party has issued a stern warning to his fellow conservatives: Abortion is not a winning issue.

"This is not something that the Kansas GOP is going to go out and lead on," Christian Morgan said.

Morgan said that he and his party remain firmly opposed to abortion. Most Republican voters in Kansas feel the same, he said. But Morgan also believes that those voters are fed up with years of fruitless political and legal maneuvering aimed at driving abortion clinics out of business. They would much prefer to see an all-out focus on curbing illegal immigration or cutting taxes, he said.

In an e-mail rebuffing an antiabortion activist who asked for more GOP support, Morgan explained: "My job is to win elections. . . . Your agenda does not fit my agenda."

so, kansas r's are "fed up" with the "fruitless" campaign against abortion and its related violence, so they're choosing to put their money on the wedge issue of immigration and ITS violence instead, eh...? let's see how THAT'S working for them...

this is from the southern poverty law center in an introduction to a list of the more egregious physical and psychological violence waged against latinos in the past two and one-half years...

There's no doubt that the tone of the raging national debate over immigration is growing uglier by the day. Once limited to hard-core white supremacists and a handful of border-state extremists, vicious public denunciations of undocumented brown-skinned immigrants are increasingly common among supposedly mainstream anti-immigration activists, radio hosts and politicians. While their dehumanizing rhetoric typically stops short of openly sanctioning bloodshed, much of it implicitly encourages or even endorses violence by characterizing immigrants from Mexico and Central America as "invaders," "criminal aliens" and "cockroaches."

meanwhile, arguably one of the more vicious individuals to implicitly condone a violent response to immigration problems displays what has become the oh-so-predictable repub hypocrisy... ladies and gentlemen, i give you the odious tom tancredo...

from max blumenthal in alternet...

When Tancredo (presidential candidate and R-CO) hired a construction crew to transform his drab basement into a high-tech pleasure den in October 2001, however, he did not express concern that only two of its members spoke English. Nor did he bother to check the workers’ documentation to see if they were legal residents of the United States. Had Tancredo done so, he would have learned that most of the crew consisted of undocumented immigrants, or “criminal aliens” as he likes to call them. Instead, Tancredo paid the crew $60,000 for its labor and waited innocently for the completion of his elaborate entertainment complex.

During the renovation process, two illegal workers hired by Tancredo were alerted to his reputation for immigrant bashing. They went straight to the Denver Post to complain. Tancredo “doesn't want us here, but he'll take advantage of our sweat and our labor,” one of the workers complained to the Post on September 19, 2002. “It's just not right.”

The Post report momentarily threw Tancredo on the defensive. In a fiery speech soon after the story’s publication, Tancredo blamed his foibles on the INS. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many people I may have hired in the past as taxi drivers, as waiters, waitresses, home improvement people,” he boomed from the House floor. “I haven't the foggiest idea how many of those people may have been here illegally, and it is not my job to ask them.” Then defiance gave way to vitriol as the congressman dubbed undocumented immigrants, “the face of murder.”

Only days before the Post’s story appeared, Tancredo had personally reported an honor student profiled in the Denver Post to the INS because the 14-year-old was not a legal resident of the United States. The stunt forced the boy’s family to go into hiding.

now tell me that calling undocumented immigrants "the face of murder" isn't an implicit invitation to violence...

i've mentioned before that i had a one-degree of separation moment with tancredo when i was living in colorado in 2002... my friend, the vice consul at the mexican consulate in denver, was being seriously slimed by the vile tancredo for merely doing his job, helping his own country's citizens, one of whom was the honor student mentioned in the last paragraph of the excerpt above... i won't bore you with the details, but anyone who has followed tancredo's history of bile can easily fill in the blanks...

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Whoa! It looks like somebody forgot his tinfoil hat today!

ah, yes... what would monday be without tom tomorrow...?

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Garry Wills talks about abortion, the ultimate 2008 campaign "wedge issue"

i have the utmost respect for garry wills... he's a devout catholic which, to some, would be an immediate black mark, but he is far from the stereotypical catholic dogmatist, and, in fact, is perhaps the most thoughtful, rational and utterly sensible thinker on weighty issues i've ever run across... i read his book, Papal Sin: Structures of Deceit, a number of years ago and was vastly impressed... in it, he methodically and objectively takes the reader through the deliberate and calculated lies promulgated by the catholic church throughout the late 19th and the whole of the 20th century... needless to say, he isn't the vatican's favorite son...

in this la times op-ed, adapted from his book, Head and Heart: American Christianities, he does a similar outstanding job of separating the contentious issue of abortion from the hysteria of the evangelical christian and catholic religious abortion extremists, and frames the entire subject in the clear light of history, fact and reason...

What makes opposition to abortion the issue it is for each of the GOP presidential candidates is the fact that it is the ultimate "wedge issue" -- it is nonnegotiable. The right-to-life people hold that it is as strong a point of religion as any can be. It is religious because the Sixth Commandment (or the Fifth by Catholic count) says, "Thou shalt not kill." For evangelical Christians, in general, abortion is murder. That is why what others think, what polls say, what looks practical does not matter for them. One must oppose murder, however much rancor or controversy may ensue.

But is abortion murder? Most people think not. Evangelicals may argue that most people in Germany thought it was all right to kill Jews. But the parallel is not valid. Killing Jews was killing persons. It is not demonstrable that killing fetuses is killing persons. Not even evangelicals act as if it were. If so, a woman seeking an abortion would be the most culpable person. She is killing her own child. But the evangelical community does not call for her execution.

[...]

Much of the debate over abortion is based on a misconception -- that it is a religious issue, that the pro-life advocates are acting out of religious conviction. It is not a theological matter at all. There is no theological basis for defending or condemning abortion. Even popes have said that the question of abortion is a matter of natural law, to be decided by natural reason. Well, the pope is not the arbiter of natural law. Natural reason is.

[...]

[E]vangelicals take shortcuts. They pin everything on being pro-life. But one cannot be indiscriminately pro-life.

If one claimed, in the manner of Albert Schweitzer, that all life deserved moral respect, then plants have rights, and it might turn out that we would have little if anything to eat. And if one were consistently pro-life, one would have to show moral respect for paramecia, insects, tissue excised during a medical operation, cancer cells, asparagus and so on. Harvesting carrots, on a consistent pro-life hypothesis, would constitute something of a massacre.

[...]

Given these uncertainties, who is to make the individual decision to have an abortion? Religious leaders? They have no special authority in the matter, which is not subject to theological norms or guidance. The state? Its authority is given by the people it represents, and the people are divided on this. Doctors? They too differ. The woman is the one closest to the decision. Under Roe vs. Wade, no woman is forced to have an abortion. But those who have decided to have one are able to.

Some objected to Karl Rove's use of abortion to cement his ecumenical coalition, on the grounds that this was injecting religion into politics. The supreme irony is that, properly understood, abortion is not even a religious issue. But that did not matter to Rove. All he cared about was that it worked. For a while.

this should be required reading for every 2008 presidential candidate, their campaign staffs, and every voter who intends to make a voting choice based on a candidate's position on abortion...

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THIS is a presidential candidate

THIS is a presidential candidate...?

Thompson elaborates on conservative stand

The candidate's views: Punish doctors, not patients, for early abortions; rein in judges on gay marriage; deport illegal immigrants.

wingnuttery... just what we need more of...

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Tom DeLay and Zell Miller are both certifiable

ordinarily, i wouldn't give the teeniest, weeniest crap about what comes out of either tom delay's or zell miller's mouth, but these are two for the books...

flatulent idiocy number one...

"I contend [abortion] affects you in immigration," DeLay told the Washington-area [gathering of College Republicans]. "If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 30 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it."

flatulent idiocy number two...

Former Georgia Democratic Senator Zell Miller gave a speech to an anti-abortion conference earlier in the year that linked abortion to illegal immigration. Miller also blamed abortion for other societal ills, such as the state of America's Social Security system and difficulty in recruiting soldiers for the Armed Forces.

the reason illegal immigration has been tolerated (and continues to be tolerated) is that it's a steady source of cheap labor for american business people who want to continue to keep profit margins and executive compensation soaring... it's the very same reason george bush was supporting the failed immigration bill, because it would have kept the labor supply flowing over our southern border...

even without those unborn children, there are more than enough bona-fide american citizens to fill all those jobs, but, since the pay is shit and the working conditions are shit, and it's impossible to keep body and soul together by working those jobs, they're left to the desperate folks who manage to make it across the border, usually leaving their families and all they've ever known behind for the chance to work for shit wages, which are still 3-4x more than they could earn back home...

as for social security, illegal immigrants are the best thing ever to happen to that program... many illegals register with a fake social security number so that they can be employed... all that money that goes in, they will never see again... this has provided a windfall to the social security fund in the billions...

delay and miller are both yapping, pandering fools who couldn't find their asses with both hands...

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SCOTUS 2007

jim commented on my earlier "not a good day" post, offering to cheer me up... the offer was much appreciated, so much, in fact, that i was moved to offer up this cartoon of our five, esteemed, wingnut supreme court justices...

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Domestic terrorism - today - directed at a women's health clinic

that offers abortions...

we don't need to fight the terrorists over there so they won't follow us over here... they LIVE here already...

On Wednesday, April 25th, at approximately 2:15 p.m. APD patrol officers responded to a suspicious package call at the Austin Women’s Health Center parking lot located at 1902 South I-35. The 9-1-1 call was placed by a clinic employee who also notified ATF and FBI per the clinic protocol. The clinic and an insurance agency were evacuated, as well as one apartment building behind the incident location.

The Bomb Squad was notified and examined the package. After reviewing the information collected, the decision was made to render the package safe. All four southbound lanes of I-35 were briefly closed while the package was rendered safe. Closer examination of the package revealed an unknown powdery substance in the device. The Homeland Defense Team and the Austin Fire Department responded with specialized equipment to conduct field analysis to determine the chemical makeup of the substance. After the initial field analysis, it was determined that the powder was an explosive powder, not a biological health hazard.

It was determined that the package was an explosive device and would have caused serious bodily injury and/or death had it functioned. A criminal investigation is being conducted by local and federal authorities.

The City of Austin has made great strides and continues to seek initiatives to ensure that the appropriate training and resources are available to guarantee a prepared and quick response to any critical incident. City of Austin public safety entities work jointly with federal, state and local agencies during critical incidents, as well as long-term projects, to assure the safety of the Austin community.

so, what is the department of homeland security doing about this...? where is the big media coverage...? where are the fracking pundits...? where is the righty blogosphere...?

(thanks to pinche tejano at daily kos...)

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In a Catholic country, one of the world's biggest cities ignores the Vatican

who woulda thunk it...?

After months of furious debate and threats of excommunication by the Catholic Church, Mexico City's legislative assembly on Tuesday overwhelmingly voted to legalize abortion for the first time in the capital's history.

and who knows what other depravity might come next...

Activists ... fear the vote in Mexico City, a federal district that functions much like a state, will create a domino effect, leading to similar laws elsewhere in Mexico. Last year, after the assembly passed the country's first gay civil unions law, the northern state of Coahuila passed its own civil union law, and a raft of similar proposals are now working their way through other state legislatures.

gay civil unions...? OH, N-O-O-O-O-OOOOOOOOOOO...!

i bet RAT-zinger is s-o-o-o-oooo pissed...

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Multitasking again, but, oh my lord, I almost needed a Heimlich...

this is definitely NOT the thing to be reading while enjoying oregano-spiced garlic bread, anchovy and blue cheese salad, with a shot of ouzo on the side...

Zell Miller, the former Democratic Senator from Georgia who backed President George W. Bush in 2004 and spoke at the Republican National Convention, recently told an anti-abortion gathering that the "killing" of unborn babies was the cause of many of America's woes, including its military, social security, and immigration problems.

"How could this great land of plenty produce too few people in the last 30 years?" Miller asked. "Here is the brutal truth that no one dares to mention: We’re too few because too many of our babies have been killed."

Miller claimed that 45 million babies have been 'killed' since the Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade in 1973.

"If those 45 million children had lived, today they would be defending our country, they would be filling our jobs, they would be paying into Social Security," he asserted.

i was eating, reading, and trying to guffaw at the same time, not the best combination for keeping your airway clear of foreign items... let this be a warning to all you other multitaskers out there...

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