King of all he surveys

Michael Holton is a popular guy. So it's no surprise that he's homecoming king at his Georgia high school.

Not only that, but by all accounts, Mikey has been both a blessing and an inspiration to his classmates, and you'd be hard-pressed to find a single one of them with a bad word to say about their new king. He did win with 97 percent of the vote, after all.

Michael Holton has Down syndrome. That he became homecoming king, has earned scores of friends and been an inspiration and a blessing to modern-day American -- teens desperate for both inspiration and blessing -- is because his mom, Amy, was among the 8 percent of women who don't abort their unborn child after receiving a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis.

Think about that for a minute.

Freak-lovers flout convention, burden airlines

If Joan and Robert Vanderhorst had just gotten with the program 16 years ago, two U.S. airlines would have avoided a lot of bother.

Particularly in the age of terrorism, the last thing pilots, flight crews and air travelers need to deal with are unusual-looking youth with low IQs who, frankly, could be duped into carrying backpack nukes onto domestic U.S. flights in a Tehran second. That is what American Airlines was faced with Sunday at the Newark, N.J., airport, forcing the pilot and airline into quick action to ban a 16-year-old boy with Down syndrome from a flight to California and possibly avert a repeat of the Sept. 11 attacks of 2001.

Or at least spare the crew and passengers from having to stare and point for hours on end at an exotic-looking male with a low IQ who, heaven forfend, would want to act all weird . . . and interact with the normal people.

This is what American Airlines bravely nipped in the bud with its bold and decisive action, action made necessary by the selfish refusal of the Vanderhorsts more than a decade and a half ago to abort the abnormal problem child and spare the world a possible terror threat at worst and certain discomfort at best.

Some 92 percent of women have abortions after a Down syndrome diagnosis, so one has to wonder what Joan Vanderhorst's problem was.

Religious freakery? Antisocial tendencies?

What, is she nuts? It would seem she'd have to be to inflict such misery on herself and everyone else.

A SOCIETY must have standards, lest mayhem rule. If we start letting the retarded live -- not to mention fly -- it won't be long before the country is overrun by huggers, smilers, wavers and Special Olympics competitors . . . to disastrous effect.

But according to the New York Daily News, it's mayhem we have, and American and United airlines are on the front lines:

Joan and Robert Vanderhorst, of Bakersfield, Calif., said they intend to sue American over the "humiliating" incident at Newark Airport, in which they were told their special needs son posed a "flight risk."

"It's defamation," Robert Vanderhorst told the Daily News. "It's a violation of his civil rights and its defamation."

Joan Vanderhorst pulled out her cell phone and started recording the incident on Sunday in which Bede is seen quietly playing with his hat and an American Airlines official warns that she was prohibited from filming "in a security-controlled area."

At one point, Port Authority police were even called on the confused family.

"Nothing like this has ever happened to us before. That's what's so shocking. He's usually our good luck charm. Good things usually happen when Bede is with us," Vanderhorst said.

Bede and his parents had been in Jackson, N.J., visiting family and were eager to make the long return flight home. On a "lark" they had even upgraded their seats to first class, shelling out an extra $625 dollars.

"My wife said, 'oh Bede's never flown first class,' he'll be so excited."
Vanderhorst said Bede, a freshman in high school, has flown "at least 30 times" through his life and has never caused any trouble.

Nothing was different before Sunday's flight, he said. Bede was sticking close to his parents and was not acting unruly, nor was he upset.

But as the family waited to board, an American Airlines official pulled them aside and said the pilot had observed Bede and didn't feel safe allowing him on the plane.

Joan Vanderhorst quickly snapped on her video camera and can be heard sobbing. "We are being singled out," she said. Robert Vanderhorst, an attorney, calmly pleads with the airline official. "He's behaving. He's demonstrating he's not a problem."

The agitated American Airlines employee instead called Port Authority police to escort the family away from the gate.

(snip)

Vanderhorst said he has spoken with his attorneys about a lawsuit, accusing the airline of violating Bede's civil rights and the Americans With Disabilities Act.

"My son cannot defend himself," he said. "I expect that American Airlines will not give their pilots the ability to discriminate against anyone; gay, black disabled," he said.

The family's trip home deteriorated even further when they were loaded into a full United Airlines flight and placed in the very back row.

"For a second time, we were discriminated against. Segregated."

SO? That's what you get when you don't take care of your problems when they're small.

They eventually let Rosa Parks sit in the front of the bus, and now look at America's inner cities. They're trouble with a capital "T," which rhymes with "B," which stands for "Bad." And "Black." Am I right? Am I right?

What the Vanderhorsts need to learn is that 92 percent of retarded-baby-bearing women can't be wrong. Just like 92 percent of white Southerners had it right back in the day and 92 percent of National Socialists in Germany before that!

Right?

Right?

Habe ich Reich . . . er, recht?

The smoking lamp is off

Click on ad for a higher resolution view

The black eye the Pillsbury Doughmagogue got Wednesday from the Nebraska Legislature means that babies will live.

That Medicaid money will be saved.

And that, here in this beautiful corner of the Great Plains, the founders' words mean a little more than they did the day before.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Not white men. Not Anglo-Saxon men. Not American men.

All men . . . and women. And children in the womb.

ONCE AGAIN in this state, future American citizens in the wombs of their mothers -- whether those mothers be poor, undocumented or both -- won't be regarded by the state as throwaway stepchildren of a lesser god. No thanks to our petulant and Mexican-baiting governor, Dave Heineman, who consistently has seen feeding on the bottom as a sure path to coming out on top.

God don't sleep, and this time neither did the unicameral, which ended its session with multiple political bitch slaps for the Doughmagogue. The Omaha World-Herald was there for the festivities:

Teary-eyed supporters predicted Wednesday that the Legislature's decision to restore taxpayer-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants will result in fewer newborns with birth defects and fewer expenses for intensive care stays and delivery room complications.

“For the women, it means they won't have to worry anymore. They can come and get care,” said Andrea Skolkin of South Omaha's One World Community Health Center.

Lawmakers voted 30-16 to override Gov. Dave Heineman's veto of Legislative Bill 599.

The governor predicted that the 2012 legislative session will be remembered most for providing free health care for illegal residents while allowing cities to raise sales taxes on legal residents — referring to the lawmakers' override of another veto.

“I strongly disagree with their decisions,” Heineman said in a prepared statement. “Providing preferential treatment to illegals while increasing taxes on legal Nebraska citizens is misguided, misplaced and inappropriate.”

The vote on the prenatal care bill came at the end of the session's last day, providing an emotional finale to what has been a rough-and-tumble session.

“I like soft landings,” said State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the speaker of the Legislature. “We had to foam the runways this year. But any landing you walk away from is a good landing.”

(snip)

A similar prenatal care bill was withdrawn from the agenda two years ago, lacking enough votes to pass. This year, a new estimate of the expected fiscal impact of providing the care placed the state's annual cost at about $560,000.

That was less than the cost to taxpayers and hospitals for just two cases of extended neonatal intensive care for babies born to women lacking prenatal care. One case cost more than $800,000.

Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, a leading supporter of LB 599, said charities and private donations cannot be counted on to finance the care.

Clinics in Omaha and Columbus reported dramatic increases in the number of women seeking free prenatal care, but also several cases of women skipping the care or coming in too late to address early developing problems in their babies. Health professionals have said that for every $1 invested in prenatal care, savings of up to $4 is expected.

“Fiscally, this makes sense,” Flood said. “This is an innocent child in the middle of a red-hot debate about immigration.”

Despite lobbying by Heineman and other foes of the bill, only one previous supporter — Sen. Tom Seiler of Hastings — switched from supporting the measure to opposing the override.

Uneasy lies the head of the Doughmagogue

When you hit bottom in politics, you have only yourself to compete with for King of the Muck.

In which case, put a crown on the Pillsbury Doughmagogue -- Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman. And if you're an all-'Mercun mouth-breather, the king wants to hear from you at 1-800-LYIN SOB. He's ready to talk "illegals" and "anchor babies" if you are; the fewer actual facts, the better.

And know that your "pro-life" monarch -- the one who vetoes funding for prenatal care for poor fetuses -- has what it takes to once again make the Cornhusker State (both in taxes and in complexion) "the white spot" of America. Sorry . . . 'Mercuh.

As promised, Gov. Dave Heineman on Friday vetoed a controversial bill that would restore prenatal services for illegal immigrants.

But the pro-life governor's veto message included a new and potentially explosive new charge: that some of the prenatal funds could find their way to a leading pro-choice organization, Planned Parenthood.

“I oppose providing taxpayer benefits to illegal immigrants,” Heineman said in a press release. “I oppose providing taxpayer funding to vendors that perform or promote abortions.”

A Planned Parenthood of the Heartland official said Friday that the organization doesn't provide prenatal services at its Nebraska clinics, which are in Omaha and Lincoln.

Supporters of the bill, including some anti-abortion officials, said the charge was a last-minute attempt to derail an attempted override of the governor's veto. The Legislature's override vote on Legislative Bill 599 is scheduled for Wednesday.

“This is nothing more than an eleventh-hour attempt to scuttle LB 599,” said Julie Schmit-Albin, the executive director of Nebraska Right to Life, the leading anti-abortion organization in the state.

State Sen. Kathy Campbell of Lincoln, the chief sponsor of the bill, said she was “disturbed” that the comment about Planned Parenthood wasn't raised until after the measure had progressed through three rounds of debate in the Legislature.

But Campbell said she did not think it would erode support for LB 599, to which 31 lawmakers gave final-round approval — one vote more than necessary to override the governor's veto.

OF COURSE, there is that veto-proof majority thing in the Legislature. Sigh.

"Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown."

Don't fear the (bleep)er

There are times a writer needs a while and many words to say -- and say well -- what needs to be said.

Other times, however, one can say what needs to be said, and with clarity, in just a few words. This is one of those times.

Over the years, at least once a legislative session, Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman has exposed himself . . . philosophically and morally, that is. The result is about what one would expect if he had dropped trou and let it all hang out.

In the latter instance, we would see one. In the oft-recurring former, we see that Heineman is one.

Let me be clear. The Pillsbury Doughmagogue is a deeply cynical man. He does not hesitate to give himself over to evil whenever he thinks crossing over to the dark side will make him some political hay. He is a discredit to his office and to Nebraska.

"Why should illegal aliens receive millions of
taxpayer dollars when those funds should be
used for increased state aid to education?"

-- Gov. Dave Heineman, pretending to
care about state aid to public education

ONE OF NEBRASKA'S saving graces is that its people are so much better than its governors -- and most of its politicians, for that matter. Generally, Nebraskans understand "the common good."

Another Nebraska saving grace is that its legislature is usually better than its governors, is capable of learning from -- and fixing -- its mistakes, and is willing to bitch-slap a governor when bitch-slapping is called for. It does this to Heineman regularly.

Thus we have this "God bless the unicameral" moment in today's Omaha World-Herald:

The day after 30 state lawmakers advanced a controversial bill to restore taxpayer-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants, Gov. Dave Heineman singled out for criticism a fellow Republican leader who helped push the bill.

Heineman, who has made a reputation for his staunch anti-illegal immigration views, called a press conference Wednesday to express his "extraordinary" disappointment in State Sen. Mike Flood of Norfolk, the speaker of the Legislature and a leading pro-life senator.

"Why should illegal aliens receive millions of taxpayer dollars when those funds should be used for increased state aid to education?" Heineman asked.
Flood, who has been mentioned as a possible candidate for governor in 2014, was among senators giving first-round approval to the bill, under which an estimated 1,100 low-income, women, mostly illegal immigrants, would be eligible for prenatal care funded by the state. The bill would resume a decades-long policy that was ended in 2010.

Flood said Wednesday his support for the prenatal bill was linked to both pro-life and fiscal reasons. He said he had not talked to the governor.

During floor debate Tuesday night, Flood said that in balancing the "rule of law" with the "pro-life position," he has to side with the health of an unborn baby.

"The unborn child should not be punished for the actions of his or her parents," he said. "We should protect the life of an unborn child whenever possible."

At least 13 other Republicans voted "yes" on the 30-16 vote to advance Legislative Bill 599. Heineman said he singled out Flood for criticism because he had become a "leader" in the effort to pass the prenatal bill.

Heineman said that passing LB 599 with make Nebraska a "magnet" for illegal immigrants because neighboring states don't provide such prenatal care.

MIKE FLOOD is a good man. Unlike another Nebraska Republican in a high office.

It was just an educational tool

Face it: your body is confusing. But it’s important to get to know your body — where things are, how things work, and how to care for yourself — so you can make good decisions about your sexual health.

You don't need to worry about whether your breasts, penis, vulva, or any other parts of your body are normal. When it comes to our bodies, different IS normal. Here's how different our bodies can be.

The local head of Planned Parenthood no doubt was just trying to explain to the fine folks of Lubbock, Texas, that "different is normal."

I mean, if this week's allegations align with the naked truth, it wouldn't surprise anyone.

Right?

Unfortunately for Tony Thornton, the oppressive forces of ignorance -- otherwise known as Lubbock police -- were in no mood to celebrate our bodies (or their diversity) and threw him into the county lockup, alleging indecent exposure. According to the cops, the guardian of local sexual health was showing God and everybody just how normal was his (ahem) "body."

At 3:30 in the afternoon.

At the baseball fields in a local park.

ADMIRABLY, local television station KCBD refrained from any cracks about "bats and balls" or "bringing the wood."

The CEO and President of the Planned Parenthood Association of Lubbock has been arrested for exposing himself in public. Lubbock police say Tony Thornton, 56, was arrested just before 3:30 Monday afternoon at the baseball fields inside of Mackenzie Park.

He was arrested for indecent exposure and transported to the Lubbock County Detention Center where he remained until 11 a.m. Tuesday, when he posted a bond of $750.

According to a receptionist who answered the telephone at Planned Parenthood's office Tuesday afternoon, Thornton was out of the office for the entire day. Tuesday evening, KCBD NewsChannel 11 went to Thornton's home, but he did not answer the door.

According to Texas Penal Code 21.08, indecent exposure is committed when a suspect exposes his genitals with the intent to arouse the sexual desire of another person. It's a class B misdemeanor.

NEITHER Thornton nor Planned Parenthood's national office had any comment.

Neither was there any word on whether the accused Planned Parenthood executive would be pleading "educational outreach" or "practicing for a new teen sex-ed video."

So much for 'products of conception'

We have met the Antichrist, and he is us.

What else is there to say about this story in The Telegraph, one of Britain's national dailies, reporting that a group of medical ethicists affiliated with Oxford advocates the killing of unwanted newborns, being that there's no difference between a newborn and a fetus. Their position was outlined in an article in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

I suppose pro-lifers should at least welcome the dropping of pretenses and the acknowledgment that, no, there is no biological difference between a newborn and a fetus in the womb. Nor is there any moral difference between the killing of one and the killing of the other.

And I suppose that we could, as well, appreciate the irony of one of the authors -- in the wake of the predictable death threats -- saying that "those who made abusive and threatening posts about the study were 'fanatics opposed to the very values of a liberal society.'"

Aye, there's the rub.

It really isn't ironic at all. The "fanatics" really might be "opposed to the very values of a liberal society" -- at least the one we presently have, which holds that one creates his own moral universe and, indeed, his own reality. In the Oxford death-dealers' reality, "babies are not 'actual persons' and do not have a 'moral right to life.'"

THIS IS the "liberal society" we all have been busy creating the past number of decades, one that perhaps may have been made inevitable by the dawning of the Enlightenment. I mean, by what objective standard was the Enlightenment enlightened? By what -- or whose -- authority do we proclaim such?

Exactly.

In liberal society, all that is required for the repellent to become the height of morality is us saying it is. Or at least enough people with enough authority (and enough guns) to make it so. And the first step is getting a serious journal to legitimize your crackpot theory that up is down, left is right, green is red, wrong is right, and right is wrong.

Or that "babies are not 'actual persons' and do not have a 'moral right to life.'" Enter the Journal of Medical Ethics, and suddenly we don't need to pretend anymore that what's inside the womb is materially different somehow from that which pops out of it. Death to "the products of conception"!

Now we can get on to the real business of categorizing Lebensunwertes Leben.

The article, entitled “After-birth abortion: Why should the baby live?”, was written by two of Prof Savulescu’s former associates, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva.

They argued: “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.”

Rather than being “actual persons”, newborns were “potential persons”. They explained: “Both a fetus and a newborn certainly are human beings and potential persons, but neither is a ‘person’ in the sense of ‘subject of a moral right to life’.

“We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.”

As such they argued it was “not possible to damage a newborn by preventing her from developing the potentiality to become a person in the morally relevant sense”.

The authors therefore concluded that “what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled”.

They also argued that parents should be able to have the baby killed if it turned out to be disabled without their knowing before birth, for example citing that “only the 64 per cent of Down’s syndrome cases” in Europe are diagnosed by prenatal testing.

Once such children were born there was “no choice for the parents but to keep the child”, they wrote.

“To bring up such children might be an unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole, when the state economically provides for their care.”

However, they did not argue that some baby killings were more justifiable than others – their fundamental point was that, morally, there was no difference to abortion as already practised.

They preferred to use the phrase “after-birth abortion” rather than “infanticide” to “emphasise that the moral status of the individual killed is comparable with that of a fetus”.

PETER SINGER would be so proud.

So would Adolf Hitler.

One way or another, if civilization is to survive, our "liberal society" must be destroyed. I mean, given the most recent empirical data, you'd have to agree that it's been demonstrated to be nothing more than a "potential" society at best and therefore has no justifiable "right to life."

Pull the plug now. We must make room for something less crippled, less retarded and more robust. It's only logical.

Member of Idiotplex falls for Abortionplex

Louisiana has a brain-drain problem, OK?

It happens. And in the Gret Stet, it's been happening for a while now.

But even accounting for the dumbass-politician statistical deviation, the cogno-normal population of Louisiana probably wouldn't be overreacting if it threw up its hands, began to run wildly around and scream in complete panic at U.S. Rep. John Fleming's posting of an item from The Onion on his official Facebook page as a serious news item.

The item: Planned Parenthood Opens $8 Billion Abortionplex.

Here's just a sample from the article, which Fleming or someone on his staff thought was legitimate:

"We really want abortion to become a regular part of women's lives, especially younger women who have enough fertile years ahead of them to potentially have dozens of abortions," said Richards, adding that the Abortionplex would provide shuttle service to and from most residences, schools, and shopping malls in the region. "Our hope is for this facility to become a regular destination where a woman in her second trimester can whoop it up at karaoke and then kick back while we vacuum out the contents of her uterus."

"All women should feel like they have a home at the Abortionplex," Richards continued. "Whether she's a high school junior who doesn't want to go to prom pregnant, a go-getter professional who can't be bothered with the time commitment of raising a child, or a prostitute who knows getting an abortion is the easiest form of birth control—all are welcome."

Nineteen-year-old Marcy Kolrath, one of the Abortionplex's first clients, told reporters that despite her initial hesitancy, she was quickly put at ease by staff members who reassured her that she could have abortions over and over for the next decade before finally committing to motherhood. Kolrath also said she was "wowed" by the facility's many attractions.

"I was kind of on the fence in the beginning," she said. "But after a couple of margaritas and a ride down the lazy river they've got circling the place, I got caught up in the vibe. By the time it was over, I almost wished I could've aborted twins and gotten to stay a little longer."

"I told my boyfriend we had to have sex again that very night," Kolrath added. "I really want to come back over Labor Day."

LISTEN, I think Planned Parenthood is a despicable organization that not only is in love with abortion, but almost treats it as some sort of deadly sacrament for women. It was an evil, eugenic undertaking when Margaret Sanger founded it, and it's no less so today.

But for someone to think this article was real is kind of frightening. That this person -- whether it be Fleming or a staffer -- has access to the levers of national power is, at a bare minimum, dispiriting with the potential for despair.

Besides, even the darkest estimate of Planned Parenthood's mastery of the dark arts has the organization at least five years from pulling off construction and operation of even a modest $3 billion "Abortionplex."

I almost forgot. Did I mention that Fleming is a physician?

The Hill has the story. Read it, weep, then book your passage to New Zealand:

The article, which is months old, was reposted on the paper's website last week amidst controversy over the Susan G. Komen Foundation's announcement — later retracted — that it wouldn't provide grants to Planned Parenthood because it was under congressional investigation. The breast cancer charity had previously provided funding for cancer screenings at Planned Parenthood clinics. Ensuing criticism from abortion rights and women's health advocates led to a reversal of that decision.

The Onion's article was a satire aimed at opponents of Planned Parenthood, who often denounce the organization for performing abortions.

"Although we've traditionally dedicated 97 percent of our resources to other important services such as contraception distribution, cancer screening, and STD testing, this new complex allows us to devote our full attention to what has always been our true passion: abortion," the article facetiously quotes Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards as saying.

But Fleming — or whoever on his congressional staff is responsible for updating his Facebook page — took the article at face value. The post has since been removed, but not before being posted on Literally Unbelievable, a blog that chronicles instances of Facebook users who believe Onion stories are real.

"More on Planned Parenthood, abortion by the wholesale," Fleming's comment reads.

The truth-telling properties of agitprop

When pro-life propagandists seek to condemn Planned Parenthood by tying it to Occupy Wall Street, it says nothing about America's biggest abortion enthusiast and everything about how unserious advocates for "life" have become.

It says everything about how utterly fatuous my side of "the culture war" has become.

For God's sake, you can make a million reasoned, devastating critiques of the philosophy and shady history behind Planned Parenthood, a group founded upon the same principles that gave us Adolf Hitler's "master race" lunacy. Of course, LifeNews.com did none of that.

Why focus on eugenics, profiting from the misery of disadvantaged women and horny teen-agers and serving as the chief logisticians of America's long march toward Gomorrah when you can slam them for tangentially associating with hippies who allegedly shit in the park.

That's right, Planned Parenthood deserves your opprobrium and outrage because it is trying to latch onto the meme of the moment, Occupy Wall Street. It, in turn, is to be judged by reports that some of its more eccentric enthusiasts . . . are shitting in the park. And by reports that some of its more lewd enthusiasts pleasure themselves.

In the park.

OK, I can see why Planned Parenthood might be all over that last one, but still. . . .

LISTEN, I am a Catholic. Despite the best efforts of some who lead my church, I still believe what it has proclaimed for 2,000 years. Among those sacred proclamations is this one -- all human life is sacred.

All human life must be defended, particularly that of the weakest members of society, and you don't get any more defenseless than a fetus.

Basic biology tells us that life begins at conception. If not then, when?

Common sense tells us that a Homo sapiens fetus is a human being. And if you don't think a human being is the same thing as a person, you have just entered the philosophical bizarro world of those who would enslave Africans and murder Jews.

So there's that argument to be made against the United States' leading abortion provider -- Planned Parenthood. It's sound, it's simple and it's politically agnostic. It's hard to go wrong condemning an organization for methodically cheapening human life . . . via multiple methods . . . for money. Including a nice chunk of your tax dollars.

LifeNews.com could have done that Wednesday. Instead, it blogged this:

The Occupy Wall Street movement has become the subject of public skepticism after numerous well-documented cases of anti-Semitism, sexual assault, drug abuse, public masturbation, public defecation, vandalism and violence. Among the movement’s supporters and sponsors are the Communist Party USA, the American Nazi Party, Socialist Party USA, Industrial Workers of the World, International Bolshevik Tendency, Marxist Student Union, 9/11 Truth groups and more.

The fact that Planned Parenthood would encourage its supporters to attend a rally “in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street and the larger Occupy movement” despite the widely known abuses taking place at Occupy sites and ties to such disreputable organizations, just further calls into question Planned Parenthood’s credibility. It’s unconscionable that an organization, which receives millions of American tax dollars each year, would encourage supporters to rally alongside groups like the American Nazi Party.

Additionally alarming is that by participating in a rally in solidarity with the nationwide Occupy movement, Planned Parenthood, which purports to be pro-woman, has turned a blind eye to widespread cases of sexual assault at Occupy sites. On Sunday, a 24-year old Occupy Dallas protester was arrested after sexually assaulting a 14-year old girl.

ADDITIONALLY ALARMING is that some vocal pro-life supporters have been clergymen accused of molesting minors. We always knew those damned pro-lifers were up to no damned good, right?

And commies and Nazis are trying to latch onto something that's much more an abused public's primal scream than it is a political movement? Who'd have thought such a thing? Let's immediately demand that Occupy Wall Street form a coherent national leadership council for the express purpose of formally disavowing itself from every nut drawn to a protest like a moth is to a light bulb.

Or not.

You see, a pro-life movement far more devoted to Republican politics than redeeming a lost culture -- or saving babies . . . and their mothers -- needs some useful idiots with which to tar Occupy Wall Street. So it then can tar Planned Parenthood for being a moth. Really?

I mean, really?

Actually, as I read the LifeNews.com screed, I couldn't quite figure out what the main target was -- Planned Parenthood or Occupy Wall Street itself. That I could ask that question gives me its answer.

Are some pro-lifers a lot more worried about Occupy Wall Street than Planned Parenthood? Is much of the American pro-life movement just whoring itself out to principalities and powers . . . and the GOP?

Does a hippie shit in the park?

The 'Party of Life'

Pro-lifers associate themselves with this bunch -- pols like Mitch McConnell and his ilk --at their own cultural, political and spiritual peril.

There is a big difference between anti-abortion and pro-life. Anti-abortionites have no problem with cheering for executions and demanding that society let people die for lack of health insurance; pro-lifers, on the other hand, are deeply troubled by the former and absolutely horrified by the latter.

The Republican Party is nominally anti-abortion, and the "pro-life" establishment is just fine with making that particular deal with the devil.

Even more distressing is how many Catholics have bought into such a limited vision of defending human life.

The church teaches that the sanctity of human life begins at conception and continues until natural death. It's therefore unacceptable to accept a vision of "pro-life" that ends the moment an infant emerges from the birth canal and gets a sharp slap on the buttocks. In a "pro-life" world, there is no room for "Let 'em die!" or wild applause for the death penalty.

THERE IS plenty of room for that under the banner of "anti-abortion," and plenty of lemmings to march beneath it.

Anti-abortion is what Republican presidential candidates like Texas Gov. Rick Perry, the nation's fastest and loosest executioner, really mean when they talk about the GOP being "the party of life." Pro-life is a bridge too far, as evidenced by the indifference toward "the least of these" who make it out of the womb.

For America's highly politicized "pro-life" operatives, letting vulnerable humanity shift for itself after the first nine months is "good enough for government work." Unfortunately for them, I suspect the Almighty doesn't grade on a curve.


HAT TIP: Think Progress.

Lullaby for the working class

Dear Democrats:

No matter what asshats Republican politicians might be (and they are), ordinary Americans still hate you worse. This is Tuesday's lesson from the Wisconsin recalls . . . and from numerous other elections across America the past four decades.

I have opinions on why this is.

One, you hate Joe Six-Pack just as much as the GOP pols, basically. You'll go to the wall for the eugenicist swells of Planned Parenthood in ways you'd never consider going to the wall on behalf of -- for lack of a better word -- the proletariat.

In a world of political priorities, you know and I know that you think it's more important to abort babies (many of them poor and brown) than it is to fight like hell for jobs, education, social services and basic f***ing human dignity for the poor, working and middle classes. Many of these people can't articulate it that way, but they know it just the same.

And this is why so many of them either stay home on Election Day or go out and vote against their own economic and class interests by filling in the oval or pulling the lever for tea-party nutwagons, bomb-throwers and (oftentimes) your average, modern-day "conservative" protofascist.

This is the lesson from Recall Tuesday in Wisconsin. No matter how outrageous the GOP's sins against the poor and working class, regular folk think their chances are better going with their enemies than with their "friends."

Good luck with that paradigm in 2012, Democrats. And God help us all.

Lead us not into temptation. . . .

If you want to stop abortion, mind the company you keep.

If you believe homicide in utero is an abomination, a deadly affront to the rights and dignity of the most powerless and vulnerable members of the human race, don't fall in goose-stepping formation behind a man who sees our society as a tug of war between producers and parasites.

Don't take seriously the "faith-based" entreaties of a popinjay provocateur who once proposed voluntary sterilization of welfare recipients to prevent "a small minority of people working to fund and finance everybody else who isn’t working or producing."

And if you value the dignity of human life, live in Louisiana and come upon a "pro-life" rally with state Rep. John LaBruzzo, R-Metairie, at its head touting his bill to outlaw abortion . . . quickly walk the other way. No, run the other way.

MEANTIME, even though I'm safely in Nebraska, I really need to stop looking at the hometown rag, The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, online:

Supporters of LaBruzzo’s bill moved to a terrace garden outside the House side of the State Capitol. Opponents of his measure, many wearing pink, followed.

LaBruzzo climbed atop a planter with Rebecca Kiessling, a lawyer he identified as the person who handled the rewriting of the legislation, to address the crowd of about 50 people.

“This is going on across the country,” said Kiessling, of suburban Detroit.

She is with Personhood USA, a Colorado-based group pushing anti-abortion legislation on the state level.

Kiessling said the U.S. Supreme Court likely will not soon overturn Roe vs. Wade, the 1973 decision that allows abortions. “Let’s recognize the unborn child as a person in a full legal sense,” she said.

LaBruzzo said he welcomed a predicted challenge in court if the legislation is approved by both chambers and signed into law by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

Laura Mullen, of Baton Rouge, was one of several HB587 opponents who took LaBruzzo up on his offer to discuss the issues. When asked about medical implications of banning abortion, LaBruzzo interrupted questioner by saying he was directed by his religious beliefs.

“You’re not discussing it all,” shouted Brett Chance, of Baton Rouge, another opponent.

IF LOUISIANA pro-lifers are "directed" by their religious beliefs, as LaBruzzo claims he is, they have to understand there is a fundamental religious principle they can't escape. One the inheritor of David Duke's House seat can't rewrite like some legislative bill.

It's not complicated, and it goes like this: Satan can't destroy himself. You can't devote your political or philosophical life to evildoing and think you're going to do away with evil. You can't spend your legislative career denying the worth and dignity of "the least of these" -- pushing ill-conceived bill after ill-conceived bill designed to brand some human beings as parasites and deal with them accordingly -- then set your eugenicist self up as some grand defender of human life.

It's like entrusting Satan with the keys to the Kingdom; it would not end well.

Don't believe me, ask Jesus (Mark, Chapter 3):

22

The scribes who had come from Jerusalem said, "He is possessed by Beelzebul," ¹⁰ and "By the prince of demons he drives out demons."

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Summoning them, he began to speak to them in parables, "How can Satan drive out Satan?

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If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.

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And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.

26

And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand; that is the end of him.

27

But no one can enter a strong man's house to plunder his property unless he first ties up the strong man. Then he can plunder his house."

IF YOU'RE in Louisiana, and you're pro-life -- or even if you're a national pro-life figure and get a call from some piss-ant bayou pol you've likely never heard of before -- listen to me now. It's important.

John LaBruzzo is the devil. And if you hang out with him, Satan is going to plunder your house.

You have been warned.

Something to chew on

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I know, I know . . . this is 2011, and Americans are all about partisanship and smears and yelling; we're all about the heat and not the light, not to mention grabbing whatever you got and beating The Other about the head with it.

The Rachel Maddows of the world can do this just as well as the Glenn Becks, though somewhat less creepily, in my humble opinion. There's some of that in the editing and presentation of the MSNBC host's report here.

Life is all about the editing, you know, and editing can make your case -- and break the other guy's. It's all about what you show folks . . . and what you don't.

Editing can make a couple of Tejas wingnuts look like the reincarnation of Sam Houston, just a lot more anti-American and a lot less sane. Hell, give me an audio file of a Barack Obama speech and a computer, and I can make the man sound like George Wallace -- I'm good at what I do.

EDITING ALSO involves, in this case, not mentioning one of your favored positions -- near fanatical support of abortion rights -- because some folks might figure that in a big, big way, you're no more committed to human dignity (or human rights) than was Jefferson Davis and the whole Confederate aristocracy.

Still . . . still. . . . Maddow's on to something here. Or, more exactly, her guest Tuesday, Princeton professor Melissa Harris-Perry, is on to something big. Basically, Americans are letting their crazy Confederate uncles out of the metaphorical attic. Letting the big shots work against their interests, and cheering them on while they do it to fatal effect.

The last time we embarked on such foolishness, 2 percent of the American population had been killed by the time the last shot was fired -- more than 618,000 on both sides. Today, that 2 percent would work out to 6,068,212 dead Americans.

Just something to chew on when next you're all outraged at the gummint and rarin' to refresh the tree of liberty "with the blood of patriots and tyrants."

Apparently, edginess has its limits

When it's something you want to hear, it's "edgy."

When it's something you don't, it's offensive and violates some flavor or another of unspecified "values."

In New York, this pro-life billboard highlighting the inconvenient statistic that 59.8 percent of pregnancies among non-Hispanic black women there end in abortion is offensive.

“The ad violates the values of New Yorkers and is grossly offensive to women and minorities,”the city's public advocate, Bill de Blasio, tells The New York Times. That's because, in the big city, telling minorities that we're eradicating most of them before they can emerge from the womb to become a "social problem" for white people is much more "offensive" than the actual eradication of most minorities before they can pop out of Mama's belly and start troubling Caucasian advocates of tolerance and open-mindedness.

FOR INSTANCE, take Times judicial reporter Linda Greenhouse (please), who's so tolerant of pro-lifers -- particularly Puerto Rican, Democratic pro-life officeholders -- that she lets no stereotype go unmolested in the push for better demonization.

You want to know the one instance when it's permissible to call a Latino Democratic pol "nutty" in New York City? This is it. And a state senator, no less.

If you ask me, the first sign a nation's on the road to oblivion is when it's more offensive to bemoan the extermination of 59.8 percent of a city's African-American children than it is to exterminate them in the first place. Think of it this way . . . we fought a bloody civil war a century and a half ago for this?

At least Jefferson Davis would have had enough sense to look at the LifeAlways billboard, sadly shake his head, then bemoan the senseless loss of perfectly good free labor. Which says a lot about us today, doesn't it?

Murder . . . by inches (and a couple weeks)

Dammit! Jabbing surgical scissors into a baby's head is only legal if the baby's -- er . . . fetus' -- head is still inside the birth canal!

I hope this Philadelphia doctor -- the one booked for eight counts of murder . . . seven dead babies and one dead mother -- gets the book thrown at him for doing this horrible thing at 28 weeks' gestation, as opposed to 24. Imagine, an abortionist preying on poor and minority women!

Imagine, an abortionist doing gruesome things! Cutting up babies! Jabbing scissors into their itty bitty heads! Who'd a thunk it?

And thus we discover the true meaning of "What a difference a day makes" (not to mention six inches): Life in prison.

THE LATEST on this unspeakable atrocity (as opposed to heroic acts in the name of reproductive freedom) comes from The Associated Press:

A doctor who gave abortions to minorities, immigrants and poor women in a "house of horrors" clinic was charged with eight counts of murder in the deaths of a patient and seven babies who were born alive and then killed with scissors, prosecutors said Wednesday.

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, 69, made millions of dollars over 30 years, performing as many illegal, late-term abortions as he could, prosecutors said. State regulators ignored complaints about him and failed to inspect his clinic since 1993, but no charges were warranted against them given time limits and existing law, District Attorney Seth Williams said. Nine of Gosnell's employees also were charged.

Gosnell "induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord," Williams said.

Patients were subjected to squalid and barbaric conditions at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society, where Gosnell performed dozens of abortions a day, prosecutors said. He mostly worked overnight hours after his untrained staff administered drugs to induce labor during the day, they said.

Early last year, authorities went to investigate drug-related complaints at the clinic and stumbled on what Williams called a "house of horrors."

Bags and bottles holding aborted fetuses "were scattered throughout the building," Williams said. "There were jars, lining shelves, with severed feet that he kept for no medical purpose."

The clinic was shut down and Gosnell's medical license was suspended after the raid.

A simple solution to the 'anchor baby' problem

Remember when Nebraska cut off prenatal care to pregnant illegals and some other poor women?

Now the results are starting to come in some eight months later, and I think I've figured out the philosophy of "pro-life" Gov. Dave Heineman and all the other Republican defenders o' the border. It's as ingenious as it is simple.

But before I tell you what it is, why don't you get yourself up to speed with what the Omaha World-Herald is reporting today? Basically, it's that doctors are reporting levels of stillbirths they haven't seen in years and years and years among poor women:

Health-care providers for the poor have seen five stillbirths in Columbus and Omaha since March 1, when the state decided to end prenatal services for illegal immigrants, they said Friday.

The providers said they could not definitively link the stillbirths to the policy shift by Gov. Dave Heineman's administration.

But they said it was clear women had forgone or delayed the preventive care, which has been proven to head off expensive and complicated deliveries and higher long-term expenses for birth defects and special education services.

As little as $800 worth of prenatal visits, they said, can head off $5,000-a-day stays in intensive-care units for children who automatically become U.S. citizens at birth.

"It's shocking that the State of Nebraska has chosen to disregard the huge weight of medical evidence about preventative (prenatal) care," said Dr. Paul Welch, an obstetrics/gynecology physician from Columbus.

THIS IS Tea Party America. I frankly am shocked that the doctor is shocked. It's going to get worse.

Anyway, back to the story.

Advocates for prenatal care said they are already seeing some of the higher costs and poor medical outcomes associated with a lack of such care.

Rebecca Rayman of the Good Neighbor Community Health Center in Columbus said her clinic has seen four unborn babies die since March after having no stillbirths in the previous six years.

“Only God knows” whether those deaths were directly attributable to the lack of prenatal care, Rayman said. She had evidence at least one was directly linked to lack of care.

Two emergency births took place at a South Omaha clinic because women are afraid of the costs of going to a hospital.

One infant, delivered at 20 weeks of gestation, died, said Andrea Skolkin of OneWorld Community Health Centers. The infant's mother had received no prenatal care.

Skolkin joined former U.S. Rep. John Cavanaugh, who now heads an effort to improve education for the poor in the Omaha area, in asking legislators to restore the prenatal services.

“This is a domino of destruction that will follow (these children) and us,” Cavanaugh said, in terms of higher costs for special education and poorer academic performance.

“There is not one word of testimony about the positive impact of this change,” he said.

NOW THAT you've been filled in, here's Heineman's brilliant strategy -- in the sense, of course, that Lex Luthor comes up with brilliant strategies for thwarting the Man of Steel. Like I said before, its brilliance lies in its very simplicity.

There's only one sure way to keep the Mexicans, and other impoverished opportunity-seekers, from flooding across our besieged borders and overwhelming the Greatest Nation on Earth (TM). And that, children, is to make America into Not the Greatest Nation on Earth.

You stop Mexicans, etc., and so on, from "flooding the zone" by taking away any advantage we have over places like Mexico. If Mexico sucks and we suck, too, there's no percentage in risking life, limb and la Migra by sneaking across the border, now, is there?

Accomplishing this while also making sure Mexican mommas deliver more dead "anchor babies" -- and doing it all while you proclaim your "pro-life" bona fides -- is just a bit of panache that borders on showing off.