Republicans HATE WOMEN in Oklahoma

An absolutely insane anti-abortion law (not yet in force) has been passed by Republicans in Oklahoma.

Rachel Maddow lays out the details. *shudders*

H/T The Huffington Post.

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Who Obama Picks To Keep Doing Bush's Work For Him

(Poster from Austin Cline.)

Who Obama Picks To Keep Doing Bush's Work For Him

W. Scott Simpson is the Bush-appointed senior trial counsel whose name appears as one of three Obama Justice Department lawyers who wrote and filed the vile DOMA brief this week. Renee S., a commenter at Dykes To Watch Out For, has done some research about his background, and turned up the following:

Simpson was quoted as a lawyer defending Bush's attempted ban on late-term abortions in San Francisco Faith News, June 2004. The relevant portion of the article reads

Federal justice department lawyer W. Scott Simpson said that there is no evidence that extraction abortions are safer than any others and that they cause great and unnecessary pain to infants. Further, he said, "the evidence supports Congress' finding that partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of the woman." Finally, Simpson said, "there's no elephant in the room. There's a baby. Congress can prohibit partially delivering that baby only to kill it."

Simpson replaced an attorney during the proceeding regarding FOIA, The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. National Archives and Records Administration, in which Simpson was protecting Bush's interests regarding missing governmental e-mails. Here's a timeline on this case up through March 2009.

Also, for further information about his Mormon background, check his biography at a genealogy-related home-page.

Clearly, when evisceration is on the agenda, Obama's DOJ is able to find the right hyena to do it.

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Dr. George Tiller murdered in church

(Photo: Washington, DC Vigil for Dr. George Tiller, 2009.05.31 by Evan Robinson, Group News Blog)

Sara Robinson has a great post up at Orcinus that deserves a read.

The news spread quickly. Washington DC is apparently a wired town, even on a Sunday at the National Zoo.

Yesterday morning Dr. George Tiller was shot to death inside his church in Wichita, Kansas. Operation Rescue issued a press release. A suspect was in custody. He (or someone in Kansas with the same name) had links to militia organizations. The killing happened on the sixth anniversary of Eric Rudolph's capture.

(Photo: Washington, DC Vigil for Dr. George Tiller, 2009.05.31 by Evan Robinson, Group News Blog)

By late afternoon when we met up with a couple of friends for dinner, a vigil has been planned for 9pm at Dupont Circle. After dinner, we bundle ourselves into a cab for the five-minute ride.

The group starts small and eventually grows to perhaps 75 people. Passers-by ask "what's this about" and when they hear the news and reason for the vigil, some stay. Some weep. Some curse. The crowd swirls as people pass candles around, light and re-light them. Smaller groups within the mass talk or remain silent, hold hands or link arms or just lean on each other for support. A man bears a hand-lettered sign saying "Stop Rightist Terror". The organizer speaks briefly. A prayer is said. The organizer calls for a cheer to support the people out on the front lines.

(Photo: Washington, DC Vigil for Dr. George Tiller, 2009.05.31 by Evan Robinson, Group News Blog)

I take pictures, because it's the best way to immerse myself in something other than anger. Taking good pictures of a candlelight vigil is tough, because it's generally dark when they happen, and flash destroys the characteristic glow of handheld flames. Concentrating on something other than the vicious stupidity and bigotry of the action that brought us here keeps me centered.

I won't claim to be a great warrior for the right to choose. When Operation Rescue came to San Jose in 1996 I attended clinic defense training, bore signs denouncing terrorism outside the OR pep rally, and stood in front of medical facilities that were never targeted by OR. I've stuffed envelopes for NARAL, but I can't claim that I've made any huge difference.

(Photo: Washington, DC Vigil for Dr. George Tiller, 2009.05.31 by Evan Robinson, Group News Blog)

Dr. Tiller did. Despite physical and legal attacks, George Tiller stood in the front lines (in front of the front lines) of the abortion battle and provided desperately needed services to women in desperate situations. He was attacked with bullets, subpoenas, and false accusations of illegal abortions. Nothing stopped him.

Until yesterday, when a right-wing authoritarian idiot charged into a church and gunned him down.

The suspect in custody is Scott Roeder. According to currently available information, he or someone with the same name has a history of arrest for possessing bomb materials and links to the Freemen group. He or someone with the same name is well known to members of the Kansas militia movement. He or someone with the same name had posted to Operation Rescue's web site in 2007 suggesting a visit to Dr. Tiller's church "to ask the doctor and other worshippers about his work".

In other words, it seems likely at this point that Scott Roeder is another typical right-wing extremist who lives on the edge of hate whipped up by people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O'Reilly, who called Tiller "Tiller the baby-killer", referred to his clinic as a "death-mill", and said Tiller "had blood on his hands". O'Reilly has attacked Tiller 28 times since 2005, claiming (falsely at this point) that Tiller had performed illegal late-term abortions which O'Reilly called "executing babies about to be born".

If the right-wing projection of liberal violence was real, people like O'Reilly and Limbaugh who encourage hate and violence against others would be living in bunkers afraid to come out into the light. They'd need more security than President Obama. The fact that they can walk the streets safely, go to work and spew their bile over the public airwaves, incite violence against people with whom they disagree, and not fear for their lives is evidence of the depth of progressive and liberal tolerance. They should be deeply grateful that their opponents remain so tolerant in the face of blatant eliminationism -- in both word and action.

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No Pretense

(U.S. athletes Tommie Smith, center, and John Carlos, extend gloved hands skyward and stare downward in racial protest during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner after Smith received the gold and Carlos the bronze for the 200 meter run at the Olympics in Mexico City on Oct. 16, 1968. Australian silver medalist Peter Norman is at left.)

No pretense.

That's what I'm asking for this inauguration, and of you who have a chance to witness it in person tomorrow.

If you respect Barack Obama's message, the platform he ran on, the possibilities that are waiting for him and us, you will demonstrate that by respecting him AND by having the guts to disagree with his mistakes. (He does and will make mistakes.) Inviting Rick Warren to usher in this new era with prayer is an offensive mistake.

If you agree with the positions Rick Warren promotes about the role of women to be submissive to their husbands, his Johnny-come-lately recognition that AIDS exists with a position which favors abstinence and prayer over condoms and sex education, his refusal to accord human rights to lesbians and gays (including being instrumental in fundraising for the recent effort to remove marriage rights for lesbians and gays in California), his insistence that someone who does not believe in g*d should not be allowed to hold public office, his opposition to reproductive choice and equation of legal abortion to the Nazi Holocaust, his insistence that God puts government on earth to punish evildoers, his "nonegotiable, nondebatable" opposition to stem cell research, his disavowal of evolution, his refusal to take a public stand against torture, his contention that Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus and other non-Christians will "burn in hell", his request to followers that they emulate the mindless devotion of Hitler youth -- then you'll find no reason to object to his presence on the podium. But if you agree with the man, you're not an advocate of progressive human rights, that's fairly clear.

If, on the other hand, you find his views repugnant, you should not pretend to allow him to speak for you (and us as a nation) in his address to g*d. Do not pretend to a respect you do not feel. You'll regret your silence, you know you will.

Here's where you make your chops as a feet-on-the-street activist, instead of a keyboard theorist. Stand up and turn you back on the man when he starts to speak. If you believe in prayer, do your own, out loud and with honest feeling. If you don't believe in prayer, sing "America the Beautiful", which was written by a LESBIAN. (Except if it was me, I'd replace every other "brotherhood" with "sisterhood".)

I booed Tommy Thompson at the Kennedy Center when he came to speak to an international gathering of disabled artists. It made some heads explode, but he heard it, others heard it, and who knows how far those ripples have traveled.

And you won't be alone. There's a Turn Your Back on Rick Warren Campaign well underway. (I wonder if its inception was my original post on this issue here.)

I'm all for forgiveness. I live by forgiveness. But since being given this honor, this reward for past hateful behavior, Rick Warren has not sought our forgiveness nor has he sought reconciliation. He's scrubbed some of past (and no doubt future) hate-based views from his website. He's raised money for his anti-liberation work by parading his selection around as proof that the conservative message of convert or die is working. He has Not Changed. And when people resist growth, you can have patience but you don't give them respect for persistent shitty choices.

No pretense. Not on this day.




{And, just to prove the point that Obama could have chosen from a vast number of religious leaders who DO live/preach genuine liberation messages, check out Reverend Al Sharpton's keynote speech at the Human Rights Ecumenical Service held at Atlanta's Tabernacle Baptist Church to welcome the Atlanta-based Alliance of Affirming Faith-Based Organizations.}

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