WataugaWatch

Scott Roeder, the man charged with murder in the shooting of Kansas abortion doctor George R. Tiller, sat in the witness chair yesterday at his trial and said that, yes, he did it. "Yes, he bought a gun. Yes, he took target practice. Yes, he had learned about Dr. Tiller's habits, his home address, his security precautions. And, yes, he shot Dr. Tiller last May 31 as Dr. Tiller stood inside his church. 'That is correct, yes,' Mr. Roeder told the jurors, in a calm, matter-of-fact voice."

His only defense: a higher morality. Believing that any woman shouldn't have any right to any abortion, not no how, Roeder's defense lawyers are arguing that the murder of Dr. Tiller was justified homicide.

In a nation where a Republican Supreme Court can decide that the poor put-upon corporations are not getting all the "free speech" they can buy, we reckon this kind of legal reasoning might have a fair shot of winning the day.

Labels: abortion rights, George R. Tiller, Scott Roeder

To get the Democratic votes for the narrow victory on Saturday for the House's "Affordable Health Care for America Act," Speaker Nancy Pelosi was forced into a corner by the Blue Dogs, led by Rep. Bart Stupak of Michigan. She allowed a vote on the Stupak amendment to the bill which not only outlaws abortion coverage in any public option insurance plan (a redundancy, since the so-called Hyde Amendment already did that) but also outlaws abortion coverage in any private insurance plan if it participates in the eventual federal "insurance exchange."

In other words, the Stupak Amendment effectively bans abortion coverage in all insurance plans, both private and public, an interference in women's health care that is not just a step backward but a naked slap at what has been a legal right of American women since 1973. Some 64 House Democrats voted for this crap. And all the Republicans (save one). They had a major assist from the League of Catholic Bishops.

Bart Stupak is not just your garden-variety Blue Dog. He's also a "C-Streeter," a resident of the Capitol Hill row house where some holier-than-thou male members of Congress pray loudly to God, often about the proclivity of some of their residents to fornicate freely with lesser mortals. The C Street residence has been the safe retreat for several superior "Christian" men, including Mark Sanford of "hiking the Appalachian Trail" fame and John Ensign, who screwed a staff member and then paid her off.

Residents in the C Street house are members of a shadowy and secretive fundamentalist Christian group calling itself The Fellowship. Founded in 1935, it has held clear theocratic designs on government. And also on women, who are obviously supposed to be their obedient vessels.

After Bart Stupak successful cornered Nancy Pelosi into throwing American women under the proverbial bus Saturday night, he dutifully cast his yea vote for final passage of the thus severely restrictive "Affordable Health Care for America Act" and then was observed from the gallery of the House chamber to do the following:

Stupak, during the vote on the final bill, didn't stick around long. He cast his vote quickly and shook the hand of Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), then headed over to the GOP side, where he was warmly welcomed.

Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), a strident partisan, was the first to greet him, shaking his hand and slapping him on the back. Stupak then found [Republican Minority Whip Eric] Cantor and [Alaskan Rep. Don] Young, shook their hands, and retired from the floor to the Republican cloakroom.

Birds of a feather.

Meanwhile, another key group of the progressive coalition, pro-choice women, is hung out to dry. And Democrats wonder why they may start losing more than just Virginia and New Jersey.

Labels: abortion rights, Bart Stupak, health care, Patrick McHenry

Not just in Afghanistan are people judged sinners by fanatics and brutally executed with the approval of the mullahs.

Mullah Randall Terry of Operation Rescue, the fringe lunatics who not only want to ban abortion as an option for any woman under any circumstances but also don't countenance birth control either, could scarcely contain his glee that one of his unstable followers assassinated Dr. George Tiller at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas, on Sunday.

Wichita, Kansas, also happens to be the national HDQs of Operation Rescue.

Not only in Kansas, of course, is the Gospel of Christ twisted into a nasty, hard little knot of hatred and violence. But currently Kansas has a lot of 'splaining to do.

Labels: abortion rights, Kansas, Operation Rescue, Randall Terry

The Guv told a breakfast of Lillian's List supporters in Raleigh, "North Carolina is going to be a state where choice is safe under my watch."

Not that anybody in the know is predicting that an anti-choice act could get out of committee in either the NC House or the Senate, but still, it's good to hear.

Labels: abortion rights, Beverly Perdue

The McCain campaign is so sure of its judgment in picking Sarah Palin for veep that they're keeping her away from the press until she feels "comfortable." So it falls to individual citizens to go digging.

While mayor of Wasilla, Sarah Palin approved giving $2,354 of the city’s money appropriated through the Alaska Revenue Sharing fund to the Valley Crisis Pregnancy Center, a militant anti-abortion "counseling service" (Ordinance 97-23, 14 April 1997). While Palin was on the board of Valley Hospital, another more substantial grant was given to the same anti-abortion group (Anchorage Daily News, 28 Dec. 1999).

Palin is on the record multiple times opposing the rights of women to abortion. She has consistently defined herself as a hard-line social conservative who opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest. In 2006 she said she supported an amendment to the Alaska Constitution denying any right to an abortion (Alaska Family Council Voter Guide, 22 Aug. 2006). She sent an e-mail to the Alaska Right to Life Board saying she was "as pro-life as any candidate can be" (Anchorage Daily News, 6 Aug. 2006).

The Anchorage Daily News described Palin's stance as "extreme" (Editorial, 24 Aug. 2006).

Sources: The Book on Sarah Palin

Labels: abortion rights, John McCain, Sarah Palin

As expected, Sen. John McCain's statement that he would consider a pro-choice running mate was met with reasoned discussion among single-issue voters, and the mullahs of the Right all agreed almost instantly that it sounded like a splendid idea to them. Not.

"It absolutely floored me," said Phil Burress, head of the Ohio-based Citizens for Community Values. "It would doom him in Ohio .... That choice will end his bid for the presidency and spell defeat for other Republican candidates."

That's some of what they said in public.

Labels: abortion rights, John McCain

Talk about sending a message! After John McCain told The Weekly Standard yesterday that he would be open to a pro-choice running mate, Mullah James Dobson was last seen rising over Colorado Springs as a tiny but fully toxic mushroom cloud.

What, an approver of baby murder for Vice President of the United States on the Republican Party ticket????

Now maybe John McCain is perfecting the old head feint himself and intends to pick Bobby Jindal to cast out our national demons (well, at least the ones on the coasts), or just possibly he really is signaling that he'll pick Tom Ridge, the pro-choice ex-guv of Pennsylvania, or -- better! -- Joe Lieberman. We can always hope.

Labels: abortion rights, Bobby Jindal, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Rev. James Dobson

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner polling for NARAL Pro-Choice America of 1,788 likely November voters (1,000 representative likely voters plus oversamples of 424 likely-voting Republican women and 364 likely-voting Independent women) shows that (among other things) many women have no idea of John McCain's hard-line on women's rights and that when they learn how anti-choice he is they are much more likely to vote for Obama.

The poll was done in the battleground states of Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wisconsin. With McCain's record on abortion exposed, "Obama gains 6 points overall, with his lead in [these] battleground states expanding from a net 2 points (47-45 percent) to a net 13 points (53-40 percent)."

This will be called "push-polling," especially by people who don't like the results. But the bad push-polling we've all heard about is the kind wherein the poller asks the person answering the phone, "If you knew that John McCain fathered a black child, would you be more or less likely to vote for him?" That was used against McCain in South Carolina by George W. Bush in 2000. At least this poll presented correct information about McCain's consistent position on abortion.

This comes out on the same day that Cindy McCain decides to make a big issue out of Michelle Obama's patriotism. We have a lot of questions about Cindy McCain too, even more since she decided to put her own sterling character in the scales next to Michelle Obama.

What do you suppose Cindy McCain would say -- or do -- if some government flunky told her that her pregnant-out-of-marriage teenage daughter could not have an abortion. She'd do what rich, determined, privileged women always did. While still maintaining the unmitigated snootiness to question other people's patriotism.

Labels: abortion rights, Barack Obama, Cindy McCain, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research, John McCain, Michelle Obama