Comment Elsewhere: Murder Movement

Describing the murder of Dr. George Tiller, one-third of the doctors in the US who could and would provide late-term abortion procedures when necessary, Ann Friedman said "It is the culmination of an ongoing campaign of intimidation and harassment against someone who was providing completely legal health-care services."
My response

My only question is why would you call this "the culmination" of anything? For the last quarter-century there's been a fairly steady stream of intimidation, harassment and violence directed at abortion providers. True, assassination murders have been rare compared to, say deaths in traffic (but not compared to Muslim-originated terror attacks in the US) but Tiller himself was the subject of a half dozen physical and vandalism attacks since the last abortion doctor assassination murder. The killing is a tragedy, but entirely within the normal range of operations for the movement which has been pushing against reproductive rights for the last 25 years or more.

This isn't an "end" or "peak" in any meaningful sense, unless there is some kind of political and cultural shift which actually pushes these radicals out of the mainstream.

To clarify, I'm quite sure that the anti-rights movement is going to move on to another target, which will inevitably "culminate" similarly, then another, and another....

For more, I recommend Sara Robinson and Digby. Meanwhile, over at Terry's I said

You know what I just realized?

Operation Rescue had an immediate statement ready, with just the right mix of violence-rejection to cover their asses and not-backing-down-abortion-is-murder brimstone to let us weak-kneed liberals know that they aren’t going to let some negative attention shift their rhetoric or tactics. They knew something like this was going to happen, and they don’t care.

New Google Meme: Fun with autocomplete

Via EotAW:

Newest mental toy:

1. Go to Google.
2. Type in the beginning of a common phrase (e.g., “how do I..”, “where are…”, “is barack…”)
3. Look at the drop-down list of suggested searches.
4. If appropriate, laugh riotously.

My result was, for me professionally, deeply disturbing

Read 'em and weep:

history of valentine's day
history of basketball
history of soccer
history of the internet
history of israel
history of mardi gras
history of st. patrick's day
history of computers
history of baseball
history of football

What comes up for you?

Don't tell the kids....

I was reading detailed analysis of Sotomayor's past decisions and came across the following potentially explosive revelation [emphasis added]:

United States v. Santa, 180 F.3d 20 (1999), involved a question the Supreme Court eventually considered this term in Herring v. United States, No. 07-513. At one time, there had been an arrest warrant issued for Mr. Santa. That fact was put into a statewide computer database. The warrant was subsequently recalled, but that fact never made it into the database. When the police arrested Santa, wrongly believing there was still a warrant out for him, they searched him and found drugs. He moved to suppress the evidence as the result of an unconstitutional arrest (i.e., an arrest without probable cause or a warrant). Judge Sotomayor, writing for the majority, ruled that the evidence should not be suppressed under the exclusionary rule – the same conclusion reached by the Supreme Court in Herring. Judge Newman joined the opinion but wrote separately to voice his disquiet over the fact that the defendant had been arrested by the local police but was prosecuted in federal court because New York courts would have suppressed the evidence as a matter of state law had he been prosecuted locally.

Humor aside, as a matter of law, Sotomayor's decision was a correct application of a deeply disturbing existing precedent....

Pictures: Mushrooms

Comments Elsewhere: Quips

I got in a couple of good lines at Terry's place and elsewhere.

On the pandemic:

Since H1N1 includes both avian flu and swine flu material, we could call it the “pigs fly flu.”

On computer problems:

And backups? Like true love, you don’t really understand backups until you don’t have one….

On Souter's retirement:

don’t conservative justices ever get sick? And why do the liberal ones keep eating in the cafeteria?

The Bill of Commandments

John McKay has translated the Bill of Rights into King James English:

1. Thou shalt not make laws respecting an establishment of religion nor prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
   
2. Thou shalt not not make laws abridging the freedom of speech nor the freedom of the press.
   
3. Thou shalt respect the right of the people peaceably to assemble and the right to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
   
4. Thou shalt not infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms.
   
5. Thou shalt not quarter troops during peacetime in any house without the consent of the owner.
   
6. Thou shalt not perform unreasonable searches. Neither shall thou seize without warrant.
   
7. Thou shalt not hold a person to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, without first indicting by a Grand Jury. Neither shall thou twice put a person put in jeopardy of life or limb for the same offense. Neither shall thou compel self incrimination.
   
8. Thou shalt give speedy and public trial and preserve the right to trial by a jury of peers.
   
9. Thou shalt not impose excessive bail or fines. Neither shall thou inflict cruel and unusual punishments.
   
10. Thou shalt preserve for the States and the people those rights not delegated to the United States by the Constitution.

Awesome. Go ye and sin no more.

Thursday Lyrics: The John Birch Society

At some point last week, the line "To get this movement started we need lots of tools and cranks" started going through my head....



Chad Mitchell Trio : The John Birch Society
by Michael Brown

Oh, we're meetin' at the courthouse at eight o'clock tonight
You just walk in the door and take the first turn to the right
Be careful when you get there, we hate to be bereft
But we're taking down the names of everybody turning left

Oh, we're the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society
Here to save our country from a communistic plot
Join the John Birch Society, help us fill the ranks
To get this movement started we need lots of tools and cranks

Now there's no one that we're certain the Kremlin doesn't touch
We think that Westbrook Pegler doth protest a bit too much
We only hail the hero from whom we got our name
We're not sure what he did but he's our hero just the same

Oh, we're the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society
Socialism is the ism dismalest of all
Join the John Birch Society, there's so much to do
Have you heard they're serving vodka at the WCTU?

Well you've heard about the agents that we've already named
Well MPA has agents that are flauntedly unashamed
We're after Rosie Clooney, we've gotten Pinkie Lee
And the day we get Red Skelton won't that be a victory

Oh we're the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society
Norman Vincent Peale may think he's kidding us along
But the John Birch Society knows he spilled the beans
He keeps on preaching brotherhood, but we know what he means

We'll teach you how to spot 'em in the cities or the sticks
For even Jasper Junction is just full of Bolsheviks
The CIA's subversive and so's the FCC
There's no one left but thee and we, and we're not sure of thee

Oh, we're the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society
Here to save our country from a communistic plot
Join the John Birch Society holding off the Reds
We'll use our hand and hearts and if we must we'll use our heads

Do you want Justice Warren for your Commissar?
Do you want Mrs. Krushchev in there with the DAR?
You cannot trust your neighbor or even next of kin
If mommie is a commie then you gotta turn her in

Oh, we're the John Birch Society, the John Birch Society
Fighting for the right to fight the right fight for the Right
Join the John Birch Society as we're marching on
And we'll all be glad to see you when we're meeting in the John
In the John,
in the John Birch So- ci- i- teee.

Comment Elsewhere: Chronology and consistency

In response to an interesting article about political philosophy and civility post-9/11, I raised the following concern:

I have a—typical of an historian, perhaps—chronological problem with the set-up. It’s interesting, to be sure, to measure someone’s actions against their stated principles, but it’s much more convincing if the actions in question come after they’ve stated those principles.

Perhaps I should have added that there's virtue in changing one's mind; not all inconsistencies are hypocrisies. But I want to see if there's any reply (and what sort) before I get too involved in a discussion over there.

Comment Elsewhere: underwear economics

In response to the news that underwear sales are down, I wrote

Actually, with population growth slowing, the steady sales of underwear were actually based on inflated expectations and overconsumption; the dip is a correction to a more appropriate level given the backlog of product in people's drawers. It's an underwear bubble, and it's been popped.

And I did my best to make that sound normal, not obscene, and I'm pretty sure I failed.

To be fair, I didn't try all that hard....

Comment Elsewhere: Tea Party Goals

In response to Steve Benen's comment about the Tea Party movement,

Meanwhile, I suspect one of the problems with the Tea Parties is that it's not altogether clear what they're rallying for. They're conservatives who don't like the Democratic domestic policy agenda; this much is clear. But usually there's some kind of point to organized political events, and the Tea Parties are still a little vague.

I take it they don't like the economic stimulus package, but that's already passed. They don't like budget deficits, unless they're run by Republican presidents. They don't want their taxes to go up, but Obama has already passed a significant middle-class tax cut, which by most measures, is the largest tax cut ever signed by a U.S. president.

So, angry, right-wing activists are going to get together to demand ... what exactly? A 36% top rate instead of a 39.6% top rate? A $3.1 trillion federal budget instead of a $3.5 trillion budget? It's hardly the stuff of a credible and coherent political movement.

I responded

angry, right-wing activists are going to get together to demand ...

The abolition of the IRS, the FDA, HHS and the Dept. of Education, the elimination of restrictions on gun and ammunition ownership, a return to the gold standard, "whites only" immigration policies and probably a return to gunboat diplomacy and 54-40.

This isn't about rolling back a few recent changes: it's about taking the opportunity of a loss to organize, finally, a radical right wing movement that doesn't (apparently) have its origins in the Klan.