Search Results
October 01, 2010
By: ArchPundit
Category: Uncategorized
For those who recall Fran Eaton and Jill Stanek attacking Debbie Halvorson for having HPV and essentially engaging in slut shaming regardless of the fact that it was Debbie’s first husband who exposed her to HPV. Let’s review their attacks on Halvorson:
So when renowns like actress Marissa Jaret Winokur and Illinois state Sen. Debbie Halvorson divulged their history of HPV as the basis for conducting a crusade against it, you’d think they would discourage the destructive behavior causing it by talking about it, such as:
* Discussing the number of sex partners they had throughout their lifetime and how each one increased the likelihood of contracting HPV, or conversely how one can contract HPV from a sole encounter;
* Discussing whether they realized at the time their sex partners carried HPV, which most people do not;
* Discussing whether it was their husbands who passed HPV on to them after sleeping with other women, demonstrating a good reason for fidelity.
But instead of speaking against the cause of HPV, Winokur and Halvorson are instead promoting a vaccination to halt just a tiny fraction of the multitude of consequences of this destructive behavior.
Here is where they erred. After having publicly presented themselves as Exhibit A in this discussion they tried to say, “I have a history of this disease, but my solution excludes assessing the history of my disease.” That is illogical and dangerous. As an RN I’ll add it is bad medicine.
When I presented the aforementioned topics for discussion on a blog this week, liberals accused me of hate, extremism, personal attacks, venom and vitriol.
Yes I did. And I stand by that. Adam Kinzinger has posted Fran Eaton’s most recent column bringing up that shameful episode on his website.
Once you’ve been dubbed a “mean girl” by a fellow journalist, you tend to react by becoming more thick-skinned and meaner, or you back off and try to adjust your attitude.
My having won that “mean girl” moniker a few years ago is the first thing I think of when I read about U.S. Rep. Debbie Halvorson. Before being elected to Congress in 2008, Halvorson was state Sen. Emil Jones’ lieutenant. During her final years in the Illinois Senate, she willingly jumped into a vat of legislative hot oil by sponsoring a bill that would mandate 9- to 11-year-old girls receive the human papilloma virus vaccine.
Adding any other vaccine doses to Illinois’ already overbearing 38 now required before a child can be admitted to school always should be met with caution. But mandating the newly developed HPV vaccine was especially troubling. HPV, a virus that experts say often leads to cervical cancer, is transmitted only by sexual contact or by needle exchange. To require 9- to 11-year-old girls to have an HPV shot for school attendance was a serious measure that should require parental information, lots of medical assessment and clear debate.
That’s where the problem arose. Halvorson launched a campaign for the HPV mandate by publicly admitting her own battle with HPV. Upon initiation, it seemed like a public service to promote the vaccine, but when it was discovered that Halvorson had been involved in a legislative group that was financially assisted by vaccine promoters, her cause lost its sheen. We learned soon after that the vaccine makers had invested heavily in legislative groups throughout the country, planning to sweep the nation state by state with profit-inducing HPV vaccine mandates.
That’s when the situation in Illinois got testy.
Healthy queries as to Halvorson’s own legislative background on the issue, her political ties and her rationale for the HPV vaccine push were turned into frank online discussions. As a result, a couple of us concerned about the vaccine mandate were dubbed “mean girls” by a fellow female columnist.
So, when viewing a YouTube video showing Halvorson’s Joliet office as the gathering spot for protesters who had just shouted at folks going into an Americans for Prosperity rally in Joliet last week, I hesitated to address it. After all, holding Halvorson’s campaign workers accountable for what they clearly did might raise that “mean girl” label again. And gee, was it worth it?
Two of the people attempting to intimidate concerned 11th District voters away from the Sept. 15 gathering to promote free markets and lower taxes and to oppose Obamacare and a scary economy clearly were connected with the Halvorson campaign. The photos and videos shot by concerned citizen journalists who followed the protesters back to the Halvorson office clearly make that point.
Halvorson says she had nothing to do with the protest, and she denies her campaign workers were involved in putting Hitleresque mustaches on protesters’ signs of conservative commentator Glenn Beck, former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Halvorson’s Republican opponent, Adam Kinzinger.
All we can do is take Halvorson’s word that she knew nothing, but we can say for certain her campaign workers knew fully what was going on. They were in the middle of the whole ordeal.
Except it turns out not to be true as Bill Preston came forward saying he and one other person were behind the Hitler signs and not connected to the coordinated campaign. More interesting is that a quick web search turned up a picture of Bill Preston protesting BP in Chicago apparently on his own. So, not only is Kinzinger promoting a factually debunked story, he’s giving creedence to a woman who called his opponent a slut.
By that standard we should expect Kinzinger to start talking in detail about his own sexual history given Eaton’s standards. Or maybe not since I don’t really want to know. However, the other consistent choice is to point out that Fran Eaton is a mean and detestable human being who compared a decent public servant to a porn star.
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October 15, 2008
By: ArchPundit
Category: Uncategorized
Only wingnuts think this was a persuasive response:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0N_UfQVuvXo[/youtube]
There are about one thousand ways to address the issue and not alienate everyone to the left of Jill Stanek. John McCain chose to not try any one of those one thousand ways.
Comment (1)
September 02, 2008
By: ArchPundit
Category: Daily Dolt
Sauerberg wants Durbin to denounce Kos. Fricken’ Hillarious–the Kos postings were by diarists, not anyone on the front page. However, Sauerberg has ties to the Illinois Review front pagers, let’s review some greatest hits he’ll need to be denouncing:
1) Accusing State Representative John Fritchey of Genocide
2) He could condemn the gay baiting of Democrats as Swishy Dems
This is especially relevant given the homophobic attacks on Sauerberg’s communications guy
3) He could condemn the idea that someone should beat their wives if they want to get an abortion
4) He could condemn them for passing along false stories like the Chinese Eating Babies
5) He could condemn them for attacking the sexual orientation of those who held a bar crawl for John McCain
6) Condemn them for attacking his spokesperson’s sexual orientation
7) Condemn them for comparing a good journalist to the UnaBomber
8) You could condemn them for their associations with Pharmacists for Life that has compared Obama to Osama and Blagojevich to Milosevich.
9) Condemn the Illinois Review for calling women with HPV sluts. Like the Illinois Senate President
Get cracking on those and perhaps Durbin might think about Kos. Of course, all of the above were written by the management of Illinois Review and the diaries on Kos were all random diarists. Who else is a diarist over at Kos? Dan Proft. They have low standards you might say.
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August 20, 2008
By: ArchPundit
Category: Fundie Fun, Obama, Presidential Race
He gives the complete time line and talks (has talked) to many of those involved over time.
A fairly big chunk of text, but not much compared to the whole thing which you should go read.
You’d think the March, 2003 Senate committee action by Obama and five other Democrats to deep-six the most recent versions of the “born-alive” bills even after the federal language was added would have played a big role in the debates on this issue during the 2004 campaign.
And you would be wrong.
Stanek didn’t bring it up during an extensive online debate with me on this issue in 2004 (some of which survives here) and my search for contemporary news articles or blog entries on the SB 1083 amendment issue has so far come up empty.
Indeed, when he left a comment on my blog last Thursday, Douglas Johnson, legislative director of the National Right to Life Committee in Washington D.C. referred to the March, 2003 committee records as “new documents that came to light this week” and “newly released Obama documents.”
Not quite. The committee meeting and the votes were held in public, and the records were there all along for anyone who cared to ask for them. The Associated Press even reported the story briefly the following day and the Illinois Senate staff documented the vote.
But to get get back to the narrative: In 2005, after Obama was in the U.S. Senate, yet another “born-alive” bill was introduced in the Illinois House– HB 984, sponsored by Harrisburg Democrat Brandon Phelps.
It was assigned to the House Civil Judiciary Civil Law Committee, chaired by Chicago Democrat John Fritchey.
“I told the proponents that the bill simply wasn’t ever going to get through as long as there was suspicion that it was a back-door way to get at Roe v. Wade or criminalize abortion in Illinois,” Fritchey told me today.
Why wasn’t the Federal “neutrality language” good enough?
Because the Federal bill was widely seen as window dressing; a proclamation more than a law with almost no potential impact on abortion law in the states. At the state level, particularly with the companion bills for punishing doctors, the proposal looked significantly more fraught.
“I told the proponents, `Just give us some extra language that will establish a comfort level for the pro-choice community,’” said Fritchey.
Here were two provisions Fritchey added:
(d) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to affect existing federal or State law regarding abortion.
(e) Nothing in this Section shall be construed to alter generally accepted medical standards.
“They fought me on that language,” Fritchey said. “They said it wasn’t acceptable. They said the feds didn’t need those kinds of words, why did we need it?”
The question, of course, is why would the language be a problem if the point of the legislation wasn’t to intimidate doctors from performing abortions? Look–over there!
Comments (4)
August 20, 2008
By: ArchPundit
Category: Fundie Fun, Obama, Presidential Race
Stanek’s claim is that Obama was stopping a bill to outlaw infanticide and that such a law was required in Illinois because of what she claims occurred at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn. However, the response from the Illinois Attorney General to the claims points out that if such events occurred, those events would already be illegal.
Media Matters makes the point:
The July 2000 letter was a response from Ryan’s office to Concerned Women for America regarding a complaint by nurse Jill Stanek, who claimed that fetuses that were born alive at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois, were abandoned without treatment, including in a soiled utility room. In a letter on Ryan’s letterhead, chief deputy attorney general Carole R. Doris wrote in part:
On December 6, IDPH provided this office with its investigative report and advised us that IDPH’s internal review did not indicate [emphasis added] a violation of the Hospital Licensing Act or the Vital Records Act.
No other allegations or medical evidence to support any statutory violation (including the Abused and Neglected Child Reporting Act about which you inquired) were referred to our office by the Department for prosecution.
[...]
While we are deeply respectful of your serious concerns about the practices and methods of abortions at this hospital, we have concluded that there is no basis for legal action by this office against the Hospital or its employees, agents or staff at this time.
From that letter, Freddoso concludes that the state found that “[i]n leaving born babies to die without treatment, Christ Hospital was doing nothing illegal under the laws of Illinois.” But the state’s conclusions regarding the law were reportedly the opposite of what Freddoso claims — IDPH reportedly concluded that if the hospital had done what Stanek alleged, its actions would have been illegal under existing law. (The word “indicate” is in italics above because in his quotation of the letter, Freddoso substitutes the word “include” for the word “indicate.”)
In an August 2004 email discussion with Stanek, Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn quoted IDPH spokesman Tom Shafer stating, apparently in reference to Stanek and another nurse, Allison Baker: “[W]hat they were alleging were violations of existing law. … We took (the allegations) very seriously.” Zorn wrote further: “Shafer told me that the 1999 investigation reviewed logs, personnel files and medical records. It concluded, ‘The allegation that infants were allowed to expire in a utility room could not be substantiated (and) all staff interviewed denied that any infant was ever left alone.’ “
From Zorn’s 2004 blog post:
As you well know, Jill, the Illinois Atty. General’s office, then under abortion foe Jim Ryan, was quite concerned about your allegations and directed the Illinois Dept. of Public Health to conduct a thorough investigation of the claims made by you and Allison Baker.
Why?
“Because what they were alleging were violations of existing law,” IDPH spokesman Tom Shafer told me yesterday. “We took (the allegations) very seriously.”
Shafer told me that the 1999 investigation reviewed logs, personnel files and medical records. It concluded, “The allegation that infants were allowed to expire in a utility room could not be substantiated (and) all staff interviewed denied that any infant was ever left alone.”
Shafer was quick to add that neither he nor the IDPH report concluded that your testimony was untruthful or exaggerated to help advance your anti-abortion views — simply that their investigation did not substantiate the allegations.
In other words, contrary to Freddoso’s claim, the IDPH’s reported position supported Obama’s explanation: Current law already “mandated lifesaving measures for premature babies.” Freddoso writes of Obama’s assertion: “This is not true. Such measures were not already the law in Illinois. Not according to the Department of Public Health. Not according to Attorney General Ryan” [emphasis in original].But the letter does not, as Freddoso claims, assert that “[s]uch measures were not already the law in Illinois.” Nor does the IDPH; indeed, Zorn quoted the IDPH spokesman saying that the actions alleged by Stanek would have violated the law at the time.
The entire argument is bogus. Infants were protected in Illinois prior to 1999 and after 1999. No law had to be passed–it was a rather obvious effort to overturn Roe v. Wade.
And people who worked for Jim Ryan should know that.
Comments (11)
August 19, 2008
By: ArchPundit
Category: Fundie Fun
It’s always hysterical when Stanek gets some attention because then those of us who know her so well around Illinois get to bring out the crazy batshit stuff she spews on a regular basis.
She’s been making the rounds and is even being treated seriously by the New York Times–something local reporters have largely stopped doing because they learned.
Here are my archives of Stanek’s craziness followed by some of my favorites
She discussed how beating your wife was justified when she had an abortion:
That spontaneous slap was the reaction of a real man who a woman had just told she aborted his baby. Compare that to the modern day cowardly male response, “It’s your choice. Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.” Or worse, his threat to abandon her if she does not abort.
It was this fierce devotion to family that strangely endeared us to the Corleone men despite their otherwise heinous behavior.
There’s a rather odd discussion on Mr. Brooks that no one can make any sense of.
She works with Eric Scheidler and his father Joe Scheidler who is a violent anti-abortion activist who was convicted under RICO laws later overturned due to Constitutional issues. Regardless, Scheidler has a strange coincidence of showing up at abortion protests that turn violent.
She claimed the Chinese eat babies and then when confronted with the point that such claims were debunked, held to the argument that Snopes debunking article was before the new claim so it had no value.
She said of John Fritchey:
And my favorite, she compared the Illinois Senate Majority Leader to a porn star because she had HPV.
Here, Here, Here, Here, Here
To this day she claims Terri Schiavo was aware
Her claims about Christ Hospital were never substantiated when Pro-Life Illinois AG Jim Ryan’s office investigated her ‘claim to fame.’
Comments (2)
December 19, 2007
By: ArchPundit
Category: Keyes' Company, Obama, Presidential Race
It comes to bite your candidate in the ass….
Taylor Marsh tries to use the Alan Keyes claim that Obama is for infanticide and that is why he needs to be vetted. This, of course, comes from Stanek who has misrepresented the differences between the federal and the state level on many occasions.
What was one of Stanek’s most recent pieces:
They are going to lie about whomever the candidate is and they’ll do all the same things to Clinton. Trying to split Democrats by using right wing talking points only gives wingnuts some aura of respectability.
Congratulations on screwing your own candidate! Beautifully done.
Perhaps you’d like to discuss how Stanek’s defense of beating women to stop them from having an abortion is wonderful. From that column:
One of the best scenes in the Godfather movie trilogy was in “Godfather II,” when Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) told her husband Michael (Al Pacino) she was taking their two children and leaving him. The dialogue:
Michael: Do you expect me to let you take my children from me?…. Don’t you know that’s an impossibility, that that could never happen, that I’d use all my power to keep something like that from ever happening?…. I know you blame me for losing the baby. Yes. I know what that meant to you. Kay. I swear I’ll make it up to you…. I’ll change. And you’ll forget about this miscarriage, and we’ll have another child, and we’ll go on, you and I, we’ll go on.
Kay: Oh – oh, Michael, Michael, you are blind. It wasn’t a miscarriage. It was an abortion, an abortion, Michael! Just like our marriage is an abortion, something that’s unholy and evil. I didn’t want your son, Michael! I wouldn’t bring another one of your sons into this world! It was an abortion, Michael. It was a son, a son, and I had it killed, because this must all end. I know now that it’s over. I knew it then. There would be no way, Michael, no way you could ever forgive me, not with this Sicilian thing that’s been going on for 2,000 years….
SLAP.
Michael: You won’t take my family!
And she doesn’t.
That spontaneous slap was the reaction of a real man who a woman had just told she aborted his baby. Compare that to the modern day cowardly male response, “It’s your choice. Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.” Or worse, his threat to abandon her if she does not abort.
It was this fierce devotion to family that strangely endeared us to the Corleone men despite their otherwise heinous behavior.
Or the more recent column:
In Mr. Brooks, the teenage daughter of serial killer Earl Brooks (Costner) turns up pregnant midway through her first semester of college. When Jane tells her parents, Earl emphatically states abortion is out of the question and offers to raise the baby. Jane is equally emphatically abortion minded until that moment, when she says she will reconsider. Typical. If a mother in a crisis pregnancy is offered love and support, she will most often choose life.
I won’t give away the end of Mr. Brooks except to say the prospect of his seeing future grandchild became Earl’s motivation for a life or death decision.
All of this is way twisted, I know. But similar to Godfather II, even a schizophrenic serial killer knows abortion is wrong, and similar to Godfather II, this became a redeeming quality of one who had no others.
Mr. Brooks’ pro-life stance was an obviously planned juxtaposition.
On one hand he was a serial killer no better than Dahmer and Gacy.
On the other, he was pro-life. Of of all possible character attributes, the writer and director chose this as Mr. Brooks’ one featured nobility, something they decided demonstrated the exact opposite of the schizophrenic killer mentality.
Why is that?
Stanek, Keyes, the entire wingnut crew over at Illinois Review are going to attack whomever our nominee is. Don’t help them by giving them some sort of relevance.
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December 04, 2007
By: ArchPundit
Category: Obama, Presidential Race
Go to Rich’s post on this again and see what Jill Stanek said about Obama’s position.
Planned Parenthood and Stanek agree on something…
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November 20, 2007
By: ArchPundit
Category: Today's Tosser
It was too hard to pick just one:
Jill Stanek insists that Terri Schiavo was fully alive and aware
Stanek has some rubbish about how people called her brain dead and approvingly links then to an article that doesn’t just dispute whether she was brain dead, but says
Rarely, if ever, mentioned in media reports are the more than 40 doctors’ affidavits submitted to the court that either contradicted that Terri was in a so-called PVS or stated that she could have been helped with proper rehabilitation.
The media also fails to report the medical records confirming that Terri at one time was beginning to speak, or the videos of Terri interacting with her family and her surroundings, all of which prove that she was very much alive, and very much responsive
Well, no. She had lost half of her brain weight–which was liquefied, The areas of speech were heavily damaged She wasn’t speaking and this continuing effort to deny the reality of her condition is sad.
We get this treat from George Kocan who says:
According to a report by the Daily Herald, a federal judge has decreed that a moment of silence in public schools violates the U.S. Constitution. We are to believe that the First Amendment says “government ‘shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion.’”
Apparently, the judge relies on a different First Amendment than the one I am familiar with. The real document states that “Congress shall make no laws…” That is a big difference. And it shows how activist judges need to misrepresent the Constitution to make the public accept as law the mythical “separation of church and state.”
Of course, the 14th Amendment applied this to the states and so appendages of state governments are not allowed to make laws respecting an establishment of religion. One has to wonder if these people have read the Constitution. Perhaps they could hang with Rod.
Eaton celebrates indicted and convicted felons after railing about Bob Creamer
George Dienhart declares A vote for Ron Paul is a vote against America
It’s great fun to read. Did you know that you are against America if you are against No Child Left Behind? Yep. Several other fun ones in there, but what’s striking most about the article is that the opposition to Paul isn’t so much on a clearly elucidated set of conservative principles, but on George Bush being right regardless of how incoherent his position is ideologically. For small government? Hell no—it’s unAmerican to back Ron Paul because he’s against federal rules for education and drugs!
The entire piece is a perfect example of the incoherence of people who claim to be conservatives in George Bush’s America.
Ron Paul is a bit loopy, but he doesn’t hate America. For extra fun, check out the comment thread. And I thought the 9-11 Truthers were annoying.
Bob Schmidt puts John (“Mary Rosh”) in some big company:
Overtime civilization has been the gradual process of seeing more and more of the facts, and the truth. The Greeks developed truths of mathematics. The Arabs developed truths of astronomy. Galileo, Newton and Einstein each made contributions. John Locke, Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and John Lott advanced hypothesis about the truth of the laws of economics and of the way things work out among us humans.
John Lott cannot even get tenure anywhere.
And going on 5 years and after the deadliest one, we are winning in Iraq. Again.
Could someone tell me how you get political reconciliation when al Maliki just told the the Sunnis to go jump off a bridge?
Comments (19)
November 09, 2007
By: ArchPundit
Category: Fundie Fun
These aren’t issues, they are subscriptions:
One of the best scenes in the Godfather movie trilogy was in “Godfather II,” when Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) told her husband Michael (Al Pacino) she was taking their two children and leaving him. The dialogue:
Michael: Do you expect me to let you take my children from me?…. Don’t you know that’s an impossibility, that that could never happen, that I’d use all my power to keep something like that from ever happening?…. I know you blame me for losing the baby. Yes. I know what that meant to you. Kay. I swear I’ll make it up to you…. I’ll change. And you’ll forget about this miscarriage, and we’ll have another child, and we’ll go on, you and I, we’ll go on.
Kay: Oh – oh, Michael, Michael, you are blind. It wasn’t a miscarriage. It was an abortion, an abortion, Michael! Just like our marriage is an abortion, something that’s unholy and evil. I didn’t want your son, Michael! I wouldn’t bring another one of your sons into this world! It was an abortion, Michael. It was a son, a son, and I had it killed, because this must all end. I know now that it’s over. I knew it then. There would be no way, Michael, no way you could ever forgive me, not with this Sicilian thing that’s been going on for 2,000 years….
SLAP.
Michael: You won’t take my family!
And she doesn’t.
That spontaneous slap was the reaction of a real man who a woman had just told she aborted his baby. Compare that to the modern day cowardly male response, “It’s your choice. Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.” Or worse, his threat to abandon her if she does not abort.
It was this fierce devotion to family that strangely endeared us to the Corleone men despite their otherwise heinous behavior.
More recently
In Mr. Brooks, the teenage daughter of serial killer Earl Brooks (Costner) turns up pregnant midway through her first semester of college. When Jane tells her parents, Earl emphatically states abortion is out of the question and offers to raise the baby. Jane is equally emphatically abortion minded until that moment, when she says she will reconsider. Typical. If a mother in a crisis pregnancy is offered love and support, she will most often choose life.
I won’t give away the end of Mr. Brooks except to say the prospect of his seeing future grandchild became Earl’s motivation for a life or death decision.
All of this is way twisted, I know. But similar to Godfather II, even a schizophrenic serial killer knows abortion is wrong, and similar to Godfather II, this became a redeeming quality of one who had no others.
Mr. Brooks’ pro-life stance was an obviously planned juxtaposition.
On one hand he was a serial killer no better than Dahmer and Gacy.
On the other, he was pro-life. Of of all possible character attributes, the writer and director chose this as Mr. Brooks’ one featured nobility, something they decided demonstrated the exact opposite of the schizophrenic killer mentality.
Why is that?
The comments are even more, ahem, interesting. I know and respect many people who are pro-life. You aren’t helping their cause.
Comment (1)
September 11, 2007
By: ArchPundit
Category: Fundie Fun, Keyes' Company
We see that the Fox Valley Families are threatening to sue Steve Twombley of Planned Parenthood for defamation
Your many assertions about the Pro-Life Action League (“the League”) and Joseph Scheidler, its director, are red herrings as they have nothing to do with the Aurora protests. But they too are false and misleading.
It depends on your meaning of nothing to do with the protests. If one thinks financially supporting Fox Valley Families is having something to do with the protests, that would be inacurate.
The efforts of Families Against Planned Parenthood are underwritten by the Pro-Life Action League. Please consider making a donation to the League to help fund this campaign.
Joe Scheidler is the Executive of the non-profit 990 here. You can also see Eric Scheidler is counted as a key personnel and the Communication Director. IOW, Fox Valley Families or Families against Planned Parenthood are a project of Pro-Life Action.
Eric Scheidler, who resides with his family in Aurora and coordinates Fox Valley Families, has never been arrested let alone convicted of any criminal act in connection with pro-life or anti-abortion activity. He has never advocated violence against either persons or property. Nor has he engaged in any such violence in opposing abortion, or otherwise. Nor has any other coordinator or leader of Fox Valley Families. Nor to our knowledge has any violent act been committed, much less condoned, by any participant in the 40-day vigil in opposition to your new facility. Protest against your facility has been entirely peaceable and prayerful.
The trick they are trying to do is move the argument to Eric Scheidler instead of his father who has been arrested many times and has a strange habit of being present when violence breaks out:
It’s important to dispel the myth that PLAN engaged in nothing but peaceful, First Amendment-protected activity. It did not. PLAN’s blockades, invasions and the other RICO violations that the jury found PLAN committed are acts of force and violence. The jury heard testimony from patients and clinic workers who were attacked during PLAN’s blockades, including blockades at which Joseph Scheidler and Randall Terry were personally on the scene. One doctor, Dr. Susan Wicklund, was grabbed and slammed against a car as she tried to get through the blockade and into her office. Patients were tripped and pushed to the ground. One clinic administrator was grabbed by her hair and thrown to the ground by an Operation Rescue leader. Another was viciously choked by Operation Rescue protesters, leaving serious bruises on her neck. One patient, who was trying to enter the clinic — not for an abortion but for post-operative care following cancer surgery — was beaten with an Operation Rescue protester’s sign. The protesters clawed at her and attacked her, causing her sutures to rupture, and she passed out. This is not speech or advocacy.
This case is not about First Amendment activity. My clients have never objected to peaceful picketing, leafletting, or even to hateful, ugly speech by abortion opponents. Calling our clients “murderers,” “whores” and “sluts” is not a RICO violation, and we have never claimed it is. The First Amendment protects speech, even ugly speech. But it does not protect the acts of force and violence on which our suit was based. Our case was not based on speech or advocacy, but on acts and threats of force and violence.
The letter isn’t a serious threat, it’s trying to change the subject. If Pro-Life Action League tried to make the argument that the Fox Valley Families group is independent and thus Joe Scheidler irrelevant, a judge would laugh them out of the courtroom. It’s a diversion, plain and simple to avoid talking about the curious incidents of violence wherever Joe Scheidler shows up.
Go help Planned Parenthood with this effort here
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April 09, 2007
By: ArchPundit
Category: Fundie Fun
Comments (10)
