Keyes on Global Warming…Okay, Not Really
ArchPundit
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Keyes’ Company
I So Miss Him
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Groundhog Day
Illinois Review pushes Chris McNeil for the 11th District–the guy who lost to Renee Kosel 58-42 percent.
Because starting with a candidate who has annoyed much of the Party Leadership in the area is always a pathway to success.
He’s Back
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Fine Moments in Obfuscation
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.
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.
The Call of the People
Or at least the call of people running your web site.
Alan Keyes reports a groundswell of support for him to run for President again. Strangely, this call coincides with a now 11 Part Series entitled the Crisis of the Republic. I don’t think draft means what Alan thinks it does.
I Can’t Improve Upon the Title
Petey LaBarbera is really going beyond parody
Satan’s Talking Points? Human Rights Campaign’s Harry Knox Promotes Ultimate ‘Big Lie’ in MSNBC Debate with CWA’s Matt Barber
Cross posted at Illinois Reason
Judge Roy Moore, Constitutional Scholar
One so amazingly conservative that the conservative Alabama Supreme Court (engineered by Rove) immediately removed the monument upon Moore’s suspension before he was removed from his position permanently. Bill Pryor, a controversial judicial nominee by the Bush administration, agreed Moore had to go because he was disobeying the rule of law.
Apparently the rule of law isn’t too important around the Illinois Review these days as they approvingly link to Roy Moore disagreeing with Obama’s criticism of Moore during the controversy over the monument.
They seem to think the state should be promoting a state religion and if you read Moore’s silly writings on the subject he argues that the founders disagreed because most of the states at the time of the adoption of the Constitution had state religions.
Which is great, but ignores the 14th Amendment which radically reshaped the Constitution to include the Bill of Rights protections against state government action as well as federal government action. The federal government was clearly prohibited from establishing a state religion in the 1st Amendment and as such, the 14th Amendment extended that prohibition to state governments. Arguing that the restrictions on state action are the same as prior to the passage of the 14th amendment is incredibly obtuse.
Equally silly is the argument that government sponsored faith displays aren’t establishing a religion. A very clear example is the monument Moore created which utilized the Protestant 10 Commandments instead of the Catholic 10 Commandments. It is endorsing a specific faith over others or a lack of faith through the state’s actions.
One might argue, as some of the commentors on Illinois Review did, that Obama’s explanation was incorrect. I am reliably informed his explanation in actual Constitutional Law classes goes into the details of the 14th Amendment, but on town hall meeting, one generally doesn’t put everyone to sleep with long explanation of how the 14th Amendment radically changed the Constitution.
It’s not his fault that high school government classes aren’t teaching such basic concepts very well.
What Fran left out was that Moore and her former employer Alan Keyes are close and Moore is just about as relevant as Keyes–the guy who showed a giant mock-up of the 10 Commandments around the state. Keyes, the Catholic, used the Protestant version as did Moore:
I always wanted someone to ask him why he was showing the Protestant version, but he was so busy exploding, no one got the chance.
Cross posted at Illinois Reason
Keyes’ Company: The Stupid Pool
It’s really hard to choose between all of the morons
David Smith, executive director of the Illinois Family Institute, disagreed.
“I don’t think it’s going to fly. I think the people of Illinois made it clear during the petition drive,” Smith said.
The Illinois Family Institute spearheaded an effort last year to place a referendum on the November ballot asking voters if they wanted the state Constitution amended to ban gay marriage. Although well over 300,000 signatures were gathered, state elections officials determined that not enough of them were valid to allow the measure on the ballot.
A poll last summer showed that 40 percent of Illinoisans supported the proposed constitutional amendment. The same poll indicated 51 percent were opposed to gay marriages.
“There’s enough interest in not having marriage devolve into something other than one man and one woman,” Smith said. “I don’t think there is that much interest in the gay community for marriage. They don’t want to be like everyone else.”
I’m glad David is so in touch with the GLBT community.