April 21, 2011

Roe v. Wade: Is it still the law of the land? - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine:

Abortion opponents are on the offensive and the pro-abortion crowd is getting nervous:

"Opponents and supporters of abortion appear to have taken the position that Roe v. Wade is no longer the law of the land. 

Since the start of this year, 916 measures seeking to regulate reproductive health have been introduced in 49 states. According to the Guttmacher Institute, by the end of March, 15 laws had been enacted in seven states."

The strategy of chipping away at Roe v. Wade appears to be working:

"Gone are the days in which legislatures at least attempted to ensure state regulations conformed to the broadest interpretation of the Roe constraints. The new game lies in expressly violating Roe and Casey, at the state level, in the hopes of either forcing the issue at the Supreme Court or making abortion unobtainable as a matter of fact. Either way, abortion opponents believe they will win—and here pro-abortion rights groups may actually agree."

Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for [liberal] Women even thinks the chipping away has led to a de facto overturning of Roe:

 "[T]he fear that Justice Samuel Alito would vote to overturn Roe is so deep that reproductive rights groups may be opting to leave the state bans in place. And, as she conceded in that interview, wherever unconstitutional state abortion bans go unchallenged, they become law."

D.A. Kolodenko wrote:

 "This is a dangerous Catch-22. In order to keep in place the existing federal law protecting a woman's right to choose, pro-choice organizations are limited in what they can do about the spate of new anti-abortion laws being passed in states dominated by anti-choice conservatives. What we're witnessing is a stealth campaign to make an abortion illegal or as difficult to obtain as possible in as many states as possible, and it's working."

It's working.  This is why states must continue to enact laws to protect the unborn, including Ohio's Heartbeat Bill, which would ban abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected.  Ohio Right to Life says the bill would violate Roe v. Wade and therefore would be struck down by the Supreme Court.  Terry O'Neill from NOW disagrees. 

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The College Republicans at University of California - Mercid tried to get their fellow students to sign a petition asking the university to redistribute G.P.A.'s.  After all,  most of these students believe the government should tax the rich more, so it's only right that the top students should "share" their G.P.A.'s with students who are less fortunate...those who come from disadvantaged backgrounds or who have to work part-time to pay for school.

Not so much....

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Costs of policing protests tops $3 million - JSOnline: 

"Madison — Law enforcement agencies ran up more than $3.27 million in pay, overtime, mileage, food and hotels while providing security during weeks of protests at the state Capitol, according to preliminary numbers compiled by the Journal Sentinel."

WI still tallying up various protest costs - JSOnline: 

"For many days on end, there were hundreds of law enforcement officers on duty inside and outside the building. The cost of policing is already in the millions of dollars....

...The spokeswoman provided some details on two contracts. One involved a contract worth as much as $2 million to provide miscellaneous services, including food, to county and municipal law enforcement and support staff.

That contract called for providing ear buds for officers' radios because of all the noise inside the Capitol. Also, a health-care provider was brought in for on-site health checks for officers who worked long periods of time.

The second contract was with a private security agency to provide security for the parking lots where police officers parked their vehicles while they were at the Capitol. That contract was worth as much as $98,784."

Protesting Teachers Cost WI Taxpayers $3 Million a Day | MacIver Institute
The chart below represents about a third of the districts that closed.

 

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Janet Napolitano: 6-Year-Old Groped Professionally | The Daily Caller: 

“Nobody likes to see those kinds of things [...] even though it was done professionally according to the protocols,” she said. “But, what TSA is doing is reexamining those protocols all the time. It’s all in relation to threat – what is the threat? And one of the things we do see is if you categorically remove a group from any type of screening, well those who seek to do us harm will then exploit that group. So you have to be very careful on how you do it.”

Napolitano said they are working on identifying frequent travelers as well as biometric cards to streamline the airport screening process.  Apparently, in Janet's world, those people would not possibly fall into her hypothetical group of "those who seek to do us harm [and] will then exploit that group." But the 6-year-old blond girl on her way to Disneyland....let's just say the parents had better not leave her unattended or allow another traveler to carry her while in the airport lest someone call the bomb squad. 

April 20, 2011

We hear very little about international law in the U.S. these days, but we need to take a good look at what's happening in Europe and learn from it.  There are many in this country who would have us sign on to any and every treaty, agreement, and convention set forth by the U.N. and other intentional agencies.  The end-game is ultimately, a loss of our national sovereignty 


Will Britain Defy the European Court of Human Rights?

 "In a blatant attempt to overrule Britain’s Parliament, judges at the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled on April 12 that Britain must reverse its 140-year-old ban on prisoners voting. The ruling is leading to a showdown between the British government and the echr over who really runs the country. The court gave Britain six months to change its voting laws. This comes two months after members of Parliament voted not to remove the ban—234 votes to 22...

...Britain’s Daily Mail reports that backbench Conservative MPs are pushing for the government to simply ignore the court’s ruling. A leaked government document says the court has no legal powers to force the government to pay compensation to prisoners denied a vote. Other countries have ignored 8,000 ECHR rulings...

...The ECHR is a thorn in Britain’s side. Analyst Dr. Lee Rotherham estimates that Britain spends around £2.1 billion [around $3.4 billion U.S.] a year complying with ECHR judgements—with a total cost to date of £17.3 billion [$28.3 billion U.S.]. He also estimates that the “compensation culture” fostered by the courts costs a further £7.1 billion a year [$11.6 billion U.S.]. That comes to just under £150 [$245 U.S.] per person in the UK per year...

...But perhaps the bigger cost is Britain having to comply with absurd ECHR rulings. Even soldiers on the battlefield have to change their behavior because of the court. For example, soldiers are told not to fire on an insurgent after he has thrown a hand grenade. They can shoot him before that point, but once he has thrown it, he is unarmed and must not be shot."

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Protests | Rebel Pundit: 

"These protesters at the Madison, Wisconsin Tea Party Protest featuring Andrew Breitbart and Sarah Palin unleashed a furious message in the following video. Unfortunately, we have absolutely no idea what this message means…

I've watched this several times and I can't stop laughing at it!

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And then we have the Public School Employees of Washington and the SEIU staging a flash mob at a Target store. And a very unfortunate-looking flash mob it is.  In fact, I've been forever scarred by it.  Do they really think the average shopper at Target is standing in solidarity with the SEIU, considering that unionization of stores like Target and Walmart would necessarily  raise prices?  There's a reason these shoppers are purchasing the Isaac Mizrahi brand at Target rather than Versace on Rodeo Drive.  Message to SEIU:  Target shoppers WANT Target to succeed and stay open and keep their prices low.   

By the way, note that these union members arrived by SCHOOL BUS. 

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Many people have seen the video of a 6-year-old girl being fondled by TSA agents in an airport.  The uniformed agent runs her fingers through the little girl's hair, up and down her legs and back side, and sticks her hands inside her pants to search for contraband:

The little girl's mother has asked how she is supposed to teach her daughter about strangers and inappropriate touch when a uniformed stranger is permitted to manhandle her on demand in an airport. 

Slightly less offensive, but nonetheless troubling this week, was the frisking of  Phil Johnson, of  Pyromaniacs blog fame.  For those who aren't acquainted with Phil Johnson,  he's the Executive Director of Grace to You,  John MacArthur's radio ministry, and edits MacArthur's books.  Author and  Johnson's Team Pyro blog-mate Dan Philips expressed his outrage that this fine man who poses absolutely no threat to airline travelers would be subjected to the groping hands of TSA "handlers."  He shared a copy of Phil's TSA complaint form. Disgusting.  Johnson said, 

"After having to wait fully 10 minutes for an agent, the "patdown" (more like a rubdown) he gave me was unnecessarily invasive.  He put virtually his whole hand into my waistband. And he lingered far too long when he reached the crotch area. "

Because the agent (who was already wearing gloves when he first approached Johnson) found something on the swab he ran over the gloves, Johnson was taken to a private room for another "enhanced patdown."

"His patdown was not as invasive as Agent #1; he didn't reach as far into my waistband as the first guy did (and he made a point of putting on fresh gloves); but I still thought his fondling of my private parts was unnecessarily "personal," and he gave me the distinct impression he enjoyed it."

Phillips summarize his feelings:

 "Let me put it to you: Phil is not a private, unknown quantity. There is zero percent chance that he poses a threat to national security or anything the TSA is supposed to care about. Yet he is singled out for this sort of punishing sexual molestation. Do you feel safer now? As you tuck your children in tonight, are you comforted by the thought that folks like Phil (and housewives and children and your wife and grandmother) are being felt-up for no rational reason, with the State's smiling approval?"

Well, have no fear my dear fellow citizens!  The TSA has responded to the plight of this poor six-year-old girl and the outrage it has sparked around the world.  In a blog post last week the official blogger of the TSA said, 

"A video taken of one of our officers patting down a six year-old has attracted quite a bit of attention. Some folks are asking if the proper procedures were followed. Yes. TSA has reviewed the incident and the security officer in the video followed the current standard operating procedures."

That's right...our government says it's completely appropriate for uniformed government agents to stick their hands down the pants of little girls who have done nothing wrong. 

This TSA blog is a story in itself.   When I first started reading I thought it was satire.  Surely our government would not have a blog post titled "TSA Space Alien Detection Officers," right?  Wrong!

"New intelligence suggests that space aliens with invisibility cloaks have been going through our checkpoints for years. We know they’ve been observing flight operations at some of our busiest airports, but we had no idea they were coming in.

It’s not entirely clear what their intentions are, but they need to be screened just like anybody else. We don’t mind space aliens visiting our airports. In fact we think it’s kind of cool. However, they need to go through security just like everybody else."

OK, haha, April Fool's! This is the TSA blog that has an official .gov address and is linked directly from the front page of the official TSA website.  Not only is something like this  in  unprofessional and in very poor taste, it also undermines the credibility of an agency that already has lost a great deal of respect in the eyes of the American people.  As I said, I thought it was a satirical site and didn't take it seriously.  I actually took several extra steps to verify this was a legitimate TSA-sponsored blog.  You can't make this stuff up.  


Another disturbing aspect of this whole issue with the TSA and the patdowns is we can be certain that a percentage of the "patters" are looking at pornography in their spare time:


TSA Officer Admits Plot to Post Porn on Christian Site – Patriot Update: 

"On April 10, Bob Seashols, a Coordination Center Officer for the Transportation and Security Administration (TSA) at the Richmond International Airport (RIC) and an administrator for Atheists United’s Facebook page, took part in a coordinated effort to populate pornographic images, extreme profanity, and sexually explicit anti-Christian hate-speech on the Facebook page of Ken Ham, an internationally known Christian ministry leader who serves as president of Answers in Genesis-U.S (AiG) and the popular Creation Museum, located near Cincinnati, Ohio.

Sunday afternoon visitors to Mr. Ham’s “public person” Facebook site found pages of sexually explicit commentary aimed at mocking him and deriding Jesus Christ and the Christian faith. The Internet-based Facebook assault, directed from four different Facebook accounts, involved pornographic and sadomasochistic imagery."

We know that anyone with a cell phone with internet access is only a few clicks away from the most vile, violent, disgusting  pornography, including child pornography.  Pornographers rake in billions of dollars in revenues every year because it's such a popular pastime.   And some of their customers are touching our grandmothers and our little girls and boys.