Thursday, December 03, 2015 11:38:44 PM
Republicans' Playbook on Women Gets Even Scarier
Scott Olson via Getty Images
By Kathleen Turner
Posted: 11/24/2015 4:28 pm EST Updated: 11/24/2015 4:59 pm EST
Last week, Ted Cruz promoted [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-touts-endorsement-radical-anti-choice-activist-troy-newman ] the endorsement of Troy Newman, an anti-choice leader who has gone so far as to say that a perfectly biblical society would execute its abortion providers.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Ted Cruz is so thrilled that someone who wants abortion providers to be killed is supporting him that he actually sent out a press release [ https://www.tedcruz.org/news/troy-newman-activist-behind-planned-parenthood-videos-endorses-ted-cruz/ ] to celebrate the endorsement. Is that what this Republican primary has come to? Presidential candidates applauding -- not denouncing -- these radically extreme positions?
Regardless of one's view on abortion rights, I would hope we can all agree that abortion providers do not deserve to be put to death for their entirely legal work. For a presidential candidate to not immediately distance himself from an endorsement from someone like Newman -- and instead to actively promote it -- is horrifying.
Sadly, though, it's indicative of just how extreme this year's Republican presidential primary has become. All of the GOP candidates have been fighting over who can be the most anti-choice, who can most restrict a woman's ability to make her own decisions.
As a lifelong activist for civil liberties and a woman's right to choose, it horrifies me that the Republicans hoping to be the next leader of the United States still attack women's rights in an attempt to get a bump in the polls from their far-right base.
Women made up 53 percent of the electorate in 2012. And not only are abortion rights the law of the land, but they're supported by 78 percent of all Americans -- which includes plenty of men and women from both parties -- who believe [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/183434/americans-choose-pro-choice-first-time-seven-years.aspx ] that abortion should be legal in at least some cases. That just doesn't seem to register with the Republican presidential candidates.
In the first Republican debate, Marco Rubio felt the need to clarify [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/marco-rubios-fetal-personhood-argument-disguise ] to the moderator that he's so anti-choice that he opposes not just most abortions, but all abortions; he's against rape and incest exceptions in abortion bans. Jeb Bush brags [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/jeb-bush-abortion_n_6940568.html ] that he's the "most pro-life governor in modern times." When he was governor of Florida, he went so far as to try to stop a mentally disabled 22-year-old rape survivor from having an abortion.
Under John Kasich's watch [ http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/11/19/report-john-kasich-aides-played-key-role-shuttering-half-ohios-abortion-clinics/ ], the number of abortion clinics in Ohio has halved, making it increasingly difficult for women to access abortion regardless of the fact that the Supreme Court has recognized it as a constitutional right.
Republicans aren't only attacking abortion rights -- they're attacking women's health in general. They all support defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control, cancer screenings, and other critical services to millions of people ever year. They're all outspoken critics of the Affordable Care Act, even though it enables women to access free, life-saving preventative care. The Republican candidates all oppose important economic priorities -- like raising the minimum wage or effective paid leave policies -- that would especially help women and families.
Women across the country, in particular low-income women, can't afford a president who will hack away at reproductive choices, economic mobility, and healthcare access to curry favor with the radical fringe who now are calling all the shots in the Republican party.
In our country, no one should tolerate calls to put someone to death because of his or her legal profession. It would seem that in this Republican primary, "pro-life" means only what will garner the most votes.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-turner/republicans-playbook-on-w_b_8641604.html [with comments]
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17 Women Share How Planned Parenthood Transformed Their Lives
Memo to the House: Planned Parenthood matters to women in a big, big way.
09/18/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-transforms-womens-lives_55fc49e7e4b00310edf6da3e [with comments]
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Ted Cruz embraces religious radicals with violent message
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/24/15
Rachel Maddow reports on the background of Troy Newman, radical anti-abortion activist embraced by Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, and notes that this is the second recent radical association by Cruz, having just spoken at an event where fellow speaker Kevin Swanson advocated the belief that the Bible justifies the execution of gay people. Duration: 8:11
Cruz Touts Endorsement Of Radical Anti-Choice Activist Troy Newman
11/20/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-touts-endorsement-radical-anti-choice-activist-troy-newman
Ted Cruz Welcomes Endorsement From Pastor Who Linked Ebola To Gay Rights
11/24/2015
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/goodasyou/nc-pastor-warns-of-a-super-ebola-that-will-destroy-gay-accepting-america ) embedded]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-welcomes-endorsement-pastor-who-linked-ebola-gay-rights
Ted Cruz Touts Endorsement Of Extreme Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Activist Flip Benham
11/24/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-touts-endorsement-extreme-anti-gay-anti-choice-activist-flip-benham
Maddow Calls Out Ted Cruz For Embracing Radical Anti-Choice Activist
11/25/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/maddow-calls-out-ted-cruz-embracing-radical-anti-choice-activist [with this Maddow segment embedded]
Operation Rescue’s Big Break: How an Organization Rooted in the Radical Fringes of the Anti-Choice Movement Is Threatening to Shut Down the Government
http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/operation-rescue-s-big-break-how-organization-rooted-radical-fringes-anti-choice-moveme
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/cruz-embraces-radicals-with-violent-message-573836355908 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-24-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KI9AqGo2l4 (with comments)]
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Cruz: 'Any President Who Doesn't Begin Every Day On His Knees Isn't Fit To Be Commander-In-Chief Of This Nation'
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Saturday, 11/7/2015 10:08 am
Ted Cruz [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ted-cruz/ted-cruz ] was the third [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jindal-no-earthly-court-can-change-definition-marriage ] Republican presidential candidate to appear at the "National Religious Liberties Conference [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/national-religious-liberties-conference ]" in Iowa yesterday, an event organized by extremist right-wing pastor [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jindal-no-earthly-court-can-change-definition-marriage ] Kevin Swanson [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kevin-swanson ], who earlier in the program [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/if-kevin-swansons-son-got-gay-married-id-sit-cow-manure-and-id-spread-it-all-over-my-body ] proclaimed that, according to the Bible, "the sin of homosexuality ... is worthy of death."
Swanson introduced Cruz by stating that Jesus Christ "is king of the President of the United States whether he will admit it or not and that president should submit to His rule and to His law" before asking Cruz to share his opinion on how important it is for "the President of the United States to fear God."
Cruz, predictably, asserted that fear of God is absolutely vital, declaring [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dkVu14Q_bw (just below, as embedded; with comments)] that "any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this nation."
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-any-president-who-doesnt-begin-every-day-his-knees-isnt-fit-be-commander-chief-nation
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Cruz ducks questions about radical religious right endorsement
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/25/15
Rachel Maddow reports on Ted Cruz, Republican presidential candidate, avoiding directly addressing his association with religious extremists who cited the Bible as justifying executing homosexuals and abortion doctors. Duration: 12:09
'Death Penalty For Gays' Literature At Right-Wing Conference
11/6/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/death-penalty-gays-literature-right-wing-conference
GOP Candidates Really Don't Want To Talk About 'Kill The Gays' Conference
11/18/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gop-candidates-really-dont-want-talk-about-kill-gays-conference
Shoebat: Those Killed At Paris Rock Concert Were Devil Worshippers Who Got What They Deserved
11/18/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/shoebat-those-killed-paris-rock-concert-were-devil-worshippers-who-got-what-they-deserved
Kevin Swanson: Paris Massacre Was 'A Message From God'
11/19/2015
[audios ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-paris-attack-a-message-from-god , https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-paris-theatre-victims-invited-devil-to-kill-them ) embedded]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-paris-massacre-was-message-god
Kevin Swanson: Criticism Of Me Is Criticism Of God Himself
11/23/2015
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-criticism-of-me-is-criticism-of-god ) embedded]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-criticism-me-criticism-god-himself
Kevin Swanson: Homosexuality Is 'The Catalyst By Which Nations Are Destroyed'
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-homosexuality-destroys-nations ) embedded]
11/24/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-homosexuality-catalyst-which-nations-are-destroyed
Jonathan Cahn: Paris Attack Was God's Punishment For France's Palestinian Activism
11/24/2015
Jonathan Cahn Links Gay Marriage To Paris Terrorist Attacks
11/24/2015
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/cruz-ducks-questions-about-religious-radicals-574539331709 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-25-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bf7GFaOkr0 (with comments)]
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Texas GOPer Wants Vote On Secession From U.S.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 11/25/2015 11:15 am
A member of the executive committee of the Republican Party of Texas has proposed a resolution calling for a vote during the March 1st GOP primary on whether Texas should leave the U.S.
The Houston Chronicle reports [ http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/texas-independence-secession-republic-TNM-texian-6654896.php ] today that executive committee member Tanya Robertson “already has support from a few other members” for her resolution, noting that she “got the idea for the resolution from the Texas Nationalist Movement.”
A member of the executive committee for the Republican Party of Texas plans to introduce a resolution at the group's next meeting, which would add to the party's primary ballot a non-binding measure for Texas secession. Party leadership calls the prospect unlikely.
Tanya Robertson, State Republican Executive Committee member for Senate District 11, which covers parts of Harris, Galveston and Brazoria counties, said she'll present the resolution at the committee's December 4 meeting in Austin, and that she already has support from a few other members.
"There's been a big groundswell of Texans that are getting into the Texas independence issue," she said, citing conversations she's had with constituents. "I believe conservatives in Texas should have a choice to voice their opinion."
...
Robertson got the idea for the resolution from the Texas Nationalist Movement, a small secessionist group that has tried but so far failed to raise the necessary 75,000 signatures to put a non-binding secession vote on the March ballot. When she heard that news she thought she could help, though she isn't a member of the TNM.
The Texas Nationalist Movement, a far-right anti-government group [ http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/200904200002 ], is hoping to include a resolution on the March primary ballot reading: “The State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation. FOR or AGAINST.”
It is too bad that Texas secessionist sympathizer [ http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/16/texas-governor-says-secession-possible/ ] Rick Perry [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/rick-perry ] has already dropped out of the presidential race.
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/texas-goper-wants-vote-secession-us
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Texas Warns of Suit for Aiding Syrian Refugees
By DAVID LEE
Monday, November 30, 2015 Last Update: 1:18 PM PT
DALLAS (CN) - Texas has threatened [ http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/11/30/Tex%20Threat.pdf ] to kill funding and sue social services organizations if they defy Gov. Greg Abbott's refusal to accept Syrian refugees -- an order Abbott issued without the legal power to do so.
Chris Traylor, executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, issued the threat in a Nov. 25 letter to the International Rescue Committee in Dallas.
The threat came a week after 31 governors [ http://www.courthousenews.com/CNSNEWS/Story/Index/84321 ] - 30 of them Republican - claimed their states would refuse to accept any more Syrian refugees, though states, and governors, have no legal authority to exclude legally admitted refugees.
Citing the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people, Abbott said, "Security comes first."
"Texas will not accept any Syrian refugees & I demand the U.S. act similarly," Abbott tweeted on Nov. 16.
In his letter to the International Rescue Committee, Traylor wrote: "Failure by your organization to cooperate with the State of Texas as required by federal law may result in the termination of your contract with the state and other legal action."
He said the International Rescue Committee had not been cooperating with Texas.
"I must ask that you fulfill your statutory duty to conduct your activities 'in close cooperation and advance consultation' with the State of Texas pursuant to section 1522 of Title 8 of the United States Code," the letter states. "If you remain unwilling to cooperate with the state on this matter, we strongly believe that a failure to cooperate with the state on this matter violates federal law and your contract with the state."
Traylor gave the group until Monday, Nov. 30, to respond.
"Rather than continue on your current path, in violation of the governor's directive, please contact my office no later than Monday, November 30, so that we can, indeed, work together 'in close cooperation' as required by federal law," the letter states.
Traylor claimed that Texas has settled 10 percent of the Syrians in the country, that 28 refugees per every 100,000 Texans were accepted last year, more per capita than in Florida, California and New York.
"Texas has shouldered its share in supporting refugees from around the world," Traylor wrote.
He said Abbott banned Syrian refugees because President Barack Obama has shown "no willingness to improve the security screenings" of refugees in spite of "the abundant evidence that the screens are ineffective."
International Rescue Committee Executive Director Donna Duvin said her group has responded to Texas, and hopes to work with it, but that it is "still anticipating a need to work" with the federal government to resettle families.
"If that needs to be done without state support, then we would be looking for resources outside of state support to make that possible," she told The Dallas Morning News.
Unlike political asylees, who generally enter the United States without permission and then apply for legal status, refugees enter the country legally after applying for refugee status at a U.S. Embassy or consulate in a foreign country. The State Department's vetting process can take up to two years.
Once a refugee is admitted to the United States, he or she is legally present here. States and governors have no more power to bar them from entering than they could bar entry to a U.S. citizen.
Copyright 2015 Courthouse News Service
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/11/30/texas-warns-of-suit-for-aiding-syrian-refugees.htm [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-syrian-refugees_565cd6f2e4b072e9d1c307b2 (with comments)]
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Marco Rubio: 'Ignore' Gay Marriage Decision Because 'God's Rules Always Win'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 11/25/2015 11:40 am
In an interview [ https://www.facebook.com/david.brody.35/videos/10153730656743486/ (embedded; YouTube of the same, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2rNJ-iTJ00 {with comments}, included below as original embedded] today with David Brody [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/david-brody ] of the Christian Broadcasting Network [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/christian-broadcasting-network-0 ], Sen. Marco Rubio [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/marco-rubio-0 ] said that the Supreme Court’s rulings on marriage equality [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/marriage-equality ] and abortion rights [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/abortion . http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/abortion-rights ] in the Obergefell and Roe decisions, respectively, are “not settled law.”
The Republican presidential candidate said that states should “do everything possible within the constraints that its placed upon us” to curtail abortion rights, before insisting that government officials “ignore” Supreme Court rulings if they believe they conflict with “God’s rules.”
“We are clearly called, in the Bible, to adhere to our civil authorities, but that conflicts with also a requirement to adhere to God’s rules,” he said. “When those two come in conflict, God’s rules always win. In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin, violate God’s law and sin, if we’re ordered to stop preaching the gospel, if we’re ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. We cannot abide by that because government is compelling us to sin.”
Brody, unsurprisingly, took that as an endorsement of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis’ stance [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kim-davis ] that she could flout the Supreme Court and refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/marco-rubio-ignore-gay-marriage-decision-because-gods-rules-always-wins
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America's Twisted Gun Culture Claims One of Washington College's Best and Brightest
Jacob Marberger speaks to sculptor David Hess during the opening of his "Gun Show" exhibit.
By Josh Horwitz [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/ ]
Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence [ http://www.csgv.org/ ]
Posted: 11/24/2015 9:20 am EST Updated: 11/24/2015 12:59 pm EST
On Saturday afternoon, a crisis at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland came to a tragic end when student Jacob Marberger was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Five days prior, the school had taken the unusual step of closing down until the end of the month in response to a disturbing report from Marberger's parents.
Jacob had driven home to Pennsylvania late one evening, grabbed a rifle case, and disappeared. He was seen purchasing ammunition at a gun store shortly thereafter, but would not respond to phone calls or texts. Fearing a potential mass shooting, and erring on the side of caution, Washington College evacuated all students, faculty and staff from the campus.
When I first heard about the crisis at the college, I was deeply concerned. I participated in a panel discussion [ http://www.washcoll.edu/live/news/6956-panel-targets-gun-violence ] at Washington College on February 24 and was very impressed with the school and faculty. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I knew Jacob Marberger. He was present at that event and had a great deal to say about the topic: gun ownership and gun violence in American culture.
Joining me on the panel that evening were Maryland Institute College of Art professor of philosophy Firmin DeBrabander, the author of the book Do Guns Make Us Free? [ http://www.amazon.com/Do-Guns-Make-Free-Democracy/dp/0300208936 ]; Washington College professor of political science Melissa Deckman; and sculptor David Hess. Christine Wade, an associate professor of political science and international studies at the college, served as the moderator.
The panel "planned to expand the conversations... sparked" by an art exhibit that David had created weeks earlier for display on the campus, entitled "Gun Show." The exhibit consisted of 62 sculptures of assault weapons created out of household materials. It was David's reaction to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
"We have come to accept gun violence as the cost of living in a country with almost as many guns as people," he wrote [ http://www.washcoll.edu/live/news/6956-panel-targets-gun-violence ] in his artist statement for the exhibition. David hoped to provoke conversation about America's epidemic of gun violence.
He succeeded in that goal, and Jacob Marberger was part of that conversation. The 19 year-old sophomore attended the premier of David's "Gun Show" gallery exhibit on February 5 and sought out the artist to let him know he was offended by his work.
Jacob stated he was a gun owner and card-carrying NRA member and shared the following issues with David and his assistant:
1) He felt David's articulation of gun violence/gun culture seemed "unfocused"; 2) He felt the use of the term "assault weapon" for sculptures "that can't even fire bullets" was inappropriate, and he claimed the media had hijacked that term to describe any gun used in violence; 3) He accused David of using "[Everytown for Gun Safety head Michael] Bloomberg" gun death statistics to serve his agenda; 4) He was upset that the NRA's point of view was not represented in the exhibit; 5) He was outraged at the notion of gun rights in the United States being tied to white privilege.
David talked to Jacob for some time, but found him to be "adamant" and not satisfied with agreeing to disagree. At some point, David had to cut off the conversation.
A few weeks later, Jacob showed up again at our panel discussion and sat in the front right by the stage. During the Q&A session, Jacob spoke first [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giob8IHYV64 (below, as embedded; comments disabled)], asking a kind of non-question in which he opined that the National Rifle Association has widespread popular support (4 million members) while the gun violence prevention movement consists solely of big-dollar "patrons" like former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg of Everytown for Gun Safety.
When I attempted to answer and explain that Everytown has millions of average Americans as members themselves, Jacob interrupted me as I spoke. He then interrupted Melissa Deckman when she pointed out that ballot referendums on universal background checks are demonstrating broad public support for gun reform in states across the country.
It wasn't long after that that Jacob's infatuation with firearms destroyed his reputation and got him into serious criminal trouble.
Jacob's father described his son as "an intellectual and conscientious young man," and by all accounts, he was exactly that. He was the speaker of his college's Student Senate, active in theater, and a member of a campus fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. But he began to drift into crisis in early October when he reported [ http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Jacob-Marberger-Suicide-Washington-College-Hawk-Mountain-Cheltenham-352949961.html ] two other Student Government Association (SGA) members to school administrators for texting sexually inappropriate comments about a woman in the group. Both students lost their jobs, and some members of Jacob's fraternity began to retaliate against him for not going directly to the SGA members with his concerns. Around this time, someone pranked Jacob by leaning a trash can full of water against his dorm room door so that when he opened it, the water spilled into his room.
On October 7, Jacob got drunk at a party at his frat house -- so much so that his fraternity brothers carried him up to his room 4-5 times during the party, hoping he would sleep it off. But he kept coming back downstairs, and the final time he did so, he was carrying a .22-caliber seven-shot revolver, an antique. He brandished it over his head and ranted about something that it is still not entirely clear. There are some indications he might have been hazing a fraternity pledge [ http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/11/16/gun-threat-at-washington-college/ ] with the pistol.
The fraternity decided to remain silent about the matter, but three weeks later, the college figured out what happened and recovered the pistol from a house off-campus. Jacob was suspended from the college and kicked out of his fraternity. The Chestertown Police also filed gun charges [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/maryland-college-closed-amid-search-for-missing-student-who-may-be-armed/ ] against him, including possession of a dangerous weapon, possession of a weapon and ammunition on school property, and possession of a firearm as a minor. He was back in class on November 9 after a forensic psychiatrist determined he was not a threat to himself or others, but disappeared just a week later.
There is no doubt that Jacob's embrace of a degenerate gun culture promoted by the National Rifle Association (to sell guns) played a direct role in his death. That culture preaches extreme faith in the power of firearms to solve problems.
Feeling scared? "Buy a gun." Feeling slighted? "Buy a gun." Don't like what the government is doing? "Buy a gun."
Jacob bought into that culture completely. He was utterly fascinated with guns (his Facebook Likes included Surplus City Guns [ https://www.facebook.com/Surplus-City-Guns-10150121877510510/ ], CP Classic Pistol Indoor Range [ https://www.facebook.com/pages/CP-Classic-Pistol-Indoor-Range/142371052465975 ], Century Arms [ https://www.facebook.com/centuryarms/ ], Midway USA [ https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMidwayUSA/ ], "AK Operators Union, Local 47-74 [ https://www.facebook.com/AkOperatorsUnion/ ]," Armslist.com [ https://www.facebook.com/armslist/ ], and "Iraqveteran8888 [ https://www.facebook.com/iraqveteran8888official/ ]") and viewed firearms as a political tool which citizens use to convey status and power.
Even Jacob's use of an antique pistol was significant. Pro-gun extremists in this country have frequently employed [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/02/texas-gun-nuts-police-the-police-with-a-black-panthers-tactic.html ] black powder and other antique pistols in an attempt to aggressively challenge local/state gun laws and defy law enforcement.
There are two things that need to be gleaned from this tragedy to ensure that we don't spend our future mourning additional Jacob Marbergers:
Number one, forcing colleges and universities to allow guns on their campuses is a colossally bad idea that can only lead to additional gun death and injury. One couldn't imagine a more disastrous setting for firearms proliferation, given that young people like Jacob are frequently on their own for the first time at college and experiencing high levels of stress (to say nothing of alcohol and substance abuse).
Number two, guns do not make us free, or supercitizens, or safe. More typically, they destroy families, like the Marberger family has been destroyed. The NRA will continue to attempt to recruit young men like Jacob into the gun culture (even employing pseudo-hipster propaganda through programs like "Noir [ http://www.youtube.com/user/MrColionNoir ]"); that much we know. It therefore falls upon the rest of us to teach young Americans that guns will never be a solution to what ails them, either personally or politically.
Author's Note: In writing this piece, I consulted with David Hess and Firmin DeBrabander to make sure I was accurately citing their recollections of the evenings of February 5, 2015 and February 24, 2015.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/americas-twisted-gun-cult_b_8637316.html [with comments]
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Rafael Cruz: 'Praise God There Are 300 Million Guns In America'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 11/3/2015 12:15 pm
In a speech in Minnesota last month, Ted Cruz’s father and campaign surrogate Rafael Cruz [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/rafael-cruz ] declared that President Obama is on the cusp of confiscating people’s guns, which is why it’s a good thing Americans own so many firearms.
The elder Cruz managed to turn the subject to guns after he fielded a question about whether the federal government should crack down on states like Colorado that have legalized marijuana. Cruz said that the federal government must enforce its drug laws in such situations because, as he explained, the people of Colorado want them to, even though a referendum legalizing marijuana passed with 55 percent of the vote.
This led him to rail against President Obama for considering executive actions on gun law reform, which he cited as another case of the administration flouting the law.
“He’s talking about doing an executive order to put gun control because he can push gun control,” he said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bh7mXZsq7A (below, as embedded; with comments)]. “Let me tell you something about gun control. Look at history. Every king or dictator that has taken the guns away from the population then use it against the population. But praise God there are 300 million guns in America in the hands of private citizens and I don’t know a single one that is willing to give those guns back to the government.”
Cruz went on to allege [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHimm9hzu8 (below, as embedded; with comments)] that “the violence and the racial strife that we are seeing” has been “fueled by this administration,” claiming that the demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, were flown in from across the country.
“This administration wants to create strife,” he said. “The whole concept of social justice is all about dividing everybody into a series of smaller groups, make every group seem like a victim and put one group against the other. They are trying to create this strife.”
He said that the president is doing this because he is following Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals,” warning that Hillary Clinton will similarly implement this Alinskyite plot. The solution, he said, is to “stop this concept of hyphenated Americans and get back to ‘we’re all Americans.’”
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rafael-cruz-praise-god-there-are-300-million-guns-america
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Colorado Springs, Site Of Planned Parenthood Attack, Is A Hub For Conservative Christians
Activists have reportedly been demonstrating at the site of the attack for years.
By Sam Levine
Posted: 11/28/2015 09:07 PM EST
Colorado Springs, the town where three people were killed and nine injured in an attack on a Planned Parenthood facility on Friday, is a hub for Christian evangelicals who are opposed to abortion.
Though officials have not made a public statement about the motives behind Robert Lewis Dear's actions, an official who has been briefed on the investigation told The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/11/28/investigators-search-for-motive-in-planned-parenthood-shooting-that-left-three-dead/ ] that it was "definitely politically motivated." Law enforcement sources also told NBC News [ http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-made-comment-about-no-more-baby-n470706 ] that they had not yet established a motive, but that in statements to police, Dear said, in reference to Planned Parenthood, "no more baby parts."
In 2013, PBS described the town of nearly a half-million people as "America's Christian Mecca [ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2013/02/22/february-22-2013-colorado-springs-evangelicals/14792/ ]," and reported that the prominence of Christian groups was partly due to an effort by economic development officials to bring them there in the 1980s.
One of the most influential groups based in Colorado Springs is Focus on the Family, which is anti-abortion. Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, released a statement [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-springs-attack_565a0758e4b079b2818a8f35?x6sf9a4i ] calling Friday's shooting "deplorable."
Activists against abortion have long picketed at the Planned Parenthood clinic on Fridays for years, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette [ http://gazette.com/colorado-springs-planned-parenthood-protester-dismayed-by-shooting/article/1564455 ]. Joseph Martone Jr., a frequent protester at the clinic, told the Gazette that about 70 people gather near the clinic on Thursdays and Fridays, the days when he said abortions are performed, to pray for an end to the procedure.
Hundreds of demonstrators also gathered outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in August to show support for shutting down the organization after the release of heavily edited videos [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/abortion-bills-planned-parenthood-video_55fc21d1e4b08820d9184787 ] that claimed to show Planned Parenthood employees planning to sell fetal tissue for profit.
This is the fifth incidence [ https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/abortion-clinics-are-burning-but-no-one-seems-to-care , http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting_5658f9b1e4b072e9d1c1f5b6 ] of violence at a Planned Parenthood clinic since the videos have been released. Planned Parenthood has denied the charges suggested in the video and said that it only donates the tissue when patients request it and does not make a profit. Making a profit off of the sale of fetal tissue in the United States is illegal, and investigations of Planned Parenthood at the state and federal level have found no wrongdoing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-funding_5616d54fe4b0082030a1c100 ].
Still, congressional Republicans have worked to defund the organization and have established a select committee to investigate it [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/10/23/boehners-next-select-committee-focusing-on-planned-parenthood-to-be-led-by-marsha-blackburn/ ]. (Federal funds cannot legally go toward abortions [ https://www.aclu.org/public-funding-abortion ] except in extreme circumstances.)
Local politicians have also been vocal about speaking out against abortion. In March, state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/gop-rep-baby-cut-from-womb-gods-punishment-abortion_n_6955456.html ] (R-Colorado Springs) said that God had cursed America for its stance on abortion after a stranger stabbed a Colorado woman and ripped her baby from her womb [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/baby-cut-out-of-womb-hospital_n_6940830.html ].
"This is the curse of God upon America for our sin of not protecting innocent children in the womb," Klingenschmitt said at the time. "Part of that curse for our rebellion against God as a nation is that our pregnant women are ripped open."
Colorado Springs voters have also punished politicians that supported gun control. In 2013, voters in Colorado Springs successfully recalled [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/colorado-recall-results_n_3903209.html ] state Sen. John Morse (D) after he supported increased gun control legislation following a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that killed 12 and left 70 injured [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/colorado-recall-results_n_3903209.html ].
Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-springs-evangelicals_565a1e7ae4b079b2818a96b0 [with embedded video report, and comments]
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Abortion Rights Leader Nails Hypocrisy Of Anti-Abortion Activists
You can't promote violence and then act surprised when it really happens.
11/29/2015
An abortion rights leader is calling out anti-abortion activists who spread lies about -- or incite violence against -- abortion providers, then act appalled when violence actually transpires.
Ilyse Hogue, president of advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America [ http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/about-us/leadership/ ], derided two anti-abortionists in the wake of Friday's shooting [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/active-shooter-reported-in-colorado-springs-near-planned-parenthood_5658a87be4b079b2818a6d86 ] at a Colorado Planned Parenthood that left three people dead and nine injured:
"Ilyse Hogue
November 28 at 7:37pm - Edited
Sorry, David Daleiden. You don't get to create fake videos and accuse abortion providers of "barbaric atrocities against humanity" one day and act shocked when someone shoots to kill in those same facilities the next.
And you, Troy Newman -- using Operation Rescue to call for state-sanctioned execution of doctors who serve women -- and then crying crocodile tears when someone takes that vision into their own hands.
It's America. You are free to have your speech. The language you choose matters. You are not free from the judgement of the consequences of your hate-filled rhetoric. ?#?ColoradoSpringsShootings [ https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/coloradospringsshootings ]? ?#?DomesticTerrorism [ https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/domesticterrorism ]
[ https://www.facebook.com/ilyse.hogue/posts/10156353993570613 ]"
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anti-abortion-hypocrisy-planned-parenthood-shooting_565b0df3e4b08e945feb718c [with comments]
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Trump: Planned Parenthood shooting suspect a ‘maniac’
By Kyle Balluck
November 29, 2015, 09:40 am
GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday rejected the notion that heated rhetoric in the Planned Parenthood debate contributed to the fatal shooting spree at a clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“I think it's terrible. I mean, terrible. It's more of the same. And I think it's a terrible thing. He's a maniac,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I think he's a sick person,” he added. “And I think he was probably a person ready to go. We don't even know the purpose. I mean, he hasn't come out, to the best of my knowledge, with a statement as to why it happened to be at that location.”
Trump did not respond directly when asked about reports [ http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/261426-report-alleged-planned-parenthood-gunman-makes-baby-parts ] that the alleged shooter, Robert Lewis Dear, discussed “baby parts” during an interview with law enforcement officials.
“This was a man who they said prior to this was mentally disturbed,” he said. “So, he's a mentally disturbed person. There's no question about that.”
Trump did, however, cite “tremendous dislike” for Planned Parenthood.
“Well, I will tell you there is a tremendous group of people that think it's terrible, all of the videos that they've seen with some of these people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you're selling parts to a car. I mean, there are a lot of people that are very unhappy about that,” he said.
“I see a lot of anxiety and I see a lot of dislike for Planned Parenthood. There's no question about that.”
©2015 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261432-trump-planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-a-maniac [with embedded video, and (over 4,000) comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdA9FpFqh5M [with comments; show transcript at http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-november-29-2015-n470871 (with comments)]
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Donald Trump's Public Endorsement by Black Religious Leaders Undone by Complete Lack of Endorsement
Image via AP
Chris Thompson
11/29/15 10:47pm
Actual buffoon Donald Trump has decided to cancel a planned political ambush of “as many as 100 black evangelical religious leaders” when many of those leaders caught wind of his plan, reports [ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3a6d5934e14a4ad883232e79f0433e72/trump-drops-event-black-pastors-after-some-object ] the Associated Press.
His campaign issued a press release last week that read: “Mr. Trump will be joined by a coalition of 100 African-American evangelical pastors and religious leaders who will endorse the GOP front-runner after a private meeting at Trump Tower.”
So, what went wrong?
Many of those invited to the event say they had no intention of endorsing the billionaire businessman and former reality television star.
Gotta nail down those details, Donald.
The AP report mentions an open letter published in Ebony [ http://www.ebony.com/news-views/message-to-black-clergy-think-of-trumps-rhetoric-before-meeting-with-him-333 ] from—hey, look at that—more than 100 black religious leaders and scholars in which they urge those set to meet with Trump to consider his history of, you know, being a racist fuckface [ http://gawker.com/noted-racist-donald-trump-tweets-out-anti-black-propaga-1744083487 ].
From the open letter [ http://www.ebony.com/news-views/message-to-black-clergy-think-of-trumps-rhetoric-before-meeting-with-him-333 ] (I urge you to read the whole thing—it’s worth it):
What theology do you believe Mr. Trump possesses when his politics are so clearly anti-Black? He routinely engages in the kind of rhetoric that brings out the worst sorts of white racist aggression, not only toward Black people, but also toward Mexican-Americans and Muslim-Americans, too. Surely, we can agree that this kind of unloving and violent language does not reflect the politics of the Christ we profess?
A Trump campaign spokesperson says Trump will still meet with the group, in private. Sometime later he will get into an argument on “Meet the Press” in which he insists there is video [ http://gawker.com/trump-on-debunked-9-11-claim-im-not-going-to-take-it-b-1745115760 ] of them endorsing him.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/donald-trumps-public-endorsement-by-black-religious-lea-1745190889 [with
comments]
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Mike Huckabee Calls Planned Parenthood Shooting 'Domestic Terrorism'
"What he did is domestic terrorism, and what he is did is absolutely abominable."
By Igor Bobic
Posted: 11/29/2015 11:11 AM EST | Edited: 11/29/2015 11:29 AM EST
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) addressed the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, in which two civilians and a police officer were killed when a gunman opened fire at the women's health clinic on Friday.
"The Colorado Springs tragedy is domestic terrorism, especially for those us in the pro-life movement," Huckabee wrote [ https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/670981701561131008 ] on Twitter.
The Republican presidential hopeful, an evangelical Christian known for his firm stance against abortion, became just one of few GOP presidential contenders to address the shooting over the weekend. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) also offered their condolences to the victims. Many of the other candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination, however, were noticeably silent [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-2016-planned-parenthood-shooting_5659b750e4b072e9d1c1fb6a ] about the matter.
On Saturday, Huckabee first commented [ https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/670768717265899520 ] on the fallen police officer, praising him as a hero who "laid down his life in service of his community."
Authorities have not yet publicly ascribed a motive to the shooting. But the 57-year-old suspect, Robert Lewis Dear, reportedly said "no more baby parts [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-shooting-appears-to-have-been-politically-motivated_565a60cfe4b079b2818a98ab ]" after his arrest, a possible reference to a heavily edited undercover video released by a conservative organization that showed Planned Parenthood personnel supposedly discussing the sale of fetal tissue parts.
Huckabee addressed the shooting Sunday in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."
“Well, we don't know fully what the facts are," he said. "They're still being determined. We don't even know some of the victims' names yet. But regardless of why he did it, what he did is domestic terrorism, and what he is did is absolutely abominable, especially to those of us in the pro-life movement, because there's nothing about any of us that would condone or in any way look the other way at something like this."
Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-huckabee-planned-parenthood-shooting-terrorism_565b1c50e4b08e945feb73cc [with embedded (non-YouTube) video, and comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol7AsboxZSk [with comments]
*
Mike Huckabee: Planned Parenthood Are Murderers Too!
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 11/30/2015 1:15 pm
In his condemnation of the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Spring, Mike Huckabee [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/mike-huckabee ] suggested that while the attacker was wrong for killing people, Planned Parenthood [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/planned-parenthood , http://www.rightwingwatch.org/blog-terms/3954 ] does the same thing [ http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_EMBATTLED_PLANNED_PARENTHOOD ]:
Mike Huckabee condemned the attack as a "despicable act of murder" and said "what he did is domestic terrorism," but then equated the killings to the abortions Planned Parenthood provides.
"There's no excuse for killing other people, whether it's happening inside the Planned Parent headquarters, inside their clinics, where many millions of babies die, or whether it's people attacking Planned Parenthood," Huckabee said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Huckabee’s comments reflects the mood of several anti-choice [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/anti-abortion ] groups that have used the shooting, which left three people dead, as a way to attack Planned Parenthood [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/colorado-anti-choice-groups-why-isnt-media-covering-pro-abortion-violence ] and demand that the media cover “pro-abortion violence.”
The Republican presidential candidate has previously likened Planned Parenthood to ISIS terrorists [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/huckabee-planned-parenthood-isis-because-both-take-peoples-heads ] and suggested that the creators of the hoax videos targeting Planned Parenthood should receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-great-idea-give-medal-freedom-anti-planned-parenthood-hoaxers ], all the while pledging to ban abortion through an executive decree [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-will-outlaw-abortion-executive-fiat ] that will effectively treat abortion as the legal equivalent of murder [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/what-mike-huckabee-means-giving-14th-amendment-rights-fetuses ].
He once hailed a group that claims Planned Parenthood is waging genocide against black people [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/03/142180/huckabee-planned-parenthood/ ] and said in a speech following a visit to a concentration camp that legal abortion in America is no different than the Holocaust [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-abortion-rights-worse-nazi-holocaust-gay-marriage-dooms-america , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwG3hVaD7xs (just below, as embedded; with comments)] orchestrated by Nazi Germany, if not worse.
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-planned-parenthood-are-murderers-too
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Fiorina: It's 'Left-Wing' To Link Planned Parenthood Attack To Videos
There's no connection between rhetoric and violence, says the Planned Parenthood opponent.
By Paul Blumenthal
Posted: 11/29/2015 12:25 PM EST | Edited: 11/30/2015 11:32 AM EST
WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina declared on "Fox News Sunday" that attempts to link anti-abortion rhetoric from Republicans to Friday’s attack on a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado, were just “typical left-wing tactics.”
“This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don’t agree with the message,” Fiorina said.
Fiorina has been one of the most forceful Republican candidates in denouncing Planned Parenthood after heavily edited undercover videos [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/14/sting-video-planned-parenthood_n_7797164.html ] were released supposedly showing Planned Parenthood staff discussing the provision of fetal tissue samples for research purposes.
She has said the women's health organization sells “baby parts” and claimed to have seen a video [ http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/09/planned-parenthood-fetus-video-carly-fiorina ] showing its staff discussing harvesting the brain of a fully formed fetus. The alleged Planned Parenthood shooter, 57-year old Robert Dear, reportedly mentioned “baby parts” to investigators.
Planned Parenthood locations across the country have faced an increase in violence [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting_5658f9b1e4b072e9d1c1f5b6 ] since the release of the heavily edited videos by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress. There have been four arsons [ https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/10/02/four-arsons-74-days-planned-parenthood-clinics ] at Planned Parenthood locations in California, Illinois, Louisiana and Washington since the release of the videos.
Fiorina called the Colorado Springs shooting a “tragedy” and denounced the shooter as a “deranged” man who should be tried for murder.
Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carly-fiorina-planned-parenthood_565b2cefe4b072e9d1c22960 [with embedded (non-YouTube) video, and comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEypYideRy0 [with comments]
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Abortion rights groups: Political rhetoric contributed to shooting
A member of the New York Police Department stands outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Manhattan.
(Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
By Sandhya Somashekhar
November 29, 2015
To many abortion rights advocates, it seemed only a matter of time before something like this happened.
Ever since the summer, when an antiabortion group accused Planned Parenthood of illegally selling fetal tissue, threats against the organization had escalated to unprecedented levels, abortion providers say. They stepped up collaboration with the FBI and local police and stiffened security at clinics. But on Friday, their worst fears came true: A man walked into a health center in Colorado Springs and opened fire.
Police have not yet identified a clear motive for the shooting, which killed a police officer, Garrett Swasey [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/11/28/officer-garrett-swasey-who-died-in-colo-planned-parenthood-shooting-was-a-co-pastor-skating-champion/ ], and two other people and left more than six injured. But the suspect, identified as Robert Lewis Dear Jr., attacked a clinic run by Planned Parenthood, a longtime foil of antiabortion activists that has been under heightened scrutiny in recent months. During his arrest, Dear referred to “baby parts,” a law enforcement official said.
Abortion rights advocates say the connection is clear. Over the summer, a little-known antiabortion group called the Center for Medical Progress released a series of covertly filmed videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood illegally sells fetal tissue, or “baby parts,” as abortion foes refer to it, for research. The century-old nonprofit agency has denied wrongdoing, and state and congressional investigations have so far failed to produce proof supporting the allegations.
Nevertheless, the casual and sometimes graphic conversations about abortion procedures captured on the videos have provided fodder for conservatives on Capitol Hill, in governor’s mansions and on the presidential campaign trail to seek to strip the organization of government funding. The efforts have led to sometimes passionate commentary on the part of conservatives and Republicans against abortion and sharply critical of Planned Parenthood, striking a tone that abortion rights advocates say created an atmosphere that put clinic workers and patients at risk.
‘An evil act’
Antiabortion groups were quick to condemn the shooting and assert that, despite often impassioned and emotional language, their years-long campaign is about saving lives, not taking them. They emphasized that there was still no clear explanation for the shooting, which was carried out by a man who was known by friends and acquaintances as a malcontent who often clashed with neighbors and had encounters with police. Grass-roots activists connected with the antiabortion movement said they did not know Dear and that his name was not familiar.
“Our prayers and concern are with the victims today of the Colorado Springs shooting, people who did not deserve such violence,” Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, an antiabortion group, said in a statement Saturday. “While we don’t know all the details of this horrific event, we know that it was an evil act, one condemned by pro-life Americans nationwide.”
But Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, a professional association for abortion providers, said the antiabortion rhetoric had grown so heated in recent months that something like this was bound to happen.
“They have ignited a firestorm of hate. They knew there could be these types of consequences, and yet they ratcheted up the rhetoric and ratcheted it up and ratcheted it up,” Saporta said. “It’s not a huge surprise that somebody would take this type of action.”
On the Sunday morning talk shows, Republican presidential hopefuls walked a fine line, condemning the attack while also defending the criticism heaped on Planned Parenthood. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called the shooter “mentally disturbed” and reiterated the complaints about Planned Parenthood. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, also a Republican hopeful, decried “extremism on both sides,” on ABC’s “This Week.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” former Hewlett Packard chief Carly Fiorina called the shooting “obviously a tragedy,” adding, “nothing justifies this.” In the past, she has accused Planned Parenthood of “butchering babies for body parts [ http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/carly-fiorinas-planned-parenthood-playbook/ ].” But the Republican presidential candidate resisted the notion that the fiery rhetoric contributed to the shooting.
“This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don’t agree with the message,” she said. “The vast majority of Americans agree [that] what Planned Parenthood is doing is wrong.”
But abortion rights advocates say the videos have also led to a spike in threats against the organization — with a worst-case scenario unfolding in Colorado Springs.
“Politicians need to stop escalating the rhetoric against Planned Parenthood, and that means by and large the Republican Party,’’ said Laura Chapin, a pro-abortion rights political communications consultant and former press secretary to former Colorado governor Bill Ritter (D). “Right-wing politicians need to back off.’’
Saporta called the Colorado Springs shooting the deadliest such attack in history because it led to three fatalities. With Friday’s tragedy, she said, the death toll from antiabortion violence has risen to 11. The last such incident at an abortion clinic occurred in 2009, when a gunman shot and killed George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performed the procedure late in a pregnancy.
Previously, Saporta said, her organization used internal staff to track threats to report to law enforcement. But the volume got so high that she contracted with an outside security firm to monitor threats 24 hours a day, she said. The company now provides her organization with daily reports, with the results reported routinely to the FBI and local police.
Tight security at clinics
Strict security measures have become the norm at abortion clinics, which often have bulletproof glass, surveillance systems, security guards and volunteer escorts to usher patients through a gantlet of antiabortion demonstrators. Staff members are advised to keep unlisted phone numbers and to vary their commutes. Many clinics have moved into more private buildings, with underground parking to prevent demonstrators outside from snapping pictures of workers’ faces or license plates as they arrived at the office.
The Colorado Springs clinic has security cameras inside and outside the building, and workers are trained on how to deal with situations such as an active shooter, said Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. She credits this training with the fact that none of the 15 staff members were wounded Friday, and likely none of the patients as well, she said.
Saporta drew special attention to the group that filmed the undercover Planned Parenthood videos. Two of the videos were shot at a clinic in Denver, about 75 miles north of Colorado Springs. The videos sparked an onslaught of threats against one doctor featured in those videos, who has since moved out of her home and hired round-the clock security, Saporta said.
Since the videos’ release, she said, four Planned Parenthood clinics have been targeted for arson; a man was arrested for bringing a bomb into a Kansas clinic [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-arrested-for-bringing-bomb-to-kansas-abortion-clinic/ ]; and someone with a hatchet destroyed equipment [ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/816d1ad6fb95489eb42df19acd34c151/intruder-hatchet-smashes-planned-parenthood-clinic ] at a Planned Parenthood facility in New Hampshire.
David Daleiden, project leader for the Center for Medical Progress, did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. But Troy Newman, who sits on the board of directors, defended the project, which he said shed light on a matter of intense public interest.
Newman is president of Operation Rescue, an organization that is often present outside abortion clinics to document instances in which an ambulance has to be called and posts information about abortion providers, including their pictures, online. He has described abortion doctors as “butchers” and has called women who obtain abortions “murderesses,” and the vice president of his organization served two years in federal prison for conspiring to damage a clinic.
But he said his actions are not incitements for violence but rather “truth-telling” in the face of a corrupt industry.
“There’s a frustration that all of us experience from a lack of prosecution of Planned Parenthood by the federal authorities, but that frustration should never be taken to the point of extremism where people are killed as a result,” he said.
Jose A. DelReal contributed to this report.
Related
How videos set off renewed wave of action on abortion
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/07/28/how-the-planned-parenthood-videos-set-off-a-renewed-wave-of-activism-on-abortion/
Being a doctor who performs abortions means your life is always in danger
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/29/being-a-doctor-who-performs-abortions-means-you-always-fear-your-life-is-in-danger/
© 2015 The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/abortion-rights-groups-political-rhetoric-contributed-to-shooting/2015/11/29/d2fad2c4-96c7-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html [with embedded video reports, and (over 4,000) comments]
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Who Is Willing to Call the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Shooting Terrorism?
Photo via AP
Brendan O'Connor
11/29/15 10:20pm
Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, does not think [ http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/261435-homeland-security-chairman-does-not-see-terrorism-in-planned ] the deadly attack Friday at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood qualifies as terrorism: “I don’t think it would fall under quite the definition of domestic terrorism, although I’ll leave that to the Justice Department to make that determination.”
The mayor of Colorado Springs, John Suthers, would seem to disagree [ http://abcnews.go.com/US/planned-parenthood-standoff-appears-domestic-terrorism-colorado-springs/story?id=35471366 ]:
The mayor of Colorado Springs said it “certainly appears” the shooting and standoff at a Planned Parenthood clinic that left three dead Friday was an act of domestic terrorism.
Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers would not comment on a motive for the shooting. Police haven’t released a possible motive or said whether the clinic was the intended target.
“We have a person that’s pretty much off the grid and acting for whatever motivation,” Suthers said on ABC’s “This Week.” “[It’s] very hard to ferret out those folks.”
As would the governor of Colorado [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/colorado-shooting-planned-parenthood.html ]:
Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, called the shooting a “form of terrorism” on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and urged the country to find ways “to make sure we keep guns out of the hands of people that are unstable.” Colorado has been the site of two other mass shootings, at Columbine High School in 1999 and at a movie theater in Aurora in 2012.
And, uh, Mike Huckabee [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/29/politics/mike-huckabee-planned-parenthood-domestic-terrorism/ ]:
What he did is domestic terrorism, and what he did is absolutely abominable, especially to us in the pro-life movement, because there’s nothing about any of us that would condone or in any way look the other way on something like this.
As it happens, the Justice Department reportedly does [ http://abcnews.go.com/US/planned-parenthood-standoff-appears-domestic-terrorism-colorado-springs/story?id=35471366 ] think it falls under the definition of domestic terrorism:
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that Dear made rambling comments during the incident, some of which suggested animosity toward the health care provider. They said the Justice Department is building a domestic terrorism case against Dear, though it would only move forward if somehow the state capital case was sidetracked.
An unnamed senior law enforcement official told the New York Times that [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us/robert-dear-suspect-in-colorado-killings-preferred-to-be-left-alone.html ], in an meandering interview with authorities, Robert Lewis Dear spoke about “no more baby parts.” The shooting Friday left three dead, including one police officer, and nine wounded.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/who-is-willing-to-call-the-colorado-springs-planned-par-1745187586 [with comments]
--
Ted Cruz Defends Conservative Criticisms of Planned Parenthood After Shooting at Clinic
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa, on Sunday.
Credit Scott Morgan for The New York Times
By Matt Flegenheimer
November 30, 2015
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, chafing at the suggestion that conservative criticisms of Planned Parenthood might have played a role in the attack at a Colorado clinic [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/us/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting.html ] on Friday, lashed out on Sunday at the “vicious rhetoric on the left, blaming those who are pro-life.”
Speaking to reporters in Newton, Iowa, Mr. Cruz said “we don’t fully know the motivations of this deranged individual” in the shooting, which killed three people and wounded nine.
Mr. Cruz added, without prompting, that the suspected gunman, Robert L. Dear Jr., was “registered to vote as a woman.” He suggested that there was “very little evidence” tying the shooting to anti-abortion sentiment, a cause frequently invoked by Mr. Cruz and his fellow Republicans in the presidential primary.
When a reporter cited news reports that Mr. Dear had said “no more baby parts” after he was apprehended, Mr. Cruz replied, “Well, it’s also reported that he was registered as an independent and as a woman and a transgender leftist activist.”
Aides to Mr. Cruz said he was not saying with certainty that the gunman was a “transgender leftist activist,” but rather highlighting how little was known about him definitively.
“He was making the point that there isn’t enough information,” Rick Tyler, a campaign spokesman, said. “You can’t expect a full response to a story that’s developing. The point was there’s a lot of raw information going around that’s not confirmed.”
Asked what news reports Mr. Cruz was referring to, a spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, pointed to a website called therightscoop.com. Its post [ http://therightscoop.com/was-the-colorado-shooter-a-transgender-person/ ], titled “Was the Colorado shooter a TRANSGENDER person?!?!,” said there were voting records in which a Robert L. Dear Jr. was identified as female.
Over the weekend, Mr. Cruz was initially one of the few Republican candidates to address the shooting, calling it a tragedy but declining to refer directly to Planned Parenthood.
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/30/ted-cruz-defends-conservative-criticisms-of-planned-parenthood-after-shooting-at-clinic/
*
Dirtbag Ted Cruz Describes Alleged Planned Parenthood Shooter as "Transgendered Leftist Activist"
Photo via AP
Chris Thompson
11/29/15 10:15pm
Ted Cruz, a gnarly gourd slowly depressing a fully inflated whoopee cushion, has an alternate theory about the Planned Parenthood shooter, reports [ https://www.texastribune.org/2015/11/29/cruz-condemns-planned-parenthood-shooting-colorado/ , embedded audio https://soundcloud.com/texastribune/cruz-on-planned-parenthood-in-newton-iowa ] the Texas Tribune.
When a reporter reminded Cruz it has been reported Dear made a comment about “baby parts” while being apprehended, Cruz retorted, “It’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and a transgendered leftist activist. If that’s what he is, I don’t think it’s fair to blame on the rhetoric on the left. This is a murderer.”
So. Some looney-tune “right-of-center” website latches onto one piece of information [ http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/court-records-colorado-planned-parenthood-shooter-not-republican-identifies-as-woman/ ], and suddenly the right has a lefty [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/28/colorado-springs-gunman-unknown-to-pro-lifers-in-area/ ] boogeyman [ http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/11/28/right-wingers-claim-colorado-shooter-robert-lewis-dear-is-a-trans-woman/ ] to blame for an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic, even while their candidates take their sweet time denouncing [ http://gawker.com/here-are-the-presidential-candidates-who-havent-comment-1745026648 ] this person’s act.
The wife of alleged shooter Robert L. Dear—who might know!—describes him [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us/robert-dear-suspect-in-colorado-killings-preferred-to-be-left-alone.html ] differently:
“He believed wholeheartedly in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what he always said; he read it cover to cover to cover.” But he was not fixated on it, she added.
He was generally conservative, but not obsessed with politics. He kept guns around the house for personal protection and hunting, and he taught their son to hunt doves, as many Southern fathers do. He believed that abortion was wrong, but it was not something that he spoke about much. “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said.
A crazy person gets a gun and walks into a Planned Parenthood clinic and murders innocent people. Some people then say it is probably time to take a hard look at both our gun control policies and the unscrupulousness of anti-abortion politicians and activists [ http://gawker.com/no-planned-parenthood-is-not-selling-aborted-fetal-bod-1717823538 ]. Some other people accuse them of politicizing a tragedy, all the while delivering to their lunatic constituents a wholly manufactured persona of the perpetrator, for the sole purpose of insulating their deranged politics from their very real consequences.
Remember to vote, friends.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/dirtbag-ted-cruz-describes-alleged-planned-parenthood-s-1745187009 [with
comments]
*
Planned Parenthood Shooter 'Obsessed With the World Coming To an End' Was Once Charged With Rape
[Image via AP]
Melissa Cronin
11/30/15 7:42pm
Robert Lewis Dear, the man who shot and killed three people and wounded nine others [ http://gawker.com/suspect-of-planned-parenthood-identified-as-robert-l-d-1744975821 ] at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado last Friday, was charged with rape over two decades ago.
The Charleston Post and Courier uncovered a series of disturbing details about Dear’s past [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ], including relationships with women that were fraught with violence.
According to the Post, the 57-year-old man [ http://gawker.com/active-shooter-reported-at-colorado-springs-planned-par-1744900903 ] was arrested Dec. 31, 1992, on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The lack of a disposition for the charge on his official criminal record suggests that the charges were dismissed. Documents from the case say that Dear showed up at the house of a woman [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ] he had been pursuing, despite the fact that she said she was married.
On Nov. 29, 1992, Dear showed up to the woman’s house while she attempted to take out the trash, according to the police report. He then put a knife to her throat, forced her back into the residence, onto her couch and then struck her in the mouth before sexually assaulting her, the report states.
Dear has been married at least three times and has four children. His second wife, Barbara Mescher, said she knew of the rape allegation in her divorce affidavit, and also said that she “lived in fear” of her husband.
“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Mescher stated in the affidavit. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”
Dear appeared for the first time in court [ http://jezebel.com/planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-robert-dear-could-f-1745341096 ] on Monday, and faces a minimum of life in prison if convicted. The Post story includes several other disturbing details about Dear’s past; read the entire thing here [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ].
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/planned-parenthood-shooter-obsessed-with-the-world-comi-1745374517 [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_JHx_OzA4 [with (over 8,000) comments]
*
Ted Cruz Has the Facts: The Liberal Media, Democrats, and Violent Criminals Are In Cahoots
Photo via AP
Chris Thompson
11/30/15 8:14pm
Even within the context of this upended-Gathering-of-the-Juggalos-outhouse of a presidential election cycle, Ted Cruz’s crescendoing spingasm on the Planned Parenthood shooting is shocking and bizarre. This really could go anywhere.
You will recall Cruz suggesting that Robert L. Dear, the alleged shooter, is a “transgendered leftist activist [ http://gawker.com/dirtbag-ted-cruz-describes-alleged-planned-parenthood-s-1745187009 (second above)].” Today, Ted Cruz joined the Hugh Hewitt Show [ http://www.hughniverse.com/ , http://www.hughniverse.com/2015/11/30/hugh-hewitt-radio-show-20151130-hr-1/ , http://www.hughniverse.com/2015/11/30/hugh-hewitt-radio-show-20151130-hr-3/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b2KyVmmVYw (next below; with comments)]
Take it away, Ted:
“Here is the simple and undeniable fact – the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats.”
Yes, mmmmm, do go on with more of these facts.
“There is a reason why for years the Democrats have been viewed as soft on crime,” Cruz continued. “They go in and appoint to the bench judges who release violent criminals.
“They go in and fight to give the right to vote to convicted felons,” the 2016 GOP presidential candidate added. “Why?
“The Democrats know that convicted felons tend to vote Democrat. The media never reports on any of that. [It] doesn’t want to admit any of that.”
Hard to argue with such facts as these. Harder, still, to believe Cruz continued speaking without Earth being flushed down the cosmic toilet once and for all:
“Every time you have some sort of violent crime or mass killing you can almost see the media salivating, hoping, hoping desperately that the murderer happens to be a Republican so that they can use it to try and paint their political enemies,” he said.
“You can see that every time there’s a terrible crime they’re so excited – ‘come on, please be a Republican so we can try and paint the other side,’” Cruz said. “It is one of the more egregious examples of media bias and something we see over and over again.”
So said the man who spent yesterday recycling a wildly speculative depiction of a violent criminal created in an article [ http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/court-records-colorado-planned-parenthood-shooter-not-republican-identifies-as-woman/ ] on a right-wing media site, entitled “Colorado Planned Parenthood Shooter NOT Republican, Identifies as Woman.”
I dunno, guys.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/ted-cruz-has-the-facts-the-liberal-media-democrats-a-1745377211 [with comments]
*
Cruz in questionable company, offers bizarre response to shooting
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/30/15
Rachel Maddow outlines the context of the history of threats and attacks on abortion providers and facilities across the United States, and reviews what little is known so far about the Colorado Springs shooter, and singles out Republican senator and presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, for his bizarre, distinctly unpresidential response to the tragedy. Duration: 20:00
Ted Cruz Picks Right-Wing Extremist To Lead Virginia Campaign
12/1/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-picks-right-wing-extremist-lead-virginia-campaign
Ted Cruz's Virginia Co-Chair Tied Evolution And Gay Rights To The Holocaust
12/1/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruzs-virginia-co-chair-tied-evolution-and-gay-rights-holocaust
Cruz Laughs Off The 'Condom Police,' Ignores His Own Anti-Contraception Policies
12/1/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-laughs-condom-police-ignores-his-own-anti-contraception-policies , http://www.buzzfeed.com/kyleblaine/ted-cruz-on-contraception-last-i-checked-we-don [with comments, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/ted-cruz-birth-control-rubber-shortage-america-35506912 [with comments] / https://gma.yahoo.com/ted-cruz-birth-control-don-t-rubber-shortage-124723513--abc-news-topstories.html [with comments]
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/cornered-cruz-chokes-on-shooting-response-576839747863 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-30-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFyJMWcWBU0 (no comments yet), another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kIlRUY5agI (no comments yet)]
*
Increased threats correspond to new Planned Parenthood bashing
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/30/15
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, talks with Rachel Maddow about Friday's deadly shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood, the security measures clinics are forced to take, and the recent increase in violence and threats as Republicans have amplified anti-abortion extremists' opposition to Planned Parenthood. Duration: 7:11
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/more-threats-as-anti-abortion-talk-cranks-up-576848963746 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-30-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvD7DsKvGcM (no comments yet)]
*
13-Year-Old Teenage Person Ditches Conservatism, Hopefully For Video Games and Sleepovers
Screenshot via YouTube
Chris Thompson
11/29/15 6:39pm
You know, the thing about precocious kids is, they’re awful.
Kids are better when they’re playing video games, picking their noses, making paper people, collecting baseball cards, etc. Kids who insert themselves into the adult world without appropriate humility and deference are jerks, in the same way an adult who opines passionately in a conversation about something about which they’re generally under-informed is a jerk.
I bring this up because, hey, you remember CJ Pearson [ http://gawker.com/teen-conservative-activist-claims-obama-blocked-him-on-1732738384 ], right? Pearson made news as a 13-year-old YouTube activist (read: loudmouth) who famously challenged President Obama’s love of America [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUtirCf-RfU (next below; with {over 10,000} comments)]
What a time to be alive.
So. It is for young people to be stupid and loud and obnoxious. One of the things about maturing into adulthood, right up there with shaving and voting and buying a beer in a bar with your own ID, is the wisdom and perspective to know that young people are stupid and loud and obnoxious, but it’s OK, the thing to do is nod and smile and then roll your eyes and mostly ignore them until they, too, can shave and vote and buy a beer in a bar with their own ID. We make room in the world for young people to be stupid and loud and obnoxious without any real consequences, because we are grownups. We do our best to chaperone them through their own stupidity so that they might one day appreciate just how stupid they once were.
Then there’s Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz saw a 13-year-old ranting semi-coherently on YouTube, challenging the patriotism of a person who is the actual President of the United States, and thought “hmmm, yes, here is a person that I should attach to my campaign.” Because politicians, you see, are the most desperate, cynical people on earth, and it turns out they are never worse than when they’re running a largely irrelevant campaign for President among a field of clowns and lunatics. Ted Cruz named CJ Pearson [ https://www.tedcruz.org/news/cruz-names-cj-pearson-as-national-chairman-of-teens-for-ted/ ] National Chairman of something called “Teens for Ted.” Ugh.
This affiliation has apparently not worked out very well for young CJ, reports CNN [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/27/politics/cj-pearson-conservative-teen-renounces-republicans/index.html ].
CJ Pearson told CNN on Friday that concerns about the Republican Party’s viewpoints on racial and gender disparity as well as youth issues convinced him he could no longer be a mouthpiece for conservatism.
[...]
The 13-year-old, African-American YouTube star from Georgia said in an interview that he began considering the change after a conversation with another teen friend, who asked why he doesn’t speak out on racial discrimination — to which he replied he was concerned his followers wouldn’t be pleased.
A small, cold part of me wants to laugh at the fact that close affiliation with the Cruz campaign was enough to turn this kid away from conservatism altogether. Then I read this:
“I don’t want to be the conservative wonder kid that people follow because I make them feel good and like young people are part of their movement. I want to be followed because I’m the voice of a generation that doesn’t have a voice at the table.”
CJ. Stop trying to be the voice of things. You do not need followers. You are a kid. It’s good that you’re smart, it’s good that you’re articulate, it’s good that you’re plugged in and aware of the world around you. You got a bike? Some friends? They got bikes? Go ride bikes. You’ve got the whole rest of your life to be miserable about American politics. No one needs a head start on that.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/13-year-old-teenage-person-ditches-conservatism-hopefu-1745159433 [with comments]
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Ben Carson: 'Both Sides' To Blame For Abortion Rhetoric
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 11/30/2015 11:35 am
Ben Carson [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ben-carson ] pushed back yesterday on claims that anti-abortion rhetoric may have played a role in the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, insisting in an interview [ http://www.mediaite.com/online/ben-carson-on-planned-parenthood-shooting-there-is-no-saint-here/ , non-YouTube video http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3g3q03_ben-carson-on-planned-parenthood-shooting-statement-there-is-no-saint-here-in-this-equation_news embedded, in its place here the same at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmX50wZGuSs (with comment) just below, another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F2aIybuzqw (no comments yet)] with Martha Raddatz that “there’s a lot of extremism coming from all areas” and divisive rhetoric “comes from both sides.” “There is no saint here in this equation,” he said.
While it is typical for a politician to suggest that “both sides” are to blame for toxic rhetoric and political dysfunction, Carson may want to look back on his own record of statements about Planned Parenthood.
Carson cited a discredited right-wing smear to claim that Planned Parenthood was created “to eliminate black people [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-whole-purpose-planned-parenthood-eliminate-black-people ].”
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/carson-planned-parenthood-bent-on-eliminating-black-people ) embedded]
He also claimed that conservatives need “to help women understand that they are being manipulated [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-whole-purpose-planned-parenthood-eliminate-black-people ]” by Planned Parenthood, arguing that the organization must be defunded.
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/carson-ban-abortion-because-it-violates-sacred-relationship-of-woman-child ) embedded]
Carson, who once claimed that Obamacare “is slavery in a way [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/carson-obamacare-worst-thing-happen-nation-slavery ],” similarly stated at an anti-chioce fundraiser that abortion providers are no different than slave-owners [ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/ben-carson-tells-anti-choice-group-abortion-is-like-slavery-not-an-issue-of-womens-rights/ ]:
The former neurosurgeon noted that he changed his mind about abortion after realizing it was like “slavery.”
“I was thinking about slavery and I was thinking about the abolitionists, and I said, what if the abolitionists had said, ‘I don’t believe in slavery but anybody else can do whatever they want’?” Carson declared. “Where would we be today?”
“Slavery is a moral issue and so is abortion,” he insisted. “It’s a moral issue that we’re dealing with.”
He made the same case in an NBC interview [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/25/ben-carson-likens-abortion-to-slavery-wants-to-see-roe-v-wade-overturned/ ]: “During slavery — and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it — during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said: 'You know, I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong, but you guys do whatever you want to do'? Where would we be?”
But remember, both sides are extreme!
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-both-sides-blame-abortion-rhetoric
*
Fear, faith and the rise of Ben Carson
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks Nov. 19 in Mobile, Ala. His supporters see a humble man of God — and say the nation needs to be rescued by a godly leader.
(Mike Kittrell/Associated Press)
Toni and Mike Ledet at their Montrose, Ala., home. “I’m afraid,” Toni said. “I’m really and truly afraid.”
(Max Becherer/Polaris Images)
Carson greets supporters after speaking in Mobile. During the rally, when he talked about the Lord’s plan for his candidacy, someone yelled “Amen!”
(Mike Kittrell/Associated Press)
video [embedded]:
Carson explains 'rabid dog' metaphor for Syrian refugees
After filing to run in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, candidate Ben Carson attempted to clarify statements he made the day before likening refugees fleeing violence in Syria to "rabid dogs." (2:08)
(Reuters)
video [embedded]:
Ben Carson on his faith, the Apocalypse and Hell
In a one-on-one with The Washington Post, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson discusses what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist, when the Apocalypse will come, and whether Hell is real. (4:18)
(Alice Li/The Washington Post)
By Stephanie McCrummen
November 30, 2015
MONTROSE, Ala. — She had known exactly what Ben Carson meant when he spoke of leaders who are trying to “destroy America.” That meant President Obama. She had understood perfectly when he spoke of all the “secular progressives who don’t like Judeo-Christian values” and “want to destroy your family.” That meant all the liberals who would ridicule Christians like her.
And when Carson said at a rally in Mobile on Nov. 19 that God himself had opened his path to the presidency, Toni Ledet, 59, cheered with the crowd of hundreds.
“Christians are tired of what’s going on — they want a leader with strong faith,” she said that night, and now she was home with her husband, Mike, 57, saying something else that explains the deep-rooted appeal of the famed neurosurgeon, even as some recent polls show his popularity slipping.
“I’m afraid,” Toni began, sitting on her front porch in Montrose. “I’m really and truly afraid.”
The rise of Carson toward the top of the polls in the Republican presidential primary race has baffled many political pundits, liberals and some within the GOP establishment, who find his positions short on details, and certain assertions — that the biblical figure Joseph built the Egyptian pyramids to store grain [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/05/ben-carson-believes-joseph-built-egypts-pyramids-to-store-grain-and-it-just-may-get-him-some-votes/ ], that the Chinese are operating in Syria [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/11/fact-checking-the-fourth-round-of-gop-debates/ ] — out of touch with reality.
But to see Carson from Mike and Toni Ledet’s front porch, the reverse is true: To them, Carson is the only candidate who fully grasps what they see as the one reality that matters most — that America has fallen away from God. And while other Republican contenders express some version of that sentiment, Toni says it is Carson who seems both the closest to God and the furthest from Obama, who troubles her deeply.
“I think there is going to be an issue in the near future,” she says, sitting in her rocking chair. “He’s got, what, eight months left in his term?”
“A year,” says Mike, a doctor, sipping a glass of water.
“Still, that’s the short term,” says Toni, a fiction writer. “I think he’s staging a certain situation for himself before he leaves office. I think he’s preparing this country to suit his benefit — i.e. refugees, medical issues, gun laws .?.?. ”
She stops herself and smiles, not wanting to explain further.
“He’s weakening the country is how I’d put it,” Mike says.
“Oh, he’s weakening the country all right,” Toni says.
The Ledet home is brick with six white columns on a street lined with oaks and pines smothered in Spanish moss. Inside for the holidays are the couple’s four children, ages 17 to 37, each of whom has a copy of “Jesus Calling [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0529100770 ],” the daily Christian devotional that Mike and Toni read together every morning in a life where God is real and Satan is real and the evidence of both is everywhere they look, especially now.
In the life of Ben Carson, they see a man in tune with the will of God.
“A Christian attitude,” Mike says.
“A Christian-based physician,” Toni says.
“I read his book, and I was just awed,” Mike says, referring to “Gifted Hands [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310214696 ],” Carson’s book about his rise from impoverished child to world-famous brain surgeon, in which he describes a God who answered his every prayer [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2015/11/05/ben-carson-the-humblebragging-instrument-of-god/ ], no matter how urgent or mundane — from taking away his anger to giving him exam answers to locating his passport. “He believes there’s a higher power.”
“He has to have a higher power to do what he does,” says Toni, who saw the movie version on a Christian TV channel. “Anybody would know that.”
In the life of Obama, the Ledets see Carson’s opposite.
“I just don’t trust him,” Mike says.
“He wasn’t honest with the American people when he was elected — there was a lot of subject matter hidden and not brought forth,” Toni says. “That’s my opinion. So.”
She stops herself again because she knows how she might sound, and what people might think, and it makes her feel uncomfortable.
But then she decides she is sick and tired of feeling uncomfortable, which is how she’s felt ever since Obama’s election — and why she decided to go to the Carson rally two days before.
It was her first presidential candidate rally, and as she arrived and saw hundreds of people waving signs that read “Heal” and “Inspire,” she realized she was not the only one feeling sick and tired.
She settled into her seat in the arena, now full of people like Wanda Brooks, a retiree with blond hair, red nails and a “Foxy Ladies Vote Republican” button who said she loves Carson because he is not afraid to stand up for his Christian beliefs, which made her feel like standing up for hers.
“I know it’s not politically correct to say,” she began. “But every nation that has fallen has fallen because they are anti-God. We have no future if we keep going like this. Except beheadings.”
Nearby was Mike Wilson, 49, who said he loves that Carson is “not afraid to offend people” by talking about the thing that worries him most: “radical Muslims.”
“President Obama won’t say ‘radical Muslims,’?” Wilson said. “But there is a fraction of people that hate Americans, and they are radical Muslims.”
“If we don’t have godly people running the country, we are going to be in trouble,” said a woman named Aurelia, who didn’t want to give her last name and whose comment elicited nods from the people sitting around her, including a pale young woman named Kinsley who said only a godly person could stand up to Muslim terrorists.
“If we continue like this we run the risk of a serious attack — or a takeover,” said Kinsley, who wouldn’t give her last name, either. Her face was grim. Her arms were folded. “They could be anywhere,” she said of the terrorists. “They could be anyone.”
Brooks leaned in closer and decided to say what “anyone” meant to her. “We don’t have a president that cares about our nation,” she yelled over the music. “I believe he’s a Muslim and wanting Muslims to take over our nation. One nation under Allah instead of one nation under God! But if everyone prays and turns from their wicked ways, then God has promised to answer our prayers. That’s why we need a man of faith.”
And now that man walked onto the stage.
When he spoke so quietly that he almost whispered, the audience saw a wise and humble servant of God. When he spoke of the Lord’s plan for his candidacy, someone yelled “Amen!”
And when he described a nation that had entered a “dark” period, and Christians who had been “bullied,” and all the things that a nameless person everyone understood to be Obama would do to deliberately destroy the nation from within, Toni Ledet felt as if someone understood her deepest fears at last.
Now, sitting in her rocking chair on the front porch with Mike, she is sure she is not alone in her thinking. “You should have heard him,” she says to Mike.
She talks about what Carson said about the Syrian refugees whom Obama has urged Americans to accept.
“He was talking about how he is humble and loves to help people, but he doesn’t believe in bringing the enemy into your country,” she tells Mike.
“Yeah — what’s the word he used?” Mike says, trying to remember what he had read in the paper about how Carson had described his opposition to Syrian refugees. “A bug?”
“A rabid dog,” Toni says. “He said: Would you open your door and let him in?”
“I love dogs, but if you have a herd of dogs, and you got one rabid dog in there who looks like everybody else, it’s a bad situation,” Mike says.
They talk about what would happen if the refugees did come in.
“We are an immigrant country,” Mike says. “We assimilated from all different faiths and all different countries, but bringing immigrants to start their own little country inside of a state .?.?. doesn’t make sense.”
“And they want their laws,” Toni says. “They want their own little community and their own laws, and they want to live like they did in their country, establishing their little colonies for their faith.”
They discuss how the refugees relate to Obama’s plans.
“How ironic is the timing that Obama’s allowing these refugees to come in?” she says.
“Not allowing — forcing,” Mike says.
“Again, that’s where I go back to my belief that he’s bringing them in for a purpose,” she says. “He’s positioning this country, like playing chess. I think we will have another major tragedy like 9/11. He’s positioning certain people in this country to make that happen.”
She explains why she thinks this.
“In the last few years, he’s made comments about how he supports the Islamic faith,” she says. “I think he’s not 100 percent American.”
She pauses and then describes her darkest fear of all, of what will happen if things keep going in this direction, away from what she and Mike call “the biblical way.”
“A lot of people feel like the world is changing drastically for the worse, and I think Satan has his hand in it,” she says, and goes on to explain that she sees evil everywhere. In the legalizing of same-sex marriage. In babies being aborted. In the rise of the Islamic State and what seems to her an insistence by liberals on embracing Muslims and a parallel belittling of Christians for their faith.
“There’s a biblical verse — I wish I could remember it,” Mike says now. “It has to do with when a nation goes against the biblical way, God won’t listen to our prayers.”
Like Carson, they pray about every aspect of their lives, asking for guidance on everything from money to their eternal salvation in heaven.
“We’re going to lose our blessing,” Mike says.
And if that happens?
“Oh, God help us,” Toni says, looking out at the trees.
“It will basically destroy America,” Mike says.
“It’s like an ice cube melting,” Toni says. “You can see it going down, and you can’t stop that ice cube from melting. Unless we take a stand.
“And I think Carson’s trying to take a stand.”
© 2015 The Washington Post (emphasis in original)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fear-faith-and-the-rise-of-ben-carson/2015/11/30/3a94c1d2-93a9-11e5-a2d6-f57908580b1f_story.html [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4 [with (over 9,000) comments]
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Hillary slams Republicans on guns, abortion after Planned Parenthood attack
Getty Images
By Bradford Richardson
November 29, 2015, 09:36 pm
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton late Sunday launched a multi-pronged assault on Republicans following the shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., calling for more stringent gun control and heightened protections for abortion rights.
“The shooting on Friday was at, as you know, a Planned Parenthood clinic, a place where lots of women get healthcare they need – breast exams, STD testing, contraception, and, yes, safe and legal abortions,” Clinton said at the New Hampshire Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. “We should be supporting Planned Parenthood, not attacking it.”
In an appeal for more stringent gun control, Clinton drew a connection between the Colorado shooting, which left three dead, and the terrorist attack on Paris earlier this month.
“This is truly unbelievable, that after what we’ve seen in Paris and other places, Republicans will not bring up a bill that will prohibit anyone on the no-fly list from buying a gun in America," she said. "If you are too dangerous to fly in America, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America.
“How many more Americans need to die before we take action?” she asked.
The former first lady urged Republicans not to make abortion rights a partisan issue.
“And it is way past time to protect women’s health and respect women’s rights, not use them as political footballs,” she said.
Anticipating accusations of playing the “gender card,” Clinton told Republicans to deal her in.
“I know when I talk like this, some people, especially of the Republican persuasion, say I’m playing the gender card. Well, if talking about women’s health, equal pay, paid family leave, and affordable child care is playing the gender card, deal me in,” she said.
[...]
©2015 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261452-hillary-slams-republicans-on-guns-abortion-after-planned [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ0YM-1LBGs [with comments]
--
Alabama Surrenders In Fight Against Planned Parenthood
The state will pay Planned Parenthood's legal fees after failed suit.
11/30/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alabama-planned-parenthood_565ce8bae4b072e9d1c30cc8 [with embedded video report, and comments]
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Army Of God Activist Hails Planned Parenthood Shooting: 'They Reap What They Sow'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 11/30/2015 4:50 pm
UPDATE: According to one person who spoke with the New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/robert-dear-planned-parenthood-shooting.html (next below)], Dear reportedly praised the Army of God and others who commit violence against abortion providers:
A number of people who knew Mr. Dear said he was a staunch abortion opponent, though another ex-wife, Pamela Ross, said that he did not obsess on the subject. After his arrest, Mr. Dear said “no more baby parts” to investigators, a law enforcement official said.
One person who spoke with him extensively about his religious views said Mr. Dear, who is 57, had praised people who attacked abortion providers, saying they were doing “God’s work.” In 2009, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for the privacy of the family, Mr. Dear described as “heroes” members of the Army of God, a loosely organized group of anti-abortion extremists that has claimed responsibility for a number of killings and bombings.
An activist associated with the militant anti-abortion group Army of God, which has been [ http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/operation-rescue-s-big-break-how-organization-rooted-radical-fringes-anti-choice-moveme ] linked [ http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/02/clinic.bombing.530pm/index.html?_s=PM:US ] to [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/army-of-god-anthrax-threats/ ] several [ http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/20/us/3-men-charged-in-bombings-of-seven-abortion-facilities.html ] terrorist [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/anti-abortion-movement-marches-after-two-decades-arson-bombs-and-murder ] attacks [ http://www.salon.com/2002/02/19/gays_10/ ] on abortion providers, has posted a brief statement on his website [ http://www.armyofgod.com/ ] declaring that Planned Parenthood [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/planned-parenthood , http://www.rightwingwatch.org/blog-terms/3954 ] got what it deserved with last week’s shooting at a Colorado Springs clinic that left three dead:
Planned Parenthood Colorado Springs
Robert Lewis Dear aside, Planned Parenthood murders helpless preborn children. These murderous pigs at Planned Parenthood are babykillers and they reap what they sow. In this case, Planned Parenthood selling of aborted baby parts came back to bite them.
Anyone who supports abortion has the blood of babies on their hands.
Virginia-based anti-abortion activist Donald Spitz, who runs the “Army of God” website, similarly stated after Dr. George Tiller was murdered that the he “reaped what he sowed” and hosts a page celebrating those who have been convicted of murdering and attempting to murder abortion doctors [ http://www.armyofgod.com/POClist.html ]. Spitz also promotes [ http://www.armyofgod.com/defense.html ] the 1993 “Defensive Action Statement [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/signers ],” signed by 34 anti-choice activists including Paul Hill [ http://www.armyofgod.com/Paulhillindex.html , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Jennings_Hill ], which says that those who kill abortion providers “ought to be acquitted of the charges” against them because people should take “all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force.”
MSNBC’s Irin Carmon spoke with Spitz [ http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/abortion-opponents-defense-colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting ], who told her that anti-choice groups that condemned the Colorado Springs shooting are “hypocritical” and “into political correctness way too far.” Spitz said that he was not against the shooter’s actions and will be “reaching out to him.”
“There are no innocent people in Planned Parenthood,” he said. “They’re in there for a reason.”
One notorious anti-abortion activist, who has long been an open supporter of violence against abortion providers, broke with the movement in offering direct support to Dear.
Donald Spitz, who runs the Army of God website and is based in Virginia, said of his fellow anti-abortion activists’ condemnations of violence, “They say that all the time. I think they’re hypocritical.”
While many groups insist violence against abortion providers is counterproductive to their cause, Spitz suggested such rhetoric is disingenuous. Referring to Scott Roeder, who murdered abortion provider George Tiller and who Spitz calls a friend, Spitz said, “How could that be counterproductive when he stopped them from providing abortions? They’ve lost their mind. They’re into political correctness way too far.”
As for Spitz’s own reaction, “I think Planned Parenthood is an evil organization, so I didn’t lose any sleep when I heard about it,” Spitz said. “They sell baby parts, and they reap what they sow, and now they’re complaining about it.”
He added, “There are no innocent people in Planned Parenthood. They’re in there for a reason.”
Spitz said he wrote to Dear on Monday to offer his support.
“I told him, I was reaching out to him, it appears that everybody is against him. I’m not against him,” he said.
Spitz was given pause, though, by the fact that the three killed on Friday weren’t involved in providing abortion. “It’s one thing to kill an abortionist who’s killing babies,” Spitz said. “What he did, I don’t know.”
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/army-god-activist-hails-planned-parenthood-shooting-they-reap-what-they-sow
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For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack
Robert L. Dear Jr., in a court appearance via video on Monday at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center in Colorado Springs.
Credit Pool photo by Daniel Owen
The musty and weathered trailer in Swannanoa, N.C., from which Mr. Dear ran a business called S Prints Mountain Art Prints.
Credit Michael Biesecker/Associated Press
A cabin along a steep gravel road in Black Mountain, N.C., where Mr. Dear lived around 2005.
Credit Michael Biesecker/Associated Press
Mr. Dear and Stephanie Bragg relocated to Hartsel, Colo., last year.
Credit Julie Turkewitz/The New York Times
A police car with its back window shot out near the Planned Parenthood clinic the day after the shooting in Colorado Springs.
Credit Isaiah J. Downing/Reuters
By RICHARD FAUSSET
DEC. 1, 2015
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The man she had married professed to be deeply religious. But after more than seven years with Robert L. Dear Jr., Barbara Micheau had come to see life with him as a kind of hell on earth.
By January 1993, she had had enough. In a sworn affidavit as part of her divorce case, Ms. Micheau described Mr. Dear as a serial philanderer and a problem gambler, a man who kicked her, beat her head against the floor and fathered two children with other women while they were together. He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation.
“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms. Micheau said in the court document. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”
On Friday, according to officials, Mr. Dear entered a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/us/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting.html ], killing three people and wounding nine others with a semiautomatic rifle. The attack, which ended with his surrender to the police after a harrowing nationally televised standoff in the snow-dusted Western city, was a brutally violent and very public chapter in a life story whose details are not fully known.
But in court documents and interviews with people who knew Mr. Dear well, a picture emerges of an angry and occasionally violent man who seemed deeply disturbed and deeply contradictory: He was a man of religious conviction who sinned openly, a man who craved both extreme solitude and near-constant female company, a man who successfully wooed women but, some of them say, also abused them. He frequented marijuana websites, then argued with other posters, often through heated religious screeds.
“Turn to JESUS or burn in hell,” he wrote on one site on Oct. 7, 2005. “WAKE UP SINNERS U CANT SAVE YOURSELF U WILL DIE AN WORMS SHALL EAT YOUR FLESH, NOW YOUR SOUL IS GOING SOMEWHERE.”
A number of people who knew Mr. Dear said he was a staunch abortion opponent, though another ex-wife, Pamela Ross, said that he did not obsess on the subject. After his arrest, Mr. Dear said “no more baby parts” to investigators, a law enforcement official said.
One person who spoke with him extensively about his religious views said Mr. Dear, who is 57, had praised people who attacked abortion providers, saying they were doing “God’s work.” In 2009, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for the privacy of the family, Mr. Dear described as “heroes” members of the Army of God, a loosely organized group of anti-abortion extremists that has claimed responsibility for a number of killings and bombings.
Investigators have only just begun to interview Mr. Dear’s relatives and acquaintances, and are still searching the Internet for his writings. Public information about his early years is limited.
Ms. Ross said Mr. Dear had a college degree. He spent a half-year enrolled at the University of Kentucky, and a year at the University of Louisville, according to officials at the two schools.
In December 1979 he married a woman in Louisville, Ky., listed in court records as Kimberly Ann Dear. They had a child, Matthew, in 1980. Three and a half years later, they separated. Mr. Dear moved to Charleston, S.C., which Ms. Ross said was his birthplace. He took a few fast-food management training jobs before landing a position at Santee Cooper, the South Carolina power company. Mollie Gore, a spokeswoman for the company, said he began work there in September 1984.
Mr. Dear also met the woman who would become his second wife, Barbara Ann Mescher, who now goes by her married name, Barbara Micheau. She met him at a shopping mall while she and a girlfriend were admiring a motorcycle on display. He got her number. They went out.
He told her he was divorced, but in the 1993 affidavit, which was also reported in The Post and Courier of Charleston [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ], she said she later learned he was still married. The divorce from his first wife was completed in September 1985, more than a year after he met Ms. Micheau.
Ms. Micheau declined to comment for this article. Mr. Dear’s lawyer in Colorado did not respond to messages Tuesday.
Mr. Dear married Ms. Micheau three months later, after the divorce came through. They settled in a condominium, and later in a suburban-style house. But soon after, she said, he began to stray. In November 1986, he fathered another child, Andrew, with his first wife, Ms. Micheau said. Then in 1990, Mr. Dear had a child, Taylor, with the woman who would later become his third wife, Ms. Ross. The same year, he and Ms. Micheau had a baby together, Walker.
Ms. Micheau suspected him of other affairs, but there were other problems as well.
In 1989, he left Santee Cooper, where, she said in the affidavit, he “got in trouble a lot and played hooky a lot.” Eventually, he struck out on his own as an “artist’s representative,” selling prints to wholesale art galleries, and driving from gallery to gallery in his truck.
But Mr. Dear, she said, racked up debt, and would not help her pay the bills or help clean the house. She said he took trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, often losing large sums of money. She said he spent his money on a new motorcycle and on an “expensive gun.” She accused him of dishonesty in his business dealings. And she said he kicked her and pulled her hair “on many occasions,” and noted other times when he hurt her physically.
Money was tight. A 1991 income tax return, filed jointly by the couple, showed their total income as $15,526. In May of that year, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Mr. Dear was arrested and convicted in Charleston for the unlawful carrying of a “long blade knife” and the illegal possession of a loaded gun.
In court records, Mr. Dear admitted to engaging in “various acts of adultery,” and agreed with Ms. Micheau that “certain domestic difficulties developed” between them. In the court file, Mr. Dear did not address the more specific allegations Ms. Micheau made about his behavior.
In 1992, the couple separated. Records obtained from the North Charleston Police Department show that in November of that year, Mr. Dear was arrested as a suspect in a rape case. But the state Law Enforcement Division, which offers criminal records checks to the public, has no record of Mr. Dear being convicted of such a crime, meaning it is likely that the case was dismissed.
According to the police incident report, the woman told the police that a man named Robert approached her at her job at a Sears store in a mall and asked her out on a date. She refused. The man proceeded to call her two to three times a day, she said, “saying he wanted to see her,” according to the report.
On the afternoon of Nov. 29, 1992, the woman said, the man turned up at the front door of her apartment, put a knife to her throat, forced her inside and sexually assaulted her.
The woman’s husband, Craig Melchor, was on a Navy submarine when he got word that his young wife had been attacked at knifepoint and raped inside their apartment. The suspect, he learned: Robert L. Dear Jr.
“I won’t forget that name,” Mr. Melchor said in an interview.
Mr. Melchor said his wife wanted to see Mr. Dear face his day in court, but the only other witness, another Navy wife, refused to testify and the Melchors were about to move to Seattle.
Prosecutors called them and said: “You’re moving West. The witness you had doesn’t want to be involved,” Mr. Melchor recalled. “And that’s that. I remember. That wasn’t right.”
They went to counseling and rape survivors’ groups, but Mr. Melchor said his wife, who died in 2007, sometimes worried that her attacker would come back and find her. He said they both had to accept that the case was out of their hands.
“We had to let go and let God take care of it,” he said.
According to the police narrative, Mr. Dear acknowledged a sexual liaison with the woman, but said that it was “consensual.”
Ms. Micheau said she did not believe the accusation. In the affidavit, she said she believed her husband had “pursued a sexual relationship” with the “approval” of the woman.
“I tried to stick with him and help him through it, but it has become impossible,” said Ms. Micheau, adding: “He constantly criticizes everyone around him and he is very hard to please. He really does not have any friends. He does not trust anyone. He looks for a way around anything he has to do and spends a lot of time planning revenge.”
She described her husband as a man who “erupts into fury” in seconds. She said he had “emotional problems and needs counseling, which he vehemently opposed many times.”
The divorce was complete in June 1994.
By the summer of 1995, Mr. Dear had moved to Walterboro, about an hour west of Charleston, taking up residence in a double-wide trailer on a secluded one-lane road, Winding Creek Drive, that cut through the woods. Ms. Micheau complained in court documents that Mr. Dear would not tell her exactly where he lived, which concerned her because he had visitation rights with their son, Walker.
Eventually, Mr. Dear married his third wife, who today goes by Pamela Ross. They lived in the double-wide trailer, raising Taylor, their son, and Ms. Ross’s child from a previous marriage. Walker spent time there as well.
Ms. Ross struck a different tone in describing Mr. Dear. She said he had often taken her and the boys out shopping or visiting Lowcountry attractions in Hilton Head and Charleston. She said he believed strongly in the Bible, but did not seem overly zealous. He was against abortion, she said, but not obsessively so: “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said.
A police incident report shows that in 1997, she told the police that he had locked her out of her home and that he had “hit her and pushed her out the window” when she tried to climb in. He also shoved her to the ground, she said. The report said she did not want to file charges.
In the interview, Ms. Ross said Mr. Dear would quickly apologize after doing something wrong. Still, the relationship fizzled, for reasons she did not discuss. According to court records, the couple’s divorce went through in November 2001.
In 2005, John Hood moved to Winding Creek Drive from the Catskills region of New York and became Mr. Dear’s newest neighbor. Mr. Hood described Mr. Dear as eccentric: He liked to sit on a deck in his underwear and drink his coffee. He sometimes drove an old unlicensed Volkswagen Beetle up and down the rutted road. Mr. Hood said that the neighbors on the other side of Mr. Dear had erected a wooden fence because they sometimes saw Mr. Dear skinny-dipping in a pool.
“I didn’t make a point to get to know him,” Mr. Hood, 68, said in an interview.
The two men did interact when Mr. Hood put his pickup up for sale. Mr. Dear paid cash for it. At one point, when Mr. Dear was visiting his neighbor’s property, he suggested that Mr. Hood put a metal roof on his house “because the government satellites can see through your roof.”
Eventually, Mr. Dear moved to North Carolina, keeping two homes near Asheville in a stretch of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One was a musty and weathered trailer in Swannanoa, from which he ran a business called S Prints Mountain Art Prints. The other was a yellow cabin along a steep gravel road.
At the cabin, in Black Mountain, he rarely spoke with his neighbors. When he did, it was usually because of a dispute over how he cared for animals or how fast he drove an all-terrain vehicle along the single-lane road where children play freely and dogs roam and yelp.
In the small community, his scowl stood out.
“I know everyone on the road better than I ever knew him,” said Kara McNerney, who has lived on the street for more than 16 years.
Online, Mr. Dear appeared to lead a different sort of life. Though to his neighbors he was a recluse, he posted frequently to a web forum dedicated to cannabis and joined an adult dating site called SexyAds in the fall of 2005 and the winter of 2006.
On SexyAds, a poster using his email address and photo said he was looking for a discreet relationship and was interested in spanking. On the cannabis forum, he said he was looking for women to “party,” and rarely wrote about using the drug.
Instead, he was far more likely to write brief and emphatic messages about Jesus Christ – usually in caps lock, the online equivalent of yelling – or to post sparsely worded solicitations for female companionship in North and South Carolina. “savannah sexy women wanted. i love to party, tall, aries, male,” he wrote in August 2005.
He argued with users of the site who disagreed with his religious posts, deriding them as “slaves” and “demons” who would suffer at the end of the world. On Oct. 7, 2005, he wrote, “Every knee shall bow an every tongue will confess that JESUS IS LORD.”
Around seven years ago, Mr. Dear began dating a woman named Stephanie Bragg. For reasons that remain unclear, they moved last year to Hartsel, Colo., a hamlet perched about 65 miles west of Colorado Springs. Ringed by mountains, Hartsel calls itself the Heart of Colorado.
But Mr. Dear, it seemed, did not want to be at the heart of anything. He plunked a white trailer [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us/robert-dear-suspect-in-colorado-killings-preferred-to-be-left-alone.html ] marked with a small cross onto five acres of empty scrub land he had bought for $6,000 and lived in near isolation with Ms. Bragg, rarely saying a word or waving hello to his new neighbors.
The move was not welcomed by some in Ms. Bragg’s family. Her former stepmother, Patricia Stutts, said Ms. Bragg’s father had expressed concern about his daughter, who is 13 years younger than Mr. Dear, moving out West with him.
“He told me Stephanie had gone to Colorado, and was living off the grid and had to go into town to make phone calls,” Ms. Stutts said. “He was very disturbed by it.”
A close relative of Ms. Bragg’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about privacy for Ms. Bragg’s family, said that Mr. Dear “always kept to himself, was a tad strange” but that he seemed to treat Ms. Bragg well. He paid for their trips to visit family in the Carolinas and would “buy the presents and such.”
The relative said Mr. Dear and Ms. Bragg were “very religious, read the Bible often and are always talking about scripture.” He had not shown signs of being violent, the relative said.
The relative, who spoke with Ms. Bragg in recent days, also said that before the shooting, Mr. Dear reportedly “wasn’t sleeping at all,” and had “been talking about the Devil getting in his head and such.”
The relative said Ms. Bragg had been hospitalized since a week before Thanksgiving, with an infection and pancreatitis. Mr. Dear visited her every day until the day of the shooting.
“She says she can’t believe he was capable of such things, and I think that’s what’s upsetting her most,” the relative said about Ms. Bragg. “He believed he was doing God’s will, and I’m sure he probably wanted to die in the process of carrying out what I’m sure he thought was right.”
Reporting was contributed by Jack Healy, Julie Turkewitz, Dave Philipps and Kassondra Cloos from Colorado Springs; Alan Blinder from Swannanoa, N.C.; and Ashley Southall, Mike McIntire and Liam Stack from New York. Jack Begg provided research from New York.
Related Coverage
A Brief History of Deadly Attacks on Abortion Providers
The fatal shooting of three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs was the latest incident in a long history of violent attacks on doctors and clinics providing abortions.
NOV. 29, 2015
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/11/29/us/30abortion-clinic-violence.html
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/robert-dear-planned-parenthood-shooting.html [with comments]
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Yes, The Planned Parenthood Shooter Is A ‘Christian Terrorist’
Dec 1, 2015
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/12/01/3727084/yes-the-planned-parenthood-shooter-was-a-christian-terrorist/ [with comments]
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For Abortion Providers, a Constant Barrage of Personalized Harassment
Shootings like the one at a Colorado clinic are rare. Stalking, hate mail, and intimidating protests are the daily reality.
Dec. 2, 2015
https://www.propublica.org/article/for-abortion-providers-a-constant-barrage-of-personalized-harassment [with comments]
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Scott Olson via Getty Images
By Kathleen Turner
Posted: 11/24/2015 4:28 pm EST Updated: 11/24/2015 4:59 pm EST
Last week, Ted Cruz promoted [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-touts-endorsement-radical-anti-choice-activist-troy-newman ] the endorsement of Troy Newman, an anti-choice leader who has gone so far as to say that a perfectly biblical society would execute its abortion providers.
Let that sink in for a moment.
Ted Cruz is so thrilled that someone who wants abortion providers to be killed is supporting him that he actually sent out a press release [ https://www.tedcruz.org/news/troy-newman-activist-behind-planned-parenthood-videos-endorses-ted-cruz/ ] to celebrate the endorsement. Is that what this Republican primary has come to? Presidential candidates applauding -- not denouncing -- these radically extreme positions?
Regardless of one's view on abortion rights, I would hope we can all agree that abortion providers do not deserve to be put to death for their entirely legal work. For a presidential candidate to not immediately distance himself from an endorsement from someone like Newman -- and instead to actively promote it -- is horrifying.
Sadly, though, it's indicative of just how extreme this year's Republican presidential primary has become. All of the GOP candidates have been fighting over who can be the most anti-choice, who can most restrict a woman's ability to make her own decisions.
As a lifelong activist for civil liberties and a woman's right to choose, it horrifies me that the Republicans hoping to be the next leader of the United States still attack women's rights in an attempt to get a bump in the polls from their far-right base.
Women made up 53 percent of the electorate in 2012. And not only are abortion rights the law of the land, but they're supported by 78 percent of all Americans -- which includes plenty of men and women from both parties -- who believe [ http://www.gallup.com/poll/183434/americans-choose-pro-choice-first-time-seven-years.aspx ] that abortion should be legal in at least some cases. That just doesn't seem to register with the Republican presidential candidates.
In the first Republican debate, Marco Rubio felt the need to clarify [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/marco-rubios-fetal-personhood-argument-disguise ] to the moderator that he's so anti-choice that he opposes not just most abortions, but all abortions; he's against rape and incest exceptions in abortion bans. Jeb Bush brags [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/jeb-bush-abortion_n_6940568.html ] that he's the "most pro-life governor in modern times." When he was governor of Florida, he went so far as to try to stop a mentally disabled 22-year-old rape survivor from having an abortion.
Under John Kasich's watch [ http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/11/19/report-john-kasich-aides-played-key-role-shuttering-half-ohios-abortion-clinics/ ], the number of abortion clinics in Ohio has halved, making it increasingly difficult for women to access abortion regardless of the fact that the Supreme Court has recognized it as a constitutional right.
Republicans aren't only attacking abortion rights -- they're attacking women's health in general. They all support defunding Planned Parenthood, which provides birth control, cancer screenings, and other critical services to millions of people ever year. They're all outspoken critics of the Affordable Care Act, even though it enables women to access free, life-saving preventative care. The Republican candidates all oppose important economic priorities -- like raising the minimum wage or effective paid leave policies -- that would especially help women and families.
Women across the country, in particular low-income women, can't afford a president who will hack away at reproductive choices, economic mobility, and healthcare access to curry favor with the radical fringe who now are calling all the shots in the Republican party.
In our country, no one should tolerate calls to put someone to death because of his or her legal profession. It would seem that in this Republican primary, "pro-life" means only what will garner the most votes.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathleen-turner/republicans-playbook-on-w_b_8641604.html [with comments]
*
17 Women Share How Planned Parenthood Transformed Their Lives
Memo to the House: Planned Parenthood matters to women in a big, big way.
09/18/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-transforms-womens-lives_55fc49e7e4b00310edf6da3e [with comments]
--
Ted Cruz embraces religious radicals with violent message
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/24/15
Rachel Maddow reports on the background of Troy Newman, radical anti-abortion activist embraced by Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, and notes that this is the second recent radical association by Cruz, having just spoken at an event where fellow speaker Kevin Swanson advocated the belief that the Bible justifies the execution of gay people. Duration: 8:11
Cruz Touts Endorsement Of Radical Anti-Choice Activist Troy Newman
11/20/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-touts-endorsement-radical-anti-choice-activist-troy-newman
Ted Cruz Welcomes Endorsement From Pastor Who Linked Ebola To Gay Rights
11/24/2015
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/goodasyou/nc-pastor-warns-of-a-super-ebola-that-will-destroy-gay-accepting-america ) embedded]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-welcomes-endorsement-pastor-who-linked-ebola-gay-rights
Ted Cruz Touts Endorsement Of Extreme Anti-Gay, Anti-Choice Activist Flip Benham
11/24/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-touts-endorsement-extreme-anti-gay-anti-choice-activist-flip-benham
Maddow Calls Out Ted Cruz For Embracing Radical Anti-Choice Activist
11/25/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/maddow-calls-out-ted-cruz-embracing-radical-anti-choice-activist [with this Maddow segment embedded]
Operation Rescue’s Big Break: How an Organization Rooted in the Radical Fringes of the Anti-Choice Movement Is Threatening to Shut Down the Government
http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/operation-rescue-s-big-break-how-organization-rooted-radical-fringes-anti-choice-moveme
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/cruz-embraces-radicals-with-violent-message-573836355908 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-24-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KI9AqGo2l4 (with comments)]
*
Cruz: 'Any President Who Doesn't Begin Every Day On His Knees Isn't Fit To Be Commander-In-Chief Of This Nation'
Submitted by Kyle Mantyla on Saturday, 11/7/2015 10:08 am
Ted Cruz [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ted-cruz/ted-cruz ] was the third [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jindal-no-earthly-court-can-change-definition-marriage ] Republican presidential candidate to appear at the "National Religious Liberties Conference [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/national-religious-liberties-conference ]" in Iowa yesterday, an event organized by extremist right-wing pastor [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jindal-no-earthly-court-can-change-definition-marriage ] Kevin Swanson [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kevin-swanson ], who earlier in the program [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/if-kevin-swansons-son-got-gay-married-id-sit-cow-manure-and-id-spread-it-all-over-my-body ] proclaimed that, according to the Bible, "the sin of homosexuality ... is worthy of death."
Swanson introduced Cruz by stating that Jesus Christ "is king of the President of the United States whether he will admit it or not and that president should submit to His rule and to His law" before asking Cruz to share his opinion on how important it is for "the President of the United States to fear God."
Cruz, predictably, asserted that fear of God is absolutely vital, declaring [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dkVu14Q_bw (just below, as embedded; with comments)] that "any president who doesn't begin every day on his knees isn't fit to be commander-in-chief of this nation."
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-any-president-who-doesnt-begin-every-day-his-knees-isnt-fit-be-commander-chief-nation
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Cruz ducks questions about radical religious right endorsement
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/25/15
Rachel Maddow reports on Ted Cruz, Republican presidential candidate, avoiding directly addressing his association with religious extremists who cited the Bible as justifying executing homosexuals and abortion doctors. Duration: 12:09
'Death Penalty For Gays' Literature At Right-Wing Conference
11/6/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/death-penalty-gays-literature-right-wing-conference
GOP Candidates Really Don't Want To Talk About 'Kill The Gays' Conference
11/18/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/gop-candidates-really-dont-want-talk-about-kill-gays-conference
Shoebat: Those Killed At Paris Rock Concert Were Devil Worshippers Who Got What They Deserved
11/18/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/shoebat-those-killed-paris-rock-concert-were-devil-worshippers-who-got-what-they-deserved
Kevin Swanson: Paris Massacre Was 'A Message From God'
11/19/2015
[audios ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-paris-attack-a-message-from-god , https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-paris-theatre-victims-invited-devil-to-kill-them ) embedded]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-paris-massacre-was-message-god
Kevin Swanson: Criticism Of Me Is Criticism Of God Himself
11/23/2015
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-criticism-of-me-is-criticism-of-god ) embedded]
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-criticism-me-criticism-god-himself
Kevin Swanson: Homosexuality Is 'The Catalyst By Which Nations Are Destroyed'
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/swanson-homosexuality-destroys-nations ) embedded]
11/24/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/kevin-swanson-homosexuality-catalyst-which-nations-are-destroyed
Jonathan Cahn: Paris Attack Was God's Punishment For France's Palestinian Activism
11/24/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jonathan-cahn-paris-attack-was-gods-punishment-frances-palestinian-activism , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dyfRqYht6I [embedded; with comments]
Jonathan Cahn Links Gay Marriage To Paris Terrorist Attacks
11/24/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/jonathan-cahn-links-gay-marriage-paris-terrorist-attacks , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LKQ-IQkwHGE [embedded; with comments]
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/cruz-ducks-questions-about-religious-radicals-574539331709 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-25-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6bf7GFaOkr0 (with comments)]
*
Texas GOPer Wants Vote On Secession From U.S.
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 11/25/2015 11:15 am
A member of the executive committee of the Republican Party of Texas has proposed a resolution calling for a vote during the March 1st GOP primary on whether Texas should leave the U.S.
The Houston Chronicle reports [ http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/texas-independence-secession-republic-TNM-texian-6654896.php ] today that executive committee member Tanya Robertson “already has support from a few other members” for her resolution, noting that she “got the idea for the resolution from the Texas Nationalist Movement.”
A member of the executive committee for the Republican Party of Texas plans to introduce a resolution at the group's next meeting, which would add to the party's primary ballot a non-binding measure for Texas secession. Party leadership calls the prospect unlikely.
Tanya Robertson, State Republican Executive Committee member for Senate District 11, which covers parts of Harris, Galveston and Brazoria counties, said she'll present the resolution at the committee's December 4 meeting in Austin, and that she already has support from a few other members.
"There's been a big groundswell of Texans that are getting into the Texas independence issue," she said, citing conversations she's had with constituents. "I believe conservatives in Texas should have a choice to voice their opinion."
...
Robertson got the idea for the resolution from the Texas Nationalist Movement, a small secessionist group that has tried but so far failed to raise the necessary 75,000 signatures to put a non-binding secession vote on the March ballot. When she heard that news she thought she could help, though she isn't a member of the TNM.
The Texas Nationalist Movement, a far-right anti-government group [ http://politicalcorrection.org/factcheck/200904200002 ], is hoping to include a resolution on the March primary ballot reading: “The State of Texas should reassert its status as an independent nation. FOR or AGAINST.”
It is too bad that Texas secessionist sympathizer [ http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/16/texas-governor-says-secession-possible/ ] Rick Perry [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/rick-perry ] has already dropped out of the presidential race.
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/texas-goper-wants-vote-secession-us
*
Texas Warns of Suit for Aiding Syrian Refugees
By DAVID LEE
Monday, November 30, 2015 Last Update: 1:18 PM PT
DALLAS (CN) - Texas has threatened [ http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/11/30/Tex%20Threat.pdf ] to kill funding and sue social services organizations if they defy Gov. Greg Abbott's refusal to accept Syrian refugees -- an order Abbott issued without the legal power to do so.
Chris Traylor, executive commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission, issued the threat in a Nov. 25 letter to the International Rescue Committee in Dallas.
The threat came a week after 31 governors [ http://www.courthousenews.com/CNSNEWS/Story/Index/84321 ] - 30 of them Republican - claimed their states would refuse to accept any more Syrian refugees, though states, and governors, have no legal authority to exclude legally admitted refugees.
Citing the Nov. 13 terrorist attacks in Paris that killed more than 130 people, Abbott said, "Security comes first."
"Texas will not accept any Syrian refugees & I demand the U.S. act similarly," Abbott tweeted on Nov. 16.
In his letter to the International Rescue Committee, Traylor wrote: "Failure by your organization to cooperate with the State of Texas as required by federal law may result in the termination of your contract with the state and other legal action."
He said the International Rescue Committee had not been cooperating with Texas.
"I must ask that you fulfill your statutory duty to conduct your activities 'in close cooperation and advance consultation' with the State of Texas pursuant to section 1522 of Title 8 of the United States Code," the letter states. "If you remain unwilling to cooperate with the state on this matter, we strongly believe that a failure to cooperate with the state on this matter violates federal law and your contract with the state."
Traylor gave the group until Monday, Nov. 30, to respond.
"Rather than continue on your current path, in violation of the governor's directive, please contact my office no later than Monday, November 30, so that we can, indeed, work together 'in close cooperation' as required by federal law," the letter states.
Traylor claimed that Texas has settled 10 percent of the Syrians in the country, that 28 refugees per every 100,000 Texans were accepted last year, more per capita than in Florida, California and New York.
"Texas has shouldered its share in supporting refugees from around the world," Traylor wrote.
He said Abbott banned Syrian refugees because President Barack Obama has shown "no willingness to improve the security screenings" of refugees in spite of "the abundant evidence that the screens are ineffective."
International Rescue Committee Executive Director Donna Duvin said her group has responded to Texas, and hopes to work with it, but that it is "still anticipating a need to work" with the federal government to resettle families.
"If that needs to be done without state support, then we would be looking for resources outside of state support to make that possible," she told The Dallas Morning News.
Unlike political asylees, who generally enter the United States without permission and then apply for legal status, refugees enter the country legally after applying for refugee status at a U.S. Embassy or consulate in a foreign country. The State Department's vetting process can take up to two years.
Once a refugee is admitted to the United States, he or she is legally present here. States and governors have no more power to bar them from entering than they could bar entry to a U.S. citizen.
Copyright 2015 Courthouse News Service
http://www.courthousenews.com/2015/11/30/texas-warns-of-suit-for-aiding-syrian-refugees.htm [also at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/texas-syrian-refugees_565cd6f2e4b072e9d1c307b2 (with comments)]
--
Marco Rubio: 'Ignore' Gay Marriage Decision Because 'God's Rules Always Win'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Wednesday, 11/25/2015 11:40 am
In an interview [ https://www.facebook.com/david.brody.35/videos/10153730656743486/ (embedded; YouTube of the same, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2rNJ-iTJ00 {with comments}, included below as original embedded] today with David Brody [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/david-brody ] of the Christian Broadcasting Network [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/christian-broadcasting-network-0 ], Sen. Marco Rubio [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/marco-rubio-0 ] said that the Supreme Court’s rulings on marriage equality [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/marriage-equality ] and abortion rights [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/abortion . http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/abortion-rights ] in the Obergefell and Roe decisions, respectively, are “not settled law.”
The Republican presidential candidate said that states should “do everything possible within the constraints that its placed upon us” to curtail abortion rights, before insisting that government officials “ignore” Supreme Court rulings if they believe they conflict with “God’s rules.”
“We are clearly called, in the Bible, to adhere to our civil authorities, but that conflicts with also a requirement to adhere to God’s rules,” he said. “When those two come in conflict, God’s rules always win. In essence, if we are ever ordered by a government authority to personally violate and sin, violate God’s law and sin, if we’re ordered to stop preaching the gospel, if we’re ordered to perform a same-sex marriage as someone presiding over it, we are called to ignore that. We cannot abide by that because government is compelling us to sin.”
Brody, unsurprisingly, took that as an endorsement of Kentucky clerk Kim Davis’ stance [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/kim-davis ] that she could flout the Supreme Court and refuse to issue marriage licenses to gay couples.
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/marco-rubio-ignore-gay-marriage-decision-because-gods-rules-always-wins
===
America's Twisted Gun Culture Claims One of Washington College's Best and Brightest
Jacob Marberger speaks to sculptor David Hess during the opening of his "Gun Show" exhibit.
By Josh Horwitz [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/ ]
Executive Director, Coalition to Stop Gun Violence [ http://www.csgv.org/ ]
Posted: 11/24/2015 9:20 am EST Updated: 11/24/2015 12:59 pm EST
On Saturday afternoon, a crisis at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland came to a tragic end when student Jacob Marberger was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Five days prior, the school had taken the unusual step of closing down until the end of the month in response to a disturbing report from Marberger's parents.
Jacob had driven home to Pennsylvania late one evening, grabbed a rifle case, and disappeared. He was seen purchasing ammunition at a gun store shortly thereafter, but would not respond to phone calls or texts. Fearing a potential mass shooting, and erring on the side of caution, Washington College evacuated all students, faculty and staff from the campus.
When I first heard about the crisis at the college, I was deeply concerned. I participated in a panel discussion [ http://www.washcoll.edu/live/news/6956-panel-targets-gun-violence ] at Washington College on February 24 and was very impressed with the school and faculty. Then it suddenly dawned on me that I knew Jacob Marberger. He was present at that event and had a great deal to say about the topic: gun ownership and gun violence in American culture.
Joining me on the panel that evening were Maryland Institute College of Art professor of philosophy Firmin DeBrabander, the author of the book Do Guns Make Us Free? [ http://www.amazon.com/Do-Guns-Make-Free-Democracy/dp/0300208936 ]; Washington College professor of political science Melissa Deckman; and sculptor David Hess. Christine Wade, an associate professor of political science and international studies at the college, served as the moderator.
The panel "planned to expand the conversations... sparked" by an art exhibit that David had created weeks earlier for display on the campus, entitled "Gun Show." The exhibit consisted of 62 sculptures of assault weapons created out of household materials. It was David's reaction to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
"We have come to accept gun violence as the cost of living in a country with almost as many guns as people," he wrote [ http://www.washcoll.edu/live/news/6956-panel-targets-gun-violence ] in his artist statement for the exhibition. David hoped to provoke conversation about America's epidemic of gun violence.
He succeeded in that goal, and Jacob Marberger was part of that conversation. The 19 year-old sophomore attended the premier of David's "Gun Show" gallery exhibit on February 5 and sought out the artist to let him know he was offended by his work.
Jacob stated he was a gun owner and card-carrying NRA member and shared the following issues with David and his assistant:
1) He felt David's articulation of gun violence/gun culture seemed "unfocused"; 2) He felt the use of the term "assault weapon" for sculptures "that can't even fire bullets" was inappropriate, and he claimed the media had hijacked that term to describe any gun used in violence; 3) He accused David of using "[Everytown for Gun Safety head Michael] Bloomberg" gun death statistics to serve his agenda; 4) He was upset that the NRA's point of view was not represented in the exhibit; 5) He was outraged at the notion of gun rights in the United States being tied to white privilege.
David talked to Jacob for some time, but found him to be "adamant" and not satisfied with agreeing to disagree. At some point, David had to cut off the conversation.
A few weeks later, Jacob showed up again at our panel discussion and sat in the front right by the stage. During the Q&A session, Jacob spoke first [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=giob8IHYV64 (below, as embedded; comments disabled)], asking a kind of non-question in which he opined that the National Rifle Association has widespread popular support (4 million members) while the gun violence prevention movement consists solely of big-dollar "patrons" like former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg of Everytown for Gun Safety.
When I attempted to answer and explain that Everytown has millions of average Americans as members themselves, Jacob interrupted me as I spoke. He then interrupted Melissa Deckman when she pointed out that ballot referendums on universal background checks are demonstrating broad public support for gun reform in states across the country.
It wasn't long after that that Jacob's infatuation with firearms destroyed his reputation and got him into serious criminal trouble.
Jacob's father described his son as "an intellectual and conscientious young man," and by all accounts, he was exactly that. He was the speaker of his college's Student Senate, active in theater, and a member of a campus fraternity, Phi Delta Theta. But he began to drift into crisis in early October when he reported [ http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Jacob-Marberger-Suicide-Washington-College-Hawk-Mountain-Cheltenham-352949961.html ] two other Student Government Association (SGA) members to school administrators for texting sexually inappropriate comments about a woman in the group. Both students lost their jobs, and some members of Jacob's fraternity began to retaliate against him for not going directly to the SGA members with his concerns. Around this time, someone pranked Jacob by leaning a trash can full of water against his dorm room door so that when he opened it, the water spilled into his room.
On October 7, Jacob got drunk at a party at his frat house -- so much so that his fraternity brothers carried him up to his room 4-5 times during the party, hoping he would sleep it off. But he kept coming back downstairs, and the final time he did so, he was carrying a .22-caliber seven-shot revolver, an antique. He brandished it over his head and ranted about something that it is still not entirely clear. There are some indications he might have been hazing a fraternity pledge [ http://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2015/11/16/gun-threat-at-washington-college/ ] with the pistol.
The fraternity decided to remain silent about the matter, but three weeks later, the college figured out what happened and recovered the pistol from a house off-campus. Jacob was suspended from the college and kicked out of his fraternity. The Chestertown Police also filed gun charges [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/maryland-college-closed-amid-search-for-missing-student-who-may-be-armed/ ] against him, including possession of a dangerous weapon, possession of a weapon and ammunition on school property, and possession of a firearm as a minor. He was back in class on November 9 after a forensic psychiatrist determined he was not a threat to himself or others, but disappeared just a week later.
There is no doubt that Jacob's embrace of a degenerate gun culture promoted by the National Rifle Association (to sell guns) played a direct role in his death. That culture preaches extreme faith in the power of firearms to solve problems.
Feeling scared? "Buy a gun." Feeling slighted? "Buy a gun." Don't like what the government is doing? "Buy a gun."
Jacob bought into that culture completely. He was utterly fascinated with guns (his Facebook Likes included Surplus City Guns [ https://www.facebook.com/Surplus-City-Guns-10150121877510510/ ], CP Classic Pistol Indoor Range [ https://www.facebook.com/pages/CP-Classic-Pistol-Indoor-Range/142371052465975 ], Century Arms [ https://www.facebook.com/centuryarms/ ], Midway USA [ https://www.facebook.com/OfficialMidwayUSA/ ], "AK Operators Union, Local 47-74 [ https://www.facebook.com/AkOperatorsUnion/ ]," Armslist.com [ https://www.facebook.com/armslist/ ], and "Iraqveteran8888 [ https://www.facebook.com/iraqveteran8888official/ ]") and viewed firearms as a political tool which citizens use to convey status and power.
Even Jacob's use of an antique pistol was significant. Pro-gun extremists in this country have frequently employed [ http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/01/02/texas-gun-nuts-police-the-police-with-a-black-panthers-tactic.html ] black powder and other antique pistols in an attempt to aggressively challenge local/state gun laws and defy law enforcement.
There are two things that need to be gleaned from this tragedy to ensure that we don't spend our future mourning additional Jacob Marbergers:
Number one, forcing colleges and universities to allow guns on their campuses is a colossally bad idea that can only lead to additional gun death and injury. One couldn't imagine a more disastrous setting for firearms proliferation, given that young people like Jacob are frequently on their own for the first time at college and experiencing high levels of stress (to say nothing of alcohol and substance abuse).
Number two, guns do not make us free, or supercitizens, or safe. More typically, they destroy families, like the Marberger family has been destroyed. The NRA will continue to attempt to recruit young men like Jacob into the gun culture (even employing pseudo-hipster propaganda through programs like "Noir [ http://www.youtube.com/user/MrColionNoir ]"); that much we know. It therefore falls upon the rest of us to teach young Americans that guns will never be a solution to what ails them, either personally or politically.
Author's Note: In writing this piece, I consulted with David Hess and Firmin DeBrabander to make sure I was accurately citing their recollections of the evenings of February 5, 2015 and February 24, 2015.
Copyright ©2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc. (emphasis in original)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/josh-horwitz/americas-twisted-gun-cult_b_8637316.html [with comments]
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Rafael Cruz: 'Praise God There Are 300 Million Guns In America'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Tuesday, 11/3/2015 12:15 pm
In a speech in Minnesota last month, Ted Cruz’s father and campaign surrogate Rafael Cruz [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/rafael-cruz ] declared that President Obama is on the cusp of confiscating people’s guns, which is why it’s a good thing Americans own so many firearms.
The elder Cruz managed to turn the subject to guns after he fielded a question about whether the federal government should crack down on states like Colorado that have legalized marijuana. Cruz said that the federal government must enforce its drug laws in such situations because, as he explained, the people of Colorado want them to, even though a referendum legalizing marijuana passed with 55 percent of the vote.
This led him to rail against President Obama for considering executive actions on gun law reform, which he cited as another case of the administration flouting the law.
“He’s talking about doing an executive order to put gun control because he can push gun control,” he said [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bh7mXZsq7A (below, as embedded; with comments)]. “Let me tell you something about gun control. Look at history. Every king or dictator that has taken the guns away from the population then use it against the population. But praise God there are 300 million guns in America in the hands of private citizens and I don’t know a single one that is willing to give those guns back to the government.”
Cruz went on to allege [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fHimm9hzu8 (below, as embedded; with comments)] that “the violence and the racial strife that we are seeing” has been “fueled by this administration,” claiming that the demonstrators in Ferguson, Missouri, were flown in from across the country.
“This administration wants to create strife,” he said. “The whole concept of social justice is all about dividing everybody into a series of smaller groups, make every group seem like a victim and put one group against the other. They are trying to create this strife.”
He said that the president is doing this because he is following Saul Alinsky’s book “Rules for Radicals,” warning that Hillary Clinton will similarly implement this Alinskyite plot. The solution, he said, is to “stop this concept of hyphenated Americans and get back to ‘we’re all Americans.’”
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/rafael-cruz-praise-god-there-are-300-million-guns-america
===
Colorado Springs, Site Of Planned Parenthood Attack, Is A Hub For Conservative Christians
Activists have reportedly been demonstrating at the site of the attack for years.
By Sam Levine
Posted: 11/28/2015 09:07 PM EST
Colorado Springs, the town where three people were killed and nine injured in an attack on a Planned Parenthood facility on Friday, is a hub for Christian evangelicals who are opposed to abortion.
Though officials have not made a public statement about the motives behind Robert Lewis Dear's actions, an official who has been briefed on the investigation told The Washington Post [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2015/11/28/investigators-search-for-motive-in-planned-parenthood-shooting-that-left-three-dead/ ] that it was "definitely politically motivated." Law enforcement sources also told NBC News [ http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-made-comment-about-no-more-baby-n470706 ] that they had not yet established a motive, but that in statements to police, Dear said, in reference to Planned Parenthood, "no more baby parts."
In 2013, PBS described the town of nearly a half-million people as "America's Christian Mecca [ http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2013/02/22/february-22-2013-colorado-springs-evangelicals/14792/ ]," and reported that the prominence of Christian groups was partly due to an effort by economic development officials to bring them there in the 1980s.
One of the most influential groups based in Colorado Springs is Focus on the Family, which is anti-abortion. Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, released a statement [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-springs-attack_565a0758e4b079b2818a8f35?x6sf9a4i ] calling Friday's shooting "deplorable."
Activists against abortion have long picketed at the Planned Parenthood clinic on Fridays for years, according to the Colorado Springs Gazette [ http://gazette.com/colorado-springs-planned-parenthood-protester-dismayed-by-shooting/article/1564455 ]. Joseph Martone Jr., a frequent protester at the clinic, told the Gazette that about 70 people gather near the clinic on Thursdays and Fridays, the days when he said abortions are performed, to pray for an end to the procedure.
Hundreds of demonstrators also gathered outside the Planned Parenthood clinic in August to show support for shutting down the organization after the release of heavily edited videos [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/abortion-bills-planned-parenthood-video_55fc21d1e4b08820d9184787 ] that claimed to show Planned Parenthood employees planning to sell fetal tissue for profit.
This is the fifth incidence [ https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/abortion-clinics-are-burning-but-no-one-seems-to-care , http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting_5658f9b1e4b072e9d1c1f5b6 ] of violence at a Planned Parenthood clinic since the videos have been released. Planned Parenthood has denied the charges suggested in the video and said that it only donates the tissue when patients request it and does not make a profit. Making a profit off of the sale of fetal tissue in the United States is illegal, and investigations of Planned Parenthood at the state and federal level have found no wrongdoing [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-funding_5616d54fe4b0082030a1c100 ].
Still, congressional Republicans have worked to defund the organization and have established a select committee to investigate it [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2015/10/23/boehners-next-select-committee-focusing-on-planned-parenthood-to-be-led-by-marsha-blackburn/ ]. (Federal funds cannot legally go toward abortions [ https://www.aclu.org/public-funding-abortion ] except in extreme circumstances.)
Local politicians have also been vocal about speaking out against abortion. In March, state Rep. Gordon Klingenschmitt [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/27/gop-rep-baby-cut-from-womb-gods-punishment-abortion_n_6955456.html ] (R-Colorado Springs) said that God had cursed America for its stance on abortion after a stranger stabbed a Colorado woman and ripped her baby from her womb [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/25/baby-cut-out-of-womb-hospital_n_6940830.html ].
"This is the curse of God upon America for our sin of not protecting innocent children in the womb," Klingenschmitt said at the time. "Part of that curse for our rebellion against God as a nation is that our pregnant women are ripped open."
Colorado Springs voters have also punished politicians that supported gun control. In 2013, voters in Colorado Springs successfully recalled [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/colorado-recall-results_n_3903209.html ] state Sen. John Morse (D) after he supported increased gun control legislation following a shooting at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, that killed 12 and left 70 injured [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/10/colorado-recall-results_n_3903209.html ].
Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-springs-evangelicals_565a1e7ae4b079b2818a96b0 [with embedded video report, and comments]
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Abortion Rights Leader Nails Hypocrisy Of Anti-Abortion Activists
You can't promote violence and then act surprised when it really happens.
11/29/2015
An abortion rights leader is calling out anti-abortion activists who spread lies about -- or incite violence against -- abortion providers, then act appalled when violence actually transpires.
Ilyse Hogue, president of advocacy group NARAL Pro-Choice America [ http://www.prochoiceamerica.org/about-us/leadership/ ], derided two anti-abortionists in the wake of Friday's shooting [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/active-shooter-reported-in-colorado-springs-near-planned-parenthood_5658a87be4b079b2818a6d86 ] at a Colorado Planned Parenthood that left three people dead and nine injured:
"Ilyse Hogue
November 28 at 7:37pm - Edited
Sorry, David Daleiden. You don't get to create fake videos and accuse abortion providers of "barbaric atrocities against humanity" one day and act shocked when someone shoots to kill in those same facilities the next.
And you, Troy Newman -- using Operation Rescue to call for state-sanctioned execution of doctors who serve women -- and then crying crocodile tears when someone takes that vision into their own hands.
It's America. You are free to have your speech. The language you choose matters. You are not free from the judgement of the consequences of your hate-filled rhetoric. ?#?ColoradoSpringsShootings [ https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/coloradospringsshootings ]? ?#?DomesticTerrorism [ https://www.facebook.com/hashtag/domesticterrorism ]
[ https://www.facebook.com/ilyse.hogue/posts/10156353993570613 ]"
[...]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/anti-abortion-hypocrisy-planned-parenthood-shooting_565b0df3e4b08e945feb718c [with comments]
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Trump: Planned Parenthood shooting suspect a ‘maniac’
By Kyle Balluck
November 29, 2015, 09:40 am
GOP presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday rejected the notion that heated rhetoric in the Planned Parenthood debate contributed to the fatal shooting spree at a clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo.
“I think it's terrible. I mean, terrible. It's more of the same. And I think it's a terrible thing. He's a maniac,” Trump said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I think he's a sick person,” he added. “And I think he was probably a person ready to go. We don't even know the purpose. I mean, he hasn't come out, to the best of my knowledge, with a statement as to why it happened to be at that location.”
Trump did not respond directly when asked about reports [ http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/261426-report-alleged-planned-parenthood-gunman-makes-baby-parts ] that the alleged shooter, Robert Lewis Dear, discussed “baby parts” during an interview with law enforcement officials.
“This was a man who they said prior to this was mentally disturbed,” he said. “So, he's a mentally disturbed person. There's no question about that.”
Trump did, however, cite “tremendous dislike” for Planned Parenthood.
“Well, I will tell you there is a tremendous group of people that think it's terrible, all of the videos that they've seen with some of these people from Planned Parenthood talking about it like you're selling parts to a car. I mean, there are a lot of people that are very unhappy about that,” he said.
“I see a lot of anxiety and I see a lot of dislike for Planned Parenthood. There's no question about that.”
©2015 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261432-trump-planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-a-maniac [with embedded video, and (over 4,000) comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdA9FpFqh5M [with comments; show transcript at http://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meet-press-november-29-2015-n470871 (with comments)]
*
Donald Trump's Public Endorsement by Black Religious Leaders Undone by Complete Lack of Endorsement
Image via AP
Chris Thompson
11/29/15 10:47pm
Actual buffoon Donald Trump has decided to cancel a planned political ambush of “as many as 100 black evangelical religious leaders” when many of those leaders caught wind of his plan, reports [ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/3a6d5934e14a4ad883232e79f0433e72/trump-drops-event-black-pastors-after-some-object ] the Associated Press.
His campaign issued a press release last week that read: “Mr. Trump will be joined by a coalition of 100 African-American evangelical pastors and religious leaders who will endorse the GOP front-runner after a private meeting at Trump Tower.”
So, what went wrong?
Many of those invited to the event say they had no intention of endorsing the billionaire businessman and former reality television star.
Gotta nail down those details, Donald.
The AP report mentions an open letter published in Ebony [ http://www.ebony.com/news-views/message-to-black-clergy-think-of-trumps-rhetoric-before-meeting-with-him-333 ] from—hey, look at that—more than 100 black religious leaders and scholars in which they urge those set to meet with Trump to consider his history of, you know, being a racist fuckface [ http://gawker.com/noted-racist-donald-trump-tweets-out-anti-black-propaga-1744083487 ].
From the open letter [ http://www.ebony.com/news-views/message-to-black-clergy-think-of-trumps-rhetoric-before-meeting-with-him-333 ] (I urge you to read the whole thing—it’s worth it):
What theology do you believe Mr. Trump possesses when his politics are so clearly anti-Black? He routinely engages in the kind of rhetoric that brings out the worst sorts of white racist aggression, not only toward Black people, but also toward Mexican-Americans and Muslim-Americans, too. Surely, we can agree that this kind of unloving and violent language does not reflect the politics of the Christ we profess?
A Trump campaign spokesperson says Trump will still meet with the group, in private. Sometime later he will get into an argument on “Meet the Press” in which he insists there is video [ http://gawker.com/trump-on-debunked-9-11-claim-im-not-going-to-take-it-b-1745115760 ] of them endorsing him.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/donald-trumps-public-endorsement-by-black-religious-lea-1745190889 [with
comments]
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Mike Huckabee Calls Planned Parenthood Shooting 'Domestic Terrorism'
"What he did is domestic terrorism, and what he is did is absolutely abominable."
By Igor Bobic
Posted: 11/29/2015 11:11 AM EST | Edited: 11/29/2015 11:29 AM EST
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) addressed the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood shooting, in which two civilians and a police officer were killed when a gunman opened fire at the women's health clinic on Friday.
"The Colorado Springs tragedy is domestic terrorism, especially for those us in the pro-life movement," Huckabee wrote [ https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/670981701561131008 ] on Twitter.
The Republican presidential hopeful, an evangelical Christian known for his firm stance against abortion, became just one of few GOP presidential contenders to address the shooting over the weekend. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) also offered their condolences to the victims. Many of the other candidates vying for the Republican presidential nomination, however, were noticeably silent [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-2016-planned-parenthood-shooting_5659b750e4b072e9d1c1fb6a ] about the matter.
On Saturday, Huckabee first commented [ https://twitter.com/GovMikeHuckabee/status/670768717265899520 ] on the fallen police officer, praising him as a hero who "laid down his life in service of his community."
Authorities have not yet publicly ascribed a motive to the shooting. But the 57-year-old suspect, Robert Lewis Dear, reportedly said "no more baby parts [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/planned-parenthood-shooting-appears-to-have-been-politically-motivated_565a60cfe4b079b2818a98ab ]" after his arrest, a possible reference to a heavily edited undercover video released by a conservative organization that showed Planned Parenthood personnel supposedly discussing the sale of fetal tissue parts.
Huckabee addressed the shooting Sunday in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union."
“Well, we don't know fully what the facts are," he said. "They're still being determined. We don't even know some of the victims' names yet. But regardless of why he did it, what he did is domestic terrorism, and what he is did is absolutely abominable, especially to those of us in the pro-life movement, because there's nothing about any of us that would condone or in any way look the other way at something like this."
Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/mike-huckabee-planned-parenthood-shooting-terrorism_565b1c50e4b08e945feb73cc [with embedded (non-YouTube) video, and comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ol7AsboxZSk [with comments]
*
Mike Huckabee: Planned Parenthood Are Murderers Too!
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 11/30/2015 1:15 pm
In his condemnation of the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Spring, Mike Huckabee [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/mike-huckabee ] suggested that while the attacker was wrong for killing people, Planned Parenthood [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/planned-parenthood , http://www.rightwingwatch.org/blog-terms/3954 ] does the same thing [ http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_EMBATTLED_PLANNED_PARENTHOOD ]:
Mike Huckabee condemned the attack as a "despicable act of murder" and said "what he did is domestic terrorism," but then equated the killings to the abortions Planned Parenthood provides.
"There's no excuse for killing other people, whether it's happening inside the Planned Parent headquarters, inside their clinics, where many millions of babies die, or whether it's people attacking Planned Parenthood," Huckabee said on CNN's "State of the Union."
Huckabee’s comments reflects the mood of several anti-choice [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/topics/anti-abortion ] groups that have used the shooting, which left three people dead, as a way to attack Planned Parenthood [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/colorado-anti-choice-groups-why-isnt-media-covering-pro-abortion-violence ] and demand that the media cover “pro-abortion violence.”
The Republican presidential candidate has previously likened Planned Parenthood to ISIS terrorists [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/huckabee-planned-parenthood-isis-because-both-take-peoples-heads ] and suggested that the creators of the hoax videos targeting Planned Parenthood should receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-great-idea-give-medal-freedom-anti-planned-parenthood-hoaxers ], all the while pledging to ban abortion through an executive decree [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-will-outlaw-abortion-executive-fiat ] that will effectively treat abortion as the legal equivalent of murder [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/what-mike-huckabee-means-giving-14th-amendment-rights-fetuses ].
He once hailed a group that claims Planned Parenthood is waging genocide against black people [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/02/03/142180/huckabee-planned-parenthood/ ] and said in a speech following a visit to a concentration camp that legal abortion in America is no different than the Holocaust [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-abortion-rights-worse-nazi-holocaust-gay-marriage-dooms-america , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwG3hVaD7xs (just below, as embedded; with comments)] orchestrated by Nazi Germany, if not worse.
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/mike-huckabee-planned-parenthood-are-murderers-too
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Fiorina: It's 'Left-Wing' To Link Planned Parenthood Attack To Videos
There's no connection between rhetoric and violence, says the Planned Parenthood opponent.
By Paul Blumenthal
Posted: 11/29/2015 12:25 PM EST | Edited: 11/30/2015 11:32 AM EST
WASHINGTON -- Republican presidential candidate Carly Fiorina declared on "Fox News Sunday" that attempts to link anti-abortion rhetoric from Republicans to Friday’s attack on a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs, Colorado, were just “typical left-wing tactics.”
“This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don’t agree with the message,” Fiorina said.
Fiorina has been one of the most forceful Republican candidates in denouncing Planned Parenthood after heavily edited undercover videos [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/07/14/sting-video-planned-parenthood_n_7797164.html ] were released supposedly showing Planned Parenthood staff discussing the provision of fetal tissue samples for research purposes.
She has said the women's health organization sells “baby parts” and claimed to have seen a video [ http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2015/09/planned-parenthood-fetus-video-carly-fiorina ] showing its staff discussing harvesting the brain of a fully formed fetus. The alleged Planned Parenthood shooter, 57-year old Robert Dear, reportedly mentioned “baby parts” to investigators.
Planned Parenthood locations across the country have faced an increase in violence [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting_5658f9b1e4b072e9d1c1f5b6 ] since the release of the heavily edited videos by the anti-abortion Center for Medical Progress. There have been four arsons [ https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2015/10/02/four-arsons-74-days-planned-parenthood-clinics ] at Planned Parenthood locations in California, Illinois, Louisiana and Washington since the release of the videos.
Fiorina called the Colorado Springs shooting a “tragedy” and denounced the shooter as a “deranged” man who should be tried for murder.
Copyright © 2015 TheHuffingtonPost.com, Inc.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/carly-fiorina-planned-parenthood_565b2cefe4b072e9d1c22960 [with embedded (non-YouTube) video, and comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eEypYideRy0 [with comments]
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Abortion rights groups: Political rhetoric contributed to shooting
A member of the New York Police Department stands outside a Planned Parenthood clinic in Manhattan.
(Andrew Kelly/Reuters)
By Sandhya Somashekhar
November 29, 2015
To many abortion rights advocates, it seemed only a matter of time before something like this happened.
Ever since the summer, when an antiabortion group accused Planned Parenthood of illegally selling fetal tissue, threats against the organization had escalated to unprecedented levels, abortion providers say. They stepped up collaboration with the FBI and local police and stiffened security at clinics. But on Friday, their worst fears came true: A man walked into a health center in Colorado Springs and opened fire.
Police have not yet identified a clear motive for the shooting, which killed a police officer, Garrett Swasey [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/11/28/officer-garrett-swasey-who-died-in-colo-planned-parenthood-shooting-was-a-co-pastor-skating-champion/ ], and two other people and left more than six injured. But the suspect, identified as Robert Lewis Dear Jr., attacked a clinic run by Planned Parenthood, a longtime foil of antiabortion activists that has been under heightened scrutiny in recent months. During his arrest, Dear referred to “baby parts,” a law enforcement official said.
Abortion rights advocates say the connection is clear. Over the summer, a little-known antiabortion group called the Center for Medical Progress released a series of covertly filmed videos purporting to show that Planned Parenthood illegally sells fetal tissue, or “baby parts,” as abortion foes refer to it, for research. The century-old nonprofit agency has denied wrongdoing, and state and congressional investigations have so far failed to produce proof supporting the allegations.
Nevertheless, the casual and sometimes graphic conversations about abortion procedures captured on the videos have provided fodder for conservatives on Capitol Hill, in governor’s mansions and on the presidential campaign trail to seek to strip the organization of government funding. The efforts have led to sometimes passionate commentary on the part of conservatives and Republicans against abortion and sharply critical of Planned Parenthood, striking a tone that abortion rights advocates say created an atmosphere that put clinic workers and patients at risk.
‘An evil act’
Antiabortion groups were quick to condemn the shooting and assert that, despite often impassioned and emotional language, their years-long campaign is about saving lives, not taking them. They emphasized that there was still no clear explanation for the shooting, which was carried out by a man who was known by friends and acquaintances as a malcontent who often clashed with neighbors and had encounters with police. Grass-roots activists connected with the antiabortion movement said they did not know Dear and that his name was not familiar.
“Our prayers and concern are with the victims today of the Colorado Springs shooting, people who did not deserve such violence,” Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, an antiabortion group, said in a statement Saturday. “While we don’t know all the details of this horrific event, we know that it was an evil act, one condemned by pro-life Americans nationwide.”
But Vicki Saporta, president of the National Abortion Federation, a professional association for abortion providers, said the antiabortion rhetoric had grown so heated in recent months that something like this was bound to happen.
“They have ignited a firestorm of hate. They knew there could be these types of consequences, and yet they ratcheted up the rhetoric and ratcheted it up and ratcheted it up,” Saporta said. “It’s not a huge surprise that somebody would take this type of action.”
On the Sunday morning talk shows, Republican presidential hopefuls walked a fine line, condemning the attack while also defending the criticism heaped on Planned Parenthood. On NBC’s “Meet the Press,” real estate mogul and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called the shooter “mentally disturbed” and reiterated the complaints about Planned Parenthood. Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, also a Republican hopeful, decried “extremism on both sides,” on ABC’s “This Week.”
On “Fox News Sunday,” former Hewlett Packard chief Carly Fiorina called the shooting “obviously a tragedy,” adding, “nothing justifies this.” In the past, she has accused Planned Parenthood of “butchering babies for body parts [ http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/carly-fiorinas-planned-parenthood-playbook/ ].” But the Republican presidential candidate resisted the notion that the fiery rhetoric contributed to the shooting.
“This is so typical of the left to immediately begin demonizing a messenger because they don’t agree with the message,” she said. “The vast majority of Americans agree [that] what Planned Parenthood is doing is wrong.”
But abortion rights advocates say the videos have also led to a spike in threats against the organization — with a worst-case scenario unfolding in Colorado Springs.
“Politicians need to stop escalating the rhetoric against Planned Parenthood, and that means by and large the Republican Party,’’ said Laura Chapin, a pro-abortion rights political communications consultant and former press secretary to former Colorado governor Bill Ritter (D). “Right-wing politicians need to back off.’’
Saporta called the Colorado Springs shooting the deadliest such attack in history because it led to three fatalities. With Friday’s tragedy, she said, the death toll from antiabortion violence has risen to 11. The last such incident at an abortion clinic occurred in 2009, when a gunman shot and killed George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performed the procedure late in a pregnancy.
Previously, Saporta said, her organization used internal staff to track threats to report to law enforcement. But the volume got so high that she contracted with an outside security firm to monitor threats 24 hours a day, she said. The company now provides her organization with daily reports, with the results reported routinely to the FBI and local police.
Tight security at clinics
Strict security measures have become the norm at abortion clinics, which often have bulletproof glass, surveillance systems, security guards and volunteer escorts to usher patients through a gantlet of antiabortion demonstrators. Staff members are advised to keep unlisted phone numbers and to vary their commutes. Many clinics have moved into more private buildings, with underground parking to prevent demonstrators outside from snapping pictures of workers’ faces or license plates as they arrived at the office.
The Colorado Springs clinic has security cameras inside and outside the building, and workers are trained on how to deal with situations such as an active shooter, said Vicki Cowart, president of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains. She credits this training with the fact that none of the 15 staff members were wounded Friday, and likely none of the patients as well, she said.
Saporta drew special attention to the group that filmed the undercover Planned Parenthood videos. Two of the videos were shot at a clinic in Denver, about 75 miles north of Colorado Springs. The videos sparked an onslaught of threats against one doctor featured in those videos, who has since moved out of her home and hired round-the clock security, Saporta said.
Since the videos’ release, she said, four Planned Parenthood clinics have been targeted for arson; a man was arrested for bringing a bomb into a Kansas clinic [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-arrested-for-bringing-bomb-to-kansas-abortion-clinic/ ]; and someone with a hatchet destroyed equipment [ http://bigstory.ap.org/article/816d1ad6fb95489eb42df19acd34c151/intruder-hatchet-smashes-planned-parenthood-clinic ] at a Planned Parenthood facility in New Hampshire.
David Daleiden, project leader for the Center for Medical Progress, did not respond to a request for comment over the weekend. But Troy Newman, who sits on the board of directors, defended the project, which he said shed light on a matter of intense public interest.
Newman is president of Operation Rescue, an organization that is often present outside abortion clinics to document instances in which an ambulance has to be called and posts information about abortion providers, including their pictures, online. He has described abortion doctors as “butchers” and has called women who obtain abortions “murderesses,” and the vice president of his organization served two years in federal prison for conspiring to damage a clinic.
But he said his actions are not incitements for violence but rather “truth-telling” in the face of a corrupt industry.
“There’s a frustration that all of us experience from a lack of prosecution of Planned Parenthood by the federal authorities, but that frustration should never be taken to the point of extremism where people are killed as a result,” he said.
Jose A. DelReal contributed to this report.
Related
How videos set off renewed wave of action on abortion
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2015/07/28/how-the-planned-parenthood-videos-set-off-a-renewed-wave-of-activism-on-abortion/
Being a doctor who performs abortions means your life is always in danger
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/10/29/being-a-doctor-who-performs-abortions-means-you-always-fear-your-life-is-in-danger/
© 2015 The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/abortion-rights-groups-political-rhetoric-contributed-to-shooting/2015/11/29/d2fad2c4-96c7-11e5-8917-653b65c809eb_story.html [with embedded video reports, and (over 4,000) comments]
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Who Is Willing to Call the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood Shooting Terrorism?
Photo via AP
Brendan O'Connor
11/29/15 10:20pm
Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, does not think [ http://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/261435-homeland-security-chairman-does-not-see-terrorism-in-planned ] the deadly attack Friday at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood qualifies as terrorism: “I don’t think it would fall under quite the definition of domestic terrorism, although I’ll leave that to the Justice Department to make that determination.”
The mayor of Colorado Springs, John Suthers, would seem to disagree [ http://abcnews.go.com/US/planned-parenthood-standoff-appears-domestic-terrorism-colorado-springs/story?id=35471366 ]:
The mayor of Colorado Springs said it “certainly appears” the shooting and standoff at a Planned Parenthood clinic that left three dead Friday was an act of domestic terrorism.
Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers would not comment on a motive for the shooting. Police haven’t released a possible motive or said whether the clinic was the intended target.
“We have a person that’s pretty much off the grid and acting for whatever motivation,” Suthers said on ABC’s “This Week.” “[It’s] very hard to ferret out those folks.”
As would the governor of Colorado [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/30/us/colorado-shooting-planned-parenthood.html ]:
Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado, a Democrat, called the shooting a “form of terrorism” on CNN’s “State of the Union,” and urged the country to find ways “to make sure we keep guns out of the hands of people that are unstable.” Colorado has been the site of two other mass shootings, at Columbine High School in 1999 and at a movie theater in Aurora in 2012.
And, uh, Mike Huckabee [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/29/politics/mike-huckabee-planned-parenthood-domestic-terrorism/ ]:
What he did is domestic terrorism, and what he did is absolutely abominable, especially to us in the pro-life movement, because there’s nothing about any of us that would condone or in any way look the other way on something like this.
As it happens, the Justice Department reportedly does [ http://abcnews.go.com/US/planned-parenthood-standoff-appears-domestic-terrorism-colorado-springs/story?id=35471366 ] think it falls under the definition of domestic terrorism:
Law enforcement sources told ABC News that Dear made rambling comments during the incident, some of which suggested animosity toward the health care provider. They said the Justice Department is building a domestic terrorism case against Dear, though it would only move forward if somehow the state capital case was sidetracked.
An unnamed senior law enforcement official told the New York Times that [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us/robert-dear-suspect-in-colorado-killings-preferred-to-be-left-alone.html ], in an meandering interview with authorities, Robert Lewis Dear spoke about “no more baby parts.” The shooting Friday left three dead, including one police officer, and nine wounded.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/who-is-willing-to-call-the-colorado-springs-planned-par-1745187586 [with comments]
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Ted Cruz Defends Conservative Criticisms of Planned Parenthood After Shooting at Clinic
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas at a campaign stop in Newton, Iowa, on Sunday.
Credit Scott Morgan for The New York Times
By Matt Flegenheimer
November 30, 2015
Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, chafing at the suggestion that conservative criticisms of Planned Parenthood might have played a role in the attack at a Colorado clinic [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/us/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting.html ] on Friday, lashed out on Sunday at the “vicious rhetoric on the left, blaming those who are pro-life.”
Speaking to reporters in Newton, Iowa, Mr. Cruz said “we don’t fully know the motivations of this deranged individual” in the shooting, which killed three people and wounded nine.
Mr. Cruz added, without prompting, that the suspected gunman, Robert L. Dear Jr., was “registered to vote as a woman.” He suggested that there was “very little evidence” tying the shooting to anti-abortion sentiment, a cause frequently invoked by Mr. Cruz and his fellow Republicans in the presidential primary.
When a reporter cited news reports that Mr. Dear had said “no more baby parts” after he was apprehended, Mr. Cruz replied, “Well, it’s also reported that he was registered as an independent and as a woman and a transgender leftist activist.”
Aides to Mr. Cruz said he was not saying with certainty that the gunman was a “transgender leftist activist,” but rather highlighting how little was known about him definitively.
“He was making the point that there isn’t enough information,” Rick Tyler, a campaign spokesman, said. “You can’t expect a full response to a story that’s developing. The point was there’s a lot of raw information going around that’s not confirmed.”
Asked what news reports Mr. Cruz was referring to, a spokeswoman, Catherine Frazier, pointed to a website called therightscoop.com. Its post [ http://therightscoop.com/was-the-colorado-shooter-a-transgender-person/ ], titled “Was the Colorado shooter a TRANSGENDER person?!?!,” said there were voting records in which a Robert L. Dear Jr. was identified as female.
Over the weekend, Mr. Cruz was initially one of the few Republican candidates to address the shooting, calling it a tragedy but declining to refer directly to Planned Parenthood.
© 2015 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/11/30/ted-cruz-defends-conservative-criticisms-of-planned-parenthood-after-shooting-at-clinic/
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Dirtbag Ted Cruz Describes Alleged Planned Parenthood Shooter as "Transgendered Leftist Activist"
Photo via AP
Chris Thompson
11/29/15 10:15pm
Ted Cruz, a gnarly gourd slowly depressing a fully inflated whoopee cushion, has an alternate theory about the Planned Parenthood shooter, reports [ https://www.texastribune.org/2015/11/29/cruz-condemns-planned-parenthood-shooting-colorado/ , embedded audio https://soundcloud.com/texastribune/cruz-on-planned-parenthood-in-newton-iowa ] the Texas Tribune.
When a reporter reminded Cruz it has been reported Dear made a comment about “baby parts” while being apprehended, Cruz retorted, “It’s also been reported that he was registered as an independent and a woman and a transgendered leftist activist. If that’s what he is, I don’t think it’s fair to blame on the rhetoric on the left. This is a murderer.”
So. Some looney-tune “right-of-center” website latches onto one piece of information [ http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/court-records-colorado-planned-parenthood-shooter-not-republican-identifies-as-woman/ ], and suddenly the right has a lefty [ http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/28/colorado-springs-gunman-unknown-to-pro-lifers-in-area/ ] boogeyman [ http://wehuntedthemammoth.com/2015/11/28/right-wingers-claim-colorado-shooter-robert-lewis-dear-is-a-trans-woman/ ] to blame for an attack on a Planned Parenthood clinic, even while their candidates take their sweet time denouncing [ http://gawker.com/here-are-the-presidential-candidates-who-havent-comment-1745026648 ] this person’s act.
The wife of alleged shooter Robert L. Dear—who might know!—describes him [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us/robert-dear-suspect-in-colorado-killings-preferred-to-be-left-alone.html ] differently:
“He believed wholeheartedly in the Bible,” she said. “That’s what he always said; he read it cover to cover to cover.” But he was not fixated on it, she added.
He was generally conservative, but not obsessed with politics. He kept guns around the house for personal protection and hunting, and he taught their son to hunt doves, as many Southern fathers do. He believed that abortion was wrong, but it was not something that he spoke about much. “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said.
A crazy person gets a gun and walks into a Planned Parenthood clinic and murders innocent people. Some people then say it is probably time to take a hard look at both our gun control policies and the unscrupulousness of anti-abortion politicians and activists [ http://gawker.com/no-planned-parenthood-is-not-selling-aborted-fetal-bod-1717823538 ]. Some other people accuse them of politicizing a tragedy, all the while delivering to their lunatic constituents a wholly manufactured persona of the perpetrator, for the sole purpose of insulating their deranged politics from their very real consequences.
Remember to vote, friends.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/dirtbag-ted-cruz-describes-alleged-planned-parenthood-s-1745187009 [with
comments]
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Planned Parenthood Shooter 'Obsessed With the World Coming To an End' Was Once Charged With Rape
[Image via AP]
Melissa Cronin
11/30/15 7:42pm
Robert Lewis Dear, the man who shot and killed three people and wounded nine others [ http://gawker.com/suspect-of-planned-parenthood-identified-as-robert-l-d-1744975821 ] at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado last Friday, was charged with rape over two decades ago.
The Charleston Post and Courier uncovered a series of disturbing details about Dear’s past [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ], including relationships with women that were fraught with violence.
According to the Post, the 57-year-old man [ http://gawker.com/active-shooter-reported-at-colorado-springs-planned-par-1744900903 ] was arrested Dec. 31, 1992, on a charge of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The lack of a disposition for the charge on his official criminal record suggests that the charges were dismissed. Documents from the case say that Dear showed up at the house of a woman [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ] he had been pursuing, despite the fact that she said she was married.
On Nov. 29, 1992, Dear showed up to the woman’s house while she attempted to take out the trash, according to the police report. He then put a knife to her throat, forced her back into the residence, onto her couch and then struck her in the mouth before sexually assaulting her, the report states.
Dear has been married at least three times and has four children. His second wife, Barbara Mescher, said she knew of the rape allegation in her divorce affidavit, and also said that she “lived in fear” of her husband.
“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Mescher stated in the affidavit. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”
Dear appeared for the first time in court [ http://jezebel.com/planned-parenthood-shooting-suspect-robert-dear-could-f-1745341096 ] on Monday, and faces a minimum of life in prison if convicted. The Post story includes several other disturbing details about Dear’s past; read the entire thing here [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ].
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/planned-parenthood-shooter-obsessed-with-the-world-comi-1745374517 [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35_JHx_OzA4 [with (over 8,000) comments]
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Ted Cruz Has the Facts: The Liberal Media, Democrats, and Violent Criminals Are In Cahoots
Photo via AP
Chris Thompson
11/30/15 8:14pm
Even within the context of this upended-Gathering-of-the-Juggalos-outhouse of a presidential election cycle, Ted Cruz’s crescendoing spingasm on the Planned Parenthood shooting is shocking and bizarre. This really could go anywhere.
You will recall Cruz suggesting that Robert L. Dear, the alleged shooter, is a “transgendered leftist activist [ http://gawker.com/dirtbag-ted-cruz-describes-alleged-planned-parenthood-s-1745187009 (second above)].” Today, Ted Cruz joined the Hugh Hewitt Show [ http://www.hughniverse.com/ , http://www.hughniverse.com/2015/11/30/hugh-hewitt-radio-show-20151130-hr-1/ , http://www.hughniverse.com/2015/11/30/hugh-hewitt-radio-show-20151130-hr-3/ , http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b2KyVmmVYw (next below; with comments)]
—which, I understand, is a radio show hosted by Hugh Hewitt, who, I understand, is a conservative who concerns himself with the so-called liberal bias in media, which is unfortunate, because while having a healthy imagination is a good thing, living entirely inside it is generally thought to be somewhat unhealthy. At any rate, Ted Cruz has some thoughts about the gotdang liberal media, reports [ http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261572-cruz-most-violent-criminals-are-democrats ] The Hill. Man oh man does he ever.
Take it away, Ted:
“Here is the simple and undeniable fact – the overwhelming majority of violent criminals are Democrats.”
Yes, mmmmm, do go on with more of these facts.
“There is a reason why for years the Democrats have been viewed as soft on crime,” Cruz continued. “They go in and appoint to the bench judges who release violent criminals.
“They go in and fight to give the right to vote to convicted felons,” the 2016 GOP presidential candidate added. “Why?
“The Democrats know that convicted felons tend to vote Democrat. The media never reports on any of that. [It] doesn’t want to admit any of that.”
Hard to argue with such facts as these. Harder, still, to believe Cruz continued speaking without Earth being flushed down the cosmic toilet once and for all:
“Every time you have some sort of violent crime or mass killing you can almost see the media salivating, hoping, hoping desperately that the murderer happens to be a Republican so that they can use it to try and paint their political enemies,” he said.
“You can see that every time there’s a terrible crime they’re so excited – ‘come on, please be a Republican so we can try and paint the other side,’” Cruz said. “It is one of the more egregious examples of media bias and something we see over and over again.”
So said the man who spent yesterday recycling a wildly speculative depiction of a violent criminal created in an article [ http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/11/court-records-colorado-planned-parenthood-shooter-not-republican-identifies-as-woman/ ] on a right-wing media site, entitled “Colorado Planned Parenthood Shooter NOT Republican, Identifies as Woman.”
I dunno, guys.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/ted-cruz-has-the-facts-the-liberal-media-democrats-a-1745377211 [with comments]
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Cruz in questionable company, offers bizarre response to shooting
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/30/15
Rachel Maddow outlines the context of the history of threats and attacks on abortion providers and facilities across the United States, and reviews what little is known so far about the Colorado Springs shooter, and singles out Republican senator and presidential candidate, Ted Cruz, for his bizarre, distinctly unpresidential response to the tragedy. Duration: 20:00
Ted Cruz Picks Right-Wing Extremist To Lead Virginia Campaign
12/1/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruz-picks-right-wing-extremist-lead-virginia-campaign
Ted Cruz's Virginia Co-Chair Tied Evolution And Gay Rights To The Holocaust
12/1/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ted-cruzs-virginia-co-chair-tied-evolution-and-gay-rights-holocaust
Cruz Laughs Off The 'Condom Police,' Ignores His Own Anti-Contraception Policies
12/1/2015
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/cruz-laughs-condom-police-ignores-his-own-anti-contraception-policies , http://www.buzzfeed.com/kyleblaine/ted-cruz-on-contraception-last-i-checked-we-don [with comments, http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/ted-cruz-birth-control-rubber-shortage-america-35506912 [with comments] / https://gma.yahoo.com/ted-cruz-birth-control-don-t-rubber-shortage-124723513--abc-news-topstories.html [with comments]
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/watch/cornered-cruz-chokes-on-shooting-response-576839747863 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-30-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFyJMWcWBU0 (no comments yet), another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kIlRUY5agI (no comments yet)]
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Increased threats correspond to new Planned Parenthood bashing
The Rachel Maddow Show
11/30/15
Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, talks with Rachel Maddow about Friday's deadly shooting at a Colorado Planned Parenthood, the security measures clinics are forced to take, and the recent increase in violence and threats as Republicans have amplified anti-abortion extremists' opposition to Planned Parenthood. Duration: 7:11
©2015 NBCNews.com
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/more-threats-as-anti-abortion-talk-cranks-up-576848963746 [with comments] [show links at http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/citations-the-november-30-2015-trms (no comments yet)] [the YouTube of the segment included above at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvD7DsKvGcM (no comments yet)]
*
13-Year-Old Teenage Person Ditches Conservatism, Hopefully For Video Games and Sleepovers
Screenshot via YouTube
Chris Thompson
11/29/15 6:39pm
You know, the thing about precocious kids is, they’re awful.
Kids are better when they’re playing video games, picking their noses, making paper people, collecting baseball cards, etc. Kids who insert themselves into the adult world without appropriate humility and deference are jerks, in the same way an adult who opines passionately in a conversation about something about which they’re generally under-informed is a jerk.
I bring this up because, hey, you remember CJ Pearson [ http://gawker.com/teen-conservative-activist-claims-obama-blocked-him-on-1732738384 ], right? Pearson made news as a 13-year-old YouTube activist (read: loudmouth) who famously challenged President Obama’s love of America [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUtirCf-RfU (next below; with {over 10,000} comments)]
and then accused the President of the United States of blocking him on Twitter, in what was probably a frame-job [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/09/25/why-did-a-13-year-old-conservative-star-apparently-hoax-the-white-house/ ].
What a time to be alive.
So. It is for young people to be stupid and loud and obnoxious. One of the things about maturing into adulthood, right up there with shaving and voting and buying a beer in a bar with your own ID, is the wisdom and perspective to know that young people are stupid and loud and obnoxious, but it’s OK, the thing to do is nod and smile and then roll your eyes and mostly ignore them until they, too, can shave and vote and buy a beer in a bar with their own ID. We make room in the world for young people to be stupid and loud and obnoxious without any real consequences, because we are grownups. We do our best to chaperone them through their own stupidity so that they might one day appreciate just how stupid they once were.
Then there’s Ted Cruz. Ted Cruz saw a 13-year-old ranting semi-coherently on YouTube, challenging the patriotism of a person who is the actual President of the United States, and thought “hmmm, yes, here is a person that I should attach to my campaign.” Because politicians, you see, are the most desperate, cynical people on earth, and it turns out they are never worse than when they’re running a largely irrelevant campaign for President among a field of clowns and lunatics. Ted Cruz named CJ Pearson [ https://www.tedcruz.org/news/cruz-names-cj-pearson-as-national-chairman-of-teens-for-ted/ ] National Chairman of something called “Teens for Ted.” Ugh.
This affiliation has apparently not worked out very well for young CJ, reports CNN [ http://www.cnn.com/2015/11/27/politics/cj-pearson-conservative-teen-renounces-republicans/index.html ].
CJ Pearson told CNN on Friday that concerns about the Republican Party’s viewpoints on racial and gender disparity as well as youth issues convinced him he could no longer be a mouthpiece for conservatism.
[...]
The 13-year-old, African-American YouTube star from Georgia said in an interview that he began considering the change after a conversation with another teen friend, who asked why he doesn’t speak out on racial discrimination — to which he replied he was concerned his followers wouldn’t be pleased.
A small, cold part of me wants to laugh at the fact that close affiliation with the Cruz campaign was enough to turn this kid away from conservatism altogether. Then I read this:
“I don’t want to be the conservative wonder kid that people follow because I make them feel good and like young people are part of their movement. I want to be followed because I’m the voice of a generation that doesn’t have a voice at the table.”
CJ. Stop trying to be the voice of things. You do not need followers. You are a kid. It’s good that you’re smart, it’s good that you’re articulate, it’s good that you’re plugged in and aware of the world around you. You got a bike? Some friends? They got bikes? Go ride bikes. You’ve got the whole rest of your life to be miserable about American politics. No one needs a head start on that.
Copyright 2015 Gawker Media Group
http://gawker.com/13-year-old-teenage-person-ditches-conservatism-hopefu-1745159433 [with comments]
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Ben Carson: 'Both Sides' To Blame For Abortion Rhetoric
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 11/30/2015 11:35 am
Ben Carson [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/people/ben-carson ] pushed back yesterday on claims that anti-abortion rhetoric may have played a role in the shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, insisting in an interview [ http://www.mediaite.com/online/ben-carson-on-planned-parenthood-shooting-there-is-no-saint-here/ , non-YouTube video http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3g3q03_ben-carson-on-planned-parenthood-shooting-statement-there-is-no-saint-here-in-this-equation_news embedded, in its place here the same at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmX50wZGuSs (with comment) just below, another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0F2aIybuzqw (no comments yet)] with Martha Raddatz that “there’s a lot of extremism coming from all areas” and divisive rhetoric “comes from both sides.” “There is no saint here in this equation,” he said.
While it is typical for a politician to suggest that “both sides” are to blame for toxic rhetoric and political dysfunction, Carson may want to look back on his own record of statements about Planned Parenthood.
Carson cited a discredited right-wing smear to claim that Planned Parenthood was created “to eliminate black people [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-whole-purpose-planned-parenthood-eliminate-black-people ].”
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/carson-planned-parenthood-bent-on-eliminating-black-people ) embedded]
He also claimed that conservatives need “to help women understand that they are being manipulated [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-whole-purpose-planned-parenthood-eliminate-black-people ]” by Planned Parenthood, arguing that the organization must be defunded.
[audio ( https://soundcloud.com/rightwingwatch/carson-ban-abortion-because-it-violates-sacred-relationship-of-woman-child ) embedded]
Carson, who once claimed that Obamacare “is slavery in a way [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/carson-obamacare-worst-thing-happen-nation-slavery ],” similarly stated at an anti-chioce fundraiser that abortion providers are no different than slave-owners [ http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/ben-carson-tells-anti-choice-group-abortion-is-like-slavery-not-an-issue-of-womens-rights/ ]:
The former neurosurgeon noted that he changed his mind about abortion after realizing it was like “slavery.”
“I was thinking about slavery and I was thinking about the abolitionists, and I said, what if the abolitionists had said, ‘I don’t believe in slavery but anybody else can do whatever they want’?” Carson declared. “Where would we be today?”
“Slavery is a moral issue and so is abortion,” he insisted. “It’s a moral issue that we’re dealing with.”
He made the same case in an NBC interview [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/10/25/ben-carson-likens-abortion-to-slavery-wants-to-see-roe-v-wade-overturned/ ]: “During slavery — and I know that's one of those words you're not supposed to say, but I'm saying it — during slavery, a lot of the slave owners thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to that slave, anything that they chose to do. And what if the abolitionists had said: 'You know, I don't believe in slavery. I think it's wrong, but you guys do whatever you want to do'? Where would we be?”
But remember, both sides are extreme!
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/ben-carson-both-sides-blame-abortion-rhetoric
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Fear, faith and the rise of Ben Carson
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson speaks Nov. 19 in Mobile, Ala. His supporters see a humble man of God — and say the nation needs to be rescued by a godly leader.
(Mike Kittrell/Associated Press)
Toni and Mike Ledet at their Montrose, Ala., home. “I’m afraid,” Toni said. “I’m really and truly afraid.”
(Max Becherer/Polaris Images)
Carson greets supporters after speaking in Mobile. During the rally, when he talked about the Lord’s plan for his candidacy, someone yelled “Amen!”
(Mike Kittrell/Associated Press)
video [embedded]:
Carson explains 'rabid dog' metaphor for Syrian refugees
After filing to run in the New Hampshire Republican presidential primary, candidate Ben Carson attempted to clarify statements he made the day before likening refugees fleeing violence in Syria to "rabid dogs." (2:08)
(Reuters)
video [embedded]:
Ben Carson on his faith, the Apocalypse and Hell
In a one-on-one with The Washington Post, Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson discusses what it means to be a Seventh-day Adventist, when the Apocalypse will come, and whether Hell is real. (4:18)
(Alice Li/The Washington Post)
By Stephanie McCrummen
November 30, 2015
MONTROSE, Ala. — She had known exactly what Ben Carson meant when he spoke of leaders who are trying to “destroy America.” That meant President Obama. She had understood perfectly when he spoke of all the “secular progressives who don’t like Judeo-Christian values” and “want to destroy your family.” That meant all the liberals who would ridicule Christians like her.
And when Carson said at a rally in Mobile on Nov. 19 that God himself had opened his path to the presidency, Toni Ledet, 59, cheered with the crowd of hundreds.
“Christians are tired of what’s going on — they want a leader with strong faith,” she said that night, and now she was home with her husband, Mike, 57, saying something else that explains the deep-rooted appeal of the famed neurosurgeon, even as some recent polls show his popularity slipping.
“I’m afraid,” Toni began, sitting on her front porch in Montrose. “I’m really and truly afraid.”
The rise of Carson toward the top of the polls in the Republican presidential primary race has baffled many political pundits, liberals and some within the GOP establishment, who find his positions short on details, and certain assertions — that the biblical figure Joseph built the Egyptian pyramids to store grain [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/11/05/ben-carson-believes-joseph-built-egypts-pyramids-to-store-grain-and-it-just-may-get-him-some-votes/ ], that the Chinese are operating in Syria [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/11/11/fact-checking-the-fourth-round-of-gop-debates/ ] — out of touch with reality.
But to see Carson from Mike and Toni Ledet’s front porch, the reverse is true: To them, Carson is the only candidate who fully grasps what they see as the one reality that matters most — that America has fallen away from God. And while other Republican contenders express some version of that sentiment, Toni says it is Carson who seems both the closest to God and the furthest from Obama, who troubles her deeply.
“I think there is going to be an issue in the near future,” she says, sitting in her rocking chair. “He’s got, what, eight months left in his term?”
“A year,” says Mike, a doctor, sipping a glass of water.
“Still, that’s the short term,” says Toni, a fiction writer. “I think he’s staging a certain situation for himself before he leaves office. I think he’s preparing this country to suit his benefit — i.e. refugees, medical issues, gun laws .?.?. ”
She stops herself and smiles, not wanting to explain further.
“He’s weakening the country is how I’d put it,” Mike says.
“Oh, he’s weakening the country all right,” Toni says.
The Ledet home is brick with six white columns on a street lined with oaks and pines smothered in Spanish moss. Inside for the holidays are the couple’s four children, ages 17 to 37, each of whom has a copy of “Jesus Calling [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0529100770 ],” the daily Christian devotional that Mike and Toni read together every morning in a life where God is real and Satan is real and the evidence of both is everywhere they look, especially now.
In the life of Ben Carson, they see a man in tune with the will of God.
“A Christian attitude,” Mike says.
“A Christian-based physician,” Toni says.
“I read his book, and I was just awed,” Mike says, referring to “Gifted Hands [ http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0310214696 ],” Carson’s book about his rise from impoverished child to world-famous brain surgeon, in which he describes a God who answered his every prayer [ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/book-party/wp/2015/11/05/ben-carson-the-humblebragging-instrument-of-god/ ], no matter how urgent or mundane — from taking away his anger to giving him exam answers to locating his passport. “He believes there’s a higher power.”
“He has to have a higher power to do what he does,” says Toni, who saw the movie version on a Christian TV channel. “Anybody would know that.”
In the life of Obama, the Ledets see Carson’s opposite.
“I just don’t trust him,” Mike says.
“He wasn’t honest with the American people when he was elected — there was a lot of subject matter hidden and not brought forth,” Toni says. “That’s my opinion. So.”
She stops herself again because she knows how she might sound, and what people might think, and it makes her feel uncomfortable.
But then she decides she is sick and tired of feeling uncomfortable, which is how she’s felt ever since Obama’s election — and why she decided to go to the Carson rally two days before.
It was her first presidential candidate rally, and as she arrived and saw hundreds of people waving signs that read “Heal” and “Inspire,” she realized she was not the only one feeling sick and tired.
She settled into her seat in the arena, now full of people like Wanda Brooks, a retiree with blond hair, red nails and a “Foxy Ladies Vote Republican” button who said she loves Carson because he is not afraid to stand up for his Christian beliefs, which made her feel like standing up for hers.
“I know it’s not politically correct to say,” she began. “But every nation that has fallen has fallen because they are anti-God. We have no future if we keep going like this. Except beheadings.”
Nearby was Mike Wilson, 49, who said he loves that Carson is “not afraid to offend people” by talking about the thing that worries him most: “radical Muslims.”
“President Obama won’t say ‘radical Muslims,’?” Wilson said. “But there is a fraction of people that hate Americans, and they are radical Muslims.”
“If we don’t have godly people running the country, we are going to be in trouble,” said a woman named Aurelia, who didn’t want to give her last name and whose comment elicited nods from the people sitting around her, including a pale young woman named Kinsley who said only a godly person could stand up to Muslim terrorists.
“If we continue like this we run the risk of a serious attack — or a takeover,” said Kinsley, who wouldn’t give her last name, either. Her face was grim. Her arms were folded. “They could be anywhere,” she said of the terrorists. “They could be anyone.”
Brooks leaned in closer and decided to say what “anyone” meant to her. “We don’t have a president that cares about our nation,” she yelled over the music. “I believe he’s a Muslim and wanting Muslims to take over our nation. One nation under Allah instead of one nation under God! But if everyone prays and turns from their wicked ways, then God has promised to answer our prayers. That’s why we need a man of faith.”
And now that man walked onto the stage.
When he spoke so quietly that he almost whispered, the audience saw a wise and humble servant of God. When he spoke of the Lord’s plan for his candidacy, someone yelled “Amen!”
And when he described a nation that had entered a “dark” period, and Christians who had been “bullied,” and all the things that a nameless person everyone understood to be Obama would do to deliberately destroy the nation from within, Toni Ledet felt as if someone understood her deepest fears at last.
Now, sitting in her rocking chair on the front porch with Mike, she is sure she is not alone in her thinking. “You should have heard him,” she says to Mike.
She talks about what Carson said about the Syrian refugees whom Obama has urged Americans to accept.
“He was talking about how he is humble and loves to help people, but he doesn’t believe in bringing the enemy into your country,” she tells Mike.
“Yeah — what’s the word he used?” Mike says, trying to remember what he had read in the paper about how Carson had described his opposition to Syrian refugees. “A bug?”
“A rabid dog,” Toni says. “He said: Would you open your door and let him in?”
“I love dogs, but if you have a herd of dogs, and you got one rabid dog in there who looks like everybody else, it’s a bad situation,” Mike says.
They talk about what would happen if the refugees did come in.
“We are an immigrant country,” Mike says. “We assimilated from all different faiths and all different countries, but bringing immigrants to start their own little country inside of a state .?.?. doesn’t make sense.”
“And they want their laws,” Toni says. “They want their own little community and their own laws, and they want to live like they did in their country, establishing their little colonies for their faith.”
They discuss how the refugees relate to Obama’s plans.
“How ironic is the timing that Obama’s allowing these refugees to come in?” she says.
“Not allowing — forcing,” Mike says.
“Again, that’s where I go back to my belief that he’s bringing them in for a purpose,” she says. “He’s positioning this country, like playing chess. I think we will have another major tragedy like 9/11. He’s positioning certain people in this country to make that happen.”
She explains why she thinks this.
“In the last few years, he’s made comments about how he supports the Islamic faith,” she says. “I think he’s not 100 percent American.”
She pauses and then describes her darkest fear of all, of what will happen if things keep going in this direction, away from what she and Mike call “the biblical way.”
“A lot of people feel like the world is changing drastically for the worse, and I think Satan has his hand in it,” she says, and goes on to explain that she sees evil everywhere. In the legalizing of same-sex marriage. In babies being aborted. In the rise of the Islamic State and what seems to her an insistence by liberals on embracing Muslims and a parallel belittling of Christians for their faith.
“There’s a biblical verse — I wish I could remember it,” Mike says now. “It has to do with when a nation goes against the biblical way, God won’t listen to our prayers.”
Like Carson, they pray about every aspect of their lives, asking for guidance on everything from money to their eternal salvation in heaven.
“We’re going to lose our blessing,” Mike says.
And if that happens?
“Oh, God help us,” Toni says, looking out at the trees.
“It will basically destroy America,” Mike says.
“It’s like an ice cube melting,” Toni says. “You can see it going down, and you can’t stop that ice cube from melting. Unless we take a stand.
“And I think Carson’s trying to take a stand.”
© 2015 The Washington Post (emphasis in original)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/fear-faith-and-the-rise-of-ben-carson/2015/11/30/3a94c1d2-93a9-11e5-a2d6-f57908580b1f_story.html [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4 [with (over 9,000) comments]
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Hillary slams Republicans on guns, abortion after Planned Parenthood attack
Getty Images
By Bradford Richardson
November 29, 2015, 09:36 pm
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton late Sunday launched a multi-pronged assault on Republicans following the shootings at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colo., calling for more stringent gun control and heightened protections for abortion rights.
“The shooting on Friday was at, as you know, a Planned Parenthood clinic, a place where lots of women get healthcare they need – breast exams, STD testing, contraception, and, yes, safe and legal abortions,” Clinton said at the New Hampshire Jefferson-Jackson Dinner. “We should be supporting Planned Parenthood, not attacking it.”
In an appeal for more stringent gun control, Clinton drew a connection between the Colorado shooting, which left three dead, and the terrorist attack on Paris earlier this month.
“This is truly unbelievable, that after what we’ve seen in Paris and other places, Republicans will not bring up a bill that will prohibit anyone on the no-fly list from buying a gun in America," she said. "If you are too dangerous to fly in America, you are too dangerous to buy a gun in America.
“How many more Americans need to die before we take action?” she asked.
The former first lady urged Republicans not to make abortion rights a partisan issue.
“And it is way past time to protect women’s health and respect women’s rights, not use them as political footballs,” she said.
Anticipating accusations of playing the “gender card,” Clinton told Republicans to deal her in.
“I know when I talk like this, some people, especially of the Republican persuasion, say I’m playing the gender card. Well, if talking about women’s health, equal pay, paid family leave, and affordable child care is playing the gender card, deal me in,” she said.
[...]
©2015 Capitol Hill Publishing Corp., a subsidiary of News Communications, Inc.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/261452-hillary-slams-republicans-on-guns-abortion-after-planned [with comments], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJ0YM-1LBGs [with comments]
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Alabama Surrenders In Fight Against Planned Parenthood
The state will pay Planned Parenthood's legal fees after failed suit.
11/30/2015
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/alabama-planned-parenthood_565ce8bae4b072e9d1c30cc8 [with embedded video report, and comments]
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Army Of God Activist Hails Planned Parenthood Shooting: 'They Reap What They Sow'
Submitted by Brian Tashman on Monday, 11/30/2015 4:50 pm
UPDATE: According to one person who spoke with the New York Times [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/us/robert-dear-planned-parenthood-shooting.html (next below)], Dear reportedly praised the Army of God and others who commit violence against abortion providers:
A number of people who knew Mr. Dear said he was a staunch abortion opponent, though another ex-wife, Pamela Ross, said that he did not obsess on the subject. After his arrest, Mr. Dear said “no more baby parts” to investigators, a law enforcement official said.
One person who spoke with him extensively about his religious views said Mr. Dear, who is 57, had praised people who attacked abortion providers, saying they were doing “God’s work.” In 2009, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for the privacy of the family, Mr. Dear described as “heroes” members of the Army of God, a loosely organized group of anti-abortion extremists that has claimed responsibility for a number of killings and bombings.
An activist associated with the militant anti-abortion group Army of God, which has been [ http://www.pfaw.org/rww-in-focus/operation-rescue-s-big-break-how-organization-rooted-radical-fringes-anti-choice-moveme ] linked [ http://www.cnn.com/US/9802/02/clinic.bombing.530pm/index.html?_s=PM:US ] to [ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/army-of-god-anthrax-threats/ ] several [ http://www.nytimes.com/1985/01/20/us/3-men-charged-in-bombings-of-seven-abortion-facilities.html ] terrorist [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/1998/anti-abortion-movement-marches-after-two-decades-arson-bombs-and-murder ] attacks [ http://www.salon.com/2002/02/19/gays_10/ ] on abortion providers, has posted a brief statement on his website [ http://www.armyofgod.com/ ] declaring that Planned Parenthood [ http://www.rightwingwatch.org/category/organizations/planned-parenthood , http://www.rightwingwatch.org/blog-terms/3954 ] got what it deserved with last week’s shooting at a Colorado Springs clinic that left three dead:
Planned Parenthood Colorado Springs
Robert Lewis Dear aside, Planned Parenthood murders helpless preborn children. These murderous pigs at Planned Parenthood are babykillers and they reap what they sow. In this case, Planned Parenthood selling of aborted baby parts came back to bite them.
Anyone who supports abortion has the blood of babies on their hands.
Virginia-based anti-abortion activist Donald Spitz, who runs the “Army of God” website, similarly stated after Dr. George Tiller was murdered that the he “reaped what he sowed” and hosts a page celebrating those who have been convicted of murdering and attempting to murder abortion doctors [ http://www.armyofgod.com/POClist.html ]. Spitz also promotes [ http://www.armyofgod.com/defense.html ] the 1993 “Defensive Action Statement [ https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2015/signers ],” signed by 34 anti-choice activists including Paul Hill [ http://www.armyofgod.com/Paulhillindex.html , https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Jennings_Hill ], which says that those who kill abortion providers “ought to be acquitted of the charges” against them because people should take “all godly action necessary to defend innocent human life including the use of force.”
MSNBC’s Irin Carmon spoke with Spitz [ http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/abortion-opponents-defense-colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting ], who told her that anti-choice groups that condemned the Colorado Springs shooting are “hypocritical” and “into political correctness way too far.” Spitz said that he was not against the shooter’s actions and will be “reaching out to him.”
“There are no innocent people in Planned Parenthood,” he said. “They’re in there for a reason.”
One notorious anti-abortion activist, who has long been an open supporter of violence against abortion providers, broke with the movement in offering direct support to Dear.
Donald Spitz, who runs the Army of God website and is based in Virginia, said of his fellow anti-abortion activists’ condemnations of violence, “They say that all the time. I think they’re hypocritical.”
While many groups insist violence against abortion providers is counterproductive to their cause, Spitz suggested such rhetoric is disingenuous. Referring to Scott Roeder, who murdered abortion provider George Tiller and who Spitz calls a friend, Spitz said, “How could that be counterproductive when he stopped them from providing abortions? They’ve lost their mind. They’re into political correctness way too far.”
As for Spitz’s own reaction, “I think Planned Parenthood is an evil organization, so I didn’t lose any sleep when I heard about it,” Spitz said. “They sell baby parts, and they reap what they sow, and now they’re complaining about it.”
He added, “There are no innocent people in Planned Parenthood. They’re in there for a reason.”
Spitz said he wrote to Dear on Monday to offer his support.
“I told him, I was reaching out to him, it appears that everybody is against him. I’m not against him,” he said.
Spitz was given pause, though, by the fact that the three killed on Friday weren’t involved in providing abortion. “It’s one thing to kill an abortionist who’s killing babies,” Spitz said. “What he did, I don’t know.”
© 2015 People For the American Way
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/army-god-activist-hails-planned-parenthood-shooting-they-reap-what-they-sow
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For Robert Dear, Religion and Rage Before Planned Parenthood Attack
Robert L. Dear Jr., in a court appearance via video on Monday at the El Paso County Criminal Justice Center in Colorado Springs.
Credit Pool photo by Daniel Owen
The musty and weathered trailer in Swannanoa, N.C., from which Mr. Dear ran a business called S Prints Mountain Art Prints.
Credit Michael Biesecker/Associated Press
A cabin along a steep gravel road in Black Mountain, N.C., where Mr. Dear lived around 2005.
Credit Michael Biesecker/Associated Press
Mr. Dear and Stephanie Bragg relocated to Hartsel, Colo., last year.
Credit Julie Turkewitz/The New York Times
A police car with its back window shot out near the Planned Parenthood clinic the day after the shooting in Colorado Springs.
Credit Isaiah J. Downing/Reuters
By RICHARD FAUSSET
DEC. 1, 2015
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The man she had married professed to be deeply religious. But after more than seven years with Robert L. Dear Jr., Barbara Micheau had come to see life with him as a kind of hell on earth.
By January 1993, she had had enough. In a sworn affidavit as part of her divorce case, Ms. Micheau described Mr. Dear as a serial philanderer and a problem gambler, a man who kicked her, beat her head against the floor and fathered two children with other women while they were together. He found excuses for his transgressions, she said, in his idiosyncratic views on Christian eschatology and the nature of salvation.
“He claims to be a Christian and is extremely evangelistic, but does not follow the Bible in his actions,” Ms. Micheau said in the court document. “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases. He is obsessed with the world coming to an end.”
On Friday, according to officials, Mr. Dear entered a Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/28/us/colorado-planned-parenthood-shooting.html ], killing three people and wounding nine others with a semiautomatic rifle. The attack, which ended with his surrender to the police after a harrowing nationally televised standoff in the snow-dusted Western city, was a brutally violent and very public chapter in a life story whose details are not fully known.
But in court documents and interviews with people who knew Mr. Dear well, a picture emerges of an angry and occasionally violent man who seemed deeply disturbed and deeply contradictory: He was a man of religious conviction who sinned openly, a man who craved both extreme solitude and near-constant female company, a man who successfully wooed women but, some of them say, also abused them. He frequented marijuana websites, then argued with other posters, often through heated religious screeds.
“Turn to JESUS or burn in hell,” he wrote on one site on Oct. 7, 2005. “WAKE UP SINNERS U CANT SAVE YOURSELF U WILL DIE AN WORMS SHALL EAT YOUR FLESH, NOW YOUR SOUL IS GOING SOMEWHERE.”
A number of people who knew Mr. Dear said he was a staunch abortion opponent, though another ex-wife, Pamela Ross, said that he did not obsess on the subject. After his arrest, Mr. Dear said “no more baby parts” to investigators, a law enforcement official said.
One person who spoke with him extensively about his religious views said Mr. Dear, who is 57, had praised people who attacked abortion providers, saying they were doing “God’s work.” In 2009, said the person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concerns for the privacy of the family, Mr. Dear described as “heroes” members of the Army of God, a loosely organized group of anti-abortion extremists that has claimed responsibility for a number of killings and bombings.
Investigators have only just begun to interview Mr. Dear’s relatives and acquaintances, and are still searching the Internet for his writings. Public information about his early years is limited.
Ms. Ross said Mr. Dear had a college degree. He spent a half-year enrolled at the University of Kentucky, and a year at the University of Louisville, according to officials at the two schools.
In December 1979 he married a woman in Louisville, Ky., listed in court records as Kimberly Ann Dear. They had a child, Matthew, in 1980. Three and a half years later, they separated. Mr. Dear moved to Charleston, S.C., which Ms. Ross said was his birthplace. He took a few fast-food management training jobs before landing a position at Santee Cooper, the South Carolina power company. Mollie Gore, a spokeswoman for the company, said he began work there in September 1984.
Mr. Dear also met the woman who would become his second wife, Barbara Ann Mescher, who now goes by her married name, Barbara Micheau. She met him at a shopping mall while she and a girlfriend were admiring a motorcycle on display. He got her number. They went out.
He told her he was divorced, but in the 1993 affidavit, which was also reported in The Post and Courier of Charleston [ http://www.postandcourier.com/article/20151130/PC16/151139933 ], she said she later learned he was still married. The divorce from his first wife was completed in September 1985, more than a year after he met Ms. Micheau.
Ms. Micheau declined to comment for this article. Mr. Dear’s lawyer in Colorado did not respond to messages Tuesday.
Mr. Dear married Ms. Micheau three months later, after the divorce came through. They settled in a condominium, and later in a suburban-style house. But soon after, she said, he began to stray. In November 1986, he fathered another child, Andrew, with his first wife, Ms. Micheau said. Then in 1990, Mr. Dear had a child, Taylor, with the woman who would later become his third wife, Ms. Ross. The same year, he and Ms. Micheau had a baby together, Walker.
Ms. Micheau suspected him of other affairs, but there were other problems as well.
In 1989, he left Santee Cooper, where, she said in the affidavit, he “got in trouble a lot and played hooky a lot.” Eventually, he struck out on his own as an “artist’s representative,” selling prints to wholesale art galleries, and driving from gallery to gallery in his truck.
But Mr. Dear, she said, racked up debt, and would not help her pay the bills or help clean the house. She said he took trips to Las Vegas and Atlantic City, often losing large sums of money. She said he spent his money on a new motorcycle and on an “expensive gun.” She accused him of dishonesty in his business dealings. And she said he kicked her and pulled her hair “on many occasions,” and noted other times when he hurt her physically.
Money was tight. A 1991 income tax return, filed jointly by the couple, showed their total income as $15,526. In May of that year, according to the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Mr. Dear was arrested and convicted in Charleston for the unlawful carrying of a “long blade knife” and the illegal possession of a loaded gun.
In court records, Mr. Dear admitted to engaging in “various acts of adultery,” and agreed with Ms. Micheau that “certain domestic difficulties developed” between them. In the court file, Mr. Dear did not address the more specific allegations Ms. Micheau made about his behavior.
In 1992, the couple separated. Records obtained from the North Charleston Police Department show that in November of that year, Mr. Dear was arrested as a suspect in a rape case. But the state Law Enforcement Division, which offers criminal records checks to the public, has no record of Mr. Dear being convicted of such a crime, meaning it is likely that the case was dismissed.
According to the police incident report, the woman told the police that a man named Robert approached her at her job at a Sears store in a mall and asked her out on a date. She refused. The man proceeded to call her two to three times a day, she said, “saying he wanted to see her,” according to the report.
On the afternoon of Nov. 29, 1992, the woman said, the man turned up at the front door of her apartment, put a knife to her throat, forced her inside and sexually assaulted her.
The woman’s husband, Craig Melchor, was on a Navy submarine when he got word that his young wife had been attacked at knifepoint and raped inside their apartment. The suspect, he learned: Robert L. Dear Jr.
“I won’t forget that name,” Mr. Melchor said in an interview.
Mr. Melchor said his wife wanted to see Mr. Dear face his day in court, but the only other witness, another Navy wife, refused to testify and the Melchors were about to move to Seattle.
Prosecutors called them and said: “You’re moving West. The witness you had doesn’t want to be involved,” Mr. Melchor recalled. “And that’s that. I remember. That wasn’t right.”
They went to counseling and rape survivors’ groups, but Mr. Melchor said his wife, who died in 2007, sometimes worried that her attacker would come back and find her. He said they both had to accept that the case was out of their hands.
“We had to let go and let God take care of it,” he said.
According to the police narrative, Mr. Dear acknowledged a sexual liaison with the woman, but said that it was “consensual.”
Ms. Micheau said she did not believe the accusation. In the affidavit, she said she believed her husband had “pursued a sexual relationship” with the “approval” of the woman.
“I tried to stick with him and help him through it, but it has become impossible,” said Ms. Micheau, adding: “He constantly criticizes everyone around him and he is very hard to please. He really does not have any friends. He does not trust anyone. He looks for a way around anything he has to do and spends a lot of time planning revenge.”
She described her husband as a man who “erupts into fury” in seconds. She said he had “emotional problems and needs counseling, which he vehemently opposed many times.”
The divorce was complete in June 1994.
By the summer of 1995, Mr. Dear had moved to Walterboro, about an hour west of Charleston, taking up residence in a double-wide trailer on a secluded one-lane road, Winding Creek Drive, that cut through the woods. Ms. Micheau complained in court documents that Mr. Dear would not tell her exactly where he lived, which concerned her because he had visitation rights with their son, Walker.
Eventually, Mr. Dear married his third wife, who today goes by Pamela Ross. They lived in the double-wide trailer, raising Taylor, their son, and Ms. Ross’s child from a previous marriage. Walker spent time there as well.
Ms. Ross struck a different tone in describing Mr. Dear. She said he had often taken her and the boys out shopping or visiting Lowcountry attractions in Hilton Head and Charleston. She said he believed strongly in the Bible, but did not seem overly zealous. He was against abortion, she said, but not obsessively so: “It was never really a topic of discussion,” she said.
A police incident report shows that in 1997, she told the police that he had locked her out of her home and that he had “hit her and pushed her out the window” when she tried to climb in. He also shoved her to the ground, she said. The report said she did not want to file charges.
In the interview, Ms. Ross said Mr. Dear would quickly apologize after doing something wrong. Still, the relationship fizzled, for reasons she did not discuss. According to court records, the couple’s divorce went through in November 2001.
In 2005, John Hood moved to Winding Creek Drive from the Catskills region of New York and became Mr. Dear’s newest neighbor. Mr. Hood described Mr. Dear as eccentric: He liked to sit on a deck in his underwear and drink his coffee. He sometimes drove an old unlicensed Volkswagen Beetle up and down the rutted road. Mr. Hood said that the neighbors on the other side of Mr. Dear had erected a wooden fence because they sometimes saw Mr. Dear skinny-dipping in a pool.
“I didn’t make a point to get to know him,” Mr. Hood, 68, said in an interview.
The two men did interact when Mr. Hood put his pickup up for sale. Mr. Dear paid cash for it. At one point, when Mr. Dear was visiting his neighbor’s property, he suggested that Mr. Hood put a metal roof on his house “because the government satellites can see through your roof.”
Eventually, Mr. Dear moved to North Carolina, keeping two homes near Asheville in a stretch of the Blue Ridge Mountains. One was a musty and weathered trailer in Swannanoa, from which he ran a business called S Prints Mountain Art Prints. The other was a yellow cabin along a steep gravel road.
At the cabin, in Black Mountain, he rarely spoke with his neighbors. When he did, it was usually because of a dispute over how he cared for animals or how fast he drove an all-terrain vehicle along the single-lane road where children play freely and dogs roam and yelp.
In the small community, his scowl stood out.
“I know everyone on the road better than I ever knew him,” said Kara McNerney, who has lived on the street for more than 16 years.
Online, Mr. Dear appeared to lead a different sort of life. Though to his neighbors he was a recluse, he posted frequently to a web forum dedicated to cannabis and joined an adult dating site called SexyAds in the fall of 2005 and the winter of 2006.
On SexyAds, a poster using his email address and photo said he was looking for a discreet relationship and was interested in spanking. On the cannabis forum, he said he was looking for women to “party,” and rarely wrote about using the drug.
Instead, he was far more likely to write brief and emphatic messages about Jesus Christ – usually in caps lock, the online equivalent of yelling – or to post sparsely worded solicitations for female companionship in North and South Carolina. “savannah sexy women wanted. i love to party, tall, aries, male,” he wrote in August 2005.
He argued with users of the site who disagreed with his religious posts, deriding them as “slaves” and “demons” who would suffer at the end of the world. On Oct. 7, 2005, he wrote, “Every knee shall bow an every tongue will confess that JESUS IS LORD.”
Around seven years ago, Mr. Dear began dating a woman named Stephanie Bragg. For reasons that remain unclear, they moved last year to Hartsel, Colo., a hamlet perched about 65 miles west of Colorado Springs. Ringed by mountains, Hartsel calls itself the Heart of Colorado.
But Mr. Dear, it seemed, did not want to be at the heart of anything. He plunked a white trailer [ http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/29/us/robert-dear-suspect-in-colorado-killings-preferred-to-be-left-alone.html ] marked with a small cross onto five acres of empty scrub land he had bought for $6,000 and lived in near isolation with Ms. Bragg, rarely saying a word or waving hello to his new neighbors.
The move was not welcomed by some in Ms. Bragg’s family. Her former stepmother, Patricia Stutts, said Ms. Bragg’s father had expressed concern about his daughter, who is 13 years younger than Mr. Dear, moving out West with him.
“He told me Stephanie had gone to Colorado, and was living off the grid and had to go into town to make phone calls,” Ms. Stutts said. “He was very disturbed by it.”
A close relative of Ms. Bragg’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of concerns about privacy for Ms. Bragg’s family, said that Mr. Dear “always kept to himself, was a tad strange” but that he seemed to treat Ms. Bragg well. He paid for their trips to visit family in the Carolinas and would “buy the presents and such.”
The relative said Mr. Dear and Ms. Bragg were “very religious, read the Bible often and are always talking about scripture.” He had not shown signs of being violent, the relative said.
The relative, who spoke with Ms. Bragg in recent days, also said that before the shooting, Mr. Dear reportedly “wasn’t sleeping at all,” and had “been talking about the Devil getting in his head and such.”
The relative said Ms. Bragg had been hospitalized since a week before Thanksgiving, with an infection and pancreatitis. Mr. Dear visited her every day until the day of the shooting.
“She says she can’t believe he was capable of such things, and I think that’s what’s upsetting her most,” the relative said about Ms. Bragg. “He believed he was doing God’s will, and I’m sure he probably wanted to die in the process of carrying out what I’m sure he thought was right.”
Reporting was contributed by Jack Healy, Julie Turkewitz, Dave Philipps and Kassondra Cloos from Colorado Springs; Alan Blinder from Swannanoa, N.C.; and Ashley Southall, Mike McIntire and Liam Stack from New York. Jack Begg provided research from New York.
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© 2015 The New York Times Company
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Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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