We know these murdering terrorists all too well, as Tiller isn’t the first doctor they’ve attacked and/or killed. The goal of killing doctors who provide legal medical services is not to end abortion. Abortion is as old as the hills. Safe medical abortion is relatively new.

Humans of course have more choices than bears and deer and burrowing critters who consume certain plants to induce abortion. Humans decide to have sex (most of the time), then they decide to have or not have a baby. It is apparently the freedom to choose that the antis so vehemently disagree with, so they engage in acts of terrorism with the intent to scare doctors away from providing the safe medical procedure.

Now, the denizens of Operation Rescue and other anti-abortion groups don’t offer to cover the costs of prenatal and delivery care for those who think abortion is the best answer to their life-dilemma. Nor are they noted for assuming responsibility to care for the children they demand be born, by support, adoption or fostering. And they don’t much care about the heartache they’d visit on women and families faced with the birth of a child that is seriously compromised genetically or developmentally and has no chance for a decent life.

The specter of innocent fetuses (or just collections of rapidly-dividing cells) being removed is a much more powerful incentive to opposition than the true reasons for the fundamentalist religious objection to this medical procedure. Let’s face it – God is the #1 abortionist in the universe, causing at least a third of all pregnancies to end in ’spontaneous’ abortion. And there’s no evidence whatsoever that life – or even human life – has ever been considered “precious” to the Judeo-Christian God who demanded blood sacrifice, or to his fervent followers.

The FBI defines terrorism as:

The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

That’s clear enough. The government ruled in 1973 that women have a right to choose whether or not to have a baby, up until viability when states may exert their interest in the unborn child. In Jesus’s Jihadists Sara Robinson wrote:

The fact that this shooting occurred in a church (again) suggests that this tactic is now being tried out on more closely related faith groups whose views don’t comport with the fundamentalist party line. As Dave has often pointed out, bringing violence to houses of worship is usually an overtly eliminationist act.  They are trying to terrify liberals by making us feel at risk and unsafe inside our own spiritual sanctuaries — the very places we go to feel the most security and peace. This is terrorism, plain and simple — Christian fundamentalist terrorism, committed by people Sam Smith has started referring to as “Jesus’s Jihadis.”

The surest, quickest way for radical fundamentalist wingnut-ism to go away is for them to turn terrorist against other members of the faith. Make no mistake – Roeder’s choice of setting for his crime means as much as who the target was. After the Department of Homeland Security issued its Report on Rightwing Extremism naming anti-abortion groups as an example of the genre, Jay Sekulow of the right wing American Center for Law and Justice issued a statement:

“This is an outrageous characterization that raises serious questions about the leadership and direction of the agency charged with protecting Americans in the ongoing battle against terrorism. Why would the Department of Homeland Security single out groups like pro-life supporters when they should be focusing on identifying and apprehending the real terrorists – like al-Qaeda – groups that have vowed to destroy America?

Well, fact is that the United States government is a democratic republic by charter, does not recognize any state religion or denomination, and prohibits agents of the state to proselytize religion on government’s dime. It has three branches, one of those to decide matters of law, and it decided a long time ago that women have a right to privacy in terms of their reproductive functions. Religion has gifted American law with many of its most blatantly useless and/or actively harmful legislation over the years, and these eventually came to be struck down. Prohibition, slavery, eugenics, miscegenation, anti-abortion. Because forcing everyone to abide by one’s own religious beliefs doesn’t work.

What these religious terrorists want is to “destroy America.” They want to abolish the Constitution and the entire body of US law in order to erect something quite else in their place. A theocracy – government by religious authority and religious law – is not a democratic republic. These extremists are every bit as dangerous to the body politic as al-Qaeda, moreso because they live among us rather than in caves in Central Asia. These people share our schools and workplaces and streets and neighborhoods. They are invisible because they look just like us.

So yeah, I think religious and other extremists in our midst DO need attention from DHS. Hopefully before any one or more of them pulls a Timothy McVeigh and kills a lot of innocent citizens. I figure if the anti-terror apparatus is going to waste time and money spying on groups of overage pacifist Quakers, they ought to be spying on the really dangerous groups too.

No, it’s not a joke from the late-nighters, or even one of the stand-ups at Comedy Central. A Cheney-linked neocon “think tank” called Family Security Matters issued an article last August by Philip Atkinson, opining that G.W. Bush would fail the country if he didn’t declare himself “President-for-Life” and refuse to step down next January to let his duly elected replacement take the reins of the executive branch.

The article, entitled Conquering the Drawbacks of Democracy, was removed from the Family Security Matters website – and its author disappeared from an author list that includes such brainy luminaries as Newt Gingrich, Ed Koch, Michelle Malkin and Dick Morris, no doubt due to coverage at the time at Rogue Government, and lately in the progressive blogosphere in such places as Daily Kos, and at-Largely. Luckily (or not, depending on how strong your stomach is), MadCityRag caught the whole thing before it disappeared.

Some of the juciest tidbits are true keepers, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves why we should care about the U.S. Constitution and the democratic republic gifted to us by our wise founding fathers more than 230 years ago when the citizens of this new nation threw off the shackles of crazy King George. For instance…

President Bush can fail in his duty to himself, his country, and his God, by becoming “ex-president” Bush or he can become “President-for-life” Bush: the conqueror of Iraq, who brings sense to the Congress and sanity to the Supreme Court. Then who would be able to stop Bush from emulating Augustus Caesar and becoming ruler of the world? For only an America united under one ruler has the power to save humanity from the threat of a new Dark Age wrought by terrorists armed with nuclear weapons.

No, thanks. Atkinson goes on to suggest that Bush should also copy Julius Caesar and order the army to simply kill everyone in Iraq so it could be repopulated with Americans as a 21st century colony. We’ve known for a long time that neocons are anti-Americans with seriously traitorous leanings, but it’s good to remind ourselves occasionally just how insane they really are. Yet another juicy tidbit to leave readers with…

Democracy is clearly an enemy of not just truth, but duty and justice, which makes it the worst form of government. President Bush must overcome not just the situation in Iraq, but democratic government.

Mister <27% WILL step down on January 20, 2009 as his elected successor is sworn in to the office of Presidency. Now, he can throw a hissy fit and chain himself to one of the White House pillars, but it won’t work. I’d suggest his smartest move would be to go ahead and fly down to his private ‘preserve’ in Paraguay about a week early and just skip the ceremony. Otherwise he just might find himself (along with his puppeteer Dick) being shuffled unceremoniously off to The Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity.

The US Supreme Court ruled on April 28th that voter ID laws are constitutional despite the fact that they disenfranchise at least 11 million eligible voters, expand restrictions on felony voting to millions of people who have unpaid parking tickets or minor moving violations that haven’t been taken care of, or have lost their auto insurance for some reason. It also amounts to an onerous poll tax for millions more Americans whose crime is simply being poor, elderly or disabled.

The justices split on the decision along entirely political lines, not surprising because these laws that require voters to produce a photo ID with a future expiration date primarily affect traditional Democratic Party voters. Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the majority opinion, citing the usual Republican fear of voter fraud as the state interest. Yet according to a survey by the Center for Policy Alternatives, voter fraud is extremely rare. From 2002 to 2005, an Ohio survey showed a total of 52 people convicted of any type of voter fraud, while just a tad less than 200,000,000 votes were cast in general elections by Ohio voters.

That’s half of one ten-thousandth of 1 percent. This is not a big issue.

Our household – with three workers who don’t quite make 150% of poverty level put together (this is Appalachia) – recently were pressed to get a photo ID for my teenage grandson so he could take the SAT tests. He starts college next year, but does not yet drive. We put a rush order on his birth certificate (original got lost) from another state. The copies and rush cost $55. It took longer to get a replacement SS card (required for ID along with birth certificate here), which cost another $15. Then our daughter had to take a day off work to spend the hours at DMV to get the stupid thing. That cost $80 plus the $20 price of the ID, a total of $170. A considerable cost and if your boss won’t give you time off, nearly impossible to accomplish. Grandson turns 18 three days before the May 6th primary in NC. He is registered and will be voting.

It’s a new burden, and it’s too expensive for many people who should have a voice in their representation. It’s a complicated bother for people who don’t drive, and there are 11 million adult citizens in this country who don’t have birth certificates (born in countries that no longer exist or have lost records due to disasters or wars, are elderly and/or born at home and never got one, etc.). They have been flatly disenfranchised because one half of one ten-thousandth of one percent of voters might try to vote twice. Which would add up to half of one thousandth of one percent of votes. Only in Florida would that tip a close election, and even then the court would step in and declare a winner regardless of the votes. As they did in 2000.

It’s a poll tax, forbidden by the 24th Amendment to the US Constitution. The Bush Supreme Court has now abrogated yet another of the established amendments to our governing charter for purely partisan political reasons – our rights. We need new leadership immediately, and the makeup of the court must change. Volunteer to take some neighbors to the polls this year, maybe help someone negotiate the gauntlet to get a valid photo ID. This election will make or break us.