The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Freedom Works/Tea Party SOTU (P)rebuttals

Posted on | February 12, 2013 | Comments Off on Freedom Works/Tea Party SOTU (P)rebuttals

by Smitty

Matt Kibbe has an excellent intro:

And the Tea Party rebuttal which I’ll put below the fold in case scaling the embed breaks it: Read more

Category: Uncategorized

Alabama Recruits Top Football Talent With Promises of Academic Excellence and Hot Girlfriends, But Mainly …

Posted on | February 12, 2013 | 3 Comments

. . . yeah, Crimson Tide football recruits really like the hot girlfriends:

Katherine Webb, who stole the BCS National Championship Game broadcast out from under her star-quarterback boyfriend A.J. McCarron, is blowing up. She has been tapped to compete in ABC’s upcoming reality competition “Celebrity Diving,” she guest hosted Inside Edition’s Super Bowl coverage and now she has appeared in Sports Illustrated‘s famed Swimsuit Edition.

And, yes, the BCS National Champions got the No. 1 recruiting class in the country this year because . . . hot girlfreinds.

Category: Alabama, Football, Rule 5

Maryland Attorney General Investigates Abortionist Linked in Woman’s Death

Posted on | February 12, 2013 | 10 Comments

Steve Ertelt at Life News reports:

Following a new probe started by local officials, the Maryland Attorney General has opened an investigation into the late-term abortion practitioner who killed a woman last week in a botched abortion.
The Maryland Attorney General’s office is not specifically looking into the death of 29-year-old woman from a botched 33-week abortion last week. The woman has been identified as 29-year-old Jennifer McKenna Morbelli, of New Rochelle, New York.
Instead, the office notified the Maryland Coalition for Life and Operation Rescue that is has late-term abortion practitioner LeRoy Carhart and Germantown Reproductive Health Services under an active criminal investigation for illegal dumping, based on complaints made by both groups last year. This investigation is separate to ongoing investigations into Morbelli’s death, OR informed LifeNews today, that are currently underway by the State Medical Examiner, the Montgomery Police Department, and the state’s Office of Health Care Quality.

So . . . illegally dumping, the Attorney General might prosecute as a crime. Botching an abortion and killing a woman, not so much.

Whatever. Pro-lifers learn to be grateful for any minor official attention to the shoddy practices of abortionists. More headlines at Life News:

Meanwhile, the media embargo crumbles further with this report from Sylvia Carignan in the Montgomery County, Maryland, Gazette:

The state medical examiner is investigating the death of a New York woman who sought a late-term abortion from a controversial Germantown clinic.
Jennifer McKenna Morbelli, 29, was pronounced dead at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital on Feb. 7, according to Bruce Goldfarb, spokesperson for the chief medical examiner.
The Maryland Coalition for Life pinned her death on Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a Nebraska-based physician who began performing abortions at the Germantown Reproductive Health Services clinic in 2010. . . .

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, there is this press release quoting Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy advisor for Operation Rescue:

“For years we have documented Carhart’s abortion abuses. This time we pray authorities will quickly act before he has the opportunity to kill again,” said Sullenger. . . .
Sullenger continued, “The tragic death of Mrs. Morbelli from a botched 33-week abortion may be the catalyst that will finally bring Carhart to justice. It’s too bad that a woman had to die before authorities would sit up and take notice.”

Bob Belvedere has a round-up on the Jennifer Morbelli story: “Butchery In Germantown.” I’m worried butchers may sue Bob for libel.

PREVIOUSLY:

 

Category: Abortion, Maryland

Media Embargo Slowly Crumbling on Jennifer McKenna Morbelli’s Death

Posted on | February 12, 2013 | 97 Comments

Jennifer McKenna Morelli with her future husband in 2008

Jennifer Morbelli died last Thursday at Shady Grove Hospital in the Maryland suburbs of D.C. after undergoing a gruesome third-term abortion ordeal at Dr. LeRoy Carhart’s Germantown Reproductive Health clinic. A 29-year-old married kindergarten teacher in the affluent Westchester County suburbs of New York, Morbelli had actually named her unborn daughter Madison Leigh, but reportedly decided to seek an abortion in her 33rd week of pregnancy after prenatal testing diagnosed her baby as suffering from a disorder that causes seizures.

Both Morbelli and her daughter will be recognized at a funeral mass Wednesday — coincidentally, Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent — at Holy Name of Jesus Catholic Church in New Rochelle.

Carhart has been called “likely the most prominent abortionist in America.” Carhart has been the plaintiff in two cases that reached the U.S. Supreme Court and was featured in a highly-praised documentary, After Tiller, about an abortionist who was assassinated in 2009.

Given these facts, ask yourself a question: How could any news editor look at the death of Jennifer Morbelli and say, “That”s not a story”?

This is not merely news, it’s got enough of a human-interest angle to deserve at least a two-hour network special or a magazine cover story.

Forget your opinion about the legal and political controversies involved and think about the basic journalistic news value of this story. Here is a profound human tragedy, a young woman who died in a heartbreaking circumstance which just happens to be a microcosm of a major national issue, and . . . that’s not a story? Turn in your press credentials, clean out your desk and find yourself another line of work.

This was why, last Friday, I called attention to the complete news blackout on the story: Jennifer Morbelli died in the Maryland suburbs of D.C., and yet neither the Washington Post nor the Baltimore Sun deemed it newsworthy? The illogic was glaring, and the Washington Post finally did a 350-word article inside the Metro section of Sunday’s paper. The media embargo crumbled further yesterday when the Journal News in Westchester County, N.Y., reported on the death of the local kindergarten teacher. And now the Washington Post has followed up with coverage of Monday’s press conference by pro-life activists:

The Maryland Office of Health Care Quality is investigating the death of a woman who visited a controversial abortion clinic in Germantown before dying last week at a local hospital.
More than 150 demonstrators gathered near the clinic Monday to step up their efforts to draw national attention to the case, asserting that the clinic’s leader, LeRoy Carhart, was directly responsible for the woman’s death and that she had come to his office for a multi-day abortion procedure when she was 33 weeks pregnant.
“We will not rest until this clinic is shut down and the license of LeRoy Carhart is revoked. God let it be so,” the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, said at the demonstration.
The circumstances leading to the woman’s death remained unclear Monday. State and county officials confirmed that she had visited the abortion clinic and that she died Thursday morning at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, but they offered no details.
Antiabortion demonstrators seized upon the incident to try to sway public opinion about late-term procedures. Many of their specific claims about the case could not be immediately verified. . . .

You can read the whole thing, and I could criticize how the reporter, Dan Morse, handled the story, making “antiabortion demonstrators” (rather than LeRoy Carhart or Jennifer Morbelli) the central characters of the narrative and insinuating that their version of events was unreliable. (As I pointed out Monday night, “If it weren’t for pro-life activists who keep constant vigil at this facility, we might not even know about Jennifer Morbelli’s painful death.”) But I’m not criticizing Morse, at least not at length, because at this point I really don’t care how much pro-abortion spin or liberal bias goes into mainstream media coverage of the story, just so long as they actually cover the story.

In the same spirit, therefore, let us applaud Roseann Moring and Robby Korth of the Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald for their coverage:

A New York woman’s death has put Bellevue abortion provider LeRoy Carhart back in the national spotlight.
Abortion opponents say a 29-year-old kindergarten teacher died Thursday after getting a late-term abortion at Carhart’s clinic in Germantown, Md.
Carhart did not return messages left on his cellphone Monday. A woman who answered the phone at his Bellevue clinic said he would not be available for comment.
Maryland authorities confirmed the woman’s death but said they still are investigating the cause. Montgomery County (Md.) Police and the Medical Examiner’s Office declined to say whether she had been at Carhart’s clinic.
So far, abortion opponents are the only ones who have publicly linked the death to Carhart’s clinic.
Carhart is one of the nation’s few doctors who perform late-term abortions. He had done so at Bellevue’s Abortion and Contraception Clinic until 2010, when the Nebraska Legislature banned abortions after 20 weeks’ gestation.
He then opened the Germantown Reproductive Health Services clinic about 30 miles north of Washington, D.C.
Carhart also considered opening a late-term abortion clinic in Council Bluffs.
In response, Iowa lawmakers proposed legislation aimed at keeping him out of the state. . . .

Read the whole thing and notice that, like the Washington Post‘s Dan Morse, the World-Herald reporters don’t name Jennifer Morbelli as the victim, and make clear that they are merely reporting the assertions made by “abortion opponents.” Heaven forbid that any mainstream reporter should actually do some actual journalism the way “just a blogger” Jill Stanek did on this story.

If you know anything about Jill Stanek (which, of course, no liberal reporter would) you know that she wouldn’t report something like this unless she was absolutely certain of the facts, and so this concern-troll attitude that Stanek’s reporting “could not be immediately verified” bespeaks the incompetence and sloth of reporters who can’t be bothered, at least, to contact Stanek as a source. (Hint: She’s on Twitter.)

However, I don’t want to complain too much about this, because I’m genuinely grateful for any mainstream media coverage of this story. In fact, if some left-wing feminist blogger like Amanda Marcotte or Elspeth Reeve decided to do a post condemning pro-life bloggers for their coverage of Jennifer Morbelli’s death, I would absolutely welcome it. Please, feel free to denounce me by name, call me a hateful misogynist or whatever, and I don’t care: Just stop ignoring the story.

There will be a funeral in New Rochelle tomorrow morning — Ash Wednesday — and I defy anyone to say that funeral isn’t legitimate news.

 

 

PREVIOUSLY:

 


Category: Abortion, Jill Stanek, Maryland, Media Bias, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York

ObamaPhone Boondoggle Update

Posted on | February 12, 2013 | 6 Comments

In October 2008, I was one of the first conservative writers to call attention to the government program to provide free cell phones to the poor.  This existed before Obama became president, but has since become known as the “O-Phone” program, because recipients mistakenly believe that this is a benefit provided to them by Obama. And now Spencer Ante of the Wall Street Journal reports that it’s a shoddy boondoggle:

The U.S. government spent about $2.2 billion last year to provide phones to low-income Americans, but a Wall Street Journal review of the program shows that a large number of those who received the phones haven’t proved they are eligible to receive them.

Remember, it’s RAAAAACIST to criticize this program, or to laugh at this video of an Obama voter excited about her free phone:

 

Category: Barack Obama, Budget

LIVE AT FIVE: 02.12.13

Posted on | February 12, 2013 | 3 Comments

— compiled by Wombat-socho


TOP NEWS
Pope’s Resignation Leaves Catholics In Shock

Catholics pray during a mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York

Benedict XVI cited failing health as reason for being first pope to resign since 1415

Pentagon Benefits For Gay, Lesbian Spouses Limited By DOMA
Housing, health and burial benefits under review

$1 Million Reward Produces Hundreds Of Tips On Murderous Ex-Cop
Border Patrol opines that killer has already fled to Mexico



POLITICS
SEAL Team Six Member Who Killed Osama Now Struggling On Civvy Street

SEALs go after Osama in Zero Dark Thirty

Unemployed, without pension or medical benefits, and separated from his wife.
Or maybe not.


Joe Biden Claims Gun Proposals Not A “Slippery Slope”


Virginia’s Bob McDonnell Not Choosing Sides Between Rove And Trump: “All Good Republicans”

Former Florida GOP Chair And Crist Ally Pleads Guilty To Theft, Money Laundering

Lawmakers Accuse VA Of Covering Up Veterans’ Deaths

SSG Clinton Romesha Receives Medal Of Honor For Defense Of Outpost Keating

Arizona Lawmakers Weigh Giving Hopi, Navajo Tribes Own County So They Can Share State Sales Taxes They Collect



THE ECONOMY, STUPID
Crude Oil Inches Up On Trade Data: NYMEX $95.83, Brent $118.99
Japan Boosts Asian Stocks As Won Fall On Nork Nuke Test Fears
Fed’s Yellen Says Higher Rates Not Assured After Targets Hit
Maker’s Mark Defends Watering Its Booze
FTC Says 5% Of Credit Reports Contain Costly Errors
Is Einhorn’s Apple Activism Insider Trading?
Wall Street Ends Lower On Year’s Lightest Volume
How The Horsemeat Sneaked Into The Lasagna
American Express Lets Twitter Users Shop Via Tweet
Novo Nordisk Says FDA Wants Data From Cardiovascular Health Study Before Approving New Diabetes Drugs
Dish Chairman: “I Don’t Want To Kill Ads”
Surface Pro Shortage: Sold Out Or Understocked?
Why An Apple Smartwatch With iOS Makes Sense
Raytheon May Know Where You’ve Been – And Where You’re Going
Bill Gates Talks Tech, Philanthropy During Reddit AMA
Microsoft Staffs Up LA Studio To Develop Original Content For XBox
EA Takes “Real Racing 3” Down Freemium Route



SPORTS
Changing Tribes: Michael Bourn Signs With Indians

All-Star center fielder Michael Bourn

Four years, $48 million after turning down Braves’ one year, $13.3 million deal and snubbing the Mets

Celtics’ Streak Snapped By…The Bobcats?

Scrivens Strong In Relief As Leafs Beat Flyers

Michael Vick’s New Eagles Contract Heavy With Incentives

Bulls Lose To Shorthanded Spurs, 103-89

Blue Jackets Rout Slumping Sharks

Struggling Nyets Get Big Win Without Williams

Stephen Strasburg Ready For Unrestricted 2013 Season



FAMOUS FOR BEING FAMOUS
Rihanna Premieres “Stay” Music Video On E!

Bath time with Rihanna.

Latest single off “Unapologetic”

Taylor Swift Slams Ex Harry Styles In Opening Number At Grammys

Lindsay Lohan’s Latest Fling? NY DJ Julian Cavin

Rapper Lil’ Wayne Says Heat Gave Him The Boot, Team Disagrees

“Storage Wars” Star Commits Suicide Days After Drug Arrest

Dan Marino’s Baby Mama Resurfaces

“Buckwild” Star Arrested For Drug Possession

Some Marginal Talent Drops F-Bomb At Grammys



FOREIGNERS
Seismic Activity Detected Near Norks’ Nuke Test Site
Tunisian Crisis Deepens As Ruling Coalition Breaks Up
Car Bombs At Turkish-Syrian Border Kill 13; Police Searching For Suspects
Egypt On High Alert As Protesters Mark Anniversary Of Mubarak’s Ouster
Railway Minister Refutes Charges Of Callousness In Stampede Deaths
At Least 18 Dead In Russian Arctic Coal Mine Blast
Syrian Rebels Claim Control Of Tabqa Dam; Third Dam On Euphrates To Fall



BLOGS & STUFF
Gateway Pundit: Ted Nugent To Attend State Of The Union Address As Guest Of Rep. Steve Stockman
TPM: Nugent Says “I Will Be Taking On The Media Orgy” After SOTU
Hot Air: Good News From Jay Carney – The President Believes We Have A Spending Problem, Sort Of
Jim Pethokoukis: If President Obama Thinks The Job Of Deficit Reduction Is Nearly Done, He Needs To Look At This Chart
Protein Wisdom: It’s What They Do – Obama’s State Of The Divided Union
Lonely Conservative: Biden Seeks Help From “Legitimate Media” In Violating Constitution
Michelle Malkin: Oh, Look, There Aren’t Enough California Doctors To Service Obamacare
AmSpecBlog: So Long, Benedict
Hit & Run: The Ones Who Walk Away From The Holy See
Jammie Wearing Fools: Childlike Democrats Offer “Prebuttal” To Marco Rubio’s SOTU Rebuttal
Via Meadia: Law Schools In For A Shakeup
Israel Matzav: Soccer Dad’s Middle East Media Sampler
Freedom Works: Reasons To Oppose The So-Called “Violence Against Women Act”



Shop Amazon – Valentine’s Day Flowers and Chocolates from Grocery

Category: Live at Five

Despite Death in Carhart Clinic, Fanatics Want to Open Abortion Clinic in Wichita

Posted on | February 11, 2013 | 6 Comments

Their obessive devotion to baby-killng is remarkable:

Wichita, Kansas, has been without a local abortion provider since an anti-abortion extremist murdered Dr. George Tiller in his church in May 2009. Now, one of Tiller’s former employees has bought his clinic and intends to reopen it this spring.
The Trust Women Foundation, led by former Tiller spokeswoman Julie Burkhart, purchased Tiller’s old office last September. The group has raised most of the $1 million it will take to reopen the clinic, and Burkhart, 46, and her staff have been busy renovating the office and recruiting doctors. Burkhart . . . worked with Tiller at the clinic for seven years, and had moved away from Wichita shortly before his murder. She has since moved back to reopen the clinic, which she and her colleagues plan to call South Wind Women’s Center.

Tiller’s late-term abortion disciple, LeRoy Carhart, sent Jennifer McKenna Morbelli to an early grave in Maryland last week, but Julie Burkhart thinks what Wichita needs is a baby-killing center:

Here we live in a pretty good-sized city, Wichita, with a metropolitan area of around 650,000 people. It’s like really, come on. We’re a town that used to have three abortion clinics. Shouldn’t we be able to have at least one ob-gyn practice that offers abortion care? . . .

(“Abortion care”?)

We’re looking at a few thousand women who now have to travel outside the area each year. . . . Some people would say, “Just leave it alone and let it go.” However, we can’t really have true freedom in this country until everyone can access that right. . . .

(Oh, my goodness, “a few thousand women who now have to travel outside the area each year” to kill their babies. This is unacceptable!)

Frankly, the only people we get the pushback from by and large are the antis. They’re good bullies. But people in this community are speaking out maybe a little bit more. There’s a little bit more understanding. We want people to understand that this is a new day; this is a new clinic. We’re working on a different model of health care for women. And we’re not going to be pushed around by the antis.

Yes, the “antis” — people who are against killing babies — are “bullies,” whereas the people who get paid to kill babies are . . . What? Never mind. Don’t think too hard about it, just repeat your slogans about “health care” and “rights” and “access,” shut down your conscience and try not to think about what’s actually going on inside the “South Wind Women’s Center” and maybe, with the help of anti-depressants and sedatives, you’ll be able to sleep at night, you soulless bloodthirsty ghouls.

 

Category: Abortion, Kansas

How Many More Women Will Die Before Abortionist LeRoy Carhart Is Stopped?

Posted on | February 11, 2013 | 22 Comments

“LeRoy Carhart is likely the most prominent abortionist in America.
“Carhart was the plaintiff in two U.S. Supreme Court cases, Stenberg v. Carhart in 2000 . . . and Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007 . . .
“Carhart is also one of four abortionists . . . featured in the new documentary, After Tiller, which just received rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival. . . .
“Jennifer and her family came to Carhart for help, albeit misguided, and he destroyed them.”
— Jill Stanek, “BREAKING: Carhart’s victims identified”

“Maryland is one of the most pro-choice communities in the country.”
— Dr. LeRoy Carhart, 2011

“Never Again” is the headline from Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life:

Carhart has a long history of abhorrent practices at his late-term abortion facilities. He should have been shut down a long time ago. If he had, this mother and child and countless others would still be alive today. He needs to be stopped immediately.

Jennifer McKenna Morbelli and her daughter Madison Leigh are certainly not the first victims of LeRoy Carhart’s “abhorrent practices,” and they will not be his last, so long as Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley and other officials turn a blind eye to this man’s shameful butchery.

Carhart’s Germantown Reproductive Health clinic provides women “reproductive health” in roughly the same sense that Auschwitz and Buchenwald were “Jewish community centers.”

The euphemistic name of Carhart’s Maryland clinic is a lie, an attempt to conceal the bloody truth: LeRoy Carhart kills babies for a living.

If it weren’t for pro-life activists who keep constant vigil at this facility, we might not even know about Jennifer Morbelli’s painful death:

After a name ID was received from an impeccable informant, sidewalk counselors at the abortion clinic positively identified Jennifer’s obituary photo. . . .
Carhart began the abortion process on Sunday, February 3, in the afternoon, according to sidewalk counselors who maintain a constant presence at the clinic when it is open. They noted Jennifer appeared “very” late-term. . . .
Sunday is when Carhart kills late-term babies by lethal injection into the heart through the mothers’ abdominal wall.
Jennifer and her family returned on Monday, presumably to begin the labor induction process by insertion of laminaria or prostaglandins to dilate the cervix, and again on Tuesday.
They likely spent each night at a nearby hotel, as is the usual process for a multi-day, late-term abortion at Carhart’s Germantown clinic.
Each day sidewalk counselors noted in real-time annotations that Jennifer appeared more and more pale.
The family returned again on Wednesday, presumably for the delivery of Jennifer’s dead baby Madison, staying nine hours, an extraordinary length of time. They left at 4:35 p.m.
Carhart and his wife Mary Lou left soon afterward. The two typically fly out on Wednesday afternoons to either Indianapolis, Indiana, or Bellevue, Nebraska, to commit abortions on Thursdays. Carhart is what’s known as a “circuit rider” abortionist.

The nauseating gruesomeness of this procedure — requiring three entire days — is a major reason why so few doctors are willing to engage in this practice, but it is common enough that Carhart’s deadly services are in demand in three states, despite his “shoddy” record:

In 2005, another Carhart patient, 19-year old Christin Gilbert, also died from the risky late-term abortion procedure employed by Carhart and other third trimester abortionists across the nation. Operation Rescue has documented nearly a dozen additional serious complications over the past three years related to this same procedure, raising serious questions about its safety.

Father Frank Pavone of Priests for Life:

“It has happened again. Another mother has been killed by so-called ‘safe and legal’ abortion. It happens constantly, in fact, but the abortion industry usually succeeds in covering it up. And even when they don’t, the rest of us succeed in keeping it relatively quiet.
“That has to change today. . . .
“Three things need to happen here. First, the state of Maryland has to shut down Carhart’s killing business. Second, every person who cares about this needs to spread the word immediately about this tragedy, to awaken the consciences of our neighbors. This includes pastors speaking out about the harm abortion does, and it includes all of us telling the stories of those harmed and killed by abortion.
“Third, we need to redouble our efforts to mobilize people in the pro-life cause. If this latest tragedy isn’t enough evidence that the time to end abortion is now, then what is?”

Michael Martelli, Executive Director of Maryland Coalition for Life:

“It is so tragic that this family had to lose not only their nearly full-term child, but also their wife, daughter, and sister. What is most appalling is that the State of Maryland refused to hear the pleas of this community, and has allowed this man to continue to butcher women and children.”

John Jalsevac reports that the pro-abortion opinions of liberal journalists account for the lack of coverage by major news organizations:

Troy Newman, the president of Operation Rescue, the pro-life group that broke the news of the death, says he believes it is “typical” of the mainstream media that they are reticent to do “due diligence” to investigate the story and report on it.
“It’s because they’re pro-abortion,” Newman told LifeSiteNews.com in a telephone interview. “And bad news for the abortion industry is bad news for them. They’ll only report it when they’re forced to.”

This tragedy — the second woman to die as a result of receiving “reproductive health” from LeRoy Carhart — is outrageous enough that the mainstream media cannot ignore it. And already, the Westchester, N.Y., Journal News has broken the media embargo:

Authorities in Maryland said Monday that they are investigating the death of a 29-year-old New Rochelle woman who reportedly traveled to the Washington D.C. suburbs for a late-term abortion.
Jennifer Morbelli, a teacher at the Church Street School in White Plains, died Thursday at Shady Grove Adventist Hospital, prompting an investigation by the Montgomery County Medical Examiner, a probe which has also involved the Montgomery County Police Department.
According to an Associated Press report, Morbelli went to the Rockville, Md., hospital after being treated at Germantown Reproductive Health Services, a separate clinic.
The story has sparked a fierce online debate among abortion opponents. Kathy Morbelli, the dead woman’s mother-in-law, told The Journal News Monday that she is extremely upset with the rhetoric.
“They know she was a wanted baby, they know she was named,” she said. “I just wish that the people could let my son, who is only 29 years old, mourn in peace…. We have no comment on the doctor.”

Nobody wants to interfere with this family’s mourning. Nor is there any “fierce online debate among abortion opponents.”

The time for debate is over. The time for action has arrived.

These grisly atrocities must end. Officials in Maryland must act.

PREVIOUSLY:

 

Category: Abortion, Indiana, Maryland, Media Bias, Nebraska, New York
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