Two breaths—“teaching moment” rather than tragedy, then, “Guinness and chicken wings.”

This is the same ... affect, inhuman countenance, that we hear about from death camp guards. My god.

</semi-legitimate Godwin violation>

He was one of those arrested at Notre Dame, too. *reading up on the man* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randall_Terry

Getting a small amount of distance from the shock about that second clip… “reaped what he sowed” but not that he was “responsible.” You keep using that word…

I note that he refused to call Tiller “Dr.”  I read his Wiki.  If this guy is family values….  Most of his own kids won’t have anything to do with him.  Like most of these guys he has an abandoned wife.  And then he later becomes RC.  He better hope that “reap what you sow” stuff isn’t true or his soul will end up in the Ninth ring of Hell.

...I’m so very shocked that Randall Terry is really happy about this. 

Actually, I’m not shocked at all.  I did figure they’d wait more than a day to let the mask slip, however.  But I guess when you’re happy that your fatwa has been fulfilled it’s kinda hard to hide it. 

It’s probably good he was behind the dais, otherwise we might have seen direct evidence of just how happy he really is…

Check out Jed’s catch at DailyKos: http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/6/1/737712/-Number-for-top-Operation-Rescue-staffer-found-in-suspects-car

They are piecing together a series of contacts between the gunman and Randall Terry’s Operation Rescue. He’s clearly and confidently aligning his movement with assassination in these statements, while making legalistic hedges to keep himself from swinging. 1) Maybe he knew exactly what he wanted to say, because he’s given it some thought to what he’d say if this happened. Or, 2) He knew this was going to happen.

I have a really bad feeling about this.

And a worse feeling… if there was a larger conspiracy here, will right wingers close ranks around Operation Rescue and allege Obama’s political witchhunt. “He was waiting for something like this to happen! Today he’s coming for Operation Rescue, tomorrow for our guns.” A very, very bad feeling.

There’s nothing I can do but wait and see what happens. *serenity now*

Thanks for letting me vent.

I want him under police/marshall observation NOW.  The man is a terrorist. 

That right there?  Was a threat to every other obstetrician out there—perform abortions and you are asking to be killed.

I’m sure the current president of Operation Rescue wishes he’d shut up, all the more to “distance” themselves from this random act of violence that has nothing to do with them.  But Randall won’t, and he’s making it quite obvious why they ARE in complicit in part with the assassination.

I’m making myself nuts with this. Disregard previous.

I hope this is isolated, I hope this won’t happen again, I hope it becomes a teaching moment for assholes like Terry to step back from the edge (even if Terry himself doesn’t), and I’m not going to go nuts thinking about what the FBI and police are going to turn up.

Cuz it will all happen in its time. Sorry, fellahs, for the darkness.

Shit, ha!

So whose number was on Scott Roeder’s dashboard?

It turns out the number belongs to Operation Rescue senior policy advisor Cheryl Sullenger, who was convicted of conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in 1988. Justin Kendall of The Pitch has the details:

  The phone number is written on an envelope with the name “Cheryl” and “Op Rescue.” Cheryl is Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s senior policy adviser, who in 1988 was convicted of conspiring to bomb a California abortion clinic. She served two years in prison.

But they aren’t responsible for someone trying to contact them. 

It’s not like they’ve repudiated their past actions.

Seriously, folks, these are terrorists.  If we fail to treat them as terrorists and try to treat this issue as a lone crazy man, we’re in for many many more deaths.

On one hand, I’m slightly encouraged, b/c this level of lunacy suggests that they know they’ve lost.  On the other, I’m repulsed and frightened by what they might do, should our government not treat this seriously.

B/c this is EXACTLY what that right-wing extremist report was all about.

Quiz time!

Randall Terry is:

a)a man who supports and encourages acts of violence and intimidation to achieve his political ends ie. a terrorist
b)a hypocrite: a man who claims to love little babies, yet kicked his own pregnant daughter out of the family home
c)pondscum beloved only of pondscum
d)all of the above

Y’know, the term “sowing” implies a certain amount of intent. For example, if I sow tomato seeds in a garden it’s not reasonable for me to expect to reap bananas. But maybe it’s different for Xtian fantasist gardeners like Terry, with their kooky miracles.

I agree with you completely about Terry’s statement, Caren.

And I believe the forming picture looks an awful lot like a terror cell. Jed had an earlier catch today that reminds me way too much of Elohim City, which was a Christianist enclave that Timothy McVeigh relied on. The Oklahoma City Bombing actually happened on the same day the Federal government executed another familiar of Elohim City.

I’ll spare you the more involved conspiracy theories related, but it goes far into informing my paranoid speculation at 05:48pm.

That said… beer, damp clothe over the eyes, and wait to see what happens.

But they aren’t responsible for someone trying to contact them.

C’mon, Roeder and Sullenger just had common interests. Perhaps they met on eHarmony: “Must Love Bombs.”

The point that must be emphasized over, and over, and over again: pro-life leaders and the pro-life movement are not responsible for George Tiller’s death. George Tiller was a mass-murder and, horrifically, he reaped what he sowed.

It’s teh amazing! Those bullets just HAPPENED to appear out of the barrel of that gun that the dude who was a well-known anti-choice activist just HAPPENED to bring to George Tiller’s church! It’s not like anyone is responsible or anything. It was just God’s divine judgement that this happened!

Asshole.

No, Randy, if you want anything resembling the random hand of God that results in death, you should look at all of those fetuses that were dying or already dead when the women who carried them walked tearfully into Tiller’s office. A fucked up gene sequence or a cell mutation gone out of control or any other horrific ways in which pregnancies can go south, endangering the life of the women (wife, mother) who carries that pregnancy is a LOT closer to “no one to blame but God” than some sicko that you’ve been messaging towards for years actually acting on your rantings and killing a doctor.

Actually, Gracchus, I think that’s exactly what his indecipherable dog whistle crazy-speak was supposed to say. He sowed death (baby murder), he reaped death (his own murder).

Still, Caren’s read is what I think he was trying to say.

“Embrace a “culture of death” and don’t bitch about getting killed. And we’re not going to kill you. But someone will. Which is a prediction, not a threat. Or a promise, except I’m not promising, just telling you that you definitely will be killed. Because this crazy train runs on White Jesus juice.”

It was a huge and embarrassing security failure that Randall Terry was allowed anywhere near Notre Dame while the president was there.

For whatever it’s worth, I once heard someone refer to Operation Rescue as Op’Res’ue. I don’t think it’s inappropriate.

As for Randall Terry… well, I don’t think he’s ready to be dragged in just yet, but I hope the feds are watching him like a hawk.

If there is one major trait, or sin if you prefer, that the anti-abortionists’ have, its Pride.  Not pride of accomplishment or ability, just pride of vanity, narcissism and self-importance.

Another is cowardice. Terry and O’R and all their conceited pals who think they know better than anyone, doctors, women in crisis, or the law, but will only urge others to take risks, violent actions; while Terry & his Merry Men stand back a few feet looking the other way, only to step forward when they deem andy danger to them is past.

And most important: GREED.  Mr. Terry, O’R, Limbag, all the anti-abortion screamers have gotten rich preaching their particular gospel of Hate and Violence. Very Rich.

Oh, and another thing!

Tiller reaped what Randal Terry and all the other sowed.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that he is more concerned about blow back on his organization than about the fact that a man was just murdered, but I was a little shocked to hear him express it so openly.

Bleah…pardon my bad spelling/typing.  Hard to fume, seethe and type all at the same time.

My niece (living in Texas) gave birth to a severely handicapped baby, born without a real heart, other organs non-or-semi-functioning.  After 7 weeks of surgeries and agony for mother and baby, she asked the hospital to remove the tubes and wires.  With proper pregnancy care, which she lacked, this would have been caught earlier, and she would probably have had an abortion, thereby sparing the baby and herself weeks of agony.

Does R Terry care about the baby’s suffering? No. Does BillO care about my 20 year old Niece’s 11 months of agony (the pregnancy too was difficult)? No, he doesn’t. Could Op Rescue care LESS? NO.

As for Cheryl Sullenger, Operation Rescue’s senior policy adviser, SHE, NOT THE EASTER BUNNY, PUT HER PHONE NUMBER ALL OVER THE PLACE. Of course she’s responsible for the murderer of Dr. Tiller calling her.

And just last week Operation Rescue had this to say in one of their “missives”:

Yet another connection between Pres. Obama and late-term abortionist George Tiller. Gold Star Mother Betty Pulliam, who lost a son in Viet Nam, now works to take the lives of other women’s sons and daughters at George Tiller late-term abortion mill in Wichita, Kansas. Yesterday, she breakfasted with President Obama and was honored in our nation’s capital as part of a Memorial Day observance.

Read the rest at

Operation Rescue spits on military families by Devilstower (DailyKos)

His hair is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen.  Does he have a Kevlar helmet hidden under there?

And most important: GREED.  Mr. Terry, O’R, Limbag, all the anti-abortion screamers have gotten rich preaching their particular gospel of Hate and Violence. Very Rich.

And they accused Dr. Tiller of what they themselves are guilty of.  They keep claiming that he got rich off of killing baybeez.  How much overhead did he have in security?  How much did he have to worry about his own safety and the safety of his family?  Tiller was a doctor, for fuck’s sake.  He could get rich in any number of different kinds of medical practice.  Randal Terry and his shit-for-brains friends can’t.  This is all they have.

who lost a son in Viet Nam

Leave it to them to go with the old, now non-standard, spelling of “Vietnam.”  I bet they still call Zimbabwe “Rhodesia.”

I want him under police/marshall observation NOW.  The man is a terrorist.

THIS. There are so many homegrown terrorist cells, masquerading under these lunatic hate groups it’s terrifying.
And WA being so close to ID is not happy making…

I don’t care what anyone says. The anti-choice extremists and far-right Christian zealots aren’t any different from the Taliban we are fighting in Afghanistan. They are way more fucking alike than they would admit, and need to be treated with the same seriousness.

The conservative movement is now just a criminal organization with an ancillary political party. You bought these people, Republicans, you own them now.

The difference is that when Falwell said the same kind of thing about 9/11, he had to walk it back.

Constitutional scholar Jonathan Turley ws just on The Rachel Maddow Show and has weighed in on what can be done legally about Operation Rescue.

Just about nothing.

Vile as their speech is, it is likely protected free speech.  We can keep a watchful eye on them, and we can call them out… but don’t count on any indictments coming down on anyone other than Roeder for this vicious crime.

If all Operation Rescue did was speech, that would be fine. But they also provide a meeting ground for stalkers, intimidators and violent crazies. Material support for terrorists.

I’m feeling infuriated right now, because I really don’t believe that anything can be done substantively to curb this inciteful rhetoric by the DoJ.  The Wichita Eagle has a story from the local District Attorney saying that the charges against Roeder will be filed by the state of Kansas, not the federal government.

This is going to be treated by our law enforcement authorities as the act of a lone gunman who was off his rocker.  Nothing is going to be done about the fuckers who inspired him.

I am seething right now.  Hearing them continue to spew their bile and realizing that there will be nothing done to stop them from spewing their vile is making me ill.

Kwillow:

Another is cowardice. Terry and O’R and all their conceited pals who think they know better than anyone, doctors, women in crisis, or the law, but will only urge others to take risks, violent actions; while Terry & his Merry Men stand back a few feet looking the other way, only to step forward when they deem andy danger to them is past.

It’s yet another thing that they have in common with their Islamic fundamentalist counterparts.  One of the clearly emerging patterns around suicide bombers is the cultivation of idiotic or impressionable or mentally ill or traumatized people by a cadre of preachers and/or organizers who, needless to say, are never, ever, ever, ever nearby when the bullets fly or the bombs go off.

If all Operation Rescue did was speech, that would be fine. But they also provide a meeting ground for stalkers, intimidators and violent crazies. Material support for terrorists.

I agree.  You agree.  We all agree.

Constitutional scholars will not agree.  Neither will the United States Dept. of Justice.

FUCK.

Not calling you a fuck, paul… just screaming fuck at the computer right now.

Turley’s assessment infuriated me.  And that’s not to say that I’m angry at Jonathan Turley, who I have a great deal of respect for.  It infuriated me because he IS one of the foremost constitutional scholars in the United States, and if he’s saying that there is no legal recourse to take action against Operation Rescue and their ilk because of the First Amendment, I tend to give it weight.

I really feel helpless right now, and I really feel like the only thing that will happen is that Roeder will get charged with murder, but there will be no other legal repercussions for anyone beyond that.

Google Ads is offering an online anger management course. Uh ... less politically motivated murder, please? That would help me manage my anger.

So, the Dept of Homeland Security can infiltrate vegan groups that plan things like, protesting outside KFC, but the Feds can’t do ANYTHING about Extremist Religious Groups who bomb, murder, and stalk?

I call BULLSHIT.

So, the Dept of Homeland Security can infiltrate vegan groups that plan things like, protesting outside KFC, but the Feds can’t do ANYTHING about Extremist Religious Groups who bomb, murder, and stalk?

I call BULLSHIT.
KMTBERRY on 06/01 at 05:53 PM

See my Modest Proposal in the first thread Amanda put up in response to the recent bad news—short form, threaten to use the sweeping Star Chamber powers Congress game the President after 9/11—as leverage to put a stop to that kind of cloak-and-dagger nonsense once and for all. Sadly, I don’t think it’s realistic.

It’s not that there is Constitutional recourse to shut down OR (let alone Fox “News” or Glen Beck or the rest of those Marching Morons), it’s that those vegan groups are being attacked UnConstitutionally. And unfortunately I don’t forsee an end to that.

OK, something somebody upthread said - wondering if the anti-chociers would now close rank - reminded me of something I’d read a while back about how at least one anti-choicer began distancing herself from OR and Terry about a month ago.  http://www.jillstanek.com/archives/2009/05/randall_terry_a.html

And ceratin posters on said cite became more vitriolic and seemingly prescient about upcoming “comeuppance” for prochoicers around the same time. 

Seems to me that offically inquiring minds might want to know what they knew and when they knew it - ya know?

I think it’s very clear that Terry wants women to die.  Dr. Tiller performed therapeutic abortions that saved women’s lives and Terry is mad about this?  If they had murdered a doctor who provided elective, early-tram abortions, some women would end up being kicked out of their homes, being stuck with an abusive partner, dropping out of school, facing a life of poverty, going through several months of social shame, going into debt because of medical costs, etc., but at least they would still be alive.  Now that Dr. Tiller has been murdered, women will die from preventable deaths, usually taking the fetus along with them and leaving other children and families without that person anymore.  And Terry is happy about this.  Make no mistake, Terry wants women to die.  Forced-birth terrorist is not a strong enough description when women’s lives are actually lost rather than just being ruined.  Terry is pro-death.

There’s a reason why the chorus of one of the songs on rotation on my iPod goes:

“Operation Rescue
Come into our town
We’ll lock you in a church
And burn the fucker down”

These people make me mad. I know wishing violence isn’t right, but damn…

Look at what he’s said in the past and this isn’t surprising at all.
http://exchristian.net/exchristian/2002/03/randall-terry-quotes.php

“Let a wave of intolerance wash over you. I want you to let a wave of hatred wash over you. Yes, hate is good.... If a Christian voted for Clinton, he sinned against God. It’s that simple…. Our goal is a Christian Nation… we have a biblical duty, we are called by God to conquer this country. We don’t want equal time. We don’t want Pluralism. We want theocracy. Theocracy means God rules. I’ve got a hot flash. God rules.”

[Randall Terry, Head of Operation Rescue, from The News Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Aug 15, 1993]

—-

“When I, or people like me, are running the country, you’d better flee, because we will find you, we will try you, and we will execute you. I mean every word of it. I will make it part of my mission to see to it that they are tried and executed… If we’re going to have true reformation in America, it is because men once again, if I may use a worn out expression, have righteous testoserone flowing through their veins. They are not afraid of contempt for their contemporaries. They are not even here to get along. They are here to take over… Somebody like Susan Smith should be dead. She should be dead now. Some people will go, “Well how do you know God doesn’t have a wonderful plan for her life?” He does, it’s listed in the Bible. His plan for her is that she should be dead.”

[Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, at the Aug 8, 1995 U.S. Taxpayers Alliance Banquet in Washington DC, talking about doctors who perform abortions and volunteer escorts]