Supporting the Palestinians...

Becomes a tad more complicated.

Hamas Forces Shoot Own Supporters at Rally; Youth Killed

JERUSALEM, Sept. 1 — Shots from Hamas security forces hit the group’s own supporters in Gaza on Saturday when a rally near the Egyptian border threatened to spiral out of control, witnesses said. One teenager was killed and several other demonstrators were wounded, Palestinian medics said.
Hamas had called for the demonstration, which thousands attended, to protest the closing of the Rafah border crossing. It has been closed since Hamas seized control of Gaza in June.
Members of the Hamas paramilitary police force fired into the air to disperse protesters who were trying to dash into Egypt, the witnesses said. The teenager, identified as Muhammad Qdaih, 17, was hit and died a short while later. A spokesman for the Hamas-run Interior Ministry in Gaza, Ehab al-Ghsein, said officials were trying “to determine where the shot came from.”

We're always hearing about how evil Israel is, but the stories out of Gaza all say the same thing...It's Hamas killing the Palestinian people. And as the article makes QUITE clear, this is far from a one time event.

On Friday, thousands of Palestinians in Gaza defied Hamas to join a Fatah-inspired protest, clashing with Hamas forces. Several protesters were injured and dozens detained, reports from Gaza said. A Fatah spokesman, Ahmed Abdel Rahman, called the protest the start of “a new era in the Palestinian national struggle to cleanse the homeland of Hamas gangs.”

Indeed, there is no shortage of Hamas violence against Palestinians. This is not an abberation.

It makes one wonder however, if Carter's commitment to Palestine is so strong (because of their long term suffering), why is he demanding we give Hamas, the main group oppressing Palestinians, US funding?

It's All About Choice...REALLY

H/T SayAnything

Chinese victims of forced late-term abortion fight back

Yang Zhongchen, a small-town businessman, wined and dined three government officials for permission to become a father.
But the Peking duck and liquor weren't enough. One night, a couple of weeks before her date for giving birth, Yang's wife was dragged from her bed in a north China town and taken to a clinic, where, she says, her baby was killed by injection while still inside her.

Since the entirety of the pro-choice movement is horror stories from poor single women, here's a good one...

"Several people held me down, they ripped my clothes aside and the doctor pushed a large syringe into my stomach," says Jin Yani, a shy, petite woman with a long ponytail. "It was very painful. ... It was all very rough."
Some 30 years after China decreed a general limit of one child per family, resentment still brews over the state's regular and sometimes brutal intrusion into intimate family matters. Not only are many second pregnancies aborted, but even to have one's first child requires a license.
Seven years after the dead baby was pulled from her body with forceps, Jin remains traumatized and, the couple and a doctor say, unable to bear children. Yang and Jin have made the rounds of government offices pleading for restitution — to no avail.
This year, they took the unusual step of suing the family planning agency. The judges ruled against them, saying Yang and Jin conceived out of wedlock. Local family planning officials said Jin consented to the abortion. The couple's appeal to a higher court is pending.

Surely, since the most important thing in the world is for a woman to be able to choose whether or not she keeps her child, we'll start hearing from the pro-choice crowd about this travesty. Any second now...

It's coming I'm sure...

Feminists Abandon Women-Again

They're there over a 50 cent an hour difference between men and women's wages, but when it comes to something like civil rights...not so much.

Can't sweat the small stuff you know?

Academia's fixation on cultural sensitivity is changing the debate around female genital mutilation, with a growing number of professors and women's rights activists becoming hesitant to condemn the practice.

That's bad enough. "Hesitant to condemn" means they have to think long and hard before condemning non-consentual mutilation of women...by men. But it gets worse.

Where feminists rallied against the operation from the pages of Ms. magazine in the 1970s, today's critics are infinitely more cautious, with most suggesting that the Western world butt out until Muslim African communities are ready to reconsider what they are doing to their daughters.
The shift in attitudes about the practice-- which in the worst of cases involves the carving out of a woman's clitoris and inner labia and can cause lifelong urinary tract infections, sterility and even death -- comes at a time when high-profile victims of the operation such as writer Ayaan Hirsi Ali and model Waris Dirie, both Somalis, have launched very public campaigns against the practice.
"There are good reasons within the society for the operation to continue, but these are cultural reasons. They are not scientific ones," says Prof. Boddy, author of Civilizing Women: British Crusades in Colonial Sudan.

"There are good reasons for it to continue." Like what? Please, enlighten us?

Where once feminists railed against every act of the patriarchy...now they defend the patriarchy is truly oppressive women in ways beyond what the feminists ever complained about.

Remember that the next time a feminist talks about inequality.

No One to Blame But Yourself

Future of Stem Cell Tests May Hang on Defining Embryo Harm

Basically, the very people who demand more and more government control over science in the form of funding, are getting angry that the gov't is using discretion in what it funds. But they don't have much of a leg to stand on, as they're the ones who gave the government complete control and oversight, via the power of the checkbook.

You really have no one to blame but yourself guys. It was only a matter of time til someone got put in power that you didn't agree with. And now, you want us to cry that he has you guys by the balls....after you put them in his hand?

I can't find it in me to offer any sympathy. Sorry.

The ACLU puts Policy Before People

From Yahoo

FORT WORTH, Texas - Fed up with deadly drive-by shootings, incessant drug dealing and graffiti, cities nationwide are trying a different tactic to combat gangs: They're suing them.
Fort Worth and San Francisco are among the latest to file lawsuits against gang members, asking courts for injunctions barring them from hanging out together on street corners, in cars or anywhere else in certain areas.
The injunctions are aimed at disrupting gang activity before it can escalate. They also give police legal reasons to stop and question gang members, who often are found with drugs or weapons, authorities said. In some cases, they don't allow gang members to even talk to people passing in cars or to carry spray paint.
"It is another tool," said Kevin Rousseau, a Tarrant County assistant prosecutor in Fort Worth, which recently filed its first civil injunction against a gang. "This is more of a proactive approach."
But critics say such lawsuits go too far, limiting otherwise lawful activities and unfairly targeting minority youth.

The sad part is, the very people who will suffer are minorities. Most gang activity affects the black and hispanic communities most. Yet under the specter of "racism", the ACLU is trying to toss a piece of legislation that has a chance to make minority neighborhoods safer.
The places where gangs thrive most is ghettos and minority communities, and as such...their victims are mostly the poor and those of color. By arguing against this in the name of "minority rights", the ACLU is basically guaranteeing a higher minority body count.

Hope that makes those rich white lawyers feel better in their gated communities.

Cause for Concern

For Both parties:
Cross-posted

Voters Disapprove of Democratic Congress, but Dislike GOP Even More

Halfway through the first year of the first Democratic-controlled Congress in a dozen years, there is such widespread public dissatisfaction with its performance that Democrats can be thankful they will be opposed in next year’s elections by Republicans who generally are viewed even less favorably than they are. If there was an up-or-down, referendum-style vote on their brief leadership of Congress, Democrats would be in deep trouble.
The release Thursday of the latest bipartisan “Battleground 2008” survey included sobering if not alarming news for members of Congress in both parties. A majority of respondents (52 percent) disapproved of the Democratic-led Congress — but even greater majorities disapproved of the job performances of congressional Republicans (61 percent) and President Bush (61 percent). The poll is sponsored by George Washington University and was conducted of 1,000 registered likely voters on July 15-18 by the Democratic firm Lake Research Partners and the Republican firm The Tarrance Group.
...
Perhaps the most startling finding in the survey was that 70 percent of respondents said that the country was on the “wrong track” — higher than the 64 percent of respondents who said that in January, when the last Battleground survey was conducted. Seven out of ten respondents also said that their individual member of Congress “puts partisan politics first,” compared with just one in five who said their representative “puts me first.”
The survey found that voters prefer Democrats to Republicans on nearly every major policy issue — usually by wide margins. Democrats held double-digit leads over Republicans when respondents were asked which party would “do a better job of handling” the Iraq war, jobs, energy independence, the federal budget deficit, Social Security, political corruption in Washington, D.C., and health care. Republicans held a 13-percentage-point lead on combating terrorism — the GOP’s biggest edge on any issue — and narrow advantages over Democrats on “moral values” and curbing illegal immigration.
The Iraq war continues to be the most dominant issue, and voters said by a 53 percent to 43 percent margin that the war is not “worth fighting.” The predominant explanation for the Democratic-controlled Congress’ mediocre public approval ratings is that voters think that Democrats have not challenged Bush enough on Iraq policy, according to the survey. Voters also think a Democratic-run Congress should have accomplished more by now.
...
Brian Nienaber, a Tarrance vice president who appeared with Lake at Thursday’s presentation, noted that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California have higher unfavorability ratings than they did in January, when the current 110th Congress convened.
...
“Democrats look good, frankly, only relative to Republicans,” Lake said. She later added: “Thank God it’s a contrast, and not just an up-or-down vote . . . It’s not like people are going to fire us for the Republicans. But we’ve got to work hard to get them more enthusiastic about re-electing us.”

This should be disheartening for both groups. The public prefers Democrats, but still thinks they're not much good either. As Lake herself says, "we look good only compared to Republicans." And considering the different ways that the parties view themselves and their opponents, this says quite a bit. What does this all mean? Well, it means several different things:

1) If you run on a platform of "change", you actually have to change something. Democrats offered nothing to the American public except a fuzzy promise to "change course", and rightly pointing out the flaws of the Republican candidates. So, with a Democratic congress, and a President sympathetic to them on a lot of issues, there's no reason they can't have gotten more done. Instead of doing "non-binding resolutions", offer the people something.
2) If you're going to run on a platform of "we're not as corrupt as the other guy"...you can't be as corrupt as the other guy. Within days of her ascention to Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi was demanding a bigger jet than her Republican predecessor. And she was nominating the two most corrupt guys in teh House for high level positions.
3) The GOP is seen as pathetic by it's own members. With the immigration nonsense, they completely alienated their base. Seeing as conservatives tend to be closed border types, Republicans have to go with their base. But there's not a lot of support from powerful left wing groups for open borders either. Labor unions were furious, and whenever unions are unhappy, the left takes a hit.
4) As Lake notes, a third party candidate, if they join, will determine the election. There's no way they'll get elected, but if he jumps in the race, Bloomburg may have the effect on the left that Perot had on Bush Sr., syphining off just enough dissatisfied right wingers, that Clinton was able to get the White House.
5) We have a ridiculous amount of anger on both sides of the aisle. Something has to give somewhere. While, at this point, it's laughable to consider a third party candidate, if we get the same batch of crap in '08, it suddenly won't be so funny and will start to look like a serious possibility.

THAT should give both sides something to think about.

Better Denounce Them

I'm sure fellow leftists are lining up to denounce ACORN:

7 charged with voter registration fraud

ACORN did the right think and submitted money to defray the costs of the investigation.

SEATTLE (AP) - King County prosecutors filed felony charges Thursday against seven people in what a top official described as the worst case of voter-registration fraud in state history, while the organization they worked for agreed to keep a better eye on its employees and pay $25,000 to defray costs of the investigation.
...
Satterberg, Reed and other officials stressed that the defendants were motivated by financial gain rather than any desire to toy with the outcome of an election. They said that in one sense, ACORN was victimized because it paid for voter-registration work that was never performed.
But in interviews with King County Sheriff's Detective Chris Johnson, several of the defendants - while freely admitting they forged the forms - insisted that they had been told ACORN would shut down their office in Tacoma if they didn't improve their numbers, Johnson wrote in a probable cause statement.
One, Ryan Olson, said another worker in the office told him "do what you have to do" to turn in more cards.
ACORN's oversight of the workers was virtually nonexistent - to the extent that civil charges could have been warranted, Satterberg said.

It's quite apparent that these people were more motivated by fear of losing their jobs than political bias, but that's really irrelevant. Because, in politics, as in most of life, appearance is everything. And here you have a group of people falsifying records for a seemingly liberal group. How can this do anything other than harm general impressions of the public about the left?

It'd do a world of good for the left if a couple Democratic leaders denounced this nonsense, and ACORN had an overall of their quota system that led to this fiasco.

Pro-Choice Advocates Charged with Hypocracy

From OneNewsNow.com:

A pro-life activist says Democratic White House hopefuls who are promoting universal abortion coverage on the campaign trail are speaking out of both sides of their mouths.
Mark Crutcher, the president of Life Dynamics, Incorporated, says the American abortion industry's "choke-hold" on the Democratic Party is evidenced by the fact that at least two of the party's leading presidential candidates are promoting universal abortion coverage. Democratic presidential candidates Senator Barack Obama (D-Illinois) and John Edwards have announced their universal healthcare proposals would provide insurance coverage for abortions.
Elizabeth Edwards recently told the Planned Parenthood Action Fund that her husband's plan would cover "all reproductive health services, including pregnancy termination." Crutcher says the Edwards and Obama plans reaffirm that the Democratic Party is "owned lock, stock and barrel" by the abortion industry -- and expose the two candidates as "hypocrites and liars."
"Out of one side of their mouth, they say that abortion is none of the government's business and the government has to stay out of it -- but on the other side of their mouth, they say the government has a responsibility to pay for abortion. Now which one is it?" he asks.
The conservative commentator also adds that in order to be the standard-bearer in the Democratic Party today, one must be "completely and unashamedly sold-out to the wholesale slaughter of the unborn."
"It's the threat of a gun, basically," he explains. "They're going to take money out of our pocketbook -- and when I say the threat of a gun, understand something: if you don't pay your taxes, you go to jail. And they're going to take money out of your pocket and out of mine to pay for what we know is the murder of a child."
Frontrunner Hillary Clinton has yet to unveil her healthcare plan, but Crutcher notes that in the eight years of her husband's presidency, there was only one group Bill Clinton was completely loyal to -- the abortion industry.

Unfortunately, the guy's right. You can't have it both ways. You can't argue that it is an inherently personal choice that the government has no business being involved in...and then demand the government get involved. You can't say that the Government has no business in reproduction, and then force the governmental foot in the door.

The end result of this policy is simple. It gives very simple legal argument to the government having control over abortion. Everything the government funds it controls, period. Maybe liberals will never use this control on abortion, but if Republicans get back into power, they will. And no one will be able to use the argument that the government can't regulate it. Because by the government paying for something, it invariably controls it.

Liberals everywhere had better hope this never passes, otherwise it puts government in direct control of the womb, and takes your opinion out of it.

School Pushes Islam

In clear violation of the Seperation of Church and State...

Some say schools giving Muslims special treatment

Some public schools and universities are granting Muslim requests for prayer times, prayer rooms and ritual foot baths, prompting a debate on whether Islam is being given preferential treatment over other religions.
The University of Michigan at Dearborn is planning to build foot baths for Muslim students who wash their feet before prayer. An elementary school in San Diego created an extra recess period for Muslim pupils to pray.
At George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., Muslim students using a "meditation space" laid out Muslim prayer rugs and separated men and women in accordance with their Islamic beliefs.
Critics see a double standard and an organized attempt to push public conformance with Islamic law.
"What (school officials) are doing … is to give Muslim students religious benefits that they do not give any other religion right now," says Richard Thompson, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Law Center, an advocacy group for Christians.

In the veiw that the 14th Amendment extends not only to state and local governments, but to schools, and government run businesses, this is a HUGE violation of the 1st Amendment. Not only is time being set aside for a religion practice with the explicit approval of the schhol, but one religion is getting special priviledges that other religions wouldn't get.

Even a Muslim advocate of seperation of Mosque and State sees issue here:

Zuhdi Jasser, a Muslim and chairman of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy, which promotes separation of mosque and state, says he is concerned about the accommodations. "Unusual accommodations for one faith at the cost of everybody else doesn't fall on the side of pluralism," he said.

While advocates say it's quite legal, decades of legal jurisprudence say otherwise. Schools building special prayer rooms for Muslims is advocacy of the religion, and is in clear violation of the 1st Amendment. That the ACLU is being cautious (for once), only shows the double standard that Jasser was talking about, not their famous "dedication to the constitution."