Writer Tom Junod wrote an amazing piece about abortion and one doctor that traveled extensively to perform them, John Baynard Britton. He took the place of Dr. David Gunn who was killed in 1993. What’s really startling about this article is that Dr. Britton was killed the following year, aged 69, months after the article was published. In it, Junod writes about the escort that would be killed with him as well, James Herman Barrett a 74 year old veteran:

I didn’t go to Korea and serve my country for twenty-five years in the service so that these peckerheads can shoot doctors. It won’t happen as long as I’m around.

And he profiles one of the protesters, Paul Hill, as a man who would likely encourage the next killer:

He would not kill anyone, he says; that’s not his calling. He is simply an advocate, someone who “advocates the advocacy of force.” Why wouldn’t Hill kill, if he thinks killing is just? “You don’t put Robert E. Lee on the front lines,” he told his former pastor. Killing doctors, he says, is “an individual thing. If an individual feels called to do something like that, it is entirely up to the individual. We’re just saying that force is just. It’s up to each individual to make his own contribution.”

It turned out that Hill himself decided to be the one to use force not long after this, killing both Britton and Barrett as they pulled up to the clinic.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley this week called for an end to the “open
door” admissions policy at Chicago City Colleges, citing concerns about
the cost of remedial courses and a desire to build a quality program.
Every year, the system spends about $30 million for remedial
classes—about 6 percent of its $457.5 million budget. Daley suggested
that a better approach might be to offer programs through alternative
high schools to get students up to speed before they enter college.
Is this a sign of things to come?

Let’s pretty much give away our parking meter revenue but change one of the best aspects of community colleges for 6% of the budget. No reason why we should help limit the steps that enable secondary education so that more people have access to higher paying careers that go back into powering our economy, let’s just send them back to the places that failed them.

bollywoodsuperstar:

Jane Mayer’s excellent new article in The New Yorker, on the infamous Koch brothers and their funding of libertarian politics. Must-read.

What I don’t get about these people is how they can claim a pride in their country when they want to do away with the very things that help present a national unit; social programs and everything else that ensures massive amounts of people don’t fall through the cracks. Who’s gonna be left to build your industry for very little money? Scratch that, I know why they claim it, I just don’t understand how people buy it so easily.

Basically they’ve discriminated against so many women that it would be too difficult for their hundreds of lawyers to come up with a bullshit defense against the scary female army.

They actually did make a military comparison:

“the class is larger than the active-duty personnel in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard combined—making it the largest employment class action in history by several orders of magnitude.”

They’re under attack! h/t Kevin

“It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life,” said Mehlman, now an executive vice-president with the New York City-based private equity firm, KKR. “Everybody has their own path to travel, their own journey, and for me, over the past few months, I’ve told my family, friends, former colleagues, and current colleagues, and they’ve been wonderful and supportive. The process has been something that’s made me a happier and better person. It’s something I wish I had done years ago.”

Usually that path doesn’t include being at the head of super anti-gay re-election campaigns or successfully pushing for states to tear up their constitutions to ban gays from privileged institutions. Congrats, hope you can clean up your mess. You can start by not randomly pulling the Muslim card to avoid your role in making gays feel more and more alienated in their own country:

He insisted, too, that President Bush “was no homophobe.” He often wondered why gay voters never formed common cause with Republican opponents of Islamic jihad, which he called “the greatest anti-gay force in the world right now.”

The New Republic discusses Obama’s changing, and very weak and evasive, opinion on gay marriage.

like Wilson, Obama is running out of time to stay ahead of history. In 1912, women’s suffrage was hardly an outlandish cause; one of the three major presidential contenders that year, Teddy Roosevelt, came out in favor of it, even as Wilson remained mum. Similarly, on gay marriage, Obama is now to the right of Laura Bush, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and, according to a new CNN poll, 52 percent of the American people.

Of all the annoying things that have come from the end of the trial in the past week this writer’s assessment of the lone holdout is by far the worst. Knowing only that she is black and a retired state worker, the Ward Room’s Edward McClellan came up with this:

Chiakulas was also a state employee, a toxic combination of liberal leanings that made her inclined to support the governor who signed AllKids and tried to pass the Illinois Covered universal health care plan.

Well first of all, the vast majority of state employees under Blagojevich had no ties to him. It’s like saying all FBI agents must be die-hard Obama supporters. In fact, Blagojevich put them through hell with pay freezes and layoffs. But the best part is the race part.

Here’s the problem with trying to block a juror like Chiakulas: the case of Batson v. Kentucky made it illegal to exclude jurors solely because of race.

Yeah, that’s our problem..not being able to throw a juror out just for being black. Nevermind the whole process is loaded with questions designed to reveal an unusual preference for the defendant..blackness trumps all.

There is a feeling in some circles that all sensible, respectable folks realize that Blagojevich was guilty, and that Chiakulas was a “rogue juror” who may even have been violating her oath by refusing to vote for a conviction. But Chiakulas might simply have been expressing an opinion that’s common in her community.

You see, according to his skewed, and now debunked stats (you should read this for further take down of this writer), blacks just love Blago and Chiakulas might have once been sensible and respectable until her blackness came through and ruined it. If that’s not enough, the writer accuses Blago of tainting all the black people by caring about them at some point:

Blagojevich may have tainted the jury pool by being a friend to the black community.

Black people, be nice to them and they’ll go out of their way to violate oaths for you.