JABbering Stooge

Operation Doctor Snuffing is up to their old tricks again. They are reprising their anti-Tiller tactics in an effort to get Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning to investigate harass Dr. LeRoy Carhart. Since turnabout is fair play, I decided to turn Operation Assassination’s tactic against them. Using their letter as a model, I wrote a letter to both Nebraska AG Bruning and (with slight modifications) to Attorney General Eric Holder. The text of the letter to AG Bruning is below the fold.

Dear Attorney General Bruning:

This letter is to formally ask you to launch an investigation into Troy Newman and the organization he heads, Operation Rescue, for incitement to terrorism.

As you may be aware, Mr. Newman, along with Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney of the Christian Defense Coalition, Larry Donlan of Rescue the Heartland and Ann Marie Bowen of Nebraskans United for Life, sent you a letter requesting that you open an investigation of Dr. LeRoy Carhart on spurious charges. They are doing this in an effort to harass and intimidate him into closing his clinic in Bellevue, Nebraska.

With the murder of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller still fresh in the minds of many, there is concern that this will create an unacceptable safety risk to Dr. Carhart and his staff for the following reasons.

1. Operation Rescue is likely an accessory before the fact to the murder of Dr. Tiller.

   Scott Roeder, the suspect in the murder of Dr. Tiller, was a frequent visitor of Operation Rescue’s website. Among the many comments he left on various anti-abortion web forums, two stand out as particularly indicative of Roeder’s mindset and later modus operandi. On May 19, 2007, in a forum thread on Operation Rescue’s website promoting a prayer vigil outside of Dr. Tiller’s clinic, Roeder wrote:

   Bleass [sic] everyone for attending and praying in May to bring justice to Tiller and the closing of his death camp. Sometime soon, would it be feasible to organize as many people as possible to attend Tillers church (inside, not just outside) to have much more of a presence and possibly ask questions of the Pastor, Deacons, Elders and members while there? Doesn’t seem like it would hurt anything but bring more attention to Tiller.

   Furthermore, on September 3, 2007, Roeder wrote the following on the anti-abortion website “ChargeTiller.com” — a comment that has since been purged from the website:

   It seems as though what is happening in Kansas could be compared to the “lawlessness” which is spoken of in the Bible. Tiller is the concentration camp “Mengele” of our day and needs to be stopped before he and those who protect him bring judgement [sic] upon our nation.

   When he was arrested following the murder of Dr. Tiller, the phone number of Operation Rescue’s senior policy advisor, Cheryl Sullenger, was found on the dashboard of Mr. Roeder’s vehicle. Sullenger, who was convicted in 1988 of conspiracy to bomb an abortion clinic, initially denied having any contact with Roeder, but then later confessed that she provided him with details of Dr. Tiller’s court dates during Operation Rescue’s harassment campaign against Dr. Tiller.

   According to the financial affidavit filed when Mr. Roeder was arrested, he had only $10 in his bank account, a monthly income of $1,100 from his job as a courier (his fourth in six months) and his rent and other monthly bills totaled about $470. His only other possession was his 1993 Ford Taurus. Clearly, he could not have financed the murder of Dr. Tiller or the string of anti-abortion vandalism incidents attributed to him prior to the murder on his own. This raises the question of whether or not Operation Rescue, or some other anti-abortion group, was funnelling funds to Mr. Roeder.

2. Operation Rescue’s request for an investigation against Dr. Carhart is suspiciously similar to the events that led up to the murder of Dr. Tiller, and fits a pattern of prior harassment efforts by Operation Rescue.

   The current incarnation of Operation Rescue was originally a radical California-based branch of the original Operation Rescue (now known as Operation Save America), then known as Operation Rescue West. After splintering off from Operation Save America, Operation Rescue moved their base of operations to Wichita, Kansas for the express purpose of harassing Dr. Tiller. Concurrently with their schism with Operation Rescue/Operation Save America, Operation Rescue West founder Jeff White was forced to step down as head of the organization after being fined $880,000 for harassment and intimidation of Planned Parenthood staff, at which point Troy Newman assumed the mantle of leadership of the radical anti-abortion organization.

   Operation Rescue’s harassment efforts against Dr. Tiller go back to the “Summer of Mercy” in 1991, and harassment and intimidation efforts intensified in the last two years before Dr. Tiller’s death. Operation Rescue was prominent among the groups pressuring former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline and other Kansas law enforcement officials to open a series of frivolous investigations based on spurious charges as a means of closing Dr. Tiller’s clinic. Operation Rescue also coined the phrase “Tiller the Baby Killer” that Fox News personality Bill O’Reilly used frequently in the 29 segments of his television program devoted to attacking Dr. Tiller.

   In an echo of their campaign to disseminate false stories of botched abortions and illegal acts/unsanitary conditions at Dr. Tiller’s clinic, two weeks prior to requesting that you investigate Dr. Carhart, Operation Rescue solicited testimony from women who have had abortions at Dr. Carhart’s clinic, presumably for the purpose of libelling Dr. Carhart.

3. Contrary to their disavowal of violence, Operation Rescue and its antecedents have a well-established history of violent rhetoric and thinly-veiled incitements to terrorism.

   Most famously, Operation Rescue/Operation Save America founder Randall Terry once said the following at a 1993 anti-abortion protest near Fort Wayne, Indiana:

   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.

   It is also reported that Mr. Terry said this of doctors who perform abortions in 1995:

   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.

   Like other anti-abortion groups, Operation Rescue frequently refers to the practice of abortion as a “Holocaust.” The unspoken implication here is that it will take violent force to end this “Holocaust.”

   Mr. Terry was arrested on May 1, 2009 for trespassing at Notre Dame in protest of President Barack Obama’s commencement address at the Catholic university. Mr. Terry responded by writing the following:

   The Obama/Notre Dame harlotry is the “consummation” of Catholic America’s godless marriage to moral relativism, lukewarmness, and unholy pacifism.

   It didn’t get any better in the wake of Dr. Tiller’s assassination. In the span of a mere 36 hours, Mr. Terry declared that Dr. Tiller was a “mass murderer” who “reaped what he sowed” before telling liberal talk radio host Randi Rhodes that “hate works.” In fact, the only thing Mr. Terry seemed to lament about the Tiller assassination was the (extremely remote) possibility that “the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering [their] most effective rhetoric and actions.”

The safety of the public is my paramount concern, thus I am requesting the most comprehensive investigation of Mr. Newman and Operation Rescue as possible from the Attorney General’s office, and that your investigation not be limited solely to the concerns listed in this letter. Women’s lives and future health literally depend on it.

I trust that you are familiar with the laws of the State of Nebraska and implore you to properly enforce them.

Sincerely,

James A. Baker
JABbering Stooge (http://jabberingstooge.blogsome.com)

Now can we reinstate the RICO statute for these terrorist fucks?