Pro-Abortion Scofflaws Fudge State Senate Votes on Bill to Outlaw Forced Abortions

This is the kind of monkey business that Liberals feel entitled to use to sabotage the legislative process. Obviously, they have no respect for democratic self-government. We are to accept without question the dictates of the Leftist savants from on high. Any attempt by ordinary Virginians to govern themselves without first getting the anointed cultural elites' approval is seen as effrontery, unworthy of deference just because we won a vote in the Legislature.

[Virginia] pro-life advocates experienced a significant victory earlier this month: SB504, a bill "patroned" by Sen. Ralph Smith (R-22, Roanoke) that would criminalize coerced or forced abortion was referred to the full (Senate) Courts committee with a positive recommendation on a vote of 4-2 out of the Criminal subcommittee.

Currently, if a boyfriend or other impregnator physically threatens his pregnant girlfriend and forces her to have an abortion against her will, this form of domestic violence cannot be criminally prosecuted. SB504 would fix that.

That success is the furthest pro-life advocates have been legislatively with this topic. Never before has the bill been given a positive report out of any committee or subcommittee because the bill was always improperly placed in Senate Education and Health committee, (known as “the committee of death” because of the committee's reputation for killing all pro-life measures). This year was the first time the legislation was treated akin to all other bills that address civil or criminal penalties and was placed in the appropriate committee, Courts of Justice.

Knowledge of the players and the process suggests that if the bill gets a favorable report in the Courts of Justice committee and moves to the floor, it would likely win in the Senate. Since the House of Delegates has already voted favorably on this legislation in years past, we believe the House would pass it, sending it to the Governor. We are within inches of a major win!

To ensure that the bill would not get "brought back" and the result changed after we left the subcommittee room, an ally of The Family Foundation stayed in the room and kept watch on the subcommittee until it ended. Nothing happened.

However, when one of our lobbyists checked the bill's status online at the close of business, something was not right. The bill was listed as being referred to the Senate Education and Health committee, not the Courts of Justice committee as was voted on earlier in subcommittee! We have a video of the subcommittee vote on our blog as proof!

If the bill was legitimately referred to Senate Education and Health, its status online should still list the bill's history in Courts committee, and the corresponding votes. However, the way the bill's status appears now, it appears as if the bill was never even heard in the Senate Courts subcommittee! Thankfully we have a dedicated intern who was able to catch this on film or else it would appear online as if it had never occurred!

What the Family Foundation wants to know is this: is this a clerical error or is this an attempt to tamper with a pro-life bill that has seen unexpected success in the Senate? Pro-family advocates have seen numerous victories already this session, so is this an attempt to derail the train?

Earth to Newsweek & CNN: Wanna Beam Down & Have a Look Around the Planet?

Jack Cashill is editor of a Kansas City business magazine, but also writes with considerable insight about politics. His book "What's the Matter with California" was incisive, and he may be onto something here, too: The reporting by our national media is so far off the mark that we can no longer attribute it to blind spots or inadvertent bias. It has crossed the threshold into fraud, sheer legerdemain. The national media appear to be corrupt.

But as a former small-market print newsman myself, let me suggest an alternative explanation in the case of Newsweek: I think it's possible the reporter just took the day off and made up quotes, defrauding not only her readers but her editors and her employer. She obviously didn't watch even 20 seconds of the march, and I don't think she talked to any police officer who would have said such a dumb thing, either. Seriously, Newsweek, you've been had.

LifeSiteNews.com
Group Exposes Media "Fraud" at March for Life
By Kathleen Gilbert

WASHINGTON, DC (LifeSiteNews.com) - Anyone who attended the March for Life in the nation's capital January 22 - or was anywhere near Capitol Hill that day or the day before - was well aware of the size of the group that came to make its voice heard. District residents could only stand aside as the annual Starbucks-equipped army of young pro-life men and women descended upon the streets surrounding the Capitol. Hordes of March for Life participants filled sidewalks, and clogged crosswalks; while the noise of countless group leaders struggling to keep their contingents together competed with the din of colorfully-dressed gaggles of teenagers.

Such has come to be the late-January tradition in Washington. But from the news reports from the major networks and newspapers, one would never know it. The rest of the country was only shown misleading footage or pictures depicting the endless column of pro-lifers receding into the distance behind the looming presence of, at most, a couple dozen pro-abortion demonstrators.

Fed up with what they call the "mind-boggling corruption" of media coverage of the march, a small production team has released a YouTube video revealing the truth about the enormous event and the skewed media reports that referenced it. The same group released a documentary last year entitled "Thine Eyes," which reveals the sheer size of the 2009 March for Life and the pro-life stories behind it.

"We had hoped to set the media straight, but we did not succeed," says narrator Jack Cashill. "Their performance in 2010 convinced us that the issue at hand is not ignorance or incompetence, not even bias, but outright fraud. "More than any other event, the march reveals the truly eye-popping, mind-boggling corruption of the mainstream media."

Cashill responds to two particularly egregious media misrepresentations: one by CNN anchorman Rick Sanchez, who strongly implied that the number of pro-life marchers and pro-abortion demonstrators at the event were comparable. "Well Rick, we counted at least 300,000 pro-life marchers to 5 pro-choice protestors. In the real world, that qualifies as most," says Cashill.

[Note: I marched toward the end of the procession, and I think I saw 3-4 pro-abortion demonstrators. They were preppy, normal-looking women, and one effeminate young man. They were subdued, not raucous, and they stood at a distance from the marchers. I suspect they were doing it for extra credit in a freshman Women's Studies class. One held a sign that said "keep your Rosaries off my ovaries." How profound.

Near the end of the route, in front of the Supreme Court, there were not more than 10 of them. I heard there had been perhaps 100 earlier. These were older, shabbier and appeared to be old-school traumatized feminist man-haters, plus one sexually ambiguous man in his 50s with a condescending manner and a slight lisp, who struck me as a suburban Unitarian, perhaps a grantwriter or a liaison officer of some kind. I think most of us will always remember Rick Sanchez for his feigned uncertainty whether there were more pro-abortion (105, tops) or more anti-abortion (300,000 minimum) marching. I don't know how we can ever look him in the eye again without stifling a chuckle. B.James Stinson]

The video also skewers a Newsweek article by Krista Gesaman, in which she claimed that young women were "missing" from the March for Life 2010. Gesaman's article quoted a Washington police officer who said, in the reporter's words, that "a majority of the participants are in their 60s and were the original pioneers either for or against the case."

The YouTube video responds with copious imagery documenting the large percentage of youth at the March, a great deal of whom were women. "Pro-lifers will not soon be too old to stage an actual march, do not worry. In truth, young women of every race, color and creed are the single largest demographic in any march. They number in the scores of thousands," Cashill notes.

"The media will have only themselves to blame if next year the marchers come back to Washington, not just in record numbers, but in righteous anger."

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
CNN Gaffe: Anchor Wonders on Air Whether More Pro-Lifers or Pro-Aborts at March for Life
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jan/10012806.html

Teary Mayor Throws in Towel, Wants to Redefine California Marriage From Now On to Accommodate Lesbian Daughter

Is this man an absolute imbecile, or have his handlers contrived this sappy theatrical display for Hilltop consumption? Is this going to be his springboard to run for governor of California, or to get his own reality show? It appears that California public service doesn't exactly attract the cream of the crop these days.

LOS ANGELES TIMES

San Diego mayor testifies about his reversal on gay marriage
The Republican former police chief tells the court in the Proposition 8 trial that his former opposition was based on prejudice.
By Maura Dolan

Reporting from San Francisco - After days of anti-Proposition 8 witnesses being described as liberal and activist, challengers of California's gay marriage ban elicited testimony Tuesday from San Diego Mayor Jerry Sanders, a Republican and the city's former police chief, who said his previous opposition to same-sex marriage stemmed from prejudice.

At the federal trial over Proposition 8, Sanders told the court that when his elder daughter, Lisa, now 26, was in college, she told him she was a lesbian. He said he expressed his "overwhelming love" for her but also had concerns she would face discrimination.

When he ran for mayor in 2005, Sanders said, he opposed same-sex marriage in favor of civil unions. Lisa worked in his campaign, wanted him to win and did not try to talk him out of his position, he said.

In 2007, the San Diego City Council passed a resolution calling on San Diego to file a friend-of-the-court brief in favor of San Francisco's effort to overturn a ban on same-sex marriage. Sanders said he intended to veto the measure and called together gay friends and neighbors to explain why. "I was absolutely shocked at the depth of the hurt, the depth of the feeling," he testified.

Lawyers for the challengers of Proposition 8 played a video of Sanders crying as he told a news conference the next day that he had changed his mind about marriage for gays. Sanders testified that he was emotional because he had come so close to sending a message that gay relationships were inferior to those between heterosexuals. "What hit me was that I had been prejudiced," he said.

During cross-examination, an attorney defending Proposition 8 asked whether Sanders' previous opposition to same-sex marriage stemmed from an animus against or moral disapproval of gays. Sanders said it had not, but "it doesn't mean that I don't believe it was grounded in prejudice."

Copyright (c) 2010, The Los Angeles Times

The Church Militant in a Time of Compromise and Depravity

If you've given up on this generation of Catholic youth, if you think that the militant Church of Lech Walensa and Josef Mindzhenty is in the rear-view mirror, have a look at the TFP Student Action website and follow some of the links. I wrote a friend recently that this is robust Catholicism with some bass in its voice. http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/what-we-do/

The youngsters have vowed to confront depravity and apostasy in the street and on the Catholic campus alike, to restore the values of Christian civilization. "Youth was made not for pleasure, but for heroism," they exhort their boys at Chivalry Camp.

Their full name is the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property. The TFP was founded to "resist, in the realm of ideas, the liberal, socialist and communist trends of the times and proudly affirm the positive values of tradition, family and private property."

It has a full-time volunteer staff of 75, and claims 120,000 members. I'm not Catholic, but I'm profoundly encouraged by this movement during a dark time in our country. They look like a cavalry regiment cresting the ridge, in the nick of time.