03/12/12

Permalink "DOONESBURY": Next week's abortion-law strips pulled by at least several papers

Next week, “Doonesbury” will tackle the ultrasound-before-abortion debate that has roiled Texas and Virginia and the nation in recent weeks, as lawmakers fought over a procedure deemed physically invasive and medically intrusive by some critics, who dubbed it “state rape.”

Last month, Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who opposes abortion, insisted upon revisions in legislation so the state would require only transabdominal ultrasounds prior to abortion. Into this political tempest wades Garry Trudeau, the Pulitzer-winning creator of the oft-controversial “Doonesbury” that over four decades has helped alter the boundaries of what newspaper editors allow on their “funny pages.” Starting Monday, “Doonesbury” will skewer the politicians who have pushed for vaginal ultrasounds — a weeklong satiric approach that has prompted at least one newspaper not to run the abortion strips. At The Oregonian in Portland, Features Editor JoLene Krawczak tells Comic Riffs that her paper “has decided to pull the week’s strips and will direct readers online if they want to read them.”

Janel Flechsig: Virginia abortion ultrasound measure becomes law - Virginia legislation requiring abdominal ultrasounds for women seeking abortions was signed into law Wednesday by Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell. The new law forces women to be given an ultrasound before receiving an abortion and requires all Virginia abortion providers to comply by July 1st or face a $2,500 fine for each violation. Patients living within 100 miles of the clinic where the abortion is performed must wait 24 hours after the ultrasound before undergoing an abortion procedure. Patients must be offered the chance to view the ultrasound images, but cannot be forced to view them. In addition, abortion patients will be required to sign a release form stating they were given the opportunity to view the fetus, confirm its gestational age, and listen to its heartbeat. Victims of rape or incest who reported the attacks to police are exempt but pregnancies in which the baby will suffer from birth defects or in which the mother’s health is threatened are not. In cases where the fetus has died, the patient will still be required to undergo an ultrasound.

Washington Post: THE ‘DOONESBURY’ INTERVIEW: Garry Trudeau says to ignore abortion-law debate would have been ‘comedy malpractice’


Permalink US gas price hike delivers blow to Obama’s job approval

A recent survey shows that, following the recent hike in gasoline prices in the United States, President Barack Obama’s job approval has plunged to below 50 percent. - According to the survey conducted by the ABC news and the Washington Post, only 46 percent of Americans now approved of the way Obama is handling his job. Fifty percent of the respondents voiced disapproval on Obama’s performance. Furthermore, fifty nine percent of Americans have given the US president a negative review on the economy issue and 65 percent have disapproved of his handling of the gas price situation in particular. The nationwide average price of gasoline has climbed to USD 3.81 a gallon, marking an even further rise during the past two weeks. The gas price is 30.87 cents higher than a year earlier when the average was USD 3.50. The survey also showed that if the US presidential election was held today, Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney would beat Obama 49 percent to 47 percent.

Paul Craig Roberts: No Jobs For Americans


Permalink US BREAKS ITS OWN LAWS TO SUPPORT ISRAELI TERRORISM

A new policy paper published earlier this week by the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation documents a number of cases occurring over the past decade in which weapons and ammunition produced and financed by the US have been used to kill unarmed Palestinians and US citizens. - “US military aid to Israel is a policy that is running on autopilot and must be reconsidered,” Josh Ruebner, the national advocacy director for the organization and author of the new policy paper, said on Monday. “US weapons provided to Israel at taxpayer expense make the US complicit in Israel’s human rights abuses of Palestinians living under Israel’s 44-year military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip and defeat US foreign policy objectives of halting Israeli settlement expansion, ending Israeli military occupation and establishing a just and lasting Israeli-Palestinian peace,” Ruebner added. Between the years 2000 and 2009, the US transferred “more than 670 million weapons, rounds of ammunition and related equipment,” according to the report. [Desertpeace]


Permalink Israeli Airstrike Kills Child, Wounds Six In Northern Gaza, Death Toll 21

A Palestinian child was killed, on Monday morning, and six others were injured, while they were heading to school in the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

21 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 100 have been wounded by army Israeli fire since Friday evening. Local sources reported that an Israeli war-jet fired a missile at school students near a gas station in As-Sudaniyya area, west of Gaza city, killing one student and wounding six others. Adham Abu Salmiyya, spokesperson of the Higher Committee of Medical and Emergency Services, identified the slain child as Nayef Sha’baan Qarmout, 15, and added three of the wounded children are in serious conditions. Earlier on Monday morning, the Israeli army assassinated two fighters of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, after conducting a series of air-strike targeting the southern part of the Gaza Strip, Gaza city, and northern Gaza. More than 46 residents, mainly women and children, have been injured. The Israeli offensive against the Gaza Strip started, on Friday, after the army assassinated the secretary-general of the Popular Resistance Committee, Zuheir Al-Qaisi, 49, from Rafah, and Mohammad Hanani, 44, from the northern West Bank city of Nablus; Hanani is the son-in-law of Al-Qaisi. Later in the evening of the same day, the Israeli Air Force fired a missile at fighters of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad, killing three; they were identified as Mohammad Harara, 24, Fadel Al-Gharabli, 25, and Hazem Qreiqe’, 33.

IMEMC: Palestinian Killed, 37 Wounded, In 7 Israeli Air Strikes
Jason Ditz: Israeli Airstrikes Kill 18 in Gaza Strip


Permalink BBC attacks Scottish independence

For anyone who follows the Scottish independence campaign, the BBC have highlighted a concerning lack of balance and seriously undermined the credibility of the BBC’s flagship political forum. The unmistakable contempt from the ‘objective’ BBC interviewer, apparent disdain, intolerant body language and condescension seem to underline a continuing blatant anti-independence agenda of the directors and producers who sanction such behaviour within their programming schedule. Either ill-informed or poorly researched, the interviews progress through inappropriate questions posed in a disrespectful and patronising manner, to which a Head of State is not provided the time to fully answer whilst being consistently interrupted.


Permalink US assassination drone strikes kill 64 in Yemen in 3 days

US assassination drone strikes have killed at least 64 people in southern Yemen during attacks in the past three days on the provinces of Abyan and Bayda. - Yemeni government officials claimed that the airstrikes in the Bayda province and the town of Jaar in the Abyan province during March 9 to 11 targeted “militants.” However, local residents rejected the government’s allegations and said the victims were civilians. Yemeni security officials said at least five US assassination drones were involved in the latest strike in Jaar on Sunday, which claimed the lives of six people. According to Yemeni officials, the assassination drones also conducted major attacks on Friday and Saturday, killing at least 58 people.


Permalink Massacre in Afghanistan: US soldier kills 16 villagers, including 9 children

In a massacre that expresses the brutality and horror of the entire American war in Afghanistan, an Army staff sergeant walked into a village in rural Kandahar province early Sunday morning and murdered 16 people, nine of them children.

Eleven members of a single family were gunned down in their home, their bodies then piled in a heap and set on fire. The victims included four girls six years old or younger. Only the father, Samid Khan, and one child survived, because they were away from the village at the time. The gunman then went on to shoot the inhabitants of two more dwellings before he returned to his base and turned himself in. At least five villagers were wounded, some of them critically, and the death toll could rise. Samid Khan, a poor farmer, returned to the village to find his entire family shot to death and their bodies burned inside his home. “This is an anti-human and anti-Islamic act,” he told the press. “Nobody is allowed in any religion in the world to kill children and women.” He and his neighbors demanded that the killer be handed over to the Afghan government for punishment. According to one local Afghan official, villagers loaded the bodies of the victims into cars and drove to the entrance of the nearby American base to demand justice. “They were very angry,” he said. “They wanted to do something to take revenge.” The identity of the mass murderer was being kept secret by US and Afghan authorities and by the American media late Sunday night, but the British Broadcasting Corporation reported that he was a staff sergeant and a member of the US special operations forces engaged in training the Afghan police.

BBC: How it happened: Massacre in Kandahar
Jason Ditz: Witnesses Give Details of US Massacre in Kandahar
Jason Ditz: 'These Things Happen,' Hawkish Senator Insists
PressTV: Americans want end to Afghan war: Poll
PressTV: US forces burned bodies of Afghans after massacre
Russia Today: Several drunk troops behind bloodbath, laughed on shooting-spree, burned corpses


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