Say It Ain’t So Jane Roe July 14, 2009

I have always believed that one of the most unfortunate and weakest chapters in the pro-choice movement is Jane Roe.  Yes, Jane Roe, that Roe…the “Roe” in the 1973 landmark U.S.  Supreme Court decision Roe vs. Wade.  Jane Roe aka. Norma Leah McCorvey, is now in her sixties,  and a pro-life church going lesbian living in Texas.  In her biography, I Am Roe: My Life, Roe v. Wade, and Freedom of Choice, McCorvey claims she was manipulated by her lawyers Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington during the 1970’s trials. She also admitted that she lied about her pregnancy being the result of a rape.

Clinging to her pro-life stance and religion, she was arrested yesterday during Sonia Sotomayor’s confirmation hearing.

The Washington Post

‘Jane Roe’ Arrested at Supreme Court Hearing

By Paul Kane
Monday, July 13, 2009

The woman at the center of the Supreme Court’s landmark abortion rights ruling was arrested today at the confirmation hearing for Sonia Sotomayor among a wave of anti-abortion protesters who lined the sidewalks outside the Senate office buildings and several of whom made it into the hearing room and disrupted in an attempt to disrupt the proceedings.

Norma McCorvey, 61, of Texas, better known as “Jane Roe” in the famous Roe v. Wade case from January 1973, was arrested after she and another protester started yelling during the opening statement of Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), according to Capitol Police. McCorvey, whose pursuit of the right to access to abortion in the early 1970s led to the ruling that has been a pivotal part of every Supreme Court nomination process since, eventually become a notable opponent of the procedure.

Sgt. Kimberly Schneider of the Capitol Police said McCorvey and Francis Mahoney, 68, of Florida were charged with unlawful conduct for disrupting Congress, the third and fourth such arrests the police made during the more than five-hour proceedings. McCorvey was part of the group of protesters outside the Hart Senate Office Building throughout the day, a gathering led by Randall Terry, the former head of Operation Rescue, an organization dedicated to ending abortion.

McCorvey, who used Roe as an alias in her court filings for fear of retribution, remained an abortion-rights supporter until the mid-1990s. Working at a women’s clinic in Dallas, she befriended some Operation Rescue protesters. In 1995, she was baptized and has been an anti-abortion activist ever since.

The last two rows of the hearing room were reserved today for about 50 members of the public, who rotated into the hearings for short intervals and then were escorted out to allow others to view the proceedings. McCorvey and Mahoney were part of a group headed out as Franken was praising the service of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), a staunch supporter of the Roe decision. Kennedy left the Judiciary Committee earlier this year, making this the first Supreme Court confirmation fight without his presence since 1965.

When McCorvey and Mahoney started shouting, they were quickly removed from the room. Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Judiciary Committee chairman, banged the gavel on the crowd for the third time today.

“Officers, please remove whoever is causing the disturbance,” Leahy said. “Again, as Senator Sessions and I have said, this is a meeting of the United States Senate. We’ll show respect to everybody who is here, we will show respect to everybody, including to Judge Sotomayor, to the Senators on both sides of the aisle, and we will have order in this room.”

An Example of Pro-Life Propaganda

In exploring the pro-choice versus pro-life positions, I remained pro-choice despite my new identification as a conservative.  The days of coat hangers and drinking turpentine are thankfully over and it should remain that way.  Norma McCorvey is free to change her mind as much as she wants. What I do take issue with is her openly fighting the right to choose  for other women.  The hypocrisy is a bit astonishing.  Even if I was once pro-choice and I did convert to pro-life as a personal choice, which I have by the way, I would not advocate and deny that choice for other women.  Whether she likes it or not, McCorvey’s alter ego “Roe”  left a distinguishing mark in American History. She is the ultimate “herstory”  and I embrace her right to protest. However, I feel that she would be more effective as an pro-life advocate if she allowed her story to fruitfully serve as focus point for provative discussions on abortion.  In a sense, McCorvey is a living relic of history, a historical actor.  She should speak about her motivations in 1971 as juxtaposed with those during the 1990’s which led her to convert to pro-life.  All puns aside,  Norma McCorvey should find more effective ways to be productive for the pro-life movement. Getting yourself arrested at protests is actually quite liberal and in the end nothing but a bunch of noise and court hearings.

There I said it.

When I was a liberal, I was never into that.

Perhaps if Ms. McCorvey told her story in a less progressive fashion, she could actually influence teenagers such as Bristol Palin to choose abstinence. It worked for Afrocity and yes I am pro-choice but I will always feel that abstinence is best for teenagers.

Autographed Letter Signed,

AFROCITY

Chicago: A Literal Sea of Sex Drugs and Corruption July 14, 2009

Just when you thought it was safer for the environment to drink tap water.

Chicago Tribune

Chicago water: In public reports, city silent over sex hormones and painkillers found in treated drinking water

Pharmaceutical chemicals aren’t on list of substances in water that require public notice

By Michael Hawthorne

July 14, 2009

Annual water quality reports mailed to Chicagoans this month didn’t say a word about sex hormones, painkillers or anti-cholesterol drugs, even though city officials found traces of pharmaceuticals and other unregulated substances in treated Lake Michigan water during the past year.

Like other cities, Chicago must notify the public if its drinking water contains certain regulated contaminants, including lead, pesticides and harmful bacteria.

But pharmaceutical chemicals, which have been detected in drinking water across the country, are not on that list. So Mayor Richard Daley is technically correct in stating that the “pure, fresh drinking water” pumped to 7 million people in Chicago and the suburbs “meets or exceeds all regulatory standards.”

Chicago officials didn’t start conducting their own tests until last year, after a Tribune investigation found small amounts of pharmaceuticals and other unregulated chemicals in samples of the city’s tap water.

The city collected samples of treated Lake Michigan water four times in 2008. According to results posted on the city’s Web site, the tests found small amounts of the sex hormones testosterone and progesterone; gemfibrozil, a prescription cholesterol-fighting drug; ibuprofen, an over-the-counter painkiller, and DEET, the active ingredient in bug spray.

The tests also found caffeine, nicotine and cotinine, a nicotine byproduct, all of which researchers consider to be indicators of pharmaceuticals from human waste.

Drugs end up in drinking water after people take medications and some of the residue passes through their bodies down the toilet. Conventional sewage and water treatment filters out some of the substances, or at least reduces the concentrations, but multiple studies have found that small amounts still get through.

Although treated sewage from the Chicago area drains away from Lake Michigan, more than 300 other cities put treated waste and untreated sewage overflows into the lake and its tributaries, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Chicago’s tests found tiny amounts of the antidepressant Prozac and sulfamethoxazole, an antibiotic, in untreated water collected from Lake Michigan intake cribs. But those prescription drugs weren’t found in treated water. Nor were most of the 71 other unregulated compounds the city screened for.

This report makes me livid. Recently I posted on the varieties “sin tax”  within our country and cited Chicago as a city that engages in using sin taxes to pad liberal politicians pockets by charging 5 cents per bottle of drinking water.  The reasoning behind this is that the disposable water bottles are bad for our environment.  Indeed those three bottles of Ice Mountain spring water that I consume  and discard in the trash everyday could be ruining our environment but I think I will continue to pay for my sins and skip the Chicago tap.

While  I am aware that studies have shown that bottled water is really no cleaner than tap water, it just looks and tastes better which makes me feel better about drinking it.  It is not surprising that Mayor Daley (D-Chicago) lied about the purity of his city’s water source. I  personally will never believe anything that comes from the lips of politicians in Illinois. As I was reading the comments to the article above, two astute readers had the following to say:

“This is related to the new Democrat universal health plan. Cut the purchases of of prescription drugs by just drinking a glass of water.”

“Maybe all these drugs in the drinking water explains why Chicagoans continue to re-elect Daley, Stroger, and the rest of the left-wingers!!”

The Strogers, like the Daleys  are an old school Chicago Democratic political family (machine).

According to Wiki, Todd Stroger:

Todd H Stroger (born January 14, 1963) is the current Cook County, Board president and former alderman for the 8th Ward in Chicago. Stroger is a member of the Democratic Party. In 2001, he was appointed to the Chicago City Council by Richard M. Daley. He is the son of the late John Stroger who served as Cook County Board president for 12 years.

Todd Stroger was the glorious architect behind Chicago’s tax increase to 10.25%.

Todd Stroger is also in the midst of a nepotism scandal for hiring his cousin Donna Dunnings as Cook County CFO.

Wiki:

Stroger has also drawn fire for perceived nepotism, such as hiring Donna Dunnings (Stroger’s cousin) as the County’s chief financial officer. Dunnings and Stroger received additional criticism when she received a $17,000 raise after she initially agreed to not accept a pay hike (in an attempt to help county finances). Dunnings stated that critics could have blocked the pay raise by submitting an amendment to the proposed budget “if they were so concerned about the salary of the first African-American female CFO”.^[6] Dunnings was forced to resign her position after the press reported that she bailed out Tony Cole from jail. Tony Cole was a former Georgia basketball player and busboy who was hired by Todd Stroger to a $60,000/year Cook County position despite having an extensive felony record.

Photo and caption from Chicago Tribune: photo by Chuck Berman / July 12, 2009) Stephanie Jackson (center) of Posen cannot find the headstone for her 4-year-old daughter, Charrhonda Tisdale Ford, who was buried in 2001 in Burr Oak Cemetery

As you can see after an enviable rise to power, Barack Obama washed his hands of Chicago political dirt only to have it recycled by his strongest supporters. Daley, Blago, Stroger. Now with the Burr Oaks Cemetery corruption scandal involving four employees who dug up the remains of hundreds in order to resell burial plots to unsuspecting mourners, Stroger is proposing that Chicagoan must pay more taxes due to the corrupt actions of others.

Chicago Breaking News.com

Stroger warns about cost of probing Burr Oak

July 13, 2009

Cook County Board President Todd Stroger warned today about the mounting costs of investigating Burr Oak Cemetery as he ordered stepped up inspections at 28 other cemeteries in unincorporated areas.

Chicago Tribune:Tribune photo by Chuck Berman / July 12, 2009) Vera Tucker of Alsip holds a funeral program from her daughter Shawaun's funeral in 1985. Tucker said the grave site was one of the ones disturbed at Burr Oak Cemetery

Sheriff Tom Dart expects the cost of overtime pay alone to reach $200,000, Stroger said. County workers helping with crime-scene logistics under the Emergency Management Department also is racking up overtime, he said.

“It’s going to be very expensive,” Stroger said. “And this is why we pay taxes–so we can do things like this. . . . This is such a massive undertaking, the sheriff may even have to ask for some additional resources, and I don’t know where that’s going to come from.”

Take a look at this shocking video clip of angry loved ones demanding answers from Burr Oak Cemetery.

For the sake of these victimized people, Cook County should investigate the Burr Oak Cemetery inciden However Stroger is wrong for using the someone else’s grief as an excuse to raise taxes on the good folks of Cook County.  Stroger asks where are the additional resources coming from.  From the looks of it, the resources are not going to come from Todd Stroger.

Another Democrat Tax Cheat

Autographed Letter Signed,

Afrocity