As David Neiwert posted yesterday, a group of violent anti-abortion zealots planned to hold an online auction on eBay to help pay legal expenses for Scott Roeder, the man who murdered abortion provider, Dr. George Tiller at his Kansas church. Thankfully, eBay has stepped up to do the right thing and is blocking the auction:

An eBay auction planned by abortion opponents to raise money for the man accused of killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller will not be permitted, company officials said Tuesday.

"Based on the details we know about the anticipated listings, we believe these would violate our policy regarding offensive material," the company said in a statement to The Kansas City Star. "eBay will not permit the items in question to be posted to the eBay site, and they will be removed if they are posted."

It its statement, eBay said, “we do not allow items that encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity and will not be a platform for those who promote violence toward others.” Read on...

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Judy Thomas in the Kansas City Star has an amazing piece (picked up by MSNBC) about the online fund-raiser being planned for Scott Roeder, the right-wing extremist who shot Dr. George Tiller in the head in his church:

An Army of God manual. A prison cookbook compiled by a woman doing time for abortion clinic bombings and arsons. An autographed bullhorn.

These are among the items that abortion foes plan to auction on eBay and other Web sites in a fundraiser for Scott Roeder, the Kansas City man charged with killing Wichita abortion doctor George Tiller.

“This is unique,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who will sign the bullhorn. “Nobody’s ever done this before. The goal is that everybody makes money for Scott Roeder’s defense.”

One abortion-rights leader called the auction deplorable and said it could lead to more violence.

“The network of extremists promoting and defending the murder of doctors is contributing to escalating threats against clinics and doctors across the country,” said Kathy Spillar, executive vice president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Roeder, charged with first-degree murder in the May 31 shooting of Tiller, is scheduled to go to trial in January.

Perhaps even more appalling is the line of defense they hope to pursue in the courts with this money:

Leach and others would like to help Roeder hire a lawyer to present what is known as a necessity defense. That strategy would argue that Tiller was killed to prevent a greater harm — killing babies. Other anti-abortion activists charged with violent crimes have tried to use such a defense but with little success.

Yeah, let's legalize killing abortion doctors. Sounds like a job for Antonin Scalia. One can only hope this defense has zero success, as it has in the past.

Rachel Maddow also featured a segment on this story last night on her MSNBC show, including an interview with the attorney for Tiller's family, who says he'll move to have the court attach any funds they raise on Roeder's behalf:

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Scott Roeder murdered Dr. George Tiller in cold blood while he was serving as an usher at his church. Roeder, who has close ties with Randall Terry's Operation Rescue is now considering a Justifiable Homicide defense:

WICHITA, Kan. – The suspect in the killing of abortion provider George Tiller is in talks with a prominent attorney who represents anti-abortion protesters and has long advocated justifiable homicide as a legal defense in such cases.

Scott Roeder, 51, has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder and aggravated assault charges in the May 31 shooting death of Tiller in the foyer of his Wichita church. The Kansas City, Mo., man has refused to discuss his case, but he has told The Associated Press that Tiller's killing was justified to save "the lives of unborn children."

Roeder has court-appointed defense attorneys, but he apparently has now turned to Michael Hirsh, the lawyer who represented Paul Hill on appeal for killing a Florida abortion provider and his bodyguard in 1994. Hill was executed in 2003 after the Florida Supreme Court rejected Hirsh's argument that the judge should have allowed Hill to present to jurors his claim that the killings were justified to prevent abortions.

The Florida Supreme Court ruled in denying Hill's appeal that his motivation would not change the outcome of the case. "As a practical matter, permitting a defendant to vindicate his or her criminal activity in this manner would be an invitation for lawlessness," the justices wrote. Read on...

While the Justifiable Homicide defense in this case is a long shot, I agree with the Florida court's findings. It is clear that an acquittal in the Roeder case would unleash a flurry of violence against abortion providers and the women who seek to exercise their legal rights. The scary part is that this case is being tried in Kansas.

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When Laura Ingraham filled in for Bill O'Reilly on Friday's night's O'Reilly Factor, she ran a segment on abortion that was ostensibly an "investigation" into Planned Parenthood. It featured a logo that placed a red set of crosshairs -- the kind you find on a rifle scope -- over PP's logo.

I'd just like to ask one question:

What the hell were these people thinking?

Now, presumably, Ingraham herself did not order up this graphic, or if she did, it at least went through the hands of the show's regular producers and overseers. These are the same people who just went through a well-deserved round of approbation for their role -- in the form of those 28 references to Dr. George Tiller as a "baby killer" -- in the murder of Tiller by an anti-abortion fanatic.

And now they're running a graphic suggestive of what Ann Coulter calls "a procedure with a rifle" -- something, in fact, that Coulter has actually encouraged on The O'Reilly Factor.

Really, I'm serious. What are these people thinking?

Of course, we know all too well that O'Reilly and Co. did their best to disavow any culpability in the matter whatsoever -- somewhat less than convincingly. So maybe the continuing demonization of abortion providers on this program is part and parcel of that defiance.

And the same sort of anecdotal demonization that characterized O'Reilly's attacks on Tiller were similarly at play in this segment on Planned Parenthood. It essentially involved an ambush team using a youngish-seeming woman posing as a 14-year-old entering a variety of Planned Parenthood clinics and recording the responses -- most of which, as described by the fake teen here, actually fit the standard response of most properly run clinics in trying to make sure that younger patients feel at ease.

The overriding message, once again, is that these abortion providers are a pack of morally depraved sickos who deserve to be in the crosshairs. Lovely.

I can think of three possibilities here:

1. Someone just thought putting an organization in the crosshairs was the best way to represent that they were under investigation, and the other implications of such a graphic just didn't cross anybody's radar.

2. They thought about it, recognized that it might not be appropriate, but did it anyway, either out of defiance or simply not caring.

3. They did it with full intent, understanding full well that the suggestion of violence against Planned Parenthood was present, and in fact designing the graphic with that in mind.

Of the three, I think the second is the most plausible. But it's only slightly less appalling, for different reasons, than the other two.

Look, despite what the O'Reillys and Glenn Becks and Laura Ingrahams like to claim, no one is trying to "silence" them for expressing their opinions. This is about being responsible with that big media megaphone they hold. Promoting a violent mindset toward abortion providers, as we have already seen, is profoundly irresponsible. It's long past time that it stop.

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Heather at VC:

Joe Scarborough attacks Paul Krugman for his op-ed The Big Hate:

Scarborough: I’m just gonna say it. As somebody that has to sort through a lot of hate mail, a lot of hate email, a lot of viciousness. Paul Krugman’s name is attached to a lot of those emails. They use Paul Krugman as their shield for their left-wing hate. This is because Paul Krugman, like a lot of extremists on the right, they only see their side. They have a closed-minded world view. Paul Krugman uses this tragedy, uses this death to try to knock down his opponents on the right.

Unbelievable. Project much Joe?

Scarborough was attacking Paul Krugman by using the DHS report with the phony conservative line that the report was targeting our veterans. Not true. Do these conservative hacks want America to be safe? The report wasn't a partisan witch hunt, but conservatives are trying to find anything to jump on and make an issue out of. Then he goes of into la-la land when he brings Bush and Cheney into it. And by the way, there are no left wing radicals threatening to kill you, Scarborough, so your argument makes no sense.

On a separate but related matter ... I wonder why Joe didn't talk much about Dr. Tiller, either? Oh, wait. Seems Scarborough first got famous down in Florida defending an abortion-doctor killer named Michael Griffin, and it appears Joe didn't want that info dredged up. In fact, it appears that Scarborough used the murderer to get himself elected to Congress. Who knew?

Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice writes: Why Don't MSNBCers Question "Morning Joe" About Abortion Doc Killings?

Scarborough's hometown of Pensacola -- where his show once frequently originated -- was the site of the first two abortion murders, the second also occurring during his first run for Congress in 1994. A raw 30-year-old, Scarborough's surprising Republican win was principally funded by anti-abortion groups and he immediately went to Washington and voted against bills to protect abortion clinics, including one version sponsored by a Republican congressmen.

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Last night on his Fox News show, Bill O'Reilly discussed with Amanda Carpenter a website devoted to the memory of Dr. George Tiller called "I Am Dr. Tiller".

The site, as you can see, features many people from various walks of life -- ministers, health-care providers, medical students, even children -- who are making a public statement about their support for the work Dr. Tiller was engaged in before he was gunned down by a right-wing fanatic named Scott Roeder. They are saying when the fanatics go after Dr. Tiller, they're going after people like them too.

Many of them placed the signs proclaiming, "I am Dr. Tiller" over their faces, O'Reilly asks Carpenter this:

O'Reilly: Well, why are they hiding their faces, Amanda, if it's such a noble cause?

Gee, I dunno, Bill. It couldn't be that they're afraid that, after Bill O'Reilly puts their faces on public display and holds them up for public demonization, some fanatic will walk into their church and shoot them in the head, could it?

Of course, Bill himself would adamantly say No. The rest of us, however, are a different story.

[Incidentally, you can see if you visit the site that not all of them protect their identities; O'Reilly can't even get that right.]

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Bill O'Reilly is seething that he's been put in the spotlight over his behavior towards the late Dr. Tiller. Here's his latest rant against liberals over the death of the doctor. He's still using the tragic murder of Pvt. Long to his own advantage. Wow, have you no decency, sir? I don't see anti-war groups sending Mr. Mohammad thank you notes in jail like Scott Roeder is receiving from the anti-choice crowd..

He told CNN he is "feeling good," and getting encouraging letters from people around the country, many of whom he does not know. But he complained about conditions in the jail, saying he doesn't like being in solitary confinement and that the jail is "freezing."

Roeder's former roommate, Eddie Ebecher, has told CNN Roeder was "obsessed" with Tiller and in the past had debated whether to kill him. Associates have told CNN that Roeder was a regular among the protesters that routinely gathered at Tiller's clinic.

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The man who assassinated Dr. George Tiller says that more violence awaits pro-choice clinics. That's an ominous threat coming from the right wing religious fanatic that has acted out on violent views. We should be very, very afraid...

Huff Post:

The man charged with murdering a high-profile abortion doctor claimed from his jail cell Sunday that similar violence was planned around the nation for as long as the procedure remained legal, a threat that comes days after a federal investigation launched into his possible accomplices.

A Justice Department spokesman said the threat was being taken seriously and additional protection had been ordered for abortion clinics last week. But a leader of the anti-abortion movement derided the accused shooter as "a fruit and a lunatic."

Scott Roeder called The Associated Press from the Sedgwick County jail, where he's being held on charges of first-degree murder and aggravated assault in the shooting of Dr. George Tiller one week ago.

"I know there are many other similar events planned around the country as long as abortion remains legal," Roeder said. When asked by the AP what he meant and if he was referring to another shooting, he refused to elaborate further.

Poor Roeder says he's cold in jail. I wish Dr. Tiller had the chance to feel anything, but since President Obama was elected, the violence that is coming out of the fringe far right is real and scary. Watch out, people.

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Rachel Maddow reports that the DOJ is going to step up its investigation of Dr. Tiller's murder and make sure that anyone who played a role in the crime is held accountable. They're also going to bring back the National Task Force on Violence Against Health Care Providers. So that's the good news.

The bad news. The anti-abortion, anti-birth control group ALL, the American Life League is planning to hold protests at abortion clinics on the day of Dr. Tiller's funeral for "Protest the Pill Day".

Jeff Muskus at the HuffPo on the protests...Right-Wing Protesters: Birth Control Will Kill You:

Unable to turn the public against sex, the pro-life movement will be on the march Saturday trying to convince women that birth-control pills will kill them.

The right-wing American Life League and a handful of regional organizations will stand around outside U.S. pharmacies and Planned Parenthood chapters this weekend for the second annual "Protest the Pill Day." Dispatches from last year's protests, posted at thepillkills.com, offer a sense of what to expect.

"About two dozen prayerful witnesses testified to the facts of death about the pill," reads last year's ALL report from the protest at a Planned Parenthood in Napa, Calif. "For one hour the prayers were offered for the many uninformed patrons who come asking the staff of Planned Parenthood to provide chemicals, hormones, and sex-education as an answer to their problems with the natural consequences of abuse of sex."

"We experienced a lot of thumbs up and approving honks," gushed a protester who stood outside the Planned Parenthood of South Texas for an hour last year.

The American Life League blames birth control -- all birth control, conflating the pill with less time-tested contraceptives -- for abortions and a wide variety of deadly health problems. The group's Web site also helpfully provides a nationwide map to facilities and protests. More ominously in the wake of George Tiller's murder, it includes some ambiguous language about who should use it.

I thought I'd heard it all but apparently not. I'm waiting to see if they start protesting masturbation next. I'm not all that wild about Bill Maher's criticism of religion and think he goes over the top at times until I watch things like Rachel's reporting or read articles like the one at the HuffPo. There's more than what's quoted here for a full dose of the crazy on these protests.

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Well, you had to figure this was coming:

The Justice Department on Friday opened an investigation into the killing of Kansas abortion provider George Tiller to see whether the accused gunman had accomplices.

The department will investigate possible federal crimes in connection with Dr. Tiller's slaying at his church on Sunday in Wichita. State prosecutors have already ruled out seeking the death penalty against the accused gunman, but federal prosecutors did not rule out doing so as they announced their own investigation.

"The Department of Justice will work tirelessly to determine the full involvement of any and all actors in this horrible crime," said Loretta King, head of the department's civil rights division.

Anyone who played a role in the killing, she said, will be prosecuted "to the full extent of federal law."

The sound of sphincters clenching from people like Randall Terry and Cheryl Sullenger could be heard for miles and miles.

You can read the text of the DOJ release here.

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Bill O'Reilly and the rest of the Fox talkers have been busy proclaiming their utter innocence in the assassination of Dr. George Tiller -- as well as the innocence of the anti-abortion groups that were harassing Tiller prior to his death. They've been adamant that only Scott Roeder, the assassin, bears any actual culpability.

Which may be why one of their former guests, Jill Stanek, has been busy playing the anti-abortion version of Radio Rwanda by posting pictures and addresses of the nation's only two remaining late-term abortion providers. Emily Douglas of RH Reality Check (via Jill at Feministe) has the details:

[S]ome anti-choice activists -- even now -- seem only too happy to aid and abet the crazy ones who will resort to violence. Or else why, three days after the assassination of a medical doctor who provides late-term abortions, did Jill Stanek post on her blog photographs of the clinic of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, another physician who provides late-term abortions and who has said he is willing to take over providing services at Dr. Tiller's clinic?

By way of introduction, Stanek writes, "Let's take a station break to view photos of Carhart's "nondescript building," taken in March 2009 on the day it reopened following refurbishment after a fire (NOT blamed on pro-lifers). It was almost immediately shut down because Carhart reopened without getting an occupancy permit, as I previously reported, and was running his electricity off a generator..." She and her readers just want "to take a look." Why? She wants to prove her point that it's a dingy building? Over Carhart's safety, and the safety of his staff and patients?

This is a woman that both Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity have featured on their Fox News programs as an ostensibly credible witness. Ellen at Newshounds pointed out last year after the Hannity appearance just how dubious a witness Stanek actually is.

Appropriately, The General has written to Stanek's pastor, suggesting a rifle-blessing ceremony.

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Rachel Maddow last night featured a devastating report on Scott Roeder's overlooked connections to Operation Rescue and his multiple phone conversations with the organization's Cheryl Sullenger in the months leading up to the murder of Dr. George Tiller. She also explored the fact that Roeder had been violating federal laws protecting abortion clinics for some time, and yet authorities had failed to act.

McClatchy has more on the Operation Rescue connection in its report, Operation Rescue adviser helped Tiller suspect track doctor's court dates:

At the time of Roeder’s arrest Sunday afternoon along Interstate 35 in Johnson County, a television station captured the vehicle on video. There on the dashboard was a note that read “Cheryl” and “Op Rescue” with a phone number.

Cheryl Sullenger, senior policy adviser for Operation Rescue out of Wichita, said Tuesday that she has spoken to Roeder in the past, but she said he would initiate the contact. She said she hasn’t had any recent contact with him.

Sullenger served about two years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiring to bomb an abortion clinic in California in 1988. She has since renounced violent action.

She said Roeder’s interest was in court hearings involving Tiller.

“He would call and say, ‘When does court start? When’s the next hearing?’ ” Sullenger said. “I was polite enough to give him the information. I had no reason not to. Who knew? Who knew, you know what I mean?”

Morevoer, as Maddow reported in even more detail, the federal government had the power to stop the terrorism and threats of violence to abortion clinics under the FACE, or Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act. Dr. Tiller's death could have been avoided had the government simply enforced the laws they had on the books. Amy Goodman made the same point in a guest blog on Air America's site, Amy Goodman: Dr. George Tiller Didn’t Have To Die. From the article:

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Tony Perkins of Focus on the Family paints a grim picture on Dr. Tiller. He's attacking Kathleen Sebelius' nomination, but as Scarce told me, he painted a target right on Tiller's back.

As many times as BillO and Phil Kline tried to disrupt him, Tiller continued to perform what he considered a necessary service to the protection of the mother. Women are always the target, they have rights but these rights are infringed upon without a second's thought by the leaders of the religious right and men in power.

I wrote the above portion two days ago, but I wasn't going to post it, but then I received a sick e-mail from Citizen's Link, a part of Focus on the Family.

'Killing is never the answer, whether it’s an unintended pregnancy or to stop abortion.'

Nebraska abortionist LeRoy Carhart says George Tiller's abortion clinic in Wichita, Kan., will reopen Monday. Carhart, who was at the center of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on partial-birth abortion, has been helping at Tiller's clinic for more than 10 years.

But the family said it has not made a decision about the long-term plans for the clinic, after Tiller was shot to death Sunday.
"The Tiller family's focus, of course, is to determine what is in the best interests of the employees and the patients," the family said in a statement.

Carrie Gordon Earll, senior bioethics analyst at Focus on the Family Action, said it's clear what is in the best interest of the patients. "Killing is never the answer, whether it’s an unintended pregnancy or to stop abortion," she said. "We’re speaking the truth about the precious lives of these preborn children. And, despite this tragedy, we are not going to stop."

Maybe the clinic might feel it's in the best interests of everybody staying alive since Dr. Tiller was murdered. He hasn't even been buried yet and FOF is attacking the clinic and talking about the best interests of the patients. Not a word about the women who go there. Cretins.

We see how much his murder has affected them. They've created new words like "preborn," so I imagine they've come up with something like protecting the rights of the "thoughtborn" children, although they wouldn't say it in public. That must be the thinking process they have when they refuse to engage in contraception, sex education and the Plan B pill. We have to protect the rights of the thoughtborn because somebody has to.

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Rachel Maddow runs down the list of the people or groups that are praising the death of Dr. George Tiller and lauding his murderer Scott Roeder, as a hero. Among them:

Steve Deace:

Are babies today in Kansas safer today than they ere yesterday while George Tiller was alive and still taking in oxygen. Yeah, is the answer to the question. Maybe the fact that we have a lawless society that has not protected these babies from this infanticide created the Scott Roeders of the world, who in very John Brown-like fashion, illegally took matters into his own hands. Saying that if the system will not deal with an evil, then to Hell with the system.

David Leach:

Leach said when human law conflicts with God’s Laws, “we ought to obey God rather than man.”

He will not “advocate” that anyone go out and kill someone who performs abortions, but his “mind remains open on the question.”

“So while I am waiting for more dialogue, I must say that so far, the Bible discussion I have seen overwhelmingly supports anyone willing to sacrifice everything in order to physically stop an abortionist from killing thousands of babies,” he said.

Leach is no stranger to controversy. In the mid-90s, Leach’s association with the accused killer of a Florida abortion doctor helped persuade U.S. marshals to guard the Planned Parenthood clinic in Des Moines.

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Dr. Warren Hern speaks out on AC360 about Dr. Tiller's death being the inevitable result of the hateful rhetoric that's come out of the anti-abortion movement and on the importance of keeping abortion safe, legal and free from anti-abortion violence and harassment.

COOPER: Dr. Hern, I guess the obvious question, if you -- if you worry about being shot and expect being shot any day at work, at home or elsewhere, why do you continue to do what you do?

DR. WARREN HERN: Well, first of all, thank you for inviting me. It's a very important question. I have thought about it a lot.

HERN: I have to say that it really comes down to the fact that, at one point, I decided that performing abortions was the most important thing I could do in medicine, and that I do it because it matters.

And it matters for the health of the woman, for the health of her family, for health of our society, and now it matters for freedom, because Ronald Reagan tried to make abortion a political crime against the state.

And we have had -- while the -- Dr. Tiller was a very good friend of mine, a wonderful man, a very courageous and dedicated physician. And his -- his -- his assassination is a terrible, terrible, unspeakable loss for his family and friends.

COOPER: When -- when you heard he had been shot, did -- did -- did you...

HERN: But I think that the -- but I think the important point I would like to make is that the assassination of Dr. Tiller was not the act of a lone, deranged gunman acting alone.

This is the result of 35 years of anti-abortion harassment, and terrorism, and hate speech, and rhetoric, and harsh names, and exploitation of the -- of the abortion issue as a political issue to get power. And this is the inevitable result of this kind of hateful behavior by the anti-abortion movement.

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