I suspect this move will make him more enemies than friends, since so many people watch the Super Bowl with their kids. Via Raw Story:

People in 40 cities across the country may be subjected to a graphic anti-abortion ad while watching the Super Bowl in February.

The ads are the brainchild of anti-abortion crusader Randall Terry, who founded Operation Rescue. The ads claim abortion is mass murder and show what is purported to be images of aborted fetuses.

He mounted a Democratic primary challenge against President Barack Obama to take advantage of a Federal Communication Commission (FCC) loophole that prevents campaign ads from being censored.

FCC-licensed TV stations can reject ads based on graphic content, but they are required by law to run the ads of federal candidates within the 45-day window of any primary election or caucus in a given state.

But the ads will only run in local markets. NBC is not required by law to air the ads.

Terry plans to air the ads in the 40 cities where he will be on the ballot against Obama in Democratic primaries or caucuses. He has already purchased air time for at least one ad.

Randall Terry, meet C&L

Here's my latest for Jesus General

Randall Terry
Founder of Operation Rescue

Dear Mr.Terry...read on

(h/t Jamie)

Founder of the blog Little Green Footballs, Charles Johnson has seen the light and decided he can no longer support the right wing of his party and makes no bones about why:

1. Support for fascists, both in America (see: Pat Buchanan, Robert Stacy McCain, etc.) and in Europe (see: Vlaams Belang, BNP, SIOE, Pat Buchanan, etc.)

2. Support for bigotry, hatred, and white supremacism (see: Pat Buchanan, Ann Coulter, Robert Stacy McCain, Lew Rockwell, etc.)

3. Support for throwing women back into the Dark Ages, and general religious fanaticism (see: Operation Rescue, anti-abortion groups, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Tony Perkins, the entire religious right, etc.)

4. Support for anti-science bad craziness (see: creationism, climate change denialism, Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, James Inhofe, etc.) Read on...

Conservatives like Kathleen Parker and Christopher Buckley found out that leaving the GOP fight club isn't easy -- and Johnson will undoubtedly suffer the same fate. Johnson is taking major heat for his defection, which comes as no surprise, and comments like these at Politico merely prove his point.

I don't expect to see Charles Johnson showing up with Code Pink at any war protests any time soon, but this post covers much of what C&L and other progressive blogs have been saying about the GOP for some time now. It is a dying party that has been taken over by religious extremists, bigots, conspiracy theorists and worse.

Johnson's observations about his party mirror those of my conservative friends and family...well, most of them. They wonder what happened to their party and where they belong in the political spectrum.

I agree with Nicole Belle who wrote backstage - "I don't want him on the left. But it's nice to see someone on the right injecting a little sanity into the discussion."

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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.

Ezra Klein sees the Tiller assassination in its political context:

As The American Prospect's Ann Friedman writes, this has to be understood in context. It is the final, decisive act in "an ongoing campaign of intimidation and harassment against someone who was providing completely legal health-care services." That campaign stretched over decades of protests, lawsuits, violence, and, finally, murder. The different elements were not always orchestrated. But the intent remained constant: To counter the absence of a statute that would make Tiller's work illegal with enough intimidation to render it impossible.

This was, in other words, a political act. Tiller was murdered so that those in his line of work would be intimidated. In conversations with folks yesterday, I heard well-meaning variants on the idea that it would be unseemly to push legislation in the emotional aftermath of Tiller's execution. I disagree. Roeder was acting in direct competition with the United States Congress. And it's quite likely that he changed the status quo. Legislative language and judicial rulings had made abortive procedures legal and thus accessible. Yesterday's killing was meant to render abortive procedures unsafe for doctors to conduct and thus inaccessible.

If a woman cannot get an abortion because no nearby providers are willing to assume the risk of performing it, the actual outcome is precisely the same as if the procedure were illegal. Roeder has, in all likelihood, made abortion less accessible. It would be, in my view, a perfectly appropriate response for the Congress to decisively prove his action not only ineffectual, but, in a broad sense, counterproductive.

That's not to suggest fast-tracking legislation that radically transforms the county's uneasy consensus. But there are plenty of remedies that speak to the question of access alone: Bills that make abortion centers safer and help poor women afford treatment, for instance. We can't stop Scott Roeder from killing George Tiller. But we can stop him from having his intended effect on a woman's ability to choose.

Dr. George Tiller of Women's Health Care Services clinic in Wichita, Kansas was gunned down outside his church yesterday. Tiller had long been a top target of the anti-abortion movement because he performed medically necessary late-term abortions.

He faced down decades of harassment, threats and vandalism and went back to work after being shot in both arms by a radical “pro-life” activist in 1993. Just last month his clinic was severely damaged by vandals. Tiller probably suffered more than anyone else in recent decades to defend reproductive rights.

After news of the shooting broke, his antagonists came out to dance on his grave: Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue, led protests against George Tiller's late-term abortion clinic in Wichita in 1991. Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue states,

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God. I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

"Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches."

Other radical “pro-lifers” took to Twitter to gloat:

UPDATE... Doctor George Tiller was aborted today in his 204th trimester - aren't paybacks a bitch - Punch

oh HAPPY DAY! Tiller the baby killer is DEAD! - Samantha Pelch

George Tiller the baby killer was shot dead this morning. God bless the gunmen who hopefully won't be caught. - readnwatchchris, Creedmor. NC

And Frank Pavone of the so-called Priests for Life tried to muddy the waters and deflect blame for the killing:

I am saddened to hear of the killing of George Tiller. At this point, we do not know the motives of this act, or who is behind it, whether an angry post-abortive man or woman, or a misguided activist, or an enemy within the abortion industry, or a political enemy frustrated with the way Tiller has escaped prosecution. We should not jump to conclusions or rush to judgment.

Let us all remember that this tragedy comes just one month after O’Reilly, Beck, Limbaugh, and gang went ballistic over a Homeland Security report concerning the potential for violence by right-wing extremists.

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(h/t Scarce for video)

Following the brutal slaying of Dr. George Tiller, Operation Rescue released this statement:

“We are shocked at this morning’s disturbing news that Mr. Tiller was gunned down. Operation Rescue has worked for years through peaceful, legal means, and through the proper channels to see him brought to justice. We denounce vigilantism and the cowardly act that took place this morning. We pray for Mr. Tiller’s family that they will find comfort and healing that can only be found in Jesus Christ.”

And now the group's leader, Randall Terry has released this Rally the troops video to all anti-choice advocates. In the above video he calls President Obama and pro-choice politicians child killers, and proclaims Dr. Tiller to be a mass murderer, who "reaped what he sowed," but voices regrets that the slain doctor wasn't able to "get things right with his maker" and that it was unfortunate that he didn't get a "trial of a jury of his peers and to have a proper execution."

This is one sick, twisted individual. To deny that hateful propaganda like this could incite someone to violence, is just plain dilusional.

Randall Terry
Founder of Operation Rescue

Dear Mr.Terry,

I'm so delighted about your new endeavor on the ever-popular Salem Radio Network.
They haven't put your picture up or made an announcement on the website yet, but it still must be exciting going on the air with other great conservative thinkers like Bill Bennett, Michael Medved and Hugh Hewitt. Its probably just a minor glitch, I mean Saint Augustine, Florida is a huge market.

I implore you wholeheartedly to run against that good for nothing Jim King in Florida. When you articulated quite profoundly that Jim King has consistently betrayed the core values of the Republican Party," I knew what you meant.The dude hasn't even been arrested once, while you on the other hand have piled up over forty trips to the pokey. Now that takes courage. That takes determination. That's the type of Republican values I'm talking about. You are a man of true conviction. (No pun intended).

By the way, I'm still upset over the fact that you lost all your worldly possessions while being sued by those crazy, idolatrous witches of NOW. They assuredly caused the pressure on your most sacred soul that forced you to dump your wife of 17 years and hook up with a newer, younger concubine.

That said, since you have sacrificed so much to our cause, I'm going to make a pledge to you. I declare it my solemnly duty to help get as many Republican candidates as I possibly can a nice extended trip to the hoosegaw. I think they all need to be shackled up for a few days in a holding cell to honestly understand what it means to be a real Republican. That builds character. That builds backbone. That builds the "Randall Terry" type of man we need in the Party.

Metrosexually Yours,

Crooks and Liars

Originally posted at Jesus General

via World O' Crap

Randall Terry was bankrupt (financially, socially, and morally), and basically sidelined after he married his young assistant and left Operation Rescue. But then the Schindler family contacted him, and brought him out of obscurity to help them garner publicity for their battle against Michael Schiavo. Terri died, but Randall is still alive, walking by night, creating havoc, and terrorizing the villagers. It's like Bart Simpson said in the Tree House of Horror ep about the brain-eating zombies: "I thought dabbling in the black arts would be good for a chuckle. How wrong I was."

Randall is now involving himself in the case of "L.G.," the thirteen-year-old girl whom Florida's Department of Children and Families is trying to prevent from getting an abortion.

Here's part of the letter which Terry sent to Jeb Bush (this copy courtesy of the media relations network run by the "culture of life's" Gary McCullough, but it's also been carried by such wingnut sources as MichNews, The Conservative Voice, Christian Underground, and quoted by such major media sources as Newsweek, the Miami Herald, and the Palm Beach Post):

Governor Bush, under no circumstances should LG's baby be killed by abortion. I am begging you to not allow a repeat of the Terry Schindler fiasco, which results in the death of another innocent person.

Who the heck is "Terry Schindler"? read on

Here is another answer to Hugh Hewitt's question of "who are the Religious right?"

Scarborough Country featured Randall Terry tonight.

He called Terri's condition a lie.

Terry: Michael Shiavo and Judge Greer have scammed all of us...

Download | play

Why would judge Greer want to kill Terri?

Joe asked the obvious question: Why?

Terry: Because he wanted her dead. Because he decided she wasn't going to live...

Why on earth would any judge want that? (We have some information about judge Greer here )

Of course Joe doesn't ask him to prove the allegations. That would be too easy. Simply let him make an accusation that a judge wants to kill somebody, then go on to call Michael a liar.

via WOC:

You may recall Randall Terry, the former head of "Operation Rescue" who was arrested dozens of times for trespassing (and other crimes) as he engaged in "civil disobedience" at abortion clinics. He was also successfully sued for harassing women at the clinics, causing him to declare bankruptcy when the plaintiffs tried to collect...read more

This is the sort of information the media should be telling people when they bring up his name as the representative of the Schindler's. I don't pretend to know Michael Shiavo, but I do know Randall Terry. Obsidian Wings has a lot of information about Terri's condition here. These people are going to get more of our judges killed. I want to thank our liberal media once again.

update-Media Matters has more on Randall

The Daily Howler examines William Hammesfahr