† Look Before You Leap: Part II (second item): Abby Johnson, director of the Bryan (TX) Planned Parenthood for two years resigned her position after the organization changed its business model from emphasizing prevention of unwanted pregnancy to abortion. Oh, and she also watched an ultrasound of an abortion, reports local TV station KBTX (video):

"I just thought I can't do this anymore, and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," said Jonhson [sic]. …

"The money wasn't in family planning, the money wasn't in prevention, the money was in abortion and so I had a problem with that," said Johnson. …

Johnson now supports the Coalition For Life, the pro-life group with a building down the street from Planned Parenthood. Coalition volunteers can regularly be seen praying on the sidewalk in front of Planned Parenthood. Johnson has been meeting with the coalition's executive director, Shawn Carney, and has prayed with volunteers outside Planned Parenthood.

Meanwhile, after more than a decade of legal challenges IL may begin enforcing a 1995 parental notification law that requires doctors to give parents or guardians of girls 17 or younger 48 hours notice before the girls get abortions. Thirty-five other states have similar laws, but the ACLU plans to ask for a temporary restraining order to keep the state from enforcing the law, reports The Associated Press.

† Gitmo Detainees Have A “Cadillac” Healthcare Plan: Contradicting earlier reports, the Department of Defense and the White House insisted that Gitmo detainees will not be inoculated against H1N1 until all active duty troops, civilian and contract employees and families of military personnel, have received their vaccinations, reports CNN:

The clarification comes after significant criticism from members of Congress that prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay facility were being given the swine flu vaccine ahead of American citizens. …

The controversy erupted last week when a spokeswoman for Joint Task Force Guantanamo, which is responsible for the detainees, said the detainees are considered at high risk for H1N1, from which some inferred that inoculating them would be a high priority.

The detainees will be given the option to get the swine flu shot; some have already been voluntarily vaccinated against seasonal flu.

† A To Z Approach On Illegal Immigration In AZ: The Supreme Court is weighing whether to hear an appeal from a coalition of AZ business groups and illegal immigration activists and wanting to void the state’s employer-sanctions law, which has been upheld by two lower courts since it was enacted in 2007, reports The Arizona Republic:

The Supreme Court on Monday asked the Obama administration to weigh in on the issue before deciding whether to take on the case.

The Obama administration is not a party in the case, but the case intersects with several federal issues, notably E-Verify and federal immigration policy.

Opponents of the law were encouraged by the Supreme Court's request. They say it shows that the court recognizes how the sanctions law, which has been imitated in several other states, has implications beyond Arizona. Several states have modeled legislation on Arizona's law, as state and local governments grapple with the complicated issue of immigration in the wake of Congress' failure to solve the problem.

AZ business owners wanting to hire forged documented aliens are challenging the constitutionality of the law, contending immigration law is a federal power and that E-Verify is supposed to be a voluntary program.

In her brief, AZ Solicitor General Mary O'Grady counters that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 authorizes states to impose sanctions through "licensing and similar laws" and that the E-Verify provision “simply requires Arizona employers to participate in a congressionally authorized federal program that is already available nationwide.”

† Scooter Libby Scorecard: An FBI report on then-Vice President Dick Cheney’s May 8, 2004 interview with Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel investigating the leak of the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson that was released last week elucidates how classified information gets into news stories in the form of anonymous quotes and background briefings. From The Washington Post:

[T]he vice president was asked about testimony by I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his chief of staff. Libby had said Cheney authorized him on July 8, 2003, to disclose classified information from a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq to Judith Miller, then a reporter for the New York Times.

Though the vice president said he could not recall any members of his staff, including Libby, being authorized to talk to Miller at that time, he did give his views on speaking to the news media about information in classified intelligence estimates. …

What Cheney told Fitzgerald is, frankly, what presidents, national security advisers and senior officials at the Pentagon, State Department and CIA do all the time when they brief journalists on background or in off-the-record sessions: They use classified information to get out their side of a foreign policy story. When congressional opponents use classified information supporting a different point of view, those same administration officials quickly describe that as illegal leaking, and damaging to national security.

But Cheney tried to get around that complaint by adding a novel legal defense of his use of classified information. The FBI report said he told Fitzgerald that he "did not violate any relevant laws or rules in making these statements because he did not reveal the confidential sources or methods involved in gathering the classified information."

In Cheney’s case, at least, the issue was moot, since President George Bush had given him declassification authority, meaning that any classified information he disclosed was automatically declassified.

† Updates To Previous Posts (last item, Why We Need Gitmo): The Obama administration transferred six Uighur detainees from Gitmo to the Palau. The Pacific island nation is supposed to be a temporary home for the Chinese Muslims, reports The Associated Press:

President Johnson Toribiong welcomed the group when they arrived before dawn Sunday on a secret flight, and he will treat them to a personal tour of the Rock Islands, a diving attraction that is country's top tourist destination, later this week. …

The United States is paying Palau a little less than $100,000 for each Uighur to cover housing, educating and food costs, Toribiong said.

Toribiong says the Uighurs' resettlement is temporary, but could last months or years.

Though they won't get Palauan passports, Toribiong says, the Uighurs will be free to leave Palau - if they can find a country that will take them.

† Updates To Previous Posts (third item, Illegals Can Skew Elections – Even When They Do Not Vote Fraudulently): Los Angeles Times columnist Gregory Rodriguez takes a dim view of Sen. David Vitter’s (R-LA) proposal to count only U.S. citizens in the 2010 census:

I am against the idea of open borders. I believe our nation needs to have strong borders with clear rules and regulations as to who can enter and become members of our club. I also understand that global utopianism notwithstanding, sovereign states are the guarantors of our rights and that, by definition, these states are obliged to decide who can and cannot claim membership.

This goes double for nations that provide entitlements. The state not only protects us but provides us with some level of resources, i.e. public goods such as education, unemployment benefits, Medicare, etc. It makes sense, then, that if we want the state to provide us with these goods, we must accept that some form of exclusion is necessary. I understand and believe that not everyone can enjoy the benefits of U.S. citizenship. Like restrictionists, I therefore believe that some forms of exclusion are acceptable.

That said, the capaciousness of our Constitution grants basic protections to all people within our borders, even those who do not enjoy the privileges of citizenship. In other words, even if we deny noncitizens political and civil rights, the principles of our Constitution require that we grant them certain human rights - some level of personal safety and dignity. When it comes to the census, what that suggests is that even though we may not count them as full members of our polity, we are still obliged to count them as individuals who occupy physical space within our national boundaries.

† Updates To Previous Posts (sixth item, What It's Like To Be Sheriff Joe): CNN commentator Lou Dobbs recently divulged on his radio show that someone shot at his NJ home last month, and suspects that he is being targeted because of his staunch opposition to illegal immigration - just like Maricopa County (AZ) Sheriff Joe Arpaio. On the heels of the revelation, Arpaio's security detail is being reviewed to determine whether the current level of protection provided needs to be beefed up, reports The Associated Press.

† Updates To Previous Posts (second item, Living In These Mad, Mad, Madoff Times): Elsie Poncher put her husband's crypt at Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles for sale on eBay Inc in August, but the sale fell through when the bidder who offered $4.6 million for the hot spot atop Marilyn Monroe's crypt withdrew. Now, a second auction with a reserve price of $500,000 failed to attract any bidders. Maybe the geezers who have enough money to want to be buried on top of Marilyn Monroe have decided to hang on to their Benjamins in case they need to circumvent government death panels and pay for life-prolonging medical procedures that Medicare will no longer cover once healthcare “reform” legislation is enacted.