Farewell. The Flying Pig Has Left The Building.

Steve Hynd, August 16, 2012

After four years on the Typepad site, eight years total blogging, Newshoggers is closing it's doors today. We've been coasting the last year or so, with many of us moving on to bigger projects (Hey, Eric!) or simply running out of blogging enthusiasm, and it's time to give the old flying pig a rest.

We've done okay over those eight years, although never being quite PC enough to gain wider acceptance from the partisan "party right or wrong" crowds. We like to think we moved political conversations a little, on the ever-present wish to rush to war with Iran, on the need for a real Left that isn't licking corporatist Dem boots every cycle, on America's foreign misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq. We like to think we made a small difference while writing under that flying pig banner. We did pretty good for a bunch with no ties to big-party apparatuses or think tanks.

Those eight years of blogging will still exist. Because we're ending this typepad account, we've been archiving the typepad blog here. And the original blogger archive is still here. There will still be new content from the old 'hoggers crew too. Ron writes for The Moderate Voice, I post at The Agonist and Eric Martin's lucid foreign policy thoughts can be read at Democracy Arsenal.

I'd like to thank all our regular commenters, readers and the other bloggers who regularly linked to our posts over the years to agree or disagree. You all made writing for 'hoggers an amazingly fun and stimulating experience.

Thank you very much.

Note: This is an archive copy of Newshoggers. Most of the pictures are gone but the words are all here. There may be some occasional new content, John may do some posts and Ron will cross post some of his contributions to The Moderate Voice so check back.


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Sunday, May 31, 2009

Abortion Doctor Murdered

By BJ Bjornson


Via McClatchy:


George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death Sunday morning as he walked into church services.

Tiller, 67, was shot just after 10 a.m. at Reformation Lutheran Church at 7601 E. 13th, where he was a member of the congregation. Witnesses and a police source confirmed Tiller was the victim.


. . .


Tiller has long been a focal point of protest by abortion opponents because his clinic, Women's Health Care Services at 5701 E. Kellogg, is one of the few in the country where late-term abortions are performed.


Protesters blockaded Tiller's clinic during Operation Rescue's "Summer of Mercy" protests during the summer of 1991, and Tiller was shot by Rachelle Shannon at his clinic in 1993.


Tiller was wounded in both arms, and Shannon remains in prison for the shooting.


Tiller's clinic was severely vandalized earlier this month. According to the Associated Press, his lawyer said wires to security cameras and outdoor lights were cut and that the vandals also cut through the roof and plugged the buildings' downspouts. Rain poured through the roof and caused thousands of dollars of damage in the clinic. Tiller reportedly asked the FBI to investigate the incident.



More information here, including the fact that the clinic was bombed in 1986.

UPDATE:  I'm not going to get into the whys and wherefores behind the murder at this point, but the Freepers comments to the death are informative in their own right.  DougJ has the permanent record should they be deleted.



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3 comments:

  1. One FlyMay 31, 2009 at 8:35 AM

    There are many christians thanking their cloud being that this man is now dead.
    Just how crazy is that.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steve HyndMay 31, 2009 at 8:51 AM

    Hi BJ,
    Bradblog has a post you might want to update yours for:
    Bill O'Reilly's 'Tiller the Baby Killer' Gunned Down in Wichita Church
    Tiller was better known to Fox "News" viewers as "Tiller the Baby Killer", as he's long been described by Bill O'Reilly who has spent years targeting Tiller on the most-watched show in cable news. O'Reilly has long demonized him with allegations of performing illegal late-term abortions, characterized as murder by O'Reilly and his guests.
    Of course, it's no more O'Reilly's fault when a lunatic takes action to murder someone the Fox host has targeted for years on his popular television show, than it was when another lunatic gunned down church-goers in Tennessee last year claiming in his pre-murder "manifesto" that it was "a symbolic killing", and that he had "wanted to kill...every Democrat in the Senate & House, the 100 people in Bernard Goldberg's book." Goldberg is a regular featured guest on O'Reilly's show, and the author of 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America (And Al Franken is #37).
    Jim David Adkisson, the Knoxville, TN murderer, also advocated the murder of "liberals" in his manifesto, echoing comments frequently made by O'Reilly that "The Major News outlets have become the propaganda arm of the Democrat Party. Liberals are evil, they embrace the tenets of Karl Marx, they're Marxist, socialist, communists."
    Those are all merely coincidences, of course. Nobody,     other than the murderers themselves, should feel it necessary to take any personal responsibility whatsoever when such events occur.
    Regards, Steve

    ReplyDelete
  3. BJ BjornsonMay 31, 2009 at 9:32 AM

    Hi Steve,
    That's further than I'm willing to go at this point. We are as of yet assuming the murder was abortion related, but that hasn't been confirmed. There will be plenty of time in the near future to put together a much fuller post regarding how the "pro-lifers" may have helped motivate the killer.

    ReplyDelete

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