The Council Has Spoken!! This Week’s Watcher’s Council Results 4.19.13

Alea iacta est…the Council has spoken, the votes have been cast, and we have the results for this week’s Watcher’s Council match up.

A pretty full week newswise, and the varied entries this week reflect that!

JoshuaPundit on Apr 19 2013 | The Council Has Spoken!

This week’s winner, Joshuapundit’s Unmourned, Unloved and Politically Inconvenient was my reaction to the Gosnell Trial, the Left’s reaction to it, the media’s attempt to bury it by ignoring it, and what it says about our culture.I was frankly surprised at the response this got from my readers and my fellow Council members, given the difficult subject matter.Here’s a slice:

Dr. Kermit Gosnell ran an abortion clinic in the city and is accused of a number of horrendous crimes, according to the Grand Jury report:

“This case is about a doctor who killed babies and endangered women. What we mean is that he regularly and illegally delivered live, viable babies in the third trimester of pregnancy – and then murdered these newborns by severing their spinal cords with scissors.”

“The medical practice by which he carried out this business was a filthy fraud in which he overdosed his patients with dangerous drugs, spread venereal disease among them with infected instruments, perforated their wombs and bowels – and, on at least two occasions, caused their deaths.”

He’s been charged with 7 counts of first degree murder.

The illegal part of what Dr. Gosnell did is worthy of reflecting on.

According to his former clinic staff, at least 100 living babies were murdered moments after Dr. Gosnell (or in some cases, his unlicensed assistants) ripped them out of the womb.Pennsylvania law forbids abortion in most cases after 24 weeks (the end of the second trimester). His standard method of killing the children was snipping the spinal cords, what one of his assistants described as ‘a virtual beheading.’ Dr. Gosnell frequently used drugs to induce labor so as to deliver the babies faster and make the killing process easier. One of his assistants in testimony described ‘fetuses and blood flying around everywhere.’

Dr. Gosnell has also been charged with the murder of a 41-year-old Virginia woman who died from an overdose of anesthetic drugs, possibly administered by another unlicensed ‘doctor’.

Several women patients were badly injured, according to the report. One was left simply lying there after her cervix and colon were torn in the process of trying to pull a baby out of her womb so it could be ‘dealt with’. Another, only 18 years old, was not given proper care after her uterus was punctured and had to undergo a hysterectomy. Others actually contracted venereal diseases, painful infections and other complications because of the unsanitary conditions, where rusty and outdated machines, dirty, unsterilized instruments and filthy surroundings.

When the police finally got around to investigating Dr. Gosnell’s clinic because of a tip he was illegally ‘proscribing’ drugs, they found fetal remains “stored throughout the clinic – in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers.”

So what Dr. Gosnell is being charged with, actually, is performing late term abortions (illegal in Pennsylvania but not in a number of states), keeping a sloppy and unsanitary shop, allowing unauthorized and unlicensed personnel to perform procedures and administer drugs and the injuries and at least one murder that resulted from that.

Had he worked for, say, Planned Parenthood in a clean, up-to-date environment with licensed assistants in a state like California that allows abortion on demand for any reason no matter how far along the pregnancy is, he would have been doing essentially the same thing without any problems.

What Dr. Gosnell was doing to babies is not that much different than other doctors when it comes to late term abortions. They are merely more skillful and using better equipment.

A lot more at the link.

In our non-Council category, the winner by a nose was Caroline Glick with Moral Relativism and Jihad submitted by Joshuapundit. ( with a hat tip to my pal Terresa at The Noisy Room for the suggestion). This seems to be a week for what I call the larger issues, as Ms. Glick writes about the increasing tolerance in our culture when it comes to anti-semitism and violence associated with jihad and Islam…especially when it comes to American Jews on the Left. Do read it.

OK, here are this week’s full results:

Council Winners

*First place with 5 votes! Joshuapundit – Unmourned, Unloved and Politically Inconvenient
Second place with 3 votes – The Noisy Room – Honoring Margaret Thatcher – The Ultimate Progressive Hunter
Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Bookworm Room – No matter what happened yesterday, today shows the deep fissures Obama has created in America
Third place *t* with 1 1/3 votes – Gay Patriot- Boston Aftermath: A nation (that should be) united in grief & outrage
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Right Planet – Pat Condell Is Waiting for Jesus … And He’s Pissed!
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Razor- We Are Idiots
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Aegypt”s Aepic Fail
Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote – The Colossus of Rhodey – Look in the mirror, Cenk Uygur
Fourth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Simply Jews – Social justice for fantastika? Or entitlement of parasites?
Fourth place *t* with 1/3 vote – VA Right! – With America Under Attack, Liberals Disarm Us and Open the Gates to Barbarian Hordes

Non-Council Winners

First place with 2 1/3 votes! – Caroline Glick – Moral Relativism and Jihad submitted by Joshuapundit
Second place *t* with 2 votes – Sultan Knish – Violence On Their Behalf submitted by The Noisy Room
Second place *t* with 2 votes – Drawnward – Boston’s Best Day submitted by The Glittering Eye
Third place *t* with 1 vote –Angry White Dude – Is Anyone Really Surprised At The Boston Marathon Bombing? submitted by The Political Commentator
Third place *t* with 1 vote– American Spectator – The Thatcher Haters submitted by The Right Planet
Third place *t* with 1 vote – Mark Steyn – The Anti-Declinist submitted by The Watcher
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote – The Texas Scribbler – The mass murderer who’s not on Page 1 submitted by Simply Jews
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –USA Today/Kirsten Powers – Philadelphia abortion clinic horror submitted by Bookworm Room
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –The Council of Higher Education – Biblical Blame Shift submitted by The Colossus of Rhodey
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote –Bloomberg/World View – Chinese Send Boston Condolences and Conspiracy Theories submitted by GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD
Fourth place *t* with 2/3 vote -Urban Grounds – Art Acevedo: A Willing Puppet in the Left’’s War on the Second Amendment submitted by Rhymes With Right
Fifth place *t* with 1/3 vote –Oleg Atbashian – How Thatcher Changed Hearts and Minds Behind the Iron Curtain submitted by The Razor
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Weasel Zippers – Palestinians Dancing In The Streets Of Gaza After Boston Terror Attack submitted by VA Right!
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – Powerline – One Word On The Boston Massacre submitted by Gay Patriot
Sixth place *t* with 1/3 vote – WSJ/Andy Kessler – The Pension Rate-of-Return Fantasy submitted by The Watcher

Honorable Mentions

Liberty’s Spirit – Political Correctness, Cultural Relativism and the Need to Repair the World
Ask Marion – 6-Month Benghazi Attack Anniversary… Where is the media coverage? The answers? And Where are the Survivors?
The Pirate’s Cove – Climate Scientists Really Looking For “Explanations” To Explain Missing Warming

See you next week! Don’t forget to tune in on Monday AM for this week’s Watcher’s Forum, as the Council and their invited special guests take apart one of the provocative issues of the day with short takes and weigh in…don’t you dare miss it. And don’t forget to like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter…..’cause we’re cool like that!