Dana Goldstein at TAPPED reminds us of the “facts” about partial-birth abortion:

Intact dilation and extraction, aka D&X or — to the antis — “partial birth abortion,” accounts for less than two tenths of one percent of all abortions performed in the United States each year, and is usually reserved for instances in which the pregnant woman is facing severe health risks or when expectant parents learn their fetus will not be viable outside of the womb.

Just one problem: it’s not so.

But don’t take it from me. Take it from two prominent left-leaning journalists.

First, we have leftist Franklin Foer:

After interviewing doctors who perform the procedure, both [the Washington Post and the Bergen Record] concluded that only in very few instances was the IDE actually necessary to protect the woman’s health. Most of them were performed on poor women who could not muster the money to pay for abortions earlier in their pregnancies.

Next, we have leftist David Savage:

Only 1% to 2% of abortions take place after the 20th week of pregnancy.

Of these, about 3,000 to 5,000 per year are done with D&X [partial-birth abortion]. Doctors say only a small percentage of those are done because of medical complications or fetal deformity.

Yet this canard is repeated, again and again, by the “pro-choice” left.

All we can do here is keep repeating the truth, again and again and again.

Posted by WLS:

Having read Judge Walker’s opinion last week in which he determined that the federal common law “state’s secrets” privilege was abrogated by Congress with its passage of FISA, it occurred to me that there is a fairly simple hypothetical which can be used to explore the view that FISA is an unconstitutional encroachment on the Article II “Commander in Chief” powers of the US.

Lets assume that the Clinton Administration hadn’t been so feckless in its closing months, and that after the bombing of the USS Cole it had followed the advice of Richard Clarke, sought an authorization to use force against Bin Laden, AQ, and the Taliban, and initiated offensive military operations — of whatever type — in Afghanistan for the purpose of dislodging Bin Laden and AQ.  

Lets next assume that part of the offensive operations was an aggressive intelligence collection effort conducted by NSA and DOD which focused on communications between Bin Laden and other AQ actors in Afghanistan on the one hand, and the loose net of affiliate organizations around the world on the other hand.

Lets next assume that the Bush Administration kept the same policy following the election, and remained on the offensive against Bin Laden and AQ, short of an all out invasion of Afghanistan.   That during this effort the intelligence agencies were able to intermittently intercept cell phone transmissions believed to be from Bin Laden and other members of AQ’s leadership.  

We’re still talking about a pre-9/11 timeframe here, and from those interceptions intelligence analysts were convinced there was some type of plot underway inside the US, but the details were not yet known.  But in July 2001, interceptions established a contact between AQ in Afghanistan and Ramzi Binalshibh in Germany.  Binalshibh is identified by intelligence agencies as having been associated with a cell of Islamic radicals in Hamburg, one of whom is Mohammed Atta, who is found to be attending flight school in the US in the summer of 2001, with travel records from various intelligence agencies showing they had traveled to Afghanistan together in 1999.

So, based on this information, in July 2001, NSA and DOD begin intercepting all telephone communications of Binalshibh in Hamburg.  These interceptions are the direct result of battlefield intelligence obtained in Afghanistan, and the purpose is to seek to collect actionable intelligence which might be used by the military or civilian law enforcement to prevent an attack on US soil.

Under these circumstances, is the President’s Article II authority as Commander in Chief to be constrained by FISA if Binalshibh decides to call Atta in the United States?  Its not Atta’s phone that is being monitored — its Binalshibh’s phone in Hamburg.  Does the Executive, in the midst of exercising its war fighting authority, have to run to the FISC to obtain a warrant to continue listening to communications between Binalshibh and Atta? 

[This post will remain bumped to the top through Monday. New posts will appear below. — Patterico]

I want you to help me compile a full list of Obama’s flip-flops.

Leave a comment fully documenting one or more flip-flops. Links are critical. For maximum usefulness, I would like to see the following for each flip-flop:

1) Obama’s original quote, with a link.

2) His later flip-flopping quote, also with a link.

Here’s an example of what I’m looking for:

Flip: Obama says the health exception for late-term abortions has to be a serious physical issue:

I have repeatedly said that I think it’s entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don’t think that ‘mental distress’ qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term.

Flop: the health exception can include non-physical issues like mental diseases:

My only point is that in an area like partial birth abortion having a mental, having a health exception can be defined rigorously . . . It can be defined through physical health. It can be defined by serious clinical mental health diseases.

Video proof of a flip-flop is even better. Link that if you have it. I know there are videos like that out there. I want to know about all of them.

Maximum participation, people! If you do this well, I can bring it all together in a single, massive post that documents all of Obama’s flip-flops. In that post, I’ll credit each person who first documents a particular flip-flop to my satisfaction.

Now start documenting!

It goes on all week. The link isn’t up yet, but keep checking here.

UPDATE: Here’s a direct link to Round One.

Round Two is here.