Was it good for you too?

 

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Marc Ambinder gets his groove on:

 

The Best Speech Obama’s Given Since…Maybe Ever

Today, at Ft. Hood. I guarantee: they’ll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won’t do it justice. Yes, I’m having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge.

Anyone need a cigarette? As Violet Socks said:

See, for me, the man+moment+words=thrill equation kind of falls apart once you know that “the man” in question is about as sincere as a can of aerosol cheese. But that’s just me. The Blogger Boys are obviously on a different wavelength. They don’t want a president; they want a spiritual guru.

If you want a moving eulogy, try this one:

Old Ronnie gave that little speech the same day as the Challenger tragedy – and he didn’t give a “shout-out” to anyone first.  Reagan’s eyes didn’t bounce from left to right like he was watching a tennis match – he looked directly into the camera and gave the impression he was looking right at you.  Reagan was a great speechifyer.

But great speeches don’t make a great leader.  What happened at Fort Hood was a horrible tragedy – it’s not an “opportunity” for Obama to impress his fans.  It’s about the victims, not a politician.

 

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Abortion is Not an elective medical procedure

Dissecting the arguments of anti-choicers, particularly in light of the current dialogue over the Stupid Stupak Sepsis amendment, reveals two errant rationales and one rational conclusion.  The arguments being made seem to fall into one of two main categories. The first one violates the separation of church and state principle of our Constitution, the other is RACIST.  All other arguments fall under the broad category of just plain stupid.  I shall elucidate my points.

The first two categories can result in various twists and memes, but at their nub, each one can be traced back to its certain roots.  To start, we’re all familiar with the religious arguments made about “life” and the “God’s gift/will/pronouncement that he knew me in the womb” yada yada alleluia pass the plate yammerings.  These seem to be the principal basis for most of the the anti-choice rhetoric.  However, no matter how much someone wants to cite their religious crusader activities on behalf of the “unborn” to lobby our legislature, it doesn’t or at least SHOULDN’T matter.  Our government is not permitted to use religion as a basis for the establishment of laws.  Period. The. End.  Someone needs to take action regarding the influence of the Catholic Bishop’s conference on this recent debacle.

But that’s not the only reason people give for opposing abortion.  For those who try to maintain their liberal cred, another argument is used that is equally repugnant.  For example, as the Opologists and “unity pony” brigade reach for excuses to deflect from the heinous and reckless disregard for women’s health that occurred late Saturday night, they have wrapped their florescent yellow, cheesy-tasting, sticky powder coated fingers around one particular refrain.  In their attempts to defend the Democratic betrayal also known as the Stupid Stupak Sepsis amendment, they have resurrected the “abortion is an elective procedure” theory.

Let’s get one thing straight.  Abortion. Is. Not. An. Elective. Procedure.  It is medical procedure that results from a natural biological process specific to women.  Women do not want to get an abortion.  It is not done for cosmetic purposes.

What’s worse is that this meme has it’s genesis in the “ratf#@!ing racist” republican rhetoric about “Welfare Mothers.”  You know what I’m talking about.  You’ve heard the loathsome racist diatribes about those “welfare mothers” who are always pregnant, feeding at the trough of the Welfare system.  They’re animals who breed for greed.”  Yes, we’ve all heard about the irresponsible women who fornicate and spread their legs without regard for the fact that they’ll get pregnant.  And then *gasp* they’ll want us to pay for their abortions when they can’t stop reproducing! Surely that’s an “elective procedure.”  We don’t want our tax dollars paying for their irresponsible behavior.  We shouldn’t have to pay for abortion that is nothing more than birth control.  And on and on and on and on.  It’s steeped in racist ideology.

Yep…all you Cheeto chewing, kool-aid swillers who are pushing the idea that abortion is an “elective procedure”– you’re RACIST.  So stop pushing these “ratf#@!ing racist” memes as a way to defend teh precious; or you might as well don your white sheets and get those crosses ready.  Or you can join in opposition to what is clearly against the Democratic Platform, anathema to our Constitution, gender-related oppressive discrimination, and yes, RACIST.

Oh, so you’re NOT racist? and you’re just making a rational argument are you?  OK, I’ll bite.  It’s “elective” why?  Because the woman chose to have sex and pregnancy is a known potential outcome?  If that’s your argument, then I guess we’ll have to ban, yes BAN — because that’s what these legislative actions are doing — payments for medical procedures to correct things like broken bones caused in accidents.  That certainly isn’t life threatening.  You can CHOOSE to walk funny or go on with the use of only one arm.  You CHOSE to ski, drive, fix your roof, ride a bike, ride a motorcycle, walk down your steps, get in your bathtub without a mat, play football (or any other sport) because of course injury is a known potential outcome for doing any one of these, right?  So, if you insist on calling an abortion elective, so too must treatments for all other medical conditions arising out of actions where there is the known possibility of injury be elective and barred from insurance coverage.  It’s only fair right?  You can always get a “rider” or “supplemental” insurance to cover them.  But gosh, wouldn’t that just be stupid?

Therefore, if you think that the Stupid Stupak Sepsis amendment is an acceptable compromise, then you are either

1) a religious wingnut who hates our country because you oppose our Constitution;

2) a racist; or

3) stupid

Which one is it?

If you are none of the above, here are a few things you should be defending:

1) The “status quo” is not good enough.  With the current commanding majority of control the Democratic Party currently has, we should be demanding that our leaders abide by Democratic Platform positions.  Specificially they should not be solidifying or increasing the restrictions imposed by the Hyde amendment, they should be ELIMINATING them.  Not only should the Stupid Stupak Sepsis amendment be stricken, the Hyde amendment restrictions should also be overturned.

2) All true liberals should be advocating equality and autonomy for women in all things, including their reproductive health and decisions.  This is non-negotiable from a liberal and Democrat point of view.  That is if you are a real liberal Democrat.

Any self-proclaimed liberal and our elected Democratic Party legislators who support the Stupid Stupak Sepsis amendment and refuse/fail to demand that the Hyde amendment be eliminated are traitors to the promises made to women by this party and phony, back-stabbing, liars.  It’s that simple.  I’m not even going to justify the deplorable “ends justify the means” argument for throwing us under the bus by debating it.

So, do you hate our constitution? are you a racist? or are you just stupid? If you are none of the above, repeat after me:

Women deserve equal treatment and full autonomy.  They are not political bargaining leverage.

nuff said

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Tuesday Morning Coffee and Links

Good Morning Conflucians!

The sun’s back and Hurricane Ida fizzled over the central gulf last night.  I guess we couldn’t go just one year without one tropical storm here.

Our Nation Politic:

Information continues to be released about the major who is charged with the Fort Hood Shootings.  Right wing sources continue to characterize him as just another Muslim extremist.  The reality is far more complex than that.  This story at WaPo shows a conflicted man with issues that the Army may have noticed prior to his shooting spree.

The Army psychiatrist believed to have killed 13 people at Fort Hood warned a roomful of senior Army physicians a year and a half ago that to avoid “adverse events,” the military should allow Muslim soldiers to be released as conscientious objectors instead of fighting in wars against other Muslims.

Politico has an interesting article up about the inner workings of the lobby game and the White House.

The traditional pecking order of Washington’s top trade and business groups has been thrown into disarray by the Obama administration’s far-reaching domestic agenda and its tough tactics against opponents.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, engaged in a name-calling contest with the White House that has ended, for now, with an appearance by White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel before its board, is down. The Business Roundtable, which made a conscious decision last November to find areas of common interest with the new administration, is up.

It’s the Independent Community Bankers of America and the Consumer Federation of America that are seeing their ideas prevail in the current debate over rewriting the regulatory framework for the financial industry, not the once-invincible, big New York investment banks.

Politico is also featuring a discussion on the Stupak Amendment. Here’s the contribution from Timothy Stoltzfus Jost a law professor.

While the primary impact of the Stupak amendment is to make it impossible for Americans to use the affordability credits created by the proposed legislation to purchase insurance policies that cover abortion, its scope goes well beyond that, blocking the use of any funds authorized or appropriated under the health reform legislation for abortion coverage. See this. It essentially applies the Hatch amendment, which has long applied to Medicaid program, to all of the new programs created under the House bill. It is clearly constitutional, but not necessarily wise. See this.

The intent of health care reform, as President Obama said from the outset, was to extend health insurance to Americans who do not now have it while not taking away coverage that Americans now enjoy. Reportedly, half or more of health insurance policies in the United States now cover abortion. To the extent that any Americans insured through such policies will receive affordability credits under the new legislation to purchase their health insurance, they will have less coverage after the bill goes into effect than they did before. The Hatch Act represents a long-standing policy that tax dollars will not be used to pay for abortions, honoring the consciences of many Americans who believe that abortion is wrong. It should be noted that this is a special accommodation. Many Americans (such as pacifists) believe for reasons of conscience that other government activities are wrong, but only abortion opponents are afforded this accommodation. HR 3962 as drafted continued to recognize this accommodation, providing that tax credits could not be used to pay for abortion coverage, which would have to be paid for separately. This is a just and reasonable compromise, assuring that taxes not fund abortion, but not requiring Americans to give up coverage they have because of health care reform. The Stupak amendment violates this compromise, and goes too far.

I am also troubled with the role the Catholic bishops played in this. Catholics are, of course, entitled to their opinions and their politics. But separation of church and state is a bedrock American principle, and is very important to those of us who belong to minority religions. For Congress to have to look to a particular church for permission to move legislation is frightening. Religious persecution is a very real issue for many throughout the world today. We have been very fortunate in the United States to have been largely spared its ravages. But the only guarantee that we will continue to enjoy religious freedom is the jealous protection of the separation principle. If any religion dominates politics, it has the power to dominate other religions as well. Let us not become another Iran.

The Economy:

Frederick Miskin defends bubbles and the Fed in an article today in the FT.  There’s a good discussion of that here at Naked Capitalism.

The press becomes more surreal with every passing day. If we didn’t all have a stake in the outcomes, this would make for great theater.

First we have the absurd spectacle of bankers claiming that they are doing God’s work. Great! Then they should be willing to do it for free. I don’t recall the Bible discussing Jesus getting eight or nine figure compensation (or what passed for it back then), and the Gautama Buddha, born a prince, gave up all the trappings of wealth.

Now for those who follow the markets, we have the Ministry of Truth in action on the comment pages of the Financial Times, in the form of today’s offering, “Not all bubbles present a risk to the economy,” by Frederic Mishkin. Somehow, that headline strikes me as trying to make the case, “Nuclear wars don’t have to be bad for you.”

This startling story at the Guardian has information that key oil figures were distorted by US pressure.

The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.

The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.

The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation’s latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies.

Brookings has an interesting study up on Counting the Jobs Produced by the Stimulus.  There’s also this interesting analysis on the likelihood and need for another stimulus.

In this political environment it is unlikely Congress will pass a major new stimulus package anytime soon. What is more likely – indeed, what is essential – is the continuation of stimulus programs that are currently scheduled to expire.  Last week the House and Senate extended unemployment protection for workers who have lost jobs in the current recession. These protections ought to be extended until the job market improves significantly and it becomes easier for laid off workers to find jobs. If unemployment is likely to remain over 9% for an extended time, there is a compelling case for additional public infrastructure investment. Given high unemployment in the construction and capital goods industries and federal borrowing costs that remain near a post-war low, it makes sense to invest in public capital projects over the next few years. If the federal government does not have adequate plans for such investments, it should start making them soon.

What’s on your reading list this morning?

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Good thing that Palin b*tch didn’t get elected, huh?

 

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Remember last year when the Forces of Darkness almost put “Rape Kit” Sarah and her scary lady parts in the Oval Office? Luckily, the Obamacrats spread the word that Bible Spice and her Crypt Keeper running mate intended to restrict women’s right to choose, and truth, justice and the American way were saved!

 

Just imagine what would have happened if Caribou Barbie was PILF – we might have gotten a health care reform bill that was a give-away to the insurance companies and cut-off funding for abortions (but not Viagra.)

 

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This is what feminists look like

 

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Thankfully, Barack Obama used the same “99 Problems but a b*tch ain’t one” mojo that vanquished the diabolical She-Clinton and put that Palin bimbo where she belongs.

 

As Naomi Wolf said, it was Christmas, New Year’s and Hanukkah rolled into one:

 

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God Forbid we Should Change the Status Quo

Jake Tapper of ABC News had an “exclusive” interview with President Obama today. The first part of the interview was shown on ABC News hour tonight, more will be shown on Nightline tonight, and the rest on Good Morning America tomorrow. Tapper asked the President about the abortion language in the “health care reform” bill passed by the House on Saturday night.

“I laid out a very simple principle, which is this is a health care bill, not an abortion bill,” Obama said. “And we’re not looking to change what is the principle that has been in place for a very long time, which is federal dollars are not used to subsidize abortions.

Saying the bill cannot change the status quo regarding the ban on federally funding abortions, the President said “there are strong feelings on both sides” about an amendment passed on Saturday and added to the legislation, “and what that tells me is that there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we’re not changing the status quo.”

Call me crazy, I thought Mr. Hope ‘n Change was elected because he wanted to change the status quo. Can someone please explain to me why it is so important to make absolutely sure there is no change in the status quo on funding abortions? And furthermore, doesn’t the Stupak amendment already guarantee a very big change in the status quo? So does that mean Mr. Obama will do something about the Stupak amendment to return us to his beloved status quo? It’s not really clear, but no, I don’t think he plans to do anything but sit around waiting for someone else to take responsibility for this ongoing nightmare of a health care bill.

Obama told ABC News’ Jake Tapper that he was confident that the final legislation will ensure that “neither side feels that it’s being betrayed.”

“I want to make sure that the provision that emerges meets that test — that we are not in some way sneaking in funding for abortions, but, on the other hand, that we’re not restricting women’s insurance choices,” he said.

I don’t know what the heck that means except that Mr. Obama is not going to take any kind of stand. He’s going to carry on with the “on the one hand…on the other hand” crap until someone else take responsibility for limiting women’s rights so dramatically that many of us are still in shock. But Mr. Bipartisanship is still trying to please both “sides.” Of course both of those “sides” are mostly made up of very rich, old men.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said today that the President is not going to “take sides” on the Stupak amendment controversy.

The White House on Monday signaled it would keep its distance in the increasingly vocal debate over whether health insurance reform should include language related to abortion.

When asked whether the president supported Rep. Bart Stupak’s (D-Mich.) amendment to prohibit the public insurance plan from covering abortion services, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs dodged the question — multiple times.

“Well, ask me that right before Christmas and the end of the New Year,” Gibbs said during today’s press briefing, noting the president still expected to sign a healthcare bill before the year’s end.

The press secretary later clarified, “We will work on this and continue to seek consensus and common ground.”

Now there’s a surprise. Has Barack Obama ever taken a stand on anything? I don’t think so. And once again he’s going to vote “present” while women are stripped of what reproductive rights they had left. Good luck finding “common ground” on the abortion issue. If there is any common ground, it’s a very small strip of land indeed.

Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal is reporting that the house bill *only* makes older people pay twice as might for health insurance as older people. These are the figures:

under the House’s 2-to-1 cap, a 20-year-old would pay $3,169 in annual premiums and a 60-year-old would pay $6,339 for comparable plans, if they both had incomes above the subsidy-eligible level. Under a bill passed by the Senate Finance Committee, which had a 4-to-1 age-rating ratio, the 20-year-old would pay $2,258 and the 60-year-old would pay $8,357.

I have never in my life had to pay more than $2,000 for health insurance. The idea that I could ever afford to pay more than $6000 or $8,000 per year is unimaginable to me. What have these so-called Democrats done to us?!!

We are so screwed. I guess I should be grateful that I’m past menopause, so at least I won’t be needing an abortion. It looks like some young women are going to be finding out what it was like when I was in college. No birth control, no abortion, no help for women in crisis.

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On a New Form of Indentured Servitude

This is one of Al Clayton's powerful photographs in the 1969 book Still Hungry in America, which chronicled poverty and hunger in the American South.

There’s so much going on in the USA that warrants attention these days that it’s hard to know where to start.  But, since I’m an economist I’m going to start here.

“There are families not eating at the end of the month,” said Stephen Quinn, executive vice president and chief marketing officer at Wal-Mart Stores, and “literally lining up at midnight” at Wal-Mart stores waiting to buy food when paychecks or government checks land in their accounts.

Among the steps Wal-Mart is taking to address the changes in shopping habits, Mr. Quinn listed an overhaul of the retailer’s private-label brand, Great Value, which is promoted in commercials describing how families can fix dinners with Great Value products “for less than $2 a serving.”

The really sad thing about this blurb is that I got it from the Media & Advertising section of the NY Times. It did not come from the op-ed page, it did not come from the business section nor the politics section.  It’s there because Walmart is having to work on its product mix to reflect hunger in those families living below the poverty living in one of the richest countries in the world –The United States–and I am deeply ashamed as a citizen of that country to read this anywhere STILL after all these years.

There’s been an academic discussion about the disconnect between what some of our nation’s statistics tell us is going on and the reality on the ground.  There was a conference this weekend to talk about re-working the way the nation calculates its GDP.  This is extremely important.  Because of globalization, we are most likely over stating our performance in way that is throwing off our policy targets.  We are losing per capita income from the lowest to middle quintiles and we are hemorrhaging well-paying jobs for our most vulnerable citizens.  They are not able to get enough to live on and they are not wealthy enough to buy health care insurance or to pay premium taxes to feed an already over-bloated, costly, and inefficient industry.

A widening gap between data and reality is distorting the government’s picture of the country’s economic health, overstating growth and productivity in ways that could affect the political debate on issues like trade, wages and job creation.

The shortcomings of the data-gathering system came through loud and clear here Friday and Saturday at a first-of-its-kind gathering of economists from academia and government determined to come up with a more accurate statistical picture.

The fundamental shortcoming is in the way imports are accounted for. A carburetor bought for $50 in China as a component of an American-made car, for example, more often than not shows up in the statistics as if it were the American-made version valued at, say, $100. The failure to distinguish adequately between what is made in America and what is made abroad falsely inflates the gross domestic product, which sums up all value added within the country.

American workers lose their jobs when carburetors they once made are imported instead. The federal data notices the decline in employment but fails to revalue the carburetors or even pinpoint that they are foreign-made. Because it seems as if $100 carburetors are being produced but fewer workers are needed to do so, productivity falsely rises — in the national statistics.

The most interesting thing about this is that the argument is that our workers supposedly have become increasingly more productive over the last decade or so. What we might be measuring are impacts from trade instead.  This goes a long way in explaining why the returns on labor (MRP or marginal revenue product) and the returns on capital are becoming so disparate.

The statistical distortions can be significant. At worst, the gross domestic product would have risen at only a 3.3 percent annual rate in the third quarter instead of the 3.5 percent actually reported, according to some experts at the conference. The same gap applies to productivity. And the spread is growing as imports do.

That may help to explain why the recovery from the 2001 recession was a jobless one for many months and why the recovery from this recession is likely to generate few jobs for many months.

In addition, more detailed import data would help to explain wage inequality, by linking some low wages more accurately to particular industries exposed to import competition.

On another front, many argue that labor productivity is rising faster than the pay of workers who made the greater productivity possible. That argument would be watered down if more accurate data showed that productivity had been overstated.

Just as more and more working class families fall into the cracks, we also have the latest sham of health care where families now struggling to make ends meet with face a tax if they don’t buy health insurance from overpriced insurance industry plans.  Let me point you back to a piece in Politico for this beauty.

Page 29, sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says: “The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”

And the rest of the bill is clear that the Finance Committee does, in fact, consider it a tax: “The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.”

The bill requires every American, with few exceptions, to carry health insurance. To enforce this individual mandate, the Senate Finance Committee created the excise tax as a penalty for people who don’t have insurance – and it can run as much as $3,800 a year per family.

The House bill also refers to the penalties for not carrying insurance as a tax. It calls for a “tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage” and amends the tax code to implement it.

I have to ask what it is wrong with this country?  It seems to pushing its poor to the brink of destruction during a time of when its also funding (through direct funds and also extremely low interest rates) arbitrage profits for the already rich at places like Goldman Sachs.   We might as well just call them all Princes and call ourselves the new corporate serfs because we’re going to be paying for our indentured status for some time under what’s going on right now. We’re tithing for the benefit of huge financial institutions be they investment bankers, insurance, or mortgage brokers.   They’ve become the residents of the neoGothic cathedrals of the 21st century dark ages of America.  We’re back to ‘Still Hungry in America’ and this is ever so wrong.

Oh, meanwhile, via CNN breaking news:

The Dow hits 10,170 in intraday trading, its highest level in more than a year.

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Monday Morning News and Views

Hurricane Ida batters coast of Cancun, Mexico

Good Morning, Conflucians! This morning more than ever, I’m so grateful for all of you, and so glad we have this blog where we can discuss, argue and rant about politics and news events. I can’t begin to imagine what I would have done with out TC and all of you Conflucians over the past couple of years. Thank you all for being here! I hope you have a marvelous Monday, despite the bad news.

This has been a very tough weekend to be a liberal who saw through Obama from the beginning when so many other other people who previously seemed sane and reasonable just gulped down the Koolaid and adjusted their blinders so as to see only “hope ‘n change” filtered through their rose-colored glasses. I don’t enjoy saying “I told you so” anymore. The consequences of electing an inexperienced, narcissistic, apparently amoral, misogynistic, homophobic man to the presidency are becoming all too clear. And those results are tragic.

From where I sit, the pain of the unconscionable betrayal of women by the President and the U.S. House of Representatives still feels fresh. Stateofdisbelief said it so well yesterday in a comment on Quixote’s post:

Yep. Last night was it for me. They can all pound. F#$K Sestak, F#$K Specter, F#$K Holden. I am done. No help. No phone calls. No canvassing. No money. No vote.

I hate them all.

There is no one that can argue with a straight face that women should vote for Democrats. There is nothing. They burnt the bridge.

It’s over for me too. I can never again consider myself a Democrat. We need a new party to represent those of us who were FDR, JFK, LBJ, WJC, HRC Democrats–there is no longer room in our former party for liberals who believe in equal rights for all and compassion for our fellow humans. Both of the parties now represent only the superrich and giant multinational banks and corporations. We’re on our own now. As Quixote wrote so eloquently:

But women are just, as always, the expendable canaries in the coal mine. Their rights are toast, which means so are everyone else’s.

I’m going to shout that: WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE TOAST WHICH MEANS SO ARE EVERYONE ELSE’S.

Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they’re just privileges. And privileges can be taken away….

The right to control one’s own person is fundamental. Even the right not to be murdered is secondary, since killing is allowed in self-defence.

So what’s happening in the news this morning? It’s hard for me to work up much enthusiasm for surfing the ‘net right now, but I’ll post a few links and you can add your own in the comments.

It looks like Hurricane Ida has weakened to a Category 1, so I hope Dakinikat and her fellow N’awlins citizens will be able to safely weather the storm. Fingers crossed.

Hurricane Ida chugged toward the Gulf Coast, and despite warnings extending more than 200 miles across several states, residents seemed to take the first Atlantic hurricane to target the U.S. this season in stride.

Authorities said the hurricane weakened early Monday to a Category 1 storm, with 90 mph winds, and could make landfall as early as Tuesday morning.

The New York Times has a very good story on the background of the shooting at Fort Hood.
Fort Hood Gunman gave signals Before his Rampage

Major Hasan’s behavior in the months and weeks leading up to the shooting bespeaks a troubled man full of contradictions. He lived frugally in a run-down apartment, yet made a good salary and spent more than $1,100 on the pistol the authorities said he used in the shootings.

He was described as gentle and kindly by many neighbors, quick with a smile or a hello, yet he complained bitterly to people at his mosque about the oppression of Muslims in the Army. He had few friends, and even the men he interacted with at the mosque saw him as a strange figure whom they never fully accepted into their circle.

It is beginning to look like Major Hasan was a very likely suffering from clinical depression at the very least. He had turned to his religion for solace, but he needed much more help than any religion could provide. Sadly, it appears that many of his superiors either ignored or simply did not notice the ominous signs and they did not listen to those who tried to warn them.

Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away

I go to a Mad Men blog these days to chill out from politics.  If you follow Mad Men, you know that Betty Draper found out who her husband really is and that, added to all of the other emotional insults she’s taken over the years, has forced her to come to some decisions in her life.  The first is that she doesn’t love him anymore.   She’s been flirting with a Republican political operative (back in the days when there was such a thing as a liberal Republican) but she rebuffs him in his office when he wants to boff her on his sofa.  It’s tawdry, she says.  And she walks away.  Two episodes later, he proposes to her.  He still hasn’t slept with her.

One of the commenters at Basket of Kisses says that Betty is using a classic negotiation technique: she comes to the table prepared to walk away from it.  There is a line she isn’t willing to cross.  (We’ve seen Betty do tawdry so we know she can.  It’s just that her other little fling didn’t have any high stakes attached to it.)  When it comes to the rest of her life, Betty is being very choosey.

Last year, we were hotly criticized for not jumping on the Obama bandwagon.  We were called every name in the book.  We were told we were jeopardizing the lives of other women because we wouldn’t budge even in the face of Deomcratic scare tactics when it came to abortion.  Some of this was because we doubted the sincerity of a party that scrubbed all references of reproductive rights from most of their candidate’s websites.  But mostly it was because there was a line we were not prepared to cross.  We were not going to let the Democratic party benefit from our votes when we knew they had disenfranchised many of us during the primaries.  We were not going to let the party take our votes for granted.  If they wanted them, they needed to give us something first.  They didn’t and we didn’t.  We walked away.

In retrospect, I think that was a good move on our part.  It revealed the Democratic party for what it really was.  They were mean and nasty to us.  They called us “bitter knitters”.  We were old, uneducated women.  We were racists.  Jon Favreau sent us an FU postcard.  For awhile there, before the economy tanked, they were very worried that we would actually make a difference.  There is power in walking away.

I blame the party for depriving my friends of the pure joy of seeing the first African-American elected as president of the United States of America.  I watched a sea of elation in Bryant Park in Chicago on a TV in a little bar in Manhattan and suddenly, I was one with that crowd.  I was filled with joy and exhileration.  But no one around me was celebrating.  The women I was with saw themselves as roadkill on the way to Obama’s victory.

But we walked away.  And now we have been vindicated.  They really were the awful, big business compromised, evangelical voter toe suckers and all around unprincipled players we thought they were.  The might have run us over but at least we didn’t hop into bed with them.

The rest of the left blogosphere has a choice.  They can continue to be fucked over by these assholes or they can preserve the rest of their dignity and walk away.  The road to rehabilitation starts by ripping up your party card and mailing it to Donna Brazile.  Then, join the rest of us.  We’re the third party.  We’re the rapidly growing group of voters in every state that designates themselves as unaffiliated.  We’re the potential 30% of elected female officials who will change this country.  We’re the people who don’t have to hold our elected officials accountable anymore because we are through dealing with them. And I think we have finally achieved the critical mass to become our own third party.

Just walk away.

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You have no rights

The Stupak amendment, the greatest rollback of rights for women in decades is now in that thing the House has been calling a “Health Care” bill. (Links from Reclusive Leftist, The Confluence, WiredLeft.)

But women are just, as always, the expendable canaries in the coal mine. Their rights are toast, which means so are everyone else’s.

I’m going to shout that: WOMEN’S RIGHTS ARE TOAST WHICH MEANS SO ARE EVERYONE ELSE’S.

Rights are for all. When only some people have them, they’re just privileges. And privileges can be taken away.

Think through the consequences of what equal rights for all really means, and you wind up with a system that doesn’t look much like what we have now. There’s lots more about it here, but this is the bit (paraphrased) that concerns us right now:

The right to control one’s own person is fundamental. Even the right not to be murdered is secondary, since killing is allowed in self-defence.

Abortion muddies the argument only because some people believe the fetus is a person with legal rights greater than those of the mother since it can require her life support. There is nothing to stop women from believing this and living accordingly because there is a right to control one’s own body. Depending on beliefs, an individual’s dilemma about abortion may be very complex.

But fair social policies are simple. Either everyone can live according to their beliefs, or nobody can. And personhood is necessarily a belief, a social or religious category. It’s not possible for it to be a matter of objective fact. Biology can only determine who belongs in the species Homo sapiens, but no cellular marker lights up when someone is due to get legal rights.

I’ll repeat: personhood is necessarily a matter of belief, whether that’s based on religion or social consensus.

Therefore those who oppose abortion because they believe the fetus is a person with special status have to hope they are never successful in legislating how others handle their pregnancies. If they are, it means that exceptions could be made to the right to control one’s own person.

Once that principle is admitted, then there is nothing to stop a majority with different beliefs from legislating forced abortions.

Over-population is, after all, the source of the environmental problems killing the planet.

There is nothing to stop an aging population from requisitioning a kidney from healthy people walking around with a spare.

There is nothing to stop doctors from performing medical experiments on you for the public good.

There is nothing to stop the majority from deciding all those old folks are too expensive to live.

Really. Nothing. Once you take away the right to control your own body.

Extreme? Sure. So why is it okay when applied to women?

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Just so we’re clear

The apologists are busy running around trying to plug all the leaks in the unity boat arising from the Stupak amendment last evening which was followed by the subsequent passage of the final bill.  The meme is that the Stupak amendment merely continues the “status quo.”  No. It. Does. Not.  Here is the Stupak amendment.

“No funds authorized or appropriated by this act (or any amendment made by this act) may be used to pay for any abortion or to cover any part of the costs of any health plan that includes coverage of abortion, except in the case where a woman suffers from, a physical disorder, physical injury, or physical illness, that would, as certified by a physician, place the woman in danger of death unless an abortion is performed including a life endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself, or unless the pregnancy is the result of an act of rape or incest.”

As noted by Jon Walker at Firedog Lake:

The Stupak amendment would effectively ban insurance companies from selling insurance plans that cover elective abortion on the individual and small group market. It would be one of the most far reaching national restriction placed on abortion in decades. It could also potential be used by insurance companies to allow them to legally discriminate against low income Americans.

Abortion would be the only legal medical procedure that the bill would ban insurance companies from covering. Abortion will be the only legal medical procedure the bill will officially “ration.” By voting for the amendment, 64 Democrats and all but one Republican voted to put a government bureaucrat between you, your insurance provider, and your doctor. If you choose to have an abortion, your doctor is willing to refer the procedure, and your insurance provider is willing to pay for the procedure, this amendment will have a government bureaucrat prevent that from happening. For all the talk about small government, these representatives are more than happy to give the government more power as long as it is used to restrict a woman’s right to choose.

Yet, that is not the worst of it.  While the bill contains provisions that spell out mandatory care that must be covered by insurance, several items are missing, and they all deal with women’s basic health needs. Sharon Lerner over at The Nation breaks it down:

But just as the prognosis for our healthcare system is beginning to look sunnier, yet another complication has emerged: so far, reform legislation has failed to require insurers to cover some basic preventive services for women, or prevent providers from charging extra for them.

None of the bills emerging from the House and Senate require insurers to cover all the elements of a standard gynecological “well visit,” leaving essential care such as pelvic exams, domestic violence screening, counseling about sexually transmitted diseases, and, perhaps most startlingly, the provision of birth control off the list of basic benefits all insurers must cover. Nor are these services protected from “cost sharing,” which means that, depending on what’s in the bill that emerges from the Senate, and, later, the contents of a final bill, women could wind up having to pay for some of these services out of their own pockets. So far, mammograms and Pap tests are covered in every version of the legislation.

Granted, Congress can’t–and shouldn’t–get into the business of spelling out every possible cause for a trip to the doctor. No one wants the process to collapse under a mountain of requests from special interest groups à la the Clinton mess in 1993. But women, half of all adult patients, are not a special interest group. And since both the House and Senate bills include lists of specific services that must be covered by health insurance companies and be provided without asking patients for additional money, it’s hard to understand why all the services provided in a basic well-woman visit to the gynecologist isn’t on them along with maternity care, newborn care, pediatric dental and vision services, and substance use disorder services.

There’s a pattern here yet the kool-aid folks are still too blind to see it.  They’re busy hoorahing it up as a “Historic victory” for their “Historic President.”  I’m flat-out disgusted.

Just what have women gained?  Mandatory payments to private insurance carriers that don’t cover their gender-related needs?  Whatever happened to the Equal Protection Clause?  The Civil Rights Act?  Aren’t these issues specific to our gender that are being blatantly excluded?  Are we supposed to just swallow hard and be happy for everyone else while we continue to be the sacrificial lambs?

The other pssst rumor being passed around is that Obama has promised that the Stupak amendment will be gone from the final bill.  Oh really?  And just how is that going to happen when the Senate bill is even worse than the House bill?  Also, where are his assurances that mandated coverage for basic women’s healthcare needs will be ADDED to any final bill?  Right…{{{crickets}}}.  Even more outrageous is the idea that both parties are discussing coverage of “prayer treatments” while basic reproductive care is off limits.

In 2008 we were told that we HAD to vote for the Democrats because they were the only party that cared about our reproductive rights and that they were the defenders of women’s rights and choice.  It is outlined in the DNC platform.

We oppose the current Administration’s consistent attempts to undermine a woman’s ability to make her own life choices and obtain reproductive health care, including birth control. We will end health insurance discrimination against contraception and provide compassionate care to rape victims. We will never put ideology above women’s health.

Yet last night, these same pols chose to side with religious interests, once again, while throwing more than half of our country’s population under the bus.

Next time any feels compelled to lecture me with the “no where else to go”  routine, save your breath.  Last night was the last straw.

And lest anyone need an education on what a real advocate for women’s reproductive healthcare looks like, please watch this video (h/t to quixote).

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