AFSCME – The F**king Union That Works For You!

NSFW – Profanity

GOP Rep. Eric Cantor got mad at the union and prepared this faux ad.  His office has apologized, but the video has gone viral.

Bill would let doctors refuse to do abortions if Legislature OKs

The newly appointed Governor of Arizona, a republican, Jan Brewer who has a:

very consistent pro-life track record

may get the opportunity to sign a bill proposed in the AZ legislature that:

combines provisions from a handful of anti-abortion bills vetoed by former Gov. Janet Napolitano in past years. Among them, the proposal would:

Similarly, the proposal – House Bill 2564 – would allow any hospital worker or health professional to refuse to participate in an abortion or dispense medication to abort a pregnancy.

• Require that minors seeking an abortion first receive written, notarized consent from a parent or guardian.

• Mandate a 24-hour “reflection period” before any adult woman could undergo the procedure.

• Bar any individual who is not a physician from performing a surgical abortion.

Gov. Jan Brewer became Governor after former Gov. Janet Napolitano accepted the position of Homeland Security Secretary in the Obama Administration. Arizona’s State Senate and House are controlled by Republicans.

I wonder if Barack Obama will sign the Freedom of Choice Act (like he promised) which will put this conscience rule and law business to rest. I have doubt.

on edit, here is the summary of FOCA from wiki:

The Freedom of Choice Act (H.R. 1964/S. 1173) was a bill in the 110th United States Congress which “declares that it is the policy of the United States that every woman has the fundamental right to choose to bear a child; terminate a pregnancy prior to fetal viability; or terminate a pregnancy after viability when necessary to protect her life or her health.

It prohibits a federal, state, or local governmental entity from denying or interfering with a woman’s right to exercise such choices; or discriminating against the exercise of those rights in the regulation or provision of benefits, facilities, services, or information. Provides that such prohibition shall apply retroactively.

It also authorizes an individual aggrieved by a violation of this Act to obtain appropriate relief, including relief against a governmental entity, in a civil action.”[1]

Here is Obama promising to sign FOCA as his first act in office:

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Change that will make you want to vomit….

Phil Bredesen, TN Governor in the running for HHS.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Two governors appear to lead the pack when it comes to heading the Health and Human Services Department for President Barack Obama.

One of those governors is already under attack. The other was seen Thursday night meeting at the Ritz Carlton with Obama’s senior adviser.

The pick of Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen would clearly cause Obama problems with some of the advocacy groups calling for a health care overhaul this year. One of those groups, Health Care for America Now, put out a statement Friday saying it “couldn’t think of anyone more wrong for health care reform or more wrong for America.”

The advocacy groups have battled Bredesen over the years for his efforts to cut spending in the state’s TennCare program, which provides health care for the poor.

Please watch:

Wednesday: Brace yourself, Sirota, Obama’s landing in the Hudson

Normally, we don’t respond to our critics.  There are plenty out there who hate our guts and make it their mission in life to criticize us. There is something about people like us who will not submit to enormous loads of peer pressure that just drive some sites to insensible frothing.  We ignore them.  But when David Sirota wrote his petulant tantrum piece for OpenLeft, well, that’s a different kettle of fish.  David is(was) a real journalist who wrote some searing prose back in the day.  He’s not like the talentless beligerents who stalk and provoke us for some reaction that they can later blow out of proportion.  Indeed, David didn’t even mention us by name.

I looked for some clues in David Sirota’s biography that would explain how it was that he went so totally off the rails last year for Obama.  Sirota is part of the self-appointed Creative Class.  We real creative class members would appreciate it if these wannabees would stop using our class designation but we’ll put that aside for the moment.  David was 5 years old when Reagan took office.  He was 18 when Bill Clinton took the oath.  David doesn’t know anything about The Great Society or the War on Poverty other than what he heard at his pappy’s knees.  David went to Northwestern University for his journalism degree.  Not too shabby.  His choice of school and major indicates a degree of financial independence that those of us from working class backgrounds did not enjoy.  We who were the first in our families to go to college picked majors that would help us earn a living.  There was no poetry and politics in our future.  I could be completely wrong about David but he seems to be one of the people Pacific John talked about in the Audacity of Democracy.  He’s a child of the Reagan years.  Reagan put the wealthy and well connected back in the driver’s seat.

Sirota has a bone to pick with the Clintons.  I’m not sure that Sirota was really paying attention to what happened in the 90’s.  I understand.  It’s hard to be focused when you’ve got mid-terms and Friday night keggers.  Essentially what happened was that a young, charismatic governor and his brilliant wife came upon DC like gangbusters and got their asses handed to them by the Villagers.  They had high-faloutin’ hopes for healthcare reform and equality for gay soldiers and open-minded Supreme Court justices and an administration that looked like America.  And they got trashed for that.  Then the Democrats misused their franking privileges and their bank to float bad checks and lost Congress.  The Republicans swept to power in 1994 and that was the end of The Man from Hope.  He spent the next 6 years dealing with an overtly hostile Congress and media.  But a funny thing happened.  Despite all of the investigations, which lead to nothing more than a girl in a beret, Clinton left the country in peace with a surplus.  Did he achieve all he wanted?  No, I don’t think so.  He made a lot of compromises along the way.  Sometimes he tried to acommodate Republicans when he thought business would profit.  Sometimes, he compromised because he just didn’t have the numbers to prevail and all he could do was cushion the blow.  But those of us who remember the triumphant night in Little Rock in November 1992 took a collective sigh of relief when the bad old days of the Republican era of Reagan and Bush *finally* came to an end.  We didn’t know that the evil f%&(s were lying in wait in the media and were going to undermine this guy and his wife for 8 long years.

But for Sirota, no good deed goes unpunished.  The Clintons are to blame for EVERYTHING.  The only thing I can attribute this to is the incessant braying of the Limbaugh types and the nauseating amount of propaganda that has permeated every “news” outlet.  Something about the Clintons really upset the Villagers to a degree that I have never seen before.  It was relentless.  I can only speculate that something about them, and particularly Hillary, was a threat to their way of life, class or economic strata.  Sirota, having lived in this atmosphere for most of his adult life, did not pick up on it that Hillary Clinton was the real change agent.  Her election would have finally made the Villagers impotent.  They would have been forced to adapt to a new environment, one where nothing they said would make a damn bit of difference.  She would have been elected in spite of the Village, not because of them.  Just think of that squandered opportunity.

What happened to Sirota last year is in some respects a repeat of what happened to those of us who were 10 years older when the Clintons took power.  He must have been relieved that a Democratic president would finally take over and put things right.  That was our hope as well.  But we knew that it would be a disaster to put Obama in charge because he was not ready.  Now, David can go on forever rationalizing about Hillary and what she might have done.  But Hillary was off of Sirota’s list early for war related reasons.  For some bizarre reason, he can’t accept that Obama was off of our radar for experience related reasons.  In fact, I would have preferred Biden or Dodd to Obama.  (Kucinich, Edwards and Richardson were non-starters to me for various reasons).  Obama was simply at the bottom of my list because I knew he would be over his head.

There are many things that Sirota isn’t getting about the past election that I’d like to clear up for him:

• Obama ran a terrible campaign.  I know that goes against conventional wisdom but that’s why it is conventional and not always right.  Obama threw tons of money in the big states and lost.  He went to the convention only 17 delegates ahead, all of them from MIchigan, a state where his name wasn’t on the ballot.  And the only reason he got those ill-gotten delegates is because the RBC lowered the bar for him.  They were so determined to see an African-American on the ballot that they ignored the fact that most primary voters did not vote for him.  They saw that his campaign didn’t have the votes to make him the nominee and there was no damn way he was going to win a new primary in Florida, so they rigged the primary in his favor.  That’s what Obama’s nomination amounts to- a rigged vote.
• The rigging of the primaries was not a loss for just Hillary Clinton.  And while we’re at it, let’s get something straight: Secretary of State is not some consolation prize for not getting to be president.  There is no consolation prize for that.  She lost and she will never get a second crack at it.  She’s dealing with it the best way she can and we have moved on from that.  No, the real loss from the rigging of the primaries was for the voters.  They got snookered into thinking that their votes actually counted but really, a bunch of guys in a backroom cut a deal and cut the voters out.  That’s why we’re here, David.  We’re the people whose votes were callously cast away because we wanted someone else.  And we were the majority.
• Barack Obama sailed to victory on a sea of cash provided by some very wealthy and well connected people.  Those people don’t give a damn about the voters either.  All they wanted was to see which of the candidates was most susceptible to their siren song.  Obama was their dude.  He took the money and because he is a weak politician with no coalitions that he has banked over the years through hard work. He is beholden to the moneymen and the Villagers who are their front guys.
• Barack Obama is out of his depth and we voters are screwed.  This is the scariest part of the whole scenario.  A responsible president would have come into this office with a set of plans and policies to meet the crisis that was already in play before he was inaugurated.  He should have been making the morning talk show circuit months ago laying the groundwork for ideas that he planned to implement.  He should have hit the ground running with his cabinet appointments and had a deep bench in case of a nanny problem.  We are in a global economic crisis and there are rumors that back in September, the world nearly plunged back into the Dark Ages financially.  And what do we get?  He appears to be making it up as he goes along.  He’s giving way to the centrists and Republicans.  He still doesn’t have a cabinet secretary for HHS and Labor.  What is going on??

Obama’s response so far has been inadequate, short sighted, arrogant, ill-prepared and ineffective.  As a result, the recession will be longer, deeper and more painful for all of us.  His behavior and actions are a direct result of his 1.) lack of experience and 2.) lack of political philosophy.  It turns out that he really believed his post partisan shtick, which makes him not brilliant after all. In essence, what we have is a jumbo jet preparing to make a crash landing in the Hudson and instead of an experienced pilot at the controls, we have a guy who has never even soloed.  This is about OBAMA, David, not Hillary.  Obama has spent his whole career in campaign mode, not governing mode.  This fact should have been clear to you last year.  It was clear to us.

Now, do I blame Obama for the fact that the economy is in the mess it’s in?  No.  No one here would make that mistake.  But we do blame him for making it worse than it has to be because he is not the person we need right now.  Hillary might have been better but that’s something we’ll never know.  What we *do* know is that a year ago at this time, most of us bitter losers thought that Obama was not ready for prime time.  That is why we did not vote for him.  We didn’t say, “Oh, yeah, the economy is going to tank.  The signs are all there.  But wouldn’t it be cool to have Obama?  He totally makes us cry sometimes.”

Our eyes were open, David.  We knew what was at stake.  Don’t tell us to STFU.  You and your dreamy eyed Obot friends got us to this point.  You owe the rest of the country an apology for not sticking up for the integrity of the voting process.  You owe us big time for not standing up to sexism and propaganda instead of indulging in it.  You lost your heads in a frenzy of Obama love while the rest of us trembled with fear of an upcoming economic downturn.

We kept our heads and now we have the right and obligation to speak up.   And we’re going to do that every chance we get.

Tuesday Night Open Thread

Papa u mau mau (what’s on your mind?)