Multi Medium

Purity

Perhaps I’m just imagining it, but the enemies of womens’ choice seem to be a lot more universally opposed to the Nelson “compromise” in the Senate bill than liberal healthcare advocates are to its lack of a public option.  Despite the fact that Nelson is a lot closer to Stupak than No Public Option is to Public Option, and the fact that reconciliation could be used to pass the public option, but not to pass Stupak.

At any rate, I certainly don’t see a whole lot of bishops or Blue Dogs saying, “Come on!  This is a historic once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to roll back women’s rights!  Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!”

I really really hated having to choose between choice and the public option, but choosing between choice and forcing people to buy crappy private insurance policies they probably can’t afford to use isn’t very difficult at all.  But one that, amazingly, Obama and the Democrats are still on the brink of getting wrong.

It’s a double epic fail.  Like saying that everyone has to give up their bathroom privileges in exchange for mandatory shit sandwich lunches every day (”But look! Now everyone gets a lunch! Isn’t that awesome?”).

Add comment March 18th, 2010 at 07:25am Posted by Eli

Hysterical Right-Wing Wanker Of The Day

According to Ken Blackwell, Dawn Johnsen’s (still disgracefully languishing) nomination to head OLC is exactly like Stalin exterminating millions of Russian Jews.

President Obama is big on civility. He talks a very good game. But his nominee for a top slot at the Department of Justice–Dawn Johnsen–is a leading exponent of incivility. Johnsen worked with the ACLU for years. And she joined ARM–the so-called Abortion Rights Mobilization–to strip the Catholic Church of its tax-exempt status because of its pro-life advocacy. The Catholic Church eventually won that case–but not until it had spent years and millions of dollars defending itself. The Catholic Church was just the biggest ARM target. If they had succeeded against the Catholics, they surely would have come after the Southern Baptist Convention, the National Association of Evangelicals, and The Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod.

If Mr. Obama is serious about civility he needs to withdraw Dawn Johnsen’s nomination. If she is confirmed, we will see a radical anti-Catholic, pro-abortion zealot influencing policy thoughout the Justice Department—but also policy throughout the entire federal government.

What we are witnessing right now is an anti-Christian programmatic pogrom. What is a “pogrom” it’s the word that describes anti-Jewish raids by Cossacks and others in czarist Russia, but a programmatic pogrom best describes what is happening right now. These are not isolated attacks. And while we no longer have Cossacks to threaten, we now have left-wing bloggers who actually call themselves Kossacks (after the Daily Kos).

Those poor beleaguered Christians.  It’s a wonder they’ve survived this long with all the adversity and persecution they must face as a tiny disempowered minority.

Add comment February 18th, 2010 at 07:22am Posted by Eli

Icing Of Suck

Up until today, I could at least say that for all its faults (and it is truly a politically poisonous trainwreck in every way), at least the Senate bill didn’t screw women over as badly as the House bill.  Well, so much for that:

From the New York Times:

Mr. Reid’s amendment includes tighter restrictions on insurance coverage for abortions sought by Mr. Nelson. Health insurance plans would not be required or forbidden to cover abortions, but states could prohibit the coverage of abortions by plans that are offered for sale through new government-regulated marketplaces.

The amendment also includes a special extension solely for Nebraska: increased federal contributions to the cost of an expansion

The previous language about segregating private vs public funds within the exchanges is reportedly tougher on women. We’re still reading the details, but from what we’ve seen, this is the general framework:

So . . .

1. The Feds will require you to purchase insurance

2. Feds say this is fair because we’ve got these nifty exchanges that will magically transform the currently concentrated insurance markets and make them competitive, affordable [not possible].

3. Only these exchange plans will have any significant federal enforcement for even the weak insurance regulations and price oversight.

4. States may ban abortions for all plans in the exchange, so women are not only stripped of current rights but left completely unprotected.

And you wanna know the really wizard brilliant hilarious part?  It’s still not good enough for Stupak.

It’s like we’ve gone from having a Democratic Party and a Republican Party to having a Republican Party and a Batshit Insane Republican Party.

2 comments December 19th, 2009 at 01:44pm Posted by Eli

Democrats Determined To Address Critical Unwanted Baby Shortage

Between Stupak and now Reid, it’s looking more and more like “centrist” Democrats are more interested in turning healthcare reform into a pro-pregnancy, anti-woman trojan horse than they are in actually, you know, reforming healthcare.

Just when it appeared that Congress was about to erase one of the social-conservative legacies of the George W. Bush administration — abstinence-only sex education programs — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is trying to bring it back.

Even though House and Senate appropriators voted four months ago to eliminate all spending on the programs, which according to most research do not keep teens from having sex or reduce teen pregnancies, the Nevada Democrat included a provision in the Senate health care bill that would restore some of the money.

That has thrown advocates on both sides of the sex education debate for a loop.

The president of the social-conservative Family Research Council, Tony Perkins, who has been and will continue opposing the drive for a health care overhaul, conceded that the Senate bill “would give a surprise boost to an abstinence movement.” By contrast, Marcela Howell, a spokeswoman for the liberal Advocates for Youth, a longtime opponent of abstinence-only programs, said Reid’s addition to the bill was “an unfortunate move.”

Awesome.  You know, I had always hoped that the Democrats would finally find a way to render the GOP irrelevant, but I never thought they would do it by making it unnecessary.

Add comment December 6th, 2009 at 03:10pm Posted by Eli

Grotesque Irony Of The Week

How. Dare. They.

Citing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call to civil disobedience, 145 evangelical, Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian leaders have signed a declaration saying they will not cooperate with laws that they say could be used to compel their institutions to participate in abortions, or to bless or in any way recognize same-sex couples.

“We pledge to each other, and to our fellow believers, that no power on earth, be it cultural or political, will intimidate us into silence or acquiescence,” it says.

These bastards actually invoked Martin Luther King’s name in their mission to oppose civil rights.  That’s even more monstrous than Dick Armey studying Saul Alinsky.

Add comment November 20th, 2009 at 10:49pm Posted by Eli

Well Worth Trying

So Mel Watt pretends that his amendment to the Fed audit bill would increase transparency rather than destroying it, while Bart Stupak continues to pretend that his anti-abortion amendment to the healthcare reform bill does nothing more than preserve the status quo of the Hyde amendment, which prevents government money from paying for abortions.

If those are the fig leaves they choose to hide behind, then why don’t progressive Democrats call their bluffs by introducing amendments that actually do what the Watt and Stupak amendments purport to do?  Even if they don’t pass, it would be revealing to watch Watt and Stupak and their allies insist that these alternative bills are bad without being able to clearly explain why.

Actually, since the Stupak amendment has already passed in the House, the alternative would have to be introduced (and passed) in the Senate, and then prevail in the conference committee that reconciles the House and Senate versions.  The final vote on the merged bill would therefore be the point at which Stupak would start to have trouble articulating.

It’s one thing to call these wankers out – it’s quite another to actually force them to either give in or admit that they’re liars.

(NOTE: I’m not a huge fan of the Hyde amendment either, but it’s still far better than Stupak and probably politically impossible to repudiate altogether.  I’d like to see a fight to repeal it, just not as part of the fight for healthcare reform, which is uphill enough as it is.)

Add comment November 18th, 2009 at 07:25am Posted by Eli

They’re Called “Representatives” For A Reason…

Bishop Tobin seems a little unclear on the concept.

Look, if Kennedy’s constituents are pro-choice, then Patrick Kennedy is not doing his job if he opposes it.  Remember when his Uncle John had to reassure the American people that we would be his boss, not the Catholic Church?  Isn’t that still what we want from our elected officials, that they’re accountable to the voters first and foremost?  If Kennedy’s constituents don’t want freedom of choice, then they can vote him out.

Add comment November 12th, 2009 at 06:44pm Posted by Eli

ZOMG The Democrats Want To Abort Your Grandma!

The latest offensive stupidity from Sarah Palin, who, quite frankly, is capable of little else:

Speaking to a fund-raising banquet of Wisconsin Right to Life, the former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee asserted that if policy-makers don’t believe a child in the womb is valuable, then “perhaps the same mind-set applies to other persons.”

“What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn’t have a whole lot of productive years left,” Palin asked an audience of about 5,000 who paid $30 each to hear her speak in an airplane hangar-like exhibition hall at the Wisconsin state fairgrounds just outside of Milwaukee. “In order to save government money, government health care has to be rationed… [so] than this elderly person that perhaps could be seen as costing taxpayers to pay for a non-productive life? Do you think our elderly will be first in line for limited health care?

“And what about the child who perhaps isn’t deemed normal or perfect per someone’s subjective measure of their use or questionable purpose in the eyes of a panel of bureaucrats making our health care decisions for us,” she continued.

Well, you know, if Grandma or Trig is camped out inside a woman’s uterus, then yes, I believe that woman has the right to remove them.  But I don’t see what that has to do with healthcare reform.

1 comment November 8th, 2009 at 01:32pm Posted by Eli

Nope, No Right-Wing Violence Or Incitement At All…

Oh yeah, all those accusations about the right wing inciting violence are totally overblown…

Internet radio host Hal Turner — accused of inciting Catholics to “take up arms” and singling out two Connecticut lawmakers and a state ethics official on a website — was taken into custody in New Jersey late Wednesday after state Capitol police in Connecticut obtained a warrant for his arrest.

Turner, who has been identified as a white supremacist and anti-Semite by several anti-racism groups, hosts an Internet radio program with an associated blog. On Tuesday, the blog included a post that promised to release the home addresses of state Rep. Michael Lawlor, state Sen. Andrew McDonald and Thomas Jones of the State Ethics Office.

(…)

The blog of the “Turner Radio Network” recounted the matter, then included the following remarks in a section labeled “commentary:”

“It is our intent to foment direct action against these individuals personally. These beastly government officials should be made an example of as a warning to others in government: Obey the Constitution or die.”

And, the post continued, “If any state attorney, police department or court thinks they’re going to get uppity with us about this, I suspect we have enough bullets to put them down, too.”

But wait, there’s more!

Anti-choice groups across the nation are busy insisting that since they didn’t personally pull the trigger, their protests, harassment, and hate speech are not to blame for the murder of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller.  Yet some anti-choice activists — even now — seem only too happy to aid and abet the crazy ones who will resort to violence.   Or else why, three days after the assassination of a medical doctor who provides late-term abortions, did Jill Stanek post on her blog photographs of the clinic of Dr. LeRoy Carhart, another physician who provides late-term abortions and who has said he is willing to take over providing services at Dr. Tiller’s clinic?

By way of introduction, Stanek writes, “Let’s take a station break to view photos of Carhart’s “nondescript building,” taken in March 2009 on the day it reopened following refurbishment after a fire (NOT blamed on pro-lifers). It was almost immediately shut down because Carhart reopened without getting an occupancy permit, as I previously reported, and was running his electricity off a generator…”  She and her readers just want “to take a look.”  Why?  She wants to prove her point that it’s a dingy building?  Over Carhart’s safety, and the safety of his staff and patients?

Jill Not-Stanek at Feministe has a great comment on the right’s perverse sense of victimhood:

Hilariously, Stanek has the nerve to suggest that pro-choicers are “intimidating” anti-choicers when we say that calling abortion a “holocaust,” referring to abortion providers as “baby-killers,” and publicizing personal information about abortion providers just may encourage violence against them. Get that one straight, kids: Criticizing the terms that anti-choicers use is “intimidation” bordering on a violation of Constitutional rights. Shooting, bombing, assaulting, stalking, harassing and threatening abortion providers, or encouraging others to do so (and providing them with the necessary tools and information), is “a movement of nonviolence.”

Yes, that seems totally reasonable – the Republican perspective in a wingnutshell.

Add comment June 4th, 2009 at 07:19am Posted by Eli

Co-Monsters Of The Week

Slightly shorter Randall Terry: We must continue to peacefully call abortion providers bloody mass murderers who thumb their noses at the law, and if some brave Christian patriot poor misguided soul should take that the wrong way, well, what can you do.

Much shorter Randall Terry: Totally not our fault.  When do we eat?

Shorter BillO: Will no-one rid me of this troublesome doctor?

Add comment June 1st, 2009 at 07:08pm Posted by Eli

The Party Of Death’s Army Of Bad Apples

Why is it that the Party Of Life, the party that’s supposedly all about God and Jesus, is so positively gleeful about murder?  After a right-wing nut with Operation Rescue’s phone number in his car shoots a late-term abortion provider in the head outside of his church, the right-wing’s reaction can only be described as gloating.  And it’s not just the smug, sneering “he had it coming” tweets and comments from random crazies.  Check out the response from Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry:

George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.   I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller’s killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder.

Those men and women who slaughter the unborn are murderers according to the Law of God. We must continue to expose them in our communities and peacefully protest them at their offices and homes, and yes, even their churches.

And:

“George Tiller was a mass murderer and we cannot stop saying that,” Terry said. “He was an evil man – his hands were covered with blood.”

No regret, no remorse, no sorrow – Terry just wants to remind everyone that Tiller was a mass murderer who committed murder in an evil murdery way.  In fact, Tiller is the only murderer in Terry’s statements.

But God forbid that anyone should view Tiller’s murder as some kind of unflattering reflection on the anti-abortion movement, or proof that the threat of violent right-wing extremism is real and not just the fantasy of a left-wing DHS.

No, the right wants each and every murderer and attempted murderer (and there are many, especially among the Orwellianly-named “pro-life” movement) that they spawn with their violent hate rhetoric to be viewed as just one lone nut, an isolated case that has absolutely nothing at all to do with their political movement or culture, even as they egg them on and celebrate their actions, either openly or behind closed doors.

Just a few bad apples, acting completely on their own with no direction from anyone else, just like at Abu Ghraib.

1 comment June 1st, 2009 at 11:34am Posted by Eli

Victory For Bullshit

This is very discouraging:

As Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) moves to ease a backlog of executive branch nominations, he suggested on Tuesday that he does not have the votes to bring up President Barack Obama’s pick to run the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel.

“Right now we’re finding out when to do that,” Reid said, responding to a question about the status of Indiana University law professor Dawn Johnsen’s nomination to the Justice post. “We need a couple Republican votes until we can get to 60.”

Johnsen has come under fire from some social conservatives, who have voiced concerns over her positions on abortion and the war on terror.

(…)

Reid indicated Tuesday that at least a few Democrats would also oppose Johnsen, making the task of reaching 60 votes to avert a Republican filibuster even more difficult.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) “is very concerned” about Johnsen’s nomination, press secretary Clay Westrope said, pointing to her tenure as the legal director of NARAL Pro-Choice America as a point of concern.

Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who recently joined the Democratic Conference after 29 years as a Republican Senator, has stated that he will vote against Johnsen’s nomination when it hits the floor.

I can’t believe this is actually happening.  Johnsen is ridiculously qualified for a job where pro-choice views are barely relevant, and even if they were, she would certainly be a lot better at  keeping ideology out of the OLC’s rulings than any of her Bush-era predecessors that no-one had a problem confirming.

And if she’s anti-torture, well, isn’t the OLC supposed to be against stuff that’s illegal?  Isn’t that the whole point?

This will be a truly ignominious failure for Reid and Obama if they can’t get Johnsen confirmed, and a very disturbing precedent for future appointees – including judges.

Add comment May 13th, 2009 at 07:21am Posted by Eli

The GOP’s Remarkable Evolution

1980s Republicans: “ZOMG Cadillac-driving welfare queens are stealing your hard-earned tax dollars!”

2009 Republicans: “ZOMG Nancy Pelosi and white racist liberals want to commit eugenocide on minorities and poor people!”

You’ve come a long way, babies.

Add comment January 29th, 2009 at 07:07am Posted by Eli

Democrats Seek To Deprive Poor People Of Their Right To Have More Children Than They Can Afford

Why do the Democrats hate children and poor people?

Christian Defense Coalition calls Speaker Pelosi’s decision to add contraceptives to the economic stimulus package bigoted, racist, elitist and anti-child.

It is unthinkable that the Speaker of House would try to stimulate the economy by seeking to reduce the number of children.

Our political leaders should do all within their power to protect, support and encourage America’s children, not crush and destroy them.

This policy would lay the foundation for racism and eugenics because it would seek to reduce the number of children to the nation’s poorest economic groups, which tend to be persons of color and other minorities.

(…)

Speaker Pelosi’s actions are even more troubling and hypocritical when one realizes she herself has five children. Perhaps she thinks they have more value because they are white European children.

Rev. Patrick J. Mahoney, Director of the Christian Defense Coalition, states, “I was stunned to learn that on a national news program Speaker Pelosi defended a move to make contraceptives a part of the economic stimulus package. This is one of the most bigoted and anti-child policies I have ever seen embraced by a public official.

“It is hard to believe that this kind of legislation is coming out of America. One would expect it more from China or other oppressive governments.

“Speaker Pelosi shows a clear lack of compassion and understanding of social justice by laying the groundwork for racist and eugenic social policies. Clearly the focus of the distribution of these contraceptives would center on minority communities which tend to be poorer and more economically challenged.

“This situation is even more troubling when one realizes that Speaker Pelosi has five children herself. Does she believe that children born to white parents deserve the right to live more than other children?

Yes, that’s right: Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats want to inflict a genocidal holocaust on the poor and minorities by allowing them to choose whether or not they have to have children every time they have sex.  Monstrous.  Simply monstrous.  Why do those racist Democrats want to deprive poor people of the opportunity to support five children on a minimum wage salary?

(h/t Digby)

3 comments January 26th, 2009 at 09:07pm Posted by Eli

The Right Of Conscience Rule

President Bush pretends to be a fan of that which he does not possess:

The Bush administration yesterday granted sweeping new protections to health workers who refuse to provide care that violates their personal beliefs, setting off an intense battle over opponents’ plans to try to repeal the controversial measure.

(…)

The far-reaching regulation cuts off federal funding for any state or local government, hospital, health plan, clinic or other entity that does not accommodate doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other employees who refuse to participate in care they find ethically, morally or religiously objectionable. It was sought by conservative groups, abortion opponents and others to safeguard workers from being fired, disciplined or penalized in other ways.

Hopefully President Obama will roll this back quickly – or, better yet, migrate it to the military and intelligence services…

Add comment December 18th, 2008 at 09:15pm Posted by Eli

Mark Morford Is Shrill, With A Capital SHRI

He points out that any remotely pro-choice or progressive women who support Sarah Palin are perhaps, um, misguided:

Truly, among women in the know and especially among those who fought so hard to bring Hillary Clinton to the brink of history, nausea and a general recoiling appear to be the universal reactions to Palin’s sudden presence on the national stage, stemming straight from the idea that there’s even a slight chance in hell such an antagonistic, anti-female politico could be within a 72-year-old heartbeat of becoming the most powerful and iconic woman of all time.

They say: You’ve got to be kidding me. They say: This is what we get? This could be our historic role model? Two hundred years (OK, more like 2000) of struggle, only to have this nasty caricature of femininity try to hijack and mock and undermine it all?

It cannot be true, they say. The universe must be joking, would not dare dump such a homophobic, Creationist evangelical nutball on us, this anti-choice, God-pandering woman who’s the inverse of Hillary, this woman of deep inexperience who abhors birth control and supports abstinence education and shoots exhausted wolves from helicopters and hates polar bears and actually stands for everything progressive women have resented since the first pope Swift-Boated Eve.

But now, the truly bizarre part. Despite this defiant outcry, a great many pundits and reports have suggested that, just after the Palin VP announcement, a sizable chunk of predominantly white women nevertheless abandoned their tentative support for Obama and leapt into the lyin’ arms of McCain, presumably simply because of Palin’s gender and PTA momhood.

And thus did the harrowing wail go out: WTF? Could it be true? Are cadres of formerly Obama-leaning white women really so enchanted by Palin’s gender and motherhood status that they openly ignore the fact that she basically wants to shove women’s rights back about five decades? Can it be so simple, crude, sad?

(…)

Maybe we’re just not used to seeing the female voting demographic depicted this way. Truly, it’s usually men who are the knuckleheaded ones, who will flip their vote merely over a single inconsequential issue (”I like everything about Obama except he supports gun control, and I love my guns, so I guess I gotta go for McCain”). Women, according to the eternal mythology, are no such dupes, and choose more wisely, from deeper intuition, instinct. Right?

Wrong. Maybe this is our simple summary, the blaring headline we should be reading in the wake of recent events. “Easily duped Palin supporters prove: Some white women are just as dumb as men.” Is that all it is? Maybe so.

There is hope, though:

Ah, but there is good news. It appears the bloom is already off the McPalin rose, the baby bump she gave McCain is already gone, as everyone from here to Wasilla is sick to death of hearing about her. Every day that goes by it comes clearer that the Sarah juggernaut is no juggernaut at all but merely an increasingly disturbing PR stunt, and a bit of a disgrace for John McCain himself, whose once-noble aura of integrity and class has essentially vanished.

A potent backlash is coming fast….

Morford then points to how the $1 million the McCain campaign raised in the wake of Arctic Storm Sarah was dwarfed by the $10 million the Obama campaign raised, suggesting that Palin horrifies Democrats far more than she galvanizes Republicans.  I know she sure as hell horrifies me.  Hopefully by November she’ll horrify everyone else who gives even the remotest damn about choice and women’s rights.

(h/t OrangeClouds)

2 comments September 23rd, 2008 at 07:18am Posted by Eli

Keroack Hits The Road

Excellent:

The head of the federal office responsible for providing women with access to contraceptives and counseling to prevent pregnancy resigned unexpectedly yesterday after Medicaid officials took action against him in Massachusetts.

The Health and Human Services Department provided no details about the nature of the Massachusetts action that led to Dr. Eric Keroack’s resignation.

Five months ago, Keroack was chosen by President Bush to oversee the department’s Office of Population Affairs and its $283 million annual budget. The pick angered Planned Parenthood and other abortion-rights groups that viewed him as opposed to birth control and comprehensive sex education. Keroack had worked for an organization that opposes contraception.

(…)

Keroack told his staff in a letter yesterday that he became aware of the action being taken against his private medical practice in Massachusetts. He said he immediately hired a lawyer to initiate an appeal. He did not elaborate on why the action was taken.

“My attorney feels confident that misunderstandings have occurred and that upon further review of the facts during the appeals process, this action will be reversed,” he wrote. “However, the appeals process will present a significant distraction to my ability to remain focused on my duties.”

Well, that’s Oxytocin Man taken care of. Hopefully we can get rid of Oxycontin Man next.

(h/t Digby)

3 comments March 30th, 2007 at 10:09pm Posted by Eli

Choices

Well, now that it’s the day after Blog For Choice Day, I guess I can put my two cents in on the subject:

If they’re really serious about reducing or eliminating abortions, the pro-lifers should stop trying to make it harder to get an abortion, and start making it easier to not get one. If our schools teach real sex-ed (none of this ineffective abstinence bullshit); if contraceptives are readily available; if indigent mothers have enough support options that they feel they can take care of a baby, then abortions will plummet. Most of them will be for cases of rape/incest or where the mother’s life is in danger – scenarios where only a tiny sliver of anti-choice psychos believe abortion is not justified.

The fact that most so-called pro-lifers are against giving women these additional options to avoid the Ultimate Evil of abortions, proves that they are not pro-life, but rather pro-pregnancy, pro-birth, anti-choice, anti-women, and anti-sex. Fie upon them.

1 comment January 23rd, 2007 at 07:26am Posted by Eli

NARAL-Mindedness

Digby has (as usual) an excellent post on the ongoing NARAL selloutathon. He contrasts NARAL’s accommodationist, triangulating strategy with the NRA’s absolutism, which is a comparison that came to my mind in the wake of their lame excuses about not being able to account for cloture votes for the Alito nomination on their “scorecard.” Anyone think the NRA wouldn’t find a way to keep track of who voted for cloture for a zealously anti-gun Supreme Court nominee, or that any such congresscritter would be receiving any endorsements or thank-you letters(!) in the foreseeable future? Didn’t think so.

Digby focuses primarily on how NARAL is allowing the center to shift drastically to the right, but only alludes briefly and indirectly to the way they’re moving the left to the right. By giving their blessing to a pro-life definition of when life begins, and embracing the doctrine of fetal pain sensitivity (I really hope they’re wrong on that – I just automatically assume that any scientific claims coming from the far right are garbage, and I haven’t been wrong yet), they have given them the imprimatur of progressivity, allowing feckless or naive Democratic politicians to freely adopt without fear of any repercussions or stigma – after all, who wants to be to the left of NARAL on choice? Protecting choice is their whole raison d’etre, right?

And that, of course, is the problem. Any anti-choice position adopted by NARAL will not make NARAL more credible, because everyone thinks NARAL is an advocacy group for women’s choice. All it does is make that position look liberal and pro-choice, because it’s been endorsed by a liberal and pro-choice organization.

Now, with all that being said, can anyone explain to me why NARAL’s membership has not staged a revolt? I know NARAL chief Nancy Keenan is a Catholic who appears to be personally opposed to abortion (!!!), but is the membership really that oblivious to what’s being advocated in their name, or are they in on the scam? I would think that if they’re informed, committed progressives, they would have been lashing some serious back starting with NARAL’s endorsement of Joe Lieberman. Can anyone out there offer any insider perspective on this? Is NARAL just the pro-choice version of the rights-would-be-nice-but-what-we-really-want-are-tax-cuts Log Cabin Republicans?

3 comments December 8th, 2006 at 12:24pm Posted by Eli

Initiate Craw Ejection Sequence

Just a couple of things that are still stuck in my craw about the CT Democratic primary:

1) Planned Parenthood’s media person explaining to CT Bob, apparently with a straight face, that they had no way of factoring Lieberman’s cloture vote on Alito into their “report card.” This is not just another vote that you factor into an overall rating. This is a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court. If you are a single-issue, pro-choice organization, you should be launching a full-court press as soon as you realize that Bush has nominated a staunch pro-lifer. You should be leaning on every single senator you have influence with. This should be Thing One on your radar, and you should consider any betrayal to be a huge deal, not a minor and insurmountable bookkeeping challenge. The lack of seriousness and commitment that Planned Parenthood (and NARAL) display toward their own cause is just stupefying.

2) Apparently whenever Lieberman is running for re-election, he polls every single day (link by way of Jane). This means that he should be well aware that his Democratic constituents are fed up with his lack of representation. And yet, he always responds with inept campaign maneuvering, never with attempts to improve his quality of representation. And assuming he polls some when he’s not campaigning, he’s pretty obviously ignoring his constituents then, too. Or else he’s not polling at all, in which case he doesn’t even care what they think when it’s not election time. In either case, it is just further proof that Lieberman cares a lot more about hanging on to his job than he does about actually doing it.

3) Despite all his bragging in the debate about how much pork he’s brought home to CT with his Valuable Seniority, CT is ranked second-to-last in pork per capita (link via ifthethunderdontgetya). Now consider how many times Lieberman has helped out the Republican majority – surely he should have been able to call in some favors for his state in exchange for selling out his party? And yet, it looks like he didn’t even try. Either he believes so strongly in the Republican cause that he has supported it out of the goodness of his heart, or else he’s hoarding those Republican markers for election season, so he can cash them in on behalf of his true constituency: Joe Lieberman.

3 comments July 13th, 2006 at 06:38am Posted by Eli

NARAL Or Never

Sigh.

Jane at firedoglake has a couple of great posts up about two huge national pro-choice organizations, Planned Parenthood and NARAL, both of whom have inexplicably chosen to endorse Joe Lieberman in his primary against Ned Lamont. Remember, this is the same Joe Lieberman who voted against the filibuster of pro-life Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court confirmation, and the same Joe Lieberman who said that it would not be a big deal if a Catholic hospital denied an abortion to a rape victim because it would just be a “short ride” to a more… accommodating hospital. Even the heads of the Planned Parenthood and NARAL’s CT organizations voted for Ned Lamont in the state Democratic convention.

This is as amazing as it is appalling. PP and NARAL are single-issue organizations. They are supposed to be all about a woman’s right to choose. Any time you have a single-issue organization, or blog, or individual, you expect them to be adamantine and unyielding about their one pet issue. For example, if Lincoln Chafee voted to end the filibuster of an anti-gun Supreme Court nominee, but then voted against confirmation, can you imagine the NRA giving him a pass on it and endorsing him over a solidly pro-gun candidate, or encouraging their members to send him letters thanking him for his vote “against” the gun-control bill? I sure can’t, and I’m very fanciful and creative.

I understand the need for compromise within the framework of a political party. A political party encompasses dozens, if not hundreds of issues – it is simply impossible to expect consensus on all of them, so party establishments, candidates, and voters alike must all make decisions based on what mix of positions they can live with that still advances most of their core goals. No-one ever gets to vote for a candidate they agree with 100%, unless they’ve been brainwashed.

But a single-party organization is dedicated to advancing the country towards a single goal – it has no rationale for endorsing a candidate who will work against that goal over a candidate who will work for it. I could understand not beating up a reliably pro-choice candidate over a minor transgression (we’ll pretend that I was able to think of a good example of a “minor” transgression) , but a lifetime appointment for a reliably anti-choice creep with all kinds of ethical issues is not minor. It represents an existential peril for the pro-choice cause, essentially putting the Supreme Court one 86-year-old heartbeat away from overturning Roe vs. Wade. Yet PP and NARAL not only took Joe’s betrayal in stride, they actually patted him on the back for it.

As some of the FDL commenters have suggested or hinted at, the only possible explanations (other than just plain cluelessness) are either some sort of financial quid pro quo from Lieberman or his supporters, or a perverse fear that if they actually win the battle for abortion rights once and for all, they will become unnecessary and cease to exist (ironically, this may in fact be a mirror image of the Republicans’ approach to abortion as an electoral tool). Either way, it looks like both organizations have sold out their animating principles for the shoddiest of reasons.

UPDATES: The other popular explanation is that PP & NARAL don’t want to anger incumbents, because they might get vindictive or something if re-elected. If PP & NARAL are afraid of angering bad incumbents like Lieberman, then why even bother getting involved in electoral politics at all?

Matt Stoller (by way of Atrios) has an excellent post on the consequences of this failure to hold Lieberman accountable. Money quote: “In allowing Senator Lieberman to not filibuster Alito and still backing him for his reelection campaign against a reliably progressive candidate, the leaders of NARAL and Planned Parenthood have decided to throw away their political capital.” Pathetic.

6 comments July 11th, 2006 at 08:43pm Posted by Eli

Stem Cell Madness

Tell ya what: When Dobson and his minions can line up adoptive parents for every single unwanted embryo in America, whether in a fertility clinic or a womb, then, maybe, we can talk about banning stem cell research and some abortions. However, the sad, harsh fact remains that there are always going to be more embryos than there are people who want them, and I see nothing wrong with putting the ones in fertility clinics to good use – if the Dobgoblins want to “rescue” some of them via adoption, good for them, but that doesn’t magically invalidate either the enormous research value or the unwantedness of the un-adopted embryos.

And as I think about it some more, please, let them start with the fertility clinic embryos, which are not inside a woman’s body and therefore not disrupting anyone’s life or future. Get caught up on those, then work their way through the women who don’t mind carrying a baby to term but balk at taking care of it for whatever reason (like, say, because those very same anti-abortion crusaders have no interest in any kind of government assistance or support to indigent mothers). Once they’ve got those unwanted embryos taken care of, then they can work on pioneering non-fatal embryo/fetus extraction techniques to replace abortions for women who don’t want to be pregnant (age, health, rape/incest, etc.). No-one has to keep a baby or a pregnancy they don’t want, no unborn babies die – everybody wins!

So what are y’all pro-lifers waiting for? You should be getting right on that! What’s that? You say you don’t want to go through another pregnancy? You can’t afford to take care of another baby? How interesting…

Update: With a nod to Otter, the fundies should worry about adopting unwanted born children before they start freaking out over the unborn ones.

9 comments May 25th, 2005 at 06:32pm Posted by Eli

Homentum?

This can’t be good…

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean says his party needs to do more to appeal to voters who have been lost because of unease over “values,” including people who oppose abortion and parents who are dismayed by TV programs they find offensive for their children.

“We need to be a national party, we need a national message, and we need to understand why people in dire economic straits – people who certainly aren’t being helped by Republican policies – why they vote for George Bush,” he said. “We need to respect voters in red states who want to vote for us, but we make it hard for them by not listening to what they have to say.”

Man, I show hope Ho-Ho knows what he’s doing. From here it looks like the DLC managed to slip something severed under his covers…

1 comment April 15th, 2005 at 08:03pm Posted by Eli

Is The Lining Silver Or Black?

I’ve been reading and pondering the Terri Schiavo case some more, looking for ironies and opportunities, which are often one and the same. Of course, there is the obvious one, which is that the Republicans are overreaching in their mad quest to placate their rabid religious/pro-life base, and that the American public in general is rather horrified by the whole ghoulish affair. While that is gratifying, I think it is overly optimistic to think that anyone will still remember this glorified sideshow in 2006, much less 2008, or that a whole lot of election hay can be made with it.

What is more intriguing to me is the continuation of the pattern of expanding federal and majority power at the expense of the states and the minority. The former is especially ironic, as the Republicans have traditionally been the (very selective) champions of “state’s rights”, using it as an excuse to give states the go-ahead to turn a blind eye to or actively encourage racism and pollution.

Where I’m going with this is that the Democrats should explore the possibility that this power grab, coupled with the 2000 election decision, may have weakened states’ rights constitutional standing, giving the federal government the right to step in when the state is not adequately protecting an individual’s rights. Granted, that’s not really what’s going on in Florida, but they’re pretending it is. As with 2000, they also claim that this is not a precedent, but I’m skeptical that anything can simply be declared not a precedent.

In any case, the next time the Democrats see a legitimate instance of individual rights being trampled while the state government looks the other way, they can point to 2000 and Terri Schiavo as justification for the feds stepping in. I would also like to see them bring this case up every single time someone’s life support is about to be turned off against their spouse/parent/son/daughter’s will, as with Bush’s Futile Care Act from back in his Texas governor days.

And I would like to see the Democrats cataloguing and filing away all of the Republicans’ tricks for consolidating majority power, especially the “nuclear option” if it comes to that, and using them mercilessly if they regain power in 2006 or 2008 or… ever (we’re going to turn into Russia if we don’t get serious election reform, but that’s another story altogether). It might not do much good with W. still wielding veto power (at least in theory; no-one’s ever seen him actually use it), but if we can get a Democrat in the White House, he or she is going to need FDR-like power to start reversing all the damage the Republicans have done at home and abroad.

The only sticking point would be how to make this temporary: What I would love to see is 2-4 years of rubbing the Republicans’ noses in their own parliamentary shit, and throwing their own self-serving words back in their faces every time they squeal about it, followed by a magnanimous bipartisan bill that enshrines into law all of the power-sharing, minority-protecting courtesies the Republicans blew up, like the 15-minute voting window, redistricting only after the census, and possibly the filibuster. Preferably with some strong and eloquent verbiage about why the bill was necessary, to be trotted out when future congressmen attempt to remove or circumvent it, as they undoubtedly will. I really do like the jiu-jitsu idea of using the Republicans’ own blind self-interest against them, both by taking advantage of the power they grabbed, and then using it to make them beg for a return to the comity they destroyed.

What can I say, I’m an idealistic dreamer. In the real world, if the Democrats ever do retake control, the only suspense will be whether they use their new power to exact revenge, or just hand the club back to the Republicans and beg for more beatings because it makes them feel loved.

And, of course, if the Dems don’t start winning elections, then the Republican race towards single-party dictatorship will accelerate, as they continue to chip away at the integrity of the Constitution and the electoral process, unchecked by emasculated Democrats and a judiciary increasingly infiltrated by hard-right ideologues.

Add comment March 22nd, 2005 at 06:38pm Posted by Eli