Submitted by Elaine Magliaro, Guest Blogger
I have written a number of posts for the Turley blog about The GOP’s war on women and proposed extreme anti-woman legislation which has been sponsored by members of the Republican party (here, here, here, here, here, and here). In a piece for Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer said that Paul Ryan has a “long history as a culture warrior”—and that people are taking “a fresh look” at it since Mitt Romney named Ryan as his running mate. I thought I’d do some investigating of my own to find out more about the Wisconsin “culture warrior’s” position on women’s issues.
According to Laura Bassett, Rep. Ryan “voted to defund federal family planning programs, authored a budget that dismantles Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, all of which disproportionately aid and employ women, and voted multiple times to prevent women in the military from using their own money to pay for abortions at military hospitals.”
Sylvia Casablanca, a medical doctor and holistic psychotherapist, wonders if Ryan will now “head the conservative war on women.” Casablanca wrote in a VOXXI article that Ryan “sounds, thinks, acts, so much like Rick Santorum!” She added that both men have spent much of their public lives “battling the things that matter most to women.” She continued, “He [Ryan] has been opposing contraception, eulogizing women who quit successful careers to be stay-at-home moms (like their own wives have done), and vowing to defund Planned Parenthood and repeal the Affordable Care Act. And, Ryan voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.”
Casablanca feels that Ryan’s stance on the issues mentioned above are “zilch” compared to his “support of a federal ban on abortion in all circumstances, including incest and rape.”
In her Mother Jones article, Mencimer also wrote the following:
What isn’t so well known about Ryan’s record, though, is that one piece of legislation he supported is so extreme that it would have turned Romney’s children into criminals.
The Sanctity of Human Life Act, which Ryan co-sponsored, would have enshrined the notion that life begins at fertilization in federal law, thus criminalizing in vitro fertilization—the process of creating an embryo outside of a woman’s womb. In IVF, doctors typically create multiple embryos and then only implant the healthiest ones in the woman. Some of them stick and become babies, and some don’t. The embryos that don’t make it to the womb are either frozen for later use or destroyed. The Sanctity of Human Life Act, if passed, would make all those embryos “people” in the legal sense, so if they aren’t used or don’t become babies after being implanted, they would essentially become murder victims under the law.
H.R. 212: Sanctity of Human Life/Personhood Bill
Sponsor’s Summary: To provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization.
Excerpt from the text of H. R. 212:
SEC. 3. DEFINITIONS.
For purposes of this Act:
(1) FERTILIZATION- The term ‘fertilization’ means the process of a human spermatozoan penetrating the cell membrane of a human oocyte to create a human zygote, a one-celled human embryo, which is a new unique human being.
(2) CLONING- The term ‘cloning’ means the process called somatic cell nuclear transfer, that combines an enucleated egg and the nucleus of a somatic cell to make a human embryo.
(3) HUMAN; HUMAN BEING- The terms ‘human’ and ‘human being’ include each and every member of the species homo sapiens at all stages of life, beginning with the earliest stage of development, created by the process of fertilization, cloning, or its functional equivalent.
Link to MSNBC Hardball Video: Revisiting Ryan’s extreme pro-life positions: Chris Matthews talks with Kate Michaelman, former head of NARAL, and Politico’s Maggie Haberman about Paul Ryan’s extreme pro-life stance, and his support for a federal ‘personhood’ law.
In addition, Rep. Ryan is a cosponsor of some other “extreme” anti-woman legislation that has been introduced in Congress. To wit:
H.R. 3805: Ultrasound Informed Consent Act
Sponsor’s Summary: To ensure that women seeking an abortion receive an ultrasound and the opportunity to review the ultrasound before giving informed consent to receive an abortion.
H.R. 3: No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act
Open Congress Summary: This bill would make permanent and expand the Hyde amendment restrictions on the use of federal funds for abortions. It seeks to prohibit even indirect funding streams that may potentially come in contact with abortion services. For example, it would deny tax credits to companies that offer health plans that cover abortions and it would block anybody with insurance that covers abortions from receiving federal subsidies or medical cost tax deductions, even if the abortion portion is paid separately with personal funds. Women who use tax-free Medical Savings Accounts would have to pay taxes on the costs of abortions.
H.R. 358: Protect Life Act aka “Let Women Die” Bill
Open Congress Summary: Amends the new health care law so that no federal money could be applied to health insurance plans that cover elective abortions, even if the abortion coverage is paid for entirely with private funds. It also states that a federal agency can not force a health care provider that accepts Medicare or Medicaid to provide abortion services, even in cases when the mother’s life is endangered.
From Human Rights Watch:
US: House Vote Puts Women at Risk
Bill Would Permit Hospitals to Let Women in Need of Care Die
(Washington, DC) – The United States House of Representatives approved a bill on October 13, 2011, that would put women’s lives at risk, Human Rights Watch said today. The bill, if it becomes law, would reverse longstanding federal policy requiring hospitals to provide life-saving care regardless of expense, Human Rights Watch said.
The Protect Life Act, HR 358, would amend the healthcare reform law to grant hospitals far-reaching powers to deny patients abortion care, without any exception for emergency situations. US law currently requires hospitals receiving federal funds to provide emergency care to anyone in need up to the point at which they can be stabilized or transferred, if the original hospital is incapable of providing the care they need.
“The misnamed Protect Life Act is about allowing women to die if they need an emergency abortion,” said Meghan Rhoad, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It is a vicious attack on women’s rights and on the most basic right to life.”
The Paul Ryan Vision: Ban Abortion, Defund Contraception, Outlaw In Vitro Fertilization
What do you think about Paul Ryan’s position on women’s issues?
SOURCES
Paul Ryan: the ‘Personhood’ Crocodile? (Huffington Post)
Paul Ryan Sponsored Fetal Personhood Bill, Opposes Family Planning Funds (Huffington Post)
Paul Ryan, new head of the Republican war on women? (VOXXI)
Bill Press: The Paul Ryan-Mitt Romney ticket: trouble for GOP (Newsday)
Sandra Fluke: 8 Points on Ryan’s Voting Record on Women’s Issues (Politic365)
Rep. Paul Ryan Supported the “Let Women Die” Bill (Blog for Choice)
How Did Your Representative Vote on the “Let Women Die” Bill? (Blog for Choice)
See How Your Lawmaker Voted on the “Let Women Die” Bill, H.R.358 (Prochoice America)
Sandra Fluke: Paul Ryan on women’s issues — so bad it’s unbelievable … but true (Lean Forward/MSNBC)
Five Reasons Why Paul Ryan Is Bad For Women’s Health (Think Progress)
The Paul Ryan Vision of America: Ban Abortion, Defund Contraception, Outlaw In Vitro Fertilization (Democracy Now)
List of Bills Sponsored and Cosponsored by Paul Ryan (Open Congress)
Does anyone who has had an opportunity to see or get to know Paul Ryan actually believes he wants women to die? Getting our debt under control is vitally important to the future of the nation and Defunding “wants” instead of “needs” is a great idea.
Yes, Jim I do. He believes women are expendable, second class citizens whose rights don’t mean a thing. How do I know that? By his actions.
Ledbetter: ‘Paul Ryan scares me to death’
Paul Ryan has done everything he can to make the gender gap in polling even worse for Mitt Romney, Equal Pay advocate Lilly Ledbetter and Salon.com reporter Irin Carmon join The Last Word to discuss why adding Ryan to the GOP ticket could alienate women voters.
http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-last-word/48697589#48697589
I think it’s sickening how people demand that women kill as many babies as possible, just sickening.
Jim,
The ED Show – Rep. Ryan hasn’t ‘run the numbers’ on Romney’s budget
rudy,
“I think it’s sickening how people demand that women kill as many babies as possible, just sickening.”
Who is demanding that women kill as many babies as possible?
Paul Ryan’s Extreme Abortion Views
Mitt’s VP pick is a known fiscal conservative, but his social ideology is at least as radical. Michelle Goldberg on Ryan’s insinuations that women who choose abortion could be jailed.
by Michelle Goldberg
Aug 11, 2012
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/11/paul-ryan-s-extreme-abortion-views.html
Excerpt:
By now, you surely know, if you didn’t already, that Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick, wants to privatize Social Security and turn Medicare into a voucher system. You might have read that, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, his economic plan “calls for radical policy changes that would result in a massive transfer of resources from the broad majority of Americans to the nation’s wealthiest individuals.”
Less attention has been paid, though, to Ryan’s hard-right positions on social issues. Indeed, on abortion and women’s health care, there isn’t much daylight between Ryan and, say, Michele Bachmann. Any Republican vice-presidential candidate is going to be broadly anti-abortion, but Ryan goes much further. He believes ending a pregnancy should be illegal even when it results from rape or incest, or endangers a woman’s health. He was a cosponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, a federal bill defining fertilized eggs as human beings, which, if passed, would criminalize some forms of birth control and in vitro fertilization. The National Right to Life Committee has scored his voting record 100 percent every year since he entered the House in 1999. “I’m as pro-life as a person gets,” he told The Weekly Standard’s John McCormack in 2010. “You’re not going to have a truce.”
Indeed, Ryan exemplifies a strange sort of ideological hybrid that now dominates the GOP. On economic issues, he’s a hardcore libertarian who once said, “[T]he reason I got involved in public service, by and large, if I had to credit one thinker…it would be Ayn Rand. And the fight we are in here, make no mistake about it, is a fight of individualism versus collectivism.” Yet when it comes to women’s control of their bodies, he quickly turns into a statist. “In the state of nature—the ‘law of the jungle’—the determination of who ‘qualifies’ as a human being is left to private individuals or chosen groups,” he wrote in a 2010 essay titled “The Cause of Life Can’t Be Severed From the Cause of Freedom.” “In a justly organized community, however, government exists to secure the right to life and the other human rights that follow from that primary right.”
For anyone who wants to know how Ryan thinks, that essay is worth reading. It’s about 1,500 words long, but the word “woman” doesn’t appear in it once. Nor does the word “mother.” To him, a woman’s claim to bodily autonomy or self-determination doesn’t merit even cursory consideration. Here’s his analogy: “The car which I exercised my freedom of choice to purchase…does not ‘qualify’ for protection of human rights. I can drive it, lend it, kick it, sell it, or junk it, at will. On the other hand, the widow who lives next door does ‘qualify’ as a person, and the government must secure her human rights, which cannot be abandoned to anyone’s arbitrary will.”
Ryan said he has never specifically advocated jailing women who have abortions, but according to a newspaper article, he said, “If it’s illegal, it’s illegal.”
This disregard for the exigencies of women’s lives—the dismissal of their choices as amoral exercises of “arbitrary will”—was thrown into high relief during his 1998 run for congress against Democrat Lydia Spottswood. Both candidates backed a ban on so-called partial-birth abortion, but Spottswood believed there should be exceptions in cases where a woman’s life or health is endangered. “Ryan said he opposes abortion, period,” reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “He said any exceptions to a ‘partial-birth’ abortion ban would make that ban meaningless.”
During that campaign, Ryan also expressed his willingness to let states criminally prosecute women who have abortions. According to another Journal Sentinel article, he “would let states decide what criminal penalties would be attached to abortions. Ryan said he has never specifically advocated jailing women who have abortions or doctors who perform them, but added, ‘If it’s illegal, it’s illegal.’”
The right of privacy is a very interesting topic. With the Willard it is the right to keep his tax returns and therefore his tax dodges secret from the voters. For that issue the right of privacy gets high marks by RepubliCons. When the right of a couple to bear children comes into play the RepubliCons want to suck up to the Pedophile Priesthood and demand that all women be cattle bearing cows for the human herd. Publish or perish is the motto of the priests. If you can get all those dumb catolics who show up for mass on Sunday to vote for you then you have swung a lot of votes. The Ryan Mick is a catolic. He has towed the line. He is a dangerous man to be in the Congress much less next in line to be President. The Pope is quite happy.
You women out there need to just shut up and go to mass.
Paul Ryan, Culture Warrior
One thing is sure. Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential choice doesn’t mean that candidate has given up tacking to the hard-right on social issues.
Scott Lemieux
August 11, 2012
http://prospect.org/article/paul-ryan-culture-warrior
Excerpt:
Paul Ryan’s libertarian economic agenda certainly doesn’t extend to cultural issues, where Ryan wants activist state and federal governments to enforce traditional gender hierarchies. As Michelle Goldberg of the Daily Beast demonstrates, Ryan has compiled a remarkably radical anti-choice record. He has not only supported federal legislation declaring that life begins at conception, but also supported the idea that the 14th Amendment gives equal protection rights to “the unborn,” which would make abortion first-degree murder in all 50 states. The selection of Ryan should make clear that Republicans don’t merely want to “return abortion to the states.” And Ryan’s justifications for his extreme anti-abortion views illustrate a chilling indifference towards women’s rights that echoes his indifference to the poor.
Jim 1, August 18, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Does anyone who has had an opportunity to see or get to know Paul Ryan actually believes he wants women to die? Getting our debt under control is vitally important to the future of the nation and Defunding “wants” instead of “needs” is a great idea.
———————-
Does he want women to die? He is really quite willing to accept the deaths of women in his zeal to control them.
What has this to do with getting our debt under control? Ryan’s hasn’t done his homework where the budget is concerned. His budget is a concept made up of buzzwords but no real homework. It won’t work. The cuts in outgo won’t come close to making up for the cuts in taxes. It will, in fact, increase the deficit and the debt.
If you’re suggesting that abortion is a want instead of a need, you need to get your head out of your a.. You have every right to not get an abortion if you don’t want one but you don’t have the right tell me that I cannot. And you don’t have the right to criminalize a miscarriage – a term for a natural abortion.
I think we will need an herbalist to educate women on exactly which kinds of tea will induce a miscarriage. There are several.
“In a piece for Mother Jones, Stephanie Mencimer said that Paul Ryan has a “long history as a culture warrior”—and that people are taking “a fresh look” at it since Mitt Romney named Ryan as his running mate.
The greatest camouflage game in electioneering history seems to be taking place as Ryan seeks to redefine himself and Romney, because he all of a sudden forgot why he is doing his culture war:
(Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy – 3, quoting Paul Ryan). He now answers “who?” when asked about his mentor.
Justic Holmes
bettykath
Both of you are crazy. Paul Ryan doesn’t want women to die.
JIm, Women dying is the logical consequence of Ryan’s policies.
Jim, One thing I’ll grant Ryan – he may be too young and ignorant to know that women have always gotten abortions.
When it was illegal, rich women have always had the ability to pay for it to be done by doctors “under the table” so to speak or by traveling somewhere where it was legal. They tended to survive.
Poor women used back alley butchers or self-induced coat hangers. They frequently died.
Making abortions illegal or extremely hard to get will just move all but the rich to use methods that have a high risk of death.
bettykath
Women dying is the logical consequence of Ryan’s policies.
You have no evidence of that.
Jim said: “Paul Ryan doesn’t want women to die.”
Maybe he doesn’t WANT them to die. Evidently, he just doesn’t CARE if they die if the legislation he cosponsored–H.R.358–is passed into law.
Jim
August 18, 2012 at 6:24 pm
bettykath
Women dying is the logical consequence of Ryan’s policies.
You have no evidence of that.
*****
Read the legislation he cosponsored–then consider the ramifications of it if it becomes law.
Paul Ryan doesn’t “want” women to die and he doesn’t care if they do or do not, unless they are women who are politically and economically supportive to him and his group.
The reality of it comes down to this: extremist opposition to abortion in the form he presents is dangerous to women in our culture, unless they are very wealthy, and I mean VERY and independently WEALTHY.
(We all know that the very wealthy women don’t have to worry about the kinds of laws Ryan would pass. They’d go to their private gynecologist who would examine them and say, “oh my, you’re bleeding and you have a serious blah blah blah pronduferiation with complications of the filakurtheria membrane, we need to do an immediate emergency D & C right now.” And insurance would never be billed and the doctor might not even “charge” for it on the books; the payment might not even make it onto a tax form.
Who’s he kidding?
Here’s the issue: Abortion is no fun. No fun for the woman, no fun for anybody else involved. Why are we even having a culture in which women are considering, much less undergoing, this invasive and no-fun procedure? Because in our current system, a woman is not honored, taken care of, provided for, promoted to live a free and decent life, and helped with any vulnerabilities that may increase once she has a child. In our current system, even if a woman had money, equality and whatever else she wanted in life before giving birth, ONCE SHE DOES GIVE BIRTH she is in terrible danger FOR THE REST OF HER LIFE, as a result of the vulnerability the law forces upon her for the act of giving birth. Should she want to raise her baby she will be economically and otherwise challenged in the most rigorous and unimaginable ways. Should she seek help with anything she will be taken advantage of, in most cases, and impoverished, and then, disrespected, disadvantaged, disenfranchised, you name it. Should the father of her child (whether he’s her husband or not) choose to take the child from her for any reason at any time he will be empowered to do so; should she try to get support from him, should he not wish to go along with that plan, she faces the most insane litigation possibilities one can possibly imagine, and they are interminable. (My ex-husband sued a judge for giving me custody, even though we had a full trial, his lawyer was perfectly competent, and he didn’t even try to appeal the decision. He went on to sue me 28 more times and he sued every witness who testified for me, several lawyers who just CONSULTED WITH ME AND DIDN’T EVEN REPRESENT ME, and all my relatives and friends. Some of his lawyers were punished with Rule 11 sanctions but he was not only never punished, he was rewarded and became an addict.)
No, in this environment, women who become pregnant are in danger. THAT is part of the problem; they do not want to give up ALL their rights while at the same time realizing they cannot support babies in this economy, in this society, in this culture.
And no, the answer is not simply: “Then tell them not to have sex.”
What about the rape/incest provisions? Did those women just decide “not to have sex”? How ridiculous!
The problem is much bigger than funding or than dictating to women how to deal with pregnancy; it is a problem of dictating to women how to deal with a whole culture that is infected with a form of misogyny so dense and complex that there simply IS no dealing with it.
That said, I am very glad that I had my son. But he knows exactly what I think about women having children, and he not only does not disagree with me, but he has enormous reservations about having children, even from the male perspective.
it is so sad (miserable) to live in a country, work hard, be raised by good hard working parents that stayed together, make something of yourself and contribute to the world and have to put up and made to suffer from stupid, easily lead, paranoid people who believe the lies this truly evil entity prints
Elaine,
Another blog in your continuing to expose the war
on women, well done.
Dredd,
Your comment on Rand’s adoration of Hickman points to the fact that she loves sociopaths and we
can then correctly assume her to be one herself. We also might make that assuption about Ryan since conflating Rand’s beliefs with those of the religious right is a lesson in hypocritical denial.
Champ when you voted for GW Bush you elected a murderer and thus committed treason against your country. How’s that for hyperbole?
champ,
What is this “truly evil entity” of which you speak?
Elaine,
Great job.
Jim,
It is obvious by Mr. Ryan’s votes and statements that women are a second class of citizens. Maybe it is his Catholic upbringing, but that is not a reason, merely an excuse. If the bill you voted for can allow for women to die, guess what? He has to live with that consequence. When his budget cuts aid to women on a significant level, at least it exposes the fact that he is consistent.
Mike Spindell
There is no war on women that is a cooped up phrase by Liberals. The only war is on those who actually pay taxes.
rafflaw
Women are not 2nd class citizens. That is Bias rhetoric. Ryan cares about our country and its path to bankruptcy. What will happen to women if China refuses to buy our Debt? That is the war Liberals need to talk about.
Paul Ryan: Just plain bad for women
BY ZERLINA MAXWELL
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/the_rumble/2012/08/paul-ryan-just-plain-bad-for-women
There is something missing in all the talk about the Paul Ryan pick. The focus has been on his economic views and his proposed budget, which would end Medicare as we know it.
We need to start talking about his extreme views on women’s rights and social issues. Ryan may come off as a harmless, smiling congressman primarily concerned with the nation’s debt, but he has voted for some of the most extreme positions on issues near and dear to many female voters.
Ryan voted against the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay act, a law that makes it easier for women to challenge unequal pay. Ryan believes that life begins at conception and that abortion should be illegal in all cases, including rape, incest and to save the life of the mother. Ryan co-sponsored federal personhood legislation called the “Sanctity of Human Life Act.” For those unfamiliar with “personhood” bills, this is legislation to give a fetus all the rights of an individual, “to provide that human life shall be deemed to begin with fertilization.” The real world impact of such a law would be to dramatically curb if not outright outlaw abortion, limit some forms of birth control and even threaten in vitro fertilization.
Ryan is staunchly against the contraception mandate included in Obamacare, claiming it infringes on religious freedom. Like Mitt Romney, he wants to repeal Obamacare — which on Aug. 1 began covering a number of preventative health services for women at no additional cost. While being against more women having access to affordable contraception and essential women’s health care services, Ryan has also voted to defund Planned Parenthood four times. His budget would completely eliminate funding for family planning under Title X, the section of the law which provides access to birth control, STD screenings and cancer screenings to low income families.
So while the focus over the past 48 hours has been on Ryan’s budget and the false perception that he’s a deficit hawk, attention must also be paid to his views on the issues that impact women’s health and American families. Paul Ryan is bad for women.
Jim,
I am a woman…and a tax payer. I believe we need to have a discussion about Paul Ryan’s positions on women’s issues.
Give us all the specifics and details about Ryan’s great budget plan for this country. Have you “crunched” the numbers for Ryan, the budget wonk, and Romney?
Jim,
“Women are not 2nd class citizens.”
Evidently, Rep. Paul Ryan considers us women to be second class citizens. The legislation that he has cosponsored is indicative of that.
Mr. Spindell, when you voted for Obama you elected the classic politician adept at speaking out of both sides of the mouth. He criticized the hated Bush and his policies and then proceeded to continue to murder and support the very policies he spoke against so eloquently.
I believe most if not all politicians are cut from the same cloth and their interest is not the well being of my country.
Frankly, I am disappointed in the quality of comments on this blog. I guess you will tell me where I can go, but I sincerely hope you will agree with me there is no need for combative banter.
Civility is a luxury we can afford.
Jim, Paul Ryan wants any woman with the misfortune to miscarry to take her chances that the hospital will help her in a timely manner. Not after an inquisition as to what caused the miscarriage.
” The Protect Life Act, HR 358, would amend the healthcare reform law to grant hospitals far-reaching powers to deny patients abortion care, without any exception for emergency situations. US law currently requires hospitals receiving federal funds to provide emergency care to anyone in need up to the point at which they can be stabilized or transferred, if the original hospital is incapable of providing the care they need.
“The misnamed Protect Life Act is about allowing women to die if they need an emergency abortion,” said Meghan Rhoad, women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “It is a vicious attack on women’s rights and on the most basic right to life.”
We have already seen pharmacists refuse morning after pills to women for religious reasons, I would not be surprised to see women in emergency situations being turned away by some sociopath zealot like you at the hospital if she presents with any miscarriage.
Remember “Voo Doo Economics”? We have come to a new level:
Voo Doo PIN Economics.
Yes, Elaine, any politician who voted against the Ledbetter Act is against women getting equal pay for equal work. Ryan wants women to be second class on the pay scale, in self determination and in the ability to plan their own lives.
And some people call this authoritarian zealot a ‘libertarian’? He is the stereotype white male preserved in amber from the 1950′s, ever mourning his loss of superiority over all the rest of us second class citizens. Women and browns are only equal to Ryan if they have the money!
OK, I want to know who’s torturing Champ Blossum and what information they hope to extract from him/her!
Ryan is just one more of the Republican religious extremists who don’t want the government telling them where they can put creches or copies of the Ten Commandments while demanding the government enforce their Biblical laws superceding our secular Constitution’s guarantees.
Jim,
His votes say otherwise. Show me evidence that his many votes are not how he thinks of women.
Okay maybe he doesn;t want women to die but the reality is, at the least, he does not care what happens to them after they are born. Equal pay? Nope. access to preventive low cost services such as mamograms, pap smears, contraception education, STD treatemnt (Oh and by the way Jim, don;t women to have access to STD counseling, you had better hope neither you nor any of your men family members, friends, come into sexual contact with one of the women who was not able to get that counseling and potentially medications) abortion – and forget general access we know where you stand on that, youre rapedor victim of incest and have to have an additional reminder on the form of a forced pregnancy, ie reraped, as well as the knowledge that the product of that horrendous criminal behavior is in the world so you can never escape the knowledge and even potential worry you may run into this result of the horrendous that happened to you. Yep Ryan cares about women, the way that you probably care about carrioon in the middle of the road.
Paul Ryan: Poster Boy of Today’s Extreme GOP
By Waymon Hudson
8/15/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/waymon-hudson/paul-ryan-poster-boy-of-t_b_1776647.html
Excerpt:
Add to those longheld votes and stances Paul Ryan’s horrible history on women’s rights — like co-sponsoring a “personhood” amendment that would ban birth control and some in-vitro fertilization; supporting a ban on all abortions, even in cases of rape and incest; comparing Roe v. Wade to the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision; and supporting defunding Planned Parenthood — and you have the perfect poster boy for the current Republican Party.
Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan, like the GOP legislators in power in Congress and states across this country, claim to be all about the economy and jobs, yet their actions speak of a different agenda to push our country’s social progress back decades by attacking women’s rights, LGBT people, and the social safety net that are part of the very fabric of our country. So as we move to the election, let’s demand that the conversation around this election not just be lip service to either party’s desired daily talking points but a real investigation and discussion about the actions and positions taken by the candidates. We must remind the media there is a lot more to people like Paul Ryan than wonky budget talk and P90X workouts; there is a history of extremism that is out of step with American values and ideals.
rcampbell: Ryan is just one more of the Republican religious extremists who don’t want the government telling them where they can put creches or copies of the Ten Commandments while demanding the government enforce their Biblical laws superceding our secular Constitution’s guarantees.”
All that, and he wants to force women to have unnecessary medical vaginal probes
while forcing her to pay for this unwanted procedure.
oh no, leejcaroll, I have no qualms about saying Ryan wants women to die. To Ryan and Jim these woman had sex in the ‘wrong’ way, so they all must be punished for life in one way or another! Better to die if you are a s1ut! Am I right Jim?
Elaine M.
Ryan’s plan will not become law because Reid won’t allow a vote on it and then it would go to conference which means its current version would not be the final outcome. Most Americans do not know this. So his plan is not worth talking about.
shano
No, women need to be accountable to their actions just like men do.
Jim,
If the Republicans retain the House and win the Senate and Presidency, things could change. Besides, I would never vote for a politician who cosponsors the kind of anti-woman legislative that Ryan has. A candidate’s plans and positions on the issues are always worth discussing.
Jim, nothing forces a man to be responsible, he can cause a pregnancy then just p and walk away, regardless of the circumjstances, consenting or not. And I guess you never heard that no contraception method is 100% sure.
Ah and I guess a jobs bill is not worth talking about because the repubs never brought one to the floor.
Mike Spindell 1, August 18, 2012 at 7:09 pm
Elaine,
Another blog in your continuing to expose the war
on women, well done.
Dredd,
Your comment on Rand’s adoration of Hickman points to the fact that she loves sociopaths and we can then correctly assume her to be one herself. We also might make that assuption about Ryan since conflating Rand’s beliefs with those of the religious right is a lesson in hypocritical denial.
======================================
Monbiot said this of Rand:
(Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy). None other than Psychology Today said this of her:
(Ayn Rand: Patron Saint of The Plutocracy – 2). A republican staffer Mike Lofgren, in his new book, indicates that the republican party has gone nuts:
(The Party Is Over, Viking Penguin, Penguin Books).
Excellent posting Elaine, again, as always.
The reproductive policy Ryan champions is misnamed, it should be called the “Reproductive Freedom For Rapists and Incestuous Pedophiles” policy.
I’ve started a couple of postings to this thread but erased them, what can I say that isn’t said more cogently up-thread? I do though recall that a few years ago I started seeing dedicated, home-made web pages that published scans of medical textbooks on how to perform an abortion and lists of herbal abortifacients and herbal contraceptive properties. They were for ‘in case’ the need arose to go back to the bad old pre-Roe days due to the assault on women’s health/choice.
Wikipedia has lists of such useful herbs. Apparently a herb (possibly the Giant Fennel) so valuable as an abortifacient that it was gathered to extinction was said by the Romans to be worth its weight in Dinars (silver).
There is even a book list on Amazon. (Amazon! How lowest common denominator is that?):
http://www.amazon.com/Herbal-Abortion/lm/3HF72ORQ4LT0R
“The Woman’s Book of Choices: Abortion, Menstrual Extraction, RU-486″ and “Contraception and Abortion from the Ancient World to the Renaissance” sounds interesting and very professionally done, by physicians and researchers.
Reading the reviews of various books on this list, there are what sounds like a lot of code words and phrases, ‘one chapter on menstrual tardiness’, ‘a chapter on folk remedies that don’t work as well as thought, and those that do’, etc. etc.
Is this where women are headed in 21st century America?
leejcaroll
Abstain from sex is 100% or be gay.
lottakatz,,
“Is this where women are headed in 21st century America?”
Possibly.
Ah okay. somehow I dont think G-d made people to be sexual beings but they should abstain, G-d gave us intelligence, intelligence gave us, among other things, doctors, and procedures therefore G-d gave us the ability to have and perform abortions.
leejcaroll
God did not tell Adam and Eve to have abortions. He said be fruitful and multiply.
Jim,
Do you suppose God would want a woman whose life was in danger due to her pregnancy to be turned away from a hospital emergency room and not to be treated by a doctor who might be able to save her life? Do you think God would want that woman to die?
Elaine M.
No, God would want them to trust him and not the doctor. The reason women won’t do that is because they know God would not approve of their abortion.
Jim, but God also told us to be ‘stewards’ of the Earth. When overpopulation is causing havoc, poverty, disease, starvation and other calamities, not having a child is a godly.
No, the Church has always tried to control people though sex. They never sanction sex outside of procreation. it is another really stupid stance the religious make. of course, humans throughout time have had sex for other reasons than procreation. It is written in our genes to do so.
The Church would like to control that. People are saying “no more” And they are right. The religious have no business telling others what kind of legal non exploitive sex they should have.
The Catholics built a huge cult to protect pedophiles, to enable truly immoral sex acts by adults on children, so they no longer have any authority on this matter whatsoever.
Your beliefs are your own. The transgression is when you try to force them into law for all the rest of us.
Many of us will never agree with the church about sexual matters- orabably the majority! We agree with criminal law that some acts are abhorrent, but the church goes too far away from the sexual nature of real humans to be of any real use in society or in law..
Jim,
Are you suggesting that anyone whose life is in danger for medical reasons should trust in God and not be treated by a doctor? Or would trusting in God apply only to pregnant women?
oh for gods sake. A woman with a medical emergency should “trust God” instead of her doctor/ This is why religion is losing customers!
shano,
Maybe we don’t need health insurance, doctors, medicine, vaccinations, hospitals, etc. All we need to do is trust in God.
Yes, why not try this? It sounds much less expensive than havin’ to train surgeons, build hospitals, fund medical schools, etc.
Less work too, except for the grave diggers and the carts rolling through the streets:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs
shano,
I love Monty Python!
Let’s see if I can post that video.
Elaine,
You can’t beat Monty Python!
Paul Ryan and the Republican problem with women
Are nuns’ objections to his social agenda an indicator?
August 15, 2012
Susan Reimer
The Baltimore Sun
http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-08-15/news/bs-ed-reimer-ryan-women-20120815_1_poor-women-women-voters-paul-ryan
Excerpt:
Well, I’m pretty sure Mitt Romney’s VP pick cost him the nun vote.
Fourteen women religious embarked on a nine-state bus tour this summer to protest Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget proposal — which he successfully pushed through the House before it was beaten back in the Senate — because of the drastic, some say catastrophic, cuts it would make to programs that benefit the poor, the sick and the hungry.
Pretty much a nun’s constituency.
The nuns stopped the bus in Mr. Ryan’s home town of Janesville, Wis., but he wasn’t available to meet with them, although he has jousted with Jesuit priests at Georgetown University, who also criticized him, and the Catholic bishops, who did, too. Dissing nuns doesn’t do much for the Republicans’ problem with women.
The thinking is, in Democratic circles anyway, that the nuns’ objections to Mr. Ryan’s economic principles are a bellwether for what other women voters may think of this man once they get to know him. Women, especially women with families and children, generally find the deprivation of other families and their children to be untenable.
Add to that, Mr. Ryan’s uncompromising beliefs about abortion: Not even in the case of rape or incest. He also co-sponsored a bill that would grant “personhood” to a fertilized egg, making abortion and some forms of birth control the statutory equivalent of murder. (It didn’t get any further in Congress that it did in Mississippi, whose voters defeated a similar law.)
He supports a constitutional amendment that would ban same sex marriage and voted against the lifting of the ban on gays and lesbians in the military. Mr. Ryan may be a libertarian in matters of government spending, but not, apparently, on the role of government in social issues.
But it will probably be his proposal to shift Medicare to a voucher-to-buy-insurance system that will set off the most alarms among women. After all, women represent 56 percent of the Medicare recipients (we generally outlive our spouses), and it is the women, the daughters, who are most likely to step in to care for their aging parents. Mr. Ryan would move Medicaid to a block grant to states, too, and while Medicaid was designed for the poorest among us, it is now often used to pay for the nursing home care of the formerly middle-class.
You know. Our parents. Probably our mothers.
Paul Ryan: the small government champion who could force transvaginal ultrasounds on pregnant women
Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential pick is an anti-choice fanatic
By Amy Goodman
8/16/12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/aug/16/paul-ryan-small-government-champion-force-women-ultrasound?newsfeed=true
Excerpt:
Ryan is considered by many a champion of small government. For women, though, the federal government that Paul Ryan envisions is big, intrusive and controlling. Paul Ryan would ban all abortions, with no exceptions, even in cases of rape, incest or the health of the mother. In other words, the mother could die as a result of complications from the pregnancy.
The Planned Parenthood Action Fund highlighted several other issues, among them, “his budget plan to dismantle Medicaid, jeopardizing the basic health care millions of women rely on, [and] his vote last year to end funding to Planned Parenthood, putting at risk the cancer screenings, birth control, STD testing and treatment, and other preventive care that nearly three million Americans rely on each year.” The anti-choice National Right to Life Committee stated, “Ryan has maintained a 100% pro-life voting record.” He is a co-sponsor of the Sanctity of Human Life Act, what critics call the personhood bill, now in Congress, that would define in federal law that:
“the life of each human being begins with fertilization … irrespective of sex, health, function or disability, defect, stage of biological development, or condition of dependency, at which time every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.”
The law goes on: “a one-celled human embryo … is a new unique human being.” As reported in Mother Jones, this law would make normal in vitro fertilization (IVF) practices illegal, as the process creates multiple fertilized eggs, one or two of which might be used to help a woman have a child. The others are frozen, used for research or destroyed, which, under this bill pushed by Ryan, would become murder. Mother Jones points out that at least three of Mitt Romney’s sons have relied on IVF to give birth to several of his 18 grandchildren. Likewise, the IUD, intrauterine device, which prevents the fertilized egg from implanting, would be illegal.
Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell introduced Mitt Romney at the Norfolk event. McDonnell was recently in the national spotlight for promoting a state law that would force women seeking an abortion to undergo a transvaginal ultrasound. Republicans, who accuse President Barack Obama of putting government bureaucrats between doctors and their patients, were trying to mandate a medically unnecessary procedure that required the insertion of a wand into a woman’s vagina.
The provision was widely ridiculed, and may have been one of the reasons Governor McDonnell himself was not standing next to Romney as his running mate. Yet Ryan, who was, co-sponsored a similar bill, the Ultrasound Informed Consent Act. It contains a bizarre provision that states nothing in the law will “prevent a pregnant woman from turning her eyes away from the ultrasound images”.
What we cannot do is turn our eyes away from just how radical Paul Ryan’s plans are for more than half of the US population: women and girls. Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist famously called for a government small enough to “drown in the bathtub”. Representative Nita Lowey (Democrat, New York) told online news website Buzzfeed:
“House Republicans – of which Paul Ryan is a leader – would shrink government so small it can only fit under the door of a woman’s doctor’s office.”
Paul Ryan Abortion Record: 4 Reasons Why VP Pick is Bad News for Women
Dan Lesser
http://www.policymic.com/articles/12800/paul-ryan-abortion-record-4-reasons-why-vp-pick-is-bad-news-for-women
The tornado of media coverage following Paul Ryan this past week has traced a route through his budget plan, his quirks, and his professed admiration of (ironically pro-abortion and atheist) philosopher Ayn Rand, but it has left largely untouched the topic of Ryan’s social agenda. Those who already believe Ryan is an extremist on budgetary issues will find that he is an extremist on abortion as well.
Here’s why.
1) Ryan believes raped women should bring the fetus to bear
You were raped? Tough luck, says Ryan. He is staunchly against any sort of compromise when it comes to abortion. A fetus, even if the offspring of a rapist, has rights just like you and me. No, really – Ryan thinks fetuses have the same right to personhood as a person. The Sanctity of Human Life Act, a bill that Ryan supported, states that a fertilized egg should “have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” For his dogmatism, the National Right to Life committee has awarded Ryan a 100% voting score every year since his admittance into the House of Representatives in 1999.
2) Ryan would have Romney’s children thrown in jail for in vitro fertilization
If Romney were honest – if he wasn’t a politician intent on ascending to the presidency – he would acknowledge that he differs greatly from Ryan on abortion. After all, he did say, “I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country.” Can’t get much more opposed to Ryan’s position than that. That quote not only exemplifies Romney’s flip-flopping tendencies, but it also acts as a stunning backdrop for Ryan’s views. Three of Romney’s children employed in vitro fertilization to bring children into the world. During the process to create a so-called ‘test-tube baby,’ multiple embryos are created. The problem with this, in the eyes of hard-core anti-abortionists like Ryan, is that only one embryo is implanted in the woman. The rest are either frozen or discarded, and so, according to some, a few unfortunate embryos are ‘murdered.’ Paul Ryan, in no uncertain terms, believes Romney’s children are murderers. One would think such a diametrically opposite viewpoint on an important topic would have precluded Ryan from being on Romney’s VP list.
3) Ryan would let women die
Ryan voted in favor of a bill that would, among other atrocities, allow hospitals to deny emergency abortions to women who are in danger of dying in labor . Ryan staunchly opposes federal funding for Planned Parenthood, which among other things, conducts cancer screenings and supports STD disease prevention for women. He voted to ban federal employees from choosing health insurance plans that include abortion coverage. He voted for and cosponsored a bill that would have imposed a tax on small businesses that allowed their employees to choose health insurance plans that included abortion coverage. He has voted time and time again to endanger the lives of women.
4) Ryan is against stem cell research
In 2005, 2006, and 2007, Ryan voted against stem-cell research. Nothing complex here – Ryan thinks embryos, most of which would otherwise go to waste, are more valuable than science that is likely to save untold millions of lives.
Somehow, Paul Ryan has the temerity to not just espouse these beliefs, but also claim that they can be reconciled with a small government mindset. This is the man who voted to make doctors criminals for failing to determine if the expected sex of a pregnancy is a factor in a woman’s decision to seek an abortion. He also voted in favor of two year prison sentences for doctors who perform abortions – even emergency abortions. How can a sane person think that is not a perfect example of the heavy hand of government?
Paul Ryan….. Thy name is S-H-I-T!!!!!!
I will wade through it all later.
Just let me urge again that ads should be made (anti GOP) showing what kind of idiots, by their own words, show that they have so many holes in their heads that
they will vote for these dinosaurs.
Amazing that our nation has so many idiots.
Jim must be trolling. He can’t be that stupid. Just trying to rile you up. And he succeeds.
Jeez, maybe Jim is that stupid. Poor guy.
He must have gotten gonorrhea and never got over the trauma of the dripping penis. Women, usch, he says!
PS to ElaineM.
Beautiful work.
All we “women” love you for defending us, including male groupies like me.
Just the facts, you say. Yes, and not enough are presenting them. So good on ya’.
“Abortion would be a sacrament…..”.
My motto forever.
OT Slightly
Just goes to show it is never too late to read a book published two years ago. Even if you are the CIA. And even if it was written by a former CIA agent in Iraq.
“Today’s Headlines: U.S. Says Iraqis Are Helping Iran to Skirt Sanctions”—NYTimes email
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/world/middleeast/us-says-iraqis-are-helping-iran-skirt-sanctions.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120819
Elaine M: All you need is trust in dog.
To all: In Birmingham, England the folks are quite funny and often have little quotes and qibbles that they squawk and squeek. One is a cheer when they hoist a mug of beer: Cheers Big Ears. One of my Barmy friends emailed the dog pack with a photo of Ryan: Cheers Big Ears! This is a phrase that we should adopt.
The dogpack watched the movie Blazing Saddles last night. When the town was deciding to let the Freedmen into the fold in order to help fight off the criminals one of the town leaders got up to support the idea rather reluctantly, but then quipped “BUT NOT THE IRISH !” After the movie was over a Paul Ryan commercial came on and the whole dog pack barked in unison: “BUT NOT THIS IRISHMAN!”
Never has a RepubliCon ticket been so anti dog. The Dogs Against Romney group dislikes Ryan as well. Talk about appealing to the RepubliCon base. Ya cant get any baser than Big Ears.
ItchinBayDog,
Cheers Big Ears? Maybe Jeers Big Ears would be more appropriate.
When’s Floyd supposed to be bonded out? See next post…..
These types of people need to do there true calling and become catholic priests…… Then they can screw with impunity…….
Just remember folks…. Ryan went to Miami of Ohio….. Paid for by you and me…… Saved his survivor social security benefits….. Another program he wants to cut…..
I’ll say they should again…. If Stockman has come out against Ryans budget plan….. One needs to really look at it…… The trickle down proponents in the loop at the time have come out against it as failed policy……buyer beware….
AY,
Paul Ryan’s budget plan would destroy the middle class
Michael Hiltzik
August 15, 2012
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/aug/15/business/la-fi-hiltzik-20120815
Excerpt:
It certainly hasn’t taken long for the blue-eyed, smiling visage to be scrubbed off Paul Ryan’s putative policy masterwork, a federal budget proposal that supposedly would cut the government deficit to a shadow of its former self, as if by magic.
Within hours of the Wisconsin congressman’s anointing as Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential running mate, the budget plan’s salient features were being widely publicized: It would deliver a handsome tax cut to the richest Americans while eviscerating the programs and services the rest of the country depends on. These include healthcare services, banking and clean water regulations, road repair and education assistance.
Yet all the discussion has overlooked the real damage the Ryan budget would do to an important segment of the American public. We’re not talking about the very poor and the near poor. Their lives would be made immeasurably worse, to be sure, by a budget that would shrink Medicaid and force cutbacks in food stamp, educational and law enforcement services, among so many other things. Ryan at least pays lip service to maintaining the national safety net, ineffective as his proposals to do so may be.
But the middle class would be destroyed. The Ryan budget’s impact on middle-income Americans comes in many forms, some of them exceedingly disingenuous. Let’s look at a few.
Start with the revenue side. Here, as in other respects, the Ryan plan is silent on specifics, beyond asserting that “the key to pro-growth tax reform is lowering tax rates while broadening the tax base.”
Ryan advocates cutting the top income tax rate to 25% (from 39.6%, the pre-Bush top marginal rate scheduled to take effect Jan. 1).
The only way to do so while keeping overall tax revenues at 19% of gross domestic product, Ryan’s stated goal, is to eliminate a wide range of tax breaks. On the surface, this might look palatable to a middle-class taxpayer convinced that the fat cats get all the breaks anyway. In fact, the most popular breaks save billions for the middle class.
More than 70% of the mortgage interest payments claimed as deductions ($240 billion) appear on returns filed by people in the income range of $60,000 to $200,000, according to the IRS. Many of these middle-class homeowners base their annual financial planning on tax breaks such as the mortgage deduction. Only about 1.4% of the total is claimed by taxpayers earning $1 million or more.
This is among the reasons that, as the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center recently calculated, sharply lowering marginal rates while cutting out the most popular tax breaks results in net tax cuts for the wealthy and increases for everyone else. (This is what Ryan means by “broadening the tax base” — it means he’s coming for you.)
The more insidious assault on the middle class comes from program cuts. Most of the commentary on Ryan’s budget has focused on his master plan for Medicare and Medicaid, both of which he would gut. But it’s a mistake to think the burden would be shouldered exclusively, or even chiefly, by the poor.
Ryan would replace the existing Medicare system of guaranteed treatment (with a nominal individual premium) with one providing vouchers for service through private commercial insurance plans. By design, the vouchers wouldn’t cover all costs, and because their value would rise in accordance with a standard inflation measure, not with medical inflation, the gap would widen over time.
Elaine,
Yep…In agreement….. Unless and not likely…A viable 3rd party candidate comes forward…… I’ll just have to vote old style…. And vote against the other guy….
Paul Ryan targeted on women’s issues
By MAGGIE HABERMAN, EMILY SCHULTHEIS and LOIS ROMANO
Politico
8/19/12
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79856_Page4.html
Excerpt:
Yet Democrats are hoping to tether Ryan’s positions on issues like abortion rights to a broader theme of his stand on issues like Medicaid cuts, Pell Grants and others. Education is a major topic with suburban women, pollsters on both sides say.
“I think he is very, very harshly anti-woman,” said Terry O’Neill, president of NOW. “And I think it’s important for women voters to really look at the disproportionate effect on women of the thing he takes the most credit for. He’s very proud of the Ryan budget. It slams women by privatizing Medicare. Ryan opposes equal pay for equal work. That is very specifically anti-woman. … He is attacking the economic security of women — and at the same time, he is systematically singling out women’s health care for restrictions.”
McIntosh, of EMILY’s List, made a similar point: “Really, it’s cradle to grave, Ryan is working against the programs that allow women to keep themselves and their families healthy. We’re talking about everything from access to basic health care to equal pay to Medicare. … We’re not just offering someone who is doing no harm compared with someone who’s absolutely committed to rolling back the clock. The president has an excellent record on women’s issues.”
Jim, the clock reads 2012, not 1812. Knock off the self-righteous busy-body routine in which you know not only what is best for women, but also where you put yourself in charge of which topics we shall discuss.
No one buys your act today, Jim.
ElaineM.,
I’m not good at these things:
“Paul Ryan’s budget plan would destroy the middle class
Michael Hiltzik
August 15, 2012″
But those dollars and cents made sense to me.
idealist,
What are the “dollars and cents” that made sense to you? Can you explain?
More from Monty Python:
Quoting Tabbai on Holder:
“Holder’s non-decision on Goldman is more than unsurprising. It amounts to an official announcement that the government is no longer in the business or prosecuting smart criminals. It’s pathetic. The one thing you pay any lawyer to have is balls, and our nation’s top attorney has none.”
We need Tabbai in Sweden. We have not heard a word from the “white collar economic crime” prosecutors in the five years since they were established.
Must be a spot for pre-retirees.
But is Justice that? Hardly.
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/ag-eric-holder-has-no-balls-20120815#ixzz240YqxDAe
This blog just censored some statement that I made about the NSA. Y’all know what that agency does?
The dog with the female name for dog that had to put it in iglatinPay has been kicked off this blog.
Rev,
Try not using the words f*ck, assh*le, b*tch or b*stard.
Those are the only words flagged into moderation and that policy was not set by the NSA, but by the blog’s owner. Feel free to say whatever you like about the NSA. No one will stop you here and they’re going to read it anyway if you’ve sent it across the Internet. They aren’t censors or moderators. They’re signal intelligence. Not so much doers as watchers.
Gene,watchers is a very good description. I was also thinking that peepers might be appropriate for the NSA.
Jim’s gone.
Thank God!
Gene,
The other day this 70 year old grandmother delighted in using phucker and its variations. So that’s ok?
The Last Word–Discussion of Medicare & Romney/Ryan Plan
Did you read what the Rev said. itchin’Bay Dog has been kicked off. Can’t believe it.
So it is a**hole and not a#s which is forbidden.
I’m sure the donkey’s cousin in name only is relieved.
Curious,
Only if your grandchildren can’t hear you.
ID,
Just so. I wouldn’t want my grandchildren exposed to the Turley blog just yet.
You gotta read this!
Republican Senate Nominee: Victims Of ‘Legitimate Rape’ Don’t Get Pregnant
http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/08/todd-akin-legitimate-rape.php
Excerpt:
Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican nominee for Senate in Missouri who is running against Sen. Claire McCaskill, justified his opposition to abortion rights even in case of rape with a claim that victims of “legitimate rape” have unnamed biological defenses that prevent pregnancy.
“First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare,” Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario — when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail — abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
Elaine,
What planet is this guy from?
Elaine, this is the kind of nonsense that Ryan used to word his own anti abortion laws. Only “forceable’ rape would be excluded in the Ryan bill.
they get this stuff from the radical right wing preachers.
Does anyone else doubt that any real medical doctor, no matter how kooky, would have told Akins about these anti rape ‘biological defenses’?
You know,,,it’s just too much. This guy is running for the phucking (since you’ve given me permission to say it) Senate of the United States! And he’s not even from Mississippi!
All I’m going to ask is that you to tell me where you all are going when it is time to bail.
Hello Toooodd!
Saturday Night Live—
Oh…. Elaine…. You beat me to it…… I read it on flipboard….. I was like….. What a PoS……. Akins’ that is….
You can’t make this stuff up! I felt I had to post it. I certainly hope Akin isn’t elected to the Senate.
BTW, can anyone explain to me what a “legitimate rape” is?
one where the woman wasn’t asking for it.
you know, where they wear fitted clothing and may have a drink somewhere or drive at night or gone somewhere by themselves or hung with the ‘wrong crowd’ or obviously if you dont fight if he has a gun because you are supposed to die instead of submit.
Lawyers, prosecutors and judges will decide what is ‘legitimate’ and what is not. Maybe it is like porn, they know it when they see it.
I’m glad you did….. A legitimate rape….. That’s when a person of privilege or means forces a person to perform some Sexual act against their will….. Now, if a person of nominal stature or somehow economically disadvantaged…..does the same act….it’s a criminal activity and punishable by up to let few in prison…… That’s the best I can do now….
Elaine M.
To your earlier question. I want everyone who is sick to go to a doctor. However, I want them first to go to God and ask for him to do the work. Whatever method he chooses is his but he said to put him first in all things. Finally, You do not ask God to do something that would contradict his word and therefore abortions are out of the question.
Elaine M.
A legitimate rape is one where a woman is attacked and did not lead the person on in anyway. If a woman begins foreplay with a man and at some point wants to stop then that is not being characterized as a legitimate rape because her mentality is not the same in both cases. In case one she doesn’t know the perpetrator and probably fears for her life where as in the second (it is rape) only fears of the sexual act but probably not for her life. Again, both are rape just in different degrees.
Jim,
Should atheists and agnostics go to God before they go to a doctor?
Did Todd Akin provide you with his definition of what a “legitimate rape” is? If not, how would you know what he meant?
A “legitimate rape” depends on the “mentality” of a woman? Are you suggesting that a woman can’t be “legitimately” raped by a man she knows? How many degrees of rape are there?
Jim,
There is no such thing as a legitimate rape. It is a disgusting concept!
rafflaw,
Didn’t you know that there were diffferent degrees of rape? For shame!
And Elaine, in this ‘legitimate’ rape, the woman can ‘shut down’ her Uterus so she can’t get pregnant.
So no abortion will be necessary. That means all abortions are for ‘illegitimate’ rapes, she participated in her rape, so no abortion will be provided.
It is exactly the same as if a stranger robs you or your neighbor, whom you know well, robs you. the robbery is a lesser crime if your neighbor robs you instead of a stranger.
Do you understand now?
Jim, God in the Bible says I can just pay a fine if I want an abortion. Thats cool.
God says you are wrong, but I bet you just didn’t know about what he said the policy was.
shano,
Here I am a woman in my sixties–and I didn’t even know what a “legitimate” rape was. Thanks for the explanation. Now I understand.
Elaine,
I apologize for not being up with the latest in wingnuttery!
shano
Should the child pay for the act of rape?
dr.s of what, theology?
shano
Quote a scripture that backs up your assertion.
Jim,
Your religious beliefs are yours. Trying to push your beliefs on all women is disgusting.
Jim,
Should a woman be punished because she was raped?
Curious,
I don’t set policy here. The only rule maker here is our host (and there are very few rules). So long as JT has no problem with alternative spellings, I say phucking go for it.
In truth, I do not know why the policy on those four words was instituted because Jonathan has never told me or the other GB’s (to my knowledge) why he did so, but I suspect it has to do with a rash of troll attacks not too long ago and contemporaneous with the change made to the filter that were particularly abusive and generous in application with the terms. Distraction by what appeared to be almost randomly spewing profanity as a tactic if you will. To save manual edits in that circumstance, it is a rational choice that doesn’t (as you tangentially note) effectively bar people from speaking their mind in alternative manners. But as I say, that is supposition on my part.
Jim I already cited the scripture for you. it is in Exodus. You are too lazy to be a Bible scholar, you can google as well as I can- two men fighting cause a woman to abort and have to pay a fine. Stating also that if the WOMAN had died they would be charged with murder. Causing the abortion was only punished by a fine.
It means get your busy body nose out of womens Uteri because it is none of your freakin’ business if there is anything in there at any time whatsoever. None of your business at all. Women have a right to privacy.
Jim, a woman who has an abortion as the result of rape is not killing a child. so, no child is being punished.
There is no child in this scenario, only some cells that are parasitic on the mother.
shano,
Thanks! I learned something new today from that post. Uteri is a proper pluralization of uterus. I was always taught the other proper plural, uteruses. Look out, Scrabble.
Sometimes I find it hard to believe that this is the 21st century. I think there are people among us who much prefer the Dark Ages.
This reliance on scripture to decide how to run a government or to make government policy is wrong and dangerous. Elaine, The Dark ages may be too enlightened for this “legitimate rape” nonsense!
This has been going on for quite a while, deciding which rapes would be ‘legitimate’ enough to allow an abortion: From digby
One of the most linked posts I ever wrote was called “The Sodomized Virgin Exception”, about the comments by a South Dakota lawmaker as to what might constitute a legitimate reason for an abortion. Here’s the gist:
FRED DE SAM LAZARO: Napoli says most abortions are performed for what he calls “convenience.” He insists that exceptions can be made for rape or incest under the provision that protects the mother’s life. I asked him for a scenario in which an exception may be invoked.
BILL NAPOLI: A real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl was a virgin. She was religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it, and is impregnated. I mean, that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying that child could very well threaten her life.”
Digby commented at the time:
Do you suppose all these elements have to be present for it to be sufficiently psychologically damaging for her to be forced to bear her rapists child, or just some of them? I wonder if it would be ok if the woman wasn’t religious but she was a virgin who had been brutally, savagely raped and “sodomized as bad as you can make it?” Or if she were a virgin and religious but the brutal savage sodomy wasn’t “as bad” as it could have been?
Certainly, we know that if she wasn’t a virgin, she was asking for it, so she should be punished with forced childbirth. No lazy “convenient” abortion for her, the little whore. It goes without saying that the victim who was saving it for her marriage is a good girl who didn’t ask to be brutally raped and sodomized like the sluts who didn’t hold out.
But even that wouldn’t be quite enough by itself. The woman must be sufficiently destroyed psychologically by the savage brutality that the forced childbirth would drive her to suicide (the presumed scenario in which this pregnancy could conceivably “threaten her life.”)
This was in 2006, and there was a fair amount of blowback that I was (as usual) being hyperbolic and rude, that this was a fringe sweller and I was unfairly tarring the good hearted pro-lifers as extremists.”
Nope, the tarring is still deserved.
Morning after post due to differenc time zones.
I earlier wrote and now repeat that some species of birds can eject the sperm from the cloaca at will.
The girls in the same evolutionary biology class as I
greeted the news with approving mutual glances.
We have got a ways to go to the developing of that technique.
PoS, New to me. Yes, the whole question is a PoS.
What the hell happened? The lights went out and the cockroahes came back….
Did you ever see one two inches long, sitting on the sofa, staring and not retreating, and flying away when you near him.
They were mean mothers. True story.
Todd Akin, Paul Ryan and the very real war on women
BY ZERLINA MAXWELL
8/20/12
http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/the_rumble/2012/08/todd-akin-paul-ryan-and-the-very-real-war-on-women
Excerpt:
Two words that should never be used together in the same sentence: legitimate and rape. But that’s the way Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) chose to speak about the sensitive topic that has impacted millions of women in the United States in an interview with a local television station Sunday.
In defending his extreme anti-choice position – that a woman who is raped and becomes pregnant should not be permitted to have an abortion, Akin said, “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
Akin, who clearly didn’t pay attention in biology class, is challenging Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill. After the negative and swift public reaction to his remarks, Akin said in a statement that he “misspoke,” but that claim doesn’t fly when you do a quick review of his legislative history, which is directly connected vice presidential pick Rep. Paul Ryan on this exact issue.
Akin and Ryan were the original co-sponsors of the controversial bill H.R. 3, “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” which initially included language which changed the definition of “rape” to “forcible rape,” until public pressure forced the bill’s supporters to remove that unacceptable and narrow definition. As I wrote previously, Paul Ryan is not just anti-choice, his anti-choice views are extreme and just plain bad for all women.
Linking Ryan to Akin and the idea that there is such a thing as “legitimate rape” based on pseudo-science and folklore is something that needs to be done before the upcoming election. While Team Romney attempted to create distance with Akin, saying that both Romney and Ryan “disagree” with his statements, there was nothing in their statement that said they condemn his remarks as hurtful to victims. There was also nothing in Team Romney’s statement that pointed out that what Akin said about pregnancies resulting from rape being rare is just flat-out wrong.
Jim….
When a woman is raped by a person she “THOUGHT” she knew….
or has been acquainted with….
she is in fear of her life….
This person suddenly has turned into a monster….
and she has just as much chance of being killed by this man,
if not MORE so because she can name and identify him….
Suggesting that there are 2 kinds of rape and what is appropriate emotionally is just DISGUSTING and seriously ill-informed….
and PLEASE that crap about abortion punishing a “CHILD”…..
Get a grip…. it is a clump of cells…..
Using scripture to dictate MY LIFE is just OUT there….
I am an Atheist… So, your bible means NOTHING TO ME…..
I expect that in a SECULAR Society that my beliefs be respected as well…
and using the bible to dictate what my DOCTOR and I decide to do with my body is just plain WRONG…. and wreaks of a Christian Taliban equivalent…..
and fact is…. making a woman carry a child from rape is not only wrong…. it is CRUEL!!!!!
until men can get pregnant and carry a child to term,
I REALLY think they should stay out of my UTERUS!!!!!
gurl,
hilarious video!
gurl & rafflaw,
Do you remember this?
Sen. McIntyre holds a sign at protest: ‘If I wanted the govt in my womb I’d f*ck a Senator’ (Freak Out Nation)
http://freakoutnation.com/2012/03/02/sen-mcintyre-holds-a-sign-at-protest-if-i-wanted-the-govt-in-my-womb-id-fuck-a-senator/
Paul Ryan’s Extreme Anti-Choice Views
By Amanda Marcotte
Aug. 13, 2012
http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2012/08/13/paul_ryan_appears_to_believe_fertilized_eggs_deserve_more_rights_than_women_.html
Excerpt:
As soon as Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan as his running mate, the common wisdom coalesced around the idea that Romney was trying to shore up support with the Tea Party base on economic issues. But Ryan’s extreme social conservatism likely had something to do with the pick as well. As Michelle Goldberg notes at the Daily Beast, Ryan runs far to the right even of most Republicans on the issue of choice. Indeed, his statements and votes on the issue start to seem like Ryan sincerely believes that a fertilized egg has more rights than an actual woman with a real brain and feelings.
Goldberg looks over this lengthy piece written by Ryan explaining his views on reproductive rights—a piece where he never even bothers to mention women—and she concludes, “To him, a woman’s claim to bodily autonomy or self-determination doesn’t merit even cursory consideration.” Just in case he’s left any doubt in the reader’s mind that he simply doesn’t acknowledge women as people, Ryan concludes that the reasons liberals are pro-choice is because we find children repulsive:
“At the core, today’s “pro-choice” liberals are deeply pessimistic. They denigrate life and offer fear of the present and the future—fear of too many choices and too many children. Rather than seeing children and human beings as a benefit, the “pro-choice” position implies that they are a burden. Despite the “pro-choice” label, liberals’ stance on this subject actually diminishes choices, lowers goals, and leads us to live with less. That includes reducing the number of human beings who can make choices.”
This paragraph makes no sense unless you approach it with the assumption that the categories “women” and “human beings” are mutually exclusive. In order for the system of mandatory childbearing that he proposes to not decrease choices, women must be creatures who can make people but cannot be people. Of course, his belief that support for abortion rights is about child-hating instead of support for women is easy enough to disprove with the facts. More than 60 percent of women having abortions are already mothers, and most of the rest wish to be someday.
Gurl,
I’ve been in Stockholm for 44 years. Appreciated the ad, but fear it will be over their heads.
Elaine,
I do remember the protest sign!
I think Paul Ryan’s anti-choice views are way beyond extreme. They are at the Akin level on absurdity.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169451/danger-laughing-todd-akin#
I read The Republican ticket are not only going to chain blacks, but women and illegals. I’m heavily invested in David Round in case the unspeakable occurs and those stupid, evil, lazy Republicans actually do win. I was w/ Solyndra as a hedge, but we know how that went. Any suggestions from you Dems where to put my $’s if the good guys win?
David Axelrod: Todd Akin’s Comments Are ‘Inconvenient’ For Romney-Ryan, ‘Not Inconsistent’
By Sam Stein
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/david-axelrod-todd-akin_n_1811693.html?utm_hp_ref=elections-2012
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — The Obama campaign is, not surprisingly, unwilling to accept Mitt Romney’s condemnation of Rep. Todd Akin’s controversial remarks and move on.
Akin, a Missouri Republican who is running for Senate, said Sunday that women who are the victims of “legitimate rape” rarely get pregnant. In an interview with The Huffington Post on Monday, chief Obama strategist David Axelrod said the comments reflected the larger philosophy of the GOP presidential ticket.
He predicted that the public would find the remarks even more distasteful once it became widely known that Romney’s running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), teamed up with Akin on strict anti-abortion measures.
“When you look at who Akin’s partner was on all the anti-choice legislation, it was Paul Ryan,” said Axelrod. “When you look at the legislation that would limit a women’s right to choose, even for victims of rape and incest, that is the Akin-Ryan position. And frankly, by endorsing personhood amendments … Romney has gone there too. This is the prevailing position of the Republican Party.”
“I think they find Todd Akin’s comment terribly inconvenient,” Axelrod said. “It is very inopportune. But they are certainly not inconsistent, when Ryan joined with him and tried to limit the definition of rape to forcible rape. What does that mean? They are trying to run away from what has been their own position and yet, while Akin’s proposition was particularly egregious and outrageous, on the underlining principle of whether you are going to limit a woman’s right to choose, and how rape victims are dealt with and how they would approach this issue, they are very much in line with him.”
Akin Bad: Paul Ryan’s ‘Forcible Rape’ Bill Co-Sponsor Drags Him Into Daylight
by Tommy Christopher
August 20th, 2012
http://www.mediaite.com/online/akin-bad-paul-ryans-forcible-rape-bill-co-sponsor-drags-him-into-daylight/
Excerpt:
As reprehensible as they are, current US Congressman and possible US Senator Rep. Todd Akin‘s (R-MO) remarks on the medical effects of “legitimate rape” are a gift to voters, who will now be exposed to the truth about vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), who co-sponsored a bill that insisted on an abortion exception only in cases of “forcible rape.”
The remarks also shine a light on the Romney/Ryan ticket’s competing views on rape and reproductive freedom, issues that might otherwise have been overlooked.
In case you missed it, Akin told an interviewer that pregnancy resulting from rape is “really rare” because “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
The medical basis for Akin’s statement appears to be a recently-published study from The New England Journal of Todd Akin’s Ass, but the subtext is that not all rapes are created equal, an idea that was nearly codified into law by Akin and Rep. Paul Ryan, along with 216 other Republicans (and 10 Democrats!).
H.R. 3, the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, originally contained language restricting the exception for federally-funded abortions to “an act of forcible rape or, if a minor, an act of incest,” and offered no further clarification of the term. On its face, the law would have eliminated statutory rape (on the premise that, what? That ten year-old clearly was into it?), but also left open the possibility that rapes involving drugging, or even rapes that did not result in serious enough injuries to the victim, would fail to fit the definition. He held a gun to your head? Where’s the gun? Did you check to see if it was loaded?
Paul Ryan’s rape reversal
Romney says he would not oppose abortion in instances of rape; but Paul Ryan’s record looks a lot like Todd Akin’s
By Alex Seitz-Wald
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/20/paul_ryans_rape_reversal/
How bad is the Ryan-Akin anti-abortion bill?
By Greg Sargent
8/20/12
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/post/how-bad-is-the-ryan-akin-anti-abortion-bill/2012/08/20/c7e37e04-eafe-11e1-9ddc-340d5efb1e9c_blog.html
Excerpt:
The national battle over Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape” has shed light on a “personhood” bill, co-sponsored by Akin and Paul Ryan, called the Sanctity of Life Act. Much of the chatter today has focused on whether Ryan opposes abortion in cases of rape. The Romney campaign confirmed today that Ryan does personally oppose it, while clarifying that a Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose it.
But what about the other legal implications of the bill Ryan and Akin co-sponsored? In an interview just now, Dem Rep. Louise Slaughter, one of the leading pro-choice voices in Congress, raised two startling possibilities.
“One of the questions around this legislation is, Could a rapist who impregnated a victim sue that victim if she decided not to carry that baby and to have an abortion?” Slaughter said. “Another question: Could in vitro fertilization be outlawed?”
It’s unclear how this legislation would work. The bill affirms that from the moment of fertilization onward, “every human being shall have all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood.” It then says that Congress and the states have the “authority” to protect all human beings — again, defined as human life from fertilization onward — residing in their juristictions.
Slaughter’s suggestion is that this affirms the authority of Congress or the states to pass laws outlawing IVF, since that procedure requires the destruction of embryos, or that it could give legal weight to a rapist’s insistence that his victim not abort her baby — though again, it’s unclear how this would work.
“What it says is that a single cell can achieve all the protections the Constitution of the United States bestows on persons,” Slaughter said of the bill. “Scientifically the law is crazy.”
Here’s where my derision for partisan politics reaches a head. With all the hate and fear spewed by both sides there is nothing discussed that is interesting. Having grown up in a blue collar, ethnic household, in the WASP State of Ct., I saw people in power being all WASP men. We now have a Supreme Court of Jews and Catholics. We have 4 men[a woman or 2 would be nice!] running for POTUS. One is a Mormon, two are Catholic, and one is Protestant. The Protestant is black, and one of the Catholics is Irish and a Republican. This is quite historic and noteworthy. I thought I would just give my blue collar, ethnic take on this. You can all go back to spewing hatred, sorry to inject a little sanity. And feel free to tell me I’m “stupid” and “out of my league”. I know I’m not worthy of the smug and sanctimonious who hijack most threads.
Todd Akin and Paul Ryan Are More Alike Than You Think
By Margaret Carlson Aug 20, 2012
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-20/todd-akin-and-paul-ryan-are-more-alike-than-you-think.html
Excerpt:
Todd Akin’s remarks about some rapes being “legitimate,” and the ability of a woman to miraculously self-abort in those instances, have many of his fellow Republicans desperate to distinguish him from others in their party. This isn’t easy.
Akin, a member of the U.S. House of Representatives who is seeking to unseat Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri, is not an outlier. No less than Paul Ryan, the Republican candidate for vice president, shares his views. Ryan, Akin’s colleague in the House, has sponsored legislation with him that also sought to distinguish between types of rape: Instead of “legitimate,” it used the word “forcible.”
What Akin’s remarks have unleashed is a discussion in the presidential race over social issues that will be hard for Republicans to control. They were reasonably sure they could paper over the differences between Ryan and his running mate, Mitt Romney, on Medicare. On social issues, the problem is the opposite: The difference between Ryan’s views and Akin’s could fit on a Post-it note.
On Sunday, the Republicans’ chances for taking control of the Senate took a big hit. When asked on a St. Louis TV program if he would make an exception to his anti-abortion stand for rape, Akin said he would not because in those instances a woman’s body will somehow know to end the pregnancy itself.
Elaine, You strike me as one of those nanny teachers who would say, w/ your head tilted in the progressive “I care” look, “Mr and Mrs. Johnson, have you considered Ritalin for Josh.” Well, as I see your obsessive comments, I would say, maybe your mommy and daddy should have considered Welbutrin for their OCD child.
nick,
You’re so predictable! Always poking people with a stick. How about you grow up and join in the discussion? Got something to say on the subject of Paul Ryan and his cosponsoring of anti-woman legislation?
It’s just amazes me that bettykath has not been here since saturday. Did they both take a trip?
Sorry Elaine, I’m “out of my league”. Why don’t you tell me how I should think and feel on that topic. I just feel so unworthy. I’m guessing, since I’m not real bright, that I should say that although Ryan has a wife, mother and daughter that he hates women, is evil, stupid and lazy, and wants to put women, blacks and illegals in chains. Do I “have my mind right”[Cool Hand Luke reference] Boss Elaine?
No nick, we just thin Ryan and men like him should get the he11 out of all Uteri since their ‘opinion’ is not based on any sort of medical science or the Constitution.
In fact, it is political pandering of the worst kind, hoodwinking the religious to vote for them on this single issue. Making abortion illegal or so hard to get it may as well be illegal. They do not think their wives or daughters have the right to privacy.
But as always, if one of their wives or daughters ever needs an abortion- he will make sure they will be able to get one asap, even if they have to fly to the EU to do so.
Just like that young leader of the ‘Right to Life’ movement did. Because it is always OK if you are Republican. IOKIYAR/ No matter what the ideological stance, you can be the exception to that belief if needs arise.
Well said shano.
Nick,
The votes of Mr. Ryan speak for themselves.
Nick,
I invited you to join the discussion on the topic of this thread. Not ready yet? Cat got your tongue on the subject? Don’t blame me.
When you’re ready to discuss Ryan’s cosponsoring of the legislation that I wrote about in this post, I’ll listen to your argument
Ted Kennedy made all the “correct” votes. How he really felt about women is deadly apparent to anyone w/ half a brain. How Ted Kennedy treated women over his depraved, alcoholic, lifetime “speaks for itself.” But, I know he’s “y’all” hero.
Shano, I have said for two decades that men should get out of the abortion debate. Men harden the debate and cause violence, from both ends of the spectrum, vis a vis abortion. I firmly believe if men were to step aside that women would come to a civil compromise. And, as any human would agree, that compromise would not include the legalization of partial birth abortion.
nick, you still do not know enough to put the partial birth abortion on the chopping block.
Tell me, would you like to carry a fetus for two more months after the doctor told you this fetus did not have a brain and would die at the moment of birth? Would you?
Even if you know that having a partial birth abortion is vastly safer than carrying to term?
The majority of women have already come to a consensus.
it is this; make abortion legal and rare.
The rest of it is a private matter between a woman and her doctor, no one else.
http://www.juancole.com/2012/08/top-ten-paul-ryan-falsehoods-gaffes-and-outrages-first-week.html
Tell me nick, what WOMEN in Congress are writing these anti abortion bills? Who are they? Which bills did they write or sponsor?
Off Topic:
Mitt Romney Taxes Enriched Foreign Governments At U.S. Expense
Posted: 08/20/20
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/mitt-romney-foreign-tax-credit_n_1812507.html
Expert:
WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney sought and received $787,455 in foreign tax credits from the U.S. Treasury to cover his tax payments to other nations in 2008.
While there is no evidence that his actions violated the law, abuse of the foreign tax credit has been a problem for the Internal Revenue Service. The agency has prosecuted a number of international fraud cases in the last few years involving such credits. And the size of Romney’s claim in 2008 raises questions about the sources of his foreign income.
“This could definitely be a contributing reason for Romney’s unwillingness to disclose prior years’ returns,” said New York University School of Law professor Daniel Shaviro, a tax expert.
The U.S. government provides tax credits to Americans who also pay taxes abroad, so that foreign income is not taxed twice by different governments. While these credits do not save U.S. residents from paying taxes — they still have to pay the foreign governments — they do put a dent in the U.S. Treasury’s collections.
“In the plain-vanilla case, the taxpayer is hurting the U.S. Treasury to the benefit of the foreign treasury, but isn’t benefiting himself,” Shaviro said.
The Huffington Post had previously reported that Romney received more than $25 million in foreign income between 2005 and 2010. At the time, he was governor of Massachusetts. His 2010 return also lists foreign tax payments that Romney made dating back to 2000. Through 2004, the payments were tiny — for Romney — averaging $37,000 a year. In 2005, however, his foreign tax bill shot up to $333,149 and stayed high for the next three years, prior to the Great Recession.
“Romney had a significant amount of foreign income,” observed Rebecca J. Wilkins, senior counsel for federal tax policy with the nonpartisan Citizens for Tax Justice. “We don’t know what the source of his foreign income is.”
Called it!
Elaine,
That is one interesting story. I think Romney has several reasons why all the grief he is taking over not disclosing his returns is worth it to him in comparison to what stuff would hit the fan if his returns were made public.
Mitt Romney Taxes For 2010 Not Fully Disclosed
Posted: 07/18/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/18/mitt-romney-taxes-2010_n_1683084.html
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON — Mitt Romney has not released his full tax records from 2010, including key documentation connected to his Swiss bank account.
Although President Barack Obama and an increasing number of Republican politicians have called on Romney to release tax returns from years prior to 2010, the public criticism has so far failed to note that Romney has not disclosed all of his tax documents for 2010 itself — the only year for which the GOP presidential nominee has presented any final tax forms.
Romney released his 2010 tax return in January of this year, a document that first informed voters about the existence of his Swiss bank account and financial activities in Bermuda and the Cayman Islands. But people who own foreign bank accounts are required to file a separate document with the IRS that provides additional details on such overseas bank holdings, and Romney has not released that form to the public.
The Romney campaign did not respond to HuffPost’s request to view the document.
Tax experts say it is almost certain that Romney did file the form, known as a Report on Foreign Bank and Financial Accounts, or “FBAR” in accountant slang. The penalty for not filing an FBAR can be severe, and the IRS would have expected to receive the form since Romney listed the Swiss bank account on his tax return. Listing the account on his tax return and then failing to file the subsequent FBAR would have been asking for a hefty fine, and would probably have heightened IRS scrutiny of prior tax filings.
Nevertheless, Romney’s omission of the form from the earlier disclosure raises questions for tax policy experts about the function of his Swiss bank account, and whether or not Romney used other offshore bank accounts that did not generate interest.
Democrats Tie Ryan, Romney to Akin as ‘Dangerous’ for Women
By Devin Dwyer & David Mui
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/democrats-tie-ryan-romney-to-akin-as-dangerous-for-women/
Excerpt:
With Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan scrambling to distance themselves from Rep. Todd Akin’s comments about “legitimate rape,” Democrats have seized on the moment to highlight what they say are Republicans’ outdated views on women.
Akin, a Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Missouri, told a local TV interviewer Sunday that he opposed abortion in all cases, including rape and incest, because victims of “legitimate rape” are unlikely to become pregnant.
“The female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Akin told KTVI.
The GOP presidential ticket, Romney and Ryan, swiftly condemned Akin, saying in a joint statement that they “disagree” with Akin’s remarks and that their administration “would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”
But Democrats said the presumptive nominee and his running mate have a history of aligning with Akin on “extreme” positions, including legislation that would have redefined rape, banned abortion in all cases and cut off funding for abortion providers, such as Planned Parenthood.
“While Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are working overtime to distance themselves from Rep. Todd Akin’s comments on rape, they are contradicting their own records,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith.
“Every day, women across America grapple with difficult and intensely personal health decisions — decisions that should ultimately be between a woman and her doctor,” she said.
Democratic National Committee chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz said Akin’s comments reflect a mindset in the Republican ranks that is “literally, dangerous for women.”
“Congressman Ryan has already partnered with Akin on a whole host of issues that restrict women’s ability to make their own health care decisions,” she said in an email blast to supporters Sunday night.
“This kind of ‘leadership’ is dangerously wrong for women — and I can’t sit by and watch as these out-of-touch Republicans like Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Todd Akin continue to roll back women’s rights.”
Tricksy,
You are long up the list here and certainly long gone.
But you give me opportunity to comment.
Combat is all we see around us daily, and all the time on TV. And ideas are expressed in the dominant form (the mode is dominant in the mind) and the length seems well-adapted to the length of a TV commercial pause.
More lengthy items don’t get read, as I have been advised.
Pathological Hypocrisy: Todd Akin, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan
The ladies summarized it well, but sometimes too many words obscure the message. Only one or at most two ideas, etc at a time please. My (and the public’s brain?) is limited.
They also showed that de-suffragizing men would be a good idea, so that this could become a matriarchal
nation.
Women can, and much better. Nature knew what it was doing when it gave women the role they have vv “life”.
A campaign slogan, not a defensible scientific position.
Obama made his main point on the swiss accounts. But he erred (for reasons of presentation cohesion?) by not saying that Romney has ONLY released part of the year’s declaration, and has withheld key parts needed for judging his tax position. So claim those who know.
Paul Ryan’s pro-life views in spotlight after Todd Akin’s rape comments
Romney distances himself from statements, but his running mate once sponsored a bill that could have outlawed all abortions
Karen McVeigh
8/20/12
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/aug/20/paul-ryan-pro-life-akin?newsfeed=true
Excerpt:
The row over the “legitimate rape” comments of a Republican congressman has brought renewed attention on the staunchly pro-life views of the party’s vice-presidential candidate, Paul Ryan.
Mitt Romney’s campaign managers moved swiftly to limit the damage from remarks made by Todd Akin, the Republican senate candidate for Missouri, who suggested women could not become pregnant from being raped.
A “Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape,” the campaign said in a statement.
But commentators on Monday moved to point out that the statement appeared to contradict the Republican vice-presidential candidate’s earlier positions on the issue.
Ryan, a staunch pro-lifer, was a co-sponsor of a controversial House bill last year defining life as the moment of fertilisation and granting “personhood” rights to embryos. Abortion rights activist say the Sanctity of Human Life Act would have outlawed all abortions, restrict some forms of contraception, in-vitro fertilisation and stem-cell research.
The bill never made it onto the floor of the house. All state attempts to introduce so-called “personhood” amendments into law have failed, even in conservative states. It was rejected in Mississippi in November 2011.
Ryan also voted for and co-sponsored house bill dubbed the “let women die” bill by pro-choice campaigners. The bill would allow hospitals to deny emergency abortions, even when it is necessary to save a woman’s life.
He was also a co-sponsor of the ultrasound informed consent act, which requires a women seeking an abortion to undergo an ultrasound even if not medically necessary and forced doctors to provide images and descriptions of the foetus to her.
With Ryan Selection, GOP Doubles Down on War on Women
Carolyn Maloney, U.S. Representative from New York
8/15/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/carolyn-maloney/with-ryan-selection-gop-d_b_1778410.html
Excerpt:
Mr. Ryan boasts of being “pro-life” but he voted for a law that critics understandably labeled the “Let Women Die Act.” The bill would have given hospitals the right to refuse to perform an abortion even if it was necessary to save a woman’s life. The law would also have allowed the hospital to refuse to transfer a dying woman to a hospital that would save her life.
Mr. Ryan says he wants to get government out of people’s lives yet he supported the passage of a federal law that would forbid terminating any pregnancies, even those that came as the result of rape and incest. He believes it is appropriate to use federal law to compel a woman to bear the child of her attacker, or compel a minor to bear her own siblings.
Mr. Ryan has supported “Personhood” legislation that would criminalize widely used forms of birth control. He has voted to deny birth-control coverage to federal employees, called for the defunding of Title 10 family planning programs and called for the defunding of Planned Parenthood.
shano, When I speak of the “abortion debate” I am referencing the debate in our culture, not in Congress. I have been quite heartened by Hollywood having themes of women giving up babies for adoption and making that a difficult and noble choice. Without question some of the attitude I have is shaped by us going through infertility problems for years. We ended up adopting our son from Colombia and then having a daughter via birth. shano, my hope and prayers are that this huge open wound is solved w/ a win/win, and it will take women to accoplish this. This isn’t about legislation, laws solve few problems and create many more. I think about smoking in this regard. It wasn’t laws that changed it…smoking became “stupid” and “uncool”. Actually, w/ the newer more dranconian laws smoking is unfortunately making a comeback. if you make something uber taboo, then kids want it. Lets end on something we should be able to agree on. Abortions should be rare, w/ the infertility problems in this country being helped. They should be legal. I’ll end it there.
“my hope and prayers are that this huge open wound is solved w/ a win/win, and it will take women to accoplish this.”
Nick,
I must be categorical about this, which is unusual for me, but my feelings are too strong. This is not an issue to be solved by compromise. We do not have a right as a society to force women to make choices they don’t want to make. Fetuses are not viable life, either scientifically and/or religiously. The Anti-Abortion position is not pro-life, it is anti-woman’s sexuality, with “life” being used to hide its misogyny. I am the father of two daughters and how dare anyone feel they can make choices as to what they can do with their own bodies? Finally, my religion says that life begins with the first breath and how dare anyone think that their religion takes precedence over mine in a personal matter.
Now my religion also says that anyone who eats pork is committing an abomination towards God and should be murdered. Should we ban bacon, because after all an abomination against God is a serious matter? Perhaps the resolution you should pray for is that all women who think a abortion is wrong due to religious reasons, not have abortions, while not trying to make others of different beliefs follow the anti-abortion religious beliefs.
Unfortunately, nick, it is about legislation.
To have the goal all women want of SAFE, LEGAL and RARE for abortion, we need laws protecting this right. Some states are making it almost impossible for abortion clinics to open up. How can the goal be reached if there are no safe, legal places where woman may get abortion care?
I see this in a way as trying to force women to have babies that they then have no other option (unless they want to be driven into extreme poverty) but to give up for adoption.
The glory days of when young women where whisked out of sight to have babies that were taken from them so the rich can adopt these children. It is a horrible system. A patrician system that was horrible for women.
Until we commit to taking care of every mother and child there is no other way. We cannot continue to fight this same battle, over and over, because some people would make another choice in life(or so they think, they have no idea until it actually happens to them).
Sorry, but for the majority of women, having a first trimester abortion is safer, less traumatic and less emotionally devastating than giving a living baby up for adoption.
The burden is ALWAYS on poor women. Because rich women have always had, and will always have, easy and safe access to abortion
Also let me add this to the above since this is an issue that is important to me.
For those who would say that they can’t allow murder on a moral basis, I say they are hypocrites. The Roman Catholic Church, for instance, has spearheaded the anti-abortion movement because they can’t tolerate murder of a fetus. Yet for hundreds of years during the Inquisition that same church condoned burning supposed heretics at the stake for being non-believers. The same RCC sanctioned wars and crusades that killed hundreds of thousands in the name of political opportunity disguised as religious belief.
We have discovered today that the same RCC that is so upset about abortion has for years officially covered up pedophilia, which has cause untold misery to probably hundreds of thousands of innocent children. Now please understand this that I’m not making a strictly anti-Catholic rant, because in truth the RCC’s abortion position is better than that of their Protestant counterparts. That is because at least the RCC recognizes the duty of society to care for those children born into poverty, whereas their anti-abortion counterparts love the fetus and could care less about the infants born.
Mike,
Did you see this story?
2012 Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception
By Aviva Shen on Aug 21, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/21/718461/2012-republican-platform-to-advocate-abortion-ban-without-rape-exception/
Excerpt;
Republican politicians have been falling over themselves to condemn from Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, who said Sunday that women who have experienced “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The Romney-Ryan campaign called Akin’s comments “insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong,” in spite of Ryan’s close working relationship with Akin on a number of radical anti-abortion and contraception bills. A Romney spokesperson added that the “Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”
But embracing a rape exception for abortion rights would put the campaign at odds with the Republican Party’s longstanding platform, the newest iteration of which will be officially unveiled at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. In spite of the massive public outcry from the right over Akin’s comments, the official GOP platform committee drafted a provision Monday supporting a “human life amendment” that would outlaw abortion without specifying exemptions for rape or incest. The platform reads:
“Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.”
Heading the committee is Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA), best known for his “mandatory ultrasound” law requiring any woman getting an abortion to undergo an unnecessary ultrasound. McDonnell also revealed his regressive position on women’s rights in his college thesis, which slandered working women, contraception, and “fornicators.” It’s no surprise, then, that under his guidance, the Republican Party will reaffirm its support for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion and likely many forms of contraception.
Elaine,
I did see it. God Damn Them! From my perspective this election is now focused on the attempts to further reinforce the American Patriarchy on the part of misogynists who are mainly too shallow to understand their own male hatred of women, people of color and gay people. The question remains undecided as to whether American moves further towards bigotry after this coming election.
Folks seem to be missing my point because everyone is so locked in on the talking points. I’m a libertarian. Going back to prohibtion, we see how outlawing booze did..it made matters worse. Further, although the nanny govt. wants to ban smoking, fat, Big Gulps, etc.,sane people know that’s idiotic. Following that logic, banning abortion would have similar outcomes to prohibition, that being illegal, unsafe abortions. No where did I say, nor imply, that women be FORCED to give babies up for adoption. I’m simply talking about taking a negative[unwanted pregnancy] and turning it into a positive[infertile couple having a child] if that’s what the pregnant woman would like. A freakn’ option supported by women pro and anti abortion. I applaud your empathy for pregnant women. I share it. How about some of that empathy for infertile couples? The fact that what I’m saying is controversial here lends my deductive mind to think the “rare” abortion part of your creed is maybe just perfunctory?
Mike, Thanks for your spitual counseling. Let’s make a deal. I won’t tell you what to pray for and you afford me the same respect. Lots of sanctimony here..too damn much. You folks need to breathe and step out of the echo chamber.
What Mike and shano said. This whole issue is about giving women control over there own bodies and the Ryan’s of the world don’t want that to happen as evidenced by their votes and proposed legislation and party planks. Women have the choice now to deliver the baby and offer it up for adoption, but it has to be their choice, not the Republican party or any party’s choice.
Agreed. Next point?
I think you need to convince shano, however.
“I’m simply talking about taking a negative[unwanted pregnancy] and turning it into a positive[infertile couple having a child] if that’s what the pregnant woman would like. A freakn’ option supported by women pro and anti abortion. I applaud your empathy for pregnant women. I share it. How about some of that empathy for infertile couples? The fact that what I’m saying is controversial here lends my deductive mind to think the “rare” abortion part of your creed is maybe just perfunctory?”
Nick,
Please re-read my last two comments to understand that they were not about attacking you, or your positions personally. Parenthood has been one of the great, if not greatest, blessings of my life. Whether ones’ child is adopted, or
ones genetic product is irrelevant to me in my understanding of parenting. To raise a child, bestowing ones loving care upon it, is not a matter of genetics, but of unconditional love and I know that personally.
However, the statement of yours that I quoted,in the context of your comment did seem to be slanted toward the have the child and give it up for adoption line of reasoning. While I am not against that as a possible solution to an unwanted pregnancy, especially for a women of a given religious persuasion, I am against it when offered as a preferable viable option for an unwanted pregnancy as an argument against abortion. My belief is simply that it is the woman’s choice and that is the end of the matter. I do not believe that potential fathers, for instance have any right in the decision.
“lends my deductive mind to think the “rare” abortion part of your creed is maybe just perfunctory?”
Nick,
Please don’t confuse my political positions (creed?) with those mealy mouthed people who are pro-choice but try to sound equivocal. I am unequivocal in saying it is purely a woman’s right to choose and no body else’s business what or why she makes that choice.
Mike, As I said to rafflaw, agreed! Would a libertarian want govt. involved in this women’s decision? Of course not. I want reasonable women from across the spectrum to come up w/ a framework. There’s way too much negative energy from both extreme ends of the spectrum.
Two observations:
Abortions are not cool, not fun, and no woman enjoys or accepts them as the price of free sex. Nor would as many seek them if we had full sex education or access to “day after” pills. Or respect for a “no” if no condom is available. So it ain’t womens’ faults.
Most of these control freaks are in one of two mental states:
1) Afraid that they are losing their grip on their wives, daughters, granddaughers, and society which they thought they ruled.
2) Want to go back to the good ol’ bible days when Abraham could have his jollies with his slave girl and then send her into the desert with his child when his wife had done what his culture required—produce a son.
Just shows that idiots CAN rule a nation. And may just do so, if Romney wins.
Repubs! How about a law requiring DNA tests at birth of all. Then there is some chance that the baby gets someone who pays or forces society to pay if he can not.
Ryan et al does not have any morals. They just want to keep their freebies.
Can’t believe that Jesus meant to start all this (if he existed)
Whether ones’ child is adopted, or
ones genetic product is irrelevant to me in my understanding of parenting.
OK, but it is not irrelevant in any understanding of pregnancy.
If there is to be true equality, then if a parent can die in childbirth, it should be the father 50% of the time. Same goes to damage to kidneys, blood clots, etc. OK? Then we can talk equality OK?
nick, I have never said I was against adoption.
I am only against the lack of choices! Why should a poor woman, or young women as in the past, be forced to carry to term a child she cannot afford to keep? A woman who would have rather had an abortion but now has to give up her baby because she could not afford to care for it.
This is never a decision that rich women have to make. Why should the poor have to suffer so the rich can have a baby to adopt? Why dont the rich adopt kids in the foster care system? We have thousands and thousands of kids who do not have homes, why do you think more babies will help this situation? The rich who want a child already have thousands of options.
If the woman has a baby with the intent of giving it up for adoption, that is one thing. the other is that she has no other choice but to do so. Some women will find this option more traumatic, I know I would.
If I went to the trouble to carry to term no way in he11 would I be able to give that baby to anyone.
If you want to prevent abortions, you make sure everyone has health care, a high school education and birth control. Not the exact opposite.
shano,
And how about making the morning after pill available to women who have been raped and not making it an illegal drug?
Elaine,
I worry that concentrating the battle on defending the right to abortion in the case of rape, incest, and health of the mother we are making a mistake. I fear we may win that argument but will wind up with ONLY those exceptions. Soon Americans will think pro-choice just means abortion is permissable in the case of rape, incest, health and will shrug away the whole of Roe. A terrible result.
shano, Your ideology is blocking your compassion. Firstly, most of the kids who are adopted in the US come from middle income young women, not “poor” women. We went through support groups, adoption groups, and they included the entire social strata. Do you think blue collar couples are immune to infertility?? You are either clueless or heartless as to the infertility epidemic in this country. Couples w/ lots of money can afford cutting edge fertility treatment. It’s mostly middle and lower income folks who adopt. And, we adopt from foster homes, special needs, and foreign countries. You seem to know a lot about the politics of abortion. Why not use your obvious intellect and passion to learn something about infertility and adoption. What I am saying might make more sense to you.
shano, From the CDC. There are 6.7 million women of child bearing age[15-44] who have infertility issues in the US. That is 10.9% of the population of women of child bearing age.
Let me tell you what the stats don’t tell you. The anguish, pain and shame of the couples. The incessant questions, “When you going to have a child?” The feeling of inadequacy. The feeling of envy seeing women w/ no parenting skills or love having kids. I could go on, but I’ll leave it @ that.
Curious,
I believe it’s important to point out to people that the legislation that Paul Ryan and Todd Akin are cosponsoring wouldn’t allow women to have an abortion in cases of rape, incest, or when their lives are in danger; would give fertilized eggs more rights than pregnant women; would make certain types of birth control illegal. My hope is to show people just how extreme and anti-woman their proposed legislation is.
I also think it of great import to show that Paul Ryan is on the same page as Todd Akin when it comes to women’s health and welfare. I certainly don’t want a man who would cosponsor this kind of anti-woman legislation to be elected vice president of my country.
No, I am not heatless to say that a women who would rather have an abortion than carry to term is proper. It should always be the choice of the woman, her family if she has one and her doctor.
It is heartless to say that these woman should be forced to carry to term regardless, just because there may be a shortage of healthy babies for others to adopt. that should not even be a consideration.
People who want a baby can get one! That women have the option of abortion has nothing to do with this.
The statistics back me up, we have thousands of kids who need homes, why don’t they have a home? Why are people not adopting these kids? Because the pristine baby is what all these people want. More and more of them all the time to satiate the greed of others.
This is what the radical ‘right to life’ people want, force women to produce thousands of unwanted babies to satisfy the greed for pristine babies. If they had their way, pregnant women would be locked up until delivery to make sure the woman does not harm that precious fetus until the ‘right’ ie Christian family can get ahold of it.
There are thousands of babies languishing in Romanian orphanages, and other places, without proper care.. Millions of children without enough food to eat. More millions dying of starvation each year. We cannot even take care of the babies born every year as it is! These babies should be finding homes before we force women to have even more babies that they themselves do not want.
Child starvation should be wiped out before we force women to have babies they do not want.
The planet is already overpopulated with humans. Why assure that this continues to happen by banning abortion, birth control and other methods of family planning? That may sound harsh to you, but it is a matter of quality of life for all of us. Family planning is the most important part of human sustainability on a planet with finite resources.
nick,
It’s not the responsibility of women who are raped and impregnated by their rapists–who could be their fathers or brothers–to carry their pregnancies to term in order to provide children for infertile couples. What about the anguish of a woman who would be forced to carry a rapist’s child for nine months and then have to go through the excruciating pain of childbirth? One reason women are willing to endure that pain is because they want to have children with the men they love. I wish you had as much compassion for raped women as you do for the childless.
nick, those people are incredibly selfish. they want a ‘baby’. A prisitine baby who has not been abused or neglected. All the while, there are thousands of kids who need a home and thousands more without enough food to eat.
Pure selfishness..
Where..in anything I’ve written, could you come to pose that question. I have prosecuted rape victims[I just spoke of one case on the cop lying thread in Florida]]. I have sat w/ rape victims, taken them to rape crisis centers, told them what to expect on the stand, shielded them from scumbag defense attorneys, etc.. What could possibly give you the temerity to say what you just di?. What the hell have you done for rape victims? I have helped send numerous rapists to prison. If you had any reading comprehension when I have discussed working for a prosecutors office you would known NOT TO GO THERE! Disgraceful.
shano, We’re done. And you just dimished yourself as had Elaine. SELFISH!! Watch out for that karma.
nick,
To whom did you direct your last comment? Which question are you referring to?
shano,
Nick doesn’t like it when people question what he says–or ask him tough questions.
Nick obviously does not care to think about the millions of babies who die every year of starvation or disease that is easily curable with a few pennies of medication.
Or the millions more who are hungry or exploited or abused or neglected. these are the kids who need to be adopted.
The question was your stupid boilerplate question about rape victims that was rebutted. What about my question Elaine, what have you done for rape victims except pontificate about them? I told you what I’ve done!!!
karma women..it can be a mofo!!
I happen to think every life is sacred, the babies already here should be taken care of before you force women to have babies they do not want to carry to term.
The fact that we cannot care for the babies we have is what you do not want to hear. Karma is a mofo, and all humans should be appalled by our disregard of these existing children.
We all know what the Pope thinks. he can spend thousands on a pair of shoes while babies starve to death. Karma is a mofo.
nick,
Which “boilerplate” question are you talking about–and how did you rebut it?
nick,
You appear to be an individual who has little patience and is quick to anger. It’s probably a good thing that you left the teaching profession.
Elaine,
It is amazing that Akin and Huckabee are still relying on junk science or junk medicine in their claims that a woman can shut down her body to prevent from becoming pregnant after a rape. Now Rep. Steve King is also claiming that he doesn’t remember anyone getting pregnant from a rape! This is not just idiocy at work, it is designed to keep the far religious right energized for the upcoming elections. The good news is that is has done the opposite and energized the left against these mental midgets.
We adopted an abandoned boy named Carlos in 1987. I’ve spoken of him here several times He was 2 years old and would have been on the streets of that drug traffic mecca in a few years, almost certainly dead before age 10. He’s doing well, thank you for asking. I thought progressives weren’t judgemental. I’ve seen more judgementalism here than just about anywhere.
rafflaw,
King doesn’t remember anyone getting pregnant from a rape? Is he speaking from experience?
These men are dangerous mental midgets!
nick,
It’s you who is judgmental. We express our opinions and when you don’t like them–you get snitty, snarky, and start insulting people. You have a very off-putting way of trying to win people over to your side of the argument.
FYI, I don’t read every comment posted on this blog–nor do I read every post. I don’t have the time.
I’d say good for you and your wife for adopting an abandoned boy. I wish more people would. My daughter and son-in-law are social workers. I’m sad to say that there aren’t enough good foster families where they can place children who have to be removed from their homes
I shoved it up your ass and you know it. Condescension seems to be your default mode. Reverse roles if your mind is capable. And, you still haven’t answered a pretty basic question. That tells me you have done nothing to help rape victims.
I had a good relationship w/ the woman who ran the Rape Crisis Center in KC. We set up a systen wherein all rape victims who came through our office would be introduced to their services. We had brochures in all the ER’s[I would deliver them for her when I visited the different hospitals]. It seemed most times when I took the victims to visit the Center there were no volunteers, just the director[a victim herself] and the secretary. I asked her once why there were no regular volunteers. She sighed and said, “It’s tough, people realize it’s just so heartbreaking.” She had a couple volunteers[victims also] who were there sporadically..that was about it.
What you got from me was righteous indignation.
rafflaw,
I posted the following at the Akin thread earlier today:
Rep. Todd Akin’s Rape Remark At Odds With Science Of Pregnancy
By: Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Managing Editor
Posted: 08/20/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/20/akin-rape-remark-science-pregnancy_n_1811642.html
Excerpt:
When a viable sperm penetrates a viable egg inside a woman’s reproductive tract, the result is a fertilized egg that can then implant in the uterus. That fact of life is consistent regardless of how that sperm and egg met up, including whether or not the sperm was ejaculated during rape.
That may be news to Rep. Todd Akin from Missouri who told a local television station, in explaining his stance that abortion should not be allowed even in the case of rape: “If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
“Physiologically, if the sperm is in the vagina, a pregnancy can occur, regardless of the circumstances of how that sperm got there,” said Dr. Melisa Holmes, an ob-gyn and founder of Girlology, an organization that promotes healthy sexuality and communication in families.
And though the anti-abortion Republican says he “misspoke,” Holmes says that Akin’s remark also suggests that some rapes are not “legitimate,” and this continues a harmful misconception about violence against women.
“A rape is a rape, and a woman has the same physical and emotional consequences whether she’s raped by a stranger in a dark alley or someone she’s known for five years,” Holmes told LiveScience. “That’s one of those misperceptions that gets perpetuated and unfortunately affects women in a bad way — ‘Were you really raped, or were you at fault for part of it?’”
Perhaps Akin is correct in thinking it’s not the easiest of tasks to get pregnant; that’s why men don’t ejaculate just one sperm and instead release nearly 100 million sperm. (Men who have fewer than 20 million sperm per milliliter of semen may have difficulty conceiving, according to a WebMD article.) That’s because few sperm survive the grueling journey from the vagina to the fallopian tubes where they can meet up with an egg. Even for those that make it, only the healthiest will penetrate, and fertilize, the egg. [11 Odd Facts About the Pregnant Body]
Still, of the 6.7 million pregnancies in the United States every year, about half are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
The chance of getting pregnant from one event of unprotected sexual intercourse is 5 percent on average, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
And according to research by Holmes and her colleagues published in 1996 in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology, that same rate applies to rape victims, though it’s tricky to compare these different populations.
Take your cue from Rafflaw, he’s trying to get you onto another thought. He’s a good friend to you. Good friends will steer your right.
nick,
“I shoved it up your ass and you know it. ”
Are you speaking to me?
You do a lot of rambling. You don’t address your comments to a specific person so it’s hard to know to whom you are talking. Get some anger management therapy. That may help you.
What we got from you was “self-righteous” indignation.
nick does not read our posts. he just assumes he knows what we think because he has labeled us and put us on a shelf.
I wish the Pope would adopt a bunch of starving homeless children instead of giving his money to Prado. but maybe he buys wholesale.
Maybe Pat Robertson will adopt a bunch of children instead of trying to force women to have more babies.
Proof that the Christian Right want pristine babies, preferably white, they usually do not come out and say what they are really thinking
oh: http://wonkette.com/481357/pat-robertson-dont-touch-that-orphan-you-dont-know-where-its-been
Where Todd Akin and Paul Ryan agree, and disagree, on abortion
There’s nothing to indicate that Paul Ryan shares Rep. Todd Akin’s strange rationale for denying rape victims access to abortion. But the GOP’s vice presidential candidate opposes such abortions, nonetheless.
By David Grant, Staff writer / August 21, 2012
Christian Science Monitor
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/DC-Decoder/2012/0821/Where-Todd-Akin-and-Paul-Ryan-agree-and-disagree-on-abortion
Excerpt:
WASHINGTON
The interview question that hurtled Rep. Todd Akin (R) of Missouri into a world of political hurt was why he believes that abortions should be prohibited even in cases of pregnancies resulting from rape. It’s a view shared by about 20 percent of the American public and other conservative lawmakers, including vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan – and one that has been part of the Republican Party’s official platform for nearly three decades.
Representatives Ryan and Akin, in fact, have voted in lockstep on abortion matters since Akin joined Ryan in the House in 2001. Moreover, they teamed up on a controversial bill defining life as beginning at conception. Similar measures put forward at the state level have been rejected by voters and lawmakers even in GOP strongholds such as Mississippi.
During a radio interview Tuesday, Akin has vowed to stay in the race for the US Senate, even as all four of Missouri’s current and former GOP senators and the National Republican Senatorial Committee urged him to drop out. He is under fire for comments made Sunday in which he suggested that victims of a “legitimate rape” generally do not become pregnant.
Akin has since apologized.
The Romney campaign repudiated Akin’s remarks shortly after they aired on Sunday -– and there’s nothing to connect Mitt Romney or Ryan to Akin’s bewildering statement about “legitimate rape.” The Romney campaign statement elaborated that a Romney-Ryan administration would allow abortions under the exceptional cases of rape, incest, or in instances of danger to the life of the mother.
On the presidential ticket, then, Romney’s policy trumps Ryan’s record.
Still, Ryan’s and Akin’s voting records on abortion-related issues are barely distinguishable. During his 14 years in Congress, Ryan has voted in perfect concert with the positions taken by National Right to Life, according to the NRL scorecard. That’s 78 votes with NRL, and none against (he didn’t vote on three bills).
Elaine,
Consider the source!
“I shoved it up your ass and you know it. ”
Yeah, the instant you say that you no longer get to talk about how sensitive and great you are to rape victims.
Because, quite frankly the fact that you view forcing objects up someones ass as symbolic of victory is just disturbing as hell and makes you part of the culture that leads to rapes in the first place.
Seriously, if you really care about women who’ve been raped, cut that shit out. Rape victims are probably reading what you write, and that it just re-enforces a ton of messages they get from culture (they got raped because of something THEY did, that the rape proved that they’re powerless, that sort of things), not to mention the fact that it could very well remind them of their rape.
To re-iterate: What you said is not o.k., in fact it’s a down right horrible thing to say in any context, but it’s especially heinous when discussing rape. If you have any shred of self awareness and empathy, you’ll apologize, and avoid that phrase in the future.
Elaine:
is that story true?
What scares me the most about people like Akin is that they are so appallingly dumb! OMG Stoooopid stOOOOOOOOOOpid! (Of course, their stupidity is founded upon what they want to believe. If a woman gets pregnant by being raped, it meant that deep down inside, her “female parts” really wanted to be raped, right?) OMG OMG OMG — DUMB!
Don’t hold your breath waiting for an apology Gyges!
Bron,
What story?
Malisha,
Men like Akin believe what they want to believe.
I think Bron means the Pat Robertson story. Yes, Bron, it is true. Check out the YouTube Elaine provided.
It is Profoundly unethical to suggest that a woman carry a pregnancy to term in order that an infertile couple be provided with that child. The suggestion is breathtaking. Is it too much of an exaggeration to say that it has the sound of a “farm system”?
Paging Margret Atwood. Margret Atwood. Pease report to the delivery room.
Elaine:
this one.
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/21/718461/2012-republican-platform-to-advocate-abortion-ban-without-rape-exception/
Gene,
I loved Atwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale. Maybe Nick thinks a dystopian society like the one described in that book would be a positive thing…at least for some.
“The Handmaid’s Tale” is supposed to be cautionary. The GOP seems to think it is an instruction manual.
Bron,
I read the same story on another website too. I don’t think the final draft of the Republican platform has been completed. We’ll have to wait and see if that provision supporting a human life amendment will be included in it.
She’s a fantastic writer, Elaine. She also invented a device for authors to sign books remotely. True story.
OS,
The same thing can be said about Animal Farm and Nineteen Eight-four.
Elaine,
The opera (and film version of the opera) based on the book is also fantastic.
Otteray,
Right you are! Here’s the description of the book from Wikipedia:
“The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel, a work of science fiction or speculative fiction,[1] written by Canadian author Margaret Atwood[2][3] and first published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985. Set in the near future, in a totalitarian Christian theocracy which has overthrown the United States government, The Handmaid’s Tale explores themes of women in subjugation and the various means by which they gain agency.”
Do you think–maybe–that Atwood is prescient?
Gene,
I enjoy reading her poetry too.
Gyges,
Is the libretto of that opera written in Canadian? It is Atwood’s native tongue after all.
Elaine,
I’m afraid my Atwood experience is limited to her novels, but next time I’m in the mood to read some poetry, I’ll check her’s out.
Elaine:
Atwood was as prescient as George Orwell.
Gene,
I used Atwood’s poem “You Begin” as the model for the wedding poem that I wrote for my daughter and son-in-law.
Here’s how the poem begins:
You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.
Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.
This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn than I have said.
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.
You’ll find the entire poem and hear an audio of Atwood reading it at the following link:
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16789
After giving the matter some thought, I have come to the conclusion the GOP believes in neither democracy or a republican form of government. They merely use the tools at hand to accomplish their goals.
Gene,
Here’s an excerpt from Atwood’s poem “Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing”
by Margaret Atwood
The world is full of women
who’d tell me I should be ashamed of myself
if they had the chance. Quit dancing.
Get some self-respect
and a day job.
Right. And minimum wage,
and varicose veins, just standing
in one place for eight hours
behind a glass counter
bundled up to the neck, instead of
naked as a meat sandwich.
Selling gloves, or something.
Instead of what I do sell.
You have to have talent
to peddle a thing so nebulous
and without material form.
Exploited, they’d say. Yes, any way
you cut it, but I’ve a choice
of how, and I’ll take the money.
I do give value.
Like preachers, I sell vision,
like perfume ads, desire
or its facsimile. Like jokes
or war, it’s all in the timing.
I sell men back their worse suspicions:
that everything’s for sale,
and piecemeal…
http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16369
Otteray,
They are the tools at hand…to the extremely wealthy–just like some of the Democrats.
Elaine,
I believe that same plank has been in past Republican platforms. I would be surprised if it doesn’t stay in.
Very enjoyable, Elaine. Thanks for the links. And as an aficionado of catchy titles? “Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing” is a gem sitting atop a luxurious and intricate setting.
“The music smells like foxes,
crisp as heated metal
searing the nostrils
or humid as August, hazy and languorous
as a looted city the day after,
when all the rape’s been done
already, and the killing,
and the survivors wander around
looking for garbage
to eat, and there’s only a bleak exhaustion.”
Oh please. A woman after my own heart. That kind of deft verbal artistry simply makes me fall in love for the first time all over again. If I were a bit more contemporaneously compatible with the author? I might have to travel north with armed with bouquet and candy to declare my affections.
Gene,
I repeat. You’re one scary guy.
Interesting.
But scary.
Curious, most polymaths are scary in one way or another.
A mild suggestion; if Gene ever offers to play Scrabble or Trivial Pursuit with you for money, don’t take him up on it.
OS
I’m no fool. The first thing I would do is hand him ALL my money and ask if he would like the pin number on my ATM card.
I come here after sleeping through most of your evening hours to catch up. I start at my last post where I stopped.
What do I find, A mounting argument between Nick, Elaine and Shano, and maybe others too.
As near as I can tell, they have at worse spoken sloppily, and/or misread what is written, looking for insults, and increasingly being uncivil to each other with grove accusations at the last leading to “go to hells” from all. Was this “CÍVIL TURLEY’S” blawg I was at?
Now I would NEVER do such things, so I venture to suggest to them to find the comment that angered you, read the five previous comment to get context and correct content. Then read forward, looking for your and the others mistakes. Particularly your own. I guarantee they are there.
I won’t stand in judgement on your respective parts. But I would like to thank Nick for opening a new source of sorrow for me to investigate, the infertile couple. And the difficulties of finding adopters for children here in America. Or even to find folks to help those organizations who would help the process for the mothers and the babies.
It maybe was not the right point to bring it up. It seems so. Your passionate statements can be misinterpreted. Most of what we say can, for that matter. Jeez, yes.
Both Elaine and Shano are VERY compassionate and passionate persons, but they are slso human. And hasty readers, which we all are. Only polymaths are perfect as OS points out.
Not a snart, just a joke.
I noted how you oldtimers congregated around Elaine (mostly) dealing out strokes to calm down and bring an end to the bad atmosphere. I approve, not that you care. But maybe Nick was worth some consideration there too.
My reading says so. But extablished buddies come first, I understand how it works.
Nick, stop looking at all the faults here. Won’t get you anything but your own misery. Note them and go on.
Adapt. And I am giving advice again. Hubris.
Was it GeneH who said that “taking your theory and looking for supporting evidence was not science” (as I remember it)? Damn good advice for us all who come with preconceptions. You’ll likely find the proof you expected to be here.
Bron,
From this morning’s Boston Globe:
Republican plank opposes all abortions
By Callum Borchers
http://bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/08/21/gop-platform-committee-would-ban-abortion-even-save-woman-life-adding-furor-over-senate-candidate-offensive-remarks-rape/z8RUoesNCeEfX5N0BXqWtJ/story.html
Excerpt:
The Republican platform committee approved language on Tuesday seeking a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the life of a pregnant woman, a position Democrats quickly labeled the “Akin Plank,” after embattled Representative Todd Akin of Missouri.
The wording of the GOP’s call for a “human life amendment” is no different from what the party approved in 2004 and 2008, but proponents and opponents alike greeted it with renewed zeal two days after Akin said he “understand[s] from doctors” that rape-induced pregnancies are “really rare,” and that “if it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”
The remarks by Akin, a Republican trying to unseat Senator Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, placed abortion and rape at the center of the national political scene. Akin rejected calls from presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney and others in his own party to withdraw from the race, requesting “forgiveness” in a new TV ad and allowing a Tuesday deadline to pass without removing his name from the ballot.
GOP leaders worry that Akin’s refusal to leave the race will help reelect McCaskill in a close contest that could determine which party has a majority in the US Senate.
Akin’s remarks put a light on the platform’s call for a ban on abortion that otherwise might have drawn little attention. The Republican National Committee chairman, Reince Priebus, noted that the absolute abortion ban “is the platform of the Republican Party; it is not the platform of Mitt Romney,” though the former Massachusetts governor has said in the past that he endorses identical language.
Elaine,
Bron is from the i just was not clear enough club……I was misunderstood which based on his writings of past are just misnomers……. I still have a bridge to sell….. But he is not buying that…..
AY,
I think there may be a lot of people who didn’t know that this same abortion language has been included in the Republican platform before. The Akin story has brought this all out into the light now.
You’re probably right elaine….. Dumbness knows no degree….race….or social economic variable…..or in this case political party affiliation……
Funny, I just took a pause from watching Rachel Maddow’s latest show. She, now, is comparing Akin’t position versus Ryan’s. That is at 14:20. This is only one segment on a show dedicated to the whole abortion issue.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/#48746354
idealist707, Thanks. Believe me, I know how this echo chamber works. There are a few folks here I enjoy, yourself among them. I’ve upset the comfortable applecart, c’est la vie!
with \ˈwith, ˈwith, wəth, wəth\ prep.,
3 (b) – used as a function word to express agreement or sympathy
at \ət, ˈat\, prep.,
1 – used as a function word to indicate presence or occurrence in, on, or near
It is an important distinction.
Paul Ryan Cosponsored All the Most Extreme Anti-Abortion Bills
By Kate Sheppard
Wed Aug. 22, 2012
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/paul-ryan-cosponsored-all-most-extreme-anti-abortion-bills
Excerpt;
Over his career in the House, GOP VP candidate Paul Ryan has endorsed a number of measures that would limit or completely bar abortion in the United States. Although Ryan’s anti-abortion credentials have gotten plenty of coverage since he was announced as Romney’s veep choice, the full extent of the measures he’s endorsed is breathtaking, and includes cosponsoring a measure that would allow hospitals to deny women access to an abortion even if their life is in immediate danger.
The House passed the “Protect Life Act” in October 2011, with Ryan as one of its 145 cosponsors. The measure would allow hospitals to refuse to “participate in” or “provide referrals” for abortions. Current law states that any hospital that receives government funds is required to provide emergency care for anyone. If a hospital is affiliated with a religious institution that refuses to provide abortion care under any circumstance, they’re legally required to transfer the patient to a hospital that will. But the measure Ryan cosponsored would remove that obligation, leading opponents to criticize the bill for letting women “die on the floor.”
The Ties That Bind Paul Ryan and Todd Akin
Rape-denier Todd Akin is right in line with the GOP’s staunchly anti-abortion platform. And so is Ryan.
BY Marilyn Katz
August 21, 2012
http://inthesetimes.com/article/13718/the_ties_that_bind_paul_ryan_and_todd_akin/
Excerpt:
Republicans, heeding their media strategists, are trying to distance themselves from Todd Akin’s absurd comment that women cannot get pregnant from “legitimate rape.” But we shouldn’t let them get away with it. Rather than making him an outlier, Akin’s comments are consistent with the words and actions of the Republican Party—including its latest darling, presumptive vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan.
Ryan is being touted as an economic expert, but his legislative focus on economics is relatively new, whereas his anti-choice record is pages long and more than decade old. Of the 81 bills Ryan has sponsored or cosponsored in this congressional session, only three have dealt with the economy. The greatest number of bills he has backed on a single topic—10—have to do not with controlling the economy but controlling women’s bodies and what we can and cannot do with them.
Paul Ryan Refuses to Explain ‘Forcible’ Rape
http://www.kmbz.com/Paul-Ryan-Refuses-to-Explain-Forcible-Rape/14049625
GemeH.
If that was pointed at me, ie the at vs with comment, please use my name nest time so I will spend the time understanding it. Now I don’t get what you are correcting.
idealist,
“What do I find, A mounting argument between Nick, Elaine and Shano, and maybe others too.
“As near as I can tell, they have at worse spoken sloppily, and/or misread what is written, looking for insults, and increasingly being uncivil to each other with grove accusations at the last leading to “go to hells” from all. Was this “CÍVIL TURLEY’S” blawg I was at?”
*****
Maybe you were groggy when you awoke this morning and read through our discussion on this thread.
What have I misread in the course of this discussion? Where–in any of my comments–did I tell anyone to “go to hell?” I’d say that you’re the person who has misread what is written or spoken sloppily. I am not a hasty reader. I’m also very careful about what I write in my comments. I don’t use vulgar language.
As I told you once before–I’m not in the habit of coddling people with whom I disagree. I speak my mind and and am not afraid to express my opinions. Sometimes, people like you and Nick appear to take offense when I do that. Nick directed a vulgar comment at me. I did no such thing to him.
Fear of a Right Planet
Romney-Ryan extremism could revive liberal support for Obama
by Ted Rall
Boise Weekly
8/22/12
http://www.boiseweekly.com/boise/fear-of-a-right-planet/Content?oid=2709946
Excerpt:
Between Mitt Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan as his running mate, his team of Dubya-rehash economic advisers (because that worked out so well) and Tea Party favorite Chris Christie as keynote speaker at this year’s Republican National Convention, the Republican Party is in danger of doing something that seemed impossible just a few months ago: strengthening support among the liberal base of the Democratic Party for President Barack Obama.
Granted, disappointed lefties will not soon forget Obama’s betrayals: Guantanamo, the drone wars against Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere and the fact that this tone-deaf president has yet to propose a jobs program.
But many progressives, until recently threatening to sit on their hands or cast votes for a third party, are reconsidering, weighing disgust against gathering terror as they read the signals from the gathering storm in Tampa, Fla. Where Obama fails to inspire enthusiasm, the Romney team seems determined to generate as much fear as possible that he plans to shove the needle even further to the radical right than Ronald Reagan or George W. Bush.
Romney, who abandoned his history as a centrist Massachusetts Republican and is running as a right-winger, chose to balance his newfound extremism with Ryan, an even-more-right-winger. Ryan is a vicious, overrated ideologue whose greatest achievement–his theoretical budget proposal–paints a picture of America as a dystopian hell where an infinitely funded Pentagon wages perpetual war and the top 1 percent of the top 1 percent party on tax cuts while the elderly and poor starve or succumb to treatable diseases, whichever kills them first. Lest you wonder whether the Ryan selection is an anomaly, wonder not–from Christie to the stump speeches to the men first in line to join a Romney cabinet, everything about Team Romney screams Tea Party, Rush Limbaugh, Ann Coulter and Ayn Rand minus the cool atheism and elitism.
“I shoved it up your ass and you know it.”
So, are you just going to pretend that you didn’t say this… or do you honestly not see anything wrong with equating anal rape with victory?
nick spinelli:
are you going to apologize to Gyges?
He actually has a point, I think I will refrain from using that turn of phrase the next time I best someone in a competition and just say something like:
“That move should have made your d&&k s*ft if you had any balls” .
Meaning of course if you are a man you would be humiliated.
Although I am not sure why Gyges is worried about that turn of phrase [the one on shoving it ] since it is used almost exclusively when talking with men about competition. And in indicating an inferior position competitively. It really doesnt have anything to do with females. Had Gyges not brought it up, I would not have equated the 2 and just assumed you meant besting a person in some form of competition.
But since he has brought it up and it does make sesne, I for one will refrain in using that turn of phrase. I also ask all men to abstain from using that phrase and to find something more appropriate, maybe something like:
“what a little putz, I guess Bozo taught you how to . . .” By using Bozo we have a gender neutral insult which is non-sexual in nature.
Bron,
I thought Nick was speaking to me when he wrote: “I shoved it up your ass and you know it. ” Sometimes, Nick doesn’t address his comments to a specific person so its hard to know who he “thought” he bested in this argument. Nick is a legend in his own mind.
Elaine:
Oh.
Just Think No
By MAUREEN DOWD
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/opinion/dowd-just-think-no.html?ref=todayspaper
Excerpt:
There’s something trying about an unforgiving man suddenly in need of forgiveness.
Yet Todd Akin is right. He shouldn’t have to get out of the United States Senate race in Missouri simply for saying what he believes. He reflects a severe stance on abortion that many in his party embrace, including the new vice presidential candidate.
“I talk about one word, one sentence, one day out of place, and, all of a sudden, the entire establishment turns on you,” Representative Akin complained to the conservative radio talk-show host Dana Loesch on Tuesday as he spurned pleas from Mitt Romney and other G.O.P. big shots to abort his bid. He continued: “They just ran for cover at the first sign of any gunfire, and I think we need to rush to the gunfire.”
He’s right again. Other Republicans are trying to cover up their true identity to get elected. Even as party leaders attempted to lock the crazy uncle in the attic in Missouri, they were doing their own crazy thing down in Tampa, Fla., by reiterating language in their platform calling for a no-exceptions Constitutional amendment outlawing abortion, even in cases of rape, incest and threat to the life of the mother.
Paul Ryan, who teamed up with Akin in the House to sponsor harsh anti-abortion bills, may look young and hip and new generation, with his iPod full of heavy metal jams and his cute kids. But he’s just a fresh face on a Taliban creed — the evermore antediluvian, anti-women, anti-immigrant, anti-gay conservative core. Amiable in khakis and polo shirts, Ryan is the perfect modern leader to rally medieval Republicans who believe that Adam and Eve cavorted with dinosaurs.
Ryan Refuses To Say Abortions Should Be Available To Women Who Are Raped
By Ian Millhiser
8/22/12
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/22/724641/ryan-refuses-to-say-abortions-should-be-available-to-women-who-are-raped/
Excerpt:
This morning, Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) revealed that GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan urged him to drop out of his U.S. Senate race after Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments made him a liability to Republicans nationally. Yet Ryan’s attempt to stick a knife into the increasingly toxic senate candidate cannot be squared with Ryan’s long record of working with Akin to curtail reproductive freedom and redefine rape. Ryan and Akin cosponsored a “personhood” bill that would not only prohibit rape survivors from seeking an abortion, but would likely treat terminating a pregnancy that results from rape as a homicide crime. Similarly, Ryan and Akin partnered on a bill seeking to prevent Medicaid recipients who are raped from obtaining an abortion unless they are victims of “forcible rape.”
Nor is this a new position for Paul Ryan. The man Mitt Romney wants to be a heartbeat away from the presidency claimed that abortion should be illegal except for “cases in which a doctor deems an abortion necessary to save the mother’s life” as far back as his first House campaign in 1998. Throughout his career Ryan’s view has been consistent and unambiguous — rape survivors are out of luck.
In an interview with a local Pittsburgh television station yesterday, Ryan was given the opportunity to revise his position now that he is half of the Republican Party’s national ticket. He refused:
QUESTION: Should abortions to be available to women who are raped?
RYAN: Well, look, I’m proud of my pro-life record. And I stand by my pro-life record in Congress. It’s something I’m proud of. But Mitt Romney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Romney will be president and he will set the policy of the Romney administration.
Once again, Ryan’s “pro-life record in Congress” includes seeking to ban abortions in the case of rape.
ID
Imagine this scenario…
It is now 2014, Republicans control all branches of government, and have outlawed all abortion except in the case of endangering the life of the mother. Picture a 15 year old pregnant from rape who must carry this pregnancy to term. But you’re ok with this because an infertile couple will adopt the baby? This is not making lemonade out of lemons. This is forcing a child to carry a reminder of the worst event of her life for nine months, to interupt her schooling, to endure the gossip at school (if she is allowed to continue school), and heavy-duty gynecological care (at 70 I still don’t like those exams). As a side issue, this Republican administration has also repealed ACA, and she has no health insurance.
I’m sorry the infertile couple can’t have children and I’m sorry they can’t afford IVF (which is now, in 2014, is also illegal thanks to Republicans). And maybe there will be children born from rape whose mothers did not want an abortion and puts the child up for adoption. But it seems almost the height of evil to me to force a child, no, any woman, to carry to term a pregnancy resulting from rape – almost especially since there is a couple who seeks a benefit. Think of the stolen children of South America.
I hope you (and Nick) will read “The Handmaid’s Tale”. .
Curious,
In your scenario, there would actually be no exception for the life of the mother. They’d be able to pass the “Let Women Die” legislation.
They don’t have to be forced to carry it to term. There are always back alleys, unscrupulous doctors, nurses, and fraudsters and then of course the old reliable wire hanger. and hey without the ACA many will bleed out or die from infection saving the states money. Win-win all around.
Well we have one thing to be thankful for. Mo Dowd has written a worthwhile column for a change.
nick really does not have a problem with that, curious. He thinks any pregnancy should be carried to term in order to supply pristine babies, preferably white, to infertile couples.
What these couples should be doing is helping the babies who are already here, like nick did, or they should look into their diet- GMOs are causing infertility in animals in all independent tests. this infertility becomes sterility in the third generation.
So lets thank Monsanto for the problems these infertile couples are having in this modern age, shall we?
Elaine,
that was a great article from Maureen Dowd.
Elaine,
I was trying for a Fair, Balanced and Reasoned argument that supposed they aren’t an entirely heartless bunch motherphuckers that would let a mother die.
As I understand it Nick did not take sides on the abortion issue at all. He, as I saw it,from the beginning introduce and asked for compassion for another group who suffer the arrows of fate.
How that is saying that (as one above does now) Nick supports forcing women to birth unwelcome children so that infertile couples will have adoption objects is beyond my understanding.
As clarification, as I remember, he brought up as refucation the simple fact that there are NOW IN AMERICA more adoptable children than there are couples seeking them. He even gave examples of how he supports centers who support finding homes for these children.
How you can get excited by this escapes me. But I am only human and can be wrong. But I don’t go looking for an enemy when Nick comes over the horizon. And that does not mean he gets free wind from me. If you get that. Better if I say he gets no slack from me. Every thing he says is checked just like I do yours.
Why should I risk getting crap on my head for his sake. Not at all. I just saw some people I respected very much talking past each other and NOT listening, and getting lesa and less aware of what the other is really saying. And that is a shame.
Especially when it leads to making enemies where there should be none. There are simply too many fights here at JTs, and too little civility—as JT said.
Spoken by one who before attacked because of fear. But that is in the past now. No excuses now from me.
Did any take my advice to re-read as I suggested? Seems not to be so.
Here is nick idealist,
” I’m simply talking about taking a negative[unwanted pregnancy] and turning it into a positive[infertile couple having a child] if that’s what the pregnant woman would like. A freakn’ option supported by women pro and anti abortion. I applaud your empathy for pregnant women. I share it. How about some of that empathy for infertile couples? The fact that what I’m saying is controversial here lends my deductive mind to think the “rare” abortion part of your creed is maybe just perfunctory?”
He accuses Elaine and I of not supporting adoption when we had not even said anyting about it! And then he resorts to name calling. and resorts to saying, well, women should all get together and find a compromise? Women already know what they want, it is the right to privacy.
Nick is not reading our posts, just assuming he knows what we think. Nothing he said was controversial, no one called him out on it except to say women should not be forced to provide babies for the infertile. That would be horrific! We all think that society should care for the babies that are here rather than force women to carry to term.
Maybe he should shove it up his own a55.
“Although I am not sure why Gyges is worried about that turn of phrase [the one on shoving it ] since it is used almost exclusively when talking with men about competition. And in indicating an inferior position competitively. It really doesnt have anything to do with females. Had Gyges not brought it up, I would not have equated the 2 and just assumed you meant besting a person in some form of competition.”
Well, I’m worried about it because I happen to think women shouldn’t have to put up living in a country where they have a 1 in 6 chance of being raped in their lifetime. And I happen to think that women shouldn’t have to put up with being told that if they’re raped they’re a looser and week, and the shouldn’t have to live in the type of society that thinks that way.
The whole point is, last I knew shoving something up somebody’s unwilling rectum is in fact rape. I mean really, that statement is literally “I’m did something that’s rape to you, and you know it” to mean “I won.” And when you do that, you’re saying, “the way you show your strength is by forcing sex on someone.” You’re re-enforcing all sorts of messages that when a women’s raped, it’s only because she’s somehow less then a guy. You’re saying that as a guy the way to win is to have sex with a woman, even if they may not want it. And no, every time you say it, it might not lead directly to a woman getting raped, but every little bit of re-enforcement of that sort of thinking just makes it that much harder to break the cycle.
Language is a powerful thing, and if Nick really cares about helping rape victims as much as he claims, he’ll do his best to make sure that the message he sends is not one that helps keep the incidence of rape in the U.S. so very high.
Maybe the GOP should rebrand itself and be honest about the party of “Dumb and Dumber”….. Just sayin…..
The fact that what I’m saying is controversial here lends my deductive mind to think the “rare” abortion part of your creed is maybe just perfunctory?”
nick
yea, nick, we think all women should have monthly abortions. How stupid can you be?
You continue the radical right wing meme that women do not take this option seriously, that they should not be allowed choice because having an abortion is just ‘perfunctory’- that women will use abortions solely for ‘birth control’ . We have heard this all before, you are just better at clouding the language.
Gyges, I have “walked the walk” regarding rape victims as discussed previously. I’ve done more to help rape victims than 99.9% of the population I was spoken down to by Elaine on this subject and now by whomever the heck you are. I’ll ask you the same question I asked Elaine, what have you done to help rape victims? The inmates in Leavenworth called anal rape, “Gettin’ your sh$t packed,.” You seem a bit obsessed by this ass area. Did you just have a prostate exam lately. I’m assuming you’re a dude? Anal retentive maybe, Gyges?
Shano,
With all respect to you.
Here is how you put it:
First, a quotation of Nick, which says he supports the woman’s choice, no matter what it is. (some for private reasons do not want abortions, I guess.)
And then you give a resumé as you remember it.
No quotations.
Now how can anybody make a decision on the basis of that???
This is exactly what ElaineM did. Make assertions and even slang crap at me for good measure.
I don’t even get cred for trying to negotiate peace between you all. Citing your bonafides does not get anywhere in fact. Argue the case before the bench. Citing past wins don’t win this one in my eyes.
You give what you think Nick means, not even what he in fact said.
But, no matter. If you don’t get it then I can not make you drink my koolaid. We got bigger battles to fight than the ones at JT’s.
Just saying, making peace is harder than you think.
And hard feelings and misunderstandings don’t help doing so.
Cooperation is better than competition. And now we are going to compete ourselves out of existence. You know that,
So why are we fighting each other here. Weird.
shano, I believe abortion should be legal. I’ve said that numerous times. How does that make me radical right? You continue to shoot yourself in the foot. Breathe, woman…BREATHE!
I did not ask to be judge nor negotiator of peace here.
I only asked that you look through what was written from before you got angry and see if maybe there were some misunderstanding there. That is all I asked.
And to maybe be a little kinder to each other.
ID
I re-read and found the following comments from Nick:
“Abortions should be rare, w/ the infertility problems in this country being helped. They should be legal.”
“I’m simply talking about taking a negative[unwanted pregnancy] and turning it into a positive[infertile couple having a child] if that’s what the pregnant woman would like.”
You’re right. He did not refuse choice. I am now sitting down for a lunch of my comments of a page of 8.5×10 inch paper.
Sorry, Nick.
Perfunctory nick. Perfunctory. You already shot yourself. the gun is empty. What makes you think I am a woman?
Shano,
Who the EFF cares what you are. I know what you are. I have supported you from before hemp was mentioned. So you are not getting needless guff from me.
So, tell me, please. Where does it hurt? And can it be eased by something other than humiliating Nick?
Don’t be stupid. You see the world going to hell as I do. Let’s try to hold it together for a while.
Casting sand like 3 year olds risks putting out an eye.
shano, There’s a 50/50 chance, unless you’re transgender but the odds of that are low. I’m quite open about my id. To each their own.
idealist,
You wrote the following:
I come here after sleeping through most of your evening hours to catch up. I start at my last post where I stopped.
What do I find, A mounting argument between Nick, Elaine and Shano, and maybe others too.
As near as I can tell, they have at worse spoken sloppily, and/or misread what is written, looking for insults, and increasingly being uncivil to each other with grove accusations at the last leading to “go to hells” from all. Was this “CÍVIL TURLEY’S” blawg I was at?
Now I would NEVER do such things, so I venture to suggest to them to find the comment that angered you, read the five previous comment to get context and correct content. Then read forward, looking for your and the others mistakes. Particularly your own. I guarantee they are there.
I won’t stand in judgement on your respective parts. But I would like to thank Nick for opening a new source of sorrow for me to investigate, the infertile couple. And the difficulties of finding adopters for children here in America. Or even to find folks to help those organizations who would help the process for the mothers and the babies.
It maybe was not the right point to bring it up. It seems so. Your passionate statements can be misinterpreted. Most of what we say can, for that matter. Jeez, yes.
Both Elaine and Shano are VERY compassionate and passionate persons, but they are slso human. And hasty readers, which we all are. Only polymaths are perfect as OS points out.
Not a snart, just a joke.
I noted how you oldtimers congregated around Elaine (mostly) dealing out strokes to calm down and bring an end to the bad atmosphere. I approve, not that you care. But maybe Nick was worth some consideration there too.
My reading says so. But extablished buddies come first, I understand how it works.
Nick, stop looking at all the faults here. Won’t get you anything but your own misery. Note them and go on.
Adapt. And I am giving advice again. Hubris.
Was it GeneH who said that “taking your theory and looking for supporting evidence was not science” (as I remember it)? Damn good advice for us all who come with preconceptions. You’ll likely find the proof you expected to be here.
“What do I find, A mounting argument between Nick, Elaine and Shano, and maybe others too.
“As near as I can tell, they have at worse spoken sloppily, and/or misread what is written, looking for insults, and increasingly being uncivil to each other with grove accusations at the last leading to “go to hells” from all. Was this “CÍVIL TURLEY’S” blawg I was at?”
*****
I responded to you with the following:
Maybe you were groggy when you awoke this morning and read through our discussion on this thread.
What have I misread in the course of this discussion? Where–in any of my comments–did I tell anyone to “go to hell?” I’d say that you’re the person who has misread what is written or spoken sloppily. I am not a hasty reader. I’m also very careful about what I write in my comments. I don’t use vulgar language.
As I told you once before–I’m not in the habit of coddling people with whom I disagree. I speak my mind and and am not afraid to express my opinions. Sometimes, people like you and Nick appear to take offense when I do that. Nick directed a vulgar comment at me. I did no such thing to him.
*****
Then you wrote the following:
Shano,
With all respect to you.
Here is how you put it:
First, a quotation of Nick, which says he supports the woman’s choice, no matter what it is. (some for private reasons do not want abortions, I guess.)
And then you give a resumé as you remember it.
No quotations.
Now how can anybody make a decision on the basis of that???
This is exactly what ElaineM did. Make assertions and even slang crap at me for good measure.
I don’t even get cred for trying to negotiate peace between you all. Citing your bonafides does not get anywhere in fact. Argue the case before the bench. Citing past wins don’t win this one in my eyes.
You give what you think Nick means, not even what he in fact said.
But, no matter. If you don’t get it then I can not make you drink my koolaid. We got bigger battles to fight than the ones at JT’s.
Just saying, making peace is harder than you think.
And hard feelings and misunderstandings don’t help doing so.
Cooperation is better than competition. And now we are going to compete ourselves out of existence. You know that,
So why are we fighting each other here. Weird.
*****
What “crap” did I sling at you? What assertions did I make? What past wins did I cite? I think you need to read my responses to you and Nick in the context of this abortion discussion more carefully.
idealist,
P.S. Here is the question I left at the end of my post about Paul Ryan:
“What do you think about Paul Ryan’s position on women’s issues?”
Curious, I also stated directly, “They should be legal” @ 10:33am yesterday. That was not the issue here. However, some folks do have issues. No sorry needed Curious bugt thanks, it’s gotten pretty whacky here. Hell..I thought this was over! There are laws about beating dead horses.
Giving Birth to a “Rapist’s Child”: A Discussion and Analysis of the Limited Legal Protections Afforded toWomen Who Become Mothers Through Rape
SHAUNA R. PREWITT*
http://georgetownlawjournal.org/files/pdf/98-3/Prewitt.PDF
Excerpts:
Approximately 25,000 women become pregnant through rape each year. In
response, many states have passed special laws, devised streamlined procedures, or both, to aid pregnant women who seek abortions or wish to place their rape-conceived children for adoption. However, few states have passed laws to aid the large numbers of raped women who choose to raise their rape-conceived children. Without such laws, in most states, a man who
fathers through rape has the same custody and visitation privileges to that
child as does any other father of a child. Moreover, as a result of this legal
void, raped women and their children are left to face substantial and potentially terrible consequences. This Note argues that the absence of these laws stems from the societal images and other rhetoric concerning the pregnant raped woman that depict raped women as hating their unborn children and viewing their rape pregnancies as continuing their rape experience. These societal constructions have created a biased “prototype” of the pregnant raped woman and of the prototypical rape pregnancy experience by which all pregnant raped women are judged. Women who raise their rape-conceived children depart from the prototype and are, as a result, viewed with suspicion. Legal protections, such as alternate custody rights, are then denied to them because, being viewed as “imposter” rape victims, it is thought that there is nothing special about these women or their conceptions requiring any change in the manner in which custody and visitation determinations are made.
*****
I. WOMEN WHO CHOOSE TO RAISE THEIR RAPE-CONCEIVED CHILDREN: A LIFETIME TETHERED TO THEIR RAPISTS
As already noted, a significant percentage of raped women choose to raise the children they conceived through rape.15 Under most states’ laws, a man who fathers a child through rape has the same legal rights to custody and visitation in regard to that child as does any other father of a child due to the absence of any laws restricting or terminating such rights; as a result, many raped women face significant consequences following their decisions to raise the children they conceived through rape. They may be forced to share custody privileges of their children with their rapists, to ensure their rapists’ access to their children, to foster their rapists’ relationships with their children, and, in some cases, to make
joint decisions about their children’s welfare.
idealist, first he tell us to shove it up our a55es and then he tells us we cannot possibly believe that abortion should be rare.
This is exactly how the radical right wing put it- we do not really believe that abortions should be rare because of all sorts of batsh+t insane reasons. hint hint nudge nudge
“The fact that what I’m saying is controversial here lends my deductive mind to think the “rare” abortion part of your creed is maybe just perfunctory?”
nick
How insulting! why should we respect him even if he did help some people, he assumes too much, always. so, everyone should just scrub and bow to nick…. haha
No. he is really insulting even if he agrees with your stance. Enough.
” I have “walked the walk” regarding rape victims as discussed previously. I’ve done more to help rape victims than 99.9% of the population I was spoken down to by Elaine on this subject and now by whomever the heck you are. I’ll ask you the same question I asked Elaine, what have you done to help rape victims? The inmates in Leavenworth called anal rape, “Gettin’ your sh$t packed,.” You seem a bit obsessed by this ass area. Did you just have a prostate exam lately. I’m assuming you’re a dude? Anal retentive maybe, Gyges?”
Hey, assuming you’ve done all that stuff. Good on you. Seriously, it’s great that you did all that stuff. You have every reason to be proud of yourself, you’ve done something concrete that made the world a better place. Thank you.
The bit about “shoved it up your ass” is still a really sick thing to say. What you have done in the past has absolutely no bearing on that fact. If I’m obsessed with the ass, has no bearing. I’d hope you’re willing to either defend your statement on its merits or spend a little bit of time to consider the impact your words can have.
Let me ask you again: Do you see nothing wrong with saying that you anally raped someone as a way of signifying victory?
Complaining about me or Elaine won’t answer that question and neither would talking about the good things you’ve done. The only thing that WILL answer that question is talking in terms of what you’ve said and the effect those words have on you, and the people that could read them.
Gyges, Lighten up, “shove up the ass” is part of the vernacular. You’re playing victim. Call one of those attorneys who advertise on daytime tv. I can assure you they’ll tell you to go fly a kite..a phrase you should be able to abide.
Nick,
Just because something is part of the vernacular–doesn’t mean it’s not inappropriate. You got all hot and bothered because you perceived that I “talked down” to you. You often play the victim. That seems to be part of your modus operandi. You like to dish it out–but you sure can’t take it.
I have not read all the posts but in reading the last bunch that have come through, I reminded of the inability to see past one’s own views when the issue of abortion comes up. I am right. You are wrong. period. It is just this seems to have become more personal.
Nick,
“Gyges, Lighten up, “shove up the ass” is part of the vernacular. You’re playing victim. ”
The fact that it’s part of the vernacular is exactly the problem I’m trying to address.
I’m not a victim here, I’m a guy who’s trying to make the world a little less of a crappy place. Right now, the way I’m doing that is by trying to get you (and others) to think about the effects your words may have.
You want to keep on using the phrase, be my guest.Just know that if I see you doing it, I’ll keep calling you out on the fact that you think it’s o.k. to equate rape with victory.
Bron,
I meant to say, good on you for being willing to look at that phrase from a different point of view. We may disagree about a lot of things, but I do think you’re a genuinely good guy.
Gyges,
Bron and I have had many disagreements over issues discussed on this blog. I can’t recall a time when he insulted my intelligence or used vulgar language.
Ryan backed more than one ‘forcible rape’ abortion bill
By NBC’s Kelly O’Donnell
http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/22/13416844-ryan-backed-more-than-one-forcible-rape-abortion-bill?lite
Great link Elaine. Ryan can’t hide from his extremist voting record!
rafflaw,
I think Ryan may be more of an extremist that Todd Akin.
Elaine, how can you tell? It would be like the difference between getting blown up by a 450 pound bomb versus a 500 pound bomb. They are both so far out in cuckoo land that they cannot even see Russia from their front porch.
I hope they both keep talking…..and talking….and talking. Maybe somebody in the MSM will finally notice.
Elaine,
You called me out to prove my assertions. That I agree is needed.
But first I ask you to do the careful re-read and report on what you see NOW.
That was my original suggestion. What I wrote was a summry of a drama. Not a court reporter’s account. Nor meant to be taken as such. The words used spoke clearly as to the intend use. OK?
A summation of impressions should be read as such, not as a bloe-by-blow video of the reality which passed. Get it? So take it as a dramatization done to make one point.
Cool off and re-read. That was what my intent was.
Seems, as a matter of fact, that I was given that advice by another person when I took offense at what I thought you had written once upon a time. My re-reading, with another mindset, showed that the other person was correct and I then apologized to you.
Hoope you remember it. It was an important lesson to me. We all see threatening figures in the dark, when we feel we have been attacked.
As for riding on your previous wins, I do feel you have a tendency to feel that prior performance has some value in judging your evidence or statements made on the current issue. Am I mistaken? Perhaps. I’m not and never will be perfect. It was not meant to arouse your anger but your reflection. You are the only judge there of importance. I can’t change you, only you can if you think it is worthwhile. I would not want the responsibility, nor would I have the hubris to even think I had the right to suggest you change. Only letting you know what I feel I see. Between friend, it was meant as a helpful “just so you know”.
Yur position is unassailable in my eyes, But you can’t reckon that others are aware of your past deeds, nor do they necessarily feel your rep has any relevance with regard to the current discussion.
For what it is worth.
Of course, getting into others quarrels is not to be recommended. In this case it was meant as a peace mediation. I failed miserably at that. Don’t see many trying, one more carefully than I.
To both you and Shano, go and read Nick’s words. Don’t let his vernacular persona keep you from seeing the real person behind his words.
And Nick, words should be used with care. And especially when you seek to make an effect. Take my dramatization as an example of what not to do. They might meke more effect than you reckoned. Some here are sensitive, me too BTW. This is a tea-sipping place some here have told me. And immoderate language disturbs them. Consider yourself in church here.
Personally I appreciate reports from reality, with a small amount of how it smells there. Whew, what a stench.
While we fight Ryan, let us not forget that others are fighting elsewhere against the domination of women. Not solely our of our empathy, but as a way of supporting our own struggle through contemplating what they have achieved. It is their money which finamces
the Grameen bank in Bagla Desh, and their board members who keep it faithful to its mission.
The Bangla Desh government has other plans. Read the NYTimes article.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/22/an-attack-on-grameen-bank-and-the-cause-of-women/
Desperate Measures: Paul Ryan Tries To Revive the “Death Panel” Canard
by Jesse Singal
Aug 23, 2012
Ryan tries to muddy the waters before seniors learn too much about his Medicare plan, writes Jesse Singal.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/23/desperate-measures-paul-ryan-tries-to-revive-the-death-panel-canard.html
Excerpt:
If a recent comment from Paul Ryan is any indication, we’ve cycled back to the ugly idea that marred much of the debate over President Obama’s Affordable Care Act.
Ryan, the presumptive Republican vice-presidential candidate, told an audience at Florida’s largest retirement development that Obama’s health care law “puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of Medicare who are required to cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors.”
It’s a wonkier variation of Sarah Palin’s 2009 assault, which she’s returned to since, on Obama’s “death panels,” which was in turn echoed by Michelle Bachmann’s claim last fall that “15 political appointees will make all the major health-care decisions for over 300 million Americans.” She continued: “I don’t want 15 political appointees to make a health-care decision for a beautiful, fragile 85-year-old woman who should be making her own decision.”
Of course, it’s not true.
So why is the Romney campaign bringing back this bogus vision of faceless technocrats cruelly snatching life from helpless seniors (along with the equally bogus idea that Obama will have “robbed” more than $700 billion from Medicare)? It has a lot to do with seniors, many of whom are learning about Ryan’s plans for the program—and Ryan himself—for the first time after Romney picked the Wisconsin House member as his running mate last month . According to a Pew poll released this week, only 30 percent of people have heard “a lot” about his plan, and 29 percent have heard nothing about it at all.
But that poll and others show that the more people do hear about Ryan’s Medicare reform plan (not to mention the rest of his budget), the less they like it. And while Republicans stress that Ryan’s proposed Medicare changes wouldn’t impact current seniors or anyone entering the system in the next decade, and that even after the change seniors could choose between something like the current system and vouchers, the CBO agrees with Democratic claims that the Ryan plan would place a greater burden on Medicare enrollees.
Tina Dupuy: Paul Ryan more like Michelle Bachmann than Sarah Palin
8/22/12
http://www.baxterbulletin.com/article/20120823/OPINION/308230011
Excerpt:
If the 1980s Michael J. Fox sit-com character — the beloved Reagan-idolizing Alex P. Keaton — were a self-hating public employee who cherry-picked all the worst parts of Ayn Rand, the Bible and the Heritage Foundation’s reading room, he’d be Paul Ryan. Quirky, young and clearly trying to fill a larger man’s suit — the rightest of Republicans love Paul Ryan.
Well, they kind of love him. Both Paul Ryan and Michele Bachmann are guilty pleasures for Republicans. They like listening to them beat up on President Obama and spout their cheery condemnations of liberalism, but they don’t want to admit it too loudly lest they get stuck defending all their ideas. Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll but now she’s not even invited to introduce anyone, let alone speak, at the upcoming Republican National Convention.
Obama tried to campaign against the Ryan Budget plan this past spring since the House GOP voted for it, but that was declared out-of-bounds. Now? It’s in play and Republican politicians are not thrilled about explaining their vote to give future senior citizens coupons for chemotherapy.
Bachmann and Ryan also share the distinction of being ineffective lawmakers. According to ThatsMyCongress.com, in her nearly six years in office “Bachmann has passed three rhetorical bills with no force of law, and one amendment that asks an Inspector General to conduct inspections.” Paul Ryan has been an incumbent for twice that time and has introduced only two bills that have become law: One renaming a post office in his hometown, the other changing how arrows are taxed (how very 21st century).
Bachmann at least gets to distance herself from the Republican Congressional blank check given to the big-spending Bush administration. Under Ryan’s allegedly hawkish eye, his party started two unpaid-for wars, cut taxes during said wars, grew the government, exploded the national debt and then bailed out unregulated banks with taxpayer money. Paul Ryan voted yes for all of it and doesn’t ask for a correction when he’s called a small-government conservative.
Both Bachmann and Ryan also are at the extreme end of the spectrum when it comes to gay rights and reproductive freedoms. They both consistently have voted for any anti-abortion/anti-contraception bills that came before them. Ditto with expanding martial rights to same-sex couples. Ryan, with all his libertarian billing, has voted to take away liberties from his fellow citizens. He is the government he’s warned us about: Freedom is for corporations, and regulations are for our private lives.
If Ryan is now the Republican mainstream, Bachmann is now the Republican mainstream. If Ryan is getting the full embrace of his party, Bachmann should be getting that same welcome into the fray.
Or, in the case of Republicans in 2012, the fringe.
Tom Morello: ‘Paul Ryan Is the Embodiment of the Machine Our Music Rages Against’
By Tom Morello
August 16, 2012
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/tom-morello-paul-ryan-is-the-embodiment-of-the-machine-our-music-rages-against-20120816
Excerpt:
Paul Ryan’s love of Rage Against the Machine is amusing, because he is the embodiment of the machine that our music has been raging against for two decades. Charles Manson loved the Beatles but didn’t understand them. Governor Chris Christie loves Bruce Springsteen but doesn’t understand him. And Paul Ryan is clueless about his favorite band, Rage Against the Machine.
Ryan claims that he likes Rage’s sound, but not the lyrics. Well, I don’t care for Paul Ryan’s sound or his lyrics. He can like whatever bands he wants, but his guiding vision of shifting revenue more radically to the one percent is antithetical to the message of Rage.
I wonder what Ryan’s favorite Rage song is? Is it the one where we condemn the genocide of Native Americans? The one lambasting American imperialism? Our cover of “F*ck the Police”? Or is it the one where we call on the people to seize the means of production? So many excellent choices to jam out to at Young Republican meetings!
Don’t mistake me, I clearly see that Ryan has a whole lotta “rage” in him: A rage against women, a rage against immigrants, a rage against workers, a rage against gays, a rage against the poor, a rage against the environment. Basically the only thing he’s not raging against is the privileged elite he’s groveling in front of for campaign contributions.
You see, the super rich must rationalize having more than they could ever spend while millions of children in the U.S. go to bed hungry every night. So, when they look themselves in the mirror, they convince themselves that “Those people are undeserving. They’re . . . lesser.” Some of these guys on the extreme right are more cynical than Paul Ryan, but he seems to really believe in this stuff. This unbridled rage against those who have the least is a cornerstone of the Romney-Ryan ticket.
Paul Ryan’s Irish Problem
Mitt Romney’s running mate is making the same economic mistakes that hurt his forefathers in the Great Famine, writes author John Kelly
by John Kelly
Aug 18, 2012
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/08/18/paul-ryan-s-irish-problem.html
Excerpt:
Paul Ryan and his siblings are proud of their Irish famine-to-fortune history. They trace their paternal lineage to Ryan’s great-great grandfather, James Ryan, who fled the famine in Ireland for America in 1851, just after the worst of the catastrophe was over. But there’s something wrong with that scenario, and it is this: Ryan’s high-profile economic philosophy is the very same one that hurt, not helped, his forebears during the famine—and hurt them badly.
he Irish famine, widely regarded as the worst natural disaster of the 19th century, began when, between 1845 and 1850, repeated crop failures reduced the population of Ireland by a third. But crop failure wasn’t what caused the worst of it: a government economic philosophy called “Moralism” and speeches made in Parliament that are almost word-for-word like Ryan’s own speeches about his Republican budget are what made the famine catastrophic, causing needless deaths.
Charles Trevelyan, the British official who oversaw famine relief, was so intent on rooting out the “cankerworm of government dependency” from the character of hungry peasants that he ordered relief food be sold rather than given away. That decision was the single-most devastating one, increasing famine deaths multifold—and unnecessarily.
The words Paul Ryan used, last March, to introduce the Republican budget that eviscerates Medicare and other “entitlements,” had, to my famine-trained ears, an eerie echo to Trevelyan’s. Ryan declared that America was at an “insidious moral tipping point,” adding that “the president is accelerating this.” He went on to say that a capacious safety net “lulls able-bodied people”—I paused at the slightly archaic turn of phrase—“into lives of complacency and dependency, which drains them of their very will and incentive to make the most of their lives. It’s demeaning.” Far better for the American character for the poor to “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.” Ah, yes, those bootstraps again.
I see the heavy weather associated with tropical storm Isaac is headed in the general direction of Miami. I hate the Republicans did not take advantage of south Florida’s famous sunny weather and rent an open stadium for their convention. While I wish no harm to come to the good citizens of Miami and environs, perhaps the fates will be kind enough to cause the roof of the convention center to develop several large leaks during the proceedings as the storm passes over.
Otteray,
A storm’s a brewin’ down there in Miami. I think God is unhappy with the Republican platform!
GOP Approves ‘Most Conservative Platform In Modern History’
By Aviva Shen on Aug 22, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/08/22/723241/gop-approves-most-conservative-platform-in-modern-history/
Nuns On The Bus Tour Stops In New York To Protest ‘Devastating Romney-Ryan Budget’
By Travis Waldron
Aug 22, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/08/22/730941/nuns-on-the-bus-tour-stops-in-new-york-to-protest-devastating-romney-ryan-budget/
Ryan: Women’s Health Exception Rendered Abortion Ban ‘Virtually Meaningless’
By Zack Beauchamp
Aug 22, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/22/726411/ryan-womens-health-exception-rendered-abortion-ban-virtually-meaningless/
Excerpt;
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) opposed an exception to a so-called “partial birth abortion” ban when the procedure was necessary to save the mother’s life, according to a 2000 floor speech on the issue. Claiming the women’s health exception included in the bill was “wide enough to drive a mack truck through,” Ryan argued uncompromisingly for it to be removed:
This is not a political issue, this is a human issue. And let me just say this — to all of my colleagues who are about to vote on this issue, on the motion to recommit — the health exception is a loophole wide enough to drive a mack truck through it. The health exception would render this ban virtually meaningless. [...] [H]undreds of OB/GYNs have told us that this is not medically necessary.
Contra Ryan’s claim that the procedure (also known as “intact dilatation and extraction,” or D&E) could never be medically necessary, the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists held that D&E reduced the risk of “catastrophic hemorrhage and life-threatening infection” and that “[t]hese safety advantages are widely recognized by experts in the field of women’s health, authoritative medical texts, peer-reviewed studies, and the nation’s leading medical schools.” As such, the American Medical Association, which believes D&E would be employed for health reasons in only a very small number of cases, said that “the physician must…retain the discretion” to use D&E if a particular woman’s health needs demand it.
Who is Paul Ryan?
If you believe Republican Party mythology, he’s a Rand-ian messiah who will save America from socialism
By David Sirota
8/17/12
http://www.salon.com/2012/08/17/who_is_paul_ryan/
Excerpt:
Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan admires Ayn Rand, and if you believe Republican Party mythology, Ryan is a messianic John Galt who will save America from a secret socialist conspiracy. Thus, in Rand fashion, it’s worth asking: Who is Paul Ryan?
The answer is simple: The GOP’s presumptive vice-presidential nominee is the 21st century’s flesh-and-blood embodiment of political deception and media obfuscation.
Purporting to be a small-government budget hawk, Ryan publicly decries corporate welfare and says he wants “to get Washington out of the business of picking winners and losers.” This has generated press coverage promoting Ryan as a great fiscal conservative. Yet, written out of the story is the fact that Ryan is a Huge Government Republican who voted for — and in some cases, still defends — the biggest examples of corporate welfare in American history.
Ryan, you see, was the Huge Government Republican who backed this era’s massive corporate bailouts — the one that picked politically connected companies as winners and taxpayers as losers. He was the Huge Government Republican who regularly voted for profligate war spending bills — the ones that blew a gaping hole in the federal budget. And he is the Huge Government Republican now using his committee chairmanship to oppose serious cuts to the deficit-exploding corporate welfare still embedded in the bloated Pentagon budget.
Similarly, Ryan claims to be, and is billed in the press as, a libertarian-inspired acolyte of Rand — a man who supposedly values freedom and limited government. But as a Huge Government Republican, he has consistently voted to expand the surveillance state, endorse warrantless wiretapping and permit indefinite detention. Oh, and in contradiction to Rand’s writings, he has also pushed to use the power of Huge Government to end a woman’s right to choose an abortion.
Like so many Republicans, Ryan genuflects to the private sector and insinuates that the government is not a job creator. It’s funny coming from a guy who has spent most of his adult life as a federal employee and whose family’s construction company brags of building its fortune off government highway contracts.
Ryan labels himself an opponent of “crony capitalism” and is often promoted by reporters as someone who can help Mitt Romney thwart the Washington insiders who corrupt our politics. Somehow, we are expected to ignore the fact that Ryan has spent the vast majority of his adult life in Washington; that his wife served as a top pharmaceutical and oil lobbyist in Washington; and that, as Newsweek reported in 2011, he tried to insert special provisions into federal law that would boost his personal oil investment portfolio.
Yes, the skies should piss upon them. Mine does not stretch that far. But the monkey in Tampa can be of help to us. He did on an officer, it is said.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/magazine/tampa-monkey.html?ref=us
idealist, You are up w/ the birds! Here in Wisconsin you would be milking the cows. Again, thanks for your perspective. I plead guilty to talking like I’m in a lockerroom. I’m working on that here. You have touched upon a key point I’ve made several times. Some folks here really either can’t read well or just see what they want. Maybe a refresher course in diagramming sentences would be in order for a few.
You know idealist, my job was to interview people and get to the truth of matters. There are few more rewarding jobs then finding truth. The skills I developed allow me to detect bulls#$t from a mile away. I wish I could turn that off. It’s a bit easier in this forum because you can skip over a lot of the bull feces, it’s almost impossible in person. As you know, 80% of all communication is nonverbal and I just can’t ignore something in my face.
To be fair, I don’t put shano and Elaine together. shano has issues, I know you could see it in the venom she spewed about “selfish infertile women”. That’s the most judgemental comment I’ve read in awhile. shano is the type of person who doesn’t listen but just waits to talk. And, if engaged in a conversation w/ shano in a coffee shop, bar, etc. you or I would be constantly interrupted. One of my pet peeves. Elaine isn’t venomous, she’s manipulative and intellectually dishonest when cornered. As I said to her yesterday, she has that school marm tone that carried over into her retirement. As you know idealist, there is zero tolerance for outsiders who don’t toe the party line. What I know jumped out to you in this thread was I was agreeing w/ most of what they had to say. To constantly be called a right wing anti abortion guy when I said several times I believe it should be legal is insane..just plain hateful insanity. Enjoy your day, paisan!
Will Ryan ruin Romney with women over Akin remarks on rape, abortion? (Video)
By: John Michael Spinelli
August 22, 2012
http://www.examiner.com/article/will-ryan-ruin-romney-with-women-over-akin-remarks-on-rape-abortion
Excerpt:
If Tropical Storm Issac, now gaining power and fury as it plows across the warm waters of the Caribbean on a course that could strike Tampa, Florida in time to throw a meteorological monkey wrench into the Republican National Convention scheduled there next week, isn’t worrisome enough for the GOP and its candidates up and down the ticket, the tidal wave of controversy that’s crashing over the decks of Team Romney-Ryan in the wake of new discussions and revelations on rape and abortion should prompt Republicans to batten down the hatches with women so they don’t lose more ground with the nation’s largest voting block.
In the span of three days since Missouri Congressman Todd Akin said that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down,” Romney’s young, buff running mate, Paul Ryan, a 7-term Congressman who represents a rural Wisconsin district, has found his co-sponsorship with Rep. Akin of a bill titled the “Sanctity of Life Act,” that declares a zygote is a legal person with constitutional rights. The introduction of the term “forcible rape” into America’s lexicon will continue to be a problem that’s sinking in with women in ways Romney-Ryan and Republicans would rather avoid.
t when Romney-Ryan would rather talk about the economy.
This publicity stemming from Akin’s comments, that put the Akin-Ryan bill in the spotlight at a time when the Republicans want to campaign on the faltering economy instead of making it a referendum on abortion, couldn’t come at a worse time.
Paul Ryan Insults Women Voters, Calls Forcible Rape a ‘Side Issue’
By Sarah Jones
August 22nd, 2012
http://www.politicususa.com/paul-ryan-women-wont-fall-side-issue-forcible-rape-language.html
Excerpt;
Paul Ryan thinks it’s a side issue that he voted for the “Let Women Die” bill, that gives health professionals the right to deny women an emergency abortion if her life is in danger. If this bill had been passed when my close friend was rushed to the hospital with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, she would be dead now. Ectopic pregnancies as she had are not viable pregnancies, so this bill would not have been saving the life of a fetus. The only thing it would have done is let my friend die for no reason, in excruciating pain.
Medicine Net explains that before the 19th century (are Republicans blushing yet?), the major health risk of an ectopic pregnancy was rupture and thus the mortality rate exceeded 50%. But now that we have surgical intervention (called an abortion by Ryan et al), the mortality rate dropped to 5%. Ectopic pregnancies are the leading cause of pregnancy related death in the first trimester. Under Paul Ryan’s ideas, this mortality rate would explode back up to 50%.
“Statistics suggest with current advances in early detection, the mortality rate has improved to less than five in 10,000. The survival rate from ectopic pregnancies is improving even though the incidence of ectopic pregnancies is also increasing.”
As each hour of this surreal Republican ticket ticks by, women are recoiling in shock and horror. We knew Republicans were not the ticket for women’s rights, but to think that Mitt Romney picked as his running mate a man who advocated for my friend to die because of his religious beliefs is stunning.
My friend went on to have three healthy children. If Paul Ryan had had his way, she would have died at the hospital to which she was rushed via ambulance, writhing in terror and pain. She would have died when the ectopic pregnancy exploded inside of her.
This is the world Romney Ryan have in mind for the majority of the population, and Paul Ryan calls our lives a “side issue.”
Guess you have to look for the good side and ignore the bad. Haven’t been able to for 75 years.
Shano’s good side is he is always riding his environmental horse. And I ride behind him whipping
the same horse. I think we will not survive this insanity we are bent on. You know the problem
As for interrupting, that is the best here. Nobody can.
Being a schoolteacher or school librarian makes for certain profile which follows IRL outside. We can consider other profiles. Like yours. Like mine. Like whoevers.
But it is irritating with people that think bonafides means getting respect.
As for your language, I’d say it came from working with reality on the right side of the law. Goes with the work and even from the other folks on the right side. Only a lawyer would say “I must and void my bladder” to a collegue. But they are funny that way.
You can correct that assumption if I am wrong. The ones who helped me were fine.
Just imagine that the mayor is listening when you write. That might help.
Again, who am I to say. Just between friends who can see the sh**pile on the floor, even if it has bows on it.
Note to Paul Ryan and company: America is not going to roll back women’s rights
August 22, 2012
By: Leo Kapakos
http://www.examiner.com/article/note-to-paul-ryan-and-company-america-is-not-going-to-roll-back-women-s-rights
A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll indicates that Mitt Romney’s selection of Paul Ryan as his running mate, made on Aug. 11, has had little impact on voters and less of an impact on voters than previous VP running mates have had. The latest Wall Street Journal poll shows that twenty-two percent say Ryan makes them more likely to vote for Mitt Romney while 23 percent say he makes them less likely to vote for Romney; and 54 percent say the pick doesn’t affect their vote either way. That margin of -1 is weak when compared with Joe Biden’s in 2008 of +8, Sarah Palin’s in 2008 of +9 percent, and Joe Lieberman’s in 2000 of+13. Moreover, in the poll’s feeling thermometer, Ryan’s favorable/unfavorable score stands at 33 percent/32 percent.
Romney’s pick of Paul Ryan is a loser compared to past VP picks because Ryan is part of this new group of hard-line right-wing extremists that have taken over the Republican Party. To get a feel for how radical the GOP has become consider the draft of this year’s GOP’s official 2012 platform that calls for a “federal ban on abortion with no exception for rape and incest survivors”. This belief of no exceptions for rape and incest except to save the life of the mother has gone from being a fringe position in the GOP to being a normative position held by Paul Ryan, Representative Todd Akin, House leaders including Speaker John A. Boehner and Eric Cantor, and many of the major speakers scheduled to speak at the Republican National Convention.
This is the same policy Akin was trying to defend when he said that victims of “legitimate rape” have a natural bodily mechanism that prevents them from getting pregnant. Of course most rational people understand that if a woman is ovulating she is ovulating, and the stress and trauma of being raped has absolutely nothing to do with anything – just ask the roughly 31,000 women who conceived as a result of rape last year. Akin’s remarks and the ensuing outrage from both parties forced Mitt Romney for political expediency to announce on Sunday night that the Romney/Ryan ticket supports abortion in cases of rape, even though Paul Ryan previously opposed it. Mitt Romney has been all over the place on this issue recently telling former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee that he supports “personhood” but back in 2002, as a candidate for governor, Romney claimed to support “the substance” of Roe v. Wade. So which is it Mitt?
One thing is clear. The pro-life movement of the Republican Party reflects the ideological radicalization of the Tea Party and their concept of “personhood” – the notion that a fertilized egg is entitled to the exact same legal rights as a human being as it disregards the right’s of the woman. Should the Ryan/Akin personhood agenda ever take effect as law, it would drastically reduce a women’s reproductive choice. The bill would basically declare that a human egg obtains all the legal and constitutional attributes and privileges of personhood the moment it merges with a human sperm. Thus, a “blastocyst” wouldn’t only enjoy the same rights as a fully grown adult; it would also enjoy any “legal” attributes so killing a fertilized egg would in effect be the same thing as homicide.
This federal ban on abortion with no exception for rape and incest survivors shows the GOP has gone from a party that in 2010 included a grassroots effort to become more conservative to a party that is now dominated by right-wing crazies who have no regard for the victims of a rape, or their families. At the end of the day, the Republican Party’s problem is that it includes these radical hard-liners like Ryan whose views are not popular with most Americans including the Independents and moderates whose votes they need.
The Ryan pick will keep the GOP War on Women front and center. Akin and Ryan have each voted in this Congress for “10″ abortion-restricting measures as well as those that limited other family planning services. Women are tired of the likes of Paul Ryan and Todd Akin telling them how to live their lives. Moreover, as more voters get to know Ryan’s budget positions— the unpopular Medicare vouchers, trillions more in tax breaks that would reduce Mitt Romney’s tax rate to less than 1%, eliminating student loans and grants and the home mortgage interest deduction — voters will have plenty of reasons to dislike the Romney/Ryan ticket in addition to their war on women.
idealist,
“Being a schoolteacher or school librarian makes for certain profile…”
Pray tell, what is the profile of a school teacher or librarian?
House Republicans have real reason to fear Paul Ryan
by kos
8/22/12
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/22/1123001/-House-Republicans-have-real-reason-to-fear-Paul-Ryan
We already knew that Paul Ryan was coolly received by 18 percent of the most right-wing Republicans in the country. So if they couldn’t get 100 percent of their most reliable wingnuts, what did that portend for their chances with seniors who aren’t batshit crazy?
Now we know.
Even before Mitt Romney named Paul Ryan to the ticket, our Battleground polling results indicated an erosion of support for Republicans, largely based on Paul Ryan’s plans for Medicare and entitlements. The advantage Republicans held among seniors in 2010 has been completely decimated. Across these Republican districts, incumbents now hold just a two-point lead with voters over age 64—a group Republicans won by 18 points in 2010.
Not surprisingly, the leading factor in this shift away from the GOP is Paul Ryan’s war on Medicare. By a decisive six-point margin, voters in these districts now say they trust Democrats more than Republicans when it comes to Medicare. Among voters in the 27 most competitive Republican battleground seats, Democrats now hold an 11-point advantage on Medicare.
The GOP’s best hope to weather their votes for the Ryan budget was to make sure that Paul Ryan remained an obscure personality. Democrats could scream all they wanted about Politician X’s “vote for the Ryan budget,” but if the response was “Ryan who?”, they’d be in the clear.
Mitt Romney destroyed that hope. Everyone knows, or will soon know, who Paul Ryan is. That’s why Republicans panicked at first hearing the news about Ryan, and why they continue to have reason to panic today.
Elaine,
Come on, Have you never heard that you can spot a school teacher after five minutes of talking with them? Really, never?
You must be kidding.
And I guess no other professions carry professional characteristics with them when they are on their own time.
Just the way you posed the question is proof of what I say.
And I like you for you. But that is not enough apparently.
idealist,
I guess you are avoiding answering my question.
I have never heard that you could “spot a school teacher after five minutes of talking to them.” Why don’t you explain how one can do that?
I was listening to npr this morning and the spokesperson was following the party line…… She was very good at evading answering any questions…… I mean she was good….. As slippery as she was in don’t think she’d ever need to get an oil change……. Pennzoil should consider hiring her for her talents……
AY,
A spokesperson for which party?
Actually, I find politicians of both parties do that. Feckless members of the media usually let them get away with evading questions.
AY,
Have you ever heard John Kerry answering questions from the media?
I’m going to paraphrase comedian Lewis Black. He said something like this: The first time I heard John Kerry speak I knew I didn’t have enough breadcrumbs to find my way home.
Elaine,
Google up Frank Szabo, the Sherrif Canidate for Hillsborough, NH…… He gives new meaning to the extreme right…..
AY,
I read about him on another thread–the one about the judge from Lubbock, Texas. Some of these guys are really scary, aren’t they?
Elaine,
I’m not avoiding your question. But if you have to ask it, then you won’t understand the answer. And that will only cause more irritation in you.
If you have never heard that about teachers, et al professionals (including lawyers!!!), then you have lead a sheltered life. Sheltered by kind people.
Won’t say more. You are irritated enough now.
I tried to enlighten, not irritate.
So go back to your work. You have my respect for it,
and for your compassion. Nobody’s perfect, not you, not me. That is how it is.
Some Less Obvious Reasons Why What Akin Said is SO Wrong
by Mark Throckmorton
8/20/12
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/20/1122168/-Some-Less-Obvious-Reasons-Why-What-Akin-Said-is-SO-Wrong?showAll=yes
We all seem to be on the same page about how horrifically stupid, sexist, and misogynist were Rep. Akin’s remarks about “legitimate rape”. No question that, on its face, there is a responsibility for him to unequivocally apologize and sincerely recant…however improbable or impossible that he could or would.
But if he were to do that in the next hour, the contamination of the discourse on rape has already occurred. Even men whom I know “know better” have fallen into lapses of language and judgment that unwittingly support erroneous myths about rape. One normally thoughtful fellow wrote me the following in response to some of my objections to Akin’s comment:
“I think Akins was trying to make a distinction between 1) an actual rape, as opposed to, 2) one of thousands of false claims of rape…”. (emphasis mine) I responded with the following:
“I would not disagree [that this may have been Akin's intended distinction], but his comment suggests that perhaps he thinks that whether the incident results in pregnancy would be a post-facto way to determine which of those two options occurred (if she got pregnant, then she must have ‘wanted it’)
“Secondly, regardless of his intent, his careless statement opens up a whole language of rape denial by fostering a distinction between “legitimate” and “illegitimate” rape. “Legitimate” is a positive value-laden word, and its use suggests that the more that the act was a violation of the woman’s choice the BETTER the rape. For men who contemplate rape, this language lowers the bar to take action by suggesting to the unconscious mind that what he is thinking about is somehow “legitimate”. Twisted? Yes. But real: words shape thoughts, thoughts support actions. (Think “one more LITTLE piece of pizza won’t hurt!”)
“Thirdly, I wonder if a more fair presentation of the distinction presented in your comment (not an attack, but a lifting of consciousness) would be: “1, one of thousands of actual rapes, opposed to 2, one of thousands of false reports of rape…” The use of “thousands” in only scenario 2 implies that false reports overwhelmingly outnumber actual rapes. In fact, they do not. Every well-conducted study indicates that a far greater number of women keep a real rape experience secret than the number of those who falsely report; and a substantial number of those who do falsely report do on more than one occasion, skewing the statistics to make the number of women who falsely report appear more numerous.”
The friend then took a moment to reflect and realized that he knew of two women who had been raped, neither of which reported the attack for reasons of shame or fear; he had never known anyone who falsely reported rape, nor anyone who had been falsely accused of rape. Still, he had unconsciously adopted the good-ol’-boy way of framing the issue that perpetuates the lie that false (“illegitimate”) rape reports are rampant and far outnumber actual rapes.
A decade ago, I trained for the Sexual Assault Response Team in a major city in California. The process of reporting and documenting a rape is itself so traumatic that very few women would falsely report, and the vast majority of false claims fall apart in the process.
For fifteen years I have facilitated Violence Cessation groups for men who committed Domestic Violence. Even among this population, many more men admit to committing rapes and other unwelcome sexual acts than do claim that they are falsely accused. They will claim other false accusations were made against them, but very rarely that a rape of sexual assault charge was bogus.
I hope that this and the many other excellent postings on Kos, FB, Twitter, and other media will help provide some “mental floss” to help us keep our thinking and our talk on a higher, more progressive and less oppressive level. Free our speech, and we may just free our thoughts, too.
idealist,
I’m not irritated–just curious. I was just asking you to back up the statement that you made about the “profile” of school teachers and librarians. Evidently, you have no answer to my question. You–like Tony–make a lot of incorrect assumptions about people…as well as their state of mind. You may believe what you choose to believe about me–and all school teachers and librarians–and make all the generalizations that you like about people. That’s your prerogative.
Point, Game Set…..
The gop convention.
Yes they are….. Now wheres that bread crumbs trail….
idealist, shano is a male? That would support my original point that men harden and add violence to the debate. I should have picked up on the total lack of empathy and reason regarding infertility. You would have thought a woman would have called him on that, interesting that only 2 men did. That says a lot, paisan. The attitude of the women must have been, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” We know that philosophy is myopic and ends up biting you in the ass, but there are no prescription lens for some myopia.
Ealine, Do you read anything from the center or right? I feel like I’m reading our left wing paper here in Madison[Cap Times] w/ all your links. I read left, right and center…call me whacky!
Elaine,
I do not believe in generalizations, I only reported what others have said to me. I have had some schoolmarmy teachers and known some as an adult.
I will use generalizations based on anecdotal experiences. We all do, but it is not good, other than as a warning signal for danger. And shouid not deepen into a prejudice or attitude.
I honestly expressed my incredulity, and do say now that if you can’t even imagine what I am talking about, ie the school-teacher attitude, then you won’t understand an explanation.
That is not a condemnatioo, not at all. Again you would be wrong to assume that. It is just the realization that the effort would not lead to enlightenment.
If I am wrong, then so be it. And thus no reason for you to worry. My respect was offered. Accept it and go on.
Todd Akin’s “Legitimate Rape” Comment Sheds Light on Paul Ryan’s Extreme Stance on Abortion
I never disclose my gender online. so, keep guessing.
Here is a good article about Romney sucking up to the same right wing radicals in the right to life movement.
Dr. Wilke is the old foggie anti abortion nut who thinks women cannot get pregnant if it is a ‘legitimate’ rape:
From wonkette: What you may not have heard (JUICY GOSSIPS) is that Romney met up with Willke during the primary in 2011 and sent him a giant love note with his mouth. The talky kind, not the other kind, even though it would have been a lot more supportive. Maybe next time.
Dr Willke told The Daily Telegraph that he did meet Mr Romney during a presidential primary campaign stop in the doctor’s home city of Cincinnati, Ohio, in October last year. Local news reports at the time noted that the candidate held “private meetings” during the visit.
“He told me ‘thank you for your support – we agree on almost everything, and if I am elected President I will make some major pro-life pronouncements’,” Dr Willke said in a telephone interview on Tuesday.
“I thanked him, and said I knew where he was – that he was 99 per cent of what we wanted,” he said of the roughly ten-minute meeting. “I told him I would help in any way I could”. A spokesman for Mr Romney declined to comment.
Unsurprisingly, Dr. Willke thinks that Todd Akin is getting thrown into a dumpster like an unwanted consensual sex baby because he used one single wrong word once.
Dr Willke wrote an open letter on Tuesday declaring that “the pro-life movement and I unequivocally stand with Rep. Akin” despite Mr Romney and several other party heavyweights saying that he must step aside.
“The guy is clean,” he told the Daily Telegraph. “He made one mistake by using the wrong word and the volcano erupted. The powers that be in the Republican party threw this guy overboard”.
Paul Ryan also met with Doc W, and agreed with him, because for some reason the entire Republican Party travels to the doorstep of one crazy man in southwest Ohio and kisses his spastic tube ring.
The doctor said that he had also met Mr Ryan, who sits in Congress for the Wisconsin district in which one of his sons lives, several times. He said that after listening to Dr Willke’s views on abortion during their last encounter, Mr Ryan replied: “That’s where I’m at”.
The real question now is not whether Romney and Ryan still support Dr. Willke’s ideas – they do, of course, and will force children nationwide to learn that lady tubes flex and wiggle uncontrollably during rape, complete with awkward-yet-adorable middle-school song and dance performance – but whether they will reveal their identical “Willke Can Milk Me” back tattoos before Election Night. All signs point to yes.
idealist,
Do you ever read what you write?
“I do not believe in generalizations…”
“I will use generalizations based on anecdotal experiences.”
*****
“I honestly expressed my incredulity, and do say now that if you can’t even imagine what I am talking about, ie the school-teacher attitude, then you won’t understand an explanation.
“That is not a condemnatioo, not at all. Again you would be wrong to assume that. It is just the realization that the effort would not lead to enlightenment.”
*****
You tell me I can’t imagine what the school teacher attitude is. First, you spoke of a school teacher/librarian profile. Do attitude and profile mean the same thing to you?
Can you explain how I wouldn’t understand what YOUR idea of a typical teacher profile is even if you explain it to me? Make the effort.
Paul Ryan’s ‘legitimate problem’
By Dana Milbank, Published: August 22
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dana-milbank-paul-ryans-legitimate-problem/2012/08/22/821dfe52-eca8-11e1-a80b-9f898562d010_story.html
Excerpt:
When Todd Akin sneezes, Paul Ryan catches a cold.
The Republicans’ soon-to-be nominee for vice president is supposed to be delivering a message about jobs and the economy, but he’s finding he cannot escape his longtime House colleague, now a national pariah for his exotic views on rape.
“His statements were outrageous, over the pale. I don’t know anybody who would agree with that. Rape is rape, period, end of story,” Ryan told Pittsburgh’s KDKA-TV in the first in a series of local TV interviews.
Except it wasn’t the end of the story. The questions were just beginning.
“Rape is rape. Rape is rape, period. End of story,” Ryan replied to another query.
“Rape is rape, and there’s no splitting hairs over rape,” he answered yet again.
Ryan is surely aching to talk about something other than Akin. But the outrage set off by the Republicans’ Senate nominee in Missouri has consumed the political world. It has been particularly harmful to Ryan, who has served for more than a decade with Akin, recently hailing him as “a great asset” on Ryan’s budget committee and an example of “exactly the kind of leadership America needs.”
More problematic in this situation: Ryan has the same antiabortion position as Akin — no exceptions — and some of the nearly 40 abortion bills he has co-sponsored have provided no exemption for rape victims.
This is more random bad luck for Mitt Romney, who has had more than his share in recent days. His running mate, chosen for his green-eyeshade savvy, has unexpectedly become a lightning rod in the culture wars, in an area where Republicans are at a decided disadvantage. Only 20 percent of Americans agree with Ryan and Akin that abortion should be illegal in all cases, according to a Gallup poll in May.
ElaineM.
I say that doctors have certain characteristics.
In fact internal medicine doctors are quite different in temperament than surgeons, in general.
Nurses have characteristics different than women in general.
And I say you appear to me to have the general characterisitic that teachers exhibit which differs from the population in general.
All are individuals, and can not be generalized. And should not. Again, my characterization was for the purpose of a dramatic summary of the situation I encountered. I think it was a good summary, and I stand by it still.
ONE, repeat ONE person did do a re-read as I requested, quoted the critical part of what the bone of contention was in what Nick wrote, and APOLOGIZED to Nick. I note that neither you nor Shano have said that you re-read as I requested you both do.
So be it. You have attacked me instead of reading, I conclude. Shano has not.
I will say no more on the matter. You are adamant. And I am not going to retreat from my position, however you challenge me with questions. I have explained. several times in fact, but you want an apology. And you won’t get it from me.
Fini.
“Again, my characterization was for the purpose of a dramatic summary of the situation I encountered. I think it was a good summary, and I stand by it still.”
In general Ex-Pats who have settled in Scandinavian countries for decades and have learned the language tend to have problems expressing themselves in their native English. Of course I’m just stating this as a dramatic summary of a situation that I’ve encountered on this thread, with no malicious intent whatsoever. Also any further comment made attacking my words will be unfair and prejudicial in nature and definitely hurt my feelings.
idealist, You just got a taste of the PC Police. The laws change almost daily. I’ll give a few important ones. There are protected classes of which you must not speak ANYTHING about. You can only talk about your own sex if you’re a male. You may only speak about your own ethnic group but if you show any sign of good hearted ridicule, you could get fined for self-loathing[I've been ticketed numerous times]. Idealist, if you want to steer clear of the PC Police you can always speak freely about fat people, conservatives, trailer park residents, hillbillys. You can actually get commendations if you ridicule a combo ala fat, conservative, trailer park residents. I’ll keep you updated on rule changes as they happen.
AY:
I did, Frank Szabo appears to be a kook. What is going on? It is like the republicans, or a least some, have gone bat shit crazy.
Vaginal probes in Virginia, preemptive strikes in NH, legitimate rapes in Missouri. Holy sonogram, have the evangelical Christians finally gotten hold of the Republican party? If this keeps up no sane person will vote for any person on the ticket.
They are bold about it too, Aiken should have resigned. I guess God told him to stay. If Obama wins a 2nd term it will be in no small part Aikens doing.
Pure friggen ego, what a putz he must be.
idealist, We got Elaine’s thread over 300 and not an ounce of gratitude.
“Any suggestions from you Dems where to put my $’s if the good guys win?”
“I thought I would just give my blue collar, ethnic take on this. You can all go back to spewing hatred, sorry to inject a little sanity.”
Nick,
Those were taken from your first wo comments on this thread. I could go through all of your comments and provide numerous examples of the same type of thing. To wit: your false assumption that this is a “liberal” blog and that most of us here are simply PC automatons. Since that was how you started out on this thread why should you be shocked that when people respond to you in kind for your attempted derogation? You are no innocent actor here, nor are you dealing with knee-jerk thinkers here. Elaine and Gene for instance probably won’t vote for Obama and Tony C. definitely won’t. We don’t even know if Professor Turley will either. So your spurious attacks are merely your own mis-assumptions
However, the give and take on this blog can indeed get heated and to me that is fine. what is NOT fine is use of extremely derogatory terms when responding to people. I can assure you that my “blue vocabulary” is at least the equal of yours and I have never used that “up your ass” phrase even to people I have had angry arguments with. Why? Because that phrase has particularly vicious connotations, of which I’m sure you are aware. I’ve ever used those words in sports which I’ve also played extensively. your use of it, in the context of the discussion was disgusting to me and i’m hardly a shrinking violet.
As for your experience with women who have been raped that is laudable. However, my experience in child welfare, social work and psychotherapy tops yours. I’ve also helped send perpetrators to jail, while protecting the abused and worked closely with The Brooklyn Sex Crimes Unit of the Brooklyn DA.
I’m a child of the working class myself whose was an orphan by age 18 and thus had to support myself and worked my way through college living in a furnished room. So all your special pleading means nothing to me. The “up your ass” gives me pause to wonder just how protective or helpful you were to those in need.
From my perspective everyone is welcome here as long as they can logically and civilly defend their viewpoint. Trying looking in your own mirror.
idealist, if any ‘owe’ an apology, it is nick for want to shove things up our netherparts. I see no reason to apologize to him whatsoever. You and nick have been throwing around insults & assumptions throughout this whole thread.
Mike is right, I would never use that phrase and only did to throw it back at nicks . He has a disgusting habit of assuming he knows people online when he knows nothing at all about them.
Bron: “Holy sonogram, have the evangelical Christians finally gotten hold of the Republican party? If this keeps up no sane person will vote for any person on the ticket.”
Wow, where have you been for the last 30 years? the evangelical Xtian right has owned the GOP for decades now. At least since Phyllis Schlafly shut down the ERA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phyllis_Schlafly
NIck,
MikeS is the psychotherapist who used DSM-IV terms to “diagnose” me here who he has never had as a patient. nor ever met for a conversation.
Don’t bother answering him. He will never give you the time of day. Only abuse. That you can count on.
That is true of GeneH as well. You will find quickly who are the old crowd, and who it is that have recently earned respect by adapting to the kiss ass norms here, and admittedly shown considerable acumen.
If you defeat one particular weak argument with one member, then the others will attack, as MikeS has done here.
The funny part is that MikeS inspired me through his passionate story of his return from death to write very openly on my childhood and how it has gone since.
He declared in response that we were blood brothers!!! Or was it almost?
Now I have gone through a troublesome period of attacking here because of reasons which I have declared and need not take up now. All know of these development problems I have. I am not ashamed of them.
But “psychotherapist” who do DSM IV diagnoses as weapons against people who comment here are despicable.
Shano,
I did not think that you would capitulate so easily to the crowd here. You have from the beginning stood for your own thing.
Noe you attack Nick by riding on MikeS coattails.
Did you re-read as I suggested? Did you see the quote which another offended person quoted before saying an apology to Nick? What Nick said is there to read. And he did not suggest sacrificing a single mother to
aid childless couplles get adoptive children.
Mike, I admitted my locker room vernacular was off base and said I will effort to not use it again. What the hell else do I need to do? Mea culpa, mea culpa. I’ve got no beef w/ you, Mike. I see there are some people here who aren’t lock step left. Mike, I was being lectured about rape victims by a person who finally admitted she has never done anything for them.Then I was portrayed as an idiot spitting on my computer. You know Mike, I try and think like other people. That was part of being a PI. So, I’m pretty good @ role reversal. I ask you, because you’re reasonable, to put yourself in my shoes. That should be easy since you have experience w/ rape victims. Mike I would sometimes go home and cry, particularly the kids! I bet you have also.Try and put aside the people involved. Would you not be pissed? If you have the time or desire, read this entire thread. I think it will be edifying. Shano is another story, and I separate him/her from Elaine, I’ve already said that.
What the whole thing with Nick vs the old crowd is that the bandwidth is limited. Nick takes up too much room.
And he brings his own experiences from reality here.
They don’t like the competition.
Mike,
I encountered children in elementary school who were much like Nick and idealist. They were the ones who liked to instigate trouble. They’d try to agitate other kids by poking them, taking their pencils, saying and doing nasty things to them. When the other children reacted to their taunts, teasing, actions, they’d come whining/crying to me that so and so did/said this to me…so and so did/said that to me. They hoped I’d punish the other kids. Unfortunately for them–I’d ask what they had done to the other children before the other children did this or that to them. That question usually took them by surprise. Most often, their type of irritating behavior stopped once they knew I was wise to them.
Mike,
It always someone else’s fault, doncha know, when certain people behave badly. Ah, the safety of victimhood.
Mike,
Don’t pop Nick’s ego bubble by telling him I’ve written posts that got many more than 300 comments.
Vanity, thy name is Nick!
Wow! Elaine takes umbrage about being told teachers have certain traits, as do all professions. Now she just wrote a comment tantamount to an admission of guilt, comparing us to her troublemakers in school. You can’t make this up! Maybe you can call in our parents and suggest we get on ritalin or adderall.
Elaine,
You are pitiful too. How do you know anything about my or Nick’s school experience? You don’t. Far less than I do about your mistake in attacking Nick from the beginning. His words are there to read. As are yours. And mine too. Where I attempted to mediate and ask you all to re-read the discussion from 5 lines before you got angry.
You never ever addressed my request. You only diverted attention to the words I used.
And that is a favo tactic used by the gang. Never ever answer the question or respond to a valid point made. Divert, divert and attack on another word.
Great debate technique. I don’t do debates.
Useless use of time.
Now if you would quote what Nick said against abortion, then I might be interested. Otherwise, NO.
Mitt Romney Campaign Attacks Military Cuts Paul Ryan Supported
By Michael McAuliff
8/23/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/23/mitt-romney-military-cuts-paul-ryan_n_1825295.html
Excerpt;
Mitt Romney’s campaign Thursday criticized President Barack Obama for military budget cuts that Romney’s running mate Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) voted for, and implied that government spending is a useful economic stimulus — at least if it’s defense spending.
The attack was launched in a press release that coincided with Ryan speaking at a roundtable discussion on defense in Fayetteville, N.C.
“President Obama’s devastating defense cuts are set to have a massive impact on Fayetteville and the rest of North Carolina,” said Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul in the statement. “Because of the President’s lack of leadership, North Carolina could be hit hard with thousands of job losses and millions of dollars in lost economic activity. Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan will restore our military’s strength and ensure our armed forces have the resources they need.”
But what the statement leaves out is Ryan’s leading role in crafting those cuts as chairman of the House Budget Committee. He also voted for the Budget Control Act that allowed the nation to raise its debt limit. Part of the deal was creating the “sequester” that requires $1.2 trillion in automatic budget cuts, including more than $500 billion from defense over 10 years.
Speaking at the roundtable, Ryan also blamed Obama for the sequester despite his own vote for it.
idealist,
Once again, you misread what I wrote.
“I encountered children in elementary school who were much like Nick and idealist.”
I said nothing about YOUR school experience.
Still trying to steer the discussion away from the topic of the post? Keep working at it, fellas.
Paul Ryan Is ‘Very Proud’ Of ‘Forcible Rape’ Bill He Co-Sponsored With Todd Akin (video)
by Tommy Christopher
August 23rd, 2012
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/paul-ryan-is-very-proud-of-forcible-rape-bill-he-co-sponsored-with-todd-akin/
Excerpt:
Even as vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan tries to escape his bonds with “legitimate rape” Congressman Todd Akin by doing his best Barack Obama impersonation, he can’t quite bring himself to denounce his “forcible rape” bill. While he told one interviewer, on Wednesday, that “rape is rape,” when reporters aboard his campaign plane asked him about the Ryan/Akin-sponsored “forcible rape” bill, he responded that he’s “very proud” of his “pro-life record.”
It’s a clear contradiction, one that’s easy to explain. Ryan wants to take credit for being the most extreme anti-choice (including most birth control) candidate, but he doesn’t want to explain what, exactly, he meant by “forcible rape.”
The not-so-secret dirty little secret is that, whatever he meant by “forcible rape,” Paul Ryan doesn’t actually care why, how, and if you were raped, forcibly, legitimately, or whatever, his objective is to force you to carry that rapist’s baby to term.
“When individuals or groups are in deep emotional stress, fighting for supremacy of power, they turn to fictional and mythic constructs that they present as fact. (Just look at the Aryan myths of the Mein Kampf.) These mistruths, however macabre and bizarre, are used to justify their clinging to power.
In an age when women have been emancipated, to some degree, to pursue positions of power and privilege historically preserved for men (although this too has its glass ceilings), white men who have ruled American in almost every field, including corporations and government, are threatened in their guts about power sharing.
As far as the violent crime of rape, there is no greater gender control than to dehumanize a woman into a receptacle for a man’s sexual urges, and to force her to accept the semen of any man if it leads to fertilization.
But more than that, Akin symbolizes the entire white male assault on the notion of equality in a democracy. All of the “others” are a threat: women who seek to have careers; blacks who take positions formally only held by white males; non-Christians who believe in other values besides money; the poor who seek a share of the economic pie; the elderly who seek to stay out of poverty in their senior years – and of course a black president of the United States.
The list goes on and on, but the fear of the white male is fundamentally one of power sharing and sense of potency. For most Republicans, the goal is to use any means possible – including openly acknowledged voter suppression – to maintain a white male Christian power structure.
Robert Koehler, whose commentaries appear on BuzzFlash, just wrote: “A patriarchal, dominance-obsessed sexuality permeates the most deeply entrenched institutions of American society. Values are changing, but opposition to it is fierce, because for many of those committed to the fixed beliefs of the past, change — which includes women’s rights, indeed, their full humanity — is a loss of raw power. For some, the unconscious metaphor for this is emasculation.”
Democracy in the United States was born of a revolution to create a new form of government, as Abraham Lincoln declared, “of the people, by the people, for the people.”
Todd Akin’s ante-diluvian notions represent a broader assault than just against the rights, safety and well-being of women; they are a raw insight into the thinking of those who seek to rule the United States, unvarnished, in Akin’s case, by the lies necessary to attract votes from a public whose vast majority believes in the notion of one person/one vote.
Akin’s provided one service: he revealed through his shocking pronouncement that this election is not about what is best for America; it is about what is necessary to restore full power to the white Christian male.”
truthout.org
Paul Ryan’s Criticisms of Akin Contradict His Own Efforts to Redefine Rape
by Sara Jerving — August 23, 2012
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2012/08/11718/paul-ryans-criticisms-akin-contradict-his-own-efforts-redefine-rape
Ryan, Akin, and a Religious War
Posted by Amy Davidson
August 22, 2012
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/closeread/2012/08/paul-ryan-religion.html
Excerpt;
“So that forcible-rape language meant nothing to you at the time?” Jon Delano, of KDKA in Pittsburgh, asked Congressman Paul Ryan. “Rape is rape. And there’s no splitting hairs about rape. If a woman is raped, she’s raped,” replied Ryan, who, as Delano noted, had co-sponsored a bill that split hairs about rape by adding the modifier “forcible.” The uncut version of the interview, on KDKA’s Web site, offers a view of just how ingratiatingly Ryan ignored certain questions, from how Packers fans would react to the sight of him wielding a Steelers Terrible Towel at a campaign event (he called Pittsburgh’s towel-waving crowds “intimidating”) to the definition of rape, and the availability of abortion.
Those last questions were occasioned by the controversy over Todd Akin, whose odd biological views (he said in an interview that “legitimate rape” rarely resulted in pregnancy) brought attention to policy positions that he largely shares with Ryan. (Details over at Daily Comment and from Hendrik Hertzberg.) Here is Ryan trying to elide that reality:
Delano: Is rape rape?
Ryan: Of course it is. Come on! You’re talking about Congressman Akin. His statements were outrageous, over the pale. I don’t know anybody who would agree with that. Rape is rape period, end of story.
Delano: Should abortions be available to women who are raped?
Ryan: Well, look, I’m proud of my pro-life record. And I stand by my pro-life record in Congress. It’s something I’m proud of. But Mitt Romney is the top of the ticket and Mitt Romney will be president and he will set the policy of the Romney administration. And the policy of the Romney Administration is that abortion exceptions will exist for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
He does not answer the question: the answer is that he has not supported an exception for rape. Does that mean that Ryan would not be proud if he had Romney’s record? (That assumes, of course, that he could sort out which of Romney’s records was the current one.) One would also like to know, given the reason we have a Vice-President, what a Ryan Administration’s policy should be. Beyond that, it should give one pause to note how far to the margins the rise of the religious right in the Republican Party has pushed this debate.
idealist, I show up and post whatever I feel like posting. I do not run with the herd. You and nick keep whining on and on off topic and making false accusations and finally I am saying just cut it out. No one attacked either of you. Nick finally apologized after much hemming and hawing. good. the end.
Paul Ryan’s Top 10 Falsehoods and Outrages… from Just His First Week on the Campaign Trail
Ryan’s early roll-out for campaign 2012 has been quite the disaster.
By Juan Cole
August 22, 2012 |
http://www.alternet.org/election-2012/paul-ryans-top-10-falsehoods-and-outrages-just-his-first-week-campaign-trail
Excerpt:
1. Ryan’s position opposing abortion even in cases of rape, and his attempts to define cytoblasts as legal ‘persons’ (which would outlaw all termination of pregnancies and some forms of birth control) came under scrutiny when Republican Todd Akin, running for the Senate in Missouri, provoked a furor. Akin said he opposed abortion even in cases of rape because in ‘legitimate rape’ the woman’s body rejects fertilization. Akin’s insensitivity to a situation that affects a third of a million American women every decade, plus his ignorance of Biology 101, drew widespread condemnation. Mitt Romney put out a statement that both he and Ryan believed abortion was permitted in case of rape. Problem: Ryan has repeatedly opposed that position and appears to agree with Akin more than with his running mate.
shano and Elaine,
great work in handling the right wing echo chamber.
The sycophants have arrived. What have I or idealist said here that would make us “right wing” Please counselor..edify us! At some point you will need to come up w/ some other default meme. Do right wingers say they believe adoption should be legal? Do your homework, barrister. Did you read this thread or just give a knee jerk, circle the wagons comment? We all know it’s the former. This homework would not be billable..or @ least it should not be.
Women should not be allowed to inherit money from their mothers; if their fathers want to leave them money, that’s OK.
If a mother should die and leave money to her daughter, the daughter should be allowed to choose a charity to donate the money to.
DON’T YOU SAY THAT IT’S BAD TO DONATE MONEY TO A CHARITY!
Do you know how many people need help and cannot get it? Don’t you understand how bad it is to be starving and have no charitable assistance? Do you want everyone to go without a Thanksgiving meal?
Paul Ryan pretends he doesn’t agree with every ‘outrageous’ thing Todd Akin said
by Kaili Joy Gray
Wed Aug 22, 2012
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/22/1122886/-Paul-Ryan-pretends-he-doesn-t-agree-with-every-outrageous-thing-Todd-Akin-said
Excerpt:
Poor Paul Ryan. As one of the most fervent anti-woman Republicans in the House, he must be aching to come to the defense of his bestest bud Todd Akin. After all, they’ve voted together 93 percent of the time, so they see eye-to-eye on pretty much everything—including whether there are different types of rape that are not as bad as real rape and whether it’s ever okay for women to have abortions. (Spoiler alert: Yes and no.)
But because Ryan is now Mitt Romney’s running mate, he has to keep a lid on the crazy. The campaign even forced Ryan to sit down for an interview to disavow Akin’s claims and pretend that he’s shocked and offended by Akin articulating exactly what Ryan also believes.
Just look what they made Ryan say:
His statements were outrageous, over the pail. I don’t know anybody who would agree with that. Rape is rape period, end of story.
Really, Ryan? You don’t know anyone who would agree that there are different kinds of rape? Legitimate rape, forcible rape, rape-rape, not-really rape. No one comes to mind, eh? Not even this guy?
Paul Ryan also co-sponsored HR 3, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion” bill in which Republicans tried to redefine rape so that it only applied to “forcible” rape so those fake rape victims would stop exploiting loopholes to cash in on fabulous gifts and prizes. Republicans pulled that part out of the bill so everyone would stop criticizing them, and then they tried to sneak it back in anyway.
Akin And Ryan Have Teamed Up To Co-Sponsor Congress’ Most Radical Anti-Choice Legislation
By Tara Culp-Ressler and Adam Peck
Aug 23, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/23/734931/akin-and-ryan-have-teamed-up-to-co-sponsor-congress-most-radical-anti-choice-legislation/
“Mike I would sometimes go home and cry, particularly the kids! I bet you have also.Try and put aside the people involved. Would you not be pissed?”
Nick,
I’ve read every comment on this thread and that is why it took me so long to respond. I appreciate the emotional effect that seeing some things can have on a person and I too have wept many a time when confronted with the horrors that people can do to other people. My objection with you was both the macho language and your assumption of people’s beliefs, particularly your characterization and pigeonholing of them.
Mike, As stated previously I will control my language. I am the one being pidgeonhold currently. I was just called a “right winger” in a shoot from the hip comment. I support abortion being legal and I have never voted for a Republican for prez. In fact, for the first time in my life I donated money to a pol..Obama in 2008. I read people, I don’t pidgeonhole them. My ability to read people has LITERALLY saved my life. Come on Mike..you have the same people reading skills as I do. I read people in the street, you in an office. That’s the only difference.
Act like a troll, get treated like a troll, nick. And your ability to read people sucks. Out loud. If you think the “people reading ability” you’ve displayed here “LITERALLY saved [your] life” then you must be totally unfamiliar with the concept of luck. But if it helps you with your self-image? You keep telling yourself about your manifestly absent skills.
This is also why you are having such dismal results in your trolling here. This forum in the past has been attacked by professional paid political trolls and those attacks all ended up in a severe case of troll frustration. Some of Brietbart’s group even came out of hiding and offered one of the regulars here a job because of the beating his trolls were taking in this forum.
That being the case, whether you are a troll by vocation or avocation is irrelevant to you being a troll in action – someone who posts inflammatory, extraneous, or off-topic messages in an online community, such as a forum, chat room, or blog, with the primary intent of provoking readers into an emotional response or of otherwise disrupting normal on-topic discussion. Trolls have a rough ride around here. Maybe you should try an easier room like over at Huffington Post.
Gene, I have to agree. There is suckitude, and then there are those who suck at suckitude. I am afraid our Nicky falls into the latter group.
Nick’s first three comments on this post:
nick spinelli 1, August 20, 2012 at 5:09 pm
I read The Republican ticket are not only going to chain blacks, but women and illegals. I’m heavily invested in David Round in case the unspeakable occurs and those stupid, evil, lazy Republicans actually do win. I was w/ Solyndra as a hedge, but we know how that went. Any suggestions from you Dems where to put my $’s if the good guys win?
nick spinelli 1, August 20, 2012 at 6:14 pm
Here’s where my derision for partisan politics reaches a head. With all the hate and fear spewed by both sides there is nothing discussed that is interesting. Having grown up in a blue collar, ethnic household, in the WASP State of Ct., I saw people in power being all WASP men. We now have a Supreme Court of Jews and Catholics. We have 4 men[a woman or 2 would be nice!] running for POTUS. One is a Mormon, two are Catholic, and one is Protestant. The Protestant is black, and one of the Catholics is Irish and a Republican. This is quite historic and noteworthy. I thought I would just give my blue collar, ethnic take on this. You can all go back to spewing hatred, sorry to inject a little sanity. And feel free to tell me I’m “stupid” and “out of my league”. I know I’m not worthy of the smug and sanctimonious who hijack most threads.
nick spinelli 1, August 20, 2012 at 7:39 pm
Elaine, You strike me as one of those nanny teachers who would say, w/ your head tilted in the progressive “I care” look, “Mr and Mrs. Johnson, have you considered Ritalin for Josh.” Well, as I see your obsessive comments, I would say, maybe your mommy and daddy should have considered Welbutrin for their OCD child.
Oops! Hoist upon your own petard, nicky. Too bad you won’t get much sympathy from playing the victim now because being petarded is a self-inflicted wound.
And a most excellently played assist, Mrs. M.
Gene,
I’d hate to be responsible for “petarding” myself! OUCH!!!
As Hamlet said, “For tis the sport to have the enginer Hoist with his owne petar”.
Elaine M, if you do petard yourself, don’t worry: You won’t get pregnant.
lol
Malisha is on a roll and it’s great reading!
See “pomposity-induced early onset dementia” on the New Evidence in Zimmerman Case thread.
Blouise, thanks. The reason I’m “on a roll” is that I have been watching some You-Tube stuff posted by some genius known as “LLMPapa” and it has gotten me back to thinking about how ridiculous the persistent excuse manufacturing for Zimmerman has become. I support our criminal justice system’s constitutional scheme for the defendants 100% but it gets me riled up to see the manufacture of “evidence” for media consumption — “evidence” that will never reach the courtroom because not even the defense counsel will dare try to enter it in a real proceeding —
Anyway, what does this have to do with the present thread? THIS: Any public figure can get on the air to say something so stunningly stupid that it boggles the mind. What is most irritating about it is that uncritical thinkers then adopt it as if it made sense.
Does it show the failure of our education system? I think it shows the failure of EVERYTHING! It’s so demoralizing, all I can do is try to write funny stuff about it to save myself from tearing out my hair!
Malisha,
I might get pregnant if it’s not a “legitimate” petard, doncha know!
Too many posts for me to catch up so apologize if someone already wrote this
Ryan said”And the policy of the Romney Administration is that abortion exceptions will exist for rape, incest, and the life of the mother” In another interview he said and that is a good start indicating he does intend to push his position of outlawing abortion
.http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/paul-ryan-softens-anti-abortion-stance-as-good-step-in-the-right-direction/
I saw Elaine mentioned the Nuns on thebus. They came to rep Mike Fitzpatrick’s office, in Langhorne, Pa, to speak with him about the unfairness of budget, etc. the news showed Fitzpatrick, a T party republican (who also supports changing definition of rape) shaking hands with and speaking with the nuns, with no audio so it looked like they were in agreement. They showed almost nothing of the protest.
I see The Sycophant Society has a quorum now. Good night and God Bless, Gene.
You were getting your ass handed to you long before I chimed in, nick, so give credit where credit is due: Elaine is the one who demonstrated you were acting like a troll. And as Frank Zappa once said, “You are what you is.” I just pointed out the obvious.
Nighty, night, troll-i-kins.
Paul Ryan: The Man Who Wasn’t There
Eric Alterman August 22, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/article/169513/paul-ryan-man-who-wasnt-there
Excerpt:
One reads of people obsessed with finding Bigfoot or the Loch Ness monster or even Elvis. These folks may be silly, deluded and no doubt annoying, but for most of us, they are not really a problem. The same cannot be said of those pundits obsessed with a quest to locate that equally elusive creature, the intellectually honest, public-spirited conservative Republican politician. Combining their wishful delusion with an apparently congenital inability to admit error, these pundits are succeeding in the creation of an entirely fictional narrative about this year’s election.
That obscure object of pundit desire is, you may have guessed, Representative Paul Ryan. When Ryan released his first budget plan back in early 2010, mainstream media pundits struggled to find words sufficiently praiseworthy to do justice to the man’s courage, wisdom and good looks. At the New York Times, David Brooks wrote that Ryan’s plan “set the standard of seriousness for anybody who wants to play in this discussion.” Ryan “tackle[d] just about every politically risky issue with brio and guts,” Brooks gushed, and by “grasp[ing] reality with both hands,” he was “forcing everybody else to do the same.” Soon after, the Times op-ed page cheering squad signed up Joe Nocera and James Stewart, with the latter forced to imagine, somehow, that Ryan’s plan raised taxes on the rich. And at Slate, Jacob Weisberg was so bowled over by the beauty of Ryan’s “Good Plan!” that he pronounced it “brave, radical, and smart”—even as he felt compelled to admit that it would result in “negative effects…on future retirees, working families, and the poor” and was filled with “sleight-of-hand tricks” that ultimately made a mockery of Ryan’s deficit-reduction claims.
Given these weaknesses, one can only wonder what these pundits found so compelling about the plan. Was it that it shifted the burden of Medicare to future seniors by turning the program into a voucher plan? Was it that it lifted the tax burden from the extremely wealthy while significantly increasing the costs borne by the middle class? Was it the plan’s call for the complete elimination of taxes on capital gains and dividend income, such that even Mitt Romney admitted it would have wiped out his entire tax burden for the previous two years? Perhaps it was the plan’s unabashed attack on the social safety net via its steep cuts and death-blow changes to food stamps and Medicaid.
The pundits who declared their devotion to the man with the plan apparently failed to notice not only the actual contents of his proposal but also its ideological origins. An acolyte of Ayn Rand, Ryan has spent his entire professional life nestled in the well-funded womb of the Koch brothers and other billionaire funders of the Tea Party movement, attending their conferences, speaking at their rallies and cashing their checks.
Judged by the entirety of his career, Ryan is merely a good-looking version of a typical Obama-era Republican. He calls for budgetary discipline while exploding the deficit. He speaks of lowering taxes but merely shifts the burden to the middle class. Back in the Bush administration, he rarely met a boondoggle he didn’t embrace. On social issues, he may as well be Pat Robertson: Ryan co-sponsored a federal “fetal personhood” amendment, voted to defund Planned Parenthood, and offered legislation to prevent Medicaid from funding abortions even in cases of rape or incest.
Yet the punditocracy fantasy version of Ryan persists and has now corrupted the mainstream media’s narrative, as if Elvis actually were in the building and planning to sing “Love Me Tender” to the GOP in Tampa. As Matt Miller pointed out in the Washington Post, ever since Romney picked Ryan, the news “has been filled with talk of the ‘fiscal conservative’ [NPR] ‘intent on erasing deficits’ [New York Times] who has become ‘the intellectual heart of the Republican Party’s movement to slash deficits’ [Washington Post].” These are decidedly odd descriptions to apply to a politician whose original plan would have likely added $60 trillion to the national debt—reduced to a mere $14 trillion in its more recent formulation.
New Hampshire Sheriff Candidate Says He Would Use Deadly Force To Stop Abortions
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/08/23/733481/szabo-abortion/
I don’t know how anybody in theirr right mind can vote for these Talibans
Women’s Health Minute
Todd Akin Is Not Alone: Outrageous Statements About Women
Mitt Romney Lacking Women Voters’ Support In Swing States, Poll Finds
Paul Ryan Goddam!
Melissa Harris-Perry
August 22, 2012
http://www.thenation.com/article/169512/paul-ryan-goddam#
Excerpt:
Unlike Romney’s inconsistent but mostly centrist Massachusetts governing record, whose signature accomplishment was the model for the GOP-maligned “Obamacare,” Ryan’s ideological bona fides are unvarnished. And don’t be fooled: this is not about economics alone. Ryan is just as devoted to good old-fashioned moral conservatism, government small enough to fit on a vaginal probe. Ryan may have slipped his playbook into an Ayn Rand cover, but it was co-written by Ralph Reed.
Nowhere is this more apparent, or more important, than in Ryan’s record on reproductive rights. Romney may have flippantly suggested that he would eliminate Planned Parenthood, but Ryan has worked consistently to restrict women’s access to healthcare. It’s not just his fifty-nine votes to block or limit reproductive rights that are of concern; it’s the absolutist nature of his positions. He rejects rape and incest as mitigating circumstances for abortion. He won’t even consider the possibility that women’s moral autonomy or constitutional rights are sufficient reasons for access.
Ryan is one of sixty-four Congressional co-sponsors of HR 212, a “personhood” bill that gives legal rights to fertilized eggs. Last November a similar measure was soundly defeated by 57 percent of voters in that liberal bastion, Mississippi. (Mississippi!) Ryan co-sponsored a bill too extreme for a state that has only one abortion clinic, a state whose policies have effectively made it impossible for most doctors to perform—or for most women to access—an abortion. It may be time to update the title of Nina Simone’s iconic song from “Mississippi Goddam” to “Paul Ryan Goddam.” Ryan’s role in HR 212 isn’t just the symbolic co-sponsorship of a bill with little likelihood of passage. He explicitly articulated his case for personhood in a 2010 Heritage Foundation article, in which he parrots the familiar conservative case that America’s failure to recognize fetuses as persons is the same as our nation’s historical failure to recognize the humanity of enslaved black people. Therefore, Roe v. Wade is the twentieth-century equivalent of the 1857 Dred Scott decision.
With Ryan and women’s health, there is no middle ground; there is only his moral judgment. And despite his avowed libertarianism on economic issues, on women’s health and rights Ryan is willing to use the full force of government to limit the freedom of dissenting citizens to exercise their opposing judgments.
Helloooo, Hellooo. Yup, still an echo chamber here.
Nick,
Spent the day breathing air outside the kennel here, or should I call it the coterie place. They are good dogs. They know who the alpha dog is. They are quick in cooperating in the chase. And will bite whatever target that has been chosen by the leader.
Peraonally I felt that ElaineM’s citations of you were OK, considering what has been posted by some gang members before.
Rafflaw, is the little whelp who is allowed to yipe when the big dogs have yelped first. He is usually first to say tbings in approval of what the big dogs say.
I beat him down once and the big dogs attacked me. C’est la vie. That is how the system worked now. You were helping ElaineM make a spectacle of herself, and they rushed to sidetrack it all by attacking you.
Even OS and Blouise chimed in. Loyalty before all.
Seems like common human traits. The person who is helping me keep my place in the pecking order and my treats (whatever they are) is my buddy and etc etc.
You read what I said about MikeS, of course.
Nuf said. It smells bad in here. And what cheap shots that invites too.
Oh yes, one important thing. Don’t ever be allured to drop your guard by sweet talk or even neutral talk by any of these figures. It is tactical and will lead you into a trap. They never forgive those who don’t csst themselves prostrate upon entering their presence.
Smile.
Nice watching you operate.
A shame on a nice thread, trashed by folks who can’t read what you wrote. But their misreading was do to they were looking for the opportunity to get you on a false issue. Common trick also.
All I tried to do was mediate peace. The smell of some dogs gets others upset. I shall remember not to bathe.
Amazing.
idealist, I appreciate your wisdom and counsel. I’m pretty saavy and as you might expect have a great weasel/bulls@$t detector. You know id I don’t know what this “troll” thing is about. No one sent me here. My god do I seem like a person who would be an errand boy or take marching orders? I’m here for presumably the same reason everyone else is, a respect for Mr. Turley. I know attorneys quite well, Turley is the only legal pundit worth a damn on tv. That’s it, no agenda. I won’t be bullied and I am relentless. That’s why attorneys, many who didn’t even like me, hired me. I’m cool, calm, and relentless. My real world experience is a threat to some. You can’t believe how jealous fellow teachers were when I taught. I just had real world knowledge about crime, courts, prisons, etc. I was teaching on 9/11. What a teachable moment. The principal knew I could explain to students what was going on to help allay their fears. I was teaching 8th grade history but she had the entire class come into my room[crowded] to watch and explain. In person I’m a big, but gentle, calm man. One or two teachers got it, the rest were envious and petty. We have much of the same dynamic here. I’ve dealt w/ it and I’ve dealt w/ the petty politics of law firms. An attorney who is a lifetime friend of me gave me sage advice when I went to work in a big law firm. This guy knows me well. He said, “Nick don’t get sucked into the office politics.” I took his advice and it was a good experience. The politics w/ teachers was more pervasive and petty..at least that was my experience.
Stay well my paisan!
ID707,
Petulant purveyor of spurious victimhood. Keeping you on a leash….hardly. Your self control has none.
Nick,
You are much better equipped and skillful than I. And have witnessed more tricks than I can dream of.
My advice will be superfluos, but will be forthcoming. It is a life trait.
They may soon offer armistice terms or quieten for a while to purchase breathing space or an armistice.
You’ve been offered that before of course.
I have learned a lot here, for which I am grateful.
But they were, with few exceptions, NOT offered as instruction, but in the form of a beating. But one can learn from that too.
They never offer honest arguments on the basis of substance. GeneH is a master at diagnosing fallacies, and will divert to that battleground where he has all the weapons. They have all, to their level of skills, learned GeneH’s methods.
You won’t nned my advice nor support but I will offer both. You are well-equipped and skillful, basing it on reality.
Will be a pleasure to watch. Shame such resources will be taken up fighting, instead of better more useful deeds. But some abattoirs have to be cleaned.
And defending yourself against gangs of dogs is a life necessity.
Most here are peaceful citizens, glad to write Kilroy was here and making good points in that. But the ruling gang is small. As most elite circles are.
What’s the Difference Between Todd Akin and Paul Ryan? P90X
by Floyd Elliot
8/24/12
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/08/24/1123777/-What-s-the-Difference-Between-Todd-Akin-and-Paul-Ryan-P90X
Excerpt:
The Republican Party has risen almost as a body to denounce Rep. Todd Akin’s (R-MO) insane, counterfactual and repulsive comments on “legitimate rape” and the mythical ability of a woman’s body to reject a rapist’s sperm and resist pregnancy after rape. Akin’s remarks were in support of his belief in the need for a “personhood” amendment that would declare human life to begin with conception and outlaw abortion even in the case of rape or incest, and would also outlaw most forms of contraception, including the Pill, Plan B contraception and IUDs. What the Republicans have desperately attempted to sweep under the rug is that vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan not only holds views similar to Akin’s, but has co-sponsored personhood legislation with Akin that would make abortion except in the case of “forcible rape” murder — and that this extreme view of the government’s role in a woman’s private decision is enshrined in the GOP’s 2012 platform.
Though Ryan called Akin to urge the representative to resign from the race rather than face certain defeat in November and in so doing damage the top of the Republican ticket, Ryan’s own support of Akin’s views — sans the bogus medical nonsense that displays a complete ignorance of the operation of the female reproductive system — has been firm, unwavering and long-standing. Ryan is on record as far back as his first Congressional campaign in 1998 as being opposed to abortion except in cases where the pregnancy threatened the life of the mother. He and Akin worked together on a personhood bill, as well as on a bill denying Medicaid funding for poor women seeking abortions, except in the case of, as the bill put it, “forcible rape”, a clear parallel to Akin’s “legitimate rape”. Now though, asked if women who are raped should be allowed access to abortions, Ryan refuses to answer, presumably so as not to contradict Mitt Romney’s timid support of a rape exception while still maintaining Ryan’s credibility with the Hezbollah-ish range of anti-abortion organizations like Personhood USA, which has condemned the Romney-Ryan ticket for supporting a rape exception. Romney and Ryan are, in other words, trying to have it both ways.
Indeed, having it both ways seems to be the official strategy of the GOP with regard to personhood: include a plank in the party’s 2012 platform that calls for “a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions with no exceptions for rape, incest, or danger to the life of a pregnant woman” but then attempt to Etch-a-Sketch that plank, downplaying it in the knowledge that it will not play well with the vast majority of American voters in the general election, and certainly not with independents and swing voters. The personhood plank represents the red meat thrown to the Republican base, the morality voters whose main concern is what they see as the moral holocaust of modern life, the conservative activists who would sooner gnaw off their own legs than vote for anyone who supports a woman’s right to choose abortion, even if raped. Akin’s comments thus brought the Republicans to a crisis of conscience: one of their own, going off-script, had made clear what the party very much did not want clarified: the Republican Party is the party of no abortion, no exception, the party that when a woman is brutalized, tells her, “You’re on your own.” Would the party live according to the dictates of its conscience — which, make no mistake, Akin was and is — or would it throw Akin off the island and under the bus as quickly and as quietly as possible, hoping to minimize the damage that revealing its true face caused?
Men Defining Rape: A History
By Erika Eichelberger
Mon Aug. 27, 2012
http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/08/men-defining-rape-history
Excerpt:
Men have been in the business of deciding when it is okay and when it is not okay to rape women for thousands of years. If Missouri Rep. Todd Akin’s claim that women’s bodies magically fend off rapist sperm or the GOP’s meditation on what’s really rape sound medieval to you, that’s because they are. Check out our timeline of the male notions and common-law statutes that have defined rape over time, and see for yourself which eras the GOP’s views on rape line up with:
Property theft: The Code of Hammurabi, one of the first sets of written laws, which dates to about 1780 BC (and contains the old “eye for an eye”), defines rape of a virgin as property damage against her father. If you were married, sorry lady: You were an adulteress. Punishment? You get thrown in the river.
God is a dude: Deuteronomy 22:28-29 says if you rape a virgin, you have to give her dad 50 shekels and take her to the altar.
Et tu, Roma? The Latin root raptus referred to the abduction of a woman against the will of whatever male controlled her life. What the abductor did with her was secondary.
(Mississippi and) The Middle Ages: During the 13th century, the severity of punishment under Saxon law varied according to the type of woman raped—whether she was a virgin, a wife, a widow, a nun, or a whore. That’s appropriately medieval. But in the United States, well into the ’90s (yes, the nineteen-nineties) some states still had laws that held statutory rape wasn’t rape if the woman was “impure”. Mississippi was the last state to ditch such a law—in 1998
Paul Ryan’s Social Extremism
August 26, 2012
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/opinion/paul-ryans-social-extremism.html
Excerpt:
Mitt Romney, who will be officially nominated this week as the Republican nominee for president, appears to trim his social convictions to the party’s prevailing winds. There is no doubt, however, about where the party’s vice-presidential candidate stands. A long history of social extremism makes Paul Ryan an emblem of the Republican tack to the far right.
Mr. Romney’s choice of Mr. Ryan carried some risks, considering Mr. Ryan’s advocacy of overhauling Medicare, but it has sent the strongest signal of solidarity to those who have made the party unrecognizable to moderates. Strident conservatives had been uneasy with Mr. Romney, but it is the rest of the country that should be nervous about conservatives’ now-enthusiastic acceptance of the Republican ticket.
Mr. Ryan is best known as the face of Republican budget-cutting, though his ideology runs much deeper. For years, he has been a reliable vote against workplace equity for women, opposing the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier for women to file wage-discrimination lawsuits, and two similar measures.
The full outpouring of hard-right enthusiasm is based, to a large degree, on Mr. Ryan’s sweeping opposition to abortion rights. He has long wanted to ban access to abortion even in the case of rape, the ideology espoused in this year’s Republican platform. (Mr. Romney favors a rape exception.) Mr. Ryan also co-sponsored, along with Representative Todd Akin of Missouri, a bill that would have narrowed the definition of rape to reduce the number of poor women who can get an abortion through Medicaid.
Besides that, he has co-sponsored more than three dozen anti-abortion bills, including measures that would require women to get an ultrasound first, bar abortions after 20 weeks in the District of Columbia and end federal spending for family planning programs. Though he urged Mr. Akin to end his Senate race last week over an offensive remark about “legitimate rape,” Mr. Ryan has actually co-sponsored more of these measures than Mr. Akin.
Paul Ryan: ‘Forcible Rape’ Reference Just ‘Stock Language’
By Elise Foley
8/27/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/paul-ryan-forcible-rape_n_1834604.html
Excerpt:
GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Monday he supported removing the term “forcible rape” from his bill banning taxpayer funding for abortions, claiming it was included only as “stock language” and not to limit the definition of rape.
“Rape is rape, period,” Ryan, a Wisconsin congressman, said in an interview with Fox News’ Bret Baier. “This is language that was stock language used for lots of different bills, bills I didn’t author, and that language was removed to be very clear and I agree with that. Removing that language so we are very clear. Rape is rape, period, end of story.”
Tom Smith, GOP Senate Candidate: Pregnancy From Rape Similar To ‘Having A Baby Out Of Wedlock’
By Laura Bassett
8/27/2012
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/27/tom-smith-rape_n_1834234.html
Excerpt:
Trying to distance himself from the “legitimate rape” comment that Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) made last week, Pennsylvania Senate candidate Tom Smith (R) stirred up further controversy by comparing a pregnancy caused by rape to “having a baby out of wedlock.”
Smith said Monday at the Pennsylvania Press Club that although he condemns Akin’s comment, he agrees with Akin that abortion should be banned without any exceptions, including for rape and incest victims. Pressed by a reporter on how he would handle a daughter or granddaughter becoming pregnant as a result of rape, Smith said he had already “lived something similar to that” in his family.
“She chose life, and I commend her for that,” he said. “She knew my views. But, fortunately for me, I didn’t have to … she chose the way I thought. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t rape.”
When a reporter asked Smith to clarify what kind of situation was similar to becoming pregnant from rape, the candidate responded, “Having a baby out of wedlock.”
He added, “Put yourself in a father’s position. Yes, it is similar.”
Elaine,
Ryan is dirty and will now say and do anything to slide his voting record under the rug!
53 million babies murdered by woman in the last 40yrs and they think there is a war against them! Maybe there should be!
http://www.juancole.com/2012/08/top-ten-repeated-paul-ryan-lies.html
There is no “War on Women” ! What a joke! The woman here do not speak for anywhere near the majority of women, they are smarter than that. This is just another liberal lie-you people are disgusting!
Ed,
What is your opinion of men who rape and impregnate women? Do you think that there should be a war on men who are rapists?
Legalising abortion does not mean that every future baby is going to be ‘murdered’. A woman’s choice to terminate a pregnancy is entirely her choice, a choice that has nothing to do with anybody commenting here.