The Democrat Thread

[Jenksismyhero]

Awesome, so you're on board with repealing the 2nd amendment!

 

I've said i'm ok with some restrictions on gun use/ownership, just not outright bans. My opinion on abortion is basically the same.

 

(and of course we'll ignore that little stat about abortion has 100% success rate while gun ownership leading to murder happens .01% of the time)

Edited February 22, 2013 by Jenksismybitch

[StrangeSox]

I've said i'm ok with some restrictions on gun use/ownership, just not outright bans. My opinion on abortion is basically the same.

 

(and of course we'll ignore that little stat about abortion has 100% success rate while gun ownership leading to murder happens .01% of the time)

 

you should probably double-check your presumptions before you go throwing around "99.9%" or "100%"

[Balta1701]

I've said i'm ok with some restrictions on gun use/ownership, just not outright bans. My opinion on abortion is basically the same.

You will of course find very few people here who oppose entirely any restrictions on abortion. I for example have zero issue with back alley/coat hanger procedures being banned.

[StrangeSox]

Fine, the act I want to control is "murder" and abortion control is one mean of obtaining that end. There are other ways as well, including poverty, education and the like.

 

But you yourself said that a majority of abortions are obtained by middle- or upper-class women, so poverty and education won't eliminate abortions. Your end goal is still the elimination of guns. That and the fact that we're talking about medical procedures and owning inanimate objects are two important distinctions.

[StrangeSox]

House GOP strips LGBT protections out of the VAWA

[StrangeSox]

Senator Cruz, R-Bats*** Crazy, has a list of Commies who have infiltrated Harvard. As if he wasn't channeling McCarthy enough already.

 

He then went on to assert that Obama, who attended Harvard Law School four years ahead of him, “would have made a perfect president of Harvard Law School.” The reason, said Cruz, was that, “There were fewer declared Republicans in the faculty when we were there than Communists! There was one Republican. But there were twelve who would say they were Marxists who believed in the Communists overthrowing the United States government.”

[Jenksismyhero]

you should probably double-check your presumptions before you go throwing around "99.9%" or "100%"

 

Oh please, i wasn't trying to by completely accurate. The point was in one instant you have a high probability of success of "murder," while in the other case you have very few cases of "murder" relative to the amount of gun owners/users.

[StrangeSox]

The faults with your comparison don't lay with the efficacy of the policies you support or oppose.

 

If you want to argue that abortion is murder and that you approve of any measure that makes getting an abortion more difficult, come out and say it. Don't try to hide behind plausible deniability, this is exactly what this bill and many others set out to do.

[Jenksismyhero]

But you yourself said that a majority of abortions are obtained by middle- or upper-class women, so poverty and education won't eliminate abortions. Your end goal is still the elimination of guns. That and the fact that we're talking about medical procedures and owning inanimate objects are two important distinctions.

 

This is anectdotal, but I went to a predominately white middle to upper class high school and I knew several girls that had no idea what an abortion entailed other than no longer being pregnant. They had no idea about the sickness/pain afterwards or the emotional toll that a lot of women experience.

 

And I'd venture a guess that a lot of women (and especially a lot of men) don't know the various developmental stages of pregnancy. Affluent white privileged folks like my wife and I were completely shocked that our kid had an audible and visible heartbeat at 6 or 7 weeks. That's the kind of education i'm talking about. That's information women SHOULD be given. Even if a good portion of them might already know that going in, some women don't.

[StrangeSox]

BTW research has found that waiting periods and invasive procedures don't actually change a womens' minds once they've gone to the clinic:

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/journals/4411712.html

 

It's behind a paywall, but it doesn't seem like the study addresses any "chilling effect" that might cause and how many women never even sought medical advice due to these regulations.

 

Similar study found similar results with mandatory ultrasounds:

http://americanindependent.com/210411/ongo...ortion-decision

[StrangeSox]

This is anectdotal, but I went to a predominately white middle to upper class high school and I knew several girls that had no idea what an abortion entailed other than no longer being pregnant. They had no idea about the sickness/pain afterwards or the emotional toll that a lot of women experience.

 

And I'd venture a guess that a lot of women (and especially a lot of men) don't know the various developmental stages of pregnancy. Affluent white privileged folks like my wife and I were completely shocked that our kid had an audible and visible heartbeat at 6 or 7 weeks. That's the kind of education i'm talking about. That's information women SHOULD be given. Even if a good portion of them might already know that going in, some women don't.

 

See, doctors should absolutely describe a procedure and potential side effects to patients. Nobody argues against that general concept. Where the problems come in is when the mandatory language is heavily anti-abortion, which it always is, and includes misleading or flat-out wrong information.

 

Can't find the article now, but there was a story of a married woman who was going to have an abortion because the fetus was severely developing wrong and was not going to make it to term anyway. Yet, because of these "informed consent" laws, she was required to have a doctor give her an ultrasound, describe the developmental stages of the fetus and play an audible heartbeat. It was deeply traumatizing for a woman who wanted a child but was aborting for medical reasons.

 

This is where we circle back around to the sexism again: these women just don't know what's best for them or what's going on and we need laws requiring medically unnecessary procedures and anti-abortion propaganda in the doctors' offices.

[Jenksismyhero]

The faults with your comparison don't lay with the efficacy of the policies you support or oppose.

 

If you want to argue that abortion is murder and that you approve of any measure that makes getting an abortion more difficult, come out and say it. Don't try to hide behind plausible deniability, this is exactly what this bill and many others set out to do.

 

I put "murder" in quotes because I don't agree that conception=life, but I don't think it's viability outside of the womb either. There's a point where it begins and I haven't really made up my mind on that yet.

[StrangeSox]

found it:

http://www.texasobserver.org/we-have-no-ch...w-sonogram-law/

 

“I am so sorry,” the young woman said with compassion, and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the new Texas sonogram law that had just come into effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction until two weeks earlier.

 

My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.

 

“I don’t want to have to do this at all,” I told her. “I’m doing this to prevent my baby’s suffering. I don’t want another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.” I confess that I don’t know why I said that. I knew it was fait accompli. The counselor could no more change the government requirement than I could. Yet here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it.

 

The doctor and nurse were professional and kind, and it was clear that they understood our sorrow. They too apologized for what they had to do next. For the third time that day, I exposed my stomach to an ultrasound machine, and we saw images of our sick child forming in blurred outlines on the screen.

 

“I’m so sorry that I have to do this,” the doctor told us, “but if I don’t, I can lose my license.” Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor’s voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.

 

“Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart…”

 

I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident.

 

When the description was finally over, the doctor held up a script and said he was legally obliged to read me information provided by the state. It was about the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility and my increased chance of getting breast cancer. I was reminded that medical benefits may be available for my maternity care and that the baby’s father was liable to provide support, whether he’d agreed to pay for the abortion or not.

 

Abortion. Abortion. Abortion. That ugly word, to pepper that ugly statement, to embody the futility of all we’d just endured. Futile because we’d already made our heart-breaking decision about our child, and no incursion into our private world could change it.

 

Finally, my doctor folded the paper and put it away: “When you come back in 24 hours, the legal side is over. Then we’ll care for you and give you the information you need in the way we think is right.”

 

These waiting requirements, ultrasound laws and mandatory "information" requirements overrule a doctor's decision on what's best for an individual patient. They don't change anyone's minds because it's wrong and insulting to assume that women haven't thought this through in the first place. They only serve to increase the expense, trauma and humiliation of women seeking an abortion.

 

 

[StrangeSox]

I put "murder" in quotes because I don't agree that conception=life, but I don't think it's viability outside of the womb either. There's a point where it begins and I haven't really made up my mind on that yet.

I know that's you're stance, but you seem to be waffling here between "good, it restricts abortions! shoulda kept 'er legs closed!" and "but it's just information!," which is exactly what the politicians proposing these laws do. Just come out and be honest that the only purpose is to restrict abortions or to inflict suffering on the women who seek them and stop hiding behind flimsy medical justifications for it.

[StrangeSox]

BTW, here's an example of when that mandatory language is deliberately misleading or, in the case of the breast cancer claim, outright false.

It was about the health dangers of having an abortion, the risks of infection or hemorrhage, the potential for infertility and my increased chance of getting breast cancer.

 

The language is about as medically accurate and reasonable as your typical abstinence-only class is on contraceptives--not at all.

 

Here's a big, long Guttmacher analysis of various states' "Informed Consent" laws, which notes where some are highly misleading:

 

http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/gpr/10/4/gpr100406.html

 

e.g. four states simply make up psychological disorders as part of the effort to "inform" a woman:

In four states—South Dakota, Texas, Utah and West Virginia—the materials go so far as to assert either that a woman may experience suicidal thoughts or that she will suffer from "postabortion traumatic stress syndrome," a disorder recognized by neither the American Psychological Association nor the American Psychiatric Association.

Edited February 22, 2013 by StrangeSox

[BigSqwert]

The anti-Indiana:

 

The Democratic state house of reps passed the Reproductive Parity Act today in along straight party lines, 53-43. The RPA, which requires insurance plans that cover maternity care to also cover abortion, is the first of its kind to pass in the country. While all insurance carriers in Washington State currently cover abortion services, the RPA guarantees coverage will remain in tact when new administrative hurdles to abortion coverage in the Affordable Care Act take effect.

[BigSqwert]

Gun Activists Warn Obama is Raising a Private Black Army to Massacre White Americans

[StrangeSox]

Montana bill would give corporations the right to vote

[StrangeSox]

My Promise to Congressman Rohrabacher

 

As a DREAMer, a Californian, and a civically engaged college student, I have painfully discovered that a major source of toxicity comes from members of Congress themselves.

 

Since learning in high school that I was undocumented, I’ve known that people struggled with the idea of undocumented Americans living and working alongside them. But I have never before experienced the kind of naked hostility I did when I attended a meeting in Washington to discuss citizenship legislation with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who represents my hometown in California’s 48th district.

 

wanted to tell Rep. Rohrabacher my story, I wanted to explain that I have no other home than Costa Mesa, I wanted to speak for all those in my community who are too afraid to talk about their status, all those who live in the shadows and who have had their families torn apart. But when I told him I was an undocumented American he stiffened visibly. He got angry and told me he “hates illegals.” He pointed his finger at me and asked — who are you, that you think you’re so important?

[mr_genius]

Oh, klahoma

 

Insist That People Coexisted With Dinosaurs…and Get an A in Science Class!

 

very sad

[iamshack]

Storms causing serious delays in Chicago

[StrangeSox]

Alex Pareene watches the awful Sunday morning talk shows so you don't have to.

[StrangeSox]

This is the same dumb path we're heading down with the sequester and the obsession with DEFICITS AND DEBT!

 

http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2013/02/losin...nomic-strategy/

 

I really didn’t want to write a blog post about the UK losing its AAA credit rating. Partially I didn’t want to write this post as I think the ratings agencies are part of the problem and partially because I don’t think the downgrade actually matters very much economically at all. Also, I don’t have huge amount to add to what Simon Wren-Lewis has already written.

 

But there is something about the tone of the Government response that means I just can’t let go unremarked.

“Tonight we have a stark reminder of the debt problems facing our country – and the clearest possible warning to anyone who thinks we can run away from dealing with those problems. Far from weakening our resolve to deliver our economic recovery plan, this decision redoubles it. We will go on delivering the plan that has cut the deficit by a quarter, and given us record low interest rates and record numbers of jobs.”

 

The Chancellor who argued that protecting our AAA rating was a central aim of his policy (it never should have been!) and has now turned around and argued that the downgrade proves he is right. This is absolutely staggering.

 

This is like the Iraq war all over again--plainly stupid on its face, yet its all anyone can think to do and anyone opposed gets treated as Unserious (see the Sunday morning talkshows review above).

Edited February 25, 2013 by StrangeSox

[StrangeSox]

Yep. There's also a lot that people don't know about that program... but don't let those facts get in the way of a massive "boondoggle"... I know, it's like shooting 3 foot bass in a 1 inch barrel for you.

Massive boondoggle F-35 fleet is grounded

http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/The_...rounded?src=rss

 

Why can't we blow hundreds of billions of dollars on nice things likes bridges and schools instead of crappy war toys?

[StrangeSox]

Senator Cruz, R-Bats*** Crazy, has a list of Commies who have infiltrated Harvard. As if he wasn't channeling McCarthy enough already.

 

Cruz doubles-down on his Red-baiting:

 

 

The Cruz spokesperson didn’t elaborate on how precisely these Reds are advocating the overthrow of the government. As Steve Benen notes, you can be a subscriber to “critical legal studies” without wanting to violently bring down the American system and replace it with a communist utopia.

 

It’s unclear to me that this sort of red-baiting attack on the coastal academic elite will have the resonance it did back in, oh, the last century. But here we are, and if more stuff like this flows from Cruz, it’ll be interesting to see how his fellow Republicans react to it. After all, if Republicans are really going to change their party, they’ll need to create an atmosphere in which moderates are no longer forever in fear of the base.

 

He's a strong early favorite for "Worst Senator of the 113th Congress"