Category Archives: Politics

Rick Santorum on Prenatal Testing

20 Monday Feb 2012

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Rick Santorum on Face the Nation yesterday, discussing prenatal testing, in particular amniocentesis:

Vodpod videos no longer available.                                                                                                                                                                                                                     “And in fact, prenatal testing, particularly amniocentesis — I’m not talking about general prenatal care…We’re talking about specifically prenatal testing, and specifically amniocentesis, which is a procedure that actually creates a risk of having a miscarriage when you have it, and is done for the purposes of identifying maladies in the womb. And which in many cases — in fact, most cases physicians recommend — particularly if there’s a problem — recommend abortion.”

Unlike Mr. Santorum, I don’t pretend to know what is said in private conversations between women and their doctors and whether or not in “most cases” abortion is “recommended.” My best guess, based on anecdotal evidence I have about this subject based on the experience of a family member, is that ‘presented as an option’ would be a more accurate term. Here’s why I say that.

My special needs niece, 21 years old at the time, went to a party one night where some low-life asshole slipped something in drink and raped her. When she woke up she had no memory of what happened and it wasn’t until a couple of months later she found out she was pregnant. Because no one knew who the father was, amniocentesis was done. The test results showed that the baby would have Down Syndrome, be severely retarded, and probably not live more than a few months. Abortion was presented as an option, it was not recommended.

But because of her religious beliefs, for my sister–45 years old at that point–abortion was out of the question for her daughter, and their choice was for the baby to be born. Their decision was that she and my brother-in-law would adopt the little girl and raise her as their daughter.

Fortunately, the doctors were wrong. The little girl who doctors said would have severe disabilities and only live a short time will celebrate her 17th birthday in April. She is autistic, but only mildly, and has been a joy and a blessing to the entire family.

That being said, I can also see the other side. A 45-year-old mother with a special needs daughter who is pregnant because she was raped, and who isn’t prepared–financially or emotionally–to take on the responsibility of raising another child  24 years after her last one was born. Especially a child with Down Syndrome who doctors say won’t live long and has little or no chance of ever becoming anything approaching a normal child.

You could not be more wrong, Mr. Santorum. Prenatal testing in general and amniocentesis in particular isn’t about anyone wanting to see disabled babies aborted or some plot to “cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.” It’s about choice, and that thing called freedom that Republicans claim to be so passionate about preserving. And that is the purpose of the testing, obtaining all the necessary information so an informed choice can be made.

Smooth Moves, Mitt

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in Election 2012, Politics, Republicans, Romney, Unions

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If Mitt Romney has any questions about why his hopes and dreams of winning the Republican nomination are circling the drain, he need look no further than the nearest mirror. Just the two latest examples; First, he brilliantly chose the week that GM announced record profits to re-iterate his opposition to President Obama’s rescue of GM and Chrysler. Two days ago he upped the ante with a little union bashing and support for making Michigan a right-to-work (for less) state:

“I’ve taken on union bosses before, and I’m happy to take them on again,” he told a crowd at an office furniture warehouse on Feb. 15 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I sure won’t give into the UAW. Romney also has been citing unions as a major reason for his opposition to the federal bailouts of General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC — a position he spelled out in a widely publicized Feb. 14 column in the Detroit News.”

Somebody apparently forgot to pass along these two vital pieces of information to Mr. Romney regarding his home state:

“Union membership in the state is on the rise, bucking the national trend. Last year, 18.3 percent of the Michigan workforce was represented by a union, up from 17.3 percent in 2010, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics…More than a quarter of Michigan Republican primary participants in 2008 were from households that included a union member, exit polling showed.”

Oops.

“In his current race, he stresses his support for right-to- work legislation that would bar agreements making union membership and payment of dues a job requirement. “We’re to make it a level playing field,” he told a roundtable discussion of self-described Tea Party activists in Monroe, Michigan, yesterday. “We’re going to have right to work” (for less).

Mitt can’t get his own supporters on board for that one:

“[E]ven Rick Snyder, the fiscally conservative Republican governor of Michigan who endorsed Romney yesterday, has made clear he won’t take up right-to-work legislation in the state anytime soon, saying he considers other issues more pressing. Other Romney backers similarly shy away from the issue. “I can’t go there,” said Jack Kirksey, mayor of Livonia, Michigan, when asked about right-to-work legislation.”

Rick Santorum won’t even go there:

“Santorum, whose wins in three states last week made him the main alternative to Romney in the nomination race, is taking a softer line on unions as he casts himself as the Republican candidate best able to appeal to blue-collar Rust Belt voters.

Speaking in Detroit yesterday, the former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania voiced his support for private-sector unions, citing a grandfather who was treasurer of his coal mining union.”

For  reaction to Romney’s Michigan strategery, I turn to noted political analyst, Mr. B. Bunny:

Gallup’s Misleading Headline

18 Saturday Feb 2012

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Don’t judge an article by its headline. The headline at Gallup reads:

“Health Costs, Gov’t Regulations Curb Small Business Hiring
Nearly half of small-business owners name these issues”

Followed by the accompanying chart:

Notice that Gallup skips to reasons number 5 and 6. Apparently Speaker Boehner didn’t go past the headline either, from the Speaker’s blog (his bold, not mine):

“When asked by Gallup about the challenges they face, nearly half of small businesses who aren’t hiring new workers said potential health care costs and excessive government regulations are key obstacles.

According to Politico, “an overwhelming majority of small-business owners surveyed” by Gallup – 85 percent – aren’t currently hiring. Among them, 48 percent cited concerns about rising health care costs and 46 percent cited new government regulations.”

Neither did conservative bloggers. For example, here and here.

Remember the “read the bill” chant from the Tea Party? How about this–read the article.

Local Radio Host Accused of Hit and Run

18 Saturday Feb 2012

Posted by in Conservatives, Politics

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 If it walks like a cover-up and talks like a cover-up…..Video compilation of Houston news reports about local conservative radio host Michael Berry’s involvement in a hit and run (allegedly) at a gay bar,  from Raw Story:

Vodpod videos no longer available.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Click2Houston has more:

“New witnesses have stepped forward to say they saw a talk show host behind the wheel after a hit-and-run crash outside a popular gay bar, and Local 2 Investigates has obtained video from inside the bar that is now in the hands of police.

Houston police obtained video from inside T.C.’s Show Bar on Converse and Fairview in the Montrose to confirm that the conservative activist was inside the club around the time of the Jan. 31 hit-and-run outside the club.

“Videos don’t lie. They don’t paint pictures that don’t exist,” said Tuderia Bennett, whose car was damaged in the hit and run. “I want my money more than anything else.”

[…]

Bennett told police he saw the crash and wrote down the license number, and he also told police he could positively identify Berry as being the man behind the wheel.  Bennett told police he rushed up to the SUV that hit his car right after impact and flashed the beam of his flashlight into the window.

Police officers assigned to the case told Local 2 Investigates that prosecutors from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office declined to file hit-and-run charges against Berry, saying that no one could positively identify him as being behind the wheel.”

So we have multiple eyewitnesses, a license plate number, video of the person inside the bar just before the incident, and “no one could positively identify him?” Seriously?

Berry refused to comment to reporters, but said this on his radio show:

“I’ve always said when you do what I do, the way I do it, you make enemies. When you poke your finger in as many people’s eye as I do every day, you make enemies,” said Berry.

He said that his detractors “will accuse you of most anything” and he added, “You have to trust that in the end, the system works itself out, that there are checks and balances, there are people who will verify. But you also recognize that there are some people who want you to be crushed. There’s some people who hate you.  There are some people who privately would benefit from you not being on the air.”

He said he does not respond to reporters who question him “on their turf” because it is subject to editing.  However, at no point in his broadcast did he deny being behind the wheel and at no point did he address his presence in the club.

“You simply cannot go out there and chase down every nasty thing that is said about you.  Just because someone says something nasty about you doesn’t make it true,” he said.

Kind of like what you do on a daily basis, huh Michael? Having listened to Berry’s program on occasion, one of his favorite targets for scorn and ridicule is Houston Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee. I was just wondering what Berry’s reaction might be to a report that Congresswoman Lee had been identified by eyewitnesses in a hit and run and was not charged? Would he be the very understanding person who is willing to let the system work before jumping to conclusions, or would he rush to the microphone ASAP and start doing what he and his right-wing radio brethren do so well–say nasty things, true or not?

That would be a rhetorical question.

Romney Doubles Down on GM, Chrysler Rescue

15 Wednesday Feb 2012

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Mitt Romney’s op-ed in yesterday’s Detroit News, doubling down on while at the same time conflicting what he wrote about President Obama’s rescue of GM and Chrysler in November of 2008, pretty much comes down to this: Mitt is upset because union workers got to keep their jobs and health care benefits, the automakers’ “secured creditors” (read big banks) took a bit of a loss, and Mitt’s corporate-raider, Gordon Gecko wannabe buds didn’t get a chance to carve up and liquidate the two automakers (and as the cherry on the sundae put those evil union thugs in the unemployment line) for their own fun and profit.

“Three years ago, in the midst of an economic crisis, a newly elected President Barack Obama stepped in with a bailout for the auto industry. The indisputable good news is that Chrysler and General Motors are still in business. The equally indisputable bad news is that all the defects in President Obama’s management of the American economy are evident in what he did.”

So Obama’s management style was proven defective even though it worked. What the….?

“My view at the time — and I set it out plainly in an op-ed in the New York Times — was that “the American auto industry is vital to our national interest as an employer and as a hub for manufacturing.”

Thus was also Romney’s “view at the time”:

“If General Motors, Ford and Chrysler get the bailout that their chief executives asked for yesterday, you can kiss the American automotive industry goodbye. It won’t go overnight, but its demise will be virtually guaranteed.”

Good call, Mitt. Romney then ventures into very familiar territory: the land of self-contradiction. He says what Chrysler and GM needed at the time was a “managed bankruptcy.” Six paragraphs later he laments the outcome of the…uh…managed bankruptcy:

“By the spring of 2009, instead of the free market doing what it does best, we got a major taste of crony capitalism, Obama-style.

Thus, the outcome of the managed bankruptcy proceedings was dictated by the terms of the bailout. Chrysler’s “secured creditors,” who in the normal course of affairs should have been first in line for compensation, were given short shrift, while at the same time, the UAWs’ union-boss-controlled trust fund received a 55 percent stake in the firm.”

“Free market doing what it does best” as defined by the Bain vulture capitalist who like to fire people. And never mind that in the 2008 piece Romney wrote:

“But don’t ask Washington to give shareholders and bondholders a free pass — they bet on management and they lost.”

The largest of those secured creditors at the time? The ones who “were given short shrift?” JP Morgan Chase. They took a $2 billion loss on loans to Chrysler. Well boo frickin’ hoo for Jamie Dimon and the gang at Chase, who pocketed a cool $68.6 billion in bailout money from the feds.

And about that “union-boss controlled trust fund”:

“He’s complaining, of course, that VEBA (the trust fund run by professionals that allowed the auto companies to spin off contractual obligations–retiree healthcare–to the unions) got a stake in Chrysler while Chrysler’s secured creditors took a haircut.

So, in part, he’s basically complaining that the bailout preserved the healthcare a bunch of 55+ year old blue collar workers were promised. He’s pissed they got to keep their healthcare.”

…Still, the UAW retirees who still have healthcare today instead of Jamie Dimon having another yacht probably don’t feel the same way as Mitt does.”

I just can’t figure out why Romney’s once upon a time commanding lead over Rick Santorum in Michigan is going, going, gone. Pay attention, Mittster. That sound you hear is the fat lady clearing her throat.

Drug Test Grandma

14 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by in Politics, Republicans

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Mitt Romney thinks it’s “an excellent idea” to drug test anyone who receives government benefits:

OK Mitt, let’s run with this “excellent idea.” Let’s drug test every member of Congress, all 9 Supreme Court justices. Let’s drug test every one of your buds on Wall Street who received trillions in “government benefits” when they were bailed out by the taxpayers. Let’s drug test every senior citizen who receives a Social Security check or whose health care is covered by Medicare. Drug test every disabled vet. Hand everyone who walks in the door at a VA hospital a plastic cup as a condition to receive treatment. How about every one who claims a mortgage interest deduction on their income taxes. Isn’t that a government benefit? Let’s test ‘em all, Mitt.

Of course, Romney’s not referring to any of those. Only those poor people he doesn’t care anything about and the unemployed who he likes to fire.

Speaking of Romney, Svengali Norquist pretty much endorsed him for president:

“All we have to do is replace Obama…We are not auditioning for fearless leader. We don’t need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. … We just need a president to sign this stuff. We don’t need someone to think it up or design it…Pick a Republican with enough working digits to handle a pen to become president of the United States.”

Well then, the Mittbot is your man, Grover. No convictions, no principles, willing to sell his soul and become whatever the right-wing extremists want him to be just so he can have a shot at the presidency. I’m sure he’ll gladly play Charlie McCarthy to you Edgar Bergen. Severely so.

How far the apple has fallen from the tree. During the race to win the 1968 Republican nomination, George Romney held to the courage of his convictions and stood up to the Party on the issues of civil rights, the Vietnam War, and corporate responsibility. Just imagine how this would fly in today’s GOP:

“As a CEO he would give back part of his salary and bonus to the company when he thought they were too high. He offered a pioneering profit-sharing plan to his employees. Most strikingly, asked about the idea that “rugged individualism” was the key to America’s success, he snapped back, “It’s nothing but a political banner to cover up greed.” He was the poster child for the antiquated notion that corporations have multiple stakeholders: the workers that breathe them life, the communities in which they are situated, and the nation to whom they owe a patriotic obligation – most definitely and emphatically not just stockholders.”

Mitt, you are no George Romney.

Lost in the ’50s

13 Monday Feb 2012

Posted by in Conservatives, health care, Politics

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Is this really the hill Republicans want to die on? Didn’t we already have this argument like…I don’t know…50 years ago? Do their campaign strategerists actually think that ‘Keep ‘em barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen where they belong’ is a winner in the 2012 race for the White House? What’s next on the GOP agenda? Repeal of the 19th Amendment?

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell yesterday:

“The fact that the White House thinks this is about contraception is the whole problem. This is about freedom of religion, it’s right there in the First Amendment. You can’t miss it — right there in the very first amendment to our Constitution,” McConnell said. “What the overall view on the issue of contraception is has nothing to do with an issue about religious freedom.”

McConnell went on to embellish the argument, claiming Obama is being “rigid in his view that he gets to decide what somebody else’s religion is.” He said that “this issue will not go away until the administration simply backs down.”

…“If we end up having to try to overcome the President’s opposition by legislation, of course I’d be happy to support it, and intend to support it,” McConnell said. “We’ll be voting on that in the Senate and you can anticipate that that would happen as soon as possible.”

That would be the legislation proposed by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), the Blunt Amendment, which would, according to the National Women’s Law Center:

“[A]llow employers and insurance companies to refuse coverage of any health care service required under the new health care law based on undefined “religious beliefs or moral convictions.” This creates a huge loophole in the new health care law’s coverage requirements. For example, any corporation whose CEO opposes contraception based on his “moral convictions” could deny all coverage of contraception or any other service to the company’s employees. Even more disturbing, a CEO’s view of “morality” could potentially include concern for the cost of a particular benefit. Such broad, undefined refusals (without any protections for the insured) would result in millions of individuals losing vital health service coverage.”

The NWLC gives a few examples of what that might mean:

“A plan could claim a moral or religious basis in order to refuse to cover HIV/AIDS screenings or counseling.

A health plan in the individual market could refuse to cover mental health care on the grounds that the plan believes that psychiatric problems should be treated with prayer.
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A small employer could offer a plan that does not cover maternity care for unmarried women in its plan, claiming that such coverage violates its belief that sex and procreation are permissible only within the marital relationship

An individual could object to coverage of vaccines for children, so the plan could then not be required to do so.

An insurer could refuse to provide coverage of any health care service to an interracial couple because of a religious or moral objection to such relationships.

An insurer could refuse to cover routine sonograms during the course of a pregnancy for a single woman even if routine dental X-rays or PAP smears are covered, due to a religious or moral objection to pregnancies out of wedlock.”

Here’s another one. What if a Muslim employer refused to cover his or her employees unless the plan provided that, based on religious convictions, men cannot be treated by women doctors, and vice versa. Do you think Republicans would defend this Muslim employer’s right to religious freedom? I’ll go out on a limb and guess no.

I like this take from Bark Bark Woof Woof:

“Okay, let’s see; the Republicans have already dissed just about every minority there is: the African-Americans, the Hispanics, the immigrants, the Muslims, anyone who’s not straight, anyone who speaks another language besides English, anyone who believes in science, anyone who believes in climate change, anyone who likes Clint Eastwood, and anyone else who’s held a view that isn’t in line with the white, straight, evangelical Christian male patriarchy. Now they’re going after the majority of Americans — women — and anyone who uses any kind of birth control or contraception, which includes everyone in the above-mentioned list.

So who’s left?”

Wu Resigns

26 Tuesday Jul 2011

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Another Congresspervert bites the dust:

“Democratic Rep. David Wu of Oregon has announced that he is resigning in the wake of allegations that he had a sexual encounter with an 18-year-old girl woman.

Democratic leaders had called for a House Ethics investigation after the initial reports of the allegation. Wu had said that whatever occurred was consensual.

Wu said Tuesday the well-being of his children should come first, so he will resign after Congress resolves the debate over the debt ceiling.”

On behalf of the well-being of other people’s children, thank you soon-to-be-ex-Congressman Wu.

“A Colossal Political Failure”

26 Tuesday Jul 2011

Posted by in budget, Deficit, economy, Politics, Taxes

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Sam Pizzigati at CAF:

“This “debt crisis” in no way had to happen. No natural disaster, no tsunami, has suddenly pounded the United States out of fiscal balance. We have simply suffered a colossal political failure. Our powers that be, by feeding the rich and their corporations one massive tax break after another, have thrown a monstrous monkey wrench into our national finances.

Some numbers — from an Institute for Policy Studies report released this past spring — can help us better visualize just how monumental this political failure has been.

If corporations and households taking in $1 million or more in income each year were now paying taxes at the same annual rates as they did back in 1961, the IPS researchers found, the federal treasury would be collecting an additional $716 billion a year.

In other words, if the federal government started taxing the wealthy and their corporations at the same rates in effect a half-century ago, the federal debt to investors would almost totally vanish over the next decade.

Similarly stunning numbers have come, earlier this month, from MIT economist Peter Diamond and the University of California’s Emmanuel Saez, the world’s top authority on the incomes of the ultra-rich. These two scholars have shared some fascinating “what ifs” that dramatize how spectacularly the incomes of our wealthiest have soared over recent decades.

In 2007, Diamond and Saez point out, taxpayers in the nation’s top 1 percent actually paid, on average, 22.4 percent of their incomes in federal taxes. If  that actual tax burden were to about double to 43.5 percent, the top 1 percenter share of our national after-tax income would still be twice as high as the top 1 percent’s after-tax income share in 1970.

So why aren’t we taxing the rich? Why are we now suffering such fearsome “debt crisis” angst? Why are our politicos so intent on shoving the “fiscal discipline” of layoffs and cutbacks — austerity — down the throats of average Americans?

No mystery here. Our political system is failing to tax the rich because the rich have fortunes large enough to buy off the political system.”