abortion

Byron York has a blog post up which must be one of the most idiotic things I have read in a long time:

Byron York: Voters fret about economy, Dems focus on abortion

"This election, to me, is about which candidate is more likely to return us to full employment," says former President Bill Clinton in a new ad released by the Obama campaign. Most voters would agree, at least if one believes countless polls that show the economy and jobs are the nation's top concern.

So why are Democrats planning to make their convention a celebration of abortion and gay marriage? The Obama campaign has given a new and prominent surrogate role to Sandra Fluke, the former Georgetown law student and full-time lefty activist who achieved notoriety after Rush Limbaugh called her a bad name because of her energetic promotion of taxpayer-financed contraception.

Is this Byron's first round of national elections? It seems so.

Has he not paid attention to the House since Republicans took control in 2010? Apparently not.

A vast, vast majority of legislation by the John Boehner led House has had nothing to do with the economy. Instead they voted 33 times to repeal all or part of the healthcare act, knowing it wouldn't pass Senate or a veto pen. They spent times debating on things like "one nation under God" and other bills that have absolutely nothing to do with the economy.

And every election cycle for the past several decades the GOP has pushed abortion out there. The problem this time is that the GOP's real views have been pushed out front by Todd Akin, and good little foot soldiers like Byron are upset about it. They are made that Democrats now control the debate on abortion and it has gotten so bad that even Mitt Romney is refusing to take questions on it.

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) is running for Senate. against Claire McCaskill. This Tea Party favorite has taken the misogynistic views of America's right to a whole new low, declaring that:

“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.”

Don't believe me? Yeah I wouldn't either, especially given the totally heinous claims made here, so here is the video to see it for yourself:

Now either Akin is one of the most idiotic men alive, in which case he should have been aborted, or he is just playing this card to make excuses to outlaw all abortions. Either way, this sorry piece of shit has no place in Congress, the Senate or the human race.

But sadly Akin echoes the same sentiment towards women's reproductive health that many on the right feel. I just can't wait to hear how some of these women-hating wingnuts are going to defend this.

Herman Cain is coming under serious fire; so serious it could destroy his chances at winning the nomination:

The first signs of real damage to Herman Cain's campaign emerged Thursday as his position on abortion -- that he is personally anti-abortion but believes it's "not the government's role ... to make that decision" -- began to register with conservative Iowa activists.

But I really got to give Cain credit on this. A cornerstone of Republican ideology has been smaller government and keeping them out of our lives, yet another cornerstone has been outlawing abortion. The two issues conflict one another greatly. How can you claim to want smaller government and larger freedoms, yet say that women aren’t allowed those freedoms when it comes to their health? It’s hypocrisy in the grandest form.

So hats off to you Herman for saying what you believe. Sadly though you are part of a party that doesn’t like that. They only want their red meat and sound bites. True beliefs and feelings are not for them.

A couple of weeks ago I posted one of the most depressing headlines I had seen in years:

McDonald's aims to fill 50,000 jobs in a day

What made this so depressing is the rate at which this news item grew. Our job market has reached  a point that people are excited over McDonald’s hiring. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, today we are treated with this:

One Million Apply for 62,000 Jobs…with McDonald’s

McDonald’s ended up increasing the hiring by 24%, due to the massive turnout, but still over 900,000 people were turned away from a minimum wage job. It really makes you wonder where all the job creating legislation that John Boehner and the GOP promised has gone. I guess worrying about social issues, like abortion, is much more important. True the right doesn’t realize that when people are unemployed, that gives them more time to reproduce.

The Catholic Church is so twisted in their beliefs that it is beyond scarey. Preists can rape and torture children, yet they are allowed to continue to serve, but if a nun helps save a woman's life - well they get kicked out:

From Dave at Video Cafe:

A Phoenix nun along with a hospital Ethics Committee made the decision to go forward with a procedure that aborted an 11-week pregnancy and saved the life of the mother. Sister Margaret McBride was then speedily excommunicated by the Catholic church.

"In this tragic case, the treatment necessary to save the mother's life required the termination of an 11-week pregnancy. This decision was made after consultation with the patient, her family, her physicians, and in consultation with the Ethics Committee, of which Sr. Margaret McBride is a member," according to a statement from St. Joseph's hospital.

Cannon Lawyer Father Kevin O'Rourke told NBC News that in his view McBride should not have been punished. "A person knowingly and willingly performs an abortion, then that person is excommunicated. But my contention is that there is nothing knowingly and willingly done in this regard. They were acting, you see, to save the life of the woman and that was their main concern," he said.

I can’t help but laugh every time I hear some Republican say “passing this bill [health care reform] will cost the Democrats in November”. I keep wondering to myself if Coach K is calling up John Calipari and saying “if we meet in final four and you run a zone defense, it will cost you dearly”.

But today I got thinking more about this and translating it to when Republicans controlled everything, like they did for a majority of the last decade. Is that why the Republicans never tried to push through legislation they have campaigned on for decades? For example:

Republicans are “small government”, yet the government grew at record rates under their rule.

They have been against abortion for all these years, yet when have they actually tried to outlaw it?

Or how about taxes? We hear Republicans all the time crowing about across the board tax cuts, yet the only tax cuts they ever did was for the rich.

The Republican solution to health care for years has been tort reform, dating back to at least the last time the issue came up – during the Clinton years. Yet with the Republicans holding control of the entire government, they never once tried to do anything about it.

So this brings me to the big question – has the Republicans been erring on the side of caution when they have control? Sure the issues above make great campaign talking points, but are they afraid that any real action will lead to an electorate peril?

The Democrats are on the verge of passing legislation they have been advocating since the days of FDR. Now it is suddenly “politically dangerous”. They are working towards delivering on a major campaign promise from 2008, and that will cost them? If you really believe this, then you believe that our government is incapable of change, and that leaves us in a very bad position as a nation. A nation that can’t change is a nation that will be left behind.

Given the very narrow margins that the House passed their version of the health care bill, it appears that one of the key Senate changes could end up meaning doom for the legislation:

One thing is clear: Unless Sen. Harry Reid and President Barack Obama back down on the excise tax in the health reform bills being merged in a secret conference committee, Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter will not vote for the final bill.

And that’s not the only feature of the final bill Shea-Porter is likely to oppose.

Usually in cases like this it takes one to open the flood gates. Now that Shea-Porter has publically said she won’t support the bill if the Cadillac tax is included, I am sure we can expect more to follow suit this week.

Also don’t forget that we are looking at other’s who may oppose the bill over the abortion language, namely people like Stupak, who want much harsher abortion language in the bill. The next few weeks are going to be very interesting to watch. Well not watch, since transparency is dead, but listen to the leaks on.

The Politico reports (via Aravosis):

An aide to Rep. Bart Stupak (D. Mich.) coordinated opposition to a Senate compromise on the place of abortion in health care legislation this morning with the Republican Senate leadership, the Conference Catholic Bishops, and other anti-abortion groups, according to a chain of frantic emails obtained this morning by POLITICO.

The emails show that Stupak — who has so far remained silent on language accepted by Senator Ben Nelson (D. Neb.) and faces intense pressure from the White House to accept it — is already working behind the scenes to oppose the compromise.

They also demonstrate a previously unseen degree of coordination between Stupak and the office of Republican leader Mitch McConnell.

This brings us to something that crossed my mind this morning – will this bill pass the house? A lot of progressives are going to be turned off by it as it is, then add into it the reduced abortion language from the Stupak amendment, which was needed to bring enough votes on for the House, and you are looking at a scenario where the House could end up voting down the final. I can’t wait for the whip count to start on that.