There’s a vicious, crazed god inside America… 19 April 2007
Posted by marisacat in Abortion Rights, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, Sex / Reproductive Health.trackback
Eight Arms of Madness by Somnio :: link to larger version
To remind of what can be when there is leadership – and more than respect, love for humanity…
Remember what can be, from Zapatero, elected to lead Spain after Aznar:
“We are not legislating, honorable members, for people far away and not known by us. We are enlarging the opportunity for happiness to our neighbors, our co-workers, our friends and, our families: at the same time we are making a more decent society, because a decent society is one that does not humiliate its members.
“In the poem ‘The Family,’ our [gay] poet Luis Cernuda was sorry because, ‘How does man live in denial in vain by giving rules that prohibit and condemn?’
“Today, the Spanish society answers to a group of people who, during many years have, been humiliated, whose rights have been ignored, whose dignity has been offended, their identity denied, and their liberty oppressed.
Today the Spanish society grants them the respect they deserve, recognizes their rights, restores their dignity, affirms their identity, and restores their liberty.“It is true that they are only a minority, but their triumph is everyone’s triumph.
It is also the triumph of those who oppose this law, even though they do not know this yet: because it is the triumph of Liberty. Their victory makes all of us (even those who oppose the law) better people, it makes our society better. Honorable members, There is no damage to marriage or to the concept of family in allowing two people of the same sex to get married.
To the contrary, what happens is this class of Spanish citizens get the potential to organize their lives with the rights and privileges of marriage and family. There is no danger to the institution of marriage, but precisely the opposite: this law enhances and respects marriage.
“Today, conscious that some people and institutions are in a profound disagreement with this change in our civil law, I wish to express that, like other reforms to the marriage code that preceded this one, this law will generate no evil, that its only consequence will be the avoiding of senseless suffering of decent human beings. A society that avoids senseless suffering of decent human beings is a better society.
“With the approval of this Bill, our country takes another step in the path of liberty and tolerance that was begun by the democratic change of government. Our children will look at us incredulously if we tell them that many years ago, our mothers had less rights than our fathers, or if we tell them that people had to stay married against their will even though they were unable to share their lives.
Today we can offer them a beautiful lesson: every right gained, each access to liberty has been the result of the struggle and sacrifice of many people that deserve our recognition and praise.
“Today we demonstrate with this Bill that societies can better themselves and can cross barriers and create tolerance by putting a stop to the unhappiness and humiliation of some of our citizens.
Today, for many of our countrymen, comes the day predicted by Kavafis [the great Greek gay poet] one century ago:
‘Later ’twas said of the most perfect society/someone else, made like me/certainly will come out and act freely.’ “
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http://www.techpresident.com/node/271
hmmmm, Trippi resurfaces….
That just makes me laugh (about Trippi joining the Edwards campaign).
What a scream!
i thought it might give you a chuckle.
I noticed in a Beliefnet interview Edwards was careful to say he forgave the Bloggers their extreme statements.
hmmm LOL… I wonder what they will say when Trippi goes insane and ego driven…. or if Edwards will forgive him. I think they are just buying the Blahgs.
this should be fun to watch.
apologies & forgiveness–all the rage! all the sound and fury.
wonderful image choice and Zapatero excerpt, Marisacat.
I think I am going to be sending this post and the previous one to the few wobbly females I know that, while not opponents of abortion, might not examine the “partial-birth abortion” issue very critically. And definitely some men.
On the campus where I work, they have set up some of the grounds with flags representing Katrina victims (the university is involved in the Gulf Coast Civic Works Project) –the known victims anyway, because the extent will never be known. A week or so ago, a Filipino student group put up commemorative flags for local Filipino-Americans who died in military service to this country. (here I must add that there is a significant portion of native Filipinos now serving in the military in Iraq, as it is a faster track to immigration, if one survives. Filipino workers are also favored by the private security companies operating in Iraq, because their second language is often English)
This morning I saw another display of flags and various configurations set into another small part of a lawn. For the Virginia Tech murdered.
Wheels begin to turn….how about flags to signify the number of women dead from illegal or self-induced abortions? I am sure there would be enough women on campus to assist in this sort of venture, but I would have to make contact in a non-official kind of way. But it seems pertinent.
Bloggers really resent having dollars and cents from political campaigns to them exposed. I think that is called: In the WRong Business… as in FEC rules.
I wish we had politicians like that, a political conversation like so many other countries have. We have endless agitprop and lies and backpatting and bigotry, that’s it.
Makes me sad.
Like I wrote in my latest, the USA makes war on humanity, on reason, on the future, on the Earth and life itself. We have fully become a force for evil and exploitation in the world. There is little mitigating it anymore.
I’m starting to believe that this country can’t change without a fundamental change of course. The system of checks and balances set up by the original constitution has been completely bypassed. We can all see the symptoms with our own eyes, but the vast majority of our fellow citizens are completely blind to it.
What will finally be the two by four that strikes them between the eyes?
Kevin
Oh for fuck sake. “Jiacinto” blames Nader for the SCOTUS decision:
“First of all, for those of you want to blame the Catholic Church, you are focusing on the wrong party. While the Catholic will always oppose abortion–it does so because it believes that an unborn fetus is alive and the church is against the killing of all life (even the death penalty)–you should really blame the Christian Reconstructionists. You should blame organizations like the Christian Coalition, the Moral Majority, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other fundademtnalist Christians, most of whom have no love–in fact many of them have pure hatred–for the Catholic church.
With that out of the way the emotion that I had was anger. I thought of the Greens and the Naderites from 2000. I think of ultra-feminist Barbara Ehnreich, who had at least one abortion herself. She voted for Nader in Florida. I think of Michael Moore and the other high-profile Nader supports like Susan Sarandon, who could easily travel to another country to receive an abortion should she ever need one. They aren’t suffering the consequences that ordinary women have to face. I can’t help but feel anger toward the Nader crowd. 96K votes in Florida and 20K votes in New Hampshire made this possible.”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/4/7/195040/1110
One person (in 48 comments) threw it back at him:
“Let me see if i can get this straight (2+ / 0-)
So no blame should be attached to the Catholic church – which gave Bush his win over Kerry in Ohio because it oppses abortion and gays.
And got 2 more Catholics on the Supreme Court as a result – so now the 5 of them are ruling against abortion rights (and Im sure gays are coming).
Instead, we should all blame Nader.
OK – thanks for the analysis
Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. – Sam J. Ervin, Jr.
by tiponeill on Thu Apr 19, 2007 at 06:35:10 PM PDT”
Anti-nader diary using this decision as cover. What a sickening diatribe he wrote.
The big drum beat as I roller-skated around a bit today is “elections matter”… they need to sell 08 so they need to drive homw that none of this would have happened had, if, if only…etc.
Looked that way to me, at least.
I thought a couple years ago that the D and R had a deal, turn the abortion problem back to the states.
Now they have (IMO the SC was charged with achieving this from Gonzales v Carhart). And fundraising fun for everyone.
I also just read via NPR that one of the precendents set in this ruling is that abortion may now be ruled on using MORALITY.
\
Quite aside from health of the mother: OFF THE TABLE. Nancy must be so relieved.
Babies for Jeeeeeeeeeesuhs!
Cho was not the only killer this week.
jesette christ–in a couple of days they will be blaming the SCOTUS decision on “hrh & marisacat”
yeah he did! his consultants must have thought it worked so well edwards tried it again last week and forgave him some imus too!
and you know, after reading about how edwards so nobly forgave imus, i was suddenly possessed by the very same holy spirit of forgiveness, and almost forgave john edwards for giving that racist a pass!
then changed my mind.
ahymn… AHYMN
with “jesus-bless-you” insurance, that office is mine!
such a glorious foretaste of westwing divine!
fantastic press coverage! it’s purchased no cost,
using sense of forgiveness, not a dollar is lost!
listen to that. can you hear it? sounds like there’s a her, far away in the spam filter, singing something about screwing up the email address.
or is that a hymn?
that is absolutely beautiful, marisa. what i would not give for america’s zapateros to have the sort of political power behind them to rise to the surface as he did.
then again, perhaps we have to go through the same fascist cycle that spain did, before we can appreciate the soul of antifascism.
either way, i have serious politician-envy.
I just let it out bay… sorry for the delay, was off cleaning the top of the stove. I grilled today. (well sort of)
marisacat–was that you, grilling gonzales?
ooo I missed his Imus “forgive” I only saw him say he needed to consider returning. I got the impression he would.
Well they all propped him up forever, as did the whole operative wurlitzer thang. I did not much care for Obama’s automatic moralising, or school marm stance either.
Hell they all piss me off..
and surely Imus was one of their, bi partisan, mouthpieces, even if he would, here and there,
s l i g h t l y turn on them. LOL
in a couple of days they will be blaming the SCOTUS decision on “hrh & marisacat”
Well, certainly feminists and peace activists and anyone who suspects something might be wrong with the voting machines . I’m pretty sure that Dana and Jacinto and RonK and Jason would all get (very) little stiffies if they could blame Cynthia McKinney.
Naturally the self described ‘reality based’ community would eat that up too. it’s disgusting.
MIss D
boy Bush sure sent up cheap meat for the senators to play with.
It was almost boring it was so scripted. And again, ugh, spector rather ruled from the high chairs.
sigh. I thought elections mattered…
From the diary linked to by earth-to-meg – this is just SO dopey:
It reminds me of that old Thurber cartoon: “Well, if this is the wrong number, why did you answer the phone?”
#11, Miss D: in a couple of days they will be blaming the SCOTUS decision on “hrh & marisacat”
LOL! I heard you were responsible for the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn.
Well Miss D & Colleen you know that the SCOTUS decision came down precisely because those bra-burning, non-shaving, smelly, feminist agitators like HRH and Marisacat turned off middle America to women’s civil rights. If only they just fit in, like the mudflap feminist set, and pole danced a bit, there is no way that the SCOTUS would have essentially made abortion illegal. Agitators are responsible for giving good middle-class latte sippers the demonic reputation they have now. If not for the demonic reputation, the centrist values we all espouse would be manifest.
Anyone who’s been around Dkos for a while knows that Jiacinto is pro-Iraq war, extremely antagonistic to any sort of left perspective on economics & is extremely questionable on any civil rights issue. I’ve always placed him up there with the AIPAC brigade for detestable sorts on Dkos [I love the way a fairly recent poster used to say it 'Hasbara Trolls'].
Hey, fuckwit, I voted for Nader in 1996 and 2000, because he actually represented to a certain extent my values.
Not to mention, Gore won Florida in 2000 by over 40,000 votes which has been demonstrated time and again in media studies of the election.
JJB posted here a while ago (with links) that jacinto has been linked to a right wing think tank. And apparently his name is known as well.. I can’t recall all of the particulars…
My guess is he has been a plant at the site. LOL whatelse would be new.
btw Miss D, I’m terribly hurt that you didn’t mention me last night when appealing to the VAG men… Am I not good enough for you?
I’m also sorry for linking to that terribly nonsensical poem. I won’t delete it [as per the Mcat Manifesto], but I’m seriously thinking of rewriting it this evening when I have more poetry inflected effluvia skulking through my veins.
LOL Always OK to re-submit…
lucid, I missed your poem (I’ll go back and look for it). Your phrase “mudflap feminist set” is brilliant.
I think the honor belongs to BooHooMan in that regard.
The poem, alas, still sits atop the lucidculture blog. It’s not terrible – the last 3 stanzas work. The first two don’t make any sense & are favoring a food metaphor whose origin is unknown. I do like the rhythm of the whole thing though.
there would never have been a Bush administration had Nader not run in 2000.
And there would never had been a Bush administration if the big bang never happened.
All they do is blame. They blame that Gore supported gun control for ‘00 (gosh I think it was a lot of things)…
Kerry and many of his side of the confused aisle blame, yes what small support for abortion RIGHTS forget specific procedures for 04 (oh it was so many things… both candidates died in August… I could not believe it was repeating but there it was)… I think they were really goosed by the ‘Bishops Letter”. LOL.
They NEVER look to themselves.
And now they don’t have to. They have crowned themselves already.
The R are sick marauders, killers, but the Dems are just supine. They want a rub down, a catered lunch wheeled in and the launch codes for the missiles..
so passive passive. For them passive aggressive would be an achievement.
All they do is blame
I’ve been collecting the blame spins for a chapter in the book. Even tho it has not gained wider voice (unlike the abysmally stupid and vicious blaming of NARAL for the loss of women’s reproductive rights) my personal favorite thus far was when Georgia Peach Mia Dolan insisted that Cynthia McKinney alone bears responsibility for the Democrats inability to impeach Bush.
lucid, I like your poem. For me, stanzas 1,2 and 5 work the best.
Did you write the NYC music calendar 4/18-25? I enjoyed the writing in it, especially this bit:
Sounds like this blog!
But I have to say that the word “panstylistic” always makes me laugh – my aged eyes and brain read it as “pantylistic”. Now there’s a bandname: The Pantylistics!
hmmm here is an interesting Cho tidbit:
More furor over what women wear. This time, it’s about a Muslim American women’s experience in Oxford when people (Muslims and non-Muslims) became outraged about her so-called “burkini” – example here.
Beyond the clothes:
WaPo ran a story about her Iraqi wedding in March, 2006.
Several people have asked me what I think about yesterday’s ruling. Since I’m not an expert in constitutional law, I’m thinking about what I know about. I’m thinking about the women.
One day a few months ago, three generations of one family walked into our clinic together — a blonde, pixieish teenager, her own mother, and very polished-looking 60-ish woman who was the girl’s grandmother.
Our patient was a very bright 17 year old. During our preliminary counseling session, I asked her a standard question: “Do you think you pretty much understand how the doctor is going to do the procedure itself?” She replied that she did, because she had already seen a movie at school of how an abortion is performed: “It was called ‘Scream’ something …”
I felt ice in the pit of my stomach. Yes, this girl really had been shown that horrific propaganda classic, The Silent Scream, in a high school classroom in her East Texas home town … and still, she was determined to have an abortion.
When the girl’s mother sat down with me to review and sign the state’s notarized six-page parental consent form, she told me about her own mother’s illegal abortion in the 60’s.
Her mom, who’s an RN herself, and who was sitting outside in our waiting room even as I heard this story, had been glad that the man who agreed to do her abortion was a doctor. He came to her home, rinsed his instruments off in the sink and performed the abortion — but only after he had arranged her in the lithotomy position and raped her on her own kitchen table. She was hospitalized within a couple of days, due to hemorrhage and infection.
As I listened, I felt suspended between sorrow at what this woman endured, and admiration of her courage in trusting her daughter and granddaughter to understand and honor the truth of her experience. When the subject is abortion, so many people are willing understand and honor anything but the truth.
The girl’s mother hugged me before she left the room, and told me how thankful she was that with us, her own daughter had “a soft place to fall.”
The most cogent and germane comment I’ve read on the effects of the ruling came from Troy Newman, director of Operation Rescue. He said that now they could erect not just hurdles for women seeking an abortion, but roadblocks. At least Newman was honest enough, for once in his sorry life, to admit that women, not doctors, are the real targets — which is all anyone needs to understand about the justices’ inclusion of “morality” as the newest not-undue burden.
As we hurtle back to the future . . .
MCat – the Daily Record is a fucking rag. They make shit up. Agitprop, Scottish flavor.
well I want people to be happy and do what is their choice, but I take a dim view, over all, of fundamentalism piggy backing into the US… I am not calling her a fundamentalist muslim.. but …
But certainly nothing I can do about it…
thanks moiv
SV
yeah its a tabloid… but she has been identified in US reports as on contract to the State Dept, but with no details.
… see how it rolls out…
I felt ice in the pit of my stomach. Yes, this girl really had been shown that horrific propaganda classic, The Silent Scream, in a high school classroom in her East Texas home town … and still, she was determined to have an abortion.
When I was in Catholic school in the 70s, the nuns showed us a similar film and of course they were rabidly anti-contraception too – the wrath of God and all that. It took me a while to get up the courage to even ask a doctor for the pill as a result. When I finally went he told me to come back in when my period started. It didn’t. My daughter’s 29 now. I’m 47.
#37. Well she was referencing her experiences in the bible belt as a child – long before 9/11 “changed everything”. I doubt Muslim children are quite that welcome these days.
Speaking of Muslims and fundy Christians, I was appalled to see Franklin Graham’s mug on CNN from Va Tech crowing about spreading God’s word with his merry band of missionaries this week. There are Muslim students there who probably wouldn’t appreciate his presence during their time of mourning knowing he believes Islam is “a very evil and wicked religion”.
moiv, you should post that as a diary at DKos. They need to be shaken up.
Regarding the “burkini” story: granted that the Brits have a much longer history of prejudice against “Arabs” et al. than we do, I smell the heavy perfume of Msock-style drama-queenery.
Franklin Graham and his ‘Samaritan’s Purse” were iirc the first evangelical group in Iraq. They went in with the invasion, or right on its heels.
SV –
I haven’t posted a diary there since November 2005. I’m on a roll, and would hate to break my streak.
Some idiot just posted this piece of tripe over there, labeled “snark.”
It’s joke material now.
I just cringe at xmas time when all of the school kids are gathering stuff for their shoeboxes to donate via Samaritan’s Purse without knowing what a bigot Graham is.
SV – funny you mention that bit. My buddy writes the NYC live stuff [and he's a great writer - he was a regular music reviewer for NYP & been a press release writer for Cambridge U Press among others].
What is funny is that the specific bit you quote is about my band, and we are that.
Hmm, 1, 2 and 5. I thought my best turns of phrase were the latter – when I reread it today I couldn’t get past the food metaphors in 1 and 2 that really make no sense with respect to the rest of the piece.
Oh well.
catnip –
Did you see the story a few months ago about the woman in Florida who discovered that her daughter’s Catholic school was showing anti-abortion propaganda movies in class? It seems the school had hidden details of the curriculum from parents, while charging them school fees to indoctrinate and scare the bejeesus out of their kids.
Catholic High School Confidential: Abortion Class
I couldn’t get past the food metaphors in 1 and 2 that really make no sense with respect to the rest of the piece.
I don’t find pate tasty (eww) but I thought the poem worked with the food signifying the elite – the “chi chi frou frous”.
Bill Clinton on Larry King Live:
And with that, I’m off…
moiv: I haven’t posted a diary there since November 2005. I’m on a roll, and would hate to break my streak.
Why?
A road map to womens hell
Abortion foes to push for stricter limits
One activist says the Supreme Court’s ruling ’swings the door wide open.’ A flood of legislation is expected.
By Stephanie Simon, Times Staff Writer
April 19, 2007
Elated and emboldened, antiabortion activists in state after state are planning to push for stringent new limits on second- and third-trimester abortions in the hope of building on their victory Wednesday in the Supreme Court.
By a 5-4 vote, the justices upheld a federal ban on a procedure that critics call “partial-birth” abortion, which involves partially delivering the fetus, then crushing its skull. The ruling included strong language that asserted the state’s “legitimate, substantial interest in preserving and promoting fetal life.”
Advocates on both sides of the abortion debate predicted that the ruling would spur a flood of legislation. FOR THE RECORD:
Abortion: An earlier version of this story made reference to a woman named Sandra Cano, whose lawsuit in the 1970s established the health exception, and stated that she had had an abortion. She did not have one. —
“We’re moving beyond putting roadblocks in front of abortions to actually prohibiting them,” said Troy Newman, president of Operation Rescue, a national antiabortion group based in Wichita, Kan. “This swings the door wide open.”
He and other strategists said they hoped to introduce legislation in a number of states that would:
• Ban all abortions of viable fetuses, unless the mother’s life is endangered.
• Ban mid- and late-term abortion for fetal abnormality, such as Down syndrome or a malformed brain.
• Require doctors to tell patients in explicit detail what the abortion will involve, show them ultrasound images of the fetus and warn them that they may become suicidal after the procedure.
• Lengthen waiting periods so that women must reflect on such counseling for several days before obtaining the abortion.
It is far from certain that the Supreme Court would uphold all those proposals. But antiabortion activists clearly think momentum is on their side.
In particular, they are pleased that the court upheld an outright ban, with no exceptions, on a surgical procedure performed in the second trimester, when the fetus is too large to be evacuated through a suction tube.
For more than 30 years, the Supreme Court has required every major restriction on abortion to include an exception waiving the law if a woman’s physical or emotional health is at stake.
As a result, many abortion bans have been largely symbolic. At least 40 states outlaw abortion of viable fetuses. But because of the health exception, doctors can still terminate such pregnancies if they certify that the woman suffers depression or anxiety.
Abortion opponents consider that a major loophole, leading to what they call “abortion on demand.”
The ruling gave them hope for a new standard. The procedure at issue is used only rarely — it is more common in second-trimester abortions to dismember the fetus inside the womb — but abortion doctors had argued that they should be able to use it when they considered it better for the woman’s health. The justices disagreed.
“I’m ecstatic,” said Leslee Unruh, an antiabortion activist in South Dakota. “It’s like someone gave me $1 million and told me, ‘Leslee, go shopping.’ That’s how I feel.”
She spent the day conferring with lawyers on how to leverage the ruling to maximum effect in the states. “We’re brainstorming, and we’re having fun,” she said.
Abortion rights lawyer Katherine Grainger predicted that the ruling would “open the floodgates” in state after state.
“The state’s interest in the fetus has now been elevated above the woman’s health, whereas before the women’s health always trumped,” said Grainger, who directs state policy for the Center for Reproductive Rights. “States are going to push the boundaries and try to restrict access on all fronts.”
Because most state legislatures have only a few more weeks in session, Grainger said, she expects that the bulk of the proposals will come next year. When the bills are filed, antiabortion activists plan to pursue two strategies that won tacit endorsement in the Supreme Court ruling.
First, they intend to try stirring public discomfort about specific abortion techniques. The court opinion referred to the partial delivery of a live fetus during an abortion as shocking. Activists plan to argue that other, far more common, methods of ending pregnancy are just as distasteful.
“This procedure was outlawed because it was exposed. If every procedure were exposed in this way, they would all be deemed equally cruel,” said Terri Herring, an antiabortion lobbyist in Mississippi. She envisions introducing bans on one procedure after another in an attempt to build on the ruling.
That could be an effective strategy, said Ted G. Jelen, a political scientist who studies abortion politics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
“If they can shift the debate to what happens to the fetus, rather than who decides, that’s a useful frame for them,” he said.
The second linchpin of the antiabortion strategy is the testimony of women who have had abortions — and regret them.
The ruling cited affidavits from several women who said their abortion caused them lasting psychological trauma. Though the ruling said the court could find “no reliable data to measure the phenomenon,” it described abortion as “fraught with emotional consequence.”
“That’s very good, strong language, and I think it sets the foundation for future rulings,” said Anne Newman, policy director for Operation Outcry, which has collected 2,000 affidavits from women remorseful about their abortions. Their written testimony is making the rounds of statehouses.
Abortion rights supporters have tried to fight back against such tactics. They have told the stories of women who were raped, or who thought that they had no choice but to abort a severely deformed fetus. They have argued that abortion restrictions fall most heavily on the young and the poor. And they have tried to rally broad support for reproductive freedom.
“This is going to be a wake-up call for Americans who care about women’s health,” said Nancy Northrup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights.
Political scientist Alan Abramowitz at Emory University said it was too early to know how the debate would unfold — though he was certain it would be polarizing. As he put it: “This will exacerbate the divisions that already exist.”
_______________
Yup… it is all Nader and Naral’s fault… didn’t you see them in the thread bashing and bullying all of those BBB White Boyz into abandoning their support for choice.
Exactly, it falls to the states. Each to battle it out. With a bucket load of new precedents set in the ruling.
And there will be fewer blue states than people think,
There is now a burden on women to nurture the unborn baby. criminalisation will spread to women… since they are already in jail in some instances for either self abortion (illegal) or other acts …
Great comment by irishwitch in response to this diary by Frederick Clarkson:
Leslee will go back to what she was charged with in SD, 19 charges iirc… of pressuring yougn girls to have their baby for her adoption “service”.
Baby selling.
why did she think it was OK before?
They need to wake up.
SV -
Well, the way I said it was half-joking, but I stopped posting diaries there after Madman was banned, and just never started again.
Mainly, I guess (as you know as well as anyone, and better than most), it’s because almost every comment thread gets highjacked into inconsequentiality by the same inconsequential hijackers. I usually know what I’m going to read there, even before I read it. And I’ve read it all before.
So once in a while I still I read what looks worth reading and leave an occasional comment, but posting diaries just doesn’t seem worth the effort of sticking around to wade through the nonsense.
Here’s the “special interest group”: “Be Pro-Choice or Lose Our Vote”.
DT, thanks for posting that from LAT. Simon is really good on abortion-related issues, and went to Arkansas last year to do a piece Dr. Harrison in Fayetteville.
They did give Leslee a million-dollat gift certificate, and she’s about to binge.
well she/leslee is in the line for federal money. WEll in with the Republicans, at the top.
The damned governor of sd intervened in her case, the felony charges.
Roberts another Souter?
by kos
Fri Jul 22, 2005 at 11:41:17 AM PDT
If Republicans want reasons to grill Roberts as much as Democrats, here’s two.
…
So one of his former law professors says that Roberts is not an ideologue, and he himself vehemetly denies being a member of the Federalist Society — a must-participate for every conservative law student and lawyers in the nation.
Of course, we have evidence that he is a partisan, but the results are mixed. He could very well be the next Souter-type on the Supreme Court.
As such, it seems that those Republicans calling for expedited hearings, those Republicans claiming Roberts doesn’t have to answer every question — they might want to rethink things a bit. Perhaps it’s in everyone’s interest to take a closer look at the nominee so the country has a better idea of who they’re putting on the court for the next 30 years or so.
————
Roberts is a (none / 1)
pro-choice (’Roe is settled law’) judicial activist with a card-carrying feminist wife.
This is a tremendous victory for the left.
Let there be sharks – TracieLynn
by GussieFN on Fri Jul 22, 2005 at 11:46:17 AM PDT
Kudos to Kossacks! (none / 0)
I’ve been saying much the same thing about Roberts the last couple days at Booman Tribune and have found only a smattering of support (and a lot of fierce opposition) for this view–which I mistakenly took as representative of the “temperature” of the leftist blogosphere generally. I’m deeply impressed with the posts on this thread!
-Alan
-9.00, -3.69 “If [Democrats] take the hard left…this majority will last exactly 24 months” – Charlie Cook, 11/17/06
by SlackerInc on Fri Jul 22, 2005 at 03:15:43 PM PDT
I disagree (none / 1)
I don’t think Roberts is going to be all that bad. He isn’t anyone I’d want a Democratic president to nominate, mind you, but given that it’s Dubya doing the nominatin’, I think we actually dodged a bullet here. I don’t believe he is going to be any more right wing than Sandra Day O’Connor, in fact, and may very well take over her role as a swing vote.
Where do I get this? Well, to start with I posted yesterday that I saw a “ray of hope”:
Unlike judges like Scalia, Rehnquist, or Bork, Roberts doesn’t strike me as a judge who sinks his teeth into right wing ideology with gusto for its own sake. Clearly this guy has been the ultimate Washington insider attorney slash corporate whore. But once he’s got a lifetime SCOTUS appointment, there’s no more ladders to climb, no one to whore himself out to, really.
So what if he gets in, and then turns into another David Souter when he no longer has the leash of his right wing masters around his neck? One can hope…
And a few minutes ago, I heard a story on NPR’s Morning Edition that bolstered that hope. It’s the first long story of the program, after the news roundup–listen, if you get a chance this morning, to the exchange between Roberts and Rehnquist (whom I despise). The way Roberts quickly responded to Rehnquist’s question about “mental torture” of prisoners gives me a lot more hope about the guy.
Bottom line: we have pretty much no chance of getting anyone better if we defeat Roberts, and a great chance of getting someone worse. Let him slide by, and save our energy for the next appointment (hard to imagine that Rehnquist will stick around more than three years).
-Alan
by SlackerInc on Fri Jul 22nd, 2005 at 05:45:51 AM EST
__________
Feingold… does not get a pass on this shit. It was also noted that the so called CHIEF Justice defered on this writting of this abomination … my only guess to keep up the pretense that the Democrats did not knowingly and jubiliantly nominate a right wing ideologue to the Supreme Court… now it makes sense why Feingold showed up that the DK “Begging for Jobs” event just held in DC.
sorry, lucid. no slight intended! but it was really hrh & marisacat’s fault…
HIs wife is a memeber of the Feminists for Life. hardly a feminist. Further she is an officer at a conservative Catholic org, The Carroll Society that pus on (among many other power events) The Red Mass, that is celebrated in the Catholic Cathedral in DC at the opening of the SC session.
Their personal priest and confessor Msr Vaghi is very close to Fr McCloskey of Opus Dei center in DC. Vaghi has assisted McCloskey at more than one of the high profile adult baptisms of hard core conservatives. Forget if it was Brownback or Novak… one of them
I see Slacker Inc rules at Kos. Always did see him as a plant. from the get go.
moiv:
that is one of the most poignantly written comments I’ve ever seen written on abortion. It gives a sadly profound voice to the picture Mcat posted in the previous thread.
People are far too quick to forget. I wonder why historical memory is not a mandated class from Pre K on.
well you know DT I googled today. howard is silent on Gonzales v Carhart. A medical dr who worked at PP
It is fuck ALL of them.
Brownback — and also Bork, no?
there is a whole slew of them, iirc… but I forget at which Vaghi attended. Towel boy I guess.
ugh… so despicable.
my god deep throat, was a depressing thread.
DT – I said exactly that two threads ago – going after ‘medical proceedures’ rather than Roe. It is exactly what they want now. Kennedy will always vote to uphold Roe – hell Roberts might vote to uphold Roe, but neither will turn away the chance for the state to stick its ugly head into ‘medical proceedures’. So long as abortion can be dissected by a ‘proceedural’ lens, Roe will become meaningless.
lucid -
Historical memory class would never be permitted — because then they couldn’t do it to us all over again. Not just abortion, but any of it.
When it comes to abortion, the most damaging thing has been the imposition of The Silence. People don’t know that their mothers, girlfriends, sisters, wives and daughters have abortions. So it’s something that happens to “other people,” not the kind of people they know.
Women are almost always shocked when it happens to them, because they really believe abortion is not about them — until it is. And then they’re shocked again when they arrive for their appointments and see 40 people in the waiting room. The day never passes that a woman doesn’t half-whisper, “Are all these people here for … the same thing?” My usual answer is, “Well, not the guys.”
Twisted Christianity –> The Silence –> Rapes on kitchen tables before abortion with instruments rinsed off in the sink
Even doctors could use historical memory class.
we didn’t live under Roe since 92, we lived under Casey and “undue burden”. TRAP laws, impediments. Despite undue burden, nothing much was held back. Health of the mother was fought to be retained.
Over now. Gone.
Now undue burden as a qualifier, tho all it did was demean the whole, is wiped away.
MOrality can be used to legislate. The motehr is now told to nurture the fetus. They are mvoing to “personhood” for the fetus.
They are moving to criminalise not jsut drs but women.
moiv- it’s not about the idiot commenters – it’s about the lurkers who email you later and say “I’m glad someone finally has the courage to say this.” And it’s about the people who read in passing and think “Hmm – OK.”
I’m sure you know this.
moiv you’re making me cry – a deep cry. I think that’s all I can say right now.
I must go wash my sorrows in dreams.
just watched TDS video of Stewart interviewing Schahill about Blackwater. Schahill mentions that none of the Dem plans for withdrawing from Iraq approach the issue of mercenaries that would remain.
I better go to bed for the second time. have to wake up again in 3 hrs.
moiv & lucid’s posts reminded me of things…
one area of the country where I worked in the medical sphere was Santa Barbara, CA. And I had co-workers of peer age, that had hospital abortions pre-roe. discreetly admitted for vague diagnosis. of course these options were available in a white wealthy area. and you better believe, despite SCOTUS rulings, that the options will be available for jenna and not-jenna bush.
this country is constrained by institutionalized shame.
I dunno… I think we did our time at Dkos.
I don’t even think there are that many “lurkers”. Its the fun house mirrors now.
and what happens when the Iraqi soldiers feel their allegiance toward one group over another? (from msnbc):
BAGHDAD – U.S. soldiers are building a three-mile wall to protect a Sunni Arab enclave surrounded by Shiite neighborhoods in a Baghdad area “trapped in a spiral of sectarian violence and retaliation,” the military said.
When the wall is finished, the minority Sunni community of Azamiyah, located on the eastern side of the Tigris River, will be completely gated, and traffic control points manned by Iraqi soldiers will provide the only means to enter it, the military said.”
This cult of personality thing at DK has jumped the shark. Not only is loyalty to KK obsessional, but now the next generation has been presented for community reverence.
Who’s left doesn’t get all itchy about the monarchy?
Oh yeah, does anyone know how planning for Yearly Kos is going?
outofwater–I think the lanyard bribes are still going on. and The Other Child {lightning} appeared in “Baby Kos” clothing, so I get a sense there’s another item to hawk.
I see Slacker Inc rules at Kos. Always did see him as a plant. from the get go.
Slacker hangs out at Kos’s wife’s blog where he and Dana flirt playfully and are beloved by the proprietess.
A couple of weeks ago i heard for the first time about a practice where men (and some women) pay nursing mothers for their breast milk, bottled or (for more money) straight from the nipple. I immediately thought of Slacker.
In the above I did not mean to imply that DH and slacker flirt with each other but, rather, the proprietess.
81 colleen: TMI!
The First Child tops the open thread pouting. Like daddy, he does not like usurping females, I suppose.
Oh! It’s to make money, for piano lessons no doubt.
The boy looks so sad.
——–
I’m having flashbacks to the rage I felt toward Democrats during the Alito and Roberts confirmation hearings. We were told we had to swallow them because, “they were the best we were going to do.” The very worst was the best.
A thing that did and still does make me crazy about the Roberts confirmation is that he obviously used “immoral” reproductive technology to acquire his children. The blond adorable babies, who look identical to each other and just like him, were adopted separately from Latin America. PLEASERemember, there is nothing in the strict Roman Catholic tradition which he imposes on the rest of us, that tolerates whatever it is they didn’t get those kids. Even masturbation is a sin.
But questions about the truth of how the perfect children were produced were an outrageous violation of his “privacy.” That’s right, his privacy! The gall.
But questions about the truth of how the perfect children were produced were an outrageous violation of his “privacy.” That’s right, his privacy! The gall.
Yes, well, there are all sorts of rights and privileges attached when God grants you dominion over half the human race. Scalia didn’t share that duck blind with Dick so he didn’t have to recuse himself either. It may seem unfair but that’s just because we’re women and, of course, as women we are unable to fully understand or even make moral decisions. We (or physicians) can’t even make proper decisions when it turns out that the fetus has developed without a brain.
I read “TEH RULING”. It’s hard to take…ya know to realize I’m now a second-class citizen. I have no input to decisions concerning “MY” health. Nope, politicians will decide that from now on.
The SC has decided that women just don’t know what their doin’ and the BIG OLE RC MEN (if they can pull their hands outta the till/collection plate long enough to put their dicks back in their pants) gotta step in and save “teh women”. Thanks, Harry, Kerry, Johnny, Smilin’ Joe and passive/aggressive St. Hill! Without your support of this LAW, I would have never realized my position as broodmare in your DEMOCRATIC society. STFU and get in line.. right, what you really mean is, LOL, drop to your knees and open your mouth.
BTW, if anyone is interested in oppo, take a look at the St. Hill’s interview with C Rose in June 2003.
It’s hard to take…ya know to realize I’m now a second-class citizen
We’ve always been 2nd class citizens in the eyes of the men who constitute the majority of the Supreme Court. Indeed they would not have the job if they held another opinion. It’s is an attitudinal prerequisite. American men confuse it with masculinity and morality; contempt for women is a bedrock American value and is just as pervasive on Daily Kos and Booman Tribune as it is within the GOP or all religious institutions.
Re Marisacat’s opening post, Moiv’s comment #14 says it beautifully:
Such politicians, when they do appear, are targeted not only on rightwing boards, but on so-called Liberal blogs by operatives like Jiacinto and even the proprietors themselves.
Speaking of Jiacinto, I think I mentioned this before, but he has posted on Democraticunderground. Airc, in the fiercely fought Cynthia McKinney threads where I think I encountered him personally. They hate her with a passion that imo, requires intense therapy. I have no doubt they are operatives and the fact that not one of them has been banned from DK raises huge questions about that blog itself. Not sure if he is still at DK. Several of the operatives there were banned, airc.
oh no question Dkos is a false flag operation … as is, LOL, the Democratic party.
MCat, no. 24,
I wish I could remember where I found that info about J. Carlos Jiacinto, I just happened to see it somewhere and shared it. However, I did come across this, which is apparently his MySpace page, which I found by doing a simple Google search on his full name (please lurking Kossacks, no squeals about having “outed” him, he posts with his real surname which is even more of a giveaway that posting with your first name). I do hope for his sake that’s an unflattering photograph. Note also that he has a tremendous passion for hanging out at Catholic churches, to a degree that suggest something not unlike obsession. He also has a passion for bloody horror films. Kind of reminds me of how back in the 50s and 60s, both Hollywood and Cinecitta used biblical source material to give us movies with lots of sadism, blood and gore, and as much bare flesh as was allowed in those days. If they’d tried that in a contemporary setting, it would never have gotten past the censors, but as long as He Who Must Not Be Named could smite everyone in the last frames, you could go pretty far with what was by the standards of the times racy material. Seems that still functions today, with the likes of J. Carlos mixing his overly-outward piety with a passion for blood and splatter flicks.
There’s also this site, which appears to have been scrubbed. I seem to remember that it once contained substantive material of the sort he wouldn’t have alluded to at Little Orange Footballs.
The blond adorable babies, who look identical to each other and just like him, were adopted separately from Latin America.
I didn’t know that about Roberts’ children. That “he’s the best we’re going to get from Bush” attitude is so incredibly obtuse. Why would anyone trust Bush’s judgment about..well…anything or anyone? The warning signs were there during his confirmation hearings. Just another cave by the Dems and their supporters who think getting table scraps thrown at them actually means they’re sitting at the table – not under it.
Can’t confirm this yet, but re C-Span 3 (via post at DU) Congress will issue subpoenas to Rove and Meirs.
Sorry, that report on C-Span was in reference to the news last week that subpoenas were ‘authorized’. Apparently Schumer commented that executive privilege, which the WH invoked, has not been accepted historically in such situations. So, to clear that up, subpoenas are authorized, but not yet issued. Hopefully Dems will go ahead after Gonzo’s pathetic performance yesterday.
Too little sleep last night – correction to my #88 – should have said that I don’t know if he (Jiacinto) is still posting at DU where several obvious operatives were banned, not ‘DK’ because we know they are never banned at that site, only strong Progressive voices!
Catnip, that argument ‘it’s the best we’re going to get’ never made sense, even when the Dems were in the minority. For one thing, not only did Dems not stand up to Bush on unacceptable nominees, many of them caved and voted for them.
Republicans have shown now how the minority is not without power, how they can block legislation which Dems never even tried to do. And now the Dems are demonstrating how even when they have power, they are still the poor victims of those nasty Republicans. DK makes me sick with their constant ‘but we don’t have the votes’ arguments. What we do have is the majority which over and over they claimed would change everything! We also have a weak President and a weak Republican Party. Most important of all, we have the majority of the American people against the Iraq War. Yet, Dems are still caving by giving Bush another non-binding resolution.
Since we already know now that Republicans are giving Bush until Aug. of this year to demonstrate some success in Iraq, what will Dems do when it is Republicans who turn on the Iraq War in order to use it in the 2008 election? By then they will be, once again, in a defensive postiion with Repubs pointing out that ‘the majority’ was not tough enough in their efforts to force Bush to agree to a timeline.
Just heard that Harry Reid has said that the Iraq war is ‘unwinnable’. The WH press Sec. has responded with the usual drivel about the troops or whatever! So, if he means that, why the compromise on a binding resolution demanding a withdrawal date?
the whole NARAL thing is such a dodge. They actually had up a more than decent in message ad running against Roberts (it mentioned one useful nugget about Roberts, the details by now I forget) and they were forced – bi partisanly, even from the news pages of the so useful NYT – to take it down.
And no replacement ad was every put up.
More than a few Dkos affiliated women ran diaries supporting taking it down, often based on the poor level of commercial tv ad work it represented (who the fuck cares but the kind of convoluted agitprop that liberals fall for). The one culture kitchen did was esp egregious (Armando loved it and had it elevated, resuscitated it after it fell off “recent diaries”).
Such tricky handmaidens.
The ad needed to stay up. Also Keenan was on the stupid Roberts “blogger calls” with Armando, Ted Kennedy (or a rep from his office) Trippi (useless) etc. PFAW and whoever else.
I have no idea how they ever had the whatever to run the ad to start with. Unless the whole run was a play. But strangely the ad seemed a genuine effort.
Sell outs (by that I mean the Dem party)
Whne i heard Reid say that yesterday, my thought was, just for domestic sales (inside the party faithful), grist for the mill.
He gets his old man rocks off doing that .. and does the deals in the cloakroom.
I will never understand how someone can say with pride that they are a “moderate” or a “centrist.” That means nothing changes, everything stays the same. Everything institutionalized is A-fucking-OK. On bogus websites like DK it is even more evidence that they are Republicans who wouldn’t mind keeping that R behind their name save for the fact that it’s no longer ‘hip to be square.’
We shouldn’t ask for total Iraq withdrawal or defunding because “we won’t get it.” We shouldn’t ask for single-payer because “it’s a pipedream.” We should be voting for assholes like Casey because “at least he’s a Democrat.” That’s the moderate centrist fucking (right-wing) viewpoint. Everything stays the same.
They sold Kaine at Dkos (oh semi subliminally, in threads where the operatives hang) with this line:
“at least he is not for criminalisation”
and by that they meant abortion.
As we speed toward jsut that. Today drs for a procedure – tomorrow more women than now (as self abort is illegal, among other transgressions)
When I would read that, it was clear where we were headed and that it was planned.
“at least he’s a Democrat.”
They larded the 110th with loads of incoming conservatives. Cross overs, false flag (poor Martin will be defending Pat Murphy for years), Bloo Dogs, New Dems etc.
Jesus, they recruited an official member of the Right to Life in either Ohio or Indiana (forget which at the moment). SIX new reps are Democrats for Life. SOrry to be blunt to IRish WItch, but kinda late.
Enough conservative Dems that they cannot make ANYTHING they promised stick. Not stem cell not anything. Not even in the House.
Oh yeah the conservative movement is so failing.
TruthOut reprints Krugman:
If he cared he’d name names. To be blunt. And they are not “useful idiots”, they know exactly what they are doing.
NAACP and LULAC do what they do and should come in for criticism (probably a boat load) but he is diverting attention from the electeds WHO HAVE NAMES and sold us out. Past tense.
*He should add AARP. Just for diversity.
well i wont be holding my breath. i’ve completely given up on any real collective action from that piss-poor excuse for a party. and the reason why is the cowardice the democrats have shown, historically, when faced with serious issues that should be dealt with. future behavoir is founded on a base of behavoir in the past. and the democrats, by my way of thinking, always fall short in situations like these. reid’s failures of fillibuster easily come to mind, the gang of 14 and all that. one could easily spend all day. the toothless bills they can barely pass against the war in iraq. one could spend days providing examples.
they will fall short on this also. they’ll fall short on the war also. i’m seriously ill from watching mr harry reid, the tough talker to the president whos bill, lest we forget, is toothless as can be. and his leadership won’t even get that passed.
they’re cowardly. they only fight when they’re assured of a win. and that’s not fighting. nero’s roman firemen, too scared to risk, lest they fail to succeed. hell, they collectively fear risk. how pathetic.
ooo Nero’s Roman firemen. – bay
I like that…
present times call for a political party that goes into battle and metaphorically DRAGS BODIES BACK after the fights, win or lose. a battle where the opposition is made to feel real political pain, and real political anguish.
they cant even drive a pathetic criminal hack like gonzales out of office. bush thumbs his nose at them and no price will be paid for that either. they sit on subpoenas and postpone offering immunity as a “bipartisan favor”. if gonzales goes, it’ll be because the republicans told him too.
they need to learn how to hurt somebody BESIDES THEIR OWN BASE.
agree.. love the drag the bodies back. Exactly.
I think Gonzales was sent up tot he hill so R could flex their claws and the weak Dems (it sure appeared that SPector was in charge, to me, not Leahy… same with Armed Services, even if Warner did raise jsut 500 Q1) could look secondary.
The cameras and news reports all centered on Spector, Lindsay and Coburn. Not on Feingold nor Leahy (a little), a little for DiFi but overshadowed clearly by the R.
Gee Pete Sessions iirc even got a cameo.
Good lord. I thought “elections matter”.
LOL
cnn tease: Police are responding to a report of gunfire at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
if gonzales goes, it’ll be because the republicans told him too.
Yes, and that is becoming the pattern. The Repubs are pre-empting them on every important issue where the public has expressed an opinion. Meantime on dk, DiFi is being turned into a virtual hero today because of her questioning of Gonzales, as though it takes much courage to go after one of the most criminal attorneys, not just Ags in history. Even Repubs realize they can no longer get away with defending him. The man denied the Constitution grants the right to Habeas Corpus! Why is he still there after that alone?
So, DiFi takes on a ‘dead man walking’ and we’re supposed to forget everything else about her record!
Something Moiv said then again, perhaps we have to go through the same fascist cycle that spain did, before we can appreciate the soul of antifascism.
More and more I agree with this. I see no point in supporting the ‘lesser evil’ anymore. To get the attention of the American people, the only ones who can force any kind of real change, it may be that the best strategy is to stop pretending that the ‘other’ party will do better. I think Ms xeno, Marisacat, Lucid and others were ahead of those of us who thought stopping Republicans was at least a beginning of turning things around. That would only be true if the Democratic Party was completely restructured.
On major issues, women’s issues, torture, war, social programs, education, I see not much hope of any changes. The only advantage to having a Dem majority so far has been the oversight hearings! That we are so excited about possibly bringing down anyone in this most criminal organization, crimes that should have been stopped the minute they became apparent, demonstrates just how bad things are.
Gonzales, eg, Bolton, Abrams, Cheney, Bush, Wolfowitz, Ledeen, Perle – the list is long and the crimes so obvious that rather than being elated that years after their crimes were obvious some small effort to hold a few of them responsible is now beginning to take place, we, the American public should be outraged that not even one of them, including Gonzales, has been brought to justice so far. And when and if they are, the sentiment should be further outrage that such criminals ever had control of this government to begin with. Instead, DK and other ‘Democratic’ sites are jumping up and down because Gonzo was finally thrown a few difficult questions by someone who has her own ethics problems.
As someone said to Catnip (hillariously on her own site) ‘begone’ should have been the first reaction to each and every one of them long before they got to slaughter and torture hundreds of thousands of human beings. It’s way, way too late to feel anything other than outrage that finally a few will get a slap on the wrist, especially when there is no indication that nothing else will change.
[...] want to pull these two comments of moiv’s forward: moiv [...]
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Oh those crafty Democrats