US POLITICS: AMERICANS, PLEASE WELCOME YOUR NEW PRESIDENT... SCOTT BROWN!

is "being Rick Santorum" an occupation?

dunno! the categories are a little weird. i wanted to see clergy on there, but their clout is not $$ clout anyway, is it.

xps

america loves its cars

also, do they mean hedge fund managers or the actual hedge funds themselves, because that has frightening AI implications

Maybe the social conservatives are giving to churchy things and pressure groups instead?

here's the explanation

http://abonica.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/ideological-rankings-of-occupational-categories/

I'd be more interested to see that done w/ 2004

obama-2008 isn't really that representative of a normal political year

Christ the font on that PDF is hard to read.

http://docs.house.gov/rules/hr4872/111_hr4872_reported.pdf

Obamacare must really be as close to a done deal as possible, because The Corner is in full panic mode.

yep

bring it on, motherfuckers

cept for them it's not an issue of what 'they can and can't do with their bodies' but it's a moral issue about murder

Eh, it's not even that, because with a lot of these jokers, when you start asking them what the various jail terms or other penalties (fines? execution?) should be for women, doctors and other parties, they start hemming and hawing "Uh, er, um, well, you know, I don't mean THAT." It really is about controlling what women do.

"but people are against abortion!" argt like it should have any bearing on anything - it's a right, that's settled law, the end

Nothing is ever settled. We could have a Constitutional Convention or just enact amendments to the Constitution and let's not forget that slavery was inscribed into our very Constitution once, too. They think it's murder and legitimizes fornication. Oddly, medieval canon law is against them: murdering a pregnant woman was only one murder.

This is a good place to argue for states rights/Federalism: let Alabama and N. Dakota et al., criminalize abortion and see how many people wish to stay there. The only way to settle this is either civil war and all its subsequent rancor or putting real pressure on these states. You want subsidies to keep America obese? Stop telling my daughter/wife/sister/friend what she may or may not do with her own body while the fetus is not viable. Fight for your principles, by all means, but know that California, New York, etc., will receive all your gays and all your victims of patriarchy 'cause your're such flaming assholes.

Oddly, medieval canon law is against them: murdering a pregnant woman was only one murder

this isn't that odd given the lack of prenatal medical knowledge in medievel times (ie it would be hard to argue that a fetus was alive when you couldn't even really prove there was a viable fetus in there to begin with)

meanwhile, idiots say idiot thing, film at 11:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/18/iowa-congressman-and-glenn_n_504633.html

Glenn Beck and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) expressed harmonized outrage on Beck's radio program Thursday about news that the House might vote on the health care reform package this Sunday. Voting on a Sunday, they said, was offensive and heretical.

for as we all know, Jesus never healed on a Sabbath....oh wait.

Yeah, and there was that whole 'Terri Schaivo' thing on Palm Sunday 2005, too, but never mind that.

ha that cheered me up. if we're down to that level of complaining the donks might have this in the bag.

You mean the Sabbath that was changed from Saturday to Sunday by that venal, worldly child molestery known as the Vatican?

*throws shit grenade. runs.*

lol @ "child molestery"

I mean, petty squabbly shit like that... Why not just say that you just piss on Jews and Muslims and SDAs and whatnot?

Glenn Beck and Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) expressed harmonized outrage on Beck's radio program Thursday about news that the House might vote on the health care reform package this Sunday. Voting on a Sunday, they said, was offensive and heretical.

genuine lolz

Nothing is ever settled.

lol liberals

Live from the Catskills, it's JOE THE BIDEN

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNyMu2xuAMI

"poor women who can't afford to take care of more children" = covered by Medicaid, which hasn't covered abortions for years (despite the fact that these are exactly the people who can't cover even the nominal cost of an early-term abortion)

all the current hoo-ha is over the insurance exchanges, which will mainly cover the middle class

just want to be sure we know exactly which women are under discussion here, i.e. not poor ones

in that particular discussion it seems like there's two issues: the first is that state legislatures can simply ban any abortion coverage on their own exchange if they choose to. i think reid put this in to mollify nelson. the second is that if even if abortion coverage is allowed on a particular state's exchange, people wishing to be covered for abortions have to pay via a separate check.

the first issue - about the state's ability to ban abortion coverage for largely middle-class people on the insurance exchange - seems fraught with all kinds of federalist questions which i am not qualified to speak about. clearly i think it would be a bad idea for states to enact this kind of ban. apparently something like five states already ban abortion coverage completely?

and i feel j0hn on the second issue - about having to pay with a second check - even if you're not being subsidized! it's not burdensome or complicated, frankly, but there's something symbolic about it that i think may be new. at least i'm not aware of any "two checks" policy in any health insurance scheme to date.

wtf is that jesse jackson sat next to o'reilly in the biden clip??

It is, and at one point there's a distinct 'talk to the hand' move on Jackson's part.

j0hn d you sir are a hero

on a different note, i guess we can all be happy that bipartisan bullshit is back

whoops http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_immigration

harmonized outrage

There's something kind of non-substantive about a good percentage of arguments amongst lefty types these days. Like John D paraphrase: "it's a shame that D's aren't better about defending abortion rights." And I'm pretty sure no one disagreed that it's not some kind of shame, but that they just think its wrong/pointless to expect anything else of the politicians they support/tolerate? Or they just disagree with giving voice to this disappointment or something?

im having trouble gauging your stance on the matter so this isn't directed at you, but expressing regret doesnt cut it imo and it doesnt bode well for national-scale reproductive rights that more than half of the posters on this supposedly predominantly lefty board are so nonchalant about throwing the issue under the bus

I only ever skim this thread these days, but John D otm basically.

I normally try to empathize with pro-lifers just cuz you know, they're people too, but lately I've come to the conclusion that placating their "concerns" is extremely corrosive to the whole idea of reproductive rights. Abortion IS a medical issue---the right to which has been enshrined in law, and which is rooted in a woman's inalienable privilege to decide what happens to her body.

Like what is this two checks business? And what, really, is the rational, medical argument for leaving abortion out? What if a woman has a complicated pregnancy and the only way to manage it/save her life is to induce an abortion? Will her preterm coverage suddenly bottom out? Like, if she didn't even WANT the abortion?

This ought to be obv, but the question of abortion's actual ~medical~ utility was resolved ages ago.

all the "gov't can't tell you what to do with your body" rhetoric in the world has zero impact on ppl who think another fully human body is involved; I think everyone should've figured that out by now.

so what

the main issue is that the govt HAS said that you can do what you want with your body---it ought to be settled, but the left keeps conceding that ok maybe it isn't there ARE some yucky abortions that maybe we should curtail

and while I firmly believe abortion is a feminist issue, the fact that it is medical is somethin the left maybe doesn't emphasize enough? then tbh it's also something the med establishment soft peddles a bit too---the OB sites for my clinical rotations were listed with their abortion services, in case students didn't want to rotate thru such depraved dens of iniquity. wtf

I think you should be forced to do abortion rotations if you want to be a doctor. Period. It would weed out all of the doctors that are fucking it up for women everywhere.

then again I'm coming from a position that holds that staunch pro-lifers aren't fit to be physicians. one step away from JWs being in charge of the fucking blood bank imo

xp!

then again I'm coming from a position that holds that staunch pro-lifers aren't fit to be physicians.

100% agree with this. this goes for pharmacists who don't want to fill birth control scripts as well.

I kind of want to go to convert to Christian Scientist, go to pharmacy school and hold some poor pharmacy hostage by staunchly refusing to fill anyone's prescriptions for anything while alerting the news to my principled stance.

This would totally end in tears for me, I know.

so what

You're a fucking genius

interestingly, I have a few pro-choice legally but pro-life philosophically fellow students that think I am basically a bad person for thinking that. I mean, these ppl would still perform medically indicated abortions, but aren't comfortable with it, and think there needs to be a diversity of opinion in the medical field. and while I'm I'm favor of diversity of opinion, I cannot countenance the idea that some of your future MDs would feel righteous and good if they withheld care from a woman seeking it. they'd grimace through surgery on an ACTUAL murderer, but perform an abortion? no sir!

/so what/

You're a fucking genius

^_^

Wait suddenly Morbs is sticking up for nuance or something?

think there needs to be a diversity of opinion in the medical field

Haha, plz send these ppl to me for immediate trepanning and administration of leeches.

all the "gov't can't tell you what to do with your body" rhetoric in the world has zero impact on ppl who think another fully human body is involved; I think everyone should've figured that out by now.

morbs otm!

the fact that half the country, half!, is uneasy about/doesn't like/flat out hates abortion doesn't legitimize their ideas it TO ME, but they VOTE, that's the PROBLEM, they don't NEED legitimization, they have POWER

the way you are arguing here, it's as if you believe the democratic party's squishiness on reproductive rights CAUSED the "pro-life" movement to come into being.

do you think if "we" were rhetorically hard line all the time, that half of the country -- and the people who represent their sentiments -- are going to go away? give up? rhetoric is not the base issue here, as i said before.

― goole, Thursday, March 18, 2010 2:28 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You could argue that in a privileged/wealthy society, rhetoric is the base issue to everything.

i am interested tho--what do you and gbx and j0hn think would happen if "we" (the democratic party?) went rhetorically hard-line (i guess this involves kicking anti-choice democrats out of the party?) and refused to concede anything in the debate?

yes but what does that mean? srsly? so they hold spiritual beliefs that disallow abortion (and believe me, the prolife movement is inextricably rooted in an appeal to the supernatural, and the fact that there might be an exact moment that a blastocyst becomes a ~human~): what, then, are we in favor of choice supposed to do? according to y'all, a hardline stance is a bad choice, as is an appeal to law (it's already legal you guys)---what does that leave?

ha xp to max

a multilateral stance that allows for certain concessions in the hopes of reaching a larger, stable goal, i.e., electoral politics?