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Open Thread

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Saw some mention that team Obama is working on a new slogan for 2012. I’m not sure why they need to come up with anything other than “Obama 2012- Because the other side is nuts,” but that is just me.

BTW, this was awesome:

Reader Interactions

159Comments

  5. 5.

    Cain

    I haven’t heard about it. Cool if we did. :)

    We had a beaverton planning meeting at our house. It was fun. I’m hoping to do more.. we are going to be making calls of next week trying to grow the team. Wish us luck.

  10. 10.

    Rick Taylor

    “Obama 2012- Because the other side is nuts,”

    I’d go with “batshit insane” myself. “Nuts” might have been about right four years ago.

  16. 16.

    dmsilev

    @Zak: That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. It’s also fun watching Republicans sputter and spin around like tops trying to convince people that neither accomplishment either means anything or should be credited to Obama.

  28. 28.

    serge

    I’m getting a little long in the tooth now, but I would gladly bear Amy Poehler’s children. That was great…

  29. 29.

    Linda Featheringill

    Actually, some version of “GM is alive and Ben Laden is dead” would be grand.

    Although, Obama might veto that one because he felt it was in poor taste to crow about Ben Laden’s death. Hope not.

  30. 30.

    WaterGirl

    @Roger Moore:

    Obama 2012: Don’t let them wreck it again.

    If they held a contest, this would get my vote.

  33. 33.

    Roger Moore

    @Cain:

    Obama 2012 – because the alternative ends with santorum

    I don’t think so. Santorm involves lube, and the Republicans are not nice enough to use lube when fucking America up the ass.

  35. 35.

    slightly-peeved

    @24: If they’re going for a one or two word theme like ‘hope’ or ‘change’, my guess is that it will be (or really, already is) ‘fair’. Though ‘sane’ would also work.

  37. 37.

    Rick Taylor

    So is Santorum on the verge of flaming out like all the other not Romneys? He starts to take the lead, and suddenly all this information come out about what a right wing neanderthal he actually he is. I’d think even right wingers might worry about how this would play in the general election, but what do I know. . ..

  39. 39.

    bad dad

    OMG. I’ve been called on a live chat with the Romney campaign and I have it on the land line right now. If they ask me for a question, what should I go with? I’m in Michigan.

  43. 43.

    geg6

    Biden called it weeks ago: Bin Laden is dead and GM is alive. Short, to the point, with the added virtue of truth. I’ve been using it ever since I read Biden’s quote. Leaves the wingnuts sputtering and the Indies nodding their heads.

  49. 49.

    bad dad

    going to have to let it go. Will offer minitranscripts. Latest Q : why romeney over santorum? Mitt went after earmarks.

  50. 50.

    bad dad

    He still went after the UAW and pushed right -to work. A-farking-mazing.

  51. 51.

    Blogreeder

    I think it would be great it President Obama gives a press conference where he presents Malia and Sasha with some free condoms. That would cement his support among parents with young girls!

  52. 52.

    slightly-peeved

    @43: Biden really has a knack for the pithy one-liner, doesn’t he? First ‘a noun, a verb, and 9/11’ and now this..

  55. 55.

    Martin

    @bad dad:

    OMG. I’ve been called on a live chat with the Romney campaign and I have it on the land line right now. If they ask me for a question, what should I go with? I’m in Michigan.

    47 million Americans get food stamps. Most of them have jobs. What’s your plan for raising wages for workers and creating jobs for those that want them?

  58. 58.

    gene108

    @eric:

    i think he should just run off their dates with a shotgun…get the dads vote and the nra vote.

    I think he’d do the “mob boss” thing and say he can get the Secret Service to take the “boy out”, if he doesn’t get the girl in before curfew…I mean he has to keep up with his “Chicago style” political roots :-)

    EDIT: I’m really picturing an SNL type skit here…”Sasha’s First Date”…

  60. 60.

    slightly-peeved

    @baddad: ask him to divide something by zero. Try and induce a segfault.

  63. 63.

    gene108

    @Blogreeder:

    Obama’s been very mum on gun control politically.

    He did allow guns on National Parks and Amtrak trains, as President, so I don’t know how the real Obama compares to the right-wing bogey-man that was going to seize everyone’s guns and ammo.

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    Yes, because adult women getting birth control from their doctors is exactly like giving condoms to 12-year-olds. Good one. I don’t think you could have demonstrated your contempt for women more clearly if you’d tried.

  66. 66.

    AA+ Bonds

    @gene108:

    so I don’t know how the real Obama compares to the right-wing bogey-man that was going to seize everyone’s guns and ammo.

    The only way that matters: they’re both black

  67. 67.

    Ecks

    @Martin:

    47 million Americans get food stamps. Most of them have jobs. What’s your plan for raising wages for workers and creating jobs for those that want them?

    What a great question, thanks for asking. Unemployment will be eradicated by my plan to lower taxes on the mega-wealthy and pay for it with mandatory labor camps for those who can’t be bothered to find a real job (i.e., one offering at least 80 grand a year). These camps will be constructed on the plentiful cheap land that can be found in Alaska, and will gainfully employ these slackers by having them suck oil out of the ground of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge using drinking straws, and coal-fired hand drills.

    It is my belief that with this plan, we can rebuild America as the strong, prosperous, and totally abortion-free, not gay-married beacon in the abyss that it has always been since time immemorial was first memorialised.

    Thanks for your vote big fella.

  69. 69.

    AA+ Bonds

    Today, FoxNews.com pimps:

    Pricey summer gas means Obama’s a traitor if he doesn’t start more domestic drilling [The current Republican Congressional talking point]

    Brokered Republican convention wish fulfillment fantasyland. Chris Christie for President! Paul Ryan and such!

    An interesting story – grudging acknowledgment that secret-Kenyan-Muslimism has been torn out of the Ailes playbook

    A story about federally funded rubbers for your dinky doodle that has a headline WordPress can’t handle

  70. 70.

    Blogreeder

    @Mnemosyne: Contempt for women?? I mean president Obama himself said he wants to make sure his daughters don’t get punished with a baby. Here would be a great opportunity for him to follow through.

  72. 72.

    AA+ Bonds

    jesus, CONSTANTLY modded for posting a headline link about prophylactics you receive through the mail, can someone dig one of those out

  74. 74.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    Contempt for women?? I mean president Obama himself said he wants to make sure his daughters don’t get punished with a baby. Here would be a great opportunity for him to follow through.

    In other words, all of the millions of adult women in the US who use birth control are just 12-year-old girls who need Daddy’s guidance, because we’re all just too stupid to think for ourselves.

    No woman should be punished by being forced to have a baby she doesn’t want, but you sure seem upset at the idea that all of us adult women are actually daring to control our fertility, so you reduce us all down to 12-year-olds so you can try to control us.

    Good luck with that, by the way. There’s nothing women love more than being told they’re too stupid to be trusted with birth control and need a Big Daddy like you to decide if they should be allowed to have it.

  75. 75.

    gene108

    @Blogreeder:

    In reality condoms does a girl very little good.

    It’s the boys that need to be taught to use condoms, if they want to have sex and have that drilled into them.

  76. 76.

    The Moar You Know

    @Blogreeder: Wow, real trolly blast from the past. Nice to see you again, filth.

    This one will make you long for the sanity and well-organized thoughts of our buddy BoB.

  77. 77.

    sharl

    @slightly-peeved:

    @baddad: ask him to divide something by zero. Try and induce a segfault.

    hahaha, awesome suggestion {in response to baddad’s request for ideas on what to ask the RomneyBot3000 during a call-in}.

  79. 79.

    Ecks

    @AA+ Bonds: From your Fox link about Santurum:

    [Santorum said] that when he used the word “theology” he was referring to a “world view that elevates the Earth above man.”

    Y’know the old saying “don’t shit where you sleep”. That’s not an ideology that raises beds above humans. We only have one Earth, we’re stuck living in it, and we can’t go get a new one if we screw it up too bad.

  80. 80.

    Blogreeder

    @Mnemosyne: You sure read a lot into a simple statement. I must have hit a nerve. You forget that today all women can get any birth control they wish. There is no access problem. There is no pressing need for a mandate to address a problem of access to birth control. None.

  81. 81.

    Blogreeder

    @The Moar You Know: Nice to see you again, dirt bag! With this issue you guys are all acting like republicans, you know. Think Patriot Act. The Repubs were running around about the bad terrorist so we must crush privacy. You guys are running around about birth control so we must crush religious freedom.

  82. 82.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    You forget that today all women can get any birth control they wish. There is no access problem. There is no pressing need for a mandate to address a problem of access to birth control. None.

    Yes, that’s why the bishops are fighting to be able to restrict their employees’ access to birth control — because they think there’s too much access and women are just using it willy-nilly.

    That’s why the Komen Foundation tried to cut off funding to Planned Parenthood — because they didn’t like that PP gives low-income women access to birth control.

    But I guess I’m not supposed to worry my pretty little head about access to birth control until I show up at the pharmacy and some asshole tells me I can’t have my prescription because my personal healthcare decisions violate their moral standards. I guess that doesn’t count as an “access problem” in your book, right?

    Now that your guy is publicly coming out against pre-natal care, you are going to have a major problem getting women to vote for Republicans this year. Have a fun 2012.

  83. 83.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    You guys are running around about birth control so we must crush religious freedom.

    Because nothing says “religious freedom” like letting employers dictate religious practice to their employees.

  85. 85.

    Blogreeder

    @Mnemosyne: You must have a reading comprehension problem. Didn’t I already go over the fact that there is no problem with access to birth control today?

  88. 88.

    Blogreeder

    @Soonergrunt: That’s great! Don’t work in a Catholic Hospital. Don’t work at a Jewish Hospital. The county hospitals are usually in dire need of people like you.

  89. 89.

    Alison

    @Blogreeder: So, all the women who say they do have an “access problem” – due usually to not having insurance and not being able to afford paying out of pocket – are just lying? To what end?

    Not that I expect a rational or logical answer, since you’re clearly just trolling us, but let’s see what you spew back…

  90. 90.

    Roger Moore

    @AA+ Bonds:
    You may actually be getting modded for having more than three links. FYWP thinks that’s proof you’re a spammer even if you don’t have any spammy words in your post or the links.

  92. 92.

    boss bitch

    I’m not sure why they need to come up with anything other than “Obama 2012- Because the other side is nuts,” but that is just me.

    That’s interesting because not too long ago liberal “pundits” were basically saying that he can’t run on the other side is nuts’.

  94. 94.

    Roxie

    How about the Hellman Celebration streaming here from Ocean Beach in SF. John Doe, Steve Earle, Buddy Miller, Boz Scaggs among the performers. Nice Music for a Sunday afternoon

  95. 95.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    Didn’t I already go over the fact that there is no problem with access to birth control today?

    You mean you repeated a fact-free assertion that I already pointed out was completely fact-free?

    Yes. Yes, you did. I realize that it’s not going to stop you from making the same fact-free assertion in the future, but I did already address your bullshit claim that has no factual basis.

    Don’t work in a Catholic Hospital.

    Also, don’t be taken in an ambulance to a Catholic hospital, because the doctors will get in trouble for treating you if the problem is that your pregnancy has gone horribly wrong and could kill you.

    But, hey, if those women didn’t want to die, they shouldn’t have chosen to get pregnant in the first place, amirite? Blogreeder wants us all to go back to the days when pregnancy was a life-threatening condition because he’s just so concerned about the baybeez.

  96. 96.

    Blogreeder

    @Alison: I’ll oblige you. I’m arguing against your premise that women need insurance to get birth control. Besides a bald assertion, do you have evidence supporting women being denied birth control because they don’t have insurance?

  97. 97.

    Mnemosyne

    @BGinCHI:

    You have to admit, it’s genius to simultaneously decree that women shouldn’t be allowed to find out if the baby they’re carrying has a genetic abnormality and insist that the government should cut off “welfare,” including assistance to disabled people and their families. There’s nothing more “pro-life” than that.

  99. 99.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    I’m arguing against your premise that women need insurance to get birth control.

    Psst. The birth control pill requires a doctor’s prescription. A doctor’s prescription requires a visit to a doctor’s office to see a doctor. Most doctors require you to have insurance before they’ll see you.

    I thought I should clear that up for you before you since you don’t seem to realize how healthcare works and think women can just walk into the pharmacy and get the Pill over the counter.

    Condoms are not birth control designed to be used by women, as you might have figured out if you’d ever seen one.

  100. 100.

    Alison

    @Blogreeder: If a woman without insurance doesn’t have the money to pay for birth control out-of-pocket, then that can be called “denied”. It’s not that pharmacies are saying “We refuse to sell you birth control unless you have insurance”. It’s that many forms of birth control are costly without insurance, and many women do not have the money on a monthly basis to pay for it, so they cannot obtain it.

    And my evidence is that women themselves have said this has happened to them. Plenty of women. In blog comments, in letters to the editor, on twitter, etc. The lived experiences of actual women are the evidence. Do you not believe they exist? Do you not believe there are women who make little enough money that $50 or more a month is not something they can afford? I mean…what is your argument? That no one is low-income? That birth control is actually only five cents? That if we just put an empty pill pack under our pillow, the birth control fairy will come overnight and refill it?

  101. 101.

    Mnemosyne

    You know, it’s a pain in the ass to try and have a discussion about prescription medication when you can’t say the name of the store where you can buy prescription medication. FYWP.

  104. 104.

    Blogreeder

    @Mnemosyne: Wow! So you’re saying that ALL abortions are done because the life of the mother is in danger? I hardly think that is one of your strongest arguments. The article you linked to has some credibility issues. So the women was already reeling from a previous miscarriage and wanted to complete another one? If there was a heartbeat, wouldn’t she want to save it? Nice that you provided a link.

  107. 107.

    Edith

    @Blogreeder:

    Geez, you really are are an ignorant dumbfuck. At that stage of the pregnancy there is simply no way to save it after the amniotic sac ruptures. NONE. It’s done, finito, over, end of story. The only question is whether the woman is going to develop complications or not. A woman who is promptly treated with a uterine evacuation will be fine, a woman left to complete the miscarriage naturally is at a high risk for sepsis and/or hemorrhage. You really think a doctor would hand over $400 of his/her own money to send her to another hospital if it wasn’t medically necessary.

  108. 108.

    Blogreeder

    @Alison: You’re making good progress on constructing an argument. As to your evidence to support your premise, I do believe these women exist. You’re saying the forms of birth control they want are costly. They aren’t interested in cheaper alternatives. But still, can’t they go to Planned Parenthood to get their pills instead of their doctor? As for poor women, I don’t think your argument holds because they would be on Medicaid anyway.

  110. 110.

    Blogreeder

    @Edith: That’s what I like about most liberals, they are so civil. I still don’t think the story is credible and that’s another reason. What doctor would do that? And with a ruptured amniotic sac leading to a possible infection would the hospital just send her home? This is still a special case and it doesn’t even have anything to do with the birth control mandate under discussion. What, would she have been saved if she took a birth control pill right then?

  113. 113.

    Smiling Mortician

    I’d like to thank Blogreeder for his contributions to this thread. As it happens, my work today involves writing a chapter on bad-faith argument in all its forms, and the plentiful examples he has provided here have really made my work easier. Thanks, Blogreeder!

  115. 115.

    Bmaccnm

    @Blogreeder: Women who have insurance- medical insurance- shouldn’t have to go to Planned Parenthood for contraception because some third party doesn’t believe in contraception. Contraception is legal, and access to a variety of contraceptive methods is the standard of medical care for women in the 21st century. Not all women can take birth control pills. Not all women have partners who agree to using condoms. But neither of those statements matter. Contraception is legal, and is standard of care. Medical insurance providers are not churches. They are businesses that enter into contracts to provide access to care to their contract holders in return for payment. Therefore, a contract between women and their medical insurance providers should cover contraception. No one else’s beliefs should enter into this anywhere.

  116. 116.

    Gravenstone

    @boss bitch: Bloggy is classic BJ troll. It just hasn’t shown its multigenerationally inbred face here in several months. I wonder what the occasion was to rouse it from its somnolence?

  119. 119.

    Lojasmo

    @Blogreeder:

    Strange, because he allowed guns to be carried in national parks. Doesn’t sound like somebody who doesn’t like guns. Are you talking out of your ass?

  123. 123.

    scav

    I wonder why some hospitals don’t start advertising campaigns / PSAs about how religiously affiliated hospitals don’t provide health care with your health in mind. Could work like one of those side effects of medicines. Possible side effects of Choosing St HolierThanThou include: scroll scroll scroll scroll . . . Suppose a superpac could run similar things. I would also be interesting and possible to build a national map of hospital coverage and color code it based on areas that are served with few or only religiously affiliated hospitals. That could be used as a warning map as is but could also be used, when combined with data about the populations in those areas, disease info, etc. to model the magnitude of concrete health consequences including death which be a probable result of the suggested changes in quality of care. Your religious freedom resulted in #### additional deaths nationally and ### in your neighborhood / constituency.

  124. 124.

    Alison

    @Blogreeder: First, for some women “cheaper alternatives” aren’t plausible. Not all women can use all forms of birth control, not even all types of the pill. There are numerous pills because there are numerous types of body chemistry. In the same way that some people prefer aspirin, while others can’t tolerate it and use Tylenol, while still others only get relief from ibuprofen, various women will need various types of birth control. We are not all the same.

    Also, despite what the wingnuts want us to believe, Planned Parenthood is not fucking 7-11. There isn’t one on every corner in every town. In some states there are only a few or even only one clinic. Not every woman lives within easy distance of PP, nor has the time or transportation to get to one. This is why bullshit like waiting periods for abortions fuck over a lot of (generally low-income and/or minority) women, because just getting to the clinic once is a huge hassle that requires time and money they may not be able to spare. To have to get to a PP every month for your birth control is a ridiculous and onerous requirement.

    As for Medicaid, it’s not like unless you’re rich, you can get Medicaid. Not everyone qualifies, and just because you don’t qualify, that doesn’t mean you can afford everything you need in life. I don’t know the numbers, which I’m sure vary by state, but usually the cut-offs for assistance are extremely low. What the government often considers “poverty level” – meaning, an amount above which a person or family is considered NOT to be in poverty – is a total pittance. Just because by official standards one might be “above” the poverty line, it does not mean one is not low-income, and one has no financial struggles.

    Seriously, you need to just step back and stop thinking in abstract wank-off terms and start just accepting the truth as people explain it through their own lives and experiences. If women say they need insurance to cover their birth control, it;s because they need insurance to cover their birth control. If women say they aren’t able to get to a clinic for cheap/free birth control, it’s because they aren’t able to get to a clinic for cheap/free birth control. The GOP loves to insist that people lie constantly about these things because the GOP lies constantly about everything. They lie so much and with such impunity that they have forgotten that such a thing as truth even exists, and so cannot comprehend someone speaking from a truthful standpoint.

    Also, they are women-hating, authoritarian sadistic assholes.

  125. 125.

    Ecks

    I wonder why some hospitals don’t start advertising campaigns / PSAs about how religiously affiliated hospitals don’t provide health care with your health in mind

    Assuming that’s a serious question, it’s because

    a) Not all religious hospitals have the same rules about lady bits. Some have none, some are asshats about it. I think there’s even a reasonable amount of variation between catholic hospitals in the way the rules are interpreted in practical cases.

    b) Being seen to publicly attack mainstream religions as bad (which is how a lot of people would read this, despite your finer parsing), would be suicide in America. They’d offend and lose an enormous portion of their existing customer base.

    I now feel sick for talking about hospitals as commercial establishments playing the marketing game. It’s just WRONG. But that’s another story.

  126. 126.

    scav

    @Ecks: Advertisers have morals? News to me. Personally, I’m more interested by getting the information out about the scale and human consequences out. The moral crusaders are big on shoving pictures of fetuses in front of everyone, so deserve to see the broken bodies on their watch. Analytically, we could handle the policies of different hospitals, although finding a national source might be trickier to find. I saw some national hospital sources but that was a decade ago and I was looking more at the information on size (# beds) than specific policies.

    ETA: and if pointing out that religiously inspired moral decisions have consequences on human bodies is being seen as an attack on religion, that is one hell of a get out of consequences racket they have going.

  129. 129.

    Ecks

    @scav: when did I say they have morals? I said that they’d get killed with a huge portion of their client base and lose a lot of business, because they’d be perceived as attacking churches, which are (like it or not) widely revered social institutions. It’s not a moral problem, it’s a losing-lots-of-money problem.

    You really want to strike back with moral imagery, post pictures of women bleeding to death after self-aborting with wire coathangers, because safe and clean ones were not available. Tell pro-life people that their attempts to legally coerce women into not having abortions merely results in an enormous pile of dead women (along with the fetuses they were formally carrying) because they move to self-induced abortions and back-alley operators who take advantage of them. Might as well lay that mountain of corpses at their feet and let them own it.

  131. 131.

    Blogreeder

    @moe99: I didn’t know millionaires couldn’t afford birth control. Since the mandate would cover everyone, you see. So I guess that’s what you’re saying.

  133. 133.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    Wow! So you’re saying that ALL abortions are done because the life of the mother is in danger?

    Yes, because a pregnant woman who comes stumbling into the ER bleeding from the uterus with sky-high blood pressure is clearly just a whiner who’s trying to con her way into an abortion. They should have just given her a nice cup of tea and sent her on her way.

    I mean, it’s not like the US has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the Western world or anything. Those statistics are just librul propaganda.

    And with a ruptured amniotic sac leading to a possible infection would the hospital just send her home?

    Yes, that’s what a Catholic hospital will do, because they will not abort the pregnancy until a life-threatening infection sets in. Until her fever is above 102 degrees, the abortion is “elective,” even if there’s no heartbeat. These stories are unfortunately very common, because the “pro-life” insanity in this country means that hospitals are reluctant to abort pregnancies even if they’re life-threatening because they’re afraid of the backlash from idiots like the bishop who insisted that an 11-week fetus could totally be delivered safely.

    Like you, they put the woman’s life at risk with a systemic infection for the crime of having her pregnancy go wrong. Maybe next time she’ll know better than to have a miscarriage, amirite?

  134. 134.

    Alison

    @Blogreeder: WTF does this even mean? Unless something is needed by every single person, then it’s pointless and shouldn’t exist? Yes, some people have no problem paying for birth control. Some of those people – the super rich ones – have no problem paying for *any* health care services, and thus don’t even need insurance at all, really. So should the concept of insurance, or of, dare I say it, universal government health care, not even exist because there are some people who don’t need it? That’s just a stunningly odd way of looking at this…

  135. 135.

    Mnemosyne

    Martha Mendoza describes in this story how difficult it was to find a hospital willing to terminate her 19-week pregnancy even though there was no heartbeat and she had started to bleed.

    But I guess she’s just a lying liar, right, Blogreeder? Because according to you that just couldn’t happen because shut up, that’s why.

    ETA: And I’m harping on this because it’s YOUR front-running presidential candidate who’s proposing that we get rid of prenatal care, not mine. So explain to all of us that Martha Mendoza is a liar because pregnancy always turns out well and miscarriages, stillbirths and pre-eclampsia are just myths.

  137. 137.

    Blogreeder

    @Alison: Good argument. Much better than that asshole Mnemosyne.

    First, for some women “cheaper alternatives” aren’t plausible.

    There are cheaper alternatives. I think your premise is that the pill is the only method. I can think of two alternatives right off the bat. Condoms and abstinence.

    Planned Parenthood is not fucking 7-11

    You’re right. I don’t even know where there is one around me. Reminds me about the “compromise” they come up with where the insurance companies provide it for “free” and I was thinking how would that work? You have to submit forms and wait a few weeks? That would really dampen the spontaneous of it all.

    As for Medicaid, it’s not like unless you’re rich, you can get Medicaid. Not everyone qualifies…

    The medicaid argument is for certain people always inserting the poor into every discussion. But you’re only talking about women who lose their insurance and can’t afford the pill.

    If women say they need insurance to cover their birth control, it;s because they need insurance to cover their birth control. If women say they aren’t able to get to a clinic for cheap/free birth control, it’s because they aren’t able to get to a clinic for cheap/free birth control.

    Really, some women want insurance to cover their birth control pills. If we’re stepping back and thinking about this, that’s the case. To put a little more bluntly, some want to be promiscuous and they don’t want any consequences. These people don’t want even to pay for it. I’m just saying this as a counter argument. I might not be in agreement to this at all. But certainly some religious people would and that’s who you’re arguing against in all this.

    Also, they are women-hating, authoritarian sadistic assholes.

    Now here you’re making broad assertions and frankly you’re sounding racist because, you know, Herman Cain is republican.
    All in all, Alison, good points all around.

  138. 138.

    Blogreeder

    @Alison: The mandate covers everyone, the rich and the poor. When someone says the mandate is needed because people can’t afford it otherwise then they are including the very rich. So why should the mandate cover everyone. Shouldn’t it only cover those who want it and can’t afford it?

  139. 139.

    Alison

    @Blogreeder: You’re seriously tiresome. Condoms are far less reliable than most other forms of birth control. Abstinence? Now I will take a page from Mnem and tell you to GFY, unless you seriously think women should just not have sex if they don’t want to get pregnant. The point here is that people should be able to have sex if they want to and to also prevent pregnancy. Saying “just don’t have sex” is fucking insulting to those who want to have sexual relationships. And “promiscuous”? Stop slut-shaming, and if you can’t, stop talking please.

    And nice try on the racist joke, but that’s pretty lame trolling. I can, in fact, think – for example – that a black person is an asshole without that opinion having fuck all to do with the person being black. Herman Cain would be a repugnant piece of crap no matter what race or ethnicity he was.

    All in all, you’re a tool and I don’t need your fucking pat on the head for my “good points”. I knew they were good points before you stamped your approval on them.

  140. 140.

    Blogreeder

    @Mnemosyne: “Ms.” magazine? Really? I’m supposed to regard them as unbiased in women’s issues? Just some random news story. I don’t think they’re lying but they could embellish the story a bit to make it more interesting to get readers like you frosted. Sells more magazines that way.

  141. 141.

    Edith

    @Blogreeder:

    This one is from the American Public Health Journal, from the doctor’s perspective:

    I’ll never forget this; it was awful—I had one of my partners accept this patient at 19 weeks. The pregnancy was in the vagina. It was over… . And so he takes this patient and transferred her to [our] tertiary medical center, which I was just livid about, and, you know, “we’re going to save the pregnancy.” So of course, I’m on call when she gets septic, and she’s septic to the point that I’m pushing pressors on labor and delivery trying to keep her blood pressure up, and I have her on a cooling blanket because she’s 106 degrees. And I needed to get everything out. And so I put the ultrasound machine on and there was still a heartbeat, and [the ethics committee] wouldn’t let me because there was still a heartbeat. This woman is dying before our eyes. I went in to examine her, and I was able to find the umbilical cord through the membranes and just snapped the umbilical cord and so that I could put the ultrasound—“Oh look. No heartbeat. Let’s go.” She was so sick she was in the [intensive care unit] for about 10 days and very nearly died… . She was in DIC [disseminated intravascular coagulopathy]… . Her bleeding was so bad that the sclera, the white of her eyes, were red, filled with blood… . And I said, “I just can’t do this. I can’t put myself behind this. This is not worth it to me.” That’s why I left.

    Read More: ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/full/10.2105/AJPH.2007.126730

  142. 142.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    Deny deny deny. Deny that women in the United States die from pregnancy complications. Deny that women don’t have access to birth control. Deny that the Republican plan is to block women from getting reliable birth control by declaring that even the Pill causes “abortions.”

    Deny deny deny. That’s all you have left. Are your tax cuts so precious to you that you don’t care how many women die so you can have them?

  143. 143.

    WyldPirate

    Mnemosyne:

    That report you posted is absolutely tragic, Mnemosyne. A doubling of the death rate during pregnancy and a higher incidence of maternal deaths than 40 other countries? I’m just gobsmacked by those numbers.

    We’re turning into a nation of barbarians. It’s amazing assholes like Santorum aren’t tarred and feathered and given a ride on a rail.

  144. 144.

    Blogreeder

    @Alison: See? Try to be nice to you guys and what do you get?
    Liberals are the most racist people I know. Really. I still remember the quote from Doug J. calling Juan Williams a lawn jockey. Unbelievable.

    Abstinence? Now I will take a page from Mnem and tell you to GFY,

    I didn’t say I necessarily agreed with that but that is cheaper, don’t you think? I mean we’re talking reality here? You don’t even know what promiscuous means do you? It’s exactly why women use the pill. They want to have lots of sex.

    I’m trying to educate you here, Alison. This blog is an echo chamber and it makes you guys really really dumb. You don’t look into the real arguments the other side is having. You throw up some strawman and go at him.

    Sure it’s fun to call people names and to think you’re so superior you don’t even have to listen to them. Isn’t that what racists do? Sure they use skin color and you use ideology but isn’t the end result the same? Intolerance. Aren’t you supposed to be better than that?

  146. 146.

    Blogreeder

    @Edith: What’s your point here, Edith? I agree it’s a terrible story in the excerpt you quoted. Yes, pregnancies can have serious complications. Sometimes the mother’s life is in danger. But what does this have to do with birth control? In the excerpt it doesn’t say that it was an unwanted pregnancy because she didn’t have free birth control pills. These stories are all beside the point. Pregnancies are already covered by most health insurances.

  147. 147.

    Blogreeder

    @Edith: Now I’m just like you guys. You say one thing but do another. So, I’m not doing abstinence.

    Now here you’re saying “rest of your life” so your premise is that if a women doesn’t have insurance to cover her pills now, she’ll never have insurance. I don’t agree with that. Women aren’t as lazy as that.

  148. 148.

    Edith

    @Blogreeder:

    The point blogreeder, is that the Catholic Church almost killed this woman. This should have been an uncomplicated uterine evacuation the minute it became clear the pregnancy wasn’t viable. Instead she almost died. I might be more sympathetic to the Catholic Church’s arguments about religious freedom and birth control for religiously-affiliated institutions, except that they also feel their religious beliefs give them to right to let women die for no good reason. If Catholic-affiliated health organizations can’t bring themselves to provide decent quality health care for pregnant women with complications they shouldn’t be running hospitals. Likewise, if following employment law is such a violation of their conscience they can stop being an employer. Someone else will run those hospitals and employ those people. I’m tired of their shit.

  149. 149.

    WyldPirate

    @Blogreeder: @Blogreeder:

    Surely you’re not serious, are you? This hospital denied an abortion to a woman who was mere hours from death with an untenable pregnancy of a fetus that no chance of being saved simply because it had a heartbeat.

    Do you have any idea how quickly septicemia can kill you? Do you have any idea what it does? Your brain fries with a raging fever, your capillaries started hemmorhaging blood into your organs and tissues and your blood pressure crashes. It is an ugly way to die.

    But it is OK for this woman to die because of some fucked up idiotic moral edict by a fucking church? Can you really look at yourself in the mirror and say these barbaric Christians have a reverence for the sanctity of life in these circumstances?

  150. 150.

    Edith

    @Blogreeder:

    A bunch of doctors looked at the available evidence and decided that birth control is a necessary component of preventive health care. You’re just a guy who is too ignorant to know that 1st tri-pregnancy is over when the membranes rupture. Who has more credibility?

  151. 151.

    Blogreeder

    @Mnemosyne: I don’t think you understood what I asked. You’re saying only those women who come into the ER with those symptoms. Not ALL abortions. Planned Parenthood doesn’t even have an ER, does it?

    That CNN article you linked to sure spun the statistics.

    Deaths from pregnancy and childbirth in the United States have doubled in the past 20 years, a development that a human rights group called “scandalous and disgraceful” Friday.

    What does that mean without any numbers? It doesn’t say rate, it says number of deaths. It could be good news because we could have tripled the number of pregnancies and only doubling the deaths, thereby saving lives. See, with no numbers it doesn’t say anything, really.

    In addition, the rights group said, about 1.7 million women a year, one-third of pregnant women in the United States, suffer from pregnancy-related complications.

    So they do know how to put numbers in their article! This is informative. But, how does this compare to the other statistic? Don’t know. The other one was talking deaths and this is talking complications.

    The report, “Deadly Delivery: The Maternal Health Care Crisis in the USA,” notes that the lifetime risk of maternal deaths is greater in the United States than in 40 other countries, including virtually all industrialized nations.

    Now here’s something that is informative. It doesn’t say which countries. The fact that the United States has a higher fertility rate than most industrial nations wouldn’t skew this, would it? The United States has a 2.05 rate against Japan’s 1.27.

    The report also noted that severe pregnancy-related complications that nearly cause death — known as “near misses” — have increased by 25 percent since 1998.

    Again they’re using a percentage without any figures so the reader can see how bad this really is.

    White women have a mortality rate of 9.5 per 100,000 pregnancies, the CDC said. For African-American women, that rate is 32.7 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies.

    Finally, some figures and rates. This is placed at the end, does it have anything to do with the missing figures at the top? How do these rates compare to 20 years ago? With other countries?

  152. 152.

    Blogreeder

    @Edith: The ol’ bunch of doctors argument, huh? So if a bunch of doctors told you to jump off a bridge, you would do it? How many times have we been through the situation where a bunch of doctors say one thing and it turns out not so good. You know, years ago they didn’t have Lamaze, a bunch of Doctors were against it! Wait a minute. What am I talking to you about this? You’re the party of death, you don’t care about births. Just abortions.

  153. 153.

    Blogreeder

    @Edith: Boy, you are bitter! You’re a one issue voter too, aren’t you? Sure, these are bad stories. Do you have any statistics as to how many times this occurs in Catholic Hospitals? Do you know how many times they get it right? They obviously have the equipment to do an “evacuation”.

  154. 154.

    Edith

    @Blogreeder:

    No. We’re the party who wants everyone to have access to good quality healthcare which will help reduce the abortion rate and increase the percentage of healthy births. You’re the party that doesn’t give a shit about people if they can’t afford insurance. You don’t give a shit if women die of entirely preventable pregnancy causes and you don’t give a shit if the kids are pre-term and die. I care very much about healthy births and healthy women, and I’m willing to bet everything I own that I care a hell of a lot more than you do.

  155. 155.

    YellowJournalism

    Don’t feed the troll…don’t feed the troll…Aw, fuck it.

    You don’t even know what promiscuous means do you?

    Obviously, you don’t, either. Or you do, because you’re a goddamn troll looking to piss us off by implying that the majority of women who use the pill are horny sluts with multiple sexual partners. Otherwise you would never have used the word in the first place.

    It’s exactly why women use the pill. They want to have lots of sex.

    No, we shave our legs and wear ridiculous undergarments because we want to have lots of sex. We use the pill to avoid unwanted pregnancy. Or, in the case of many women including myself at one point in my life, we use the pill to regulate our periods and other factors related to monthly hormonal changes.

    I’ve had insurance that paid for my pills. I’ve had to apply for state assistance to help me pay for my pills. I’ve had to pay for my pills without insurance. I’ve even had the pleasure of living in a country that actually gives a rat’s ass about women and reproductive care, providing me with affordable birth control options beyond condoms and abstinence, the latter of which, as a married woman, would cause a few problems. I just wish it had been my home country that cared.

    And the fact that people are bringing up related issues beyond just birth control has to do with the proposed provisions allowing employers to cherry-pick what health care is provided to employees, including prenatal care and care related to pregnancy.

  156. 156.

    Mnemosyne

    @Blogreeder:

    You don’t even know what promiscuous means do you? It’s exactly why women use the pill. They want to have lots of sex.

    Given that I take the Pill so I can have lots of sex with one man, who is also the only man I’ve ever had sex with, I think you’re not too clear on what “promiscuous” means. I guess you’re advising all of us married women that we’re being too “promiscuous” by having sex with our lawfully married husbands and should practice celibacy within marriage because you just don’t like the idea of anyone having sex, ever.

    Oh, and here are some more lying liars who lie at the National Institutes of Health, who use the same numbers as the article I linked to earlier. It’s almost like you’re in denial that your tax cuts are literally killing women and their children every year, isn’t it?

  157. 157.

    Mike Lamb

    @Blogreeder: Uh, when we are talking about rates per pregnancy, WTF does higher fertility rates have to do anything? And why do we care about the actual numbers? Put another way–if the complication rate was the absolute lowest in the world, but we could halve (just as an example) the number of complications with some simple policies, why wouldn’t we? Shouldn’t the goal be to prevent as many complications/deaths as possible? Or we should only care about health concerns when it doesn’t “offend” a bunch of mysogynist male religious leaders? Or do we want to keep the complications higher to teach some of those sluts a lesson?

  158. 158.

    Kilkee

    Thank God this thread seems to have ended. Can we all agree never to engage this especially revolting troll again?

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