Dave Weigel, when given the opportunity to be Dave Weigel, will in fact be Dave Weigel.
The surprise of today’s Republican press conference on Planned Parenthood came when one of the freshman class’s stars praised Hillary Clinton. Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa.) described how undercover videos had found the family planning group’s executives coldly discussing the sale of fetal body parts, and said that even Democrats were recoiling.
“The American people, Republicans and Democrats alike, are horrified by the utter lack of compassion showed by Planned Parenthood for these women and their babies,” said Ernst. “In fact, now, Hillary Clinton is calling these Planned Parenthood images disturbing, and I agree.”
That line had the intended effect. It rattled abortion rights supporters, reminding them that the Democratic frontrunner for president had hedged on their issue. The fight to defund Planned Parenthood is only the latest in a series of conservative attempts to shift the conversation on abortion, from one that bedevils Republicans to one that flummoxes Democrats. Instead of speaking generically — and popularly — about “women’s health care,” the Planned Parenthood sting forced Democrats to confront the little-covered and gruesome issue of fetal tissue sales.
The best part is how given clear evidence in the past of the Mighty Wurlitzer disgorging absolute horseshit upon the political landscape, folks like Weigel still act like the videos are somehow an earnest attempt to expose Planned Parenthood rather than a cynical ploy to outright destroy it, and he continues to pretend that as a political reporter that he has no influence on the outcome of an orchestrated attempt to end accessibility to women’s health care across the nation.
The only thing that matters is that it’s perceived as a problem for Democrats by the people who get to tell millions of Americans how to perceive things. Questioning the reality or veracity of the facts? Naah, that’s hard. Journalists don’t mess with that nonsense. Much easier to report on the perception that Democrats can’t win.
Weigel’s gotta Weigel, yo.
Jeffro
Sanders has the right idea – coming out strong w/ the facts in defense of PP. Hillary will fall in line once she sees how well that goes over w/ the D base.
Hey on another (OT) note, once you skip the first couple of pages, Rick Perlstein’s piece on how the media (and the rest of us) are truly missing the elephant in the room – how billionaires are calling the GOP’s tune in a post-Citizens United era – is excellent.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/cafe/holy-grail-of-gop-primaries
Look at the numbers he cites about how unpopular almost all of these folks are, and yet w/ a GOP sugar daddy, they’re still ‘in it to win it’. Candidates used to need something called “voters”…now they just need a Koch or a Friess.
Brandon
He’s so annoying I only read him if I know he’s writing about Republicans and barely even then.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
Who said it?
boatboy_srq
Alternative snark: only Democrats have an agenda; Republicans just speak their minds.
Someone really needs to explain how, among the GOTea, b#tsh!t-crazy is the new honest.
eric
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”
Same as it ever was. Despite Cyrus the Great being one of the most enlightened leaders of the ancient world, the prevailing western view of the Persians comes from the Greek historians, who pimped for their leaders, and painted the Persians as just another raging barbarian sect.
WereBear
Isn’t that Trump’s appeal? He comes out and says what used to only be alluded to?
boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: Capitalism, and old money, in a nutshell: why bother running for office when you can own an officeholder (either outright or at least a hold controlling stake)?
boatboy_srq
@WereBear: I was thinking more of Ernst in this case, and the facile way the GOTea accepts the latest smear film from O’Keefe, but you’re right that is a big part of Trump’s appeal.
BR
Setting aside the article (I never read the Post these days — too much spin), I did see a quote from Hillary at TPM yesterday on PP, and was wondering what she was trying to say or convey. It was one of those triangulating sort of comments that did not give me confidence.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I can usually take Weigel for what he is, a conservative reporter– I believe he has in the past described himself as a “pro-life” libertarian who voted for Rand Paul in ’08. But in his last days at Slate he wrote some unbelievably tendentious crap about Trey Gowdy and Benghazi that changed the way I view his stuff. I think Robert Costa does the same thing in a more straightforward way.
Like Medicare vouchers, Social Security privatization and self-deportation, I whole-heartedly endorse the idea that Republicans will, for the first time since (I think) Reagan, stop hiding the ball during a presidential race.
Kay
I thought we established that these were not “sales”? Shouldn’t a journalist correct that?
I once donated bone marrow for a treatment that was also a clinical trial involving a relative. I had to agree that a portion of what I donated went to research. If the hospital charged for handling and transfer, did I sell my bone marrow?
schrodinger's cat
Weigel is nothing special, he is just another right wing flunky.
boatboy_srq
@Kay:
Why yes, a journalist should. You’re presuming Weigel meets the criteria.
Kay
@boatboy_srq:
It’s just words. Who cares, right? We might have to re-examine the whole medical research appartus if all of these transfers are “sales”. I should sue that hospital, right? Not to mention they should probably be criminally prosecuted for trafficking my bone marrow.
xenos
Watcha’ gonna do with that big, fat, lie?
Weigel, Weigel, Weigel.
Germy Shoemangler
repub ratfu*kers will be busy between now and election day. They know things aren’t looking too good for the GOP, and so they need to help things along. Stir up some outrage.
Belafon
He is right in that they are trying to shift the conversation. This is a topic that plays into Republican hands because most people don’t want to talk about it. If you ask the question “do you support killing babies?” most people will say no. The follow-up question “Do you want to end abortion in the US?” is not asked as often. The hardest thing to get through to most people is allowing a woman to control her body because at some point, there is a baby in there. Most people don’t want to answer those questions, but will give generic answers when pressed, especially if they are shown the images the anti-abortion groups like to use.
Until the answer to “do you support killing babies?” is once again “why do you think you have the right to interfere with a woman’s choice?” the Republicans will be able to drive this conversation.
srv
ACORN proved liberals will always roll over.
Jeffro
@boatboy_srq: Oh, absolutely. I think what surprised me is seeing just how unpopular these candidates are with actual voters:
– Chris Christie, 35% approval in NJ
– Scott Walker, 41% approval in WI
– Bobby Jindal, 27% approval in LA
– Rick Santorum, at 2% or less in GOP ’16 polls…with 1(!) voter showing up for him at an Iowa event recently…
Perlstein also notes that Ted Cruz, while (obviously) wildly unpopular with GOP Establishment leaders, took in over $10M directly and $31M in super PAC money in a very short period of time. This is one of the reasons why I think he will be one of their ‘finalists’ – his brand of red meat is popular with the basest of the base as well as some big donors, leaving him second only to Jeb! in terms of GOP fundraising.
Belafon
@srv: Except (sadly) Planned Parenthood has a better chance because it also involves a lot of white women.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jeffro: I’m surprised Christie is that high
El Caganer
@xenos: Thanks, I needed that. https://youtu.be/pDl9SDd1FJY
Zandar
@Belafon:
And completely innocent of course of his role in facilitating that shift.
shell
Planned Parenthood, Cecil the lion, the indictment of that Cin. cop.
Charlie Pierce picked the wrong week to go on vacation.
WereBear
Ah! Libertarianism is just for men, then?
wasabi gasp
Weigel should stop by the bunker so she can show him how it’s done.
CONGRATULATIONS!
OT: wife got the Hillary car magnet yesterday. I made her take it off. What FUCKING MORON designed that thing, with an arrow pointing TO THE RIGHT?
Plus it looks like shit on a black car, but really? Damn, some people can’t even buy a clue.
srv
@Belafon:
They certainly turned out in force to roll back all those clinic closures in Texas.
@CONGRATULATIONS!: You know why the PBS logo face right, right?
And experts disagree:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCi7gudxNVg
CONGRATULATIONS!
@WereBear: Always was.
Germy Shoemangler
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
If my wife bought a hrc magnet for the car and I told her “take that damn thing off, it doesn’t look good!” she’d stare at me the way our cat looks at me when I tell her to stop scratching the chair.
Belafon
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
So, you read english right to left? You do realize that going left also means going backwards, such as in mathematics?
Please find me a Republican who thinks that Clinton’s arrow secretly means she’s a Republican.
Betty Cracker
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I’m not particularly fond of the logo either, but a left-facing arrow connotes going backwards.
@Germy Shoemangler: Right? I’m charitably assuming they share a vehicle.
Brachiator
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
This is a contradiction. How can he be libertarian if he would take away a woman’s liberty with respect to her reproductive rights?
@Belafon
I think that about 75% of PP clients have incomes at or below 150 percent of the federal poverty level. That’s a lot of lower income women, and a lot of nonwhite women. This makes these attacks on PP more despicable because it robs women of the power to make their own reproductive choices, makes them more vulnerable and pawns to religious propagandists.
xenos
@srv: acorn was known to have internal management problems that made survival impossible, so it was left to die. A shame, really, as emboldened some real jerks. I worked with them in the field, and they tried to help people that nobody else gave a shit about.
Sherparick
The problem here is that Hilary went into the defensive crouch which was exactly what these videos were probably intended to do given skilled ratfuckers probably had her as the principal target behind this scheme. http://nomoremister.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-right-wing-propaganda-machine-is.html
BR
@Brachiator:
Maybe the polling for PP didn’t look too strong and that’s why Hillary made this statement?
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/hillary-clinton-planned-parenthood-videos–2
The statement really doesn’t make sense to me.
Betty Cracker
O’Malley had the best answer of the Dems quoted in Weigel’s article, IMO:
Don’t play their stupid game.
Belafon
@Brachiator: I’m not saying it’s less of an issue because there are white women involved; I’m saying there’s a much better chance of PP surviving this because it would also affect a lot of white women.
Germy Shoemangler
@Sherparick:
I have to assume EVERYTHING they do at this point is directed at HRC. And I agree with NoMoreMister, they are not a clown car. They are dead serious about winning. They’ve got some work they want to do on this country, but first they need the white house.
Brendan in Charlotte
@Brachiator: C’mon – everyone knows that Libertarians are just Republicans who want to smoke pot. So that description fits Weigel perfectly.
balconesfault
Fetal tissue sales? Idiots.
The alternative is not PP making less money – they don’t make money from this. Rather, the alternative is research labs not having valuable tissue.
Meanwhile, Hillary needs to up her act and start thinking about how she’s going to respond to these issues before someone sticks a mic in her face. If she’s not going to defend women’s rights – a pretty big chunk of why she’s an important candidate disappears.
Calouste
@Brachiator:
You seem to think that libertarianism is about rights for everyone, where it actually is about rights for the libertarian, and screw everybody else.
tl;dr: libertarianism == IGMFY
NorthLeft12
@Germy Shoemangler: Yeah, that whole telling/making the wife do something does not usually work for me. I save it for times when our lives or limbs or kids are in deadly peril because of something she is doing/about to do.
srv
How many warnings will Obama ignore?
aimai
@GHayduke (formerly lojasmo): Right–this is, in fact, what HRC said–the “disturbing” part of the video was that it was done at all, not that it showed disturbing things. When will Sanders’ fans and the anti HRC crowd stop believing every bit of bullshit that the right wing throws at HRC?
Belafon
I was trying to find Clinton’s statement, and she also says this:
“This raises not questions about Planned Parenthood so much as it raises questions about the whole process, that is, not just involving Planned Parenthood, but many institutions in our country,” said the former secretary of state. “And if there’s going to be any kind of congressional inquiry, it should look at everything and not just one [organization].”
Two news items I found while trying to find Clinton’s statement:
1. The bail for the cop was set at $1M.
2. Perry is no longer in the top ten candidates.
BR
@aimai:
I wouldn’t say I believed anything from the right or from the Sanders folks — I just read her quotes and couldn’t make sense of them. If she was trying to say what you’re saying, she could have done so way more clearly. I think you could be right. But I think there’s also a chance she’s trying to hedge her bets.
Belafon
@srv: If he’s smart, and I know he is, everything Greenspan says. Considering the fact that Obama’s already controlled one entitlement cost, Medicare, I’d rather listen to him than Greenspan.
NorthLeft12
Just another example of the media’s need to have a real horse race or show they are balanced in their coverage of the candidates.
I can see them looking over their recently submitted articles and seeing almost nothing of a positive nature on the Republican side, decide to throw something, anything at Hillary to prove their bona fides as an unbiased political observer.
lowercase steve
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Wealthy, white men between the ages of 16-34 mostly.
Elizabelle
@CONGRATULATIONS!: I noticed that too, about the arrow pointing right.
Sheesh. I guess it was a choice between an arrow pointing forward, or in reverse. Hillary does not want to be the perfect candidate from the 1990s.
At least the HRC logo is identifiable.
cmorenc
@shell:
Either that, or he picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue, and he’s too depressed by all the shit going on at once to write insightful sarcastic commentary about it.
Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (formerly Mumphrey, et al.)
Is he back at the Washington Post? I thought they fired him for saying something mildly critical about conservatives a few years ago. Now he’s back?
FlipYrWhig
@aimai:
I don’t think anyone reads past the headline and first paragraph of any news story anymore. I had a dust-up with a FB friend yesterday who was circulating some comment Clinton made about how lots of well-meaning white people fear black people in hoodies. It had a tendentious headline about Clinton admitting the black people were frightening. Clinton didn’t say that at all. But it was just close enough to let the HRC-skeptics’ outrage waterwheel turn a few more times. And as much as it pains me to say this, the group that was the most insufferable about infelicitous quotations and supposed gaffes in the 2008 cycle was definitely the pro-Obama crowd, some of whom are now the pro-Sanders crowd (and other would-be leftier-than-thou types). It was obnoxious then and it’s shaping up to be hella obnoxious now.
Elizabelle
@NorthLeft12: I wonder if they can tell if readers are, uh, reading their political coverage this far out?
I don’t read anything about GOP campaigns, because I will never vote for one. I don’t read much about Hillary either in the NYTimes, and they seem to have a policy of not covering Bernie Sanders (unless they can feasibly include a photo to make him look like Abby Hoffman’s wilder younger brother).
Myiq2xu
I guess you guys didn’t get the memo. You’re supposed to call them “hoax videos” now.
Germy Shoemangler
“Deceptively edited” works fine.
WereBear
Because they’re so oppressed.
gogol's wife
@Germy Shoemangler:
That sounds like this household!
LWA
Its the oldest trick in the book. The view from nowhere that shields an agenda.
“People are saying he’s a goat raping pedophile.”
“So how do you feel about supporting a goat raping pedophile?”
“Look, I’m just a neutral observer asking questions- Isn’t the presence of a goat raping pedophile in the race a distraction? Are you willing to condemn the raping of young goats?”
Germy Shoemangler
Why not an arrow pointing up? Or is that too egotistical?
A lot of thought (probably too much) goes into logos. I can imagine the arguments over that little design.
Amir Khalid
@lowercase steve:
Maybe it’s because I’m a foreigner, but is there really anyone in that graphic besides Christian Grey and Bruce Wayne?
Tripod
Hamsher is closing up FDL.
raven
@Tripod: good
Belafon
@Amir Khalid: Remember, Americans aren’t poor, we’re just temporarily embarressed.
aimai
@BR: No–that was the direct quote I put up. She’s not FUCKING TRYING TO HEDGE HER BETS. Women Hillary’s age are extremely pro Planned Parenthood and abortion rights. She is not going to change her real beliefs at this point. Stop being so incredibly gullible.
SRW1
@srv:
If they come from Greenspan? Hopefully all of ’em!
White Trash Liberal
@aimai:
Bernbaggers are only going to get more insufferable.
There is no way, simply no way, that HRC or Obama let PP hang out to dry. These videos are a salvo in the wedge issue culture war. It’s Bush playbook. This will push down to the states where propositions about PP and abortion will pump up voter turnout. Hillary’s comments clearly portend this, and her language will get steadily more forceful as this shapes up.
The GOP is using the media to shape narratives that candidates react to in a way that makes them look less insane and transform the eelection narrative to the scary Hippy/Negro/Messican invasion.
I hope this leads to the all in strategy of courting white males exclusively.
FlipYrWhig
@Germy Shoemangler:
On the letter H?
Kropadope
@Brachiator:
I would bet anything the answer is something like “What about the rights of the baby?”
White Trash Liberal
@Germy Shoemangler
Too phallic
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
There are more people in that demographic than you might expect. There are plenty of guys who have inherited money- or who expect to inherit money, which is more of less the same in terms of its effects on their politics- and a surprising number who have made a bundle as tech entrepreneurs or something similar. It isn’t a huge demographic, but it pushes all of Americans’ buttons, so it gets way more attention than its raw numbers would suggest.
Tripod
@raven: it seems like her (and others) 2008 commitment to HRC was perhaps more about driving traffic, and politics by bright shiny contrarian objects.
Germy Shoemangler
@White Trash Liberal: that’s probably why it was voted down during the “logo meeting”
“Okay, we’re all in agreement? The arrow points right? Good! On to next item of business… How do we get the balloon-juice vote?”
Benw
Thank God for Planned Parenthood. Seeing these fucking bullshit hoax videos made by these smarmy, smug young men who will never once have to deal with the bullshit that women in this country have to deal with to make reasonable health care choices about their own fucking bodies is bullshit. The thought of life getting harder for poor and all women in this country because of slimy assholes like these and shitheads like Wiegel with not an ounce of compassion, just pleased with their oh so clever gotchas, is fucking enraging.
Brachiator
@Belafon:
The attack on PP is part of a larger attack on women’s reproductive rights, and it has been succeeding because it targets poorer women most of all. I think that your emphasis on white women here misses the mark.
boatboy_srq
@Belafon: Trouble is that for the anti-choice crowd the progression is “do you support killing babies” then “do you support ending abortion in the US” and then “do you support removing abortifacients from the US” (by which they mean everything from the morning-after pill through The Pill to condoms, leaving nothing contraceptive besides aspirin [one, held between the knees]). The only step they omit – the last one – is the stoning of adulteresses. It’s this disingenuousness about the approach that’s so frustrating – made even more so by the obviousness of it in all their internal dialogues.
xenos
@srv: HA!
Fucking Greenspan, what jackassery will he come up with next?
Brachiator
@FlipYrWhig:
The emphasis should rightly be on “some of whom.” I am about as pro-Obama as they come, but Sanders so far does not interest me much at all. However, I have no use for the panicked attacks on either Sanders or Clinton, and reject the insipid media inspired sniping on the candidates.
I’m having too much fun mocking the Republicans.
Belafon
@Brachiator: The original comment from srv that I was responding to was comparing the response to the attack on PP to the attack on ACORN. That was the point of my original response. I fully understand why they’re going after PP. I’m in Texas. I’ve seen how much trouble PP is in. My original point was that Democrats aren’t going to roll over as easy because ACORN, sadly, was pretty much there to help minorities.
I’m not saying it’s going to be easy for PP, nor will they escape unscathed. It’s about the response from Democrats, who did almost nothing in regards ot ACORN.
boatboy_srq
@Kay: The Reichwing would like that, wouldn’t they? They could demand that modern medicine cease collecting tissues for research; then reassert four-humour medical theory, to be followed by four-element physics and flat earth cosmology, because (just like the medical research that would be quashed by the inquiries) everything else requires the science they’re deathly afraid will dissolve their worldview. And no, I’m not really snarking here: there are way more people who want this supremely oversimplified environment because anything else a) gets too messy and b) at many points directly contravenes their Xtian philosophy.
coin operated
@Tripod: About fucking time. The site has been on life support since Wheeler and Tbogg jumped ship.
boatboy_srq
@srv: It dawns on me that one reason the chickenhawks are so gung-ho for an all-war-all-the-time foreign policy is Greenspan’s “extraordinary rise in entitlements”; kill enough people and the social-safety-net expenditures go back down to levels they perceive as manageable.
lol
@FlipYrWhig:
Looks like the pro-Edwards crowd (that became “Pro-Obama” when the scandal hit) to me. Also fairly indistinguishable from the Firebaggers.
Jeffro
@lowercase steve: @WereBear: I think the age bracket extends up into the Gen Xers (40s) who grew up watching St. Ronnie on the TV, promising that tax cuts actually grew the economy and other horsesh!t. That’s when the golden age of Something for Nothing/IGMFU truly began for these “Libertarians”.
boatboy_srq
@Calouste: Not to mention the superiority gleaned from owning and cherishing one’s own choices whilst deriding everyone else for theirs.
Mandalay
@Tripod:
I never thought it would happen, but Hamsher just made me laugh:
boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: Popularity with the oi polloi is, alas, verging on irrelevancy; what is becoming the deciding factor is popularity (translation: malleability) among the Kochs/Waltons/Adelsons et al. Trouble with most of the GOTea field this time around is that none of them are particularly attractive to that set either: Walker is an evil doofus; JEB! is looking dumber by the day; Cruz is nasty just for nastiness’ sake; Jindal is way too eager to be “in the club”; Christie is a loudmouth bully buffoon; Santorum may be the least undesirable to them and his popular support is as low as you described. None of the people living under these volk like them much, so they have to sell themselves to the Big Donor set. We really do need to cast Citizens United in terms of pr0st!tut!0n and not campaign finance.
Brachiator
@Kropadope: RE: This is a contradiction. How can he be libertarian if he would take away a woman’s liberty with respect to her reproductive rights?
Yeah. This still renders the woman invisible and strips her of all her rights.
But yeah, this would be a typical libertarian response.
Riley's Enabler
@Benw: I need a “like” button for this that I can push and keep pushing until my finger falls off. It makes the crazy rage happen.
Get. Out. Of. My. Uterus.
skerry
@Brachiator: It’s not a baby until it is born. Prior to that, it is a zygote, embryo or fetus.
brantl
What’s new? If Republlcant’s (not a misspelling) started paying attention to facts, they couldn’t be Republlcant’s.
FlipYrWhig
@Mandalay:
Of those 200,000 posts to FDL, I’ll estimate a quarter on Patrick Fitzgerald and “Fitzmas,” half on Snowden/Manning, and a quarter “miscellaneous.”
Mandalay
@Jeffro: A good article but I’m not sure about this bit:
I’m not sure if that is intended as a dig at Braman for getting Mayor Alvarez recalled, but he deserved a medal for doing it. Alvarez was rotten to the core, and 88% voted for the corrupt scumbag to be recalled.
boatboy_srq
@Brachiator: How can he be a libertarian (NB libertarian’s first and last recourse for damages is the courts) and support tort reform? There are no contradictions in modern libertarianism, just no sense that anyone but the libertarian (singular, the one speaking at the time) exists.
brantl
@CONGRATULATIONS!:
Truth in advertising.
boatboy_srq
@Mandalay: Not all Big Money is 100% evil. Look at what Rockefeller, Carnegie and Vanderbilt did with some of theirs.
catclub
@Belafon:
Just like Obama, the democratic responders are learning. ACORN they just surrendered or went along. Shirley Sherrod was thrown under the bus, but they have at least learned that those were the wrong responses.
brantl
@srv:
From Greenspan and you? As long as he’s breathing, he can ignore all of them, without any real consequences, since both you and Greenspan are out and out ignorant dickheads. Does that answer your question?
Trentrunner
Media, watch me:
Reporter: So you’re against abortion in all cases?
GOP candidate: Yes.
Reporter: Has your wife or any of your daughters ever had an abortion?
GOP candidate: That’s none of your goddamn business!
Reporter: Exactly.
catclub
@brantl: But if it is pointing to the right, it is coming from the left. ;)
gbear
@FlipYrWhig: I’d like to go back and re-read the comments on TBogg’s first FDL post where all of his regular readers were telling him what a huge mistake he’d made. You didn’t have be a registered member to leave comments on TBoggs original blog so the comment section was absolutely WILD at times (but still more polite than comment sections are now). That was a fun blog.
Another Holocene Human
@eric: Oddly, the Jews had a rather different take on Persians versus Greeks, but Gentiles have never cared. Despite all the Bible humping.
Mandalay
@boatboy_srq:
Exactly. And Bill Gates and others are doing the same thing now.
There is plenty of bad stuff being done by filthy rich people, but that doesn’t mean every rich person is bad. At The Giving Pledge (established by Gates and Buffett) there is a list of very rich people who have pledged “to dedicate the majority of their wealth to philanthropy”. Good for them.
El Caganer
I don’t think Hillary has much to worry about from the Republican candidates. http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/latest-national-poll-shows-bernie-sanders-beating-scott-walker-donald-trump-jeb-bush
Another Holocene Human
@WereBear:
You’re just figuring this out now?
Google Rebecca Watson. Most of her biggest prominent (ie, non net-trolls) attackers were affiliated with an organization called CSI, which while being nominally (and originally) non-partisan, was dominated by white male libertarians–who didn’t hesitate to wank on about libertarianism in the organizations publications.
Another Holocene Human
@WereBear:
You’re just figuring this out now?
Google Rebecca Watson. Most of her biggest prominent (ie, non net-trolls) attackers were affiliated with an organization called CSI, which while being nominally (and originally) non-partisan, was dominated by white male libertarians–who didn’t hesitate to w*nk on about libertarianism in the organizations’ publications.
(hoping that gets me past the f1lt3r)
Another Holocene Human
Okay. Moderated. No idea why.
brantl
@boatboy_srq: Rockefeller also let his Union busting thugs burn down a union hall full of union copper mine workers, in 1913. So, there’s that, as well.
Another Holocene Human
@CONGRATULATIONS!: Yeah, the official campaign logo is ugly (and 70’s looking) but you sound like a douche.
brantl
@catclub: That’s the only good thing about her and Bill. For the RepublIcan’ts is should be a vertical down arrow STARTING ON THE RIGHT, STAYING ON THE RIGHT, GOING NOWHERE BUT DOWN.
Another Holocene Human
@brantl: There’s a famous image of John D. Rockefeller sitting on a mound of skulls, but Google images refused to cough it up.
Elizabelle
@gbear: Linky? I’d enjoy seeing the first TBogg post, but am too lazy to hunt it down …. Thank you in advance.
Another Holocene Human
@balconesfault:
They’re agin’ that too. Remember stem cell research bans?
Elizabelle
@Another Holocene Human: I am still looking for a particular hound that greatly resembles Mitch McConnell …
Brachiator
@Belafon:
Points noted. I agree with you on this.
Another Holocene Human
@aimai: ding ding ding, she is a 2nd wave feminist. 2nd wave feminists built Planned Parenthood into the organization we know today. They built that. Like literally clinics that didn’t exist before and all that.
Jeffro
@boatboy_srq:
I think that’s a little unfair to prostitutes, eh? They’re only selling themselves to make a few bucks; the GOP ‘sweet sixteen’ are prepared to sell themselves so that they can further the interests of the already-rich and already-powerful. Kind of unbelievable.
@boatboy_srq:
Look at what they did to get it, though.
Also, I don’t know my history well enough to know how much these three tried to interfere in politics (they may well have) but regarding their foundations, library- and university-building, good on them. Whenever Big Money wants to do good by building something, funding research/treatments, set up a foundation, build a hospital, fund research on killer diseases, build water-treatment plants, I am all for that. It’s when they use their $$$ to subvert democracy that crosses the line. They are welcome to have their name on a campus or hospital; they don’t get to own candidates/officeholders or thwart the votes of millions.
Mandalay
@Trentrunner:
That same scenario came up in Britain when Prime Minister Blair was telling parents to give their kids the MMR vaccine, but refused to state whether his own one year old child had received it, citing privacy concerns. As another politician said of that bullshit:
As a politician you forgo your right to medical privacy once you start telling other people what they should do to their bodies.
boatboy_srq
@brantl: Rockefeller did a lot for the arts and for education, for public health and a number of other causes. But of course, he used some of the rest of his money to pound on unions, so none of that matters.
gbear
@Elizabelle: I can’t go search right now. Not until this evening.
Jeffro
And while I’m on my soap box, here is a great campaign ad idea all wrapped up and ready to go:
Picture a guy coming in to a voting location (preferably, with a kid or two in tow). He’s clearly glad to be there, the workers are nice to him as he signs in, etc. He moves up in line so that he’s next to be called to a voting booth.
His kid(s) ask him, “Is that it Daddy?” He goes, “No, now’s the important part – where I go in there” (points to booth) “and cast my vote for responsible people to run our town, state, and country” The kids get all comically bug-eyed and ‘Dad’ laughs.
Then…in strolls an obviously well-to-do fellow, prepared to do the same…only trailing behind him are some animated clouds w/ “VOTE SMITH!” and “SAY NO TO JONES!” (or whatever) on them, with animated cash floating out of the fellow’s back pocket and up into the clouds. The clouds then proceed to ‘rain’ on the voters coming in behind the ‘fellow’, changing their neutral expressions depending upon which cloud is ‘raining’ on them.
‘Dad’ and the kids look at each other, frown, and then turn and look at the rich fellow…who smiles widely as the shot pans back so all of the newly “enlightened” voters can be seen either smiling/frowning. (Not sure if the rich dude going “What? It’s all perfectly legal!” is necessary, but it’s an option)
Pan back to the Dad and kids. Dad goes, “Well, let’s vote…and then it looks like we’ve got some work to do before the next election…”
/pipe dream
JohnMcG
Which is why you’re OK with letting people draw their own conclusions about these videos, and not trying to tesll us about them.
Another Holocene Human
@boatboy_srq: I find this incomprehensible. Rockefeller ruthlessly destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of people, all in the pursuit of “winning” in business. He also gave to charity from the time he was a young man. He made a big thing of it, as if it excused everything else he did, however unChristian. He must have missed the verse where Jesus says of the hypocrite, “He already has his reward.”
Another Holocene Human
There was no farm aid or price controls when Rockefeller turned the screws on those Midwestern farmers. Just a rent he was hellbent to extract. He’s like a cable company with a body count. Believe me, those families will never forgive–or forget.
boatboy_srq
@Jeffro: the questions in particular are:
1) The GOTea prez field is wooing, not the average GOP, but the big money. The term I used was the pejorative of the action, without intending to demean the individuals engaging in the practice. Pr0st!tutes being sympathetic figures doesn’t change pr0st!titu0n being illegal and questionably ethical.
2) The discussion was about a wealthy local leading the charge to oust a corrupt public official. Does that fall into the same cesspool as buying a pol (thereby supporting a public official’s corruption)? I would draw a distinction there – as I would with the Gilded Age philanthropy: there’s a lot of baby-and-bathwater math going on, and I’m not sure we’re prepared to go without the various libraries/universities/hospitals that were beneficiaries of those donations just because they were made with less-than-ethical practices.
Brachiator
@Jeffro:
A little too abstract I think, but a good start.
boatboy_srq
@Another Holocene Human: brantl was suggesting that no spending by any capitalist has merit because the origin of the wealth is unpalatable. No virtue possible for the vice-ridden. I had a problem with that.
Carl Nyberg
@balconesfault:
As someone who has been active on US foreign policy issues since the 1990s, the Clintons have long left a sour taste in my mouth.
But HRC failing to defend Planned Parenthood from a Right Wing smear job?
I thought HRC was cynical but smart & competent.
Showing a willingness to step away from Planned Parenthood shows that she’s not going to stick with progressives on anything tough.
And after all the BS Right Wing attacks on Hillary Clinton, I figured she’d at least be good in neutralizing or debunking a Right Wing attack.
I’m surprised she handled the PP attack so badly.
Jeffro
@boatboy_srq: I think we’re in agreement on #1 and perhaps even more on #2 – no ‘baby-with-the-bathwater’, definitely.
Again, I’m totally fine with them putting their names all over hospitals, libraries, universities – heck, we can re-name endangered species that they save if they really insist – but I think people of all/no political leanings ought to come together to get big money and its influence out of the democratic process.
Brachiator
@Carl Nyberg:
Why is that?
Elizabelle
@gbear: Thank you! If I become unlazy, will hunt it down and share.
Heliopause
My guess is that Dems will have a lot harder time running away from Planned Parenthood than Acorn. Acorn served a powerless constituency that DC elites don’t care about, but Planned Parenthood serves a broader constituency.
J R in WV
I make a monthly automatic contribution to Planned parenthood, and have done so for many years. Pretty much ever since I realized how important their services were (and are!~) to women who have almost no access to any other reproductive health care.
Women have medical needs that men do not. It isn’t possible for men to understand how a woman feels when she becomes ensnared in a health crisis with no access to medical care whatsoever. But we can have empathy for those women, and make an effort to help them out.
I understand that Planned Parenthood is receiving a great groundswell of support, both financial and political, in the face of this disgusting and false propaganda. If anyone here is interested in helping them out and is capable financially, here’s a link that you can use to go help out.
OK, no there isn’t a link right now — the Planned Parenthood web site is “down for maintenance” as in probably crushed by a flood of right-wing-nutjobs attacking their servers. Here’s the phone number to call and contribute:
1-800-798-7092
Do it! You’ll feel better if you do something, even if it’s just $10 !!!
Nastybrutishntall
@srv: when will Obama realize we can’t afford roads, ports, a military, or a national currency? Once everything we need is gone, we will be free.
Morzer
@Jeffro:
Hey, at least we now know that Ted Cruz can hope for a bright shiny new career asking people “Do you want Friess with that?”
AxelFoley
@FlipYrWhig: I don’t think you remember all the shit Hillary’s side tossed at Obama. And the Bernie stans are in NO way Obama people. You can kill that noise right now.
Morzer
@FlipYrWhig:
I remember HRC delivering some remarkably offensive and stupid remarks involving Zimbabwe in the 2008 primary. I’d suggest that revisiting that whole kerfuffle is not going to be productive for anyone on the Democratic side of politics.
Phil Perspective
@FlipYrWhig: Like the pro-Hillary crowd(Hi Barney Frank!!) aren’t insufferable as well?