Roe v. Wade was decided when I was a high school senior; womens’ reproductive rights were a perennial topic of discussion even (perhaps especially) in our Dominican-nun-led parochial school. By the time I was in college, poring through my first copy of Our Bodies, Ourselves, birth control was finally being offered even to unmarried students through campus health services. (Although our Midwestern state campus still didn’t have a gynecologist affiliated with the student medical center. There were two large-animal gynecologists on faculty — “we” were very proud of our veterinary school — but none for humans.) My first non-student job, at that same university, provided full coverage for abortion as well as birth control, because it had been demanded by a majority-female work union. We also got it written into the campus hiring guidelines that women couldn’t be fired just for becoming pregnant… which was very much standard practice, even for married women, in those days. And we were damned proud of our progress, because we knew that things had changed drastically, as a result of a lot of peoples’ hard work and sacrifice over many years.
It was a Biden BFD when Planned Parenthood stepped outside its non-partisan box and endorsed Hillary Clinton, for the first time in its hundred-year history. As the NYTimes interpreted that choice:
… The decision to break with tradition and endorse Mrs. Clinton comes as the House has approved a measure, endorsed by the leading Republican presidential candidates, that would repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act and strip away federal financing for Planned Parenthood, which provides reproductive and health care services.
“Everything Planned Parenthood has believed in and fought for over the past 100 years is on the ballot,” said Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood…
Other groups that support abortion rights, including NARAL Pro-Choice America PAC, have already endorsed Mrs. Clinton. But in Planned Parenthood’s case, Mrs. Clinton’s future and the group’s are intrinsically linked: Planned Parenthood needs to have a Democrat elected president to protect its funding, and Mrs. Clinton is hoping abortion rights and the Republican candidates’ positions will motivate female voters to support her.
The Clinton campaign has functioned almost as a marketing arm for Planned Parenthood, featuring a section on its official website titled “17 times Hillary Clinton stood with Planned Parenthood,” Facebook messages and Instagram posts with the hashtag #StandwithPP. (Ms. Richards’ daughter works on the campaign’s staff in Iowa.)…
Young women in 2016 — so we’re told — prefer Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton, because what they perceive as most important right now is economic justice, digging the 99% out from under the crushing weight of ALEC-initiated legislation that supports the kleptocracy. Increasing the minimum wage, reducing or eliminating student loan debt, making it possible for citizens under the age of forty to consider the possibility of home ownership or parenthood outside of a lottery win (or a legacy from their elders). I don’t resent their priorities, but I do sometimes wish they had a little better understanding of how recently it’s become possible for a woman to assume that she could choose to be sexually active without risking her social status, her health, her job, and even her life. One more Republican president, another “conservative” (revanchist) Supreme Court Justice or three, four years of the American Taliban re-writing laws that protect those of us not straight-white-men-with-good-educations from the ravages of unbridled late-stage plutocracy… “we” probably can’t be dragged right back to the unlamented 1950s when Good Girls Didn’t, and Bad Girls Deserved Their Punishment. We have better technology these days (Norplant, Plan B, mifepristone), praise goddess, and too many women working in too many key positions to go full Mad Men in the workforce. But even though I’ll never have to worry about another pregnancy test, I would really very much prefer that “we” don’t let the worst elements of the right wing drag us even one step backwards.
.@hillaryclinton's defense of abortion rights as an economic issue: https://t.co/jfDZPBkDSs pic.twitter.com/s2SjwLL04l
— Julie Whitaker (@julesdwit) January 18, 2016
And it’s kind of discouraging to read Michelle Goldberg repeating the same warnings Gloria Steinem wrote thirty years ago — “The Head of the DNC Says Young Women Are ‘Complacent.’ She’s Not Totally Wrong.”
I spent a lot of 2008 arguing with women like Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who couldn’t fathom why younger women weren’t more excited about Hillary Clinton. In a just-published New York Times Magazine interview, Wasserman Schultz was asked whether she sees a generational divide in Clinton support. “Here’s what I see: a complacency among the generation of young women whose entire lives have been lived after Roe v. Wade was decided,” she replied…
…[N]ow that I’m 40, I understand the exasperation of older Clinton supporters in a way I simply could not at 32. That’s because—in my own, admittedly very privileged experience—it’s only as I approach middle age that I’m aware of what being a woman has cost me. In my twenties and early thirties, I felt that I enjoyed the same professional attention and opportunities as my male colleagues. I didn’t realize at the time that being treated as an ingénue and being treated as an up-and-comer are not the same thing, and that only one comes with a continuing skyward trajectory. I couldn’t have seen then how so many of the men in my peer group would soar beyond the women, how having children would change my professional prospects, how aging would mean being treated with less respect instead of more. I didn’t know what it was to feel my status falling while that of the men around me rises. As it does, the unending contempt that Clinton receives for her clothes and her hairstyle, for growing older and stouter, have become personal to me in a way they weren’t eight years ago…
I don’t regret supporting Barack Obama then, and I don’t blame the women—of all ages—who support Bernie Sanders today. (If I thought Sanders was electable, I’d be backing him myself.) But when I read the many, many stories about the generational divide over Clinton, in which young women blithely downplay the significance of breaking men’s nearly two-and-a-half-century lock on the presidency, I can’t help but feel that they are, in fact, a little complacent…
A little more (quite recent) history…
John Cole
You are so going to hear from Redshirt.
Svensker
That last vid is a really good speech by Hill.
Baud
Judging by the moderators’ questions in the debates up till now, you wouldn’t know that woman’s rights were even at issue in this election.
Gin & Tonic
As a man of similar age as AL, father of two women and husband of one, and also one for whom without Roe v Wade life would be, let’s say … um .. different, and probably not in a good way, I say “Bravo” to this post.
Cacti
The Sanders campaign apparently feels sanguine enough about these issues to make snide digs at Planned Parenthood, for the offense of not endorsing him.
Heliopause
A more logical explanation is that, since Bernie and Hillary are utterly indistinguishable on reproductive issues, other issues become the tiebreaker.
Trentrunner
It’s a good speech EXCEPT for the “safe, legal, and RARE.” (Emphasis added.)
Doesn’t matter whether abortions are rare or not. It’s a right. End of story. (Obviously I agree that better birth control access and education lead to fewer abortions, but saying that abortions should be “rare” stigmatizes them in a way that is too close to shaming women who “use abortion as birth control”–which, by the way, is also 100% OK.)
Otherwise, A for Hillary.
Baud
@efgoldman: Candidates could be asked about their specific ideas. Everyone knows that Republicans want to cut taxes, but they are still asked about their specific plans.
Mike J
Some young women are very involved in the campaign.
Just Some Fuckhead
I didn’t follow the logic that we should elect Hillary Clinton in a year because Republicans are passing yet another bad bill that will be vetoed.
Mike J
@Just Some Fuckhead: Reviving Glass-Steagall isn’t the best way to ensure women get proper health care.
Baud
@Just Some Fuckhead: Seems like sloppy NYT reporting. (I didn’t click through to see what PP said.)
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mike J: That didn’t make a lick of sense either. Don’t be lazy. Use your words and make your fucking case.
BlueDWarrior
It does disturb me that people just assume that since we have made progress on an issue, that we can NEVER EVER regress. Oh we most certainly can regress, and a lot of states have regressed to a point where the map of where you can get an abortion without some asinine waiting policy, or even so much as being able to find an open facility, is looking remarkably like the map in 1970.
So don’t ever think civilization can’t regress as fast as it can progress. And fighting for rights is an eternal battle, one that is never over so long as humans with retrograde views walk the earth.
hitchhiker
My best friend got pregnant at a time when she could not have raised a child. She had to get herself from Michigan to New York to get an abortion; this was in 1971. The extra expense and hassle made her 10 weeks pregnant by the time she could make the arrangements. It was traumatic, difficult, and costly.
I got pregnant in 1978 at a time when I could not have raised a child. I walked from my apartment to Planned Parenthood and got an abortion at 7 weeks. It was a simple, straightforward, shame-free event.
Both of us went on to have children later — when we could afford to take care of them and were in relationships with men who became good fathers. (The man who got her pregnant later was jailed for sexual contact with a minor. The man who got me pregnant went on to father two more children with two more women, and played no part in any of their lives.)
Once I’d married and achieved a level of stability, I was eager to become a mother. I happened to have daughters, and it is a simple fact that neither of these young women would exist if I hadn’t terminated that first pregnancy. I wouldn’t have finished school, or worked where I did, or lived where I did, or ever met their father.
This is off-topic, but I always want to ask the rigid anti-abortion folk how they can be so certain that the plan their “God” had in mind for me wasn’t the one that led to my kids . . .
On-topic, I’d just say that not all young women take their reproductive rights for granted. Mine (now in their mid-20s) don’t. They know my history, for one thing. They’re also thoughtful and have been in the workforce long enough to see what the game still is.
Cacti
@Mike J:
Remember when that billionaire shot up a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado?
Yeah, me neither.
Corner Stone
Did we somewhere decide that equality and the absolute right to make choices on their own body was a joke, or something?
jl
My take is that I am not sure there is enough difference between HRC and Sanders for it be a big issue in the primary. But as the general gets closer, it should be a very big issue, with Supreme Court appointments mentioned frequently and the implications of corrupt and incompetent decisions on individual’s lives.
I was going to say ‘ outrageously bad’ rather than ‘corrupt and incompetent’ but I don’t feel like euphemisms tonight.
I hope HRC is very aggressive and challenges the GOPer pledge not to go after women’s health (apart from anything directly related to sexytime), pre- and post-natal care, and contraception. I don’t think the GOPer will be able to, lest he discourage the fundies from voting. And Sanders too, if he is the nominee.
Gvg
The GOP chauvinists want to take every woman’s rights.
Sanders is just complacent and narrowly focused. He isn’t reliable in seeing dangers or correctly assessing them. I think he would get fooled too often or put things too far down the list of priorities on both women’s issues and racial ones.
Hillary is weaker on economics than ideal but the radical religious fanatics displaying their madness need to be stopped. I think she is more cynical and careful and I am afraid it’s nessesary. Supreams court appointments.
Corner Stone
@Heliopause:
That could possibly be true. I guess.
Hillary Rettig
Popping in to suggest everyone watch Vera Drake, a great movie about set in England when abortion was illegal. Directed by Mike Leigh, who’s a genius, and starring Imelda Staunton aka Dolores Umbridge.
Corner Stone
When I envision health care law and repro rights for women being legislated the most important thing I want to see is a cabal of old white males.
Cain
In Oregon, everyone has abortion rights. I expect this state to become very popular as an oasis from the crazy at least in the metropolitan areas. The conservative areas aren’t bad either for the most part (as you can see from the local reaction in Burns)
That said, I saw a Carson sticker today, luckily it wasn’t an Oregon but Washington license plate. Probably some asshole from Clark County who shows up here while living in his ‘tax shelter’ and get all our stuff without paying taxes. I hope the I5 bridge encounters an issue where it must be closed (without any fatalities or whatnot) so those assholes have to travel east for an hour and cross over before getting back to Oregon.
CaseyL
The more I hear about Sanders, and the more I hear from Clinton, the more enthusiastic I am about supporting Clinton. Being female is an issue all by itself, and women’s rights are regressing as fast as POC rights.
Sanders relates everything to economics. I understand his point, but don’t agree with it. Long long ago (so long ago I can’t recall details about who or where) I was part of a conversation about civil rights. Someone was trying to make a point that economic justice was more important than racial justice. Another person refuted them, talking about the sit-ins that were an essential part of the civil rights movement in the South. Something along the lines of “we had money; our money still wasn’t good enough to sit at the goddamn lunch counter.”
Being considered sufficiently human, or sufficiently sovereign within our humanity, to make basic decisions about our own lives is a quintessential human right. The GOP would deny that to women (and POC, and gays, and a host of other groups). It’s not about economics. It’s about denying our basic humanity.
Mike J
@Just Some Fuckhead: When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Cacti: Remember when a sizable chunk of the American electorate convinced themselves that they were one coughing stranger away from dying of Ebola, if marauding bands of scimitar-wielding ISIS fighters running unchecked through the lanes and drives and courts of their gated communities didn’t behead them before they shit out their own liquified hearts? and that the only thing that could save them was voting for a Republican Senate candidate? I do. They don’t.
These are the people Lawrence O’Donnell thinks will have mature discussion over the nuances of socialism at their neighborhood barbecues this summer (after all, Fred, Social Security is socialism. Want another cheese infused frank?) before they decide to pull the lever for Bernie.
Mike J
BTW, catch the Carson show on Antenna tonight. He makes Bill Clinton jokes from 1992 in the monologue.
Mike J
@efgoldman:
Senator for Vermont pulls about the same number of votes as mayor of Seattle.
cmorenc
The last couple of nights, Fox News has been aggressively pushing the assertion that the federal inspector general’s recent report that Clinton emails had intel from the most secret, classified programs (special access programs) means that Hillary Clinton committed indictable crimes – “Judge” Anthony Napolitano explicitly said so in a segment with Megan Kelly tonight, and then the discussion turned to speculating what effect it would have on the democratic nomination contest if the charges came down after Hillary had acquired enough delegats for the nomination.
The subject just before the emails? How many women were souring on Clinton because of the history of sexual abuse of women by her husband.
The times I am forced to watch their tripe (because my favorite workout machine at the Y sits directly in front of the one TV among the bank of TVs set to different stations) – Fox never misses a chance to slander and cast Clinton in as negative, unflattering a light as possible.
Mike J
@Mike J: But without the diversity.
NotMax
Prior to medical and nutritional advances during the lifetimes of many here, pregnancy wasn’t called “the delicate condition” for no reason. The inventory of untreatable or marginally treatable complications was myriad.
Joel
I’m probably a slight Hilary-leaner at this point, for pragmatic reasons more than anything, but her allies and surrogates are annoying as fuck. Wasserman Schultz is nowhere near the Lanny Davis, Mark Penn class of troll, but I’m not a fan of hers at all.
Calliope Jane
We had an embarrassment of riches in 2008 and I don’t see ultimately voting for Barack Obama as being complacent about my reproductive rights. I cried when Kennedy’s Carhart decision came out, I’m aware of what’s at stake. Looking back, I was more complacent about what it would mean to have a woman in the White House– and after the level of sludge directed at the President Im almost looking forward? to having all the misogyny slither out to the sunshine; perhaps some of it will be disinfected. But Hillary Clinton is actively supporting reproductive rights so I’m right there with her. She has better advisors this time and I’ve remembered why I’ve always liked her in the first place. I think she’s the best person to help build on the progress of the last eight years.
It’s just personal experience, but in 2000 I found many of my fellow young voters to be, well, idiots, and believed in Nader, etc, etc. I had so many arguments on how different Gore actually was from Bush but no luck. In 2012, however, young women were dialed in. Same location, but wow were all the women aware, enthusiastic, knowledgeable. No Romney-curious among them, and for a red state it made feel very good. We’re getting better, in other words.
Mike J
@NotMax: Ever hear of Émilie du Châtelet? French noble who translated the Principia, died in childbirth.
Gin & Tonic
@cmorenc:
I have the same problem at the gym on the nights I’m working my legs, because all the machines I need are more or less in front of the Fox TV. I look down or close my eyes.
But Adam had a post last night or the night before when he said that it’s physically impossible for the “special access program” stuff to get to her server unless somebody retyped it from memory.
HRA
I know a few days ago I read a piece about woman’s rights from Bernie Sanders online. If I had not read it, then I would have believed what is written here. If anything at all, it would be very gratifying to not see all this misinformation being driven to the point of dismay. FYI I have no horse in this race. Here is the url I had read. https://berniesanders.com/issues/fighting-for-womens-rights/
Just Some Fuckhead
@Joel: Nice to find out she’s still joined at the medulla oblongata with the cretinous Sidney Blumemthal. Hard to think she will suddenly become a good decision maker using that piece of shit as a sounding board all day every day.
Mike J
@Just Some Fuckhead: You post here everyday. What are we supposed to think about your smarts?
Satby
“I couldn’t have seen then how so many of the men in my peer group would soar beyond the women, how having children would change my professional prospects, how aging would mean being treated with less respect instead of more. I didn’t know what it was to feel my status falling while that of the men around me rises”
This really resonates with me, because I didn’t forsee it either.
WarMunchkin
@Heliopause: I feel like I’m reading the political equivalent of an “entitled millenials” article.
amk
Other than angry white dudes, which seems divvied up mainly between sanders and trump, what else sanders has got?
Mai.naem.mobile
I’ve been reading a little about the Flint water issue. Its being politicized ofcourse. Supposedly the.Midwest EPA head covered up the lead in water data and was aggressive pushing back at residents who complained. So, this is so this is all Obamas fault.
jl
@Gin & Tonic: So far, it is all the same BS. Everything I have seen described in stories was stuff that was only classified during the review, in 2015, either upgraded or newly classified.
As far as I can see, the good news is that news stories are starting to worry that readers catching on to the con, and referring to the fact that is all stuff that as only recently reclassified, though doing so in a very confusing way in order to mislead the reader into thinking it is still some big scandal.
Writing BS Clinton scandal information product must be high margin business. I’m sure the media wants to keep the gravy train going for as long as they can.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Mike J: Sidney?? Is that you?
HRA
I was put in moderation. (sigh) I hardly comment here considering how long I have been reading BJ. Maybe I’ll find it tomorrow when everyone else is gone. Goodnight!
Adam L Silverman
@jl: Its not just that. There’s also the important question of if their campaigns and campaign organizations are working for candidates for the House and Senate and at the state and local levels that share their positions – on this and other important issues. Being able to veto legislation coming out of Congress that restricts the right to choose and appointing Federal District, Appellate, and Supreme Court Justices that won’t chew away at Roe or overturn it outright is important. Building a team in Congress, as well as in state legislatures and a bench of local officials that can move up is equally important in preventing states and localities from chipping away at the right to an abortion and other women’s reproductive rights (women’s ownership of their own bodies) so that you don’t have a formal right to an abortion under Roe, but in practice its impossible to get an abortion.
Anne Laurie
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Blumenthal’s a very old friend, who was loyal to her when a lot of “good progressives” *cough*Hitchens*cough* were drawing away the hem of their garments. He forwards a ton of email crap to her, and no doubt to every other person he has an addy for. She hasn’t obtained the internet equivalent of a restraining order, but that doesn’t mean she pays attention to everything he sends her — any more than you pay attention to every email you get from your nuttier relatives/neighbors/that one guy at the office.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: @cmorenc: Its possible, but its improbable. It would be very hard to do. Two type it directly into an unclassified email one would have to either do it by memory or have had to smuggle had written notes out of the Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility (SCIF) and to where one has an unclassified workstation to type it directly into an email. The other way would be to print it out on the printer in the SCIF, then smuggle it out of the SCIF, then take it to an unclassified scanner outside the SCIF, scan it in, and email it to oneself and the recipient or email it to oneself and then forward it to the recipient. That’s a lot of work. And the SCIFs all have video surveillance so anyone doing stuff like this would show up on the monitors. Remember how they caught Sandy Berger? He’d try to stuff his own handwritten notes into his socks before leaving. Someone saw it and he was caught.
Mike J
@efgoldman: The Onion just sold for twice the valuation of the WaPo.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anne Laurie: I find the Clinton’s loyalty to their long time friends to be one of their collective better qualities.Sidney’s no longer an asset of any kind, but they don’t turn their back on him. He burned his career as a journalist for Bill. They won’t let him near the levers of power, but they won’t cut him off either.
Gretchen
@Just Some Fuckhead: We want to elect a Democrat so when crappy bills are passed they are vetoed. If a Republican is president when crappy bills are passed, they become law.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anne Laurie: So he’s simultaneously a very old loyal friend and unsolicited spammer. Got it.
Is that seriously how you interpreted their email correspondence?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Gretchen: So your just making an electability argument, the same one being tossed around about every candidate.
I thought there was more to it. That’s a little disappointing.
Gretchen
AL: Totally agree that I wish young women knew what it was like before. I’m a couple of years older than you are, and my married sister hid her pregnancy as long as she could so that she wouldn’t get fired. And she was so grateful they let her stay on after they knew. Of course there was no question of her keeping her job after the baby was born. They let her free-lance a bit later, and again she was so grateful. Now it’s taken for granted your job is safe and you can come back. I don’t think it’s a question of time, though. People already take it for granted that their kids can stay on their insurance until they’re 26. Hasn’t it always been that way? There’s no awareness that this is thanks to Obamacare, and it will go away if Obamacare is repealed.
David *Born in the USA* Koch
PPP Poll — North Carolina — Jan 18-19
Whites
Clinton……………….49%
Sanders……………..33%
O’Malley……………….7%
Blacks
Clinton……………….77%
Sanders……………..12%
O’Malley……………….2%
Others
Clinton……………….51%
Sanders……………..32%
O’Malley……………..10%
There’s a fiction on blogs that Sanders is winning Whites but is being held back by the Blahs. In reality, outside of Iowa, Vermont, and neighboring New Hampshire, Sanders is losing Whites everywhere.
He’s losing his own people by double digits (16 points) in North Carolina, by a margin of 56-26 in South Carolina, and by 15 points nationally.
Sandernistas can’t keep blaming Blacks for their bad polling. Of course, not being in touch with reality, I expect them to find new people to scapegoat.
eclare
@CaseyL: Agreed. Good point.
Satby
@Trentrunner: Consider that it should be safe, legal, and rare because abortion can be a wrenching decision even for those women who decide to end a pregnancy, and so women need safe easy to acquire birth control to make the need for an abortion less likely. I know many women (and the partners who supported them) who decided to end pregnancies, I don’t know anyone who found the decision an easy one to make.
WarMunchkin
@David *Born in the USA* Koch: “his own people”. FFS
Omnes Omnibus
@Satby: Yes, I always understood rare in this context to mean that if is there if the other options fail. Access to BC and guys’ willingness to take responsibility for their part in BC (e.g., put a helmet on it) should reduce the need for abortions drastically.
Gretchen
Not an electability argument. A legislation passed argument. Congress can pass whatever it wants. If we have a Dem in the White House, they veto crappy Republican legislation. If we have a Rep in the White House, it goes into law. If Trump is president, it’s law. If Hillary is president, it’s vetoed. See how that works?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Gretchen: If Bernie is president, it gets vetoed. If you’re saying he can’t be elected, you’re making an electability argument. See how that works?
Feebog
@David *Born in the USA* Koch:
Facts can be such a bitch sometimes.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
what the hell’s wrong with an electability argument?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: They are all equally valid.
SiubhanDuinne
@HRA:
You had a naked link. Since the redesign, doing that gets you moderated. You have to embed your links now.
SiubhanDuinne
@Satby:
I found it an extremely easy decision to make.
Vhh
@Trentrunner: The “rare” is there to say that access to birth control is fundamental—a key feature of the ACA, championed by PP, Obama, andthe Clintons.
Anne Laurie
@Just Some Fuckhead:
You don’t have a single old friend or relative whose non-stop OMG THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING emails get a quick glance for salience before you hit the delete key? Not all of us have your strong hand on the ‘junk’ key… or your skill at convincing people not to bother you!
Just Some Fuckhead
@Anne Laurie: I don’t buy your characterization of their relationship or of him just being some political gadfly. I think there’s enough evidence to make the case that he is one of her most trusted advisors.
seaboogie
I know that I am not in the minority here when I say that DWS is cray-cray, especially on the debate front and making them more visible. Generally I feel kind of “meh” about Hillary – until I hear her speak. She’s is not inspirational at all, but she is a stone wonk. She is so intelligent, so wonky, a passionate workhorse, and still has a sense of humor, and has such a thick skin at this point. I really respect her.
I like where Bernie is driving her, but Bernie as President? Just this side of Larry David as President.
amk
@Just Some Fuckhead:
Unless bernie brings with him a veto proof majority, for which he seems to be doing zilch. So yeah, electability alone proves zilch.
amk
@David *Born in the USA* Koch:
Sandernistas can’t keep blaming Blacks for their bad polling. Of course, not being in touch with reality, I expect them to find new people to scapegoat.
This. He became a dem just a few months back, ffs and bernistas want the base to fall in line behind him without any questions being asked.
Goblue72
I really can’t wait for Boomers to shuffle off the mortal coil. Most annoying as fuck generation ever.
Seriously – vote for Hillary or you are a deluded Millenuial who doesn’t know how lucky she is?
Go fuck yourself.
Just Some Fuckhead
@amk: I saw this exact same rhetorical device used on HRC in 2008. Fascinating.
amk
@Just Some Fuckhead:
And it was proven right in the end. What is your point?
Every pol had to work for his votes. Dems being the big tent and all, one size doesn’t fit all. I am sure sanders knows it.
eemom
@Goblue72:
You are an utterly insufferable little asshole, Mr. Millenial. Surely your generation can do better than you.
Better hope so, anyway, cuz we ain’t dying off anytime soon.
seaboogie
@Goblue72:
Boomers and Millenials both bearing the characteristics of entitlement and narcissism – a gift from their parents. So now the youngs know best and want the olds to either shut up or die and take their history with them. Oldest story in the world – generationally – and the Boomers felt the same about their parents, because they were young and had it all figured out.
FYI – the dude who invented your internets platform that has you glued to your screen? Boomer.
Ruckus
@Goblue72:
Right the fuck back at ya.
Ruckus
@eemom:
Hell it’s worth living just to annoy the little shit.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Goblue72: Preach it. Demonstrably the worst generation.
a different chris
Sure are a lot of Purity Ponies in here… or does that label only fit when it’s subjects other than this one?
JustOutsideTheBeltway
@Adam L Silverman: Yes, if the data was transcribed text. But an exact transcription isn’t required. It’s the information that is classified, not the words used to describe it.
As I understand this particular Fox-initiated “crisis,” an aide forwarded a link to a magazine article about an unmanned aircraft that was operating oversees. It is very possible that no one involved even knew the information was classified. The nature of special access information is that only the people with special access know what is classified and what is not classified.
From what I’ve read I think this is the scenario – an intelligence agency was operating a top secret drone program overseas. The drone program was special access, meaning only a handful of people even knew the drone existed, let alone that it was operational, overseas, and in use. That’s the SAP information.
Someone journalist probably saw it parked at an air base, took a picture of it, and published it with a story. So far no leak has occurred. Clinton’s aide saw the story and forwarded it to Clinton. Again, this is not a leak, but it gets tricky if she was one of the handful of people with special access to the program. If she was then she would have had to take action to keep from spreading it around.
But the most likely scenario is that Clinton wasn’t a member of the inner circle, so no security violation. The State Department doesn’t conduct drone warfare, so why would she have special access? It is even more likely that the aide new nothing about the program. It is virtually certain that the journalist knew nothing – if s/he had know that it was classified they would never have published the article. If no one knew then no crime was committed.
So why the letter requesting additional security to protect the TOP SECRET/SAP information? Because, presumably, the agency that was secretly flying the drone over East Nowheristan would still like to keep a low profile on the fact that they were secretly flying a drone over East Nowheristan. That seems very reasonable. So when they saw the email, and saw that it contained information that they were protecting they stamped it TOP SECRET/SAP. Now it’s no longer just an email, it is part of the classified document stream, so the investigation has to protect it as such.
fuckwit
It’s an unfortunate blind spot of Bernie’s, caused by white male privilege.
Bernie’s an educated white guy. He sees things as economic. If he were female or black or Asian or Muslim or Mexican , he’d see it differently.
However, this gets complicated because the Rethugs since at least Nixon have used economics as a weapon against women and people of color. So Bernie’s not actually wrong.
The two issues are connected, and it’s hard to see which is the cause and which is the effect. I believe that the root issue is racism and sexism, and the economic injustice is an effect of that, and a weapon that is used by racists and sexists.
The ugly truth is that the constant attacks on health care and welfare and government in general– especially Federal government that gets singled out for special hate from the right wing– are deeply rooted in fear and hatred of equality and opportunity for women, immigrants, and people of color.
I’m a big Bernie fan so I hope he finds a way into his heart to understand this, and communicate it, and soon.
chris m
@Cacti: No, the billionaires just paid for the propoganda that motivated the shooter.
chris m
@fuckwit:
“It’s an unfortunate blind spot of Bernie’s, caused by white male privilege.”
If Bernie’s refusal to elevate reproductive issues over economic justice issues is white male privilege is the opposite a case of welth privilege?
Satby
@SiubhanDuinne: I found it to be a somewhat sad but necessary one and haven’t regretted my decision. I didn’t assume everyone finds it difficult, I thought I was clear that my statement was based on anecdotes, not data. But I think all of us would have preferred not to have to decide at all and that birth control hadn’t failed.
Xboxershorts
@Just Some Fuckhead: @Goblue72: Preach it. Demonstrably the worst generation.
Just One More Canuck
@Goblue72: in your case, yes
Xboxershorts
@Xboxershorts: “”The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar Left, and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.””
John Ehrlichman, Nixon WH Counsel
From the book “Smoke and Mirrors” by Dan Baum. Read it and understand what our government did to quash the dissent that the Boomers were raising…..
Kay
Maybe it’s because younger women have an actual, different lived experience than women my age did:
“Teen pregnancy” really means 18 and 19 years- the 13 year old mommy was always an outlier. Their lived experience for the last 20 years is different than that of someone 20 years older than them.
Maybe Planned Parenthood could use a different approach to reach a different set of people who had a different experience. It occurs to me that the War on Women line was most effective when it was used re: contraception. Maybe access to contraception is their issue rather than a focus on abortion, and there’s a practical reason for that- they have fewer unplanned pregnancies- which is a good thing (and a huge public health success story for Planned Parenthood to brag about).
This is just one young woman but my daughter is a (voting) liberal and she was pleased when Obama came out on support of contraception re: the health care law. I don’t remember the details but he addressed it directly and calmly without all the layers that people use on this subject. She appreciated that.
Matt McIrvin
@JustOutsideTheBeltway: Wow. So the secret information Hillary leaked was a link to a public magazine article that was mailed TO her? This is as damning as Climategate.
Kay
Republicans were at their most defensive and panicky when contraception was raised, too. The base forced Mitt Romney so far Right he was ready to undo George HW Bush’s support of federal funding for contraception. They were running from that- denying it.
That’s where they’re vulnerable, IMO, which is nice, because that’s where younger women seem to be- mostly focused on contraception and since contraception is a huge success story for liberals, maybe we could take advantage of that? :)
Whether you get Hillary Clinton elected on contraception or abortion you get her picks for SCOTUS judges and the same (federal) approach to reproductive issues, so you’re not giving anything up by changing focus and the abortion fight as a practical matter can then move to the states where the big losses on abortion are.
Kay
I’d love to see Clinton go out and crow about the drop in teen pregnancy. Claim it! Why not? Since the drop is most dramatic among young women who are AA and Latino I would personally love it because Right wingers like Bill O’Reilly lie about it all the time- he talks about it like it’s still 1976 and ignores the fact that teen pregnancy dropped dramatically in those groups. Down 45% for young Latino women over a 20 year span! Hurray!
Republicans and pundits will screech if she does it because it’s a public health/education success so therefore off-limits for politics it but you know the GOP would do it except they can’t because they have to pretend “welfare moms” are this giant and growing group.
Satby
@Kay: I think the “safe, legal, and rare” covers that? The point of the phrase is that widespread access to birth control reduces unplanned pregnancy thus reducing the need for abortions. We can’t pivot fully from abortion, the right wing is now relabelling some birth control methods as abortifacts (such as the IUD and Plan B) to try to restrict access to them. It’s all part of a whole, and young women today have a hard time believing they might have access to birth control taken away. Even though the extreme right wing has been very honest about that being one of their goals. We need to vigorously defend women’s access to both.
b.c. and abortion.
Barbara
My 20 something daughters plan to vote for Hillary. That is all.
Kay
@Satby:
I think that right there is the best argument for switching the focus. I just think you generally have to reach people where they are- if younger women want to focus on contraception as a public health issue then that’s where they are.
Ella in New Mexico
Young people, women and men, are for Sanders not because they don’t take reproductive freedom seriously. It’s because they know damn good and well tha he, just like Hilary, will do all he can to protect their rights, expand reproductive health care access and defend Roe v. Wade with good Supreme Court appointments.
There is no real difference between them on this issue. It’s all made up campaign rhetoric trying to squeeze out the marginal votes by magnifying any differences between Sanders and Clinton. Problem is, it stinks of the whole “If you’re a woman you should be voting for the woman” blather.
That might have been true earlier in my adult life, but it’s no longer true in my sons and daughter’s lives. They see reproductive health care as it is: health care. And they’re flabbergasted that it’s even being discussed that they lose access to it. But they’re not dumb enough to think either Hilary or Bernie would be anything but total stewards for it.
Susan D.
@Corner Stone:
I think it’s true. They are indistinguishable on this issue and I don’t think PP had to endorse one way or another. They chose to. Big deal.
Susan D.
@Barbara: My daughter is 18 and this will be the first election she will vote in and she is voting for Sanders as is many of her friends.
Ohio Mom
@Satby: I could say almost the same things about my mastectomy. Wish it wasn’t a decision that had to be made, was not a comfortable procedure to go through, would do the other side in a heartbeat if I had to.
I always wonder how many women feel it necessary to say they regret their abortions because that is what they think is expected. Not everyone is gutsy enough to say everything out loud.
I never had an abortion but I did have a baby. It is a wild hormonal ride when your body goes from pregnant to not pregnant. I’ve wondered how many women who are brainwashed into thinking they should feel guilty about their abortions mistake the feelings accompanying the sudden hormone shift as proof they’ve done wrong. I just interpreted mine as, “Wow, childbirth sure is something! I feel like sh*t!”
negative 1
@eemom: Please do keep telling us all how student loans and economic inequality aren’t a ‘single issue’ to vote on. That’s not condescending at all. Maybe, just maybe, young women are more concerned that they’ll be broke for the rest of their lives than the remote chance they’ll be pregnant without having planned it? What is Clinton promising to do about student loan debt? Because I have a mortgage and student loan debt; guess which is more?
Daulnay
For middle-class and working-class people, the last 30 years economically have been a zero-sum game. Any subgroup that got better off did so at the expense of the other groups. If blacks became better off, on average, then other groups became worse-off (and vice versa) If women became better-off on average, then men did worse.
This is a matter of math: there’s been zero growth in the average real income of all but the wealthier Americans. If any subgroup of the whole has an average economic gain, it must be offset by a loss by other groups. Otherwise, the average income would rise (and that didn’t happen).
The Republicans exploit this, saying “Look, Black/Hispanic/etc. are better off, and it’s at your expense.” And because the well-to-do raked off all economic gains over the last 30 years, it is true (for working-class and middle-class whites/men), at least to the extent that minorities/women have on average made gains.
This economic situation fuels competition, fear, and hatred. As long as it persists, conservatives will be able to fuel opposition to help for minorities by correctly pointing out that it comes at ‘your’ expense. It’s a serious, fundamental drawback to fulfilling equal rights for all. Does Clinton has any interest in fixing this situation? Bernie obviously does.