Civil & Human Rights

Thucky and the Gish Gallop

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Frequent commenter Thucydides, who is affectionately known as Thucky around these parts and who may or may not be Arizona’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, has a familiar arguing style. DailyKos diarist AmBush referred to it after the first Presidential debate in 2012, where Mitt Romney “won” by spewing out a barrage of lies and distortions of his own positions. The technique is known as the Gish Gallop.

The Urban Dictionary defines the Gish Gallop thusly:

Named for the debate tactic created by creationist shill Duane Gish, a Gish Gallop involves spewing so much bullshit in such a short span on that your opponent can’t address let alone counter all of it. To make matters worse a Gish Gallop will often have one or more ‘talking points’ that has a tiny core of truth to it, making the person rebutting it spend even more time debunking it in order to explain that, yes, it’s not totally false but the Galloper is distorting/misusing/misstating the actual situation. A true Gish Gallop generally has two traits.

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Anti-choicers actively tried to harm Arizona women with medication abortion law

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

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The official line on TRAP laws (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers) is that they are necessary to make abortion “safer”. Of course, anti-choicers bent on passing often have a hard time staying on script about that, as we saw in April during the floor debate in the AZ legislature about surprise clinic inspections.

But Wednesday’s debate quickly moved from medical necessity to religion. Sen. David Farnsworth, R-Mesa, said he supports this measure because he backs anything he considers to be “pro-life.”

“It is amazing to me that we in America can give a slap in the face to God above by killing these unborn children,” he said. “Who is more defenseless than a child in the womb?”

Sen. Al Melvin, R-Tucson, commented about being a Roman Catholic and a Republican.

“And I take great pride in that my church and my political party both stand for the sanctity of human life, from conception to natural death,” said Melvin, a Republican candidate for governor.

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John Oliver Calls on Angry Internet Trolls to Save Net Neutrality (video)

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computer keyboardIt’s a sad state of affairs when a country that touts freedom of the press depends upon cable TV comedy shows to hear the real news.

Recently, comedian John Oliver– formerly with The Daily Show and now with his own satirical “news” show– aired a 13-minute explanation of net neutrality, why we should all care, and, most importantly, what we can do about it (besides blog, whine, protest, etc.)

According to Oliver, the concept of net neutrality is too boring and complicated for mainstream news outlets to worry their pretty little heads about it, so many Americans are uninformed. In its current state, the Internet is one, big, messy democracy of loosely organized information– all traveling at the same speed to and from your computer.  When you do a Google search, “news” (AKA spin) from multi-billion-dollar corporate giants can appear next to lowly blog posts dissing the same corporate giants. This is net neutrality. Thanks to social media and free blogging platforms, anyone with basic computer skills and time on their hands can be heard.

Telecom giants like Comcast and Verizon want to de-democratize the Internet by instituting two levels of access– the high-speed lane for corporate people with deep pockets and the slow lane for the rest of us. Verizon sued the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the net neutrality rules and won in January 2014.

Interestingly enough, multinational corporations like Google and Facebook (who would have to pay big bucks for that fast lane) are teaming up with everyday folks (who really want the Internet to be open to everyone equally and regulated like a utility) to fight for net neutrality. (Oliver says it’s like Lex Luthor teaming up with Superman.)

This is where you and the Internet trolls come in. FCC has opened up a comment period. (Commenting instructions and Oliver’s video, after the jump.)

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9th Circuit Court of Appeals strikes down Arizona abortion restriction

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Cathi Herrod and her Christian Taliban at the Center for Arizona Policy (CAP), and her willing accomplices in our lawless Tea-Publican legislature, suffered another defeat today when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against the Arizona law which restricts the use of abortion-inducing medications Court to continue blocking Ariz. abortion law:

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against an Arizona law that restricted the use of abortion-inducing medications.

Read the opinion Here (.pdf).

Nearly half of all abortions performed in Arizona use the medication, as opposed to surgical abortions. The medication is used during the first nine weeks of pregnancy, while surgical abortions are performed later.

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Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to hear same-sex marriage appeals from Idaho and Nevada in September

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EqualIn early March, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals scheduled oral arguments in Nevada’s same-sex marriage case, Sevcik v. Sandoval, for April 9th in San Francisco. Shortly thereafter, however, the Court of Appeals cancelled the April 9 date for argument without explanation.

The oral argument was believed to have been cancelled due to a judge of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals sua sponte requesting an en banc hearing in SmithKline Beecham v. Abbott Laboratories, a case that  involved whether gay people could be kept off a jury in a trial. (The SmithKline Beecham heightened scrutiny standard of review had caused the state of Nevada to drop its defense of the state’s same-sex marriage ban in Sevcik v. Sadoval).

The court requested both parties to file briefs on whether the court should rehear SmithKline Beecham. Both parties asserted that the underlying standard for evaluating sexual-orientation discrimination claims did not warrant further review.

The SmithKline Beecham panel has not issued its mandate to the parties, and the 9th Circuit has not yet announced the result of its internal poll of judges to determine whether to hold an en banc reconsideration (polling of the judges was to have concluded at the end of this past week). An announcement of en banc review would effectively cancel the panel decision in SmithKline Beecham as a precedent.

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