COVID-19 & Healthcare

ALEC 2015 States and Nation Policy Summit in Scottsdale today

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Cartoon_07Governor Doug Ducey, the ice cream man hired by Koch Industries to run their Southwest subsidiary formerly known as the state of Arizona, will be welcoming the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) to the hub of the “Kochtopus” evil empire in Scottsdale, Arizona today for the 2015 States and Nation Policy Summit.

The Agenda has Governor Ducey speaking at the luncheon today at Noon.

The Breakfast meeting for Thursday features former Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn. The Thursday luncheon speakers include about to be impeached Maine Governor Paul LePage, and president of the American Enterprise Institute, Arthur Brooks.

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MSM bias toward anti-choicers needs to stop.

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

I blame both for contributing to the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting but SportsGirl101 does make an excellent point about the mainstream media’s complicity in anti-choice violence due to their giving them a mostly uncritical platform to peddle lies about reproductive health and insidiously attack women’s autonomy. Because it’s often done under the banner of “balance”, news people who do this don’t see themselves as playing an aiding and abetting role. But they are. Witness how it’s done in this Reuter’s piece:

Planned Parenthood said on Sunday that news reports that the gunman who attacked its Colorado health clinic had uttered “no more baby parts” during his arrest showed that the suspect was motivated by an anti-abortion agenda.

The remark attributed to suspect Robert Lewis Dear was an apparent reference to Planned Parenthood’s abortion activities and its role in delivering fetal tissue to medical researchers, a hot button issue in the 2016 race for the presidency.

“We now know the man responsible for the tragic shooting at PP’s health center in Colorado was motivated by opposition to safe and legal abortion,” the organization said on Twitter.

Conservatives have accused Planned Parenthood, a nonprofit that provides a range of health services, including abortion, of illegally selling baby parts, an accusation it has strenuously denied.

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GOP fear mongers about Syrian refugees while ignoring domestic terrorism

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While the GOP presidential candidates, led by Donald Trump, and a cowardly Congress spent the better part of the past week fear mongering about Muslims in America and Syrian refugees fleeing civil war and terrorism, it turns out that the one terrorist attack in America this past week came from a domestic terrorist in Colorado Springs.

The definition of “terrorism” is ter·ror·ism /ˈterəˌrizəm/ (noun) the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims. The American media is loath to use the term “terrorism” when reporting the acts of anti-abortionists who kill doctors and patients and vandalize or blow up abortion clinics, but make no mistake, they are terrorists.

The Colorado Springs Gazette reports, Possible motive for accused Planned Parenthood gunman: ‘No more baby parts’:

As Colorado Springs tried coming to grips with its second mass shooting in a month, the revelation of four words uttered by the gunman upon his surrender hinted at anti-abortion zealotry leading up to the attacks.

RobertDearMugshotRobert Lewis Dear, 57, told investigators “no more baby parts” after surrendering to heavily armed officers at the city’s lone Planned Parenthood clinic Friday, multiple news outlets reported.

The comment offered the first clue as to a motive for the shooting spree, which left two civilians and a university police officer dead and nine others – most of them law enforcement officers – wounded from gunfire.

Dear’s remark alluded to videos released over the summer by anti-abortion activists, which sparked a storm of controversy about Planned Parenthood’s practice of using fetal tissue for research. The videos led to calls on Capitol Hill by Republicans to de-fund the organization.

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Legal abortion is so “safe” in some places that women are resorting to DIY ones

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

self induced abortion

Friday’s Supreme Court announcement was understandably eclipsed by the events in Paris but we pro-choice folks paid close attention to it. The court has agreed to hear a challenge to a passel of abortion restrictions passed in Texas in 2013 under the guise of “safety”. The Texas laws, which led to several clinic closures as intended, were the result of anti-choicers taking advantage of past court decisions allowing states broad latitude in regulating abortion prior to viability so long as their stated reason was to protect the health of women and that it did not place an “undue burden” on a woman seeking an abortion. Arizona, being a red state run by raving misogynists, has passed similar laws, modeled on national templates.

If you think that solid scientific evidence should be required before forcing women (many of whom will have to drive long distances) to wait 24-72 hours before getting an abortion, or for claiming that abortion will increase her chances of breast cancer and depression, or for requiring clinics to be fully ambulatory surgical centers and doctors to have admitting privileges at local hospitals before one of the simplest surgical or medication procedures available can be done, then you don’t know anti-choice judges. The famously right wing 5th Circuit, which upheld the Texas law that will be decided by SCOTUS, found such considerations to be irrelevant:

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GOP House Freedom Caucus preparing a ‘Contract on America’

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Cartoon_19When we last heard from the farther far-right GOP House Freedom Caucus, they were engaged in a mutiny that forced their captain the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, to walk the plank, and his first mate, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, into house arrest confined to his quarters.

Now these radical extremists are back with another list of demands – a “Contract on America” —  meet our terms or we will kill the hostages, beginning with the GOP leadership. Bloomberg Business reports, House Republican Hard-Liners Drafting ‘Contract With America II’:

U.S. House Republican hard-liners who helped force out former Speaker John Boehner are readying their next act: a multi-point manifesto demanding quick action on long-time conservative priorities.

Members of the House Freedom Caucus are preparing a “Contract With America II” that would call for House votes in the first 100 days of 2016 on replacing Obamacare, overhauling entitlement programs such as Social Security and Medicare, and repealing the estate tax.

An early draft of the plan obtained by Bloomberg News also calls for legislation to slash government regulations by 20 percent, cut corporate tax rates and expand offshore oil drilling. Efforts are still under way to finalize contents of the “contract,” which lawmakers say they hope will become the basis of House Republicans’ 2016 agenda.

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