COVID-19 & Healthcare

Gay is the new abortion?

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Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

This remarkable item has gone viral:

Columnist Dan Savage calls it a “new variation on the “straight people are terrible” argument against marriage equality.”

Religious conservatives have already argued that straight people will stop getting married if gay people can and that marriage must be reserved for straight people because only straights can get pregnant by accident, and without the special inducements of marriage (a big party, a special cake, a honeymoon), straight people won’t take care of all those babies they’re having by accident. Now they’re arguing that straight people will abort their babies if gay people get married.

Man, straight people are terrible—why were they ever allowed to get married in the first place?

The anti-choice movement is an entire parallel bizarro world of crackpot bullshit so it would be easy to dismiss this as yet another weird myth, like the belief that abortions can be reversed, that has taken hold there. But there is an important context for this. The argument is being put forth in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court as it considers the latest challenge to same sex marriage.

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Il Duce roadtrip down the highway to hell

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Screenshot-17Our governor, Il Duce, is taking a road trip around Arizona in his “Opportunity Express” RV to tout his first 100 days in office.

Seriously? An RV?

Call your buddy John McCain. I’m sure his “straight talk express” bus is available for the right price. Or call your buddy Willard “Mittens” Romney. Maybe he will let you borrow his “etch-a-sketch express” bus for the week.

This “express” bus thing is something that presidential candidates do, not some tinhorn governor dictator. Il Duce’s first 100 days in office have been nothing to celebrate. He is not comparable to the First 100 days of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency.

The Arizona Capitol Times (subscription required) reports, Ducey calls budget, education, business highlights of first 100 days:

Before boarding his “Opportunity Express” RV on Wednesday to celebrate his first 100 days in office, Gov. Doug Ducey said he has provided “100 productive days of promises kept.”

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I’m taking this one personally, Governor Ducey

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im-watching-you

Per AZ Capitol Times (yes, behind a paywall but I pay for my subscription so I get to talk about it):

Gov. Doug Ducey may have just cost more than 200,000 Arizonans a shot at keeping the health insurance they received through the Affordable Care Act, though they won’t know for sure until the U.S. Supreme Court rules this summer.
Ducey has signed HB2643, which prohibits Arizona or any of its political subdivisions from using taxpayer dollars or personnel to establish a state-run health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. Arizona is one of 34 states using a federally run exchange after declining to set up a state-run exchange of its own.

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Bipartisan agreement ends ritual of the ‘doc fix’

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When wealthy doctors who make campaign contributions are at risk, Congress can act in a bipartisan manner to “get ‘er done!” Congress acted at the eleventh hour before a 21 percent cut to Medicare doctors would have been triggered. Senate overwhelmingly approves ‘doc fix’:

DoctorThe Senate on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a $200 billion Medicare reform package that will end a two-decade-old headache for Congress known as the “doc fix.”

The rare bipartisan bill, which passed 92-8, marks one of the biggest achievements yet from the newly GOP-controlled Congress. It will now head to President Obama, who has promised to sign the bill.

Obama praised the doc fix bill and said he “will be proud to sign it into law.”

“It’s a milestone for physicians, and for the seniors and people with disabilities who rely on Medicare for their health care needs,” he said in a statement.

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