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The centrist fantasy on abortion rights is a dangerous farce

April 9, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

The folks at Vox commissioned a poll on attitudes toward abortion, asking more nuanced, and specific, questions than are usually asked and the results are fascinating.

Vox’s Sarah Kliff was intrigued enough about the responses that she contacted some of the respondents for further clarification.

“From my point of view, I believe all babies go to heaven,” King told me when I asked him to explain how both labels fit his viewpoint. “And if this baby were to live a life where it would be abused … it’s just really hard to explain. It gets into the rights of the woman, and her body, at the same time. It just sometimes gets really hazy on each side.”

King’s perspective is, in a way, unique: he has a distinct and nuanced view on when abortion should and shouldn’t be legal, one that takes in all sorts of personal and circumstantial factors. He’s generally anti-abortion, but not completely. He doesn’t fit neatly into either side of the debate.

In another way, though, King’s viewpoint is common: in our poll, we found that 18 percent of Americans, like King, pick “both” when you ask them to choose between pro-life and pro-choice. Another 21 percent choose neither. Taken together, about four in 10 Americans are eschewing the labels that we typically see as defining the abortion policy debate.

Vox also asked some people on the street how they felt about abortion:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssSIUVPjDns&w=500&h=356] Link, in case video didn’t embed

Grand Old Privilege

April 8, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

Crossposted from DemocraticDiva.com

www.phrases.org.uk

I stayed up past 3am to watch the AZ House vote on final bills before Sine Die last Friday morning. The very last bill the Committee of the Whole was debating when it was announced that the Senate would be skedaddling, thus, not hearing any more bills was SB1339, which would have forbade so-called “ballot harvesting”. It was directed at Democratic volunteers, under spurious allegations that they are stealing thousands of ballots or forging them, or something. Democratic Reps were understandably impatient with this slander and took to the floor to say so.

Thank God it’s Sine Die!

April 3, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

It really is a Good Friday! The meth lab of democracy is closed for business!

The Arizona Legislature, 52nd Legislature, First Regular Session
has adjourned Sine Die on April 3, 2015 at 3:34 A.M.

Lock the doors and board up the windows of the Capitol so that these lunatics cannot get back into the asylum and inflict any more damage on this state and its citizens than they have already done.

Here is just a brief summary of some of the bills that we were watching that passed, and others that were left for dead upon sine die:

HB 2643 – A Neo-Confederate dead-enders’ bill, the result of last year’s unconstitutional Nullification Proposition 122: “Prohibits the state and its political subdivisions from using any personnel or financial resources to enforce, administer or cooperate with the Affordable Care Act.” The sponsor, Teabagger Justin Olson (R-Mesa), says the purpose of his bill is to prevent the state from establishing its own ACA insurance exchange, presumably in response to the U.S. Supreme Court gutting the ACA by eliminating tax subsidies for plans on the federal exchange in King v. Burwell later this year, assuming this actually happens.

Contact Gov. Ducey and tell him to veto this ideological temper tantrum from Teabaggers.

I have previously recommended that the hospital associations and medical provider associations that supported Gov. Jan Brewer’s Medicaid (AHCCCS) expansion plan last year should be prepared to file a citizens initiative to establish a state-run ACA insurance exchange, which would supersede the stupidity of our Tea-Publican legislators, if passed by voters. If properly drafted, the state insurance exchange established could simply contract out to the federal exchange to run the Arizona exchange, and Voila! – problem solved. Or the hospitals and medical providers could refer HB 2643 to the ballot as a citizens referendum.

Three ballot measures to preempt Cathi Herrod and CAP

March 31, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

Earlier this year the political pundits were all patting themselves on the back because the Tea-Publican Arizona legislature had not reintroduced the so-called “religious liberty” (license to discriminate) bill, SB 1062, that Gov. Jan Brewer vetoed last year after a firestorm of bad national publicity for Arizona. I warned you at the time not to read too much into this, Cathi Herrod is just biding her time.

I am right, of course. In the Arizona Republic today, Indiana uproar echoes SB 1062 furor in Ariz.:

Arizona’s SB 1062 sought to amend the state’s RFRA to provide a legal defense for individuals and businesses facing discrimination lawsuits if they proved they acted upon a “sincerely held religious belief.”

Cathi Herrod, president of the socially conservative Center for Arizona Policy, was the driving force behind SB 1062. On Friday, the center issued a statement praising Pence and Indiana.

In an interview Monday with The Arizona Republic, Herrod noted that Indiana’s new law also was informed by the Supreme Court’s decision last year in Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, which clarified RFRA can apply to closely held businesses. That case involved an objection to federally mandated birth-control coverage.

Indiana’s law is “not word for word, but it’s very similar to the Arizona law that we have as well as incorporating some of the changes that we were trying to make” [with SB 1062], Herrod said.

Cathi’s Clown signs ‘junk science’ abortion bill – cue the lawyers

March 31, 2015 by AZ BlueMeanie

Arizona’s unelected “31st Senator,” high-priced lobbyist and campaign adviser to Dicey Doug Ducey, Cathi Herrod, got her quid pro quo yesterday — Il Duce signed the unconstitutional “junk science” abortion bill from the Christian Taliban Center for Arizona Policy (CAP). Cathi Herrod posted a “special access” photo of Dicey Doug Ducey signing her bill.

This is Cathi Herrod’s less than subtle way of signaling to everyone that “I own this governor.” Ducey is Cathi’s Clown. And that “protecting taxpayers” part is pure bullshit — taxpayers will be subsidizing the defense of this unconstitutional law in court on behalf of Cathi Herrod and the CAP (they will be out of pocket nothing).

When do Arizona taxpayers get to enact into law their objection to subsidizing Cathi Herrod and the CAP’s unconstitutional bills? If the Tea-Publican lapdogs of the Christian Taliban in the Arizona legislature are going to roll over and enact these CAP bills, shouldn’t there be a provision in the bill that says “Cathi Herrod and the CAP shall personally bear all litigation expenses and attorneys fees in defense of this bill in court,” and that “no state funds shall be expended in defense of this bill”? It seems only fair and just.