COVID-19 & Healthcare

Doug Ducey loves Texas so much he wants to replicate it for poor women in Arizona

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Crossposted on DemocraticDiva.com

ducey antichoice

Doug Ducey likes to praise Texas, often. He wants their state tax income rate (none) and their health care policies (no ACA exchanges, no Medicaid expansion). Ducey most assuredly wants the reproductive rights climate that currently exists in Texas, where the Fifth Circuit Court upheld spurious TRAP laws passed last year (and famously filibustered by State Senator Wendy Davis) which will close all but seven clinics in the entire state. Rural areas, including all of West Texas, will be without a single abortion provider.

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Yet another televised debate ignores reproductive rights.

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Debate

This is getting old. Monday night’s Clean Election debate was aired on Phoenix PBS Channel 8 and, of course, there was not one question on the candidates’ stances on reproductive rights. It’s as if the entire MSM here has developed amnesia about the legislature here and their constant attempts to restrict and deny access to common forms of women’s health care like abortions and contraception. Whoever is governor is going to be getting a buttload of bills concerning the proper use of the female chattel and their ladyparts. It matters who that Governor is and the candidates ought to be asked to provide detailed answers on their positions. I mean, dear lord, couldn’t these media people at least consider how much of their precious, holy tax money is going to go to defending these things in court? I guess not.

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We sure could use a little good news today

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Good-News-702555Back in 1983, singer Ann Murray had a hit single, “We sure could use a little good news today.” A Little Good News-Ann Murray (Original 1983 Video). 30 years later this song still resonates.

The “nattering nabobs of negativism” in the media, as William Safire once dubbed them, always focus on the negative and rarely on the positive.

This is not entirely fair as there has been some very positive reporting on economic news recently.  The problem is that it does not seem to get reported here in Arizona. I’ll leave it up to you to decide why that is.

So here are some good news headlines you may have missed in the past two weeks.

New York Times

U.S. Economy’s Spring Rebound Was Even Faster Than Thought
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

After a dismal winter the economy grew at a 4.6 percent annual rate in the April-June quarter, a sign that growth will likely remain solid for rest of the year.

Buoyant Dollar Underlines Resurgence in U.S. Economy
By LANDON THOMAS JR.

The dollar extended its new reign as the preferred currency for global investors, helped by healthy data on growth and signals from the Fed that it will soon stop its bond-buying program.

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Whatever happened with Boehner’s lawsuit against the president?

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Screenshot-6Remember all the hullabaloo over Weeper of the House John Boehner and Tea-Publicans in Congress threatening to sue the tyrant president for not implementing the Affordable Care Act fast enough, something they voted more than 54 times to repeal?

Whatever happened with Boehner’s lawsuit against the president?

You will be shocked — shocked I tell you! — to learn that the “Worst. Speaker. Ever.” has yet to file his frivolous lawsuit. If you listen to the tee-vee talking heads tell the tale, you probably thought this lawsuit had been filed months ago.

Steve Benen writes, House GOP’s anti-Obama lawsuit already in deep trouble:

After months of congressional Republicans condemning the tyranny of a lawless, out-of-control White House, GOP leaders announced they would file a historic lawsuit, taking President Obama’s outrageous abuses to the courts. The transgression at the top of the Republicans list? A delayed deadline for an obscure Affordable Care Act provision.

Two months later, the litigation is already in bad shape. For one thing, it still hasn’t been filed. For another, Republicans recently had to replace their legal team after the original firm that took the case walked away. (The GOP hired, of all people, Maureen McDonnell’s lead defense attorney.)

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How do you like your Hobby Lobby now, Doug Ducey and other GOP candidates?

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Crossposted at DemocraticDiva.com

hobby lobby

Per Ian Millhiser:

Citing Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, the Supreme Court’s decision last June holding that the religious objections of a business’ owners could trump federal rules requiring that business to include birth control coverage in its health plan, a federal judge in Utah held last week that a member of a polygamist religious sect could refuse to testify in a federal investigation into alleged violations of child labor laws because he objects to testifying on religious grounds…

…The federal child labor investigation arose from a CNN report investigating claims that Jeffs “ordered all schools closed for a week so children could go to work picking pecans off trees at a private ranch” in Utah. The report included video of “hundreds of children, many of them very small” working on the ranch. When the reporters arrived, CNN also caught video of the FLDS children fleeing the cameras.

Yet, according to an order signed by Judge David Sam, a Reagan appointee to a trial court in Utah, the federal officials investigating this alleged violation of child labor laws will not be able to require an FLDS member named Vernon Steed to provide information that could aid the investigation because Steed objects to giving certain testimony on religious grounds. Steed claims that he’s made “religious vows ‘not to discuss matters related to the internal affairs or organization of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.’” According to Judge Sam’s opinion, that’s enough to exempt him from providing the testimony he does not want to give.

Whoops.

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