Huppenthal/Thucky was wrong on the Internet about Margaret Sanger, abortion

sangernew

It’s pretty clear at this point that prodigious-commenter-on-blogs-at-all-hours-of-the-day “Thucydides” is none other than AZ Superintendent of Public Instruction John Huppenthal. Huppenthal’s other alter egos include “Falcon 09” and “Socrates” but we know him affectionately as Thucky around these parts. Thucky likes to opine on a variety of subjects, and here he is last fall weighing in on the misogynist-cesspool blog Seeing Red AZ about Margaret Sanger.

When Darwin wrote his treatise on evolution, it was titled ” Survival of the Favored Races.” There were two parts to his work, one was to give a foundation to evolution, the other was to explain the dramatic differences between species. As he explained it in his 1859 work, as a species evolves it begins to develop different races. When one of those races develops a superior advantage, it wipes out the genetically inferior race. It was Darwin, not Hitler who named the Germans the master race. It was Darwin who expressed approval of eliminating both Jews and Africans. Hitler worked to eliminate the Jews. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood was given the job of eliminating African Americans. Hitler fed 6 million Jews into the ovens. Sanger has fed 16 million African Americans into the abortion mills.

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We don’t seem to mind a bit of corruption

What was the level of senior executive fraud and/or gross negligence involved in the housing collapse that flattened the U.S. economy in 2008 and threw the M Fraud 1world into recession? Although the government spent trillions bailing out the banking sector, no one seems to know. It is now clear that a number of financial institutions deceived investors and home buyers as they promoted or created subprime mortgage products that they knew were likely to end in default. In the wake of the greatest financial catastrophe since the Great Depression, no senior executives of financial institutions have been prosecuted.

Financial fraud allegations are being settled by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the offending institutions through agreements allowing the institution to make payment while not having to admit guilt. Citigroup recently agreed to a settlement of $285 million while not admitting to any of the allegations. The banking sector violators, too big to fail or send to jail, are getting off the hook by paying fines, repaying the government bailout and promising not to pull the same stunts again.

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Good news about ‘ObamaCare’

Image: Supreme Court Upholds Obama's Affordable Care ActNow that Tea-Publicans are now no longer holding weekly repeal “ObamaCare” votes in the House, or even much talking about it really, with everything else that is going on in the world of late, you might have missed the good news about “ObamaCare” this past week. Steve Benen catches you up. Everything’s coming up aces for the ACA:

The news surrounding the Affordable Care Act has been so good this week, it’s almost hard to know where to start.

We could start with the fact that private insurers who skipped the exchanges now want in

One of the many, many, many predictions of Obamacare failure made by conservatives is that insurance companies would systematically drop out of the exchanges. They made this prediction manymanymanymanymany times. The data is starting to come in and, guess what, insurance companies are joining the exchangesDan Diamond reports that, in every state that has reported information so far, the number of insurance companies competing in the exchanges will expand in year two.

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House unanimously passes compromise VA bill

Ed Kilgore at the Political Animal blog has a quick summary of the latest on congressional action to address the problems at VA hospitals. Two Cheers For Bipartisanship on VA Waiting Lists:

PhoenixVAAmazingly, the House unanimously passed legislation Tuesday to deal with the waiting list problem for veterans trying to access the VA health system. The bill was apparently modeled on the earlier deal struck by Sens. Bernie Sanders and John McCain, and will include both emergency hiring of more VA health professionals and a “private option” in certain circumstances.

On this latter point, before offering a third cheer for bipartisanship, check out Phil Longman’s critique of the Sanders/McCain agreement on grounds that the “private option” provision could eventually lead to an unraveling of what has made the VA system successful for those actually under its care. Indeed, in clearing the current legislation, House Republicans made it clear they’ll soon offer additional proposals to promote privatization of health care for veterans. They know a camel’s nose under the tent when they see it.

The U.S. Senate passed this compromise bill today. Senate passes bill on private veterans care:

The Senate passed a bill Wednesday that would allow veterans to seek care from private providers if they face long wait times at Veterans Affairs facilities.

The bill passed the House Tuesday. Both Republicans and Democrats praised Congress’s fast action on the issue.

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About that Arizona Daily Star report on Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick

ScreenshotWe all know that the political reporting at our sad small town newspaper, the Arizona Daily Star, consists mostly of rewriting the press releases it receives from the campaigns and maybe contacting the media flak who sent the press release. If it’s a congressional race, the  Star somehow feels compelled to contact its former political reporter hack Daniel Scarpinato, who now works for the RNCC, for a gratuitous quote.

The Star has been engaging in highly selective editorial discretion this week in how it is reporting on the VA scandal in Phoenix, based upon news reports from The Arizona Republic (that’s right, the Star gets its news from other newspapers). The editors are glossing over Sen. John McCain.

On Monday, the Star reported Local angle: Kirkpatrick heard from VA whistleblower in February: “In comments to the Arizona Republic, [Dr.] Foote said a McCain aide responded but Kirkpatrick’s staff never did.” (I’m curious, is Sen. John McCain not the senator for Southern Arizona as well? Is he not a “local angle”?)

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