252 replies to this topic

[artcinco]

How Wisconsin Could Be The First Domino


#iThing #word

[wedjat]

They are pumping millions into the Walker "turd" fund. That's why I think he'll win. Hopefully I'm wrong.

Haha, turd fund. No, you're right, that's what I was saying. Money=win.

[wedjat]

How Wisconsin Could Be The First Domino


#iThing #word

Um, no. The two choices, restoring collective bargaining rights or beating Walker sound chilidish. It's everything combined. I can't even list all of the things he has done since becoming governor. It's not just the goddamn bargaining rights & I'm tired of conservatives getting it wrong every single time.

[Mr. Roboto]

Two Democratic woman lawmakers in Michigan, Rep. Lisa Brown (West Bloomfield) and Rep. Barb Byrum (Onondaga), said Republican House leaders refused to allow them to speak on the House floor Thursday after their emotional remarks opposing an anti-abortion bill the day before.

Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas (R-Midland) gaveled Brown out of order on Wednesday afternoon after she told her colleagues, “I’m flattered you’re all so concerned about my vagina, but no means no.”

Brown said she had no idea when she arrived at the House chamber Thursday morning that she would not be allowed to speak. She was about to deliver a speech in opposition to a bill that involves teacher retirement, as the minority vice chair of the Education Committee, but Minority Floor Leader Kate Segal (D-Battle Creek) told her she had been banned from speaking for the day.

"I'd love to know what I said that was offensive," Brown told The Huffington Post. "It was an anti-choice bill regarding abortion, which obviously involves a vagina, so, you know, I don't know what word I'm supposed to use otherwise."

Byrum caused a stir when she marched through the House gallery Wednesday protesting that she hadn't been allowed to speak on her amendment to the anti-abortion bill that would have required a man to have proof of a medical emergency before he could have a vasectomy.

"It's my impression that I'm being banned from speaking as a result of my use of the term vasectomy -- a medical procedure," Byrum told The Huffington Post. "Neither of us has been contacted by Republican leadership as to why or how long we've been banned. Talk about disrespectful, that they don’t have the common decency to tell us themselves."

Ari Adler, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Jase Bolger (R-Marshall), said the lawmakers were banned from speaking because of their behavior, not because of their word choice. "They behaved in a way that disrupted the decorum of the House," Adler said. "For Brown, it was not the words she used, but the way she used them that resulted in her being gaveled down." In Byrum's case, Adler said, "I hate to put it this way, but she essentially had a temper tantrum on the House floor."

Adler said the Republican floor leader told the Democratic floor leader the two representatives would not be recognized on Thursday. It's "not [the GOP's] concern" if the lawmakers weren't given the message, he said. It's unfortunate, he added, that the two lawmakers were sanctioned for what occurred during debate on an anti-abortion bill, because it makes it look as if they were silenced for reasons other than their "lack of decorum."

"The reality is, we have two representatives not being recognized today because of their actions yesterday," Adler said. "It has nothing to do with their gender or religion or the topics they were speaking about."

Byrum said that she believes her gender did have something to do with it, and that the silencing is unfair and unwarranted.

"There have been physical altercations between at least two men on the House floor, and I don't recall any of them every being banned from speaking," Bynum said. "It's just unacceptable to silence women when we're talking about women's reproductive rights."

[Whistlers Momma]

Don't you just love it when the guys in power don't want to let women speak about issues they know more about than the men!!!! Doesn't surprise me here in MI where Republicans usually rule.

[wedjat]

Uh, where's this supposed "lack of decorum"? Are they so easily offended by the word vagina? They certainly don't have a problem playing w/it when it's time to satisfy their needs but god forbid a WOMAN should speak the word out loudl.

[Mr. Roboto]

The whole thing was so very 1950's. Especially with saying the naughty word...heh heh

[Zimbochick]

[Mr. Roboto]

There is a branch of anti-choice activists that will use pretty much anything as a medium for their message: newspaper ads, graphic signs displayed in front of schools, bus stop benches. You would think they would know well enough to leave one place untouched, though. Wire coat hangers.

You would be wrong.

Springdale Drycleaners of Cincinnati, Ohio, has been etching "Choose Life" ads on wire coat hangers used to hang dry-cleaning.

What's worse is that this seems to be an ongoing effort. Reports of the "choose life" coat hangers already were on the internet back in March of 2011, when Joe.My.God posted a picture of the hanger then. And before that on Regretsy in 2010. So despite over two years of attention, the business continues to think this is an excellent cross-advertising campaign. In fact, the practice was losing them customers as far back as August of 2010, but still the dry-cleaner continues to use hangers as a place to offer inappropriate propaganda.

As NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin said on Facebook, it's a reminder of why we will never let them make us go back.

http://www.rhreality...n-their-hangers

[freedom78]

Bump.

 

This topic seems suddenly relevant again.

[artcinco]

Planned parenthood will be defunded. If Roe is overturned, blue states will have abortion, red not so much.

[freedom78]

Notes, emails reveal Trump appointees' war to end HHS teen pregnancy program Political appointees ended the HHS program over objections of career experts by Heidi Przybyla / Mar.20.2018 / 9:57 AM ET / Updated   

11:27 AM ET

 

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s abrupt cancellation of a federal program to prevent teen pregnancy last year was directed by political appointees over the objections of career experts in the Department of Health and Human Services, which administers the program, according to internal notes and emails obtained by NBC News.

 

The trove shows three appointees with strict pro-abstinence beliefs — including Valerie Huber, the then-chief of staff for the department's Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health — guided the process to end a program many medical professionals credit with helping to bring the nation’s teen pregnancy rate to an all-time low.

 

Prior to serving at HHS, Huber was the president of Ascend, an association that promotes abstinence until marriage as the best way to prevent teen pregnancy.

 

The $213 million Teen Pregnancy Program was aimed at helping teenagers understand how to avoid unwanted pregnancies. It had bipartisan support in Congress and trained more than 7,000 health professionals and supported 3,000 community-based organizations since its inception in 2010.

 

In the notes provided to NBC News, Evelyn Kappeler, who for eight years has led the Office of Adolescent Health, which administers the program, repeatedly expressed concerns about terminating the program, but appeared out of the decision-making loop and at one point was driven to tears.

In a July 17, 2017 note, she says she was admonished to “get in line” and told it was not her place to ask questions about the agency’s use of funds. In a July 28 note, Kappeler recalled she was “frustrated about the time this process is taking and the fact that (her staff) has not been part of the discussions.” She described being “so rattled” that “my reaction when I got on (sic) the phone was to cry.”

She and her staff “were not aware of the grant action until the last minute” — an apparent reference to the decision, it says.

 

Last month, Democracy Forward, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy group, sued the administration for unlawfully terminating the program after the agency took months to respond to its Freedom of Information Act request.

 

The group claims the newly obtained emails show that HHS violated the Administrative Procedure Act that bars arbitrary decision-making and that the political appointees thwarted the will of Congress.

 

“Now that we’ve seen these documents, there is no question to us why the Trump administration withheld” the emails, said Skye Perryman, the group’s lawyer. The decision to end the program “was made hastily, without a record of any reasoned decision making and under the influence of political appointees who have long opposed evidenced-based policy,” she said.

 

MORE: https://www.nbcnews....egnancy-n857686

 

 

[freedom78]

This shit drives me nuts.  It's one thing to attack Obamacare's flaws, but ending a relatively cheap program that works for purely ideological reasons?