Jane, just as an aside –

was of course thinking of you yesterday when Nancy Keenan got called out for her shit yesterday by the Great Orange Satan his own self

Oh, I’d wager that PP and NARAL are both hard at work composing their fund-raiser emails/letters telling us all how hard they are working to protect women’s rights and oh by the way, can I spare a couple of hundred dollars as they fight the dastardly evul Republicans in Congress.

AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…

Citizen Hamsher and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:

This is helpful to the Democrats in that the power of the anti-abortion force in the Democratic Party can be broken once and for all by unions in districts like Stupak’s in Michigan. Stupak hasta face re-election like all the Blue Dogs in the House, and I’m here ta tell ya that folks in the old union districts in Michigan aren’t gunna look kindly to any representative that tries ta run on their record of killin’ healthcare reform. This is where the rubber meats the road…the old wedge issues die under the weight of the reality of economic suffering.

This is good, the fascists will use all their old ammo tryin’ ta kill healthcare reform and forcin’ a sufferin’ people to chose between ideological myth and economic reality. My money’s on reality.

KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THIS IS A WAR WE CAN WIN!!

This is a time when being OLD just makes me want to claw someone’s eyes out. You see, I was in college when Roe vs. Wade happened. I actually remember back alley abortions. I live in CA now, but at that time, I lived in a RED state where abortion was illegal (before Roe). I had several friends who went to back alley abortionists, as well as friends who had unwanted births. I wonder how THOSE children turned out. As a mother, I KNOW raising a child is damn hard, even if you planned the pregnancy and badly WANTED the child. I can only imagine what it would be like if you didn’t want the pregnancy and were young and poor.

And, as such, I cannot believe so many freaks like this can be elected and continue to shoot their mouths off. (Esp. MALES and post-menopausal women). You don’t have a dog in this hunt? Shut your f**king piehole!

Stupak should be easily smacked down. He has a very big soft spot that needs to be poked hard. He was a resident at C Street House and appears to be an acolyte of the unChristian cult “The Family.” He can posture all he wants about morality, but he has aligned himself with possibly the most corrupt and amoral organization in Washington. Start bringing up his association with C Street House and watch him squirm.

On WJ the other morning a caller asked Stupak about his membership in the family and his C-Street connections and Stupak replied “there is no family and I rent a room at the C-street house that’s all.

applauding and agreeing.

“I wonder how THOSE children turned out.”

I am guessing they are happy to be alive.

“I can only imagine what it would be like if you didn’t want the pregnancy and were young and poor.” … if you do not want a baby and/or can not afford to.. well then maybe you should not be having unprotected sex…(what a novel idea)…

Wouldn’t surprise me at all to find out anti-choice Arkansas Blue Dogs Berry and Ross are among those not named.

Geez – what is that place – a dorm?

Is the view pretty good from the cheap seats?

Pretty much what Shell said!
And, even with the best of intentions, Stuff happens.

Jane, while I agree with your position on this, I see a larger issue that no one seems to be commenting about,namely Reid pulling the removal of of the anti-trust exemption for the insurance industry from the Senate bill and having it be offered as an ‘amendment’ on the floor.

Bluntly speaking, after all the ‘sturm and drang’ regards health care ‘reform’ legislation, what is being proposed and the machinations associated with passing such leaves a piece of legislation that DOES NOT address that which needs to be done; while Krugman thinks that we’ve come so far and the moment is nigh, I say NO, a piece of shit is NOT sustenance.

Citizen Gasman:

Stupak and the Blue Dog fascists can be delt with quickly and effectively by the Speaker of the House and organized labor. The anti-abortion wedge will not survive to November of 2010 if Stupak gets it crammed up his ass today.

PrayBoy Mansion

Everyone has a dog in this hunt. I, as a post-menopausal woman, know the value of planned parenthood. I want my daughters to have the right to abortion and birth control. I had my tubes tied when I was 27. Does that negate me from having a dog in this fight? Your comment is short sighted. We need to include everyone in who believes in women’s rights. Men and post-menopausal women.

I see that you couldn’t really come up with a legitimate and logical response. But then again I really wasn’t expecting one.

In several public meetings after the recess, Sylvestre Reyes (D-TX) promised to vote against any bill that contained assistance for abortion, or that did not contain a robust public option. I guess he could be added to stupid’s list.

fyi – CBO scoring showed there wasn’t much savings or public financial benefit via Anti Trust (Jon Walker posted on this)

however, they did leave some regulation type goodies in – will try and find ya a link to that

Stupak and the Blue Dog fascists

taliban

Fixed it for ya

Hey shell, I hear you but your comment sort of feeds into a key one size fits all argument that prolifers use over and over again. That every abortion is ending the life of what could have been a healthy and happy Gerber baby.

One of the tragedies of the Dr. Tiller assassination is that many many of the women he assisted wanted their babies, very much, and they are scorned and scolded for “disposing” an “inconvenient” baby. They held onto hope that their doctors were wrong and only Dr. Tiller could help them once things had progressed too far.

I loathe getting into for or against arguments on this issue. It’s just too complicated.

As if we didn’t know the feckless removal or dilution wasn’t a certainty. Anti trust and health care is a human right bills should have been introduced and passed in Jan. or Feb… before the rest of the legislation was written.

You make a valid point. Everyone who has a beating heart has got to work for all human rights, including women’s choice.
I just like the pie hole part of shell’s statement.

Now, the political strategy seems to be to hold a food fight to give cover for corporatist dems who don’t want this bill to move forward. typical.

How about this, when you get pregnant you can choose not to have an abortion. You do not however get to choose for anybody else. And you shouldn’t expect a logical respone to illogical drivel.

Or, how about this; it’s none of your fucking business who has an abortion.

Stupak is symptomatic of a corrupt process. Insurance companies, BigPharma, the medical industry have all been making their deals. So why not anti-abortionist nutcases?

Edited by moderator: no name calling please. Thank you.
i can name you dozens of people, including me, who ended up with kids despite using contraception.

so instead of making a fool out of yourself by talking shit about things you know nothing about, why not shut the fuck up before someone like me has to make you eat your goddamn words.

If Rules doesn’t allow his amendment on to the floor, Stupak and the right-to-lifers start to howl and use it for personal political gain, which also whips up the wingers and gets THEM frothing and boosts their turnout in 2010

ok, I’m know I’m not supposed to be laughing – but I’m having a this is what you get chuckle over this

If they allow Stupak’s amendment, then they have to allow Grijalva and Woolsey, and possibly Weiner’s on to the floor

Look at you now, you stupid fu** !

I see you continue the work on your people skills :D

How many viable, already born humans will die if this does not pass? Thousands. The argument that anti-women/science/birth control yahoos don’t support life after birth is upheld by Stupak and his ilk.

MY DIL had what was considered a late term abortion. She and my son very much wanted the baby but it died in the womb. I guess under Stupak’s warped sense of rightousness this shouldn’t be an insured occurrence.

It is complicated but every woman should have the right to make choices regarding her own body. I can’t believe we are still fighting this battle. It’s one that drives me crazy.

It’s not a matter of ‘scoring’ and the CBO cannot predict what taking away the exemption will bring; what Reid’s action does show is -once again- how bought the Congress is and how unwilling it is to address citizen requests and needs.

And where is the single payer CBO scoring?

Citizen brendanscalling:

Bless your heart, Citizen, and tell it like it is…anti-abortion politics can be killed on the floor of the House of Representatives if Stupak gets his moment in the well of the House and I predict that he will not survive re-election no matter the outcome. He is toast now.

The only people afraid of the anti-abortion terrorists are in the White House.

Just to make a point, when I attended a pro-choice rally oh, 20 years ago or so, I took my 1 1/2 year old with me just to add some visual diversity to the crowd. To give some of the right to lifers something to think about.

Citizen frederic:

There is never an adequate rational response to lunatic bullshit.

Blue Texan’s regularly scheduled post is ready for our perusal: “Attention Bush Apologists: Reagan Greeted Fallen Americans at an Air Force Base, Idiots”

I should have said “analysis”

here’s Jon Walker’s post on it

will have to hunt around for where I was reading this morning about the re-regulation type goodies left in the Bill

Two comments:

1) Last time I checked, abortion is still a legal medical procedure in the US – nobody overturned Roe v Wade when I wasn’t looking I assume? So, I don’t get why there’s even a question over whether government dollars should pay for abortions. Talk about the government getting between you and your doctor!! Isn’t that what conservatives are always complaining about? Of course their hypocrisy knows no limit.

2) Why is Jane worrying with Planned Parenthood or NARAL? More than 50% of the adult population ARE WOMEN!!! If women don’t want the government – or their fellow citizens – in charge of their wombs, THEY HAVE THE VOTES! If they won’t act in their own interest they have no one to blame but themselves IMHO.

ps – Shell, I feel you. And the passivity of the younger generation that takes for granted everything they have that those that came before had to struggle to get drives me crazy as well. And it can all go away if they don’t wake the F up. Like middle class wages and the union movement.

Stupak and the right-to-lifers start to howl and use it for personal political gain, which also whips up the wingers

or influential Iman’s

someday Jane, you, me, Vegas – we’ll clean up !

I wouldn’t say she is “worried” I’d say she’s calling them out to help Leadership with this meddlesome problem – and if you read my link at 40 – you can see how miserably they’ve failed

What do you know about Stupak, Hugh? What do you know about his district?

Because I don’t think you know much about either, based on your comment.

I’m furious with Stupak over this mess, but he’s one of the best and most reliable Dems we have in this state.

And knowing the district, you’re going to have to do more than have a hissy to make this guy change his stance. He’s got the single largest and most difficult district in the entire state, with some of the most difficult constituent spreads to cover. Imagine artsy-fartsy college-town Dems in Marquette, and gun-waving Reagan Dems 450 miles away where they are currently fighting against “Gitmo North.”

Somebody is going to have to make the case that there must be — MUST BE — at a minimum coverage for abortion to save the life of the mother or other siblings. That’s the concession I see at this point, as much as it pains me.

And then somebody ought to pick up the phone and ask term-limited state senator Mike Prusi of Marquette if he has given any thought to running for Congress.

Michigan might not be the South, but remember that Midwestern Roman Catholics and conservative Lutheran (Missouri Synod, Wisconsin Synod) were the first to pick up the abortion issue in the 1970s and that, in addition, western Michigan is the center of conservative evangelical Dutch Reformed Calvinism.

Dale — have you done the math? Because the people that are going to vote on the health care bill THIS YEAR, and not the congressional seats next year, are 87% male and overwhelmingly white at that.

That’s the disconnect which requires a response by groups whose charters allegedly focus on women’s health care rights — the same groups which come around with scare tactics to shake down money, but then never show up when we need them to generate pressure.

Next November will be too late.

I guess my point was that we rely too much on “leadership” to do things and that we as citizens need to take more charge. As dakine01@2 points out, “leadership” frequently translates into give me more $$ to pay my permanent lobbyist position.

I have people skills to spare, but i don’t have any patience, respect or politeness for filth like that.

having children is a HUGE responsibility. It is a life-changing event even for people who want to have kids. The impact on people unprepared for parenthood or who don’t want the responsibility is horrible. And in too many of those cases, the parents take it out on the child with disastrous results.

As my response indicates, my son wasn’t planned. and while i love him, i’ve stepped up to the plate for him and done the best i can as a dad, i would be lying if i said that parenthood has had a positive impact on my life.

so when people like fred make glib remarks like that, I get a little testy.

The Dutch Reformed/Calvinists are in western lower peninsula. Think Crazy Pete Hoekstra’s district along with Vern Ehlers. You’re more likely to find Catholics and Mennonites than Dutch Reformed or Calvinists; the Catholics are the grandchildren to great-great-grandchildren of Catholic Canadians who made their way to Michigan. I’m one of them, although a recovering Catholic you might say, eh?

Stupak’s district is the northern lower peninsula and the entirety of the upper peninsula, fondly referred to as Yooperland. It’s gritty terrain, more sparsely populated, people vote Dem more than Republican but they are more of a libertarian bent. They see government as an impediment, because government does very little for them in such a remote place (and by remote I mean big swaths have no reliable cell phone coverage, lucky to have two broadcast TV stations in many places, and it fucking snows hard and deep three-quarters of the year).

thanks cbl2 but such defies common sense and history; costs DO come down when monopolies are ended.

Rayne – yeah, but the voters in their districts are still 50+% FEMALE. THEY need to let their representatives hear that votes have consequences – i.e. PICK UP THE PHONE.

On Tuesday I’m going be calling my fellow citizens from a phone bank to gin up support for the public option – even as sorry as it currently is. My point was simply that hoping that progressive “organizations” are going to take care of the problem isn’t good enough. We’ve got to get off our collective asses and do something ourselves if we want to get it done.

ps – White men [I happen to be one] have wives, sisters, daughters and granddaughters.

No argument there about voters doing what I see as a minimum requirement to maintaining a representative democracy: voters should tell their representative what they believe their representative should do and why, not merely vote. They should do it all the time, to the point where their representative knows their name and face; it’s hard to weasel out on a voter you know that well.

But Jane has a legitimate beef with NARAL and PP which have both become increasingly irrelevant over time. Their handling of Joe Lieberman’s reelection race was only the first of obvious failures, and their inability to forecast and have a ready response on this Stupak situation is yet another.

Right on, bro.

Okay…enough compromises have been made to these pricks. I say “call their hand”. If they want to bring down the heavily compromised Obama-Pelosi-Reid collaboration with them, then let them kill it and face the consequences of being marginalized by the party and public for the next year until they come up for re-election.

Why should young people and women (who are the ones most likely to benefit from Family Planning) have anything to do with this health package if all it will do is provide for male plumbing and perpetual supplies of little blue pills to assuage these wick-heads egos.

I had not known where Stupak’s district was. The first I ever heard of an anti-abortion movement was in Stevens Point WI in 1976 and did the Roman Catholic lady go on and on about it. At that point, Robertson and Falwell hadn’t introduced it in the South and the GOP hadn’t hopped on it as a wedge issue. And it wasn’t a big deal among any but a fringe of Catholics at the time (and of course the hierarchy). I dated a Catholic girl from Iron Mountain at the time and she was surprised that there were folks trying to organize around the issue.

Not sure how Yooper libertarians fit with government standing between a woman and her doctor.

Response to what?

What’s your response to the eleven-year-old who was raped by her father and now is pregnant by him?

Or to the woman who found out that the fetus she’s carrying has no brain and can’t live outside the womb?

Or to the woman who because of preeclampsia will die if she carries her pregnancy to term? (Wanna know why so many women used to die in childbirth? This is what killed — and still kills — a good number of them.)

AMEN!!!

Hey folks, just circling back. we’re on the same side.

I just don’t want to feed the myth that all abortions are about “convenient” and “immoral” birth control. drives me crazy.

pro-choice here. I’m also EXTREMELY tired of these yahoos throwing this issue around like a hand grenade when they really don’t care about the actual issue, but are only using it to obstruct other action.

gtg. sorry for the drive by

uh, my comment was snark. we’ve been pretty well behaved with our cloven hooved, phallicly challenged ‘visitors’. was laughing (still am) ’bout how we’ve gone from patient to ok, mf, I’m gonna rip your head off and shit down your neck ! response appropriate as it were

You see, I was in college when Roe vs. Wade happened. I actually remember back alley abortions

I was in college BEFORE Roe v. Wade [1962-1966,] and I too remember back alley abortions and fellow women students going to Mexico to get an abortion.

Today’s folks — particularly women — have a hard time imagining what it was like then, and what it will be like again if this kind of crap resurfaces.

Women have taken these rights for granted for 35 years. These right wingers are the American Taliban.

I’m wondering how many of the clowns on the list were recruited by Rahm in 2006, and supported with DCCC money. [And undoubtedly will continue to be supported with DCCC money, since they don't seem to have any "qualifying terms" other than being a Dem incumbent.]

It ALWAYS comes back around to controlling women. It ALWAYS is a majority of men attempting to do the controlling. It’s NEVER about male sexual behavoir, it’s always the women needing to have their choice or power diminished, minimized, belittled, berated, or shut the fucked up because some man says so.
I’d like Bart Stupak to offer an amendment that requires men to submit to some kind of anti-viagra until and unless some women thinks it’s ok for him to get an erection. Not holding my breath.

eXactly!

It is never about male sexual behavior, not ever. Where’s Stupak’s movement to have men take responsibility for preventing pregnancies?

The number of congressmen and senators that I think need a short back and sides with their castration is raising alarmingly.

And Stoopak is also a signatory/supporter of Eschoo/Barton, which is going to give the drug companies eternal patent protection for their “biologics”, which are some of the most effective medicines currently on the market for such minor diseases as I don’t know, like CANCER. Thanks, Bart! You’re a real doubleheader of a good guy!

You may be able to force people to have children but there isn’t a law made that can force them to be parents. There’s a big difference.

I’m old enough to remember that too. So many women dies in those alleys. It was horrible, and they are the American Taliban.

First – God, doesn’t he look Retarded with a capital R? Like most pro-lifers…

Second, the only e-mails I get from NARAL are ones asking for cash – have NEVER seen an action program from that organization. And why would you give money to a completely ineffectual organization? Has NARAL done ANYthing??

And finally, 42: Reagan Dems?? lololol… There is NO SUCH THING!!!