Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Lucy Goosey
Lucy Goosey's Journal
Lucy Goosey's Journal
August 15, 2012
Good - I'm glad the CMA took this position.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/doctors-call-on-ottawa-to-reject-backdoor-attempt-to-recriminalize-abortion/article4482594/
Canadian doctors to Ottawa: don't recriminalize abortion
Doctors call on Ottawa to reject ‘backdoor’ attempt to recriminalize abortion
At the general council meeting of the Canadian Medical Association on Wednesday, delegates called on the federal government to reject attempts by a Conservative backbench MP to amend the Criminal Code so that a fetus is defined as a human being.
“This constitutes the criminalization of abortion or any form of contraception,” said Dr. Geneviève Desbiens, a urologist from Valleyfield, Que. “This change could even prevent a pregnant woman from travelling or taking certain drug treatments,” she said.
Dr. Desbiens also warned that doctors who counsel or provide abortion services could become criminals.
“This constitutes the criminalization of abortion or any form of contraception,” said Dr. Geneviève Desbiens, a urologist from Valleyfield, Que. “This change could even prevent a pregnant woman from travelling or taking certain drug treatments,” she said.
Dr. Desbiens also warned that doctors who counsel or provide abortion services could become criminals.
Good - I'm glad the CMA took this position.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/doctors-call-on-ottawa-to-reject-backdoor-attempt-to-recriminalize-abortion/article4482594/
August 15, 2012
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/08/14/tunisian-olympians-targeted-by-islamist-radicals/
Tunisian Olympians targeted by Islamist radicals
TUNIS, Tunisia — Islamist extremists have targeted two Tunisian Olympic medalists for behaviour and dress seen as un-Islamic, as debate grows over the role of religion and women in the country that unleashed the Arab Spring uprisings.
Radicals on social media networks called on the government to strip Habiba Ghribi, the first Tunisian woman to win an Olympic medal, of her nationality because her running gear was too revealing. She won the silver in the 3,000-metre steeplechase.
Radicals on social media networks called on the government to strip Habiba Ghribi, the first Tunisian woman to win an Olympic medal, of her nationality because her running gear was too revealing. She won the silver in the 3,000-metre steeplechase.
http://sports.nationalpost.com/2012/08/14/tunisian-olympians-targeted-by-islamist-radicals/
August 15, 2012
Conservatives Should Stop Giving Trophies for Trying
by Conor Friedersdorf
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/08/conservatives-should-stop-giving-trophies-for-trying/261087/
These days it's common for Republican politicians to become movement heroes without ever accomplishing anything. The highest praise is no longer reserved for figures who actually achieve policy victories, like reforming the tax code, beating back inflation, or improving America's position compared to hostile powers. Today results are unnecessary -- everyone who seems to be trying hard gets a trophy.
Consider some of the popular figures on the right in recent years. Joe the Plumber. Sarah Palin. Michele Bachmann. Herman Cain. They've achieved no more than criticizing liberals and extolling Tea Party ideals.
(snip)
Rep. Paul Ryan has achieved more in government than any of them, even if you look past all of the ill-conceived votes he cast during the Bush Administration, irresponsible governance for which he has since apologized. So let's judge him based on his behavior in the Obama era. His entitlement reform and deficit-reduction proposals have impressed many on the right. Fair enough. Ryan has moved the national conversation in a direction they find beneficial. It would in fact be foolhardy to repudiate him over his past transgressions for lack of purity.
(snip)
But why are many conservatives acting (as they did four years ago with Sarah Palin), as though he already belongs in the conservative hall of fame? As if he's already at the finish line with the flag waving? I don't get it. Why are they acting like he's already home? The canonization process begins with conservatives telling themselves a fake version of history that conveniently leaves out Ryan's apostasies, as if he's been completely principled all along.
Consider some of the popular figures on the right in recent years. Joe the Plumber. Sarah Palin. Michele Bachmann. Herman Cain. They've achieved no more than criticizing liberals and extolling Tea Party ideals.
(snip)
Rep. Paul Ryan has achieved more in government than any of them, even if you look past all of the ill-conceived votes he cast during the Bush Administration, irresponsible governance for which he has since apologized. So let's judge him based on his behavior in the Obama era. His entitlement reform and deficit-reduction proposals have impressed many on the right. Fair enough. Ryan has moved the national conversation in a direction they find beneficial. It would in fact be foolhardy to repudiate him over his past transgressions for lack of purity.
(snip)
But why are many conservatives acting (as they did four years ago with Sarah Palin), as though he already belongs in the conservative hall of fame? As if he's already at the finish line with the flag waving? I don't get it. Why are they acting like he's already home? The canonization process begins with conservatives telling themselves a fake version of history that conveniently leaves out Ryan's apostasies, as if he's been completely principled all along.
August 14, 2012
Really, Romney's people should have caught this and not held the event here.
Oops: Romney holds campaign stop at restaurant owned by convicted cocaine trafficker
The Gaffe-Master 2012 continues his run.
http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/14/mitt-romney-holds-miami-campaign-stop-at-restaurant-owned-by-convicted-cocaine-trafficker/
Romney, hoping to get support from the Cuban-American community in Miami, held an event at El Palacio de los Jugos, famed for its tropical juices, fruits and Cuban-style snack food.
Court documents show restaurant owner Reinaldo Bermudez pleaded guilty in 1997 to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The case in federal court in Miami led to a three-year prison sentence for Bermudez.
His plea was part of a drug conspiracy case that involved 11 other suspects with aliases including “Fat Boy,” “Ali Baba,” “Skeletor,” “Mogley” and “Buckwheat.”
Court documents show restaurant owner Reinaldo Bermudez pleaded guilty in 1997 to one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine. The case in federal court in Miami led to a three-year prison sentence for Bermudez.
His plea was part of a drug conspiracy case that involved 11 other suspects with aliases including “Fat Boy,” “Ali Baba,” “Skeletor,” “Mogley” and “Buckwheat.”
Really, Romney's people should have caught this and not held the event here.
August 13, 2012
Longtime Cosmo Editor Helen Gurley Brown Dies at 90
Source: Time
(NEW YORK) — Helen Gurley Brown, the longtime editor of Cosmopolitan magazine who invited millions of women to join the sexual revolution, has died. She was 90.
Brown died Monday at a hospital in New York after a brief hospitalization, Hearst CEO Frank A. Bennack, Jr. said in a statement.
“Sex and the Single Girl,” her grab-bag book of advice, opinion, and anecdote on why being single shouldn’t mean being sexless, made a celebrity of the 40-year-old advertising copywriter in 1962.
Three years later, she was hired by Hearst Magazines to turn around the languishing Cosmopolitan and it became her bully pulpit for the next 32 years.
Read more: http://entertainment.time.com/2012/08/13/longtime-cosmo-editor-helen-gurley-brown-dies-at-90/
August 13, 2012
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-paul-ryan-and-the-triumph-of-theory/2012/08/12/2fa48a94-e4a4-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_story.html
Paul Ryan and the triumph of theory
In making Ryan his running mate, Mitt Romney guaranteed that this election will be about big principles, but he also underscored a little-noted transformation in American politics: Liberals and conservatives have switched sides on the matter of which camp constitutes the party of theory and which is the party of practice. Americans usually reject the party of theory, which is what conservatism has now become.
Now, it is liberals who question conservative master plans and point to the costs of conservative dreams. And in Ryan and his budget proposals, they have been gifted with the perfect foil.
How can Ryan justify his Medicaid cuts when, as the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found, they would likely leave 14 million to 19 million poor people without health coverage? How can he justify tax proposals that, as The New Republic’s Alec MacGillis pointed out, would reduce the rate on Mitt Romney’s rather substantial income to less than 1 percent? How can he claim his budgets are anti-deficit measures when, as The Post’s Matt Miller has noted, his tax cuts would add trillions to the debt and we wouldn’t be in balance until somewhere around 2030?
How can Ryan justify his Medicaid cuts when, as the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation found, they would likely leave 14 million to 19 million poor people without health coverage? How can he justify tax proposals that, as The New Republic’s Alec MacGillis pointed out, would reduce the rate on Mitt Romney’s rather substantial income to less than 1 percent? How can he claim his budgets are anti-deficit measures when, as The Post’s Matt Miller has noted, his tax cuts would add trillions to the debt and we wouldn’t be in balance until somewhere around 2030?
But the issue in this election will be how Americans want to be governed. Republicans mock President Obama for still thinking like the professor he once was, yet in this race, Obama — far more than today’s conservative theorists and to the occasional consternation of his more liberal supporters — is the pragmatist. He’s talking about messy trade-offs: between taxes and spending, government and the private sector, dreams and the facts on the ground. In embracing Ryan, Romney has tied himself to the world of high conservative ideology. As liberals learned long ago, ideology usually loses.
E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ej-dionne-paul-ryan-and-the-triumph-of-theory/2012/08/12/2fa48a94-e4a4-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_story.html
August 13, 2012
The Mormon and the Catholic - how much will religion matter to the base?
I'm really curious if this will matter - that neither Republican is an evangelical, born-again protestant. Being neither American nor Christian, this topic, the intersection of religion and politics, is one of my favourite things in US politics.
I would love to hear your opinions - DUers are such a well-informed bunch - will this be important, or will it be a non-isue, or somewhere in between? 
August 12, 2012
I've been having fun looking through older articles about future failed vice presidential candidate Ryan. This one is insightful and hilarious.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-budget-plan-5519000#ixzz23M4PkLiH
Article from March: Paul Ryan and the New Politics of Sadism
We are in an age dominated on one side by the New Politics of Sadism. Hurtful policies are enacted, not because of any logical benefit they might bring, but specifically because they hurt people the Republicans want to hurt. The thoroughgoing abandonment of the notion of a political commonwealth, cheered on by degrees since the elevation of Ronald Reagan and whatever ideas people could cram into his empty head, has reached the point among American conservatives where it is now the kind of faith you find in the most unshakable of perversions. It manifests itself everywhere. It's expressed politely by people like that intolerable foof, David Brooks, who's never taken a position in his life that cost him so much as a dinner invitation. On the radio, and on cable news, it's expressed crudely by people who are far more honest about their contempt for their fellow citizens.
And, in the Congress, there is Congressman Paul Ryan, who is angling right now to make a career out of political sadism.
Make no mistake: Ryan is a thoroughgoing nutball, as bug-house crazy on economics as Peter King is on Muslims and Steve King is on anyone swarthier than himself. He is a lifelong adherent to the doctrines of Ayn Rand, which ought to disqualify anyone from ever being taken seriously enough to park cars by anyone over the age of fifteen. In terms of their connection to actual human reality, the difference between the doctrines of Ayn Rand and the doctrines of L. Ron Hubbard is not substantial, and the fervor of their acolytes is almost exactly the same. Picking Paul Ryan to handle your political economy is tantamount to electing Tom Cruise to be pope.
And, in the Congress, there is Congressman Paul Ryan, who is angling right now to make a career out of political sadism.
Make no mistake: Ryan is a thoroughgoing nutball, as bug-house crazy on economics as Peter King is on Muslims and Steve King is on anyone swarthier than himself. He is a lifelong adherent to the doctrines of Ayn Rand, which ought to disqualify anyone from ever being taken seriously enough to park cars by anyone over the age of fifteen. In terms of their connection to actual human reality, the difference between the doctrines of Ayn Rand and the doctrines of L. Ron Hubbard is not substantial, and the fervor of their acolytes is almost exactly the same. Picking Paul Ryan to handle your political economy is tantamount to electing Tom Cruise to be pope.
I've been having fun looking through older articles about future failed vice presidential candidate Ryan. This one is insightful and hilarious.
Read more: http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/paul-ryan-budget-plan-5519000#ixzz23M4PkLiH
August 10, 2012
Israeli newspaper says PM, defence minister want to attack Iran before U.S. election
Source: National Post
The front-page report in the biggest-selling daily Yedioth Ahronoth came amid mounting speculation — fuelled by media leaks from both the government and its detractors at home and abroad — that war with Iran could be imminent even though it might rupture the bedrock ties between Israel and the United States.
“Were it up to Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, an Israeli military strike on the nuclear facilities in Iran would take place in the coming autumn months, before the November election in the United States,” Yedioth said in the article by its two senior commentators, which appeared to draw on discussions with the defense minister but included no direct quotes.
Spokesmen for Prime Minister Netanyahu and Barak declined to comment.
Read more: http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/08/10/israeli-newspaper-says-pm-defence-minister-want-to-attack-irans-before-u-s-election/
August 9, 2012
Video at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/romney-obama-waging-war-on-religion/2012/08/09/192c4e02-e213-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_blog.html
Updated to add this: Think Progress asks a very smart question
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/09/663091/was-romneycare-a-war-on-religion/
The Obama camp needs to use this.
Romney ad: Obama waging ‘war on religion’ (updated)
I think this kind of trash gives us leave to discuss Mitt's religion, no?
Mitt Romney makes an appeal to the Catholic vote with his latest ad, moving away from the economy to talk about health care and contraception.
President Obama has touted newly expanded contraception coverage in ads aimed at women. Now Romney is using the expanded coverage to say the president declared a “war on religion.”
The presumptive Republican nominee’s ad features both former Polish president Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II — a clear play for the Catholic (and Polish) vote.
President Obama has touted newly expanded contraception coverage in ads aimed at women. Now Romney is using the expanded coverage to say the president declared a “war on religion.”
The presumptive Republican nominee’s ad features both former Polish president Lech Walesa and Pope John Paul II — a clear play for the Catholic (and Polish) vote.
Video at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/post/romney-obama-waging-war-on-religion/2012/08/09/192c4e02-e213-11e1-a25e-15067bb31849_blog.html
Updated to add this: Think Progress asks a very smart question
Was Romneycare A War On Religion?
As governor, Romney greatly expanded access publicly-financed contraception through his 2006 health care reform law. The state’s Commonwealth Care, established under Romneycare, offers subsidized, low or no-cost insurance to low-income residents and provides primary and preventive care that includes “family planning services” and prescription contraceptives. In 2005, Romney also “signed a bill that could expand the number of people who get family-planning services, including the morning-after pill” and asked the Department of Health and Human Services to require Catholic hospitals to issue the morning after pill to rape victims.
In fact, the Obamacare rule Romney is now characterizing as an affront to religious liberties is very similar to a 2002 state law he tacitly supported. Like more than two dozen states across the country, Massachusetts required insurers that provide outpatient benefits to cover hormone replacement therapy and all FDA-approved contraceptive methods — well before Obamacare became law. The Massachusetts rule exempts “an employer that is a church or qualified church-controlled organization” from the mandate, but prohibits institutions such as hospitals, universities, and nursing homes from deny their employees birth control coverage.
As governor, Romney greatly expanded access publicly-financed contraception through his 2006 health care reform law. The state’s Commonwealth Care, established under Romneycare, offers subsidized, low or no-cost insurance to low-income residents and provides primary and preventive care that includes “family planning services” and prescription contraceptives. In 2005, Romney also “signed a bill that could expand the number of people who get family-planning services, including the morning-after pill” and asked the Department of Health and Human Services to require Catholic hospitals to issue the morning after pill to rape victims.
In fact, the Obamacare rule Romney is now characterizing as an affront to religious liberties is very similar to a 2002 state law he tacitly supported. Like more than two dozen states across the country, Massachusetts required insurers that provide outpatient benefits to cover hormone replacement therapy and all FDA-approved contraceptive methods — well before Obamacare became law. The Massachusetts rule exempts “an employer that is a church or qualified church-controlled organization” from the mandate, but prohibits institutions such as hospitals, universities, and nursing homes from deny their employees birth control coverage.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2012/08/09/663091/was-romneycare-a-war-on-religion/
The Obama camp needs to use this.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHome country: Canada
Member since: Thu Jan 17, 2008, 01:27 PM
Number of posts: 2,940
