A progressive political blog that highlights the infringement of religion upon today’s government.

I ran across this story on Crooks and Liars and thought that it is of great importance to you because it will happen here if the religious right successfully overturns Roe v. Wade. You should also notice how the religious right and their “culture of life” is so clearly nothing more than words.

Recently Pope Benedict XVI praised Nicaragua for enacting a total ban on abortions. This includes abortions for rape or incest and also abortions necessary to save the life of the mother. Since last November this ban on abortions has cost at least 80 lives according to women’s rights advocacy groups.

These are 80 young women who died because they did not have access to clean and safe abortion facilities when their lives depended on it. Jazmina Bojorge has the unfortunate distinction of being the first. She died due to complications in her pregnancy 36 hours after going to a hospital for fever and abdominal pains.

After her death Rev. Rolando Alvarez, spokesperson for the Managua archdiocese, has stated that the church will push lawmakers to clarify the ban to allow the saving of the mothers life. Since that time around 80 more women have died.

Here in America the ruling finding the “Partial-Birth” Abortion Ban unconstitutional was recently overturned. The Supreme Court ruled that a complete ban on Partial Birth abortions was indeed constitutional. The Act actually states that there is NEVER a time when this is a necessary procedure to save the life of the mother. Read the entire act here.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote in her dissent that the latest decision “tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists”.

While in itself the ban is a small step compared to the total ban that Nicaragua has, it is still a dangerous step along a very slippery and steep slope. The religious right simply will not rest as long as women are allowed to control their own reproductive rights.

Currently of the top candidates only the 3 Democrats expressed any concern over this bill. Obama, Edwards, and Clinton all came out strongly opposed to any reduction in women’s reproductive freedom. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani both flip flopped from prior documented pro-abortion stands to more religious-right-friendly anti-choice stands.

I believe that we have come to a time where we can trust women to make their own medical decisions. While we cannot help those poor women in Nicaragua we can remain diligent to prevent their misery and deaths from befalling any more innocent lives.

~ William ~

P.S. If anyone knows of an organization that is helping in Nicaragua please post it in the comments. I would love to throw them some free publicity and any help we can. Women of all countries should have the freedom to control their own bodies.

Yesterday morning I was watching the usual round of Sunday news shows. One of the big stories, besides Chris Matthews new book, was the presidential veto of SCHIP. On Face the Nation, Bob Schieffer had on Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), and Rep. Adam Putnam (R-FL). I was really interested in seeing how anyone could defend the president’s decision to veto this bill intelligently. It worked out pretty much like I expected. Putnam turned the tables on the Democrats accusing them of not wanting to hold the States accountable for the money that they do have and for not compromising with the president.

He did agree with some other conservatives that this could be a stepping stone toward Universal Healthcare and that was not acceptable to him or the president. When these arguments were refuted, fairly well, by Rangel who pointed out that this was an offer of insurance, not healtcare, that it would cover 10 million children in america, and that they have been in ongoing negotiations with the White House as their first request was for 50 billion dollars and not the 35 billion dollars they have worked it down to. He explained that by dropping the figure lower they would lose coverage for over 1 million children. Rangel asserted that it is the White House who is not willing to work with Congress on a bipartisan bill supported by the majority of American citizens.

I immediately thought ahead wondering what the rebuttal would be from Putnam. Imagine my anger when this is what spewed from his smarmy mouth. “This is a telling statement that he’s more interested in playing political games than compromising.” WTF? That “statement” had never been uttered by Mr. Rangel, in fact he had just explained the negotiations that were still taking place.

In addition to flat out deceit, Putnam bolstered his position by saying that 2 million children would be covered by SCHIP who already have private insurance. He is very opposed to taking children away from private insurance. Remember, SCHIP will aid families who make too much for Medicaid assistance but too little for private health insurance. For those families that have sacrificed to secure private health insurance at exorbitant rates, this would be a huge assistance. This would free up money for them to get groceries, pay bills, etc. and still have peace of mind that their kids’ medical needs will be met.

It does not sound to me like the Republicans are the party for average, working America. This is something that Democrats have known for a long time, maybe something like this will motivate America to demand that their government listen to them, to demand the Republican party and this administration be accountable to their constituents. America deserves much more than rhetorical games to explain why our government; which is to rule for the people, is ignoring our plain wishes on nearly every major issue. As of yesterday morning the House was about 15-20 votes shy of the amount needed to override the veto. Please go HERE and write your representative, let them know that you support health insurance coverage for children in America.

Just a quick post to start your week off with a laugh.  Anymore SNL has been in a slow decline and on a good night if they have more than a handful of decent skits I consider it a good show.  However, The Weekend Update and opening monologs this weekend were excellent.  Here is the “Oh Really” bit about Senator “Wide Stance” Craig.

The Opening skit wasn’t put up on YouTube but there are a few excerpts that were posted on The Huffington Post.  Enjoy and have a happy Monday.

P.S. On an unrelated note Senator Craig is now in the Idaho Hall of Fame.  No jokes today, Phil Thompson said it best “It’s a sad day to be a Republican.“  Its a happy day for me though.  Ok, I said no jokes but Craig getting into the hall of fame does make you wonder who’s dic… never mind, too easy.

I guess the big question is this; what draws conservatives to public restrooms for anonymous gay sex like mosquitoes to a bug zapper? Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against guys having the gay sex. What completely pisses me off is when these conservative ultra Christians promote anti-gay agendas while doing it. It’s exactly this kind of hypocrisy that has caused me to start this blog in the first place.

First, we had Bob Allen who offered to pay $20.00 to a black undercover officer to allow him to perform oral sex. Then Larry Craig gets busted in a Minnesota airport restroom. Now I read on First Draft that Joey DiFatta has been detained TWICE by mall security; once for being a peeping tom and the other for soliciting. What the hell is going on in the GOP, and since they know about it why the hell aren’t they doing anything?

This is not the kind of behavior that we would expect from someone who’s web page proclaims “Defend our conservative values from attacks by extreme liberal groups”. So we can just chock this up as yet another anti-gay self hating hypocrite. The good news is that it will be one less hypocrite as he has reportedly dropped from the race for 1st Senate District of Louisiana reporting health issues as the reason. Yeah, we believe you Joey.

Anyhow, if anyone knows why this keeps happening to conservative Republicans and not liberal Democrats please feel free to comment. Thanks.

~ William ~

On Thursday The New York Times reported on the Justice Department’s secret endorsement of torture. Unsurprisingly this revelation sparked a new round of allegations and outrage from Democrats and Republicans alike and has spread through the Blogosphere faster than a 12 volt charge to the scrotum.

According to the New York Times article the Justice Department released a secret memo in 2005 which supported types of “enhanced interrogation” techniques. This secret memo is in direct contrast to the 2004 opinion from the same department that described torture as abhorrent.

Well, now the justice department is in full damage control mode, by which I mean they are flatly denying the allegations while refusing to comply with the requests of congress. Bush stated empirically yesterday morning “This government does not torture people”.

No sane man would ever have made such a bold statement with Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and Kenya keeping extraordinary rendition in the news. Only in an administration so used to lying and getting away with it would a President stand before the American people and lie to our faces.

I have read several blogs defending these so called “enhanced interrogation” techniques so I think it is important to remind everyone what they look like. Watch this video and then try to defend these tactics. Warning: this video is graphic and should be offensive to all freedom loving people.