What We Learned Today About Abortion

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Tuesday May 24, 2005 · 5:24 PM PDT

2005/05/24 · 17:24

Wow, looks like we here at the DailyKos were schooled on the abortion issue today. Quite a learning process in a thread spanning 750+ posts (as of this writing). However, we can boil down the lesson to a few key points:

If you are a woman, abortion MUST be your main priority. It is the only issue that really matters. It must be you're litmus test for any and all candidates, be they Democratic or Republican. If not, you are actually an anti-choice woman, even if you say you are pro-choice but also care about other issues.

More education below the fold. Read More

We Have A Long Way To Go

LiberalFromPA

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Monday April 18, 2005 · 7:23 AM PDT

2005/04/18 · 07:23

It's Saturday night, and I go out to dinner with an old friend, his girlfriend, and a couple of other people. We're drinking, eating, casually conversing, when the subject of politics comes up.

Suddenly I find myself the lone vocal liberal with three conservatives at the table...including my old college buddy and his girlfriend (when did he turn?!). The fifth person at the table was a Democrat, but wasn't nearly a part of the conversation as the rest of us.

So it's me against three. More below the fold. Read More

Wal-Mart Pharmacy Response

LiberalFromPA

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Friday April 15, 2005 · 8:35 AM PDT

2005/04/15 · 08:35

So I filled out the NARAL Pro-Choice petition sending e-mails to all the major pharmacies in regards to my concern over pharmacists restricting a woman's access to birth control and other contraception. Here is the response I got:

Dear Valued Customer,

Thank you for contacting us at Walmart.com regarding women's prescriptions for birth control. Your comments and concerns are very important to us as we strive to meet your needs.

Wal-Mart does not carry emergency contraceptives. Our pharmacists may decline to fill a prescription based on personal convictions. However, they must find another pharmacist, either at Wal-Mart or another pharmacy, who can assist you by filling your prescription.

Again, we thank you for your comments regarding this issue.

Sincerely,

Customer Service at Walmart.com

More below. Read More

Outrage: Attack on Our Reproductive Rights

LiberalFromPA

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Monday March 28, 2005 · 8:17 AM PST

2005/03/28 · 08:17

The theocon war to dictate the specifics of our lives goes on to a new front. Now some Christian pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth-control or morning-after pills, once again trying to push their beliefs into our lives. From WaPo:

Some pharmacists across the country are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and morning-after pills, saying that dispensing the medications violates their personal moral or religious beliefs...

An increasing number of clashes are occurring in drugstores across the country. Pharmacists often risk dismissal or other disciplinary action to stand up for their beliefs, while shaken teenage girls and women desperately call their doctors, frequently late at night, after being turned away by sometimes-lecturing men and women in white coats.

More below. Read More

US to sell F-16s to nuclear weapons trafficker Pakistan

LiberalFromPA

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Friday March 25, 2005 · 11:10 AM PST

2005/03/25 · 11:10

What does North Korea do? It sells uranium to Pakistan. What does Pakistan do? It sells the same uranium to Libya. What does the U.S. do? It lies to protect Pakistan and says North Korea sold the uranium straight to Libya, as Hunter mentioned earlier this week.

So now what does the U.S. do? It decides to sell F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan, a Muslim fundamentalist country which is a trafficker in nuclear technology to terrorist nations. Unbelievable.

But of course, considering Bush's deficits, why not throw in an additional $1.3 billion dollar weapons contract. I mean, we do need the money.

Pakistan struck a deal with the United States to buy the nuclear-capable F-16 fighter jets in the late 1980s, but the agreement was scrapped in the 1990s when Washington imposed sanctions on Islamabad over its nuclear weapons program...The United States had signed a separate $1.3 billion arms package to Pakistan last year.

Read the full article over at WaPo.

Frank Rich Nails the Media

LiberalFromPA

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Thursday March 24, 2005 · 8:43 PM PST

2005/03/24 · 20:43

In an excellent column by Frank Rich in the NYTimes, Rich details how American institutions, particularly the government but also the media, have become enamored by the "moral minority", and how the religion of a few is shaping the lives of the many.

Ashley Smith, the 26-year-old woman who was held hostage by Brian Nichols, the accused Atlanta courthouse killer, has been canonized by virtually every American news organization as God's messenger...But if she's speaking for God, what does that make Dennis Rader, the church council president arrested in Wichita's B.T.K. serial killer case? Was God instructing Terry Ratzmann, the devoted member of the Living Church of God who this month murdered his pastor, an elderly man, two teenagers and two others before killing himself at a weekly church service in Wisconsin? The religious elements of these stories, including the role played by the end-of-times fatalism of Mr. Ratzmann's church, are left largely unexamined by the same news outlets that serve up Ashley Smith's tale as an inspirational parable for profit.

More below. Read More

The Silver Lining of Playing with Life and Death

LiberalFromPA

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Thursday March 24, 2005 · 12:16 PM PST

2005/03/24 · 12:16

Okay, it's caught me. The media/government/blogosphere obsession with Terry Schiavo has sucked me in. I didn't really care before; I viewed it as a private affair. But with all that's happened in the past week or so, I'm hooked. Why? Because now, this matters. Not that it didn't before - it mattered deeply to the family, Terri's parents and siblings, and to her husband, whose diligent care of her is a testament to his love for a wife who has not spoken to him in fifteen years. But it mattered to them because it was a personal tragedy, their tragedy, a family dilemma. Today, it has become a national dilemma, a dilemma about our rights as individuals, about the role government should play in our private affairs, and about the say that others have in regards to the decisions we make for ourselves. Read More

The Rise of China and the Fate of America

LiberalFromPA

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Tuesday March 22, 2005 · 9:26 PM PST

2005/03/22 · 21:26

Paul Starr in the American Prospect hits the nail on the head:

China is so integrated into the world economy that we hope its leaders would hesitate to resort to force. But the ﬂip side of China's integration is that the United States and other countries have become so dependent on China that we may hesitate to confront it. With America's staggering trade and budget deﬁcits -- and with the Chinese purchases of U.S. Treasury bonds vital to the dollar's stability -- we have unnecessarily undermined our own position and put the dollar (and our economy) at risk. The long-term danger is that persistent taxophobia -- and Republican political opportunism -- could create a lethal ﬁscal crisis undermining our strength.

Exactly. Read More

Poll: Using Military Force

LiberalFromPA

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Saturday March 19, 2005 · 11:12 AM PST

2005/03/19 · 11:12

I believe in the "Big Tent" theory that the Democratic party should accomodate a variety of beliefs in forming its platform.

One hot issue is defense, and how we should employ military force. I'm curious as to the prevailing opinion amongst Kossacks, as we represent a significant and vocal portion of the netroots.

To that end, I've created this simple poll.

Social Security Framing: Republicans Trying to Change the Message

LiberalFromPA

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Friday March 18, 2005 · 8:48 AM PST

2005/03/18 · 08:48

We are winning. In the face of a recent WaPo / ABC News poll showing that 56 percent of Americans oppose Bush's Social Security plan, the GOP is trying to change the frame, and who's part of it but none other than our good buddy Frank Luntz:

Luntz recently gave a private briefing on Social Security to a Republican House retreat in West Virginia...

Over and over again in the memo, Republicans are urged to chant a variation of the same mantra: "It's YOUR money. You earned it. You sacrificed for it. The government TOOK it from you," and, "This is not the government's money, it's YOUR money," and over and over again, "after all, it's YOUR money."

Clearly, Luntz is either committed to repetition as the first law of learning or he believes his GOP audience suffers from near-terminal attention deficit disorder. The problem is that the voters are not buying the mantra-message on Social Security.

Emphasis mine

LiberalFromPA

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Thursday March 17, 2005 · 6:14 PM PST

2005/03/17 · 18:14

The Senate voted to kill all Medicaid cuts from Bush's proposed budget...and with an amendment from a Republican Senator no less. From the WaPo:

The Senate voted Thursday to strip all proposed Medicaid cuts from the $2.6 trillion budget for next year, killing the heart of the plan's deficit reduction and dealing an embarrassing setback to President Bush and Republican leaders.

The amendment, whose chief sponsor was moderate Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., was approved 52-48 after days of heavy lobbying by both sides. It was widely seen as a test of the GOP-run Congress' taste for making even moderate reductions in popular benefit programs that consume two-thirds of the budget and are growing rapidly, even at a time of record federal deficits.

More below. Read More

Dems Force Social Security Vote

LiberalFromPA

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Wednesday March 16, 2005 · 9:01 PM PST

2005/03/16 · 21:01

House Democrats forced a procedural vote on Social Security today. No big deal, but we get some interesting comments from Dubya.

First, Bush admits personal accounts will do nothing to ensure solvency...twice! From the AP:

Bush twice acknowledged during a White House news conference that "personal accounts do not solve the issue" of Social Security's long-term financing. But, he said at the White House, "personal accounts will make sure that individual workers get a better deal with whatever emerges as a Social Security solution."

(Emphasis mine)

If personal accounts won't do anything about long-term solvency, then how can they make sure that individual workers get a "better deal"? Makes no sense.

More below. Read More

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