Michele Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty have signed on to the Susan B. Anthony List’s 2012 Pro-life Presidential Leadership Pledge. The presidential candidates have pledged to roll back abortion rights in four key areas, and the duo join three other presidential contenders: Newt Gingrich, Ron Paul and Rick Santorum. Bachmann went after fellow presidential candidate Mitt Romney on Sunday for not signing the pledge and not committing to “ending the practice of abortion.”
The candidates pledged to appoint anti-abortion judges, to appoint anti-abortion cabinet members, to defund Planned Parenthood and to sign a bill banning abortion after 20 weeks gestation.
Bachmann went after Mitt Romney for not signing the pledge.
So there is a litmus test now for presidential appointments, cabinet members, and I would assume Supreme Court Justices? I guess its official now. What about the 50% (at least) of us who are pro-choice?
The Richmond Federal Reserve is flying the rainbow flag to acknowledge gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender pride month. The request was made by PRISM, an advocacy group for the aforementioned groups. The Fed is a private establishment. Its first vice president, Sally Green acknowledged:
“We are flying the pride flag as an example of our commitment to the values of acceptance and inclusion.”
Sounds good to me. Pretty flag, commitment to inclusion. Gay people make and have money. What could anyone find wrong?
Enter side-show Bob Marshall, 13th delegate district who claims that flying the rainbow flag represents
“…a serious deficiency of judgment by your organization, one not limited to social issues.”
“The Richmond Fed’s endorsement of costly, anti-social, immoral behavior is rejected by 6,000 years of Western Religious and moral teaching,” writes Marshall, who is among the General Assembly’s most conservative members and has long been outspoken on gay-rights issues. “You want the American people to trust your [judgment] in economic matters when your spokesperson celebrates an attack on public morals?”
When the tea party first rose its head a couple of summers ago, we were told they were all about ‘getting our fiscal house in order.’ Many proposed draconian, drastic cuts, others trooped around in three cornered hats and did the fife and drums thing. What was not said was that they were also the social conservatives, the radical Republicans.
We can see now that the social conservatives finally got their nose under the tent and House Speaker John Boehner has been put on notice–do what we say or lose your job. Boehner is a smart enough politician to know that there are just some issues you don’t tack on as a rider to a budget. Obviously he had no choice.
Perhaps we will all survive. But we look absurd to everyone else in the world. We have debt problems but we protect the very wealthy. Some knuckle heads continue to think, even after 25 years of it not paying off, that protecting the very wealthy will produce jobs. Where are those jobs?
We are involved in three wars, and we almost shut the government down over abortion? And not even the right to abortion–it was imaginary abortion. The radicals wanted to kill off Planned Parenthood. Now Planned Parenthood is universally known as the place where people who don’t want to get pregnant go. Patients can get relatively inexpensive birth control and required health services. Planned Parenthood also takes medicaid patients, unlike so many other medical facilities. What idiots want to shut down places to get contraception in order to fight abortion? Now where is the logic?
Most Americans don’t see abortion or Planned Parenthood as big threats to our country. What they do see as threatening are rising food costs, foreclosures, joblessness, job insecurity, overcrowded classrooms, expensive health care costs and crime. They don’t give a fig about abortion or the fact that some penny of their tax money might find its way into co-mingling money used for abortion.
The culture warriors need to be driven out. We need to get on with running the country. We need to tell these clowns that they are making us the laughing stock. We need to make sure the tail isn’t wagging the dog.
If you‘re wondering where Bristol Palin got the $172,000 in cash to buy her home in Maricopa, Ariz., — Loan from her parents? “Dancing With the Stars” payoff? A gift from her baby daddy, Levi Johnston? — it looks like part of it might have come from her work as an abstinence advocate.
The blog Palingates, soon followed by the AP, reported that according to tax forms, the teen mom earned $262,000 in 2009 for her work with The Candie’s Foundation.
Bristol was just 18 and a new mother when she became an ambassador for the foundation in 2009.
Is it just me or does abstinence mean …not having sex? So if you don’t have sex, how do you end up with a trashy boyfriend and a baby? I know these young kids and all and the generation gap, but there are just a few things I simply don’t understand.
The stupidity doesn’t stop in Arizona. It moves on to Chicago. Perhaps bad taste is a better word than stupidity. According to Yahoo News:
CHICAGO (AFP) – An anti-abortion billboard campaign using a likeness of President Barack Obama to target African-American women has angered women’s groups in Chicago.
Some 30 billboards declaring “Every 21 minutes our next possible leader is aborted” are being placed in predominantly African-American neighborhoods in Obama’s adopted hometown.
They are being displayed for free after the group’s controversial billboards declaring “the most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb” were taken down following protests in New York.
The Texas pastor behind the campaign by Life Always said he wants to “encourage reflection” about the high abortion rate among African-Americans.
PHOENIX (Reuters) – Arizona Governor Jan Brewer on Tuesday signed into law a controversial bill that makes the state the first in the nation to outlaw abortions performed on the basis of the race or gender of the fetus.
The move comes as anti-abortion groups across the nation try to seize on gains made by political conservatives during the November elections, seeking enactment of new state laws to further restrict abortions.
Under the new Arizona statute, doctors and other medical professionals would face felony charges if they could be shown to have performed abortions for the purposes of helping parents select their offspring on the basis of gender or race.
The women having such abortions would not be penalized.
State legislators have said no such law exists anywhere else in the nation.
Backers of the measure said the ban is needed to put an end to sex- and race-related discrimination that exists in Arizona and throughout the nation. They insist the issue is about bias rather than any broader stance on abortion.
“Governor Brewer believes society has a responsibility to protect its most vulnerable — the unborn — and this legislation is consistent with her strong pro-life track record,” a spokesman said.
Do they just invent things in this state? In addition to being the immigration capital of the nation, were they also the abortion capital of the nation? Is there real evidence that people were having abortions because of the race of the father? How about the gender of the fetus? Evidence please. Read more…
Rachel Maddow finds herself in the middle of an over-reach by a conservative group. She has found that she is the subject of a FOIA request at 3 state universities.
The latest incarnation of this breed of conservatism weirdly involves this show,” Maddow said. As she described it, a conservative think tank in Michigan called the Mackinac Center submitted a FOIA request seeking any emails from labor professors at the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University. The center demanded any email that includes the words “Scott Walker,” “Wisconsin,” “Madison,” and “Maddow.”
Many currently in Congress ran on promises to tackle jobs and the budget. Instead, they have taken on NPR and Planned Parenthood. Many experienced Republicans have been frustrated by the newcomers who don’t seem to understand Washington protocol. Republicans have ended up blocking Republicans.
The lack of grown-up behavior is driving Americans to despair. In a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, only 26 percent said that they were optimistic about the future when “thinking about our system of government and how well it works.” That’s less than half the level of optimism felt in 1974, during Watergate.
The Democrats are only showing themselves to be slightly more adult. The party leaders opposed Dennis Kucinich’s bill to just dump Afghanistan at the end of the year and bring everyone home. Many Democrats felt his plan was foolish and irresponsible and most voted against it.
Del. Bob Marshall is at it once again. In a recent diatribe before the Virginia General Assembly, Marshall chose to compare scientists doing stem cell research with World War II Nazi “doctors” who performed “experiments” on hapless Holocaust victims.
Marshall’s conduct in this case is reprehensible and to make things even worse, it has been learned that Mr.
Marshall has never been to the Holocaust Museum in Washington to see what really took place. He invokes the Holocaust and Nazism when it fulfills his need for publicity.
Shame on him for using a Nazi comparison to impugn the good works of honest scientists seeking cure to horrible diseases and conditions.
Disclaimer: All guest posts are the opinion of the poster and do not necessarily represent the views of moonhowlings.net administration
Since when was ‘human life begins at conception’ implanted into the Virginia curriculum? Didn’t see that one coming.
More to the point, Bob ‘Sideshow’ Marshall is shown comparing scientists who conduct and study stem cell research to Nazi war criminals during WWII. Bobby, that is just too cultural warrior for the floor of the General Assembly. No, he didn’t say the words but he painted the picture. You might want to ask your local, state and national legislators if they support Sideshow’s proposed ban on stem cell research.
Mike Huckabee laced into Oscar winner Natalie Portman for her “out-of-wedlock” pregnancy, saying the expecting star is helping to “glamorize” single motherhood.
Huckabee made the comments on conservative commentator Michael Medved’s radio show this week, after Portman accepted her golden trophy and in her speech thanked her fiance, Benjamin Millepied, for giving her “my most important role of my life.”
Medved led the way on the question, saying the “most wonderful gift” Millepied could have given the diminutive Black Swan star “would be a wedding ring! And it just seems to me that sending that kind of message is problematic.”
Indiana Congressman Mike Pence has declared a personal war on Planned Parenthood in hopes of ending abortion. For the past three legislative sessions, he has targeted Planned Parenthood by introducing legislation that would deny Title X funds to any organization providing abortions. According to Politico:
This week, Pence went even further, introducing an amendment to the continuing resolution that would strip Planned Parenthood — and Planned Parenthood alone — of all federal funding.
Pence’s latest maneuver comes at an inopportune time for many in the Republican Party.
Some GOP leaders — including Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels — have urged their party to downplay hot-button social issues in order to win over moderate voters ahead of the 2012 presidential race. Others, like House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), have said House Republicans must focus on creating jobs and cutting spending.
Rep. Pence remains the darling of social conservatives. Many supported him for the presidential race in 2012, despite the fact he has said he will not run. Pence has not ruled out the possibility of running for Indiana governor.
Alert! Update:
Minutes ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to bar Planned Parenthood from all federal funding for any purpose whatsoever. That means no funding to Planned Parenthood health centers for birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other essential care.
Several conservative groups and individuals plan to boycott the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) which takes place later this month (Feb. 10-12) in Washington, DC. Why are the groups boycotting and who are they?
From speakers like Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to panels on “How Political Correctness is Harming America’s Military” and “Reagan at 100: Role Model for the Next Generation,” the agenda for the three-day gathering is chock full of personalities and events designed to fire up the conservative base.
Let the foolishness begin. Now we don’t have mothers and fathers. I still haven’t recovered from the girl winning damages about 20 years ago for being called a water buffalo. Now we have this, and out of the State Department no less!
The State Department has decided to make U.S. passport application forms “gender neutral” by removing references to mother and father, officials said, in favor of language that describes one’s parentage somewhat less tenderly.
The change is “in recognition of different types of families,” according to a statement issued just before Christmas that drew widespread attention Friday after a Fox News report.
The announcement of the change was buried at the end of a Dec. 22 news release, titled “Consular Report of Birth Abroad Certificate Improvements,” that highlighted unrelated security changes.
I don’t care if gay people adopt children or have children by whatever means that happens. But, I am not willing to become parent 1 or parent 2 for the sake of a situation that rarely occurs. As far as I am concerned, the gay parents can just flip over who gets to be the mom and who gets to be the dad.
Does Marshall think that there are not gays in the military now? Why is serving in the military all about sodomy, AIDs, and all the other things he fears?
Lowell on Blue Virginia covers this story well. I am too speechless, even after all these years of Side-Show Bob. His homophobia is only surpassed by his ignorance on the topic of homosexuality.
