Compassionate conservatives are gonna hate, and yesterday there was something for everyone:
For poor, black mothers who don’t breastfeed: Michelle Obama thinks you should get a tax break on equipment that lets you pump milk so you can work and keep feeding your child the food that’s shown to help prevent childhood obesity. Michelle Bachmann thinks you should get a lecture on how she was able to breastfeed her five kids without government help.
For brown people in Arizona: It’s not enough that your immigration status is getting checked whenever a cop decides to pull you over, now Arizona wants to have hospitals check immigration status. Why? To prevent emergency room abuse, of course, since the designated object of hatred — Latinos — are the only ones who do this:
[…]”but I get calls from doctors and nurses every day that work in the emergency rooms, talking about the abuse. The millions of dollars spent for folks who come in for pregnancy tests, sniffles. They use emergency room services as their primary care physician. When do we stand up for the taxpayers? There’s a cost to this. The cost of hundreds of millions of dollars.”
For poor people on food stamps in Arizona: A state legislator has introduced a bill that would color food stamp cards bright orange. The stated reason is to “prevent fraud”, but the veil comes off pretty quickly:
“If that does concern people that they have a bright orange card, I hope they go get a better education or better jobs and stop using that card,” he said.
I didn’t see anything aimed specifically at white women, black men and the gays, but that’s probably just because I didn’t look very hard.
sal
Arizona, the Mississippi of the West.
c u n d gulag
I can see this coming soon:
a movement to brand women who’ve had abortions with and “A” on their foreheads.
And a “C” if they visited a clinic and thought about getting one.
We are a very, very sick country and society. Or at least enough of us are, that we taint everyone else.
JPL
President Bush (W) said that people have health care and it’s called an emergency room. Are they planning on repealing St. Ronnie’s law that requires emergency rooms to treat everyone?
Comrade Javamanphil
Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?
JPL
We could cut health care costs by letting the south secede. Recent studies have shown that health costs are going to continue to rise because of our southern areas and their fondness of junk food and lack of exercise. Of course, I might pack up my bags and move first. Arizona could join the southern states.
Hal
How about coloring the children of Welfare recipients orange instead? Now that will really embarrass them!
stuckinred
This anti-breastfeeding thing is bigger than that nutcase. My wife is the community breastfeeding coordinator and there is plenty of resistance in these parts of Georgia.
MikeJ
How about if every employee of a bank that received federal funds has to wear an emblem to identify them in public? It makes more sense than trying to shame people who have done nothing wrong.
JPL
@stuckinred: Bachmann was on GMA and since I tune her out, I can’t paraphrase her properly but…she said she was for breastfeeding but against adding to the tax code. She didn’t address her comments directly though.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
Perhaps Michele Bachmann will volunteer to be a wet nurse since she feels so strongly about this.
Looks like people in Wisconsin are slowly beginning to realize that the Republican agenda is anti- poor or middle class people. I was struck by the following quotes from protesters who voted for Walker:
And then there’s this:
People, you get what you vote for. The Republicans have decided that you are the problem if you work for a union or the government. I’m surprised Repubs haven’t passed legislation to end their own pay since they don’t want to feed from the teat of “big government.”
SiubhanDuinne
@Hal:
*How about coloring the children of Welfare recipients orange instead?*
But, but, but, Boehner!
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
@JPL: Sure sounds like it.
Wil
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
I’m surprised that people like this are so fucking stupid. The GOP propaganda machine is pretty amazing.
Wil
@stuckinred:
I wasn’t even aware this was an issue. What is the “resistance” actually resisting? What’s their beef?
Jebediah
@Wil:
But does this mean it is starting to fail?
redoubt
The Republicans have decided that you are the problem if you work
for a union or the governmentFixed.
MikeJ
@Wil: Women who breastfeed aren’t wearing burkas and the sight of of a teat might drive the men around them into an uncontrollable sexual frenzy. Because the only context for a naked breast is sexual.
WereBear
I guess poor & struggling just isn’t enough for people to deal with.
Dr. Wu
@Wil: tits
Wil
@MikeJ:
Well, a naked breast IS pretty much always sexual until the woman hits 50 or so. (Cue hysterics, but it’s true.)
But is that the issue these people have….that breastfeeding is icky or should be banned because boobage might be seen?
Honestly, I have not seen anything on this issue…it’s new to me, and since I live in a pretty liberal place, obviously we don’t give a shit about breastfeeding in public, so it seems pretty strange that people actually get worked up about it.
Suck It Up!
@JPL:
Why the fuck do they keep inviting a pathological liar on TV?
stuckinred
@Wil: All kinds of stuff. Vince Dooley’s wife Barbara had my wife on her radio show and could not stop whining about “I just don’t want to see that in public”. Others see the push as an intrusion into their rights to do what they want. People also see the effort as designed to make people feel guilty about not breastfeeding. Big government on the march.
JCT
@Suck It Up!:
And if they are going to insist on inviting her could they, at the very least, maybe, just MAYBE, challenge her a little regarding those endless lies??”
The complicity is mind-blowing.
agrippa
Pathetic.
is that the best that those people can do?
Brian S (formerly Incertus)
@JPL: I can’t even begin to tell you how fucking tired I am of the fucking stupid suggestion that the rest of the country should just let south secede again. You know, there’s a bunch of really good people in the south who don’t deserve that level of disdain and snobbery. Last I checked, that predilection for junk food isn’t just a southern thing, and what’s more, there are really powerful interests in other parts of the country getting really wealthy off of the corn used to make all that junk food, so it’s not like they’re blameless in this. Quit acting all fucking high and mighty, like the south is the only goddamn dysfunctional region in the country.
Comrade Javamanphil
Only in certain, albeit dominant, cultures.
Bob
Look, this is just BS on the part of both Michelle’s. Correct me if I’m wrong. But how many poor black mothers are going to be eligible for this tax break? I’m guessing damn few. I’m not opposed to the Obama position but it really amounts to nothing.
Ija
@Wil:
Wow, you must fit right in with all your victim blaming and rape apologia.
Comrade Javamanphil
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Shorter WI voters: In retrospect, doing vodka shots and playing russian roulette with a fully loaded revolver was not a wise decision.
Suck It Up!
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people):
wanna bet these people will keep voting Republican?
Suck It Up!
@Bob:
This isn’t just a black issue, this is a women’s issue.
Bob
@Suck It Up!: I was only quoting the post.
kay
“If that does concern people that they have a bright orange card, I hope they go get a better education or better jobs and stop using that card,” he said.
I think we’re making progress. That’s a recognition that wages are so low in this country that there are people who work but can’t afford to feed themselves.
Food stamps don’t just benefit the recipient, which is the part of the equation conservatives never, ever talk about. They benefit low-wage employers. We’re feeding their workers.
stuckinred
@Bob: It’s part of a greater effort to encourage breastfeeding. That’s pretty hard to understand isn’t it?
Omnes Omnibus
@Suck It Up!: I don’t think so. At least for a good number of these people, the mask over Republican policies came off. Walker has not tried to do things little by little. He promised to concentrate on job creation, and, in the couple of months since his election, he has gone full-bore ideological Teatard. The events are too close in time. I think he f*cking the Republicans in for the next couple of elections. Overreach, bitches.
Suck It Up!
If I was bad ass enough I’d go find that guys car and paint it bright orange.
Suck It Up!
@Omnes Omnibus:
I hope you are right. Republicans have been f-ing over these people for decades and the same voters keep coming back for more.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: It is my comment. Why don’t I have permission to edit it? FYWP
Bob
@stuckinred: I said I support the Obama position, I guess that’s pretty hard to understand also. But my point is that not many poor women, black, white, whatever, will be eligible to file itemized tax returns and thus qualify for a tax deduction. Maybe middle class and upper class women will qualify and reap big rewards.
kay
@Bob:
It’s just a way to push the breast-feeding message. Conservatives are freaking out over nothing at all again. I cannot begin to describe to you how pervasive the breast-feeding message is, when you have a child. It’s the public health equivalent of seat belts. It’s completely accepted as better, and it’s pushed hard.
She’s simply doing more of that, in a way that doesn’t insult people.
They just have it completely wrong, because they loathe her, and ascribe all sorts of evil motives to the equivalent of her saying “buckle your safety belt!”
stuckinred
@Bob: “it really amounts to nothing.”
Uh huh. With supporters like you. . .
Ash Can
@sal: There really seems to be a movement afoot in the Arizona state legislature to assert that federal laws don’t apply to Arizona. I’m waiting for them to do something completely egregious and earn themselves a proper smackdown.
@Bob: For many lower-income workers, tax breaks do make a difference. Also, what Suck It Up said.
JPL
@Brian S (formerly Incertus): I live in the South and recent analysis have shown that diet and lack of exercise creates long term health problems for many southern states. In order not to create a straw man, I’ll admit that my world is small but friends and neighbors of mine who are anti government health care are overweight and only insurable because they work for a company offering health care or know someone who added them to the board of directors in order to acquire health care.. I’m just trying to balance the federal budget and since health costs are a large part of it, I tried to come up with a solution. It’s the same mentality that doesn’t accept breast feeding as natural.
Your right my original comment was to general in nature and I should get out more. LOL…
stuckinred
“Breastfeeding is a very personal choice for every woman,” Kristina Schake, Mrs Obama’s communications chief, told Politics Daily. “We are trying to make it easier for those who choose to do it.”
Discussing her “Let’s Move” anti-childhood obesity campaign, Mrs Obama said she wanted “to focus on the important touch points” in a child’s life. “And what we’re learning now is that early intervention is key. Breastfeeding. Kids who are breastfed longer have a lower tendency to be obese.”
Anya
@Bob: Michelle Obama did not say the tax was for poor black women. She made two points, 1) breast pumps are qualified now, as a medical devise, so women can now claim tax breaks, 2) breasfeeding is important for the health of the child and public education is important, specially in the AA community because they don’t breasfeed. She never put it as a black issue and to hysterical wingers didn’t either. Though, I don’t know if Limbaugh or King, said it was reparation, yet.
Omnes Omnibus
@Bob: Not all deductions require itemization. Further, it could be done as a credit. To the extent that we are talking about the recent IRS ruling that breast pumps, etc., are deductible, this is simply one of the problems with using the tax code to drive policy. It is a rather blunt object and not necessarily well designed for all situations.
Bob
@kay:
Exactly, the IRS rule amounts to nothing, so conservative reaction is ill placed. That’s all I’m saying.
jonas
@Bob: That struck me too. If you make enough money to be itemizing deductions, you’re not poor. I think we’re talking about a tax credit or voucher here or something, which would make more sense.
Also, at the people dismayed that there can be such outrage over breastfeeding in public — Oh hell yeh there can be. Lots of cities around the country have ordinances specifically allowing women to breastfeed in public because women would get kicked out of stores, hassled, leered at, police called by pearl-clutching citizens outraged over the indecent exposure, etc. I’ve known women that this has happened to.
mistermix a.k.a. mastermix
I get it that the breastfeeding thing is for all women, and that a tax credit isn’t going to do much for poor black women, but the fact that Michelle Obama mentioned the low rate of black women breastfeeding makes this a two-fer for Bachmann – socialism and reparations. That’s why I put it in the “hating black women” category, but “hating women” works, too.
Rpx
It’s part of a greater effort to encourage breastfeeding. That’s pretty hard to understand isn’t it?
Why be so snide? Offering a tax break won’t help the poor because they don’t itemize. It’s a sop to upper middle class mothers, and even then it’s likely to be so obscure that it will be little used even by them. And with taxes so low already, it’s hardly a tax break anyone needs. Symbolic politics at work.
JPL
@stuckinred: Tom Brady’s wife spoke about breastfeeding and many in the Boston area attacked her phrasing. She amended her original statement to say if possible it’s the best choice. Giselle is a big advocate for breastfeeding and health care for children. My sons are in their early thirties and it’s amazing to me that this is still being debated, decades after they were born.
rikryah
The whole emergency room thing truly bothers me. The smartass retort from the right- wing when people like me bring up lack of access to healthcare is..
‘ You can go to the Emergency Room’. Now, that’s supposed to be taken away too?
fuck these racist lowlifes.
that the stupid heifer from Minnesota, who is a welfare queen of farm subsidies herself could open her mouth about breastfeeding – I’m tired of these stupid heifers getting any play.
A Farmer
Also, Republicans hate teleprompters:
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tex.), for example, has introduced an amendment that bars the General Services Administration from paying construction or leasing costs for any federal building in the nation’s capital. This situation could potentially lead to federal buildings that are leased, rather than owned by GSA, possibly defaulting on their lease agreements.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) has offered an amendment that would prohibit the president from using federal funds to pay for the salaries and expenses of his “czars” — the shorthand for White House officials who are appointed without Senate confirmation. However, Scalise lists the specific names of positions that cannot receive the funds. Conceivably, the President could simply rename those jobs.
Rep. Paul Broun’s (R-Ga.) amendment mandates that no federal funds may be spent on vacant federal properties. However, this could result in properties — such as the White Oak Federal Department of Agriculture building in Maryland, which is 90 percent finished but still unoccupied — being left vacant and unfinished.
Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) intended to introduce an amendment that would prohibit federal funds from being used to buy and maintain teleprompters for President Obama, but his spokesman told The Huffington Post that they couldn’t get the Congressional Budget Office’s score in time to submit it. The congressman plans to introduce it in the future though and anticipates it could save taxpayers $5 million.
St. Ronnie would definitely be out of the party.
Comrade Dread
I thought Emergency Rooms were the GOPs alternative health care plan.
Cacti
GOPers aren’t even trying to hide their hatred for the working class and people of color anymore.
The election of the first non-white POTUS really has sent them completely off the rails. The demographic bomb is ticking and the GOP is a wounded animal, lashing out at everything and everyone they’ve ever resented.
jwb
@Bob: I think the rule change primarily affects the ability to use medical savings accounts to buy breast pumps and bags. So it doesn’t require itemization, only a medical savings account. MSAs on the other hand suck and are generally more trouble than they are worth, so I don’t know that it makes much difference.
General Stuck
Look for some winger to introduce legislation stripping Hawaii and Kenya of statehood, and giving Chicago to the Canucks. Just to be on the safe side.
And declaring 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue the Embassy to Blackistan.
stuckinred
@JPL: No one ever went broke. . .well, you know.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Dread: Emergency rooms are the Republican health care plan for citizens. Maybe for green card holders too. If they are white. No one else deserves health care.
Paul in KY
@kay: Also benefits the children of these low paid employees. Children we need to get jobs someday to pay into SS & pay the taxes that working citizens pay.
NonyNony
@Wil:
I’m surprised that people like this are so fucking stupid. The GOP propaganda machine is pretty amazing.
I’m not. What has the Democratic party done in the last 40 years that has been good for working people? Worked its ass off to pass NAFTA to outsource jobs to Mexico and to opening up China for its cheap labor. Given some lip service to how the middle class needs to be protected, and then lines up to gut any program that might help the middle class.
Sure Republicans are worse, but if the Democrats are in control in your state (as they were in Wisconsin) and they’re fucking up and the Republicans are the only option in town people will vote for the change. When the change that gets delivered isn’t the one they thought they were getting, they get mad and vote for change again the next time around. And it will keep going back and forth until Democrats finally get off their asses and realize that if they want to get working class voters back they need to actually DO SOMETHING THAT HELPS working class voters in a very meaningful, very public, very obvious way.
And tax cuts here or there do not do that. The health care reform that just passed, while better than nothing, does not do that. Big obvious things are the things to go for, not nibbling around the edges. Sure Republicans will oppose, but they’ll oppose the nibbling too. And if Republicans are opposing things that are obviously helpful to working class voters at least those voters will be able to draw a big bright line between “people trying to help me” and “people content to let me starve”. Right now that line is too hard to draw for most voters.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: I sure hope you’re right!
PurpleGirl
@jwb: Or maybe flexible spending accounts. When I had health insurance through my job, I also had maintained a flexible spending account to help pay for things not covered by the health insurance. In my case, dental work and eye doctors and prescription glasses. Flexible accounts have their own spending rules and probably a lower-paid woman could set aside just enough to cover the breast bump. The accounts are tricky to plan and fund, but they can help people afford things not otherwise covered.
Granfalloon
Regarding the “telling you how to raise your kids” point:
To the Fox Pundits and then foaming Teabaggers who demand “Freedom of Choice” of how to feed their kids – I have some news for you . . . you haven’t had that “freedom of choice” for a long long time.
Oh noes, a tax break for breast pumps! COMMUNISM. Yeah. In point of fact, over the past decades, the government has paid out hundreds of billions of dollars in farm incentives, tax breaks and the like, so that it’s cheaper for midwestern farmers to grow a few crops (corn, soybeans, potatos) for industrial meat farms, fast food restaurants, and processed-food manufacturers. It’s far far far cheaper to grow corn a few months a year than to grow nutritious vegetables and fruit year-round. American growers are slaves to the processed-food conglomerate lobby, who lobbies for these tax breaks and other credits so that they can drive their prices down. Thus, it’s far cheaper for parents to buy Berrylicious Squirterz instead of fresh fruit; GoGurt Tubes instead of milk, cream and natural yogurt; happy meals with 2 burgers and fries instead of fresh vegetable snacks and sensible portions of meat; and Lunchables instead of sandwich ingredients.
So, the bottom line is this – since the 80s (at least) the government has dictated what you eat. And they’ve turned your kids into garbage receptacles for the processed-food industry, so that they grow up and feed their own kids the same garbage. And the truly sickening part is that the parents of these obese, diabetic 12-year-old food-dumpsters scream “communists! Don’t tell me what to feed my kids” as they shovel government-subsidized garbage into their kids.
Criminalize abortions to protect the rights of those who can’t speak for themselves? How can you reconcile that with what we are doing to kids these days?
Omnes Omnibus
@Paul in KY:So do I. I am planning on being up at the Capitol this evening. I want to be a part of this. I really hope we can make a difference.
General Stuck
@Omnes Omnibus:
“overreach” .it is the dems best weapon right now, and certain result of a GOP that is fully tea tardized. They have no other choice but to hawk the most radical scorched earth fundie wingnuttery. And they won’t be able to help themselves with proposals to gut entitlements, and are already starting to speak in apocalyptic terms if something isn’t done about these American core programs. They want them privatized, but not because of spending and budget deficits. But mostly because the safety net helps democrats beat them at the polls, and the same will likely be true of HCR if it isn’t killed now. They are in pure unadulterated survival mode, and when that happens, feeding the base well is paramount. But unfortunately for them, presidential elections are nothing like mid terms and it is much harder to win with a base only strategy. Probably impossible when you start talking about decriminalizing rape and launch a war on Mothers Milk.
Paul in KY
@Omnes Omnibus: God bless you & your fellow citizens for standing up for what is right & also what is best for the overall health of the state.
Quaff a Spotted Cow beer for me!
shortstop
@Comrade Javamanphil: I was just thinking that.
shortstop
@Omnes Omnibus: Obviously WP is a thoroughgoing liberal nanny platform and thinks it knows better than you do what you need.
kay
@Granfalloon:
There’s a whole history here, too. For decades, companies that manufacture baby formula were pushing the stuff, not just in the US, but world-wide. They were handing out free samples, women would use them, and then it would be too late: they had no breast milk and they had to purchase formula. It was this huge scam. Nursing proponents had to push back against a whole industry,with a huge advertising budget, and that took decades.
It wasn’t an accident that women stopped nursing. It was marketing. They created a product and then created a market.
Bulworth
And only two of these compassionate conservative items are from Arizona.
ppcli
“Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) intended to introduce an amendment that would prohibit federal funds from being used to buy and maintain teleprompters for President Obama, but his spokesman told The Huffington Post that they couldn’t get the Congressional Budget Office’s score in time to submit it. The congressman plans to introduce it in the future though and anticipates it could save taxpayers $5 million.”
I was about to ask “How dumb can someone be?” But then I realized that the real question should be: how is it possible that this amendment doesn’t make Womak a national laughing stock, remembered along with Roman Hruska’s “Supreme court Justices can’t all be Brandeis’s and Cardozo’s. Stupid people need representation too.” and other other all-time classic monuments to political idiocy? But then I realize idiocy has become the norm, and I get depressed. Hruska looks like Brandeis and Cardozo by comparison to the current crop.
bleepbloop80
Here in Nebraska (Lord help me), a local legislator just upped the fine for marijuana possession from $100 to $300, and then a couple of weeks later, he introduced a bill that would mandate drug testing for welfare recipients (you name it, food stamps, medicaid, etc.). There’s also something vague about making both parents in the house work and forcing their dependent children into mandated childcare.
I was able to speak to the actual legislator behind the bill last week and all he did was keep mumbling something about “saving the state money” and “read the bill” over and over again. When I put together an email filled to the brim with research showing that mandatory drug testing of welfare recipients is costly, inefficient, and needlessly discriminatory and sent it to all of Nebraska’s legislators, only one of them responded.
And guess what, it was a young female from the only “liberal(ish)” area in all of Nebraska. Surprise surprise.
Raising fines on pot and then pushing for mandatory drug testing on welfare recipients, well, that just seems like a real asshole thing to do. But, you know, family values.
Paul in KY
@kay: In many African nations, they would have big billboards with beautiful light skinned children on them, extoling the wonder of baby formula.
Problem was, it cost more money than mom’s milk & then poor people would dilute it. Sad situation.
Bulworth
Well, yes, food card recipients, not to mention other unemployed or underemployed people, need better jobs. But we’re told that the nation’s 10% unemployment rate is “structural” so I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing any progress on that front for some time.
kay
@ppcli:
It’s becoming increasingly clear that Boehner has no control over the GOP House.
Which I’m enjoying immensely, after watching media demean and discredit Pelosi, who was great at her job, but who they personally didn’t LIKE.
Our media are poor judges of both character and competence. Once again, they backed the wrong horse. This is going to end up like McCain, where they’re stuck defending him after everyone with a pulse knows he’s a hack.
cmorenc
@Cacti:
The GOP still hopes to do enough propaganda and voting access-engineering of the electorate to gain and solidify a modest but sufficient permanent working majority, the way they thought they’d succeeded in doing back in 2000-2005. However, their main objective during the next two to six years or so is to so permanently shackle the federal government with debt and funding restrictions and their fondest dream, a few more 5-4 SCOTUS decisions sending constitutional law back where near where it was during the Lochner era and pre-New Deal, where the powers of the federal government under the commerce clause etc. are enormously more limited than has been the case the last seventy years. If they succeed, then it won’t matter for at least a few decades, if ever, that the demographic landscape dramatically changes such that by around 2020, the GOP is permanently doomed to minority status and the dems gain indefinite ascendency. Even if the dems succeed in remaking the lineup of SCOTUS over the next twenty years to undo the damage of the Robers/Scalia etc. court, the debt bomb the GOP is deliberately creating will be their firewall.
Ash Can
@Omnes Omnibus: I saw some mention around here yesterday of current and former Packers players speaking out in support of the unions. If any Packer players show up tonight, Walker might as well crawl into a hole and hide there until 2014.
@kay: I have to wonder how much control Boehner actually wants to have over the House GOP. If he’s that lazy, maybe he just doesn’t really care about anything but the title and fancy chair. Maybe he just figures he’ll let the various members do what they want now, and that no matter how batshit they get the RNC noise machine (with an assist from Citizens United) will manage to get their crazy asses re-elected next year.
JCT
@Paul in KY:
Absolutely not just in Africa — my medical school was affiliated with a huge NYC city hospital and we were all taught as part of “post-birth aftercare” counseling in our OB clerkships to explain that breastfeeding was “healthier, easier and cheaper” (the amount of resistance to this was quite surprising thanks to the formula advertising). But we were also taught to make it perfectly clear that if they chose to use formula they should never, ever dilute it… it was a recurring problem in poorer neighborhoods.
I’m kind of chuckling as I read some of this, my own mother thought I was insane for breastfeeding — and took great joy in blaming my eldest’s wicked colic on it. Sigh.
kay
@Ash Can:
I just think it’s borderline comical that Pelosi was portrayed as this lunatic San Francisco liberal who couldn’t handle anything and Mr. Can’t Shoot Straight was held up as this model of midwestern work ethic.
We didn’t see this horseshit political-prop legislation coming out of Pelosi’s House. We saw, like, student loans, the “kitchen table” stuff pundits are always yammering about.
Pelosi is practical. Mr. Midwest is sort of a loony tunes. The media stereotypes were exactly and specifically wrong.
mark
@Ija: get off your high horse. There were some sick things written in that thread, including several about every man being a potential rapist. This isn’t a 1991 orientation at Antioch, so don’t take it there.
creolechild
@NonyNony:
“NAFTA is the product of a culmination of thought. Said to have been influenced by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade….it began when Ronald Regan campaigned for a North American common market.”
“After Congress passed the Trade and Tariff Act, granting Fast Track privilege to the president (essentially meaning that negotiations regarding free trade agreements would be handled strictly by the president, whereas Congress can only approve or disapprove agreements following negotiations), President Ronald Reagan opened negotiations with Prime Minister Brian Mulroney of Canada and President Carlos Salinas de Gotari of Mexico.”
“As a result, a preliminary agreement was signed between the United States and Mexico in 1987 and a Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was signed in 1988. With the formal proposal of a free trade agreement between the United States and Mexico by President Salinas de Gotari in 1990, the seed was sewn, and representatives of the three countries signed NAFTA only two years later (superseding all prior free trade agreements in North America).”
http://www.naftaworks.org/history-of-nafta.php
giltay
Not all bad news today.
MoJo: South Dakota Shelves “Justifiable Homicide” Measure.
A Farmer
@Ash Can: There is no penalty for being stupid in Congress (see Bachmann, Michele or King, Steve). Most districts are so one-sided that the only threats to the candidate’s re-election come from even crazier, more stupid candidates. The problem becomes that it doesn’t matter how well-qualified a Democrat is in the district (or Republican in cities)they have no chance with the D by their name.
Therefore, the bench gets pretty thin on the opposition side, because they can’t work their way up through the smaller posts to be a viable candidate for Congress. Boehner has never had any significant opponent since he won his original primary in 1990.
Paul in KY
@JCT: Good catch. I wasn’t meaning to say only in Africa would the baby formula get diluted. I just remembered seeing (in National Geographic, I believe), those big billboards with the western looking babies.
Marketeers can be so evil, sometimes.
shortstop
@JCT:
It’s funny how a lot of bottle-feeding women are really defensive about their choice and are still looking for validation years later, but sometimes it’s just the fashion of the time that creates the pressure. My mom endured the nurses’ rolling eyes, barely veiled contempt and complaints about “inefficiency” to breastfeed me in the ’60s. (She was already the maternity ward freak for having a baby at 35.) She told more than one nun (ironically, I was born in a Catholic hospital) to MYOB and stop badgering her.
Re formula, as much as corporatism and anachronism are part of the GOP creed, I don’t think there’s much of anything behind Bachmann’s complaint besides reflexive contrarianism and, of course, a chance to stick it to black women. If Michelle Obama proposed a large tax cut to all Republicans that would be denied to all Democrats, the right would still chastise her.
shortstop
@kay: What choice did they have, though? They tried to portray her as some kind of ball-busting unnatural woman, and failed because she (like a lot of accomplished women her age) is a master at wielding authority without challenging traditional concepts of ladylike demeanor. (I freaking loved to watch her successfully thread that needle time after time.) So the only other thing they could come up with was radical lefty San Francisco values blah blah blah.
Xenocrates
Orange card? Pikers…we need to start requiring them to wear some special piece of identification…perhaps a green “W” for welfare? Then we move on to the Jews, homosexuals and gypsies. It’s an original idea of mine…/s/ J. Goebbels
JCT
@Paul in KY: Of course — and I would argue it was particularly evil to push formula on a continent where REFRIGERATION was at a premium. Lord.
@Xenocrates: OMG, don’t even suggest that in jest — these insane house freshman and their senior enablers will author a house bill to get this going. Shudder.
Citizen_X
@NonyNony:
Bullshit. The ACA is helping me, right now, and that sure as hell draws “a big bright line between ‘people trying to help me’ and ‘people content to let me starve.'”
That it may not be “obvious” enough that you can’t see it only exemplifies how effective the GOP propaganda has been.
Ash Can
@shortstop: “Ironic” is right. I was born in a Catholic hospital in 1958. Back in those days, of course, most of the nurses in Catholic hospitals were nuns, and the nuns at this one were thoroughly unsympathetic to my mother’s attempt to breastfeed me. Fast-forward to 1999, to my son’s birth in a Catholic hospital. There, the nurses bent over backwards to support my breastfeeding efforts. When I went home, they made sure I had the phone numbers of the lactation team, and that I knew I could call 24/7 if I had the slightest question or concern. And when the visiting nurse came round a few days later and saw that I was having trouble latching on, she made damned sure I got hold of a pump. They were fantastic, and the exact photo-negative of my mother’s experience. Progress is good.
Omnes Omnibus
@Ash Can: The Packer players have done themselves proud here.
Ash Can
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m sure that the fact that the NFL is undergoing its own little labor crisis these days isn’t lost on the players either. ;) Nonetheless, getting a genuine Superbowl-ring-wielding Wisconsin folk superhero or three up in front of this issue can’t possibly hurt the cause, and hats off to these guys for doing the right thing.
cckids
@Paul in KY:
Not to mention the lack of safe drinking water with which to dilute/mix it. Nestle,et al, have much to account for. IIRC, they also paid doctors in the US to push the formula to mothers, as “modern”. You don’t want to be one of those hicks, do you? They’ve also given the initial samples to hospitals essentially free for years. The sample size usually lasts 10 days to 2 weeks. . . just long enough for most women to lose their own milk & not be able to breastfeed.
Triassic Sands
@Comrade Dread:
Alternative? The GOP thinks ERCare is as good as or better than private insurance and what makes it even better still (for communist parasites) is that it’s free.
Republicans are incredibly stupid and horribly dishonest on a wide range of issues, but they really bottom out when talking about going to an emergency room for health care.
It takes just a few seconds to explain to a rational person why you can’t get health care in an ER, but for some reason no prominent person has succeeded in burying this inanity forever. Any news program host could completely destroy a Republican’s claim about emergency room as health care provider in a matter of seconds, but for some reason that too hasn’t happened (to my knowledge at least, which is certainly incomplete).
Paul in KY
@cckids: All sadly true. The almighty profit must not be compromised by starving babies.
All hail capitalism!!
Triassic Sands
What possible relevance to “fraud” could the color of a Food Stamp card have?
People like Rep. Jeff Dial are really too nasty to believe. With so much hatred and bitterness bottled-up inside it’s a wonder he doesn’t just explode.
elm
@PurpleGirl:
I think you’re right. Thirty seconds of research suggests that the IRS reclassification of breast pumps & other nursing supplies makes them eligible to be bought with medical FSA money.
It’s not perfect, a direct subsidy would help the poorest people more, but it’s not restricted to only people who itemize their deductions.
shortstop
@Triassic Sands: Just as the special paper (red and blue threads, etc.) used in U.S. currency is only obtainable by the U.S. Treasury, orange paper stock cannot be purchased by the general public. Sheesh, everyone knows this.
jonas
And let me add that never have the words rung truer that Republicans have a deep and abiding concern for little children, from conception all the way to birth.
HylasBrook
@c u n d gulag:
And a purple “P” for poor….
splashy
People need to be constantly told that Republicans will always be only for big business and wealth, no matter what they say. Always.
That’s the bottom line, and is the reason they do everything they do. Everything else is just baffling people with BS.
rwgate
Requiring hospitals to check on the immigration status of “hispanic” appearing individuals goes pretty much along the lines of SB1070, and would have much the same effect. How many poor people currently use ER’s for care? Just as SB1070 would make any Hispanic reluctant to report a crime for fear of being deported, so would going to the hospital, even in a life-threatening situation.
As a current AZ food stamp card holder (a generous $19.00 per month), I have little means to commit fraud. You can’t spend more than you have on your card; you can’t buy non-food items; you can’t buy cigarettes or alcohol. Your allotment is deposited in your card monthly. To get a card requires proof of citizenship, bank account balances, income reporting (like taking out a loan), and regular adjustments in your allotment as your income increases. Many people are on food stamps, not because of lack of education (I have a degree in History, with minors in Poli-Sci and Psychology) or job skills, but because of circumstances beyond their control (in my case, illness).
It’s not enough that we need food stamps; most of us would choose otherwise. But these sanctimonious Republicans just love to rub our misfortune in our faces and add to our problems.
Cerberus
Hmm, back on target.
Forgive me if I’m wrong, but aren’t hospitals there for everyone to provide emergency care by order of Hippocratic oath no matter what?
I’m pretty sure that say, a couple from England or Germany needing to go to the hospital because they slipped on a rock walking around the Grand Canyon (the Grand Canyon being one of the most popular tourist designation for foreign tourists) are legally eligible for all hospital services, even though they are not citizens, even though they may not have applicable health insurance.
So, how is this supposed to work, assuming of course the good faith argument we really should never assume with conservative arguments? I mean, hospitals have no real reason to ever give a fuck about citizenship, by my understanding.
So are we just adding harassment for shits and giggles and to tell anyone with skin more tanned than an Italian that they should be moving to New Mexico? I mean, yeah, that’s what they’re doing, but where’s the plausible deniability coming in? What’s the dogwhistle excuse that all hides the obviousness of their harassment campaign?
Have they just given up making even the most forced of excuses? I mean with this and the scary SD “kill an abortion doctor” bill proposal, I wonder if we’re completing the full shift out of dog whistles into a more overtly “fuck you” phase of the culture wars.