Wanted to return to Mitch Daniels in Indiana today because he’s already being sold, hard, by public intellectuals and media personalities, as outlined here by Steve Benen:
It’s indefensible. Daniels should be ashamed of himself and the pundits who praised Daniels’ “seriousness” should feel awfully foolish right about now.
If he becomes a GOP primary contender (or fake candidate:is that a new category?) I assume we’ll be buried in an avalanche of worshipful ill-informed blather so we may have to adopt a defensive posture and start the scramble to clarify some facts before any of the national fairy tales take hold.
The bill puts Indiana at risk of losing $4 million a year in federal family planning grants likely to be cut off because of the legislation. Daniels, known as a fiscal hawk, did not address the loss in his statement.
The bill wasn’t part of Daniels’ agenda and he did not publicly advocate for the Planned Parenthood provision, but signing it might help his chances of winning the GOP nomination.
Daniels opposes abortion rights, but his call for a Republican “truce” on social issues has drawn the ire of the social conservatives. Bill sponsor state Rep. Eric Turner, R-Cicero, said social conservatives will be happy with Daniels’ decision. “No one will talk about the truce,” Turner said. “People in the conservative community care about action, and he’s clearly the most pro-life governor in America with a signature on that bill.”
Planned Parenthood says the bill could leave as many as 22,000 patients without access to Pap tests, birth control and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
The governor’s office said the law will affect 7 entities in Indiana that have a total of 34 locations in 21 counties.
22,000 ordinary people in Indiana just lost access to the affordable, preventative health care that they were getting so Mitch Daniels can call himself the “most pro-life governor in America”.
Those 22,000 people are sacrificing a lot for Mitch Daniels and his political ambitions. In return, I suggest we make Daniels own that new title, before he gears up the national conservative commentary sales force.
He’s now the most extreme governor in America on this issue, according to the bill’s sponsor, and who would know better than the anti-choice activist who is the bill’s sponsor? Not me. I’m going to take his word on that.
Step up and accept 1st prize, Mitch. Most extreme in America. Don’t be shy. People should know where you really stand.
NobodySpecial
Make ’em choose between being responsible and smacking women and the poor and they’ll reach for the strap every. fucking. time.
Chuck Butcher
So, no sale on the truce? What a fucking laugh that it was even talked about. Mitch Daniels?
Kay
@Chuck Butcher:
Right, and it was talked about because Daniels goddamned announced it.
I think the plan was “what happens in Indiana, stays in Indiana” which would ordinarily be a safe bet, considering the less then diligent in-state fact-finding of the punditry.
Remember how they sold Bush? “Oh,he’s a moderate!”
None of them had any idea what was going on in Texas, of course…it’s so far away!
b-psycho
Ever notice that none of the people so gung-ho against Planned Parenthood because of abortion ever have a suggestion about alternatives for the services they provide other than abortion?
Why, it’s almost as if they don’t give a fuck!
John S.
I think you mean Steve Benen.
kay
@John S.:
Thanks so much. My mistake.
Chuck Butcher
@Kay:
The fact that this kind of horseshit gets any traction at all is a symptom of what’s going wrong in this country and especially with the media. A fucking truce? Yeah, exactly – from Democrats. Hanging him (ooops) with this would be partisanly impolite.
As for not giving a fuck, why would anybody think they do give a fuck who gets screwed by their agenda? On the basis of exactly what?
Kay
@Chuck Butcher:
Well, I don’t have to tell you, but we just completed a cycle ‘o hate on Planned Parenthood that included the now-customary doctored video “evidence” and outright lies on the Senate floor, so this was clearly in the works.
I can’t keep track anymore. PP became a Public Enemy sometime after all Muslims did, but at the same time as union members, as I recall.
Keith G
@Kay: Bush did go throught the motions of moderate governance in Texas. He had to.
During his tenure, the Dems still were a power in the leg and Democrat Bob Bullock was the Lt Gov controling the state senate and the budget. Many were suprised by the choices Shrub began making as of Jan. 2001.
As to Daniels, I guess this means that he is all in as a candidate for the nomination.
edited
Anya
Are Republicans assholes by nature or do they go to some sort of training on how to be a heartless calculating dickwad before they run for public office?
JPL
In order to appeal to the whackos Daniels is willing to spend more money treating the poor. Planned Parenthood provides a service that is cheaper and more efficient but logic be damned. What an arse.
kay
@Keith G:
I don’t know how anyone who presided over Bush’s budgeting like Daniels did was ever, in any rational world, a “fiscal conservative” but that whole chapter has been excised from history, so I assume he’ll be heralded as the newest Great Hope of True Conservatives.
None of them give a rat’s ass about actual, on the ground health care, so this won’t make a dent.
kay
@JPL:
During the PPACA, one of the things conservatives were screeching about was that people on Medicaid could not find providers. “This is an emergency! We won’t have doctors for all these poor people!”
The conservative solution to that problem is to deny them access to existing providers.
carlos the dwarf
@kay:
Sullivan and Bobo will give him the official Village Serious Stamp of Approval.
Roger Moore
@b-psycho:
It’s not that they don’t give a fuck. They absolutely do give a fuck. Destroying the parts of Planned Parenthood that give contraception and family planning advice is a secondary goal, not an unfortunate side effect.
Roger Moore
@Anya:
By nature. SATSQ.
Baron Jrod of Keeblershire
@b-psycho:
Women can just get their pap smears done at Walgreens. Focks dun tol me so.
Keith G
@kay: What choices to they have?
His record as Budget Director for W may be farcical, but he and Huntsman are likely to be the only two around who can pick up enough non-aligned voters to win the general.
Citizen_X
@Kay:
Well, just to complete the circle: that “truce” in the culture wars Daniels was talking about? Not intended to be a factual statement.
carlos the dwarf
@efgoldman:
Like most Republican policies, the people who support this are the ones who can afford not to worry about the consequences.
Southern Beale
I’m still reeling from the notion that denying 22,000 patients access to affordable health care is now the default “pro life” position.
Weird world we live in.
JPL
@kay: What a surprise, profit making physicians won’t treat the poor who depend on medicaid.
Daniels now has a choice, pay the doctors more or let the poor die. IThe poor is not his base so for him, it’s a win, win. I hate repubs.
JCT
He will get away with this because most people have no idea what PP *really* does. Oh, and as a bonus, PP disproportionally helps the poors.
Now there’ a responsible gov, sacrifice the most needy on the altar of your presidential aspirations and contribute to an increase in unwanted pregnacies – FTW!
WWJD again?
@Southern Beale:
FTFY
Southern Beale
@JCT:
Thanks. Stupid mistake.
MikeJ
Not that I believe they should have to jump through any hoops, but isn’t there a way that PP could share their office space with a legally separate, but wholly owned subsidiary that performs any abortions?
The US has laws against doing business with states sponsors of terror and some other countries, yet the US government still does business with every oil company on earth. How? The oil companies just make little baby companies that accept the money from the US and do nothing with, say Iran. The money winds up in the same pot, but they get to say fuck you to US law. Shouldn’t someone use this power for good?
Keith G
@efgoldman: I do not trust the GOP to do the right thing and shoot themselves in the head and callapse into a heap. Remember the mortally wounded soon to be buried GOP of Nov/Dec 2008?
They are like Michael in the movie Holloween and we just keep turning our back on them assuming they are dead.
Come August/Sept 2012, what’s left of the institutional GOP, the reactionary wing of corporate America, and their media helpers will make sure that there is an electable opponet to face Obama.
Mike in NC
This is a contest between all the GOP governors elected last year. The winner gets to beat an orphan to death with a 2-by-4. FOX News will have the video for your enjoyment.
Mnemosyne
@Anya:
At this point, they’ve been self-selected to all be heartless calculating dickwads. Any Republican politician who would have had a second’s hesitation about closing off poor women’s access to healthcare has already become a Blue Dog Democrat.
JCT
@Mike in NC: At this stage this is basically the only thing they haven’t done. Can you hear the cries of “liberals have no sense of humor” in their defense?
Shalimar
@JPL: This is not a difficult choice for them. The laws allowing emergency rooms to turn away people who can’t pay are coming after the 2012 elections. If they wanted to live past 50, poor people should have worked hard enough to pay for health care like all the Republicans who inherited wealth from their parents did.
kay
@Keith G:
I think Romney is the nominee. That’s my bold prediction, and feel free to give me hell if it’s wrong.
Which is good. I read his statements from the last fake-debate the GOP had and looked at his photos at that debate.
All politicians ask for votes. All politicians pander for votes.
Romney grovels for votes. There’s something repellent about it. His eyes are pleading. He lacks self-respect.
I want to say “get up off your knees, buddy. You’re embarrassing people with that”.
JCT
@Shalimar: Ummm, no — how exactly would that work? At present, we can examine and send non-urgent cases out for follow-up on the outside, but if someone shows up at my ED with an emergency they will be treated, end of story. No legislation will change that.
@kay:
This. He really comes across as needy and pathetic. And HOW is he going to run against ACA? Plus there’s always the Mormon angle.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@b-psycho: Of course they don’t. They don’t give a rat’s ass about a “life” once it’s crossed the cervical rucbicon, except perhaps when it can tote an M-16 so that their precious (and of course more valuable) offspring don’t have to take that risk.
@Anya: I suspect it’s sort of self selecting for the heartless dickwads migrating to the Rs. As the party drifts rightward, it’s like some kind of contest for most callous. Shitheels, every one of the venal schmucks.
Calouste
@JCT:
Don’t blame the other 95% of the world.
Josie
@Kay: Kay, two things jump out at me that could be used against Daniels. He is sacrificing the health of 22,000 women in his state to his personal presidential ambitions, and he is not governing as he campaigned that he would. These are charges that could be leveled in advertisements that would hurt him. You could, so to speak, hang them around his neck.
Anya
@Mnemosyne: @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): You’re right. At least the Blue Dogs have some redeeming qualities.
@Josie: Daniels will never win the wingnut nomination, he’s a short, ugly Arab.
Southern Beale
Once again I’m reminded of the psychological conundrum of believing in Republican political ideology: the mere fact that there are 22,000 left out of the private insurance market and dependent on a group like Planned Parenthood for their healthcare is proof-positive that conservatives are wrong when they maintain our existing healthcare system is just fine, that our private, for-profit insurance-based system is functioning.
To be a Republican today requires one to hold a staunch belief in things which with a little simple logic are easily proved to be false.
Southern Beale
@efgoldman:
I’ve had the same problem, must be a glitch in the matrix.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Baron Jrod of Keeblershire: And you should have seen the look on my poor ob-gyn’s face when I marched up to the Walgreen’s pharmacist (as the drop off window) and asked when I could schedule a pap smear and breast exam. Poor SOB was just picking up his own prescription, and of course turned when he heard the question asked and saw me. To call his expression priceless (though slightly pained) isn’t too awfully much of an exaggeration.
When the pharmacist advised that the pharmacy didn’t offer such a service, I told her Faux news said they did and the my doc interjected “they did not; please tell me they did not.” I assured him that they did that I had seen the clip myself. He observed that he had not imagined that was in my viewing rotation (25+ year doc/patient alliance we’ve had) and I admitted it wasn’t but I had seen the clip and felt the need to make a point, in multiple Walgreens. “Only you, Bella Q,” was his comment as I said “see ya next week in your office, doc” and left, having made my point in my fourth store that day. Heh.
Oddly, he remembered running into me at Walgreens when he called Friday to tell me some test results. Who would have imagined?
Brachiator
Apparently, Daniels and his ilk believe that if a woman does not promise to use her womb only to push out babies, then she is not entitled to any health care.
I continue to be astounded that conservative women are sitting back and keeping silent on this issue. Do they really think that they will be exempt from this vile anti woman hysteria?
Roger Moore
@Josie:
You make that sound as if it would hinder his chances for the Republican nomination. Something tells me that fucking over 22,000 poor, predominantly minority women will help his standing in the party.
Josie
@Roger Moore: I wasn’t referring to the race for the Republican nomination. I had in mind the presidential race or another race for governor.
DW
@kay:
You’re right that Romney grovels, but that’s what will kill him in the primary. Seeking election is like dating – if you’re too desperate and needy and groveling you’ll come across as a creepy bastard and that is what will end Romney.
darms
I don’t live there so please tell the stupids who voted for Daniels (and the non-voting ‘none of the aboves’ who elected the sob) to ‘sit back ‘n enjoy it’. Worthless fucking assholes.
bob h
I’m guessing that today’s news about OBL will lead Little Caesar to decide against a run for the Presidency.
Paul in KY
Someone else has probably already posted, but I think this is a ‘tell’ that the little shit is seriously thinking about running. He knows he has to win the Recrazyican primaries.
Paul in KY
@Keith G: No one who understood how Texas works & how conservative the DINO ‘Democrats’ are down there was especially surprised by GWB once he was installed as President.
Paul in KY
@Anya: He may be short, but he doesn’t look in any way Arab.