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Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

This chaos was totally avoidable.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Motto for the House: Flip 5 and lose none.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

He really is that stupid.

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

When you’re in more danger from the IDF than from Russian shelling, that’s really bad.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

“In the future, this lab will be a museum. do not touch it.”

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

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You are here: Home / Open Threads / But they feel much better about themselves, because they beat Planned Parenthood

But they feel much better about themselves, because they beat Planned Parenthood

by Kay|  August 1, 20132:04 pm| 113 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Big win for pro-lifers, cutting off access to medical care in Texas:

The number of claims filed for medical and family planning services in the new state-run Texas Women’s Health Program has dropped since the state ousted Planned Parenthood from it and set up its own program without federal financing, according to figures from the Health and Human Services Commission.
Stephanie Goodman, a spokeswoman for the commission, wrote in an email that the program is “running at about 77 percent of the number of claims this year compared to last year.” She added that the agency expects to “see a similar trend with the number of women served,” though those numbers are more difficult to calculate.
“We expected to see a drop-off in the number of claims when we moved to the state program because we knew some women wouldn’t want to change doctors,” Goodman said. “We’ve been able to find new doctors for women who call us, and we’ve got the capacity to increase the number of women we’re serving in the state program.”
In 2011, Texas lawmakers demanded that the state enforce a rule prohibiting women’s health care providers affiliated with abortion facilities, such as Planned Parenthood, from participating in the Medicaid Women’s Health Program. At the time, Planned Parenthood clinics — which could not perform abortions at facilities accepting state and federal funding through the program — served 40 percent of women enrolled in it, according to the health commission.

I didn’t think access to health care for poor people could get much worse in Texas, but I forgot about the morality factor.

Hopefully they can get that unplanned and teen pregnancy number up, also.

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Reader Interactions

113Comments

  1. 1.

    Capt. Seaweed

    August 1, 2013 at 2:11 pm

    Yeah boy NARAL has done a bang-up job the last few years, amirite? Do they even exist anymore? Where has all the money gone?

  2. 2.

    c u n d gulag

    August 1, 2013 at 2:12 pm

    More women dying from cervical cancer, and other curable cancers.
    More unwanted children being born.
    More children with life-threatening/shortening defects being born.
    More teenagers having children.
    More single women having children.
    More families driven into poverty because of children they can’t afford, but are forced to have.
    More families dependent on charity, because the cheap sociopathic MFing Republicans don’t want to help feed and house children and poor families.

    Or, as the Texas Christian Conservatives call it – “VICTORY!!!”

    If the old saying is true, and “Everything’s Big in Texas,” than they should add, “And Nothin’s Bigger in Texas, Than ‘Stupid’ and ‘Heartless’!!!!!”

  3. 3.

    Derelict

    August 1, 2013 at 2:14 pm

    It is the ultimate fulfillment of Jesus’ mission to make sure that the poor suffer, and that the sick are not healed. This is what it means to be a Christian in the great Christian State of Texas.

  4. 4.

    Kay

    August 1, 2013 at 2:16 pm

    @c u n d gulag:

    They had to know it was going to happen:

    We’re seeing obviously that access is diminishing in places, particularly [those] that rely heavily on Planned Parenthood providers,” she said. But other areas of the state have not been as affected by the policy changes, she added, referencing a data application created by the researchers that shows how the 2011 policy changes and funding cuts have affected women’s health services regionally.
    She also noted that more data is necessary to determine whether the percent reduction in claims represents a persistent trend.

    They managed to make access more unequal, in Texas. That has to qualify them for some kind of award in mean-spirited.

  5. 5.

    Alexandra

    August 1, 2013 at 2:16 pm

    Don’t call them pro-lifers. That’s their cute little rebranding which hides the consequences of their views.

  6. 6.

    sparrow

    August 1, 2013 at 2:18 pm

    @Alexandra: Agree. This is the “Pro-forced-birth” camp. They aren’t pro-life.

  7. 7.

    Lawrence

    August 1, 2013 at 2:19 pm

    And cutting stare social services so the only help for the poor is church charity, where you are forced to grovel to their god. Which, in practice, means groveling to the assholes who run the church. All part of the plan. If there really was a war on christian religion, I would enlist. The dominionist roaches are as alien and other to me as the bugs in Starship Troopers (film), which was a really terrible treatment of the book.

  8. 8.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2013 at 2:23 pm

    Hopefully they can get that unplanned and teen pregnancy number up, also.

    Feature, not a bug. The sluts will be punished.

  9. 9.

    Yatsuno

    August 1, 2013 at 2:31 pm

    @Capt. Seaweed: Yeah because NARAL can just stop teh crazy with a few sternly worded letters. They are logic fighting faith. And faith can make even good people stupid.

  10. 10.

    c u n d gulag

    August 1, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    @sparrow:
    I call it, “Forced Labor,” because that better describes what it is – and it has an even nastier connotation.

  11. 11.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2013 at 2:33 pm

    @Derelict:

    I dare say that Jesus would be appalled by the actions of some of his alleged “followers”.

    These people worship Mammon and Moloch.

  12. 12.

    The Other Chuck

    August 1, 2013 at 2:34 pm

    @Lawrence:

    The dominionist roaches are as alien and other to me as the bugs in Starship Troopers (film), which was a really terrible treatment of the book.

    But well-deserved treatment. Verhoeven took Heinlein’s juvenile apologia for fascism and turned it into the farce it deserved to be. I’d love to see Kathryn Bigelow get her directorial hands on Friday.

  13. 13.

    catclub

    August 1, 2013 at 2:34 pm

    @sparrow: how about “no-choicers”

  14. 14.

    catclub

    August 1, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:”The sluts will be punished.”

    Also, the children.
    Like the guy says: “suffer the little children”.

  15. 15.

    Paul in KY

    August 1, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    @Alexandra: Best rebranding since the Bolsheviks. The fuckers.

  16. 16.

    Emerald

    August 1, 2013 at 2:36 pm

    And will the normal Texan ever even know about this? IOW, will the Texas Media gnomes even report it?

    Stupid question.

  17. 17.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 2:37 pm

    Wait I thought the reason people in Texas didn’t want Obamacare was because they didn’t want the gummint telling them they had to change doctors?!?!

  18. 18.

    Paul in KY

    August 1, 2013 at 2:38 pm

    @The Other Chuck: I want to see someone so a good ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ That is Heinlein’s magnum opus.

  19. 19.

    Yatsuno

    August 1, 2013 at 2:41 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: I expect an increase in wayward girls’ homes where the little dears can birth their white spawn to be given to good Christian families. Offer only applies to pure white girls, browns and blahs need not apply.

  20. 20.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 1, 2013 at 2:46 pm

    @Yatsuno: And yet… Lots of money down that hole. I think it’s undeniable that post-Roe there was a long period of complacency, while the anti-abortion forces never gave up. I see a doctoral dissertation or two on the comparisons between the abortion rights movement and the marriage equality movement.

  21. 21.

    James E. Powell

    August 1, 2013 at 2:47 pm

    I’m not a fan of “heighten the contradictions” arguments, but I am wondering if the Republicans are not providing pretty clear illustrations of the differences between them and everybody else, plus the uncompromising and unapologetic attitudes.

    Does anyone expect a backlash at the ballot box?

    Although right-wing Republicans have always demonstrated a callous disregard for human suffering, since 2010 they have been on an unprecedented mission of mean. The general public has been surprisingly supportive of their austerity programs and mostly indifferent to their 19th century social programs.

    Are things going to stay this way for a while?

  22. 22.

    Pococurante

    August 1, 2013 at 2:52 pm

    I’m a sustaining donor to the Texas PP – please consider state-targeted donations.

  23. 23.

    kindness

    August 1, 2013 at 2:54 pm

    Texas….Can we get Mexico to take it back please?

    On another note:

    Happy Birthday Jerry Garcia. He’d a been 71 today, bless the big guy.

  24. 24.

    Pococurante

    August 1, 2013 at 2:54 pm

    @The Other Chuck: Major thumbs up. I still re-read Heinlein but the author’s actual convictions are nearly as reprehensible as OSC.

  25. 25.

    Pococurante

    August 1, 2013 at 2:55 pm

    @kindness: Can this blog please stop conflating a state’s politics with its citizens… (mistermix I’m looking at you…)

  26. 26.

    Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader

    August 1, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    @James E. Powell:

    Are things going to stay this way for a while?

    I will give that some Thought.

  27. 27.

    Chris

    August 1, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    @Pococurante:

    Starship Troopers is the only Heinlein book I’ve ever read. The guy has serious TomClancyitis, e.g. the tendency to stop the plot dead at every corner in order to pontificate about his politics, and double down on how much that sucks by having pretty fucked up politics.

  28. 28.

    indycat32

    August 1, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    “Some women didn’t want to change doctors” – yeah, right, that’s why claims are down.

  29. 29.

    Paul in KY

    August 1, 2013 at 3:00 pm

    @James E. Powell: Some people seem to need more ‘illustrating’ than others.

    Part of it is the ‘big lie’ syndrome. Some people just refuse to believe that people who they personally have favorable views of would just bald-face lie to them, and big whopping lies too.

  30. 30.

    Paul in KY

    August 1, 2013 at 3:03 pm

    @Chris: Read ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’. It’s sorta hippyish in parts & also completely unrealistic (government response, etc.), but it’s a fine read (IMO).

  31. 31.

    Pococurante

    August 1, 2013 at 3:03 pm

    @Chris: So you missed his books where the protagonist is happily sleeping with his mother… because it’s a time loop. And his descendents for generations for that matter.

  32. 32.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    August 1, 2013 at 3:03 pm

    OT but the thread it should have been on (downstairs) is probably dead by now. A handy thing that you people on twitter can use to say that you would be willing to pay so many more cents for a Big Mac if it meant a living wage for McDonald’s workers. It’s called the McPoverty calculator.

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/08/01/the-mcpoverty-calculator.html

  33. 33.

    Another Halocene Human

    August 1, 2013 at 3:05 pm

    @Yatsuno: Whatsamatta u? Laundries and other chitty storefront businesses can always use unpaid teenage labor. Good works! Good works!

  34. 34.

    comrade scott's agenda of rage

    August 1, 2013 at 3:07 pm

    Heinlien’s 50s sci-fi, much of it his sci-fi for juveniles, is quite good. An example is the last of it’s type, Have Space Suit, Will Travel.

    Again, read his 50s stuff, and Stranger in a Strange Land as mentioned above.

  35. 35.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    My Tea Party neighbor just told me stormwater regulations are “big government” and all people need to do is build a wall.

    Okie dokie then.

  36. 36.

    beergoggles

    August 1, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    If you want to watch their heads explode, start suggesting that all these unplanned babies that will be born will be adopted by gay couples and that they are promoting a baby farm for gay adoptions.

    Also, can we all please start calling these people forced-birthers like they really are instead of pro-lifers?

  37. 37.

    Another Halocene Human

    August 1, 2013 at 3:12 pm

    @Chris: Heh, he did like to pontificate. That may explain why his novels are so perplexing. I read the unabridged Stranger (the original print version was cut down a lot–it was a mercy pruning, let me tell you). Did that novel even have any literary merit? I can’t even tell… seemed like the 2nd half was all wank all the time (think Shinji End of Evangelion movie), the first half was boring. Probably the high point would be unpacking all the sexism in the first part and placing it in its proper historical context… the allure and threat of the pill, for example, as well as the allure and revulsion towards the “easy” woman. Btw, was there a single female character in that book who wasn’t a cardboard cutout?

    The “Martian” concepts had a HUGE impact on 1970s fan fiction subculture. (And not just the fan fiction, but the fan culture in general–“I grok Spock” buttons and so on.) You’ll frequently see them repackaged as “Vulcan” in Star Trek fanfic, dunno about Wars fanfic b/c I don’t read that stuff. We’re talking about the zine era, but you’ll still see echos in other “media” fandoms even today. (Certain memes are quite… virulent.)

    Heinlein wrote some good short stories, though.

  38. 38.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:13 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt:
    That’s nice but of course that would require me to actually buy a Big Mac in the first place.

    And I don’t see that happening.

  39. 39.

    Pococurante

    August 1, 2013 at 3:13 pm

    @comrade scott’s agenda of rage: Re-reading Stranger as an adult, he has some nifty ideas but for the most part isn’t all that good. Agreed with the above sexism note.

    Farnham’s Freehold is probably the ultimate expression of the author’s real feelings.

    IMO. :)

  40. 40.

    NickT

    August 1, 2013 at 3:16 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Ask your neighbor when they plan to start work on the coastal defenses and the levees along the Mississippi. I’ll be interested to know what the free market response might be.

  41. 41.

    Another Halocene Human

    August 1, 2013 at 3:17 pm

    @Litlebritdifrnt: Love the dipshits on twitter “I won’t pay more if I get attitude/mess up order”. Hello, dumbass, if the job paid more there would be less turnover and less messed up orders. If pay and hours improved you’d have better rested employees and less attitude.

    Of course, if you storm into a business with an enormous attitude in the first place….

    And this people do. Oh lord do they ever.

  42. 42.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:18 pm

    @NickT:

    “Just build a wall, you don’t need no big gummint socialisticky projects!” Literally it’s every man for himself. He literally said, everyone just protects their own perimeter WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG this is in Nashville where we had a massive flood 3 years ago.

    This guy is a fucking moron but of course aren’t they all?

  43. 43.

    NickT

    August 1, 2013 at 3:22 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    After all,didn’t we build the Internet by assembling patriotic small government conservatives into volunteer teams and… oh, hmm, well… how about them non-big-government moon landings orchestrated by teabagger bloggers and… no, not that either…

    Gosh darn, gee whillikers, shucks – it’s almost like government is actually good for something!

  44. 44.

    scav

    August 1, 2013 at 3:23 pm

    OT whoop. At least the jail time conviction part of one of oh so many Berlusconi sentences upheld. waffling / punting on the political ban, but here are more in the pipeline. Italy ex-PM Silvio Berlusconi jail term confirmed. One of the tax fraud ones, not the cavorting with paid underage dates one.

  45. 45.

    Paul in KY

    August 1, 2013 at 3:25 pm

    @Another Halocene Human: Guess I read the abridged version. The lawyer guy is definitely running a Mad Men style office. I liked the interactions with the Mars Man. That was best part of book, IMO.

    Prof Tolkein had more enlightened views of womanhood in LOTR than Mr,. Heinlein has in that book, I must confess.

  46. 46.

    NickT

    August 1, 2013 at 3:25 pm

    @scav:

    Some good news. Frankly, I’ve always wondered why Berlusconi didn’t move here and run for governor of Texas. He seems so perfect for the job.

  47. 47.

    danimal

    August 1, 2013 at 3:26 pm

    @NickT: I think we need to be creative. Since Climate Change is a hoax, low-lying coastal areas will continue to remain prime real estate. Maybe we can apologize for IRS mistreatment of conservatives by offering them extensive tax breaks on properties with an elevation at or below 3 feet over sea level.

    It will work better than the FEMA concentration camps proposal and is less messy than Death Panels.

  48. 48.

    cvstoner

    August 1, 2013 at 3:28 pm

    There’s going to be a lot of predictable and preventable blood on their hands for this.

    Infuriating that we have to keep going down this road over and over again. Infuriating and stupid.

  49. 49.

    Mike E

    August 1, 2013 at 3:30 pm

    OT Gen JC Christian is back at it after a not so brief health hiatus. Carry on.

  50. 50.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2013 at 3:37 pm

    @Kay:

    That has to qualify them for some kind of award in mean-spirited.

    Stop! You’re making them blush.

  51. 51.

    West of the Cascades

    August 1, 2013 at 3:37 pm

    @indycat32: I thought that “we don’t have the choice of what doctor we go to!!!” is one of the reasons Republicans hate Obamacare. But this program requires (ostensibly) some women to change doctors. I’m confused …

  52. 52.

    The Red Pen

    August 1, 2013 at 3:39 pm

    They may have won the battle to deny Texas women healthcare, but they’ve lost the battle to control Amazon.

    #wingnutbutthurt

    (Off topic, but so worth the click.)

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    @The Other Chuck:

    Verhoeven took Heinlein’s juvenile apologia for fascism and turned it into the farce it deserved to be.

    This. It’s the only case I can think of where they made a movie out of a book because they wanted to ridicule the author’s ideas, but it was definitely a deserving candidate.

  54. 54.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    August 1, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    @Another Halocene Human:

    Yeah I was going to put a warning on there about not checking out the hash tag due to the “well you might get paid more if you didn’t come to work with greasy hair and an attitude” types.

    @Southern Beale:

    Me neither but I do get a hankering for a double cheeseburger every now and again and I would be more than happy to pay 22 cents more for it.

  55. 55.

    kindness

    August 1, 2013 at 3:40 pm

    @Mike E: Great but he hadn’t posted anything since March 5th. That is a universe of time on the intertubes.

  56. 56.

    Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Mumphrey, et al.)

    August 1, 2013 at 3:42 pm

    Hopefully they can get that unplanned and teen pregnancy number up, also.

    Uh, I guess you haven’t heard, but abstinence works! Rick Perry says so. Even when it doesn’t work, it works. What is it about this that you libtards™ don’t understand?

  57. 57.

    raven

    August 1, 2013 at 3:43 pm

    @kindness: Jerry at the Assembly Hall, Feb 73.

  58. 58.

    Walker

    August 1, 2013 at 3:43 pm

    @danimal:

    Except that taxpayers are on the hook for flood insurance. That is why there is so much screwed up coastal development in the first place.

  59. 59.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2013 at 3:43 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    Offer only applies to pure white girls, browns and blahs need not apply.

    You’d better watch out, since there’s no guarantee that the father is as pure white as the mom. They may want to roll back Loving, but the horse left the barn long enough ago that he already has plenty of zorse and mule children.

  60. 60.

    burnspbesq

    August 1, 2013 at 3:44 pm

    OT, but good news: the SEC won its civil case against Fabrice Tourre for securities fraud in connection with the Abacus mortgage-backed securities deal. Goldman, his former employer, previously paid over $400 million to settle the charges against it.

    Cocky to the bitter end, the Fabulous Fab didn’t call any witnesses or put in any evidence in his defense, apparently in the belief that the jury would see that the SEC’s case was full of holes. Oopsie.

  61. 61.

    JCT

    August 1, 2013 at 3:44 pm

    The lack of pushback by hospitals in Texas is really something else. Even in my sad state (AZ) part of the reason that Brewer stood firm on accepting Medicaid expansion was because hospitals here were all up in her grill about how they would go bankrupt without the expansion.

    It’s not a complex topic (though maybe it is for Rick Perry) – these patients, even though they are poor, do not necessarily just slink away and die when they don’t get adequate preventative care. Though it seems that is the hope. Instead they show up at the local hospital profoundly ill and requiring extensive and expensive care that the hospital has to absorb.

    It’s an endless cycle of lose-lose that they are adopting down there, with a cup of cruelty mixed in for good measure.

  62. 62.

    IowaOldLady

    August 1, 2013 at 3:44 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Mumphrey, et al.): That interview with Perry shows him as still startlingly stupid. He apparently can’t differentiate between abstinence working in his “personal life” (which is waaaay TMI) and abstinence education NOT working to prevent pregnancy in teens.

  63. 63.

    burnspbesq

    August 1, 2013 at 3:46 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Mumphrey, et al.):

    Abstinence does work. If you actually abstain. Who abstains? These days, not much of anybody, AFAICT.

  64. 64.

    Shakezula

    August 1, 2013 at 3:46 pm

    But by increasing the number of easily preventable deaths more dear ladies and babies get to return to Jesus that much sooner! Why does PP try to keep women and babies from being reunited with the Lowered?

  65. 65.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:48 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    I’m sorry, when did anyone EVER abstain? Hello? Like this was something people once did and don’t any more? Sorry but that’s delusional. Even the Old Testament is full of the extramarital sexxy time.

    And who can blame them. Who wants to abstain? Biological imperative, blah blah.

  66. 66.

    Roger Moore

    August 1, 2013 at 3:50 pm

    @danimal:

    Since Climate Change is a hoax, low-lying coastal areas will continue to remain prime real estate. Maybe we can apologize for IRS mistreatment of conservatives by offering them extensive tax breaks on properties with an elevation at or below 3 feet over sea level.

    The National Weather Service is a Socialist plot, so we should discourage them from listening to anything it says. Also, too, mandatory evacuation orders are just Big Brother trying to round you up and put you in a FEMA camp.

  67. 67.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:52 pm

    @IowaOldLady:

    But it’s always always ALWAYS all about them. They are empathy-deficient, and by empathy I mean it in the true definition of the word:

    the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this

    Wingnuts don’t have this. So my Tea Party neighbor can be like, why not just have everyone build a wall around their garden and then we don’t need stormwater departments and big government and taxes and yada yada. Poof it’s magic! Cuz hey it works for HIM so why shouldn’t it work for everyone? Also, who cares about everyone? So what if some shmuck lives at the end of the wall and gets all of that water in his living room SUCKS TO BE YOU too bad you didn’t have the sense to live on top of the hill SUCKA.

  68. 68.

    burnspbesq

    August 1, 2013 at 3:53 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    Is your snarkometer under warranty?

    Also too, reading all the way to the end of a comment helps you avoid looking foolish when you blast the commenter for not saying something that he/she actually did say.

  69. 69.

    scav

    August 1, 2013 at 3:53 pm

    Death Panels bearing crosses just don’t want the competition. Reeeeligious Freedom! The govt should not come between a woman and the religiously inspired doctor or pharmacist refusing to treat her.

  70. 70.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    @JCT:

    Same here in Nashville, we are a healthcare city, it’s one of our biggest industries. I’m just shocked that either they didn’t push back harder or the GOPer governor ignored them. He’s trying to walk a fine line, hemming and hawing about doing something sorta quasi whatever but he did ultimately say no to Medicaid expansion, said we’d come up with our own program and damn if that didn’t work. Shocking.

  71. 71.

    beltane

    August 1, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    @Southern Beale: Yes, that’s why back in the old days, when everyone abstained, there were so many foundling hospitals and hush-hush closed adoptions that amounted to human trafficking rings.

  72. 72.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:55 pm

    @burnspbesq:

    Living in Tennessee there’s a never ending bucket of snark.

    Also, I wasn’t blasting you. I was fucking AGREEING with you.

    Take two chill pills and call me in the morning.

  73. 73.

    IowaOldLady

    August 1, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    @Southern Beale: European church records sure show that many brides were pregnant. When you record all marriages and births, the pattern is pretty clear.

  74. 74.

    burnspbesq

    August 1, 2013 at 3:56 pm

    @The Red Pen:

    They may have won the battle to deny Texas women healthcare

    For the three days or so it will take to find a plaintiff with standing, file a complaint, and get a TRO.

  75. 75.

    Southern Beale

    August 1, 2013 at 3:57 pm

    @beltane:

    LOL.

    Ironically, child labor was allowed back then too. Weird coinky dinky eh?

  76. 76.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2013 at 3:59 pm

    @The Red Pen:

    My, the butthurt of the fascist scum is sweet.

  77. 77.

    catclub

    August 1, 2013 at 4:00 pm

    @Southern Beale: I hope that the hospitals continue to apply pressure, and the decision gets reversed in more states. Maybe after some states show that it is a big financial win ( bigger than the 10% contribution that will eventually be asked of the states), more states will do it. Right now it is a bigger than usual fuck-you to their poorer populace.

  78. 78.

    Matt McIrvin

    August 1, 2013 at 4:01 pm

    @Southern Beale: The rhetorical thumb on the scale that bothers me is that when people describe abstinence as 100% effective, they’re implicitly assuming 100% compliance, but then they turn around and cite failure rates for contraceptives that include user error (which is most of the failure rate). People only become fallible when they’re using contraceptives!

  79. 79.

    piratedan

    August 1, 2013 at 4:03 pm

    @Another Halocene Human: well there’s also, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress and Time for the Stars, which is mostly about interstellar travel and communication via linked telepathic pairs. Don’t agree with Bob’s politics on many things, but he was one of the few writers in his age that got kids thinking about science and space the likely challenges to both society and humanity.

  80. 80.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2013 at 4:06 pm

    @Yatsuno:

    I read an article a few years back that presented a case that, in fact, a dearth of adoptable white babies is part of the motivation for the forced labor movement (even better than forced birth as a label, IMHO, h/t c u n d gulag). All those white sluts aborting rather than being punished through childbirth and giving up the baby to a proper “Christian” family where one of the partners can’t cut the mustard in the reproduction department.

  81. 81.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2013 at 4:07 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Hello, Bristol Palin! Talking about you!

  82. 82.

    mapaghimagsik

    August 1, 2013 at 4:08 pm

    It would be fun to get some science/speculative fiction that would be fun to read.

    Any suggestions?

  83. 83.

    beltane

    August 1, 2013 at 4:09 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est: The problem for the baby traffickers is that with the advent of DTC genetic testing, they will not be able to carry out their subterfuge anywhere nearly as easily as before.

  84. 84.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 1, 2013 at 4:10 pm

    @Walker: Actually, that’s no longer true. The structure of federal flood insurance has changed very significantly in the last year. I recommend you do some homework.

  85. 85.

    tybee

    August 1, 2013 at 4:11 pm

    @c u n d gulag:

    texas: it’s like a whole third world country

  86. 86.

    Shakezula

    August 1, 2013 at 4:12 pm

    @Southern Beale: Age of consent was lower as well.

    I am of course not suggesting that some TalEvangical pervos are thinking that the really good old days (back when heretics could be put to the sword) included (in addition to women who had no rights) perfectly legal sex with 12 year olds and lots of kiddies roaming about without parents.

  87. 87.

    ranchandsyrup

    August 1, 2013 at 4:16 pm

    I’m farming out piecework to summer camps to make tiny bootstraps so those TX babies can pull themselves up.

  88. 88.

    Yatsuno

    August 1, 2013 at 4:17 pm

    @Southern Beale: DNA is a helluva drug man…

  89. 89.

    beltane

    August 1, 2013 at 4:17 pm

    @Shakezula: One can’t help but wonder if part of their motivation is economic. Why pay to fly to third-world countries for “sex tourism” when you can get your pervy thrills right here at home.

  90. 90.

    Greg

    August 1, 2013 at 4:19 pm

    Texas is the closest thing the US has to a theocratic police state. I lived in Dallas for three years recently and could not wait to leave. They have no respect at all for personal freedom. All they care about is guns.

  91. 91.

    tybee

    August 1, 2013 at 4:23 pm

    @Walker:

    flood insurance on the coast is a joke. multi-million dollar homes built just a few feet from the surf and you get to help insure them.

    yes, the rules have changed some but not nearly enough…

    you also get to help insure me. and i appreciate it. :)

  92. 92.

    Chris

    August 1, 2013 at 4:24 pm

    @Southern Beale:

    I’m sorry, when did anyone EVER abstain? Hello? Like this was something people once did and don’t any more? Sorry but that’s delusional. Even the Old Testament is full of the extramarital sexxy time.

    Quoted for truth.

  93. 93.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    August 1, 2013 at 4:25 pm

    @beergoggles: I just call them misogynist statists.

  94. 94.

    kindness

    August 1, 2013 at 4:31 pm

    @raven: Sweet pic. I first saw the Dead at Watkins Glenn in ’73. I was a young pup. Lied to my parents. Told them I was going to Maine with a neighbor friend to enter a sailing race (my friend raced) and instead we went up to see the Dead, The Band and the Allman Bros play. My older brother had Dead records so I knew their music but wasn’t a real Deadhead yet. Amazing fun that can not be described on a family blog such as this if you know what I mean. My real intro to the band didn’t happen till I moved to N. Cal in ’77. By then Jerry was already getting grey. Nice to see him so young.

  95. 95.

    Chris

    August 1, 2013 at 4:32 pm

    @Villago Delenda Est:

    Yeah, I agree. Given how terrified they are about the fact that white people are about to become a minority, it’s not a stretch to figure that that’s a huge motivating factor for anti-abortion believers. White women are shirking their duties to the race by having abortions and allowing These People (“they’re all social conservatives,” after all) to outbreed them, and that can’t be allowed anymore.

  96. 96.

    Chris

    August 1, 2013 at 4:34 pm

    @The Red Pen:

    LOL. One of those reviewers is still mad about Fast and Furious.

  97. 97.

    ranchandsyrup

    August 1, 2013 at 4:40 pm

    @raven: dammit I miss Jerry. SADFACE

  98. 98.

    catclub

    August 1, 2013 at 4:41 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Link?
    My impression is that changes may be COMING, but people like Mary Landrieu are struggling mightily to delay them. It will really break lots of Louisiana, probably Florida, too.
    People have gotten used to building on floodplains and below sea level. It works most of the time!

  99. 99.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 1, 2013 at 4:44 pm

    @kindness: Huh. I was at the Glen too.

  100. 100.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 1, 2013 at 4:48 pm

    @catclub: Unfortunately URL’s get wonky as you get down to the specific PDF’s, but start here: http://www.fema.gov/flood-insurance-reform-act-2012#2

  101. 101.

    raven

    August 1, 2013 at 4:59 pm

    @kindness: Yea, it lasted longer than it might have I guess.

  102. 102.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    August 1, 2013 at 5:13 pm

    @Southern Beale: I prefer to think of most stormwater regulations as stopping my neighbor from doing something to ruin my property value.

    Not that I think much of Tennessee’s stormwater efforts. TENNDOT’s erosion control sucked ten years ago, and I have no reason to think they’ve improved.

    Did give us the opportunity to completely blow the minds of the Appalachian Trail people, who showed up ready to do battle to keep NC from ruining our side the way TN did theirs.

  103. 103.

    kindness

    August 1, 2013 at 5:14 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Really? How far from the stage where you? I was about 50 yards back on the left. It was amazing looking around me and seeing a literal sea of humans everywhere. Even the trees in the distance surrounding the racetrack were covered in people. Of course the enhanced substances I had eaten may have altered my perceptions….maybe.

  104. 104.

    Tone in DC

    August 1, 2013 at 5:28 pm

    @The Other Chuck:

    That WOULD be interesting. I wonder if Rachel Nichols, Katheryn Winnick, Zoe Saldana or Anne Hathaway would want the role of the genetically engineered assassin.

  105. 105.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 1, 2013 at 5:36 pm

    @kindness: Probably not that far from you. I was left-center, inboard of the speaker stacks. Got there on Thursday – actually had a ticket. It was great how everything turned to mud after the storms Saturday. Sunday it was really, really depressing to look around.

  106. 106.

    Gene108

    August 1, 2013 at 5:49 pm

    @Smedley Darlington Prunebanks (Mumphrey, et al.):

    If abstinence worked how did the Virgin Mary get pregnant?

  107. 107.

    kindness

    August 1, 2013 at 5:51 pm

    @Gin & Tonic: Looked like a bomb went off. There were people laying everywhere. Where they dropped.

    I had a ticket too but didn’t need it as no one was taking them when we came through the gate. We came up Friday and got caught up in a traffic jam about 20 miles away. Started walking. Didn’t know it was 20 miles. Walked all night and about daybreak me & my buddy got picked up by a Karman Gia which we rode the last 12 miles sitting on the back hood with our feet on the back bumper. Hey, we made it. Missed Friday’s sound check though. Bummer. Oh well.

  108. 108.

    Pococurante

    August 1, 2013 at 6:04 pm

    @tybee: @Greg: Um. Fuck you.

    When you grow up I’m willing to educate you both.

  109. 109.

    Greg

    August 1, 2013 at 6:27 pm

    @Pococurante: Maybe you could educate us all about the imaginary economic Texas powerhouse. You know, the one where minimum wage drones work non-stop without benefits or job security to provide services for the rest of the nation and the state shoves most of their working class onto Federal assistance. Or maybe you could educate us on the lack of infrastructure and oversight and the resulting explosions, collapses and deaths. Or maybe you could educate us about how the Texas police are allowed to go onto private property and cite bar patrons for public intoxication and are allowed to confiscate private property just because a sheriff claims that it was used for drugs. Or how about you educate us about the all-intrusive Texas state government that hesitates not at all to interfere in people’s private health and social behavior? But all that’s OK because….GUNS!!!! Right?

  110. 110.

    mclaren

    August 1, 2013 at 6:53 pm

    Coming soon to Texas: eliminating treatment for STDs, including vaccines. Because only sluts get those kinds of diseases, y’know.

    Won’t be long before Texas parents can celebrate their daughters dying in screaming agony from untreated cervical cancer caused by HPV that could have been easily prevented by an HPV vaccine. Think of the celebrations! “Our daughter is locked in her room screaming like an animal,” one mother will boast. “With any luck, she’ll take months to die.”

    Fuck yeah! THAT’S America!

  111. 111.

    Villago Delenda Est

    August 1, 2013 at 7:34 pm

    @Pococurante:

    Gun fetishist asswipe, heal thyself.

  112. 112.

    tybee

    August 1, 2013 at 9:19 pm

    @Pococurante:

    so educate us. or admit tex-ass is a third world country.

  113. 113.

    polyorchnid octopunch

    August 1, 2013 at 9:54 pm

    @Pococurante: Are you trying to say that the government of the state of Texas has nothing to do with its citizenry? What kind of system are they running down there? Plutocracy? Do they have elections?

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