Frisbeetarianism

Posted on July 23, 2013 by wellsdc

Via nosuchthingaswas.com Jim Wright, who blogs awesomely at Stonekettle Station, had the following to say about attempts by North Carolina Republicans to create a state religion earlier this year:

Listen, I’d be all for [a state religion] if it was Frisbeetarianism (you believe that when you die, your soul gets caught in a gust of wind and lands on the roof and you can’t get it down without a step ladder. There’s also Killer Frisbeetarianism, but that’s practiced mostly by college kids).

What?

Oh, right, you eat the flesh of your 2000 year old dead prophet and symbolically drink his blood, but Frisbeetarianism is silly. Got it.

Photo credit: Via nosuchthingaswas.com.

Oh No You Don’t, Republicans!

Posted on July 18, 2013 by wellsdc

file6461281015948 A few Texas Republican representatives apparently don’t feel that HB2 was enough embarrassment and grief for our state, so they’ve decided to expend more taxpayer money to pursue even more egregiously unconstitutional restrictions on abortion rights (h/t Evin).

The text of HB59, introduced today in the Texas House of Representatives, is not yet available online. The bill’s caption is “Relating to a prohibition on abortion after detection of a fetal heartbeat; providing penalties.”

According to the Mayo Clinic, the heart may begin beating as early as six weeks. It is not clear if HB59 would prohibit abortion after a specific number of weeks, or if it would prohibit doctors from performing an abortion if they can detect a heartbeat. Regardless, the law is just a bad idea.

North Dakota’s six-week abortion ban, signed into law in March, is based on the idea of a fetal heartbeat. That law did not give a specific time frame either, but it has been interpreted to ban abortion at around the six-week mark. That law has also been ruled unconstitutional, which of course is the goal for proponents of these bills, who know they’ll be struck down but keep hoping they can get a case before the Supreme Court in order to reverse Roe v. Wade. A Kansas anti-choice advocate admitted as much earlier this year, according to Huffington Post: Continue reading →

Signal Boost: Kurt Eichenwald on “the Murderous Cruelty of Conservatives”

Posted on July 16, 2013 by wellsdc

Vanity Fair published a column yesterday by Kurt Eichenwald entitled “My Family, Our Cancer, and the Murderous Cruelty of Conservatives,” in which he recounts his wife Theresa’s struggle with breast cancer, the top-shelf medical care she received, and the fact that many Americans have no chance at all of receiving remotely similar care. He lays this right where it belongs, at the feet of Republicans (and their occasional blue-dog Democratic allies), who refuse to support health care measures that nearly every nation in the industrialized world now takes for granted, and who refuse to acknowledge the impact their policies have. The whole article is excellent, but here are a few quotes that stuck out for me:

Many Republicans, either out of self-delusion or deceit, deny they are causing any such thing. But there is no question that, in their obsession with zygotes, embryos, and non-viable fetuses as part of their supposed pro-life stance, they are effectively murdering real, walking, talking women—mothers and daughters, grandmothers and sisters, all sacrificed on an altar of Pecksniffian hypocrisy and contemptible disregard by people who have the insurance, connections, and available health care to feel certain their politics won’t kill their loved ones. Perhaps Theresa and I are re-directing our anger from the cancer, but so be it; our rage has focused on the financially comfortable, morally blind, and arrogantly self-righteous who tyrannically conspire to rob poor women of years of life they might otherwise have. It is for this reason that Theresa is willing to disclose her condition, in hopes that, in doing so, we will help highlight how politicians are blithely choosing to kill women who are not as fortunate as she is.

And this:

Like a boy trying to justify what he wants to believe, rather than forming belief around demonstrable facts, the Texas legislators and their mostly G.O.P. counterparts around the country aren’t making arguments. They’re just saying things based on a woeful ignorance of the issues involved.

And this:

Since you don’t understand the issue beyond your desire to limit abortions, Rep. Laubenberg, let me put the meaning of what you have done in clear terms: through your ignorance or incompetence or general lack of interest in the well-being of people who don’t look like you or have your size bank account, you will be responsible for the deaths of untold numbers of Texas women. You, Rep. Laubenberg, will be a murderer, no different than some street punk who shoots up a liquor store. His weapon is a gun; yours, a smug satisfaction with your limited understanding of health policy. If Theresa and I were among the rural poor, she would now almost certainly be one the many people you would kill as a result of her inability to gain access to breast screenings. And for that, you deserve not only our contempt, but the contempt of every decent human being with the humility and intelligence to recognize the impact of the legislation you have “written,” yet aren’t bright enough to understand.

Now That the Anti-Abortion Bills Passed in Texas, the Pro-Life Crowd is Terrified of Facing the Consequences

Posted on July 14, 2013 by wellsdc

Erick Erickson makes a living trying to rile up progressives and liberals for the entertainment of the more terrible elements of the right wing. It is difficult to know how much he believes the things he says, and how much he is playing to his audience. Put another way, is he really such a horrible person, or does he just play one on TV? The only thing I know for sure that he is very good at the job I just described. In the early hours of Saturday, July 13, 2013, he tweeted the following:

The above image is from an article on Daily Kos. As of this writing, at 12:45 p.m. on Sunday, July 14, the tweet no longer appears in Erickson’s Twitter timeline, which leads me to suspect that he could not handle the heat he received. This should not be a surprise.

He did leave up some other gems, however: Continue reading →

The Texas House Makes HB2 Seem More Popular Than It Is by Changing the Page Layout

Posted on July 9, 2013 by wellsdc

Via Stand With Texas Women/Facebook

The Texas House of Representatives’ House Research Organization (HRO) releases a “Daily Floor Report” summarizing the bills and testimony presented before the House or its committees. The House has been in recess since the second special session started, although the State Affairs Committee held a hearing on the resurrected anti-abortion bill, HB2, last Tuesday, July 2. The Daily Floor Report for July 9, 2013 (PDF file) has a summary of that hearing, and it demonstrates a sneaky way of making it appear, at least superficially, that your bill has more support than it actually does (h/t Arthur).

Beginning on page 1 (the first page after the cover sheet), the report lists witnesses testifying “for” the bill, “against” the bill, and “on” the bill. It lists three pages of witnesses supporting the bill and one page of witnesses opposing it. The report also identifies one person who testified “on” the bill, Ellen Cooper of the Department of State Health Services.

Based on that, you might think that far more people testified in support of HB2 than in opposition to it, right? You might be excused, at first glance, for thinking that three times as many people testified for it as against it.

You would be wrong about that.

At the end of the three-page-long list of HB2 supporters, the report states that “about 1,090 others” signed up to testify in support of the bill. Most of them did not get to deliver their testimony to the committee in person, of course, since the hearing might still be going on a week later if they had. Still, three pages of names plus 1,090 more is quite a lot of people.

How many more signed up to testify in addition to the one page of names testifying against HB2? At the end of that much-shorter list, the report states that “about 2,060 others” signed up to testify against HB2.

According to the Texas Tribune, a roughly equal number of people testified for and against the bill. I suspect the HRO is not accustomed to writing such lengthy lists of witnesses, but that still does not explain the different page lengths. The scale of the testimony on Sunday, June 23 does not even come close to last Tuesday, and the Daily Floor Report (PDF file) for that day clearly indicates that more people signed up to testify against that bill than for it.

Wherever you stand on the issue of abortion, this sort of game-playing should not be acceptable.

Maybe Daily Floor Reports are subject to a page number limit. That is about the only honest reason I can think of at the moment for why the report is set up this way, but even that would not explain why the HRO cut off the list of opponents when it could have shortened the list of supporters.

The chair of the steering committee for the House Research Organization is Rep. Bill Callegari (R-Houston). I sent Rep. Callegari the following request for information through his Facebook page:

Dear Rep. Callegari,

I am a resident of Austin, Texas, and I have been researching and writing about the events surrounding HB2, SB9, and the related bills pending in the Legislature. I am not affiliated with any news or media organization. I have a question regarding the Daily Floor Report released today, July 9.

The report summarizes the State Affairs Committee hearing on HB2 that took place last week, and includes lists of people who registered to testify for and against the bill. According to news reports, only about 100 people were able to give live testimony to the committee, with about an equal number of people testifying in support of and in opposition to the bill. Today’s Daily Floor Report lists three pages’ worth of supporters’ names, then adds that about 1,090 more people signed up to testify in support of HB2. It then lists one page of opponents’ names, and adds that about 2,060 more people signed up to testify against the bill.

My question is as follows: why did the report list so many more names of supporters than opponents, when more people signed up to testify against the bill than for it, and roughly equal numbers of people actually testified to the committee on either side of the issue? Your attention to this matter is greatly appreciated.

I’ll update if I hear anything back.

Dear Rep. Laubenberg

Posted on July 4, 2013 by wellsdc

Via Dallas County Democratic Party on Facebook

The following is reposted with permission from a Facebook post by my friend Andreas, in relation to the HB2 hearings on Tuesday, July 2, 2013 in Austin, Texas:

Dear Rep. Laubenberg,

The truth shouldn’t ever have to fear inquiry. If this was a bill that would actually help increase women’s health and safety you would not have to avoid answering tough questions about its effect on women. You would not have to endure scathing rebuttals from actual health organizations and medical professionals. You would not have to ram this legislature through with a special session. If this was a bill that would help Texas women, you would have garnered broad support for it.

But as we have seen in the last couple of weeks, this is not about women’s health. This is about your personal religious view on women, sex and when life starts. This is about limiting access to abortions and making them so dangerous, expensive or logistically difficult, that you are basically outlawing them.

I might by cynical when it comes to the motivations and loyalties of politicians, and I might be disenchanted by the mockery of the democratic process – but I am not stupid. Don’t insult my intelligence by pretending that you have the health and safety of women on your mind.

You know what would convince me that you actually care about women’s health and safety and that you want to lower the number of abortions?

If you would fund the abortion providers so they can meet the medical requirements that you say are so important.
If you would champion age-appropriate and comprehensive sex education.
If you would fight to make contraceptives easily available and affordable.
If you would listen to what medical professionals have to say about this topic.

But as it stands all you do is using questionable tactics to get around a law that you don’t agree with. Since you can’t attack Roe vs. Wade directly you try to cancel it out by these shamefully disingenuous tactics. The truth shouldn’t ever have to fear inquiry, but there isn’t much truth here, is there?

With the same respect that you show towards women,
AF

The Extent of Anger at Planned Parenthood

Posted on July 4, 2013 by wellsdc

A friend posted this on Facebook after the protests regarding HB2 and SB9 on Monday, July 1, 2013:

Out of all the blues I talked to tonight, MOST of them were just super focused on having their tax dollars NOT go to Planned Parenthood. I mean, I kept trying to ask them “how can we help women have planned (versus unplanned) pregnancies” and they would just go back to Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood Planned Parenthood and how evil it was.

Even the really cool, chill, level-headed people were just so transfixed with the evils of Planned Parenthood.

I almost felt that they would be fine with private abortion clinics as long as they weren’t Planned fucking Parenthood.

Planned Parenthood has really really pissed them off. Their main argument was that women who go in there aren’t given unbiased info about their options – they are pushed towards abortions. And they argued that PP makes their money of abortions and wants abortions. That PP is pro-abortion and is in the “abortion business.”

Also they said that Planned Parenthood gets money for giving mammograms from the government but it’s a fraud because they don’t actually give them.

There was a WHOLE LIST. I didn’t really believe any of it, but I suggest anyone who isn’t super familiar with Planned Parenthood and all that it has to offer and all that it does (and does not do) and how it works to take some real time reading up on Planned Parenthood.

PP isn’t the bad guy – but I found myself without enough thorough knowledge about them (other than the basics) to defend them.

Learning what to research through the other side’s arguments….

I have two thoughts on this:

1. Their information on Planned Parenthood seems incomplete or inaccurate. Here is what they actually do:

© Planned Parenthood/Via washingtonpost.com

2. Remember how, a week earlier, Planned Parenthood funding was considered “not germane” to the issues presented in SB5?

My Video of the Stand With Texas Women Rally, July 1, 2013

Posted on July 4, 2013 by wellsdc

Here’s my video of the Stand With Texas Women Rally at the Texas Capitol this past Monday, July 1, 2013. It was a less-than-seasonably-hot day for Texas, meaning it stayed under 100° F the whole time. The iPhone apparently doesn’t handle heat all that well, so it kept shutting off on me. Here’s the video I was able to get. The initial graphic is by Lindsay Braun.

Right-Wing Deontological Morality

Posted on July 3, 2013 by wellsdc

Immanuel_Kant_(painted_portrait) Several studies published in the online edition of Social Psychological and Personality Science examined “the moral judgments of religious individuals and political conservatives,” finding them to be “highly insensitive to consequentialist (i.e., outcome-based) considerations.” The full paper is behind a paywall (and I’m not sure I’d understand it, anyway), but Eric W. Dolan at The Raw Story offered a summary, which included some unavoidable spin.

The study by Jared Piazza of the University of Pennsylvania and Paulo Sousa of Queen’s University Belfast, which included a total of 688 participants, found religious individuals and political conservatives consistently invoked deontological ethics. In other words, they judged the morality of actions based on a universal rule such as, “You should not kill.” Political liberals, on the other hand, consistently invoked consequentialist ethics, meaning they judged the morality of actions based on their positive or negative outcomes.

I can’t help but put this into the frame of the Philosophy 101 class I took at Rice University almost exactly twenty years ago. (Prof. Larry Temkin would be so proud to know I’m finally using what he taught me, assuming he has any idea who I am.) We read and compared the deontological theories of Immanuel Kant to the utilitarian theories of John Stuart Mill in that class. Dr. Temkin pretty much designed it to be as painful as possible for incoming freshmen.

Anyway, political and religious conservatives tend to be deontological, focusing on the “rightness” of an act itself. I’m not sure if the study examined political or religious liberals directly, but Dolan goes on to say that they tend to take outcomes into context in determining morality—a very utilitarian view.

In general, conservatives who participated in the study showed far greater concern with whether an underlying action was “right” or not, even if an action considered “wrong” by the participant led to positive outcomes, or vice versa. However, as Dolan notes:

There was a notable exception. When it came to torture, Piazza described American conservatives as “full-blown consequentialists.” But the same could not be said of religious individuals.

“In other words, political conservatives found torture acceptable when it brought about a greater good, but religious individuals found torture less acceptable even when it was a means to a greater good,” he told PsyPost.

Anyway, take what you will from this.

Photo credit: “Immanuel Kant (painted portrait)” [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

10 Things Old White Republicans Can Do Instead of Trying to Pass Anti-Choice Legislation

Posted on July 3, 2013 by wellsdc

Old white Republicans seem to have quite a bit of time on their hands, and they seem to think passing anti-choice legislation is a good way to pass the time. I thought I’d offer some tips on things they could do instead. (h/t to Jen for the idea.)

1. Shuffleboard.

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2. Contra. Not the Nicaraguan guerrilla group—I’m talking about the 1980’s Nintendo classic. (Psst! There’s a secret code that can get you nearly unlimited lives. If you promise to stop trying to pass all this restrictive legislation, I’ll tell you what the code is.)