DOWNLOADS: (215)

PLAYS: (1618)

Embed

Cenk Uygur on "pro-life" Republican Scott DesJarlais, and his fellow GOP hypocrite, presidential candidate, "multiple choice" Willard Mitt Romney.

As Cenk Uygur rightfully noted in his opening segment this Wednesday evening, these so-called "pro-life" Republicans continually show themselves to be the hypocrites they are as soon as they need to either pander for another vote, like Willard, or when they find themselves in a situation like this guy -- Scott DesJarlais, Pro-Life Republican Congressman And Doctor, Pressured Mistress Patient To Get Abortion:

A pro-life, family-values congressman who worked as a doctor before winning election as a Tea Party-backed Republican had an affair with a patient and later pressured her to get an abortion, according to a phone call transcript obtained by The Huffington Post.

The congressman, Rep. Scott DesJarlais of Tennessee, was trying to save his marriage at the time, according to his remarks on the call, made in September of 2000. And, according to three independent sources familiar with the call and the recording, he made the tape himself.

DesJarlais, who was provided a copy of the transcript by HuffPost, did not deny its contents, but in a statement released through his campaign characterized it as just another sordid detail dredged up by the opposition. "Desperate personal attacks do not solve our nation's problems, yet it appears my opponents are choosing to once again engage in the same gutter politics that CBS news called the dirtiest in the nation just 2 years ago."

That race featured charges culled from DesJarlais' divorce from Susan DesJarlais, which was finalized in 2001. The filing included allegations that he held a gun in his own mouth for hours in one instance and that he "dry fired" a gun outside his wife's bedroom in another.

DesJarlais' campaign vigorously denied those charges in his 2010 race against Democratic Rep. Lincoln Davis, saying they were hauled out of history for political purposes and had not been deemed credible at the time.

But the new transcript and other revelations from court documents paint a more damning picture of a man who was a serial philanderer willing to push one of his lovers -- whom he met as a patient with a foot problem -- to terminate a pregnancy, even when he suspected he was the father.

"You told me you'd have an abortion, and now we're getting too far along without one," DesJarlais tells the woman at one point in the call while negotiating with her over whether he'll reveal her identity to his wife. They then discuss whether he will accompany her to a procedure to end the sort of life the congressman now describes as "sacred."

"You told me you would have time to go with me and everything," the woman complains.

"I said, if I could, I would, didn't I? And I will try," DesJarlais says. "If I can [find] time, you're saying you still will?"

"Yeah," the woman answers.

Go read the entire post for the rest of the details. As always, IOKIYAR.

DOWNLOADS: (515)

PLAYS: (2836)

Embed

John Fugelsang, filling in for Eliot Spitzer on Current TV this Thursday, had similar issues with a recent Gallup poll on those self-identifying with the term pro-life as Slate's Amanda Marcotte who wrote about that same poll in her column here: The Problem With Polling About Moral Beliefs:

Another year, another Gallup poll on abortion for anti-choicers to misleadingly represent in a bid to deceive the country into believing they're winning in the court of public opinion. Of course, Gallup shares the blame for this travesty, since it publishes its polling results with a lead about the poll that asks if people identify as pro-choice or pro-life. Inevitably, "pro-life" polls well, much better than it would if it were more accurately phrased as "anti-choice" or "anti-abortion," because it's a fuzzy-wuzzy term that deliberately distracts from the legal and sexual freedom issues at the heart of the abortion debate. This year, the poll found that 50 percent of Americans relate to the empty term "pro-life," and only 41 percent to the term "pro-choice."

But if you actually bother to read on, you'll find that Americans are still majority pro-choice, which is why the direct abortion ban in South Dakota and the personhood law in Mississippi went down when put to an actual vote. Scrolling down, you find that only 20 percent of Americans support the anti-choice movement's goal in banning abortion, with 25 percent of Americans supporting abortion rights in all cases, and 52 percent of Americans wanting abortion legal with some restrictions. (Most people imagine a legal regime that will somehow allow abortion for themselves and their friends, but disallow it for those dirty sluts they hear about so much.) This means that only two out of five people who identify as "pro-life" actually align themselves with the so-called pro-life view, demonstrating neatly how useless that term is and why it needs to be replaced with a more accurate term like "anti-abortion," or my preferred term "anti-choice," which encompasses their anti-contraception activism alongside their anti-abortion activism.

Polling Americans on vague beliefs and self-identity doesn't really tell us much in general beyond highlighting how delusional and/or hypocritical our nation is. The reality is that there's a huge gulf between what people claim to believe—even when speaking anonymously to a pollster—and what they actually believe, which is easier to measure when looking at behavior or what kind of policy choices they support. Read on...

John Fugelsang's take below the fold.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (1409)

PLAYS: (6368)

Embed

After Bill O'Reilly only shows the portion of The Daily Show clip where Jon Stewart curses at Bernard Goldberg rather than Stewart's entire response to Goldberg saying that "liberals don't have five kids--one of them has Down Syndrome--liberals certainly don't allow that to happen". Goldberg responded:

Who do you think is more likely to willingly and knowingly have a baby with Down Syndrome, a pro-choice woman or a pro-life woman; a woman for whom religion isn't terribly important or a woman for whom religion is important; a liberal woman or a conservative woman? The odds are that it's the pro-life, religious conservative woman that would make such a compassionate decision and the reason, the reason he's so upset is because he like most liberals think they have a monopoly on compassion and she shows that they don't.

Oh yeah, that’s entirely different Bernie. And nice hatchet job on editing the Daily Show segment O’Reilly or your audience would have known Stewart actually had a substantive response to Goldberg that made what he said tonight look just as stupid--not that it was really any different from what he said in the previous show.

DOWNLOADS: (1211)

PLAYS: (1825)

Embed

Peggy Noonan thinks she knows what's good for Democrats and that this Stupak-Pitts abortion amendment is somehow good for the party—but only in a “funny, little political way”. How quaint of you Peggy to be so completely dismissive of what the real life impact of that amendment passing would actually mean to the lives of women, especially those with low incomes that are the least capable of doing anything to fight back against what’s happening but most likely to be impacted by it.

Noonan had this bit of condescending wisdom to share with all of us on this weekend’s edition of The Chris Matthews Show.

Matthews: Peggy every four years the Democrats meet and write a platform and it says pro-choice, abortion rights, but you know a third of the Democratic people in this country, who vote Democrat are pro-life. Did they ever, ever have a plan here to bring them all together?—because that’s what they have to do.

Noonan: I don’t know if they had a plan but I’ll tell you in a purely political sense, for the Democratic Party to shake off for the first time in like 35 years the general understanding that they are the pro-choice and you cannot be pro-life and be in this party—it hurts the Democratic Party—everybody always said it hurt the Republicans to be pro-life. It hurt the Democrats to be rigidly pro-choice—to not let pro-life people speak at their conventions etc. In a funny, little political way this is a benefit to the Democratic Party that, that pro-life people have a serious place at the table at this moment. It’s good for them.

What’s pathetic is that religion is allowed to be used at all to get working people to vote against their own economic interests and that people don’t have the sense to see past that. And if Peggy Noonan thinks that it is acceptable to call any aspect of this debate “funny” or “little”, she needs to go read Digby’s post from last week-Goldilocks Was Betrayed:

In case you are wondering about the real life effects of playing cheap politics with pregnancy, read this. And this. Contra McGaskill and Tweety, who are misinformed about just about everything, this is actually a big deal. This amendment doesn't just punish Lord Saletan's little sluts. All women will be losing coverage for necessary abortions when a wanted pregnancy goes wrong. It only has an exemption for the life of the mother, but not for her her health, nor for severe and fatal fetal abnormalities. Click those links for what that means in real life.

DOWNLOADS: (2410)

PLAYS: (8631)

Embed

George Carlin from Back in Town, 1996. Very funny and definitely not safe for work.

h/t Mikeovhell

DOWNLOADS: (1305)

PLAYS: (4336)

Embed

From The Rachel Maddow Show, June 8, 2009.

Author Frank Schaeffer, former anti-abortion activist, challenges members of the anti-abortion movement to salvage their reputation for caring about life by turning in to the FBI and Justice Department the violent extremists within their ranks.

DOWNLOADS: (1660)

PLAYS: (4104)

Embed

Randall Terry, founder of Operation Rescue (now known as Operation Save America) states,

"George Tiller was a mass-murderer. He had blood all over his hands. Now we grieve for him that he was shot in this deplorable manner and he did not have a chance to get things right with his maker perhaps. Every man deserves to have a trial of a jury of his peers and then a proper execution, not to have somebody become judge, jury and executioner on their own."