Coakley for Senator Jan 19!

Martha Coakley stood by Hillary all through 2008 and voted for her on the floor at Denver. Bill Clinton is campaigning for Martha.

Martha is strong pro-choice and pro-gay. Her GOP opponent, Brown, is anti-abortion.

Here is Martha's donation page: https://coakley.zissousecure.com/contribute

And her website: http://www.marthacoakley.com/

Here is some detail:

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/01/04/abortion_stances_of_brown_coakley_not_so_easily_defined/

Coakley, the [MA] attorney general, has used whatever position she is in to advance their cause - and that her work predates her time in politics. Before she joined the Middlesex district attorney’s office in 1986, for example, Coakley was a private lawyer who volunteered her time to help minors get court orders for abortions when they could not get their parents’ consent. [....]

As a district attorney, she called on the Legislature to create a stronger buffer zone between protesters and abortion clinics. As attorney general, she enforced and successfully defended the law against a legal challenge. In 2007, she was also one of seven attorneys general who sued the Bush administration over regulations allowing health care providers to refuse to provide abortion or contraception on moral or religious grounds.

That same year, Coakley spoke out strongly against a ban on so-called “partial birth abortion,’’ a procedure used late in pregnancies now barred unless the mother’s life is at risk. Unlike Roe v. Wade and other Supreme Court rulings, the ban did not allow an exception to protect the mother’s health, Coakley noted in an op-ed published in the Quincy Patriot-Ledger. [....]

In the primary race for the Senate, Coakley, typically a cautious campaigner, took an unusually bold campaign stance by declaring that she would rather vote down a national health care bill than accept new restrictions on abortion. Hailed nationally by abortion rights groups, she was cast as a leading crusader for their cause.

[Coakley's GOP opponent, Brown cosponsored a bill] which would require a woman to wait 24 hours before having an abortion and to review pictures and information detailing the developmental progress of her fetus.

[ Brown got ] the support of the Massachusetts Citizens for Life in this race, based on his position on issues including abortion, stem cells, and federal health legislation. He also opposes federal funding for abortion, supports strong parental consent rules for minors, and supports the ban on what opponents call partial-birth abortion. [....]

Brown sponsored an amendment to a 2005 bill on emergency contraception that would have let emergency room doctors or nurses turn away rape victims if they had religious objections to providing emergency contraception.

Healthcare nonsense -- cui bono?

Yes, rational debate is being shut down. Cui bono?

Look at some major supporters of 'Obama's reform.' Insurance companies and drug companies are spending and budgeting large amounts for ads (and for astroturfed organizations) supporting it.

Those companies have means and opportunity to do their homework and find out what is likely to actually be in the bill. They have motive to maximize their own profits, protect their own investors.

So -- if they're supporting Obama's bill -- is it likely to be real 'reform'? Or is it more likely a placebo, an opiate for the populists, a cowpox to vaccinate the nation against any REAL reform getting passed?

To keep the Left from looking at the issues, at what the bill is likely to include -- and to keep us from lobbying for things like a strong public option, continuing to allow drug imports from Canada, not cutting Medicare, etc ... we're kept distracted with accounts of the far out fringe of conservatives. If some Bad Rightwing Nuts are against the bill, the implication is, then the bill must be a Good Leftist Bill. Annoy a Wingnut: support Obamacare.

I'd rather annoy an insurance company by QUESTIONING the bill.

Look what's happening. We hear lots of people out shouting that the bill is socialized medicine, is far left, etc. So us Leftists, believing them, are supporting it without factchecking. Do we believe anything else the Right-Wing-Nuts claim? Why believe they are right about this, either?

Could the Reality Based Community please try Reality Basing our reaction, here?

Time: Pelosi is probably right [about CIA]

Is this an invented the internet thing? The same rightwingers and Obama may be using the same techniques that were used against Gore and the Clintons: misquote to confuse the issue and make it seem their target (in this case Pelosi) has said something terrible.

By this one charge against Pelosi, they take attention away from those who certainly did or commanded torture, and focus it on an opponent of torture [Pelosi], and damage an advocate for SS, family planning etc [Pelosi] -- and humiliate a woman [Pelosi].

h...../

swampland.blogs.time.com/2009/05/20/pelosis-probably-right/

Wednesday, May 20, 2009 at 3:40 pm

Pelosi's Probably Right

[L]ooking at the substance of the accusations, it increasingly looks like [Pelosi} was right. 

[....]

Bob Graham, who was theoretically in the room with Shelby, says he has no recollection of the meeting at all – this from a man who famously details his every waking minute. Perhaps the most astonishing response has been from the CIA Director Leon Panetta, who basically said: Don't trust our records. Which begs the question: what other issues have they kept questionable records on?

The site is thick with substantive quotes and links to sources.

UPDATE: see also http://www.noquarterusa.net/blog/2009/05/24/the-cias-history-of-bamboozling-the-congress/

Fact-checking an anti-Muslim video

Pumapac says:  The video is scary if we assume the facts presented are true. But how do we know they ARE true? [....] What do they say about anecdotes — that they don’t equal data? Very true. But research and analysis CAN make facts apparent. So,

Today’s ACTION goal is to Fact Check this short documentary

The video is very easy to follow. It presents fact after fact after fact. Here’s a starter list to check. Pick one and Google it. Share links to helpful research sites like the Atlas of the Real World, the International Database of the US Census Bureau [....]

Links are at the Pumapac.org site:

http://pumapac.org/2009/05/18/reckless-propaganda-or-provocative-facts/#comments

The video they're talking about:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6-3X5hIFXYU

FOCA - pro-choice: "Freedom of Choice Act"

The office of Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has made it known that not only is FOCA is among his priorities, but the bill will be reintroduced ( he introduced FOCA twice before) “sooner rather than later.” Barbara Boxer’s office confirmed that she will introduce the bill in the Senate.

http://jimblazsik.com/2009/03/10/obama’s-push-for-unrestricted-abortion-foca-is-coming/

Obama has said FOCA is not a priority because he wants to 'tamp down' anger or some such nonsense. Like he removed family planning money from the Stimulus to appease the GOP -- who refused to vote for the Stim anyway. See http://edgeoforever.wordpress.com/2009/01/26/obama-asks-congress-to-dump-contraceptives/

Prejean, Obama, Clintons agree. (I disagree!)

Prejean: ‘The president of the United States, the secretary of state, and many Americans agree with me in this belief.’

Prejean's statement at the Miss USA pageant when asked: ‘I think in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman. No offense to anybody out there, but that’s how I was raised.’

Obama: “I’m a Christian, And so . . . I do believe that tradition, and my religious beliefs say that marriage is something sanctified between a man and a woman.”?

[ Cites at http://pumapac.org/2009/05/12/well-the-balls-in-your-court-now-obama/ ]

Prejean's statement was more qualified than Obama's (and the Clintons' statements were less quaified, sfaik.)

(Personally, I disagree with all four of them; I favor gay marriage and full rights to gays in all respects.)

Dr. Jack Wheeler Regarding Obama

"The O-man, Barack Hussein Obama, is an eloquently tailored empty suit. "

http://www.topix.com/forum/topstories/TVHANR2I0F7TN09QJ

In the opening post at this Topix thread, scroll down to an excerpt from Jack Wheeler -- very well written invective against Obama (from early 2008).

Here is Wheeler's website.

http://www.tothepointnews.com/

Unfortunately it is also full of well written invective against the Clintons, liberals, environmentalism, etc.

Also from Wheeler's site, http://www.freewebs.com/drjackwheeler/index.htm

here's Voltaire re Koolaid.