Fishing Trip Nets Unexpected Prize

RH Reality Check has performed a great service in documenting the total waste of time perpetrated by the US House RAPEublicans' latest fishing expedition.

In May, Republican members of two congressional committees—the House Judiciary Committee and House Energy and Commerce Committee—wrote letters to the departments of health and attorneys general in all 50 states, asking for thousands of pages of information about how each state monitors and regulates abortion.

“By now you are surely aware of the trial of Kermit Gosnell, who is charged with the serial murder of infants, the murder of a female patient, and other felonies committed in the operation of his abortion clinic in Philadelphia,” wrote committee chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and Trent Franks (R-AZ), chairman of the Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, in the letter sent to all state attorneys general. “We are seeking to find out if state and local governments are being stymied in their efforts to protect the civil rights of newborns and their mothers by legal or financial obstacles that are within the federal government’s power to address.”

With the implied threat -- 'and if you are not sufficiently stymying women seeking abortion and the medical staff who serve them, we'll help you with that'.

The RAPEublicans were seeking to bolster with facts -- FACTS! -- their federal bill banning all abortions in all 50 states after '20 weeks post-fertilization'. (The bill has zero chance of passing in the Senate.)

Well, that didn't work out very well. In fact, I believe this is a sterling example of being hoist on one's own petard.





RH Reality Check obtained these documents from the various states and analyzed them. The data base is here.

An analysis of these documents shows that congressional Republicans will find no support for their arguments in favor of new restrictions on abortion care in the evidence presented by the states. In particular, to the extent that anti-choice advocates claim that women are being put at risk by abortion services, these documents—from the very state entities charged with overseeing and regulating abortion—show the contrary. They show that abortion in the United States is highly regulated and overwhelmingly safe.

Lots of details at the link and in the data base. RH Reality Check plans further analyses and reports.

I want to highlight just one of their findings: the myth of the 'born-alive' fetuses.

On the issue of infants being “born alive” after a botched abortion, Pennsylvania was the only state that reported such conduct. That was in the case of Kermit Gosnell, who has been convicted of murder.

The “born-alive” fetus is a favorite theme of the anti-choice movement, which has perpetuated the claim that a large number of viable fetuses are born alive after failed second- and illegal third-trimester abortions as a way of shifting public opinion on abortion. This claim has been heavily criticized by public health experts who say this is an exceedingly rare occurrence and is in any case already covered by existing law and regulation. Nearly 90 percent of all abortions occur within the first trimester of pregnancy, the majority of these before nine weeks. In short, the vast majority of abortions in the United States occur at the embryonic stage, prior to the fetal stage. Since only a small share of all abortions are late second-trimester (after 20 weeks), and since third-trimester abortions are illegal in all but the most exceptional circumstances, it is not surprising that state records show that the myth of “born-alive” fetuses is, indeed, a myth.

Doncha just love it when dimwits try to be smart? It just about always blows up real good. On them.

ADDED: Media Matters for America demonstrates how thoroughly MSM in the US has bought into the lies surrounding the 20-week ban.

Abortion? What a Riot!!!

Bloggers rejoice! What could possibly go wrong with the RAPEublicans' plan to make abortion funny.

“How do you make abortion funny?” That was a key question mulled at a major conservative gathering Friday on how to make social conservatism appealing to young people, after an election where Republicans got trounced in the battle for millennial voters (who are are moving even further and further away from the Christian-right on marriage and other issues).

Abortion has to be made funny, the thinking goes, because funny sells on social media, and that’s where one goes to court young people. “You can engage with sarcasm, it’s hard with the abortion issue, but you have to,” said Students for Life president Kristan Hawkins at a breakout panel at the Faith and Freedom Coalition Conference in Washington today on how to win millennial voters. “Unfortunately we have to, because this is the generation that we’ve been dealt.”

If there's one thing conservatives cannot do, it's humour. And, as we know, the fetus fetishists among them are the most humour-impaired.

This is gonna be a gas. And not in the way they intend.

The RAPEublican Train Wreck

While all the paid pundits are huffing and puffing about what went right for Obama and wrong for Romney, I'd like to offer my humble opinion.

The RAPEublicans' social policy was idiotic and DOOMED.

Federally, and in many state houses, they've been waging a relentless War on Women, culminating in an astonishing attack on contraception.

Elsewhere, several of their Neanderthal candidates fatally flapped their yaps on rape and magic lady parts.

They doubled down on Teh Geys, just as support for equal marriage grew to be the majority view.

They ignored all demographics except angry white men -- among whom, admittedly, they did well -- characterizing the rest as 'takers, not makers'.

They continued -- or didn't refute -- the moronic Tea Bagger demonization of Democrats in general and Obama in Islamic-atheist-babykilling particular.

Romney himself lied and lied and lied. And when he wasn't lying, he wasn't forthcoming with any details -- or tax returns.

In short, the RAPEublicans wrote off or pissed off just about everybody but white men.

Deliberately.

(The Democrats weren't such geniuses themselves, but made some smart moves. This is a fascinating account of both campaigns and what they did and didn't get right.)

There's much hoo-hawing on the toobz today about shifting demographics, but there's one demographic that has not shifted. Women still make up just over half the population.

And they voted for Obama. The so-called gender gap was 18 per cent, up from 12 per cent in the 2008 election.

For me, the Republican campaign was the proverbial slow-motion train wreck. It couldn't succeed.

As far as I could see, they had only two aces in the hole: REALLY low voter turn-out and/or MASSIVE vote tampering.

As the WaPo story details, the Dems had a brilliant get-out-the-vote strategy and it worked a treat.

But despite that good work, I think some of the turn-out can be attributed to voters mortally offended at being dissed so thoroughly.

I think millions of Americans said to selves: 'OK, mutherfuckers, you don't want me and people like me to vote? I've got something to say about that.'

And they did.

Or as luna said last night:

Nobody can beat a coalition of Big Bird and big vagina.

— Luna (@Heading_West) November 7, 2012

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