All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[Tendrin]

Respectfully, that's now how I read it:



This would increase the deaths of black and brown babies (and women). The mortality rates in those states are already 'worse than in many less developed economies' and that's with (some) access to those options already in place - take them away and the deaths will go up. So less black and brown babies rather than more.

This is in fact the correct reading as Mets' point necessarily neglects the racial component involved in abortion lawmaking with regards to panic over the falling birth rates of white Americans, something covered in detail by Elexus Jionde here:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1052022299992449024

The pro life movement can, in fact, be traced back to falling birth rates among white women. It hasn't really changed since then.

[Tendrin]

Meanwhile, the loathsome Mitch McConnel has a new story on him in Rolling Stone titled 'The Man Who Sold America'. As more people continue to wake to the damage wrought on our Republic by this one man, we can hope his days of power will soon be over.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...merica-880799/

It’s McConnell’s kind of event, in other words, and he’s done his part over the years to ramp up the partisan rancor. “My favorite year was 1994,” he once told a reporter. “I took a cardboard cutout of Bill Clinton onto the stage and defied the Democrats to come over and have their picture taken with it.” When a congressman took up the challenge, the photo ended up in Republican ads. He lost in November. Last summer, after months of waving through President Trump’s judicial nominees, McConnell opened his remarks with a typically pointed jab — “Father, I’ve been preparing for my visit to the parish by performing as many confirmations as I can” — then stood back, his thin lips curling up slightly into the look of smug satisfaction that happens whenever he’s gotten one over on the liberals.

This year, it was no use. Even before “Moscow Mitch” became a thing, Kentucky Democrats were smelling blood. McConnell has been unpopular in his home state for years, but his approval rating plunged in one poll to a rock-bottom 18 percent — with a re-election campaign looming in 2020. In January, he had raised red flags among Republicans and -Democrats alike when he took a key role in lifting sanctions on Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, a Putin ally under FBI investigation for his involvement in 2016 election-meddling; three months later, Deripaska’s aluminum company, Rusal, announced a $200 million investment in Kentucky. A billboard funded by a -liberal group was subsequently erected on a busy stretch of I-75: “Russian mob money . . . really, Mitch?”

More recently, reports emerged that McConnell’s wife, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, had set up a pipeline in her department to funnel grants to Kentucky to lift her husband’s political prospects. And as Trump’s trade war with China escalated, uncomfortable old stories began to recirculate about how McConnell “evolved” after he met his future wife in the early Nineties, going from being a fierce China hawk to a potent ally on Capitol Hill. Chao’s father, James — a Chinese American shipping magnate and close friend of former People’s Republic dictator Jiang Zemin — gave McConnell and his wife a huge gift in 2008 that boosted the senator’s net worth from less than $8 million to nearly $20 million. While “Beijing Mitch” doesn’t have quite the same ring as his new moniker, McConnell’s change of heart on Russia was hardly without precedent. (McConnell declined to comment for this story.)

McConnel will someday rightfully be seen as perhaps one of the very worst Senators, in terms of harm done to the body politic and to its citizenry, to have ever graces the halls of the capitol.

[Tami]

Meanwhile, the loathsome Mitch McConnel has a new story on him in Rolling Stone titled 'The Man Who Sold America'. As more people continue to wake to the damage wrought on our Republic by this one man, we can hope his days of power will soon be over.

https://www.rollingstone.com/politic...merica-880799/


McConnel will someday rightfully be seen as perhaps one of the very worst Senators, in terms of harm done to the body politic and to its citizenry, to have ever graces the halls of the capitol.

I suspect that day is already here. If I'm right, then it will be proven when he's voted out of office next year.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

As this is the News thread, I thought it appropriate to mention here that Cokie Roberts, longtime TV political correspondent (I think most of her career had been at ABC) died this morning. She was 75.

[Tendrin]

I suspect that day is already here. If I'm right, then it will be proven when he's voted out of office next year.

I hope you're right. There are few who deserve it more.

[Tami]

Jim Bakker: Liberals want you to believe in climate change so you’re distracted from ‘God’s judgement’

Guess he never heard the adage, 'God helps those who help themselves'.

According to Jim Bakker, when you hear people warning about the dangers of climate change, it’s actually just a ruse to distract you from the upcoming return of Jesus Christ.

“God’s judgment is coming, just as his word said it would come in the Last Days,” Bakker said on Monday’s edition of the The Jim Bakker Show. “Why is man so livid about global warming? Why? Why do you think people in America—do you know what? They want to have people arrested that don’t believe that global warming is what they are saying it is. Do you understand me. Wake up everybody.”

uh huh

Bakker said he’s “studied” climate change, and declared “we’ve had periods of warming before.”

“God is going to send judgment, he already has, he’s already begun,” he continued. “Global warming is the world’s excuse that God wasn’t in the storm. I’m going to prove to you God’s in the storm, God’s in the rain, God’s in the wind, it’s God’s storm, it’s God’s wind, it’s God’s lightening.”

And when God turns you into a pillar of salt, it's for sitting around on your hands all day doing nothing while greedy preachers steal your money.

[Malvolio]

Jim Bakker: Liberals want you to believe in climate change so you’re distracted from ‘God’s judgement’

Guess he never heard the adage, 'God helps those who help themselves'.



uh huh



And when God turns you into a pillar of salt, it's for sitting around on your hands all day doing nothing while greedy preachers steal your money.

To paraphrase Queen, "Beelzebub already has a devil put aside for Jim Bakker," just for what he did with Jessica Hahn 35 years ago.

[JCAll]

Jim Bakker: Liberals want you to believe in climate change so you’re distracted from ‘God’s judgement’

Guess he never heard the adage, 'God helps those who help themselves'.

uh huh

And when God turns you into a pillar of salt, it's for sitting around on your hands all day doing nothing while greedy preachers steal your money.

That's to be expected from the kind of man that makes his living selling doomsday preper kits to suckers. That that man still has a TV show after decades of scamming people is baffling, but then all televangelists are weird to me. My mom still loves them, and Jim Bakker in particular.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Jim Bakker: Liberals want you to believe in climate change so you’re distracted from ‘God’s judgement’

Guess he never heard the adage, 'God helps those who help themselves'.



uh huh



And when God turns you into a pillar of salt, it's for sitting around on your hands all day doing nothing while greedy preachers steal your money.

Jim Bakker, one of the forerunners of today's slimy, smarmy, sleazy, greed driven televangelists. The fact he's still drawing breath proves to me that God doesn't exist.

[worstblogever]

GOP Congressman Paul Cook, one of the few remaining Republicans in Congress in California (CA-8), is retiring at the end of this term, seeking to be on the San Bernardino Board of Supervisors, instead.

The district supposedly has a +9 Republican lean, and in 2018, and he was lucky enough to get a Republican opponent in the Top 2 primary in 2018 because three Democrats split the vote enough behind the Republicans... Cook seems to be thinking, though, that even that lean might not be enough for him to win re-election with Trump at the top of the ticket in 2020. (Democrats had an estimated +8 polling edge in their favor in the 2018 Blue Wave that negated the advantage many seats that were previously +8 Republican or worse).

[Mister Mets]

GOP Congressman Paul Cook, one of the few remaining Republicans in Congress in California (CA-8), is retiring at the end of this term, seeking to be on the San Bernardino Board of Supervisors, instead.

The district supposedly has a +9 Republican lean, and in 2018, and he was lucky enough to get a Republican opponent in the Top 2 primary in 2018 because three Democrats split the vote enough behind the Republicans... Cook seems to be thinking, though, that even that lean might not be enough for him to win re-election with Trump at the top of the ticket in 2020. (Democrats had an estimated +8 polling edge in their favor in the 2018 Blue Wave that negated the advantage many seats that were previously +8 Republican or worse).

It could also be an indication that he doesn't see it as a race worth winning. He may think he'll have more power as a member of the Board of Supervisors than as a congressman in the minority party (quite a few Democrats made similar decisions after 2010.)

An explosion rocked a Russian research facility known for housing the smallpox virus

Yikes.

Respectfully, that's now how I read it:



This would increase the deaths of black and brown babies (and women). The mortality rates in those states are already 'worse than in many less developed economies' and that's with (some) access to those options already in place - take them away and the deaths will go up. So less black and brown babies rather than more.

An increase in abortions among African-American women will lead to less black babies. Even if the argument is that Republican policies directly contribute to higher mortality rates among African-American infants and mothers, so that this problem can be resolved with Republicans voted out of office (a conjecture I strongly disagree with) the lives saved will not be equivalent to the declining numbers that result from abortions.

[Dalak]

An increase in abortions among African-American women will lead to less black babies. Even if the argument is that Republican policies directly contribute to higher mortality rates among African-American infants and mothers, so that this problem can be resolved with Republicans voted out of office (a conjecture I strongly disagree with) the lives saved will not be equivalent to the declining numbers that result from abortions.

How did you calculate that? Because without some sort of actual numbers involved I would label that a biased guess at best.

[Mister Mets]

How did you calculate that? Because without some sort of actual numbers involved I would label that a biased guess at best.

It's a known statistic that African-American women have abortions at higher than average rates in the US. There are a multitude of ways of looking at that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/06/u...-missouri.html

In many black communities, the abortion debate is inextricably tied to race in ways that white communities seldom confront. Social and economic disparities that are particularly challenging to African-Americans, from mass incarceration to maternal and infant mortality, are crucial parts of that discussion.

The best way to reduce abortions, many black people both for and against the practice argue, is to address the difficult circumstances that lead so many black women to end their pregnancies. Abortions have dropped over the last 15 years among all racial groups. But black women continue to have the highest abortion rate at 27.1 per 1,000 women compared with 10 per 1,000 for white women, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health.

Those seeking to outlaw abortion lament what they see as an undoing of the fabric of black families. They liken the high abortion rates among black women to a cultural genocide, and sometimes raise the specter of eugenics and population control when discussing abortion rights, as Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court did in a recent concurring opinion.

The article doesn't cover what percentage of African-American pregnancies end in abortion. According to one website, the figure is 28 percent.

https://abort73.com/abortion/abortion_and_race/

That website seems to largely be pro-life propaganda, so if you want to look at a more neutral source, you could extrapolate from the CDC figures.

https://www.cdc.gov/reproductiveheal...s/abortion.htm

In 2015, 638,169 legal induced abortions were reported to CDC from 49 reporting areas. The abortion rate for 2015 was 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15–44 years, and the abortion ratio was 188 abortions per 1,000 live births.

If about 16 percent of American pregnancies end in abortion, and African American women are significantly likelier to obtain abortions, it would stand to reason that well above 16 percent of pregnancies of African-American women end in abortion (not counting miscarriages). The infant and maternal mortality rates are nowhere near that bad, even if you're not going to count the least-controversial abortions (IE- rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, severe health risks for the mother.)

Different sides are going to come at this with different levels of concerns/ policy solutions.

[Mister Mets]

The New York Times made a big correction to their story of an unreported allegation against Kavanaugh.

You are here: Home / Political Books / New York Times Makes Big Correction to Kavanaugh Story
New York Times Makes Big Correction to Kavanaugh Story
September 16, 2019 at 9:12 am EDT By Taegan Goddard 130 Comments

The New York Times added a correction to a report over the weekend accusing Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.

The correction notes the woman allegedly involved in the incident with Kavanaugh does not recall it.

Still not mentioned by the newspaper: One of the authors of the article, and a related book, Robin Pogrebin, was a classmate of Kavanaugh’s at Yale.

The writers of the article, an excerpt from the book, claimed on an appearance on Lawrence O'Donnell's show that editors removed the key caveat that the alleged victim doesn't recall the incident.

Their essay ignited a firestorm of criticism aimed at the Times over the weekend, for both a dismissive, inappropriate Tweet promoting the story and the fact that the paper belatedly appended an editor’s note explaining that the alleged victim refused to be interviewed and that she cannot recall the attack. Then on Monday, another report surfaced that the Times news side refused to run a story on the book’s claims because of questions about its news value, which is why it was instead published in the opinion section.

“What happened with that omission that the Times later felt belonged in the piece?” O’Donnell asked the pair at the beginning of the interview.

“There was zero intent to mislead anybody about the details of the incident,” said Kelly, who covers Wall Street for the Times. “It really focuses on the experience of Deborah Ramirez as we understand it, after Robin spending quite a bit of time with her, why the incident hit so hard for her. She was feeling like a fish out of water that first year at Yale to begin with for any number of reasons: socioeconomic, cultural, and so on. And this incident was deeply traumatizing for her. That was the focus of the piece. We included the additional detail of this other unreported allegation because it seemed germane.”

“In your draft, did it include those words that have since been added to the article?” O’Donnell followed up.

“It did,” both Kelly and Pogrebin confirmed.

“So somewhere in the editing process, those words were dropped?” O’Donnell asked.

“It was in editing — done in haste in the editing process as you know for closing the section,” Pogrebin said. “I think what happened, actually, was we had her name and, you know, the Times doesn’t usually include the name of the victim And so I think in this case the editors felt like maybe it was probably better to remove it. And in removing her name, they removed the other reference to the fact that she didn’t remember it.”

In a radio interview, author Robin Pogrebin suggested the victim was too drunk at the time to remember what happened.

[Dalak]

It's a known statistic that African-American women have abortions at higher than average rates in the US. There are a multitude of ways of looking at that.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/06/u...-missouri.html



The article doesn't cover what percentage of African-American pregnancies end in abortion. According to one website, the figure is 28 percent.

https://abort73.com/abortion/abortion_and_race/

That website seems to largely be pro-life propaganda, so if you want to look at a more neutral source, you could extrapolate from the CDC figures.

https://www.cdc.gov/reproductiveheal...s/abortion.htm



If about 16 percent of American pregnancies end in abortion, and African American women are significantly likelier to obtain abortions, it would stand to reason that well above 16 percent of pregnancies of African-American women end in abortion (not counting miscarriages). The infant and maternal mortality rates are nowhere near that bad, even if you're not going to count the least-controversial abortions (IE- rape, incest, fetal abnormalities, severe health risks for the mother.)

Different sides are going to come at this with different levels of concerns/ policy solutions.

And not one word about increasing infant mortality, which you were saying an unstated increase would result in less deaths than the abortion rates before the Trump administration without anything to back it up. It seems I was right that you hadn't considered that before my post, and that you consider to ignore it.

Rural hospitals are closing at increasing rates, and despite the top healthcare costs on the planet the quality is still going down compared to many other first world countries. Then you factor in the efforts to throw millions of Americans off of their insurance and that results in more deaths of babies as well as people of every age.