All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Tendrin]

His comments are clumsy, but Louisiana does have a high maternal mortality rate among African-American women, and it doesn't seem outrageous for anyone to believe Cassidy that this is something that should not be minimized, and should be focused on.

There is zero reason to give the conservatives governing these places any benefit of the doubt on this matter, especially when this has been a known, long standing issue that they have failed again and again and again to show any actual interest in addressing.

Are we sure this was done intentionally? Someone handing out a wrong ballot in a primary could easily be an honest mistake. We have an unusual political environment right now where the most progressive Republican in congress is to the right of the most conservative Democrat, and where primary voters wouldn't want it any other way. The parties do take extreme stances, with a preference for narrow base-pleasing wins.

We are not, which is why I mentioned Florida where there is an ongoing investigation about something very similar that happened to a bunch of people there. It could be a one off. It could also be following a pattern established elsewhere. Time will tell.

[kidfresh512]

If you are part of the REASON why that mortality rate is there-you should probably keep one's mouth SHUT.

What he was saying was pretty much blaming black woman for that rate instead of offering reasons WHY that was happening.

If the resources are NOT in those communities-whose fault is that?

It's once thing for them to be there and those rates are high but as we have seen way too many times those resources don't show up there.

Exactly. And you see the same thing in all the red states. They never answer the question WHY is your states healthcare ALWAYS at the bottom of any list? Education is the same. And they go hand in hand. They don't want to talk about systemic and institutional racism that plays a part in the disparity. So they never do anything about it. If you don't dig into why there is a quality gap in healthcare among black women compared to white. If you don't actually then make changes to address those disparities. The numbers won't improve.

Instead you ban books on CRT, and LGBT issues, and ban abortions while at the same time not caring about how the children get taken care of after birth or the health of the mothers, unless they are white apparently.

[4saken1]

And this is a new level of vile.

In today's episode of 'Republicans saying the quiet part out loud'......

[Mister Mets]

Mets, do you think posting an op-ed from someone who has opposed everything Biden has done since taking office is a convincing argument?

It depends on the argument.

I don't think this will persuade everyone of the correctness of the House Republican position. But it should indicate that this is an understandable viewpoint for anyone who thinks the only reason Republicans might vote against letting the executive branch fix gas prices is that they want to keep the problem going.

[Tendrin]

In some other good news, the conservative government of Australia has fallen. Yay!

[Zelena]

In some other good news, the conservative government of Australia has fallen. Yay!

I hope that means better climate policies…

[Tendrin]

They ran on it

Labor has also committed to net zero emissions by 2050, along with a 2030 target of a 43 per cent cut in emissions.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-04-...cles%20cheaper

[Zelena]

They ran on it

There’s hope then…

[Malvolio]

And this is a new level of vile.

What he said wasn't a lie. But he is implying that as long as maternal mortality is largely among Black woman, it's not really a problem. That's what's vile about it.

[Catlady in training]

If the in vitro stuff wasn't 100% done through a licenced clinic in many states it doesn't count. In New York a sperm donor was hit with child support payments when the lesbian couple he had donated to divorced.

And that is without getting the surprise of a bigot in black robes.

That sounds like a legal issue that should be fixed in general.

His comments are clumsy, but Louisiana does have a high maternal mortality rate among African-American women, and it doesn't seem outrageous for anyone to believe Cassidy that this is something that should not be minimized, and should be focused on.

Shouldn't that be the main concern, instead of how it reflect in statistics? I know I have seen this raised a few times, with examples how doctors are dismissing black women's legitimate complains with some BS arguments about different pain level or other vile stuff.

[useridgoeshere]

What he said wasn't a lie. But he is implying that as long as maternal mortality is largely among Black woman, it's not really a problem. That's what's vile about it.

Cassidy is outright saying it, not just implying. He’s directly saying it’s not a real problem because it’s happening Black women and children. We’ve gone back 100 years.

[Mister Mets]

That sounds like a legal issue that should be fixed in general.




Shouldn't that be the main concern, instead of how it reflect in statistics? I know I have seen this raised a few times, with examples how doctors are dismissing black women's legitimate complains with some BS arguments about different pain level or other vile stuff.

I think people are reading something into his comments that wasn't there. He did clearly say that this should not be minimized and that it should be focused on.

You're correct that the high maternal mortality rate among African-American women is a serious concern. What looks like bad statistics for Louisiana women turns out to be mediocre statistics for white women in Louisiana and catastrophically bad statistics for African-American women in Louisiana. The problem for them is worse than what the already concerning statewide figures would suggest.

Cassidy is outright saying it, not just implying. He’s directly saying it’s not a real problem because it’s happening Black women and children. We’ve gone back 100 years.

Where does he say it's not a problem? Can you quote him?

[skyvolt2000]

Shouldn't that be the main concern, instead of how it reflect in statistics? I know I have seen this raised a few times, with examples how doctors are dismissing black women's legitimate complains with some BS arguments about different pain level or other vile stuff.

Or some that do not have a family doctor.

We have a hospital system that can NOT KEEP doctors in the clinics in the black community here.
And we can't go to these clinics like Care Now-they will tell you are going to drop dead if you don't run to emergency room.

Even private doctors say avoid them if you can.

[Zelena]

Shouldn't that be the main concern, instead of how it reflect in statistics? I know I have seen this raised a few times, with examples how doctors are dismissing black women's legitimate complains with some BS arguments about different pain level or other vile stuff.

I remember Serena Williams’ story, how she almost died after giving birth: https://www.today.com/health/womens-...ancy-rcna23328

[worstblogever]

In both 2015, and in 2016, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of Jim Buchy, a rather controversial member of the Ohio House of Representatives who served 9 terms from 1983-2000, and then after a decade out of office, was the hand-picked appointment of Gov. John Kasich to replace Jim Zehringer in his position in 2010. Buchy has continued running for office every two years since, putting his total number of terms in office to 12 over the past 34 years. Since beginning his second run in the Ohio state legislature, he has been criticized for making Birther jokes abortion in Ohio unless a mother's life is at risk, as well as a repeatedly pushing for a fetal heartbeat abortion ban that would place the ban on the procedure at 6 weeks (in other words, unconstitutional via Roe v. Wade). Buchy has also pushed for curtailing voting rights, voted to allow school employees to carry firearms on campus in that time, supported legislation to try and stop Syrian refugees from being resettled in his state, and supported "religious freedom" legislation. He thankfully has chosen to not run for re-election in 2016, and being that he is in his late seventies now, it looks like he's done in politics.

On this date in 2017, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted a profile of Rick Womick, a former Republican member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 2010 to 2016. The Volunteer State has no shortage of GOP extremists, but Womick in particular, took it to a new level on various occasions, perhaps no more noteworthy than the time he reacted to the news that Gov. Bill Haslam would follow the Supreme Court's Obergefell v. Hodges ruling by suddenly calling for his party's own governor to be impeached. Womick's not at all hyperbolic statement went as follows, “And where is Tennessee’s leadership…oh that’s right…our Governor bowed down to the five self appointed gods in black robes just minutes after they issued their ‘opinion! He changed Tennessee state law and our State Constitution without ever consulting with the General Assembly.” Besides that huge civics class fail from Womick, only a year prior he declared Haslam a "traitor to our party" over what he called efforts by a political-action committee run by supporters to defeat opponents of Common Core education standards. Now, the end of Rick Womick's political career may have come from him lashing out repeatedly at his own governor, but maybe the Tennessee GOP should have realized he was unstable prior to that. Back on Veteran's Day in 2011, he figured it was a good time to call for all Muslims to be kicked out of the U.S. Military, because as he opined in a paranoid rant, “if they truly are a devout Muslims, and follow the Quran and the Sunnah, then I feel threatened because they’re commanded to kill me.” He then went on to further stoke Islamophobic hatred by declaring Allah is a "false God", and claiming that he had now ensured there was a "fatwa on my head". It further devolved from there into conspiracy theory territory where he said Iran had planned a "population Jihad" where they would take over the United States by pushing for Muslim immigrants to head here from all over the Middle East, and that had been their plan since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. Only four month later, in March of 2012, Rick Womick was ranting about a whole other conspiracy theory, this time the threat of the United Nations' Agenda 21, which were no longer a bunch of environmental recommendations to be adopted, but instead, a sinister plot for global domination and to, as Womick explained, "a step by step methodical process that denies United States citizens their property rights".

Somehow, even after all that, Womick got re-elected to a second term in office. And in it, he started things off by once claiming in a hearing that the city of Shelbyville, Tennessee, was the victim of a "electromagnetic pulse bomb" detonated by unnamed terrorists for uncertain reasons. Now, the idea that the "terrorists" targeted the Tennessee state legislators is weird (you'd think using it in a major metropolitan area, if it existed, would cause more chaos), but nobody else seemed to know what the hell Womick was talking about but he insisted it was "in the paper". We don't really feel the need to get too much farther into this head case, but will note his voting record features support for all of the kookiest ideas to come out of the Tennessee state legislature from its past three sessions. Whether it's trying to restrict abortion or voting rights, nullify the Affordable Care Act, teach Creationism in schools, making the Bible the state book, allow guns in schools, or preserve the names of Confederate monuments... it makes us glad that Womick’s career has come to an end.