Republicans: continued

[Joe]

Many in the Trump/Republican party have adopted one of his primary tactics: the bald-faced lie.

"Republicans test whether ‘lying to the voter’ is a pre-existing condition"

The Affordable Care Act of 2010 banned the long-standing practice of health insurers discriminating against customers on the basis of their pre-existing conditions. The Trumpcare legislation that narrowly passed the House of Representatives last May would have repealed these protections and replaced them with a system in which insurers could charge much higher premiums to those patients. Now, vulnerable House Republicans who voted for the wildly unpopular bill have to defend their votes this midterm election. Several of these representatives have chosen an interesting strategy: lie to the voters about it.

Republican Rep. George Holding, who represents North Carolina’s 2nd Congressional District, voted for the American Health Care Act, the House GOP’s Obamacare repeal proposal. A July ad by the North Carolinians for a Fair Economy, an advocacy group that opposes Trumpcare, featured families who would be “devastated by Congressman George Holding’s vote to discriminate against people with pre-existing conditions.”

In a response spot posted a few weeks ago called “Answer,” Holding actually shows part of the spot misleadingly describing it as an “ad to elect Linda Coleman,” the Democratic nominee against him. On Holding’s behalf, an unidentified woman shakes her head and scolds, “Don’t be fooled. The fact is George Holding voted to make insurance companies cover people with pre-existing conditions. The ad is false and Linda Coleman knows it.” On the screen, the sourcing for the claim is revealed to be his vote for the Trumpcare bill.

The claim is false: Trumpcare bill did away with protections for patients with pre-existing conditions.

The instance described above is just an example. Republicans up for re-election all over the country have created similar advertisements in which they piously affirm their support for non-discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions, directly contradicting their previous actions. Among them, several Republican politicians who are party to a lawsuit whose aim is repealing the Affordable Care Act and its protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

'Hawley under fire on pre-existing conditions as pressure from Dems mounts'

Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley won’t offer details about his role in the Republican lawsuit that could strike down insurance protections for people with pre-existing conditions.

The threat of a big change in the law governing pre-existing conditions is the biggest, arguably most effective weapon Democrats have in the extremely tight race for U.S. Senate in Missouri.

Hawley is one of 20 GOP state officials who joined a federal lawsuit earlier this year that could end Obamacare and those protections. But Hawley and his top aides have refused to explain any details of his involvement.

He proudly touted his role in the case in February, announcing in a news release that his office “will continue to fight to take health care choices out of the hands of bureaucrats and return them to the hands of Missourians and their physicians.”

Eight months later, Hawley’s decision to join the Texas-led case has become a political headache as Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill and her allies have launched a series of attacks on Hawley over the lawsuit’s impact on pre-existing conditions.

...

Hawley has previously stated on his campaign Twitter account that he supports protections for pre-existing conditions, but his campaign did not immediately make him available for an interview Thursday to discuss his health care positions more thoroughly and square this position with the lawsuit, which could strike down the Affordable Care Act.

The ACA bars insurance companies from denying people coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

After McClatchy posted a story online, Hawley’s campaign issued a statement reasserting his support for protecting pre-existing conditions that did not offer details on how to accomplish that if the ACA goes away.

Don't mind me, I'm just listening to the deafening silence here.

Echo... ...echo... ...echo... ...co... ...co...

Sadly, the Big Lie wasn't invented by Trump and the GOP. If you get a response from the Trumpers here, it will be tomorrow, when Forty Two returns. Perhaps, he will educate us on the finer points of the technique.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Fuck the malicious 'get you're coathangers ready' shit. Medicine has moved on.

'The women looking outside the law for abortions'

Accessing abortion has become increasingly difficult in parts of the US. As a result, a growing number of reproductive rights activists say it is time American women learn the facts about "self-managing abortion" with pills.

...

Despite the fact that abortion is legal in the US, various studies have estimated that hundreds of thousands of Americans have tried to end a pregnancy without the help of a doctor at some point in their lives, whether through medication, herbs, vitamin C, alcohol, drugs or self-harm. Although accurate figures are difficult to come by, one study estimated that in the state of Texas alone, between 100,000 and 240,000 people had attempted a self-induced abortion.

A New York Times analysis of Google data found that in 2015, there were 700,000 searches from the US for information about self-managed abortion - phrases like "how to have a miscarriage," "how to self-abort" and "buy abortion pills online".

With the confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the US Supreme Court, pro-choice activists are preparing for the possible dismantling of Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision which legalised abortion across the country. In this imagined "post-Roe" United States, some campaigners are making the case that women need to know the facts about how to "self-manage" their own abortions.

...

On a balmy Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after the confirmation of Justice Kavanaugh, a small group gathered in the brightly lit basement of an old union hall in St Louis, Missouri. A handwritten sign hung on the door read, "Self-Managed Abortion Forum".

Attendance was modest - 10 men and women in total - and the bags of crisps and fruit salad sat untouched. Organisers wondered if the event might inspire protest, but none materialised. Nevertheless, the sense of urgency in the room was palpable.

...

"Misoprostol is typically used within the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and is about 85 percent effective," the card read, next to a cartoon of a woman with four pills under her tongue.

Pamela Merritt, one of three panellists at the front of the room, said that to her knowledge, hers is the only group actively promoting information on self-managed abortion. Her co-director Erin Matson acknowledged merely hosting the discussion is "radical". Still, they believe the need for these conversations is clear.

"The Supreme Court has solidified a 5-4 conservative majority for the foreseeable future," said Merritt. "We now must proceed in a way that protects access to care and protects people who are most vulnerable to reproductive oppression."

...

"We have to protect each other," said one woman. "The system is not going to save us."

...

"If you end up having to take things in your own hands, it is your body, it's your life," she says. "I think everybody should have that right."

[JimC]

They could always take a flight to Ireland...

[Cunt]

I think providing that service to women is more important than government. I doubt it will be repealed anyway, but it probably can be under threat.

My understanding is that the decision about whether to regulate access to abortion (or how to do so) should not be held by the feds. That sounds good to me, except that I think it means that the states then get to decide, individually.

This 'self-abortion' course is the way to go no matter what the case though. Whatever anyone else thinks of things, might makes right in cases of abortion, and the pregnant woman has all the 'might'. The best I can think of is to arm them individually, and as safely as we can manage.

[JimC]

Maybe the Republican party should take note: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-10-31/ ... l/10450136

The National Party is very, very conservative, but they have lines that they don't want crossed...

A man has been charged with making threatening phone calls to the NSW Nationals office on the day the party moved to expel white supremacist elements from its ranks.

The National Party called police after a man phoned its Sydney head office on Pitt Street and allegedly threatened staff on Monday morning.

At the time, the party officials were meeting to discuss sending letters to 20 members asking them to justify why they should not be expelled from the party for alleged links to neo-Nazi materials.

He said it was important to send a strong message that anyone known to have links to white supremacist movements would not be tolerated within the party.

[Seabass]

The Republican party has gone beyond conservative and into fascist territory. At this point, there appears to be no low to which they will not sink.

[Seabass]

Case in point:

The special counsel says a woman was offered money to fabricate sexual-harassment claims.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/ar ... bi/574411/
A company that appears to be run by a pro-Trump conspiracy theorist offered to pay women to make false claims against Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the days leading up to the midterm elections—and the special counsel's office has asked the FBI to weigh in. “When we learned last week of allegations that women were offered money to make false claims about the Special Counsel, we immediately referred the matter to the FBI for investigation,” Mueller spokesman Peter Carr told me in an email on Tuesday.

The special-counsel office’s attention to this scheme and its decision to release a rare statement about it indicates the seriousness with which the team is taking the purported plot to discredit Mueller in the middle of an ongoing investigation. Carr confirmed that the allegations were brought to the office’s attention by several journalists, who were contacted by a woman who identified herself as Lorraine Parsons. Another woman, Jennifer Taub, contacted Mueller's office earlier this month with similar information.

Mueller refers sex assault scheme targeting him to FBI for investigation
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justic ... on-n926301
Special counsel Robert Mueller last week asked the FBI to investigate a possible scam in which a woman would make false claims that he had sexually assaulted her, after several political reporters were contacted about doing a story on the alleged assault.

Multiple reporters were contacted over the past few weeks by a woman who said she had been offered money to say she was sexually assaulted by Mueller, the special counsel who is probing possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. After investigating, according to the political website Hill Reporter, the reporters each independently determined the assault allegation was likely a hoax and that it was unclear if the woman had been offered money to make the claim. The reporters then contacted the special counsel's office to report that they had been approached about the scheme.

Wtf.

[Cunt]

The Republican party has gone beyond conservative and into fascist territory. At this point, there appears to be no low to which they will not sink.

If you insist that your political opponents are fascist, you don't have to address their humanity!

[pErvinalia]

Republicans and humanity..?

[JimC]

The Republican party has gone beyond conservative and into fascist territory. At this point, there appears to be no low to which they will not sink.

If you insist that your political opponents are fascist, you don't have to address their humanity!

There is no need to over-generalise, and say that all Republicans are fascists, but if they are allowing a fringe group of neo-nazis and white supremacists to shelter under their political umbrella, they have not learned the lesson that I showed via the post about a conservative Australian political party drawing a line in the sand...

[Cunt]

The Republican party has gone beyond conservative and into fascist territory. At this point, there appears to be no low to which they will not sink.

If you insist that your political opponents are fascist, you don't have to address their humanity!

There is no need to over-generalise, and say that all Republicans are fascists, but if they are allowing a fringe group of neo-nazis and white supremacists to shelter under their political umbrella, they have not learned the lesson that I showed via the post about a conservative Australian political party drawing a line in the sand...

Are Democrats allowing any fringe groups to shelter under their political umbrellas?

I think those lines MUST be drawn. We need both groups to do so. There are bullies everywhere, and blaming only one side for their existence is itself another kind of bullying.

I wish I could have an hour or two of your time, JimC. I would direct you to a movie about a black guy, who made an effort to go befriend members of his local KKK.

He now has a collection of discarded robes, as trophies for the difference he has made.

I bet he didn't do it by calling them fascists.

[pErvinalia]

The Republican party has gone beyond conservative and into fascist territory. At this point, there appears to be no low to which they will not sink.

If you insist that your political opponents are fascist, you don't have to address their humanity!

There is no need to over-generalise, and say that all Republicans are fascists, but if they are allowing a fringe group of neo-nazis and white supremacists to shelter under their political umbrella, they have not learned the lesson that I showed via the post about a conservative Australian political party drawing a line in the sand...

According to 42, in a previous discussion, the parties can't do anything about those who run under their name. I still don't believe it as that defies reason, but who knows with Merka.

[Animavore]

Republicans and humanity..?

Republucans, and humanity. Republicans on one side. Humanity on the other.

[JimC]

The Republican party has gone beyond conservative and into fascist territory. At this point, there appears to be no low to which they will not sink.

If you insist that your political opponents are fascist, you don't have to address their humanity!

There is no need to over-generalise, and say that all Republicans are fascists, but if they are allowing a fringe group of neo-nazis and white supremacists to shelter under their political umbrella, they have not learned the lesson that I showed via the post about a conservative Australian political party drawing a line in the sand...

According to 42, in a previous discussion, the parties can't do anything about those who run under their name. I still don't believe it as that defies reason, but who knows with Merka.

If that were true, one could set up a local branch of Trotskyite Republicans, just for the lols...

[pErvinalia]