Maybe the system is now so unfair to rich liberals that this is the way we should go. And given how impossible it is for them to get anything done in the federal government these days, blue-state liberals might want to offer Republicans a compromise: We’ll get rid of federal taxes and programs, and it’s every state for itself. If you genuinely think it’s an outrage that red states collect so much federal money, you should probably be eager for the trade.
But think carefully before you make that proposal. Because if liberals offer to dismantle the New Deal and return to genuine federalism, they might just find that Republicans are eager to take that deal.
We need to stop calling federal funds spent in red states "subsidies" given nearly half the land of all western red states are owned by the federal government and therefore as owners the upkeep is paid by the federal government.
Im guessing they are also counting federal monies paid to Indian tribes in that figure as well
Knockout column today from Slate that was trending at Google News (topics are helicopter parents, atheist parents telling their kids about other people's belief in God, and well-intentioned racism - when in the world are strangers going to understand that making personal comments - or touching children - is almost never polite?):
By Margery Eagan (cohost of WGBH’s “Boston Public Radio.”) February 05, 2018
Excerpts:
_______________________________________
"Here are some facts that might surprise you.
"In 1971, two years before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, the biggest white evangelical group in America, the Southern Baptist Convention, supported its legalization. The group continued that support through much of the 1970s. And the late Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, did not give his first antiabortion speech until 1978, five years after Roe.
"Though opposition to abortion is what many think fueled the powerful conservative white evangelical right, 81 percent of whom voted for Donald Trump, it was really school integration, according to Randall Balmer, chairman of the religion department at Dartmouth. The US Supreme Court ruled public school segregation unconstitutional in 1954. In 1976 it ruled against segregated private schools. Then courts went after the tax exemptions of these private all-white Southern schools, or so-called segregation academies, like Falwell’s Liberty Christian Academy...
"...'This administration is focused on recognizing one set of religious beliefs,' Gretchen Borchelt of the National Women’s Law Center told Politico. But why the one set of beliefs so out of step with the rest of America? Though 70 percent of white evangelicals want abortion illegal, the majority of other religious groups, including mainline Protestants, black Protestants, and Catholics, do not.
"This raises unsettling questions: How much of antiabortion rhetoric is really about the unborn, and how much is a convenient and even cynical cover for white evangelicals to support, as they did, a white supremacist like Roy Moore, in Alabama, or Trump himself, leader of the American birther movement and defender of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va.?
"Balmer’s scholarship on the racial underpinnings of the religious right — and the link between the antiabortion movement and a certain political agenda — is more than familiar to a group of Americans who overwhelmingly rejected both Moore and Trump. That would be black evangelicals..."
lenona
at February 6, 2018 11:59 AM
And a couple of comments under that column:
NER_MCFC02/05/18 08:09 PM
From sources unrelated to the ones Eagan cites, I learned some years ago that Falwell got into politics in the mid sixties in response to the ever increasing fame and influence of Martin Luther King. Before then, Falwell had followed the then standard view among fundamentalist Christians that political activity was unwise because of their minority status. Indeed Falwell's first public remarks on the subject criticized King for being overtly political.
If you want to really find out the roots of Planned Parenthood, you should dig into Margaret Sanger, the founder, and her relationship to the eugenics wing of the progressive movement in the 1920s and 1930s.
I R A Darth Aggie
at February 6, 2018 1:49 PM
Careful if you come across a tiger
I'm surprised they didn't open fire, and put a couple hundred rounds downrange. Given their penchant for shooting dogs willy-nilly, that restraint is truely astounding.
Now, if they'd just practice that restraint with the rest of us...
I R A Darth Aggie
at February 6, 2018 1:53 PM
"in the 1920s and 1930s"
Timely.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at February 6, 2018 1:57 PM
"Make Tide Pods less appetizing? New York lawmakers want design change for colorful packets"
I imagine that in 10 years or so society will have devolved to the point where electric fans are sold with a pictogram illustrating "Do Not Stick Your Dick in This Fan."
Kevin
at February 6, 2018 2:28 PM
"Do Not Stick Your Dick in This Fan.""
Rock band managers should have done that long ago re: crazy groupies.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at February 6, 2018 3:06 PM
And I should be surprised that someone of that generation wasn't 100% opposed to eugenics? Really. In other words, she wasn't unusual. Hint: Forced sterilizations in the U.S. went on and on until at least the 1980s, long after Sanger's death!
From the Sept. 2017 thread we had here called "In Case You Were Wondering":
lenona, the depth to which your stupidity can reach is astounding
Did you really argue the people who support an anti abortion agenda do so because they are white supremacist/racists started on that path to revenge school desegregation regardless of the fact that the vast majority of all abortions are preformed on minority women?
The people who think tin foil prevents Aurellian brain scans from the mothership seem reasonable in comparison
When did people become unable to recognize hyperbole from a comedian?
Not a Silverman fan but at least Breitbart made sense of the clickbait headline by placing it in context in the article.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers
at February 6, 2018 8:51 PM
"When did people become unable to recognize hyperbole from a comedian?"
The problem is, these days it's tough to tell when they are engaging in hyperbole and when they are being serious. It's the narcissistic concept of humor: say something horribly degrading about someone, and then when they complain, say "It was just a joke! Can't you take a joke?"
Silverman was funny, once upon a time. Seems like a long time ago now.
Cousin Dave
at February 7, 2018 6:44 AM
"Blue state, red state"
Yes. Most red states would gladly take that deal. Especially if they get to repo the land currently under federal control. Honestly this is probably part of the reason those states turned red.
Ben
at February 7, 2018 7:28 AM
Lujlp, maybe you should read ALL of Margery Eagan's column.
And FORCED abortions are practically unheard of in the US. Even parents (often to their shock) can't force their healthy teen daughters to have them - and pro-choice groups have never offered to change that law. No woman enjoys having an abortion, but it's no surprise that a lot of women who choose to get abortions simply can't afford children at that time - or who don't WANT a child at that time AND have economic problems getting access to good contraception. So what's your point regarding minority women, who are often poor? (It's not as though
In the meantime, since she mentioned Roy Moore, it's interesting to remember that, as someone else humorously pointed out, that Moore's stress on Doug Jones' pro-choice stance (and the number of black women having abortions) just might have backfired among white supremacists - but maybe not.
Not to mention that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, black people are at 13% right now, higher than about 50 years ago.
lenona
at February 7, 2018 10:21 AM
Plus, luj, do I really need to spell out to you the fact that while there's no shortage of black people who are opposed to abortion (and white people as well), that doesn't change the fact that when a healthy teenager or woman of any color chooses to have one, even if she's somewhat unhappy about it, she's likely someone who has a few OPTIONS in life other than being a minimum-wage worker and she doesn't want to ruin that chance, even if it's slim. As Katha Pollitt wrote in her column: "...you don't find many 15-year-olds dropping out of the Dalton School to have babies. Girls with bright futures--college, jobs, travel--have abortions. It's the ones who have nothing to postpone who become mothers."
My point, of course, is that if there's anything that white racists don't want, it's black people having more options other than despair and minimum wage jobs. Not to mention that when it comes to people who are poor and white, haven't we all heard that that politicians often prefer voters who stay poor and are thus easy to control? Making abortion hard to get is obviously a way to do that.
lenona
at February 7, 2018 4:18 PM
But then again, there are examples like Whoopi Goldberg, who allegedly had six abortions, and while actress Martha Plimpton had "only" two abortions -- which she openly indicates were done to help out her career prospects -- she actually rocks a dress with the word "abortion" printed all over it. Do we really want to celebrate such human sacrifice like that?
mpetrie98
at February 7, 2018 4:47 PM
As Fran Lebowitz said more than 40 years ago about clothes (this was NOT about any particular statement):
"If people don't want to hear from you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?"
I couldn't agree more. I never had clothing with writing on it as a kid, and I didn't have the nerve to ask for such clothes until I was a teen. It was an "I Love New York" T-shirt, and my mother let me know she didn't really like my wearing it, regardless of the message. (Almost no one in my extended family wore clothes like that, either.) I didn't replace it after I outgrew it.
And when I was in Tuscany a few years ago, everyone there dressed more with more class than that - even the American tourists. (Nothing very expensive, from what I could tell.)
lenona
at February 7, 2018 5:00 PM
And, just a reminder: Any state that isn't tiny and that has only one abortion clinic is NOT likely to be a state where it's easy for poor women to get effective contraception. (Traveling expenses have to be factored in too, of course - probably for getting hormonal contraception as well as abortions.) So, is it any surprise that in such states, poor women would have more abortions than elsewhere, even if they had to drive out of state to get them?
In 2016 the states that had only one clinic each were Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
And if you're wondering how many centers there are in small Rhode Island:
"There were 5 abortion-providing facilities in Rhode Island in 2014, and 3 of those were clinics. These numbers represent a 25% increase since 2011 in overall providers, and a 50% increase in clinics from 2011, when there were 4 abortion providers overall, of which 2 were clinics."
Dystopian waterworks
https://twitter.com/hashtagoras/status/960196073791860737
Sixclaws at February 6, 2018 5:05 AM
Oh Canada!
https://twitter.com/MrAndyNgo/status/960642369002471424
Sixclaws at February 6, 2018 5:06 AM
Trim that bush!
http://metro.co.uk/2018/02/05/woman-ordered-trim-bush-grew-big-left-neighbours-dark-7287535/
I R A Darth Aggie at February 6, 2018 7:00 AM
First rule of feminist fight club: talk about feminist fight club.
https://youtu.be/ocs5O2Gu7BU
I R A Darth Aggie at February 6, 2018 7:16 AM
Blue state, red state.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-02-05/think-carefully-before-cutting-off-subsidies-to-red-states
I R A Darth Aggie at February 6, 2018 9:15 AM
We need to stop calling federal funds spent in red states "subsidies" given nearly half the land of all western red states are owned by the federal government and therefore as owners the upkeep is paid by the federal government.
Im guessing they are also counting federal monies paid to Indian tribes in that figure as well
lujlp at February 6, 2018 9:50 AM
Knockout column today from Slate that was trending at Google News (topics are helicopter parents, atheist parents telling their kids about other people's belief in God, and well-intentioned racism - when in the world are strangers going to understand that making personal comments - or touching children - is almost never polite?):
https://slate.com/human-interest/2018/01/parenting-advice-about-helicopter-parents-atheism-and-well-intentioned-racism.html
lenona at February 6, 2018 10:40 AM
Skynet smiles.
https://www.popularmechanics.com/military/navy-ships/a16573306/navy-accept-delivery-actuv-sea-hunter/
I R A Darth Aggie at February 6, 2018 11:07 AM
Hope this link works!
https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2018/02/05/race-not-abortion-was-founding-issue-religious-right/A5rnmClvuAU7EaThaNLAnK/story.html
By Margery Eagan (cohost of WGBH’s “Boston Public Radio.”) February 05, 2018
Excerpts:
_______________________________________
"Here are some facts that might surprise you.
"In 1971, two years before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, the biggest white evangelical group in America, the Southern Baptist Convention, supported its legalization. The group continued that support through much of the 1970s. And the late Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, did not give his first antiabortion speech until 1978, five years after Roe.
"Though opposition to abortion is what many think fueled the powerful conservative white evangelical right, 81 percent of whom voted for Donald Trump, it was really school integration, according to Randall Balmer, chairman of the religion department at Dartmouth. The US Supreme Court ruled public school segregation unconstitutional in 1954. In 1976 it ruled against segregated private schools. Then courts went after the tax exemptions of these private all-white Southern schools, or so-called segregation academies, like Falwell’s Liberty Christian Academy...
"...'This administration is focused on recognizing one set of religious beliefs,' Gretchen Borchelt of the National Women’s Law Center told Politico. But why the one set of beliefs so out of step with the rest of America? Though 70 percent of white evangelicals want abortion illegal, the majority of other religious groups, including mainline Protestants, black Protestants, and Catholics, do not.
"This raises unsettling questions: How much of antiabortion rhetoric is really about the unborn, and how much is a convenient and even cynical cover for white evangelicals to support, as they did, a white supremacist like Roy Moore, in Alabama, or Trump himself, leader of the American birther movement and defender of neo-Nazis in Charlottesville, Va.?
"Balmer’s scholarship on the racial underpinnings of the religious right — and the link between the antiabortion movement and a certain political agenda — is more than familiar to a group of Americans who overwhelmingly rejected both Moore and Trump. That would be black evangelicals..."
lenona at February 6, 2018 11:59 AM
And a couple of comments under that column:
NER_MCFC02/05/18 08:09 PM
From sources unrelated to the ones Eagan cites, I learned some years ago that Falwell got into politics in the mid sixties in response to the ever increasing fame and influence of Martin Luther King. Before then, Falwell had followed the then standard view among fundamentalist Christians that political activity was unwise because of their minority status. Indeed Falwell's first public remarks on the subject criticized King for being overtly political.
And:
bumpyt02/06/18 06:31 AM
Ms. Eagan is right. Here's an excerpt from a WaPo article detailing how race rather than abortion is the motivator of the religious right: "Conservative activist Paul Weyrich, architect of the religious right, emphatically denied that opposition to abortion played any role, a view echoed by Grover Norquist and Ed Dobson, one of Falwell’s acolytes in the Moral Majority. “I sat in the non-smoke-filled back room with the Moral Majority,” Dobson recalled in 1990, “and I frankly do not remember abortion being mentioned as a reason why we ought to do something.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/05/16/trumps-success-with-evangelical-voters-isnt-surprising-it-was-inevitable/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-a%3Ahomepage%2Fstory&utm_term=.366a6cd48f96
lenona at February 6, 2018 12:04 PM
Work smart not hard -
http://www.fox5dc.com/news/trending/girl-scout-sells-312-boxes-of-cookies-in-six-hours-outside-pot-dispensary
Snoopy at February 6, 2018 12:44 PM
Sexism is rampant at Harvard -
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/02/06/harvard-bans-single-sex-organizations-but-may-give-reprieve-to-female-groups.html
Snoopy at February 6, 2018 12:47 PM
Careful if you come across a tiger -
https://nypost.com/2018/02/06/cops-realize-tiger-is-stuffed-animal-after-45-minute-standoff/
Snoopy at February 6, 2018 12:50 PM
Lenona,
If you want to really find out the roots of Planned Parenthood, you should dig into Margaret Sanger, the founder, and her relationship to the eugenics wing of the progressive movement in the 1920s and 1930s.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 6, 2018 1:49 PM
Careful if you come across a tiger
I'm surprised they didn't open fire, and put a couple hundred rounds downrange. Given their penchant for shooting dogs willy-nilly, that restraint is truely astounding.
Now, if they'd just practice that restraint with the rest of us...
I R A Darth Aggie at February 6, 2018 1:53 PM
"in the 1920s and 1930s"
Timely.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 6, 2018 1:57 PM
"Make Tide Pods less appetizing? New York lawmakers want design change for colorful packets"
http://www.wwltv.com/article/news/nation-now/make-tide-pods-less-appetizing-new-york-lawmakers-want-design-change-for-colorful-packets/465-245e9396-bdc3-496d-98cc-4257dbd3a8a4
I imagine that in 10 years or so society will have devolved to the point where electric fans are sold with a pictogram illustrating "Do Not Stick Your Dick in This Fan."
Kevin at February 6, 2018 2:28 PM
"Do Not Stick Your Dick in This Fan.""
Rock band managers should have done that long ago re: crazy groupies.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 6, 2018 3:06 PM
And I should be surprised that someone of that generation wasn't 100% opposed to eugenics? Really. In other words, she wasn't unusual. Hint: Forced sterilizations in the U.S. went on and on until at least the 1980s, long after Sanger's death!
From the Sept. 2017 thread we had here called "In Case You Were Wondering":
https://www.google.com/search?q=forced+sterilization+nih+&oq=forced+sterilization+nih+&gs_l=psy-ab.3...40324.42563.0.42841.27.12.0.0.0.0.185.1101.7j4.11.0.dummy_maps_web_fallback...0...1.1.64.psy-ab..22.0.0....0.LNpOKLe3rQk
(the first few articles come from the National Institutes of Health)
lenona at February 6, 2018 4:10 PM
And:
https://www.google.com/search?q=forced+sterilization+in+the+us&oq=forced+sterilization+in&gs_l=psy-ab.3.0.0l10.28751.85195.0.86290.3.3.0.0.0.0.90.241.3.3.0.dummy_maps_web_fallback...0...1.1.64.psy-ab..0.3.238...0i67k1.0.EO2zVkKRvh8
lenona at February 6, 2018 4:12 PM
Sarah Silverman is hungry! #BoycottHollywood
Sarah Silverman: Pro-Life Law ‘Has Made Me Want to Eat an Aborted Fetus’
mpetrie98 at February 6, 2018 4:36 PM
(Jeff) Flake: ‘Treason Is Not a Punchline’ — Trump Has ‘Flagrant Disregard for Truth and Decency’
mpetrie98 at February 6, 2018 4:37 PM
Not this crap again!
MSNBC anchor touts 'girl power' around market plunge: 'We didn’t see this when Janet Yellen was' fed chair
mpetrie98 at February 6, 2018 4:39 PM
lenona, the depth to which your stupidity can reach is astounding
Did you really argue the people who support an anti abortion agenda do so because they are white supremacist/racists started on that path to revenge school desegregation regardless of the fact that the vast majority of all abortions are preformed on minority women?
The people who think tin foil prevents Aurellian brain scans from the mothership seem reasonable in comparison
lujlp at February 6, 2018 5:48 PM
"Sarah Silverman is hungry!"
When did people become unable to recognize hyperbole from a comedian?
Not a Silverman fan but at least Breitbart made sense of the clickbait headline by placing it in context in the article.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at February 6, 2018 8:51 PM
"When did people become unable to recognize hyperbole from a comedian?"
The problem is, these days it's tough to tell when they are engaging in hyperbole and when they are being serious. It's the narcissistic concept of humor: say something horribly degrading about someone, and then when they complain, say "It was just a joke! Can't you take a joke?"
Silverman was funny, once upon a time. Seems like a long time ago now.
Cousin Dave at February 7, 2018 6:44 AM
"Blue state, red state"
Yes. Most red states would gladly take that deal. Especially if they get to repo the land currently under federal control. Honestly this is probably part of the reason those states turned red.
Ben at February 7, 2018 7:28 AM
Lujlp, maybe you should read ALL of Margery Eagan's column.
And FORCED abortions are practically unheard of in the US. Even parents (often to their shock) can't force their healthy teen daughters to have them - and pro-choice groups have never offered to change that law. No woman enjoys having an abortion, but it's no surprise that a lot of women who choose to get abortions simply can't afford children at that time - or who don't WANT a child at that time AND have economic problems getting access to good contraception. So what's your point regarding minority women, who are often poor? (It's not as though
In the meantime, since she mentioned Roy Moore, it's interesting to remember that, as someone else humorously pointed out, that Moore's stress on Doug Jones' pro-choice stance (and the number of black women having abortions) just might have backfired among white supremacists - but maybe not.
Not to mention that according to the U.S. Census Bureau, black people are at 13% right now, higher than about 50 years ago.
lenona at February 7, 2018 10:21 AM
Plus, luj, do I really need to spell out to you the fact that while there's no shortage of black people who are opposed to abortion (and white people as well), that doesn't change the fact that when a healthy teenager or woman of any color chooses to have one, even if she's somewhat unhappy about it, she's likely someone who has a few OPTIONS in life other than being a minimum-wage worker and she doesn't want to ruin that chance, even if it's slim. As Katha Pollitt wrote in her column: "...you don't find many 15-year-olds dropping out of the Dalton School to have babies. Girls with bright futures--college, jobs, travel--have abortions. It's the ones who have nothing to postpone who become mothers."
My point, of course, is that if there's anything that white racists don't want, it's black people having more options other than despair and minimum wage jobs. Not to mention that when it comes to people who are poor and white, haven't we all heard that that politicians often prefer voters who stay poor and are thus easy to control? Making abortion hard to get is obviously a way to do that.
lenona at February 7, 2018 4:18 PM
But then again, there are examples like Whoopi Goldberg, who allegedly had six abortions, and while actress Martha Plimpton had "only" two abortions -- which she openly indicates were done to help out her career prospects -- she actually rocks a dress with the word "abortion" printed all over it. Do we really want to celebrate such human sacrifice like that?
mpetrie98 at February 7, 2018 4:47 PM
As Fran Lebowitz said more than 40 years ago about clothes (this was NOT about any particular statement):
"If people don't want to hear from you, what makes you think they want to hear from your sweater?"
I couldn't agree more. I never had clothing with writing on it as a kid, and I didn't have the nerve to ask for such clothes until I was a teen. It was an "I Love New York" T-shirt, and my mother let me know she didn't really like my wearing it, regardless of the message. (Almost no one in my extended family wore clothes like that, either.) I didn't replace it after I outgrew it.
And when I was in Tuscany a few years ago, everyone there dressed more with more class than that - even the American tourists. (Nothing very expensive, from what I could tell.)
lenona at February 7, 2018 5:00 PM
And, just a reminder: Any state that isn't tiny and that has only one abortion clinic is NOT likely to be a state where it's easy for poor women to get effective contraception. (Traveling expenses have to be factored in too, of course - probably for getting hormonal contraception as well as abortions.) So, is it any surprise that in such states, poor women would have more abortions than elsewhere, even if they had to drive out of state to get them?
In 2016 the states that had only one clinic each were Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
And if you're wondering how many centers there are in small Rhode Island:
https://www.guttmacher.org/fact-sheet/state-facts-about-abortion-rhode-island
"There were 5 abortion-providing facilities in Rhode Island in 2014, and 3 of those were clinics. These numbers represent a 25% increase since 2011 in overall providers, and a 50% increase in clinics from 2011, when there were 4 abortion providers overall, of which 2 were clinics."
lenona at February 8, 2018 2:46 PM
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