If there’s better verbiage out there, I will gladly use better verbiage

Sean Spicer called the Canadian prime minister “Joe Trudeau” today, so that’s his name now. Sorry, Joe. Sorry, Canada.

Anti-abortion Oklahoma state legislator Justin “Joe” Humphrey (all Justins are now officially Joe) is sponsoring a law to require that “hosts,” as he calls pregnant women (“I think I used the proper verbiage. When I used the term host, it’s not meant to degrade women. If there’s better verbiage out there, I will gladly use better verbiage. I just couldn’t find it.”) (I’m sure there are many things “Joe” can’t find: his ass with both hands; a clitoris; an ounce of human decency) name the father of their fetus and get permission from him before an abortion.

By the way, does “Joe” Humphrey wear a stupid cowboy hat and a stupid string tie? What do you think?

I assume it has little chance of becoming law, but just in case, I will advise what I have with previous coercive anti-abortion laws: lie. If this passes, every woman seeking an abortion in the state of Oklahoma should name the same (pro-choice, obviously) man. An ACLU lawyer, say, or Joe Biden. Sorry, “Justin” Biden.

(Update: A lot of the response to this bill has been of the “What about rape?” variety, and... no. Raising the worst-case scenario for giving men control over women’s bodies implies that there might be a best-case scenario, an acceptable type of forced pregnancy and just no.)

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The Republican debate: Just the abortion bits

I’m going to confine my discussion of the Republican debate to one issue and two candidates who pulled talking points from their ass and pretended they were science.

Scott Walker supported his position opposing abortions even to save the life of the mother by flat-out denying that that ever comes up, claiming that “there are many other alternatives that can also protect the life of that mother. That’s been consistently proven.”

Huckabee, who is actually saner than Walker in allowing for a life of the mother exemption, thinks that “now that we clearly know that that baby inside the mother’s womb is a person at the moment of conception. The reason we know that it is is because of the DNA schedule that we now have clear scientific evidence on.”

“DNA schedule” is not a thing.

The Huckster also thinks fetuses have 5th and 14th Amendment rights and the president can just “invoke” those rights to declare abortion banned. Which is insane on so many levels. Beyond the lunacy of treating embryos and fetuses as legal people, those amendments limit governments and only governments. Oh, and the 14th amendment applies to US citizens, which it defines as “All persons born or naturalized in the United States”. Born, you peckerwood roadkill-eater.

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The strong interest of the Texas Legislature

The lawyer for the Texas hospital keeping the brain-dead pregnant woman on life support (and not enough has been made of the fact that this is a public hospital, owned by Tarrant County) argued in court, “Given the strong interest of the Texas Legislature in protecting the life of unborn children, it is unlikely the Legislature contemplated only the welfare of the mother”.

Wait, let me correct that for you: “it is unlikely the Legislature contemplated only the welfare of the mother”.

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Counseling or screaming

During last week’s Supreme Court hearings on the Massachusetts abortion clinic buffer zone case, Stephen Breyer commented that the particular context of an abortion clinic might justify such a law: “Everyone is in a fragile state of mind.” He said, “It’s just tough to say whether they’re counseling somebody or screaming at somebody.” Breyer has clearly spent way too much time with Antonin Scalia.

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Don’t mess with Texas, it’s already enough of a mess

Wednesday the NYT ran a story on p.A15 on how Dallas’s hate-filled political culture before the Kennedy assassination has changed in 50 years.

Aaaand right next to it is a story about the Supreme Court allowing the Texas abortion law to stand.

Just saying.

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State interest

The federal judge who blocked some of the Texas anti-abortion law doesn’t seem to have addressed the state’s claim that there is a state interest in “protecting fetal life” in cases where the mother wants to terminate it.

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Instrumental rape for everybody!

Indiana is moving towards requiring women who want the RU-486 pill to have not one but two transvaginal ultrasounds, before and after. The second one is to check that the pregnancy was indeed terminated, but peeing on a stick would of course be easier, cheaper and less invasive, so this is purely punitive. Fortunately, Indiana isn’t planning (yet) to send cops to physically drag women into clinics to force the second probe into her, so the provision requiring the second instrumental rape isn’t a mandate so much as an aspirational expression of what the legislators would like to see happen to sluts.

Another bill passed committee requires that the illustrations accompanying the “informed consent” forms be in color rather than black and white. I’m picturing a doctor handing her patient a consent form and some 3-D glasses.

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Unringing the bell

Richard Mourdock, Republican candidate for the US Senate for Indiana, says he can’t “unring the bell” of his comments about rape pregnancies being the will of God.

Yeah, imagine if something awful happened, leaving you stuck with a lasting reminder of it, and you can’t get rid of it.

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Who would Jesus rape?

Do you suppose that when people like Republican senatorial candidate for Indiana Richard Mourdock think about rapes that result in pregnancy (“something that God intended to happen”), they have one of these images in their head,

only with, you know, rape instead of baseball?

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Romney on abortion

Romney’s campaign says he is “proudly pro-life.” In fact, the question of whether he was playing down his extremist core convictions when he was trying to get ahead in Massachusetts politics, or is playing down his moderate core convictions to get ahead in the wacky/wacko world of the national Republican Party today, well the clue to answering that question was that you all started giggling when I used the phrase “core convictions” about Mittens.

He is pretty clearly expediently pro-life rather than dogmatically pro-life. Women’s rights to control their bodies are something he’s happy to sacrifice for his personal advancement, or not, as the political environment calls for. Women’s uteruses are just pawns to him, which may be the least appetizing imagery ever to appear in this blog.

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A rape is a rape is a rape, to quote Gertrude Stein

Mitt Romney used stronger language – “reprehensible,” “terrible mistake” – against Kevin Yoder’s skinny-dipping than he did against Todd Akin’s legitimate rapeiness.

By the way, I’m not sure why, but “yoder” seems like the perfect word, if one were needed, for someone who gets drunk & swims naked in the Sea of Galilee.

---

Obama held a short surprise press conference today.

He explained, “Rape is rape.”

He denied accusing Romney of being a felon.

MAN, HE IS SO NOT PAYING ATTENTION TO THIS ELECTION CAMPAIGN: “They can run the campaign that they want, but the truth of the matter is you can’t just make stuff up.”

NOTHING IS MORE “OVERLY PERSONAL” TO MITT ROMNEY THAN HIS MONEY: “The American people have assumed that if you want to be President of the United States, that your life is an open book when it comes to things like your finances. I mean, this isn’t sort of overly personal here, guys. This is pretty standard stuff.”

WHAT HE HAS INDICATED REPEATEDLY TO PRESIDENT ASSAD: “I have indicated repeatedly that President al-Assad has lost legitimacy, that he needs to step down. So far, he hasn’t gotten the message, and instead has double downed [sic] in violence on his own people.” Well, I’m sure he’s heard the message, he just doesn’t acknowledge the role the president of the United States evidently assigns himself in determining the legitimacy of Syrian leaders.

ER, ISN’T THAT PRETTY MUCH EVERYONE? “We cannot have a situation where chemical or biological weapons are falling into the hands of the wrong people.”

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Trying to shut that whole thing down

If Todd Akin drops out because he’s an idiot, that’s good for America. If he drops out because Karl Rove is cutting off his money, that’s actually bad for America.

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Deep empathy just sounds dirty when Todd Akin says it

Todd Akin issues a statement saying he has “deep empathy” for women who have been (legitimately) raped, he just thinks they have an extra internal organ that shoots lasers at the sperm of rapists, or something.

While he says he “misspoke,” he does not say in what way he misspoke, i.e., whether he knows that his comments about female biology are batshit crazy. He’s not even willing to pretend that he knows that his comments about female biology are batshit crazy.

Finally, he insisted that his “primary focus” in the senatorial race are deficits and unemployment, and accused people focusing on his batshit craziness of trying to “distract” from those things, so stop distracting everyone, slutty rape victims! Todd Akin, of course, is distracted by shiny objects and fetuses.

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The female body has ways

So according to senatorial candidate Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), victims of “legitimate rape” can’t get pregnant – “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” He knows this from doctors. So if you get pregnant, you’re a slut who is lying about being raped. And if you float, you’re a witch.

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Graveled down

In its story about the Michigan legislator not allowed to speak after using the word “vagina” during the debate on abortion restrictions, ThinkProgress says “Republicans sought to gravel down the women.”

ThinkProgress of course meant to say gaveled down.

But I like it.

I therefore propose the immediate introduction of the phrase “graveled down” into our political discourse.

That is all.

Republican Debate: I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that

Did you see that clip where Romney shouted at a protester who asked what someone in the 1% would do for the 99% that he was being divisive and should just go to North Korea and “America is right and you’re wrong” (he was against being divisive before he was for it)? Well, you may be thinking of that as an embarrassing example of a politician losing his shit and wondering if Romney’s temper and snippiness might make him even more unlikeable than he already is, but the Romney campaign wants people to see that clip and sent it out in an email, asking everyone to tweet & facebook it.

On to the debate. In Charleston. But no one did the charleston. Or ate a Charleston chew. Transcript.

DECENT PEOPLE? HOW IS THAT RELEVANT TO THIS SITUATION? The first question is to Gingrich about the “open marriage” thing. He blames the “destructive, vicious, negative nature of much of the news media,” which “makes it harder to govern this country, harder to attract decent people to run for public office. And I am appalled that you would begin a presidential debate on a topic like that.” Appalled as he was, he went on: “Every person in here knows personal pain. Every person in here has had someone close to them go through painful things.” And every one of your ex-wives.

TO TAKE AN EX-WIFE: “To take an ex-wife and make it two days before the primary a significant question for a presidential campaign is as close to despicable as anything I can imagine.” Your ex-wives can probably imagine something closer to despicable, and by imagine I mean remember.

WHAT HE’S TIRED OF: “I am tired of the elite media protecting Barack Obama by attacking Republicans.”


AND BY FALLEN, I MEAN NEWT TRIPPED OVER HIS OWN DICK: Santorum says “this country is a very forgiving country. This country understands that we are all fallen”.

What federal programs would put the American people back to work? Ron Paul says the federal government should “get out of the way” and do nothing, and no one is more qualified to do nothing than Ron Paul.

Gingrich would repeal what I’ve just noticed he called the Dodd-Frank “bill.” You would think the former speaker of the House would know that when it’s passed, a bill is called a law.

Romney says just getting rid of Obama will eliminate unemployment.

For the first time Mittens gives a number for jobs destroyed by Bain Capital. 10,000 “that have been documented.” I sense a major asterisk.


WHAT HE’S GOING TO STUFF DOWN OBAMA’S THROAT: Twitt Romney: “I’m someone who believes in free enterprise. I think Adam Smith was right. And I’m going to stand and defend capitalism across this country, throughout this campaign. I know we’re going to get hit hard from President Obama, but we’re going to stuff it down his throat and point out it is capitalism and freedom that makes America strong.” Stuffing and pointing.

MORE FOOD AND HEALTH CARE? THE BASTARD! Santorum says all Obama wants to do for the poor is “make them more dependent, give them more food stamps, give them more Medicaid.”

THEY HAVE THE BEST METH LABS IN THE WORLD: Santorum: “South Carolina can compete with anybody in this world in manufacturing.”

Santorum seems to say (there’s slippage between talking about Vietnam and talking about the present)(maybe I shouldn’t use the word slippage when talking about santorum) that veterans coming back from the war “very damaged” is “a very big part of the high unemployment rate that we’re dealing with” and claims that Obama “said he is going to cut veterans benefits”. Romney wants the states to get block grants to deal with veterans.

Gingrich says that we don’t actually need the provision for people up to 26 staying on their parents’ insurance, which Obama only wanted because “he can’t get any jobs for them to go out and buy their own insurance.” Under a President Gingrich, everyone will have jobs at 18 and all the colleges will be closed.


AND DINOSAURS ROAMED THE EARTH: Ron Paul claims that when he was practicing medicine in the early 1960s “before we had any government,” “there was nobody out in the street suffering with no medical care.” Um, right.

Santorum: “Grandiosity has never been a problem with Newt Gingrich.” Gingrich says it’s a grandiose country.

THAT’S WHAT SHE SAID: Santorum: “I mean, Newt’s -- Newt’s a friend. I love him. But at times, you’ve just got, you know, sort of that, you know, worrisome moment that something’s going to pop.” Santorum shouldn’t be talking about “something’s going to pop.”

Romney: “We need to have someone outside Washington go to Washington.”

Romney deflates Gingrich’s pretense that he and Ronald Reagan were Batman and Robin only, you know, gayer, by noting that Gingrich is mentioned only once in Reagan’s diary, and not favorably.

Newt Gingrich released his returns online at around the time the debate started. Ron Paul says he won’t release his tax returns because “I don’t want to be embarrassed because I don’t have a greater income.” Romney says he won’t release his before he secures the nomination “Because I want to make sure that I beat President Obama. And every time we release things drip by drip, the Democrats go out with another array of attacks.” So he won’t release them because there’s stuff in there that can be used to attack him. But, he says, “I pay a lot of taxes.”


Everyone is against SOPA. Although Santorum says, “The Internet is not a free zone where anybody can do anything they want to do and trample the rights of other people”. I wonder what he could be thinking of.

Gingrich wants a guest worker program run by American Express, Visa or MasterCard, “because they can run it without fraud and the federal government’s hopeless.” And he elaborates on his idea of residency for illegal immigrants who have been here 25 years. The local draft board type thing could only give them residency; to get citizenship they’d actually have to go back to their country of origin and wait behind everybody else for a few years.

Santorum says he’s the grandson of an immigrant, so he’d be tougher on immigrants than the other candidates. In the transcript, the second word in the following quote is “agree” but I think he actually said grieve: “I agree/grieve for people who have been here 25 years and maybe have to be separated from their family if they were picked up and deported, but my father grieved for his father when he came to this country and lived here five years.” And if it’s good enough for his grandfather...

Ron Paul says we have illegal immigrants because Americans aren’t forced to take crap jobs for no money: “There’s an economic incentive for them to come, for immigrants to come. But there’s also an incentive for some of our people in this country not to take a job that’s a low-paying job. You’re not supposed to say that, but that is true.”


A EXPERIENCE IN A LAB: Gingrich: “Governor Romney has said that he had a experience in a lab and became pro-life, and I accept that.”

YOU’LL TELL US WHEN IT IS THE TIME TO BE DOUBTING PEOPLE’S WORDS OR QUESTIONING THEIR INTEGRITY, RIGHT? Romney: “It is -- this is not the time to be doubting people’s words or questioning their integrity. I’m pro-life.”

Paul says if government spends any money on medicine it will wind up funding abortion because “all funds are fungible.” He adds, “I see abortion as a violent act. All other violence is handled by the states -- murder, burglary, violence. That’s a state issue.” And he wants Congress to vote to remove abortion from the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.

THE RIGHT OF OUR CREATOR TO LIFE: Santorum attacks Paul for saying abortion is a state issue: “you should have the willingness to stand up on a federal law and every level of government and protect what our Declaration protects, which is the right of our creator to life, and that is a federal issue, not a state issue.” Ron Paul wants to kill God, is what Santorum is saying.

Republican Debate: I’m not going to describe all of my great exploits

Transcript.

WHAT, NEVER? NO, NEVER. WHAT, NEVER? WELL, HARDLY EVER. Perry brings up a SC steel mill Bain shut down. Romney blames the Chinese. The WSJ guy brings up a paper company Bain closed. Bain bought it with $5 million of their own money and a lot of debt, then defaulted when the debt crippled what had been a profitable company, and Bain took away $100 million in profits and fees. Romney: “Well, first of all you never want to seen an enterprise go bankrupt.” Never? Because Bain seems to have done very well indeed out of that enterprise going bankrupt.


Romney goes on to explain that Bain also bought another paper company and tried to consolidate the two plants. And by consolidate, he means fire all the unionized workers and offer them jobs in the non-unionized plant. It must take real self-restraint on Romney’s part not to grow a mustache just so that he can twirl it sinisterly when discussing his dastardly plans.

Romney clarified his position: “I don’t think people who have committed violent crimes should be allowed to vote again.”

WAR! Perry said, “The State of Texas is under assault by the federal government. I’m saying also that South Carolina is at war with the federal government and with this administration.” How did that work out for South Carolina last time?

NEWT GINGRICH EXPLAINS HOW TO BECOME EMPLOYABLE: Gingrich says people on unemployment should be forced into job training. At least that’s what will be reported, but what he actually said was “a business-run training program...” (In other words, free labor for corporations) “...to acquire the skills to be employable.” Which assumes that people are unemployed because they are unemployable losers and not because there aren’t any jobs. “Now, the fact is, 99 weeks is an associate degree.” Although under his plan, instead of a degree, you’d get to push a mop or file papers or whatever the “training program” consists of, and at the end get laid off and replaced by more government-provided “uemployables.” “It tells you everything you need to know about the difference between Barack Obama and the five of us, that we actually think work is good.” And he again called Obama “the best food stamp president in American history,” whose goal is “to maximize dependency”. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everybody!

Q: what is the highest federal income tax any American should have to pay? Perry: 7% flat tax. Santorum would have two rates, 10% & 28%. Romney: 25%. Gingrich: flat tax of 15%. Paul: 0.

HE’S HEARD ENOUGH: Will Romney release his tax returns? “time will tell.” “I think I’ve heard enough from folks saying, ‘Let’s see your tax records.’ I have nothing in them that suggests there’s any problem, and I’m happy to do so. I sort of feel like we’re showing a lot of exposure at this point, and if I become our nominee, what’s happened in history is, people have released them in about April of the coming year, and that’s probably what I’d do.” So he’s saying that primary voters don’t deserve that information. I’m also a little confused about whether that’s April of 2012 he’s talking about or 2013 – the “coming year,” he said, and after “I become our nominee,” which won’t happen by April of this year. It’s weird how ill-prepared he is to answer an inevitable question.

A SWEATER-VEST IS ALWAYS A GOOD CHOICE: Santorum attacks Obama for some program aimed at helping at-risk black girls which Sicky says has been banned from propagandizing for marriage. “This administration is deliberately telling organizations that are there to help young girls make good choices, not to tell them what the good choice is.”


Ron Paul says that Martin Luther King would be with him on the drug war thing and the war war thing, which is true, but probably not winning him that many votes among South Carolina Republicans.

Gingrich says it’s not insulting to say that black children should work as janitors in their own schools. Why, he made his daughter do janitorial work at a Baptist church when she was 13, and she learned that “if you worked, you got paid.” And schools can hire 30 black kids for the cost of one NYC school janitor, so they’ll learn that when black kids are forced to work, they get paid crap, and that when adults get paid reasonably well, they’ll be fired and replaced by school children. Happy Martin Luther King Day, everybody!

Paul says the US should have tried to get Pakistan to turn bin Laden over. Everyone jumps on him. Paul, that is, not bin Laden.

AND BY ENEMIES, HE MEANS INDIANS – LOTS AND LOTS OF INDIANS. Gingrich: “Andrew Jackson had a pretty clear-cut idea about America’s enemies: kill them.” He’s a historian, you know.

Paul: “My - my - my point is, if another country does to us what we do others, we’re not going to like it very much. So I would say that maybe we ought to consider a golden rule in - in foreign policy. Don’t do to other nations [BOOING] what we don’t want to have them do to us. So we - we endlessly bomb - we endlessly bomb these countries and then we wonder - wonder why they get upset with us?” I’m pretty sure that booing means the audience wanted other nations to bomb us too.


THE RIGHT THING: Romney: “The right thing for Osama bin Laden was the bullet in the - in the head that he received. That’s the right thing for people who kill American citizens.”

Romney: “The right course for America is to recognize we’re under attack and we’re going to have to take action around the world to protect ourselves, and hopefully we can do it as we did with Osama bin Laden, as opposed to going to war, as we had to do in the case of Iraq.” Had to do? “The right way...to keep us from having to go to those wars is to have a military so strong that no one would ever think of testing it.” How strong is that? We do have nuclear weapons and shit, right?

Romney says it’s wrong to negotiate with the Taliban as long as they’re killing American soldiers. He thinks we should negotiate with the Girl Scouts, because they’re not killing American soldiers. Added bonus: cookies!

Perry said Turkey should be kicked out of NATO because it is “ruled by what many would perceive to be Islamist terrorists.” Of course Rick Perry probably perceives the pope as an Islamist terrorist.

PERRY ALWAYS HEARS GONGS. ALL THE TIME. Perry says to the moderator about Paul, “I was just saying that I thought maybe that the noise that you were looking for was a gong.”


DISDAIN: Perry says that Panetta’s referring to the American soldiers’ urination on dead Afghans as despicable shows “this administration’s disdain all too often for our men and women in uniform.” You know what really shows disdain? Oh, you’re way ahead of me here.

Romney supports indefinite detention, although he admits it “could possibly be abused.” But he’d never abuse that power, so that’s okay then. He even says Obama wouldn’t abuse that power, but then he never says what would actually constitute an abuse of that power, so he may be setting that bar impossibly high, like when Bush said we don’t torture.

BECAUSE NOTHING SAYS “HOPE OF THE EARTH” LIKE A HONKING BIG MILITARY BUDGET: Romney: “We simply cannot continue to cut our Department of Defense budget if we are going to remain the hope of the Earth.”

Romney wants to raise the age of eligibility for Social Security “a year or two.” Gingrich wants to get “the government out of telling you when to retire.”

DELIGHTED: It being South Carolina, where there was suspicion four years ago that Romney didn’t enjoy shooting things as much as a real man does, he was asked whether he’s been keeping up his varmint-hunting. “I’m not going to describe all of my great exploits,” he said (or perhaps that was his explanation for not releasing his tax returns). But he killed a moose – no, wait, an elk! – and some pheasants. “I’m not a serious hunter, but I must admit, I guess I enjoy the sport and when I get invited I’m delighted to be able to go hunting.”


By the way, it’s probably just as well that during the I-love-guns-more-than-you-do portion of the debate, no one brought up the assassination of the guy whose birthday this is.

Gingrich says Mittens’ Super PAC ran ads saying Newt wants to abort adorable Chinese babies. Mittens counter-charges that Gingrich’s Super PAC’s anti-Romney film is “probably the biggest hoax since Bigfoot,” upsetting Ron Paul supporters who believe Bigfoot runs the Fed. He says he wants Super PACs ended. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could give what they would like to to campaigns?” asks the multi-millionaire.


OH RICK, IF YOU WERE PRESIDENT, YOUR HAND WOULD NEVER BE OFF THE BIBLE: Perry: “And when I’m the president of the United States that border will be locked down and it will be secure by one year from the time I take my hand off the Bible.”

Then they all urinated on Juan Williams, the end.

Alongside bubble gum or batteries

Obama took a few questions today. Orally.

Asked whether he’s guilty of appeasement in the Middle East: “Ask Osama bin Laden and the 22-out-of-30 top al Qaeda leaders
who’ve been taken off the field whether I engage in appeasement. Or whoever is left out there, ask them about that.” And the transformation into George W. Bush is now complete.

He fully supports, “as the father of two daughters,” Kathleen Sibelius’s refusal to let women under 17 get Plan B without a prescription, which he considers to be simply the application of “some common sense.” No good ever came attached to the words “common sense” coming from the mouth of any politician. He said little girls shouldn’t be able, “alongside bubble gum or batteries -- be able to buy a medication that potentially, if not used properly, could end up having an adverse effect. And I think most parents would probably feel the same way. ... And her judgment was that there was not enough evidence that this potentially could be used improperly in a way that had adverse health effects on those young people.”

We’re talking about a pill (evidently a single pill rather than two, as I said yesterday, at least in the version of the medication affected by this decision), so used improperly how? Does he think they’ll stick it up their nostrils?

Use only as directed, and not for any sex-based cults

Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sibelius overrules the FDA and refuses to allow Plan B (the morning after pill) to be made available without a prescription to women under 17 years old. She bases this entirely on the stupidity of adolescent girls: “However, the switch from prescription to over the counter for this product requires that we have enough evidence to show that those who use this medicine can understand the label and use the product appropriately.”

So what does the label say that is so hard to comprehend? When the Bush FDA likewise refused to allow the drug to be sold over the counter to minors in 2004, it made the same claim, and since the media didn’t bother telling us what the drug’s instructions were (I bet they won’t today either), I went to my local pharmacy and asked them to print them out. Those instructions: take one pill. 12 hours later, take another pill. That’s it.

In private, by the way, the FDA’s deputy operations commissioner in 2004 privately “stated that we could not anticipate, or prevent extreme promiscuous behaviors such as the medication taking on an ‘urban legend’ status that would lead adolescents to form sex-based cults centered around the use of Plan B.” Sibelius probably isn’t saying as nutty as that behind closed doors but the upshot is that she’s still giving us the exact same policy.

Chip chip chip

The British government is following the lead of American anti-abortion states like South Dakota by stripping the funding for abortion counseling conducted by groups that also provide abortions and shifting the funding to counseling conducted by Catholic and other anti-abortion groups. Because the Tories are all about offering women “independent” advice and information. And eroding their rights incrementally.