Wait, is this the new Charlie Crist? Because I think I like the new Charlie Crist: Gov. Charlie Crist vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have required women seeking a first-trimester abortion to pay for an ultrasound exam and, with few exceptions, view the image or have it described to them by their doctor. Crist, a former Republican who is running for the U.S. Senate as an independent, said in his veto message that requirement would put an “inappropriate burden” on women seeking abortions and violate their privacy rights.
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On Women & This Week's Primaries
Rachael Larimore over at DoubleX is bemoaning the lack of excitement among feminists over the recent electoral victories for Republican women. She writes that “it is disappointing that many liberal women don’t even seem to want the GOP to have strong female candidates.” I don\’t think she’s got it quite right. It’s not that I don’t want the GOP to have strong female candidates, it’s that I’m not going to get giddy over candidates whose platforms I totally disagree with, regardless of their gender. Just like Sarah Palin doesn’t get points in my book for being a...
Continue reading...No, John Roberts, judges are not umpires.
I had read about former Supreme Court Justice David Souter’s recent commencement address at Harvard, but it wasn’t til today that I read the entire speech, available here. The address is an eloquent and persuasive response to (and take-down of) the theory of Constitutional “originalism” espoused vehemently by Justice Scalia, among others. I’ve been thinking lately about liberals’ persistent inability to win the war of words, and conservatives’ great skill at manipulating language in their favor. Scalia, for instance, has done an excellent job of making originalism sound like duh, the only possible legitimate method of engaging in...
Continue reading...This is what happens when you teach kids that condoms don't work
AP (emphasis mine): About 17 percent of sexually experienced teen girls say they had used the rhythm method –timing their sex to avoid fertile days to prevent getting pregnant. That’s up from 11 percent in 2002. They may have been using another form of birth control at the same time. But the increase is considered worrisome because the rhythm method doesn’t work about 25 percent of the time, said Joyce Abma, the report’s lead author. She’s a social scientist at the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. … The increase in the rhythm method may be part...
Continue reading...Lesson: Racial slurs are totally fine, so long as they're in a joke
Noted this morning in the Morning Constitutional: “We already got one raghead in the White House, we don’t need a raghead in the governor’s mansion,” said State Sen. Jake Knotts, of South Carolina gubernatorial candidate Nikki Haley. Knotts backs Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer in a four-way Republican primary race. Today, Knotts “apologized.” By “apologized,” of course, I mean, he’s sorry nobody got the joke: Unfortunately, the show was not recorded as was intended. If it had been recorded, the public would be able to hear firsthand that my “raghead” comments about Obama and Haley were intended in...
Continue reading...Well, it's hurricane season
Today marks the beginning of the official hurricane season, and NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center predicts a pretty hectic season: Across the entire Atlantic Basin for the six-month season, which begins June 1, NOAA is projecting a 70 percent probability of the following ranges: 14 to 23 Named Storms (top winds of 39 mph or higher), including: 8 to 14 Hurricanes (top winds of 74 mph or higher), of which: 3 to 7 could be Major Hurricanes (Category 3, 4 or 5; winds of at least 111 mph) “If this outlook holds true, this season could be one...
Continue reading...Gross
Glenn Beck says all the time that people should leave families alone. But, I guess it didn’t stop him from making fun of Malia Obama on his radio show. Dude, she’s 11. You’re making fun of a little girl; that’s just sick. Via Media Matters, above is some audio, and a partial transcript below: BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy? Daddy? Daddy, did you plug the hole yet? Daddy? PAT GRAY (co-host): (imitating Obama) No I didn’t, honey. BECK: (imitating Malia) Daddy, I know you’re better than [unintelligible] GRAY: (imitating Obama) Mm-hmm, big country. BECK: (imitating Malia) And I...
Continue reading...New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 28 May 2010
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman Ain’t Free” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Roger “Life of the Party” Cohen’s great piece “Hell in the Islamic Republic,” in...
Continue reading...Live-Trolling the Revolution
Tuesday, the GOP rolled out a new website, AmericaSpeakingOut.com (ed. note from the future: this site is now some kind of scam site so don’t go there), which solicits new ideas from the public and allows this very same public to give the ideas a thumbs-up or thumbs-down. They’re very, very proud and excited about this. “I would expect the ideas that come out of this Web site and the involvement of our members will lead to ideas that we can attempt to implement today,” House Minority Leader John Boehner proclaimed. “We want to continue to offer better...
Continue reading...Have you met Les Phillip, the American patriot running for Congress from Alabama?
The newest in our unofficial series where we meet candidates and look at their awesome advertisements, I’d like you to meet Les Phillip, who vows to protect America from enemies both foreign and domestic. Honestly, I thought we were done with the whole “Obama-pallin’-around-with-terrorists” thing, but I guess nothing wins quite like the classics. Like an opening band playing ’80s covers, I guess you’ve got to give the people what they know.
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