Life on the Rock is a Thursday-night program on EWTN targeted at Catholic youth and young adults. And when, last Thursday, the topic turned toward what had happened the previous Sunday with final passage of health-care reform, it wouldn't have been unreasonable to wonder whether the program was aimed more at ginning up support for Republican politicians.
That and bashing pro-life Catholic politicians -- OK, one Catholic congressman in particular -- whose political conscience didn't line up with the bishops' entreaties to "kill the bill." AS THEY SAY, out of the mouths of babes. . . .
FR. MARK MARY:And tonight we're joined by Jill Sanders, our producer here on Life on the Rock, she does a great job, works very hard every week -- tries to keep Doug and I on the bean, so to speak. And Jill . . . we have her on up with us because she did something special the last couple of days.
Where were you last night, Jill?
JILL SANDERS:Well, last night I was in Washington, D.C., at the Willard Hotel -- which is a very fancy, beautiful hotel – for the Susan B. Anthony List Campaign for Life Gala.
DOUG BARRY:Is that hotel nicer than a Holiday Inn Express or. . . .
JILL SANDERS:It's a little bit nicer than a Holiday Inn Express. It's a beautiful hotel.
And at this gala, I was the recipient of the Susan B. Anthony Young Leader Award, along with four other pro-life young women.
BARRY, FR. MARY:(Clapping) Woo hoo!
DOUG BARRY:And why is this award given out?
JILL SANDERS:It's for young women who are pro-life leaders in the community, trying to mobilize more young women to get active in conservative politics.
DOUG BARRY:Well, you've done so much on so many levels, but one of the key things I can speak to is all the work that you do to provide Father Mark and me, I mean the guests that have been on the show that you arrange, you set things up – a lot of people don't realize just how much work goes on behind the scenes with the producer unless they're around it or involved in it.
All the information, all the E-mails I get from you throughout the week, getting ready for a show, the research – you're directing me to different places to learn about the guests that are coming up, and I can say you do an outstanding job. Across the board, but especially in the pro-life area, so congratulations. You definitely deserve this.
JILL SANDERS:Oh, thank you. Thank you very much – thank you, I appreciate that.
FR. MARK MARY: This was the Susan B. Anthony List, we had a few of them on the show. . . .
JILL SANDERS: They were on last fall.
FR. MARK MARY:Right.
JILL SANDERS:Umm hmm.
FR. MARK MARY:And they promote women's involvement in the pro-life movement?
JILL SANDERS:Yes.
FR. MARK MARY:And this was a Campaign for Life Gala. Can you tell us about the spirit in the room, just days after this health-care bill passed . . . what was it like there?
JILL SANDERS:Well, this is a tragic time in our country. Federal funding for abortion is the biggest blow to the pro-life movement since Roe v. Wade. In that room last night, there was a spirit of determination and of optimism and of hope.
Congresswoman Michele Bachmann gave one of the speeches, and in it she kept saying "We may have lost this battle but we will not lose this war. We may have lost this battle but we will not lose this war."
And I think what an inspiring thing for us to remember as we go into Holy Week, that as Jesus Christ died on the cross for us, He felt the pain of our sin – He felt the pain of the sin of abortion. You know what? But the story doesn't end there, because on the third day, He rose again, and He conquered death, and He won the victory for us.
And He will win the victory over abortion in our country as well.
FR. MARK MARY:All right. . . . So what would you say for people out there, what could they do for the pro-life cause?
JILL SANDERS:Well, I think what's great about the country that we live in is that we have the ability to change in our country. First of all, if you are a young pro-life woman who has aspirations to go into politics, visit the Susan B. Anthony List website, see how you can get involved. Their website is sba-list.org, so go to their website.
If you're a priest, preach the truth from the pulpit. If you're a father, if you're a mother, teach the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death to your children. Write letters to your congressman. Talk to your friends and family. Vote for pro-life leaders – get behind pro-life leaders, support them.
But most importantly, every day, brothers and sisters, we need to hit our knees and pray for an end to abortion.
DOUG BARRY:You're absolutely right; pray for the leadership. We've got situations like what happened with Congressman Stupak out there, which was a real blow to people, because he was supposed to be honored at this event as well, and Susan B. Anthony List -- very quickly when that turned – made it very clear publicly they were revoking that honor, that award they were going to give him. They felt like a real betrayal.
Was that spirit in the air last night as well?
JILL SANDERS:I think there was great disappointment in him. You know, we kind of depended on him to keep this bill from being passed, and when he turned on us, it was a sense of betrayal, you know? You're one of us, how could you do this? How could you turn your back on us?
FR. MARK MARY:I think there has been a lot of talk about what has happened, and we're not experts here – you know, we can't analyze policy so much, but the bishops have made statements about how this executive order by the president is not sufficient in this new health-care bill to protect life. And they've issued a couple of statem. . . .
DOUG BARRY:I'm sorry, but to jump in real quick for the people who may not be aware of what you mean by the executive order . . . for those who aren't keeping up on this at all, the reason Congressman Stupak turned and said he would vote for this was primarily because of this executive order that President Obama said he would sign to limit federal funding and such and so forth.
And he compared it to something as powerful as Abraham Lincoln's, you know, uh, uh, a couple of other points in the past . . . I'm not going to go into detail on that. But the point here is that the bishops do not see this as being sufficient, even though the congressman has said that it is.
So for people out there wondering why Stupak would turn in and all of a sudden vote for this, because of what President Obama said he would sign as an executive order defending life but, as you're about to say and make very clear, the bishops do not feel, feel this is good enough.
FR. MARK MARY:Right, Fr. Richard Doerflinger from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, you know, he issued a statement in the name of the bishops saying only a change in the law enacted by Congress – not an executive order – can begin to address this very serious problem in the legislation.
My understanding is in the executive order, you know, it can fill in holes in the law but, you know, if it's not in the law, it can't put into law what's not already in the law. And the bishops made a statement . . . they said they applaud the effort for health-care reform – you know, the church herself doesn't canonize a certain economic policy or instruct how government should function or run, but they applaud the effort, you know, that everybody has health care, but it says nevertheless -- the U.S. bishops said “nevertheless, whatever good this law achieves or intends, we as Catholic bishops have opposed its passage because there is compelling evidence that it would expand the role of the federal government in funding and facilitating abortion and plans that cover abortion.
“The statute appropriates billions of dollars in new funding without explicitly prohibiting the use of these funds for abortion, and it provides federal subsidies for health plans covering elective abortions.”
So, they say here that the Catholic bishops have opposed this passage of the bill, you know, as it stands with this funding in it. And the funding will make a huge difference – you're giving money that makes it easily accessible, available for people, the number of abortions to go up . . . you know, human life is. . . .
DOUG BARRY:Well, what it also does is -- you know, Jill, maybe you can comment on this – is this now forces taxpayers to a higher degree to be cooperating against our will, if we don't want to, with our tax dollars, the government can now use this to expand federal funding of abortions out there. I mean, did this come up at all – anything of this nature last night at this event?
JILL SANDERS: Right. Well how unfair that something we are so diabolicallyopposed to can be forced upon us. [Emphasis mine -- R21]
DOUG BARRY: All right. And that's a big part of it. And I noticed that is something the bishops had mentioned before the final vote on Sunday had come down, was they were saying that this does not provide protection of the conscience for those who clearly – even medical professionals, those people who are in the medical field – you know, the concern of them being forced into . . . to having to cooperate with abortion and with procedures that that involve this whole, this whole horrible act.
Um, you know, the threat of shutting down hospitals, of shutting down Catholic medical, uh, you know clinics and facilities due to this kind of government forcing. And you know, ladies and gentlemen, this kind of battle is going to keep going on. So, as Jill mentioned earlier, we've got to be on our knees, we've gotta be praying, we gotta be writing letters – we've gotta be a force to reckon with.
And, uhhhh, as Catholics, we're talkin' over 60 million in this country. Come on! We gotta wake up! Sleeping giant, let's go!
YES, SHE really did say "diabolically opposed."
As in . . . the devil, diabolically opposed to a "culture of life," took it upon himself to prompt the pro-life movement to climb in bed with mere politicians, then place all of their hope and faith in them. Took it upon himself to tempt professional pro-lifers -- and their useful idiots in Christian broadcasting -- to become uncritical touts for some of the wackiest, angriest and most divisive pols in recent history.
Like the Susan B. Anthony List's having Sarah "Tea Party" Palin keynote its Celebration of Life Breakfast in May. Everyone will be eating Froot Loops, no doubt.
THINK ABOUT IT.Would anybody but Satan think it a good idea for the pro-life movement to hitch up Michele Bachmann's nutwagon? Or greet poor Bart Stupak with the same sort of warm fuzzies Josef Stalin radiated toward Leon Trotsky?
Was the Susan B. Anthony List's now-withdrawn "major award" to Stupak, a Democrat, really predicated on his devotion to pro-life values, or was it more incumbent on the damage his pro-life values inflicted on his own political party? Today, "betrayal" is just political "heroism" misdirected toward you, right?
Day by day, in every way, those more than 60 million "sleeping giant" Catholics in this country are left wondering whether the "pro-life movement" is more about "pro-life" or more about being "active in conservative politics."
If only Louisiana Public Broadcasting had the rights to LSU football.
Or could get past the Federal Communications Commission's whole "indecency" hangup.
Like, if LPB could put Tiger cheerleaders on the air during fund drives, then have them expose their ta-tas in full HD for pledges instead of Mardi Gras beads . . . well, it just wouldn't matter much what Gov. Bobby Jindal is proposing to do to the network's state funding.
BUT SINCE the FCC, I don't think, is gonna start allowing American TV stations to do the "full Janet Jackson" anytime soon, fans of educational TV in a place like the Gret Stet might find themselves s*** out of luck. The news in The Advocate isn't good:
Louisiana Public Broadcasting is warning viewers that state budget cuts may force the network to go off the air two days a week.
An alert on LPB’s Web site also warns that layoffs and the elimination of local programming are possible because of more than $2 million in potential state budget reductions.
“It’s not anything we want to do. It’s not our choice,” said Joe Traigle, chairman of the LPB Foundation, on Tuesday.
Without additional funding, the stations airing LPB across the state will fade to black on Fridays and Mondays, he said.
LPB President and CEO Beth Courtney said she plans to plead her case to lawmakers this week during budget meetings at the State Capitol.
She said a pledge drive will not resolve the problem.
“We literally raise every dime we can,” Courtney said.
FACE IT, we're mad in this country -- as in off-the-charts angry. And judging by the evening news, the morning newspaper and the food fights all over the Internet, it's looking like we've gone mad, too.
I mean, on the Big Show this go 'round, I almost feel as if I ought to smash a beer can on my head -- Ã la John Belushi in Animal House -- to make you laugh . . . or distract you from killing somebody. Or somebody from killing you.
Whichever.
Maybe, as a reasonable alternative, we'll just have a "crazy" set of music this week. OK? Will that work for you?
Hello?
Please don't hurt me.
THAT WAS a joke. Gee whiz, you've been really touchy lately. You'd think people have gone around insulting your mama and calling you a godless communist.
Oh.
Man, that's harsh.
OK, here's the deal. Sit back, kick your shoes off and get comfortable. I'll put some tunes on, and you can chill out. Really, I think 3 Chords & the Truth is just what the psychoanalyst ordered.
If not for the tireless efforts of the U.S. Department of Justice, Louisiana would. . . .
Sorry, finishing that lede would take my imagination to places no man's imagination should have to go. The U.S. State Department would have to issue urgent "travel advisories."
So, without scaring ourselves by speculating on a Gret Stet without ongoing, massive intervention by the feds, let's just say the dance card of Justice lawyers and FBI agents just picked up one more two-step. And it all has to do with the "proactive policing" Baton Rouge cops engaged in after Hurricane Katrina.
NATURALLY, the locals have taken offense at the offense taken by New Mexico and Michigan troopers over Baton Rouge cops' "law enforcement" practices after the storm, accounts of which -- more than four years later -- have led to the federal civil-rights investigation.Today's story in The Advocatehas this choice passage:
Asked why law enforcement officers from other states would lie about what they saw Baton Rouge police doing, LeDuff has said he suspects the troopers wanted to be where the action was.
“Everybody who came here wanted to be in New Orleans, where all of this was going on, to rescue, to stop the looting, to stop the people from shooting at helicopters,” he has said. “I don’t think people wanted to come to Baton Rouge. We weren’t the story.
Cpl. Cleveland Thomas, one of the officers disciplined because of the troopers’ complaints, told Police Department investigators the allegations lodged against him were false and the New Mexico officer made them because he was “scared and wanted to go home.”
Olson, the New Mexico spokesman, said Thursday he found the comments in the newspaper’s story “very disturbing” and “that clearly is not the case.”
He said his officers volunteered to leave their families and jobs to come help the people of Louisiana and that “it’s difficult when baseless accusations like that are made.”
Olson said he hopes the U.S. Justice Department has a “thorough and successful” investigation.
He added he’s heard from various Baton Rouge media outlets that the Baton Rouge Union of Police Local 237 is considering filing a lawsuit against his agency because of the complaints it filed against the Police Department.
Chris Stewart, president of the police union, said during the March 24 “Jim Engster Show” on WRKF radio that the union is “researching every possible avenue that we can pursue in order to clear the names of our officers.”
“If it involves a lawsuit, then we are going to do that,” Stewart said on the radio show. “We are waiting now for our attorneys to come back with some decisions or opinions.”
Stewart told WAFB-TV on March 23 that “to be called racist and just rogue cops and all the allegations that were made, it’s offensive to us to be called this. We needed to clear the air with the public as best we can.”
BASICALLY, what we have here is the bizarre confluence of a total breakdown in "Southern hospitality" and Baton Rouge cops internalizing the ghetto code of "snitches get stitches." Being that a) the Yankee cops went home long ago and b) the feds are watching, the locals are considering trying to, alternatively, just shake down the "snitches" in a court of law.
Or what passes for one in the Gret Stet.
After reading the Advocate piece, my wife and I were discussing our shared incredulity at Baton Rouge's official incredulity that outsiders might say awful things about how its Bubbas in blue roll down there on the bayou.
That's when it occurred to me that my wife's incredulity stems from being a native Midwesterner, and that mine stems from, after 20-plus years up here, having turned into one myself. "My God," I told her, "they think they're normal!"
OF COURSE they do. They think it's not only normal to harass and "beat down" whom they please when they please -- and, to be fair, this isn't a Louisiana-only cop pathology -- but that it's absolutely incredible that anyone would take exception, which pretty much is a Bayou State pathology.
And, hell, that might be absolutely normal-- in a Caribbean, banana republic-y kind of way -- except for that little Louisiana Purchase thing a couple of centuries back.But this ain't Haiti, and it ain't In the Heat of the Night, either.
It's the United States. It's 2010. And, God willing, the Justice Department will be pointing out to the special-ed students of constitutional democracy -- yet again -- that's just not how we Americans roll nowadays.
Southwestern Iowa, can we talk? Surely you've noticed lately that your guy in the U.S. House, Steve King, has been a little out of control . . . even by his own loose standards. Frankly, guys, the rest of the country is starting to think he's a little nuts.
OK, a lot nuts.
He's going around throwing rhetorical bombs. He's acts like he's trying to start something bad, trying to get people all riled up.
Frankly, if the tea partiers actually got their way and got national governance just the way the Founding Fathers served it up . . . your representative might be writing manifestos on toilet paper for his lawyer to smuggle out of jail and hand over to Glenn Beck. The Alien and Sedition Acts, as applied by President John Adams, surely would not have been kind to Steve King. LET'S TAKE a look at Steve King's latest, greatest hits, shall we? Starting with this story today in the Omaha World-Herald:
Midlands Republicans on Capitol Hill strongly opposed health care legislation, but most showed little interest this week in repealing it now that it is the law of the land.
One man who is ready for a repeal push is Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa.
“Today the work begins to repeal Obamacare and restore the principles of liberty that made America a great nation,” King said within hours of the bill's passage. “The American people must take their country back by methodically eliminating every vestige of creeping socialism, including socialized medicine.”
Of course, repeal would be a steep climb. Republicans probably would need to capture the White House, a majority in the House and 60 seats in the Senate, where they currently hold 41.
AND THIS, an account of King's Sunday night antics, courtesy of The New York Times:
“Let’s beat the other side to a pulp!” Rep. Steve King, Republican of Iowa, shouted to the last stand of Tea Partiers on Sunday night. “Let’s chase them down! There’s going to be a reckoning.”
OF COURSE, let us not forget this, as recounted by CBS News:
Conservative lawmakers and pundits already have many grievances against the Democratic health care reform plan, but Rep. Steve King of Iowa and Fox News personality Glenn Beck are adding one more to the list -- the vote scheduled for Sunday.
Democrats are scrambling to get the bill to the president before leaving for Easter recess, prompting the House to schedule a vote for the bill this Sunday.
"They intend to vote on the Sabbath, during Lent, to take away the liberty that we have right from God," King said on Beck's radio program Thursday, the Hill reports.
Beck chimed in, "Here is a group of people that have so perverted our faith and our hope and our charity, that is a -- this is an affront to God."
Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) urged a smaller-than-expected crowd of Tea Party protesters on Tuesday to launch a Velvet Revolution-style uprising against the federal government, saying the parallels are striking between America's current government and Eastern European communist rule.
Speaking to the Huffington Post shortly after his speech, King declared that a peaceful uprising, a la the successful overthrowing of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia on the streets of Prague in 1989 "would be fine with me."
"Fill this city up, fill this city, jam this place full so that they can't get in, they can't get out and they will have to capitulate to the will of the American people," he said.
"So this is just like Prague under communist rule?" the Huffington Post asked.
"Oh yeah, it is very, very close," King replied. "It is the nationalization of our liberty and the federal government taking our liberty over. So there are a lot of similarities there."
Earlier, King implored the crowd to bring the nation's capital to a sort of paralysis. Warning, erroneously, that the health care bill would fund abortion and fund care for 6.1 million illegal immigrants, he demanded that concerned citizens "continue to rise up."
AND, OF COURSE, we can't overlook this "Osama bin King" moment after Joe Stack flew his plane into Internal Revenue Service offices in Austin, Texas, last month:
SOUTHWEST IOWA, let me be direct. You have a problem -- you elected a lunatic. Furthermore, considering you elected a lunatic to Congress, he's our problem, too.
And we expect you to fix our problem at your earliest possible convenience.
Another grown-up has gone home to be with God, leaving the children to throw spitballs at one another down here on earth.
We're on our own now, down here in the public square, where decent folk dare not venture. Not at night, not during the day. No time is safe, now that the grown-ups are leaving us to our own devices, and the neighborhood is flat going to hell.
The latest grown-up to be called home was Phil Johnson. For decades, he ran the newsroom at WWL-TV in New Orleans. He also delivered a nightly editorial, because the Jesuits who owned the station -- it was part of Loyola University back then -- "wanted the station to stand for something.” THIS IS WHAT Johnson said in that first editorial in 1962:
Good evening. Today a new voice speaks out in New Orleans. The voice – that of this station – WWL-TV. My name is Phil Johnson.
Beginning today, and every weekday hereafter, this station will present editorial opinion – a living, vigorous commentary on all things pertaining to New Orleans, its people and its future.
Commentary designed to stimulate thought, to awaken in all of us an awareness of our responsibilities, not only to our community, but to each other and to ourselves.
Commentary that will aim not to provoke but to educate. Not to offend, but to explain; not to mislead, on the contrary, to seek only truth.
We intend for it to be a vigorous commentary, strong, vibrant, full of the spirit that is New Orleans; yet, a literate commentary, cogent, sensible, fact-filled, complete.
It will not be a comfortable commentary – a voice such as this station reaches over a million people each week. Such a voice should lead, should stimulate thought, present new ideas, or remember the sound, solid old ideas. This we intend to do.
There is one question. Why? Why speak out? Why present editorial opinion?
The answer is simple enough. We think it’s necessary.
This station believes New Orleans needs another voice, another attitude, another opinion. But we further believe it should, it must be a responsible voice, a responsible attitude, a responsible opinion. This we intend to provide.
New Orleans, almost overnight, has found itself propelled to the very forefront of an incredible age of space. We need great leaders, we need men of ability, we need ideas.
Our leaders we elect, men of ability, we can train. Ideas are harder to come by.
It is the fervent prayer of this station, that the ideas we may project in our editorials can, tomorrow, next week, next month, through the years, help provide for this, our New Orleans, and you, our people, a bright, happy future.
Good evening.
AND THIS is what Phil Johnson, editorialist, said in 1963 after some hate-filled cracker in Mississippi pumped Medgar Evers' body full of lead:
THAT'S what it looked like -- long, long ago in a place far, far away . . . in oh, so many respects -- when the adults were in charge of our mass media. Well, at least for the most part.
Now, not so much. . . .
HOW IN THE WORLD did we get from Phil Johnson to this? What in the world will become of us now that the grown-ups have been called away?
Long ago, Nebraska advertised itself as "the White Spot of the Nation," meaning the state had neither a sales tax nor an income tax.
Now, thanks to "pro-life" Gov. Dave Heineman, the state just might have to revive that slogan -- just with a somewhat different meaning.
Like, "if you're a white spot on an ultrasound," you, as a fetus, are quite all right. But if you're brown -- as in Mexican -- we don't want your kind sticking around.
That's because in Nebraska, we are so angry about illegal immigration, that ostensibly "pro-life" politicians want to punish undocumented mothers-to-be soooooo badly -- and thus reap the resulting electoral windfall -- they'd rather see brown babies dead . . . aborted . . . than be born American.
Abortions, you see, are easy. Prenatal care for the poor is not.
TRAFFICKING in deadly spite is a big part these days of what it is to be Dave Heineman: Nebraska's "white-to-life" governor. That's the practical reality, the moral reality and the political reality of at least 19 state senators standing behind (or at least not standing up to) the Republican governor's death-dealing foolishness.
Heineman and his toadies can argue motivations, but the practical reality is clear. Somehow, I don't think the political considerations would be quite so acute if Nebraska were facing being "overrun" by a wave of Scandinavian illegals. Which it isn't. This "problem" is colored brown.
Nebraska's political establishment wants little brown babies to pay for the migrational sins of their mothers so badly that it will deny them state-sponsored prenatal care even if private donors are picking up a substantial portion of the bill. That's the upshot of this Associated Pressstorytonight:
Opposition to taxpayer benefits for illegal immigrants appears to have trumped anti-abortion sentiments in Nebraska, likely ending an unusual collision of the two explosive political issues.
After meeting with Gov. Dave Heineman on Wednesday night, a lawmaker said the governor opposed a compromise that would continue providing state-funded prenatal care to illegal immigrants in Nebraska. Supporters of the compromise - which included the use of money from private donors - said they don't have enough votes this year to override a Heineman veto and may not have had the votes even without the governor's outright opposition.
"The chances are very slim right now," said Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha after the meeting with Heineman. Ashford crafted the proposal, which hinged on Omaha donors pitching in about $3 million this year, so women could continue receiving state-funded prenatal care. "We took a stab at it but it's clear options now are very, very limited."
Heineman characterized the meeting as "respectful and straightforward" in a statement Wednesday night.
"I have repeatedly said that I support prenatal care for legal residents," he said. "I do not support providing state-funded benefits for illegal individuals."
Lawmakers had faced a dilemma for weeks: Was it more important to care for pregnant women and their unborn children, or prevent illegal immigrants from getting taxpayer-funded benefits?
Until early this month, Nebraska had the nation's only Medicaid policy that allowed unborn children to qualify. That meant women who weren't eligible for the government-run insurance program on their own - such as illegal immigrants - got Medicaid-covered prenatal care because their unborn children qualified.
After federal officials told Nebraska it was breaking Medicaid rules, the state tried to come up with a substitute. That effort died more than a week ago.
But reports from doctors of several women saying they will have abortions instead because they couldn't afford prenatal care reignited the issue. Until Wednesday night, there appeared to be a chance lawmakers would formally consider a proposal.
(snip)
Heineman, meanwhile, has tried to stay out of the fray. Running for re-election, the Republican quietly announced his opposition to state-funded prenatal care for illegal immigrants last month in a letter to a legislative committee.
State officials say about 870 illegal immigrants and 750 legal residents including citizens lost Medicaid coverage this month when Nebraska dumped its two-decade-old Medicaid policy. More than 4,700 legal residents once considered at risk of losing coverage got to keep it because state officials found they qualified under different provisions of Medicaid.
The reports of more women seeking abortions - which some lawmakers are openly skeptical of - spurred a renewed push to create a separate, non-Medicaid program under which illegal immigrants and some legal residents would get state- and federal-funded prenatal care. Now very unlikely to be formed, it would have been created under the federal Children's Health Insurance Program, which allows unborn children to qualify for federal- and state-funded care.
DESPITE ENACTMENT this week of a landmark health-care reform law, we still live in a country -- and especially a state -- where it's much cheaper to eradicate your fetus than it is to deliver a healthy baby boy or girl. And just enough of Nebraska's "pro-life" politicians, led by the state's "pro-life" governor, are just fine with that.
But if he were to take a nap, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck are more than up to the job of filling the teabaggers' hard little hearts to the brim with hatred of their fellow man.
Good on an intrepid bunch of Nebraska senators, who plan to call the "pro-life" bluff of Nebraska's baby-killer¹ governor.
They plan to give new life to a measure restoring prenantal care to poor women -- care scuttled by the arcana of federal Medicaid regulations and the restoration of which was torpedoed by Gov. Dave Heineman.
And here's what's interesting: They're going to attach the measure to the pro-life "priority bill" this legislative session -- meaning if Heineman is well and truly intent on denying medical care to poor women in the name of punishing illegal immigrants, he'll have to ruin his political career to do it.
I DON'T KNOW what was more gratifying, reading this in the Omaha World-Herald or picturing, in my minds eye, Heineman slowly twisting in the political winds:
If successful, the focus of the debate could shift from one hot-button issue to another from illegal immigration to abortion.
State Sens. Brad Ashford, Heath Mello and Jeremy Nordquist, all of Omaha, talked about their strategy to revive prenatal funding after meeting Monday with officials at OneWorld Community Health Center in south Omaha.
The lawmakers requested the gathering to learn more directly how low-income women are dealing with the state's decision to end Medicaid funding for prenatal services for poor women, many of them undocumented.
Dr. Kristine McVea, chief medical officer of OneWorld clinics, reiterated to the senators that six expectant women have told her staff in the past few weeks that they would seek to abort their babies rather than enter the clinic's prenatal program. That compares to about four abortions McVea said she knew of in the past decade.
A doctor in Schuyler, Neb., also said last week that one patient had turned to abortion and that another was considering one.
“That is why this has now taken on a new light,” Mello said. “The unfortunate proof has been brought to life.”
IN THE WAKE of this unmitigated and mean-spirited fiasco, the termination of Dave Heineman's political career is one abortion I could wholeheartedly support.
¹If a GOP representative can call a pro-life Democratic congressman, Bart Stupak, "baby killer" over his health-care vote, what else can you say about a Republican governor whose sabotage of prenatal care for the poor prompts some to opt for abortions? Which, by the way, are much cheaper than decent prenatal care in this state.
Oh, God. Now the Republicans will never shut up. Because, as you know, Republicans never curse in public . . . or when the microphone is hotter than they think.
WELL, SHI . . .shoot. There's only one way past this whole clusterfu . . . uuuuudge.
Mr. President, it's pretty clear what you have to do with your vice-president now.
YOU BEST get to it before this whole thing turns into a real s***storm.
The last time I saw (Deleted), it was 1978, and we were on the staff of Campus Currents, the student newspaper at Baton Rouge High.
Nowadays, (Deleted) is running for legislature in an upper-Midwestern state -- and he was a tea partier on Capitol Hill this weekend protesting against the health-care bill. This is what he put on his Facebook profile today:
“Medicine is the keystone of the arch of socialism and the goal of socialism is communism.” - Lenin 'Nuff said?
WHERE DOES one start in confronting such as this? When people can believe this of their fellow Americans -- when a debate over health-care reform turns into a referendum on Americanism vs. the Red Menace, it seems to me someone has created an atmosphere conducive to somebody ending up dead.
Or to lots of somebodies ending up dead.Remember Oklahoma City? I think the toxic politics leading to that 1995 act of domestic terrorism was nothing compared to today. For one thing, the World Wide Web was still in its infancy.
For another thing, Glenn Beck was still a shock jock in New Haven, Conn., making fun of Asian callers to his radio show.
BUT BACK to medicine being the keystone of socialism, yadda, yadda, yadda. . . . Here is what I wrote in the comments for my old schoolmate's Facebook post:
Too much said.
(Deleted), people can disagree profoundly, but that doesn't mean what you disagree with is some kind of bolshevik putsch.
Do you really think countries with far more ambitious health-care plans than the one passed last night are REALLY commie? Do you REALLY think Canada is a communist country? France? Great Britain? Switzerland? Taiwan, for God's sake?
You think they're REALLY all red enclaves?
You REALLY think the president of the United States is a communist? That Bart Stupak is, like the congressman from Texas yelled, a "baby killer"?
You REALLY think that?
And do you REALLY think a bunch of tea partiers going on and on like that in the Internet Age -- and a few real whack jobs perhaps acting on their paranoia -- wouldn't have the potential to blow this country apart in a way that wasn't possible in 1968?
(Deleted), we're armed to the teeth -- regular folk have automatic weapons and regular idiots can figure out out to build Oklahoma City-style bombs. Do you REALLY think all the inflammatory, and patently irresponsible, rhetoric won't lead, with just the smallest amount of bad luck, to a frickin' bloodbath in this angry and divided country?
There is madness afoot. Avoid it at all costs.
OH . . . and on another post, he had linked to that Phyllis Schlafly press release -- the one saying it was impossible to be pro-life and a Democrat.
Me and Bart Stupak, congressman from Michigan's Upper Peninsula. We've been written right out of the ranks of pro-life Americans by Republicans, members of a party that stood strong by a president who thought it perfectly fine to honor the human dignity of "enemy combatants" through life-affirming torture sessions.
We've been condemned to pro-abortion hell by none other than Phyllis Schlafly, who said the House's final passage of health-care reform "clarified that you cannot be pro-life and be a Democrat."
One GOP congressman put an exclamation point on Stupak's pro-life excommunication by yelling "Baby killer!" at the Democrat on the House floor. It's a pity the marathon House session didn't run just a little longer, so that anonymous Republican could have gone for the tea-party hat trick by calling Barney Frank the F-word and John Lewis the N-word.
Again.
Because that's the patriotic, all-American and pro-life thing to do, apparently.
IT DOESN'T matter to the tea partiers, or to the Republican caucus, or to the nation's Catholic bishops that virtually every expert out there (except for their own) said the Senate health-care bill -- which the House was voting to ratify and send to President Obama for his signature -- was no pro-abortion document.
An interview with a law professor -- Timothy Jost of Washington and Lee -- by NPR's Robert Siegel on All Things Considered last week was particularly informative:
SIEGEL: And first, is the Senate bill more tolerant of abortion and federal spending on abortion than the House bill is?
Prof. JOST: No, it is not.
SIEGEL: In the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' statement against the Senate bill, Cardinal Francis George wrote this: The Senate bill deliberately excludes the language of the Hyde Amendment. It expands federal funding and the role of the federal government in the provision of abortion procedures.
You would say that's not true?
Prof. JOST: That is not true. The bill explicitly cross-references the Hyde Amendment at a couple of different places. One is, it provides that no federal funding for the new premium subsidies or cost-sharing reduction subsidies - the money that's going to go help people buy health insurance - that none of that money can be used to pay for abortions.
And secondly, it provides that the conscience protections, and the protections against discrimination against providers who are unwilling to provide or pay for abortion - is also preserved under the Senate bill.
(snip)
SIEGEL:You've studied both the House and the Senate bill.
Prof. JOST:Mm-hmm.
SIEGEL:How would you characterize both of them - on a crude spectrum, from pro-choice to pro-life? How do these bills look to you?
Prof. JOST:I think they are both basically pro-life bills. I think they are bills that - the Senate bill has some provisions that are stronger than the House. Senate bill, for example, provides $250 million to provide support for pregnant and parenting women who want to bear and keep a child. That's not in the House bill. So there are some provisions in the Senate bill that are stronger than the House.
The bishops prefer the approach that the House bill uses to the provisions of the Senate bill. But they're basically equivalent. Both bills prohibit federal funding for abortions through the premium subsidies. And as a practical matter, both of them are going to make it more difficult to get abortion coverage through an insurance policy. That is true under the status quo.
SIEGEL:Professor Jost, you've been studying health law for quite a while. Is there something about these bills that is especially confusing or opaque that would lead to these very different interpretations, whether one is much more pro-life than the other? Or are people just being tendentious in their readings of these two bills?
Prof. JOST:I think people are being distrustful in their reading. I think that there's a tendency to sort of assume the devious motives on the parts of others, you know - which may, in part, be justified. This has been a pretty intense debate in our country.
But I think in this case, it is just not justified, that - I think that the senators who drafted these amendments are pro-life senators who intended to make sure that federal funding doesn't go for abortion. And so I think that there's sort of an unwarranted belief that people are proceeding in bad faith when in fact, they're proceeding in the best of good faith and trying to achieve the same goals.
AND THUS Stupak and his tiny band of pro-life (er . . . baby killing?) House Democrats sought refuge in the cover of a presidential executive order reaffirming what already was plain in the Senate language. That Obama even would compromise that much infuriated pro-choice advocacy groups.
Unfortunately for Democrat pro-lifers, it seems there is no cover from zealots eager to excommunicate from the pro-life movement anyone deemed less pure -- or less right-wing -- than themselves. Pity poor Bart Stupak, for there most certainly is no cover from wild-eyed Republicans' verbal brickbats in the "people's house."
He's not a Catholic lawmaker acting in good faith as he exercises his prudential judgment on legislation that's as pro-life as he has the power to make it -- a bill most "experts" say is pretty pro-life indeed.
No, Bart Stupak is a "baby killer." A traitor. An ex-pro-lifer.
Someone, in the words of Schlafly, who "will be forever remembered as being among the deciding votes which facilitated the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade."
IT MATTERS not a whit that any of this is only true in the peculiarly peculiar alternate universe inhabited by the Republican Party and their useful -- and angry -- idiots in professional pro-liferism. Ask Ben Nelson; he got the Stupak treatment before Stupak got the Stupak treatment.
When you so sell your political soul down that particular River of Denial, it's easy to equate "pro-life" with a party willing to see 47 million (and climbing) Americans subsist with no health insurance at all. It's no big whoop to equate saving lives with maintaining the status-quo probability of losing everything if you get sick enough.
In the funhouse-mirror world of professional, political pro-liferism -- or perhaps the better term is "anti-abortionism" -- it's far better to maintain a system where it's a lot cheaper for low-income, uninsured women to get an abortion than it is for them to get prenatal care. See "Nebraska, State of" and "Heineman (R-Neb.), Gov. Dave."
Anti-abortionism is good with all that, just so long as it keeps civil society unsullied by health-care reform legislation that's merely "pretty good, considering" from a pro-life perspective instead of the New Jerusalem come down to earth. Yesterday.
The tyranny of dying for lack of decent health care -- the tyranny of money being, in too many cases, the final arbiter between living and dying if you're sick in America -- is really the preservation of liberty . . . or so we're told by the voices coming from the funhouse. Tyranny is only tyranny if it's the tyranny of "socialized medicine."
Elder care is "death panels," prenatal care is an abortion waiting to happen, fundamentally pro-life legislation is "the largest expansion of abortion services since Roe v. Wade" . . . and Bart Stupak is a "baby killer."
THESE VOICES -- the ones from the funhouse . . . the ones in the heads of those deep inside political pro-liferism -- come up with the damnedest things indeed. Like this:
George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States, will be the featured speaker at the 27th annual Life Centers Celebration of Life fund-raiser in Indianapolis. President Bush will join special musical guest, Grammy Award-winning artist Sandi Patty, and 2009 Miss America Katie Stam at Conseco Fieldhouse on Thursday, April 15 at 7pm.
"We are honored to welcome President George W. Bush, whose strong record on life issues demonstrates his belief that every life matters," Brian Boone, Life Centers president and CEO, said. "This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to celebrate life - with a keynote address from a public servant who made the sanctity of human life a priority."
The proceeds from the event will benefit Life Centers, a nonprofit Christian ministry which helps women in unplanned pregnancies by providing free services including pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, confidential peer counseling, 24-hour help line calls, post-abortion and maternity support at its eight pregnancy resource centers across Central Indiana.
"We are grateful that President George W. Bush will inspire our community to create a culture of life at the crossroads of America and to show compassion to women in unplanned pregnancies," Boone said.
THE GEORGE W. BUSH who approved federal funding for embryonic stem-cell research. The George W. Bush of waterboarding fame. The George W. Bush who went to war in Iraq for, as it turns out, no discernible reason other than to "get" Saddam Hussein and to "establish freedom."
The George W. Bush of torture at Abu Ghraib, torture at secret CIA prisons and torture at Guantanamo.
The pro-life movement -- or, more precisely, the political operatives and conservative ideologues who've hijacked the pro-life movement -- say Bart Stupak is a baby killer and that neither of us are real pro-life Catholics.
To be authentically "pro-life" is to take marching orders from one bunch to whom George Bush is a hero?
To be a real pro-life Catholic is to treat as holy writ the political judgments of a "hapless bench of bishops" ostensibly capable of deciphering the pro-life bona fides of health-care policybut decidedly less facile at keeping pervy priests from diddling little boys? I'll declare unyielding fealty to Catholic bishops' take on health-care reform when they take responsibility for their own complicity in perpetuating the moral horror of sexual abuse in the church.
Deal?
GO AHEAD, "pro-life" movement.Excommunicate me, and Bart Stupak, and U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, and every other "formerly pro-life Democrat" for thinking that the health-care reform proposal ratified by the House was "good enough for government work."
Something tells me the tea-party types have another kind of party in mind these days.
A necktie party.
The next time some tea-party type tries to tell you his movement is on the side of God and country, tell him his compatriots on Capitol Hill today have outed him as not only a liar, but as a damn liar.
SEE WHETHER you can get through this account from The Associated Press without throwing up, putting your fist through your computer monitor . . . or both:
Rep. Andre Carson, D-Ind., told a reporter that as he left the Cannon House Office Building with Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., a leader of the civil rights era, some among the crowd chanted "the N-word, the N-word, 15 times." Both Carson and Lewis are black, and Lewis spokeswoman Brenda Jones also said that it occurred.
"It was like going into the time machine with John Lewis," said Carson, a large former police officer who said he wasn't frightened but worried about the 70-year-old Lewis, who is twice his age. "He said it reminded him of another time."
Kristie Greco, spokeswoman for Democratic Whip Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., said a protester spit on Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., who is black.
Clyburn, who led fellow black students in integrating South Carolina's public facilities a half century ago, called the behavior "absolutely shocking."
"I heard people saying things today that I have not heard since March 15, 1960, when I was marching to try to get off the back of the bus," Clyburn told reporters.
Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., who is gay, said protesters shouted "abusive things" to him as he walked from the Longworth building to the Rayburn building. "It's a mob mentality that doesn't work politically," he said.
