US Politics: Donnie and the Mystery of the Anonymous Op-Ed

[Ormond]

7 minutes ago, Crazy Cat Lady in Training said:

Most people I know (and ALL women) say they'd never personally have an abortion, but they recognize that they can't make that determination for someone else. It seems to be MEN who want to take that choice away. Sorry guys, but you don't have that right, at all, ever. 

I don't know the people you know, but they are not a random sample of the American population, and it is simply not true that there is a huge difference between men and women on views on whether or not abortion should be legal. 2017 figures from Pew show 38% of women and 42% of men saying abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.  

http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

In the Gallup 2018 data, the % of women and me who in the USA who agree abortion should be "totally illegal" is 19% for both.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/235646/men-women-generally-hold-similar-abortion-attitudes.aspx

As a man I personally would have no problem with letting women decide this for themselves. But the idea that all American women think abortion should be legal is incorrect.

 

[S John]

The most stringent pro-Life people I know are women.

[Gertrude]

I've always held a pro-choice position. I've debated it, discussed it, dissected my own beliefs and why (and actually, I see the validity of Singer's argument and ascribe to it, to a degree). So this is a firmly held belief of mine based on rational thought. All of this and the most gut-level response to the debate was from a statistic I once saw. It was an info-graphic depiction of American deaths through war (Revolution to Gulf) and comparing it to the number of abortions (framed as deaths in the War on the Unborn). Killed in war - 1M; abortions - 33M. The little rows of crosses for the unborn absolutely dwarfed the other wars. I have no idea if the numbers are valid, but it's not relevant.

The intent was to shock me into realizing how many lives have been lost, but it had the opposite effect. I tried to imagine how different our world would look if each of those pregnancies had come to term. Where would all those people and their descendants live? What would have happened to all of these unwanted children? I was very concerned about over-population in those days (less so now, but still concerned) so I was glad to see that number. It's not a rational point of argument like beginning of life, autonomy, preference etc,, but it was something that struck me so viscerally that I've kept that clipping for over 20 years. 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

23 minutes ago, Gertrude said:

I've always held a pro-choice position. I've debated it, discussed it, dissected my own beliefs and why (and actually, I see the validity of Singer's argument and ascribe to it, to a degree). So this is a firmly held belief of mine based on rational thought. All of this and the most gut-level response to the debate was from a statistic I once saw. It was an info-graphic depiction of American deaths through war (Revolution to Gulf) and comparing it to the number of abortions (framed as deaths in the War on the Unborn). Killed in war - 1M; abortions - 33M. The little rows of crosses for the unborn absolutely dwarfed the other wars. I have no idea if the numbers are valid, but it's not relevant.

The intent was to shock me into realizing how many lives have been lost, but it had the opposite effect. I tried to imagine how different our world would look if each of those pregnancies had come to term. Where would all those people and their descendants live? What would have happened to all of these unwanted children? I was very concerned about over-population in those days (less so now, but still concerned) so I was glad to see that number. It's not a rational point of argument like beginning of life, autonomy, preference etc,, but it was something that struck me so viscerally that I've kept that clipping for over 20 years. 

They Guys who wrote Freakinomics had an interesting thesis regarding crime in the US.  It was spiking to fear levels through the mid 1990's right up until the point where Roe v. Wade started impacting population statistics.  Crime plateued and fell after the mid 1990s.  The correlation is that, perhaps, those unwanted pregancies that were prevented by nationwide legalized abortion means fewer unwanted kids and less crime due to crappy parenting. 

[Gertrude]

Yeah, I've also read that and it's a theory I can get behind.

My mom worked with small children and my cousin teaches grade-schoolers. They both have heart-breaking stories of sweet kids with absolutely horrific stories. Kids just tell you things and man, some people should just not have kids.

[Martell Spy]

Trump’s approval rating just sank in 8 polls

The new numbers mark the president’s lowest approval rating in six months.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/9/11/17845906/trumps-approval-rating-sinks-midterms-gop

 

Quote

Eight polling entities — ABC News/Washington Post, CNN, Gallup, IBD/TIPP, the Kaiser Family Foundation, Quinnipiac University, Selzer & Co. and Suffolk University — give the president an average approval rating of 38 percent, a drop of 3 points from Trump’s previous approval polling average, 41 percent.

 

[Bonnot OG]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-school-reinstating-paddling-to-punish-students/
What a regressive shit hole this is.

[S John]

13 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/georgia-school-reinstating-paddling-to-punish-students/
What a regressive shit hole this is.

 

[drawkcabi]

I'm pro choice and that factors in how I vote.

If someone ever tells me I'm pro abortion though I immediately correct them, "I'm against abortion but I'm for the right to choose."

[Martell Spy]

9 minutes ago, S John said:

 

And the damn Australians and their Boot.

[Zorral]

4 hours ago, Ormond said:

I don't know the people you know, but they are not a random sample of the American population, and it is simply not true that there is a huge difference between men and women on views on whether or not abortion should be legal. 2017 figures from Pew show 38% of women and 42% of men saying abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.  

http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

In the Gallup 2018 data, the % of women and me who in the USA who agree abortion should be "totally illegal" is 19% for both.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/235646/men-women-generally-hold-similar-abortion-attitudes.aspx

As a man I personally would have no problem with letting women decide this for themselves. But the idea that all American women think abortion should be legal is incorrect.

 

Evidently there are quite a lot of rethug pro-life politicians who have entirely other attitudes about a woman deciding for herself.  If it's his illegitimate progeny with which she's pregnant, he will often insist she get an abortion, like, o say, this guy, who is a mega donor to the RNC  for instance:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/playmate-shera-bechard-who-aborted-elliott-broidys-love-child-makes-troublesome-claims-in-new-lawsuit

Why so many women are truly pro-choice, and even determine to never have children, it has to do with poverty.  In an new memoir of growing up white and generationally poor in the Heartland, Sarah Smarsh (Kansas) comes to the conclusion that she, the first person in her family in generations to get a real education and escape their poverty, managed to break that wheel by her determination to never have a child.  People in her family were having kids in adolescence and never had the opportunity to get an education and look around for some other way of life -- particularly the women.  A lot of women, when they get the chance, figure this out for themselves all over the world.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/10/books/review/sarah-smarsh-heartland.html?

[Zorral]

By the way, those who think Hurricane Florence's affects are being over-hyped, just think of this. It's already at cat 4, with winds at 140 miles an hour, and it is huge and very slow moving.  When it hits land it could be a Cat 5, depending on how much more power it picks up from the warm Gulf Current, which is rocket fuel to hurricanes.

The ground along the cone is already way oversaturated with the summer's storms.  This means the roots of the trees pull out in acres worth as the winds hit them.  And the storm just sits there, like Harvey did over Houston.  This means 20 - 40 inches of water pouring of the sky, and huge storm surges in every body of water, not only the coastal waters.  Think what this means for Norfolk, VA, for example, already in deep rising sea level calamities. More people die from hurricane flooding than from the wind. And a government that is entirely dysfuctional.

So anyone within this predicted cone should be taking very serious precautions.  Only people who never been affected by a hurricane, or never had people close to them affected, by one, would poo poo Florence.

Edited to add that the worst parts come after the storm finally passes.  Transportation, communications are very difficult, due to down trees and flooding.  Power is out.  So water, food, etc. can become difficult to get for days and even weeks in some places, perhaps!  One might think that even this government won't treat the affected areas like it has Puerto Rico, especially with mid-terms coming up, but then it doesn't care for people who don't have a lot resources, even if they vote R.

Yes, I'm deeply, personally concerned.  So many of the targets are places where I've spent significant time and have significant personal relationships as well as professional ones.  Durham is seen in many projections directly in the center of Florence's path, for instance.

 

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, S John said:

 

God that's the first thing that popped in my head. Thank you.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

By the way, those who think Hurricane Florence's affects are being over-hyped, just think of this. It's already at cat 4, with winds at 140 miles an hour, and it is huge and very slow moving.  When it hits land it could be a Cat 5, depending on how much more power it picks up from the warm Gulf Current, which is rocket fuel to hurricanes.

The ground along the cone is already way oversaturated with the summer's storms.  This means the roots of the trees pull out in acres worth as the winds hit them.  And the storm just sits there, like Harvey did over Houston.  This means 20 - 40 inches of water pouring of the sky, and huge storm surges in every body of water, not only the coastal waters.  Think what this means for Norfolk, VA, for example, already in deep rising sea level calamities. More people die from hurricane flooding than from the wind. And a government that is entirely dysfuctional.

So anyone within this predicted cone should be taking very serious precautions.  Only people who never been affected by a hurricane, or never had people close to them affected, by one, would poo poo Florence.

Edited to add that the worst parts come after the storm finally passes.  Transportation, communications are very difficult, due to down trees and flooding.  Power is out.  So water, food, etc. can become difficult to get for days and even weeks in some places, perhaps!  One might think that even this government won't treat the affected areas like it has Puerto Rico, especially with mid-terms coming up, but then it doesn't care for people who don't have a lot resources, even if they vote R.

Yes, I'm deeply, personally concerned.  So many of the targets are places where I've spent significant time and have significant personal relationships as well as professional ones.  Durham is seen in many projections directly in the center of Florence's path, for instance.

 

I'm just afraid that Henry McMaster the Gov. of South Carolina is amping up his roll in this for political impact.  The optics of him standing the the SC Emergency Management center giving press conferences.  As far as I can tell the impacts on SC, with the exception of the Grand Strand and Pee Dee will be fairly minimal. 

I lived through Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  My wife's family was in Goose Creek SC when Hugo hit.  

[Zorral]

46 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

I'm just afraid that Henry McMaster the Gov. of South Carolina is amping up his roll in this for political impact.  The optics of him standing the the SC Emergency Management center giving press conferences.  As far as I can tell the impacts on SC, with the exception of the Grand Strand and Pee Dee will be fairly minimal. 

I lived through Hurricane Hugo in 1989.  My wife's family was in Goose Creek SC when Hugo hit.  

This is bigger than Hugo.

Don't care if he does get optics -- people need to know what's going on.  Charleston is low lying and has been flooding a lot more too, due to rising sea levels.  The surge is going to be big.  Better safe than sorry every damned time.

ETA this, which seems so obvious it doesn't need to be said, but duh, it's not that obvious, alas, to a lot of people.  Things that aren't so bad or a problem for younger, healthy, able-bodied people with resources often are utter catastrophes for people who aren't any one of the attributes mentioned.  They know what their needs and capacities are and they need this information more than anyone.  Though -- this is the horror -- too many people really and truly don't have the resources to get out of harm's way.  Or even to cope with shortages of food and water, transportation, etc. in the aftermath of what isn't in many ways, 'all that bad' for others.

Now this, otoh, is truly disgusting:

Quote

"Trump: My Handling of the Hurricane in Puerto Rico Was an ‘Unsung Success’ "

On Tuesday, the president spoke with reporters about the White House’s preparations for Hurricane Florence. During that conversation, Trump said that his administration’s response to Hurricane Maria was “the best job we did,” and that the federal government’s relief effort was an “incredible, unsung success.”

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/09/trump-response-to-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-unsung-success-death-toll-3000.html

 

 

[Gertrude]

God, Trump is an ass. He has no gear other than 'promote, promote, promote'. Not news, I know, but sometimes it just hits me all over again how loathsome he is as a person.

[Ice Queen]

7 hours ago, Ormond said:

I don't know the people you know, but they are not a random sample of the American population, and it is simply not true that there is a huge difference between men and women on views on whether or not abortion should be legal. 2017 figures from Pew show 38% of women and 42% of men saying abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.  

http://www.pewforum.org/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

In the Gallup 2018 data, the % of women and me who in the USA who agree abortion should be "totally illegal" is 19% for both.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/235646/men-women-generally-hold-similar-abortion-attitudes.aspx

As a man I personally would have no problem with letting women decide this for themselves. But the idea that all American women think abortion should be legal is incorrect.

 

I meant all women I know personally, not all women everywhere. Sorry for the confusion.

[Bonnot OG]

When Trump says Puerto Rico was an unsung success, he means he the amount of people killed was good. He is a white supremacist after all and no doubt doesn't consider Puerto Ricans Americans or White.

[Ice Queen]

6 hours ago, S John said:

The most stringent pro-Life people I know are women.

Until they, or their daughters, have an unwanted pregnancy or one that poses a life-threatening medical issue. Then their tune changes in a hurry.

Sarah Palin seriously considered aborting Trig when she found out he had Down's. And yet the hypocrite would take that choice away from millions of other women.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

They Guys who wrote Freakinomics had an interesting thesis regarding crime in the US.  It was spiking to fear levels through the mid 1990's right up until the point where Roe v. Wade started impacting population statistics.  Crime plateued and fell after the mid 1990s.  The correlation is that, perhaps, those unwanted pregancies that were prevented by nationwide legalized abortion means fewer unwanted kids and less crime due to crappy parenting. 

I've always thought there was a correlation here. Furthermore, it's worth pointing out that a lot of anti-choice people don't want to ban abortions nationwide, they just want to return it to the state level which implies they really want to just ban them for the poor. Rich girls can always just fly to CA to get it done.

Also of note, as I've said numerous times, their corresponding policies will lead to.........more abortions, including those incredibly safe back alley abortions.