Hortonization

Karl Rove issued a prediction last week that sounded a bit more like a warning:

The “campaign architect,” as he is commonly called, built a case against President Barack Obama’s order to close Guantanamo, an overseas CIA detention center where terrorists and other “enemy combatants” are held. Obama’s order could enable terrorists to be tried in U.S. courts, to be given undeserved rights afforded American citizens and could cause damaging long-term effects, Rove said.

“One year from now, Gitmo won’t be closed,” Rove said. “If it is, there will be an uproar in the U.S. about where to put these people.”

Interrogation tactics used by the CIA during Bush’s term in office were not torturous, Rove said, but he did not deny that the CIA strongly pressed terrorists for vital information.

“You bet we squeeze them for information,” Rove said. “If we hadn’t, those same terrorists could have executed their plans to kill, and [people] would be asking why Bush didn’t protect American soldiers’ lives.”

That's going to be the strategy going forward. If Obama closes Guantanamo, terrorists will be shopping next to you at the Pic 'n' Save. Before long, there will be a TV ad with a revolving door at the gates of a prison, and a closeup on a bearded Muslim face while the voice-over intones "America can't afford that risk."

Actually, I didn't have to wait for the ad.



Note the "There Goes The Neighborhood" caption. And the doofus offering Alcatraz, a MUSEUM, as an alternative.

Of course, terrorists are already housed in federal prisons on US soil. But the above piece doesn't really mention prisons all that much. It asks residents if they want scaaary Mooslims living next to them.

We have, then, the outliines of a political strategy for the next election. President Obama and the librul Congress want terrorists to work in your office while tough daddy Republicans want to keep you safe. Never mind that it's the height of weakness to think that maximum security prisons aren't sufficient, or that our security can only be bought with a loss of liberty.

Another part of this narrative is that nasty libruls want to spend taxpayer money on condoms for your kids while heartland Murcan Republicans are the paragons of virtue and values.

You'll note that the lie quotient since Republicans have lost power has, if anything, been raised. But these kinds of appeals to emotion, to safety and protection and xenophobia, have a resonance in the lizard brain. I wouldn't discount them, nor would I combat them solely with an appeal to reason. There has to be an emotional counterpart.

Liberal Wedge Issues, Part X

The far-right effort by the Bush Administration to define contraception as abortion is getting a lot of scrutiny. This is one of those wedge issues that I think works for liberals - it makes perfectly clear the radical right's project for a Dominionist America. Reasonable Americans see a law seeking to effectively ban birth control for low-income women as abhorrent.

Today a lot of Democrats are hitting this hard. Sens. Clinton and Murray have written the HHS Department to voice their displeasure with the proposed ruling. An excerpt:

"It is outrageous that the Bush administration is once again putting ideology over women's health. Instead of undercutting access to contraception and family planning services, the Bush Administration should put prevention first," said Senator Clinton.

"On the first day of his administration, the President reinstated the Mexico City global gag clause, a harsh, anti-family planning policy that hurt the world's poorest women and children. Now, on his way out the door it appears that he is trying to limit women's health care options here at home," Murray said. "This misguided attempt to restrict health care services and limit access to contraceptives defeats our common goal of reducing the number of abortions in this country."

And Oregon Senate candidate Jeff Merkley, who has surged ahead of Gordon Smith in recent polling, has reached out to his supporters:

Bush would deny critical HHS funding to any health care institution that refuses to abide by the new rule. This is the last thing the Bush Administration should be doing when so many Americans are struggling to afford health care.

Sign a petition to oppose George Bush's efforts to roll back a woman's right to choose and deny access to health care.

George Bush wants to allow individuals with personal and political agendas to influence the information women receive from their health care providers.

There's a reason politicians are jumping on this. It's a core value and it's an issue on which the radical right can be defined. This is about a daddy party telling you how to manage your health care and your private life. It will be rejected.

UPDATE: There's evidence for this, via Matt Yglesias, in the latest WaPo poll which shows voters preferring Barack Obama to John McCain on "Social issues, such as abortion and gay civil unions" by 56-32. The wedge issues ain't what they used to be. Terri Schiavo was the turning point.

Still-President Bush Still Causing Harm

So the President vetoed the bill stopping cuts to Medicare payments to doctors today, despite the bill receiving more than enough votes to override. But this is more than a simple inconvenience for Congress to need to stage an override vote. This will affect people's lives, as Kagro X explains.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services had issued a temporary delay on physician pay cuts until July 15 to allow lawmakers more time to pass the legislation.

Tomorrow's date, of course, is July 15. This way, Bush assures either that the bureaucrats have to go through an embarrassing scramble again, or that medical care providers actually get hurt by his veto crayon.

The "grown up" in charge, ladies and gentlemen. They can't get this asshole out of the White House fast enough.

But this thumb in the eye of doctors and medical providers who dared to oppose his cuts to their paychecks is nothing compared to what his Health and Human Services Department has in store:

The Bush administration wants to require all recipients of aid under federal health programs to certify that they will not refuse to hire nurses and other providers who object to abortion and even certain types of birth control.

Under the draft of a proposed rule, hospitals, clinics, researchers and medical schools would have to sign "written certifications" as a prerequisite to getting money under any program run by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The rule defines "abortion" so broadly that it could also apply to birth control pills and emergency contraception. And because the rule would apply to federal health programs, low-income and uninsured women will be most affected.

This is an extension of the "Landmine Project," to install both personnel and federal rules requirements that would enshrine radical conservative goals inside of government. Check this out, they're trying to base their redefining of when life begins on polling information.

Abortion: An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy. There are two commonly held views on the question of when a pregnancy begins. Some consider a pregnancy to begin at conception (that is, the fertilization of the egg by the sperm), while others consider it to begin with implantation (when the embryo implants in the lining of the uterus). A 2001 Zogby International American Values poll revealed that
49% of Americans believe that human life begins at conception. Presumably many who hold this belief think that any action that destroys human life after conception is the termination of a pregnancy, and so would be included in their definition of the term "abortion." Those who believe pregnancy begins at implantation believe the term
"abortion" only includes the destruction of a human being after it has implanted in the lining of the uterus.

Since Griswold v. Connecticut restricting birth control has been a central project of the radical right. This proposed ruling would give that project the force of law, at least temporarily.

The guy's still President, everyone, and there's plenty of damage he can cause in six months.

UPDATE: The Senate overrode Bush's veto, and so the cuts to Medicare will stop. What is unknown is whether or not the cuts have already begun for July and if doctors will end up getting stiffed.

The Courage of John McCain

Oh John, didn't see you there. What's that you say?

Q: “What about grants for sex education in the United States? Should they include instructions about using contraceptives? Or should it be Bush’s policy, which is just abstinence?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “Ahhh. I think I support the president’s policy.”

Q: “So no contraception, no counseling on contraception. Just abstinence. Do you think contraceptives help stop the spread of HIV?”

Mr. McCain: (Long pause) “You’ve stumped me.”

Sit down, John.

When a man and a woman love each other very much, they have special time with one another. During this special time the man sticks his penis in the woman's vagina, and something nice and squishy comes out of the man. This is what makes the woman pregnant. If there's something covering the man's penis to hold the nice and squishy, the woman doesn't get pregnant.

This has been the conversation most American boys get when they're fucking 13 years old.