The grand jury's report, citing forensic evidence and testimony from clinic employees, accuses Gosnell of routinely delivering viable babies and severing their spinal cords. But it also details ill treatment of women. According to the report, Gosnell used unlicensed workers to administer anesthesia, failed to obtain patients' informed consent, gave them expired drugs; endangered their health with poor sanitation and broken equipment, and caused the deaths of at least two women.Unless I am gravely mistaken, one of the central tenets of the pro-choice movement is that restrictions on abortion will lead to unsafe conditions just like this, except performed in back alleys. Apparently this clinic exists as some kind of horrible converse.
From 1993 on, Gosnell went completely uninspected. The grand jury says the health department "decided, for political reasons, to stop inspecting abortion clinics at all. … With the change of administration from Governor Casey to Governor Ridge, officials concluded that inspections would be 'putting a barrier up to women' seeking abortions." Casey was pro-life; Ridge was pro-choice.I cannot understand this at all. In a world where our restaurants are inspected to confirm a basic level of sanitation, how can a "clinic" where invasive medical procedures are performed escape even the barest scrutiny? This seems like the worst effect of the worst kind of political cowardice.
The other agency that could have stopped Gosnell was Pennsylvania's Department of State, which included the state Board of Medicine. According to the grand jury, the department ignored complaints about Gosnell for years. The complaints involved unlicensed administration of anesthesia; sexually transmitted infections (apparently spread by the clinic itself); perforated uteruses, cervixes, and bowels; hospitalizations of infected patients; and family members prevented from summoning emergency aid. The consequences allegedly included a hysterectomy and a patient's death.This truly enrages me. A few years ago, a completely frivolous complaint was filed against me; it was absurd on its face. Despite its obvious lack of merit, I had to go through a lengthy response process, during which time the complaint and the records were reviewed by the Board (in a different state). The complaint was dismissed as soon as it could be, but even for a gripe as patently ridiculous as the one I faced, a very formal protocol was followed.
Asserting the power and versatility of the new Nashville, the country-pop trio Lady Antebellum was the big winner at the 53rd annual Grammy Awards, which were presented on Sunday night at the Staples Center arena here.No. No, no, no.
In a night of upsets, the band won five prizes, including the top two awards for a single track — record and song of the year — for “Need You Now,” besting Eminem and Jay-Z, as well as sweeping the country categories. It won in every category in which it was nominated except album of the year, which went to the indie-rock heroes Arcade Fire for “The Suburbs,” the first time a band solidly in the alt-rock world has taken that top category.
Finally, the only other conclusion one can draw is that "European civilization" is an oxymoron. These horrors, Nazi and Communist, all arose out of European ideas, political and philosophical, being put into practice. Even the Cambodian genocide had its genesis in the cafes of Paris where Pol Pot got his ideas. Hitler got his ideas in the cafes of Vienna.I don't think that this holds up under even cursory scrutiny.
[Grand Hierophant Rick] Santorum also called social issues "the issues that bind us," and that when it comes to those issues, "just because it's not popular doesn't mean it's not true."Who is this "us" that is bound by social issues? I feel a sneaking suspicion that I'm not included in that "us." I rather fear I fall into the "them" category. Further, I suspect that if it gives you pause to think that God owns America, you may also fall into the "them" category."The Judiciary cannot create life, and it did not create marriage, and it has no right to redefine either one," he continued.
"America belongs to God," Santorum said, "and we are the stewards of that great gift."
The Huffington Post, which began in 2005 with a meager $1 million investment and has grown into one of the most heavily visited news Web sites in the country, is being acquired by AOL in a deal that creates an unlikely pairing of two online media giants.I don't think anyone can argue that HuffPo isn't huge. It is an enormously successful site, and there's no question that it's managed to draw lots of eyeballs.
The two companies completed the sale Sunday evening and announced the deal just after midnight on Monday. AOL will pay $315 million, $300 million of it in cash and the rest in stock. It will be the company’s largest acquisition since it was separated from Time Warner in 2009.
[snip]
Arianna Huffington, the cable talk show pundit, author and doyenne of the political left, will take control of all of AOL’s editorial content as president and editor in chief of a newly created Huffington Post Media Group. The arrangement will give her oversight not only of AOL’s national, local and financial news operations, but also of the company’s other media enterprises like MapQuest and Moviefone.
A dozen years ago, the medical profession held that if the triad of subdural and retinal bleeding and brain swelling was present without a fracture or bruise that would indicate, for example, that a baby had accidently fallen, abuse must have occurred through shaking. In the past decade, that consensus has begun to come undone. In 2008, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, after reviewing a shaken-baby case, wrote that there is “fierce disagreement” among doctors about the shaken-baby diagnosis, signaling “a shift in mainstream medical opinion.” In the same year, at the urging of the province’s chief forensic pathologist, the Ontario government began a review of 142 shaken-baby cases, because of “the scientific uncertainty that has come to characterize that diagnosis.” In Britain, after one mother’s shaken-baby conviction was overturned, Peter Goldsmith, then attorney general, reviewed 88 more cases. In 2006, he announced doubts about three of the convictions because they were based solely on the triad; in the other cases, Goldsmith said, there was additional evidence pointing to the defendant’s guilt.I found this genuinely startling. There was such certainty in how I was taught regarding this diagnosis. If this, then that. If retinal hemorrhages and subdural hematomata are present, shaken-baby syndrome is the horrifying but clear diagnosis. Nothing left but to find the perpetrator. While this emerging information doesn't mean a baby with these findings wasn't shaken, it seems this diagnostic certainty is unfounded.
Q.But it’s not just the cost of premiums and litigation. What about the charge that it causes doctors to practice “defensive medicine,” ordering tests that are expensive and unnecessary?
A.A 1996 study in Florida found defensive medicine costs could be as high as 5 to 7 percent. But when the same authors went back a few years later, they found that managed care had brought it down to 2.5 to 3.5 percent of the total. No one has a good handle on defensive medicine costs. Liability is supposed to change behavior, so some defensive medicine is good. Undoubtedly some of it may be unnecessary, but we don’t have a good way to separate the two. [italics in original, but emphasis added]
Nicknamed “Jesus chicken” by jaded secular fans and embraced by Evangelical Christians, Chick-fil-A is among only a handful of large American companies with conservative religion built into its corporate ethos. But recently its ethos has run smack into the gay rights movement. A Pennsylvania outlet’s sponsorship of a February marriage seminar by one of that state’s most outspoken groups against homosexuality lit up gay blogs around the country. Students at some universities have also begun trying to get the chain removed from campuses.Damn. I can't stop eating at a chain I never tried in the first place.
On a petition posted on the Web site change.org, [Georgia Equality] asks the company to stop supporting groups perceived as anti-gay, including Focus on the Family, an international nonprofit organization that teamed up with Chick-fil-A a few years ago to give away CDs of its Bible-based “Adventures in Odyssey” radio show with every kid’s meal.Can I just say that a CD of a Focus on the Family radio show may quite possibly be the crappiest kid's meal prize ever? It's like getting a box of dessicated raisins on Halloween.
But Douglas Quint, a concert bassoonist who operates The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck in New York during the summer, said he believed that people should make informed decisions about their food.I agree with Mr. Quint about where people spend their money. I love the idea of a concert bassoonist who operates The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck. I only wish he knew what "literally" means. Because unless the actions of Chick-fil-A's owners have altered the flavoring of their sandwiches or the function of Mr. Quinn's taste buds, I believe the word he was looking for was "figuratively."“It literally leaves a bad taste because I know the people who are putting this food in my mouth actively loathe me,” he said. “I’m all for freedom of religion, it’s just that I know where I want my money to go and I don’t want my money to go.”
Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) and freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) have now teamed up -- and they're aiming very high. The two have proposed a constitutional amendment, to get rid of birthright citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants.I hope they fail. I hope they fail spectacularly.From their joint press release, their proposal will declare "a person born in the United States to illegal aliens does not automatically gain citizenship unless at least one parent is a legal citizen, legal immigrant, active member of the Armed Forces or a naturalized legal citizen."
I sought clarification from Vitter's office as to whether this would be a full-fledged amendment to the Constitution, or a lesser legislative route. It is indeed a proposed amendment to the Constitution.
The Dish doesn't hate Palin.Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah, hahahahahahahahahahaha!!
Last week, my colleague Brian Stelter reported that on Tuesday, the day after the pilot episode of “Skins” was shown on MTV, executives at the cable channel were frantically meeting to discuss whether the salacious teenage drama starring actors as young as 15 might violate federal child pornography statutes.Senior executives are now considering additional editing for coming episodes, but that’s a little like trying to lock the door after a naked 17-year-old has already busted out and gone running down the street, which is precisely what one of the characters does in Episode 3 — with a pill-enhanced erection, no less.
Charming.
MTV’s “Jersey Shore” set yet another viewing record Thursday night and once again crushed every competitor in television in terms of reaching younger viewers.The only explanation I can concoct is that some process within my brain has occurred, on some kind of time-released basis. I must have passed a threshold at which point my neurons or endocrine system or something must have stopped synthesizing whatever compound is necessary to enjoy entertainments of this kind. Where I see a collection of louts whose stupidity and crassness are exceeded only by their banality, those lucky people with this mystery hormone or neurotransmitter still in their systems must see a troupe of lovable rascals, whose jolly exploits never fail to captivate and amuse.The latest episode of the hit reality show attracted 8.9 million viewers, a new record for any series ever on MTV, up 300,000 from the record the show set a week before.
More viewers watched “Jersey Shore” from 10 to 11 p.m. on Thursday than watched programs on both NBC and ABC. Only the CBS drama “The Mentalist” had more total viewers, with 14.8 million. But “Jersey Shore” had almost double the number of viewers in the advertiser-preferred group of 18 to 49 — 6.2 million viewers to 3.7 million for “The Mentalist.”
"This is not symbolic, this is why we were sent here and we will not stop until we repeal a president and put a president in the position of the White House who will repeal this bill, until we repeal the current Senate, put in a Senate that will listen to the American people and repeal this bill," Bachmann said on the House floor Wednesday afternoon.Ha!! "Repeal" the President and the current Senate! What a nincompoop!
Damn! Curse you, Bachmann! Spoil my fun with your awkward, obsolete but technically (and probably inadvertently) correct usage! You win this round!1: to rescind or annul by authoritative act; especially : to revoke or abrogate by legislative enactment
That the blogosphere is a flagrantly anti-leftist space should be clear to anyone who has paid a remote amount of attention. Who, exactly, represents the left extreme in the establishment blogosphere? You'd likely hear names like Jane Hamsher or Glenn Greenwald. But these examples are instructive. Is Hamsher a socialist? A revolutionary anti-capitalist? In any historical or international context-- in the context of a country that once had a robust socialist left, and in a world where there are straightforwardly socialist parties in almost every other democracy-- is Hamsher particularly left-wing? Not at all. It's only because her rhetoric is rather inflamed that she is seen as particularly far to the left. This is what makes this whole discourse/extremism conversation such a failure; there is a meticulous sorting of far right-wing rhetoric from far right-wing politics, but no similar sorting on the left. Hamsher says bad words and is mean in print, so she is a far leftist. That her politics are largely mainstream American liberalism that would have been considered moderate for much of the 20th century is immaterial.The first thought that springs to mind is how very, very picayune this complaint is. "Insufficient leftist voices in the Blogosphere" has got to be one of the least pressing of humanity's ills, ever.
It's worth saying that I once had the opportunity, not too long ago, to blog for money-- not a lot of money-- for a fairly mainstream progressive enterprise. I turned it down for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is my continuing fear that my blogging will come back to ruin my career in the academy, as it may even without professionalization. In fact, I stopped blogging because my personality is a poor fit with the prerequisites of being a good blogger. That's my fault, not blogging's fault, but there is it. And this is my larger point to Erik and to others: I reserve the right to want more from left-wing blogging and punditry than I am capable of providing myself.First of all, I think his first reason for not blogging is hogwash. If something you write in your blog is going to demolish your career, whether or not you were paid for it will make no difference. Please. No, the only reason he doesn't blog is his "personality," which apparently did not prevent him from writing paragraph upon paragraph of complaint.
Mary Fallin was sworn in Monday as Oklahoma's first female governor, but in reciting the oath of office she really didn't promise to "support, obey and defend the Constitution."In freezing cold, she mispronounced a word. That's it.At an outdoors ceremony in bone-chilling and teeth-chattering cold, Fallin told Oklahoma Chief Justice Steven W. Taylor that she would "support, obey and offend" the U.S. and state constitutions.
Why do we watch the State of the Union address? Is it to hear our president say patriotic, optimistic clichés about our country, or explain his agenda for the upcoming year? Certainly not. It is to marvel at the amusing spectacle of clapping and standing performed by our elected representatives. Nothing is more fascinating than seeing the Democratic side of the chamber rise and applaud with gusto to something President Obama has said while Republicans either politely clap in their seats or fail to react at all. Or catching the Democrats squirm at the mention of, say, entitlement reform or the war in Afghanistan. But Mark Udall, a Democratic senator from Colorado, wants to put an end to all that:Let us start by supposing that you are the sort of person who bothers to tune in to the State of the Union in the first place. That already implies that you are the sort of person who pays a minimal amount of attention to politics, and who cares enough to stop watching whatever reality show is on TLC to flip over to CNN. Let us further take as a given that it is important to you to suss out how the different parties feel about various bits of the President's agenda.Colorado Democratic Sen. Mark Udall released a letter Wednesday proposing that members of both political parties sit next to each other at this year's State of the Union address instead of the normal seating which is divided along party lines.
[snip]
Unity is great, sure, but apart from the entertainment value, there is an important practical reason to maintain the State of the Union's partisan seating arrangement. A neat separation of the parties allows the American people to see, in real time, their positions on the president's agenda and the issues of the day. It's actually very informative and helpful to be able to easily assess which proposals the Republicans and Democrats support, respectively, through the decision to applaud. It also allows us to identify the few party-bucking independent thinkers who, every so often, stand up to clap while the rest of their colleagues remain seated.
At least half a dozen groups have announced they will not attend the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (Cpac) next month, which will attract thousands of activists to Washington and feature most of the Republican hopefuls for the party's 2012 presidential nomination.They have objected to the status of GOProud as a co-sponsor of the event, though the group does not advocate actively for gay marriage, believing it is an issue that should be resolved by states and not the federal government. GOProud, whose name is derived from the Republican Party's nickname Grand Old Party, did however strongly support the recent repeal of the "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy on military recruitment of gay people.
"The baseline reason is that homosexuality is not a conservative value," said Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association. "It's the conservative Pac, not the libertarian Pac."
Brent Bozell, head of the Media Research Centre, which tracks liberal bias in the mainstream media, said: "We've been there 25 years, since our inception. To bring in a 'gay' group is a direct attack on social conservatives, and I can't participate in that."
The Family Research Council, which has participated in the conference for several years, said in a statement: "Organizations whose whole reason for existence is to promote the forced public affirmation of homosexual conduct should not be welcomed at Cpac, because that is not by any stretch of the imagination a 'conservative' agenda."
The one thing that the MSM seemed completely baffled by was the tone of the speech and the rousing nature of the audience. This was a university audience. This is the one thing that Obama understood that most people could not even conceive. That the 18 to 25 year olds in that audience wanted to have hope, to be inspired, to wish for a more reasonable discourse.You'll forgive the emergence of my inner curmudgeon, but I couldn't possibly care less about the wants of an 18- t0 25-year-old audience. Unless they were all related to the victims, their desires are hardly germane. In fact, given the high likelihood that a college audience would do such juvenile things as whoop at the mention that a deceased victim went to their school, perhaps that was an argument for holding the event elsewhere. Rather a smaller and more respectful audience than a capacity crowd, if you ask me.
Williams noted that 12 Republicans are co-sponsoring legislation expressing concern about Mr. Obama's birthplace, and asked Boehner if he would be willing to say, "this is a distraction, I've looked at it to my satisfaction. Let's move on."Bull. Shit."The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there," the speaker responded. "That's good enough for me."
Williams asked if Boehner would be willing to express that same message to the dozen Congressional Republicans who don't seem to feel it's good enough for them.
"Brian, when you come to the Congress of the United States, there are 435 of us," Boehner responded. "We're nothing more than a slice of America. People come, regardless of party labels, they come with all kinds of beliefs and ideas. It's the melting pot of America. It's not up to me to tell them what to think."
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