May 2, 2017

Family Planning With Teresa Manning


HuffPo:

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump has appointed Teresa Manning, an anti-abortion activist who has argued that “contraception doesn’t work,” to oversee a federal family planning program for low-income Americans.

Manning, a former lobbyist with the National Right to Life Committee and legislative analyst for the conservative Family Research Council, will serve as deputy assistant secretary for population affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Population Affairs administers the Title X program, which subsidizes contraception, Pap smears and other preventive health care services for 4 million low-income Americans, roughly half of whom are uninsured.

Manning has said she opposes federal family planning funding, and she has a long history of making false claims about birth control and women’s health.

There's still just three things I know for sure about the whole Abortion Issue:

1. Eggs ain't chickens

2. Caterpillars ain't butterflies

3. Ain't nothing goin' on in my daughter's uterus that's any of your goddamned business

So fuck the fuck off, motherfucker.

Keith

Apr 29, 2017

It Didn't Start Well

JAN. 21

“I made a speech. I looked out, the field was — it looked like a million, million and a half people.”


...and it gets worse

Apr 27, 2017

Today's Tweet

Today's Quote

Lots more immediate than my usual quotes and chatterings.

“While the president has denied having invested in Russia, he has said little or nothing about Russian investment in his businesses and properties in the United States or elsewhere. This should concern all Americans and is yet another reason why his refusal to release his tax returns should be met with considerable skepticism and concern.”
--Adam Schiff, US Congress (D-CA28)

Sonny Perdue

Sonny Perdue is our new Sec'y of Agriculture (by a vote of 87-11).

Follow the Wikipedia link and read the bio, because I'm not gonna spend much time here bitchin' about his "commitment to the American farmer", which is code for "take good care of ADM and Monsanto, and the little guys will be plenty grateful for the crumbs".

What I dislike most is that a guy born 70 years ago, and named George Ervin Perdue III - a full-sized adult grown-ass man - is still called Sonny.

That's what I really don't love about The South.


Management By Bromide


People in seats of power need to know stuff. And they need to have a much deeper understanding of the problems than most folks. Simplistic bullet-point pronouncements just ain't gonna cut it.

WaPo:

“In over half of American households, the single largest expense is child care, even exceeding the cost of housing.”
Ivanka Trump, assistant to the president, in Berlin, April 25, 2017

Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter, has said she wants to help craft a solution to a vexing problem for American families: the soaring cost of child care. In a forum in Berlin, speaking without notes, she made an interesting observation — that in “over half” of American households, the cost of child care exceeded the cost of housing.

Is this the case?


I'm willing to give her partial credit for getting it partially right, but she loses it all in the end (as usual) because I think the main reason Ms Trump says things like this is an effort to be the "kinder gentler" face of an administration that is appallingly uncaring and unthinking in practically everything it's doing.

And when you look just the tiniest bit past the facade, we're right back to "they don't know what the fuck they're doing".

But that's too simple too.

With 45* trying to bully his way thru everything in sight, Ivanka and Jared traipse about rounding off all the jagged edges and softening every harsh reality.

So there's Ivanka, trying to make it all OK with people - like she's smoothing it over after the drunk-n-abusive step dad goes on his daily rampage (thanks, driftglass).

So we have the standard Trump approach to everything - uncertainty. He wants to keep everybody guessing (he said as much during the campaign). It's his signature move. In confusion there is opportunity. So you make opportunity by creating confusion.

But it's even worse than having an enabling apologist working on you.  Keep one of Mike's Own Proverbs in mind:

Never forget that a smiling hyena will still eat your children