This bears repeating: The Palm Beach Post printed this, by Tom Blackburn 10/13/08
"A lot of people who want to prevent abortions think they have to vote Republican to get action. It is hard to see why. No party that uses the distortions, evasions and dissimulation of the current administration to torture people can claim to respect human dignity. It is not pro-life. It could still be anti-abortion. Its deeds do not lend much support to that possibility, though, no matter what it says. Before 1972, abortion laws were spotty. It was "on demand" in two states. Several, including FL, allowed it in cases of rape, incest and for the health...of the mother. It was totally illegal in much of the country. Then in 1972 came Roe vs. Wade in which the Supreme Court said states couldn't interfere with abortion in the first trimester. That's the decision anti-abortion folks rally against in Washington each January.
Who wrote it? A Repub justice (Harry Blackmun) appointed by Repub Nixon. The court's majority consisted of four Repubs and three Dems. The dissenters were one Repub. (William Rehnquist) and one Dem (Byron White)...
Repub presidents stayed opposed to abortion rhetorically...(Saying an actor "phoned in" his performance implies his heart wasn't in it. Prez Reagan flew to Phoenix to speak to the National Rifle Assn. but never drove a few blocks to make a speech to the antiabortion rallies each January outside the Supreme Court building. He literally phoned it in. Being heard by phone but not seen with abortion opponents has been President Bush's style as well. By the 20th anniv. of Roe vs. Wade the Supreme Court had 8 Repubs and the original Dem dissenter (Justice White). That court upheld some state regulations but explicitly upheld abortion as a constitutional right. Abortion was legalized and kept legal by black robed Republicans, not by a cabal of San Francisco Dems. In Congress, Repubs could complain that Dems thwarted efforts to curb abortions. But then that excuse ran out. From 2003 to 2006 they held both houses of Congress. & the White House. & the Supreme Court.
You'd think something would happen after all the talk. They could have set up a law case for the current court with seven Republican appointees to use to reverse the 1972 decision.
In 2003 they passed the "partial-birth abortion" ban, which their floor managers explained would apply to only a very few abortions. The Supreme Court upheld it in 2007. That's all they accomplished on abortion while they controlled everything. It's all they tried to do.
Abortion has been very good for Republicans running for election. But for 35 years the Republicans who ran on it haven't done much to reward their supporters. People who supported President Bush for what he said about abortion now have an unnecessary war and torture on their consciences. And abortion is still legal." Tom Blackburn, Palm Beach Post
Labels: Palm Beach Post-Abortion, Repubs, Tom Blackburn
These bear repeating: from a Washington Post article:
“The fiscal shift in the Reagan years was staggering. In January 1981, when Reagan declared the federal budget to be "out of control," the deficit had reached almost $74 billion, the federal debt $930 billion. Within two years, the deficit was $208 billion. The debt by 1988 totaled $2.6 trillion. In those eight years, the United States moved from being the world's largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.”
Joe Conason, 1-14-2012
Leslie Stahl on “60 minutes” showed President Ronald Reagan “announcing his 1982 tax increase-sometimes described as the largest tax hike in American history-”
“...even though Ronald Reagan cut taxes, he also pushed through several tax increases, including one in 1982 during a recession , as Reagan intones, ‘Make no mistake about it, this whole package is a compromise.’”
“In fact, Reagan comprised on many issues, including an agreement with Dem House Speaker O’Neill, to improve the solvency of Social Security for the past several decades....
Reagan was forced to raise taxes because his cuts didn’t “pay for themselves” as the mythology also insists-and he didn’t raise taxes enough to avoid a legacy of deficits that only Bill Clinton’s 1993 tax increase on the top tier began to remedy.
The Bush tax cuts, like Reagan’s, set the nation on its current fiscal path, worsened by his multitrillion-dollar misadventure in Iraq..”
“In an election year, when every Republican candidate has vowed to refuse any compromise that will reduce future deficits, the urge to erase history and distort facts, must be exposed over and over again.”
Joe Conason, also referring to rep Eric Cantor’s aide assertion that Reagan didn’t raise taxes.
Labels: and increased Deficit big time, Reagan raised taxes
Jon Stewart on "the Daily Show", 1-4-12, interviewed Elizabeth Dowling Taylor, who wrote the book: "A slave in the White House. It's the story of Peter Jennings, a slave who could read & write, who himself wrote the first White House Memoir, titled something like, Memories of James Madison. Jennings was owned by James Madison. 8 of our earliest presidents owned slaves, Dowling Taylor said. Jennings thought Dolly Madison would free him upon James Madison's death, but she didn't. ( Jennings wife and children had been sold to another Virginia family). So Jennings borrowed $200 from Daniel Webster to buy his own freedom, and then worked for Webster to buy his family's freedom. He was able to later buy a small piece of property, and house, and often forged papers for other slaves, his great granddaughter told Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. Jon Stewart read what President James Madison had once written about slaves, calling them thieves, and he did not have a good opinion of them at all. Yet Madison is responsible for the Bill of Rights. I've read that half of the signers of the Constitution owned slaves. What a compromise for those that didn't. I've read George Washington didn't dare release his slaves while he was alive, for fear of repercussions by his neighbors. And now, the signers of Grover Norquist's Pledge, don't dare end the Bush tax cuts, even for those making more than $1,000,000.00 a year, after deductions. This is "...the land of the brave"
Labels: "A slave in the White House", by Elizabeth Dowling Taylor
Will FL state Senator Joe Negron's proposed bill (SB 402) just test newborns for prescription drugs, or methylmercury, also?
"Women in Martin County have the highest methylmercury contamination nationally, according to data from similar studies: Martin County women were at 25 percent, Duval County at 7 percent, Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties were at 16 percent, while 12 percent was the national average.
A CDC report in 2002 showed that 6 percent of women had elevated levels of mercury nationally, according to their website."
http://www.tcpalm.com/news/2011/sep/21/martin-booklet-lists-fish-less-likely-to-have/
How about for the most dangerous pesticides used in FL?
Labels: FL State Senator Joe Negron-Newborns should be tested
