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As Senator Leahy has noted, Republicans wouldn’t be able to use filibusters to block democratic economic legislation, health care reform, bills to protect unions from corporate use of scabs as they did in 1993 and 1994.
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(New York-WABC, April 22, 2005) — We told you yesterday the mayor is launching a $3 million program to reduce unintended pregnancies by pushing emergency contraception.
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The two pills of Plan B run $30 at a drugstore. The mayor has just announced that they will be free to any girl or woman of reproductive age at city clinics and hospitals.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg: "Ninety-thousand abortions is an outrage. We should recognize this as a problem."
Kelli Conlin, NARAL Pro-Choice NY: "People use it - they say 'whew' - saved the day for me and now I'm going to be more responsible."
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No matter what side you're on the numbers are pretty amazing. Every single year in the city there are 215,000 pregnancies and 60 percent of them are unintentional and result in 90,000 abortions.
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Michael Long, NY State Conservative Party Chairman: "I don't think that's what tax dollars should be used for.
Michael Long with the Conservative Party says there are simply other ways to deal with the problem.
Michael Long: "If you make a mistake you have to be accountable and you have to understand the fact that you have an obligation - that's a human being."
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| It's Not Sex. It's ... : Gord and Fixer are back, ladies! Drop the drape and trot out fer a lineup. These guys are hornier'n a five peckered goat! Supermen, they are! Rich an' good-lookin' too! |
You Are 55% Normal (Somewhat Normal) |
 While some of your behavior is quite normal... Other things you do are downright strange You've got a little of your freak going on But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself |
You May Be a Bit Schizotypal ... |
 A bit odd and socially isolated. You couldn't care less of what others think. And some of your beliefs are a little weird. Like that time you thought you were Jesus. |
Your Linguistic Profile: |
70% General American English |
10% Dixie |
10% Upper Midwestern |
10% Yankee |
0% Midwestern |
Your punk rock band name is The Happy Dildo
Your Linguistic Profile: |
40% General American English |
40% Yankee |
15% Dixie |
5% Upper Midwestern |
0% Midwestern |
Unless you have been in a persistent vegetative state for the past few weeks, you've been aware of the Republicans' assault on one of the foundations of any democracy that does not require quotes: an independent judiciary. DeLay and Cornyn have come just short of endorsing ending judges' terms with extreme prejudice. Tammany Tom the Bugman has called for reorganizing the government, no doubt in his own image: call it the City Upon the Slag Heap (small, unmarked bills, please). Then there's the most frightening (to me) DeLay quote: "The reason we had a right to privacy is because Congress didn't stop them [the courts]." Obviously, we've go to do something about that.
Scared enough? Probably not. This morning, Avedon Carol gave me a jolt better than a caffeine IV.
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That's right, we spend more than twice as much as most of our friends, yet we cover a much lower percentage of our people and have a higher rates of illness and death for preventable diseases . . .
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Do you suppose Colin is feeling a smidge guilty about his own disingenuous performance before the UN that mislead the world about the situation in Iraq, and wants to make it up to them by keeping them from being saddled with an arrogant horse's ass? Or is he still just touchy because he was replaced with congenital liar Condaleezza Rice after he scrapped with Big Dick Cheney, and wants to deliver a little payback to the VP by sacking his boy Bolton?
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So it's another Earth Day, and the House celebrates by passing a big ol' mess o' corporate welfare disguised as an "Energy Bill". I mean, who else in this country is more deserving of massive tax breaks and general obsequiousness than the largest, richest, most powerful cartel of industrial greedsters in the world? . . .
Former secretary of state Colin L. Powell is emerging as a behind-the-scenes player in the battle over John R. Bolton's nomination as ambassador to the United Nations, privately telling at least two key Republican lawmaker that Bolton is a smart but very problematic government official, according to Republican sources.
Those who know Powell best said two recent events provide insight into his thinking. Powell did not sign a letter from seven other former U.S. secretaries of state or defense supporting Bolton, and his former chief of staff, Lawrence B. Wilkerson, recently told the New York Times that Bolton would be an "abysmal ambassador."
"On two occasions, he has let it be known that the Bolton nomination is a bad one, to put it mildly," a Democratic congressional aide said. "It would be great to have Powell on the record speaking for himself, but he's unlikely to do it."
"Houston, we have a problem." With those words, spoken with a calm that masked the gravity of the situation, astronaut Jim Lovell informed NASA that Apollo 13 was running out of oxygen.
The skinny guys with skinny ties back in Houston, and the crew-cut crew in space, acted. They didn't argue. They didn't second-guess. They didn't blame each other. They acted. And most important, they didn't deny that they had a problem.
But today, too many leading Democratic strategists deny that the party we love has a problem. When you lose to an unpopular president with a soft economy and a disastrous occupation in Iraq — a man who lost all three debates and who, when he's trying to complete a sentence, is like a drunk man trying to cross an icy street — you most definitely have a problem.
Let's be clear what the problem is — and is not.
Your Inner European is Irish! |
 Sprited and boisterous! You drink everyone under the table. |
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Now, even I read the 911 commission report and know where those terrorists came from. So how stupid is it that Newt Gingrich, who pretends to be a knowledgeable politician and still gives speeches about US foreign policy, actually hasn't bothered to learn about the actual events of the 911 attacks.
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The story is that China is looking at no longer pegging its currency to the US dollar, which has such enormous implications for our economy it is hard to comprehend. For one thing, the Chinese could very easily ruin the dollar and make it a marginal currency. Don't know what that means to you in your day-to-day life? Figure it out, baby. My fortune cookie says: "Life-style may encounter a significant change." . . .
Your Inner European is French! |
 Smart and sophisticated. You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so. |
Welcome to Judging the Future, a project of Bump in the Beltway productions and a progressive, independent voice on judicial nominations issues. All opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributors and not necessarily those of any sponsors unless otherwise noted.
This site is for activists: when we raise an issue, we'll give you something to do far beyond wringing your hands. Come on in, and let's have a little fun taking our country back from the neo-cons and right-wing radicals in Congress.
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Therefore, the sales pitch currently coming from this band of arrogant hucksters on the President’s Energy Bill, assumes they can hoodwink a still credulous constituency.
In TCF’s mind, House Speaker, Republican Denny Hastert is the Marge Schott of politics. He has one face, and it’s not a poker face. It’s incapable of showing credibility, and any sense of integrity fades when standing next to Tom DeLay or Bill Frist.
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This is a legitimate ground for criticism of this lousy law, but no one has really gone into the real core problems with this law. It is mandated federal testing, when control of the schools are supposed to be a state and local affair. It is also just another test to teach to. Wanna know why kids arrive in college with absolutely no critical thinking skills? Mandatory testing. Teachers break up information into little test-sized bits. None of the information is presented holistically, without any sense that there are connections within a discipline much less that there are connections between disciplines. This isn't education, it's atomized information.
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