“What The Fuck Is That?”

© Getty Images.

Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) has also responded to the idiocy of Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID).

“Like this guy, this congressman, you might as well say, ‘People don’t starve because they don’t have food.’ What the f— is that? What are you saying? How can you say that?” Harris asked during an interview with Pod Save America, a podcast run by former Obama staffers.

Harris, a freshman Democrat, appeared to be referring to Rep. Raul Labrador’s (R-Idaho) statement that “nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

[…]

Asked what Democrats could do to slow the bill down now that it’s reached the Senate, Harris said its critics should “just speak the truth.”

“The truth is that these folks are playing politics with public health,” she said during the interview. “If Republicans want people to lose their healthcare, then the Republicans need to lose their job.”

She added that “[Republicans are] engaged in all this happy talk that is bull — not truth.”

Loud cheers for Sen. Harris being unafraid to speak up and out. The Hill has the full story.

Those Primitive Indians Just Don’t Understand, No.

Obama Legacy; Bears Ears National Monument.

The Fight for Bears Ears has been going on for a very long time; people have been happy with Pres. Obama’s protective national monument status. Now the GOP is arguing that us dumb Indians, gosh, we just don’t understand. If places are declared national monuments, it will seriously impact our primitive lives, and we wouldn’t be able to do native stuff, like gather firewood, so um, just give us the land, and everything will be great! There really isn’t deep enough mockery for these arrogant colonialists.

Speaking alongside Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke about the Trump administration’s order to review — and potentially shrink or eliminate — nearly 30 national monuments, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) said Native Americans were “manipulated” into their support for the 1.35 million acre Bears Ears National Monument southeastern Utah.

“The Indians, they don’t fully understand that a lot of the things that they currently take for granted on those lands, they won’t be able to do if it’s made clearly into a monument or a wilderness,” Hatch said on Sunday. “Once you put a monument there, you do restrict a lot of things that could be done, and that includes use of the land… Just take my word for it.”

Oh, right. We should just take the word of a white man. Gosh, that’s worked so well in the past.

Hatch’s dismissal of native voices is not only condescending, it is incredibly inaccurate in the case of Bears Ears. Protections for Bears Ears were nearly 80 years in the making. Most recently, the Bears Ears Intertribal Coalition, which brought together five tribal nations, pushed for the protection of the Bears Ears region. After the group received no substantial response from the Utah Congressional delegation about protecting the area, the group opted to propose that President Barack Obama should create a national monument, which he did in December 2016.

[…]

But variations of Hatch’s argument have been routinely made by critics of the national monuments — namely, Republican politicians in Utah. Gov. Gary Herbert (R) has long purported that a national monument would get rid of critical tribal activities, such as firewood gathering. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) similarly stoked fears that the federal government would seize native American land for the monument. Utah state legislator Mike Noel (R), who is looking to join the Trump administration, launched an investigation into the tribal support of a Bears Ears National Monument, calling it a “charade.”

These accusations are part of a continued misinformation campaign targeting tribal members that started during the lead-up to the monument designation. In the summer of 2016, flyers meant to antagonize local Navajo were found posted around towns adjacent to the now national monument. One of the flyers impersonated an Interior Department press release that claimed the government would be taking over four million acres of Navajo reservation land. Others suggested the national monument would ban firewood gathering and Native American access.

Think Progress has the full story.

Sunday Facepalm.

artika.info.

Yesterday, I briefly mentioned the stupidity of Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID). Rather than just admitting his “no one ever died from not having access to health care” was extraordinarily wrong and stupid, he is, of course, doubling down, and blaming the media for focusing on a “5 second clip”. I think they are focusing on the stupid which fell steaming from your mouth, Mr. Labrador, especially in light of your history of saying equally stupid things in regard to health care.

On Saturday, Labrador posted a statement on the exchange, saying that his response “wasn’t very elegant” and criticizing the media coverage.

“In the five-second clip that the media is focusing on, I was trying to explain that all hospitals are required by law to treat patients in need of emergency care regardless of their ability to pay and that the Republican plan does not change that,” he said. “It certainly doesn’t help that the media is only highlighting a five-second video, instead of the entire exchange.”

Labrador’s longer explanation, however, also doesn’t hold up.

No kidding it doesn’t hold up. One of the reasons the Affordable Care Act was so necessary was because those without coverage would go to the ER, usually waiting until they were in a dire state. People taking care of their health in such a way drives up cost all the way around, for everyone. Mr. Labrador is also woefully ignorant of the fact that hospitals do come looking for their money, and they are quite serious about that, too. So, a really stupid, ineffective way to have a healthy citizenry, but that’s good, because you still have that option! I mean, if you don’t feel well, just go park yourself in a busy ER for 10 hours or so, you don’t need to work, right? Then, after you’ve been treated, and realize you can’t afford medicines or aftercare, you had best gather up all your stuff, get a new identity and move, because a big damn bill will be chasing you. Yeah, excellent choice, that. Well, as the rethugs have pointed out time and time again, there are options: there’s Jesus, or you could just die.

Think Progress has the full run down, with all the necessary numbers and links.

A New Vaginal Ring.

Medscape.

Researchers are working on a new vaginal ring, which combines contraception and dapivirine, an antiretroviral drug. The outlook is good, but at least here in uStates, the current political climate could not possibly be worse for a method of contraception which also shields from HIV transmission.

A new vaginal ring containing dapivirine, an antiretroviral drug, as well as a hormonal contraceptive, levonorgestrel, has started its first trial. If all goes according to plan, women will have a single product that shields them from both HIV transmission and unintended pregnancy.

The National Institutes of Health-Funded Microbicide Trials Network is overseeing the Phase I trial, after the multipurpose ring was proven safe in two larger trials called ASPIRE and The Ring Study, each of which tested the durability of monthly dapavirine rings.

However, the newest study, which will be conducted at Magee-Womens Hospital of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, is testing to see if the ring will be able to provide a three-month supply.

The nonprofit International Partnership for Microbicides developed the original monthly rings. While the benefits of contraceptive rings have long been known, it wasn’t until women who participated in ASPIRE and The Ring Study expressed the need for a single product providing both a contraceptive and anti-HIV drugs that researchers began moving forward with the idea.

Plus has the full story.

If You Don’t Talk To Your Constituents, I Will!

Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY ) on MSNBC — screenshot.

Cheers to Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, who has come up with a brilliant plan, given the sheer amount of rethugs who refuse to show at town halls and other meetings, unwilling to face angry constituents. I think this needs to be implemented, not just used as a threat. Get out there, Dems, and talk to people.  All the Twitterati, get this one out to all your Dem reps, light a fire.

Appearing with MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on Friday, a New York congressman called out a Republican House member from a neighboring district for ducking his constituents’ questions about the newly passed GOP health care plan and said he might hold a town hall there himself.

Saying, “If it takes a Democrat,” to face constituents to talk about their health care worries, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) said he’s willing to go to GOP districts and host town halls.

“Maybe a Democrat ought to go into every district where a Republican who supported TrumpCare won’t hold a town hall meeting, and do it for them,” Maloney told Maddow “I think every Republican who voted for this thing ought to have to stand in front of their voters and explain it.”

Maloney was focusing his ire on New York Republican Rep. John Faso who is refusing to meet with constituents, including one woman, Andrea Mitchell (not the NBC host), who is suffering from brain cancer and worries she will be left without insurance under the AHCA.

[…]

“And if it takes a Democrat to go in and do it for them for a while, I’ll explain what’s in this bill, and if he doesn’t like it, he should stand up and explain it himself.,” Maloney explained.

Video at the link.

And, in one of the top 10 stupidest, most idiotic statements ever, the winner is Rep. Raul Labrador (R-ID), who stated, at a town hall, “Nobody dies because they don’t have access to health care.”

Can I just point to every fucking generation of people since there were people? Yeah, lots of dead people because no health care. Jesus Christ.

Mail Me To The GOP.

Reason #5

My combat tour in Iraq resulted in enough disability to make me uninsurable, but not enough to get all my healthcare through the VA. You killed me, you prick.

Reason #4

Asthma. I cannot afford to be in a high-risk pool and without health insurance, I will die of an asthma attack. I will die of an easily controlled incurable lung disease that affects millions. I hope my parents put my blue-faced body on Congressman Lloyd Smucker’s doorstep.

Reason #3

because you took away my fucking insurance

Mediaite has the full story. Mail Me To The GOP. If the senate passes the Fuck You No Healthcare Plan, I’ll be signing up.

No healthcare stuff:

HHS Secretary Price argues people with pre-existing conditions should pay more: “Well, it’s pricing for what an individual’s health status is, and that’s important to appreciate.”

House Republican didn’t know the health care bill he voted for could cost his state $3 billion: Rep. Chris Collins didn’t read it before he voted for it.

Women Helping Women / SASS.

https://womenhelp.org/

While the fate of the Fuck You No Healthcare Plan is not certain yet, one thing is more than clear: whether or not the senate squashes this monstrosity, it will be women and other people who can get pregnant who will end up being hurt the most. In spite of the fact that abortion is legal in uStates, the reality is the opposite for a majority of women. For many women, being able to obtain a termination within draconian time limits has been made impossible, and there are many efforts to make sure that women cannot access early abortion pills, either. The FDA updated its protocol on mifepristone last year, increasing its eligibility of use from 49 days’ gestation to 70 days’, but my state, nDakota, along with Ohio and Texas, refuse to comply, adhering to the old protocol as a means to prevent women from using it. Many states have outlawed the use to telemedicine in regard to mifepristone, which is yet another nail on autonomy’s coffin when it comes to those of us who live rural. Tom Price, who doesn’t much believe in contraception anyway, and denies the fact that women need help to obtain it, so he refuses to cover it, is elated with the latest move, and that is very bad news indeed, for all women who use contraception.

When I was younger, I thought that the days of the Jane Collective were long past, that such networks would not ever be needed again. I certainly felt that way when I obtained an abortion in 1975. At that time, no one cared about my private medical decisions, or the private medical decisions of others. It took many years for the anti-choice brigade to whip up a proper frenzy, but they managed it, and here we are, back in an age of necessary collectives.

A Dutch Collective, Women Helping Women is active, providing help with Self-Managed Abortion; Safe and Supported (SASS). If you find yourself in trouble, please, please, do things safely. There are people who can help you, so take advantage of that, and remember you are not alone.

WHW has an emphasis on privacy, it’s clandestine, and you cannot be traced, which is necessary because women are being prosecuted for inducing abortions.

While the Trump administration didn’t invent anti-choice ideology or policies, it is unapologeticallylaying the groundwork for an unprecedented attack on reproductive rights and the women who seek abortion care. And although anti-choice legislators have historically focused on restricting surgical abortion, medical abortion is very much in their crosshairs, too.

“While people in the U.S. have been self-inducing abortion with pills safely, effectively and privately, they do so under the looming threat of arrest and prosecution, or detention and deportation,” said Jill Adams, Chief Strategist at the Self-Induced Abortion (SIA) Legal Team at Berkeley Law. “Not because self-induced abortion is per se illegal, but because rogue prosecutors have been manipulating and misapplying laws in a modern day witch-hunt.”

According to the SIA Legal Team, there are 17 known arrests or convictions in connection with self-induced abortion. “This threat looms most heavily over communities of color, immigrants, and people living in poverty who already face some of the highest obstacles to reproductive healthcare access and over policing of their communities,” said Adams.

Think Progress has the full story.

Sigh. Speaking of:

Iowa Governor Terry Branstad on Friday signed into law a 20-week abortion ban that faces a legal challenge in the Midwestern state’s supreme court.

The law, passed by Iowa’s Republican-controlled House and Senate last month, bans abortions once a pregnancy reaches 20 weeks and stipulates a three-day waiting period before women can undergo any abortion.

The law does not make exceptions for instances of rape or incest but does allow for abortions if the mother’s life or health is at risk.

Full story here.

Contraceptives? Oh, No, They Don’t Work.

In this March 21, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump, followed by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, leaves Capitol Hill Washington after rallying support for the Republican health care overhaul with GOP lawmakers. CREDIT: AP/J. Scott Applewhite.

Here’s one for the How Much Can We Fuck Women Up files. Teresa Manning has been tapped to be Deputy Assistant Secretary for Population Affairs in the Department of Health and Human Services. She’ll be responsible for administering federal Title X family planning funds. The problem? Not only is Ms. Manning rabidly anti-choice, she’s a contraception denier. She doesn’t think anyone needs contraception. I really didn’t think anything else today could make my bad mood worse, was I ever wrong.

Manning is currently listed as deputy assistant secretary for the office in the HHS staff directory.

Manning has worked for the National Right to Life Committee and Family Research Council. She has a long history of making inaccurate statements about contraception, like saying that it doesn’t work, and falsely claimed there was a link between breast cancer and abortion, according to Mic.

In 2001, when Manning worked for the Family Research Council, which has fiercely opposed LGBTQ rights, she said that it was “immoral” and “medically irresponsible” to ensure that women can buy emergency contraceptives over the counter.

Part of Manning’s role is to administer $286 million in federal Title X family planning funds, which benefit low-income populations. Title X is a competitive federal grant program that provides family planning and other health services to an estimated four million low-income uninsured and underinsured people each year. Providers have to demonstrate a capacity to meet needs in community before receiving funds.

Manning would have a role in setting national policy on issues of family planning and contraception and advises the secretary and assistant secretary for the department on a “wide range of reproductive health issues,” according to the HHS website.

[…]

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, released a statement on the appointment.

“It is a cruel irony to appoint an opponent of birth control to oversee the nation’s only federal program dedicated to family planning,” Laguens stated. “We are at the lowest rate of unintended pregnancy in 30 years and a historic low for teen pregnancy because of access to birth control. Someone who promotes myths about birth control and reproductive care should not be in charge of the office that is responsible for family planning at HHS.”

Think Progress has the full bad news.

Trump Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About. Shocker.

Donald Trump (CPAC)

Oh here’s a big ol’ shocker – the Tiny Tyrant is running his mouth without the slightest hint of knowledge behind it. Mr. Tweet had a Twitter frenzy this morning, screeching out “Obamacare is dead!” and other shite. He kept spewing shit in an interview, making it as plain as could be that he doesn’t have the slightest idea of what comprises his “great new healthcare plan”. Fucking idiot.

In an interview with Face The Nation’s John Dickerson that aired Sunday, it appeared that President Donald Trump did not fully understand what was in the latest version of the Republican health care bill.

When Dickerson pushed Trump to acknowledge why there are critics of the bill, noting higher premiums for older people, Trump interrupted him to say that issue was fixed. Throughout the interview, Trump insisted that the latest version of the bill addressed all of the problems Dickerson mentioned, even though the bill has only become worse for low-income people, older people and people with pre-existing conditions.

When Dickerson asked Trump explain how higher premiums were “fixed” under the new health care bill, he didn’t have an answer.

Think Progress has the full story. Honestly, this level of incompetence should be an automatic disqualification.

Yeah, That Will Make Us Great.

Ahhh, the oh fucks are piling up again, a brief roundup…

Reveal News reported Friday that Trump plans to cut $60 million from the Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, which fights child labor, human trafficking and slavery around the world.

“The preliminary budget of President Donald Trump’s administration would eliminate $60 million in grants from the bureau’s budget, calling them ‘largely noncompetitive and unproven,’” wrote Reveal News’ Jennifer Gollan. “It suggested that the agency instead focus its efforts ‘on ensuring that U.S. trade agreements are fair for American workers.’”

The cuts would cripple the government’s ability to monitor child exploitation around the world and potentially interfere with tenets of 13 separate trade agreements. Furthermore, the measures would ultimately have the opposite effect of what the president intends. By allowing other countries to exploit child workers and other laborers, U.S. workers will be put at a disadvantage for using fair labor practices.

Full story here. Exploiting children, that’s sure to make Amerikkka Great Again, right?

Moving on to Health and Human Services, the Tiny Tyrant has appointed a vicious anti-choice activist. Well, as we all know, women don’t count for shit, so this certainly won’t downgrade that greatness, right?

President Donald Trump has tapped a well-known anti-abortion activist, Charmaine Yoest, for the position of assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Health and Human Services.

Yoest is a senior fellow at American Values, a conservative group that says it opposes a “culture of death,” and the former president of Americans United for Life. AUL’s work has been key to moving anti-abortion bills forward on the state level, since it claims to have offered state lawmakers 32 different kinds of anti-abortion model legislation, according to its website.

Full story here.

And because destruction in pursuit of oil will certainly make everything great again, fuck the land, fuck the oceans, fuck the arctic, and there’s no climate change, either!

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Friday that seeks to increase offshore oil drilling in federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico, the Arctic Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean. The order leaves out the Pacific Ocean and Eastern Gulf regions.

During the signing ceremony on Friday, Trump emphasized that the order will open the Arctic for drilling.

“It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban,” the president said. “So hear that: It reverses the previous administration’s Arctic leasing ban, and directs Secretary Zinke to allow responsible development of offshore areas that will bring revenue to our Treasury and jobs to our workers.”

President Barack Obama protected 98 percent of the Arctic Ocean from oil leasing in December 2016, under Section 12(a) of the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. The new order directs all areas protected as of July 2008 to be preserved, but anything else — including broad swaths of the Atlantic and Arctic — has been reopened.

Full story here.

The Tiny Tyrant spoke to the NRA, pledging his undying love and sucking up so damn hard, I’m amazed he didn’t swallow himself. Odd how weapons weren’t allowed at his little suck up session. Of course, what Amerikkka really needs to make it great are more guns, more, more, more! They are now sacred. Yep. There’s one lobby that will get whatever the fuck it wants. Way to drain the swamp there.  :Spits:

Trump pledged his allegiance to the powerful National Rifle Association, the country’s leading gun-rights advocacy group, at a convention attended by thousands. Elected in part on a law-and-order platform, Trump was the first sitting president to address the NRA since fellow Republican Ronald Reagan in 1983.

“As your president, I will never, ever infringe on the right of the people to keep and bear arms,” Trump told thousands of people attending the NRA’s annual convention in Atlanta, Georgia.

[…]

“You have a true friend and champion in the White House,” he said. “We want to assure you of the sacred right of self defense for all of our citizens.”

Full story here.

Sham and Stupidity.

We’ll start with the whole healthcare snarl, and the ongoing attempts at passing the Fuck You Care Plan. There are many obstacles to that vaunted repeal ‘n’ replace, a good many of them republicans, who are smart enough to realize that if they push for a repeal, their careers will be over. Easy enough to call just what will win in that scenario. Turns out, most politicians don’t, and didn’t want to do the repeal business, in spite of talking nonstop about it. A good many of them made noises about it, in order to secure elections, but they’d be happier if it all just faded away at this point. Byron York at The Washington Examiner has the full rundown.

Now, with a president who would sign an Obamacare repeal, there’s no way Republicans could get as many votes as last year.

“A pure repeal would get less than 200 votes,” said the second member quoted above. “It really is one of the biggest political shams in history — many of these members would not have been elected without promising repeal, and now they are wilting. Some are even complaining that [the Rep. Tom MacArthur amendment] pushes the bill too far right — even though is it far short of a full repeal.”

When repeal first failed last month, a number of commentators blamed the conservative House Freedom Caucus. In the days since, caucus members have made the case, convincingly, that they have shown an enormous amount of flexibility in trying to reach agreement with the Tuesday Group, made up of House GOP centrists.

Now, the centrists — a number of Republicans refer to them as “the mods,” for moderates — appear to be moving the goalposts, even as the conservatives offer concessions. Conservatives suspect the centrists were perfectly happy for conservatives to take the blame for killing the first bill, but now are showing their true colors by rejecting compromise on the second version. Whatever the circumstances, they don’t want to vote to repeal Obamacare.

The reason is fear. When the lawmaker said colleagues don’t want repeal “because of their district,” that was another way of saying the members are all representatives, and the voters they represent don’t want repeal. From The Hill on Thursday afternoon: “Many vulnerable Republicans are running scared. One moderate Republican was overheard in a House cafeteria this week telling an aide: ‘If I vote for this healthcare bill, it will be the end of my career.'”

Even among the more rabid contingent, King and Gohmert, et al., there’s an admission it most likely won’t happen. The Washington Examiner has the full story.

Moving on to another admission, about that stupid, fucking wall: “we know it’s dumb.”

The fact that few Republicans in the Capitol backed Trump’s strategy for the wall only strengthened Democrats’ resolve.

“Republicans in Congress don’t want the wall. And that is the most under-reported aspect of this whole skirmish,” said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii). “Republicans in the leadership of both chambers actually hate that idea. They know it’s dumb.”

[…]

“The wall is broadly unpopular in the public. People would rather spend money on other priorities. And there’s unified Democratic opposition,” added Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “None of that changes in September.”

Politico has the full story.

One thing is more than clear: all the grass roots movements, all the protests, all the people demanding town halls, and showing up with questions? It’s working. Even the rethugs have gotten the message that in the current political climate, if you decide to ignore your constituents, your career isn’t going to flourish. Vive La Résistance!

Healthcare: A Congressional Exemption.

© nicolasjoseschirado, fotalia.

Rethuglicans are still hard at work, trying to figure out how to repeal the ACA, without working overly hard on the whole ‘replacement’ aspect. The more egregious parts of the repeal ‘n’ replace have kept some conservatives from getting on board, but Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-NJ) has come up with a cunning plan: we’ll exempt members of congress and their families! Now we can screw over all those peons and stay safe, yay! Disgusting asshole.

A new amendment to the Republican ObamaCare replacement bill exempts members of Congress and their staff from its effects.

The new changes to the bill would allow states to apply for waivers to repeal key ObamaCare provisions, such as the protection against people with pre-existing conditions being charged more and the requirement that insurers cover a range of health services, like prescription drugs and mental health.

The GOP amendment exempts members of Congress and their staffs to ensure that they will still be protected by those ObamaCare provisions.

The exemption was flagged by health law professor Tim Jost.

Democrats quickly jumped on the development, arguing that Republicans are willing to take away protections for the general public, but not themselves.

“The best evidence yet that the new GOP repeal plan is a disaster for people’s health care is that the GOP exempted Members of Congress from living under it,” said Leslie Dach, director of the Protect Our Care Campaign, one of the main groups fighting repeal.

The amendment is helping to woo some conservatives, who argue that the ObamaCare regulations are driving up premium costs, and note that high-risk pools would be able to fill the gap.

Via The Hill.