Destor on Ordering a Pizza Conservatively in Texas
Ramona: Hatred in a Lovely Church
Gallup: Obama 46, Romney 46
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Destor on Ordering a Pizza Conservatively in Texas Ramona: Hatred in a Lovely Church Gallup: Obama 46, Romney 46 |
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Newt Gingrich, like Tide and Coke is new and improved.
We learn, inter alia, from this evening's debate that he has raised his performance as a health care policy analyst.
Viz:
When jacked up by Santorum over his decade of support for an individual mandate to buy insurance, Newt credited (and tacitly solicited credit for) the onset of new wisdom.
Those who remember his (originally correct) disdain for the Ryan Medicare Voucher plan will recall that it only took a few days for him to flop, and declare his prior statements off limits for quotation as well.
Gingrich-Improved, more nimble.
The issue of sexual assaults on American Indian women has become one of the major sources of discord in the current debate between the White House and the House of Representatives over the latest reauthorization of the landmark Violence Against Women Act of 1994.
.......
“We should never have a woman come into the office saying, ‘I need to learn more about Plan B for when my daughter gets raped,’ ” said Charon Asetoyer, a women’s health advocate on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, referring to the morning-after pill. “That’s what’s so frightening — that it’s more expected than unexpected. It has become a norm for young women.”
The difficulties facing American Indian women who have been raped are myriad, and include a shortage of sexual assault kits at Indian Health Service hospitals, where there is also a lack of access to birth control and sexually transmitted disease testing. There are also too few nurses trained to perform rape examinations, which are generally necessary to bring cases to trial.
By Ismail Kahn, New York Times, May 23/24, 2012
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Pakistani doctor who helped the Central Intelligence Agency pin down Osama bin Laden's location under cover of a vaccination drive was convicted on Wednesday of treason and sentenced to 33 years in prison, a senior official in Pakistan said.
A tribal court here in northwestern Pakistan found the doctor, Shakil Afridi, guilty of acting against the state, said Mutahir Zeb Khan, the administrator for the Khyber tribal region [....]
By Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times, May 23, 2012
MOSCOW — Stiff new penalties aimed at opposition protesters were given preliminary approval Tuesday by Russian lawmakers loyal to President Vladimir Putin, the target of mass rallies and demonstrations before his March election victory.
The bill, which opposition parliament members termed draconian and protested by threatening to file out of a legislative session, calls for fines of up to $50,000 and up to 200 hours of community service for organizers of rallies and demonstrations that grow violent or exceed the approved number of participants.
The sanctions were approved on first reading by parliament's lower house, which is controlled by Putin's United Russia party. They mark a return by the Kremlin to a tough stance against critics after concessions during the recent election campaign [...]
Also see:
Russians back Putin, strong leadership
Washington Post, May 22, 2012
A Pew survey of 1,000 Russians found that President Vladimir Putin is well-liked by more than 70 percent of citizens, especially older adults.
Associated Press, May 21, 2012
HAVANA — It was all sunshine, smiles and celebratory speeches as officials marked the arrival of an undersea fiber-optic cable they promised would end Cuba's Internet isolation and boost web capacity 3,000-fold. Even a retired Fidel Castro had hailed the dawn of a new cyber-age on the island.
More than a year after the February 2011 ceremony on Siboney Beach in eastern Cuba, and 10 months after the system was supposed to have gone online, the government never mentions the cable anymore, and Internet here remains the slowest in the hemisphere. People talk quietly about embezzlement torpedoing the project and the arrest of more than a half-dozen senior telecom officials.
Perhaps most maddening, nobody has explained what happened to the much-ballyhooed $70 million project....
By Tamasin Ford in Monrovia, Guardian.co.uk, May 22, 2012
Husbands, not strangers or men with guns, are now the biggest threat to women in post-conflict west Africa, according to a report by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) released on Tuesday.
The IRC report, Let Me Not Die Before My Time: Domestic Violence in West Africa, based on data collected over 10 years by the IRC in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Ivory Coast, said domestic violence is the "most urgent, pervasive and significant protection issue for women in west Africa" [.....]
Now if he can only nimbly flop against a mandate on open marriages.
Some things are sacred...
Newt's discomfiture, and Mitt's, are emblematic of how deforming to policy our "market obsession" is. Excellence in health care is not achievable via market driven systems.
As soon as you decide not to let the poor (uninsured) die like dogs outside the ER door, you plant your feet on a path that leads inexorably to single payer/provider where the risk is openly socialized or private carriers with risk covertly "socialized" by a captive clientele.
Gotta say, the debate was a win-win for Obama. I think their blather on HealthCare, Immigration, the 99%, et al. only served to showcase their lack of humanity.
And love the TPM header about all the 'Mittstakes' of Romney - his smugness about not publishing his taxes and his faux business acumen, as well as his declaring Mass. healthcare as RomneyCare, pretty much created an immediate downward slide for him in SC polls.
(Really wish someone would do post on all the businesses owned and operated by Mormon Church of which there's at least one insurance company.)
Newt will implode and Santorum (aka Mr. Sanctimonious) is just a wink and nod in this race.
Amazing, with all their self avowed religious fervor, there isn't a microchip of concern/empathy for others between them.
Newt Tide!
I call that improvement.
Works best whilst sea water sloshes. ha