Last Call For The Half-Grown Farm Bill

Jon Bernstein asks "What did Orange Julius actually get out of a Farm Bill with no SNAP funding?"

The story, here, is that the original House version of the bill failed when an amendment was adopted which cut SNAP (food stamp) funding, meaning that it lost Democratic votes, while Republicans deserted the bill anyway because it was still too high-spending for them. The leadership "solved" that by splitting the bill and going for a GOP-only 218, and after (reported) heavy lobbing, they got over the bar.

What's not clear to me is whether John Boehner is better off with this thing passing. As Ed Kilgore notes, it's not real likely that anything can come out of conference that can pass. It's not really clear, right now, if the separate nutrition bill can pass. It's not clear what Boehner had to promise to conservatives about conference to get them to stick on this vote. It's not clear what the next step is.

It's clear what the next step is if you assume SNAP is nothing more than 47 million hostages the Tea Party can take.

It seems to me that Boehner did have another choice. If the GOP-only farm-only Farm Bill fails, then maybe he can push the mainstream of his conference to support a bipartisan bill, leaving the conservative fringe out entirely. It won't work on everything, but on the Farm Bill, it really might. Maybe. And if it works on the Farm Bill and there's little fallout, that might strengthen Boehner's ability to gather different coalitions on the next tough one that comes up.

Sure.  And then it becomes another regular battle over SNAP that the House can then use for leverage.  Poor people are just bargaining chips.  They don't matter, and they aren't a majority Republican constituency.  They're poor people.  Screw 'em.

Bobo Gets Lucky On The Dice

Visually-impaired squirrel named David Brooks, meet the tasty acorn of immigrationyou stumbled across by complete accident.

It’s beginning to look as though we’re not going to get an immigration reform law this year. House Republicans are moving in a direction that will probably be unacceptable to the Senate majority and the White House. Conservative commentators like my friends Bill Kristol and Rich Lowry are arguing that the status quo is better than the comprehensive approach passed by the Senate. The whole effort is in peril.

This could be a tragedy for the country and political suicide for Republicans, especially because the conservative arguments against the comprehensive approach are not compelling.  

Every now and again, David Brooks is correct about something.  That's what makes the other 97% of the time so maddening, because it means his standard obliviousness is a conscious choice.  And again, you long-time lurkers know I've been telling anyone who cared to listen that the House GOP was going to trash immigration reform, just like seven years ago.

The first conservative complaint is that, as Kristol and Lowry put it, “the enforcement provisions are riddled with exceptions, loopholes and waivers.” If Obama can waive the parts of Obamacare he finds inconvenient, why won’t he end up waiving a requirement for the use of E-Verify. 

There’s some truth to this critique, and maybe the House should pass a version of the Senate bill that has fewer waivers and loopholes. But, at some point, this argument just becomes an excuse to oppose every piece of legislation, ever. All legislation allows the executive branch to have some discretion. It’s always possible to imagine ways in which a law may be distorted in violation of its intent. But if you are going to use that logic to oppose something, you are going to end up opposing tax reform, welfare reform, the Civil Rights Act and everything else. 

And surprise, that's exactly what they are doing and why.   Republicans are opposing legislating and governance itself and figure whatever happens, they can hang it all on Obama.

Whether this bill passes or not, this country is heading toward a multiethnic future. Republicans can either shape that future in a conservative direction or, as I’ve tried to argue, they can become the receding roar of a white America that is never coming back. 

That’s what’s at stake. 

They'll never do it.  Years from now when we look back on the ruins of the Obama-era GOP and their failure on immigration reform as where they broke down for good.

North Colorado Rockies

Colorado Republicans apparently aren't too fond of democracies where they might lose elections, so ten rural (and very tea party red) Colorado counties are now openly talking about secession and forming their own North Colorado state.

There’s a growing effort to create a 51st state out of parts of northeast Colorado.

Ten counties, including Weld and Morgan, started talking about seceding last month. Now some people Lincoln and Cheyenne counties say they want to join a new state they’d call “North Colorado.”

Organizers of the secession effort say their interests are not being represented at the state Capitol. Representatives from the 10 counties held a meeting on Monday in the town of Akron in Weld County to begin mapping the boundaries for the new state they say will represent the interests of rural Colorado.

Yeah, Republicans love democracy and voting so much they want to break off and form their own state rather than deal with voters who don't agree with them and outnumber them.

Almost like cranky white guys are becoming a minority.  And we've seen before how they react.

The secessionist movement is the result of a growing urban-rural divide, which was exacerbated after this year’s legislation session where lawmakers raised renewable energy standards for rural electric co-ops, floated bills increasing regulations on oil and gas, and passed sweeping gun control.

The creation of a new state comes with risks. A new state would have to draw up new water agreements which are critical to agriculture and uses 85 percent of Colorado’s water. Supporters say it also comes with new opportunities.

“I say 80 percent of the oil and gas revenue in the state of Colorado is coming out of northeastern Colorado – Weld, Yuma County, and some of other counties,” Weld County Commissioner Sean Conway said. “Seventy percent of the K-12 funding is coming off the state lands in Weld County alone. I’m telling you we are economic drivers.”

So they want to take their oil money, and screw the rest of Colorado.   These guys don't want a democracy, they want a giant gated community for themselves.

Ask Sudan and South Sudan how breaking up land over oil rights goes, guys.

StupidiNews!

• The defense in the trial of George Zimmerman will wrap up closing arguments today as the case is expected to go to a jury of six women this afternoon.
• Irish lawmakers in the parliament's lower house passed legislation allowing abortion where the mother's life is at risk, sending it to the upper house.
• House Republicans have passed a farm bill without any food stamps funding whatsoever, prompting an immediate veto threat from the White House.
• Sen. Elizabeth Warren is joining Sen. John McCain to sponsor legislation that will restore Glass-Steagall era barriers between commercial and investment banks.
• After its Supreme Court case loss over gene patents, Myriad Genetics still says it owns other patents on testing and continues to sue other genetic analysis companies.

Last Call For Southern Culture On The Skids, Part 2

And Sen. Rand Paul's response to critics that point out "Hey, your social media director is a neo-Confederate douchebag" is pretty much worse than the original problem.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is standing by a close aide who for years made pro-secession and neo-Confederate arguments.

"People are calling him a white supremacist," Paul said in an interview with The Huffington Post. "If I thought he was a white supremacist, he would be fired immediately. If I thought he would treat anybody on the color of their skin different that others, I’d fire him immediately."

Hey Rand?  There's a reason why people are calling him that.

Paul's comments follow a report from the conservative Washington Free Beacon about Jack Hunter, who joined Paul's office as social media director in 2012. In his 20s, Hunter was the chairman of the League of the South, a group that "advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern State from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic," according to the Free Beacon report.

Anti-Defamation League Investigative Research Director Mark Pitcavage called the group "implicitly racist."

During his radio career Hunter also discussed "racial pride" and expressed his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln, according to the Free Beacon. In 2004 Hunter wrote that the heart of Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth, was "in the right place."

But no, Rand Paul defends the guy.

There has been no evidence of discriminatory behavior by Hunter, Paul said.

"All I can say is, we have a zero tolerance policy for anybody who displays discriminatory behavior or belief in discriminating against people based on the color of their skin, their religion, their sexual orientation, anything like that," Paul said. "We won't tolerate any of that, and I've seen no evidence of that."

During his time as a radio host Hunter would also make public appearances wearing a mask with the Confederate flag printed on it. Paul brushed off the masked when asked about it.

"It was a shock radio job. He was doing wet t-shirt contests. But can a guy not have a youth and stuff? People try to say I smoked pot one time, and I wasn't fit for office," Paul said.

Right.  Totally equivalent. Smoking pot doesn't mean you're unfit for office.  Defending and employing secessionist, white pride assholes makes you unfit for office.

The Children Lash Out

How to be a House Republican, Lesson #174:  Constantly accuse President Obama of retaliating against people on his imaginary "enemies list", then when you get busted for making up the IRS scandal, actually retaliate by cutting the agency's budget by 24 percent to "send a message".

The House Appropriations subcommittee with IRS jurisdiction cleared a spending measure gutting the tax-collecting agency’s budget next year by 24 percent in fiscal 2014. That $9 billion allocation is 30 percent less than President Barack Obama requested for the agency charged with rolling out his signature health care law.

Rep. Peter Roskam, the chief deputy whip in the House, called the appropriation a “reckoning for the IRS.”

“The IRS has abused power, abused the taxpayer, abused discretion and been unwise and foolish in how they’ve carried out the authority that was delegated to them … and they will be held to account in the appropriations process,” the Illinois Republican said.

The spending bill now heads to the full Appropriations Committee before passage on the House floor. It faces more significant hurdles in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats.

Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.), who sits on the Appropriations subcommittee with IRS jurisdiction, said the budget cuts combined with Cantor’s proposals are attempts to “clean house,” “send a message” and “try to begin the process to fix the challenges” at the IRS.

The congressional purse strings are “one tool that Congress can use to ensure that agencies do not continue a pattern of mismanagement,” he said.

Not to mention a tool for retaliation against a President whom you hate to the point of irrational rancor.  Remember, when House Republicans accuse the President of anything, it's because they're busy doing it themselves.

Inside The Criminal Mind(lessness)

Indiana Republicans, apparently sick of all this "same-sex marriage" and "equality" nonsense, have decided to turn even applying for a same-sex marriage (often done as a protest in states where it's banned) into a felonious act punishable by prison time.

An update to the state’s criminal code classifies that it’s a Level 6 felony if someone submits false information or lies on a marriage license application. This is actually a downgrade from a Class D felony that was established by a 1997 law, but the adjustment has made news as a reminder that the law exists in the first place. Because the marriage form specifies one “male applicant” and “female applicant,” a same-sex couple could not actually use the form as its written. If a couple were thus to attempt submitting an application in protest of the state ban, they could face a maximum of 18 months in prison and a potential fine of up to $10,000.

And it gets worse:  if you, as a member of a religious clergy, choose to recognize a union, well that's a misdemeanor.

The law actually has some particularly troubling language for clergy as well. Even if state law doesn’t legally recognize same-sex marriages, religious organizations have always been free to at least recognize them within their faith. That may not be so true in Indiana, where the new criminal code says that anyone “who knowingly solemnizes” a same-sex marriage is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor, punishable by up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. It remains unclear if a solemnization has legally occurred in the absence of an issued license. Thus, if an Episcopal church, for example, decided to celebrate the union of two of its gay congregants, the priest might be in violation of the law.

So yeah, the same guys screaming about personal liberty over data monitoring, free speech issues and "the chilling effect" of the Obama administration's war on leaks, and how Obamacare's birth control rules are an attack on religious freedom have zero problem actually putting you in jail for a year an a half and will take your right to vote over your protest for equality.

That's what real, actual totalitarian, police state thugs do to people, make up laws simply to throw people in jail because they disagree with you over something so petty and inhumane in the first place that inequality becomes legal grounds for persecution of a class of citizens.

That's what real religious persecution looks like, tossing clergy in jail for acknowledging two people of the same sex can have love before whatever higher power they believe in.  Providing low-cost birth control is not religious persecution, morons.  Throwing people in jail because they say "I believe you two love each other and I recognize that" is.

Do we understand the frigging difference, people?

StupidiNews!

• Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev, facing his first court appearance in connection with the attack, entered a not guilty plea in a Boston federal court on Wednesday.
• A bipartisan House bill would establish the Apollo 11 lunar landing site as a national park, protecting the landing artifacts.
• The latest ad campaign from billionaire Charles Koch will target Wichita, Kansas, pushing to stop "government intervention" in business and including ending the national minimum wage.
• Advances in forensic medicine since the 9/11 attack may be valuable for identifying victims of last week's train explosion in Lac-Megantic, Quebec.
• For the first time since its inception in 1992, the annual DEFCON hacker conference is asking federal agencies to skip the event over NSA data gathering.

Last Call For Largeness

Yay America! We're no longer the fattest developed nation on Earth!

According to a new report from the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization, the United States is no longer the world's fattest developed nation―Mexico is.

Nearly a third of Mexican adults (32.8 percent) are considered obese—people aged 20 and older whose body mass index (BMI) is 30 and above. That edges out the United States, where 31.8 percent of American adults are considered obese.

Syria at 31.6 percent, is the third fattest among developed countries, while Venezuela and Libya are tied for fourth at 30.8 percent.

Mexico's urban lifestyle and rising income levels coupled with malnourishment among the country's poor have helped it claim this unhealthy title.

“The same people who are malnourished are the ones who are becoming obese,” Abelardo Avila, a physician with Mexico's National Nutrition Institute, told the Global Post. “In the poor classes we have obese parents and malnourished children. The worst thing is the children are becoming programmed for obesity. It's a very serious epidemic.”

Diabetes kills an estimated 70,000 people a year in Mexico—"or roughly equal to the deaths authorities say are caused by more than six years of the country's gangland wars," the Post noted.

Woohoo!  'MURICA.

The Sunset Of Ultrasound Bob, Part 2

Things are starting to crash hard for Virginia GOP Gov. Bob "Forced Ultrasound For All The Vaginas" McDonnell.  Apparently he has a little problem accepting gifts from wealthy donors that he keeps forgetting to tell people about, and what makes it worse is now we see those gifts caused a direct conflict of interest, with his wife and sister making tens of thousands from donors and McDonnell pushing it under the rug.

A prominent political donor gave $70,000 to a corporation owned by Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell and his sister last year, and the governor did not disclose the money as a gift or loan, according to people with knowledge of the payments.

The donor, wealthy businessman Jonnie R. Williams Sr., also gave a previously unknown $50,000 check to the governor’s wife, Maureen, in 2011, the people said.

The money to the corporation and Maureen McDonnell brings to $145,000 the amount Williams gave to assist the McDonnell family in 2011 and 2012 — funds that are now at the center of federal and state investigations.

Williams, the chief executive of dietary supplement manufacturer Star Scientific Inc., also provided a $10,000 check in December as a present to McDonnell’s eldest daughter, Jeanine, intended to help defray costs at her May 2013 wedding, the people said.

Virginia’s first family already is under intense scrutiny for accepting $15,000 from the same chief executive to pay for the catering at the June 2011 wedding of Cailin McDonnell at the Executive Mansion.

All the payments came as McDonnell and his wife took steps to promote the donor’s company and its products.

The payments to the corporation, confirmed by people familiar with the transactions, offer the first public example of money provided by Williams that would directly benefit the governor and not just his family.

McDonnell is in serious trouble here, if only because if there's one thing politicians will cut your throat over it's messing up their legal kickback gravy train by doing it illegally and threatening all the gifts they're getting too.

I don't see how McDonnell survives this, frankly.  Not that it'll matter much with less than six months left in his term, but I'm pretty sure at this point both parties want him out of the way.

We'll see what happens.  I got 60/40 he goes.

The Long, Dark, Tea Party Time Of The GOP Soul

Wow, it's like I've been saying for months now that House Republicans were going to kill immigration reform, and suddenly WIN THE MORNING figures it out.  Genius.

In private conversations, top Republicans on Capitol Hill now predict comprehensive immigration reform will die a slow, months-long death in the House. Like with background checks for gun buyers, the conventional wisdom that the party would never kill immigration reform, and risk further alienating Hispanic voters, was always wrong — and ignored the reality that most House Republicans are white conservatives representing mostly white districts.

Gosh guys, you mean the party of the Last Gasp of Demographic Privilege is betting everything on white men and saying to hell with everyone else?  HOOCOODANODE.

These members, and the vast majority of their voters, couldn’t care less whether Marco Rubio, Bill O’Reilly and Karl Rove say this is smart politics and policy.

Republican leaders will huddle with their members Wednesday afternoon to plot their public strategy. But after holding countless listening sessions, it is clear to these leaders that getting even smaller, popular pieces of reform will be a tough sell. The House plans a piecemeal approach: a border-security bill this month, maybe one or two items a month in the fall.

And their approach is "our way or the country burns."  Tens of millions of scared jackasses who never imagined a black President in their lifetimes now want to "take their country back" and by God they will trample on the rights of everyone else to remain on top.

Rep. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) held a town meeting last week where 25 of the 100 people spoke out on immigration — and every single one of them argued for staying clear of anything remotely resembling the Senate-passed bill.

“Our constituents don’t trust our government,” Cotton said. And he is reluctant to pass even pieces of immigration reform that he thinks are needed — like a better tracking system for people in the country on visas — because he is concerned they could become “a Trojan horse in a conference committee for a package that puts legalization first and enforcement later.”

It's all fun and games until one of them dates your daughter, moves in next door, or gets re-elected.  Now it's time for Second Amendment remedies against those who you disagree with, right guys?

Keep walking down that road to political oblivion.  It will catch up to you guys eventually, but not before another generation of massive damage to everyone else.  They'd rather reign over the ashes of America than share it with anyone darker than Snooki.

StupidiNews!

• Texas Dem State Sen. Wendy Davis admits that Texas Republicans will almost certainly pass new anti-choice laws today in Austin, and that Dems won't be able to stop the bill.
• Wal-Mart says it will immediately scrap three planned stores in Washington DC if the city passes a living wage law requiring large employers to pay employees $12.50 an hour.
• A car bomb in in Hezbollah-controlled Beirut that wounded 50 may be in retaliation for the group backing the Asaad regime in Syria.
• Egypt has named former Mubarak-era Finance Minister Hazem El-Beblawi as the country's new Prime Minister after the rejection of Mohamed ElBaradei for the post.
• Last week's failure and crash of a Russian Proton-M rocket carrying a satellite payload may have resulted from sensors installed upside down.

Last Call For Southern Culture On The Skids

Rand Paul, the gift that keeps on giving, apparently.  Always nice to know that the Senator elected to represent me loves to hire unapologetic white supremacist racists for his campaign staff, and apparently that's too much for even the lefty-hating wingers at the Washington Free Beacon to handle.

A close aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R., Ky.) who co-wrote the senator’s 2011 book spent years working as a pro-secessionist radio pundit and neo-Confederate activist, raising questions about whether Paul will be able to transcend the same fringe-figure associations that dogged his father’s political career.

Paul hired Jack Hunter, 39, to help write his book The Tea Party Goes to Washington during his 2010 Senate run. Hunter joined Paul’s office as his social media director in August 2012.

From 1999 to 2012, Hunter was a South Carolina radio shock jock known as the “Southern Avenger.” He has weighed in on issues such as racial pride and Hispanic immigration, and stated his support for the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln.

During public appearances, Hunter often wore a mask on which was printed a Confederate flag.

And Jack Hunter is a real piece of work, folks.

Prior to his radio career, while in his 20s, Hunter was a chairman in the League of the South, which “advocates the secession and subsequent independence of the Southern States from this forced union and the formation of a Southern republic.”

“The League of the South is an implicitly racist group in that the idealized version of the South that they promote is one which, to use their ideology, is dominated by ‘Anglo-Celtic’ culture, which is their code word for ‘white’,” said Mark Pitcavage, the director of investigative research at the ADL. The ADL said it does not necessarily classify it as a hate group.

The League of the South maintains that it is not racist and does not discriminate in terms of membership.

“When I was part of it, they were very explicit that’s not what they were about,” Hunter said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. “I was a young person, it was a fairly radical group – the same way a person on the left might be attracted in college to some left-wing radical groups.”

Sure, white supremacists are just like College Democrats.   Look, it's not like Rand Paul isn't just as much of a blatant racist as his asshole father is, but the next white guy who tells me how awesome of a President Rand Paul will make needs to have this article shoved up his urethra.  I don't care what else he does, nothing justifies this.

There are some things that should disqualify you from higher office, people.  This is one of them.

And Remember Folks, Spay And Neuter Your Inmates

Kudos to Amanda Marcotte, who said exactly what was on my mind when the story broke about California prisons sterilizing female inmates.

CIR interviewed doctors who were involved in sterilizations in California prisons, and comments from these doctors only raise suspicion that they supported a system of bullying and frightening women into agreeing to sterilizations they did not want. Dr. James Heinrich is accused by at least one inmate of badgering her about sterilization until she caved, and his comments about the money spent by the state on these procedures are not very reassuring. 

“Over a 10-year period, that isn’t a huge amount of money,” Heinrich said, “compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children—as they procreated more.”

"Unwanted" by whom? The women themselves or Heinrich? Christina Cordero, who was sterilized by Heinrich, says she wished she hadn't had the tubal litigation. So perhaps any child she might have conceived would have been wanted.

Unwanted by whom, indeed.  Between sneaky tactics to restrict access to birth control, sneakier tactics to make abortion inaccessible or as painful as possible, and now this... how can a woman possibly feel safe in this world?  This is hardly the first time this has happened.  Eugenics victims  have been sterilized against their will for decades, or in some cases without their knowledge, if the Eugenics Board decided they would be unfit parents. The one that stuck with me most was a woman who had been raped by three brothers, and brought before the board against her will.  She "did not get along well with others" and was "stubborn and lacked civility."  Well, after being raped by a handful of men and then dragged before a table full of men to hash it through to their satisfaction, I think I understand why she might have had a little bit of an attitude.  Based on that single interaction she was judged and sterilized, and only discovered it when she went to look into fertility treatments many years later because she wanted a child with all her heart.  When she was just a teenager that choice was made for her, not only without her consent but without telling her that it had happened at all.  

I had missed this gem until this time around (originally from 2008), in which state Rep. John LaBruzzo considered paying poor women a thousand bucks to get their tubes tied:   

"We're on a train headed to the future and there's a bridge out, " LaBruzzo said of what he suspects are dangerous demographic trends. "And nobody wants to talk about it."

LaBruzzo said he worries that people receiving government aid such as food stamps and publicly subsidized housing are reproducing at a faster rate than more affluent, better-educated people who presumably pay more tax revenue to the government. He said he is gathering statistics now.

"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare, " he said.

He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.

Vasectomies was just an afterthought, to avoid charges.  It was a wink-wink addition to get to the real business of fixing some lady parts.  It had no seriousness behind it, as evident by men everywhere not having to shoo government away from their balls.  There's a lot more to it than that, but what I'm getting at is that when it comes to men, there's no question who is in charge of their organs.  Furthermore, LaBruzzo's plan involved potential tax breaks for the affluent to have more children.  On behalf of women everywhere, I'd like to say thanks for looking out for us. Glad to know dangling money in front of poor women while throwing money back to the wealthy is his bridge out to a brighter tomorrow.

Now that I've vented some sarcasm, let's get to the point.  The attitudes above itself are frightening beyond measure.  Women are being looked at like breeders and nothing more.  When it suits someone's agenda for us to have kids, we're kept away from birth control, or even just plain old healthcare.  When it suits someone  ego trip for us to be sterile, that can happen too, it's just a matter of who is trying to call the shots on our bodies.  It is a terrifying thing to realize that your innermost body, the one thing you have been taught your whole life is yours and yours alone, is subject to the whim of people in power.  Not even necessarily government, just power in general.  This doctor was one of many who decided for a woman whether she should be allowed to have kids, without any ethical oversight or accountability.  This simply cannot be allowed, not just for reproductive rights but the sake of healthcare principles overall.  Before we dismiss this as an incident or an isolated problem, we need to realize this beast has been lurking in the dark waters of women's healthcare for over half a century. It's distasteful and criminal, so it's been done largely in secret.  But it has, in fact, always been there in some form or another.  Despite the fact that there are millions of us, women have yet to experience full equality.  Our bodies are not our own.  Our lives are up for vote.  Our futures can be chosen by a board of men who think they have the right to enforce their will without question.  Our chances of having the freedom every single man enjoys is always tantalizingly close, but at the last minute an appeal or tactic keeps us waiting and hoping.  And worrying.

This has to stop.  Women should have full ownership of their bodies, and enough of using the law to discriminate or abuse the poor or the disadvantaged.  Imagine the emotional pain inflicted on these women, and the judgment passed on them.  This is a disgrace, and there is no other word for it.  Some will say this is hypocrisy from a pro-choice person, but I don't believe so.  A woman's choices are hers to make, and that's where I stand regardless of the sub-issue at hand.  The overall point is these rights should be hers beyond a shadow of a doubt, with no fear that they may be yanked away in a single political move, or at the whim of someone in control.  Nobody should make these choices for any woman alive, period.  Once we establish that, we establish healthcare that is easily available, and then we work on counseling to avoid unwanted pregnancies because education and empowerment must come first.

We need to do something now, before this crops up again in five years and we pretend to be shocked all over again.

Completely The Hell Out?

With diplomacy involving Afghan President Hamid Karzai in the basement and the Afghan government on the verge of throwing us completely out of the country, President Obama appears to be trying to make the best of an awful situation by withdrawing everyone from Afghanistan by the end of next year and calling it a day.

Mr. Obama is committed to ending America’s military involvement in Afghanistan by the end of 2014, and Obama administration officials have been negotiating with Afghan officials about leaving a small “residual force” behind. But his relationship with Mr. Karzai has been slowly unraveling, and reached a new low after an effort last month by the United States to begin peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar. 

Mr. Karzai promptly repudiated the talks and ended negotiations with the United States over the long-term security deal that is needed to keep American forces in Afghanistan after 2014. 

A videoconference between Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai designed to defuse the tensions ended badly, according to both American and Afghan officials with knowledge of the conversation. Mr. Karzai, according to those sources, accused the United States of trying to negotiate a separate peace with both the Taliban and its backers in Pakistan, leaving Afghanistan’s fragile government exposed to its enemies. 

Mr. Karzai has made similar accusations in the past. But those comments were delivered to Afghans — not to Mr. Obama, who responded by pointing out the American lives that have been lost propping up Mr. Karzai’s government, the officials said. 

The option of leaving no troops in Afghanistan after 2014 was gaining momentum before the June 27 video conference, according to the officials. But since then, the idea of a complete military exit similar to the American military pullout from Iraq has gone from being considered the worst-case scenario — and a useful negotiating tool with Mr. Karzai — to an alternative under serious consideration in Washington and Kabul. 

In other words, Karzai is calling our bluff, and he's doing so coldly that it's starting to look like the only viable option.  Surprise, it's been the right thing to do for years now, but apparently it's taking Karzai saying "Go ahead, do it, we want you gone" in order for us to consider it.

And I'm completely okay with this.  I think the Obama administration should be trumpeting this from the rooftops.  Get them all out and bring them home, Mr. President.