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| It's hard to believe this really happened... and it worked! |
Roger Ailes died on Thursday. There hasn't been much talk about it in the media. I can understand why. He was an extraordinarily divisive figure. The kind of guy who when when spoken of inspires fist fights in bars. I read Gabriel Sherman's 'Loudest Voice in the Room,' a topical biography of Ailes when it came out a few years ago. I highly recommend it.
Ailes was responsible for much of what is wrong with politics, and society, in America, and therefore the rest of the world, today. I'm going to keep this short, because I don't have anything nice to say about the man. But I strongly suggest reading Sherman's 'Loudest Voice,' and while your at it, David Brock's 'The Fox Effect,' if you would like to learn more about the man who played such an important role in making everyone's lives a little worse.
JMJ
There are literally millions who would disagree Jersey. Although I can't fathom why.
ReplyDeleteI was reading a conservative author in this last night. Without seeing the irony, he said it was Ailes goal to present "fair and balanced" news from a conservative perspective.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me they did not want fair and balanced so much as a right wing interpretation.
Fox News is a right wing propaganda outfit that has wielded tremendous influence over the frustrated white working class and old people, focusing their understandable frustration and irrational fear of change on the Left, blaming Liberals, and Blacks, and Hispanics, and Muslims, and Academia, and the Democrats, and the "MSM," NONE of whom have the power to do any real harm to the average working-class or elderly white person.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the Cannibal Capitalists keep sucking up and hoarding and defrauding to get all the American treasure, and Fox turns a blind eye. In fact, Fox brazenly supports the Social Darwinists and Cannibal Capitalists, fear-mongering war profiteers, and morally bankrupt self-satisfaction. Does it surprise anyone they have a debased corporate culture themselves and have paid millions in settlements for their treatment of women, who they display like meat, in full body shots, on most all of their programming?
Everything they stand for is morally bankrupt.
JMJ
The Left thinks that IT has a monopoly on morality.
ReplyDeleteHere's a tip, Jersey. Fifty million dead fetus' is nothing to brag about.
The abortion is an "issue," as far as I'm concerned, that is just a distraction to keep the morons focused off real and serious issues in their lives.
DeleteJMJ
50 million aborted fetuses isn't real or serious? Wow!
DeleteIt's real. It's serious in a few senses. For example, it is a symptom of social problems. Why are people engaging in reckless sexual activity? When it's not from recklessness, then why are they feeling the need to abort in the first place? There are a lot of questions it raises. But you guys don't focus on those questions. You simply demand other people live up to your "Christian" morals.
DeleteJMJ
Who's a Christian? Not me.
DeleteI'm a post-Xtian...
DeleteA St. John of the Cross'r.
One who deliberately CHOOSES to "put love where there is none".
DeleteFJ... I think like many on the right, you assume everyone on the left supports abortion on demand up to birth. While that may be true for the edges of the left, a great many of us prefer a system of safe, legal and rare.
ReplyDeleteI admit those goals, long ago supported by HRC, but missing in her most recent campaign, are not popular with NARAL and some others, but data shows those are the views of a great many Americans.
If we choose to vote on solely single issues, like abortion or gay rights, precluding any difference in viewpoint, boy are we in a fix.
lol! The DNC will kick you out if you don't support abortion. Talk to Keith Ellison.
DeleteFJ, how is that different, even though it is untrue, from a GOP that won't accept a pro choice stance?
DeleteAnd that's my point... single issue voters are killing politics here in the US.
How is the DNC any more "altruistic" than the "cannibal capitalists" of the RNC?
DeleteJoe, "cannibal capitalism" refers to things like profiteering from healthcare and education, Free Trade with non-competitive nations, war profiteering and stuff like that. Anecdotes of corruption are not arguments for anything. You think the Republicans are any less corrupt when it comes to stuff like that? If you do, you're just dumb.
DeleteJMJ
The teachers unions in failed schools aren't "profiteering" from education? The university professorship tuition raining Left isn't profiteering from minority dropouts from universities? Who knew?
DeleteFJ - Jersey is correct IMO. Abortion is a distraction driven primarily by religious conservatives.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea why you think Jersey is bragging about 50 million dead fetuses. I've never read anything he has written that would lead one to that conclusion.
What has always bothered are the extremes. Those who would deny a women's right to abortion except for rape or the the death of the mother and those who support abortion on demand w/out restriction.
I personally can't understand why folks on both sides can't accept a reasonable standard, perhaps up to viability, and move on. But that's me.
Dave is right as well. Effective politics and governance is a give and take. Or at least it should be.
Standing up for the rights of the unborn is morally bankrupt? Who knew?
Deleteps - Allowing for abortions under certain conditions (rape incest) IS the very model of a non-extreme compromise position. Abortion on demand IS an extreme position, by definition.
FJ... I can probably live with the Catholic view on pro life, but sadly, most conservatives don't care for their views on the rest of life.
DeleteBecause that would give people quality health care, end the death penalty, etc.
It seems as if many are prolife only for a fetus, once that baby is born, it's on it's own.
You're not on your own. G_d WILL provide.
DeleteHave a little "faith," Thomas!
DeleteFJ, yes, using the abortion "issue" to distract people from real issues affecting their everyday lives is deeply morally bankrupt. In fact, the whole anti-abortion movement is deeply morally bankrupt. Who the fuck are you to tell a woman what she can and can't do with her life, with her body? You are no better than those Dark Ages Jihadis in your position.
DeleteJMJ
How so? Mine is a logical/rational position devoid of any religious context.
DeleteMy ass.
DeleteJMJ
Take you head out of the ass of Identity Politics, and you'll recognize I'm right.
DeleteWhat are you talking about? What are you "right" about? I don't care what you think about abortion. I don't think your opinion matters. You are not a woman. It is none of your business. Yours is the position of the theocrat. No rational-thinking grown man asks silly, childish, pointless questions, like you'd pose, laying on the grass in the evening, looking up at the stars, when you're 10 years old, to your big sister, thinking your first childhood 'big thoughts,' "Gee, when you suppose "life" begins?" As a scientific matter, there is no answer. Is a virus "alive?" Is a seed? It's an open question. We expect one day far off to find all sorts of "life" out there in the universe. It's just esoteric daydreaming.
DeleteIn real life, where real life people have real life problems and need real life help, your and your compatriots in this made-up, nonsensical "issue," sophistry only gets in the way. It offers no positive answers. No good outcome. Just forcing women to carry unwanted children to term, like backwards Arab tribesmen.
JMJ
"You're not a woman so its' none of your business".
DeleteTalk about swallowing Left-wing propaganda lock/stock/barrel!
You're not a Mexican, so don't worry about Immigration!
DeleteIdentity politics run AMOK!
Well, immigration can certainly affect you! How is that like abortion?
DeleteJMJ
There used to be an alternative to abortion. It was called a shotgun marriage. Of course, you couldn't claim that THAT alternative didn't effect any men....
DeleteMy wife and her health and welfare, my health and our finances, my mom taking care of my disabled octogenarian father, my nieces and nephews in school and the military and their futures, the roads and schools and public safety workers and volunteers, the sleazy cons messing with Net Neutrality and the CFPB and the ACA, whether the Jets are going to have another essentially quarterback-less year... these are things that matter to me. I just couldn't imagine fussing around about an issue like abortion.
ReplyDeleteFirst. I'm a man. As it is, abortion does not affect me.
Seriously though, it is such a deeply, deeply personal matter between just a couple of people, or even just one, all alone. A person all alone who really needs help. The young girl who so desperately doesn't want to disappoint her father or mother, but does not want to be pressured into committing to something that will seriously affect her for the rest of her life. The married woman who made on terrible mistake and truly loves her spouse. The raped woman who asks nothing more than to forget that terrible day. Why would anyone want to stick their fucking noses, to impose their fucking personal morality, in the lives of these people? Why? Who the hell are you? Who asked you? A fucking embryo?
Abortion is an issue on my radar now, yes, but only because the sleazy cons are undermining RvW all over the Red States. Most of the history of legal abortion in America has been a reasonable affair, with strict rules and laws and limits, no federal funding for elective abortions, it's been safe and effective, crime and a host of other social ills, including abortion itself, because yes, it would be nice if it didn't happen, all went down drastically starting exactly one generation removed from RvW. It's just better that it be legal and safe and reasonable no matter how you look at it. Just for easing the tension on some poor raped kid should be reason enough, but when you look at the whole thing, to me, to be anti-abortion, is to be one nosy, annoying, abusive jerk. I have good friends that are pro-life (some politically pro-life, some not, because that's another aspect of this - you don't HAVE to impose every religious value you have on society), and I get it that they truly believe abortion is symptomatic of a society in decline, but the good news (pun intended) is that abortion rates are down to, and with time we can get them very, very low, if we just take better care of kids we already have and the plenty more on the way.
JMJ
First. I'm a man. As it is, abortion does not affect me.
DeleteFunny, that wasn't my wife's position when she pressured ME into getting a vasectomy after our third child was born...
I suppose I should have just told her, "Honey, don't bother me. I'm a man. Abortions are YOUR problem."
DeleteFirst. I'm a man. As it is, abortion does not affect me. Unless the woman you have sex with aborts YOUR child.
ReplyDeleteI'm a father. Are you saying that I have NO responsibilities at all with regard to MY children?
Delete"Unless the woman you have sex with aborts YOUR child."
DeleteYou can't abort a child.
"Are you saying that I have NO responsibilities at all with regard to MY children?"
No, I'm not. But I do not think parents should be forcing raped children to carry babies to term. That would be severe child abuse, IMHO.
JMJ
JMJ
The vast majority of those on the right make exceptions in cases of rape or incest. It's "proof" that unlike the third trimester aborting "the life of the mother will be "stressful" Lefties, they're willing to compromise.
Deleteps - Keep telling yourself that a fetus isn't a child and that "life" doesn't begin at "conception."
DeleteFJ and Speedy... can we not leave the decision, with some reasonable restrictions, to the woman, her doctor and her pastor?
ReplyDeleteAs conservatives, would you favor universal coverage of birth control (IUDs, the pill, etc) if it could be shown to bring the abortion rate down?
Sure, just throw "fathers" out of the "modern family" entirely.
DeleteI have no beef against birth control other than I don't want to pay for someone else's. I'll pay for my own, thanks very much.
Sex HAS consequences (pregnancy). I know you prefer your coffee w/o caffein, but that doesn't mean I need to pay for the decaffeination.
...or abortions. Pay for your own "Epimethean" birth control forms. I worship PRO-metheus (fore-thought).
DeleteThersites, again, you are not paying for anyone's elective abortions. Medicaid, I believe, only pays for those very rare situations where some uninsured woman has a mortal emergency that requires the procedure. But that's a medical emergency. You wanna start picking and choosing which people get to live based on your Islamist (?) beliefs?
DeleteJMJ
I subsidize Planned Parenthood's facilities, of which abortion constitutes 3% of their offered services yet accounts for 51% of their "profits".
DeletePP is a non-profit. The reason abortion accounts for that number is because patients have to pay for as much of it as they can afford. Most of the other services, (like 97% or thereabouts) are relatively inexpensive (writing a scrip, a referral, an exam, informational material, etc). Abortion is a serious medical procedure and costs money, money that PP, because they receive federal and other dollars, can't spend on elective abortion. Because of affiliations of doctors with PP and hospital systems, PP picks up a lot of the emergency abortions, often right there on the spot, as a woman walks in, bleeding, scared for hers and her baby's lives, while people like you go out of their way to her life even more difficult. You should be ashamed of yourself. You couldn't be any further out on the wrong side of this sleazy, made-up, theocratic "issue."
DeleteJMJ
I'm paying for the infrastructure already, so why fight making it "safe" for "serious medical procedures" (abortions) by requiring hospital like equipment? The Left isn't making "sense". It's stuck in the 70's when all the illegal abortionists opened their own "clinics" w/o proper medical certs or training and were afraid of getting shut down.
DeleteThersites, to me and most people who understand the subject enough, "human life" is defined by a number of things, among them are the ability to think, to have a thought, a memory, to feel (sensation, which is dependent on the prior), to have the ability to remember things (again goes with the first), and so forth. Even to possibly have those things, as with the comatose person who may yet wake up and has sustained brain activity even if very minimal, or the later developed fetus (at about 28 weeks of development from conception) who now has all their neural systems connected if not yet fully developed, is "a living human" from what I and most even modestly informed people know. The science, which is subject to change but only if some new evidence or theory comes along, behind all this is well-established now, and hasn't changed much since RvW. The Justices in RvW took a pretty safe route. They drew the line before it is possible for a fetus to suffer in any mental way, as it is not neurologically capable yet.
ReplyDeleteI don't even have a problem drawing the line even earlier, myself. Personally, I would draw the line at 18 weeks or so, within the first there months, just to be on the safe side, and more than enough time to realize one is pregnant unless there is some other medical concern, which would probably cause a host of other problems as well. There are exceptions to most rules, after all.
As far as "life beginning at conception," that's a theological argument that I don't care to engage. It's no more than a dopey platitude to me.
It is rare that late-term abortions happen just because the mother is feeling depressed or something like that. The law is pretty straightforward about that. You have to have a serious medical condition for most ob's to even think about such a decision. Late-term abortions, which are a tiny fraction of those performed, are most always performed because it's too late for the fetus anyway (not going to be viable, to survive), and/or the mother is in a mortally dire situation, in which case abortion is always a last resort and usually it is the very non-viability of the fetus in the first place that is causing the problem or is another symptom of it.
I do not think you understand the issue at all. I think you are intellectually corrupted by your religious beliefs or philosophy, and Lord knows you are one philosophical dude. You are worried about things here that are untrue, mythological, and/or just plain nosiness. You are never going to have to worry about this issue. It really is none of your, or my, business.
JMJ
Supreme Court Justices haven't a CLUE as to what a baby thinks or feels at 18 weeks. Zip. To state otherwise is just "dumb".
DeleteCome up with a new way of temporarily sterilizing people and get rid of Epimethean abortions ENTIRELY! There are PLENTY of methods today (IUD's, birth control pills, patches, tubal ligation), but for some reason, many women are much to STUPID to avail themselves of them.
There's no "mystery" involved in conceiving a child. None. So why are we at 50,000,000 abortions and counting?
DeleteThe definition of insanity is to continue on with birth control AND abortions. Pick one. I'm tired of paying for "both".
DeleteYou don't pay for either, or at most very, very,very little. Probably like 1/100000th your taxes. There is very little federal, state or local spending on abortions or birth control.
DeleteJMJ
So you won't have any problem dropping the Obamacare contraceptive mandate, since it costs so very little for women to get contraceptives and abortions.... right?
DeleteSpeaking of health care, shouldn't you be pushing your "affordable" SINGLE PAYER plan?
DeleteThe pill? That's for a lot more than just contraception. Are you married? Ever live with a woman for a long time? And abortion? There's no elective abortion covered by any "mandate" I know of, but I may be mistaken(?).
DeleteWith a population 40 million, 400 billion is about 10k a year per person, which is the national average, which is where that figure comes from. In CA it would require 50-100bil more revenue per year, or about $1250-2500 per capita per year, which is around 1/4-1/2 the average per person premium, and deductions and co-pays would no longer be needed. It's a good idea. Of course, if the whole country followed suit, it would give consumers, all of us, a lot more leverage to control costs. And imagine the boon to businesses and exports and jobs in the US is employers didn't have to deal with healthcare anymore! So thank you for proving a point I've been making to anyone who would listen for over 25 years now.
JMJ
No, $10k from a "worker/employee" covers a family. California raises the "cost" to $40K for the same "family".
Deleteps - Minors don't pay "taxes" either.
Deletepps - California only has 18 million "workers", so every active "worker" needs to pay $22K to get everyone "covered".
DeleteI read all about it, FJ. I did the math. CA, just like the rest of us, just like the rest of civilized world, will be better off with it. I don't know what you have against national insurance. It works very well with Medicare, it's overhead is as low as a 10th of the private sector's and it deals with mostly elderly, high-risk, high-cost people. But no, you are wrong about your math. I did all the reading yesterday, so I'm not going to attempt to reread it all today, but it doesn't matter. When it comes to this issue, like abortion, your mind is completely made up. It's like AOW with guns. I just can't beat my head against that wall anymore.
DeleteJMJ
Yes, lets put the government in charge of all future health research. Ever read Solzenietzen's "Cancer Ward"? We'll be back to leeches and blood lettings before you know it.
DeleteCuba is a great example. Lots of doctors. Not one that you'd trade an American specialist for.
DeleteWe can put the whole USA on the Maduro Diet and cut America's obesity mortality rate significantly!
DeleteI'm getting back to the main topic. I feel for Roger Ailes' loved ones. They lost their patriarch. I pray that God comforts their family in their time of loss.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that is sad. I have to say I was very impressed with the way he handled his illness all his life. So, yeah, I do feel bad for them, and there's a nice thing I could say about him.
DeleteJMJ
Interesting thread. The subject is Roger Ailes, and the discussion is about abortion. Is there a message here?
ReplyDeleteYes, don't say stupid sh*t like, "Everything they stand for is morally bankrupt." when your own "party" is trying to make "choice" a litmus test for membership.
DeleteOh please, I'd say it til the cows come home in drag. The GOP is institutionally, definitively, philosophically morally bankrupt. Galbraith summed them up perfectly when he described "modern conservatism" as noting but morally justifying greed.
DeleteJMJ
Greed has its' virtues. It feeds more people than altruism.
DeleteIf the "greed" is making a better life for you and your family without ripping people off, that's called "being a good person who makes food for a living," not "greed." "Altruism" is one of this endlessly regressive terms I avoid. There is no virtue in greed. None.
DeleteJMJ
from Hesiod's "Works and Days"- So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature. For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due. But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night, and the son of Cronos who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel.
DeleteShaw... that's the way it is somedays at Jersey's hangout.
ReplyDeleteAt least for the most part, people refrain from calling each other outright names, no matter the discussion...
Ailes is an interesting guy. I often wonder where politics would be today without him. Love him or hate him, he's been, IMHO, transformational.
It's to bad FOX's failing has to do with their on air personalities misbehavior and not their horrible news. Americans will miss a good lesson on what good journalism should be.
ReplyDeleteAs for Ailes, America won't miss someone who created so much hate and division among our people.
It's a great point - and the two are connected. Conservatism today is morally bankrupt, and sure enough, Fox News is a morally bankrupt news outlet, from the behavior of it's personalities, to the way they cover the news. It all comes from the same moral vacuum.
DeleteJMJ
At least we avoid siding with murdering the unborn to the tune of 50 million "Ooooopsies."
DeleteI'm sorry we live in such a slobby country, Thersites. What do you want? We've always been that way.
DeleteJMJ
Not before 1973.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteJersey, you should sub title this post "The Abortion Offshoot". Some folks may think Ailes should have been aborted. 😏
ReplyDeleteI don't believe abortion was legal when he was born so that probably was not an option (legal that is).
ReplyDeleteAbortion should not be anyone's business except the women getting the abortion because she has to live with her decision.
All of our esteem politicians devote their efforts on forcing their beliefs on everyone and abortion should be a non issue because it is a choice.
If women PAID for their own abortions, you'd be right. Since they DON'T, since they push most of the COST onto the REST of us, they can go 'F themselves.
DeleteYup skudrunner, back then it would have been illegal. Possibly with a coat hanger.
DeleteLegal and safe is by far superior.
So FJ, as long as the government [us/the US taxpayers] is not paying, you have no problems with abortion being legal?
ReplyDeleteI have no problem with abortion being "legal" during the first trimester. After that, it's just expensive birth control for really stupid people, and excessive stupidity, IMO, eventually deserves to get labelled "criminal".
DeleteI'd also add an option for the "father" to sue and prevent the abortion providing he assumes and is granted total financial responsibility for the pregnancy, recovery of the mother, and is subsequently granted complete and total custody of the child.
Delete...after all, if the woman decides to keep the child, she can sue for paternity.
DeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteAbortion is the law of the land and will remain so. I have no desire to pay for it but if the women does then it is legal. Of course I have no desire to pay for illegals healthcare, schooling, and living allowance either.
If we legalized all drugs, did not pay for illegals support and devoted that money to helping all citizens afford healthcare we would be way ahead.
The leftists are outraged that the current budget proposal will slow entitlement spending but they continue to support funding illegal immigrants. Of course it is up to the people who pay taxes to support both.
If we legalized them, then they'd just be paying taxes and getting services and that would be that. We just have to make sure everyone has ID. I hate to say it, but the ONLY way to fix illegal immigration is to legalize it, basically, allow people to declare a legal alien status, and we all have to live under one single national ID system.
DeleteJMJ
Trump's budget proposal will hit many of his core supporters the hardest. Oh well, let em squeal as the money saved flows to the top 2%. Trump's plan all along.
DeleteWhy should the government pay for men's penis (erection) pills?
ReplyDeleteDo they?
DeleteFrom a cursory google it says some people get it from Medicare and Medicaid, but they're not supposed to, and the expenditure is around 3 mil. The Pentagon, on the other hand...
"According to the Military Times, data from the Defense Health Agency indicate the U.S. Department of Defense spent $41.6 million on Viagra and $84.24 million total on drugs for erectile dysfunction in 2014."
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/pentagon-spends-a-lot-of-money-on-viagra/
LOL!
JMJ