Wednesday, January 31, 2018

The Senate is voting on a 20-week abortion ban. Opponents say it's “basically relying on junk science.”

The bill is based on claims about fetal pain that aren’t supported by research.


By Anna North  Updated Jan 29, 2018, 2:53pm EST
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[Update: Senate Democrats have blocked passage of this bill.]

On Monday, the Senate will hold a procedural vote on a bill that would make abortion after 20 weeks illegal in every state in the country. Called the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, it’s based on the idea that a fetus at 20 weeks’ gestation can feel pain.

“The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act will protect the voiceless, the vulnerable, and the marginalized," said Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the House majority leader, in a statement in September (the House passed the bill in early October). "It will protect those children who science has proven can feel pain.” While the bill is unlikely to pass the Senate because of the 60 votes required, President Donald Trump has promised to sign the it if it passes; during the campaign, he said such a bill “would end painful late-term abortions nationwide.”

In fact, the best available science shows that fetuses probably cannot feel pain until well after 20 weeks. Advocates of abortion rights say 20-week bans at the state level have harmed women, forcing them to travel to another state, often at great expense, to get the care they seek. And opponents of the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act fear that, even if it never passes, it will ultimately spread dangerous misinformation.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act is not based on accepted science
The bill, sponsored by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), would ban abortions after 20 weeks nationwide, except in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the life of the mother. A doctor who performed an abortion after 20 weeks, except in those cases, could face up to five years in prison. Women seeking abortions would not be penalized under the bill.

Read more
https://www.vox.com/identities/2017/10/3/16401826/abortion-ban-pain-capable-unborn-child-protection-act

Judge Orders Release Of Activist, Compares ICE To ‘Regimes We Revile’

By Matt Shuham | January 29, 2018 2:58 pm

A federal judge on Monday compared the behavior of immigration agents to “treatment we associate with regimes we revile as unjust” and issued an order for the release of a well-known immigration activist who was suddenly arrested on Jan. 11 during a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“There is, and ought to be in this great country, the freedom to say goodbye,” Judge Katherine B. Forrest of the Southern District of New York wrote in a court order.

“That is, the freedom to hug one’s spouse and children, the freedom to organize the myriad of human affairs that collect over time,” the order continued. “It ought not to be—and it has never before been—that those who have lived without incident in this country for years are subjected to treatment we associate with regimes we revile as unjust, regimes where those who have lived in a country may be taken without notice from streets, home, and work. And sent away.”

“We are not that country; and woe be the day that we become that country under a fiction that laws allow it,” Forrest added.

Read more
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/ravi-ragbir-release-freedom-to-say-goodbye

The Trump administration’s surprising idea to nationalize America’s 5G network, explained

Nobody thinks it’s a good idea, including the FCC.


By Emily Stewart  Jan 29, 2018, 4:10pm EST

National security officials are reportedly considering a plan to nationalize the United States’ next-generation 5G wireless network in an effort to guard against competitive and cybersecurity threats from China.

It would be an unprecedented move — especially from a Republican administration. And so President Donald Trump’s Federal Communications Commission, which would be a major player in such a project, immediately pushed back.

This all started Sunday, when Axios reported that officials at the National Security Council have put together a memo saying that America needs a centralized nationwide 5G network within the next three years. It proposes that the best option would be for the US government pay for and build the network and then rent it to carriers like AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile.

5G is shorthand for the “fifth generation” of wireless networks and would follow, as its name suggest, the current 4G, or fourth generation, system. It would offer faster speeds and greater capacity than previous generations and accommodate new technologies, such as self-driving cars, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things. Both AT&T and Verizon have plans to roll out 5G service in limited markets this year.

Reports of the memo pushing for a government-built and -controlled 3G network, which have been confirmed by other outlets such as the Wall Street Journal and Recode, have caused a stir in the telecommunications industry, in Washington, and even among members of Trump’s own administration. FCC Chair Ajit Pai, a Republican who was tapped by Trump to head the commission, on Monday morning came out in opposition of any such proposal for the government to nationalize a 5G network.

“The market, not the government, is best positioned to drive innovation and investment,” he said, parroting what would seem to be the obvious GOP position on the issue.

Read more
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/1/29/16946582/trump-5g-proposal-wireless-ajit-pai-fcc-china

Trump’s America: Open to Global Capital, Not People

robertreich

Trump to global CEOs and financiers in Davos, Switzerland: “America is open for business.” We’re now a great place for you to make money. We’ve slashed taxes and regulations so you can make a bundle here. 

Trump to ambitious young immigrants around the world, including those brought here as children: America is closed. We don’t want you. Forget that poem affixed to the Statue of Liberty about bringing us your poor yearning to breathe free. Don’t even try.

In Trump’s America, global capital is welcome, people aren’t.

Well, I have news for the so-called businessman. America was built by ambitious people from all over the world, not by global capital.

Global capital wants just one thing: A high return on its investment.

Global capital has no obligation to any country or community. If there’s another place around the world where taxes are lower and regulations laxer, global capital will move there at the speed of an electronic blip.

Global capital doesn’t care how it gets a high return. If it can get it by slashing wages, outsourcing to contract workers, polluting air and water, defrauding investors, or destroying communities, it will.

People are different. Once they’ve rooted somewhere, they generally stay put. They develop webs of connections and loyalties.

If they’re ambitious – and, let’s face it, the one characteristic that almost all immigrants to America have shared for more than two centuries is ambition – they develop skills, educate their kids, and contribute to their communities and their nation.

My great grandfather arrived in America from Ukraine. He was nineteen years old and penniless. What brought him here was his ambition. He built a business. He started a family.

Then he invited his brothers and sisters from Ukraine to join him. He put them up in his home and gave them some of his savings to start their own lives as Americans.

You may call it “chain migration,” Mr. Trump, but we used to call it “family reunification.” We believed it wasn’t just humane to allow members from abroad to join their loved ones here, but also good for the America. It made the nation stronger and more prosperous.

By the way, Mr. Trump, global capital doesn’t create jobs. Jobs are created when customers want more goods and services. Nobody invests in a business unless they expect consumers to buy what that business will produce. Those consumers include immigrants.

Consumers are also workers. The more productive they are and the better they’re paid, the more goods and services they buy – creating a virtuous circle of higher wages and more jobs.

They become more productive and better paid when they have access to good schools and universities, good health care, and well-maintained transportation systems linking them together. 

This combination – people rooted in families and communities, supplemented by ambitious young immigrants, all aided by good education and infrastructure – made America the economic powerhouse it is today. 

Along the way, regulations proved to be necessary guardrails. We protected the environment, prevented fraud, and tried to stop financial entities from gambling away everyone’s savings, because we came to see that capitalism without such guardrails is a mudslide.

We didn’t accomplish what we’ve achieved by cutting taxes and slashing regulations so global investors could make more money in America, while preventing ambitious immigrants from coming to our shores.

We raised taxes – especially on big corporations and wealthy individuals – in order to finance good schools, public universities, and infrastructure. We regulated business. And we welcomed immigrants and reunited families.

Global capital came our way not because we were a cheap place to do business but because we were fabulously productive and innovative place to do business. 

Now Trump and his rich backers want to undo all this. No one should be surprised. When they look at the economy they only see money. They’ve made lots of it.

But the real economy is people. America should be open to ambitious people even if they’re dirt poor, like my great grandfather. It should also be open to their relations, whose family members here will give them a start.

It should invest in people, as it once did.

America didn’t become great by global capital seeking higher returns but by people from all over world seeking better lives. And global capital won’t make it great again.

Source
http://robertreich.tumblr.com/post/170233208105

"Cuck"-obsessed conservatives may harbor dreams of being cuckolded

BOING BOING

The term "cuck", short for "cuckold", is used largely on America's right to insult men they consider to have been taken advantage of, willingly submissive, or otherwise weak. Among the more curious terms in the modern political lexicon, it is amusingly derivative of the term's use to refer to a porn category centered around men forced to watch their partners have sex with other men, often men of color. Sex researcher David Ley studied the cuckolding phenomenon as a whole, saw conservatives angry at reportage of this work, wondered if something interesting is going on in their heads, and found that yes, yes there was, if only because it's going on in a lot of people's heads.

25 Jan
Paul Joseph Watson
@PrisonPlanet
CNN literally promoting cuckoldry. pic.twitter.com/UiYAgrokm1
David J. Ley PhD
?@DrDavidLey
As one of the authors of the research, I find this thread fascinating. I've noted the conservative obsession with #cuckolding and suggest that this faux scorn masks a whole lot of hidden fantasy and desire...
11:15 AM - Jan 25, 2018
 133 133 Replies   91 91 Retweets   493 493 likes

Read more
https://boingboing.net/2018/01/26/cuck-obsessed-conservative.html

Religiously speaking

GunFail and our well regulated militia at work

News, opinions, tweets and more 1.31.2018 #1

Trump's Infrastructure SCAM - Video link

https://www.facebook.com/RBReich/videos/1845962538749667/

Trump SOTU - one lie right after another - VIDEO link

https://www.facebook.com/NowThisPolitics/videos/1898967683468046/

Political posters 1.31.2018