The FRC have sent out a new emergency action alert email thingie to all its faithful, with an incredible density of lies, misrepresentations, goofiness, black-is-white cognitive dissonance, and general doltitude.
According to pundits, this was supposed to be the year that social issues took a backseat to the economy.
Yes, well, given that the GOP ran full-time on “jobs, jobs, jobs!” it’s not surprising that’s what folks were expecting.
Apparently, Democrats didn’t get the memo.
Really? Really?
If the last six weeks proved anything, it’s that the culture war is alive and well–and lurking in the halls of Congress. When the dust finally settled from last week’s budget talks, Americans learned that it wasn’t conservatives with a one-track mind. It was the White House and Senate leadership, who thought it was worth putting more than 800,000 people out of work to satisfy the single-issue abortion supporters in their ranks. “Thanks to the way this deal was struck,” the Wall Street Journal says, “we have a reminder that it was the Democratic President–and not the Republican Speaker–who stood on ideology.”
That’s a … remarkable way of framing how the budget deal went down. Which is was roughly, the Democrats caving to the GOP on on dollar cuts — giving them nearly everything they wanted. The GOP leadership kept saying it was all about the budget cuts … but when the Dems matched the numbers the GOP was asking for, then the Republicans made it clear that they didn’t just want budget cuts, but they wanted them to be tied particular “social issues” / “culture war” riders. The budget deal had to explicitly defund grants to Planned Parenthood. The budget deal had to explicitly defund grants that went to NPR. The budget deal had to explicitly eliminate the EPA’s ability to interfere with polluters. The budget deal had to do a variety of things that changed the status quo,and that appealed to the social conservative base / cultural warriors of the Right.
And that’s what the FRC (and the Wall Street Journal, of course) frame as the Dems standing on ideology?
By the way, that “Wall Street Journal” declaration is actually an op-ed piece by William McGurn, former Dubya speech-writer, former Newscorp executive, former WSJ chief editorialist. Not quite the Voice of Dispassionate Reason there.
To those inside the Oval Office, “…it was ‘chilling’ to see how inflexible Mr. Obama was.”
Ooooh. Chilling!
The original WSJ story is firewalled, but Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) has been gracious enough to copy the whole thing. And, remarkably enough, that whole “chilling” thing, which is carefully framed above as — well, of course, it must be from White House insiders, right? I mean, even Democratic functionaries were “chilled” by Obama and …
Well, no, it’s a description from a “Republican aide” to Rep. John Boehner. Again, not quite the voice of unbiased, objective authority here.
But as far as liberals are concerned, an attack on abortion is an attack on the Democratic Party.
No … liberals consider an attack on abortion to be an attack on women. That such attacks are almost inevitably by Republicans does sort of lend a partisan glow to the matter, to be sure.
D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray (D) obviously thought so. He was so angry about the ban on taxpayer-funded abortion in the District that he and 41 others plopped down in the middle of Constitution Avenue yesterday to protest. “The District restrictions that were part of the budget deal reached Friday were unacceptable,” Gray said, after he was hauled away by Capitol police. “It’s an outrageous position… All we want is to be able to spend our own money.” Like his party, the Mayor was willing to stand in the way of progress at a major crossroads to protect taxpayer-funded abortion.
Standing “in the way of progress”? That’s an odd turn of phrase. In reality, Mayor Gray was (as his own words demonstrate) incensed that the budget deal imposed the will of the Federal Government (or, in this case, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives) on the citizens of the District of Columbia, regardless of what their own elected representatives desired.
You know how that works, right, FRC? I mean, the Tea Partiers have been railing long and hard about how all those Federal Government types keep tromping over the local rights of the People. But I guess when those People live in DC, and protest about the same thing, then they’re just Democratic apparatchiks.
And for what?
For local control over local matters? For protection of a woman’s right to choose?
According to the latest D.C. census, the number of African-Americans in the city is alarmingly low. In one decade, “the black population dropped by more than 39,000.” Experts say the percentages haven’t been this low since World War II. Do liberals think that’s a coincidence?
No, “liberals,” like the Washington Post (whose story you link to) explain the change — a drop in black population and a rise in white population, thusly:
The demographic change is the result of almost 15 years of gentrification that has transformed large swaths of Washington, especially downtown. As housing prices soared, white professionals priced out of neighborhoods such as Dupont Circle began migrating to predominantly black areas such as Petworth and Brookland.
The city became a tougher place to live for working-class families, who had to contend with rising rents and soaring property taxes. Many of the new jobs created over the past decade have required higher education.
On the bright side, maybe if the city stops being so African-American, the GOP will consent to letting its citizens govern themselves and be represented in Congress.
Obviously, the local Planned Parenthood clinics are doing their job. So while Vincent Gray rages on about taxation without abortion representation, he should stop and consider where his city would be in another 10 years without the legislation. If you thought that black children were endangered before, imagine if the city could continue promoting free abortions to local women.
Right. Heaven forfend that this all be about changing demographics and the city of DC becoming more gentrified and attractive (and thus priced) to the more affluent. It must be all about Planned Parenthood’s Fiendish Sales Job Promoting Genocide of Little Black Babies.
Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood, the group that most actively targets African-Americans, is awaiting its federal funding fate.
The whole meme about Planned Parenthood somehow genocidally “targeting” African-Americans is hot right now in the anti-abortion movement. It ignores some basic economics.
- Wealthy folks can afford to get abortions. (And always have, even when it wasn’t legal.)
- Poor folks can much less afford to get abortions. (Which means that, when they had to, they turned to back-alley quacks and home remedies that killed and crippled.)
- The folks most likely to seek out inexpensive, subsidized abortion services (a tiny percentage of what Planned Parenthood does), as well as inexpensive subsidizied women’s health services (Pap smears, breast cancer checks, birth control, etc.) are most likely poor.
- Thus, Planned Parenthood is more likely to put clinics in poorer neighborhoods. Especially since more wealthy neighborhoods are going to be less sanguine about a PP clinic opening up there.
- If I have to draw a demographic line between “poorer neighborhoods” and African-Americans, you’ve obviously missed the point (or three).
So would you expect a clinic that provides inexpensive or free health services to the poor to be located in a ghetto, or in Beverly Hills?
As part of the budget compromise, President Obama agreed to give the Senate a vote on language to zero out Planned Parenthood’s tax dollars. “Surely it tells you something about who the real extremists are that an up-or-down vote is deemed a ‘concession,'” William McGurn wrote.
Make up your mind, FRC — is that part of the “budget compromise” a sign that Planned Parenthood is still “awaiting its federal funding fate”? Or is it a sign that the compromise was, in fact, utter rigidity in the face of “extremism”?
Let’s consider this another way.
If the goal of the budget debate was to cut the budget, who was it that threw in unrelated culture war items like Planned Parenthood in the mix. I mean, did the White House say, “Hey, let’s increase funding to Planned Parenthood under the existing Title X law”? No, it was the GOP that said, “We want to cut the budget and we want to try to destroy Planned Parenthood”?
If I go to a car dealership, and we haggle down the price of the car to where what I’m willing to offer meets the price the dealership is willing to sell at — and then the sales guy says I have to get a tattoo with the dealership name as well, am I being an “extremist” or “ideologue” if I say, “No, we’ve met on price, either agree or I walk away from the deal”?
The GOP was the group that was asking for policy changes, not just meeting a budget cut number. For the FRC to claim that it was the Dems who were driven by ideological rigidity is laughably dishonest.
Help your members take advantage of the opportunity.Contact your Senators and remind them that there are plenty of legitimate health clinics out there that will provide services to women other than abortion.
As has been noted widely, Planned Parenthood spends about 3% of its budget on abortion services (none of which money can, legally, be from federal sources). Even if you morally disagree with abortion, the vast majority of what PP does (and all of what it does with fedeal funding) remains clearly “legitimate.”
And 99% of them probably haven’t been implicated in child prostitution, sex abuse, or statutory rape!
And 99% of them probably haven’t been “implicated” by a hoax video, either.
But, then, honestly doesn’t seem to be high in “family values” promoted by the Family Research Council.
(via Right Wing Watch)