into the gloaming

“Unfortunately, a lot of young folks haven’t had the opportunity to really understand how the economy works, and what it takes to put people to work in real jobs, and why we have banks, and what banks do. It’s a very understandable sentiment. If you don’t find a job, and you can’t see rising incomes. You’re going to be angry and looking at someone to blame.”

—

Mitt Romney to WBTV in Charlotte, N.C., discussing the protests at Bank of America.

Oh, we young people don’t understand “real jobs” and “what banks do,” yeah?

I argue we do. There’s a lot of us working two and three minimum wage jobs, going to school, graduating, barely surviving, or some combination of the above.

We’re consistently screwed by people like you, Mitt, who gambled with our parents’ retirement, who ensured most of us can never retire, who foreclosed on our families, who laid us off in the name of savings, who pissed away bailouts in executive bonuses and back slaps, as you grin in your expensive suits and tell us repeatedly that we DON’T GET how it works, as you reach into our back pockets for yet another checking account usage fee because we can’t keep a minimum balance, let me tell you…

WE GET IT.

We are fully proletarianized, working ourselves to the bone, paying the same tax rate as you, and praying to whatever is sacred that we do not get sick or injured because we are one paycheck or missed unemployment check away from completed ruin, while you and your cronies line up for another spin at the roulette wheel, your wallets fat from the products of our intellectual and physical labor.

FUCK YOU and your patronizing condescension. Fuck you with the all the fucks my exhausted self has left to give.

(via cognitivedissonance)

A-MEN!

"Unless the strident, authoritarian social conservatives loosen their stranglehold on American women, American women will abandon the Republican Party (as they're quitting church) and look for their candidates elsewhere,"

“Until those with power (men) decide to give it away to those who lack it (women), I believe we will continue to misrepresent Jesus’ heart and mar the beauty of his Kingdom,”

—Jim Henderson, Evangelical minister

huskerred:

In which David Frum goes into an impressive rant via Twitter.

You can read, so I’ll let you do just that.

For those not familiar with Twitter, you should read this from the bottom up.

(via soupsoup)

“Limbaugh is a professional speaker; he’s made millions of dollars by choosing words and saying them aloud. But now he wants us to believe that he chose these words improperly. For days. A momentary lapse of judgment? Sure. That’s possible. But to use the same words (that were chosen specifically to insult and degrade) over and over and over again … that’s not called choosing the wrong words. It’s pretty clear that he chose his words and he stuck to them for as long as he could, right up until it started to cost him money.”

— Ari Kohen’s not exactly a fan of the Rush apology. (via shortformblog)

(Source: producermatthew, via shortformblog)

A-to-the-MEN.

jpegartifacts:

I wish I had as much political power as a fetus.

(Source: thedismembermentflan, via stfuconservatives)

Think Progress: Mitt Romney's Top Out-Of-Touch Moments

think-progress:

It was hard for us to narrow this down to 6. We have more out-of-touch moments (complete with video) at Think Progress.

6. “I like those fancy raincoats you bought [to people wearing plastic ponchos]. Really sprung for the big bucks.’”

5. “I know what it’s like to worry about whether or…

Susan G. Komen Ends Funding to Planned Parenthood

Earlier today, Planned Parenthood announced that the Susan G Komen for the Cure foundation has decided to halt all funding for breast cancer screenings conducted at Planned Parenthood health centers due to increased pressure from anti-abortion groups.

According to a message posted on the Planned Parenthood website:

Over the past five years, Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation funds have enabled Planned Parenthood health centers to provide nearly 170,000 clinical breast exams and referrals for more than 6,400 mammograms. These cancer detection and prevention programs saved the lives of women who often had nowhere else to turn for care.

Now, after facing criticism from anti-choice, anti-women’s health groups, the Komen Foundation has decided to stop supporting women seeking care at Planned Parenthood health centers.

Needless to say, I find this absolutely infuriating. I have been a patient at Planned Parenthoodfor the past 10 years, since I turned 19 years old and went there for my first annual exam and PAP. As a woman without access to affordable health care, Planned Parenthood has been myonly source of consistent health care. I’ve gone there diligently, every year, for my annual exam and cancer screenings. I have a long history of fibroid tumors in my family, and receiving hormonal birth control from Planned Parenthood has spared me from countless agonizing symptoms. I’ve developed a rapport with my practitioner at the local clinic, and I know I can ask her for advice regarding just about any health issue. If I have a question she can’t answer, or a problem she can’t address, I can get her professional referral.

To say I’m dismayed at the decision of the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation would be a gross understatement. The way I see it is this: you either support women’s health programs, or you don’t. In the 10 years I’ve been a patient with Planned Parenthood, I’ve never had a decision forced on me. I was the one who determined I didn’t want to become pregnant. I was the one who decided to go on hormonal birth control. I was the one who chose what form of HBC I wanted. All Planned Parenthood did was provide me with options, and educate me on both the benefits and risks of those options. Largely in due part to the services provided by Planned Parenthood, I have never been pregnant. I’ve never had an abortion. Yet, according to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation, I don’t deserve access to these valuable services, because I receive them from a provider that also offers abortions/abortion referral services.

I posted the following to the Susan G. Komen for the Cure facebook wall:

I am beyond disappointed to learn that you have pulled funding from Planned Parenthood. As a woman without access to affordable health insurance, Planned Parenthood has been my *only* source for valuable cancer screenings for the last 10 years. If you were really concerned with women’s health, you would know that Planned Parenthood provides a variety of vital services to help women maintain their overall health. In your info, you state “Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever.”. “…do everything besides providing valuable funding for cancer screenings to those you don’t agree with politically” seems to be more like it. Well, that goes both ways. Susan G. Komen for the Cure will no longer be receiving any support from me.

Of course, this brought out the trolls. One particularly noteworthy response:

are you SURE you’re anti-troll?

I’ll admit, I’m not up on my abortion-related research. So I decided to do some digging. It didn’t take long, however. A quick Google search of “abortion cancer” brought me to the National Cancer Institute site; more specifically, the factsheet entitled “Abortion, Miscarriage, and Breast Cancer Risk“. According to the NCI:

The relationship between induced and spontaneous abortion and breast cancer risk has been the subject of extensive research beginning in the late 1950s. Until the mid-1990s, the evidence was inconsistent. Findings from some studies suggested there was no increase in risk of breast cancer among women who had had an abortion, while findings from other studies suggested there was an increased risk. Most of these studies, however, were flawed in a number of ways that can lead to unreliable results. Only a small number of women were included in many of these studies, and for most, the data were collected only after breast cancer had been diagnosed, and women’s histories of miscarriage and abortion were based on their “self-report” rather than on their medical records. Since then, better-designed studies have been conducted. These newer studies examined large numbers of women, collected data before breast cancer was found, and gathered medical history information from medical records rather than simply from self-reports, thereby generating more reliable findings.The newer studies consistently showed no association between induced and spontaneous abortions and breast cancer risk.(emphasis mine)

As far as the free clinics go, guess what? We don’t have one where I live. There may be 8,000free clinics in the United States, but when you consider that there are 1003 towns and cities in my state alone, that really isn’t very many. As a matter of fact, there are 442 free clinics in New York State, and from what I can tell, all but maybe 3 of them are in New York City. I live approximately 90 miles from NYC. It’s a 2.5 hour commute in each direction. I don’t have a car, and I can’t afford the $50 for the round-trip bus ticket. In my town, we have some urgent care clinics, but they require payment in full at the time of service, and they don’t provide any preventative care services. With limited funds and no health insurance, if I want any sort of women’s health service, Planned Parenthood is literally my only option.

I know I’m not alone in this. It’s certainly not beyond me that the majority of Planned Parenthood patients are low income, and have limited resources. So it makes me wonder about the Susan G. Komen for the Cure Foundation. What is it that they are really looking to do? It certainly doesn’t seem to me that they are concerned with promoting women’s health. If they were, they would not be revoking funding from such a crucial provider of women’s health services. The information on their Facebook page states:

Nancy G. Brinker promised her dying sister, Susan G. Komen, that she would do everything in her power to end breast cancer forever. That promise is now Susan G. Komen for the Cure, a wonderful reflection of her.

Apparently, “everything in her power” does not include providing funding to organizations with differing political opinions than she holds.

As I stated earlier, Susan G. Komen for the Cure will no longer be receiving any support from me. Instead, I will choose to focus on organizations that care about providing comprehensive care for women, and that do not buckle to political pressure. If you agree, please consider doing one (or both) of the following:

Sign the petition at Change.org urging the board at Susan G. Komen to reverse their decision regarding the halting of funding to Planned Parenthood.

Donate directly to Planned Parenthood

Tell Susan G. Komen for the Cure that supporting women’s health is more than buying pink, or wearing a ribbon.

If you’re thinking of voting Republican because you’re pissed at Obama, remember the words of Stephen Colbert in the voting booth.

cognitivedissonance:

If you’re thinking of voting Republican because you’re pissed at Obama, remember the words of Stephen Colbert in the voting booth.