Dinesh D’Souza Indicted for Campaign Finance Fraud
Dinesh D'Souza has been indicted by a federal grand jury for being incredibly stupid.
Dinesh D’Souza has been indicted by a federal grand jury for being incredibly stupid.
Politicker (“Dinesh D’Souza Indicted for Campaign Finance Fraud“):
Dinesh D’Souza, a controversial political commentator, author and former president of King’s College, was indicted today by a grand jury for alleged campaign finance fraud, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office announced this evening.
According to the office, Mr. D’Souza, 52, is charged “with violating the federal campaign finance laws by making illegal contributions to a United States Senate campaign in the names of others and causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission in connection with those contributions.”
According to a complaint, Mr. D’Souza contributed $20,000 to a New York Senate candidate’s campaign—five times the legal limit—by using straw donors, whom he later reimbursed.
FEC campaign finance records show Mr. D’Souza made two $2,500 contributions to long-shot Republican New York U.S. Senate candidate Wendy Long in March 2012—the maximum allowed. Ms. Long was handily defeated in the general election by Democrat Kirsten Gillibrand. Ms. D’Souza’s wife at the time, Dixie D’Souza, also gave $5,000 that March, records show. The indictment says the candidate in question was unaware of Mr. D’Souza’s allegedly illicit activities.
“As we have long said, this office and the F.B.I. take a zero-tolerance approach to corruption of the electoral process. If, as alleged, the defendant directed others to make contributions to a Senate campaign and reimbursed them, that is a serious violation of federal campaign finance laws,” Mr. Bharara said.
Mr. D’Souza is a well-known conservative commentator anId best-selling author who was forced to step down as president of the Christian King’s College in October of 2012 after reports surfaced that he had checked into a hotel with a woman he introduced as his fiancée, even though he was married to another woman, according to reports at the time. He most recently drew fire when he called President Barack Obama a “grown-up Trayvon” on Twitter.
D’Souza is just a very few years older than me and I was a big fan of his going back a quarter century or more ago, when he was a precocious rising star among the conservative commentariat. His arguments, alas, grew stale over the years, both because he seemed not to evolve beyond his views as a just-out-of-Dartmouth wunderkind and because my own views have indeed evolved in light of experience and new evidence.
Regardless, though, this is a saddening turn of events. Between contemptible commentary on Twitter for a grown ass man who should know better, his disgraceful treatment of a woman he pledged to honor until death did them part, and the most ill-advised political crime since Watergate, D’Souza has become a pathetic figure.
One word:
Schadenfreude
I do not wish ill on any person, but there are some indictments that I have read with great satisfaction.
Also today, count Mike Huckabee as yet another Republican with unusual views about female sexuality. Honest question, do conservatives actually know any women?
Pathetic, indeed.
Hilariously, it appears that his last tweet before the indictment dropped was this:
Well, maybe if Hollywood Conservatives weren’t crooked, corrupt, bigoted d-bags, it would stop… Schadenfreude indeed.
The guy’s a complete twat, but it’s still sad.
D’oh!
Finally, finally, a documented case of actual electoral fraud! If this doesn’t make the case for voter ID, I don’t know what does….
I came upon his work well after his “prime” (I’ll take James’ word for it that he had such a thing). His arguments seemed weak. I guess I wouldn’t have predicted these various troubles, however.
He must be suffering from early dementia. There not only no way he was going to get away with it there was no way Wendy Long was going to win – she ended up getting 27% of the vote.
Let it rip James…
27% of the vote… the crazification factor!
Seriously, I feel nothing but schadenfreude. It couldn’t happen to a better d’ouche.
Glad I was between sips when I read that. I’d probably still be cleaning coffee off my monitor.
There is probably more to this than meets the eye. Why would D’Hack go to such lengths to funnel money to a no-hoper candidate? I doubt it was out of ideological conviction and I think it is unlikely that he took the risk of illegally circumventing campaign finance laws without a quid pro quo, either from the candidate (in which case, the candidate has to know) or from the real donor(s). As always, when dealing with grifters of his ilk, the investigators need to “follow the money”.
Indeed, they probably are doing and his indictment may well be leverage simply to mount the trail
Actually, what Huckabee said was about these so-called empowered women who want the government to provide them birth control. Where is the empowerment in that?
Although I knew he’d held extreme views for years, the real breaking point for me was the “Kenyan anti-colonial” nonsense and, in particular, his statement in one interview where he said the following about Dreams from my Father: “The whole book is about how Obama shaped his values, personality, and identity in the image of his father.”
That line is pretty proof positive that D’Souza is not just an extremist, but also a liar. There simply is no way anyone who read Dreams from my Father could possibly interpret the book in that way. (As one commenter to the above blog post noted, it would be like describing To Kill a Mockingbird as a book about hunting.) It sounds like the sort of thing a high school student cramming at three in the morning for a term paper due the next day on a book he hadn’t read would come up with. It’s an interpretation that begins to approach Manson-Helter Skelter bizarreness, yet since D’Souza has never struck me as insane, there’s only one other explanation. So the idea that he may have committed another type of fraud is entirely unsurprising to me.
D’Souza indicted and Bieber arrested in the same week? Praise be to the Spaghetti Monster.
@JoshB: And Hunter Moore! All on the same day! It’s a Pastafarian miracle!
Couldn’t believe it when I found out that he’s actually 50+. He looks way younger, and not in a good, Ralph Macchio, way.He looks, and acts, childish.
Drudge, The Gateway Pundit, and their ilk are calling this a politically motivated move by the Obama DOJ. Let the wagon circling begin.
I can’t remember where I read this so no link but his lawyer actually said something along the lines of “This is just a result of D’nesh trying to help some friends.” I think he needs to get a new lawyer too.
@al-Ameda: As a number of commenters over at Eschaton noted, some days the schaden just freudes itself.
@JoshB:
Of course they are; and if a Republican was in the White House, they’d call it “appeasing the Democrats.” When you’re the eternal victim, there’s no accountability.
@Montanareddog:
He and the candidate seem to have known each other for a long time – they worked together on the Dartmouth Review
Maybe this is unfair of me, but this makes ME sad, James. D’Souza “got stale” only because he started saying the quiet part loud, (and louder, and LOUDER (Kenyan Anti-Colonialist).
@OzarkHillbilly:
Right. It’s obvious he did what they say he did. They’re going to try and plea down with a combo of “oh I didn’t know that was wrong” and “oh, I’m such a good friend I made a mistake.”
Actually, I bet he *was* doing it to help an old friend. That’s plausible. It’s also pretty obvious he thought the law shouldn’t apply to him.
Ah, let the wingnut crying of persecution begin. I’ve already seen multiple comments elsewhere about how this is all a “witchhunt” and how it’ll be payback time when the GOP regains power. Heh, two things: 1) classic projection; and 2) this is one item on a long list that results in voters choosing against letting the GOP back into power.
Hey wingnuts: guess what, your “thought-leaders” are grifters. They lie to you for fun and profit, and they don’t think laws apply to them. All the things they tell you about liberals actually apply to them in spades. It’s the ‘ole “I’d do that to win, so they must be doing it too” disease.
@Rob in CT:
My worldview has evolved significantly at 48 from where I was at 23. Hell, it’s evolved considerably since I was 38. So, I’m sure I’d regard a lot of D’Souza’s arguments from the late 1980s as silly now.
Additionally, though, as I’ve been arguing for years, part of the problem with Movement Conservatism is that it just hasn’t moved. It began as a backlash against some of the radicalism of the late 1960s and 1970s and, with the exceptions of some social issues, largely won.
But, for example, the fight against taxes that made perfect sense when the top marginal rate was 90 percent or even 70 percent become absurd when it’s 35 percent. Go to, say, a CPAC conference and it seems like you’re stuck in a bad time travel movie where everyone has been transported to 1983.
And, yes, the whole Kenyan Colonialist thing is just bizarre. I think that’s as much a function of needing to be more provocative to stand out in a more competitive media environment as it is of real racism. But it’s nonetheless sad and unworthy of intelligent commentators.
@James Joyner:
If D’Souza’s motivations were “I will never be outn***ered again,” that’s not much of a defense in my book.
@James Joyner:
I feel genuinely sorry for actual conservatives like you, now marooned in the Republican Party. It must be similar to what I felt as a Democrat in the 70’s.
@michael reynolds: Probably. I’m reduced to calling myself things like “Jon Huntsman Republican,” which is a virtual oxymoron. I’m clearly not a Democrat, either. I suppose I can declare myself an Independent, but that just begs the question in a two party world.
@James Joyner:
Oh, now you’ve gone and done it…
@James Joyner:
I accept that you may not vote for them, but it’s really not clear to me where, after your personal evolution, you significantly disagree with Democrats. Probably my fault for not reading the blog thoroughly enough, or bad memory, but I’m not recalling examples.
But Jon Huntsman endorsed the Ryan Plan. Sorry, that was an instant fail. Maybe he wasn’t sincere in the endorsement but if it was, I would seriously reconsider affiliating yourself as a Jon Huntsman Republican.
James is a James Joyner Republican, not a Jon Huntsman Republican.
It occurs to me that at least one of the “individuals” who were D’Souza’s straw donors has probably now ratted on him. Yet the indictment names no names.
Hmmm…
Is there someone who was once close to D’Souza, but who now probably hates his guts? Someone who appears in public records as a contributor to the campaign in question? Someone who might be so mad at Dinesh that she might take evidence to prosecutors?
Hello Dixie D’Souza!
@LaurenceB: “Heaven has no rage like love to hatred turned, Nor hell a fury like a woman scorned.”
@James Joyner: “I suppose I can declare myself an Independent, but that just begs the question in a two party world.”
You are my new hero as quite probably the first person on the internet ever to use this phrase properly, instead of assuming it means “raising the question.”
Thank you!
@James Joyner:
Fair enough, and hey I’ve certainly changed between when I was 23 and now (37). Though I now disagree about the 70% marginal rate thing (I think there’s a place for that rate, very high up the income scale), I would have agreed with you even 5 years ago, but my leftward drift continues.
Props for proper use of begs the question (something I cannot – just flat cannot – get right myself).
@Ron Beasley:
27%?
That “Crazification Factor” number seems to show up quite often.
@gVOR08:
Actually, James, unlike Doug, has said that he would vote for Democrats in certain situations. I think of James as the true independent here.
Yay! Yay! Yay! A conservative got in trouble! And look, some conservatives are reacting in a partisan way. Those idiots.
Welcome to Obama’s America.
If he’d laundered cash through a 501c4 he probably’d have gotten away with it. Next time, try SuperPAC.
@al-Ameda: 27%?
That “Crazification Factor” number seems to show up quite often.
Maybe it’s a Golden Ratio of Nut. A talmudic argument holds holds there was a place at the at the second temple for the unusual “that measuring 27 cubits by 100 cubits”
@Rob in CT:
My drift has been leftward as well, which is just the opposite of what conventional wisdom holds. I’ve always been a social issues liberal or libertarian. But as I witness the collapse of conservative economic notions I’m more and more skeptical that the right embodies any economic principle beyond ‘I got mine, screw you.’
And I’m disturbed by the depth of inequality in this country. I’m more and more upset by the power of money in politics and the concentration of real power in very few hands. I think my generation of liberals made a terrible mistake allowing the destruction of the unions in this country. And I think it’s clear that conservatism has nothing to offer any thinking person. I think the entire thing has been a giant con game.
@michael reynolds: I cannot see how any thinking person could remain a Republican after the W Bush administration. I have run across a number of lifelong Republicans who in fact couldn’t.
@Pinky:
Awwww.
Actually, I’m smiling because a known ahole (outing fellow students as gay in college was just the warm-up. He’s a professional troll who was a conservative “rising star” because, basically, he was pretty good at getting a rise out of peoeple. Kenyan anti-colonialist. Grown up Trayvon Martin in the WH, etc) who blatantly broke the law (note: his own lawyer isn’t denying he did it) is actually be prosecuted. His Conservatism is icing on the cake, sure. But that he’s a massive, massive jerk is far more important to me.
If/when Bob Menedez goes down for corruption you won’t see me whining or making excuses for him (I was highly amused at the false Breitbart story about hookers, but that’s about their shoddy “journalism” not about Menedez).
@gVOR08:
I’m older than you are most likely, so it came with Reagan for me, with the sleazy race-baiting and the prominence of the religious right. I can barely stomach sharing a party with the smug, self-righteous neo-Puritans who populate the elite ranks of the Democratic party, but I’ll take them any day of the week over the Jerry Falwells and Pat Robertsons who eventually mutated into the Tea Party. At this point I would literally turn down a million dollar offer to join the Republican Party. The Republicans are dead to me.
@gVOR08: They’re certainly light-years from the intellectual conservatism of Buckley. But then we know he wasn’t too fond of G. W. Bush and considered the Iraq war a disaster, and believed the modern conservative movement had made a suicidal blunder by supporting it (and Bush).
@michael reynolds: No, you’re probably not older. It’s interesting that Reagan drove you away when he drew in so many “Reagan Democrats”. I would say it speaks to a level of insight. I blame Reagan for much of the current state of the Republicans and the country. If he had not put a pleasant avuncular face on conservatism, we would live in a different world.
@Rob in CT:
The Daily Caller. I’m sure it got reposted to different places, but that story was The Daily Caller’s, start to finish.
@Stonetools: “Women I know are smart, educated, intelligent, capable of doing anything that anyone else can do. Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women.” What part of that do you think is unusual?
@Pinky:
So you think that pointing out the difference between Britibart and the Daily Caller is worth mentioning, but remain oblivious to the facts regarding how Obamacare was passed, the level of obstruction the GOP is engaging in, and Huckabee’s idiotic statements.
Got it. (If it walks and talks like a GOP partisan…)
@David M: I think that if you’re going to call out a media outlet for its inaccuracies, you should be accurate about which outlet it was. As for Huckabee’s statements, I can’t find a full transcript online. Anyone?
@Pinky:
MIke Huckabee Speech
A full transcript hardly seems necessary
@David M:
Why?
@Pinky:
Because we’re not discussing the entire speech, and a request for a “full transcript” seems like a convenient excuse not to address the issue at all.
@David M: Well, from the articles I’ve seen, they’ve taken a couple of sentences out of context, or even parts of sentences. The “full” excerpt tells a different story. But what part of his statements would you like to address?
For example, I see this quote pulled: “helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing them with birth control, because they cannot control their libido.”
The context was the following: “And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of government, then so be it. Let’s take that discussion all across America, because women are far more than Democrats have made them to be.”
That clearly tells a different story, namely that Huckabee isn’t saying that women are helpless, etc., but that Democrats present women as helpless, etc. I don’t want to judge the whole thing, as I said, because I haven’t seen the whole text. But doesn’t it seem like a poorly-pulled quote to you?
@Pinky:
It’s hard to come up with any context that makes this statement any less idiotic.
@David M: There’s a rule in medieval theology that you shouldn’t even begin to argue with someone unless each of you can state the other person’s position to their satisfaction. What do you think Huckabee was saying there?
Wow, serious threadjacking. Sorry.
I’d be glad to continue this here or if an article comes up on the subject, but this was a bad breach of internet etiquette.
@Pinky:
Assuming your rule is correct, it’s clear Huckabee should not have made the statement to begin with. Idiotic is the charitable interpretation of it, stupid and insulting is probably more accurate.
@michael reynolds:
So you’re to blame! I knew I hated you for a reason. 😉
@Pinky: Bad Pinky. Bad Pinky! In the entire history of the internet, that has never happened before!
Indeed, much like Pinky excusing Huckabee’s repulsive statement…
@David M: It was indeed idiotic, but it was a different idiotic than many Democrats are making it. Huckabee (of whom I am distinctly NOT a fan) wasn’t asserting women “can’t control their libido,” he was asserting Democrats treat them as though they can’t. This is obviously inane, but not in the way of which he’s being accused.
Possibly a distinction without a difference, but a clear distinction.
@Mikey:
He actually goes beyond that to hint that the proper way for a woman to control her reproduction is just to repress her libido, and I think this is what is getting the most pushback. Moreover, I think it likely that this is not how Mrs. Huckabee kept the number of her children down to three despite 20 years of marriage.
In any case,he is wrong about who is paying for the contraception. The point of the law is that it’s the employer, not the government , that is paying for the contraceptive prescription. It’s just a great example of the confused thinking of conservatives on this issue
That is rather the standard teaching for both men and women in all the Abrahamic religions. No one should be surprised that that is the position of a Southern Baptist minister.
@Stonetools: Ah, the “cold showers and an aspirin between the knees” prescription…
Oh, it’s not so much a matter of being surprised, but rather, repulsed…and, in that regard, it’s not so much of a threadjacking after all…
@Pinky:
What? Can you actually show me anyone among the Democrats “present[ing] women as helpless, etc” or do you just like the taste of Huckabee kool-ade?
@Grewgills:
If he or she is unmarried, it is true, but much more applied in practice to women. A married woman’s duty is to submit to her husband’s “needs”, and if that results in serial pregnancies, so be it.
@Pinky: Huckabee is presenting birth control as something to aid women in having lots of sex when there are plenty of other medical uses for birth control you might want as part of your health insurance.
That’s the problem with what he said. He’s focusing on a cultural issue (sexual promiscuity) and ignoring the medical issue (ovarian health) that his opponents propose. That he disguises this as respecting a woman’s ability to control herself just digs the hole deeper.
@Grewgills: Standard boilerplate, yeah. Some theologies render those rules near-meaningless in a rather nuanced way, but tell that to your average country pastor and he might have an aneurysm.
@David M: I know this is hard…really hard…but can we not assume things are just idiotic? We have to be able to explain why they are idiotic. If we don’t, we end up being unable to. And if we can’t, we’re just as much the [unthinking] idiot.
Not saying you’re an idiot, just saying you’re not going to convince anyone by calling things idiotic and leaving it at that.
@Tillman:
This. This. This.
Another part of the notion that women constantly pop birth control pills because of their libidos that rather misses the point is that if one is on birth control pills the ratio is not 1 sex act per pill (that would be the Viagra, et al.) but rather you either on birth control pills daily, or one is not on birth control pills at all. That’s the way they work.
@Steven L. Taylor:
Indeed. Paul Waldman argues that one reason why conservatives are so tone-deaf on women’s issues is simple ignorance of the way the female reproductive system works.
Would it be too much to ask conservatives commenting on reproduction issues to open a d@mned high school biology textbook? Because its all in there-with illustrations, even. Or maybe they can ask their wives, “Honey, the Pill. How does it work?”
@Grewgills:
Well, thats not quite true. Most Protestants (including Southern Baptists) were fine with contraception-until the Kenyan Muslim decided to ram his Socialist health care system down “our” throats.An earlier Huckabee:
Never chalk up to theology what can best be explained by mendacity.
If I might …
I think that what Mike Huckabee was trying to say was, “There’s nothing wrong with the idea that Republican men make decisions concerning the reproductive health care choices that all women face.”
Are you guys messing with me, or do you really not understand what Huckabee was saying?
You might…
You might take it further and provide some incentive to keep the floozies in line.
Like Happy Huck the gunslinger!
@Pinky:
Enlighten us please. Meanwhile Sandra Fluke seems to have figured it out, and responds HERE. Money quote:
Game, set, match. So once again, a conservative comes off looking like an idiot bloviating about women. Ah well, lets hope they keep it up till they get voted out.
since this thread has sort of become an open thread, let me post a couple things:
Police: 3 Dead In Shooting At Baltimore-Area Shopping
So three more sacrificed to the Great God Gun. At this point we’re no better than Aztecs sacrificing to Quezalcoatl and we should stop telling ourselves that we are superior to those “savages.”
Then there is this character, who claims asking him to pay higher taxes is like Kristallnacht:
Tom Perkins is an investment banker who paid $115M for his 289 foot “dream yacht.” @#$hat of the day or not? Discuss
@ernieyball: The link at your link was great. This David Barton character is a real piece of work. I wasn’t aware of the Dominionist connection.
@stonetools:
How? I mean, really, how? I understand that he might look like an idiot, but not on the basis of what he said – only on the basis of what people listening to him, who admit that they don’t understand it, think he might have said. Seriously, this is what I’m always going to think of as the Clavin Tell, thanks to a comment by Jenos, which read roughly: “You’ve got a new tell. When you call something stupid, it means you don’t understand it.” And here’s the thing, I’m not the brightest guy in the world, but I’m not going to criticize someone if I don’t know what he’s saying. I’ll ask him to clarify, or I’ll look it up. That’s not such a high hurdle. Sometimes I’ll misunderstand something, but at least I’ll have formed an opinion on what I think the person meant, not on who he is.
Speaking of which –
@rudderpedals: I’ve already pointed this out to Ernie before. If you watch the tape of what Huckabee said, you’ll see that he was joking. He even got a laugh out of it. I’m no Dominionist, but I’m not going to lie about this the way Ernie does.
@Pinky: Maybe Ernie is the reason why I’m reacting so badly to this distortion of what Huckabee said. I’ve seen that people are willing to lie about him. I’ve got some problems with Huckabee, but like I said, that doesn’t justify lying about him.
We’ve had a couple of recent articles about political warfare, and about a perceived decline in blogging. I’m more concerned about both, thanks to this thread.
Yes it’s a joke! A sick, pathetic, lame attempt at humor!
I wonder if Huckleberry is aware he is channeling quotes from The Little Red Book by Mao Zedong.
@Pinky: Yes, he was trying to be humorous in a way that would connect with the audience.
However, he is suggesting that the only reason that women need birth control covered by insurance is because they can’t control their own sex drives. This is not funny.
Further, he is making it sound as if the debate is about the government providing birth control, which is not the case.
From a bottom line political point of view: do you rally think that this type of line helps the GOP with women?
@Pinky:
Well maybe we could start with your interpretation and defense of what he said. Please elucidate for us. I’ve given my interpretation – what’s yours?
You do understand that he has doubled down on his initial statement and is using it in fundraising email, right? And I disagree that he was joking- he was serious, at least in his fund raising email.
@Pinky:
The fact that something is a joke, and that people laugh at it, doesn’t excuse it if the message of the joke is itself bigoted. That is, in fact, one of the standard bigot / bully justifications: “jeez, I was only telling a joke, can’t you women / gays / blacks / whatever take a joke about how silly and stupid and slutty you are?”
But somehow the humor is always directed at other, weaker groups, never at the joke-teller’s own powerful in-group.
Be sure to watch the full account of Huck’s gunpoint speech. Not the edited version provided by United in Purpose. The group that sponsored Mighty Mike. They deleted his “forced at gunpoint” statement. Liars by omission?
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2011/03/31/mike-huckabee-wants-to-indoctrinate-you-at-gunpoint/
Oy.
Huckabee’s statement about people being forced at gunpoint was a joke, not his statement about the Democrats’ portrayal of women. And Ernie, I remember that I was the one talking about the original, full statement from the Barton introduction. It was omitted in one version online, but I was never defending the text of that clipped version, because the thing I was talking about wasn’t in the clipped version. By all means, people should watch the full introduction, because otherwise they’d have no idea what we’re talking about.
@Pinky:
I notice that you still haven’t provided a “reasonable” interpretation of his full, unclipped statement about women. We are all awaiting that with bated breath, so do hurry up and give us the benefit of your wisdom.
From Booman –
What do you make of that @Pinky:
@stonetools: That’s a toughie at this point. The words have been misanalyzed and overanalyzed to the point that I don’t know how I could say it clearer than Huckabee did, but I know that wouldn’t be enough. So let me step back a bit.
Government should be doing things that people can’t do for themselves. Fight wars, run sewer lines, pay the bills when you’re in a jam. We’ve all been in situations where we’ve needed someone else’s help, and we know what it feels like: comforting, demeaning, numbing. When we’re in the dentist chair and he tells us to spit, a part of our brains shuts off and complies. It’s the same when government steps in and tells us what to do. We resent it, we obey it, we lull ourselves into accepting it. It’s unhealthy, even though it can be necessary.
Overreaching government lulls us more than necessary. It leads us to accept the label under which we’re being helped. Our brains atrophy. We accept that we can’t get into a good school without help because we’re Minorities, that we can’t pay our bills without government assistance because we’re part of The Poor. We accept that we can’t negotiate with our employers or insurance companies on our own to get our basic health care needs covered. It’s demeaning. When I read that clip you posted from Fluke, that’s what I saw. “Birth control is vitally important to women’s physical and mental health….It allows them to take better care of themselves…” That’s the way you talk about children, or pets.
To tell a group of people that government has to do something for them is to tell them that they’re incapable of doing it for themselves. If I were a woman, I’d be offended that Fluke thinks I can’t figure out how to take care of myself. I’d think that she sees me as dependent.
–
I hope this is a start. If we’re going to debate politics in this country, we have to understand something of what the other person thinks.
But you are not.
If you were, you might “understand something of what the other person thinks.”
Then again…you might not…
@Pinky: I was trying to be charitable and assumed you were referring to the “Uncle Sugar” ref.
@Pinky:
I suppose that the capitalization is supposed to mean something profound here, but the truth of the matter is that, historically, minorities were denied access to good schools and that was only rectified by government action. And, oddly enough, the poor often can’t pay their bills without assistance, by definition. You seem to be more concerned that people might identify themselves with certain groups rather than the actual real problems at hand.
@Pinky:
Seems to me you are conceding that Huckabee’s statement cannot be defended. That’s good. At least you recognize that you couldn’t make sense of what he said. As to the rest, with all due respect, this sounds like conservative argle bargle. Let’s just stick to your view of Fluke’s statement. Are you saying that birth control isn’t important to women’s health? Are you saying that an unwanted pregnancy won’t seriously affect a woman’s life chances? Are you denying that birth control drugs aren’t used to treat life threatening conditions like ectopic pregnancies?
From where I sit, Fluke is citing facts and you are just waving your hands. I don’t see where women being provided preventive medical care make them like pets. If your health insurance policy provides that you get prostate cancer screenings and flu shots, does that make you child like? Didn’t think so.
Huck Sez: “Wait till you hear this one, you’ll laugh the wax right out of your ears!”
Ernie asks: “Pinky, who dis “we” you all speakin’ for?”
@Pinky:
It’s nice to get a man’s perspective on what a woman should and shouldn’t find offensive about what another woman says….
@Pinky:
No, it’s not. It’s the way you talk about human beings who have medical needs.
@Rafer Janders: Would it help if you looked online and found women saying the same thing?
@Stonetools: If you don’t want to have a serious conversation, that’s fine.
@Pinky:
What was unserious about the questions I asked re your interpretation of Fluke’s statement? Can’t you answer them?
@Pinky:
Are there women online saying birth control is unimportant? Are there women saying its demeaning that the government inks requires that insurance companies offer birth control as part of their standard plans? Do women think it’s wrong that insurance companies cannot now treat pregnancy as a pre-existing condition and deny women a policy for that reason?
Citation needed.
@Pinky:
No, but it would help if YOU looked and found it. If you make a claim, you’re expected to do your own research to back it up.
But considering that over 99% of sexually active childbirth-age women (*source below — see how that works?) will use birth control at some point in their lives, I don’t think you’ll find that many non-hypocrite women who somehow find it offensive to note that birth control is important for their physical and mental health.
*• More than 99% of women aged 15–44 who have ever had sexual intercourse have used at least one contraceptive method.[5]
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html
@Pinky:
Maybe it’s just the Christian in me speaking up, but the word I tend to use is humbling. Someone who feels demeaned at having to accept the help of another is suffering from too much pride.
So it becomes a self-reinforcing spiral of government assistance, I take it? How exactly does this spiral start? Do you think it begins with government labeling things as problems and attempting to fix them?
@Stonetools: Y’know, the polling suggests some women are Republican and do indeed think that. Let’s not pretend “women” are a monolithic front here.
Ohhh, so disenfranchised groups should simply suck it up and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, despite discrimination, and if they need help, perhaps they should turn to charity and if they still can’t make it, tough luck…yes, I’m sure that is so much less “demeaning” than accepting the help of government…you know what else lulls people more than necessary and atrophies their brains? When they are told that racism and sexism don’t exist anymore and when they are told that it is the fault of the poor themselves that they are in such dire straights and it is up to them alone to get out of their circumstances and that trying to make sure that everyone has access to health care is “evil socialism” and “Un-American”…talk about demeaning…
@Tillman:
I know that women are Republican and not monolithic. But I truly do not think that there are ANY women who view birth control as unimportant. I also think that there are very few women who think that insurance companies should be able to deny women policies because they count pregnancy as a pre-existing condition. I’d have to see some citations in support .
Seriously Pinky, in your post 1/24/2014 17:24 you use the word “we” at least ten times. You appear to be speaking for others as well as yourself.
I think it is a fair question to ask who you believe you are representing.
@stonetools: If I’m going to attack Danielle Steel it’s going to be her absolutely appalling writing. She makes Dan Brown look like Shakespeare.
@ernieyball: Himself and the tapeworm inside?
@Pinky: Oh, we understand what Huck is saying. It’s you who doesn’t seem to understand how patronizing and patting-on-the-head his comments are.
I don’t notice him making a similar fuss about ED drugs. Nor are you. Why is that?