a hot debate
A polished, front-running Elizabeth Warren emerged from the first U.S. Senate primary debate and high-profile political test largely unscathed last night, as she and the five other Democratic candidates focused their fire on the Republican incumbent Scott Brown.
(via Elizabeth Warren doesn’t miss beat in Herald debate - BostonHerald.com)
We don’t believe in the kind of smallness that says it’s okay for a stage full of political leaders — one of whom could end up being the president of the United States — being silent when an American soldier is booed. We don’t believe in that.
We don’t believe in standing silent when that happens. We don’t believe in them being silent since. You want to be commander in chief? You can start by standing up for the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States, even when it’s not politically convenient. We don’t believe in a small America. We believe in a big America — a tolerant America, a just America, an equal America — that values the service of every patriot.
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President Barack Obama (via high-femme-diaries) My respect for this man just tripled. (via fuck-republicans) |
Ben Adler from the Nation
At the Fox News/Google Republican presidential debate in Orlando on Thursday, candidates argued with each other more frequently than at any of the previous debates, but they all shared one theme: that the federal government is the enemy. To a degree that has been unmatched in recent years, serious contenders for a major party nomination expressed contempt for the very government they seek to lead. You would have to go back to Barry Goldwater in 1964 and his segregationist allies to find a campaign when “states rights” were so in vogue.
Bioethicists have joined together to offer a reward of $11,000 to anyone who can prove the child Michele Bachmann mentioned repeatedly on television this week actually became “mentally retarded” from the HPV vaccine. One of the scientists is from Bachmann’s home state of Minnesota.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reports:
Steven Miles, a U of M bioethics professor, said that he’ll give $1,000 if the medical records of the woman from Bachmann’s story are released and can be viewed by a medical professional.
His offer was upped by his former boss from the University of Minnesota, Art Caplan, who is now director of the University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics. Caplan said he would match Miles’ challenge and offered $10,000 for proof of the HPV vaccine victim.
“These types of messages in this climate have the capacity to do enormous public health harm,” Miles said of why he made the offer. “The woman, assuming she exists, put this claim into the public domain and it’s an extremely serious claim and it deserves to be analyzed.”
Stupid scientists, trying to get in the way of a good story. Bachmann retreated a little, saying that she was essentially repeating what she was told. So if she hears a rumor Canada doesn’t like us, is she going to run to the UN and launch a bombing campaign? She has no problem scaring parents across America with vaccine myths.
I have a theory, one that was touched on by Crooks and Liars as well. Bachmann meant to say autism, based on debunked claims about vaccines and autism, and conflated it with mental retardation - two entirely different diagnoses. That woman may exist, and may have told Bachmann her daughter developed autism from vaccination. Here’s the problem - Let’s pretend, in an alternate bizarro universe, that vaccines could cause autism. The HPV vaccine is given most commonly at 12 years of age. According to the Mayo Clinic, children show symptoms at a very young age, sometimes as young as 12 months. The symptoms of autism would have been apparent long before age 12.
So long story short, Bachmann is probably full of it, and this woman either doesn’t exist, or is repeating the anti-vaccine myth that has been debunked many times over. It’s going to be tough for her to fully walk this one back. She justified it by saying, “I’m not a doctor, I’m not a scientist, I’m not a physician.” Oh, you’re not? So it wasn’t intended to be a factual statement? Then quit spreading misinformation.
….of watching the recent GOP Debate in Tampa, Florida. I made the error in thinking it was a new reality TV show. I mean it’s an easy mistake to make - why else would they give air time to the most willfully ignorant, ill informed, applause seeking, dense, corrupt and simply bought individuals I have seen outside of Jersey Shore? If I had to choose one candidate to govern my second favourite country it’d be anyone of the eight microphone stands. America, these people are why the rest of the world thinks you are fucking stupid. These people wish to sell what’s left of your wonderful country for profit, because that is all they care about. Oh that and power. The founding fathers would be turning in their grave if they could watch this debacle unfold in full technicolour.
