The Blue Virginia blog posted a video Thursday of Baker at a debate last month where he said, "Obamacare was a serious mistake, it was a serious mistake, it was the domestic equivalent of the Iraq war." Over groans and hissing from the audience, he continued, "It was very much overreach. Obamacare was a terrible mistake."
Baker defended his analogy to The Washington Post, "As a matter of domestic policy, it's overreach." He did note, however, that Iraq is not a "moral equivalent" to healthcare reform, just a "domestic equivalent."
The Iraq War killed 4,500 American soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis, whereas the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that healthcare reform will insure 32 million more non-elderly Americans in 2016. The eight-year Iraq War cost $800 billion, while healthcare reform will trim $210 billion from the budget deficit over 10 years.
But aside from all that, is Baker too clueless or incompetent to come up with a better analogy – even just comparing healthcare reform to another Obama administration policy – than comparing a healthcare bill to a tragic war that devastated American lives, families, and veterans, and that ripped the nation apart?
Baker has written on his website, "As the Declaration of Independence recognizes, the right to life is unalienable and is the first of all rights. Miller will defend life at all stages." Since he doesn't support expanding health insurance and treats a war as political fodder, Baker should retract that statement.
ThinkProgress.org of the Center for American Progress reported Tuesday that Poteet's gay roommate Derek Powell told the blog that she went on a drunken, violent, slur-filled rant one night at their group house, calling him and his boyfriend "faggots" and "cocksuckers." Powell said she was upset that his friends were over, and Poteet didn't have the place to herself. ThinkProgress reported, "She responded by lashing out at Powell, his boyfriend Chris, and their friends, swinging her shoes at the group, pushing people, and claiming that her male companion would 'beat' their ass. Poteet kneed another person, ripped the door off of a family heirloom [a dresser], and 'downgraded people based on their physical appearance and economic status.'" Two other attendees confirmed the story.
Poteet denied the accusations and told ThinkProgress she has no problem with gay people. She denied breaking the heirloom, but she ended the conversation when the blog shared her text message conversation and an accompanying photo with Powell about the damage.
The Miss Universe Organization has not responded yet to criticism over Poteet. Powell told ThinkProgress: "Her comments have outraged and insulted the gay people of Richmond and the community is upset that someone like her would represent the Commonwealth of Virginia. Many young girls look up to your organization and look at these title holders as role models. This is not the kind of person that you want representing your honorable organization."
This weekend she will crown the 2012 Miss Virginia USA. Now the commonwealth of Virginia, city of Richmond, and her alma mater Virginia Commonwealth University can disown her, too.
The organization was apparently created in September with the help of a $10,000 donation from House Speaker Bill Howell, R-28th. With a slogan of "Preserving America's Republic by Advancing the Christian Worldview in Politics," the PAC's "primary objective is to defeat any incumbent who has voted to advance or inflict the abortion industry’s agenda on minorities and children, undermine or usurp parental rights, redefine marriage, or prevent school choice." Besides the usual conservative causes on abortion, marriage, and education, No Excuse Ministry wants to push a radical agenda on race politics.
Beatley has fully embraced the right-wing conspiracy theory that legal abortions are actually a plot to kill black children. The Washington Post reported Tuesday that she distributed flyers in the Fredericksburg area attacking state Sen. Edd Houck's record. Beatley claims that Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was a racist and supporter of eugenics, and because of that a majority of abortion providers in America today are in black urban neighborhoods.
This is another shameful ploy by anti-abortion radicals who, rather than debating the issue on policy, science, or even morality, choose to slander and demean those who perform or obtain abortions. (Worst Virginians called out Jeff Caruso of the Virginia Catholic Conference two months ago for saying that health exceptions for abortions are a farce.) A 2005 survey found, "The decision to have an abortion is typically motivated by multiple, diverse and interrelated reasons." Additionally, Planned Parenthood said that about three-fourths of its clinics are in rural areas.
A Washington Post fact check on Tuesday over Herman Cain's similar comments found that eugenics was not an uncommon belief in the early 20th century. Planned Parenthood said in a statement, "For all her positive work, Margaret Sanger made statements some 80 years ago that were wrong then and are wrong now. Those statements have no bearing on the high quality health care Planned Parenthood provides today." Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. himself lauded Planned Parenthood's founder in 1966 upon receiving its Margaret Sanger Award: "There is a striking kinship between our movement and Margaret Sanger's early efforts. She, like we, saw the horrifying conditions of ghetto life. Like we, she knew that all of society is poisoned by cancerous slums. Like we, she was a direct actionist – a nonviolent resister. She was willing to accept scorn and abuse until the truth she saw was revealed to the millions."
But aside from all of that is one big point: Sanger was an avid advocate for birth control, not abortion. Before Roe v. Wade and a public emphasis on abortion as women's reproductive rights, abortions were generally criminalized and dangerous, and Sanger believed birth control was the best way to prevent deadly illegal abortions and infant deaths. (Indeed, the Supreme Court held in Roe that America's modern anti-abortion laws were rooted in health-risk concerns.) She wrote in 1932, "In preventing conception, one does not destroy life; one does not interfere with the development of life; no life has been conceived to destroy." Sanger explained in 1921 her vision of what would become Planned Parenthood:
"Why continue to send home women to whom pregnancy is a grave danger, with the futile advice 'Now don't get this way again!' ... Consultation rooms in charge of reputable physicians who have specialized in contraception, assisted by registered nurses – in a word CLINICS designed for this specialty – would meet this crying need. Such clinics should deal with each woman individually, taking into account her particular disease, her temperament, her mentality, and her condition, both physical and economic. Its sole function would be to prevent pregnancy. In the accomplishment of this a higher standard of hygiene is attained."If radical abortion critics understood the real Margaret Sanger, they may instead adopt her belief that preventing unwanted pregnancies should be a top priority. Although said under different social circumstances in her day, these critics would fully embrace Sanger's sentiment in 1916: "A few simple words of advice would avoid the horrible slaughter of abortion going on in this country today."
That's Terry "Henry Ford was an anti-Semite, so Ford owners are anti-Semites, too!" Beatley, today's Worst Virginian in the World!
