In 1892, an editorial in the Chicago Tribune opined: “Doubtless the end of the coal, at least as an article of a mighty commerce, will…

Yesterday was a travel day, so I didn’t catch this excellent editorial at the NYT until this morning.

We strongly support a woman’s right to choose and are disturbed by the restrictions in both the House and Senate bills on a woman’s ability to buy insurance that covers abortions. But the opportunity to provide coverage for 30 million of the uninsured — and more security for all Americans — is too important to miss.

We are puzzled and dismayed that these legislators are willing to waste that opportunity because they say the onerous anti-abortion provisions in the Senate’s bill are still not onerous enough….

Representative Bart Stupak, a Michigan Democrat, says that unless the Senate’s anti-abortion provisions are strengthened, perhaps a dozen House Democrats who voted for the House version won’t vote for the Senate’s bill. Before they push their party’s signature domestic issue over a cliff they need to recognize how incredibly restrictive the Senate’s provisions already are.

Most of these restrictions would apply to insurance policies sold on new exchanges where individuals and small businesses could choose from an array of private plans. The Senate bill would allow any state to ban insurers on the state’s exchanges from offering policies that cover abortion. In states that don’t impose that ban, the exchanges would be required to offer at least one policy that excludes abortion coverage. They would not be required to offer policies that cover abortions….

All people who buy a policy that covers abortions — not just those receiving tax credits to help buy insurance — would have to divide their premium payment in two: a small part (at least $1 a month) to cover the plan’s projected cost of paying for abortions and a much bigger payment for the rest of the premium. The insurers would have to keep two separate accounts for the subsidized group, one to pay for abortions and one for all other care. It would be so cumbersome that it would likely discourage insurers from offering plans that cover abortion.

Those restrictions are a blatant government interference in a serious health care decision that should be made by a woman and her doctor. But for some House members they are still not enough….

Abortion is a legal and medically valid procedure that should be covered by insurance — without government interference. Legislators who support abortion rights are the only ones who have given ground in the interests of passing health care reform. Anti-abortion Democrats need to show similar statesmanship and accept the Senate’s restrictive provisions. They owe it to all Americans.

The NYT calls for the bill’s passage despite the massive erosion to choice this bill portends: yet another effort to challenge a woman’s right to choose, this time by trying to legislate what private insurers’ can do in covering legal procedures. Despite this significant step backward for women, Planned Parenthood is joining in the call for passage of this bill, and telling Congress what is at stake.

That’s Tiffany Campbell, a mother of three from South Dakota, and this is her story.

In 2006 I became pregnant and was thrilled. After landing in the hospital with a severe kidney infection at 19-weeks gestation, I received my first ultrasound, leaving us shocked and thrilled to see we were expecting identical twin boys.

The joy didn’t last when our babies were diagnosed with Twin-to-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. Webmd.com describes Twin-Twin transfusion syndrome as “the most serious complication of identical twins. It starts in the womb when one twin gets too much blood and the other not enough. The outcome for both twins is grim.”

Severe TTTS has a 60-100 percent likelihood of fetal or neonatal mortality rate. We were sent to one of the premier fetal care centers in the country and told our only hope for saving this pregnancy was to have a selective termination on the one of the babies, and hope the other twin would survive….

I never thought I would have to once again open deep wounds and share my deeply personal story, but then the Stupak-Pitts Amendment was added to the House version of the Affordable Health Care for America Act. The selective termination that saved my baby’s life would not be covered under the Stupak-Pitts Amendment.

The total bill from the fetal care center was just over $220,000. Add the care for the entire pregnancy and the cost was well over $500,000.  We were fortunate that our insurance covered 80% of the costs. Had they not, I’m not sure what we would have done. Why should I have to choose between having a life-saving procedure that will most likely put us into bankruptcy while at the same time forcing me to choose between the best interests of our much wanted unborn child versus the best interests of our other two children? After three years we have finally paid off our share of bills from that pregnancy.

Progressives are swallowing hard and lining up to support this bill they find deeply flawed in any number of ways, because the whole of what the bill accomplishes is better than the status quo. At the same time, though, on the issue of abortion it is definitely a loss, so those 41 pro-choice members who signed a letter to Pelosi pledging a vote against any bill with Stupak language need to get to work immediately after passage of this bill to fix the nearly-as-bad Senate language.

Nonetheless, like most liberals who are disappointed at the range of lost opportunities this bill represents, I think that clearly the greater lost opportunity at this point would be killing it. And at this point, if that happens, it’s likely to be the Stupak crowd that does it.

Israel may assert a right to build anywhere in Jerusalem that it chooses. But, those political choices have implications that extend far beyond real estate.

By Michael J.W. StickingsSo I’ve been home all day feeling, well, unwell: upset stomach, nausea, headache, you know, stuff that makes you want to take a lot of the pink stuff.Well, I was feeling a bit better this afternoon, but just a short while ago, …

The often one-sided reporting from the border distorts the reality of what has happened — or could happen — on both sides of the Rio Grande. Spillover violence is an unfounded, alarmist theory.

With the third intifada knocking at the door, the old American pattern — an ever-renewable forgetfulness about the conduct of Israel and de facto postponement of the question of Palestine — is less tenable than ever.

Today is the seventh anniversary of the death of Rachel Corrie in Gaza by Israeli government bulldozer, and the anniversary this year comes at an…

Mariana Pasternak, Martha Stewart’s former long-time best friend, is speaking out for the first time about Stewart’s trial, which she found herself uncomfortably involved in. In her new book, “The Best Of Friends: Martha and Me,” Pasternak det…

Zero Hedge

Only a few days have passed since its release, and already the Mainstream Media has forgotten all about the Lehman Examiner Report, with barely an occasional mention. As the CJR points out, this unquestionably massive story of corruption and vice, is being covered up by powered interests controlling all the major news outlets, because [...]

I decided to share my point of view in addition to Roxy’s.
As if I couldn’t possibly think any lower of this utter waste of space what does Spencer Pratt do now?  Well actually he’s doing us a favor by getting off of television but it’s not like he’s getting off this planet which truly [...]

Ordinary women, executive women, and even First Lady Michelle Obama are all talking about the work-life equation and the challenges it poses.

The throng of angry whites jeered, catcalled, and spat out borderline racial insults at the small group of mostly black protestors. This wasn’t a…

You may have already taken note of the gay-hating, immigrant-bashing, ignorance-promoting, climate change-denying, anti-choice, scofflaw attorney general of Virginia, Ken Cuccinelli II. Well, here’s another of his finest moments.  

Question: What can we do about Obama and the birth certificate thing?

Cuccinelli: It will get tested in my view when someone… when he signs a law, and someone is convicted of violating it and one of their defenses will be it is not a law because someone qualified to be President didn’t sign it.

Q: Is that something you can do as Attorney General? Can you do that or something?

Cuccinelli: Well, only if there is a conflict where we are suing the federal government for a law they’ve passed. So it’s possible.

Q: Because we are talking about the possibility that he was not born in America.

Cuccinelli: Right. But at the same time under Rule 11, Federal Rule 11, we gotta have proof of it.

Q: How can we get proof?

Cuccinelli: Well… that’s a good question. Not one I’ve thought a lot about because it hasn’t been part of my campaign. Someone is going to have to come forward with nailed down testimony that he was born in place B, wherever that is. You know, the speculation is Kenya. And that doesn’t seem beyond the realm of possibility.

When you have a party that embraces deniers, deathers and tenthers, why be surprised when a top elected official turns out to be a birther? The wackiest politicians are on the rise. Not only does Cuccinelli question the President’s citizenship, he’d apparently be willing to spend state tax money to make Washington spend federal tax money to prove otherwise.

Perhaps the Standup Comedians Association will sue this joke-of-a-people’s-representative for operating without a license. Or perhaps it’s in the “realm of possibility” that the voters of Virginia will wise up about Cuccinelli at the next election.

P.S. Cuccinelli offers a not-terribly-believable statement denying he’s a birther.

• • • • •

^{h/t to Not Larry Sabato. Also, see DanK’s diary.}

By Capt. FoggI wonder if I could convince the IRS that I never was an American Citizen. Perhaps I could try the method that convinced the100 million or so of America’s stupidest that Barack Obama was born in Kenya. After all my birth certificate l…