The post hoc ergo propter hoc (after this therefore because of this) fallacy is based upon the mistaken notion that simply because one thing happens after another, the first event was a cause of the second event.Now let's look at The Trib and see how they stroked the fallacy.
The Associated Press reports that Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s leading breast-cancer charity, will cut off its funding to Planned Parenthood affiliates, where the foundation has traditionally paid for preventive screening services.Notice this was done under new guidelines that they adopted. What's also new is their senior vice president, Karen Handel, who ran for governor of Georgia on a platform of defunding Planned Parenthood.
According to the AP, the move will mean “a cutoff of hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants, mainly for breast exams.” Planned Parenthood confirms that Komen is the first, and only, organization to cut off funding since the Congress began debating the issue in earnest last winter.
Komen said it could not continue to fund Planned Parenthood because it has adopted new guidelines that bar it from funding organizations under congressional investigation. The House oversight and investigations subcommittee announced in the fall an investigation into Planned Parenthood’s funding.
Call your local Komen office (find yours here) and let them know what you think of their new funding guidelines. Donate to your community's Planned Parenthood (find yours here) and ask that your gift be put toward unfunded breast health care. And breast-havers, do your annual self-exam!
It's shaping up as the most important church-state battle of our time. And should the state prevail, the Constitution will be pushed further down the slippery slope of becoming a dead letter.For the record, the Tribune-Review is in favor of both birth control and Planned Parenthood. The problem they say is:
The issue is birth control and whether the federal government can force religious organizations (that, as a matter of doctrine, oppose artificial birth control) to include, with limited exemptions, free contraception and related services in the private health-insurance plans they offer their employees.
The issue is whether the government, in pursuit of a state-determined "greater good," can truncate, if not traduce, constitutionally guaranteed freedom of religion. Simply put, it cannot. But if the government prevails, where does it end?After setting up a strawman argument, they dance with The Supremes:
Unless the Obama administration rescinds this clearly illegal rule, it should be prepared to be spanked by a Supreme Court that's already affirmed (in its recent "ministerial exemption" ruling) that the church-state line is neither gray nor sloped.Let's start at that last part first. The Supreme Court's decision, Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church and School v. EEOC, was about
The Supreme Court ruled Wednesday for the first time that federal discrimination laws do not protect church employees who perform religious duties, a major church-state decision that recognizes religious groups’ constitutionally protected right to select their own leaders.And while Scaife's braintrust says that this HHS decision will be invalidated by the "ministerial exemption" of this Supreme Court decision, the decision itself includes this sentence:
The justices ruled unanimously that the First Amendment’s guarantee of the free exercise of religion means that even neutral laws intent on banning workplace discrimination may not be applied to a religious institution choosing “those who will guide it on its way.”
We express no view on whether the exception bars other types of suits, including actions by employees alleging breach of contract or tortious conduct.So...maybe not.
Scientists have abundant evidence that birth control has significant health benefits for women and their families, it is documented to significantly reduce health costs, and is the most commonly taken drug in America by young and middle-aged women. This rule will provide women with greater access to contraception by requiring coverage and by prohibiting cost sharing.So the braintrust's use of ironical quotation marks ("greater good" instead of greater good) is actually wrong. One the one hand there's "significant health benefits for women" and on the other there's an organization that's sheltered pedophiles looking to make it harder for women to access those benefits.
This decision was made after very careful consideration, including the important concerns some have raised about religious liberty. I believe this proposal strikes the appropriate balance between respecting religious freedom and increasing access to important preventive services. The administration remains fully committed to its partnerships with faith-based organizations, which promote healthy communities and serve the common good. And this final rule will have no impact on the protections that existing conscience laws and regulations give to health care providers.
Dear David,I'll leave it up to you as to whether he (or at least his office) answered the question about impeachment.
Thank you for contacting me about taxes. I appreciate hearing from you.
Last year, the people of Pennsylvania sent Congress a clear message that the time has come for government to live within its means. Total federal spending has doubled since 2000, while the debt has already doubled in just four years and is expected to triple in eleven years. America cannot sustain its current fiscal path without devastating our economy and crippling future generations with a crushing debt burden.
It is for this reason that I have introduced a ten-year budget plan (S. Con. Res. 21) that would balance the federal budget by making crucial reductions in spending while also simplifying the tax code. As we can both agree, our current tax code is unnecessarily complicated, which is why my budget plan would consolidate the current six income tax brackets to three. By also eliminating special-interest tax benefits and deductions, we can lower America's corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, encourage growth, and incentivize job creation in the private sector. On May 25, 2011, my budget plan was unfortunately defeated by a vote margin of 42-55 in the Senate.
In addition, you may be interested to know that I have supported efforts to eliminate wasteful tax benefits. For instance, in June, I voted in favor of amendments offered by Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) that would eliminate certain tax breaks for ethanol.
That said, I understand your views on taxes and value the input. Please be assured that I will keep your concerns in mind as I remain committed to advancing common-sense fiscal reform in Washington.
Thank you again for your correspondence. Please do not hesitate to contact me in the future if I can be of assistance.
I think when we get through this election cycle, we’ll have a Republican majority, [though] not necessarily a strong majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House. The majority in the House will continue to be a Reagan majority, a conservative majority. Boehner never has to talk his delegation going further to the right.The Ryan Medicare Plan is the one that would, according to the CBO:
If the Republicans have the House, Senate, and the presidency, I’m told that they could do an early budget vote—a reconciliation vote where you extend the Bush tax cuts out for a decade or five years. You take all of those issues off the table, and then say, “What do you want to do for tax reform?”
Then, the question is: “OK, what do we do about repatriation and all of the interesting stuff?” And, if you have a Republican president to go with a Republican House and Senate, then they pass the [Paul] Ryan plan [on Medicare].
Among other changes, the proposal would convert the current Medicare program to a system under which beneficiaries received premium support payments—payments that would be used to help pay the premiums for a private health insurance policy and would grow over time with overall consumer prices.And:
Federal payments for Medicaid under the proposal would be substantially smaller than currently projected amounts. States would have additional flexibility to design and manage their Medicaid programs, and they might achieve greater efficiencies in the delivery of care than under current law. Even with additional flexibility, however, the large projected reduction in payments would probably require states to decrease payments to Medicaid providers, reduce eligibility for Medicaid, provide less extensive coverage to beneficiaries, or pay more themselves than would be the case under current law.And finally:
Under the proposal, most elderly people would pay more for their health care than they would pay under the current Medicare system. For a typical 65-year-old with average health spending enrolled in a plan with benefits similar to those currently provided by Medicare, CBO estimated the beneficiary’s spending on premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures as a share of a benchmark: what total health care spending would be if a private insurer covered the beneficiary. By 2030, the beneficiary’s spending would be 68 percent of that benchmark under the proposal, 25 percent under the extended-baseline scenario, and 30 percent under the alternative fiscal scenario.So of course Norquist's anti-tax team is just chomping at the bit to vote for it.
Obama can sit there and let all the tax [cuts] lapse, and then the Republicans will have enough votes in the Senate in 2014 to impeach.There's Norquist's choice; extend the Bush tax cuts and shred Medicare OR Impeach Barack Obama.
The President, Vice President and all Civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.So what's the charge? Is it treason for allowing a tax cut to expire? For not favoring a wholesale dismantling of Medicare? Or are those merely "high Crimes and Misdemeanors"?
I never refer to Obama as President Obama, because, legally, he is not.And:
And my question is: why isn’t something being done to get him out of our government? He has no legal right to be calling himself President.Two obvious birther references. Neither of which Rick refutes.
The Justice Department on Monday charged a former Central Intelligence Agency officer with disclosing classified information to journalists about the capture and brutal interrogation of a suspected member of Al Qaeda, Abu Zubaydah — adding another chapter to the Obama administration’s crackdown on leaks.Now, don't get me wrong. Leaking the name of a CIA operative is a very serious charge - one that should be investigated and, if necessary prosecuted.
In a criminal complaint filed on Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation accused John Kiriakou, the former C.I.A. officer, of disclosing the identity of a C.I.A. analyst who worked on a 2002 operation that located and interrogated Abu Zubaydah. The journalists included a New York Times reporter, it alleged.
“Safeguarding classified information, including the identities of C.I.A. officers involved in sensitive operations, is critical to keeping our intelligence officers safe and protecting our national security,” said Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., in a statement.
Corrupt ACORN affiliate Project Vote -- former employer of President Obama -- is pulling Justice Department and White House strings to register more voters on public assistance, documents newly obtained by Judicial Watch show.Are you sitting down? The spin involved in that last sentence will simply amaze.
It's happening despite voter-registration fraud convictions of at least 70 ACORN/Project Vote employees in 12 states since 2006. And even though more than a third of the 1.3 million registrations ACORN/Project Vote submitted during the 2008 election cycle proved invalid, according to a 2009 House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform report.
Perhaps you've heard -- there's something ugly going on at Pittsburgh's WTAE-TV. Way back in July of 2010 the on-air staff at WTAE voted to be represented by the AFTRA union. But all this time later, they are still without a contract. In the meantime, according to the Fairness 4 WTAE Facebook page, staff have had long-scheduled, pre-approved vacations denied at the last minute; have had to work two weeks straight without a day off; have been threatened with losing company pensions and retirement benefits for supporting the union -- basically, everything out of the union-busting playbook.1) Add your name to the petition to tell Hearst to "play fair in Pittsburgh." (Hearst already bargins fairly in Baltimore, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Boston, New Orleans, and Omaha -- why not Pittsburgh?)Do it for Bob! Do it for Wendy! Do it for Kelly! Do it for Jim! Do it for Demetrius!
2) Like their Facebook page here.
3) Attend the Community Labor Support Rally this Thursday:WHEN: Thursday January 26, 11 a.m.or
WHERE: St James Church (marching to WTAE), 718 Franklin Ave, Wilkinsburg, PA
WHAT: Rally to present deliver nearly 2,000 postcards and petition signatures from viewers. Delivered by a delegation including Allegheny County Labor Council President Jack Shea; State Senator Jim Ferlo; State Rep, Joe Preston; Joyce Rothermel, from the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank (retired): Fr. Jack O’Malley; Marty O’Malley, Mayor of Forest Hills; Fred Redmond, VP of United Steelworkers; and Rev. John Welch from PA Interfaith Impact Network.
4) Attend the Virtual Rally for Fairness for WTAEWHEN: Thursday, from 11am to 1pm.
WHAT: -Call the Station: 412-242-4300. Tell the receptionist you wish to speak with General Manager Mike Hayes. If not available, ask for voice mail. Give your name and phone number and tell him you support Fairness for WTAE On-air Staff.
And/or
-Email the Station: Go to Station Website, www.wtae.com, at the bottom of the home page, under “Station”, choose “Contact Us”. Under “Contact Us”, choose “News Feedback”, then fill out your name and email and write the message: I support Fairness for WTAE On-air Staff.”
