Nelson: Saying no to sales tax is Alberta's last stand

HERE, HERE I AGREE

Opinion by Chris Nelson, For The Calgary Herald • Yesterday 

Thermopylae, The Alamo, Masada, Rorke’s Drift and Saragarhi. What could those famous battles of history have in common with us peace-loving (mostly) Albertans of today?


A provincial sales tax could in theory help Alberta get off the boom and bust fiscal cycles, but it would depend on governments using the revenue effectively, rather than simply to buy votes

More than you might imagine. Those varied locations all involved desperate last stands, which is what we’re currently engaged in, fighting off the relentless rumblings from elitist, high-foreheads who think it a wonderful and worthy idea to impose a provincial sales tax upon us.

We’re an exception among the provinces; not ponying up an extra seven to 10 per cent on most purchases atop the five per cent that Ottawa rakes in courtesy of the GST.

We can’t do much about that federal sales tax — though Premier Danielle Smith might have some plot to alter that — but we sure as heck can do something to retain what remains as the final, genuine Alberta Advantage.

Let’s simply demand, from both those UCP and NDP wannabes, a pledge before each election to not impose such a levy until the sun decides to rise in the west or we vote to do so in a provincewide referendum. “Would you like to give the government more of your money?” would seem a straightforward enough question on any future ballot form, don’t you think?

We know in our bones what would happen with such a tax, despite the silly claims about it solving all our fiscal problems by smoothing out those booms and busts synonymous with Alberta.

To satisfy our suspicious nature, we need simply look to the other provinces and judge if the various sales taxes resulted in a land of ever-bountiful balanced budgets and a no-debt existence

Related video: Alberta Business Council wants next government to study provincial taxation model (Global News) Duration 4:20 View on Watch

Oops. Ontario owes about $450 billion, Quebec $220 billion and B.C. $100 billion. (The federal government is in an elite, much-more-than-a trillion-owed stratosphere, so we’ll not even bother using them as an example of sales tax economics.)

The Business Council of Alberta is the latest bunch wanting a re-evaluation of the province’s revenue model to even out the ups and downs of our resource-based economy. A provincial sales tax would be the bees-knees apparently, helping solve this endless fiscal conundrum. (Oh, and yes, let’s jack up every price by five per cent as part of the battle against inflation.)

To be fair, in the economics classroom, or the thoughtful confines of a polite debating chamber, a consumption tax is a plausible alternative to relying upon the whims of the commodity markets for steady, governmental revenue. And that’s why this nonsense gets regurgitated every few years. In theory, it makes sense.

Related
Alberta’s revenue needs to evolve, says business council. A sales tax should be on the table
Kenney rejects sales tax idea; Alberta Business Council comes out in support

Majority of Albertans reject provincial sales tax: poll

But we aren’t sensible creatures. We’re human beings. Theory means naught unless it’s catchable and edible. And the least sensible of all is a human being who wants to get elected. Oh, sorry, scratch that: it is a human being already elected who’d like to stay that way.

Give such people more tax revenue to spend and that’s what they’ll do. Health, education, social services and other departments will all need more money — forever and a day. Plus there’ll be handouts here, there and everywhere whenever an election rolls around. Imagining sales tax revenue would be treated any differently is akin to betting on the Flames to win the Stanley Cup. Now that’s false hope.

As for this levelling-up argument — have we forgotten the Heritage Savings and Trust Fund? Wasn’t it supposed to do exactly that? Siphon off in the good times — when energy revenues flowed — for times ahead when such largesse ran dry?

How did that work out? It’s more than 45 years since inception and the most we’ve accumulated is about $20 billion. That wouldn’t cover four months of provincial spending. Future sales tax revenue would suffer the same fate, accompanied by a giant sucking sound.

We might not die on this hill as did the brave men from those famous battles mentioned earlier, but it’s our last stand, nevertheless. No Alberta sales tax.

Chris Nelson is a regular Herald columnist.

ALBERTA

Rahim Mohamed: Falling UCP fortunes in northeast Calgary could spell trouble for Danielle Smith

Opinion by Rahim Mohamed • National Post

Yesterday

With Alberta’s next provincial election less than 40 days away, one thing that’s all but guaranteed is that election night will be a nail-biter.


University of Calgary students stand in line to sign up to receive information about the upcoming provincial election, on March 27.

The latest batch of polls indicate that the race is too close to call , with a clear regional divide in each major party’s support. With Edmonton holding firm as an New Democratic fortress and the United Conservative Party ascendant in rural Alberta, the election’s outcome will inevitably be decided within Calgary’s 26 electoral districts.

The UCP won 23 of those seats in 2019, but many of those seats are now up for grabs . The governing UCP looks to be in good shape in south Calgary, but will have a tough slog in the city’s inner trenches. One area that will be critical to the UCP’s electoral math is Calgary’s highly diverse northeastern quadrant.

Home to the city’s highest concentration of recent immigrants , northeast Calgary has been a bellwether in recent provincial elections. In 2015, Rachel Notley’s NDP netted four of the northeast’s five seats en route to winning its first ever provincial government. (The area gained a sixth seat in a redistribution two years later).

In 2019, the upstart UCP, led by Jason Kenney, turned the tables, winning all but one of the quadrant’s seats and notching its own majority government victory. The UCP won the newly created northeastern riding of Calgary-Falconridge by just 96 votes , making it the closest race in the province that year.

And the pendulum appears to be swinging once again. A new poll conducted by respected Calgary pollster Janet Brown shows the UCP lagging the NDP by a 15 per cent margin in the northeast quadrant (trailing its citywide average by 10 points). The NDP now looks poised to sweep the quadrant outright.

And there’s good reason to believe the UCP is coming to terms with its grim electoral prospects in the quadrant. Incumbent Calgary-North East MLA and cabinet minister Rajan Sawhney (one of Premier Danielle Smith’s most important lieutenants in Calgary) announced in February that she wouldn’t be seeking re-election in the district, only to be reassigned earlier this month to the more winnable Calgary-North West.

Related video: Will Alberta’s tough-on-crime political promises pay off as provincial elections loom? (Global News) Duration 1:55  View on Watch

The UCP’s declining fortunes in northeast Calgary can be attributed to multiple factors. For one, the quadrant is still reeling from a destructive June 2020 hailstorm, which generated an estimated $1.5 billion in damages. The event coincided with increases in home and auto insurance premiums, adding to the woes of local residents. (The provincial government declined to provide funding to cover insurance deductibles).

The numbers may also reflect lingering scars from the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a controversial November 2020 interview on Calgary’s RED FM, then-premier Jason Kenney appeared to blame the northeast’s South Asian multi-generational households for an uptick in COVID transmission. Kenney’s comments spurred multiple calls for him to apologize to Calgary’s South Asian community.

But the numbers, more foundationally, underscore the loss of one of the biggest upsides that Kenney brought to the UCP fold: a singular talent for ethnic outreach. Going back to his Harper government days, Kenney has built a political brand on his unmatched ability to cultivate relationships within Canada’s manifold ethnic communities.

There are, in fact, few figures in the country’s history who’ve garnered a following with so many pockets of new Canadians. Kenney’s tireless outreach work earned him the affectionate monikers “Smiling Buddha” and “minister of curry in a hurry” during his time in Ottawa.

Kenney, accordingly, was a frequent visitor to Calgary’s northeast throughout his time in Alberta politics. And he wasn’t just on hand for the major festivals and religious holidays. He was also spotted regularly at small, intimate gatherings — sometimes comprising just a handful of attendees.

Longtime RED FM host Rishi Nagar opened up about Kenney’s popularity in the northeast in a spring 2022 interview with the Calgary Sun , saying, “Whenever there is a photo-op with the premier, (people) forget everything. A picture is important. If I have a picture with Jason Kenney I will hang it in my family room.”

Danielle Smith, who has never sought office at the federal level, barely even scratches the surface of her predecessor’s visibility in ethnic communities. She will also have a tough time explaining her dealings with far-right Street Church pastor Artur Pawlowski to northeast Calgary’s cosmopolitan electorate.

Alberta’s fast approaching provincial election is set to be a game of inches, with Calgary’s highly competitive northeast quadrant likely to take centre stage. When the votes are counted, the UCP may end up sorely missing the cross-cultural appeal that former-leader Jason Kenney brought to the party.

National Post

Rahim Mohamed is a freelance writer based in Calgary.

Rahim Mohamed: Alberta election could be a referendum on private health care

GALLIC FASCISM

Influential French author said Hitler’s big mistake was failing to ‘wipe out England’, new document reveals

Story by Tom Murray • 

A newly published transcript has revealed that the French literary giant Louis-Ferdinand Céline once expressed regret that Adolf Hitler had not wiped out the English.


French author Louis-Ferdinand Celine at court in 1951© Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The Journey to the End of the Night author is considered by many to be the most influential French author of the last century.

Céline, who died in 1961 aged 67, remains a controversial figure in history, however, due to his antisemitic views and advocation for a military alliance with Nazi Germany.

The French newspaper Le Figaro this week obtained and published a full transcript of the Paris Match’s 1960 interview with the author.

According to The Times, Céline said in the interview that Hitler’s great mistake was failing to “wipe out England” during World War II.

“Hitler lacked Napoleon’s genius. He was an empirical [man], Hitler. He messed up the day when he did not hit England straight away,” he said.

“He was a show-off. He looked good. He was a star but didn’t have any military genius at all,” he added.

These sentiments against the English were not included in the Match’s published piece, in which the author was described as “funny, bitter, nice deep down”.

After Allied forces landed in Normandy in 1944, Céline fled to Germany and then Denmark where he lived in exile.

Six years later, the author was convicted of collaboration by a French court but was then pardoned by a military tribunal based on his status as a disabled war veteran.

Of Céline, Maurice Nadeau once wrote: “What Joyce did for the English language… what the surrealists attempted to do for the French language, Céline achieved effortlessly and on a vast scale.”

Scientists Finally Solved the Mystery of How the Mayan Calendar Works

Story by Tim Newcomb • Yesterday 

Popular Mechanics

The Mayan calendar’s 819-day cycle has confounded scholars for decades, but new research shows how it matches up to planetary cycles over a 45-year span

© Blend Images - PBNJ Productions - Getty Images

Scholars show how multiple planet movements tie into the 819-day Mayan calendar.
The 819 days of the calendar must be viewed across a 45-year time period to fully understand.
The movements of all major planets visible to the ancient Mayans fit into this extended calendar.

The Mayan calendar’s 819-day cycle has confounded scholars for decades, but new research shows how it matches up to planetary cycles over a 45-year span. That’s a much broader view of the tricky calendar than anyone previously tried to take.

In a study published in the journal Ancient Mesoamerica, two Tulane University scholars highlighted how researchers never could quite explain the 819-day count calendar until they broadened their view.

“Although prior research has sought to show planetary connections for the 819-day count, its four-part, color-directional scheme is too short to fit well with the synodic periods of visible planets,” the study authors write. “By increasing the calendar length to 20 periods of 819-days a pattern emerges in which the synodic periods of all the visible planets commensurate with station points in the larger 819-day calendar.”

Related video: Experts Believe They Have Finally Decoded the Mayan Calendar (Amaze Lab)

Duration 1:27   View on Watch

That means the Mayans took a 45-year view of planetary alignment and coded it into a calendar that has left modern scholars scratching their heads in wonder.

While ancient Mayan culture offered various calendar types, the one that baffled scholars the most was this 819-day calendar discovered in glyphic texts. Researchers have long believed this calendar was associated with planetary movements, especially the synodic periods—when a planet appears visually to return to the same location in the sky, as seen from Earth—of key planets. However, each planet moves quite differently and matching up multiple planets into an 819-day span didn’t seem to make sense.

But it does when you look at it over 16,380 days (roughly 45 years), not just 819 days. That’s a total of 20 819-day timelines.

Mercury was always the starting point for the tricky timeline because its synodic period—117 days—matches nicely into 819. From there, though, we need to start extrapolating out the 819 number, and if you chart 20 cycles of 819, you can fit every key planet into the mix.

And Mars may be the kicker for the overall length. With a 780-day synodic period, 21 periods match exactly to 16,380, or 20 cycles of 819. Venus needs seven periods to match five 819-day counts, Saturn has 13 periods to fit with six 819-day counts, and Jupiter 39 periods to hit 19 819-counts.

“Rather than limit their focus to any one planet,” the authors write, “the Maya astronomers who created the 819-day count envisioned it as a larger calendar system that could be used for predictions of all the visible planet’s synod periods, as well as commensuration points with their cycles in the Tzolk’in and Calendar Round.”

New York state education officials vote to prohibit public schools from using Indigenous team names, logos or mascots

Story by Gili Remen • CNN - Yesterday 

New York state education officials voted unanimously this week to prohibit public schools from using or displaying Indigenous team names, logos, or mascots to represent the school.

Throughout the state, boards of education must commit through a resolution to eliminating the use of all Indigenous imagery by the end of the current school year, and the prohibited names, logos, or mascots must be eliminated by the 2024-25 school year, according to regulations laid out by the New York State Board of Regents.

The amendment, which was approved Tuesday, does not require public schools, school buildings, or school districts named after an Indigenous tribe to change their names.

Educators are still allowed to use Indigenous imagery for the purposes of classroom instruction, the regulations say, and schools may keep Indigenous imagery if a written agreement exists between a federally recognized tribal nation and the school using a name, mascot or logo associated with that tribe.

The changes will become effective as a permanent rule on May 3, according to the Board of Regents. If school districts fail to comply, school officers could be removed or state aid could be withheld, according to the regulations.

The National Congress of American Indians voiced its support for the changes in a statement to CNN.

“Native ‘themed’ mascots dehumanize Native people and diminish the enduring vibrancy and diversity of our distinct cultures, values, and lifeways,” Executive Director Larry Wright Jr. wrote in a statement. “Crucially, research in recent years documents the well-known harms that the monikers, images, and fan behaviors associated with these mascots cause Native people, particularly Native youth.”

There are “issues that will need to be reviewed on a case-by-case basis,” the state Department of Education said in a statement, and more guidance is forthcoming but mirrors the language laid out in the regulations, according to the department.

“The Department can provide assistance to any school or district that has questions,” the statement says. “The Department’s position is that any team names, logos, or mascots that contain vestiges of prohibited team names, logos, or mascots will not be considered acceptable.”

North Korean hackers breach software firm in significant cyberattack

ERIC SCHMIDT CEO OF GOOGLE VISITED NK 2013

Story by Sean Lyngaas • Yesterday 

Suspected North Korean hackers infiltrated a software firm that claims hundreds of thousands of customers around the world in a cyberattack that shows Pyongyang’s advanced hacking capabilities, private investigators said Thursday.

CNN A look at the US sting operation to catch North Korean crypto hackers

Duration 3:08   View on Watch

The breach of the software firm 3CX, discovered last month, provided a potential foothold for the North Koreans into a huge swath of multinational firms – from hotel chains to health care providers – that use the firm’s software for voice and video calls.

The number of companies affected by the hack and what the hackers ultimately did with access to victim networks remain unclear. But it’s the latest evidence that North Korean hackers are pulling out all the stops to break into organizations to steal or spy on them in support of dictator Kim Jong Un’s strategic interests.

The hack shows “an increased level of cyber offensive capability by North Korean” operatives, said Charles Carmakal, chief technology officer at Mandiant Consulting, which 3CX hired to investigate the hack.

A recent CNN investigation found a rampant effort by North Korean hackers to steal cryptocurrency and launder it into hard cash that might help fund the regime’s weapon’s programs. Such North Korean cyber activity is part of regular intelligence products presented to senior US officials, sometimes including President Joe Biden, a senior US official previously told CNN.

In the case of 3CX, Mandiant said the hackers wormed their way into company’s software production environment by first compromising software made by another firm, derivatives trading platform Trading Technologies. A 3CX employee downloaded the now-defunct Trading Technologies software that the hackers had tampered with, according to Mandiant.

“This is the first time that we’ve ever found concrete evidence of a supply chain attack leading to another supply chain attack,” Carmakal told reporters Wednesday.

Yet the impact of the hack is unclear. Any of 3CX’s customers that downloaded the bugged software would have been susceptible to compromise. But the North Koreans likely singled out a much smaller number of victims for follow-on activity on their network, according to US cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike.

The suspected North Korean hackers did use the 3CX access to target cryptocurrency firms late last month, Georgy Kucherin, a researcher at Russian cybersecurity firm Kaspersky told CNN.

Kucherin said his firm saw the hackers trying to deploy malicious code on “less than 10 computers” but blocked their efforts, “so nothing was stolen.”

Nick Galea, 3CX’s CEO, on March 30 downplayed the scope of the incident, telling CNN that “very few” of his customers appeared to be “actually compromised” by the hackers. But in an email on Thursday, Galea said he doesn’t know how many customers ultimately downloaded the tampered 3CX software, or how many customers saw follow-on hacking activity.

3CX has instructed customers on how to update their software and check for compromise.

Trading Technologies has not been able to verify Mandiant’s findings yet because the company just became aware of the issue last week, a spokesperson for Trading Technologies told CNN on Thursday

“What we do know with certainty is that 3CX is not a vendor or a customer of Trading Technologies,” the Trading Technologies spokesperson said. “We would also emphasize that this incident is completely unrelated to the current TT platform.”

US officials join the investigation

The hack sent US officials and private executives scrambling to determine how many American organizations might be affected.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security agency “continues to work with government and private sector partners to understand impacts from this intrusion campaign,” an agency spokesperson told CNN on Thursday. “In many cases, outstanding work by the cybersecurity community avoided significant harm for many potential victims.”

Sweeping supply chain hacks are typically associated with state-linked hackers from China or Russia, said Adam Meyers, vice president of intelligence at CrowdStrike.

“The fact that it’s North Korea … shows that this is an actor that does have supply chain capabilities and aspirations, and can have effects from them,” Meyers told CNN.

IMPERIALISM IN SPACE

Space Force chief says U.S. is facing a 'new era' of threats beyond Earth

Story by Morgan Brennan • Yesterday 

Gen. Chance Saltzman of the U.S. Space Force describes what he says is a new era of space activity.

"The threats that we face to our on-orbit capabilities from our strategic competitors [have] grown substantially," Saltzman said in a CNBC interview.

The message comes at a key moment as space rapidly commercializes and a heightened geopolitical backdrop increasingly sees threats extending beyond Earth.


US Space Force General B. Chance Saltzman, Chief of Space Operations, testifies about the Fiscal Year 2024 Budget request during a Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, March 14, 2023.

 (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP) 

When Gen. Chance Saltzman took the stage for his keynote at the Space Symposium in Colorado Springs, Colorado, this week, his message was simple: The U.S. is in a new era of space activity.

"The threats that we face to our on-orbit capabilities from our strategic competitors [have] grown substantially," Saltzman, the U.S. Space Force's second-ever chief of space operations, said in a CNBC interview after the speech. "The congestion we're seeing in space with tracked objects and the number of satellite payloads, and just the launches themselves, have grown at an exponential rate."

"I want to make sure that we are thinking about our processes and procedures differently," he said in an interview for CNBC's "Manifest Space" podcast, his first broadcast interview since becoming the service's highest-ranking military official last November.

The message comes at a key moment as space rapidly commercializes and a heightened geopolitical backdrop increasingly sees threats extending beyond Earth to a domain for which rules of engagement remain unclear.

Follow and listen to CNBC's "Manifest Space" podcast, hosted by Morgan Brennan, wherever you get your podcasts.

Military experts say space is likely to be the front line in any future conflicts – a battlefield that could extend to the private sector and impact civilians in real time. Look no further than Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an example: Recall the unprecedented cyberattack on the European communications network of U.S. satellite operator Viasat just as Russian soldiers mobilized to cross sovereign boundaries.

Saltzman said the space-based tactics of adversaries like Russia and China run the gamut, from the communications jamming of the GPS constellation; to lasers and "dazzlers" that interfere with cameras on-orbit to prevent imagery collection; to anti-satellite missiles like the one Russia tested in late 2021.

"We're seeing satellites that actually can grab another satellite, grapple with it and pull it out of its operational orbit. These are all capabilities they're demonstrating on-orbit today, and so the mix of these weapons and the pace with which they've been developed are very concerning," he said.

It speaks to why, despite a wave of fervent debate, the Space Force was briskly stood up in 2019 as the first new branch of the U.S. armed services in seven decades.

To respond to evolving threats and secure space assets more quickly, Saltzman is looking to further augment the service's capabilities to make satellite constellations more resilient and acquire more launch services by tapping into a burgeoning cadre of commercial space players.

Case in point: the Space Force's recently announced procurement strategy for more launch services. The new "dual-lane acquisition approach" is intended to create more opportunities for rocket startups to compete for national security launch contracts.

With business to be awarded next year, the National Security Space Launch Phase 3 is estimated to run into the billions of dollars and is expected to draw bids from the likes of Rocket Lab, Relativity Space and Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin, among others. Phase 2 awards went to SpaceX and United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing.

An expanding budget helps, too. While still just a fraction of the country's overall defense budget, the Space Force's $30 billion request for fiscal 2024 represents a 15% increase from this year's enacted levels.

"This is a team sport and none of us is going to be successful going in alone," Saltzman said.

"Manifest Space," hosted by CNBC's Morgan Brennan, focuses on the billionaires and brains behind the ever-expanding opportunities beyond our atmosphere. Brennan holds conversations with the mega moguls, industry leaders and startups in today's satellite, space and defense industries. In "Manifest Space," sit back, relax and prepare for liftoff.

Whose Family Values?

CHAUVINIST, SEXIST MALE BOSS DISPARAGES WOMEN WORKERS
CEO says many of his remote workers didn't open their laptops for a month, and 'only the rarest of full-time caregivers' can be productive employees

Story by insider@insider.com (Sindhu Sundar) • Yesterday 

Clearlink CEO James Clarke said many remote workers weren't even opening their laptops, according to a video posted by Vice. 

Screenshot/Vice

Clearlink CEO James Clarke said remote workers "quietly quit" and didn't open laptops in a month, Vice reported.

He also seemed to suggest caregivers aren't as "productive" at work, per a video posted by Vice.
A representative didn't address the remarks, but said Clarke "could not be more excited" for the company.

Clearlink's CEO James Clarke reportedly told employees that he believed many remote workers have "quietly quit" and become so brazen that dozens at his company "didn't even open" their laptops for a month.

Clarke, who founded the marketing and tech company based in Utah, made the remarks this month while addressing the company's return-to-office mandate, Vice first reported. The company has asked most of its employees in Utah to be in the office four days a week, a Clearlink representative confirmed to Insider.

Clarke also appeared to laud the work ethic of one employee who he said "sold their family dog" in order to rise to expectations at work, contrasting it with others who he said "quietly quit their positions, but are taking a paycheck," according to a video of the executive's meeting with employees that was posted by Vice, where part of his speech could be heard.





"In one month this year alone, I got data that about 30 of you didn't even open or crack open laptops," he said in the video. "And those were all remote employees, including their manager — for a whole month."

At one point, he also appeared to question whether employees with caregiving responsibilities could be as committed to their jobs, addressing arguments about the subject.

"Many of you have tried to tend your own children, and, doing so, also manage your demanding work schedules and responsibilities," he said in the video.

"And while I know you're doing your best — some would say they've even mastered this art — but one could also argue that generally, this path is neither fair to your employer, nor fair to those children," he added.

"Now, I don't necessarily believe that, but I do believe that only the rarest of full-time caregivers can also be productive and full-time employees at the same time," he said.

A company representative declined to comment on Clarke's comments at the meeting, saying it was a matter of "internal Clearlink business," but offered a general statement.

"James Clarke could not be more excited about the future of the company that he founded over 20 years ago, to which he returned in 2022 as CEO," the Clearlink representative said.

"We look forward to having these team members join us at our new world-class Global Headquarters in Draper, UT and appreciate the efforts of all of our committed team members–which includes those who work in office and those who will continue to work remotely–as we accomplish our best work together," the statement said.

Clearlink is a private company with 800 employees, a company representative told Insider.

Clarke's critiques of remote work echoed some common CEO grievances in recent months about the phenomenon — banking industry leaders including JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon and Morgan Stanley's James Gorman are among those who have called for employees to be in the office, arguing for the benefits of working in person.

Whose Family Values?

Women and the Social Reproduction of Capitalism

"proletarii, propertyless citizens whose service to the State was to raise children (proles).”
Classical Antiquity; Rome, Perry Anderson, Passages from Antiquity to Feudalism, Verso Press 1974

 

Pro-life movement is the dog that caught the car

Opinion by B.J. Rudell, opinion contributor • Yesterday 

For half a century, the pro-life movement resided in a self-made and self-contained cocoon, operating with equal parts political savvy and practical ignorance.


Pro-life movement is the dog that caught the car© Provided by The Hill

Politically, they hammered the consistently more popular pro-choice position, seemingly made permanent by Roe v. Wade. They demanded the eradication of women’s bodily autonomy in favor of the unborn’s bodily autonomy — even if that “body” was merely a cluster of cells.

The movement pinned down progressives and their pro-choice allies, drawing out votes and public statements based not on when abortions should be legal, but rather when they should be illegal. Pro-life proponents turned a little-known procedure and an amorphous timeframe into a push for a “partial-birth abortion” ban, tying late-term and at times even second-trimester abortions to infanticide, suggesting that women regularly conspired with doctors to simply murder babies they no longer wanted.
The movement fed off of horror and disgust from the right, as well as the left’s disunity governing the sliding scale of abortion rights.

The power of the pro-life movement was that it would never quit and never compromise. Its disciples were true believers in the unborn’s “sanctity of human life.” For half a century, Republicans advanced an absolutist, unforgiving, immovable position. As written in the GOP’s most recent party platform, “the unborn child has a fundamental right to life which cannot be infringed.”

The long game was brutally effective.

A significantly higher percentage of pro-life voters became single-issue voters compared to their pro-choice counterparts. Red states began chipping away at Roe’s foundation, backed by a motivated corps of arguably the nation’s most rabid conservative operation.

But in the aftermath of last year’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling by the Supreme Court, something strange happened: The pro-life movement’s muted celebration looked more like the end of a midseason baseball game than the end of a 50-year battle for supremacy.

In most red-dominated states, they waited months to change abortion laws. For example, it took ultra-pro-life Florida nearly a year to get something on the books.

Think about that: A governor whose increasingly dim path to the White House cuts straight through the pro-life movement couldn’t get a deal done until 11 months after the leak of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs ruling, and 10 months after the ruling went into effect — and by most accounts, his actions did little to bolster support for his flailing non-candidacy, while also generating increased ire from the nation’s much larger pro-choice population.

This is where political savvy and practical ignorance collide.

The GOP’s pro-life commandment has no wiggle room.

For half a century, they decreed that from the moment of conception, a human life is created and that life has a “fundamental right” to continue living. No questions asked. No exceptions.

But Dobbs changed the game. After two generations of platitudes disguised as policy, Republicans were handed the legal means to eradicate abortion — to live up to the principles of their most sacred doctrine.

And then states like Florida waited months — close to a year — hemming and hawing on devising a political solution to what for 50 years had supposedly been their holy humanitarian mission.

Why the delays? Why the exceptions for rape, incest, and the life of the child bearer? Why is the perennial frontrunner for the GOP presidential nomination largely silent on whether to ban abortions?

Because this movement was never pro-life.

During Roe, they could be stridently rigid. But with the onset of Dobbs, once they were forced to act on these supposed convictions, they’ve appeared woefully unprepared. They clearly never planned for this shift in responsibility — from tyrannical evangelicals to politically calculating legislators.

It has become evident that Republicans are, in actuality, “partial lifers.”

There is a sliding scale of what’s acceptable politically, and they’re desperately trying to figure out where that is. It’s no longer about protecting life from the moment of conception; it’s about protecting their political careers through the moment the polls close.

And now, they must rein in an increasingly divided flock while fending off an increasingly motivated opposition.

These are trying times for a majority of Americans who believe that a woman — not the government — should have ultimate control over her body. If there can be any silver lining in these otherwise horrific developments, it’s that this new “partial-life movement” — once one of the nation’s most dominant political forces — has been exposed as a feckless morass of contradictions.

Ahead of 2024, the timing couldn’t be better for a reinvigorated and more unified pro-choice America.

B.J. Rudell is a longtime political strategist, former associate director for Duke University’s Center for Politics, and recent North Carolina Democratic Party operative. In a career encompassing stints on Capitol Hill, on presidential campaigns, in a newsroom, in classrooms, and for a consulting firm, he has authored three books and has shared political insights across all media platforms, including for CNN and Fox News.

The Hill.

American Medical Association president calls abortion pill ruling 'most brazen attack on Americans' health'

Story by Lindsay Kornick • Yesterday 

A New York Times guest essay by American Medical Association president Jack Resnick, Jr. blasted the legal challenge against the abortion pill mifepristone as "one of the most brazen attacks yet against reproductive health."

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk issued an injunction to halt the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s approval of the drug. Although the pill was previously approved in 2000, the FDA made drugs like mifepristone more widely available under the Biden administration.

Many Democratic officials and medical organizations came out against the decision with Resnick calling it "a chilling attempt to intimidate patients and physicians alike" over various other drugs.

"With ever-growing anti-science aggression, disinformation campaigns and vitriol about all types of medical advancements, there is no telling where the court challenges may lead — perhaps even to widely used drugs now sold over the counter to treat pain, allergies or heartburn that happen to have been studied with fetal stem cells," Resnick wrote.



Mifepristone is at the center of a controversy after a district judge filed an injunction against FDA approval. REUTERS/Evleyn Hockstein© REUTERS/Evleyn Hockstein

Kacsmaryk’s decision was partially overturned by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, though it maintained restrictions for mifepristone to only be dispensed up to seven weeks and not be delivered by mail. The Supreme Court also allowed temporary access to the drug until Friday after the Department of Justice (DOJ) appealed the case.

Resnick claimed that, should the Supreme Court choose to not remove all restrictions on the drug, it would compromise "the integrity of the long-established F.D.A.-approval process and whether we want science — or ideologues — informing decisions about our individual and collective health."

"We simply cannot be a country where your access to the care you need is determined by the whims of ideologically driven judges and lawmakers without medical or scientific training. That’s why a dozen of the nation’s leading medical organizations, including the one I head, the American Medical Association, strongly oppose this politically motivated assault on patient and physician autonomy and have filed amicus briefs to make our case," Resnick wrote.



The Supreme Court allowed temporary access to the pill until Friday. 

He added, "We cannot allow pseudoscience and speculation to override the substantial weight of scientific evidence from more than 100 studies and millions of patients that confirm the safety and efficacy of a drug or course of treatment."

The American Medical Association, which is one of the largest health care associations in the country, previously referred to abortion restrictions as a "violation of human rights" ahead of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade in June.

"Responding to the growing threat of over-policing and surveillance of reproductive health services, the nation’s physicians and medical students at the AMA Annual Meeting adopted policy recognizing that it is a violation of human rights when government intrudes into medicine and impedes access to safe, evidence-based reproductive health services, including abortion and contraception," the statement read.



The American Medical Association referred to abortion restrictions as a "violation" of human rights. 

The American Medical Association also called for the DOJ to investigate "disinformation campaigns" against hospitals providing transgender surgeries for minors.