Maybe it matters how we talk about abortion

By Dan Brooks in Rhetoric 0 Comment
Mike Huckabee called the shootings "domestic terrorism" and abortion "dismembering of human babies."

Mike Huckabee called the shootings “domestic terrorism” and abortion “dismembering of human babies.”

On Friday, an evidently deranged man in Colorado Springs killed three people and injured nine others in an armed standoff with police at Planned Parenthood. “No more baby parts,” a senior law enforcement official reported him as saying. It appeared to be a reference to a series of undercover videos shot by an anti-abortion activist in which Planned Parenthood administrators discussed fees associated with the donation of fetal tissue for research. Or, as Carly Fiorina described it in a nationally televised Republican presidential debate:

“Watch a fully formed fetus on the table, its heart beating, its legs kicking while someone says ‘we have to keep it alive to harvest its brain.'”

That video doesn’t exist, you can’t abort a “fully formed” fetus, and no one ever said that about harvesting a brain. But she was just describing something she felt strongly about, in terms that, if they were true, would probably justify armed intervention.

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Carson campaign to fact-checkers: Google it

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 1 Comment
Dr. Ben Carson describes an episode of the 1980s TV series The Incredible Hulk.

Dr. Ben Carson describes an episode of the 1980s TV series The Incredible Hulk.

In an interview with Wolf Blitzer last week, Ben Carson said that Mahmoud Abbas, Ali Khamenei, and Vladimir Putin all knew each other at Moscow’s Patrice Lumumba University in 1968. It seems unlikely that the president of Palestine, the supreme leader of Iran and the homecoming king of Russia would all become friends at communist college—serendipitous even. And, lo and behold, it didn’t really happen. At least it didn’t in that nitpicking, fact-checker sense that there’s no evidence for it. When Politifact asked the Carson campaign where they got their information, they responded:

Thanks for your inquiry. We are not in the habit of providing Googling support to the media. If there is a specific aspect of Dr. Carson’s statement that you wish to challenge, please let us know and we can go from there.

There’s a unicorn in my refrigerator. Prove me wrong, dicks.

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CARLY super PAC does not coordinate with Fiorina, does set up events

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 7 Comments
Carly Fiorina pauses to remember the truth.

Carly Fiorina pauses to remember the truth.

According to the precedents set by Citizens United v. FEC, so-called super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in support of presidential candidates, so long as they remain independent from their campaigns. The key word in the Supreme Court’s decision has become “coordination”: the super PAC cannot work with campaign organizers to direct how its money and volunteer hours are spent. In practice, “coordination” has become impossible to prove—partly because super PACs and candidates cynically twist the spirit of the law, and partly because the Federal Elections Commission has lost its ability to enforce its own rules. That’s why the super PAC Carly For America—which received a letter from the FEC saying its name could not include a candidate’s name—changed to CARLY. Problem solved.

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Rubio email describes “threat my campaign poses” to US

By Dan Brooks in Republican Candidates 2 Comments
Marco Rubio drinks water—too much water?

Marco Rubio drinks water—too much water?

Yesterday, the Marco Rubio campaign sent an email to supporters that may not have said what it meant. Props to Twitter’s Mike Tipping for the screenshot:

Rubio

The first draft read, “I know you get a lot of email, but I wouldn’t be sending this unless it was urgent. And it is, because I’m sending it. Because it’s urgent. That’s why I’m sending it…” and continued for 970 words. But this draft merely assures us that “the media and Democrats know the threat that my campaign and supporters pose to our nation when we win next November.” It’s a weird thing to say, because I get the sense the media doesn’t know anything about Rubio at all. But at least he made a unique donation button just for me. I hate to click on the same button other people have clicked on. It makes me feel like that button’s a whore.

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