Stephanie Chatfield, the wife of anti-abortion Michigan state Rep. Lee Chatfield (R), is speaking out about her own experience with the procedure after receiving threats from people warning they’d expose her.
“Your desire to see this story go public emboldened me to do something that I should have done years ago,” Chatfield wrote in a Facebook post published last Friday. “And no matter the intentions of anybody wishing to see this story go public, this I am certain of: God meant it for good and will glorify Himself through this.”
The post was titled “Be Pro-Life—But offer help to women in need.”
Chatfield recounted her experience of being “taken advantage of” while intoxicated at a high school party and deciding to get an abortion after learning she was pregnant three weeks later. She called her choice “the worst of my life.”
“To tell you the truth, I desperately wish that I had the courage as a teenage girl to accept and welcome my child into this world,” Chatfield wrote. “I wish that I had the same amount of courage that it’s taking me to share my story now. But I didn’t, and I made a decision that I’ve thought about and regretted nearly every day since. It’s haunted me. It’s made me weep. It’s made it difficult to look in the mirror at times. I knew that what I did was wrong at the time, but I never imagined the weight and guilt that I would carry as a consequence.”
Chatfield’s husband, who is currently up for re-election, is a stalwart opponent of abortion who voted to defund Planned Parenthood for providing the procedure. In introducing his wife’s remarks, which were posted on his public Facebook page, Lee Chatfield said he was “extremely proud” of his wife for “her courage.”
Donald Trump counseled Trump University students to take advantage of the housing bubble as an investment opportunity and said, just a year before it burst, that he was “excited” for it to end because of the money he’d make, NBCNews reports.
“People have been talking about the end of the cycle for 12 years, and I’m excited if it is,’ he told the Globe and Mail in March of 2007. “I’ve always made more money in bad markets than in good markets.”
At that time, the housing market was already beginning to decline, and just over a year later the subprime mortgage crisis hit, part of a chain reaction of events that led to the stock market crash of 2008 and cemented the Great Recession.
The subprime mortgage crisis alone caused millions of Americans to lose their homes, but that same Globe and Mail piece reports Trump was “advising investors that their are now great deals in buying subprime mortgages at a discount, and repossessed houses at low prices.”
The Republican Speaker of the House was interviewed by Politico’s Glenn Thrush, and gave a rather conditions-filled answer to a simple question.
“Do you think he can really win?”
“Yeah, sure, of course I do,” Ryan responded. “I’m not gonna — I’m not a betting man,” Ryan added when pressed if he would bet his own money on a Trump victory.
“I think if we get our party unified, and if we do the work we need to do to get ourselves at full strength, and if we offer the country a clear and compelling agenda that is inspiring, that is inclusive, that fixes problems, that is solutions-based and based on good principles, then, yes, I think we can win.”
The Speaker, who earlier this month met with Trump after saying he wasn’t yet ready to endorse the presumptive Republican nominee, indicated he will continue calling out the businessman, telling Politico, “I’ve done that in the past, and I will do that in future if need be, and I hope it’s not necessary.”
Those of us old enough to remember the halcyon days of the late 70s and early 80s and the great New York Yankee teams of that era with their owner, George Steinbrenner.
George knew greatness and proved it when he went out and bought Reggie Jackson to patrol right field for the 1977 and 1978 World Series champions. Reggie excelled when it counted and sealed the team’s 1978 title with three home runs in the final game of the series. For that he was lauded as Mr. October. Clutch. In 1980, Steinbrenner bought Dave Winfield to play for the team, and he promptly fizzled in the 1981 series, going 1 for 22. For that, the Boss labeled him Mr. May. Unclutch.
I think we’re dealing with the same phenomenon in the presidential race. Donald Trump has shown that he can win primaries and woo (some) voters with a message that’s brazen, loud, racist, xenophobic, and politically incorrect, which is just an excuse to say terribly nasty things about women, Muslims, immigrants and members of minority groups. His economic policies are incoherent and his foreign policies would make the isolationists of the 1920s and 30s proud. He shifts his positions daily and repeats his signature slogan to mask the fact that he doesn’t really have anything meaningful to say. It’s an emotional appeal based on the time-tested media strategy that made him and countless others, into wealthy television stars. He’s run his campaign on the backs of the national media, using free air time and phone-in interviews to spout his vitriol and to deflect any criticism as nay-saying and negativity. Trump has no idea what’s coming as he becomes the sole focus of investigations into his business practices, income, taxes and everything else that’s bared in a national election campaign. He’s already shown a Christie-like thinness to his skin when it comes to attacks, and when the press really starts looking into his affairs he will have some memorably bad moments.
In short, Mr. May.
On the other hand, Hillary Clinton has actually won an election and understands what it takes to gather resources and organize a campaign. She has real, practical policies that would move our country forward, would honor all people and would continue to value America’s place in the world. She has a positive message, and the experience of being the focus of unrelenting attacks on her character and gender. Does she have baggage? Enough to make me want to buy Samsonite stock. Emails, speeches, ties to Wall Street, the Clinton name and an unfortunate stint as the point person for her husband’s failed health care reform effort. Will these hurt her in the campaign? You bet, but she’s been through this before, has an experienced team of advisors and actual ideas that will help the United States. And she is also a terrific debater. She will come through when it counts.
Ms. October.
Right now, Republicans are coalescing around Trump and getting used to the idea that he’s going to be the nominee. There are distinct pockets of opposition and many big GOP donors have said they will not be giving to his campaign. Some of the other money that would normally go to the top of the ticket is being funneled to House and Senate races as the party says one thing, that Trump is their guy, while whispering quite another, that Trump is likely to lose and bring our majorities down with him.
Meanwhile, the fun is on the left as Bernie Sanders makes a last ditch plea to voters in New Jersey and California to back him and send a message to the Super-delegates that they should back him instead of Hillary. I don’t see this happening, but it’s prolonging the campaign beyond what the party, and Hillary, wants. That will end by the end of June and I could see a Clinton-Sanders ticket in the fall. In fact, I would heartily welcome it. As for the polls, talk to me on July 30. That’s when I’ll start being interested.
Right now, it’s Mr. May vs. Ms. October. In the end, the clutch hitter will win.
NASHUA, NH - APRIL 18: Donald Trump speaks at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit April 18, 2015 in Nashua, New Hampshire. The Summit brought together local and national Republicans and was attended by all the Republicans candidates as well as those eyeing a run for the nomination. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
(Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images)
At least one Trump delegate wont be around for the Republican convention.
A Maryland delegate supporting Donald Trump’s presidential campaign was charged Thursday with making and possessing child pornography as well as owning illegal weapons and transporting explosives, according to shocking court documents.
Caleb Andrew Bailey, a resident of a tiny Washington, D.C. suburb and a Maryland delegate for the presumptive Republican nominee, allegedly engaged in sexual conduct with a minor and used the encounter to make child porn, federal authorities claimed in an indictment released Thursday.
The alleged conduct occurred between March 2015 and January 2016, the Justice Department said.
Bailey, 30, “knowingly attempted to and did employ, use, persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor to engage in any sexually explicit conduct … for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct, and the visual depiction had been produced using materials that had been mailed, shipped, and transported in interstate and foreign commerce,” the indictment, filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland, stated.
Bailey was also charged with illegal possession of a machine gun and illegally transporting explosives, including hundreds of rounds of ammunition.
WASHINGTON - OCTOBER 22: Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee member Sen. Robert Bennett (R-UT) questions witnesses during a hearing on Capitol Hill October 22, 2009 in Washington, DC. Many Republicans, including Bennett, have been critical of the Obama Administration's use of "czars" and the balance of power between the presidentially-appointed advisors and Congressional authority over those positions. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Hospitalized and on his death-bed, former Republican senator Bob Bennett issued an apology to Muslims for the overt hatred coming their way from Republicans and the leader of the Republican party, Donald Trump.
Bob Bennet’s son Jim, recalled the final moments of his father’s life.
“So I was standing there with him in the hospital and out of nowhere he asked me, ‘Are there any Muslims in this hospital?'” Jim Bennett told NBC News Wednesday evening.
“I said, ‘Yes, dad, I’m sure there are.'” Jim said of the conversation, which was first reported by the Daily Beast. “And he was very emotional and said, ‘I want to go up to every single one of them and apologize, I want to go up to every single one of them and tell them how grateful I am that they are in this country and apologize on behalf of the Republican Party for Donald Trump.'”
Jim Bennett said that when he later spoke to his mother, Joyce Bennett, about the conversation, she told him that expressing a sense of inclusion for ostracized populations, especially Muslims, had become “something that he was doing quite a lot of in the last months of his life.”
And I totally agree with the Arizona senator. These Republicans are indeed bastards for putting their party before what’s best for the country.
In a recent interview with The Hugh Hewitt Show, McCain said that he cannot see a scenario where a third party candidate will be successful in challenging Donald Trump
“I just think that the people have spoken,” he said Wednesday on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” “The fact is, the Republicans have spoken.
“Honestly, I just don’t see this scenario,” he told Hewitt. “I think you and I have heard about this ever since it appeared that Trump was going to win the nomination.
“I just don’t see it happening. One of the things that both parties have done over the years is pretty well set a system up that it’s almost impossible to challenge when the two parties have their candidates.”
McCain also shared an anecdote involving former Rep. Morris Udall (D-Ariz.) in describing his frustrations with democracy.
“I had a beloved friend named Congress Morris Udall, we called him ‘Mo’ and he was a Democrat, one of the most amusing guys that ever lived,” he said.
“He ran against Jimmy Carter for the nomination in 1976,” he said.
“After he had finally lost the last primary, … he said, ‘the people have spoken – the bastards.’ I kind of feel a bit like Mo Udall.”
When McCain ran for president in 2008 his slogan was “Country First.” But the decision by Republicans to let a xenophobe lead their party into the 2016 presidential election shows a sick and obvious allegiance their party over the continued progression of the United States.
That’s not my take on it, that’s what her obituary said.
According to polls, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the two least liked presidential nominees in modern American history. In fact, you may have heard some of your friends say they’d rather die than vote for either one of them… and that’s exactly what one Virginia woman’s obituary is claiming she did.
An obituary published in The Richmond Times Dispatch on Tuesday states that “faced with the prospect of voting for either Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, Mary Anne Noland of Richmond chose, instead, to pass into the eternal love of God on Sunday, May 15, 2016, at the age of 68.”
The obituary doesn’t say anything else about her political views and only notes that she was a “faithful child of God” who was “devoted her life to sharing the love she received from Christ with all whose lives she touched as a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister, friend and nurse.”
He’s not even in the White House or in any position to make a single foreign policy change, yet, Donald Trump is already showing one of America’s allys that he doesn’t care about them or their leaders.
After London elected its first Muslim mayor, Trump and the new mayor, Sadiq Khan, have gone back and forth hauling insults at each other.
“When he won, I wished him well,” he said of Sadiq Khan on ITV’s “Good Morning Britain.” “Now I don’t care about him.”
“Let’s see if he’s a good man,” the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee added. “It doesn’t make any difference to me how he does.”
London elected Khan on May 6, making the son of Pakistani immigrants the first Muslim mayor of a major Western capital.
Khan has since repeatedly criticized Trump’s remarks on Islam, arguing that the billionaire has “an ignorant” view of the religion and does not deserve to win the White House.
“I’m hoping that he’s not the guy who wins,” the Labor Party member said on May 11. “My message to Donald Trump and his team is that your views of Islam are ignorant.”
Add the latest skirmish about bathroom usage to the list of phony wars the conservatives believe we are fighting in this country over issues that should have been settled long ago.
Like voter fraud, those opposed to bathroom choice have created an image of a transgender man, or in the nightmare scenario, a man pretending to be transgender, going into the women’s bathroom and abusing the real women there. Because this has happened how many times? Almost never? Really and truly never? I appreciate that conservatives want to anticipate problems before they happen, but why couldn’t they have done it with a real issue like, say, climate change, smoking causing cancer or school testing, where the evidence was clear that these were terribly harmful to people?
Obviously, this is more than just a concern over bathrooms. It’s the last gasp fight that many people in this country believe we need to have to save the United States from truly recognizing that we all have civil rights, and that the government needs to respect and protect our rights. After all, we need to have enemies… an outsider, to properly set them apart from so-called “normal Americans” who live with their body parts, their heterosexuality, Judaeo-Christian (only) beliefs, and who reject New York values. Losing the bathroom war might mean that we’d have to recognize that gender identity is not binary but fluid, and that it exists on a continuum that can shift daily.
And besides, this issue is taking attention away from the real national concern, which is how to use religious beliefs to deny engaged or married gay couples their rights. You can’t use religion to deny bathroom choise because, well, you know.
As a educator for the past 30 years, I understand completely why parents and students would be concerned about the bathroom choice issue. But what I also understand is that without fanfare, transgender students have been quietly and dutifully going to the bathroom for generations without much fuss, and I suspect that many of them have gone to the bathroom in which they felt the most comfortable, which has been difficult because many transgender students have been made to feel distinctly uncomfortable in their own skin for millennia. I will also say that my colleagues and I have witnessed a remarkable shift in student attitudes towards their LGBTQ classmates in just the past two years because of the Supreme Court’s marriage decision. One of the results is that my school district has a policy that recognizes the inherent dignity of all people and allows them to make their own choice of bathroom.
The big issue in the 1980s and 90s was coming out of the closet. For today’s youth, it’s going to whatever Water Closet they want to go into.
The Saturday Night Live video below shows Donald Trump and Chris Christie going through the rigorous process of choosing a running-mate. And fittingly, in accordance with all his other nonsensical “policies,” Donald Trump suggested George Zimmerman – the Florida man who followed a black, unarmed teenager, picked a fight with that teenager then murdered the teen – for his running mate.
“How about a guy from a swing state, Florida,” Christie suggested. “He’s half-Hispanic, with a proven record for standing up for himself.”
“George Zimmerman,” Trump blurted out.
“No!” Christie immediately replied. “No no no no no no. Marco Rubio.”
“Oh, little Marco,” Trump said. “I can’t ask him to be V.P. until his parents sign the release form.”
Donald Trump is obviously hiding something. He has made several statements about when he would release his taxes and has backtracked on all those statements. So if you’re a sensible American who watched all the recent presidential candidates released their taxes, then you naturally wonder… what’s the hold up? Why isn’t Trump releasing his?
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is asking that very question and has produced the video below detailing much of Trump’s previous timelines about when he would release his taxes. Those self-imposed timelines have long come and gone. We’re still waiting…
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