Join me in thirty years when we exonerate tabletop RPGs for their corrupting social influence. And video games in another thirty.

Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham and his 1954 book Seduction of the Innocent serve as historical and cultural touchstones of the anti-comics movement in the United States during the 1940s and 1950s. Although there have been persistent concerns about the clinical evidence Wertham used as the basis for Seduction, his sources were made widely available only in 2010. This paper documents specific examples of how Wertham manipulated, overstated, compromised, and fabricated evidence—especially that evidence he attributed to personal clinical research with young people—for rhetorical gain.

…

“Lots of people have suspected for years that Wertham fudged his so-called clinical evidence in arguing against comics, but there’s been no proof,” Tilley said. “My research is the first definitive indication that he misrepresented and altered children’s own words about comics

More: Bleedingcool: Dr. Fredrick Wertham Lied and Lied About Comics

Jaime Rosenthal, a senior at Washington University in St. Louis, called more than 100 hospitals in every state last summer, seeking prices for a hip replacement for a 62-year-old grandmother who was uninsured but had the means to pay herself.

The quotes she received might surprise even hardened health care economists: Only about half of the hospitals, including top-ranked orthopedic centers and community hospitals, could provide any sort of price estimate, despite repeated calls.

Those that could gave quotes that varied by a factor of more than 10, from $11,100 to $125,798.

Rosenthal’s grandmother was fictitious, created for a summer research project on health care costs. But the findings, which form the basis of a paper released Monday by JAMA Internal Medicine, are likely to fan the debate on the unsustainable growth of U.S. health care costs and an opaque medical system in which prices are often hidden from consumers.

“Transparency is all the rage these days in government and business, but there has been little push for pricing transparency in health care, and there’s virtually no information,” said Dr. Peter Cram, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Iowa, who wrote the paper with Rosenthal.

“I can get the price for a car, for a can of oil, for a gallon of milk. But health care? That’s not so easy.”

Link

Via AnnArbor.com:

The power of a single judge to make reproductive choice decisions for young women is part of a 1991 law which resulted from an initiative petition drive by Right to Life and other anti-choice forces.The law requires any young woman under the age of 18 to have the permission of a parent or a legal guardian to obtain an abortion, in any circumstances. If the young woman is unable to obtain that permission, or is afraid or unwilling to seek it, she can petition a court for a waiver of the parental consent requirement.

Any one of the five Washtenaw Circuit Court and two Probate Court judges may be assigned to hear these cases. During the last four years, there have been more than 125 of them.

It is impossible to know which judge or judges will be assigned to hear these cases in the future, but it certainly is possible that the newly-elected judge will decide some portion of them.

The statute says a waiver of parental consent should be granted if the court finds either of the following: 1) The minor is “sufficiently mature and well-enough informed” to make the decision independently of her parents or legal guardian, or 2) The waiver would be “in the best interests of the minor.” This language is broad and loose enough for the most pro-choice or anti-choice judge to find justification within in it for any decision.

The Right to Life position is to legally deny to every woman, no matter her age or maturity, the right to make a decision about whether to end a pregnancy, except when her life is endangered. The Human Life Amendment it supports would, essentially, make abortion a murder of a “person.” It is difficult to see how any judge who subscribes to the Right to Life position would ever find that a teenage girl should be given the option of deciding, on her own, whether to have an abortion, or would find that “murdering” her “unborn child” would be in her best interest.

Conversely, a pro-choice judge can’t require a minor to have an abortion. The judge only rules on whether the young woman may make the decision.

More: Judicial Races Become Politicized as Abortion Rights Grow as an Election Issue

Via Isthmus:

Tia’s social worker was taken aback when she learned of the referral to Care Net, a faith-based crisis pregnancy center that opposes abortion.

“I was alarmed at the idea that she was being sent to an anti-choice agency,” says the social worker, who also requested anonymity to protect the student’s identity.

The social worker says she asked Tia whether she was familiar with the agency. Tia was not. When Tia later asked [her public defender Nancy Vue] if she knew Care Net was an anti-abortion group, Vue said she did, but said it offers resources and options to minors.

Tia says that made her angry. “I explained to her that I have my options and I’m ready to see the judge. I’ve talked to many people about this. I’ve had my counseling done.”

Vue did not return calls for comment. But Dee Dee Watson, the regional attorney manager for the Office of State Public Defender, says that state statute requires minors to be counseled on the risks and consequences of abortion and the risks and consequences of carrying the pregnancy to term before obtaining a judicial waiver.

More: Wisconsin Public Defender Forces Teen to Go to Care Net CPC for Counseling - RH Reality Check

“The Arizona Act violates the freedom of choice provision of the Medicaid Act precisely because every Medicaid beneficiary has the right to select any qualified health care provider,” U.S. District Court Judge Neil Wake ruled in a decision released on Friday. (THANK YOU!)

Anti-abortion advocates said that the law was necessary to make sure the state wasn’t providing tax dollars for abortion (which is illegal under the Hyde Amendment, something backers love to fake-forget) via indirect funneling of funds. In other words, they were trying to cut countless low-income women off from the services they desperately need by pretending that Planned Parenthood operates somewhat like the Mafia. Also, not that it should matter, but only 3 percent of the state’s Planned Parenthood clinics offer abortion services. Facts! Who needs ‘em?

Bryan Howard, president and chief executive of Planned Parenthood Arizona, told Reuters that the decision was “a victory for all Arizonans” and women who count on their services.

“Politics should never interfere with a woman’s breast exam or birth control,” Howard said in a statement. “It is wrong for the state to tell Arizonans who can be their health care provider … Our health centers are open today and they will be open tomorrow.”

This is also a huge victory on a national level, since Arizona is hardly the only state where lawmakers have tried to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood; the organization is currently fighting the hard fight in Texas. Hopefully more judges will follow Wake’s example.

More: Arizona Won’t Block Planned Parenthood State Funding After All

Rep. Joel Johnson, one of the Michigan legislators behind a proposed mandatory ultrasound bill (HB 4187), recently said that the reason he feels so strongly that all women should be forced to look at photos of fetal cells they don’t want to see is because ladies don’t know best when it comes to making decisions about their own lives.

“We have consumer protection laws for people who are getting loans, or buying life insurance,” Johnson said. “It requires that things get explained to them and in my opinion this is another situation where people aren’t making a decision they won’t be happy with down the road.”

Johnson also said that the ultrasound should take place at least two hours before the abortion and before the woman was given any drugs, to ensure she was “mentally capable” to decide. (Ideally, a woman would be tied up and locked in an interrogation cell with a wall-sized photo of her ultrasound framed with little pink hearts while the sound of babies cooing played over the speakers.)

This argument raises a few questions: how does looking at a blob turn you into a more intelligent consumer of your own uterus? Why makes this man more “mentally capable” of making decisions than women who know why they should or shouldn’t have a kid? (Hey, maybe he looked at an ultrasound! We hear they make you smart.) Why do politicians insist on equating women’s bodies with commodities?

More: Michigan Legislator Supports Mandatory Ultrasounds Because Women Aren’t ‘Mentally Capable’ of Making Their Own Decisions

Here’s what Chuck Hagel should do, and I am not kidding about this. He should get up from his seat in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee, open his shirt, tear out the shrapnel he’s still carrying around from Vietnam, and throw the bloody fragments in the faces of both Jim Inhofe and Ted Cruz. This is your new “rebranded” Republican party, Senator Cruz, who makes the heart of Chris Cillizza go pitty-pat?

“We do not know, for example, if he received compensation for giving paid speeches at extreme or radical groups. In my view, given the two letters he received, it is a fair inference to assume that he and those handling his nomination assembled that information, assembled his compensation, and the only reasonable inference, I think, is when they assembled it, there was something in there that they did not want to make public. It may be that he spoke at radical or extreme groups or anti-israel groups and accepted financial compensation. We don’t know.”

I have in my hand a list…

Later, after Bill Nelson of Florida called out Cruz for resurrecting Tailgunnner Joe, Inhofe chimed in and (as usual) you could hear the stupid echoing over Chesapeake Bay.

“I want to make one observation,” Inhofe interjected. “I think I wrote down the words Senator [Bill] Nelson was criticizing our senator there for implying that Chuck Hagel was cozy with terrorist type countries referring to Iran. I’d say he’s endorsed by them. You can’t get any cozier than that.”

I give up. I can’t imagine why the president hasn’t “reached across the aisle” more.

Link

A for-profit school that was hyped by Republican lawmakers as a solution to Tennessee’s education problems recently admitted deleting bad grades to “more accurately recognize students’ current progress.”

A December email obtained by WTVF showed that Tennessee Virtual Academy’s vice principal instructed middle school teachers to delete “failing grades” from October and September.

“After … looking at so many failing grades, we need to make some changes before the holidays,” the email says, adding that each teacher needed to “take out the October and September progress [reports]; delete it so that all that is showing is November progress.”

“If you have given an assignment and most of your students failed that assignment, then you need to take that grade out.”

Democratic state Rep. Gloria Johnson said she was horrified because the school’s instructions amounted to cheating.

More: Republican-Backed for-Profit School Caught Deleting Bad Student Grades

Sure, it’s about the students, not about making your for-profit school look more successful than reality suggests. Right.

Christopher Dorner was engaged in a shootout with federal authorities in the Big Bear area Tuesday, a law enforcement source told The Times.

The shooting occurred after Dorner burglarized a home, tied up a couple and stole their car, the source said.

It was not immediately clear whether Dorner was in custody.

More: Christopher Dorner in Gun Battle With Authorities, Source Says

Hope they get him without any more injuries.

The Violence Against Women Act reauthorization passed through the Senate on Tuesday afternoon, by a vote of 78 to 22. Of those opposing the legislation, all 22 were Republican men. Every female Senator supported the bill.

22 GOP Men who voted against VAWA 2013

Among the most notable votes against the bill were Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Here’s a look at all 22 opponents of VAWA:

VAWA expired during the previous Congress, and because of Republican opposition to provisions for Native American, undocumented, and LGBT victims of domestic violence, the different versions approved by the House and by the Senate were never reconciled, and the bill died without final passage at the end of 2012.

Since its inception in 1994, VAWA has established a system for helping women in danger. The law created the National Domestic Violence Hotline, made stalking illegal, and helped drive down the number of partner homicides.

Two Senators — Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) — also offered significant amendments to the VAWA bill. Grassley’s amendment stripped all Native American, LGBT, and undocumented victim protections. It was voted down on Thursday of last week. Cornyn’s, aimed exclusively on the bill’s language relating to tribal lands, failed on Monday.

More: BREAKING: Senate Passes Violence Against Women Act, With No Help From 22 Republican Male Senators

HuffPost Article:

WASHINGTON — The Senate easily passed its Violence Against Women Act reauthorization bill on Tuesday, officially punting the issue to the House, where Republican leaders still haven’t signaled how they plan to proceed.

The bill passed 78 to 22. It already had 62 cosponsors, which ensured its passage, but it picked up additional support from a handful of Republicans who weren’t already sponsoring it.

Senators who voted against the bill included Republicans John Barrasso (Wyo.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), John Boozman (Ark.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), John Cornyn (Texas), Ted Cruz (Texas), Mike Enzi (Wyo.), Lindsey Graham (S.C.), Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), James Inhofe (Okla.), Mike Johanns (Neb.), Ron Johnson (Wisc.), Mike Lee (Utah), Mitch McConnell (Ky.), Rand Paul (Ky.), Jim Risch (Idaho), Pat Roberts (Kansas), Marco Rubio (Fla.), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Jeff Thune (N.D.) and Tim Scott (S.C.).

Rubio, who put out a statement on his VAWA stance Tuesday, will give the Republican response to President Obama’s State of the Union address later Tuesday evening.

The bill authorizes $659 million over five years for VAWA programs. It also expands VAWA to include new protections for LGBT and Native American victims of domestic violence, to give more attention to sexual assault prevention and to help reduce a backlog in processing rape kits. Created in 1994, VAWA has helped to strengthen programs and services for victims of domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.

Ahead of the vote, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the bill’s sponsor, questioned why anybody would vote against his legislation since it just expands protections to vulnerable groups.

TEXT of Senate Bill 47