Apparently trying to encourage people to have healthy children is now a great government draconian crackdown. Talk about "pro-life".

During the early years of the Bush administration, Charles Krauthammer suggested that liberals had "Bush Derangement Syndrome" for implementing policies that would eventually lead to the US losing 20% of it's wealth in the worse recession since the Great Depression, while making the worse foreign policy blunder in US history, and destroying any credibility the US had on the human rights front.

Now, there are very real and legitimate reasons to criticize President Obama. People from both the left and the right can make legitimate criticisms of him, regardless of whether I agree with it or not.

But here, I offer you exhibit A for my case that the loony toons right now has been deeply inflicted with Obama Derangement Syndrome.

""I've given birth to five babies and I breast-fed every single one," Bachmann told Ingraham. "To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump...That's the new definition of a nanny state.""

If you can't afford to buy a breast pump, you can't afford a baby.

A little over a month ago, Gisele Bundchen basically said the same thing that Michele Obama said. Gisele is a supermodel married to Tom Brady. She said the same shit during the playoffs. Got trashed for it as well. Probably a reason why the Patriots lost.

If every mother looked liked Gisele, companies making formula would be out of business.

All she's doing is encouraging behavior that will make for healthier children. What in the blue hell is wrong with saying, "hey, this is a good idea"?

having babies, who couldn't afford them. Not!

The issue is, does breast feeding help reduce childhood obesity, and is that an issue that needs to be addressed. I'm not aware of any study that's found that if we withhold breast pumps from poor mothers that that we keep them from having fewer kids.

Also, Bachmanns drawing on the concept of "the Nanny State," is one where the government regulates people's behavior through legislation. Michelle Obama is just wanting to remove any barriers to mothers nursing, who want to do so. No legislation there. But, she alludes to the possibility, thanks to Laura Ingram's question about whether Michelle Obama will do what Hillary Clinton did, and run for Senator. Wow, what a strange brew she's concocting.

So, her whole approach to accusing Michelle Obama of bringing in the "Nanny State" serves to do exactly what happened on this post; a knee jerk reaction against the government imposing something on us, rather than responding to the actual contents of the article.

Of course he might change his mind if he knew what we know about brain develop now vs. then.

"He thought that a baby can sense when the person holding it was not comfortable."

He was absolutely right about the anxiety of the mother. If a mother is anxious and has issues regarding breast feeding, she and her infant are better off with bottle feeding. However, the reverse can be said also.

The real issue is not bottle fed vs. breast fed, but rather holding the infant in a state that's called "Maternal Preoccupation." In this state the infant is having his/her own brain hardwired to regulate affect and physiological states of arousal. It's extremely difficult to put baby in its crib and prop up a breast, but very easy to prop up a bottle. When this is done, the hardwiring doesn't take place, and the infant ends up growing up needing to regulate said states through external sources, like food, alcohol, drugs, etc.

....eat healthy food & make better choices in the foods they eat over the gluttony of fast foods.

She's only been "encouraging" there are no Bills. there has been food labels before Obama got in, & now restaurant labels...which I'm for, so I have the choice not to eat foods high in fat, cholesterol & sodium....all the better to fuck providers without that shit!

That’s personal responsibility & the cheapest method for health care. If others want fast food, processed food, tv dinners...they can have it & drive our health care up....they should also have to pay twice the premiums than someone in the right weight range.

I just don't see how "encouraging" healthy life styles is a Rebublican or Democrat issue.

Encourageing breast feeding, quit smoking, eat healthy, exercise, don't shoot heroine, buckle your seat belt, no drinking while driving, wear a condom for safe sex....I just don't see the politics.

Years ago, when breast feeding became the trend, a doctor I knew was against it. He had nothing, per se, against it. But he saw a day when women would have to do it, even if they didn't want to or didn't feel comfortable with it.  He thought that a baby can sense when the person holding it was not comfortable.

If a woman has a baby now, the pressure of people telling her to breast feed is huge. I know several women who hated breast feeding, but kept doing it because if they switched to formula they were chastized.

It is so funny because the left accuses the right of trying to tell people what to do. At the same time, the left passes law after law, regulation after regulation, restriction after restriction.

If "relaxed workplace rules" are a voluntary, by the company that wants to keep good employees, it is good.  But when they are imposed by law and mandatory, they limit freedom.

Keep your regulations.

...I really can't disagree with her one this one.  Hell must've frozen over.  I've got to agree with the other  poster who said, if you can't afford a breast pump you can't afford a baby.

I think you've mis-characterized the left as accusing the right of "trying to tell people what to do."  In fact, it's the opposite.  Liberals are the ones who are, with some justification, accused by the right of wanting Big Government to run everybody's life.  What ticks me off is right-wingers who yell about Big Government and then want the same government to poke its nose into reproductive rights.

There is one area where the right may want to butt in, and that is abortion.
The reason for that is a perception of when life begins, and a difference of opinion.  People can honestly disagree about whether the thing in the womb is a person.  If it is a person, it may deserve protection.
None of my friends who were pregnant ever said, "I feel my fetus."

But the left isn't upset when a baby is born and a doctor severs is spinal cord with a scissors.

Once you set aside that example which is due to an honest defintion of when the Thing becomes a person, the left controls, controls, controls.

In contrast, the left wants to control what type of insurance policy I buy to cover my medical, where I can smoke (I quit), what can be said in the work place without getting sued or fired, whether my business has to have a toilet for handicap, whether a dance studio has to have a ramp for the studio for handicap, how much a company can charge for a credit card, whether a local school is controlled by the area or by D.A.  It goes on and on and on.

If you want to see who wants to control people the most, look and count how many laws are proposed by the right and how many are controlled by the left.  

I am for all the public service messages the First Lady wants to send. The truth is, no bottle formula can duplicate mother's milk. Breat fed babies enjoy a wide range of health benefits taht bottle fed babies do not have, and those benefits extend into childhood and even into adulthood. Alot of women don't know that breast feeding is healthier for their baby, and I am all for getting the message out so that new mothers have all the information they need to make their own decision about whether to breast feed or bottle feed.

But come ON, a TAX write off for breast feeding equipment?? Are you fucking KIDDING me?!? As another poster put it, if a new mother can't afford to buy the equipment herself, then don't have a damned baby at all. Yes, this is an utterly ASININE idea. Truly moronic.

do with what the government thinks is good for us. Who benefits when children are obese? Who manufactures and sells infant formula? The mere suggestion of doing something that the capitalist class cannot profit from is met with derision. Most things that the capitalist class cannot profit from are illegal.

Actually, I agree.  What came over me?  I assume it was the shock of reading something that came out of Bachmann's mouth that wasn't loony on its face.  Sarah Palin should thank God for Bachmann because she's about the only person nuttier than Sarah and she makes her seem  almost responsible.  I said almost!

-- Modified on 2/16/2011 5:50:43 PM

That's the same swill they spew when saying the right to an abortion is in the Bill of Rights or Constitution.  I'm awaiting the day when the Left's food stamps will buy abortion at a Vegas Wedding Chapel with an Elvis impersonator presiding the ceremony.  They'll claim that's natural and even their vegan brethren will join the buffet.

Aw, Jeez, now  we're going all Con Law.  And of course you're literally correct that there's nothing on reproductive rights in the Bill of Rights, etc.  But even Justice Scalia doesn't assert that just because there's no specific mention of some individual right that means the  right doesn't exist.  Ever heard of Roe v. Wade?  That's established principle, agree with it or not.  Could it be changed, sure.  But there's a long precedent for the existence reproductive rights, among many, many other rights of all kinds (the interpretation of the  "Commerce Clause," for example).  Our entire  society functions on the presumption of such rights.  If we relied only on the literal words of the Constitution our society and economy would grind to a halt.  And you don't have to be a liberal or a vegan to believe this.

Ok, how did you go from tax deduction (ie: Lowering Taxes) for a Breast Milk Pump
(which was considered a health related ex pence, like a blood pressure monitor, oxygen tank ect, but was denied for other reasons), to .....

Purely social presser to breast feed, because of precised benefits...

To federal regulations....

Are you really trying to suggest that someone is considering a breast feeding regulation??  
Where did you get that?  How do people draw that line?  Are you sitting in a dark room watching "1984" over and over again?  

The only regulation that this type of  thinking gets rid of the regulations about putting paint thinner or whatever formula.

So the issue is whether its appropriate to give a tax deduction for a breast pump.  Tax deduction, not credit, the only people that get this credit are people that itemized their deductions.   Morgage interest, stock losses, paying for after tax health insurance, ect.  Low income people are not using these lines, they don't have enough to beat out the basic 5k deduction.  This would be a deduction mainly used my middle class people that would spend 2k on this instead or renting for a couple of months after pregnacy.

This was a middle class deduction.
So stop the low income thing.

Should it be a deduction at the moment, no.  We're about to cut the program that buys pregnant women food if they can't afford it.  This expence significantly reduced through rental, buying is a luxury.

You must be confusing the pump price with the price of implants

-- Modified on 2/16/2011 7:56:27 PM

Keep more of the money you earn.  However you can do it.  Liberals would hate this idea of reducing taxes on Mothers if it wasn't for a pro-life tea party person opposing it.  Libs have to go where their knee jerks take them.  You can't blame the poor fellows.  And the rest of us should get tax breaks for putting up with them.  Its only fair, I think.

Yea you're right on the price, looks more like $200-$400, should have looked that up.

Still the meaning of my post is the same, low income people do not use these things for itemized deductions on thier taxes.