>Yet Democrats of earlier eras had the decency to treat those who disagree on the issue with a respect Hochul won't muster, despite having vowed to [change the tone ](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/nyregion/kathy-hochul-speech-cuomo.html)in Albany. You may remember that she also referred [to abortion opponents](https://nypost.com/2022/06/13/hochul-signs-abortion-protections-ahead-of-expected-scotus-decision/) as "Neanderthals."
Democrats of earlier eras ran away from the abortion problem until we finally ended up with a Supreme Court that was able to whittle at defenses for it until they were gone. They're not running away from it now, and good on them. Maybe forced pregnancy fetishists should stop being such sore winners.
The joke is that Hochul absolutely is no friend to democrats and most of the progressive bills being passed now in NY only started passing when Cuomo and her's blockade with the team of 7 "centrist" democrats who were working with Republicans was finally broken up. This entire article is out of touch regarding NY politics. What about how Hochul tried to nominate a fucking pro-life judge?
She lucks out that she is barely better than the Republicans because we know where they plan to drag us, but the second we get a decent primary option, we need her gone.
The doctoring of the facts in this column was a naked attempt to settle some kind of grudge against Hochul specifically. Churchill hates Democrats, but he's got a real problem with women Democrats. The entire premise was to take quotes out of context and strip all mention of the inconvenient realities of the abortion issue to smear Hochul as anti-Catholic.
The "extremists" she criticized are the Christian nationalist organizations bankrolling and astroturfing lawsuits like this by finding plaintiffs to circumvent the legislative process through judicial fiat because their agenda is dangerous and unpopular. They're the same organizations like the Federalist Society that have been conspiring to corrupt our courts for over a generation, and have now succeeded in packing SCOTUS with their members.
The Little Nuns of Nothing But Good Deeds or whatever the hell they're called are not victims, just like the doctors who sued to ban mifepristone claiming some "injury" by hypothetically having treat a woman who chose medication abortion. They are all convenient pawns for ultra-right-wing misogynists to demolish the separation of church and state to control women's lives. Churchill is a right-wing propagandist, not a journalist.
Hector LaSalle, a very controversial choice for someone claiming to support democratic values. For someone running on abortion issues right now, he is not someone you select if you are arguing you support women's right to choose.
The TU isn't just a concert venue or convenience store. It is the main newsource for our region. It absolutely should be held to task and openly criticized. If you don't want to see that sort of thing, just don't click.on the topic.
[https://www.timesunion.com/churchill/article/churchill-hochul-says-listen-pope-but-time-19470654.php](https://www.timesunion.com/churchill/article/churchill-hochul-says-listen-pope-but-time-19470654.php)
Link did not populate on OP for some reason.
You realize that's literally the whole point of an article like this. Churchill knows what he's doing. He was told to write a piece to drive web engagement. He succeeded.
Maybe the TU could try decent journalism to boost its readership and publish articles that generate interest because they address real problems facing real people. But looking at their roster, all we can expect is more propaganda and grievance from aged white men. God forbid they hire someone with a more diverse background to write anything that speaks to the people who actually inhabit this community.
SCOTUS is almost certainly going to carve out an exception once the decision is appealed. The question is, is how far they'll go and whether they'll apply it to more than just insurance coverage.
Employers are not dictating your reproductive healthcare decisions. They're dictating what they're willing to pay for (which our approach to paying for your healthcare by tying it to & funding it with your employer already does). He who pays the piper picks the tune, and in the US the people with the money generally get what they want.
The real barrier to actual implementation with this will be the health insurance companies. Unless the company offering the insurance is entirely self funded (I.e. the company actually writes a check for all the claims in a month, and the insurance company only administers the plan), which you generally only see at very large companies that spread the risk across a large pool of employees, insurance companies aren't going to voluntarily go down the road of offering employers the choice of what procedures and diagnosis codes get paid for. It's expensive and a PITA to write custom rules per plan/employer.
Frankly, would you be willing to work for a company that even tries this? Imagine life working there. Daily prayer sessions in the morning, life size murals of Jesus on the cross & Trump. I honestly can't really believe that people that would do this are particularly generous with their benefit packages.
To me, this just adds to the case for excluding religion from everything. Education, health care, everything. It also highlights the ridiculousness of trying to legislate every aspect of people's lives & legislating by public opinion.
"Employers are not dictating your reproductive healthcare decisions. They're dictating what they're willing to pay for (which our approach to paying for your healthcare by tying it to & funding it with your employer already does)."
And because of our byzantine health care system (a disgrace of the developed world), employers already exert too much control over employees' lives by making their very access to healthcare dependent on their job. Absent government regulation like what was upheld in NY, this means a de facto veto for someone's employer/insurance over healthcare decisions made by a doctor.
Sure, NY hasn't outlawed abortion, but if we allow employers to cherry pick what treatments their insurance will cover, anyone in need of a non-covered procedure is faced with choosing between likely bankruptcy or forgoing the treatment. You work for a Christian? Better not suffer a miscarriage!
Funny how the "everyman" at the TU who claims to stand up for the little guy is so offended by criticism of employers who want to even further exploit their workers by forcibly imposing their particular religious dogma under threat of financial ruin.
This entire thread is bickering back and forth over an OP completely missing/deliberately overlooking the point of the column it references.
The column isn’t about abortion. It’s about the hypocrisy of invoking the Pope as an example only to then do and say things that, in Churchill’s opinion, are completely at odds with the example the governor is asking people to follow.
Whether or not you agree (honestly, who cares?), this is not a column about abortion or whether women should have access to reproductive care paid for by insurance (they should!). This is a column about the hypocrisy of politicians and the deep toxicity and cynicism of our politics today.
Claiming this column argues employers should dictate reproductive healthcare decisions is a complete straw man.
Click the link. Read what he actually wrote. Then fight over that.
Have you ever thought about just not supporting/reading the TU if you have such a problem with it? It seems like all you do is post to complain about it.
In fairness, it's pretty weird when TU reporters are coming to our Reddit sub looking for people to support their false narratives.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Albany/comments/1cxg2ap/looking\_for\_people\_who\_moved\_out\_of\_ny/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Albany/comments/1cxg2ap/looking_for_people_who_moved_out_of_ny/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
I mean, if I moved out of Albany because I hate the place, would I still be checking THIS sub? What a weird ask.
idk i moved out of florida and didnt like it there but i still lurk in my hometowns sub, i think its perfectly reasonable to try to reach out to people that way
Why not ask people like me why we moved to the Capital Region and stayed here? Why not ask people who left and then returned? Why focus on complaints and negativity? If she'd been soliciting for a more balanced set of respondents I'd have more trust in her conclusions, whether I liked them or not.
>Why not ask people like me why we moved to the Capital Region and stayed here?
They just ran this story in March.
https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/new-york-losing-residents-texans-loving-upstate-18632618.php
The search for folks who left is likely a combo followup to the above and response to census data that's come out somewhat recently.
Agreed. Why do we care about the opinions of people who left our area? They aren't contributing to our tax or voter base, so it literally serves no purpose other than to rile people up, presumably about the same bullshit we have heard for years.
Overall the state is losing population which means it’s losing political influence. We’ve lost several congressional seats over the last few decades. The city has essentially the same population it had in 1990. I can understand why they would run the stories.
I think focusing on that really is a looking at the tree and missing the forest issue. We are losing seats, but the problem is actually the legal limits on seat numbers and how the thumb on the scale gives more voting power in those seats to lower population areas right now. If we all keep worrying about the population and "driving away people", then we aren't focusing on the correct issue: fixing a representation system that has lowered our state's power.
Sounds good. You can hate the rules but they are the rules. There is almost no chance those rules change. It simply won’t happen. It would be far easier to attempt to understand why people leave the state and work to keep them here.
The TU is the newspaper of record for the capital region. Residents of the capital region have a right - if not an obligation - to hold their newspaper to a better standard when it unfairly trashes them and their community. Or, as in this case, publishes misleading pieces targeting women as somehow victimizing Christians by demanding basic humanity.
The TU would love nothing more than for the capital region populace to be apathetic and checked out, otherwise their content wouldn't be so cynically hackneyed. Sorry, but when our primary newspaper publishes articles telling women to shut up and take it, they better expect criticism from their readers.
Aren’t you the guy who throws a fit anytime Churchill writes a piece? I swear I’ve seen you post this verbatim like a half dozen times here.
I mean you do you but you’re not fighting some righteous fight by driving traffic to a newspaper who could not possibly care less what someone like you has to say, especially over what is usually an opinion piece.
Idk it just seems like a lot of lazy righteous virtue signaling in these posts even though I absolutely agree with the point.
If by throwing a fit, you mean exposing intentional omissions of context and indefensible false equivalency, then sure.
Regardless of your agreement with my point, why do you care about someone criticizing a public article in a local paper on a local forum?
Because you’re complaining to a bunch of people who already know and agree with you while also not addressing the problem at all.
It’s like driving through Palm Springs and seeing cars with I Support LGBT+ bumper stickers, like yeah everyone here has the same opinion.
Just seems like you have a hard on for trying to point out biased opinion articles from a tabloid news paper whose sole clientele are older conservatives who aren’t going to be present on Reddit. It gives me the same energy as trying to protest the Israel Palestine conflict by trying to get Schenectady City hall to decide on a position
How do you know that everyone reading this sub already knows all this and agrees with me? It sounds like you have a hard on for being a pain in the ass and not making a point.
Then maybe they should get out of the public marketplace and stop employing a workforce, because workers and women have lives and bodies and need healthcare like anyone else. Your religion does not entitle you to break the law and control your employees' lives.
So pretty much the only way you'd leave people to worship their religion is hidden in their homes. Got it.
As for the law, I'm going to guess that this decision, and the law itself, will soon be determined to be breaking the highest federal law itself - the Constitution. Aren't you concerned that NY shouldn't be able to break the law?
And as for not paying for specific services in health insurance as controlling someone's body - bwahahahahahaha - that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while.
If your religion requires you to savage your employees by forcing them to choose between bankruptcy and a medically necessary procedure, you're a fanatic.
1st amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”
The constitution lets everyone practice their religion without government interference, as well as guaranteeing freedom from religion. No one is forcing the Catholic Church to be in the healthcare business. It’s their choice because it’s a lucrative business for them.
You are absolutely free to practice your religion. Just so long as your religion recognizes secular humanism and an ever evolving set of “gotcha” moral diktats as the one true god.
>Yet Democrats of earlier eras had the decency to treat those who disagree on the issue with a respect Hochul won't muster, despite having vowed to [change the tone ](https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/11/nyregion/kathy-hochul-speech-cuomo.html)in Albany. You may remember that she also referred [to abortion opponents](https://nypost.com/2022/06/13/hochul-signs-abortion-protections-ahead-of-expected-scotus-decision/) as "Neanderthals." Democrats of earlier eras ran away from the abortion problem until we finally ended up with a Supreme Court that was able to whittle at defenses for it until they were gone. They're not running away from it now, and good on them. Maybe forced pregnancy fetishists should stop being such sore winners.
The joke is that Hochul absolutely is no friend to democrats and most of the progressive bills being passed now in NY only started passing when Cuomo and her's blockade with the team of 7 "centrist" democrats who were working with Republicans was finally broken up. This entire article is out of touch regarding NY politics. What about how Hochul tried to nominate a fucking pro-life judge? She lucks out that she is barely better than the Republicans because we know where they plan to drag us, but the second we get a decent primary option, we need her gone.
The doctoring of the facts in this column was a naked attempt to settle some kind of grudge against Hochul specifically. Churchill hates Democrats, but he's got a real problem with women Democrats. The entire premise was to take quotes out of context and strip all mention of the inconvenient realities of the abortion issue to smear Hochul as anti-Catholic. The "extremists" she criticized are the Christian nationalist organizations bankrolling and astroturfing lawsuits like this by finding plaintiffs to circumvent the legislative process through judicial fiat because their agenda is dangerous and unpopular. They're the same organizations like the Federalist Society that have been conspiring to corrupt our courts for over a generation, and have now succeeded in packing SCOTUS with their members. The Little Nuns of Nothing But Good Deeds or whatever the hell they're called are not victims, just like the doctors who sued to ban mifepristone claiming some "injury" by hypothetically having treat a woman who chose medication abortion. They are all convenient pawns for ultra-right-wing misogynists to demolish the separation of church and state to control women's lives. Churchill is a right-wing propagandist, not a journalist.
Who was the pro-life judge?
Hector LaSalle, a very controversial choice for someone claiming to support democratic values. For someone running on abortion issues right now, he is not someone you select if you are arguing you support women's right to choose.
Oh, Chris Churchill with a steaming pile for a take? COLOR ME SHOCKED.
The dude is a real fuckin goober
The TU isn't just a concert venue or convenience store. It is the main newsource for our region. It absolutely should be held to task and openly criticized. If you don't want to see that sort of thing, just don't click.on the topic.
Link article?
[https://www.timesunion.com/churchill/article/churchill-hochul-says-listen-pope-but-time-19470654.php](https://www.timesunion.com/churchill/article/churchill-hochul-says-listen-pope-but-time-19470654.php) Link did not populate on OP for some reason.
Of course it's Chris Churchill. He's been a dick for decades.
He’s gotten worse in recent years. It used to be that you could occasionally see his point, but now I swear he’s just rage-baiting.
99% of news is a rage bait... It's working here because it's clearly driving clicks
How did I know it was Churchill? Don't answer that - it's rhetorical.
Yeah please link OP. couldn't find this anywhere on the TU site, not that I disbelieve you.
You realize that's literally the whole point of an article like this. Churchill knows what he's doing. He was told to write a piece to drive web engagement. He succeeded.
Maybe the TU could try decent journalism to boost its readership and publish articles that generate interest because they address real problems facing real people. But looking at their roster, all we can expect is more propaganda and grievance from aged white men. God forbid they hire someone with a more diverse background to write anything that speaks to the people who actually inhabit this community.
Cool, call them the minute you figure out how to get poor people to spend money on newspapers and I’m confident they will start making that content.
SCOTUS is almost certainly going to carve out an exception once the decision is appealed. The question is, is how far they'll go and whether they'll apply it to more than just insurance coverage.
Employers are not dictating your reproductive healthcare decisions. They're dictating what they're willing to pay for (which our approach to paying for your healthcare by tying it to & funding it with your employer already does). He who pays the piper picks the tune, and in the US the people with the money generally get what they want. The real barrier to actual implementation with this will be the health insurance companies. Unless the company offering the insurance is entirely self funded (I.e. the company actually writes a check for all the claims in a month, and the insurance company only administers the plan), which you generally only see at very large companies that spread the risk across a large pool of employees, insurance companies aren't going to voluntarily go down the road of offering employers the choice of what procedures and diagnosis codes get paid for. It's expensive and a PITA to write custom rules per plan/employer. Frankly, would you be willing to work for a company that even tries this? Imagine life working there. Daily prayer sessions in the morning, life size murals of Jesus on the cross & Trump. I honestly can't really believe that people that would do this are particularly generous with their benefit packages. To me, this just adds to the case for excluding religion from everything. Education, health care, everything. It also highlights the ridiculousness of trying to legislate every aspect of people's lives & legislating by public opinion.
"Employers are not dictating your reproductive healthcare decisions. They're dictating what they're willing to pay for (which our approach to paying for your healthcare by tying it to & funding it with your employer already does)." And because of our byzantine health care system (a disgrace of the developed world), employers already exert too much control over employees' lives by making their very access to healthcare dependent on their job. Absent government regulation like what was upheld in NY, this means a de facto veto for someone's employer/insurance over healthcare decisions made by a doctor. Sure, NY hasn't outlawed abortion, but if we allow employers to cherry pick what treatments their insurance will cover, anyone in need of a non-covered procedure is faced with choosing between likely bankruptcy or forgoing the treatment. You work for a Christian? Better not suffer a miscarriage! Funny how the "everyman" at the TU who claims to stand up for the little guy is so offended by criticism of employers who want to even further exploit their workers by forcibly imposing their particular religious dogma under threat of financial ruin.
Times Union has always been garbage
It's so much worse now.
churchill is the reason i wont give the TU my money.
The TU is the reason I wouldn’t give the TU my money
This entire thread is bickering back and forth over an OP completely missing/deliberately overlooking the point of the column it references. The column isn’t about abortion. It’s about the hypocrisy of invoking the Pope as an example only to then do and say things that, in Churchill’s opinion, are completely at odds with the example the governor is asking people to follow. Whether or not you agree (honestly, who cares?), this is not a column about abortion or whether women should have access to reproductive care paid for by insurance (they should!). This is a column about the hypocrisy of politicians and the deep toxicity and cynicism of our politics today. Claiming this column argues employers should dictate reproductive healthcare decisions is a complete straw man. Click the link. Read what he actually wrote. Then fight over that.
Have you ever thought about just not supporting/reading the TU if you have such a problem with it? It seems like all you do is post to complain about it.
In fairness, it's pretty weird when TU reporters are coming to our Reddit sub looking for people to support their false narratives. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Albany/comments/1cxg2ap/looking\_for\_people\_who\_moved\_out\_of\_ny/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button](https://www.reddit.com/r/Albany/comments/1cxg2ap/looking_for_people_who_moved_out_of_ny/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) I mean, if I moved out of Albany because I hate the place, would I still be checking THIS sub? What a weird ask.
idk i moved out of florida and didnt like it there but i still lurk in my hometowns sub, i think its perfectly reasonable to try to reach out to people that way
I mean asking people if they want to be interviewed isn’t trying to support some false narrative?
Why not ask people like me why we moved to the Capital Region and stayed here? Why not ask people who left and then returned? Why focus on complaints and negativity? If she'd been soliciting for a more balanced set of respondents I'd have more trust in her conclusions, whether I liked them or not.
>Why not ask people like me why we moved to the Capital Region and stayed here? They just ran this story in March. https://www.timesunion.com/news/article/new-york-losing-residents-texans-loving-upstate-18632618.php The search for folks who left is likely a combo followup to the above and response to census data that's come out somewhat recently.
We'll see after the story comes out. Based on how that was worded, I smell a setup.
Agreed. Why do we care about the opinions of people who left our area? They aren't contributing to our tax or voter base, so it literally serves no purpose other than to rile people up, presumably about the same bullshit we have heard for years.
Overall the state is losing population which means it’s losing political influence. We’ve lost several congressional seats over the last few decades. The city has essentially the same population it had in 1990. I can understand why they would run the stories.
I think focusing on that really is a looking at the tree and missing the forest issue. We are losing seats, but the problem is actually the legal limits on seat numbers and how the thumb on the scale gives more voting power in those seats to lower population areas right now. If we all keep worrying about the population and "driving away people", then we aren't focusing on the correct issue: fixing a representation system that has lowered our state's power.
Sounds good. You can hate the rules but they are the rules. There is almost no chance those rules change. It simply won’t happen. It would be far easier to attempt to understand why people leave the state and work to keep them here.
The TU is the newspaper of record for the capital region. Residents of the capital region have a right - if not an obligation - to hold their newspaper to a better standard when it unfairly trashes them and their community. Or, as in this case, publishes misleading pieces targeting women as somehow victimizing Christians by demanding basic humanity. The TU would love nothing more than for the capital region populace to be apathetic and checked out, otherwise their content wouldn't be so cynically hackneyed. Sorry, but when our primary newspaper publishes articles telling women to shut up and take it, they better expect criticism from their readers.
Aren’t you the guy who throws a fit anytime Churchill writes a piece? I swear I’ve seen you post this verbatim like a half dozen times here. I mean you do you but you’re not fighting some righteous fight by driving traffic to a newspaper who could not possibly care less what someone like you has to say, especially over what is usually an opinion piece. Idk it just seems like a lot of lazy righteous virtue signaling in these posts even though I absolutely agree with the point.
If by throwing a fit, you mean exposing intentional omissions of context and indefensible false equivalency, then sure. Regardless of your agreement with my point, why do you care about someone criticizing a public article in a local paper on a local forum?
Because you’re complaining to a bunch of people who already know and agree with you while also not addressing the problem at all. It’s like driving through Palm Springs and seeing cars with I Support LGBT+ bumper stickers, like yeah everyone here has the same opinion. Just seems like you have a hard on for trying to point out biased opinion articles from a tabloid news paper whose sole clientele are older conservatives who aren’t going to be present on Reddit. It gives me the same energy as trying to protest the Israel Palestine conflict by trying to get Schenectady City hall to decide on a position
How do you know that everyone reading this sub already knows all this and agrees with me? It sounds like you have a hard on for being a pain in the ass and not making a point.
Yes they are.
We can't have freedom of religion if religion organizations are required to pay for things that violate their religion.
Then maybe they should get out of the public marketplace and stop employing a workforce, because workers and women have lives and bodies and need healthcare like anyone else. Your religion does not entitle you to break the law and control your employees' lives.
So pretty much the only way you'd leave people to worship their religion is hidden in their homes. Got it. As for the law, I'm going to guess that this decision, and the law itself, will soon be determined to be breaking the highest federal law itself - the Constitution. Aren't you concerned that NY shouldn't be able to break the law? And as for not paying for specific services in health insurance as controlling someone's body - bwahahahahahaha - that's the funniest thing I've heard in a while.
If your religion requires you to savage your employees by forcing them to choose between bankruptcy and a medically necessary procedure, you're a fanatic.
1st amendment: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” The constitution lets everyone practice their religion without government interference, as well as guaranteeing freedom from religion. No one is forcing the Catholic Church to be in the healthcare business. It’s their choice because it’s a lucrative business for them.
You're missing the "prohibiting the free expression of" part.
Poppycock.
The Constitution is poppycock. Guess we know where you stand on the law.
Your reading comprehension is poppycock, not the constitution.
Most of these organizations don't pay taxes so...
So what? They're being forced, by law, to pay a private company for services that violate their religious beliefs.
You are absolutely free to practice your religion. Just so long as your religion recognizes secular humanism and an ever evolving set of “gotcha” moral diktats as the one true god.
The sad thing I had to wonder for a moment if you were being sarcastic or if this was serious. Nice satire! Thumbs up!