I want to live long enough to see this child become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court

Right on, Riley:

Saudi Arabia, NY 11215

First we have a police officer spraying pepper spray at female protesters. Now it seems that in Brooklyn, they're stopping women in the street and telling them to cover up:

In response to a string of at least 10 unsolved sexual assaults in Brooklyn, New York police are reportedly stopping women on the street who are wearing clothing they say is revealing and advising them to cover up if they don’t want to be raped. The Wall Street Journal reports on the disturbing message police officers are allegedly spreading:

Lauren, a South Slope resident, was walking home three blocks from the gym on Monday when she was stopped. The 25-year-old, who did not want her last name to be used, was wearing shorts and a T-shirt when she claims a police officer asked if she would stop and talk to him. He also stopped two other women wearing dresses. [...]

“He pointed at my outfit and said, ‘Don’t you think your shorts are a little short?‘” she recalled. “He pointed at their dresses and said they were showing a lot of skin.”

He said that such clothing could make the suspect think he had “easy access,” said Lauren. She said the officer explained that “you’re exactly the kind of girl this guy is targeting.”

Aside from the sense I have that this is more about the police officers' view of women than it is about keeping them safe, it also shows a profound ignorance of what rape is. It's an act of aggression that takes the form of a sexual attack. It is not an act of uncontrollable lust. If it were, we wouldn't hear about 80-year-old women getting raped in their apartments.

How can any woman who is assaulted in South Slope have any hope of being treated in good faith by the police, when the law acts like mullahs on the streets of Saudi Arabia?

Ross Douthat's obsession with the sex lives of American teenagers

There are days when I wake up and read something, and I'm about to write about it, but it pisses me off to such a degree that I just can't. Today, Ross Douchebag writes about how young people aren't having sex because they are developing a strong moral code. In Douchebag world, it has nothing to do about the slut/whore rhetoric coming out of the Republican Party, the churches, and right-wing pundits like Douchebag that keeps the double standard alive. It has nothing to do with the right-wing war on contraception that makes birth control less available to young women. It has nothing to do with a judgmental climate that allows David Vitter and John Ensign to remain Senators while casting judgments on girls who won't keep their legs closed. Nor does it have anything to do with the fact that they're tending to live with their parents longer because they can't find jobs and it's icky to have sex in mom 'n' dad's house. In Douchebag-world, it's all about finally embracing what is inevitable: that the only way a woman can be moral is to not have sex.

I'm quite sure Amanda will have something more cogent to say about this, but for now I'm going to leave it to TBogg, who is always my first source for concise Douchebag analysis and translation:

Shorter Ross Douthat:

If Chunky Reese Witherspoon was a teenager today, she probably wouldn’t want to fuck me. I mean for reasons besides the most obvious ones. This gives me great comfort.

Don't forget to click the link embedded in that quote. And also be sure to click TBogg's name for some serious graphic fun.

Republican men can be said to be domestic abusers too

If controlling behavior and wanting to see women powerless and pregnant is the mark of the abuser, then every last Republican male who has decided that forced childbearing is their first priority is a domestic (i.e. within the U.S.) abuser.

And another hallmark of the domestic abuser is sabotaging birth control:

Men who abuse women physically and emotionally may also sabotage their partners’ birth control, pressuring them to become pregnant against their will, new reports suggest.

Several small studies have described this kind of coercion among low-income teenagers and young adults with a history of violence by intimate partners. Now, a report being released Tuesday by the federally financed National Domestic Violence Hotline says 1 in 4 women who agreed to answer questions after calling the hot line said a partner had pressured them to become pregnant, told them not to use contraceptives, or forced them to have unprotected sex.

The report was based on answers from more than 3,000 women, but it was not a research study, those involved said.

“It was very eye-opening,” said Lisa James, director of health at the Family Violence Prevention Fund in San Francisco, which worked with the hot line on the report. “There were stories about men refusing to wear a condom, forcing sex without a condom, poking holes in condoms, flushing birth control pills down the toilet.

“There were lots of stories about hiding the birth control pills — that she kept ‘losing’ her birth control pills, until she realized that he was hiding them,” Ms. James added.

One respondent described having to hide in the bathroom to take her pill. Another said that when she got her period recently, her partner was “furious.”

The hot line’s report did not include a comparison group and did not gather information about the participants, who were questioned anonymously; nor was it published in a peer-reviewed journal. It was based on answers to four questions posed to 3,169 women around the country who contacted the domestic violence hot line between Aug. 16 and Sept. 26, 2010, who were not in immediate danger and who agreed to participate. About 6,800 callers refused to answer the questions.

Of those who did respond, about a quarter said yes to one or more of these three questions: “Has your partner or ex ever told you not to use any birth control?” “Has your partner or ex-partner ever tried to force or pressure you to become pregnant?” “Has your partner or ex ever made you have sex without a condom so that you would get pregnant?”

One in six answered yes to the question “Has your partner or ex-partner ever taken off the condom during sex so that you would get pregnant?”

The questions were devised by Dr. Elizabeth Miller, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Davis, whose earlier papers on reproductive coercion prompted interest in the subject.

“It’s really important to recognize reproductive coercion as another mechanism for control in an unhealthy relationship,” Dr. Miller said. At the same time, she added, younger women and girls dating older men may be confused by the pressure to become pregnant.

“If you can put yourself in the shoes of a 15-year-old dating an 18- or 19-year-old man, which is not an unusual scenario, and he says to her, ‘We’re going to make beautiful babies together,’ that’s pretty seductive.”

Now remember, until there was a sizable enough outcry, Republican men wanted to remove this kind of statutory rape from the bans on federal funding of abortion, instead forcing fifteen-year-olds to bear the children of the men who exploited them. And as for sabotaging birth control, well, Republicans fit that description too:

Republicans are looking to wipe out funding for Title X, a 40-year-old family planning program.

The cut would be a hard hit against Planned Parenthood, which received $16.9 million of Title X funding in 2009. By law, the funds must be spent on health care such as contraceptives, pelvic exams, and safer-sex counseling, and cannot be spent on abortion services.

The cuts are part of the continuing resolution, a Republican spending proposal released Wednesday.

Started in 1970 by President Richard Nixon, Title X is the only source of federal funds dedicated solely to family planning and reproductive health. Some 5 million women and men received services through 4,500 community-based clinics in 2008, according to the Department of Health & Human Services.

The House Appropriations Committee said in a Wednesday press release that it would cut $327 million from the family planning program. That would effectively wipe out the program’s budget: for fiscal 2011, Title X was authorized at $327 million and appropriated $317 million.

Republicans were already eyeing the Title X program as ripe for attacks. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has introduced separate legislation that would strip Planned Parenthood of its Title X funding.

But while his legislation bar abortion providers from participating in Title X, the Republicans’ continuing resolution would wipe it out entirely.

Two words: Beth Littleford

I've been following with some interest the foofarah over the hiring of Maxim and Playboy cover girl Olivia Munn as the latest of precious few female on-air personalities at The Daily Show.

At my age, I'm a bit old to be threatened by a twentysomething TV personality, but the whole sad dust-up is yet another example of how our culture turns women against each other, pigeonholing us into the boxes of "the pretty one" and "the funny one".

For the uninitiated, Olivia Munn is the newest Daily Show on-air hire, whose claim to fame is hosting the G4 gaming channel's "Attack of the Show", where as Sarah Hepola notes in a Salon interview with the subject of the whole to-do:

she was beloved for such stunts as jumping into a giant pie wearing a French maid's outfit and gobbling a raw hot dog dangling on a string.

Munn's early appearances led to a Jezebel post about the show's tendency towards being a largely boys club dating back to its Craig Kilborn days, which led to a Slate piece accusing Jezebel of ginning up page views by exploiting the whole thing, which led to Amanda trying to make sense of the whole thing, and now we're left with a situation in which Munn is getting the kind of publicity you can't buy, and the cartoony Kristen Schaal, who is genuinely funny, still pushed to the edges of rare appearances on the show and what else can we assume other than it's because she looks like Olive Oyl?

It has always been thus. There has always been an assumption that when a guy is fixed up with a girl by his cousin, and he's told that the girl has "a great personality" or "a great sense of humor", said guy has always assumed that said girl should have a bag over her head. The boys' club thing that surrounds The Daily Show has never bothered me. Perhaps it's because I'm so used to male dominance in the media that I'm a hapless tool of sexism, but all I really care about when I watch these shows, is "Is it clever?", "Is it smart?" and "Is it funny?" John Oliver's dispatches from the World Cup have been so side-splittingly funny that I really don't care whether his genitalia is the same as mine. And for me, that's the real problem with Olivia Munn -- not that she's pretty, but because I don't see any indication thus far that she's funny, or even particularly bright. And so I'm wondering just who the show is trying to hang onto. If the demographic is 60% male, wouldn't it make sense to try to bring in people who aren't already watching? Is Conan O'Brien's upcoming show on TBS that much of a threat to Jon Stewart?

On the other hand, the idea that women won't watch a pretty woman on a comedy show is bullshit. I don't know anyone who has watched the show since the early days who didn't think Beth Littleford was hilarious:

And last I looked, Tina Fey wasn't causing women to go screaming for the hills either.

But look, I get it. It's hard to accept someone as a trailblazer for women when most of what people know of her is as a jerkoff object for a bunch of geekboys, especially when other, funnier women (like Schaal) who don't stuff a wild bikini as well, are shunted off to the side. But I'm sure I'm not the only one who thought Beth Littleford was both beautiful and funny, and who thinks Tina Fey is both beautiful and funny. And if Olivia Munn proves the naysayers wrong and turns out to have the comic chops, I don't think women will gripe.

While women fight on this Battlefield of Mutually Exclusive Boxes, the din is so loud that we can't hear each other, and each of us, from our own little box, carrying our own baggage from a culture that values only youth and beauty and nothing else, and even gives THAT a hard time, we still have a culture in which there is rape and in which women are regarded as nothing but fuck fodder -- and only that until they reach a certain age. Olivia Munn seems to GET this, for all that she seems unable to step out of it:

You can see the defensiveness in other ways, too, though. Like there is a post on your blog after the Maxim cover shoot where you say, " If you have any problems with me in this spread, I have two things to say to you: 1. Just don’t look. And 2. You sound like you just need a good fuck."

Because at that time I was in my last relationship [with "Star Trek" actor Chris Pine], and I was fed up with comments on the blogs, when girls I’d never met were like, she’s only dating him because he’s a movie star. And I really still believe that anybody who's sitting there judging my relationship does need to get the shit fucked out of them.


But is there any part of you that understands an objection to your being on the cover of Maxim? Even like a maternal instinct that would say, hey, this is a talented girl. Why is she putting this part of herself first and foremost? The idea that it might diminish your gifts.

Yes, I can see that. But I would like to hope we can get to a place where it’s OK to be funny and sexy and be on the cover of a magazine and you can still be on "The Daily Show."


I wanted to talk about the story you write in your memoir about the Playboy shoot. [Munn agreed to pose for Playboy on the condition there would be no nudity but found herself continually nudged toward it by an overzealous photographer and stylist. She never did take off her clothes, but it was a constant struggle.] It's a lighthearted piece, but it made me uncomfortable. I really felt for you -- stuck between what you had clearly consented to and what these other people wanted, how you were trying to be sexy and keep it together while clearly anxious and upset that some nip slip was going to be snapped and published.

And the photographer kept going, "Be comfortable, be comfortable," and I'm like, "I'm not comfortable, because I don't know you. And I don't like you."

When I went in to approve the photos, I literally had to have a conversation with my lawyers, my publicist, my manager, saying: Is that her vagina, or is that not her vagina? It's tricky if you're clean-shaven, because what determines a vagina is public hair. It brings up a lot of emotions for me to even say it that way. I know all that some people will see in that sentence is: "clean shaven"! But I remember sitting on the stairs, feeling so violated afterward. I was sobbing. [The eventual Playboy cover did not feature nudity but a picture of Munn in a red bikini.]

Amanda Hess on a blog called the Sexist wrote that the story was a case study in how magazines like that coerce women.

I don't find myself to be the kind of person who is easily swayed. I could see what this guy was doing. But if I pose for Maxim, I know that if my nipple accidentally slips out, they can't publish that. With Playboy it's different. I understand that the criticism is: "Yeah, but she posed for it anyway." Well, that's like saying, "Oh, you were asking for it cause you dressed a certain way."

It did mean something for me to be on the cover. There's such an image of what beauty is: Women get their lips done, and their boobs done. But I'm multiethnic. I've got smaller boobs. I'm 5-foot-4. If they're saying that's what sexy is, then I think it's a better image to perpetuate than the stuff that still influences me to the point that I wonder: Should I get my lips done?

I'm very open about the fact that it's nice when someone says you're pretty. Especially for someone like me. I have a vivid memory of my stepfather saying to my mom, "Olivia isn't very pretty, is she?" I remember looking at myself in the mirror that night and hitting myself over and over, looking at my eyes, because they looked more Asian. Literally slapping my face and trying to change it. When people are like, "Oh, I don't care that I'm pretty," it's a disservice to what people really go through. And I know that I wasn't alone. So when I do these magazines, yeah, it's nice. It's nice to feel power for doing it. It's nice that someone like Jon Stewart can watch a video of me and not have ever seen me in a Wonder Woman outfit and say, "She's funny."

If you're tempted to hate Olivia Munn because you think she's exploiting the way people react to her looks, go back and read that last paragraph. And then ask yourself if you blame her for doing so. Look, I hope she DOES turn out to be worthy of all the fuss. And then I hope she pushes Jon Stewart to give more time to other funny women whom Maxim would never think of putting on their covers.

Why now?

In Florida, state Senate Democrats are just barely blocking (for now) an abortion restriction advocated by Republicans that would force women to have, pay for, and view, an ultrasound image before having an abortion.

In Oklahoma, it is already law that women are forced to undergo and view such an ultrasound, along with listening to a detailed description of the embryo or fetus. In a completely inconsistent addendum, a doctor is permitted to withhold information about any defects that are revealed in such an ultrasound.

In Virginia, new budgetary measures cut Medicaid funding for abortions, even if the woman's life is in danger.

In Nebraska, a medically unsupported "pain provision" bars all abortions after 20 weeks and requires women seeking abortions before then to undergo a mental health evaluation.

In Kansas, only a gubernatorial veto stands between women's right to self-determination and being reported to the state for having abortions.

Wny now? Foes of women's sovereignty over their own bodies have been working on abortion restrictions for decades. But after standing pat during the Bush years, perhaps thinking that sooner or later George W. Bush would give them the magic prize they've coveted for so long, all of a sudden state after state is passing abortion restrictions that make very clear the misogynistic leanings of these states' legislatures. Forcing women to have invasive vaginal ultrasounds? Forcing them to view images? Mental health evaluations?

But is it just about misogyny? Or does it have something to do with the pee-in-the-pants terror of the teabag movement at the inevitable end of white majority that's coming in this country?

Let's look at the populations of the above-mentioned states and the percentages of abortion by race in them, shall we?

The following 2007-2008 figures are fromStatehealthfacts.org:

FLORIDA: 62% white, 15% black, 20% Hispanic, and 3% other.

OKLAHOMA: 66% white, 8% black, 8% Hispanic, and 16% other.

VIRGINIA: 67% white, 19% black, 7% Hispanic, and 7% other.

NEBRASKA: 84% white, 4% black, 8% Hispanic, and 3% other.

KANSAS: 80% white, 6% black, 9% Hispanic, and 5% other.

All states that are overwhelmingly white.

Now let's look at some states WITHOUT this kind of abortion restrictions, from the Godless Heathen Liberal Northeast, plus California:

NEW YORK: 60% white, 15% black, 17% Hispanic, and 8% other.

NEW JERSEY: 59% white, 13% black, 17% Hispanic, and 10% other.

MASSACHUSETTS: 80% white, 6% black, 7% Hispanic, and 6% other.

CALIFORNIA: 43% white, 6% black, 37% Hispanic, and 14% other.

With the exception of Massachusetts, these states all have larger minority populations -- and no move to restrict abortions.

Now let's look at the racial distribution of abortions in the states cited above that have recently instituted, or are about to institute, restrictions. These figures are from 2006 and are from CDC statistics:

FLORIDA: Not reported

OKLAHOMA: Not reported

VIRGINIA: 57.3% White, 36.5% Black, 5.3% Hispanic

NEBRASKA: Not reported

KANSAS: 77.3% White, 17.2% Black, 4.4% Hispanic

It's clear that the states with overwhelmingly white populations are the states instituting abortion restrictions. And while the percentages of abortions in the two states that reported to the CDC are not proportional to the racial groups' representation, it's clear that in these states, a larger percentage of White women are having abortions than their Black and Hispanic counterparts.

Just for fun, let's take a look at Arizona, where the population is 58% White, 4% Black, 31% Hispanic, and 8% Other. White women in Arizona have 76.8% of the abortions in that state. So where does Arizona law stand on abortion? You guessed it:

Arizona has not repealed its pre-Roe abortion ban, which is unconstitutional and unenforceable.

The ban provides that any person who supplies to a woman any substance or employs other means with the intent to induce an abortion, unless necessary to preserve the woman's life, will be imprisoned for two to five years. A woman who submits to the use of any means with the intent to cause an abortion, unless necessary to preserve her life, will be imprisoned for one to five years. Any person who advertises abortion services is guilty of a misdemeanor. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §§ 13-3603 (Enacted 1901; Last Renumbered 1977), 13-3604 (Enacted 1901; Last Renumbered 1977), 13-3605 (Enacted 1901; Last Renumbered 1977).

Arizona outlaws a safe second-trimester abortion procedure with no exception to protect a woman's health. H.B. 2400, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. §13-3603.01).

The Arizona law makes the provision of certain previability, second-trimester abortion procedures a felony and imposes a criminal penalty of imprisonment for up to two years and/or fines including statutory damages of three times the cost of the abortion unless the procedure is necessary to save the life of the woman whose life is endangered by a physical disorder, physical illness or physical injury, including a life-endangering physical condition caused by or arising from the pregnancy itself. H.B. 2400, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. §13-3603.01).

In 1997, a court held that an earlier version of Arizona's ban was unconstitutional because it was void for vagueness, was an "undue burden" on a woman's right to choose, and had no exception to preserve the woman's health. Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. §13-3603.01 (Enacted 1997). The court issued a permanent injunction prohibiting its enforcement. Planned Parenthood of S. Ariz., Inc. v. Woods, 982 F. Supp. 1369 (D. Ariz. 1997). In 2009, the Arizona legislature enacted an amended, enforceable version of the ban. H.B. 2400, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. §13-3603.01).

And there's more:

Arizona has a partially unconstitutional and unenforceable law requiring that a woman may not obtain an abortion until at least 24 hours after the attending physician or the referring physician tells her, orally and in person: (1) the name of the physician who will provide the abortion; (2) the nature of the proposed procedure; (3) the immediate and long-term medical risks of the procedure; (4) the alternatives to the procedure; (5) the probable gestational age of the fetus; (6) the probable anatomical and physiological characteristics of the fetus; and (7) the medical risks of carrying the pregnancy to term.

In addition, at least 24 hours prior to the abortion, the attending physician, a referring physician, another qualified physician, a physician's assistant, a nurse, a psychologist, or a licensed behavioral health professional must deliver to the woman, orally and in person, a state-mandated lecture that includes: (1) that medical assistance benefits may be available for prenatal care, childbirth, and neonatal care; (2) that the "father" is liable for child support even if he has offered to pay for the abortion; (3) that public and private agencies and services are available to assist the woman during her pregnancy and after the birth of her child if she chooses not to have an abortion; and (4) that she can withhold or withdraw her consent to the abortion at any time without affecting her right to future care or treatment and without the loss of any public benefits. H.B. 2564, 49th Leg., 2009 1st Sess. (Ariz. 2009) (Enacted 2009) (to be codified at Ariz. Rev. Stat. A 36-2153).

It's no accident that Arizona, a state with one of the largest proportions of Hispanic residents but one where White women have over three-quarters of the abortions, has one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the country. It's no accident either that these restrictions on abortions are being implemented in majority-White states at the same time as the conservatives of those states are having apoplexy about immigration.

It's not about Teh Baybeeeeezzzzzz, and it's not about human life. It's about forced childbearing for White women, instituted by men who are terrified of losing their White male sovereignty into this country, by turning women into unthinking, unfeeling, nonhuman vessels for their fears and their loathing.

A glimpse of what the "Christian nation" so beloved of Republicans would look like

Here's a taste of what the Christian theocracy that's the goal of so many conservatives would look like:

Nineteen-year-old Keshia Canter handed three burgers, fries and milkshakes to a car-load of Tuesday afternoon customers at the Hi-Lo Burger’s drive-though window. A lady sitting in the backseat leaned forward, between the two men in front, and handed her a leaflet: “Women & Girls” it said across the top.

“Even though nothing is showing, you’re being ungodly,” Canter recalled the woman telling her. “You make men want to be sinful.”

[snip]

“You may have been given this leaflet because of the way you are dressed,” it begins. “Have you thought about standing before the true and living God to be judged?”

It continues with one essential theme: The sins of men are, in part, the fault of women, specifically women in tight-fitting clothing. Yates was annoyed. Then she got to a section on page two:

“Scripture tells us that when a man looks on a woman to lust for her he has already committed adultery in his heart. If you are dressed in a way that tempts a men to do this secret (or not so secret) sin, you are a participant in the sin,” the leaflet states. “By the way, some rape victims would not have been raped if they had dressed properly. So can we really say they were innocent victims?”

In Theocratic America, women are by their very nature evil, even criminals. This pamphlet was being distributed in Bristol, Virginia -- a state where now you can carry a gun into a bar. This is so that when the drunk at the end of the bar starts making disparaging remarks about your mother, you can shoot to kill.

Meanwhile, out in Utah, the nightmare scenario of women who miscarry having to prove they weren't trying to self-abort is just waiting for the governor's signature. And in Florida, which always seems to be doing everything it can to become more Alabama than Alabama is, new legislation would punish doctors who perform abortions with up to life sentences in prison.

Isn't it funny how efforts to create a "moral, Christian America" focus on the genitalia of women and what women do with those? Isn't it funny how the legislatures that come up with stuff like this are ALWAYS dominated by men? And isn't it funny how the ENTIRE burden of making "moral" choices always falls on women in their world? For decades we've heard about baby boomers and hedonism and self-indulgence, and yet these guys are not only terrified of themselves, but also seemingly completely unable to keep it in their pants unless all women dress like the Warren Jeffs polygamy cult women and are punished severely for exercising any kind of sexual self-determination.

These are just a few tastes of the Christian utopia envisioned in those states where a preponderance of people are simply unable to make behavioral without some punitive big white alpha male daddy figure in the sky. And it's interesting how that big white alpha male seems to forgive an awful lot of male transgressions, and none of the female.

Meet today's Republican Party.

...keepin' it classy:

State Sen. Scott Brown (R) brought his surging campaign to this western MA town this a.m., rallying a crowd of GOPers more energized than many in attendance could remember.

Standing on a platform in front of the truck he has often touted in his stump speech and campaign ads, Brown was in high spirits as he addressed a crowd of more than 100 supporters. The crowd responded enthusiastically as Brown made his case against AG Martha Coakley (D) -- even interrupting frequently to make Brown's case for him.

"I'll tell you what," Brown said, using a megaphone to address the crowd. "There's negative campaigning, and then there's malicious campaigning."

"She's malicious!" a man in the crowd cried out. "She's a phony!" shouted another. "Shove a curling iron up her butt!" a third man interjected a few moments later.

Because nothing says "Patriotic American" like advocating sexual assault of the opposing candidate, in today's Republican Party.

If the Republicans keep this up there won't be anyone left to support them

Let's see, they've alienated Black and Latino Americans already, and today they may have just eliminated the women:

“General Pelosi has no problem sacrificing her own credibility as the Obama administration and liberals in Congress attempt to walk back a strategy they strongly advocated just months ago,” said NRCC Communications Director Ken Spain. “Nancy Pelosi continues to make party politics a higher priority than our national security. Rather than listening to a four-star general’s assessments on Afghanistan, General Pelosi somehow believes she is better suited to craft our country’s military policy.”

If Nancy Pelosi’s failed economic policies are any indicator of the effect she may have on Afghanistan, taxpayers can only hope McChrystal is able to put her in her place.

Yes, folks, this is the Republicans' new theme song for its female outreach:

It is time to go to the mat to preserve women's right to reproductive self-determination

Gloria Feldt has a passionate plea at Salon to stop assuaging our outrage at the murder of Dr. George Tiller with candlelight vigils:

I am done with candlelight vigils.

It is good and necessary that people gather together at a candlelight vigil to honor the memory of Dr. George Tiller, murdered in cold blood today at his Lutheran church by an assailant believed to be Montana “Freeman” Scott Roeder. Tiller was a compassionate and courageous doctor who provided abortion services to women in some of the most distressing circumstances imaginable, when their pregnancies had gone horribly, tragically wrong. He provided services when no one else would, and he was stubborn enough to fight against everyone who tried to stop him. So it is right that people express their grief in public ceremonies.

But I myself am done with candlelight vigils. I have participated in too many of them, from 1993 with the murder of Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola through the seven doctors, patient escorts and staff murdered over the horrifying five-year period thereafter. I can never forget the day before New Year's Eve in 1994. I was, at the time, CEO of Planned Parenthood in Arizona, talking on the phone to Pensacola patient escort June Barrett -- who had been wounded when her husband and the clinic’s Dr. John Britton were murdered by anti-abortion zealot Rev. Paul Hill -- when I received another urgent call from a friend whose granddaughter worked in Planned Parenthood’s Brookline clinic. The young woman had just witnessed the murder of two co-workers by John Salvi.

Each time, we held vigils all over the country. We wept and we pledged to continue our work. Which we did, increasingly, in isolation. We were the ones who had been wronged, and yet we were labeled controversial, to be shunned rather than supported. The murders were only the tip of the iceberg, among over 6000 cases of violence, vandalism, stalking, bombings, arson, invasions and other serious harassment. 

[snip]

When it comes to decrying Tiller’s unspeakable murder, I want to hear it from Congress. I want to hear it from clergy, the medical profession, the media and civic leaders: "This kind of violation will not be tolerated. Period." I want to see leaders and people at the grassroots joining hands together in support of those who provide women with reproductive health services, including abortion. I want them to put the yellow armband on, to assume Tiller’s name as so many took on the Obama’s middle name, Hussein, when he was disparaged during the election. Doctors have a special responsibility. David Toub M.D, MBA, who provided abortions when he was a practicing physician in Philadelphia, told me, "This could have been any of us who provide or provided abortion services. I'm just as annoyed by some of my own colleagues and the American Medical Association who marginalized us and even looked down at anyone involved in providing abortion."

The silence overall from leaders so far has been deafening, as attorney and longtime Arizona volunteer for reproductive rights causes Leon Silver pointed out. And if our leaders remain silent, I can tell you with perfect assurance what will happen next. There will be more violence.

For the last twenty years, we've watched as those in a position to make policy began to get "squishy" on abortion rights. We've watched our party become increasingly willing to throw women's rights to control our own bodies under the bus in an effort to include those whose stated concern for "THE BAYBEEEEZZZZZ" is belied by their own behavior. Yes, there are people of good conscience who oppose abortion but support efforts to support women making the decision not to abort -- including financial ones.

But for the most part (including the troll who commented on an earlier post here yesterday), scratch the surface of a fetophile and you'll find a misogynist -- someone who feels that the dirty sluts who can't keep their legs closed deserve to be punished. When you look at who it is who kills these doctors, it's the very same teabaggers who have been praised by right-wing television and radio hosts as American patriots. It is not considered patriotic on the right to murder those providing health care services to women.

There have always been abortions. There will always be abortions. Most of us who believe that there should be NO point in a woman's life in which she ceases to be a human being and becomes nothing but a vessel for a fetus have never had an abortion. I have never had an abortion. I wanted to make sure that this choice I support wholeheartedly is one I never had to make. I was both responsible and lucky -- responsible because I was dogged about contraceptive use, and lucky because in my case, the method I chose, which statistically has a higher failure rate than others, never failed.

"I don't like the idea of abortion used as birth control," we hear people say. Yes, there are women who have repeated abortions. But anyone who thinks that abortion is something that women choose blithely is clearly a) not a woman; or b) has never had a cold speculum shoved into him/her. I had a punch biopsy once, and that was quite enough pulling stuff out of my nether quarters, thank you very much. The very notion that there are millions of women in this country who decide to have a late-term abortino to fit into a prom dress, or who decide that it's such a nice day, let's go get our nails done, have a nice lunch, and then get an abortion, is preposterous on the face of it.

So why do we give these people any credence at all?

It's time to start digging beneath the surface of these people and reveal them for the frightened little weasels that they are. Women have sex. Women enjoy sex. This is a GOOD thing. Once we accept that, then we can open the door to teaching girls about the conscientious use of contraception without the added baggage of having to be "swept away" so that having sex doesn'tmake her a slut. If we want to reduce the incidence of abortion, we need to be teaching women not the madonna/whore dichotomy, but how to make affirmative decisions as to what is right for them at the appropriate times of life. An empowered, confident woman is one who makes smart choices. An empowered, confident woman won't feel unable to insist on condom use. An empowered, confident woman also has better ability to protect herself from disease.

We also need to make contraception more available, especially to low-income women, and not just send them home with pills or devices, but also teach them how to say yes -- or no -- and listen to their own hearts and minds instead of messages from men or churches or even traditions that are no longer relevant to life today. Over the last few decades, contraceptive choices have become fewer rather than more. Try getting a diaphragm these days without having to wait a week for the local Rite-Aid to get the damn thing.

And it's time to stop being squishy about this. I'm not happy about President Obama's statement yesterday, though I realize that it's about as good as we're going to get from him. But the issue isn't simply one of deploring the violence directed against abortion providers. It's time to stop demonizing women who choose abortions and the doctors who perform them. If you want to stop abortions, then support efforts to make contraception universally available, effective, and affordable, and support efforts to help women make independent sexual decisions for themselves. But those who paint their anti-abortion rhetoric with undertones of fear and loathing of women and our sexuality can just shut the fuck up. We don't want to hear you anymore. Guys like Scott Roeder have taken away any credibility you ever had.

We're glad we're not your wife too, Dick Armey

Time for another I Am Spartacus moment?

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

The relevant exchange is 9:42 in.

Did you ever play the Ed McMahon game? That was a game that a friend once told me about, usually played at parties of all women (like the ugly gift exchange party I attended last weekend), where you're given two names of men, one of whom is Ed McMahon, and asked to decide which one you would have sex with. If you pick Ed McMahon, you're eliminated. I think if the choice were Dick Armey or Ed McMahon, I'd have to pick McMahon.

Note to America's men: If your brain resides in your nutsack, perhaps you aren't qualified to vote

When I was in high school, someone very near and dear to me said that in males, the brain is located in the penis, and that as they get closer to adulthood, the brain migrates into the cranium, at which point the male is an adult. And he was in a position to know that this is true.

So what are we to make, then, of Rich Lowry, at the National Review, who thinks he's going to get to have sex with Sarah Palin because of "the wink":

I'm sure I'm not the only male in America who, when Palin dropped her first wink, sat up a little straighter on the couch and said, "Hey, I think she just winked at me." And her smile. By the end, when she clearly knew she was doing well, it was so sparkling it was almost mesmerizing. It sent little starbursts through the screen and ricocheting around the living rooms of America. This is a quality that can't be learned; it's either something you have or you don't, and man, she's got it.

OK, Lowry. First of all, Sarah Palin is not going to have sex with you. Second of all, are you aware of how pathetic this makes you look? Here you are, someone who actually gets paid for this, admitting that instead of having a real relationship, or even real sex, for that matter, with a real woman, you're spending your time on your couch fantasizing about Sarah Palin. I hate to break this to you, but Sarah Palin was not looking at you, and she was not winking at you. Sarah Palin is a middle-aged woman who is still attractive, but still thinks it's junior year and she's the new prom queen. And that wink got her elected prom queen by a bunch of high school boys whose gray matter was still located between their legs. So, Lowry, if yours still is, I suggest you seek the advice of a physician. Because that thing can get infected down there and when it does, it could be painful.

And by the way, I don't want to hear Dick Morris or the other idiots at Faux Noise talk about the "deep sexism" directed at Sarah Palin. Because the only people who are being sexist about Sarah Palin are a bunch of Republican men sitting alone in front of the TV with their trousers around their ankles.

What kind of chumps do they take us for?

First class, apparently.

The Republicans have put up a woman who used to be a broadcaster as their Vice Presidential nominee, and now they want to pass her off on us not by doing interviews, but by as a scripted mannequin, delivering speeches, presumably written for her just the way her speech last night was written for her:

According to Nicole Wallace of the McCain campaign, the American people don't care whether Sarah Palin can answer specific questions about foreign and domestic policy. According to Wallace -- in an appearance I did with her this morning on Joe Scarborough's show -- the American people will learn all they need to know (and all they deserve to know) from Palin's scripted speeches and choreographed appearances on the campaign trail and in campaign ads.

It seems to me that this insults Palin as much as it insults the voting public. Not only does it say that we have no right to know what the #2 to a 72-year-old man who has had multiple bouts of melanoma knows about major issues, but the McCain campaign is also implying that Palin shouldn't worry her pretty little head about such big topics, that she should just leave it to the menfolk and just get up there and look pretty.

Haven't we had enough of an unaccountable Executive branch for one lifetime?

(h/t)

American Idiot watch for Sunday, June 14, 2008

Actual letter in the Naples, Florida Daily News, reprinted in its entirety in the name of exposing this sort of crap far and wide so everyone knows what we're up against:

Editor, Daily News:

At last, the Democrats’ charade of selecting a presidential candidate is over. The black won!

I remember the days when the question was can a Catholic win the presidency? This game can go on forever — can a Jew, a Muslim, a homosexual, and so on? All great reasons for choosing a president!

There is no question that the show was perfectly orchestrated. With the unpopularity of the Bush administration affecting the Republican Party, it was a good time to try either a black or a woman for the presidency.

The choice of the woman was easy. Hillary Clinton was there — clever, articulate, ambitious and, thanks to her husband’s indiscretions, with excellent name recognition.

The black was more difficult to choose. Although the Democrat elite pretends to support the American blacks, they couldn’t find a presidential candidate among the 34 million descendents of slaves who have been in this country for over 300 years. Never mind they produced people like Barbara Jordan (for whom I voted), Thomas Sowell or Condoleezza Rice.

So they had to bring out Barack Obama, son of a black Kenyan and one of the many young white American girls who, during the 1960s, had a child from a black man as part of their rebellion against American middle-class values (I personally knew a couple of them).

So Obama has the perfect hippie credentials, and in addition is very eloquent and convincing. He only needed introduction to the public, and Hillary Clinton took good care of it.

Georges Pardo, Naples

Has your head exploded yet? He Who Must Not Be Named should sue for appropriation of the Dirty Fucking Hippies meme. "The black". In the eyes of Mr. Pardo of Naples, Barack Obama isn't even a man, he's "a black." But Mr. Pardo is no racist, no sirree, he actually voted for a black person once.

If you dig down into Mr. Pardo's letter, what you see isn't actually racism, it's fear of a word we have to pull out of the dusty closet in which it belongs -- miscegenation. It's about a white girl, Barack Obama's mother, falling prey to the Oversexed Black Man™. This letter says far more about Mr. Pardo than it does about Barack Obama OR his mother.

You'd better ask the children to leave the room for this one

According to Faux Noise, there's no such thing as marriage in the black community. If you are a black man, oh, say, a black presidential candidate, your wife of some fifteen years isn't your wife at all -- she's your "baby mama":

(Note: Those with sensitive stomachs that are triggered by the site of Michelle Malkin are also advised to leave the room)

THIS, Ms. Christian, is what feminism is about

Yes, Harriet Christian, I'm talking to you -- and to anyone else who's been expending energy for the last 40 years parsing sexism in language and more recently, painting Hillary Clinton as some kind of feminist warrior-princess. Because while you've spent the last 40 years raging over trivialities, and how many six-figure female lawyers are making partner, and about the corporate glass ceiling that means fewer women are able to get multimillion dollar packages for running companies into the ground, real women are bumping up against things like this:

When the Golden Rule Insurance Company rejected her application for health coverage last year, Peggy Robertson was mystified.

“It made no sense,” said Ms. Robertson, 39, who lives in Centennial, Colo. “I’m in perfect health.”

She was turned down because she had given birth by Caesarean section. Having the operation once increases the odds that it will be performed again, and if she became pregnant and needed another Caesarean, Golden Rule did not want to pay for it. A letter from the company explained that if she had been sterilized after the Caesarean, or if she were over 40 and had given birth two or more years before applying, she might have qualified.

Ms. Robertson had been shopping around for individual health insurance, the kind that people buy on their own. She already had insurance but was looking for a better rate. After being rejected by Golden Rule, she kept her existing coverage.

With individual insurance, unlike the group coverage usually sponsored by employers, insurance companies in many states are free to pick and choose the people and conditions they cover, and base the price on a person’s medical history. Sometimes, a past Caesarean means higher premiums.

Although it is not known how many women are in Ms. Robertson’s situation, the number seems likely to increase, because the pool of people seeking individual health insurance, now about 18 million, has been growing steadily — and so has the Caesarean rate, which is at an all-time high of 31.1 percent. In 2006, more than 1.2 million Caesareans were performed in the United States, and researchers estimate that each year, half a million women giving birth have had previous Caesareans.

“Obstetricians are rendering large numbers of women uninsurable by overusing this surgery,” said Pamela Udy, president of the International Caesarean Awareness Network, a group whose mission is to prevent unnecessary Caesareans.

Although many women who have had a Caesarean can safely have a normal birth later, something that Ms. Udy’s group advocates, in recent years many doctors and hospitals have refused to allow such births, because they carry a small risk of a potentially fatal complication, uterine rupture. Now, Ms. Udy says, insurers are adding insult to injury. Not only are women feeling pressure to have Caesareans that they do not want and may not need, but they may also be denied coverage for the surgery.

“You have women just caught in the middle of this huge triangle of hospitals, insurance companies and doctors pointing the finger at each other,” Ms. Udy said.

We have health plans that cover Viagra and not contraception. If they cover birth control pills they don't cover diaphragms. They cover in vitro treatments to allow women having difficulty becoming pregnant to conceive, but if you have to have a Caesarean birth, the next time you have your covered in vitro treatment your birth won't be covered.

This is madness. We are living in a society in which the Christofascist Zombie Brigade has disproporationate influence and wants to turn women into nothing but brood mares, but if you DO give birth in a way that costs more, you can't even get medical coverage for the birth they want you to have. I guess they want women to squat in the fields, spew out a baby and go right on picking rice. Why aren't there similar exclusions for conditions that disporportionately affect men?

If you want to talk about sexism, how about first working on dealing with discriminatory activities like this one? How about holding politicians' feet to the fire about their health insurance industry contributions?

There's a very strong likelihood that Hillary Clinton will suspend her campaign tonight and acknowledge the inevitable -- that Barack Obama will be the Democratic nominee this year. Women like Harriet Christian will be angry, and they will pledge to elect John McCain -- as if this is going to somehow "hurt" that "mediocre black man." But before they do, they should realize something: If Barack Obama loses in November because angry women cut off their own noses to spite their faces and elect John McCain, he goes back to the Senate, and continues to work for policies that won't treat his daughters like expendable brood mares who can just go ahead and die after they've had a baby -- as only one of 100 Senators.

But John McCain, the man these women claim they're going to help elect in November, wants everyone to be on their own in the health insurance market, so that EVERYONE is going to be subject to ridiculous insurance industry rules like this. There is a legitimate argument to be made that the employer-based system we have doesn't work well, but the answer is not to put everyone off into individual lifeboats, it's single-payer universal health care. So what are these women going to say when, under President McCain's health plan, ALL women are denied coverage for future births after a Caesarean? What are they going to tell women faced with huge bills after giving birth to their second child? Are they going to tell them it was worth it because after all, Chris Matthews was mean to Hillary Clinton?

The Unbearable Lightness of Being Paris Hilton

Oh sweet Jesus. She's back.

There are some rich people out there who have a huge savings account of undeserved good fortune. Now, they’re not always evil, stupid, vulgar or mean-spirited. But they are incredibly annoying. It's like you're being tormented by an itch you can't reach because you're tied up in a straitjacket.

For me, the latest itch that won't go away is the fake “actress” and tall blonde skinny corporate pimp Paris Hilton. Oh God, please make it go away.

Because life isn't fair, Ms. Hilton is a rich and famous celebrity whose ego happily spins in a narcissistic orbit around the planet “Paris”. I know she's a big Star because I keep seeing her on magazine covers, TV and movies. There she is, aggressively promoting a new perfume, movie cameo, DWI arrest, an upcoming appearance on Letterman, or a pornographic video of herself leaked on the internet. How long will it be before a made-for-TV dramatization of the half-hour Ms. Hilton spent in jail appears on HBO?

As much as I hate to admit it, although it looks like Paris isn’t doing anything, she really is working very hard.

Do you know what Paris Hilton’s real job is?

No, it's not parading semi-naked in front of a camera with that hateful, “Yeah, I know you want to fuck me” smile on her face. What Hilton and the other empty-headed, toothpick aliens from Barbie World work hard at is making women who don't look like them feel bad. And it's a job they're very good at, too.

Hollywood is a funhouse mirror that reflects distorted images of the real world and the people who live in it. But, in the majority of the movies and television shows, there’s a cruel double standard where men aren’t defined as unrealistically as women are. In short, guys can get away with being slobs and still have a career.

John C. Reilly, Billy Bob Thornton, Philip Seymour Hoffman, William H. Macy, Paul Giamatti, and Steve Buscemi can get away with being regular-looking guys. Unfortunately, Hollywood’s idea of a “regular-looking” woman is to put Uma Thurman in raggedy jeans and an oversized sweater wearing Clark Kent’s glasses. For women, “average-looking” is code for “ugly”.

Too fat? Crooked teeth? Nappy hair? Big nose? What to do? Well, how about botox, yo-yo dieting, plastic surgery, humiliating boot camp exercise programs or shoving a finger down your throat to vomit up breakfast? Huh? You still don’t look like Paris Hilton? Jeez, what an ugly loser you are.

Is it any wonder comedian Margaret Cho, who powerfully dramatized her struggles with self-esteem in I’m The One That I Want, decided to save her life and stop listening to the toxic, soul-destroying propaganda?

“I am so beautiful, sometimes people weep when they see me. And it has nothing to do with what I look like really, it is just that I gave myself the power to say that I am beautiful, and if I could do that, maybe there is hope for them too. And the great divide between the beautiful and the ugly will cease to be. Because we are all what we choose.”

I think the only thing left for women to do who aren’t anorexic freaks is just start whispering to that stranger in the mirror, “I‘m beautiful, damn it!” and get really pissed off at anybody who foolishly tries to tell you otherwise. Or, as Miss Piggy so wonderfully put it, “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it may be necessary from time to time to give a stupid or misinformed beholder a black eye.”

Uh, Paris? Duck.

Heckuva job, Georgie

Captain Codpiece's little adventure has created a refugee crisis as those who can get out of Iraq are doing so. Many are going to Syria. And this is what those refugees are reduced to:

Back home in Iraq, Umm Hiba’s daughter was a devout schoolgirl, modest in her dress and serious about her studies. Hiba, who is now 16, wore the hijab, or Islamic head scarf, and rose early each day to say the dawn prayer before classes.

But that was before militias began threatening their Baghdad neighborhood and Umm Hiba and her daughter fled to Syria last spring. There were no jobs, and Umm Hiba’s elderly father developed complications related to his diabetes.

Desperate, Umm Hiba followed the advice of an Iraqi acquaintance and took her daughter to work at a nightclub along a highway known for prostitution. “We Iraqis used to be a proud people,” she said over the frantic blare of the club’s speakers. She pointed out her daughter, dancing among about two dozen other girls on the stage, wearing a pink silk dress with spaghetti straps, her frail shoulders bathed in colored light.

As Umm Hiba watched, a middle-aged man climbed onto the platform and began to dance jerkily, arms flailing, among the girls.

“During the war we lost everything,” she said. “We even lost our honor.” She insisted on being identified by only part of her name — Umm Hiba means mother of Hiba.

For anyone living in Damascus these days, the fact that some Iraqi refugees are selling sex or working in sex clubs is difficult to ignore.

Even in central Damascus, men freely talk of being approached by pimps trawling for customers outside juice shops and shawarma sandwich stalls, and of women walking up to passing men, an act unthinkable in Arab culture, and asking in Iraqi-accented Arabic if the men would like to “have a cup of tea.”

By day the road that leads from Damascus to the historic convent at Saidnaya is often choked with Christian and Muslim pilgrims hoping for one of the miracles attributed to a portrait of the Virgin Mary at the convent. But as any Damascene taxi driver can tell you, the Maraba section of this fabled pilgrim road is fast becoming better known for its brisk trade in Iraqi prostitutes.

Many of these women and girls, including some barely in their teens, are recent refugees. Some are tricked or forced into prostitution, but most say they have no other means of supporting their families. As a group they represent one of the most visible symptoms of an Iraqi refugee crisis that has exploded in Syria in recent months.

According to the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, about 1.2 million Iraqi refugees now live in Syria; the Syrian government puts the figure even higher.

Given the deteriorating economic situation of those refugees, a United Nations report found last year, many girls and women in “severe need” turn to prostitution, in secret or even with the knowledge or involvement of family members. In many cases, the report added, “the head of the family brings clients to the house.”

This president used to give a great deal of lip service to stopping human trafficking. Now his policies have forced people out of their own country and into the sex trade, just to survive. The article above refers to Syria as being a big sex trade destination for Saudis. I wonder how many of those Saudis are Bush family friends.

The Stepford Wife

It looks like there's a bug in the software that's still keeping the new Michelle Obama-bot from being as docile as she's supposed to be; as evidenced by the last paragraph below. Interesting that it's the software bug that people like:

When someone in the audience asked Michelle Obama why voters should vote for her husband, she walked confidently onto the stage, took the microphone and smoothly answered.

He's a man who has put his values before his profit," she said. "He's not running for president because he wants to president. That's sort of the irony in it. He's running for president because he believes we can do better as a country."

The line brought a standing ovation.

"I think maybe we should stop there," Barack Obama said.

But he took another question: How would Michelle Obama serve as first lady?

Returning to the stage and the microphone, she was a little less reverent.

"You may sit down," she told her husband.

Roars of laughter from the crowd.

"I come to this with a lot of interesting talents, but I think it would be unfair of me to say today what I would do in a couple of years," she continued. "I need to be prepared to do what the country needs me to do at the time.

"Whether that's baking cookies or serving as a wonderful hostess, that's my job. I have to be prepared to do what's necessary. And we won't know what that's going to be until we get there. I will be staunchly invested. It is a joint project."

Notice how using her mind and professional talents aren't even allowed to be mentioned.

Sad.