Well, I guess Boehner "put him in his place"

Check out this screencap, from the front page of Rush Limbaugh's web site (red box added by me, for emphasis):







Yesterday Randi Rhodes played the clip of Limbaugh screeching about how John Boehner has to "put the guy in his place" about the timing of his speech on jobs. When you talk about putting someone in his place, and the person you're talking about is black, it is a racial remark, no matter how red faced and sputtering Limbaugh may be in denial of that fact. But if you still don't believe it, look at the graphic. Look at the photograph, which deliberately depicts the black President of the United States supplicating himself before a white (well, ok, orange) man.



So what does this president do when faced with a lying, hatemongering right-wing radio host demanding that the Speaker "put him in his place"?



He caves, of course (NYT link, emphasis mine):

In a surreal volley of letters, each released to the news media as soon as it was sent, Mr. Boehner rejected a request from the president to address a joint session of Congress next Wednesday at 8 p.m. — the same night that a Republican presidential debate is scheduled.



In an extraordinary turn, the House speaker fired back his own letter to the president saying, in a word, no. Might the president be able to reschedule for the following night, Sept. 8?



For several hours, the day turned into a very public game of chicken.



By late Wednesday night, though, the White House issued a statement saying that because Mr. Obama “is focused on the urgent need to create jobs and grow our economy,” he “welcomes the opportunity to address a joint session of Congress on Thursday, Sept. 8.”



The president had sent in the first volley with his request for a speech next Wednesday night, when Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is scheduled to debate his fellow would-be Republican presidential nominees for the first time.



“No, of course not,” the White House press secretary, Jay Carney, replied when a reporter asked if the timing of the president’s speech had been meant to play havoc with the Republican debate plans. He said that “one debate of many was no reason not to have a speech when we wanted to have it.”



Mr. Boehner was not budging.



“As the majority leader announced more than a month ago, the House will not be in session until Wednesday, Sept. 7, with votes at 6:30 that evening,” the speaker wrote. “With the significant amount of time, typically more than three hours, that is required to allow for a security sweep of the House chamber before receiving a president, it is my recommendation that your address be held on the following evening, when we can ensure there will be no parliamentary or logistical impediments that might detract from your remarks.”



Mr. Boehner did not specify what votes were scheduled for 6:30 that evening that could not be moved. The House calendar shows that members are expected to vote on the “suspension calendar,” generally minor bills like naming a post office.



Congressional historians said Mr. Boehner’s move was unprecedented.



“The Senate Historical Office knows of no instance in which Congress refused the president permission to speak before a joint session of Congress,” Betty K. Koed, associate historian with the Senate, said in an e-mail.

But then, we've never had a black president before, never mind one who has demonstrated over and over and over and over again that there is NO fight with Republicans from which he won't shy away.



Meanwhile, certain corners of the sizable Democratic base that this Administration threw under the bus very early in this presidency have stopped rumbling that perhaps it might stay home in 2012 and like Pavlov's dogs, are already falling for the same "We Suck But He's Crazy" card that Democrats have been playing for two decades:

Perry panic has spread from the conference rooms of Washington, D.C., to the coffee shops of Brooklyn, with the realization that the conservative Texan could conceivably become the 45th president of the United States, a wave of alarm centering around Perry’s drawling, small-town affect and stands on core cultural issues such as women’s rights, gun control, the death penalty, and the separation of church and state.



“His entry in the race is a signal and a wake-up call,” the Rev. Al Sharpton told POLITICO.



Perry, Sharpton said, “is looking to go to the O.K. Corral and start shooting. … Rather than the left get caught sleeping, we better load up, because he is bringing it.”



For Democrats, the pre-Perry GOP primary process was hardly for the faint of heart, as the other candidates have jockeyed to show who dislikes Obama the most. But even as the primary is fought on conservative turf, liberal leaders say they and their constituents see Perry as far worse than your average, hated Republican, and indeed as bad — if not worse — than his hated predecessor in Austin, George W. Bush. And progressives who might have had a hard time getting worked up about Mitt Romney find themselves struggling for superlatives with which to express their fear of a President Perry.

Oh, get real, people. Seriously. Does anyone actually see Barack Obama as some kind of bulwark against the kind of oligarchical theocracy that Rick Perry represents? The entire Republican Party has decided that an oligarchical theocracy is what it wants, and this president can't even stick to his guns about his own Constitutional right to call together a joint session of Congress? And people are looking to him to stop this relentless march backwards to the 13th century that Republicans now represent?



Idiots. They don't even realize that it's already a done deal. The only issue remaining is what the Obama Administration is going to say to try to tell us that massive tax increases on the poor and mandatory conversion to the teachings of R.J. Rushdoony are a GOOD thing.

A governor's job is not to be "fan-in-chief"

One would think that now that New York has legalized gay marriage and the world hasn't ended, New Jersey would be the next likely place for equality to take place. Unfortunately, we have a governor who thinks that just because HE is a Roman Catholic (and frankly, a church hierarchy that has harbored and protected child molesters for decades ought to have no moral authority over anything), he, not the voters, gets to decide whether everyone in the state should have this right.

What bothers me most about Chris Christie's stand is the language he used on the David Gregory Fellate the Republicans Hour on Sunday: “I’m not a fan of same-sex marriage.”

No one is asking Chris Christie to be a "fan" of same-sex marriage. No one is asking him to sit in the stands with a plate of nachos, three hot dogs, and an extra-large beer, and watch gay people get married. I would be hard-pressed to find any gays in New Jersey who would even WANT Chris Christie at their weddings -- or at their Sunday barbecues after the honeymoon, either. Gay marriage is not something you should be a "fan" of -- as if it's some kind of team game. This is about the same fundamental rights the rest of us have. If Chris Christie isn't a "fan" of same-sex marriage, then he should do the same thing as someone who isn't a "fan" of the New York Yankees does -- just ignore it.

After signing legislation codifying equality into law.

But they don't tell you what they mean by "our people"

In the past, Republicans have made very clear who "our people" refers to -- and it isn't the middle class or the poor. George W. Bush actually did us a favor at that dinner during his term where he said this:

But forget everything else in the Republican Vagaries for America. The thing all the mouth-frothers ought to be asking themselves is "What do they mean by "our people"?

“In a self-governing society, the only bulwark against the power of the state is the consent of the governed, and regarding the policies of the current government, the governed do not consent,” the Republicans wrote in the introduction. “An unchecked executive, a compliant legislature and an overreaching judiciary have combined to thwart the will of the people.”

Promising to “honor the Constitution as constructed by its framers,” the Republicans added: “We pledge to advance policies that promote greater liberty, wider opportunity, a robust defense and national economic prosperity. We pledge to honor families, traditional marriage, life and the private and faith-based organizations that form the core of our American values.”

The introduction to the blueprint also stresses the need to improve the economy and create jobs. “Rising joblessness, crushing debt and a polarizing political environment are fraying the bonds among our people,” the Republicans wrote, adding a nod to states’ rights.

“With this document,” they wrote, “we pledge to dedicate ourselves to the task of reconnecting our highest aspirations to the permanent truths of our founding by keeping faith with the values our nation was founded on, the principles we stand for, and the priorities of our people. This is our Pledge to America.”

I hate to tell these guys, but the consent of the governed is called an election. Second of all, if you look at what they're saying here, it's that they plan to govern as a Christian theocracy, with a return to states' rights, and who knows -- they may even want to allow Southern states to buy and sell human beings as slaves, since that's what states rights refers to.

If you loved Europe in the Middle Ages and the antebellum South, you'll LOVE Teabag America. But who do they mean by "Our people"? Is it all Americans? Or is it the Tea Party lunatics -- willfully ignorant people who are rightfully angry about the loss of their jobs but are pointing their ire at the wrong place? Is it the K Street lobbyists who are already gleefully rubbing their hands together at the prospect of John Boehner once again passing out tobacco industry bribes on the floor of Congress, and who plan to spend election night in a cuddle huddle with the GOP?

Yes, Virginia, there really IS a Christian Taliban

And Sarah Palin would be its leader, thanks to her profound ignorance and lack of understanding of the founding principles of this country:

Sarah Palin was on the O’Reilly Factor last night talking about the National Day of Prayer, but she went a bit further than her usual party line of calling America a Christian nation. “I think we should keep this clean, keep it simple, go back to what our founders and our founding documents meant,” she said. “They’re quite clear that we would create law based on the God of the Bible and the 10 commandments, it’s pretty simple.”

What would she say to non-believers who were brought up in a different culture, O’Reilly wondered. “Yay, welcome to America, where we are tolerant and you have a freedom to express whatever faith, you can participate peacefully in whatever religion that you choose, that’s what America is all about,” she said, but added that our courts should respect “what the Judeo-Christian beliefs are, too. It’s mutual tolerance.”

Shorter Sarah Palin: Yes, we'll tolerate the Jews because gassing them is just SO 1943, you betcha. But them Buddhists and other devil-worshippers better watch themselves.

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.

What the McCain/Palin theocracy will look like

Oh, that Sarah Palin is a piece of work. No wonder she makes the Republican base so happy, she sees nothing wrong with using state funds to travel to her to her old church in Wasilla to exhort the youth to "make sure God's will be done here":

State records show that Palin submitted a travel authorization for a quick round-trip visit to attend the June 8 graduation of the Master's Commission program at the Wasilla Assembly of God, the church where she was baptized at age 12. The only other item on the agenda for that trip was a "One Lord Sunday" service involving a network of Mat-Su Christian churches earlier that morning at the Wasilla sports complex.

The records show Palin flew from Juneau to Anchorage on Saturday, June 7. She returned to Juneau that Monday afternoon. The plane tickets cost the state $519.50, and she claimed an additional $120 for meals and other expenses.

Palin couldn't be reached for comment Friday as she campaigned for vice president. Her spokeswoman at the McCain campaign said she wouldn't grant an interview.

Of course not. Asking any questions of Sarah Palin is sexist, don'tcha know.

Sarah Palin's America takes effect September 25

I never repost diaries from other sites in their entirety, and I only cite diaries at Le Grand Orange when they're particularly cogent and insightful, given the amount of chaff that finds its way amidst the wheat over there. But the diarist who wrote this, "Elise", has given blanket permission to disseminate this diary far and wide:

Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt has proposed a new rule that will limit the rights of women to receive medically accurate information and treatment. The alleged goal of the rule is to protect the rights of health care workers, volunteers, and trainees. The result would be limited access to birth control and abortion for women all over the country - regardless of state law.

From CNN:

The rule, which applies to institutions receiving government money, would require as many as 584,000 employers ranging from major hospitals to doctors' offices and nursing homes to certify in writing that they are complying with several federal laws that protect the conscience rights of health care workers. Violations could lead to a loss of government funding and legal action to recoup federal money already paid.

The comment period ends on September 25th. We have 19 days until this rule takes effect.

This rule does not provide a clear definition of birth control or abortion - allowing the health care worker to utilize their own personal definition each time, so if you go to your doctor attempting to get birth control pills, you may find yourself denied that prescription because the doctor defines birth control pills as an abortifacient.

Leavitt says you shouldn't concern yourself too much though:

But Leavitt said the regulation was intended to protect practitioners who have moral objections to abortion and sterilization, and would not interfere with patients' ability to get birth control or any legal medical procedure.

"Nothing in the new regulation in any way changes a patient's right to any legal procedure," he said, noting that a patient could go to another provider.

It's that simple - your doctor, nurse, receptionist, volunteer, pharmacist, pharm tech, etc. won't help you get your birth control? Just go somewhere else!! And I'm SURE you won't have any trouble finding another provider...or maybe you will - based on the rule.

From WaPo (bold is mine):

The regulation drops the most controversial language in a draft version that would have explicitly defined abortion for the first time in a federal law or regulation as anything that interfered with a fertilized egg after conception. But both supporters and critics said the regulation remains broad enough to protect pharmacists, doctors, nurses and others from providing birth control pills, Plan B emergency contraception and other forms of contraception, and explicitly allows workers to withhold information about such services and refuse to refer patients elsewhere.

Just how far does this regulation go? The same WaPo article gives us a clue:

But critics said they remained alarmed at the scope of the regulation, which could apply to a wide range of health-care workers. For example, the regulation would cover "participating in any activity with a reasonable connection to the objectionable procedure, including referrals, training, and other arrangements for offending procedures.

In other words - if your job is to clean the tools used in an operating room after a patient has had a vasectomy or a tubal ligation, you would be protected from any punishment if you flat out refused (on grounds of conscience) to clean those tools because you disagreed with that patient's right to get that procedure.

Here's the language from the actual rule:

Assist in the Performance means to participate in any activity with a reasonable connection to a procedure, health service or health service program, or research activity, so long as the individual involved is a part of the workforce of a Department-funded entity. This includes counseling, referral, training, and other arrangements for the  procedure, health service, or research activity.

Which facilities would be affected by this new rule?

Hospitals, nursing homes, physicians offices, Offices of Other Health Care Practitioners, Outpatient care centers, Medical and Diagnostic Laboratories, Home Health Care Services, Pharmacies, Dental schools, Medical schools, Nursing schools, Occupational Therapy Schools, Optometry Schools, Podiatry Schools, Pharmacy Schools, Public Health Schools, Residency Programs, Health Insurance Carriers and 3rd-Party Administrators, Grant awards, Contractors, and State and Territorial governments.

Daily Kos diarist, Malacandra gave us an idea as to exactly how this kind of law could be interpreted in a widely missed diary last week, Bush Administration to protect Vegetarians of Conscience. Can you imagine going to the butcher to get some sirloin for dinner and being told that you'll have to go elsewhere because the butcher is a vegetarian? And that their job is protected - even though they refuse to perform that job - because of a law that protects their "freedom of conscience"??

How many women will be put at risk due to this new regulation because they will be unable to get access to birth control - which isn't solely used for preventing pregnancy. According to the Center for Young Women's Health, birth control is prescribed for a wide variety of medical problems:

Adolescent girls and young women are frequently prescribed oral contraceptive pills for irregular or absent menstrual periods, menstrual cramps, acne, PMS, endometriosis, and hormone replacement therapy. For example, girls diagnosed with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS) (a hormone imbalance which causes irregular menstrual periods, acne, and excess hair growth) are prescribed oral contraceptives to lower their hormone levels back to normal and regulate menstrual periods. Girls with acne that is not responding to simple measures are often prescribed hormone pills. Girls whose ovaries are not producing enough estrogen (because of anorexia nervosa, excessive exercise, or damage to the ovaries from radiation or chemotherapy) often take oral contraceptive pills to replace estrogen. Girls with endometriosis are also often prescribed oral contraceptives, in cycles or continuously, to suppress the condition.

The CDC gives us a sense as to how many people would be affected by this rule:

In 2002, 98% of women who had ever had sexual intercourse had used at least one method of birth control only 7.4 percent of women who were currently at risk of unintended pregnancy were not using a contraceptive method.2 The most popular method of birth control was the oral contraceptive pill, used by 11.6 million women in the United States, followed by female sterilization, condoms, male sterilization, and other methods of birth control.2

98% of women have used a method of birth control - and this regulation could result in refusal of access to health care for every single one of those women depending on how they access that birth control.

• The ACLU has a letter you can send.


• Planned Parenthood has a letter you can send.


• NARAL has a letter you can send.

I urge you to sign and send every one of them - and pass every one of them along to every single family member and friend you know.

We have 19 days. After 19 days this regulation goes into effect and every single health care worker in the United States will be able to refuse any woman health care based on their own personal moral views.

NARAL provides us with a few specific results this regulation could have:

-- This regulation could undermine good state laws that require hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape survivors and ensure that pharmacies fill women’s prescriptions for birth control.

-- The proposal could allow health-care corporations (hospitals, HMOs, and health plans) to refuse to provide services or make referrals for birth control.

-- The proposed regulation could affect Medicaid and the Title X family-planning program. For instance, staff at clinics or health-care plans that contract for Medicaid services could refuse to provide contraception.

The ACLU provides us with a link to the PDF of the rule here if you'd like to read it yourself.

If this rule takes effect, I wonder what other health care procedures and medications providers could begin to deny patients because of their own personal conscience...the list could extend well beyond birth control or abortion. Just think of all the different religions out there and the wide variety of procedures people object to based on those religious beliefs.

Please take action today and please ask everyone you know to join you. This rule has the potential to eliminate access to healthcare for women all over the country - and will very likely hit women in less populated areas the hardest. Some women simply don't have the option to "find another provider" in their area. Some women don't have the option to "find another pharmacy" in their area. We must do everything in our power to stop this rule before it takes affect.

If you aren't concerned, you damn well should be.

Update: Junkyard Dem has added a link to Digg. Please Digg this story up. The more who learn about this rule and take action, the better.

One last chance to show me that Democrats are an opposition party

After reading about the theocratic resolution passed resoundingly by the Democratically-controlled House of Representatives which comes perilously close to declaring Christianity the national religion, it's difficult, if not impossible, to have any remaining hope that this Democratic Congress has any intention of acting in opposition to the American Christian authoritarian Mullahs currently dominating the other side of the aisle.

Yesterday's resolution makes me angrier than I can even express, not just because it seems clearly designed as an attempt to mollify the unmollifiable Bill O'Reilly in his rants about some kind of "War on Christmas", but because it flies right into the "Christian Nation" trap that the theocrats are trying to set. I don't know about you, but where I live, it's kind of hard to think anything BUT that Christmas is an important holiday. Between the traffic making it impossible to navigate Route 17 or any of the surrounding streets in Paramus any time after 8 AM on Saturdays, the relentless Christmas music on radio, and the garish displays of cheap inflatable plastic Santas on people's lawns who deflate every night until by daybreak they look like so many redsuited passed-out drunks, it is most definitely the Christmas season. So why on earth do we need a Congressional resolution to tell us what we already know? And why is THIS what Democrats are doing, along with censuring MoveOn.org, when there are still American kids getting killed in Iraq, Americans losing their homes, jobs moving overseas, and a Republican Party that seems bound and determined to get its attack on Iran if they have to have an "investigation" into the recent NIE report in order to get it?

The solution, as E.J. Dionne points out today, is very simple:

What's the alternative to internecine Democratic finger-pointing of the sort that made the front page of yesterday's Post? The party's congressional leaders need to do whatever they have to do to put this year behind them. Then they need to stop whining. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid should put aside any ill feelings and use the Christmas break to come up with a joint program for 2008.

They could start with the best ideas from their presidential candidates in areas such as health care, education, cures for the ailing economy and poverty reduction. Agree to bring the same bills to a vote in both houses. Try one more time to change the direction of Iraq policy. If Bush and the Republicans block their efforts, bring all these issues into the campaign. Let the voters break the gridlock.

If Democrats don't make the 2008 election about the Do-Nothing Republicans, the GOP has its own ideas about whom to hold responsible for Washington's paralysis. And if House and Senate Democrats waste their time attacking each other, they will deserve any blame they get next fall.

The Democrats seem content to run out the clock, assuming that Democratic voters have noplace else to go, and that if they continue to let George Bush and Dick Cheney run amok, they'll win by default in 2008. But is that how you want to win? Isn't it better to win by offering a genuine alternative?

Given the FUBAR state of the country at the moment, even if we DO end up with a Democratic president in 2008, if the party can't line up behind a positive, definitive, progressive agenda, this ineffectual party is setting up said president for four years of accomplishing nothing; four years of Republican minority obstructionism, and four years of Clinton scandals, investigations into Barack Obama's childhood, or relentless snarking about John Edwards' hair, depending on which of the three front-runners finally emerges from this interminable primary season.

If Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were TRYING to cripple the Democratic President they give lip service to wanting, they couldn't do it better.

Welcome to the Theocratic Jungle

Glenn Greenwald on the Big Tough Democrats. (When you get to the part about the resolution the Democratically-controlled House passed overwhelmingly yesterday, grab a wastebasket in which to vomit. You're going to need it. (Pam has more on this travesty, and also on how utterly batshit crazy Mike Huckabee is.

Here's my question: If Christians are so damn sure that their religion is Absolute Truth, why do they need constant affirmation from others about it?

Reagan's Assistant General Counsel Speaks Out on the theocratization of the United States Military

Just go read it.