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Posts Tagged ‘BIRTH CONTROL’

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FETUS FANATICS – PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Law, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on October 25, 2012 at 12:15 am

Republicans have no shortage of pet hatreds:

  • Communists
  • Liberals (by which they mean “communists”)
  • “Uppity” women
  • Gays
  • Business regulations
  • Taxes (on the rich)
  • Obama Care” (The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act)
  • Banking regulations
  • Protecting the environment

But there’s one group they can’t get enough of: Fetuses.

Consider:

In 2011, the Kansas legislature, Republicans sponsored a sweeping anti-abortion bill that would:

  • Levy a sales tax on women seeking abortions, including rape victims;
  • Exempt doctors from malpractice suits if they withheld medical information to prevent an abortion;
  • Take away tax credits for abortion providers;
  • Remove tax deductions for the purchase of abortion-related insurance coverage; and
  • Require women to hear the fetal heartbeat.

In Florida, despite Governor Rick Scott’s campaign promise to focus on job creation, the 2010-2011 session of the Florida legislature passed no job-creation bills.  But it did pass five bills restricting abortion rights.

The bills:

  • Force women to undergo ultrasounds prior to having an abortion
  • Prohibit private insurance coverage of abortion care in the new state health-insurance exchange
  • Require young women to prove the medical necessity of their abortions before a judge in order to bypass parental permission
  • Establish state-sanctioned license plates that funnel money to anti-choice “crisis pregnancy centers” and
  • Starts the process of amending the state constitution to prohibit the government funding of abortion.

Florida Republicans filed a total of 18 anti-abortion bills during the 2010-2011 session, the third most in the country, according to the ACLU, and twice the number of anti-choice laws introduced last year in the state, according to NARAL Pro-Choice America.

In Congress, Republicans are sponsoring the Child Interstate Abortion Notifcation Act, which would make it illegal for anyone but a parent to accompany a young woman across state lines to seek an abortion–even if her parents are absent or abusive.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin state senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) said:

  • “unwanted or mistimed” pregnancies are “the choice of the women”
  • who should learn “that this is a mistake.”

Grothman recently introduced Senate Bill 507, which, if passed, would formally consider single parenthood a contributing factor to child abuse.

On March 8–International Women’s Day–U.S Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) marked the occasion by asking his Twitter followers to join him in celebrating National Agriculture Day.

Blunt had sponsored an amendment that would have allowed employers to refuse health care coverage of any kind for “moral reasons.”

It was voted down in the Senate on March 1.

Many Republicans are still trying to revive the Blunt amendment.  House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has promised to continue the fight in the House.

Republicans spent much of 2011 challenging women’s reproductive rights.  At the state level:

  • State legislators introduced more than 1,100 anti-abortion provisions and had enacted 135 of them by year’s end.
  • Seven states either fully defunded or tried to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides basic health care, contraception, breast cancer and STD screenings to millions of low-income women each year.

At the Congressional level, Republicans

  • Used attacks on abortion and Planned Parenthood funding to extort Democratic concessions during budget negotiations and threatened to shut down the government.
  • Introduced mandatory ultrasound bills.
  • Tried to narrow the definition of rape to include only “forcible rape.”  Under this change, a woman who was coerced, drugged or otherwise incapacitated by a rapist, would not be legally counted as a rape victim.
  • Republicans barred the District of Columbia from using its own locally raised funds to help low-income women pay for abortions.

During just the first two months of 2012:

  • At the state level, Virginia Republicans introduced a bill whose original language required women to undergo an invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound procedure 24 hours before having an abortion.
  • Following widespread outrage, a modified version of the bill–requiring women to receive trans-abdominal ultrasounds, was signed into law instead.
  • With the connivance of House Republicans, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s largest breast cancer charity, tried to pull cancer-screening grants from Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics provide abortions.  Upon huge public outcry, this decision was quickly reversed.
  • The House Oversight Committee convened a hearing to deny contraceptive insurance coverage under the guise of “protecting religious liberty.”  The Democrats’ one female witness, Sandra Fluke, a third-year Georgetown University law student, was forbidden to speak at it.
  • Right-wing broadcaster Rush Limbaugh and Foster Friess–Rick Santorum’s chief financial backer–publicly equated birth control use to sexual promiscuity.

On July 24, House Republicans voted on a bill, centered on Washington, D.C., that would make abortion illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

“We will stand for a commitment to protect little babies that have no other people to protect them,” shouted its author, Trent Franks (R-Ariz.). “By the grace of God, we’re going to do that!”

The bill was defeated on a vote of 220 to 154.

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SLAVERY IS GOOD, BIRTH CONTROL AND EVOLUTION ARE BAD

In History, Politics, Social commentary on October 24, 2012 at 12:00 am

If you

  • hate slavery
  • favor access to birth control and
  • accept evolution and the “Big Bang” theory

then you might have second-thoughts about joining the Republican Party.

Consider the following:

ON SLAVERY:

Jon Hubbard, a Republican member of the Arkansas House of Representatives, says in a new book that slavery was “a blessing” for African-Americans.

In Letters to the Editor: Confessions of a Frustrated Conservative, Hubbard writes:

“The institution of slavery that the black race has long believed to be an abomination upon its people may actually have been a blessing in disguise. The blacks who could endure those conditions and circumstances would someday be rewarded with citizenship in the greatest nation ever established upon the face of the Earth.”

No doubt that must now give huge comfort to all those generations of blacks who endured 300 years of bondage, usually under the most brutal conditions.

Oh, I forgot.  All those millions of former slaves are now dead.

No doubt Hubbard forgot, too, when he wrote that.

ON BIRTH CONTROL:

On August 1, Congressman Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) compared the requirement that private insurance plans provide contraception coverage to two of the most devastating attacks on American soil.

“I know in your mind, you can think of the times America was attacked,” he said at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

“One is Dec. 7, that’s Pearl Harbor Day. The other is Sept. 11, and that’s the day the terrorists attacked. I want you to remember Aug. 1, 2012, the attack on our religious freedom. That is a day that will live in infamy, along with those other dates.”

August 1 marked the first day private insurers must include birth control coverage in their plans without charging a co-pay, as required by the Affordable Care Act.

Thus, the right of even poor women to obtain affordable contraceptive coverage is now on a moral par with sneak attacks that massacred thousands of innocent men and women.

ON EVOLUTION AND THE BIG BANG THEORY:

On September 27, Congressman Paul Broun (R-Ga.) gave a speech at the 2012 Sportsman’s Banquet at Liberty Baptist Church in Hartwell, Georgia.

In this, he said that evolution and the big bang theory were “lies straight from the pit of Hell.”

“God’s word is true. I’ve come to understand that. All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the big bang theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell.

“It’s lies to try to keep me and all the folks who were taught that from understanding that they need a savior.”

Broun, who is actually earned a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1971 from the Medical College of Georgia, continued:

“You see, there are a lot of scientific data that I’ve found out as a scientist that actually show that this is really a young Earth. I don’t believe that the earth’s but about 9,000 years old.

“I believe it was created in six days as we know them. That’s what the Bible says.”

Referring to the Bible as “the manufacturer’s handbook,” he said:

“It teaches us how to run our lives individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society.

To add unintentional humor to the situation, Broun is a high-ranking member of the House Science Committee.

Thus, a man who

  • rejects science
  • embraces primitive-era theology as a substitute for rational thinking and
  • believes in devils and a savior as actual beings and Hell as an actual place

now commands power to shape scientific inquiry for the United States Government.

Americans quickly condemn and ridicule tyrants like Adolf Hitler and religious fanatics such as Osama bin Laden as psychopathic oddities–whose like could never appear in the United States.

In fact, American history is littered with political tyrants and religious fanatics.

It’s long past time for Americans to study that history–with its would-be tyrants like Richard Nixon, Huey Long, Joseph McCarthy, Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney.

And its religious fanatics like Charles Coughlin, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Donald Wildmon.

And it’s long past time for Americans–who pride themselves on being a deeply religious people–to remember that warning from Jesus in Matthew 7:5:

“You hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of your own eye; and then shall you see clearly to cast out the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

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WATCH THEIR HANDS, NOT HER LIPS

In Politics, Social commentary on August 30, 2012 at 12:05 am

Secret Service agents will tell you: Watch the hands.

If someone’s going to assault you, he’s going to use his hands.  Don’t worry about his mouth–unless he’s using it to distract you from his hands.

Or, as in the case of Ann Romney, her mouth.

Consider Ann Romney’s address on behalf of her husband at the Republican National Convention on August 28.

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): It’s the moms of this nation — single, married, widowed — who really hold this country together. We’re the mothers, we’re the wives, we’re the grandmothers, we’re the big sisters, we’re the little sisters, we’re the daughters.

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • “The unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed.”
  • In short, re-criminalize abortions. 
  • Imprison doctors who perform them and patients who receive them.  
  • Allow businesses to refuse to provide insurance coverage for contraceptive use.

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): You can trust Mitt.

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • “We oppose the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact or any other scheme to abolish or distort the procedures of the Electoral College.” 
  • In short: Let’s retain the system that allows the Presidential candidate with the lowest number of popular votes–like George W. Bush in 2000–to assume office.

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): And I want us to think tonight about the love we all share for those Americans, our brothers and sisters, who are going through difficult times, whose days are never easy, nights are always long, and whose work never seems done.

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • Despite the growing disparity between the richest 1% and the rest of the population, refuse to accept any tax increase on America’s most privileged individuals and corporations. 
  • In fact, their taxes should be vastly reduced, if not eliminated.

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): We were very young. Both still in college. There were many reasons to delay marriage, and you know? We just didn’t care. We got married and moved into a basement apartment.

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • If you’re gay, forget about any marriage rights for you. 
  • Affirms the rights of states and the federal government not to recognize same-sex marriage.
  • Backs a constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): You know what those late night phone calls with an elderly parent are like and the long weekend drives just to see how they’re doing. You know the fastest route to the local emergency room and which doctors actually answer the phone
when you call at night.

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • Radically change Medicare and Medicaid. 
  • Turn Medicare into a voucher healthcare system–where elderly patients must go shopping among insurance companies hoping to find an affordable plan.  
  • Raise the age of eligibility so that patients must wait longer to begin receiving treatment under this plan.
  • Transform Medicaid services for the poor into a block grant program where states could use as little of those monies as they wanted to provide sub-minimum care. 
  • Monies not used for medical care could be used to cover other politically-oriented costs, such as filling potholes.

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): No one will work harder. No one will care more. No one will move heaven and earth like Mitt Romney to make this country a better place to live!

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • “We will end the EPA’s war on coal and encourage the increased safe development in all regions of the nation’s coal resources.”
  • In short: Despite rapidly escalating evidence of fluorocarbons as the cause of global warming, let’s make full use of the filthiest source of energy available.
  • Demand that Congress prohibit the EPA from implementing new greenhouse gas regulations “that will harm the nation’s economy and threaten millions of jobs over the next quarter century.”
  • Forget about the wholesale environmental pollution triggered by BP’s oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. 
  • Set up similar rigs along the fragile Outer Continental Shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. 

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): I read somewhere that Mitt and I have a “storybook marriage.” Well….those storybooks never seemed to have chapters called MS or breast cancer.

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • Gut the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. 
  • Allow insurance companies to once again discriminate against patients for pre-existing conditions.  
  • Allow insurance companies to once again place caps on lifetime coverage. 
  • Allow insurance companies to once again be able to arbitrarily cancel your coverage. 
  • Re-impose insurance company barriers to getting emergency service–if a hospital lies outside your plan’s network, that’s your tough luck.

ANN ROMNEY (mouth): Tonight I want to talk to you about love.

REPUBLICAN PLATFORM (hands):

  • Provide unlimited magazines for assault weapons–and the would-be mass murderers who wish to possess them. 
  • End background checks on those wanting to buy weapons designed entirely for military use.

* * * * *

Of course Ann Romney loves her husband.  Fine.  Let’s congratulate her for the happiness she’s shared with him and wish her well in the future.

Then let’s elect a President–and a Congress–who oppose everything stated within the Republican platform.

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2012 REPUBLICAN CONVENTION AGENDA

In Politics, Social commentary, Humor on August 17, 2012 at 12:05 am

2012 Republican National Convention Schedule

(August 27 – 30, 2012)

8:00 A.M.  Opening with singing of “The Horst Wessel Lied.”  Click here: Horst Wessel Lied – YouTube

8:15 A.M.  Premiering of the newly-revised American flag, replacing the 50 stars with dollar signs.

8:20 A.M.  Introduction of  “New and Improved” Pledge of Allegiance and its proclaiming by the assembled convention:

I pledge allegiance to the Fuehrer of the United States of America and to the Republican Party for which he stands, One Version of Truth, under Money, with Equity and Privileges for some.

8:30 A.M.  America’s richest corporate executives salute “Man of the Plutocrats”–Mitt Romney.

9:00 A.M.  Official Republican anthem, “My Wallet, First and Always,” sung by Donald Trump.

9:30 A.M.  Newt Gingrich speaks on “Family Values: An Innovative Approach.”

10:00 A.M.  A video salute to Facebok’s Eduardo Saverin, who “De-Friended” America to avoid a 15% capital gains tax.

10:30 A.M.  Bristol Palin lectures on “Why Only the Rich Need Medical Care.”

11: 00 A.M.  Levi Johnson answers your auestions on “Birth Control Tips for Family Values Republicans.”

11:30 A.M.  Showcasing of ”The Obama Presidential Library”–a bullet-riddled outhouse actually displayed during the Montana Republican Party’s state convention on June 16-17.  Click here: Montana Republican Convention: GOP Showcases Bullet-Ridden ‘Obama’ Outhouse

NOON  Mitt Romney speaks on “Tax Dodging for Rich Patriots,” with special emphasis on Swiss bank accounts and off-shore havens in the Cayman Islands.

SPECIAL NOTICE:  Lunch-hour only sale at RNC Souvenir Shop–half-price discount on Mein Kampf and Rush Limbaugh’s latest book.

1:00 P.M.  Donald Rumsfeld explains why killing Osama bin Laden was a national security priority–until President Obama pulled it off.

2:00 P.M.  George W. Bush speaks on “Start Your Own War With Creative Fibbing.”

2:30 P.M.  Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Dan Quayle and Donald Trump–draft-dodgers all–salute “The Heroic American Veteran.”

3:00 P.M.  Dick Cheney offers advice on child rearing: “Bring the Waterboarding Home.”

3:30 P.M.  Herman Cain lectures on “You Can Make It With a White Girl (So Long As She Wants a Job”).

Herman Cain

4:00 P.M. Rush Limbaugh lectures on why the United States actually lost World War II–by siding with Great Britain against Nazi Germany.

5:00 P.M.  Sarah Palin narrates the documentary “Creation Theory: The Real Truth Behind ‘The Flintstones.’”

6:00 P.M.  NRA Director Wayne LaPierre celebrates “Great American Assassins,” featuring a special tribute to Lee Harvey Oswald: “See what one motivated gun-owner can do for his country.”

Lee Harvey Oswald

7:00 P.M.  Donald Trump speaks on “Don’t Let the Truth Get in the Way of a Winning Lie.”

8:00 P.M.  The Koch brothers and the CEOs of Bank of America, J.P. Morgan/Chase and Wells Fargo Bank sing, “We Own the World.”

8:15 P.M.  Paul Ryan, Romney’s choice for deputy Fuehrer, speaks on “How to Gut Social Security–and Unload Your Crazy Aunt.”

9:00 P.M.  Official anointing of Mitt Romney as the Republican candidate for Fuehrer.  All present swear an oath of undying loyalty to him.  All those watching on TV must do the same–or else.

10:00 P.M.  Sarah Palin leads closing song, “Horst Wessel Lied” reprise.

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A TALE OF TWO RYANS

In History, Politics, Social commentary, Uncategorized on August 13, 2012 at 12:20 am

Before appointing an officer to the rank of general, Napoleon would ask his advisors: “Is he lucky?”

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon admired military talent, but he also realized that even talent has its limitations.  And when those limits are reached, only luck may be able to save the day.

President Barack Obama also understands the importance of luck.  He, more than most politicians, has been extremely lucky in his competition.

Consider his 2004 race for United States Senator from Illinois.

In the general election, Obama faced Republican Jack Ryan.  Ryan seemed a true Golden Boy:  He was handsome,  popular and a  wealthy former Goldman-Sachs partner.

Jack Ryan

And although he was now divorced, he had been married–from 1991 to 1999–to Jeri Ryan.  The actress who was/is best-known for her role as the Borg “Seven-of-Nine” in “Star Trek: Voyager.”

Jeri Ryan as “Seven-of-Nine”

Obama’s candidacy looked doomed.  And then the unexpected happened.

The Chicago Tribune and WLS-TV, the local ABC affiliate, filed suit to have the Ryans’ divorce and child custody records released.  And they were.

In the custody files, his then-wife, Jeri, charged that Jack Ryan had pressured her to perform sexual acts with him at swinger’s clubs in New York, New Orleans, and Paris while other patrons watched.

Jeri described one as “a bizarre club with cages, whips and other apparatus hanging from the ceiling.”  And she had steadfastly refused to let Jack assimilate her in so public a setting.

Jack confirmed the trips with the actress but described them simply as “romantic getaways,” denying her claims that he sought public sex.

Ryan had been running against Obama as a clean-cut, “family values” candidate.  Suddenly, he found that image fatally tainted.

Days after the release, Ryan withdrew from the race.  As his replacement, the Republicans chose Alan Keyes, a right-winger whom even George W. Bush found to be “a piece of work.”

Obama easily won election with 73% of the votes.

In 2008, Obama ran for President.  His nominated opponent was Arizona’s United States Senator John McCain. And, once again, Obama got electoral help from the Republican party.

McCain chose Sarah Palin, a two-year Governor of Alaska who roused the GOP’s right-wing base but outraged liberals and moderates alike.  Even worse for McCain, Palin quickly became a target for parody–especially that of “Saturday Night Live” comic Tina Fey.

Obama won the election with 53% of the vote, amassing 365 electoral votes to McCain’s 173.

And then, on August 11, Mitt Romney, the all-but-anointed Republican nominee for President, gave Obama another Ryan to run against.

Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Paul Ryan

Elected at 28 to Congress in 1998, over the next 12 years he built a reputation as a firm social and budgetary conservative.

When the GOP gained a majority in Congress in 2010, Ryan became  the Chairman of the House Budget Committee.  In 2011 he released “The Path to Prosperity,” a 2012 budget resolution that he claimed would end “uncontrolled  government spending” and “crushing levels of taxes.”

According to economist and former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich:

“More than any other politician today, Paul Ryan exemplifies the social Darwinism at the core of today’s Republican Party: Reward the rich, penalize the poor, let everyone else fend for themselves. Dog eat dog.”

On March 12, 2012, details of Ryan’s 2013 House Budget Committee proposal were released:

  • Balance the budget by 2040–28 years away.
  • Eliminate tax deductions and credits for individuals.
  • Create only two income tax rates–10% and 25%.
  • Lower the tax rates for high-earning individuals and corporations from 35% to 25%.
  • Repeal the Affordable Health Care Act of 2010.
  • Turn Medicare into a private health insurance system.
  • Slash funding for Medicaid, which ensures medical care for the poor, forcing states to drop coverage for an estimated 14 to 28 million low-income people, according to the non-partisan Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
  • Reduce food stamps for poor families by 17%–$135 billion–over the decade, leading to a significant increase in hunger, especially among children.
  • Reduce housing assistance, job training, and Pell grants for college tuition.
  • Set a cap on discretionary spending of $1.018 trillion for 2013.
  • Allow the military budget to grow with inflation over the next decade.

Nor is Ryan concerned only about economics.  Anti-abortion groups have been ecstatic with his stand on fetuses.

Ryan’s “H.R. 212: Sanctity of Human Life Act” would give fetuses full personhood rights from the moment of fertilization.  This would not only outlaw abortion even in cases of rape and incest.  It would also ban certain methods of birth control, such as IUDs and spermicides.

And while Ryan seeks iron-clad protection for fetuses, he’s less concerned with protecting citizens against gun-toting attackers:

  • In 1999 he voted against a proposal to establish more stringent background checks on people buying firearms at gun shows.
  • In 2011 he voted for a gun-rights bill to make a permit to carry a concealed firearm in one state valid in almost every other state.

It’s child’s play to imagine how the Democrats will exploit this priorities list in the upcoming election.

It’s Paul Ryan who’s Irish.  But it’s President Obama who may well have the luck of the Irish going for him.

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RIGHT AND LEFT

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on March 29, 2012 at 8:00 pm

You may want to slide into doing pieces about some Democratic figures, Obama and the like in order to present something other than a death defying anit-Christ, Jew hating, Nazis Republican Corporate Tax Cheater with a long-leg for Justice and a short memory of the American flag….

* * * * *

I received this email recently from a conservative friend who sometimes reads my blog. Since his sentiments may be shared by others, I will respond accordingly.

I have written more often about Republican transgressions than Democratic ones. But not because I believe Democrats are all saints and statesmen. All people are flawed, with plenty of stupidity and criminality to go around for any party.

I have focused primarily on Republican bureaucrats for two reasons:

First, I believe it’s the Right that’s on the move in America, not the Left.

It’s the Right that

  • keeps on introducing one anti-abortion/birth control measure after another to the ballot or Federal/state legislature.
  • is trying to limit–rather than expand–voting rights by demanding sharp reductions in the amount of time allowed to sign up voters.
  • wants to return us to the days when insurance companies legally denied coverage to anyone with a “pre-existing” medical condition.”

So I write about the Right because it–and not the Left–is the dominant force in American politics today.

Of course, right-wingers like Sarah Palin insist that it’s the Left that holds power over the media. But most of the political talk-show hosts on radio and TV are right-wingers–such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Bill O’Reilly and Laura Ingraham.

Pew researchers found in 2004 that

  • 17% of the public regularly listens to talk radio.
  • This audience is mostly male, middle-aged and conservative.
  • Forty-one percent are Republican and 28% are Democrats.
  • Forty-five percent describe themselves as conservatives.
  • Eighteen percent say they are liberals.

True, there are commentators on the Left such as Randi Rhodes, but they command only a fraction of the following–and influence–of their right-wing counterparts.

As for my having “a short memory of the American flag”: I believe I have a far better grasp of American history than most people. As proof, I cite my three-part series on the Alamo and my four-part series on the toxic relationship between the U.S. and Cuba.

When Rightists talk about “the flag,” they usually do so as a substitute for confronting problems that need redressing.

So if you’ve been victimized by your medical insurance company and feel serious healthcare reform is needed, the Right attacks you as being “down on America.”

Thus, if you’re

  • against allowing corporations to pay no taxes;
  • against allowing corporate polluters to go unpunished;
  • for letting women decide if they want to have children,

you don’t have time to offer these views because you’re too busy defending yourself.

Most right-wing attacks on the patriotism of their opponents are not meant to “ defend” America. They are intended to suppress views Rightists disagree with.

The second reason I often write about the Right lies in the fundemental difference I see between Democrats and Republicans.

Democrats want to be the party of inclusion. They seek to extend legal rights to almost everyone–including illegal aliens and street-polluting vagrants.

They want to allow illegal aliens to attend American colleges–at public expense. They defend the rights of vagrants to defecate on sidewalks against the rights of tax-paying citizens to be safe from such filth and disgusting sights.

Republicans, by contrast, want to be the party of exclusion–by denying rights, not extending them.

They talk endlessly about “getting government off the backs of the people.” But they have sponsored a mind-numbing series of laws to interfere with the most private aspects of a woman’s life.

Throughout 2011, Republicans introduced more than 1,100 anti-abortion provisions in state legislatures and enacted 135 of them.

Escalating their attacks on women’s sexual privacy, Republicans now seek to deny their legal access to birth control.

Republican legislation has similarly invaded the privacy of thousands of 9/11 “first responders” while slandering their patriotism.

The responders have been required to have their names run through the FBI’s database of suspected terrorists. Otherwise, they will be barred from getting government-supplied medical treatment for their numerous, worsening ailments.

I’ve offended some on the Left by demanding an end to illegal immigration and street-polluting vagrants. And I’ve offended some on the Right by attacking their efforts to curtail the right to abortion, birth control and affordable medical care.

That puts me somewhere in the middle of the political road, where I’ve always seen myself anyway.

If some others don’t, I can live with it.

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RICK SANTORUM EXPLAINS IT ALL FOR YOU

In Humor, Politics on March 17, 2012 at 2:01 pm

And now, a few words on behalf of GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum:

The Ayatollah….

….of Birth Controllah

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REPUBLICANS AS VOYEURS

In Bureaucracy, History, Humor, Law, Politics on March 17, 2012 at 1:12 am

At the height of World War II, Dr. Hans Lammers, legal advisor to Adolf Hitler, issued this legal directive at the enraged order of his Fuhrer:

“In many [criminal] cases it will undoubtedly be necessary to determine whether there were sexual relations between two people or not.

“But if this much is known, it is wholly superfluous to probe for closer particulars as to how and where such sexual intercourse took place.  The cross-examination of women in particular should cease!

“Every time that cross-examining police officials or judges keep probing for details as to the how and where of the sexual intercourse, the Fuhrer has gained the very clear impression that this is done for the same reason that the same intimate questions are asked in the Confessional box

“The Fuhrer wants clear instructions issued for the abolition of unnecessary cross-examination.”1

By contrast, the Arizona legislature has introduced a bill that:

  • requires women who want their contraception covered by their health insurance to prove to their employers that they are taking it to treat medical conditions—not to prevent pregnancy; and
  • makes it easier for employers to fire a woman for using birth control to prevent pregnancy.

Current Arizona law states that health plans covering other prescription medications must include contraception.

To override this requirement, the State House of Representatives passed House Bill 2625 in early March.  The Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed it on March 12.

The full Senate has yet to vote on the legislation.

House Bill 2625 allows any employer to refuse to cover contraception that will be used “for contraceptive, abortifacient, abortion or sterilization purposes.”

If a woman wants the cost of her contraception covered, she must “submit a claim” to her employer providing evidence of a medical condition, such as endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome, that can be treated with birth control.

Even more invasive, the law allows Arizona employers to fire a woman upon finding out that she took birth control  to prevent pregnancy.

In short: While Adolf Hitler was outraged at public officials taking what he considered prurient interest in a woman’s sex life, Arizona’s Republican legislators feel no such restraint.

“I believe we live in America,” said Majority Whip Debbie Lesko (R-Glendale), who sponsored the bill. “We don’t live in the Soviet Union. So, government should not be telling the organizations or mom-and-pop employers to do something against their moral beliefs.”

This should come as no surprise to anyone–least of all women.

Throughout 2011, Republicans attacked women’s reproductive rights–not simply access to legal abortion but even birth control.

At the state level:

  • State legislators introduced more than 1,100 anti-abortion provisions and had enacted 135 of them by year’s end.
  • Seven states either fully defunded or tried to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides basic health care, contraception, breast cancer and STD screenings to millions of low-income women each year.

At the Congressional level:

  • Republicans used abortion and Planned Parenthood funding to extort Democratic concessions during budget negotiations and threatened to shut down the government.
  • Republicans introduced mandatory ultrasound bills.
  • Republicans tried to narrow the definition of rape to include only “forcible rape.”  Under this change, a woman who was coerced, drugged or otherwise incapacitated by a rapist, would not be legally counted as a rape victim.
  • Republicans barred the District of Columbia from using its own locally raised funds to help low-income women pay for abortions.

During the first two months of 2012:

  • Virginia Republicans introduced a bill whose original language required women to undergo an invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound procedure 24 hours before having an abortion.
  • A modified version of the bill–requiring women to receive trans-abdominal ultrasounds, was signed into law instead.
  • With the connivance of House Republicans, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s largest breast cancer charity, tried to pull cancer-screening grants from Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics provide abortions.
  • The House Oversight Committee convened a hearing to deny contraceptive insurance coverage under the guise of “protecting religious liberty.” The Democrats’ one female witness, Sandra Fluke, was forbidden to speak at it.
  • Right-wing broadcaster Rush Limbaugh and Foster Friess–Rick Santorum’s chief financial backer–publicly equated birth control use to sexual promiscuity.

And yet Republicans insist they are not waging a “war on women.”

The situation calls to mind a famous joke:  A wife unexpectedly returns home and catches her husband in bed with another woman.  Before she can speak, her husband demands: “Now, what are you going to believe–your own eyes, or what I’m telling you?”

The sheer number of laws proposed or enacted by Republicans at state and Federal levels–to control the sex lives of American women–is staggering.

The dictatorial mentality of right-wingers who advocate such legislation can best be summed up in yet another joke:

Q.  What’s the difference between the Republican Party and the Taliban?

A.  The Republicans are still working on their Arabic.

__________

  1. David Irving, The War Path, Viking Press, 1978.

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THE REPUBLICAN W.O.W. (WAR ON WOMEN)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics on March 12, 2012 at 1:00 am

According to right-wing talk-show host Rush Limbaugh: “This whole notion of a war on women, it’s so contrived. It’s so forced. It feels so unnatural.  ‘Cause there is no war on women.”

No doubt that’s what the Republican party wants female voters to believe.

But if bureaucracies are judged on their actions instead of on their propagandistic claims, women may well decide otherwise.

Consider:

In the Kansas legislature, Republicans have sponsored a sweeping anti-abortion bill that:

  • would levy a sales tax on women seeking abortions, including rape victims;
  • would exempt doctors from malpractice suits if they withheld medical information to prevent an abortion;
  • would take away tax credits for abortion providers;
  • remove tax deductions for the purchase of abortion-related insurance coverage; and
  • require women to hear the fetal heartbeat.

In Congress, Republicans are sponsoring the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, which

  • would make it illegal for anyone but a parent to accompany a young woman across state lines to seek an abortion–even if her parents are absent or abusive.

Meanwhile, Wisconsin state senator Glenn Grothman (R-West Bend) said:

  • “unwanted or mistimed” pregnancies are the “choice of the women”
  • who should learn “that this is a mistake.”

Grothman recently introduced Senate Bill 507, which would

  • formally consider single parenthood a contributing factor to child abuse if passed into law.

On March 8–International Women’s Day–Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) marked the occasion by asking his Twitter followers to join him in celebrating National Agriculture Day.

Blunt had sponsored an amendment that would have

  • allowed employers to refuse health care coverage of any kind for “moral reasons.”

It was voted down in the Senate on March 1.

Many Republicans are still trying to revive the Blunt amendment.  House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has promised to continue the fight in the House.

Republicans spent much of 2011 challenging women’s reproductive rights.  At the state level:

  • State legislators introduced more than 1,100 anti-abortion provisions and had enacted 135 of them by year’s end.
  • Seven states either fully defunded or tried to defund Planned Parenthood, which provides basic health care, contraception, breast cancer and STD screenings to millions of low-income women each year.

At the Congressional level:

  • Republicans used abortion and Planned Parenthood funding to extort Democratic concessions during budget negotiations and threatened to shut down the government.
  • Republicans introduced mandatory ultrasound bills.
  • Republicans tried to narrow the definition of rape to include only “forcible rape.”  Under this change, a woman who was coerced, drugged or otherwise incapacitated by a rapist, would not be legally counted as a rape victim.
  • Republicans barred the District of Columbia from using its own locally raised funds to help low-income women pay for abortions.

During the first two months of 2012:

  • Virginia Republicans introduced a bill whose original language required women to undergo an invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound procedure 24 hours before having an abortion.
  • A modified version of the bill–requiring women to receive trans-abdominal ultrasounds, was signed into law instead.
  • With the connivance of House Republicans, Susan G. Komen for the Cure, the nation’s largest breast cancer charity, tried to pull cancer-screening grants from Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics provide abortions.
  • The House Oversight Committee convened a hearing to deny contraceptive insurance coverage under the guise of “protecting religious liberty.” The Democrats’ one female witness, Sandra Fluke, was forbidden to speak at it.
  • Right-wing broadcaster Rush Limbaugh and Foster Friess–Rick Santorum’s chief financial backer–publicly equated birth control use to sexual promiscuity.

According to Niccolo Machiavelli, the father of political science, this does not bode well for Republican prospects in November–at the Presidential, House or Senate level.

The reason, says Machiavelli, is this:

“…The quickest way of opening the eyes of the people is to find the means of making them descend to particulars, seeing that to look at things only in a general way deceives them…

“I believe also that…no wise man should ever disregard the popular judgment upon particular matters, such as the distribution of honors and dignities, for in these things the people never deceive themselves….”

Republicans have repeatedly asserted that “job creation” is their “Number One priority.”  Yet wherever they have been elected, they have sought, first and foremost, to place highly restrictive laws on women.

And these laws have been aimed at the most intimate of all aspects of a woman’s life: Her freedom to decide whether–or when–to become a mother.

While Republicans claim their mission is to “get government off the backs of people,” they are relentlessly trying to insert controls on the vaginas of women.

If American women remain alert to this, they can retain–or regain–control over their own bodies.  And put at least a temporary end to the reign of the American Taliban.

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G.O.P (E)HARMONY

In Humor, Politics, Social commentary on March 9, 2012 at 12:15 am

Recently, Rush Limbaugh has forsaken politics for sex–at least in his broadcasts.

Rush Limbaugh

Consider the clearly salacious nature of his remarks about 30-year-old Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke:

  • “She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception.”
  • “Ms. Fluke, have you ever heard of not having sex?  Have you ever heard of not having sex so often?”
  • “If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it.  And I’ll tell you what it is.  We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.”

Limbaugh’s comments ignited a firestorm of criticism.  So far, at least 40 advertisers have pulled their ads from his radio show.

But what if Limbaugh wasn’t aiming his anger at Sandra Fluke?  What if he was simply channeling discontent with his own sex life?

True, on June 5, 2010, Limbaugh–then 59–married Kathryn Rogers, a 33-year-old party planner from Florida.

But now she’s a lusty 35.  And he just turned 61.

So maybe old Rushbo’s having trouble “keeping up.”

On top of that, none of Limbaugh’s three previous marriages produced any children.  So maybe he feels a bit inadequate in that department, too.

In short, maybe it’s time for Mr. Right-Wing to find a new partner–one that’s truly worthy of him.  Say, someone like Ann Coulter.

For America’s right-wing community, this would be a marriage made in Fascist Heaven.

The Rush Limbaugh Show airs throughout the U.S. on over 400 stations and is the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States. When Limbaugh speaks, his “dittohead” audience listens—and acts as he decrees.

Coulter is a Constitutional attorney, right-wing social and political commentator, author, and syndicated columnist. She is notorious for her fascist political opinions and the controversial ways in which she defends them. Coulter has been engaged several times, but never married.

A marriage between Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh would prove the greatest power-match since the Macbeths. Thus, all that remains is to find a way to bring them together.

And the best way to do that is to show Rushbo and Annie the resulting fruits of such a blessed union. Thus, the following musical tribute to G.O.P. (e)harmony:

“NAZI GIRL”
(To be sung to the tune, “Barbie Girl”)

RUSH:
Hi ya, Annie!

ANNIE:
Hi Rush!

RUSH:
Do you wanna go for a ride?

ANNIE:
Sure Rush!

RUSH:
Jump on….

ANNIE:
I’m a Nazi girl in a Nazi world.
Life as a racist, it’s bodacious!
You can strut and shout, that’s what I’m all about.
Imagination, hate is our creation.

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
I’m a Nazi girl in a Nazi world.
Life as a racist, it’s bodacious!
You can strut and shout, that’s what I’m all about.
Imagination, hate is our creation.

I’m a blond bimbo girl in a right-wing hate world.
Wind me up, turn me loose, I’ll go slander.

RUSH:
You’re my doll, rock n’ roll, feel the glamour in pink.
Kiss me here, touch me there.
Hanky panky….

ANNIE:
You can touch, you can play, if you say: “I’m always Right.”

(uu-oooh-u)

I’m a Nazi girl in a Nazi world.
Life as a racist, it’s bodacious!
You can strut and shout, that’s what I’m all about.
Imagination, hate is our creation.

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(Ah-ah-ah-yeah)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(uu-oooh-u)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(Ah-ah-ah-yeah)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(uu-oooh-u)

ANNIE:
Hear me lie, hear me brag, say whatever you please.
I can dress like a slut, I’m a right-wing prick tease.

RUSH:
Come jump in, bimbo friend, let us do it again.
Hit the town, fool around, let’s go Nazi.

ANNIE:
You can touch, you can play, if you say: “I’m always Right.”
You can touch, you can play, if you say: “I’m always Right.”

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(Ah-ah-ah-yeah)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(uu-oooh-u)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(Ah-ah-ah-yeah)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(uu-oooh-u)

ANNIE:
I’m a Nazi girl in a Nazi world.
Life as a racist, it’s bodacious!
You can strut and shout, that’s what I’m all about.
Imagination, hate is our creation.

ANNIE:
I’m a Nazi girl in a Nazi world.
Life as a racist, it’s bodacious!
You can strut and shout, that’s what I’m all about.
Imagination, hate is our creation.

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(Ah-ah-ah-yeah)

ANNIE
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(uu-oooh-u)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(Ah-ah-ah-yeah)

RUSH:
Come on Annie, let’s go Nazi!

ANNIE:
(uu-oooh-u)

ANNIE:
Oh, I’m having so much fun!

RUSH:
Well, Annie, we’re just getting started.

ANNIE:
Oh, I love you Rush!

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