The Red Wave That Wasn't 2: The Deep Blue Berm

 

There's a sign I pass on my way to work, and it is randomly painted with liberal messages--and for a little while, it was a message about the "elephant in the womb" meme: the GOP elephant inside of a uterus. I also passed a handful of "Roevember" signs. (I also too, still see the "trucknutz folks"--but the suburbs outside of Philadelphia are a strange mixture.) There was an uptick in women and youth votes this year, and I definitely think the Dobbs decision had a lot to do with that. 

That democracy and specifically, anti-theocracy and anti-fascism was on the line might be harder to demographically define, but I think that definitely was the case here in PA, where the GOP gubernatorial pick was both an insurrectionist and pretty openly theocratic. Folks didn't necessarily see democracy as a major issue pre-election, per the polls and the pundits, who preferred an "It's the economy!" line. 

But the economy isn't bad--just a bit of inflation? Growth and record-low unemployment, plus an actual reduction in the deficit were great factors going in, and the inflation and especially fuel prices are issues that have to be laid at the feet of the corporations, since we are a capitalist society that hasn't nationalized the refineries--right? 

So, what were folks looking at? What you couldn't ignore--the absurd quality of the GOP candidates. What they stood for. (I wish more voters in Ohio, Florida, and Texas knew to what extent they voted for clowns, but too many of their voters are verily seeing through a funhouse mirror.) 

The Democrats have been performing like normal liberals--and it's been good. They can just keep doing that. The public isn't gonna mind. 

Republicans Don't Care About Our Veterans

 

55-42: Senate BLOCKS the House-passed bill expanding access to VA healthcare and disability benefits for veterans exposed to toxins during their military service (PACT Act) from advancing to final passage. 60 votes were needed. pic.twitter.com/JEn6hOZMs5

— Craig Caplan (@CraigCaplan) July 27, 2022

It really looks like Senate Republicans blocked a bill expanding health care coverage to veterans sickened by toxins they were exposed to in the course of their service as a part of a nasty snit-fit because Democrats worked out a climate bill. And I mean, they can cite any other "concern" they pretend to have, but frankly, I think it boils to they are hopping mad Democrats ever have the nerve to be effective. And to be even more frank, this isn't the first time the GOP has screwed vets over. They like the uniforms and the flags and the pomp and the circumstance, but they do not like the accountability of what happens to our soldiers during or after the wars.

I put this in the same category as Republicans not supporting our families or Republicans not supporting women and children.  Republicans have no sense that they should be doing the right thing because it's right, they will easily not do right if they think there is a political benefit in it. They will simply obstruct doing the right thing to "own the libs". 

That's a very suspect way to use one's time in office, and I think it should mean Republicans should not be in any office. That's right--every single Republican needs to be understood as part of the problem because they actively reject responsibility for being part of the solution. 

They would not for all the world reject a photo op involving folks in uniform to be seen as patriotic, but right here, they went out of their way to say sick vets are not their concern, because what about the damn Democrats, trying to do something about the environment on the planet we all share. The nerve of them!

Also, maybe they will decide LGBT folks have less rights because still owning libs due to a case of the mads. Exactly how mature adults who are responsible for the laws of a country would work--on Bizzarro world. 

It looks bad because Republicans are bad. Not a single one should stay in office. Not a single one. 

No True Abortion

 

The "No true Scotsman" fallacy is a device that can be used to pretend one's own side is pure as the driven snow: Was this particular Christian found out to be, for example, a terrible bigot? Why, land of Goshen! That person was clearly no real Christian! Christians love their fellow man! Thus, the rest of the group can stay happy that the menace was that not-Christian over there and he's not in the club, and the rest of them will just not act like him. In public anyway. It can also be used to deny the flaws in your absolutist argument. 

If all abortions are bad, but some abortions actually would be not-bad, then those abortions are no true abortions. We've seen this a couple times just now. The not-at-all connected to anyone you would have heard of counsel for the Alliance for Defending Freedom (an Orwellian-ass name for a group trying to take folks' rights away) just yesterday wanted to pretend that maybe there was a thing that terminated a pregnancy that wasn't an abortion. And also, an anti-abortion activist claimed that if a ten-year old got an abortion that saved her life, well, that wasn't an abortion at all, was it?

Well, yes it was. It was a medical procedure or medicinal application that terminated a pregnancy--that's an abortion. If you need to end a pregnancy to save a person's life, just say so! Why the backflips? Just admit some abortions are not whatever you think the "bad" ones are!

An Historical Mistake

We made a mistake.

As the National Archives of the United States, we are and have always been completely committed to preserving our archival holdings, without alteration. pic.twitter.com/VTWOS4R7GY

— US National Archives (@USNatArchives) January 18, 2020

The US National Archives has apologized for a mistake that seems of timely importance--they prominently featured a licensed display that blurred out the messages of signs carried during the 2017 Women's March. In the messages being blurred out in a selective way that eliminated the name "Trump" and blurred out "controversial" references to female anatomy, these amendments significantly lost the meanings those signs very much intended to convey:

One of the photos of the Washington march, taken by Mario Tama, a photographer for Getty Images, showed a sea of protesters holding signs criticizing Trump, The Post reported.

The National Archives, which featured the photo in its exhibit, blurred Mr. Trump’s name on a sign that originally read “God Hates Trump.” Another sign “Trump & GOP — Hands Off Women” also has the word Trump blurred out, The Post reported.

A sign with the word “vagina” was also blurred and the word “pussy” was erased from another sign. The references to the female anatomy were a rebuke of Mr. Trump’s comments about women in a 2005 recording that captured him boasting how he used his celebrity status to force himself on women, even groping their private parts.

Those words were altered because the museum has many young visitors and there was concern they might be inappropriate, Ms. Kleiman told The Post.

The Women's March came about as a reaction to Trump's election as a multiply-accused and self-described sexual assaulter, and as a politician who was certain to appoint judges who would rule against necessary women's healthcare and other legislation that protects our bodies, our self-determination, our access to equal opportunities and compensation. The words that were supposed to be potentially inappropriate for young museum-goers are either correct anatomical terms or vernacular words used by the president himself, for organs roughly 51% of people happen to have, which should make them commonplace enough not to offend anyone in a rational society.

Many people marched in many parts of the world that day because they wanted to establish that the voices of women mattered--a very good reason for a display depicting those demonstrators to render those words accurately, not blur them, because those words were what the march was about! It simply is not possible to divorce that march, or the following marches, from the politics of our time, and doing so seems like the exact opposite of what history should be for. A faithful archive of the conflicts of moments in time.

I don't want to assume that the Archive's act of "forgetting" was at political direction (is a FOIA pending, though?) because I think sometimes, institutions can be guilty of shying away from controversy in the vague idea of being inclusive, and inadvertently excluding people whose truths are uncomfortable in a way that reinforces a dominant narrative. This isn't a case, necessarily, of the US National Archive silencing a minority voice to support a dominant narrative though--it really seems to me like they messed up and muted a dominant voice (the diverse and multicultural Women's March contingent) to pacify the minority narrative of people who would complain loudest at the idea that "Trump" is a dirty word for some, and "vagina" is not.

The Trump government will not have the last word on our history. The US National Archive should reflect that. Censorship is a kind of lie.

Everyone Needs to Learn "No"

I don't know if this is a common happenstance with youth Valentine's Day dances, but a recent story that has been making the rounds has me seeing red--and not the nice, Valentine's Day heart sort of red, either. It's this story where an elementary school dance for eleven and twelve year olds has a particular instruction for girls: "Be polite, and don't say no to boys who ask you to dance."

I, predictably, think this is a terrible idea. Kids at this age are kind of weird, right? They aren't adults by a long stretch, but are aware of what romance is. Some may be ready to participate in this "adult" exercise. But kids this age generally do self-segregate by gender, somewhat. It is awkward to arrange a dance and have boys hanging on one side and girls hanging on the other without a lot of interaction--but these are kids. Maybe some kids will dance, and that's great. But telling specifically girls that they have to say "yes" to boys is on a different level of awkward.

Girls should not be told that it is nicer to do things they don't want to do because...boys. It might be nicer to study hard if you don't want to because learning is cool and helps you in life, and it might be nicer to learn the value of work and earning money for yourself. It might be nice to learn to pay for things, to cook for yourself, to value the convenience of a neat workspace or appreciate what it feels like to complete a task where you've worked with your hands--but little girls and women don't exist to make boys or men feel good about themselves, and it is more than mere politeness to ask them to just say yes to any old boy who asks them to dance.

I have a personal reason I think this is important--I developed really early, and for me at that age, I was interesting to the opposite sex, and not in a kind way. Almost as a curiosity. The compulsion for a young girl to be kind to a boy by consenting to dance despite her inclination not to, is teaching her to override what might be a very real and keen instinct to avoid being pawed at or made a spectacle of in a public place by someone whose maturity isn't what it should be. A girl needs this instinct and it shouldn't be turned aside.

It doesn't teach a great lesson for later on, either. It tells girls they are expected to "keep sweet" in other areas of their lives, because boys and men expect that behavior of them. It is the behavior expected of child brides, submissive spouses, put-upon subordinate employees, and women who just all-around expect less and say "yes" when they want to say "no". That's infuriating by itself, but what does it also tell boys and men? That women should say "yes", or they are being rude, stand-offish, bitchy or insulting? The attitude that women owe men a "yes" has had fatal consequences.

I guess this is a pretty heteronormative take in general, and among the other reasons I see problems with Valentine's Day Dances and the like in general is that they seem to be part of an imposition of a very specific type of romantic behavior that just might not be any kind of fit for the young people it's being taught to. Some traditions of school-age Valentine-related nonsense involve counting Valentines and making less-popular kids feel like trash if they haven't got as many. It's nonsense to place so much value among developing tweens on their "likeability" when it would be so much better to encourage their independence, creativity, and ability to make decisions like when to say "yes" or "no".

Was Mike Huckabee Always this Horrible?

.@GovMikeHuckabee: A lot more afraid of a Clinton presidency than "of getting a mosquito bite in South Florida." https://t.co/vIe7FoCnxW

— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) August 11, 2016

Here we have former AR Governor Mike Huckabee haw-hawing over not being afraid of being bitten by a mosquito. Well, fine--for him. He's not a pregnant woman or woman of child-bearing age.

But take heart to this sad case of a young woman who traveled to El Salvador who didn't even know she'd been infected, who gave birth to her baby in Texas and all the time she ever spent with that child was the day she watched it die. I can't even imagine the grief she must feel, but I have the idea one should try to, or you aren't humaning right.

That story goes on to report:

Fifteen babies in the U.S. have been born with Zika-related birth defects, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Seven women have lost pregnancies due to Zika. Those numbers could grow. Nearly 1,000 pregnant women in the continental U.S. and territories have been infected with Zika.

Miami is battling a local Zika outbreak in the Wynwood neighborhood that has infected 21 people, according to the Florida Department of Health.

More than 7,300 Americans have been diagnosed with Zika, including 1,825 in the continental U.S. and 5,548 in U.S. territories, according to the CDC. Most Zika cases in the continental U.S. are related to travel or sex with someone who has traveled. One Zika case was caused by a lab accident.

Women and families mourning their lost children, their children who won't live, their children whose lives have been interrupted by disease, whose families will be impacted for years to come. Sure, he isn't worried--but what about these folks? How is someone so clueless and so heartless at once? It just seems like I would not have expected that from Gov. Huckabee at one time. It is a shame this is where he is now.

Comparing a Clinton presidency to a virus is also beneath contempt. He's merely hyperbolically bad at analogies.

Daniel Holtzclaw, a Former Police Officer, Stands Trial For Serial Rape

In what might be termed an egregious case, a former Oklahoma City police officer is currently standing trial for potentially having preyed upon a neighborhood populated with minorities because he felt that they would be cowed by his authority into never reporting. This highlights a handful of things about sexual abuse. It's often about power or authority--sexual demands emanate from someone who has leverage over the victim in any way. But also, it's not unknown for law officers to abuse their authority in this way. And because of the asymmetry of their privilege, the victims overwhelmingly never tell.

The trial being just now underway, I am not trying to say I know for sure that the accused stands guilty as all hell. I'm just saying there are certainly people who have had badges and do have badges that certainly the hell are. And that their victims would be far less certain of ever finding justice in the legal system, to be honest. This is why when people come forward in a case like this, I view their testimony as a little more likely--because of all the forces that would otherwise urge against their ever coming forth. I guess that is a bias, in a way. But I feel like these women need to get heard out. It is never right for authority to be abused, or for a position in law enforcement to grant a kind of immunity to judgment.

Carly Fiorina Could Be the New Mitt Romney

When considering the news that the Koch brothers and other donors were developing an interest in Carly Fiorina, an outsider candidate, I started considering what her appeal was, and then it hit me--she's credibly a little like Mitt Romney, no? He was a businessman with a thin political resume but a remarkable talent for lying, and she's a former business woman with a nearly nonexistent political resume but with a remarkable talent for lying. What the hell? Jeb Bush is like a dead frog with donors trying desperately to run a current though his ass every once in a while to see if he jumps. Fiorina, to give her her due, jumps all by herself. She's not as conspiracy theory-driven as Carson, as clowny as Trump, as nekkidly grifting and holy-rolling as Huckabee and Santorum, and unlike Ted Cruz, people don't want to sock her in the jibs.

She could be going places.

There's the rub--once you start getting taken seriously, why, people might start taking you seriously! I mean, take her business record. Not so great, actually. I think her story goes like this:

Don't cry for me Hewlett Packard,
The truth is I never left you,
although you shoved me
I think you still loved me,
I made increased revenue
if not shareholder value.

And as for my fortune
and as to blame
I never invited them in
even though it might seem
by an objective record of fact
I got paid for crashing
the stock.

But that's illusions,
you should listen to me,
I think I've been more than that,
I'm all I expected I'd be.

There may be reasons why people who worked for her then, or were laid off by her, aren't really in favor of her candidacy.
 

Legitimate Health Care

So, what in the everloving heck is "legitimate health care"?

Is this something like Jeb Bush's denial that Planned Parenthood offers any real healthcare services? Or maybe it is more like Internet troll Mike Huckabee's assertion that conflates Planned Parenthood with Benghazi in a circle-jerk of suck.

You know what? Pap smears and STD tests and pregnancy tests and prenatal care and even abortion are all legitimate medical services. They are all just as legitimate as the day is long. Unless they were giving out sugar pills and condoms with holes in and making up stuff as they went along--you know that latter part is how GOP politicians do--these services are legitimate. Doing medicine. Regarding the bodily health of real people who live on this planet. Planned Parenthood is about medical health--real doctors and real services to real people--and not just a dumbass political football.

Are they just teasing a try at reclaiming Akin's "legitimate rape"?

This War on Women is real.

This is helllaciously stupid, people.

Jeb Bush is Stuck on Stupid Regarding Women's Health

So, Jeb Bush, former Governor of Florida, decided to weigh in on Planned Parenthood to opine that he did not think the organization had anything to do with women's health.

Wow. Wow. Just, wow. I guess the organization really did fall down on the job since Jeb's granddaddy was the treasurer for PP and all that, and since his own Poppy was a big proponent of birth control.

I don't know how it is that Jeb Bush doesn't recognize pap smears, breast exams, pregnancy tests, prenatal care, and a host of other medical services Planned Parenthood does as falling under the umbrella of well-woman care, even though my insurance considers these examinations as a part of my annual well-woman examination coverage. There's quite a lot that can go into women's health screening. Us lady-folks are complicated. It's possible that he doesn't actually realize that we little uterus-having angels are also physically human with all the likelihood of being susceptible to disease and all that. But I think it's far more likely that he realizes we can have sickness in even our lady parts and have complications from being, among other things, all the way with child in those lady parts, and does not give a damn .

Jeb Bush is a loser candidate for all the possible reasons going, including embracing his brothers' disastrous foreign policy team and taking the time to give another "Attaboy" to the useless "Brownie", to tout his disaster management skills .

There is no bottom to the Jeb Bush campaign. Every dollar sunk into it only prolongs the stupidity of it. And Great Cthulhu is it stupid.

Actually, It's About Ethics in Reproductive Health Journalism



 

I feel a little awkward writing about another Planned Parenthood video hoax, because deep down, I think: "Aren't people smarter than this? Like, why would there be a need for investigations into something people familiar with the issue and who watched the whole three hours figured out right away?"

 

The idea that Planned Parenthood would be selling baby body parts is actually embarrassingly stupid. Of course, no one risks fines of up to $50K for a human parts trafficking violation over a "sale" of $30 to $100 for "parts" as if the organs of a later-term fetus could even be used in a grown body. Of course that's reimbursable fees for treatment and storage of tissue donation, and no more objectionable than a person willing their body to science. How in the hell can people demagogue over something this uniquely highly-edited and awkwardly-obtained? But I know why--and it doesn't surprise me at all that the time stamp on the video is a year old or that some legislators knew about the video and kept it under their hats for weeks. They knew it was bullshit, and didn't care. Because they knew very well that their intended audience would eat it up with a spork. What is truth, anyway? And if that question makes you want to wash your hands--it should. The truth ought to matter. But these anti-reproductive autonomy operatives just don't care about the truth. They even lie about the first-hand experience of actual women who have had abortions.

 

I've covered this question about the pious falsehoods before. The religious right doesn't care about walking the dark side where honesty is concerned because they believe they have a bigger truth than mere facts account for--and surprise: That truth doesn't involve your autonomy or will. It involves other people making choices for you--like the idea that employers can use a religious exemption to fire unmarried pregnant ladies. That means employers get to judge whether you should be married, or even be pregnant. And things being what they are, that question isn't simple. And I don't think it out of the question people would throw the religion card because of their group insurance rates. It means Congress feels okay about not funding breast cancer research--that cancer being a major killer of women--because of an association with Planned Parenthood.

 

It's all cynical right-wing pandering bullshit, and it's all based on lies. but Goddamn, it sometimes is effective for these folks. And it shouldn't be. And that bothers me. The religious right has been lying about things for a long time--even trying to cause racial divisions over what really is individual reproductive autonomy. The problem here is, whether someone believes abortion is murder or not--shouldn't anyone care whether the champion video of the moment is even for real, and correctly depicts anything? Anything at all? Because if it was heavily edited and just grants a figleaf to religiously-motivated far-right pols, I think that's dodgy as hell and resent their attempt to poison a debate with sheer lying bullshit.

Malala Yousefzai Wins Nobel Prize

She is the youngest winner of the prize, and she's basically a boss. Her co-winner, Kailash Satyarthi, has helped save tens of thousands of children from a life of slavery and exploitation. His long-time advocacy against child labor in favor of children's education as a way out of poverty is complementary to Yousefzai's example. I think these choices are very fitting, because it needs to be understood that the best way to create a space for peace in the future is to make safe spaces for children to become the people they are meant to be--to know something about the world they will grow up to help create and to be free to make the best of it.

In a world where too many children are exposed to the horrors of war, abuse, and grinding poverty and labor, and are not well-enough exposed to a good education, sometimes not even good nutrition or basic sanitation,  I realize that the failure to give them a reasonable hope of a good future is what condemns them to a fearful life and people in developed nations to fear what they might become. Because even without a good education, children learn from what they see. If exposed to ignorance and hopelessness and superstition and hate--that's what they will know.

And that is what they will practice.

But the answer to combatting all that is so simple--books and pens and paper and attention and a dialog that gets opened up between a developing mind and everything that might be possible.  Here's to two very good examples of people working towards heading future generations in the right direction. You are doing it right.

Scott Brown Weighs in on the Issues

This ties in pretty smoothly with the previous blog-post, even if it's kind of a "hit'n'run":

Fox News host Gretchen Carlson asked Brown to address comments from his opponent, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), about his voting record.

"He doesn’t stand up for women’s reproductive rights and economic security," Carlson quoted Shaheen as saying. "He co-sponsored legislation to let employers deny women coverage for birth control or even mammograms. He had two opportunities to vote for equal pay laws and both times he voted no." 

"So Senator, how do you respond to her claims?" Carlson asked.

"Well unfortunately, I’m talking about issues that people care about," Brown fired back. 

He went on to say he supports contraception and equal pay and that "women's issues are very important," but that he is "focusing on the things that people care about," such as "border security, veterans issues, [and] where we stand when it comes to Obamacare."

Said out loud, where the people can hear, by Scott Brown (R.--wants to be back in the Senate, will travel). Contraception, one may recall, became a controversial debate regarding certain provisions of Obamacare. Economic security also matters to veterans, some of whom happen to be women. If there is a blindspot for the Republicans on why "women's issues" matter, I think Brown inadvertantly pointed to where it is. Women's priorities aren't viewed as being as important to them.  And yet, women still persist in having priorities. We are so weird that way.

(Also, too: here are some of the things people care about, like paid leave equal pay, affordable child care and suck it, Scott Brown.)

Say "Yes" to This Mess?

 The above ad from the College Republican National Committee kind of looks like an attempt at outreach to women, doesn't it? The actors in the ad are all women. It covers things women really care about, like the budget and pretty dresses!

 Seriously? The Rick Scott "dress" wanted to piss-test welfare recipients at a cost to the taxpayers of a bunch of money that companies he was associated with would collect on.  Dresses are very rarely associated with Medicare fraud.  If Rick Scott were a dress, he might not look all that pretty. Particularly not to women voters. But let's just be silly and ask--why is a gender essentialist and condescending ad like this the way the College Republicans decided to support their guy? Is this one of those tone-deaf deals like the "Diversity Bake Sales" where they kind of thought more people would be in on the joke?

I just think it's dickish. You wear a wedding dress one time on one special day. The policies of a governor can last for a long time. A politician isn't a "brand" or a "pricetag", and the analogy is insultingly reductionist.

But this kind of "relating to women via women things" instead of actually boasting policies that women can feel good about isn't startling or new. Just recently, a Florida politician tried to explain away his decision to hold a men's only fundraiser by likening it to "women stuff"--a lingerie party! (Goodness knows I would only wear underwires and itchy lace to bed just for me because it feels so good--how I am not incorporating babydoll teddies into my day-to-day regime is beyond me--you know how us hens do get together and just for some reason select to spend large money on small garments that seem to have been put together by a team of engineers with cleavage rehabilitation in mind because sisterhood and chardonnay. I challenge all of his assumptions, I do!)

Another brilliant mind in the women's outreach vein did an ad that likened Obama to a very bad boyfriend because us sisters have all been there, haven't we? (Everything about that message is kind of lying and wrong, on so, so many levels.)  So been there and done with that "boyfriend thing" though, GOP.

Honestly, maybe the GOP should just try and outreach caterpillars. They could hardly do worse than they have been doing with women.

But in case you were confused--the Republican Party is still made up of a diverse bunch of stock photo people. Of which some are even women. Because they care.

Don't Expect This to Be Rational

Via Steps to HOPE. (Click link to see enlarged view.)

 

There's been a lot of dissection of what Janay Rice did or didn't do regarding being very brutally punched in the face, and questions about why she didn't leave former Baltimore Ravens footballer Ray Rice. I'm not going to add to the chatter, because she has reasons, and they make sense to her. This is the private business of her family even if it's a pretty clear-cut assault. I don't know her relationship, or what steps they are undergoing together or separately. I hope they are getting good counseling--even though in some situations where there is abuse, it doesn't always help.

 

The bottom line is, I don't think anyone knows enough to judge her for her behavior and speculating about it is like trash-picking the neighbors' cans. But I do think the conversation about abusive relationships is useful and healthy to have, and I do think it's worthwhile to question the standards we have publicly regarding known cases of abuse.

 

So long as anyone wonders when seeing her go down in that video what she did to get hit, and not why her husband hit her, I think our conversation is problematic. He could have talked to her, restrained her, got out of the elevator and never looked back. There are options that are not hitting her. And if she seems like she is "giving as good as she got" before the hit, there are even reasons why a victim might instigate where there has previously been abuse. Because when you already know what is coming and that it's unavoidable, why not pick the time and place for a little control? It feels less like victimhood. It makes the narrative that you had it coming make sense.

A Poor Choice or a Kinsley Gaffe?

I was going to let this go, but sometimes, the blog-muses don't let you:

A pregnant woman is just a "host" that should not have the right to end her pregnancy, Virginia State Sen. Steve Martin (R) wrote in a Facebook rant defending his anti-abortion views. 

Martin, the former chairman of the Senate Education and Health Committee, wrote a lengthy post about his opinions on women's bodies on his Facebook wall last week in response to a critical Valentine's Day card he received from reproductive rights advocates. 

"I don't expect to be in the room or will I do anything to prevent you from obtaining a contraceptive," Martin wrote. "However, once a child does exist in your womb, I'm not going to assume a right to kill it just because the child's host (some refer to them as mothers) doesn't want it." Martin then changed his post on Monday afternoon to refer to the woman as the "bearer of the child" instead of the "host."

 (Bold type emphasis--mine.)

By now, it's been pointed out in several places that the choice of the word "host" is unfortunate in that it implies a host/parasite relationship, in which case, the host really may have an interest in relieving itself of a parasite. Equating a fetus with a tapeworm was surely not State Sen. Martin's intent. And it would be easy to simply leave it at that, as just the kind of gaffe that comes with misplaced "sarcasm" (note--there is another Steve Martin who does the sarcasm much better, and this guy here might want to leave it alone).

But I find I also have an issue with the back half of the bolded phrase--"some refer to them as mothers". Why, of course! That would be the accurate reproductive term for the female contributor of the ova in a conceptus. But it's truer in more than just the literal sense of the relationship of the person seeking the abortion to the fetus--it's also accurate in the sense that the decision not to carry a child is a parenting decision, albeit a terminal one.

Rand Paul is Being Awkward, isn't He?

Sen. Rand Paul has been bringing up President Clinton's past quite a bit lately, which is...awkward. I'm not really sure that singling out Clinton's misdemeanors really has anything to do with what is popularly called "the War on Women". I don't believe Sen. Paul really thinks it does, either--I admit, at first, I thought he was laying in groundwork for a possible face-off against Hillary Clinton.  But it really is a bit early for that, surely? There's no saying for sure she's even running, or that a swipe taken at her spouse, now, will even reverberate two years from now.That's why it makes sense to me that this has more to do with Clinton's coming to Kentucky in support of Sen. Mitch McConnell's Democratic challenger. That may be why Paul recently called on candidates to reject money raised by President Clinton.

It just seems like a mistake, though, to hit quite so firm a note on the topic of women's issues. For one thing, I don't think we would mistake Clinton's impropriety with actual policies of the Democratic Party. For another, it serves as an opportunity to point out that Sen. Paul (and Sen. McConnell, for that matter), have not been strong supporters of policy issues like the Violence Against Women Act or the Lily Ledbetter Act, and Paul himself has expressed a favorable opinion of the Lochner decision--which favored the ability of employers to exploit worker's for low wages (and would certainly hurt women where unequal pay is still the rule rather than the exception). He's also a hard-liner against reproductive choice in the case of abortion.

In other words, his policy views are pretty much typical of his party. But if he wants to bring personal behavior or guilt-by-association into the conversation, there was that one time he kidnapped a lady. And, well, there was this other thing when his fan club curb stomped a woman's head.  (There's is another female journalist who alleges harassment by Rand Paul supporters, and the Senator has also suggested he might duel Rachel Maddow over her reporting of his plagiarism.) That's an interesting pattern, isn't it?

Awkward.

Thoughts Regarding the SOTU

I think the SOTU is probably best graded as Pass/Fail. The bar for passing isn't even that high. So long as a president can get through it without saying anything demonstrably untrue, totally batshit, or unveil a policy that everyone will hate, it's a pass. I'd say President Obama passed. I think there's no way to make everybody happy with one of these things, because everyone will ask "Why didn't he say more about____?" So when something good comes up, like "Global warming is a fact" or ending Gitmo this year, well. It sounds good.

The problem always lies with the execution,though, and I think it was appropriate to point out that Congress just hasn't been getting done in the "making stuff work" department. The devil is in the details--literally. If Obama says he will rely more on executive orders, why, of course executive orders will only be seen as more "tyranny" (just like, I dunno, using his authority to appoint czars, judges, any other regular presidential power used historically before he came into office, which wasn't a big deal until now) by the sort of people who already think he's the Anti-Christ.

Rep. Steve Stockman walked out during it, he says. He's funny, isn't he? He could have taken his pants off and people would have been like, "Oh, Steve Stockman, you are a character." It really is no reflection on Obama for some people to, you know. Be themselves.

Rep. Cathy McMorris-Rodgers passed, too. It was very easy for her not to lie, be batshit, or propose something goofy because she didn't really say anything at all. Her rebuttal was a little like "Story-time on the Couch with Cathy". And that's okay, and I don't think that having a ladyperson do the rebuttal (even a lady-person who has never voted in favor of a woman's reproductive rights) was condescending at all. Although I hear if this doesn't work for them, the GOP will have two ladypersons give the rebuttal in a kitchen! (Seriously--"The true state of the union lies in our hearts"? What is that? It would look nice on a needlepoint.)

I really didn't pay attention to Sen. Mike Lee, because really. Just. Really.

And finally, Sen. Rand Paul. I understand he read economics books for fun as a teen. He read all the wrong ones and didn't understand them. This is why he thinks the Fed somehow caused the recession. It's gonna be a long couple of decades before that kind of crackpottery is going to look cute and quaint on little old man Rand Paul, rather than eye-rollingly oblivious from a presidential hopeful.

When I Hear the "Right to Life" Folks, It Doesn't Sound that Way

Just yesterday marked the 41st anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which was noted by some right to life (or as I prefer, anti-choice) groups by a gathering in Washington, DC. I know some people consider the activists involved with anti-abortion protests as benevolent "counselors", but I guess I have a hard time reconciling that outlook with the folks who yell about baby-murder, whoredom, compare clinics to the Holocaust and, presumably, the women who elect to end their pregnancies with--Hitler? and get a little handsy with people seeking information and medical care, and sometimes, I dunno, bomb clinics and shoot doctors and nurses.

I don't think people really seek "counseling" from random, uncredentialed strangers who lie to them about stuff and might be involved in some nefarious anti-life nonsense, but that's just me being knee-jerk rational. And yeah, those people are often even lying about things, like whether abortion is related to breast cancer (it isn't) and whether women who've had abortions are going to be desperately regretful afterwards.  And while I know a lot of the nice folks who park themselves outside clinics are just sweet old religious busybodies who will pray for you and don't really want to bomb anyone, their tone deaf inability to express their reasons for telling someone else what they really should do with their own bodies is just vexing.

And sometimes it's damn dumb. Take Rep. Vicky Hartzler for example. Her rationale for why women should not end their pregnancies is that:

“It ends a beating heart, it leaves emotional wounds with women that they carry for life and it robs men of the privilege of fatherhood,” she said. “That’s why we must do everything in our power to end this devastating practice.”

Okay, I know I can't be alone when I see bumperstickers that say "Abortion stops a beating heart" who thinks "Well, that's the point." But this idea that it "robs men of the privilege of fatherhood". That's a privilege, not a right, okay? And actually, the ability to impregnate is not an ability to dictate what anyone does with her body nor provides any indication of fitness to parent.  They aren't robbed of anything they have a right to, and the actual "labor" is pretty much on the woman's part, so?  That might just be one of the dumbest reasons for somone to do their nine months and the cost of the hospital bill, plus the responsiblity of bringing a person into the world one is not prepared to be responsible for, except:

Hartzler asserted that if abortion hadn’t been legalized, “perhaps we would have had a cure for cancer now.”

And if sardines had wings, we'd all be using jetpacks.

VA State Sen. Dick Black Deserves Some Flack

Here's a profile of a US Congressional hopeful that has me once again persuaded that the national party isn't doing enough to tamp down their crazies:

After taking a drubbing in last year's state elections, Virginia Republicans are debating whether their party has come to be defined by its extremists. But in a congressional district in Northern Virginia, one of the state's main instigators of culture warfare, state Sen. Richard H. "Dick" Black, is running in the Republican primary to replace longtime GOP moderate Rep. Frank Wolf, who is retiring. And he's guaranteed to ignite wedge-issue passion. Exhibit A: As a state legislator, Black opposed making spousal rape a crime, citing the impossibility of convicting a husband accused of raping his wife "when they're living together, sleeping in the same bed, she's in a nightie, and so forth." 

Black has referred to emergency contraception, which does not cause abortions, as "baby pesticide." Black also fought to block a statue of Abraham Lincoln at a former Confederate site in Richmond. He wasn't sure, he explained at the time, that statues of Lincoln belonged in Virginia. He has argued that abortion is a worse evil than slavery. And once, to demonstrate why libraries should block pornography on their computers, Black invited a TV reporter to film him using a library terminal to watch violent rape porn.

It's all very retrograde. While points should be given for calling abortion a worse evil than slavery (and I always thought a quick definition of slavery was "forced labor"), obviously, it's the assumption that a wife can't be raped by her spouse that makes me especially concerned that his knuckles do not naturally escape carpet contact.

If wives are not able to say "no", I must perforce assume he puts out no especial effort to please his own spouse? Does he at least make it brief? Does he really think women are a kind of extremely portable furniture into which one puts penises and babies by some natural design?

Am I wrong to want to hear much more from this veritable font of regrettable thoughts? (Up to, but not including, an actually successful run at the office to which he aspires?)

This, GOP, is your problem.