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Taylor Marsh has been writing on line since 1996, with the archives provided here a representation of that work.

Archive | March, 2011

The Apocalyptic Mr. Beck

By on 07 March 2011



What a weird column in the New York Times. But considering it’s subject is a moving target of calamity there’s a reason. It’s also not the first time someone has hinted about Glenn Beck’s demise. William Kristol writing on the real problem with Beck when he unrolled his caliphate rants:

[H]ysteria is not a sign of health. When Glenn Beck rants about the caliphate taking over the Middle East from Morocco to the Philippines, and lists (invents?) the connections between caliphate-promoters and the American left, he brings to mind no one so much as Robert Welch and the John Birch Society. He’s marginalizing himself, just as his predecessors did back in the early 1960s.

Nor is it a sign of health when other American conservatives are so fearful of a popular awakening that they side with the dictator against the democrats. Rather, it’s a sign of fearfulness unworthy of Americans, of short-sightedness uncharacteristic of conservatives, of excuse-making for thuggery unworthy of the American conservative tradition.

People at Fox News channel are allegedly talking anonymously about life after Glenn Beck, because of an erosion in mostly young demographics. But then again he beats his competition.

He still has numbers that just about any cable news host would envy and, with about two million viewers a night, outdraws all his competition combined. But the erosion is significant enough that Fox News officials are willing to say — anonymously, of course; they don’t want to be identified as criticizing the talent — that they are looking at the end of his contract in December and contemplating life without Mr. Beck.

… But the partnership, which has been good for both parties, may yet be repaired. On Wednesday’s show, Mr. Beck went to some lengths to demonstrate gratitude and fealty to Fox News.

The author of the piece, David Carr, is covering the gamut trying to not get caught in his own trap to have it both ways so he doesn’t get pegged for a nonsensical verdict that hasn’t yet arrived and may never.

There is one problem for Fox with Beck and it isn’t demographics or the reported “sniping between Fox News executives and Mr. Beck’s team.”

The problem with “Glenn Beck” is that it has turned into a serial doomsday machine that’s a bummer to watch.

… Mr. Beck, a more gifted entertainer than most cable hosts, can still bring it, lighting up with characters and voices. But much of the time, there is sense that the fatigue from always being on alert, tilting forward in the saddle against the next menace, is starting to wear him down.

What had been a fast and loose assault on all things liberal has grown darker and less entertaining, especially with the growing revolution in the Middle East, a phenomenon Mr. Beck sees as something of a beginning to some kind of end.

[...] He often looked away from the camera into a middle distance as he spoke of a calamity that only he can see.

Fox execs are allegedly talking to Glenn Beck telling him to “maintain a sense of hope.”

All religious fanatics waiting for the apocalypse face the dire reality if it doesn’t come.

“When I first came here,” he told his audience on Wednesday, “I had this pie-in-the-sky belief that if I told you the truth, if I verified all of my facts and double-checked, and we could make that compelling case with facts to back it up, the journalists in other places would get curious and they’d use their resources and they’d investigate and they’d prove it right and they’d show it too.” Then he shook his head and laughed bitterly.

Mr. Beck remains firm in his belief that something is going terribly wrong and it may be time to stock up on canned goods and head to the basement. The problem with predicting doomsday is that if you’re wrong, you have to figure out what to say the next day. And if you’re right … well, the ratings will be terrific, for what that’s worth.

It’s tiresome to be wrong when you’re talking about Armageddon, because there is no way to find your way back, because a person like Mr. Beck hasn’t left enough crumbs of sanity to find his way to reality.

So, I’m not sure what Glenn Beck thread the New York Times is pulling in the hopes to hit on the moment of unraveling of a man still on doing better than most. But the Glenn Beck doomsday narrative became exhausting a long time ago.

You also cannot claim to be a serious news organization when your Wal-Mart version of Howard Beale is not just making the case for fury against the world, but is also mustering his people down a path that sounds remarkably like a suicide pact.

What would happen to Glenn Beck if he left Fox? Like all wackos he’ll retreat to wingnut radio, that dying world kept alive by the gasbaggery of the Rush Limbaugh tribe.

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Tina Brown’s Newsweek Features Sect. Clinton in First Issue

By on 06 March 2011

**bumped**

In the era of Jon Meacham, all he could muster were marketing covers pushing Sarah Palin, never thinking of a larger mission for the magazine. Tina Brown proves in her first cover why she’s indomitable. (She turned out to be right when she did her tease about Jon Huntsman, with her marketing hire of Andrew Sullivan no doubt to bring eyes to the page.) Her first cover not only makes a mouse out of Meacham’s small vision, but focuses on the most powerful woman in the world, Sect. Hillary Clinton, while including “150 WOMEN WHO SHAKE THE WORLD.”

It’s also worth noting that Ms. Brown tapped dethroned CNN hostess Kathleen Parker for a column on why women make lousy men. Never mind that the notion of women channeling men is so very 20th century. Hey, but what do you expect from a female conservative?

Not sure if Sarah Palin is included, as Ms. Brown has a low opinion of the former governor, which looks warranted if you watch Mrs. Palin’s performance with Bill O’Reilly. However, on the other side of this is Politico’s “American Idol: India preps for Sarah Palin.” The headline alone proving why Mrs. Palin remains the anti-Hillary. Star quality and celebrity over gravitas continues to be Palin’s problem for 2012.

“The U.S. figures in the Indian imagination and psyche in a very different manner to every other foreign country, and that’s why there’s a fascination with American politicians,” said Harsh Bhasin, a former Indian consul general in New York who’s now a professor at SUNY Stony Brook.

Diplomatic affairs — particularly America’s relationship with Pakistan, India’s regional rival — drive some of the focus and make Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a closely watched figure. But the interest is near-fanatical for the handful of Indian-American politicians who’ve succeeded at the highest levels of U.S. politics — particularly Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and newly elected South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, both Republicans.

Nobody, certainly no conservative, comes close to the prowess and power of Sect. Clinton.

Her fight for the women of Afghanistan has been bravely unflinching, even in the face of the Obama administration’s faltering belief it’s worth it. I’ll have a column up later today on this subject.

There has never been a greater need for Hillary Rodham Clinton in the world today. Her mission of human rights as women’s rights should propel her forward, after she’s done with State, to create a foundation that could change the future of women around the world.

Whether she ever runs for president again, it’s clear she’s never been more presidential than she is today.

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Obama Administration ‘Senior Official’: Women’s Rights in Afghanistan ‘special interest and pet project… pet rocks in our rucksack’

By on 06 March 2011

“Nobody wants to abandon the women of Afghanistan, but most Americans don’t want to keep fighting there for years and years,” the official said. “The grim reality is that, despite all of the talk about promoting women’s rights, things are going to have to give.” – In Afghanistan, U.S. shifts strategy on women’s rights as it eyes wider priorities

Sect. Clinton’s signature diplomatic and foreign policy tenet, human rights are women’s rights, is the latest casualty in an Afghanistan policy that’s been a failure since Pres. Bush abandoned the country for Saddam Hussein.

This quote from a “senior official” in the Obama administration says it all:

“Gender issues are going to have to take a back seat to other priorities,” said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations. “There’s no way we can be successful if we maintain every special interest and pet project. All those pet rocks in our rucksack were taking us down.”

Ah yes, the reason the U.S. has blown the mission in Afghanistan is because of all “those pet rocks in our rucksack,” pointing a finger at women’s issues.

It reminds me of the back and forth I got into with Steve Clemons when he quoted Dana Priest on Rachel Maddow about having to sneak women out of Afghanistan when it got bad.

“… (Dana Priest) is increasingly of the view that we’re going to probably have to come to terms with the Taliban and just find a way to tunnel out women, because it will be an awful reality for them, otherwise this will be a never ending war …” – Steve Clemons

The U.S. mission in Afghanistan has brought women out of the shadows, but the mentality of the culture and country remains in the past. Afghan men still believe in the old saying “a woman’s place is in the home or in the ground.” The U.S. cannot change this reality.

No one has the moral energy, the commitment of mission, and the Obama administration has simply lost the effort to build a nation in Afghanistan, which was a foolhardy mission from the start. Fighting against culture, religious beliefs and a country run by backwards men, we cannot drag them into the 19th century.

The U.S. mission to empower Afghanistan women has won some victories. We can only hope Newsweek’s article about the Taliban continues to unwind in favor of middling modernity.

It was clear the moment Gen. McChrystal imploded on the pages of Rolling Stone, which is the moment Pres. Obama lost me, that it was over. The revelations about Gen. Caldwell’s reported psyops plan drilling down the point. We’ve simply done all we can do and the rest may indeed depend on tunneling women out who are threatened by the men of a country who don’t understand that without the women Afghanistan will never be stable.

It makes you wonder what might have happened and been possible if Pres. George W. Bush hadn’t lied about WMDs, and politicians in both parties, which included Senators Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and many others, hadn’t gotten distracted by Iraq.

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Sunday Early Bird News Round-Up

By on 06 March 2011

Owl Love

Good morning and welcome to Sunday!




On this day in history, March 6, 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its ruling in the case Dred Scott v. Sandford, finding that Scott, a slave, was not an American citizen and could not sue for his freedom in federal court.







I’ve rounded up some links so you don’t have to:

~Libya could be headed for civil war, complicating any international action against the Gaddafi regime.

~Speaking of repressive regimes, our good friends in the House of Saud have banned all public protests. Silence from the Obama administration.

~And another good friend of the U.S., Bahrain, has apparently disappeared a prominent activist blogger. Silence from the Obama administration. I think it’s fair to say that the U.S. is in a very dangerous position at this point. While about every other day the State Department calls out Iran for its human rights abuses, the administration remains noticeably silent about the ongoing repression, arrest and torture of civil society/democracy activists by countries in the region with whom we, shall we say, do business.

~Speaking of Bahrain, the U.S. has chosen to pursue stability over democracy in the Middle East after intensive lobbying by regional dictators and the Israelis who warned that a decrease in American support for leaders in the region could cause them to lean more towards Iran. Unfortunately, it appears that once again, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Gates have teamed up to be the voice of maintaining the status quo in the Middle East, ie. supporting regional dictators in order to maintain our defense interests and our faux notions of security. This hypocrisy has not been lost on the people of Bahrain who are protesting in the streets- they point out that the U.S. only promotes democracy insofar as we think it advances our agenda. Have we learned nothing from the past two months? We seem to be intent on being on the wrong side of history.

~Islamophobia is all the rage it would seem. Rep. Peter King will be starting his hearings into the radicalization of American Muslims this week, which sounds an awful lot like McCarthy’s House Committee on Unamerican Activities back in the 1950′s.

King has said that the hearings could last an entire year, which if you consult your calendar, will tell you that this nicely coincides with the 2012 elections and nothing energizes the rightwing base like going after the Muslims. Would now be a good time to bring up King’s support of the Irish Republican Army as rebels fighting against the unjust British Occupation? Terrorism seems to be in the eye of the beholder – it would seem that in some instances, one person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. Basically, when done by people you like it’s not terrorism. Just ask Israel’s opposition leader, Tipi Livni.

~Bradley Manning’s detention and the treatment he is receiving is raising some very serious questions.

~Naturally House Speaker John Boehner is moving to defend DOMA in court after the Justice Dept. announced it would not do so in certain cases. Because, you know, that will create more jobs.

~Speaking of Islamophobia, would someone please explain to me why Frank Gaffney (of the American Center for Security Policy) is considered anything other than a paranoid nut, spreading his fixed false beliefs as far as Fox News will let him? If even CPAC won’t have anything to do with Gaffney, that tells you something doesn’t it? Ever since Gaffney learned what the Muslim Brotherhood is he’s been spouting conspiracy theories ever since. And remember, this is the same guy who last year claimed that Obama’s new Missile Defense Agency Logo was actually an Islamic crescent and thus some nefarious purpose was afoot. Except that it wasn’t. Not only was the logo not new, it had been created by the Bush administration.

~According to Israel’s Central Bureau of Statistics, the rate of settlement expansion in the West Bank has quadrupled after the temporary partial moratorium on settlement construction and perhaps more disturbing is the fact that a lot of construction never even stopped during the moratorium, even in areas that were supposedly part of the freeze. This situation actually emboldens Hamas, which then turns around and claims the U.S.-led peace talks are a ruse that provide cover for ongoing expansion of the settlements. And given the revelations in the Palestine Papers, the unrest spreading across the Arab world and the total stalemate of peace negotiations, it’s no wonder that the Palestinians are looking to the United Nations (rather than the U.S. for redress) and also looking to create a national unity coalition with Hamas- something which both the U.S. and Israel have done their best to prevent.

~What have unions ever done for us? Check out this video for the answer:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=184NTV2CE_c&feature=player_embedded]

~Conservative tea party supporter David Koch gave $100 million dollars to a cancer research institute at MIT. Props to him for that.

~Mike Huckabee is a liar.

~The rise and fall of Glenn Beck? Or too soon to tell?

~There is something a little disingenuous about our collective gasps of shock and awe upon being confronted with images and news showing that Gaddafi is a brutal dictator willing to attack his own people. We’ve known for a long time what kind of ruler he was. We just ignored it for political expedience.

~A debate about the legalization of gay marriage in Maryland has taken a bizarre turn – basically, it involves an up and coming freshman Democrat, Sam Arora, who campaigned, in part, on his support for gay marriage, flip-flopping at the last minute before the big vote and deciding he was against it- something about Jesus or some such. Then he got so much flak from the gay community and just about everyone else including his donors who said they wanted their money back, so that he again changed his mind and said he’d support marriage equality. This is the kind of sh*t that has come to define the Democratic party- campaigning on important progressive issues and then getting into office and going “well, we have to be pragmatic” and basically spitting in the eye of all the people who worked so hard to get them elected. John Aravosis of AmericaBlog has a lot more about Arora’s change of heart.

~A must read article about how U.S. military aid to Egypt helped prop up the dictatorship and allowed rampant corruption in the Egyptian military. Perhaps just as disturbing is that the U.S. to this day seems unwilling to promote any real change to the de facto military dictatorship in Egypt because many in Washington believe that status quo has benefited us. But has it?

~Polls show that the people of Wisconsin want compromise, not an all or nothing deal from the governor.

~The GOP campaigned on jobs, jobs, jobs prior to the midterms. I’m not really sure how their war on reproductive freedom creates more jobs.

The End.

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Progressive Notes: Governor Dayton and Others Shows How it’s Done

By on 05 March 2011

Texan4Hillary offers his perspective as a movement progressive activist.

In November there were few victories for progressives. The election of Mark Dayton in Minnesota as governor is a bright spot. Dayton was a senator from Minnesota whose record was very progressive, including his vote against the Iraq War. Dayton ran on not cutting the safety net by raising taxes on the rich. Yes we have a new governor with common sense.

Instead of debating how many cuts to make Dayton has turned the debate as governor into how many programs will we boost. This week Dayton released his budget, which raises taxes on the rich even further than what he campaigned on. It improves school funding among other things. Some cuts are made but in total this is the way every governor should be doing their budgets right now. Obama could learn from Dayton. Debating how much to slash and how deep to destroy programs plays to the Right’s advantage. They want to weaken the economy further to boost their 2012 prospects. The more cuts Dems agree to the more they harm their 2012 prospects.

The G.O.P just took over the Minnesota House and has slammed Dayton’s tax increase on the rich and end of corporate subsidies. The G.O.P. wants to gut programs for the poor and education. Dayton has been touring the state with his response:

“I’m not willing to make barbaric cuts in the essential services that affect people’s lives,” Dayton said.

His plan (read it here) is simple and in sync with what most Americans want their government to do right now:

ST. PAUL, Minn. – Gov. Mark Dayton looked to the wealthy to erase about half of a $6.2 billion budget deficit on Tuesday, proposing a new top tax bracket and an income surtax that together would give Minnesota the nation’s highest income tax rate.

The Democratic governor’s plan would raise nearly $2.9 billion from the top 5 percent of taxpayers, including a new property tax on homes valued at more than $1 million.

It would also increase taxes on health care providers and corporations with foreign operations..

Another good thing about his budget is it not only preserves the safety net but relieves cities and counties of their burdens:

…Dayton said his proposal would shield 95 percent of state taxpayers from tax increases, while making the top earners pay a proportionate share of income in state and local taxes. The plan would restore recent levels of state aid to cities and counties, which Dayton said would help stave off local property tax increases.

This will be a marquee fight to watch. The Republicans will block the tax increases and try to slash the safety net while Dayton will push to raise taxes and preserve programs. Will Governor Dayton win out because of public sentiment for the kind of budget he is urging? Will any other Democrats learn by his example here? Well there are others as well.

Dionne points to some Democratic governors to watch as they are proposing responsible budgets which raise taxes on high income earners to fill much of the budget void. Alas responsible governing is not what the media is into covering , so most at home haven’t heard of the really brave things these guys are trying to do: raise taxes and limit cuts to social programs. What a concept.

The brave ones are governors such as Jerry Brown in California, Dan Malloy in Connecticut, Pat Quinn in Illinois, Mark Dayton in Minnesota and Neil Abercrombie in Hawaii. They are declaring that you have to cut programs, even when your own side likes them, and raise taxes, which nobody likes much at all. Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee has warned of possible tax increases too. ..

At some point the pendulum must swing back for some sanity to rein in so many states with right-wing governors bent on slashing away everything.

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Queer Talk: The Bully(ing) Pulpit

By on 05 March 2011

Stuttes' home in ashes

A White House Conference on Bullying Prevention, scheduled for March 10, was announced on Tuesday of this week. Most likely it’s another 2012 action, but like many such bits and pieces thrown out by political campaigns masquerading as Very Serious Electeds, some good could come from it.

Also reported this week was the death of Rev. Peter Gomes, at the age of 68, described by The Advocate as “one of the most prominent religious theologians in the U.S.” Gomes was the first black minister of Harvard’s Memorial Church. He came out as gay in 1991. He is probably most widely known for his 1996 bestseller, The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart. As Dr. Sharon Groves, director of the Human Rights Campaign’s Religion and Faith Program, wrote, “he taught people to pay attention to the spirit of the Bible rather than viewing it as a convenient shield for their prejudices.” His efforts included analyzing use of the Bible to marginalize LGBTs, women, Blacks, Jews and “others.”

Timothy Kincaid, at Box Turtle Bulletin wrote one of the best pieces I saw about Gomes.

Although a life-long Republican of the Massachusetts variety (until a recent registration change to support Deval Patrick), he viewed Jesus as a social revolutionary whose gospel would not be much welcomed in today’s established Christianity and deplored the way in which Scriptural literalism could be text proofed to support just about any social injustice.
… in 1991, he appeared before an angry crowd of students, faculty members and administrators protesting homophobic articles in a conservative campus magazine whose distribution had led to a spate of harassment and slurs against gay men and lesbians on campus. Mr. Gomes, putting his reputation and career on the line, announced that he was ‘a Christian who happens as well to be gay.’ …

The Bullying Prevention conference and the death of Peter Gomes got me thinking about the “bully pulpit” from both religious and political sides. Using the pulpit, or whatever stage, as a way to demean and label whichever group of people, is as much a matter of “bullying” as are the kind of words and actions to be considered, presumably, at the White House conference next week. And that lead me to thinking about context, including what passes for discussions about “religion.”

If we allow the extremes to define entire populations, everything said and done based on that understanding is not only less accurate, it’s less effective. It helps maintain a process that makes real conversation, and real progress, even bigger uphill climbs than they already are. In effect, it gives power to the Bullies, and whatever they use for a pulpit.

Lumping all “Christians,” or “believers” of whatever faith or spirituality, into one extreme, “wingnut” or “superstitious” group is simply inaccurate. As is lumping all “non-believers” into one extreme group. It’s true that some of the most dogmatic people I’ve come across identify as “Christian.” It’s also true that some of the other most dogmatic people I’ve come across identify as atheist. “If you don’t see things my way then you’re a moron” dismissals are not limited to Christians, and not inclusive of all of them. Nor, of course, are they inclusive of all atheists or agnostics or “none of the above’s.”

Today, growing numbers of people, “religious” and otherwise, are more likely to be tolerant, even supportive of LGBTs. But bullying pulpits at upper levels still help teach growing bullies in schools. Asher Brown, a 13-year-old eighth grader at Hamilton Middle School outside Houston, was routinely harassed, until one day the push to the floor in the hallway became the “too much” point, and he went home and took his own life.

Bullying pulpits of high visibility also help empower neighborhood bullies. Laura and Carol Ann Stutte, a lesbian couple in Tennessee, several times reported harassment by a neighbor, a woman, who threatened to burn their home, and repeatedly told them a “joke”: “The only thing better than one dead queer is two dead queers.” One day last September they returned to find their home, upon which they are still making mortgage payments, reduced to ashes and “queers” painted on the garage. Law enforcement officials have made no arrest, and won’t call it a hate crime. The Stutte’s insurance company is stalling. GetEqual is working with the couple, including with a petition to be sent to the insurance company, American National Property and Casualty.

The Harvard Gazette’s remembrance of Gomes included this from a 1996 Boston Herald interview:

I’m always seen as a black man and now I’m seen as a black gay man. If you throw the other factors in there that make me peculiar and interesting — the Yankee part, the Republican part, the Harvard type — all that stuff confuses people who have to have a single stereotypical lens in order to assure themselves they have a grasp on reality.

Labeling plays into the Bullying Pulpit strategy. It requires selectively created stereotypes. Gomes challenged such thinking by his words, but also by simply being his complex self.

I have no idea how effective the White House Conference on Bullying Prevention will be, but if it means even a bit of helpful attention is gained, even a few people having their single and simplistic lens on “reality” exposed, it will be worthwhile.

Bullying pulpits aren’t going to disappear, of course. But using our pulpits, our opportunities, as Gomes did, to offer thoughtful and determined challenges to a “reality” that relies on and perpetuates labeling of the “other,” those kind of efforts can help reveal stereotypes from right and left, religious and secular. Those kind of efforts can help reveal real people, like Asher Brown, and Laura and Carol Ann Stutte.

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My $0.02/Saturday: Walk Like a Bahraini Youth Activist

By on 05 March 2011

Click Image to go to the NYT Lens.

Good morning, news junkies!

I’ve gotten quite hooked on the NYT’s new Lens blog, particularly the regular interview/photo essays compiled by Lens editor James Estrin. A couple months ago, Estrin zoomed the focus in on Eirini Vourloumis and her photographs of Spanish-speaking converts to Islam–you may remember my linking to the interview at the time. This week’s spotlight is on Hazel Thompson and her work documenting the roles of women in Bahrain. There’s also a video of Thompson discussing her experiences at the link. Fascinating stuff.

To the right… from Hazel Thompson’s “Measure of a Woman”… The Youth Activist: Enas Ahmed Al-Farden is the vice president of the Bahrain Youth Forum Society. She is also a radio announcer and a product marketing manager. She lives with her parents and is engaged to be married.

If you have some free time after you’re finished reading this roundup, both the spot on Bahraini women and the earlier one on Latino Muslims are well worth the investment. (I’ll link to them again at the end.) In the meantime, here are the rest of my Saturday picks… grab a cup of whatever gets you up and running in the morning and enjoy.

Economy

  1. As of November, men’s unemployment is down .04 percent over the previous 12 months, and women’s unemployment over the same period is up .04 percent. Between July 2009 and January 2011, women lost 366,000 jobs while men gained 438,000.
  2. The public sector has shed 426,000 jobs since August of 2008. 154,000 of those jobs were in education. Women comprise only a little over half of the public workforce but have lost 83.8% of the jobs during the recovery-in-name-only.
  3. And, just look at who is exempt from Walker’s proposal to strip collective bargaining: public officers, firefighters, and state troopers. It’s the public employee unions made up mostly of women that are facing threat of annihilation.

  • Wonk’s two cents: The Taxed Enough Already (TEA) crowd never shuts up about the “debt we’re creating for our children,” but they sure don’t seem to be looking in the right place if that’s what they’re really concerned about.

although borrowers who develop severe and lasting disabilities are legally entitled to get federal student loans forgiven, the process for deciding who is eligible is dysfunctional, opaque and duplicates similar reviews conducted by other federal agencies. Many borrowers have been denied for unclear reasons, and many others have simply given up.

  • On Thursday, Zaid Jilani from Think Progress posted the graph I’ve been looking for. This is what the workers in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana are protesting:

CLICK GRAPH TO GO TO THINK PROGRESS.

Women’s Rights

  • The Center for Reproductive Rights’ Melissa Upreti, via RH Reality Check, reports that “Nepal Advances As U.S. Backslides on Women’s Rights.” What takes the cake is that Nepal’s Supreme Court cites Roe in its groundbreaking affirmation of a woman’s autonomy, access to abortion, and well-being over that of a fetus. I almost want to laugh and tell Nepal’s Supremes that their ruling sounds better than Roe. Our dear Roe has, among other things, successfully kept women’s rights in perpetual limbo for almost 4 decades. As much as I believe in the privacy argument, I’m a much bigger believer in the autonomy and equity arguments.

  • Here’s a good companion essay to read after Clark’s piece. Margot Badran, via the SSRC’s Immanent Frame, writes of “Egypt’s Revolution and the New Feminism.” From Badran’s pen to the goddess’s ear:

Will the youth now be willing to accept patriarchal authoritarianism sustained by the old family law, a law so out of sync with contemporary social realities—with their own realities? It is very hard to see by what logic they could do so. Freedom, equality, and justice cannot be reserved for some only. For the youth, female and male, who raised this revolution, freedom, equality, and justice are surely non-negotiable, and dignity, the order of the day. This is the essence of the new feminism, call it what you will.

  • I missed this one last week. William John Cox’s “Political Upheaval and Women’s Rights,” via Truthout. Excellent long view essay. Cox really lays it all out there. Fundamentalism is a threat to women everywhere, be it in the Mideast or in the US.

[There's more, so if you need a coffee refill or anything, now would be a good time for an intermission before you click to continue. ]

Continue Reading →

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Barack Obama Stumps on Education with Jeb Bush

By on 04 March 2011

Sounding like a man on his 2012 reelection tour, Pres. Obama is in Florida talking about education.

I’ve been out all day, so below is some of what’s going on, but feel free to jump in on anything that’s catching your attention.

What’s going on with Charlie Sheen today? …besides for the Piers Morgan interview with him being replayed on CNN tonight? James Wolcott takes on Morgan:

Piers Morgan was made to measure. He had attitude in spades. Not for him an Eve Harrington show of faux humility, the glistening hope that America would accept him into its heart, adopt him as one of its own. As befits the Season Seven winner of Donald Trump’s tragic charade party Celebrity Apprentice, Morgan adopted the master of major lip as his mentor-model, talking himself up as if ready to take his rightful place in the Manhattan skyline, a landmark head. Like Trump, Morgan practiced pugnacity for maximum P.R. effect, announcing that Madonna would be banned from his show and baiting her as an old gray mare that ain’t what she used to be: “Lady Gaga is half her age, twice as good-looking, twice as talented, and twice as hot.” Morgan also reveled in Twitter slap-fights, boasting that he would mop the floor with doubters and detractors such as John Schiumo, the 24-hour cable news channel NY1’s prime-time news host, whom he warned, “You’re like Stephen Baldwin and Vinny Pastore—they thought they were big shots in NY too until I wiped them in Celeb Apprentice.” Yes, those were quite a pair of titans he toppled.

Right-wingers won’t vote for the spending bill if it doesn’t completely defund Planned Parenthood. These anti-women Republicans are hiding behind their pro-Taliban tenets, which is against supporting the lives of women for some ideological fantasy that federal funds for Planned Parenthood have anything to do with abortion services. They don’t.

On that note, Gov. Rick Perry is preparing to sign an anti-women sonogram bill, because Texas Republicans think women are stupid and can’t be trusted to take care of themselves.

Domestic terrorist Jared Lee Loughner has been indicted on 49 counts.

Rep. Sam Arora is catching serious incoming on breaking his promise to the gay and lesbian community.

The reports on what’s happening to PFC Manning are hair-raising.

And talk about stupid, Gov. Rick Scott has stiff-armed Obama’s highspeed rail pitch. These 20th century Republicans are going to be the death of America to catch up and join the 21st century.

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Mike Huckabee Smears Single Mothers

By on 04 March 2011

UPDATE FROM THE HUCKSTER, CUE IRONY ALERT: “I was asked about Oscar-winner Natalie Portman’s out-of-wedlock pregnancy. Natalie is an extraordinary actor, very deserving of her recent Oscar trophy and I am glad she will marry her baby’s father. However, contrary to what the Hollywood media reported, I did not “slam” or “attack” Natalie Portman, nor did I criticize the hardworking single mothers in our country.”

Nice try, Huck, slam and attack “hardworking” single mothers is is exactly what you did, though you thought because she’s a (gasp) Hollywood actress you’d get a pass.

____________________Original post below___________________

Are you hearing him now? Mike Huckabee’s maliciously venomous charm has been on parade all week on wingnut radio. He’s trying to sell books by talking to a crowd of people who tend to be allergic to facts, because they don’t get them very often from their hosts. They’re fed ideology instead, which Mr. Huckabee is absolutely thrilled to oblige.

But it’s all so “Murphy Brown” and a century ago. A continuation of the Bill O’Reilly theme targeting Jennifer Aniston when she said: “Women are realizing more and more that you don’t have to settle, they don’t have to fiddle with a man to have that child.”

So, after slamming Pres. Obama using lies and ridiculous charges of anti-Americanism, Mike Huckabee moves on to take on the culture wars. I know people are saying that Newt Gingrich has had a rough week, but it’s nothing compared to what a bad week Huckabee has had due to his own motor mouth. It makes Donald Trumps planned trip to Iowa sound like sanely plausible planning.

Quite a few male bloggers like David Weigel, along with the headline writers of Politico, as well as the “Morning Joe” team, came to Huckabee’s defense when he attacked Pres. Obama and said he grew up “in Kenya.” It was all a misunderstanding of a misstatement from a nice guy. Not to worry, Huckabee isn’t a birther, like that is the only issue in someone stating lies on wingnut radio. Then Huckabee doubled down on yet another right-wing radio talk show saying it was Obama’s “anti-American” attitude that were really troubling to him. Now, again on right-wing radio, Mike Huckabee decides to smear single mothers using Natalie Portman as the model of what’s wrong with women who get pregnant, but who aren’t married, never mind that she’s engaged to Benjamin Millepied.

However, let’s get something straight. That shouldn’t be an issue as long as Ms. Portman can care for her child. None of this is Mike Huckabee’s business.

The last thing women need is self-righteous politicians weighing in on what is and is not appropriate for someone’s life, by invading our privacy in matters that don’t concern them. It’s the 21st century and as long as a child is loved, nurtured and given the best home possible, whatever a woman chooses to do in a world where our options are only limited through our financial means, it’s not anyone’s concern.

Transcript from Media Matters:

HUCKABEE: You know Michael, one of the things that’s troubling is that people see a Natalie Portman or some other Hollywood starlet who boasts of, ‘Hey look, you know, we’re having children, we’re not married, but we’re having these children, and they’re doing just fine.’ But there aren’t really a lot of single moms out there who are making millions of dollars every year for being in a movie. And I think it gives a distorted image that yes, not everybody hires nannies, and caretakers, and nurses. Most single moms are very poor, uneducated, can’t get a job, and if it weren’t for government assistance, their kids would be starving to death and never have health care. And that’s the story that we’re not seeing, and it’s unfortunate that we glorify and glamorize the idea of out of children wedlock.

You know, right now, 75 percent of black kids in this country are born out of wedlock. 61 percent of Hispanic kids — across the board, 41 percent of all live births in America are out of wedlock births. And the cost of that is simply staggering.

As I wrote before, there are no accidents when wannabe presidential candidates go on wingnut radio and say inflammatory things. Now, maybe Huckabee isn’t running for president, so on a book tour he’s letting it all hang out to sucker in readers willing to buy his drivel in hard back. But what he is revealing is that he’s a moralizing, pious little pipsqueak of a man who would make the presidency smaller if he held the office.

With what’s unfolded this week and all the tape available Mike Huckabee is looking less like a potential presidential candidate than a huckster on the circuit.

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Main Street Gets Good News: 8.9% Unemployment

By on 04 March 2011

Employers hired in February at the fastest pace in almost a year and the unemployment rate fell to 8.9 percent — a nearly two-year low. – Unemployment dips to 8.9 pct., 192K jobs added

Paul Krugman today warns that our biggest threat to the “fragile” recovery is the Republicans. He’s right, but you can’t talk about how long the recover took to begin to take hold unless you mention the timidity of Pres. Obama and Democrats to put muscle behind federal spending.

The only way we could have avoided a prolonged slump would have been for government spending to take up the slack. But that didn’t happen: growth in total government spending actually slowed after the recession hit, as an underpowered federal stimulus was swamped by cuts at the state and local level.

So we’ve gone through years of high unemployment and inadequate growth. Despite the pain, however, American families have gradually improved their financial position. And in the past few months there have been signs of an emerging virtuous circle. As families have repaired their finances, they have increased their spending; as consumer demand has started to revive, businesses have become more willing to invest; and all this has led to an expanding economy, which further improves families’ financial situation.

But it’s still a fragile process, especially given the effects of rising oil and food prices. These price rises have little to do with U.S. policy; they’re mainly because of growing demand from China and other emerging markets, on one side, and disruption of supply from political turmoil and terrible weather on the other. But they’re a hit to purchasing power at an especially awkward time. And things will be much worse if the Federal Reserve and other central banks mistakenly respond to higher headline inflation by raising interest rates.

The clear and present danger to recovery, however, comes from politics — specifically, the demand from House Republicans that the government immediately slash spending on infant nutrition, disease control, clean water and more.

The polls continue to warn Republicans about the cuts they’re threatening. If they don’t listen, however, it won’t just come back to haunt them, everyone will pay.

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Sect. Hillary Clinton: Al Jazeera ‘Real News’

By on 03 March 2011

“Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news. You may not agree with it, but you feel like you’re getting real news around the clock instead of a million commercials and, you know, arguments between talking heads and the kind of stuff that we do on our news which, you know, is not particularly informative to us, let alone foreigners.” – Sect. Hillary Clinton (via ABC News)

Revenge is a dish best served unemotionally, with vast evidence to back up your charges, and delivered from a place of power.

Sect. Clinton talking about the U.S. losing the information wars and damning the programming of traditional and cable news isn’t a new charge. However, it is new coming from her and especially salient when said at a Senate hearing.

The State Dept. has attempted to do many things in new media to help win the information war.

But let’s not forget that in 2009 Dipnote was completely silent on Iran’s Green uprising. On the Palestinian Papers, Al Jazeera revealed some very uncomfortable truths coming from State, including that Clinton said the Palestinians were “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy.” Beyond that they didn’t give credence to their veracity.

And as someone who has been a “talking head” on Al Jazeera, they’ve got plenty of babbling political and other expert analysts, so on that statement Sect. Clinton is simply incorrect. The day before they released the Palestinian Papers, all day long they had opinion makers on to discuss what hadn’t been released yet. I commented on it in this column.

Also on the topic of the information wars, where Wikileaks is concerned Sect. Clinton is adamantly against this type of transparency, which is where the competition for information will be:

“Let’s be clear: This disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests,” Clinton told journalists in the Treaty Room, an ornate Wedgewood-blue salon near her office. “It is an attack on the international community – the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.” – Hillary Clinton: WikiLeaks release an ‘attack on international community’

As someone who has praised Al Jazeera several times, Sect. Clinton’s statements are appreciated.

One of the worst aspects of American media goes well beyond Clinton’s well delivered critique. It begins with how men dominate women across the board, especially as hosts, but also on Sunday shows. However, the real problem with the U.S. media is that too many anchors are ass kissing camera muggers looking for their next million. Al Zazeera’s anchors are working stiffs who don’t get paid anything close to the U.S. media stars who are elevated higher than they’ve earned to be.

In America, news is subjected to the Hollywood treatment. We don’t know any other way anymore.

Sect. Clinton was delivering an important point and she’s correct, Al Jazeera is effective, very effective. Like when they stripped the bark off of the State Dept.’s own P.J. Crowley for going on air unprepared.

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Gov. Chris Christie Loves Collective Bargaining

By on 03 March 2011

“In fact, I love collective bargaining,” Christie told the crowd Wednesday, packed into a room in the municipal building. “I’ve said let’s get rid of civil service and let everything be collectively bargained, as long as collective bargaining is fair, tough, adversarial and there’s someone in that room representing you.” – Chris Christie: Collective Bargaining Something ‘I Love’

But remember, Gov. Christie is not running for president.

That may be so, but the quote on collective bargaining is something a politician says to distance himself from a newsmaking Republican who has marginalized himself with the broader public that is against weakening collective bargaining. It’s setting the record straight, for sure, but it’s also sending a message well beyond New Jersey that reveals a Republican not afraid to lead against conventional wisdom being driven at base level.

So, let’s call it keeping your options open, with a background that has you on the record humbly stating you don’t think you’re ready for the big job.

It’s all so perfectly crafted.

Yes. Believe me, I’ve been interested in politics my whole life. I see the opportunity. But I just don’t believe that’s why you run. Like I said at AEI, I have people calling me and saying to me, “Let me explain to you how you could win.” And I’m like, “You’re barking up the wrong tree. I already know I could win.” That’s not the issue. The issue is not me sitting here and saying, “Geez, it might be too hard. I don’t think I can win.” I see the opportunity both at the primary level and at the general election level. I see the opportunity. But I’ve got to believe I’m ready to be president, and I don’t. – The Corner

Gov. Christie is smart to think he’s not ready to be president.

Nobody is when they start out. Some prove unready once they’re there.

But as possible Republican candidates mull whether to get in or not, looking at the Newt, Rick, Donald, Tim, Sarah, Michele, Buddy, Ron, Mitch, Mitt, Mike, Jon, Gary, Haley possibilities, none of these people have what Mr. Christie offers.

In an era of Obama word salads, candidate promises dashed on anti-Democratic policies, not to mention incoherent leadership that isn’t inspiring anyone, there is something charmingly appealing about Gov. Chris Christie’s Trumanesque bluntness and damn the torpedoes directional certainty.

It’s how an incompetent man named George W. Bush won two terms.

There is no one in the Republican field right now who comes close to the brash exuberance and certainty of conservative purpose, however wrong, of Gov. Christie. He’s simply the most dangerous politician for the White House to contemplate facing not running for the presidency today.

Davids Plouffe and Axelrod should thank their lucky stars Gov. Christie contends he won’t announce.

I’m also reminded of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton who wouldn’t take on the presidency in 2004, because she’d made a promise to her constituents to fulfill her senate term. Of Barack Obama who didn’t have the resume for president, but sensed the moment was his to grasp. That it’s not always about convenience, but has a lot to do with sensing and seizing your day and time. A moment that opens for what you’ve got against an opponent who can’t offer what you can.

When Gov. Christie says he knows he could win he means it. There’s a reason for that and it’s because given his style he’s the perfect anti-Obama for a moment that is crying out for someone to fill it.

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Mike Huckabee Doubles Down with Obama ‘Anti-Americanism’

By on 03 March 2011

This is the type of thing you’d expect from Michele Bachmann, even Sarah Palin, that is until she distanced herself from this type of talk. But it’s no accident that Mr. Huckabee continues to fan the wingnut flames with ridiculous notions of Pres. Obama’s “anti-Americanism.” This is how the Right talks on right-wing radio. I started debating these nut jobs from coast to coast back in the late ’90s until I couldn’t take the vitriol and basic willful ignorance anymore.

From Right Wing Watch:

Fischer: Well Governor, what got lost in all the shuffle was the legitimate point that you were making which is that we may have a president who has some fundamentally anti-American ideas that may be rooted in a childhood where he had a father who was virulently anti-colonial, hated the British – might have something to do with the President returning the bust of Winston Churchill back to England. You know, I was struck by the fact that when he made his tour to Indonesia, he made a point of going to an Indonesian memorial that celebrated the victory of Indonesians over British troops – again, part of that anti-colonial thing. And so I’d like you to comment on that; you seem to think that there is some validity to the fact that there may be some fundamental anti-Americanism in this president.

Huckabee: Well, that’s exactly the point that I make in the book and I don’t know why these reporters – maybe they can’t read, I guess that’s part of it because it’s clearly spelled out and I’m quoting a British newspaper who really were expressing the outrage of the Brits over that bust being returned and the point was that they felt like that due to Obama’s father and grandfather it could be that his version and view of the Mau Mau Revolution was very different than most of the people who perhaps would grow up in the United States. And I have said many times, publicly, that I do think he has a different worldview and I think it is, in part, molded out of a very different experience. Most of us grew up going to Boy Scout meetings and, you know, our communities were filled with Rotary Clubs, not madrassas.

Translation: Barack Obama is not one of us.

Can’t wait until Mr. Huckabee appears on one of the Sunday shows and is asked about the claim that he believes Obama “may” have “some fundamental anti-Americanism” in him.

Mike Huckabee is like a two-faced teenage girl. He says one thing to legitimate news sources and acts out when he’s with his tribe. In case you don’t get it yet, Mr. Huckabee’s tribe is the crazy right wingers who live, breathe and rant on terrestrial radio. The same people he cannot get the nomination without.

I’m just wondering how long it will take before Sarah Palin comes out to try to trump him, maybe even surprising everyone by saying what Huckabee said is unfortunate and inappropriate. That’s the move, though it’s unclear she’s got it in her. With her polling slipping, the 2010 midterm star is losing her grip on the chance to snare Iowa and other states, as Huckabee rises, so chastising him might not help her with those extreme Republican primary voters, even as it moves her closer, though not into, the more reasonable column.

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NBC/WSJ Poll: 60% Say Reduce Social Security & Medicare Payments to Wealthier Americans

By on 03 March 2011

Like we needed yet another poll to tell us what we already know.

Unfortunately, Pres. Obama and the Democratic Party do. From the latest NBC/WSJ poll:

Less than a quarter of Americans support making significant cuts to Social Security or Medicare to tackle the country’s mounting deficit, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, illustrating the challenge facing lawmakers who want voter buy-in to alter entitlement programs.

In the poll, Americans across all age groups and ideologies said by large margins that it was “unacceptable” to make significant cuts in entitlement programs in order to reduce the federal deficit. Even tea party supporters, by a nearly 2-to-1 margin, declared significant cuts to Social Security “unacceptable.” [...]

Maybe now that this polling is out Pres. Obama will have a reason to act like a Democrat.

After all, once he saw Independents were on the side of the unions he was inspired to come out to give a bland statement about not bashing unions, which as bad as it was is all anyone’s going to get from this man. Because Obama’s not willing to risk anything by taking a strong stand.

Oh, but wait a minute.

There was no risk at any time.

What I’ve been writing about, whether it’s warning the health care mandate was a loser, that there was never a need for a deficit commission, or that the Bush tax cuts should not be extended, or that Americans don’t want their Social Security and Medicare messed with and prefer wealthier Americans pay more, all of it, was baked into the American mindset across this country from the start.

That’s how destructive Pres. Obama’s Democratic Party budget deficit, austerity, suck up to the Right and follow them in all things economic message has been.

Not only was the Bush tax cut extension unnecessary, but as has been chronicled here and elsewhere, it went against what the majority of Americans wanted.

Pres. Obama also didn’t need a stinking deficit commission, not that I and others didn’t write that long before he stuck Democrats with it.

But that’s not all.

Barack Obama ignored the opportunity to get creative and raise tax rates on multi-millionaires and billionaires, addressing a disproportionate imbalance that’s been around for years. He’d have had the country behind him if he’d done it and been hailed a hero, which is never far from his mind.

Unfortunately, Pres. Obama wants the fat cat corporate big shots in his corner first. But you can’t have both today, because America’s corporations are not on the side of the middle class anymore.

Instead of following the people and the Democratic Party history, Mr. Obama and the Democratic elite not only handed the Republican Right the midterms, because they Obama wouldn’t take the tax fight to the people. But Pres. Obama and the Democratic Party are responsible for handing states and legislatures over to Republicans who want to carve away collective bargaining, ignoring the people, while also chipping away further at women’s freedoms.

This is what happens when you have someone leading who not only doesn’t know where he wants to go, but is so clueless that he’s willing to follow people whose entire political thinking is diametrically opposed to everything the Democratic Party has stood for since F.D.R.

Pres. Obama gave away the store to the Right when he didn’t have to, though it’s not like this lack of purpose wasn’t in the coming attractions.

If Republicans had any decent candidates at all Pres. Obama would be in real trouble, because there’s no doubt he’s vulnerable based on general political incompetence, which began when he adopted the economic argument of the Right.

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First Amendment Protects Odious Speech Too

By on 02 March 2011

“Speech is powerful,” Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the majority. “It can stir people to action, move them to tears of both joy and sorrow, and — as it did here — inflict great pain.” But under the First Amendment, he went on, “we cannot react to that pain by punishing the speaker.” Instead, the national commitment to free speech, he said, requires protection of “even hurtful speech on public issues to ensure that we do not stifle public debate.” – Justices Rule for Protesters at Military Funerals

Fundamentalist fanatics preening they speak for God are the embodiment of everything wrong with religion, proving that most proselytizers know less about being holy than your average five year-old.

“I very much appreciate the fact that I get to be the mouth of God in this matter,” she told reporters.

That’s Margie J. Phelps, daughter of church leader Fred Phelps and legal counsel for the group who won in the Supreme Court today. Her delusion is topped only by her profound arrogance that “the mouth of God” is remotely tied to anything as negative as causing more suffering to people who have lost a loved one. Fred Phelps and his people remain prime examples of un-Christian, inhumane behavior and the most reprehensible example of spirituality to ever get the megaphone of the First Amendment.

However, the Supreme Court got it right by protecting the speech of this despicable woman and the followers of this movement. In an 8-1 verdict, the court sent a powerful message, with Justice Alito dissenting, for which he should be ashamed.

At present, 44 states have laws creating buffer zones around funerals, which is the recourse and responsibility of legislatures to enact.

It’s comforting to know that the Supreme Court can at least get something as fundamental as protecting the First Amendment correct. After the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case you had to wonder.

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Fox News Suspends Newt & Some Guy Named Rick

By on 02 March 2011

Fox News suspends the contracts of political contributors Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum because both have demonstrated that they are seriously considering running for president. A Fox News official says the channel will take the same action against Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin if they get closer to jumping into the race. – Fox News pulls Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum off the air because of their interest in running for president

In a scramble to look legitimate, Fox News sends a shot over Sarah Palin’s bow, hoping to land a little spray in Huckland as well, by targeting the wannabe boys.

Mr. Santorum is the dumbest Republican on the planet. He hasn’t a chance in hell at the Republican nomination, so his decision to forego financial pluses of being a Fox contributor makes no sense, though it does prove the oversize ego and delusions of grandeur of this particular right-winger.

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich doesn’t need the cash and has been gnashing at the bit to run for president for a long time. He’s the first to announce an exploratory committee that he’s exploring his wannabe-ness.

Santorum and Gingrich have until May 1st to make a definitive decision.

Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee seem to be waiting each other out, though it just may end up that neither runs, with Huckabee clearly is testing things out with his book tour. Sarah’s trip to India is supposed to make her look smarter on foreign policy, which is impossible to do, because everything she thinks, says or reacts to on the national security scene is driven by ideology not facts or listening to experts.

More from the LA Times:

Fox News still has two other potential White House contenders on the payroll: former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

“As soon as each of them shows some serious intention to form an exploratory committee, we would take the same action,” Brandi said. “Huckabee is on a book tour, so I think his present intention is to sell books.”

As for Palin, “She hasn’t yet shown a serious intention to form an exploratory committee.”

As people who follow me on Twitter know, yesterday Donald Trump was on with Rush Limbaugh making his economic case. He railed against U.S. – China trade policy and said if the Chinese don’t change he’d slap a 25% tax on their imports. One thing I didn’t tweet that Trump said is that he contacted the White House, a very high up person in the Administration he says, and offered to donate $50-100 million to build a ballroom to host visiting dignitaries, including constructing the building through committee approved by the White House. Mr. Trump is incensed by the big tent events, which he believes aren’t fitting “our great country” or the visiting heads of state American presidents host. The White House listened, but never responded to him again.

Trump’s economic vision is backed by a lot more than anything Mitt Romney has, with the added benefit that Mr. Trump doesn’t have the RomneyCare albatross around his neck. How Mr. Romney is going to wiggle his ways through the primaries with his Massachusetts health care concoction not costing him will be the most fun to watch.

In another Fox News story that I cannot resist mentioning, this video went viral on Facebook and reveals Bill O’Reilly’s “The Factor” using footage outside of Wisconsin to smear protesters inside that state. Palm trees in Wisconsin?

So, as much as Fox News is attempting to look legit by suspending contributors who might be presidential candidates, showing palm trees in Wisconsin blows their propaganda cover wide open.

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Woman in Ohio Moves to Relegate Women to Hostess of Fetus

By on 02 March 2011

“I think this one is more significant than all of the other bills combined,” Porter said. “It will be an arrow in the heart of Roe vs. Wade.” – Fetuses to be presented as witnesses before Ohio House committee

This would be a good science fiction screenplay, maybe even an episode of ABC’s “V.”

Undoubtedly, Janet Folger Porter is a delusional fanatic. But in the Republican Party today this means she’s got the power to put one life over something that isn’t equal, which is playing out in John Kasich’s Ohio. It’s similar to what the Taliban and Islamists do by contending women have less right to be free than men.

States can inhibit women’s freedoms regardless of the privacy we’ve won through the Supreme Court. So-called “heartbeat laws” are meant to shame, coerce and trap male legislators into denying women their freedoms, because of what’s inside a woman’s belly that cannot live without her life.

The so-called “heartbeat” bill is the first of its type introduced in the nation, and it seeks to ban the procedure as early as six weeks after conception — the first moment a fetus’ heartbeat can be detected. If it becomes law in Ohio — and it appears to have the votes in the Republican-dominated legislature — it would be among the earliest stages that a state has tried to ban abortions.

Who came first the fetus or the woman? Of course, it is the woman. Can a fetus live without the woman’s life? Of course not, so the fetus is dependent, not equal, not human. But Faith 2 Action is attempting to make the case that a heartbeat is a person and equal to the woman on which it depends.

An “unborn human individual” is not a person. “An individual organism of the species homo sapiens from fertilization until live birth” ignores the woman completely. The Taliban could make this argument, as would many religious extreme, which have a lot in common with the current crop of anti-women Republicans.

Rhrealitycheck draws the picture:

How exactly its handlers are going to arrange this is not quite clear, though it appears that a woman who is nine weeks pregnant is going to have an ultrasound on the spot. ( It seems worth noting that at nine weeks fetuses tend to be too small to be detected by the classic over-the-belly ultrasounds of TV and movies, so in order for the audience to see this “witness,” it will be necessary to use an intra-vaginal probe.) It seems obvious to me that the witness, described by Faith 2 Action as “the youngest witness to ever come before the House Health Committee,” will not actually be speaking.

People like the fanatical anti-women crusaders Janet Folger Porter want to continue to carve women’s inalienable rights and freedoms away. In some states this will work in the short-term, but it will eventually fail, because you can’t jail women for taking care of themselves as they see fit and incarcerating doctors will not be popular. The anti-women jihad has already scared many doctors away from performing reproductive health procedures including abortions, but that’s not enough.

It is the woman’s body the fetus needs to survive, with the woman always having the freedom to do with her body as she sees fit. No one can stop a woman from determining her own destiny, not even a testifying fetus.

Religious wackos on a crusade against women’s freedom in the 21st century are exhaling their last gasp. However, that does not make the present any less dangerous to us all.

What we all should be talking about is how to get contraception and morning after pharmaceuticals into the hands of women who need them. That’s not the argument the Republican Right want to have, because it’s rational, something they are not, but also implies that they’ve lost, which they did a long time ago.

When back alley abortion clinics were the only means of women saving their own lives, however they deemed it necessary, you couldn’t stop a woman from deciding her own fate even on threat that she might lose her life.

Extremists like Janet Folger Porter aren’t only going to lose the fetus, she’s going to end up being responsible for killing women, something “religious” fanatics never consider, because they think of pregnant women simply as hostesses. It’s an alien notion to any woman who expects to carve her own destiny.

As I ask every time this subject comes up: Is freedom just for men?

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Mike Huckabee’s Venomous Charm

By on 01 March 2011

There are no coincidences on right-wing radio.

When a potential Republican presidential candidate goes on right-wing radio and gets caught saying Pres. Barack Obama grew up “in Kenya” it isn’t by accident.

“One thing that I do know is his having grown up in Kenya, his view of the Brits, for example, very different than the average American … his perspective as growing up in Kenya with a Kenyan father and grandfather, their view of the Mau Mau Revolution in Kenya is very different than ours because he probably grew up hearing that the British are a bunch of imperialists who persecuted his grandfather.”

Whether Mr. Huckabee is a birther or not isn’t the issue and anyone covering for him, as Andy Barr of Politico does, and providing room for him to weasel out of this is falling for the charming Southern former Arkansas governor who knows he can get away with retracting a stupid statement, while simultaneously benefiting from ringing the bell.

David Weigel also pronounces Mike Huckabee isn’t a birther, which is exactly what Huck’s people are hoping will happen once the Baptist preacher smiles and nods in order to present himself as utterly harmless.

Mr. Huckabee is also not ill-informed, as Weigel also claims. He cleverly and purposefully said what he wanted in the company of a wingnut radio host who Huckabee knew had an audience that would appreciate it.

Mike Huckabee also knew he could walk it back later, because no one could possibly believe a preacher could be so hateful. There will always be outlets like Politico and writers like Weigel who give Huck the benefit of the doubt, even when undeserved.

The dangerous nature of Mike Huckabee is his apparent guilelessness. Just look at his face, that smile, and don’t forget he’s religiously pious. He would never impugn Pres. Obama’s legitimacy.

Yeah, and a three-limb amputee and war hero would never have to defend himself against political ads comparing him to Osama Bin Laden. Max Cleland lost his Senate seat over just such heinous un-American attacks. Sen. Saxby Chambliss to this day given a pass for the character assassination of religious leaders like Ralph Reed. They did the same to John Kerry whose Silver Star was earned in a harrowing moment of bravery.

What Mike Huckabee did was intended. He was also counting on people getting his back, which is exactly what happened.

That Mike Huckabee invoked the Clintons to skulk away and not take responsibility for his obvious smear against Pres. Obama puts the period on the whole event. A ready answer whipped out just like the whole thing was planned.

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Obama’s Sec. of Labor Crawls Out From Hiding

By on 01 March 2011

Perhaps Pres. Obama let Sec. of Labor Hilda Solis out for Women’s History Month.

But Sec. Solis finally, at long last, after waiting around forever, has come out from her previously undisclosed location inside the Obama bubble to write a post over at HuffingtonPost.



In hard times, we all understand the need for sacrifices. Scapegoating teachers, firefighters and bus drivers by taking away their basic rights is not going to solve any problems. This is a time to find ways to work together and forge compromise. Neither side will get everything it wants, and everyone should share in the sacrifice.

Collective bargaining — what my dad called sitting “at the table” — is a cornerstone of our democracy and our middle class. It shouldn’t be cast aside in hard times. It can and should be part of the solution. Just as my dad explained to me with those paper scraps at our kitchen table, the best solutions come from people sitting down at the table together.

Sitting down “at the table” is exactly what unions do, including in Wisconsin, to get their contracts. It’s the cornerstone of negotiating.

Speaker John Boehner and Republicans don’t understand this reality and that politicians have been involved in every single gain public sector unions have received. As unions begin to give back some of what they’ve won, Republicans ignore the concessions. Speaking to David Brody, Boehner offered a statement on why Republicans are making this fight, replete with NRA fueled gun language.

Speaker John Boehner: “It’s not just Wisconsin. It’s Ohio. It’s Indiana. You’re going to see these types of actions taken in a lot of states because the states are broke and over the last couple of years the Obama administration, the Democrat controlled Congress bailed out the states where they could avoid making the tough decisions. Well, there are no more bailouts coming from Washington. We’re broke. We’re broke! We don’t have money to dish out to the states so all these Governors are trying to find ways to balance their budgets, which they’re required to do. In some of these states you’ve got collective bargaining laws that are so weighted in favor of the public employees that there’s almost no bargaining. We’ve given them a machine gun and put it right at the heads of the local officials and they really have their hands tied. And I think what you’re seeing in these states is they’re trying to bring some balance to these negotiations that when you look at the pay of public employees today and you look at their retirement benefits they are way out of line with many other working Americans. So all of these Governors are going to have big challenges and it’s not just going to be the Governors. You’re going to see every political jurisdiction in America grapple with what do we need to do as opposed to what do we want to do. All of them are going to go through a very difficult period.”

The reason Pres. Obama weigh in at all is because of new polling on Independents that are critical to his reelection.

The reason Boehner weighed in as he did is because the fight in Wisconsin is not about the budget. It’s about knee-capping unions support for Democrats, hoping to take advantage of it in 2012.

The fact that the Obama administration finally let Sec. Solis speak out is novel, but unimpressive. She’s been nowhere in this fight. She has had no voice, no presence, because the Obama administration is giving her no power.

Can’t appear too partisan, too strong on a union issue, because some voter somewhere in some state that Pres. Obama needs for ’12 might not like it.

The Obama political era is represented by weakness at the top of the national party, with national Republicans in such calamitous disarray that they can’t find anyone strong and palatable to the broad center to take Obama on. That’s his good fortune.

As unions and state Democratic politicians stand up beside workers in Wisconsin, the national parties have never been weaker, with the celebrity presidency of Barack Obama relegated to a footnote, out of choice, in a historic union fight that could impact Democrats for a long time.

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Overestimated Midterm Mandate

By on 01 March 2011

Wisconsin's Gov. Walker

The New York Times/CBS Poll reveals Americans still support the notion of bargaining, but also understand that pay cuts hurt real families, especially at a time when the super rich and Wall Street aren’t being asked to do their fair share.

Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them.

Those surveyed said they opposed, 56 percent to 37 percent, cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits, breaking down along similar party lines.

In Wisconsin, Gov. Walker has so blown his advantage that just four months after being elected the people of Wisconsin would elect the Democrat if given the chance today.

Someone should clue Charles Koch in on reality, because his op-ed in the Wall Street Journal ignores the obvious, while pushing austerity talking points that never once looks at the issue of shared sacrifice.

From PPP:

We’ll have our full poll on the Wisconsin conflict out tomorrow but here’s the most interesting finding: if voters in the state could do it over today they’d support defeated Democratic nominee Tom Barrett over Scott Walker by a a 52-45 margin.

Walker seems to forget the state he lives in. As PPP reveals, it’s GOP union households that are shifting back to Democrats, because of Walker’s stupidity to think an election makes him king.

Gov. Walker also issued a 24-hour ultimatum to Democratic senators.

The New York Times/CBS Poll at the top proves Americans aren’t stupid about what unions provide. Gov. Walker and over zealous Republicans have done the Democrats a huge favor, though it’s still very tough to change the equation this time, though not impossible.

As for Pres. Obama’s statement today about unions. Something tells me someone got him numbers on independents, which is why he spoke out. I don’t think anything he says is organic in the least, but instead opportunism after waiting out a moment where he could have chosen to lead but didn’t. Nothing new there.

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