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Monday Reads

Posted: March 26, 2012 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , , , , |29 Comments

Good Morning!

We’ve covered a lot of stories on states that are passing restrictive and abusive antiabortion measures.  The Texas law has already gone into effect.  We can now start sharing the stories of women being victimized by religious fanatics who rush to pass these laws with no thought to their impact.  The karma on this one has to be severe.  Not only was the woman forced to go through three sonograms but a humiliating and painful speech about her fetus.  The fetus was severely deformed.  Her doctor had informed her earlier that her planned pregnancy was going to produce a severely deformed baby who would suffer.  Later, a reporter who interviewed her and wrote her story got fired.

Braddock, who many activists have called a remarkably fair reporter when it comes to controversial issues like abortion, was filling in last Friday for reporter Geoff Berg, who hosts the “Partisan Gridlock” show on Houston’s KPFT.

Over the course of his hour on the air on the non-commercial station, Braddock played audio of an interview he’d conducted for KROI, featuring the galling account of Carolyn Jones, a Texas woman who was forced to undergo multiple transvaginal sonograms in her pursuit of an abortion. Her story was initially carried by The Texas Observer earlier this month.

And it’s not that Braddock was skewing the issue, either: “I’m a journalist, I cover all sides,” he said. “My thoughts on the sonogram law are simply that it’s something of great interest to Texans, and they want to hear different perspectives. I do my best to make sure people have all the facts and perspectives that they may not have considered.”

Turns out, people on the political left and right in Texas also agree that he should not have been fired.

Here’s some of the interview for which Braddock was fired.

Carolyn Jones was halfway through her pregnancy, and excited to be a mother again, when she learned that her baby would be “profoundly” ill, and suffer from the day he was born. Jones describes cringing at the doctor’s use of the word “abortion,” which felt “like a physical blow…in the context of our much-wanted child.” She made the hard decision to do what she considered most compassionate, and terminate her pregnancy. It was the last call she was legally able to make.

“I am so sorry,” the young woman said with compassion, and nudged the tissues closer. Then, after a moment’s pause, she told me reluctantly about the new Texas sonogram law that had just come into effect. I’d already heard about it. The law passed last spring but had been suppressed by legal injunction until two weeks earlier.
My counselor said that the law required me to have another ultrasound that day, and that I was legally obligated to hear a doctor describe my baby. I’d then have to wait 24 hours before coming back for the procedure. She said that I could either see the sonogram or listen to the baby’s heartbeat, adding weakly that this choice was mine.
“I don’t want to have to do this at all,” I told her. “I’m doing this to prevent my baby’s suffering. I don’t want another sonogram when I’ve already had two today. I don’t want to hear a description of the life I’m about to end. Please,” I said, “I can’t take any more pain.” I confess that I don’t know why I said that. I knew it was fait accompli. The counselor could no more change the government requirement than I could. Yet here was a superfluous layer of torment piled upon an already horrific day, and I wanted this woman to know it.

“We have no choice but to comply with the law,” she said, adding that these requirements were not what Planned Parenthood would choose. Then, with a warmth that belied the materials in her hand, she took me through the rules. First, she told me about my rights regarding child support and adoption. Then she gave me information about the state inspection of the clinic. She offered me a pamphlet called A Woman’s Right to Know, saying that it described my baby’s development as well as how the abortion procedure works. She gave me a list of agencies that offer free sonograms, and which, by law, have no affiliation with abortion providers. Finally, after having me sign reams of paper, she led me to the doctor who’d perform the sonography, and later the termination.

The doctor and nurse were professional and kind, and it was clear that they understood our sorrow. They too apologized for what they had to do next. For the third time that day, I exposed my stomach to an ultrasound machine, and we saw images of our sick child forming in blurred outlines on the screen.

“I’m so sorry that I have to do this,” the doctor told us, “but if I don’t, I can lose my license.” Before he could even start to describe our baby, I began to sob until I could barely breathe. Somewhere, a nurse cranked up the volume on a radio, allowing the inane pronouncements of a DJ to dull the doctor’s voice. Still, despite the noise, I heard him. His unwelcome words echoed off sterile walls while I, trapped on a bed, my feet in stirrups, twisted away from his voice.

“Here I see a well-developed diaphragm and here I see four healthy chambers of the heart…”

I closed my eyes and waited for it to end, as one waits for the car to stop rolling at the end of a terrible accident.

If you spent any time watching Spanish Language TV over the weekend, you’d have seen a lot of time spent on the papal visit to Mexico.  There was a lot of live broadcasting and very little discussion of two books that also came out this week on systemic sexual assault and cover-ups by the church by one of the country’s most well known priests. The books indicate that the current pope was part of the conspiracy to conceal the crimes.

In the past week, two books released in Mexico drew new attention to longstanding questions about whether Benedict, when he was the head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office, acted decisively enough about the Rev. Marcial Maciel Degollado, a Mexican priest who founded the Legionaries of Christ, once victims began coming forward claiming that he had abused them.

The news media attention shows that the Maciel case is far from closed. The Vatican has said that Benedict does not plan to meet with abuse victims while in Mexico, as he has done in other countries.

After complaints of sexual abuse were filed against Father Maciel in 1998, Benedict, who was then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, quashed a Vatican investigation. He reopened the case in 2004, ultimately finding that Father Maciel had led a double life and had raped seminarians, fathered several children and abused drugs while leading a charismatic organization known for producing priests.

In 2006, the future pope sentenced Father Maciel to a life of prayer and penance. Father Maciel died in 2008.

A presser was given by the Rev. Alberto Athié Gallo.  He is one of the co-authors of  “The Will Not To Know”.  He is also one of many Mexican priests who tried to tell Cardinal Ratzinger about Father Maciel’s atrocities in 1998.

Speaking of abuse, a Wisconsin Lawmaker wants to penalize single mothers and says that women should stay in abusive marriages.  Getting beat up by your husband?  Stay married and just think about all the good things he does for you.  Don’t divorce him because being a single mother is child abuse ladies!!!

In Wisconsin — yes, the same state where lawmakers have introduced a bill penalizing single mothers for being unmarried — a Republican state representative has come out against divorce for any reason — even domestic abuse.

Instead of leaving an abusive situation, women should try to remember the things they love about their husbands, Representative Don Pridemore said. “If they can re-find those reasons and get back to why they got married in the first place it might help,” he told a local news station.

Pridemore — who, coincidentally, is a co-sponsor of Republican state Senator Glenn Grothman’s “being single causes child abuse” bill as well as a controversial voter ID bill that was ruled unconstitutional earlier this week — also said that while he thinks women are capable of caring for a family “in certain situations,” fathers are the only ones who provide structure and discipline. If they don’t grow up with married biological parents, Pridemore says, “kids tend to go astray.”

Grothman, for his part, continues to defend his controversial bill. Now, though, not only is single parenthood a factor in child abuse, women in particular are to blame for it.

“There’s been a huge change over the last 30 years, and a lot of that change has been the choice of the women,” Grothman said.

 The Supreme Court will start hearing arguments on the constitutionality of the individual mandate in the HCRA today.

The law itself is a sprawling revision of the health care system meant to provide coverage to tens of millions of previously uninsured Americans by imposing new requirements on states, employers and insurance companies and, through what has been called the individual mandate, by requiring most Americans to obtain insurance or pay a penalty.

The decision in the case will have enormous practical consequences for how health care is delivered in the United States. It is likely to land in June, with large repercussions for both Mr. Obama and his Republican challenger just before the two parties hold their nominating conventions.

The justices have broken the case into four discrete issues, scheduling a separate session for each, for a total of six hours, the most in one case in more than 40 years.

Emptywheel has some excellent analysis up on what to watch for during arguments. Bmaz has been following the issues carefully.

There are two areas of particular interest me and which really are the meat on the bone of the overall consideration. The first is Monday’s technical argument on the AIJA, which I actually think may be much more in play than most commentators believe, because the Supremes may want to punt the politically sticky part of the case down the road until after the 2012 elections, and the AIJA argument is a ready made vehicle to do just that. Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s dissent in Seven Sky v. Holder explains how that would go should the Supreme beings decide to punt. This is by no means likely, but do not be shocked if it occurs; can kicking down the road is certainly not unknown at SCOTUS on politically sensitive cases.

By far, however, the biggest, and most contentious, kahuna of the healthcare debate is the individual mandate, and that is where I want to focus. The two sides, pro (predominantly liberal left) and con (predominantly conservative right), have been selling their respective wares since before the law was passed and signed by the President. As we truly head into the arguments, however, the pro left have crystallized around a matched pair of articles by Dahlia Lithwick and Linda Greenhouse, and the con right around response pieces by James Taranto and Ed Whelan.

Now this hardly seems like a fair fight, as Taranto has no degree, nor legal training, whatsoever; that said he and Whelan actually lay out the contra to Dahlia and Linda pretty well. Each side effectively accuses the other of being vapid and hollow in argument construct. I will leave aside any vapidity discussion because I think both sides genuinely believe in their positions; as to the hollowness, though, I think both sides are pretty much guilty. Which is understandable, there is simply not a lot of law directly on point with such a sweeping political question as presented by the mandate. “Unprecedented” may be overused in this discussion, but it is not necessarily wrong (no, sorry, Raich v. Gonzales is not that close; it just isn’t).

So, that’s my offerings this morning.  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

29 Comments on “Monday Reads”

  1. Minkoff Minx says:
    March 26, 2012 at 5:53 am

    Dak, when will it ever end? These people hate women…that one about staying in abusive marriages is outrageous.

  2. Pat Johnson says:
    March 26, 2012 at 7:46 am

    We’ve reached a level of barbarism as this stuff gets enacted for reasons that defy logic.

    Expecting a woman to go through what the woman in Texas had to endure is beyond any talk f compassion or empathy when faced with a decision that has such profound effects.

    Remaining in an abusive marriage that may possibly lead to a death sentence for the victim is unbelievable.

    If these laws bring out the “anti religion” that is essentially underlying these brutal laws then I am all for it. The pope’s actions alone are enough to leave most people gagging with revulsion in ignoring the criminality that has been swept under the rug.

    The war against women can be likened to a cancer spreading across the nation. Who fears Sharia Law as these hateful acts go into effect?

  3. RalphB says:
    March 26, 2012 at 9:03 am

    This should be a must read editorial by Paul Krugman about ALEC and it’s hard-right agenda and sponsors.

    Lobbyists, Guns and Money

    What is ALEC? Despite claims that it’s nonpartisan, it’s very much a movement-conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn’t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law.

    Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization — that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization.

    • Pat Johnson says:
      March 26, 2012 at 9:29 am

      And an acquiescent MSM ignores these blatant attempts to high jack democracy by focusing on one topic at a time – this week Trayvon Martin, last week Rush Limbaugh.

      ALEC is not new. It has been operating for some time and Rachel Maddow is one of the very few who have brought their tactics to light. The rest of her contemporaries? Not so much.

      The “war on women” has been going on longer than the notice given to it during the election process. ALEC has the money and the wherewithal to influence lawmakers to take up the agenda and push through passages that would limit their rights along with voting in favor of whatever corporation finds necessary to fight against regulations.

      But the press would rather fix upon one target per news cycle as it makes their lives easier and maintain “access” rather than present the truth behind much of the abuse we are witnessing today.

      As much as I feel about the sad events of what has happened in Florida, 24 hour coverage of that one event has managed to saturate the airwaves to the point where I had no idea that Obama was in South Korea until yesterday.

      The fixation on one story when so much else is happening out of sight is why democracy itself is beginning to unravel.

  4. bostonboomer says:
    March 26, 2012 at 9:28 am

    Please note that Fr. Maciel is the founder of the Legionaries of Christ and Regnum Christi, which is one of the cult groups that Rick Santorum is a member of. I’ve written several posts about these groups, which may be even more extreme than Opus Dei.

    • Pat Johnson says:
      March 26, 2012 at 9:36 am

      If there is any such thing as a “neo Christian” these sects and cults validate that belief.

      Whackos who are lost in the Middle Ages and resist any means to further “enlightenment” in an age where science has made huge breakthroughs in theory.

      Unable to carry two different thoughts at one time, they prefer to shove their antiquated thinking upon the rest of society out of fear that perhaps their belief system may prove unreal.

      Their desire is to “purge out” non believers and skeptics since this is exactly what they have done over the ages in the “crusades” to bring Christianity to people who refused to go along.

      That today is known as Dominionism and it has found its followers in those who make public policy. This in the USA in the year 2012.

    • dakinikat says:
      March 26, 2012 at 10:18 am

      I thought about your posts when I read this. I wonder what horrors these books cover. The guy was a psychopath and the church kept him in the game for some time. I remember you writing about his crimes.

    • Woman Voter says:
      March 26, 2012 at 1:42 pm

      BB,

      Have you seen the latest reports on the past record of Zimmerman? The Florida papers are reporting incidents in 2003, 2005…of domestic violence, two incidents of him following people at malls in addition to the incident of violence toward a policeman. Oh, and his ex-fiancee filed for a restraining order, but the focus is on Trayvon and some residue of a baggie.

  5. RalphB says:
    March 26, 2012 at 9:48 am

    We often wonder why the hard right is so hysterical and passing all these laws now. I think it’s because they are losing the debate on the ground. Society is changing and they simply can’t deal with it. Thus they go further and further right to try and retrieve the past.

    America doesn’t match their version of normal. So while their viewpoint on what is normal is way out of sync with what is happening on the ground, we can expect them to get louder and louder as they get less and less relevant to reality.

    Single parents, divorce, inter-racial marriages, gay marriage- these are not only the future of America, they are the current reality. I think it makes us stronger as a country but the hard right is going to fight this while they have a gasp of breath left. It may be a long slog.

    • Pat Johnson says:
      March 26, 2012 at 9:58 am

      They have been there since the Moral Majority was formed 30 years ago and have made inroads over time by joining together in support of candidates from their districts who were financed in large part through their efforts. A grass root method to be sure.

      Since then they have managed to elect quite a few of like minded state legislators to the rolls, some of whom have found their way to congress where it takes only one vote to hold up legislation while they attempt to get their own way.

      But 2010 saw many from the Tea Party voted in in larger numbers which has not only put a stronger yoke around the neck of congress but who see nothing amiss by attaching these proposals as riders to many bills. The Stupak Amendment itself is a testament to the purpose.

      The problem is that not enough Dems “fight back”. They are always in the mindset of “compromise” with these people and as we know, compromise is not part of their dialogue.

      What is at work here is a confluence of fundamentalist believers, big business, and enough wily congressional members who see a chance for power and money available that working for the “common good” is a thing of the past.

      • RalphB says:
        March 26, 2012 at 10:18 am

        That’s all true but they are going further and further right as society evolves. That big business is using it to get what they want just makes it much harder to fight back.

        Frankly, I haven’t seen much “common good” in this country for over 30 years.

      • dakinikat says:
        March 26, 2012 at 10:22 am

        Republican governors like mine are pushing these things. Jindal would sell the pelicans and privatize the Tigers if it would get him donors for his presidential run in 2016.

  6. RalphB says:
    March 26, 2012 at 11:35 am

    From TP, some republican supporting the individual mandate. Check out Jim DeMinted…

  7. NW Luna says:
    March 26, 2012 at 1:48 pm

    At least 2,000 people marched in Seattle on Sunday to protest the shooting death of Trayvon Martin

    Many wore hooded sweatshirts — commonly called hoodies — because that is what Martin was wearing when he died. And some held bags of Skittles candy and cans of iced tea…..

    “Our blackness is not a crime,” the Rev. Harriet Walden, who founded Mothers for Police Accountability in Seattle 22 years ago, told the crowd. ….

    Walden’s group sponsored the event, along with others including the Baptist church, the Seattle and King County branch of the NAACP and American Friends Services Committee, a Quaker organization.

  8. RalphB says:
    March 26, 2012 at 3:58 pm

    Republicans may head for the fainting couch, but I like this ‘hot mic’ moment.

    Obama ‘hot mic’ moment

    One of the big political stories of the day is the interest in comments Obama made to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on missile defense.

    The revelations aren’t exactly shocking here. Obama, in Seoul for a nuclear security summit, told the Russian leader, “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him to give me space.” In this context, “him” appears to refer to Vladimir Putin. When Medvedev noted that he appreciates the larger context, Obama added, “This is my last election. After my election I have more flexibility.”

    Medvedev responded, “I understand. I will transmit this information to Vladimir.”

  9. RalphB says:
    March 26, 2012 at 4:24 pm

    As if it didn’t suck enough already.

    Missouri House budget proposal would eliminate aid for blind

    http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/26/3513624/missouri-house-budget-proposal.html

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