Thursday Reads

Posted: February 24, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: A My Pet Goat Moment, abortion rights, Foreign Affairs, Libya, morning reads, U.S. Economy, U.S. Politics, worker rights | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 61 Comments

Good Morning!!

Some of us have been watching Al Jazeera live on-line a lot lately. Suddenly Comcast wants to get into the act, so they are holding talks with the Arab network about putting them on U.S. cable TV.

Al Jazeera confirmed in a press release earlier this week it was meeting with Comcast on Tuesday about adding the 24/7 Al Jazeera English news network to Comcast’s cable lineup.

In 2006, the English-language version of Al Jazeera pushed hard get on Comcast’s lineup up but lost that battle.

Al Jazeera says it can also be seen in local markets in Vermont, Ohio and Washington, D.C. A deal with Comcast would give it a huge national imprint, and force Comcast’s competitors to follow suit.

Al-Jazeera’s Washington bureau chief Abderrahim Foukara made his own plea on Tuesday in Time magazine.

“The hope is that after what people have been able to see on Al Jazeera in its coverage of Egypt, that cable companies may not just see the material benefits of having Al Jazeera available, but also the wisdom,” he told Time in an interview.

Wouldn’t it be great if the channel *replaced* Fox News? Anyway, that’s my good news story for today.

Yesterday, Dakinikat posted audio of a prank phone call made to Wisconsin’s wacky governor, Scott Walker by a gonzo blogger from upstate NY who pretended to be David Koch of the notorious Koch brothers.

Now Horrible John Hinderaker at Powerline is fighting back (warning: right wing blog). The left is waging “war” against the Koch Brothers and Hineraker has set himself up as their defender.

The most extraordinary story in the news these days is the all-out assault that the Left is mounting against Charles and David Koch and their company, Koch Enterprises. A day doesn’t go buy–hardly an hour goes by–without some new attack being launched against these two lonely libertarians.

Why? Simply because they are rich–their company is one of the best-run and most successful in the world–and conservative. The Left is trying to drive them out of politics and, more important, to deter any other people of means from daring to support conservative politicians or causes.

Awwwww….those poor, poor babies.

According to the Washington Post, Walker himself is “urging others to take stands against unions.” I guess he doesn’t want to be out on that limb by himself, and he doesn’t realize that the more governors are out there with him, the sooner the limb will break off and send them all crashing to the ground. Oh, by the way, he did the urging during the aforsaid prank phone call in which he believed he was speaking to David Koch. ROFLOL! From the WaPo:

He said he communicates regularly with Ohio Gov. John Kasich and has spoken with Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval. And Walker has suggested that his counterparts in Michigan and Florida seek to address their budget problems in part by demanding major concessions from public workers.

“There’s a lot of us new governors that got elected to do something big,” Walker said this week. “This is our moment.”

His comments about his GOP brethren came in an unusual forum: a recorded telephone conversation with a liberal blogger purporting to be conservative financier David Koch.

Oh man, Scott Walker will forever be a joke. And speaking of jokes, did you hear that Rick Santorum spoke out on the Wisconsin protests?

All-but-declared presidential candidate Rick Santorum is stirring the pot when it comes to government entitlements, comparing the pro-union protesters in Wisconsin to drug addicts in withdrawal.

“They are acting like their drug is being taken away from them,” Santorum told a small gathering of South Carolina Republicans Monday night, according to the Spartanburg Herald-Journal.

The comments came the same day thousands of protesters rallied outside the Wisconsin state capitol for the second week, upset with Gov. Scott Walker’s plan to limit collective bargaining rights for public-sector employees. Walker says the plan is necessary to stem the state’s budget crisis while pro-union groups say the governor is trying to curb long-held labor rights under a guise of fiscal responsibility.

Meanwhile, Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who is widely expected to seek his party’s presidential nomination, added he thinks those who support government entitlements – including the recent health care law – are “no better than a drug dealer.”

“They give you a subtle narcotic to make you feel better as you do worse,” said Santorum.

Gee, why do I think Santorum’s White House bid is going nowhere fast?

Speaking of wingnuts (and we have been), Georgia legislator Bobby Franklin is waging an all-out war on women.

There’s a new bill on the block that may have reached the apex (I hope) of woman-hating craziness. Georgia State Rep. Bobby Franklin—who last year proposed making rape and domestic violence “victims” into “accusers”—has introduced a 10-page bill that would criminalize miscarriages and make abortion in Georgia completely illegal. Both miscarriages and abortions would be potentially punishable by death: any “prenatal murder” in the words of the bill, including “human involvement” in a miscarriage, would be a felony and carry a penalty of life in prison or death. Basically, it’s everything an “pro-life” activist could want aside from making all women who’ve had abortions wear big red “A”s on their chests.

Could that really pass–even in Georgia?

In more serious news, the carnage in Libya continues.

“It’s a massacre, you can never imagine what’s going on here,” says the man, who is in the Libyan capital of Tripoli.

Protests in Libya have been met with violent and brutal opposition by supporters of leader Moamar Gaddafi….

‘Amairr’ says that Libya is not a state and that Gadafi’s regime is ‘not a government’.

“It’s a militia, it’s a gang,” he says.

He says Gaddafi has brought in militias from Africa who are ‘shooting anyone who stands’.

He says the Libyan nation says it feels betrayed by other countries who are concentrating on getting their citizens out rather than helping Libyans.

Some are even calling it a potential genocide.

ISLAMABAD: “We are in the midst of a massacre here” a witness told Reuters. According to Franco Frattini, Italy’s Foreign Minister, “as many as 1,000 people have likely been killed in Libya as leader Muammar Qaddafi cracks down on protests against his rule.”

The Libyan army, air force and navy have completely fractured and there has been a de facto secession of the eastern half of the country. Al-Jazeera is reporting that some air force fighters loyal to Gaddafi have “opened fire on crowds of protestors.”

The Libyan Navy is reportedly firing on residential targets onshore and senior army officers still loyal to Qaddafi have been ordered to execute soldiers refusing to fire on unarmed protestors.

Qaddafi, the longest serving dictator on the face of the planet, continues to hold fort in Tripoli scheming to kill a million if need be to save his crumbling dictatorship. Anti-Qaddafi elements have already taken over Benghazi, Sirte, Tobruk, Misurata, Khoms, Tarhunah, Zentan, al-Zawiya and Zouara but most of these elements are unarmed and thus at risk of being slaughtered by heavily armed pro-Qaddafi forces.

The response from the West has been anemic at best. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon “condemned” Libyan dictator

Muammar Gaddafi for ignoring his call to stop violence against protestors, which the UN chief stressed to the Libyan leader during a 40 minute conversation this week. “What he (Gaddafi) has d one is totally unacceptable,” Ban told journalists on Wednesday.

“After such long and extensive discussions and my strong urging, and even appeal to him, he has not heeded,” he added. “This is not acceptable.”

Ban warned that the volatile situation in the North African nation could take several directions—many of them dangerous.

“The situation is developing rapidly towards a very dangerous situation,” he said. “Therefore we need to very carefully monitor the situation.”

Um…how about actually doing something? Like maybe enforcing a no-fly zone or sending in UN peacekeeping troops as the Libyan’s have been pleading for you to do?

Reuters informs us that “the world grapples for a response.”

Yet, there seemed little cohesion and urgency in a global response, even as Washington and Brussels spoke of possible sanctions against a man whose 41 years in power have been marked by idiosyncratic defiance of the West.

“It is imperative that the nations and peoples of the world speak with one voice,” Obama said. “The suffering and bloodshed is outrageous.”

The oil exports which Gaddafi used to help end his isolation in the past decade have given him means to resist the fate of his immediate neighbors, the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt, who were brought down by popular unrest in the past few weeks.

It’s always about oil, isn’t it? Talk about people acting like drug addicts….

Anyway, I’ll keep my eye out for updates on the rapidly changing situation in Libya.


What are you reading and blogging about today?

South Dakota Legislature to Consider Bill to Legalize Killing Abortion Providers

Posted: February 15, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, legislation, Reproductive Rights, U.S. Politics, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , , | 26 Comments

From Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones:

A law under consideration in South Dakota would expand the definition of “justifiable homicide” to include killings that are intended to prevent harm to a fetus—a move that could make it legal to kill doctors who perform abortions. The Republican-backed legislation, House Bill 1171, has passed out of committee on a nine-to-three party-line vote, and is expected to face a floor vote in the state’s GOP-dominated House of Representatives soon.

The bill, sponsored by state Rep. Phil Jensen, a committed foe of abortion rights, alters the state’s legal definition of justifiable homicide by adding language stating that a homicide is permissible if committed by a person “while resisting an attempt to harm” that person’s unborn child or the unborn child of that person’s spouse, partner, parent, or child. If the bill passes, it could in theory allow a woman’s father, mother, son, daughter, or husband to kill anyone who tried to provide that woman an abortion—even if she wanted one.

The bill was originally introduced under false pretenses. Get this:

The original version of the bill did not include the language regarding the “unborn child”; it was pitched as a simple clarification of South Dakota’s justifiable homicide law. Last week, however, the bill was “hoghoused”—a term used in South Dakota for heavily amending legislation in committee—in a little-noticed hearing. A parade of right-wing groups—the Family Heritage Alliance, Concerned Women for America, the South Dakota branch of Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, and a political action committee called Family Matters in South Dakota—all testified in favor of the amended version of the law.

Jensen, the bill’s sponsor, has said that he simply intends to bring “consistency” to South Dakota’s criminal code, which already allows prosecutors to charge people with manslaughter or murder for crimes that result in the death of fetuses. But there’s a difference between counting the murder of a pregnant woman as two crimes—which is permissible under law in many states—and making the protection of a fetus an affirmative defense against a murder charge.

This is unbelievable. There is lots more in Sheppard’s story, so please go read it. Could something like this really be constitutional? I doubt it, but with our current SCOTUS, who knows?

They think they own our Bodies

Posted: February 9, 2011 | Author: | Filed under: abortion rights, U.S. Politics, Violence against women, Voter Ignorance, We are so F'd, Women's Rights | Tags: , , , , | 100 Comments

Update:  Women’s Health Outrage of the moment: BREAKING: Appropriation Committee sticks gov’t-funding law that cuts $372 mil in funding for Planned Parenthood/family planning into HR358

The Republican Party is waging a war against American women and is being joined by a few bad Democratic sell outs.  Representatives like Joe Pitts are attacking the rights of women to make personal health-related decisions daily.  HR#3 is just the first of a series of bills designed to narrow definitions of rape, prevention, and what constitutes federal support of women’s reproductive health.  Any one that voted for any Republican under the guise of being pissed at Democrats should take this as a lesson.  Republicans cannot be trusted to do right by women.

This is nothing less than a crusade against the autonomy and adulthood of women. We need to take to the streets again. This is the latest affront: Under Banner of Fiscal Restraint, Republicans Plan New Abortion Bills.

All but invisible during the midterm elections, the abortion debate has returned to Congress.

Invoking the mantra of fiscal restraint that has dominated House action since lawmakers reconvened last month, Republicans began committee work this week on two bills that would greatly expand restrictions on financing for and access to abortions. Another bill, one that would cut off federal dollars to women’s health care clinics that offer abortions, is expected to surface later this year.

“This House is more pro-life than it’s ever been,” said Representative Joe Pitts, Republican of Pennsylvania and the author of one of the bills to limit money for abortions.

Democrats in both the House and Senate immediately fought back Tuesday, working closely with reproductive rights advocates. They have appropriated the Republican charge from last year that Democrats were working on a liberal policy agenda instead of on job creation and the economy, and turned it on its head.

We’re fortunate that some Democratic office holders are fighting against this religious crusade against American Women.  Others are not as reported here by StarkReports.  Is HR#3 so overreaching that it could end even the watered down abortion rights that we now know in the US?  Will Democrats like Harry Reid be complicit?  The Youtube above and the quote below cover the recent Democratic Press Conference on Republican attempts to control women.  It makes this important point.  Dozens of Democrats will probably join their crazed Republican counterparts to pass this abomination.  There is one thing in particular that I’d like to point out in bold below that will let you know why no woman that respects her own autonomy can vote Republican period.  This should also increase our skepticism of Democrats too.

Since every Representative in the Republican House majority is anti-choice, and since there are probably dozens of anti-choice Democrats that will join them, HR3 will assuredly pass the House.

In the Senate, Harry Reid is anti-choice and has been rolled by Mitch McConnell and the Republicans at every turn. Moreover, procedure in the Senate is much more amenable to minority priorities. Abortion supporters are hopeful, but nobody is saying with any degree of certitude that HR3 will die in the Senate.

With that in mind, I decided to ask the people in the room if they were willing to withhold their support from the President if he signed the bill if it reached his desk. Nadler dodged the question, saying it was premature. I pointed out that there was a reason he called the press conference: that he didn’t wan’t to see this bill become law. He stayed silent on the President.

The Republican party no longer represents a sane alternative to the Democratic Party.  Still, the Democratic Party cannot be trusted to do the right thing by women either.  Women have no choice but to ensure that any one that is willing to sell us out to religious extremists in the Democratic party does not get our vote.  PERIOD.

HR#3 and its counterparts make women second class citizens.  There is no other personal health decision that the government feels the need to make for any man.  This says that the majority of people in Congress and a good deal of them in the Senate do not think we are adult enough to make a ‘moral choice’.  It also continues the special treatment of fetus fetishists to opt out of paying taxes for women’s health while forcing the rest of us to pay for their bridges to no where, their murderous wars, and their religion-based stupidity like ‘abstinence education’.   The rape redefinition trick is still in these bills too.

One bill, the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act,” would eliminate tax breaks for private employers who provide health coverage if their plans offer abortion services, and would forbid women who use a flexible spending plan to use pre-tax dollars for abortions. Those restrictions would go well beyond current law prohibiting the use of federal money for abortion services.

The bill, sponsored by Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, has drawn fire over language that undercuts a longstanding exemption on the ban on using federal money for abortions in the case of rape or incest; the measure narrows the definition of rape to “forcible rape,” a term that his office has never defined. Democratic lawmakers and others repeatedly hammered on the term, saying it suggested that victims of statutory rape and other crimes could not get abortions paid for with federal money.

While Mr. Smith’s staff said last week that the term “forcible rape” would be removed from the bill, the staff of Representative Jerrold Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, said that language remained intact as of Tuesday.

Another bill, sponsored by Mr. Pitts, addresses the health care overhaul head-on by prohibiting Americans who receive insurance through state exchanges from purchasing abortion coverage, even with their own money. The bill is essentially a resurrection of a provision in the House version of the health care law but was not in the Senate version.

The bill would also permit hospitals to refuse abortions to women, even in emergency situations, if such care would offend the conscience of the health care providers.

We now have senators whose narrow religious views will be used to define rape and will allow hospitals to let women die.  Many of you have heard this story before, but my daughter has already experienced some of this conscious clause bullshit during her forth year in Medical School while doing a rotation in Michigan.  A resident left my daughter–not a qualified physician at the time–and a nurse to clean up the remnants of a botched abortion that was rapidly going septic in one woman’s uterus.  That’s right.  This woman was left by a doctor to a fourth year medical student and a nurse as a result of an abortion-gone-wrong.  The doctor basically left her to die.  Thankfully, my daughter was a competent and conscientious caregiver and so was the nurse.  This last bill allows entire hospitals to walk away from dying women.

These bills would go no where with out the duplicity of Democrats like Nebraska’s wacko Senator Ben Nelson.  We need to make it loud and clear that we will not contribute to any mass campaign fund that includes support for people who believe women are not adult enough to make moral decisions for themselves.  You need to make sure that your donations do not go to Democratic Politician’s PACS that can sneak money to these culprits.  Lastly, we need a pledge that pro choice Democrats will not sell out women for any reason.  There needs to be an absolute understanding that these bills will not reach the President’s desk and if they do, the President will not sign them.

Woman’s should not be hung on a cross of bipartisanship or kumbaya centrist compromises.  It’s time to make that very clear. We do not want to return to the days of forced pregnancy or wire hangers. We need to know that we can trust each and every one of them to stand by us before they get any form of support from us.  This includes the President.

Rachel Maddow is on the forefront of this fight.  You can follow her efforts and get more information here at The Maddow Blog. Send letters to your congressman via NARAL.  Support Planned Parenthood here.  Read more Feminist bloggers on this.  We are not alone in our fear and outrage.  Here’s the latest from Shakesville:  ‘Take Your Legislation OFF  Me‘.

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