Trump plans to put the government on a starvation diet! Well, parts of it, those the Republicans and Trump detest. These includes such girly crap as the National Endowments for the Arts and for the Humanities, because only girly people like arts and such. But it also might include the Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women:
The Department of Justice's Office on Violence Against Women oversees a total of 25 grant programs, which distribute funds to organizations committed to ending sexual assault, domestic abuse and dating violence.
Most recently, the office launched a "Safer Families, Safer Communities" site to enforce the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in June that states people convicted of domestic violence can't own firearms. In October, the office awarded $9.85 million in funds to investigate gender bias in policing, and in September, distributed $25 million to addressing campus sexual assault.But the Trump team would like to see the Department of Justice's efforts to tackle some of the most serious issues affecting half of the United States population terminated — all in the name of saving government dollars.
For the sake of honesty, the Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief didn't just come up with this plan on his own: It was already in the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for drowning the government not in the bathtub as Grover Norquist used to threaten, but in a tiny thimble, suitable for very tiny fingers.
So.
Here's where things get very interesting: Putin and Trump are Best Friends Forever and have similar societal blueprints. Last summer Russia finally passed a law banning domestic violence. Before that:
Given that there was no specific law in Russia prohibiting domestic violence, victims who wanted to press charges had to be their own prosecutors. The system for this was so complicated that 90 percent of cases were dismissed for technical reasons. In 2012, NGO and government representatives started drafting the first domestic violence law for Russia. Things were looking good for women in the country of Anna Karenina—until Putin was elected to a third term of presidency, ultra-conservatism gripped the nation, and a complicated grassroots movement called the All-Russia Parents’ Resistance reared its head.
Once praised by Putin as the “true patriots of Russia”, these civil activists “protect” Russian kids from adoption to foreign families and promote family beatings as a cultural tradition. “I think they see the traditional family as a traditionally patriarchal family. What they are mostly implying is that this law takes away the man’s right to control his family members,” Pisklakova says.
But not to worry! The new law may already be ailing:
Women’s rights activists have expressed fury over a legal amendment under consideration in the Russian parliament which, if passed, would decriminalise domestic abuse.The Russian justification is all about traditional values and who gets to beat whom. I think the American justification for killing the Office on Violence Against Women boils down to the same thing.
The amendment would make “moderate” violence within families an administrative rather than criminal offence, punishable by a fine rather than a jail sentence.
Those behind the bill say they believe it supports “traditional values” and stops the state from snooping into family matters.
But activists say it removes protection for the vulnerable, normalising husbands who beat their wives, parents who beat their children, and family members who beat elderly relatives.