This is Funny!

Advice in the case of terrorist attacks. Sort of. Go here.

Lest We Forget...

Or at least lest I forget, here is a reminder that the Bush administration is still a scandalous one as well as full of scandals. Think Progress reports on the large numbers of administration officials which have connections to the outing of a CIA agent.

And yes, indeed, people here in Europe don't understand why Americans elected Georgie Porgie (if he was elected), and people here in Europe also worry about how to talk to Americans now that these appear to be as fundamentalist as the Taliban rather than second cousins once removed. I'm telling them about the Left Behind -series and warning them of the possibility that the American fundies might see Europe as the domain of the devil. Sigh. There was a time when this would have been a not-so-funny joke.

So.....

Via BitchPhD again, I have discovered that NARAL Pro-Choice America has decided to pull their anti-Roberts ad. And now....are we here in the pro-choice community and movement going to keep bickering amongst ourselves about NARAL's tactics, or are we going to get our shit together, and focus our energy and protest on the threat of a Supreme Court Justice John Roberts?! Especially when it comes to protecting our civil rights and liberties such as privacy and a woman's right to choose--both of which Roberts apparently is not a fan. Priorities, people. Which is worse? NARAL doing something we don't like and us attacking each other about it, and splintering as a movement? Or forgetting all about the threat of Roberts on the bench and him even getting there with relative ease because we were too busy quibbling amongst ourselves (and with NARAL) to actually raise a protest against him? It's Roberts who we should be going after relentlessly, not NARAL. Focus. Yes, Roberts will probably make it to the bench...but that doesn't mean we have to make it easy for him.

NARAL's ad, criticisms, FactCheck.org, and irate pro-choice women bloggers

As some of you may have known and even discussed already throughout the blogosphere, NARAL Pro-Choice America recently put out a new ad exposing Roberts' past legal anti-Roe history. He willing sided with violent anti-choice extremists such as Bray who was a convicted clinic bomber--a domestic terrorist (see Bray v. Alexandria and N.O.W. v. Scheidler for more info). Roberts didn't have to represent Bray or anti-choice extremists (who define "pro-life" as bombing clinics, murdering doctors and clinic staff), and go against the attorney generals' decision at the time, but he did so anyway.

Of course, the ad was met with criticism--from the pro-choice community and movement. Many feared that the ad had "untruths" within it and suggested going to FactCheck.org to do an analysis of the ad. (here's their analysis of the ad) Well NARAL did a fact-check of their own and found this... (via BitchPhD.)

On Monday, NARAL Pro-Choice America released our ad "Speaking Out" concerning John Roberts' record of siding with radical anti-choice groups in a critical Supreme Court case. By now you've likely seen an analysis of that ad from FactCheck.org. We wanted to share with you the attached document showing conclusively that their analysis was completely wrong. The basic fact about this case is incontrovertible: In his role as a top legal strategist for the first Bush Administration, Roberts put the U.S. Government on the side of individuals and organizations that had used violent tactics against women's health clinics -- in a case that was critical to efforts to curtail that violence. [...]

Factcheck.orgs analysis of the television advertisement released by NARAL Pro-Choice America on August 8, 2005 is deeply flawed, and its conclusion that the “ad is false” is unsubstantiated and should be retracted. The analysis, written by Matthew Barge, identified as a recent college graduate(1), is riddled with legal and factual errors and in many instances virtually mirrors the White House’s talking points[...];....The ad is not “false.” John Roberts did indeed file briefs supporting violent fringe groups, with the effect of excusing their actions by helping to remove a crucial legal remedy that had been the most effective tool against them.[...]

Factcheck.org Makes Factual Misstatement About “Clinic Bomber” Statement in Ad: Factcheck.org asserts that ad is false in part because Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic “didn’t deal with bombing at all.” However, NARAL Pro-Choice America’s ad never claimed that it did. What the ad did claim – and what is in fact true – is that John Roberts “sided with violent fringe groups, including a convicted clinic bomber.” Long before Roberts involved himself in the case, Michael Bray, one of the named defendants in the Bray case, was convicted for his role in the bombings of several reproductive health facilities(2). John Roberts did, therefore, side with a convicted clinic bomber. He also sided with a violent fringe group - the violent history of Operation Rescue is well known.

Factcheck.org Falsely Suggests that Roberts Did Not Support Bray Defendants: In a puzzling statement, factcheck.org states that “the ad misleads when it says Roberts supported a clinic bomber. It is true that Roberts sided with the bomber...” Mr. Barge further states that Roberts merely “made the same arguments as” the defendants. However, there is no question that Roberts sided with convicted bomber Michael Bray and the other defendants, and, in doing so, Roberts supported those defendants....The filing of an amicus brief is a discretionary act, and the office of the Solicitor General enjoys wide latitude in deciding whether to intervene as an amicus in any particular case. If the Solicitor General’s office did not intend to support the Bray defendants, the office could have chosen to intervene on the side of the reproductive health clinics or not to intervene in the case at all.[...]

Factcheck.org Makes Factual Misstatement About Roberts’ Legal Argument: It is worth noting that even factcheck.org’s legal description of the brief Roberts filed in the Bray case is not accurate. Mr. Barge states that Roberts argued that the act at issue in the case “applied only to conspiracies to deprive people of civil rights due to racial discrimination, not gender discrimination.” In fact, that was not Roberts’ position. Roberts actually argued that, regardless of whether gender discrimination was covered by the act at issue in the case, the clinic blockades were not gender discrimination at all. The brief states that the question of whether gender discrimination was actionable under the law was one that there was “no need to answer” in this case(4). The brief further adds that, even if the act at issue was “broad enough to reach gender-based animus, the actions taken by the petitioners are not a form of gender-based discrimination(5).”[...]

Factcheck.org Minimizes Operation Rescue’s Lawlessness: Factcheck.org paints a grossly misleading picture of the nature of Operation Rescue “protestors.” At the time of Bray, reproductive health clinics were under siege by anti-choice extremists. In many cases, state law enforcement was outnumbered, overpowered, and overwhelmed, despite their best efforts. For example, in their amicus brief in Bray, the State Attorneys General of Virginia and New York pleaded to the Supreme Court to make federal civil rights laws and remedies available to reproductive health clinics and other victims of Operation Rescue’s lawlessness. They insisted that “[n]o state, or group of states, is equipped alone to deal with and redress the deprivations of federal rights caused by the nationwide activity of Operation Rescue(7).”[...]

Factcheck.org Is Profoundly Misguided To State That Operation Rescue’s Behavior Is Akin to the Civil Rights Movement: Mr. Barge states that Operation Rescue’s actions “in some ways mirrored the non-violent tactics used earlier by civil-rights activists.” This restatement of anti-choice extremists’ talking points is clearly untrue. As Justice Stevens wrote in Bray, “the demonstrations in the 1960's were motivated by a desire to extend the equal protection of the laws to all classes – not to impose burdens on any disadvantaged class...Justice Stevens also noted that Bray “presents a striking contemporary example of the kind of zealous, politically motivated, lawless conduct that led to the enactment of the Ku Klux Act in 1871 and gave it its name(11).” [...]

(2) Bray was convicted of two counts of conspiracy and one count of possessing unregistered explosive devices. The court sentenced him to 10 years in prison and ordered him to pay restitution in the amount of $43,782. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned his conviction on a technicality relating to jury selection. Before he was retried, Bray entered a plea that resulted in him serving 46 months in prison.[...]

(read the rest at BitchPhD to see the resources cited by NARAL as they refuted FC.org and also see Scott Lemieux's post about the NARAL ad)

Forty-six months for bombing clinics--a terrorist gets only forty-six months. Had he'd been a member of Al Qaeda or some other extremist from the Middle East.....well, it doesn't even need to be mentioned, we know what would have happen to him. So FactCheck.org, I will agree, needs some fact-checking of its own. And we here in the pro-choice movement need to stop quibbling over a flawed analysis of serious legal briefings in our nation's highest court. We need to focus on Roberts and his ties to violent anti-choice extremists he willing defended, though he didn't have to. By fracturing ourselves over "what this person said and this person said" gossip over a not-so-credible-after-all source on the net, we are loosing focus of our main objective which is bringing to light and into the eye of the public, Roberts' legal and ideological alliances with violent anti-choice terrorists. He did not have to defend them, but he did anyway. This is what the anti-choicers want--for us to loose our shit over what a not-all-that-credible source on the net wrote-up, so we'll forget about Roberts and what was our goal to begin with. Divide and conquer--it actually works.

Anyway, there was also criticism of NARAL's past endorsements of pro-choice Republican candidates, who vote against choice when they're in office. I will admit, that yes, these are valid criticisms, as one who values a woman's right to choose--her right to be an autonomous human being--cannot always trust nor expect the Republicans once they are in power, to keep their end of the bargain should they say at least during their campaign that they are pro-choice. When more than likely, they will cave-in to the majority vote of their party which usually leads them to be ardently anti-women's-reproductive-rights. So yes, NARAL should stop endorsing pro-choice Republicans until it is proven from the voting and legal records of these "pro-choice Republicans" that they are bona fide pro-choicers who would actually vote against the majority vote of the [anti-choice] Republicans, and are not just bullshitting us to get our vote. NARAL has made errors in their strategy and hopefully they will do all within their power to fix them. If not, then yes, we should voice our criticisms of their tactics to them.

And now what you all have been waiting for--the dismissive, obviously sexist quips from so called "A-list" male bloggers such as the DailyKos, whom I have dubbed to be Frat-Boy-Lefty-Bloggers. There, I said it. Predictably they have been dismissing pro-choicers, women, and--duh--feminist bloggers who object to their "shut-up and listen here girlies, we can't deal with your girly pet causes right now, the big men are trying to deal with important shit right now" line of rhetoric and approach to the whole Roberts issue and the Democrat Party's platform. In this post over at the DailyKos, they attack NARAL's call to "A-list" left-leaning blogs to speak up about pro-choice issues and join the fight against Roberts. Because you know, that's what we're supposed to do since we're progressive and all that (or at least we say we are). But apparently, not so, in the "A-list" male corner of the progressive, lefty-blogosphere. Standing against a man who voluntarily represented anti-choice terrorists--because his anti-choice ideological sentiments are that strong and would compel him to do so--"aren't important enough." Instead, it's all about their Machiavellian strategy to get back at the Republicans, while disparaging and shooting-down their fellow pro-choice, liberal women, and feminist bloggers in general in the process. Hence why it is Machiavellian--"the ends justify the means"....they wish. Apparently, for so called "A-list" lefty male bloggers, telling pro-choicers--especially feminist women bloggers--to shut-up and let the big boys take care of everything, will make everything "a-okay" in the end. Rolling over on Roberts' confirmation, glossing over his past legal history and his strong ideological sentiments that would voluntarily drive him to defend anti-choice terrorists, and buying into the Rightwing's b.s. that he is a "moderate" will make everything "okay" for us in the end. [raises hand] Um, bullshit?! I'm just sayin'.

Here's Feministing's response to this.....

KosÂ’ post revealed a lot more than his feelings on NARAL; it made clear how he feels about womenÂ’s rights in general.

You know, nothing says they have to endorse an anti-abortion Democrat, but clearly they don't understand that good politics -- turning the Senate Democratic is far more beneficial for their issue (women rights) than anything the Republicans can muster.
Until NARAL (and the rest of the single-issue groups) understand that building a movement is more beneficial to their causes than singular devotion to their pet causes, I can't take them seriously.

Kos goes on to say that the groups he does take seriously are those “working to build an effective progressive movement, not a single issue.”

ItÂ’s bad enough to peg choice as a mere single issue, but womenÂ’s rights as a whole? Maybe itÂ’s just me, but I donÂ’t see how a progressive movement will be effective without addressing womenÂ’s rights.

But this kind of dismissive attitude isnÂ’t exactly new. It reeks of the New LeftÂ’s sexism that in part sparked the second wave.

Susan Brownmiller in In Our Time tells of a pivotal moment in the beginning of the womenÂ’s movement that occurred in the 1968 National Convention for New Politics. Jo Freeman and Shulamith Firestone had drafted a resolution on women, which was to be met with an all-too familiar pooh-poohing:

Back at the main session, Jo ran down the aisles handing out copies of the resolution while Shulie charged to the podium. “Cool down, little girl,” the session chairman told her. “We have more important things to talk about than women’s problems.”

Brownmiller also discusses the reaction of her male counterparts after women marched in an anti-war demonstration with a float dedicated to womenÂ’s rights:

The peace activists were appalled...Stopping the Vietnam War was the priority was still the chief priority, wasnÂ’t it? [This] action, they howled, was petty, disloyal, divisive.

Sound familiar?

Yes. But then again, what's the fight for preserving women's rights without some bashing from so called "liberal" and "progressive" male bloggers? (also see this other Feministing post, dealing with the same issue with Kos's response to NARAL and pro-choice, women bloggers). This fight against Roberts and unfortunately ourselves will be nasty, vicious, yet passionate as this fight deals with our--women's--fundamental right to control our body, and demand that our leaders, the Democrats--the people we voted for who are supposed to promote and ensure our rights and liberties--do their damn job to protect us from people such as Roberts and his ilk.

And remember, stop relying and hoping that the Frat-Boy-Lefty male bloggers will take our rights seriously, gals. It's up to us, not them. Let them play their little game of getting back at the Republicans via petty and shameless means in order to do so, by screwing over and shitting all over their fellow lefty-bloggers (just like the Democrats screwing over their voting-base) in the process, and we'll take care of business. Focus on Roberts and bringing a woman's right to choose and women's rights back to the forefront of this struggle. This is about our rights. But then again, I'm just a college-sophomore and some hysterical pro-choice feminist blogger--what do I know about politics? I'm probably just as bad (or worse than) as that recent college-grad over at FactCheck.org, so I have no room to talk. But I don't work on a site called FactCheck.org either and claim that I never make mistakes--I make mistakes all the time.

Lastly from Culture Kitchen, I leave you with this....

(1) People on your side are attacking this ad. What do you say about that?

(2) Is this the battle to invest in?

This is the swing vote. This is what shifts the court to the right. We could lose Rowe with this vote. This one is important.

"It is factual and it is tough".

There are consequences to the decision in Bray, that's why they are attacking Robets. A rash of violence has come about after Bray.

Roberts sided with the extremists and took away the tools law enforcement had to prevent these attacks to happen.

This is Sandra Day O'Connor'sseat and that is why this court appointment is about choice.

The fact of these organizations have our issues that we have to keep on the table. My job is to argue for women and their right to choose. The criticism is because we have affiliates over the states. You have to talk to the people on the ground and you have to take your criticism to them. We deal with candidates on the national level. Not an excuse just merely a reality. This is the deal it is us and it is them.

Vicky Suporter, President of the National Abortion Federation
procho

Alice Cohen, Political Director of the feminist majority

Nancy Keenan, President of NARAL

This is coming from top male bloggers.
Do not rely on frat boys.
Markos says it is a women's issue organization.

This guy defended terrorist.
The majority of Americans support choice.
Anti-abortion is not the same as anti-choice.

This is not just about Roberts, this is about bringing choice back on the table on the political landscape.

A good strategy would be to push for state rights campaigns.

If we work from the POV that Roberts will get the nomination, what do we want?

IRONCLAD PARTY DISCIPLINE! Vote against him, make sure you express clearly how it is imperative to uphold the constitutional right to privacy as the foundation of choice, not just in relation to reproductive rights, but in relations to choose how we live, love, procreate and even die.

It was fun, gals ;-)

What Do Men Want?

I've been reading women's magazines, again. They are interesting. Like messages from another reality. This time I read a long piece on what men want from women, with interviews of ten such men. Three of them wanted women to subjugate themselves to them, the rest wanted stuff like honesty and friendliness and so on.

What struck me about the whole piece was how preposterous it is to ask a question like this: What do men want from women?, when the answers are about what a particular man wants from a particular woman; the one he is paired with. The majority of this planet's people are women, and most of them are of no particular interest to any one man. Why, then, do we frame the question in such a generalizing and even sexist manner? The same applies to the stories which ask what women want from men. Though I don't ever remember reading the answers to this one. Funny, given that this particular article about men's desires began by stating that we all know what women want from men.

I have no idea what that might be, though I know that I want my physician (who happens to be a man) to apply medicine correctly, and I want the plumber to fix the sink and so on. Adulation is always welcome, naturally, but then that is what goddesses are meant for.

In any case, stories about what men want from women must sell women's magazines, as the one I read wasn't the only one I came across. But why would such stories sell? Is it just curiosity about other people? Or are the readers looking for some miracle formula, something that would make any relationship with the other sex perfect?

If so, they will be disappointed. Reality is complex and there are no guarantees.

Well maybe the Democrats should stop screwing-over women and pro-choice activists

The Democrats have been a damn shame to us as of late--not that you haven't noticed. And so have so called "A-list" predominately [frat-boyish] male-run liberal blogs such as the DailyKos (remember the sexist pie-wrestling episode with them?). Though these liberal blogs criticize the Dems for being the cop-outs that they have been recently, these liberal blogs have been acting like the Democrats in their own way without even knowing it. Case in point; the Democrats screwing over reproductive rights advocate groups and pro-choice voters. These liberal blogs, like the Democrats, have been treating women's reproductive rights like an easily discarded non-issue--and just flat out treating the women who vote for them or run as their candidates like easily ignored and brushed-off "pests". Sure, we hear all kinds of talk of Senator Hillary Rodham-Clinton being nominated in 2008, but do you think with the way the Democrats have been acting recently, trying desperately to woo ultra-conservative voters while screwing their original voting-base in the process, that they would really back her in 2008? For the Democrats it's all about mimicking the neocon-Republicans--to hell with their voting base, right? Now back to the liberal blogs who keep telling pro-choicers (female and male), feminists, or specifically women in general that abortion "gets in the way" and "women just need to compromise abortion-rights for the greater-good of the Democrats winning again," along with telling pro-choicers to "stop declaring war on left-leaning blogs,"well Feministing has this in response to them...

DailyKos has taken issue with this post on BushvChoice, which called on pro-choicers to make their presence known in the comments threads of the major liberal blogs.

As Kos seemed to read it, the post was declaring war on lefty bloggers and, by proxy, the Democratic party. Not so. It was simply calling on pro-choicers to speak up.

Why is it so hard for the heavyweights of the liberal blogosphere to understand that, for many of us, choice is not something that "gets in the way" of more important Democratic party platform issues. It is the number one issue.

Sure, the Democrats are better than the Republicans on choice. But when Howard Dean is snuggled up with Democrats for Life and the party backs an anti-choice minority leader, forgive me if I'm not swooning in adoration.

I definitely don't think that NARAL should not be endorsing pro-choice Republicans who are running against pro-choice Democrats. Their strategy should also be focused on holding pro-choice Republicans (and Democrats) to their word. If Lincoln Chafee votes the wrong way, NARAL needs to pull their support. And be vocal about it.

But the underlying problem here is not NARAL endorsing pro-choice Republicans. The problem is the Democratic party's creep toward the center on reproductive rights. If Democrats want the support of the pro-choice movement, they have to earn it.

That forming a whole new party idea is really starting to look good right about now, with all of this disillusionment with the current Democrats. And we pro-choice and feminist bloggers have our own outlets in the blogosphere should the so called heavyweight liberal blogs keep failing us. Besides, I never expected frat-boyish "lefty" bloggers to take women's reproductive rights--or women's rights, period--seriously anyway. [/rant]

Simon Baron-Cohen

has written an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times. Baron-Cohen is one of those borderline weirdos in science, the ones who use various evolutionary psychology theories to explain why men are on top and why women are subjugated. I even bought his book The Essential Difference: The Truth About the Male and Female Brain.

It is a very bad book, by the way. I have a wonderfully scathing review of it on the Amazon if they haven't taken it off yet, but sadly I can't access my notes from where I am now. But in any case the book is pure crap. It has two long chapters about Mr. Baron-Cohen's fairy tales on the prehistoric era when women were housewives and men read maps to find out where the dinosaurs were hiding. Or something not much different from that one.

Baron-Cohen's main idea is that there is an extreme male brain, all about logic and systematizing, and an extreme female brain, all about emotions. He believes that autistic children have the extreme male brain, and he is sure that we will one day find the extreme female brain, and when we do, we will also find that it is favored over the extreme male brain. So you see what Mr. Baron-Cohen aims at and how unbiased his research is.

He gets into a bit of a muddle because men refuse to have the male brain enough and women refuse to have the female brain enough, so he has to rig things a little to improve the outcomes. This is evident from the appendix to the book which contains a test you, the reader, can take, to determine how innately systematizing and male your brain is or how innately emphatizing and female it might be. Now, I scored very male on this test, because I knew what the researcher was aiming at.

To give you an idea of how the results can be rigged, consider these questions included in the test bank:
Do you know how to fix electrical problems in your house?
When you see a piece of furniture, are you interested in how it is made?
Do you like collecting rare coins or stamps?

All of these questions are intended to measure innate maleness! Too bad that the first question has an answer which changed for me a few years ago when I learned how to fix electricity. I guess I grew more male. Too bad that the second question might have quite a different answer if it was about a dress and the details of its construction, and too bad that collecting Barbie dolls or teapots was not used for the third question. In sum, all these questions are rigged to go with the societal gender expectations, and many other questions had similar problems.

Mr. Baron-Cohen is not interesting, and his science is poorly done. That he gets so much exposure for something so weak is somewhat interesting, or would be if I didn't already know the exact reason for the publicity.

Still in Europe

I'm still on vacation. Until the eighteenth, that is. And I'm still on the other side of the pond. Hence the scarcity of posts. I'm not even following politics very much right now, although politics are everywhere, of course, and can't really be avoided. But I'm pretending that I'm an apolitical Canadian goddess only interested in museums and cappuccino bars and good bargains in touristy crap.

The time is not wasted. I have found new types of chocolate (the bliss!) and new germs of ideas for this blog. Or maybe seeds would be a better word than germs; germs sound too unhygienic. Whatever they are, I'm bringing them home with me, together with the chocolate and the china and the metal shelf for my microwave and the clothing and the jewelry and...

It's All the Fault of Boston

At least according to Ricky Dick Santorum. He has decided that the pederasty scandal in the Catholic church has something to do with baked beans and cod and the Hub of the World. Well, I don't think Ricky Dick is ever right about anything, but it's certainly true that there is a pederasty scandal in the Catholic church. If you are interested in following it in more detail, check out Bobo's World.

Saturday Backwards Dog Blogging

Via Planned Parenthood

Just the predictable, arrogant refusals of Bush Administration--which we can always count on happening--when it comes to releasing important information to the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning a judicial nominee's past records. True, we already know a great deal about Roberts' anti-Roe legal history, still, it is important for the Senate Judiciary Committee to know as much as possible when it comes to any nominee's past, especially when they have questionable ties to extremist groups such as violently anti-choice Operation Rescue. (as I said, via Planned Parenthood)

New York, NY Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) today expressed outrage at the Bush administration's refusal to provide documents requested by Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee, related to Judge John Roberts's time in the Office of the Solicitor General.

"This is an outrageous decision and one that raises the question, what are they trying to hide?" said Karen Pearl, PPFA interim president...

What's there to hide? Probably the proverbial skeleton in Roberts' closet that could possibly ruin his chances of being confirmed by the committee, and the administration doesn't want them, or even us, to find out about it. Or perhaps there is nothing more to Roberts than we already know, and the administration is just being arrogant and stubborn as usual, as a part of their "we're presidential damn it, we don't have to answer to you, we have a mandate" sense of entitlement.

..."Vetting life-time appointments to the nation's highest court is a critical Senate duty, and the Bush administration is impeding the nomination process by denying access to crucial information. The American people deserve to know where Judge Roberts stands on critical issues and the Senate cannot confirm him without full access to his records, especially on important matters including women's health and safety and Americans' privacy rights."[...]

As if women's health and privacy rights were on this administration priority list, or even apart of their political ideology. Ahem, some cases in point; the Patriot Act, Bush's "Partial Birth Abortion Ban"--which is merely subterfuge for slowly but surely rolling back women's reproductive rights, his administration's Global Gag Rule, and him nominating anti-choice lapdogs such as Lester Crawford to head the FDA. And do remember that the Bush Administration isn't answerable to anyone because of Dubya's "mandate" and sense of entitlement. (rolls eyes) Now for the other P.P. story, another example of Republicans shamelessly using the tragic events of September 11 to justify any outrageous ad hominem comment and remark towards a group of people. In this case, Karen Hughes to pro-choice activists.

Karen Hughes, a former political advisor to President Bush, was recently confirmed as the State Department's top public relations official.[...]

In a stunning breach of diplomacy last year, Hughes made headlines when she compared the million pro-choice activists who attended the March for Women's Lives to the September 11 terrorists.

When asked about abortion rights the day of the march, Hughes told CNN's Wolf Blitzer, "I think after September 11, the American people are valuing life more ... and I think those are the kind of policies the American people can support, particularly at a time when we're facing an enemy, and really, the fundamental difference between us and the terror network we fight is that we value every life."

This inappropriate and insensitive use of the September 11 tragedy was particularly outrageous given that millions of women and men had traveled to Washington to march precisely because they value life.

In fact, the lives of women everywhere are threatened daily by policies instituted by the Bush administration.

Improving the U.S. image will be a challenge for Hughes, in part because of the administration's anti-choice foreign policies. These include but are not limited to

--imposing the global gag rule

--defunding UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund

--promoting "abstinence-only until marriage" policies as HIV-prevention

--attempting to break global consensus on reproductive health and rights at the United Nations

Despite requests from pro-choice activists and members of Congress, Hughes never apologized for her comments attacking pro-choice marchers. This does not augur well for her new career as a diplomat.

Oh of course it does! Look at Bolton, Santorum, Cheney, Rove, and Congressional necon-Republicans who do and say outrageous, flippant, and offensive things all the time. No one, when it comes to this particular brand of Republican, is responsible, nor held culpable for their words or actions. She'll do just fine...

Friday Dog Blogging

This is Hank pretending she's a sea monster coming to get you





Henrietta and Hank on vacation

What's The Difference Between Bill O'Reilly and the Terrorists?

According to Think Progress, perhaps not very much. This is what O'Reilly said about the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay:

O’REILLY: I don’t give them any protection. I don’t feel sorry for them. In fact, I probably would have ordered their execution if I had the power.

Sounds like something bin Laden would say about us: kill 'em all and let god sort them out later.

Family Values

The United States is the promised land of family values, don't you think? The wingnuts in power tell us almost every day how very much they are for family values, which consist of an intense hatred of egalitarian family structures, birth control, employed women and same-sex marriages. Funny how all these values come across as hatred and anger...

While writing this I am watching a busy street somewhere in Europe. It ends in a park, and all day long whole families, dads with children, moms with children, dads with babies and moms with babies walk or bike by on their way to the park. This looks like family values to me, and what has made it possible is the social welfare system of most European countries: long vacations, good parental leave, restrictions on overtime and so on.

These are all things that the wingnuts oppose. They also oppose environmental protection, even though that would keep children healthy, and work safety regulations, even though those could keep the parents of children healthy and alive. They oppose limitations to the amount of overtime firms can demand from workers, even though overtime means that a parent might never be at home when the children are awake. They oppose subsidized daycare, even if this means that the children of the poor are unsupervised during the day. In fact, the wingnuts oppose everything that makes family values more than just talk.

The real definition of the extreme right's family values is that they are corporate values, with some scraps of fundamentalist misogyny thrown in. The true beneficiaries of all this values talk are corporations: workers are viewed as machines which can be operated almost without time limit, and which are serviced, for free, by their family units. When the workers break or become obsolete they are simply discarded. We are not quite there yet, but we are getting closer. No benefits for the poorer workers and unlimited working hours for the better paid ones. No allowance for the fact that workers have families, children and the elderly, that need care. This care should be provided by the stay-at-home women of the wingnut ideal, without pay, training for re-entry into the labor force or retirement benefits. These are not my family values, and I suspect that they are not yours, either.

But we can't afford to have parental leave or vacations or workplace security, some mutter. Well, we can afford a very expensive war in Iraq, and we can afford corporate welfare subsidies to firms such as Haliburton. It is not a question of real budget constraints as much as of a lack of any real intent to make family life easier.

One reason for this lack of real intent is the lone cowboy myth of Americans, the idea that each and every one of us can, alone and without help, manage and thrive; that rules, regulations and governmental funding are wasteful and even harmful. The problem with this myth is that it was never true, the lone cowboys never conquered the west. It was the government with its railway projects and its military that did the conquering, and even today none of us can get from cradle to grave wholly unassisted.

The lone cowboy myth is especially warped when it is applied to families with small children. But it serves its purpose by letting some pretend that their unwillingness to spend money on families is ethically justified.

I wish the liberals and progressives spoke up more about these false family values of the right. I wish they pointed out how our public places are not designed for families, how our jobs are hostile to parents and how the gradual fraying of all safety nets endangers families with children. If they did I might not have to go to Europe to see whole families enjoying themselves everywhere.

A bully for the United Nations indeed

In a typical "f-you" move by Bush to so called "obstructionist" Congressional Democrats, the President plans to push John "screw the U.N." Bolton through the appointment process during Capitol Hill's recess, as his own version of the "nuclear option". (via Salon.com)

With Capitol Hill freshly vacated, Bush installed U.N.-hating John Bolton as ambassador to the U.N. [...]

....so perhaps it is entirely appropriate that George W. Bush has gone for the nuclear option and dropped John Bolton on the United Nations in New York. Bolton's diplomatic talents are such that he could start a shouting match in a Trappist monastery.[...]

President Bush tried to justify the recess appointment by the urgent need to have a permanent representative in place at the United Nations for another 60th anniversary -- the summit to commemorate the founding of the international governing institution in 1945....His like-minded colleagues in Congress, like Henry Hyde and Norm Coleman, are already trying to bilk the U.N. of half the dues the United States owes. Out of loyalty to the White House, Bolton has not publicly supported the call, but he has hardly repudiated it either, since it is in line with his lifetime's prejudices.[...]

...The Democrats in the Senate have been raising serious and substantial questions about Bolton's behavior and suitability for the job -- and it is in fact the administration that has been stalling, refusing to release information that, one can only assume, is damning for Bolton, for instance, about his rough ways with anyone who disagrees with his idiosyncratic views of the world.

There is credible evidence that he has commissioned intelligence reports on people in the State Department, and indeed he seems to have at least been in the vicinity of the Valerie Plame leak. In 2003, the State Department's inspector general questioned Bolton as part of an investigation into the Niger-uranium controversy that led to Plame's outing -- a fact that Bolton conveniently "forgot" when he came before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee earlier this year. [...]

[...]Bolton's distaste for the U.N. has been ominously revealed by recent reports and allegations from insiders at the State Department. Under Democrats, U.N. ambassadors, such as Madeleine Albright, have been included in the Cabinet, while Republicans have traditionally downgraded the position. Even so, equipped as they were with large premises in New York, previous U.S. envoys to the U.N. have only had a small suite in the State Department. Bolton clearly has no intention of being downgraded and has been lobbying for much larger offices at State, since he intends to spend a lot more time in Washington than previous incumbents, away from all those foreigners, one presumes. The expanded State Department office, and the extra time Bolton spends in Washington, will not be spent representing the best interests of the United Nations to the administration.[...]

And after sending this guy off to the United Nations, even with his track record and "scew you, world community" attitude, and the reaction it will receive from other nations, I'm sure there will still be naive Americans saying, "why do they hate us so much?" Well little Billy, it's because our government sends off people like Bolton to be our country's representative to the international community. It's just really, really bad p.r. for the rest of us in the end. But hey, that's the Bush Administration and it's doctrine for yah.

Shorter Bush: "It's 'War on Terror' damn it!"

I love the schizoid, pseudo-Newspeak, and even doublespeak (sorry for the whoring, Orwell) behavior of this administration. There's also their "deny, deny, deny" attitude towards every that comes up and calls into question their credibility as a government officials. And their desperation to promote their doctrine through cowboy-ish propaganda is blatantly evident. For example; how to phrase the President's unpopular doctrine when it comes to terrorism and war. We've heard "war on terror," which was then re-phrased to "the global struggle against violent extremism" according to his advisors and members of the military. However, Pres. Dubya Bush, recently re-re-phrased the uh, well whatever you want to call he's doing and promoting overseas, back to "the war on terror" according to this New York Times article...

GRAPEVINE, Tex., Aug. 3 - President Bush publicly overruled some of his top advisers on Wednesday in a debate about what to call the conflict with Islamic extremists, saying, "Make no mistake about it, we are at war."

In a speech here, Mr. Bush used the phrase "war on terror" no less than five times. Not once did he refer to the "global struggle against violent extremism," the wording consciously adopted by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials in recent weeks after internal deliberations about the best way to communicate how the United States views the challenge it is facing.

In recent public appearances, Mr. Rumsfeld and senior military officers have avoided formulations using the word "war," and some of Mr. Bush's top advisers have suggested that the administration wanted to jettison what had been its semiofficial wording of choice, "the global war on terror."

In an interview last week about the new wording, Stephen J. Hadley, Mr. Bush's national security adviser, said that the conflict was "more than just a military war on terror" and that the United States needed to counter "the gloomy vision" of the extremists and "offer a positive alternative."

So this is all about making war, war, and more war, promoted by Bush, appear to be "less gloomy." Oh well brilliant. And we all know how much success we've had in Iraq, stopping terrorists from attacking, and defeating the insurgents with this kind of policy. ::rolls eyes::

But administration officials became concerned when some news reports linked the change in language to signals of a shift in policy. At the same time, Mr. Bush, by some accounts, told aides that he was not happy with the new phrasing, a change of tone from the wording he had consistently used since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

[...]"We're at war with an enemy that attacked us on Sept. 11, 2001," Mr. Bush said in his address here, to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a group of state legislators. "We're at war against an enemy that, since that day, has continued to kill."

In short, if you want to get people on your side and make them unquestioning about your policies, just guilt-trip about the tragic events of September 11. Way to shamelessly exploit a horrible tragedy and thousands of murdered people.

Mr. Bush made a nod to the criticism that "war on terror" was a misleading phrase in the sense that the enemy is not terrorism, but those who used it to achieve their goals. In doing so, he used the word "war," as he did at least 13 other times in his 47-minute speech, most of which was about domestic policy.

"Make no mistake about it, this is a war against people who profess an ideology, and they use terror as a means to achieve their objectives," he said.

Gen. Richard B. Myers of the Air Force, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said on July 18 in an address to the National Press Club that he had "objected to the use of the term 'war on terrorism' before, because if you call it a war, then you think of people in uniform as being the solution."[...]

"Some ask, are we still engaged in a war on terror?" Mr. Rumsfeld said. "Let there be no mistake about it. It's a war. The president properly termed it that after Sept. 11. The only way to defend against terrorism is to go on the attack."[...]

In introducing the new language, administration officials had suggested that the change reflected an evolution in the president's thinking nearly four years after the Sept. 11 attacks and had been adopted after discussions among Mr. Bush's senior advisers that began in January.

The new slogan quickly become grist for late-night comics and drew news coverage that linked it with the emergence of a broad new approach to defining and attacking the problem of Islamic extremism through diplomacy and efforts to build closer ties to moderate Muslims, as well as through military action.[...]

I do hope that the people working over at the Ministry of Tru--er uh, the Bush Administration can get their "phraseology" straighten out, because all of these schizoid changes to their propaganda are starting to confuse me....and make all of their endeavors to put a "positive look" on the war in Iraq and Bush's Texas Ranger doctrine look even more desperate.

Answer Him

Roll up your collective sleeves. We have a job to do.
---
Via Pseudo-Adrienne

No Comment...

Our dear spiritual and ethical leader, Senator Rick (the Dick) Santorum from Pennsylvania (what's wrong with Pennsylvanians, for goddess's sake?) has uttered another piece of pure santorum: Birth control harms women. Besides, it is selfish and bad for the country to prevent births.

I was kidding about the title. No way could I abstain from commenting on this. Birth control may well harm women, but pregnancies and giving birth are much more dangerous. Whether having children or not having children is selfish surely depends on the motives the person has. I can see arguments going in both directions. And to say that having more children would be good for the country assumes that there is no problem with overpopulation, that other species don't need to exist, that it's a desirable thing to have many more high-consumption children in the world, and that short-term problems (such as funding retirement for the large age groups) are more urgent than the long-term future of our planet.

More importantly, what makes Santorum think that he is an expert in the proper running of women's private lives, that he can interfere with one of the most earth-shattering decisions of couples? Where is his empathy and compassion and the love of ones neighbor the Bible talks about?

I am writing too much on this silly twit. But he should be in the twitland, not in the U.S. Senate, and until he is returned to his proper place I find it very hard to abstain.

Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic...and Roberts

Everyone by now has been briefed on the gist on Roberts past anti-Roe legal history. He argued on the behalf of anti-abortion protesters many times. But in one case in particular, Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, Roberts argued on the behalf of Operation Rescue, who claimed within their defense that they "weren't opposed to women, but were opposed to abortion". Riiight, it's never about the women. (via Planned Parenthood)

In 1993 the U.S. Supreme Court heard Bray v. Alexandria Women's Health Clinic, a case in which anti-abortion protesters, including the leadership of the extremist group Operation Rescue (OR), challenged an injunction against their activities, which included blocking access to health care facilities in the Washington, DC, area.[...]

The injunction being challenged by anti-abortion extremists was based on an 1871 civil rights statute that provided protection against private conspiracies, such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) preventing blacks from exercising their new-found freedoms. Applying the KKK Act to anti-abortion violence was a perfect match. It helped cast OR and other such groups in the same mold as the KKK, the difference being that in this case it was women who were being prevented from exercising a relatively new freedom.

But there were problems. Earlier Supreme Court cases had held that that for the KKK Act to apply outside the context of race, there had to be evidence of an "invidious, class-based animus" by the perpetrators against the victims. In this case the perpetrators were OR and similar groups, and the victims were women seeking abortions, as well as the clinics and their staffs. The central legal question became: Are these extremist anti-abortion groups acting with an "invidious, class-based animus" against women when they block clinics or is their animus directed just at abortion and not at women?

At the time that Bray was being heard by the Supreme Court, there was an epidemic of blockades and attacks on abortion clinics. Yet the United States filed an amicus ("friend of the court") brief on the side of the extremists, arguing that the KKK Act should not apply to them because the protesters were opposed to abortion, not to women. The court agreed.

Really? Who else can become pregnant and choose to have an abortion? Who are the people deciding that they don't want to be pregnant anymore? Who are the people wanting to enter the clinic and obtain its services? Who are the people entering these clinics who are specifically demonized and slandered with hateful slurs such as "whore--who is bound for Hell", "babykilling bitch", "sinful slut who should have kept her damn legs closed," by these anti-choice extremists? Who are the people who these extremist scream and threaten as they leave clinics? Yes, that's right. There is no misogyny with these "pro-lifers". They love women. *cough*And controlling, terrorizing, and shaming them too!*cough* In fact it's never about hurting the women--it's about protecting the babies. (and I suppose protecting women from themselves, because women just don't know any better about their own bodies and their own lives) Besides, once a woman becomes pregnant what's the point of even recognizing her as a human being deserving of any civil rights and liberties--or any respectful attention for that matter? But if a woman deviates from the "pro-life" paradigm that pregnancy is something that women should go through and enjoy no matter what......then we finally acknowledge her existence, and damn her for her "slutty, babykilling" deviation.

[...]The case was argued twice. John Roberts argued it the first time. Deciding not to distance the government from the conduct of the extremist groups would have been well within Roberts' purview.[...]

As if Roberts' past legal activities couldn't get even more disturbing. The U.S. filing an amicus on behalf of the anti-choice extremists definitely reminds us where our government stands when it comes to women's right to autonomy, and their right to be protected from these terrorists. Very unsettling. And I suppose if a KKK member bombs an African-American Church, it's not because they're against African-Americans, instead it's because they're against Black Churches, right?

Just some recent government and legal happenings via the ACLU

Without any debate or vote, the Senate passed legislation to reauthorize the Patriot Act--a version that was "mindful of the Bill of Rights," according to the ACLU.

WASHINGTON - Following the Senate passage of legislation to reauthorize the Patriot Act -- without floor debate -- the American Civil Liberties Union today called the bill a step in the right direction, but lacking in full protections for the civil liberties and civil rights of all Americans. The measure was adopted by unanimous consent - a procedural move that means no vote was taken, and no debate was held.

The Senate Judiciary Committee previously approved the bill.

[...]Although the ACLU was unable to endorse the final bill, it contains some provisions mindful of the Bill of Rights, and does not include such broad and unnecessary powers like administrative subpoenas.

"It would appear that the voices of millions of Americans were heard by the Senate. Nearly 400 communities around the country have passed resolutions calling for the Patriot Act to be brought in line with the constitution by restoring proper checks and balances. As the House and Senate bills go to conference, we urge lawmakers to use the Senate bill as a guide to heed this call for freedom."

It's nice to know that sometimes even our members of Congress do listen to us, even after we put them in office. I hope that this is the sign of the end of the "if you disagree with 'x' or want to change it in any way, then you're unpatriotic and unAmerican" domineering atmosphere that has saturated 'politics as usual' up on the Hill. Now let us move onto to the Abu Ghraib scandal where the Defense Department is continuing to deny the release of photographs and video of the abuses of prisoners by American military personnels. I wonder what the Defense Department is so afraid of...since they're doing some "redactions" of evidence.

The Defense Department has filed heavily redacted papers in a further attempt to suppress photographs and videos that depict the abuse of prisoners held at Abu Ghraib, the American Civil Liberties Union said today. The move is the government's latest effort to block the release of materials requested by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act.[...]

Last week, on the deadline of a court order requiring the Defense Department to process and redact 87 photographs and four videos taken at Abu Ghraib, government attorneys filed a last-minute memorandum of law and three affidavits arguing against the release of the materials. The government's papers cite a statutory provision that permits the withholding of records "compiled for law enforcement purposes," that "could reasonably be expected to endanger the life or physical safety of any individual."

However, the government has redacted significant portions of its public brief, including the conclusion. The government also heavily redacted portions of declarations submitted in support of the brief. One of the declarations is that of General Richard Meyers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. ACLU attorneys have been provided with less-redacted court papers pursuant to a protective order that prevents them from disclosing the papers' contents to the public.

"Not only is the government denying the public access to records of critical significance, it is also withholding its reasons for doing so," said Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff attorney. "This exemplifies the government's disregard for democratic constraints on the use of executive power."[...]

The photographs and videos in question were redacted by the Defense Department in response to a June 1, 2005 court order relating to a lawsuit filed under the Freedom of Information Act filed by the ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense and Veterans for Peace. The New York Civil Liberties Union is co-counsel in the case.

Links showing the redacted files can be found at the bottom of this post on the ACLU's site. But how interesting and so unthinkable. Our government withholding vital information from the public concerning a crime, and even altering it for insidious purposes, so as to be absolved of any culpability and prevent themselves from being reprimanded by the will of the people through vehement protests, or calls for certain goverment officials to be fired? Shocking. The "Pentagon Papers" during the Vietnam War, the New York Times v. Nixon case, and the Watergate scandal anyone? Thanks Nixon Administration and Pentagon officials at the time.