Eideard

This post is a year old. Republicans haven’t gotten better. Their goals have retreated further into darkness and hatred.

Here is a list of misogynist bills introduced by Republicans in the past two weeks showing what they want for women.

1) Rape: Republicans are actually trying to redefine rape to exclude drugging a women and raping her, or getting her drunk and raping her. After a major backlash, they promised to stop. But they haven’t the language is still out there.

2) More Rape. A state legislator in Georgia wants to change the legal term for victims of rape, stalking, and domestic violence to “accuser.” But victims of other crimes, like robbery, would remain “victims.” Apparently in Georgia if a women is raped, she isn’t really – is just an annoying accuser. Which means the rapist is not really a criminal.

3) Murder. In South Dakota, Republicans proposed a bill that could make it legal to murder anyone who injures or threatens a fetus, including a doctor who provides abortion care and the mother. He denies it has anything to do with abortion so I guess it is aimed at makingit OK for a husband or boyfriend to kill his partner if he thinks she might injure the fetus- like in a car accident, or he just doesn’t like her anymore.

4) Starvation. Republicans want to cut nearly a billion dollars of food and other aid to low-income pregnant women, mothers, babies, and kids. But payments to corporations to not grow food to keep prices up is still in the budget.

5) Death. In Congress, Republicans have proposed a bill that would let hospitals allow a woman to die rather than perform an abortion necessary to save her life (so she and fetus die.)

Read the rest of this entry »

Daylife/Getty Images used by permission
The latest photo of corporate meat puppets

House Republicans have hired a prominent conservative attorney to defend the federal Defense of Marriage Act in a pending lawsuit, legal sources say, and will make an effort to divert money from the Justice Department to fund its high-profile fight. House Speaker John Boehner disclosed the legal and political strategy in a letter Monday to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi…

“The burden of defending DOMA, and the resulting costs associated with any litigation that would have otherwise been born (sic) by DOJ (The Department of Justice), has fallen to the House,” Boehner said. “Obviously, DOJ’s decision results in DOJ no longer needing the funds it would have otherwise expended defending the constitutionality of DOMA. It is my intent that those funds be diverted to the House for reimbursement of any costs incurred by and associated with the House, and not DOJ, defending DOMA…”

Paul Clement is a former solicitor general under President George W. Bush, serving from 2005 to 2008. It was his job to defend federal laws and executive actions in court, similar to what he will be doing now as a private lawyer on retainer. He was mentioned at one time as a possible Supreme Court nominee. He would have fit in perfectly with the other reactionary liars appointed by Bush.

Separately, he also is representing more than two dozens states in their lawsuit against the administration over the sweeping health care reform law passed by Congress last year. That case is pending in a federal appeals court in Atlanta.
In the Defense of Marriage Act dispute, groups on both sides of the issue noted the highly charged political aspects.

“Not only are House Republican leaders defending the indefensible, they’ve brought in a high-priced attorney to deny federal recognition to loving, married couples,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign. “Speaker Boehner appears ready to go to great lengths, and the great expense of a high-power law firm, to try to score some cheap political points on the backs of same-sex couples…”

President Barack Obama on February 23 ordered the Justice Department to stop defending the constitutionality of the law. “The president has concluded that given a number of factors, including a documented history of discrimination, classifications based on sexual orientation should be subject to a more heightened standard of scrutiny,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. The key provision in the law “fails to meet that standard and is therefore unconstitutional…”

These bigots have a perfect right to maintain their fight against the tide of progress and civil rights. Hate-mongers are a protected species under our Constitution.

There’s no good reason why American taxpayers should pick up the tab for their revanchist politics. There’s no shortage of wealthy thugs like the Koch Bros around to pay the bill for rightwing politicians running for office. Let ‘em pay for the fightback against the 21st Century.

Daylife/Reuters Pictures used by permission

Almost half of Mississippi Republicans say they believe interracial marriage should be outlawed, a poll indicates.

A survey conducted March 24-27 and released Friday by Public Policy Polling of Raleigh, N.C., showed 46 percent of Republicans in Mississippi said they believe interracial marriage should be illegal.

The survey indicated 40 percent said they felt mixed-race weddings should remain legal, while 14 percent said they were not sure.

The poll showed 76 percent of those who responded considered themselves somewhat or very conservative with 68 percent of the respondents age 46 or older.

Interracial marriage in Mississippi became legal in 1967 after the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the state’s laws.

Is there anything that would differentiate the essential outlook on life of a Mississippi Republican from, say, AlQaeda? Aside from the fact that the Republicans probably pray more often.

The detailed survey is over here [.pdf].

Amerika’s sovereign state patriots

Two suspects accused of gunning down Arkansas police officers this week may have ties to extremist anti-government groups, two civil rights organizations say.

Jerry R. Kane, 45, and his 16-year-old son Joseph Kane fatally shot two police officers and wounded two others during a wild shootout Thursday, according to Arkansas state police.

The Anti-Defamation League said the two suspects belonged to “an extreme right-wing movement that believes that virtually all existing government in the United States is illegitimate and which seeks to restore an idealized, minimalist government that never actually existed.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit civil rights organization, also said the two member are part of the “sovereign citizen” movement…

The incident began at 11:36 a.m. (12:36 p.m. ET) Thursday, when West Memphis patrolman Bill Evans made a traffic stop on a white minivan traveling eastbound on I-40 , said Bill Sadler, spokesman for the Arkansas state police.

After the vehicle exited the Interstate onto an off-ramp, Sgt. Brandon Paudert arrived on the scene as backup, Sadler said.

“It is our belief that Officer Evans was shoved to the ground by one of the suspects in the minivan and gunfire was directed at both officers,” Sadler said…

About 90 minutes later, a minivan believed to be the one that had been seen leaving the shooting site was spotted in a parking lot of a nearby Wal-Mart, Sadler said.

There, it was approached by Crittenden County Sheriff Dick Busby and Chief Enforcement Officer W.A. Wren, who were traveling in the same vehicle, he said.

Both men were wounded in a gunbattle initiated by the suspects, who were using a long rifle and a handgun, Sadler said.

The gunbattle ended after “a very brave, young wildlife officer in his state truck rammed the suspect vehicle, preventing an exit of the suspects,” who were then killed, Sadler said.

If you’re interested in the course of dementia of someone who moves down the yellow brick road of super patriotism and anarchy characteristic of sovereign state nutballs, read this article from the Kanes’ home town newspaper. This is probably your first visit to the paper and they’ll ask for an instant survey or registration – but, I’d recommend it to RTFA.

True Believers who start from religious fundamentalism or ardent nationalism are often candidates for taking their obsession beyond neurosis. And the first to deny that anything like the murder of these two police officers could ever enter their mind. Or what passes for a mind.

The Ku Klux Klan protested before a University of Mississippi and LSU game today. The focus of the Ku Klux Klan’s protest was a line that is chanted at the end of the University of Mississippi’s fight song: From Dixie with Love. The line that is chanted is, “The South will Rise Again.”…

The chant has been deemed racist and offensive by the many African American students who attend the University of Mississippi. In fact, the chant has become so troublesome, that University of Mississippi Chancellor, Dan Jones had ordered students to stop chanting. After they continued chanting, he ordered the song From Dixie with Love to cease being played. The Ku Klux Klan came out to rally in lieu of the chant “The South Will Rise Again”….

As if there were any doubt that the chant was associated with racism, the Ku Klux Klan verified Chancellor Jones’ statements referring to the symbolism associated with the chant. In attendance with the KKK, was the Mississippi White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan grand titan, Shane Tate. Shane Tate had confirmed the KKK’s presence at today’s game in an E-Mail message to the Daily Reveille. It read, “We are coming to Ole Miss to say enough is enough on attacking our Christian, southern heritage and culture, and it’s time for every person to have a right to freedom of speech.”

One of the best ridicules of the KKK I’ve ever seen:

It’s been many years since I first watched and enjoyed this movie (Bustin Loose), and I recommend it.  Richard Pryor’s performance might surprise you.

Another brain-dead Christian for love and brotherhood

A Tempe pastor who delivered an inflammatory sermon praying for the death of President Obama is now under scrutiny by the US Secret Service and the nation’s leading tracker of hate groups.

Pastor Steven L. Anderson delivered the sermon, “Why I Hate President Obama,” while the president was visiting Arizona in August.

“Let his children be fatherless and his wife a widow,” he said in the sermon. “Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg.”

On Sunday, Anderson repeated his wish outside his church: “I hope it happens today, not when he gets older. I hope he (the president) dies of brain cancer today…”

Heidi Beirich, research director for the Southern Poverty Law Center, places Anderson’s comments against a larger backdrop of increasing militia activity in the U.S. and growing hostility toward the government and the president.

“We’re facing a revival of the militia movement, a revival of extreme anti-government beliefs and a lot of that has also turned very racial,” Beirich said…

Bill Straus, Arizona regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, adds that Anderson has the First Amendment on his side.

“Was it in any way over the line of protected speech? It wasn’t,” Straus said…

“We are aware of the comments and appropriate follow-up will be conducted,” said Darrin Blackford, spokesman for the Secret Service in Washington, D.C.

As usual, all the nutballs crossover into each other’s specialty. One of the pastor’s loyal flock was part of the militia group that showed up at an Obama town hall – toting a rifle and a handgun. He will be supported by the NRA who say their focus is on our self-defense, guns for sport.

It ain’t traditional American conservatives or liberals. It ain’t progressives and radicals who believe in electoral politics. It’s direct action nutballs on the Left who haven’t the smarts or emotional stability for a long haul political campaign. It’s gun-crazy militia, John Birchers and Klan-types on the Right – so consumed with fear of folks even a little bit outside their gray conformist world they want to kill ‘em all.

Like most visitors to London, Klaus Matzka and his teenage son Loris took several photographs of some of the city’s sights, including the famous red double-decker buses. More unusually perhaps, they also took pictures of the Vauxhall bus station, which Matzka regards as “modern sculpture”.

But the tourists have said they had to return home to Vienna without their holiday pictures after two policemen forced them to delete the photographs from their cameras in the name of preventing terrorism.

Matkza, a 69-year-old retired television cameraman with a taste for modern architecture, was told that photographing anything to do with transport was “strictly forbidden”. The policemen also recorded the pair’s details, including passport numbers and hotel addresses.

In a letter in today’s Guardian, Matzka wrote: “I understand the need for some sensitivity in an era of terrorism, but isn’t it naive to think terrorism can be prevented by terrorising tourists?…”

A spokeswoman for Metropolitan police said: “It is not the police’s intention to prevent tourists from taking photographs and we are looking to the allegations made.” The force said it had no knowledge of any ban on photographing public transport in the capital.

London is New York is London is New York is London is New York…

In the Republican response to last night’s presidential address to a joint session of Congress, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal chided the lawmakers for earmarking “$140 million for something called volcano monitoring.” The funds he was referring to are part of the $787 billion stimulus package…some 12 percent ($98.3 billion) of the monies are set aside for transportation and infrastructure projects, including volcano monitoring and other natural disaster prevention programs.

The U.S. Geological Society (USGS) is in charge of keeping tabs on volcanoes in the U.S. and its territories. The agency is currently monitoring more than 150 of them (from Yellowstone in Wyoming to Kilauea in Hawaii), some 65 of which show signs of seismic activity and are more likely than the others to erupt (including Redoubt in Alaska and Mauna Loa in Hawaii). But USGS officials aren’t just worried about Hollywood-caliber lava blowups. Other threats include potentially deadly landslides, falling rocky ash, and inundation by toxic gases that can be triggered by volcanic eruptions.

Is volcano monitoring important?

It’s extremely important. There are obvious hazards to nearby residents. Beyond human safety, there are huge economic concerns. It’s not that eruptions can be stopped, but, like a hurricane, it’s good to know when it’s coming…

There’s a huge hazard in the air from eruption plumes. Volcanic ash is not like ash from the fireplace. It’s basically pulverized rocks and glass particles. Putting glass in a jet engine isn’t good. That’s why the monitoring in Alaska is extremely important to the aviation industry.

Looks like Republicans have an anti-science track record to maintain. We went through the same ignorance, the same pig-headed foolishness when Sarah Palin prattled about wasting money on French fruit flies.

Matthew Shepard’s mother still mourns lost opportunities to battle hate crimes and promote a greater tolerance of gays in the 10 years since her 21-year-old son was beaten, tied to a wooden fence and left for dead in a frigid Wyoming pasture.

Though Congress has not passed a federal hate crime law, Judy Shepard is buoyed by enhanced punishments for crimes based on sexual orientation in 31 states and the District of Columbia.

“Ten years have gone by and not that much has changed, and I think that’s just really disappointing,” said Shepard, who with her husband formed the Matthew Shepard Foundation to promote equality for the gay community…

FBI statistics show hate crimes motivated by anti-gay bias have remained at a stable level since Matthew’s death. Both in 1998 and in 2006, the latest year for which data is available, roughly 1,200 such crimes were reported — about 16 percent of all reported hate crimes…

Shepard, meanwhile, travels away from her home in Casper about six months of the year for her work with the foundation. Despite legal and legislative obstacles for gays, she believes American society has made strides over the past 10 years in accepting the gay community.

“Socially, we’ve made really, really great progress in educating the general public about gay and lesbian issues, so I feel really good about that,” Shepard said.

Anyone who feels strongly about equal rights and justice hopes a new wind will sweep through Washington in November and January. I’m too cynical – I’m afraid I must say – to have that much confidence in Democrats over Republicans. I think they’re two sides of the same bigoted, cowardly coin.

I do think that maybe a strong enough effort to throw out all the existing lamebrains will keep the new crowd looking back over their shoulder and, perhaps – just perhaps – they’ll wonder if their new seats aren’t guaranteed.