Romney spokesman made sexist and homophobic remarks about Mrs. Obama, Hillary Clinton

Would you expect anything less from the Republican nominee?

Interesting that we haven't heard boo from Mitt or Ann Romney.  You'll recall two weeks ago they were more than happy to talk non-stop about how they felt Democratic consultant Hilary Rosen had shown disrespect to women.  But when the Romney campaign's own spokesman - and mind you, Hilary Rosen doesn't even work for the Obama campaign, this guy does work for Romney - is found to have tried to cover up a series of sexist and homophobic comments about First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, and the wife of Romney's remaining serious (well, somewhat serious) opponent in the GOP primary, you don't hear boo from Mr. or Mrs. Romney.

Wonder why that is?  Maybe Mitt and Ann Romney don't care about women at all. We'll find out if they keep this spokesman on staff.

Vatican opens new front in its war on women with attack on American nuns

While the GOP continues its war on women, the Vatican, which has been in the forefront of that war for centuries, has set its sights on American nuns. Their "sin"? Among other things, not being sufficiently anti-gay. From the NY Times:

The Vatican has appointed an American bishop to rein in the largest and most influential group of Catholic nuns in the United States, saying that an investigation found that the group had “serious doctrinal problems.” 

The Vatican’s assessment, issued on Wednesday, said that members of the group, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, had challenged church teaching on homosexuality and the male-only priesthood, and promoted “radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith.”

The sisters were also reprimanded for making public statements that “disagree with or challenge the bishops, who are the church’s authentic teachers of faith and morals.”  During the debate over the health care overhaul in 2010, American bishops came out in opposition to the health plan, but dozens of sisters, many of whom belong to the Leadership Conference, signed a statement supporting it — support that provided crucial cover for the Obama administration in the battle over health care.

The nuns weren't expecting this broadside from the men who run the church:

Word of the Vatican’s action took the group completely by surprise, Sister Sanders said. She said that the group’s leaders were in Rome on Wednesday for what they thought was a routine annual visit to the Vatican when they were informed of the outcome of the investigation, which began in 2008. 

“I’m stunned,” said Sister Simone Campbell, executive director of Network, a Catholic social justice lobby founded by sisters. Her group was also cited in the Vatican document, along with the Leadership Conference, for focusing its work too much on poverty and economic injustice, while keeping “silent” on abortion and same-sex marriage.

And, to complete the homophobic circle, the Archbishop of Seattle, J. Peter Sartain, who is leading the jihad against the nuns, is also leading the effort to repeal Washington State's new marriage equality law. But, this past weekend, a number of parishes rejected the Archbishop's edict to collect signatures for an anti-marriage referendum. In fact, via Igor Volsky at Think Progress, we learned that one Catholic priest got a standing ovation from his parishioners by announcing he wouldn't participate in the effort to gather signatures for an anti-marriage petition.

Ledbetter slams Romney for his uncertainty about helping women get equal pay for equal work

We wouldn't want the government helping women get equal pay for equal work. From Laura Bassett at HuffPo:

Lilly Ledbetter, the woman who famously sued her employer after discovering she was being paid less than her male colleagues and who inspired the first piece of legislation President Barack Obama signed upon entering office, fired back against likely GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney after he declined to say whether he would have signed the bill into law.

"It took me more than 20 years to get an answer for the injustices that I suffered as an unfairly paid worker, so I know what it's like to wait for justice. I know what it's like to fight for justice. But Mitt Romney told me and millions of other women that he couldn't commit to fighting with us or for us," Ledbetter told reporters Wednesday.

In 1998, Ledbetter sued her employer, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, for paying her significantly less over the course of her career than her less experienced male colleagues who were doing similar work. The Supreme Court ultimately sided against Ledbetter because she had waited 6 years to file suit, far exceeding the 180-day statute of limitations.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act extends that window, giving women more time in which to sue their employers for wage discrimination.

Hate group tries to claim credit for Komen debacle

The officially-designed religious right hate group, American Family Association, is now oddly (or typically) claiming credit for the failure of two Susan G. Komen events to pull in the support they previously expected. Here is AFA's latest email alert:

Nationwide, women are choosing to no longer support Komen and its partnership with Planned Parenthood.

A March 25 Komen race in Southern Arizona was short 7,267 participants of their goal of 11,000. The event also failed to meet their fundraising goal of $700,000 by over $100,000.

Another race in Indianapolis scheduled for next week is also expected to be at least 10,000 short of last year's 37,500 participants.

There's that.  Or maybe people are leaving Komen in droves specifically BECAUSE of what it did to Planned Parenthood. I don't know anyone progressive who would ever give another dime to Susan G. Komen after the Planned Parenthood debacle. So, gee, perhaps that's why their fundraising and turnout is suffering.

AFA is good at trying to claim victory from the jaws of the defeat. Probably because they're just not that good at this game. Hell, Joe and I beat them a few years ago when they got Ford Motor Company to stop advertising in gay publications. After we blew the issue up here on the blog, forcing other gay groups to finally get involved, Ford caved. AFA was ticked at us. I know they were, because someone inside subsequently defected and told me about the meetings.

So it's understandable why AFA feels the need to claim credit when it's not clear that any is due.  Otherwise, they'd have nothing to say.

Does Romney agree with Ted Nugent that Hillary Clinton is a "c*nt" and a "two-bit wh*re"?

Romney wooed Ted Nugent. Romney and his son Tagg publicly talked about how excited they were that Ted Nugent was endorsing Romney. Every hour we find out something even more despicable about Ted Nugent. What is Mitt Romney doing? From the Violence Policy Center:

[I]n a July 1994 interview in Westworld Newspaper, Nugent called Hillary Clinton a "toxic c--t," adding, "This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro."

Romney supporter Nugent now calls Pelosi "sub-human," DNC chair Wasserman "brain-dead idiot"

And Mitt Romney wonders why he has a problem with women.

And not a word from Mitt Romney himself.

Though the Romney family had a lot to say about the supposed slight they took from Democratic operative Hilary Rosen last week. Now, faced with their own big-name supporter who has made violence-tinged comments about the President of the United States, and even about Hillary Clinton - a supporter about whom numerous members of the Romney family recently vocally embraced - the Romney family suddenly grows silent.

Where is Mitt Romney's outrage over Ted Nugent?  Or do the Romneys think Ted Nugent's comments are a "gift" too.

Mitt Romney thinks his wife lacks "dignity"?

Mitt Romney said this past January that he thinks stay at home moms taking care of small children are lacking in dignity since they're not working real jobs.

Romney was talking about moms on welfare, but he might as well been talking about Martians, it doesn't matter - his point was that stay at home moms don't have real jobs, or at the very least their jobs aren't as good as the jobs of women working paid jobs in the workplace, and that stay at home moms don't have the same level of dignity of women who with paying jobs in the workplace.

Ouch.

What Mitt Romney said this past January is far worse than even the worst interpretation of what Hilary Rosen said this past week.

Hilary was questioning whether stay at home moms were intimately familiar with the ins and outs of the paying workplace. Mitt Romney was suggesting that women who stay at home taking care of their kids aren't working real jobs, and therefore don't have the dignity of women with "real" jobs.

Here's what Mitt Romney said, followed by the video.

"I said, for instance, that even if you have a child two years of age, you need to go to work... I want individuals to have the dignity of work."

In other words, if you're a mom at home taking care of a child two years of age, you're not "working," and you don't have "the dignity of work."

And here's the video via Chris Hayes, who unearthed the quote:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Romney knows he's in trouble on this. You should read the convoluted answer non-answer he gave to the Huffington Post after he was confronted with his "dignity" quote from January.

I think Mitt Romney owes his wife, and every stay at home mom in the country, an apology for questioning their work and their dignity.

Does Hilary Rosen's not-lobbying firm sell White House access to corporations?

In the wake of L'Affaire Rosen (a Rorschach test for Dems, it seems), we saw a brief but powerful light shined on someone most of us have never heard of — Hilary Rosen.

So forget what Rosen said, and how many triangulated R-fearing Dems have rushed to throw her under the bus.

Who is Hilary Rosen? The fearless investigators at Republic Report have been following this part of the story (my emphasis everywhere):

[T]he entire story may set off a greater, more substantive inquiry about the nature of Rosen’s consulting firm, SKDKnickerbocker, an unregistered lobbying firm that has become one of the biggest names in the influence business by using its ties to President Obama and leaders in Congress.

By following Republican efforts to tie Rosen to the White House, Republic Report uncovered some interesting data. For example:

• Hilary Rosen visited the White House 35 times.
• David Petraeus visited 9 times.
• Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta visited 12 times.
• Joe Biden visited 6 times.
• Tim Geithner visited 40 times.

Since the reference is to "Obama White House visitor logs" I would assume this is during the entire period when that name is accurate. Still, the ratios are telling. Rosen visits less than Tim Geithner (hey, bankers need friends in high places), but quite a bit more than the others on the list. (Of course, there's the phone, but face-time is face-time.)

Lee Fang, the Republic Report writer, also discovers this at Politico:

Per a senior Dem: “It’s an open secret in the Dem consultant community that SKD has been signing up clients based on ‘perceived White House access’ tied to prior relationships and employment.”

Mr. Fang then puts two and two together:

SKDKnickerbocker is led by a team of former Democratic operatives and key White House figures. But instead of promoting a progressive agenda, or even an Obama agenda, these consultants score huge contracts by helping corporate interests lobby for policies that are not in line with the public interest. Many SKDKnickerbocker employees, including Anita Dunn, a former White House communications director, are also frequent White House visitors.

He provides an interesting list of not-lobbying clients and their causes, many of which are indeed anti-progressive and, in fact, anti-stated-Obama-objectives. Among them is this:

A proposal leaked two months ago showed that a group of political consultants, including SKDKnickerbocker’s Anita Dunn, worked up an effort to find hedge funds to pay them to kill efforts to enact the “Buffett Rule.” In the memo, Dunn clearly advertised her ties to the White House.

Buffett Rule ... I remember that. Obama says he wants it.

Look, no one's alleging wrong-doing, quite. Obama and his people can listen to whomever they want on a policy he says he advocates — and which will never pass this Congress — in a election year where his "sell" is that he's the real populist.

If Obama wants to open the White House door to Hilary Rosen, that's his right.

And if Rosen wants to sell that open door, that's her right. Rather cozy, that, but not illegal. Not Blagojevich–illegal.

And given the lax laws governing lobbyists, SKD can sell Rosen the same way Howard Dean is sold — as a wise and friendly "strategic adviser." You know, like Grandpa, but with his hand out.

The business of doing anything for money is a fine little business indeed, a sure-fire money-maker. As Groucho once said, "Clip me off a piece of that."

UPDATE: Tweaked some phrasing for accuracy.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
 

Two ways of looking at Hilary Rosen's remarks—Ann Romney "has never worked a day in her life"

By now everyone with too little to do has heard about Hilary Rosen's comments about Ann Romney (see below), and many electrons have been killed in tweets, posts, and otherwise weighing in.

In among the mush, I found these two posts — at the extremes of the spectrum and fully mush-free — enlightening. I agree with both, actually.

� First, what Rosen said:

“What you have is, Mitt Romney running around the country saying, ‘Well, you know, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues. And when I listen to my wife, that’s what I’m hearing.’ Guess what: his wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school, and why do we worry about their future.”

Click here to see the CNN video.

� Now comments from tbogg, my favorite blogging prose stylist. The whole post is worth reading — it's a brief, well-structured piece with classic beginning-middle-end in a tight bundle. A taste (asterisks and paragraphing mine):

The Umbrage Game

Conservatives are working themselves up into another one of their poutrage lathers because Hilary Rosen said something truthful, and hence, mean about Ann Romney whom Mitt Romney has recently tried to pass off as I’m Every Woman because Mitt has lady problems outside the home and they’re not the buy-your-mistress-a-bauble-to-make-it-go-away kind.

By the time you read this in the morning, conservative moms and the usual cast of professional conservative aggrievement mongers will be in high dudgeon proclaiming how stay-at-homedness has been slandered and impugned and maligned and how Hilary Rosen (and therefore all Democrats) might just as well have s**t all over little Austin and Madisyn’s after-school Rice Krispie Treats.

Because there is no greater calling than to stay at home and raise your children, providing of course that you don’t have to make ends meet by taking a minimum wage job, maybe two if you’re a single mom, and also there are those times when you skip a meal so that your kids can eat because there isn’t enough food in the house for everyone, and also you hope that none of the kids gets sick because you can’t afford health insurance and, oh yes, the car has been making a funny noise lately and … well, you get the idea.

Which was Hilary Rosen’s point.

Ann Romney is a nice lady. I know lots of nice ladies like Ann Romney who, as it so happens, live in the same neighborhood as Ann and Mitt Romney because my daughter went to the same private schools and played soccer with their sons and daughters. ...

Again, read the whole thing. The part that follows this is very well thought through, and there's a nice surprise ending.

� At the other end of the Rosen spectrum, here's Zaid Jilani at the amazing Republic Report. He says, yes, Rosen is a Democratic strategist, but she's also very much more (h/t nignog63, one of my favorite Twitter tipsters):

Hilary Rosen Thinks Moms Don’t Have Real Jobs, But She’s The Corporate Mouthpiece Who Killed Napster

... [H]er real job — the way she has made money for a long time — has been advocating for the positions of wealthy corporations, sometimes to the detriment of consumers, including those hard-working stay-at-home parents.

As head of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), Rosen engaged in hyper-aggressive lawsuits and other tactics to force the closure of the popular file-sharing service Napster. She also pushed for draconian laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that helped stifle free expression and fair use of files.

Rosen currently works at SDKnickerbocker, a “strategic communications and public relations” firm that fronts for powerful corporations like the controversial Washington Post-owned Kaplan subprime for-profit colleges and food companies looking to weaken the administration’s nutrition goals. ...

As if that's not enough (subprime for-profit colleges? eww) Jilani has more; for example, the phrase "BP" comes up.

It's a sterling career, lobbying. The business of doing anything for money is a fine little business indeed.

Offered for your amusement.

GP

(To follow on Twitter or send links: @Gaius_Publius)
 

Romney's "hero" Scott Walker repealed WI equal pay law

Romney already has a problem with women and now he will have the opportunity to defend his friend Scott Walker. In this day and age, why would anyone want to repeal equality? Huffington Post:

A Wisconsin law that made it easier for victims of wage discrimination to have their day in court was repealed on Thursday, after Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) quietly signed the bill.

The 2009 Equal Pay Enforcement Act was meant to deter employers from discriminating against certain groups by giving workers more avenues via which to press charges. Among other provisions, it allows individuals to plead their cases in the less costly, more accessible state circuit court system, rather than just in federal court.

In November, the state Senate approved SB 202, which rolled back this provision. On February, the Assembly did the same. Both were party-line votes in Republican-controlled chambers.

Study: Women caused the financial crisis (seriously)

A new study - by three men - suggests that all you evil incompetent women were to blame for the financial crisis.

Mark Gongloff at HuffPost:

After studying the track records of German bank executives from 1994-2010, the three dudes who wrote the paper found that "board changes that result in a higher proportion of female executives...lead to a more risky conduct of business."

In fact, the authors go so far as to suggest that having too many women around (and/or too many young executives and/or too few executives with PhDs) could lead to another financial crisis:

This is particularly important against the background of the recent financial crisis. In fact, anecdotal and emerging empirical evidence suggests that poor governance arrangements in banking have far-reaching consequences for society. ...
While numerous explanations have been invoked for why banks take excessive risk, e.g., executive pay, moral hazard arising from deposit insurance and too-important-to-fail considerations, our research adds a new dimension to this literature by enhancing the understanding of how socioeconomic factors affect collective decision making about risky project choices in corporate finance in general.

Right, because there are so many women running Wall Street, and Washington.  If only we could get some more men in those jobs...

Not surprisingly, the Financial Times' Lisa Pollack found a few holes in the "study."

Further on in Atkins’ article:

Explaining their controversial findings, based on an analysis of German bank executive teams from 1994 to 2010, the report’s authors suggest a main reason is that women executives tend to be “significantly less experienced” than male counterparts and that a lack of experience drives risk taking.

Wait a second… This study didn’t control for levels of experience?! Do we hear a whistle? Oh yes, there it is.

If the study had controlled for the amount of experience that executives had, and yet still found that the presence of women was correlated with increasingly risky behaviour by banks, then we’d get a bit more intrigued about the “it’s because of their gender” conclusion. But there wasn’t such a control in place and that’s quite an variable to omit.

To be clear, it’s not an outright lack of “experience” that the researchers refer to. It’s “executive level” experience.

And let's not forget that had the boys in the Obama administration listened to the girls (or girl) we might not be in the unemployment mess we're in right now. From Sam Stein at HuffPost:

But a new book by Noam Scheiber of The New Republic, "The Escape Artists," sheds new light on the matter.

As Scheiber writes, members of the president's economic team felt that if they were to properly fill the hole caused by the recession, they would need a bill that priced at $1.8 trillion -- $600 billion more than was previously believed to be the high-water mark for the White House.

The $1.8 trillion figure was included in a December 2008 memo authored by Christina Romer (the incoming head of the Council of Economic Advisers) and obtained by Scheiber in the course of researching his book.

"When Romer showed [Larry] Summers her $1.8 trillion figure late in the week before the memo was due, he dismissed it as impractical."

Yes, it was "impractical" to recommend what the economy actually needed to fully save it from another Great Depression, so no one even tried.

No one is saying that politics doesn't involve some practicality.  You don't go asking for the moon simply because you think it's right, to hell with the politics.  But.  If you really think we need $1.8 trillion to save the country from economic collapse, you don't ask for less simply because the Republicans - who just lost an election by a massive amount, and were subsequently left at their weakest in over a decade - might be mean to you.  There is that crazy alternative of trying to use a wildly popular new President, with a huge electoral mandate against an opposition in tatters, to convince the terrified American people, and through them their elected representatives, that this is the only thing that might save us from economic ruin.

It's not like it was a crazy idea that something like that might just work.  But the boys in the administration, and a few lead male voices in the partisan media, said it simply couldn't be done.

The Obama administration needed some serious cojones in its first two years.  And it looks like the guy with the biggest just might have been a gal.

Romney losing women, contraception debate hurt

Funny, the GOP was so excited to debate this issue to death, as wash their leader Rush Limbaugh.  Seems it backfired. USA Today:

In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.

The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.

Romney's main advantage is among men 50 and older, swamping Obama 56%-38%.

Republicans' traditional strength among men "won't be good enough if we're losing women by nine points or 10 points," says Sara Taylor Fagen, a Republican strategist and former political adviser to President George W. Bush. "The focus on contraception has not been a good one for us … and Republicans have unfairly taken on water on this issue."

Komen update: Morale "in the toilet" and CEO Brinker in "meltdown" — but won't resign

I've said publicly that Komen may have skated, and allowing that was a mistake. The problem wasn't the Georgia GOP hack that the CEO hired; it's (1) the CEO that hired her, and (2) that Komen itself is only half a charity — and half an agent of Movement Conservativism.

Yet, after that week or so of terrible publicity, only the hack had resigned. Nancy Brinker, the CEO and loyal Bushie, remained, as did the organization in its current form. (Note: I don't advocate killing Komen; just cleaning its house, thoroughly, of MoveCon dirt and dustballs. That includes, especially, its CEO.)

Now it seems the organization is still teetering. Some data-bits from the Huffington Post (h/t Kalli Joy Gray; my emphasis and reparagraphing):

Komen has been struggling to repair its reputation since the public backlash over its decision, at the beginning of February, to pull cancer screening grants from Planned Parenthood because some of its clinics perform abortions.

Komen ultimately decided to restore Planned Parenthood's eligibility for grants, but the public had already soured on the charity for focusing on abortion politics rather than detecting and treating breast cancer.

Susan G. Komen Greater New York City recently decided to postpone its annual fundraising gala because executives "were not certain about our ability to fundraise in the near term," spokesperson Vern Calhoun said in a statement.

And:

A Komen insider told HuffPost that "employee morale is in the toilet" since Komen leadership made the controversial decision to defund Planned Parenthood[.]

And about that CEO:

"[CEO Nancy] Brinker [is] in complete meltdown," the source wrote to HuffPost. "People want her to resign but she won't." Brinker did not respond to a request for comment.

Let me be clear. Inside this organization there are a lot of people pushing Brinker to get out.

Can't we help them?

Seriously. An organized push now — ideally cored by a small cadre of activist women and supported by the rest of us — could restart the campaign and topple the teetering Brinker. She's ripe for a fall, according to this report.

By the way, there's a danger that Limbaugh will skate as well, and for the same reason. As soon as the news cycle chases the next missing blonde (as it were), he thinks we will let up. Just like with Komen.

Wouldn't it be nice to prove these people wrong for a change? It would, at least in my humble opinion.

Humbly yours,

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
 

Woman in Indiana faces 45 years in prison for "attempted feticide" after attempted suicide

The War on Women continues. Katha Pollitt (my emphasis and paragraphing; h/t the excellent aggregator Dictynna's Net):

In December 2010 Shuai was running a Chinese restaurant in Indianapolis with her boyfriend, Zhiliang Guan, by whom she was eight months pregnant. Just before Christmas, he informed her that he was married and had another family, to which he was returning. When Shuai begged him to stay, he threw money at her and left her weeping on her knees in a parking lot.

Despairing, she took rat poison and wrote a letter in Mandarin saying she was killing herself and would “take this baby with me to Hades”; friends got her to the hospital just in time to save her life. Eight days later her baby, Angel, was delivered by Caesarean section and died of a cerebral hemorrhage within four days.

Three months later, the newly elected prosecutor, Terry Curry—a Democrat—brought charges, claiming that the rat poison that almost killed Shuai had killed her baby. If convicted, she faces forty-five to sixty-five years in prison.

It is hard to know where to begin listing what’s wrong with this case. Consider the health ramifications: attempting suicide is not a crime in Indiana. It’s the tragic result of mental illness, depression and extreme emotional distress; and it’s not uncommon for pregnant women to seriously consider it, or even try it.

As Pollitt says, there's a lot wrong here. For starters:

According to a 2010 study in Obstetrics & Gynecology, suicide is the fifth leading cause of death among pregnant women. Pregnant women in crisis need and deserve compassion and treatment. But if Shuai is convicted, what pregnant woman will seek help? “Every major medical and public health organization that has considered the issue has concluded that it is dangerous for maternal and fetal health to hold women criminally liable for their pregnancy outcomes,” says Emma Ketteringham, director of legal advocacy for National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW), which is co-counsel to Shuai’s defense.

Pollitt unpacks the way this kind of law, which was originally designed to be used against violent abusers of pregnant women, is being turned against the women themselves.

Of course, that's all part of the plan, part of the "antiabortion strategy to build up the legal status of the fetus as a person in so many parts of the law that when the Supreme Court finally revisits Roe v. Wade, a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy will look like a bizarre exception."

Abuse of these laws is certain, however. If a woman is responsible during pregnancy for any behavior that produces a bad outcome, what's to stop a zealous prosecutor from making quite a reputation for "justice" in a country where "15-20 percent of pregnancies end in miscarriage."

It's a target-rich environment, in a country where opportunistic prosecutors are slobbered over like gods by a Death Wish–worshiping public. We do love us our punishing prosecutors, don't we. (Psst: This is why our kids won't have Social Security.)

As Pollitt says:

[T]he state portrays Shuai as a heartless and calculating home wrecker ... But who is really being cold-blooded here? The woman who tried to kill herself, who held her baby for five hours as her life slipped away and wept inconsolably when she died? ... Or the prosecution[?]

"Newly-elected prosecutor" Terry Curry — you with the license to punish. You wouldn't be trading lives for votes in Marion County Indiana, would you?

GP

(To follow on Twitter or to send links: @Gaius_Publius)
 

Just close your eyes - the GOP assault on women continues

If you watched The Daily Show the other night, you got a solid chuckle out of this: What's the difference between a fertilized egg, a corporation and a woman? One of them isn't considered a person in Oklahoma!

But seriously, folks.

The Republican establishment has seemed more concerned with de-humanizing women than it does with winning the fall election. After Virginia passed its modified ultrasound requirement for abortion access, Republican-controlled state governments in Arizona and Pennsylvania put forward a set of absurd invasions of privacy that smack of the same big-government tyranny that they claim to be so aggressively opposed to.

In Arizona, a bill working its way through the state legislature would require women to prove to their employer that they were taking contraceptives for the purpose of treating a medical condition if they want insurance to cover the cost, potentially allowing the employer to fire women who take birth control for the purpose of preventing pregnancy. In Pennsylvania, Republicans are pushing a measure that would require doctors to perform an ultrasound, provide two copies of the image, and play and describe the fetus' heartbeat in detail before a woman can have an abortion.

While the furor over mandated trans-vaginal ultrasounds led the Virginia bill to specify that the requirement was only for the less invasive "jelly on the belly" ultrasound, the Pennsylvania bill does not make such a specification. This is notable because in the early stages of pregnancy a trans-vaginal ultrasound is required to obtain an image. Despite opening the door for state-mandated rape, the Republican governor of Pennsylvania, Tom Corbett, explained why the requirement isn't that big of a deal: "You just have to close your eyes."

According to Governor Corbett, if you aren't looking when you become a second-class citizen it doesn't count.

Unfortunately, it does.

Contraception is a men's issue

No, I am not being sarcastic. Contraception is a women's issue but it is not just an issue for women. Access to contraception directly affects men as well. Or straight men at any rate. Or did you forget that it takes a woman and a man to get pregnant and that unwanted pregnancies affect men as well as women. Opposing the Republican's new war on contraception is not just a matter of solidarity with the women, their latest culture war is an attack on all of us.

I am married and we have two children. We use contraception. That is 'we' not 'she'.

Most married couples use contraception. The alternative would be an explosion in the birth rate and a population crisis. Our biology is designed for an environment in less than one person in five survives lives a full reproductive lifespan. I refuse to believe in any omnipotent being who would seek the role of top-dominant in Santorum's masoerotic sex cult.

Which brings us to this story from WECT TV:

NEW HANOVER COUNTY, NC (WECT) – New Hanover County Commissioners voted not to accept a $9,000 grant to help pay for family planning at the Health Department.

During the Board's meeting on Monday afternoon, Commissioner Rick Catlin said people aren't using contraceptives responsibly. As the commission's representative on the board, he opposed accepting the money. Commissioners voted unanimously not to accept it.

Ok, the transparent misogyny behind these statements is directed at women rather than men. The Republican party is trapped in a Victorian time warp where all women (including wives) must be chaste virgins while men sate their carnal appetites with an unending stream of trollops, mistresses and oxycontin pills. But the contraception issue directly affects all of us who are straight or bi. The men who think that contraception is only something that the women need think of are being somewhat neanderthal themselves.