Today In Anti-Choice Hypocrisy

When a Wichita, Kansas doctor planned to begin offering abortion services in her clinic, the landlord sued to stop her, on the grounds that the protests held and security risks posed by Wichita-based zealots Operation Rescue [the Fetuses and Who Gives a Fuck About the Women?] would be disruptive to the building's other tenants.  To stop the suit and appease the landlord (and other tenants, who had supposedly told the landlord they would terminate their leases if the clinic began doing abortions, to avoid dealing with protesters outside the building), Dr. Means agreed not to provide abortions.  The Religious Reich, of course, declared this a grand success and were very smug about it. 

And yet, when a library director in Wisconsin cancelled a 40 Days for Lies Life group's planned showing of an anti-abortion film at the county library, because he was afraid pro-choice groups would protest and the showdown would interrupt normal library functions...the group whined to the county, and when the county stood behind the library director's decision and instead offered an alternate space for their showing, they sued to force the library to allow their showing to go as planned.  The library has since backed off and allowed the group's reservation of the showing room to be reinstated.

So when a pro-choicer is forced to stop or refrain from doing something because of threat of pro-life protests, that's awesome and a victory.  But when an anti-choice group is forced to stop or refrain from doing something because of threat of pro-choice protests, that's grounds for a lawsuit.  Have these fucking meat nuggets ever even heard of the concept of fairness and equal treatment?

If they have, they're sure as fuck not showing it.  Anti-choicers are absolute fucking bullies.  And that, my friends, is why they're winning.  They're willing to stoop to any low.  Any tactic, no matter how extreme, is on the table, if they think it might achieve their goals, while we stand on principle and try to do the right thing. 

How can we win, against utter unprincipled extremism, unchecked by any sense of self-awareness or human decency?  I really don't know.

That Same Day On All The Other Streets

Some shitball in Texas has introduced an amendment in the budget process that would require any state-funded university which maintains a "gender and sexuality center or other center for students focused on gay, lesbian, homosexual, bisexual, pansexual, transsexual, gender questioning, or other gender identity issues" to spend an equal amount on a "family and traditional values center". Those uppity queer students, trying to have places where they can focus on their issues without being shouted over by heteronormative, gender-policing society!  Why, it's just like the reverse discrimination of Black History month and Women's History month and gay pride parades! 

I think the best response here to quote the sometimes-disturbing, often-brilliant A Softer World comic (click the image to enlarge):

Comic reading, in three panels, over a backdrop of photos of a ferris wheel: I don't understand your complaint./There totally is a straight pride march./That same day, too. On all the other streets.

Look, 'phobes, I know you're scared.  But there's no need to be.  We're not trying to eradicate "traditional values" entirely or anything.  You're welcome to them if you want them.  We just want a space to be ourselves alongside without coercive attempts to remold us in the image you want, and currently, that means having our own centers dedicated to our issues.

If you *really* want to make LGBT/gender centers obsolete, you could always try overturning our culture's heteronormativity and gender-policing and transphobia, and then we wouldn't need them anymore.  Sadly, forcing your little "traditional values centers" on people is actually just going to exacerbate the issue and make our centers stick around a lot longer to combat the damage you're doing.

Suit yourself.  Asshole.

Turns Out, Army Chaplains *Not* The Unprofessional Crybabies DADT Repeal Opponents Made Them Out To Be

Spoiler alert: the conservatives were wrong again!

CNN had a brief article the other day about the Army chaplain corps working on training in preparation for DADT repeal to go into effect.  I'm sure y'all remember the claims made by anti-gay bigots during the DADT repeal fiasco, that it would cause chaplains to be unable to exercise their religion and thus abandon the service en masse, right?  Well, guess how many chaplains have applied for voluntary separation, now that they're actually training them in how to appropriately counsel and help openly LGB soldiers?

None.  That's right, not a single one, according to the spokesman for the chaplain corps.  Apparently one did ask for separation before the training began, but since it has, not a single one has asked to leave.  Further, no endorsing organizations (military chaplains must be endorsed by a religious group in order to qualify for service as a chaplain, it seems) have threatened to pull their endorsements, which would force their endorsed chaplains to leave the service.  The Army chaplain corps has some 2,900 members, and out of that, precisely ONE has left since the repeal bill was signed.

The CNN article is sprinkled with quotes about how the chaplains are basically shrugging and going about their business, already being fairly used to counseling and ministering to members of diverse faith groups, and not seeing this as much of an issue.

Looks like FRC underestimated the maturity and coping capacity of military chaplains.  But that's not much of a surprise.  I'd hope they're used to being wrong by now; they have so much practice at it, after all.

On Patriotism and Tax Burdens

I have a question for the fuckweasels who sneer about Real Americans™, and call liberals and progressives "unpatriotic" and "anti-American" for failing to sufficiently genuflect before the golden calf of American Exceptionalism:

In a time where gigantic multinational corporations like GE and Bank of America pull in billions of dollars of profit and pay not one motherfucking red cent in taxes - indeed, they receive tax benefit! $3.2 BILLION for GE, and $1 billion for BofA - while funding for social services is being drastically slashed for "lack of funds" in the federal government, why the fucking fuck should I be patriotic?

I'm dead fucking serious.  What loyalty should I have for a country that slaps an unemployed woman - a close friend of mine who's been working temp jobs on and off when they're available while looking for steady work and scraping by on unemployment for over a year now - with an additional $14,000 in taxes, while letting multi-billion-dollar corporations practically draw a fucking salary from the taxpayers?  What love should I have for a country the vast majority of whose elected officials are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Koch Brothers, and who are thus working hard to pass laws that will further benefit corporations and the top 1% and the expense of everyone fucking else? 

I'm so fucking over this patriotism bullshit.  Boehner and the GOP have made it clear they hate me, as a woman and as a pregnancy-capable person.  The Religious Reich has made it clear that they hate me, as a woman, a pregnancy-capable person, and a queer person.  My so-called "fierce advocate", our so-called "feminist" president who I worked to help elect and voted for with great joy and enthusiasm, can't be arsed to speak so much as a token word in my defense, when he's not outright undercutting efforts to combat the aforementioned hatred.  "My" party, the Dems, have proven themselves utterly inept even with a near-supermajority in BOTH FUCKING HOUSES of Congress - see: the health insurance "reform" fiasco.  This country has a disgusting history of oppression, genocide, imperialism and colonialism, all of which goes mostly-unacknowledged in public schools because anytime someone tries to get accurate - read: less than glowingly positive - American history taught, conservatives & the privileged rush in screaming about reverse discrimination and "indoctrinating" children to hate America.  The entire tax system is basically set up to allow the rich as many loopholes as possible, while squeezing the poor of what little they have.  Republicans held the government goddamn well hostage in order to extend the Bush tax cuts - AND OBAMA COMPLETELY FUCKING FAILED TO STAND UP TO THEM ON IT - so that the superrich could keep even MORE of their obscene gobs of money, while the rest of the country is struggling through a full-on Depression. 

Conservatives like to talk about the USA like we're God's gift to the planet.  Being insufficiently patriotic and proud of our country is a kiss of death to a political campaign - remember the furor over Michelle Obama's infamous quote, "This is the first time I've been really proud of my country" or whatever the fuck it was she actually said?  But really, why are we supposed to feel this way?  Because of our conceit that we're the ones who came up with this whole freedom-and-democracy concept?  We didn't, by the way; we got it from the Greeks.  That's the only possible explanation I can come up with.  And it's not even accurate!  Oh!  Maybe it's our gigantic military cock we like to swing around all over the fucking place?  I think I'll go with that one.  Sadly, while it's vaguely impressive in sheer numbers, it's impressive in the way that a guy who has a gigantic truck with all kinds of bells and whistles he doesn't need is "impressive" - the truck makes you go "Whoa...I wonder what he's compensating for?"

Face it, fellow Americans: our country is not all that special, unless you count a spectacular degree of insularity and insufferable self-righteousness as "special".  We've got potential, sure, but we're squandering it, over and over, pissing it away in our headlong rush into the most tightly concentrated oligarchy possible. 

I'm staying, for the time being - not least because I can't afford to move, much less the costs of an international move - and while I stay, I will do everything I can to make this country - and the world - a less fucked-up place.  But I am beyond done with this whole "patriotism" shit.  You want my loyalty back, USA?  Force the corporations to pony up their fair share of dough to take care of this country they so happily exploit, so some of the tax burden can come off the middle and lower class.  It makes no sense to ask the struggling among us to carry the heaviest load, assholes.  And if the smartasses coasting on everyone else's work would step up, they wouldn't have to.  Get that sorted out, go back from being a government of, by, and for the corporations into a government of, by, and for the people...and we'll talk.

This rant brought to you by tax season and ridiculously unfair tax burdens.

Setting A Great Example: Picket The Allergic Kid!

I wish I were fucking kidding.  Apparently a group of parents of students at a Florida elementary school have had their compassion and empathy surgically removed, resulting in their willingness to fucking picket the school to try to have a first-grade girl with severe peanut allergy kicked out.

They're apparently upset because they think the procedures the school has put in place - to quite literally protect the allergic child's life, I might add - are "intrusive" and are "wasting academic time".  So, what protective measures are so onerous that they warrant community outrage and picketing the school?

Having lunches stored outside the classroom, and students having to wash their hands before coming in and after lunch.

That's apparently worth walking a picket line outside the school with signs saying things like "Our children have rights too!", "Who's paying for all of these special measures?", "Where is the happy median?", "How much academic time has your child LOST!", and, inexplicably, "No Dogs".  One parent was on-camera as saying "It's not fair for one kid to set a standard the rest of the kids have to abide by."

I don't even know what the fuck to say to this.  I genuinely don't understand how a group of parents, supposedly responsible adults, thinks it's okay to picket a school to get a kid thrown out for having a fucking allergy that could kill her.  Yes, let's teach our children to accept other people and play nice, unless you think you're being inconvenienced by someone else's disability - because as the report notes, the school is required to accommodate the girl's allergy because it counts as a disability under the ADA - and then it's time to break out the protest signs and make a huge fucking fuss and try to get them kicked out of school.

And those signs!  "Our children have rights too!"  I'm sorry, but if you think your child's right to not have to wash hir hands trumps another child's right to an education free of life-threatening circumstances, you're clearly a Republican sadly misinformed and also a gigantic douchenozzle.  "Who's paying for all of these special measures?"  What...I don't...I wasn't aware that hand soap was that expensive in Florida.  Perhaps you could take up a collection at church?  "Where is the happy median?"  Can I reach through time and space and slap you across your stupid fucking face, please?  There is no "happy median" when you're dealing with a FUCKING LIFE-THREATENING ALLERGY.  Good fucking gods, what is WRONG with you?  Your "happy median" by definition means insufficient precautions taken to protect the girl's health, which means asking for a "happy median" is asking to compromise the safety of another child so your child doesn't have to be inconvenienced.  If you really feel that's a reasonable request, you should absofuckinglutely NOT be a parent, or in fact have any responsibility for any living creature bigger than a packet of yeast for baking. 

Let me tell you about my experience with a life-threatening peanut allergy.  There was a boy at my elementary school who had a severe peanut allergy.  Parents were notified, and it was carefully explained to us that if Tim was exposed to peanuts or peanut butter or anything having peanuts in it, he could die.  Even if he didn't eat it, but one of us touched him with a hand that had peanut butter residue on it from a sandwich at lunch, he could die because that's how allergic he was.  And we all said, "Wow, that sucks.  Okay."  So accommodations were made.  You'd be amazed what kids are okay with, if you just explain that it's what has to be done to protect one of them from dying.  A couple of us grumbled when, instead of having peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at the camp we went to that year, we had baloney and cheese sandwiches instead, but that was really the extent of it.  And I'd bet the kids of these dangling taint-hairs aren't anywhere near as upset at the "inconvenience" of accommodations made for this girl as their parents are making them out to be.

But no, now they're going to absorb even more thoroughly the selfish, disablist messages of our culture through their parents' public hissy fit:  You do not ever have to accept inconvenience for anyone else's sake.  It's okay to complain and make a fuss if you're ever asked to accept minor changes in order to protect someone else's health or life.  Accessibility, despite being the law of the land (on paper, anyway), is not important.  What's important is that the abled kids aren't inconvenienced in any way by the temerity of the disabled kids to exist and participate in public life.

Go fuck yourselves, you entitled, privileged dipshits.

Selfish Women Who Don't Have Babies

But I repeat myself; of course women who don't have babies are selfish.  Not having babies is a selfish thing to do.

Can I just say how fucking sick I am of hearing that resentful undertone of blaming childless women for, like, pretty much everything that's wrong with this country?  On its face, the claim is that *abortion* is the problem.  Abortion and/or "anti-family policies", depending on who you ask, which tends to be code for contraception funding, no-fault divorce and same-sex marriage rights.

This has come up twice in my reading today, both times via Right Wing Watch (and much love to RWW for being one of the main sources of material for this lil blog of mine).  First off was former-Senator Frothy Mix, claiming that the reason Social Security is having issues is because of abortion:

“The reason Social Security is in trouble is because we don’t have enough workers to support the retirees, well, a third of all the young people in America are not in America today because of abortion, because one in three pregnancies end in abortion...these demographic trends are causing Social Security and Medicare to be underfunded.”

Damn those selfish women, having fewer babies - or having them on their own time instead of whenever they happened to get pregnant (1/3 of women who abort say it's because they're not ready for a/another child), or choosing to stop having children (60% of women who get abortions are already mothers, and 38% say they're aborting because they've completed their childbearing) instead of emulating Michelle Duggar's 18-child family.  If not for them, we'd have more workers and therefore more money in Social Security!  Although he's actually wrong; one in three women will have an abortion at some point in her life, but the total number of pregnancies (not counting miscarriages) that end in abortion is actually closer to one in five, not one in three.  Not that facts have ever stopped these assholes, but I'm still a fan of them, so. 

Shortly after that, there was the email from Tea Party Nation - I see that the Teabaggers are totally just a fiscal conservatism movement, yes, not synonymous with the current conservative movement at all, of course, and it's totally not about race or abortion or gays or any of those social issues, nope, just the taxes. /sarcasm - claiming that White America is dying out because of "public policies promoting infertility".  Like, for example, those focusing on:

...reducing unwanted pregnancies, delaying child bearing to further career goals and even promoting childlessness and promoting adoption as a better option.
Child bearing has become something distasteful to many women, an unwanted and painful experience to be avoided rather than embraced.

This is even less subtle.  The problem is clearly stated: women are avoiding childbirth instead of embracing it - well, white women, anyway, which are the ones that matter here, as the guy who wrote this is clutching his pearls over the fact that immigrant populations supposedly have a higher birthrate than white people - and trying to further their career goals and not have unwanted pregnancies.

Let me just repeat that for emphasis: this guy is outright saying that reducing unwanted pregnancies, furthering one's career goals instead of giving it all up to have babies, and childlessness are the problem, and that [white] women should be embracing the baby-making in order to keep Real Americans™ from being outbred by those undesirables brown people "immigrants, both legal and illegal."

And yet I notice that, despite rather unsubtly leaning on the premise that women in control of their fertility is bad for the economy/Social Security/white supremacy, neither of these shitballs actually really talks about women and what this would mean for us.

Because neither of them, it seems, is willing to recognize that the point of view - I hesitate to call it policy, as it's a bit nebulous for that - they're advocating comes at a very real cost to the people upon whose bodies they would see their ideals enacted.  Women's bodies, to be precise.  It's to be expected from the Religious Reich, I suppose, yet another attempt to enforce their morals on women's bodies without ever mentioning women at all, making it all about everyone who's affected except the women themselves.

Let me set this straight:  Women are not the problem here.  Not the childbearing ones, not the childfree ones.  A person may choose to have children for selfish reasons, or may choose to not have children for altruistic reasons.  Pressuring women to make a mass exodus from the workforce and put aside their birth control and have as many babies as god gives them will not fix this country, or this world. 

Of course, it would provide a nice, steady supply of expendable labor for corporations to squeeze every last ounce of profit out of.  And it would keep a solid 50% of the population under firm control and keep them from making trouble.  But if you think those are benefits, you are clearly on the wrong damn side of this war.

California Republicans: "We Will Do The Will Of The People, Even If It's Not The Will Of The People!"

You know how Republicans like their public image to be all about Real Americans™ and grassroots America versus the evil liberal elites?  They like to say they're doing the will of the people by fighting against things that help the people, like social safety nets and assistance programs.  But those who are paying attention know they're full of shit.

Like here in California, for instance.  California's legislature operates under a terrible little procedural rule that requires a 2/3 vote for the state's budget to pass*.  This leads every time to "the ransom letter", the list of demands the Republican minority requires in order to pass a budget and keep the state running.  If you've heard about CA repeatedly having late budgets and running on IOUs on a strangely regular basis, this is why, btw.  I don't think there's a single time in my adult life that the budget has come from the legislature on time.  Apparently 2009 set a record for 100 days after the deadline. 

Anyway, the full list can be read here (via).  But buried in there is a bit about gutting AB 32, California's landmark greenhouse emissions standards law that passed a couple years ago.  Big Oil, which has quite a number of refineries in California (There are 4 refineries within a 15 mile radius of where I live, for example), is not a fan of this law, for obvious reasons.  There was a pitched battle over Prop 23 this past election, which would have suspended AB 32 "until the state's economy is back on track" - which is to say never, because they'd keep manufacturing crises to justify keeping it suspended - bankrolled by Valero, which we won.  AB 32 is safe and still on the books. 

So the Legislature passed AB 32...Big Oil and the Republicans tried to use the financial crisis to get it suspended...that didn't work, and the people voted to keep AB 32 intact.  So what's their response?  To use the yearly budget fight to try to destroy AB 32 anyway.

Let me repeat that: the people voted to keep it.  So why is the party of Real Americans™ attempting to use backroom deals to override the stated will of the people? 

I guess the "will of the people" is just a soundbite to trot out when its convenient, rather than an actual principle they'll abide by.  Thanks for letting us know where you stand, CA Republicans.  Now kindly fuck off.

*Prop 25 in this past election changed it to require a simple majority, but that doesn't seem to have taken effect yet as far as I can tell, and I can't find an "effective as of" date anywhere.

Today In Conservative Hypocrisy, Part Whatever

As I may have mentioned once or twice before, so-called "crisis pregnancy centers" (CPCs) are hotbeds of anti-choice lying and manipulation aimed at doing whatever they feel is necessary to coerce women into carrying their pregnancies to term.  Pro-choicers have been saying this for quite some time, but recently - finally - lawmakers on various local levels have begun to pay attention, and a few laws have been passed - mostly on a city or county level - that compel CPCs to post a sign admitting they don't have medical staff on-site, aren't a real clinic, do not provide or refer for abortion or contraception services, or some combination or all of these things. 

Well, anti-choicers are nothing if not flaming hypocrites, so despite their hard-on for regulating every last nuance of actual clinics' functioning, they have this tendency to throw whiny hissy fits about having to be upfront about what they do and don't do.  I mean, I get it.  If your whole business model is based on the premise of lying to your clients, and someone starts forcing you to be honest, it would kind of cramp your style. 

But in reading a press release (via) about the challenge to NYC's CPC-signage law, this phrase jumped out at me:

...[O]ur suit contends that, at a minimum, the ordinance "unconstitutionally compels Plaintiffs to speak messages that they have not chosen for themselves, with which they do not agree, and that distract from and detract from the messages they have chosen to speak."

I...I just...*head explodes*. 

Does anyone else remember all those laws forcing counselors at abortion clinics to read a script set down by lawmakers, compelling them to tell women things like "terminating the pregnancy ends the life of a unique, separate, living human being" and that abortion increases their risk of breast cancer and depression, neither of which is true?  (Fun fact: in Maine and Wisconsin [253.10(3)(c)1.a.], the first fact of which women must be informed according to the script set down in law is "You're pregnant."  You learn all kinds of interesting, and by interesting I mean headdesk-inducing, things when you actually read the statutes.)

Why is it that it's okay, and commendable, and "pro-life" to require abortion clinics to pass on biased and scientifically-inaccurate information to women under the guise of "counseling" and "[mis]informed consent", but these fuckers howl bloody fucking murder when lawmakers want to require them to be honest and upfront about what services they do and don't offer or refer for?  If biased and flat-out wrong information about abortion is not being compelled "to speak messages that they have not chosen for themselves, with which they do not agree, and that distract from and detract from the messages they have chosen to speak", then fuck, I don't know what is.

But I suppose that's conservatives for you.  Now introducing the "today in conservative hypocrisy" tag!  Sadly, I have the feeling it'll get plenty of use.

I Love The Liberal Media

Where by "love" I mean "roll my eyes at so hard I am in danger of spraining something", and by "liberal media" I mean CNN, who happily continues to employ this jackass as a contributor.

You know, when an NPR executive made a comment about the rampant and virulent racism evident in the Teabagger movement, there was immediately such a hue and cry that he resigned.  Wanna take bets Erick Erickson takes no such hit to his career, despite saying shit like this [TW for sexist stereotyping of women and disablism]:

It's, apparently, the women in the Obama administration who have decided we needed to go to war in Libya. … This is typical. This is so typ-- i'm mean, I'm going to bring my inner sexist out I'm afraid tonight, some of you are going to be very upset with me. But this is like women drivers. We're going to war in Libya, we have no plan, we have no map, even if we have a map of war, um, it wasn't going to get read, they were going to pull over and ask the French apparently for help, or at least make the guy pull over and ask the French for help. This is crazy.

So when a guy at NPR points out actual but unpleasant facts about the Teabaggers, he has to resign amid scandal, but a "political analyst" highly-placed enough to be included in CNN's coverage of the State of the Union address can blame "the women" - which is a sexist dogwhistle against Secretary of State Clinton's urging Obama to do something about Gaddafi, fruit of a seed Obama himself planted as a "joke" - and make sexist jokes about "women drivers", necessarily implying that he believes women should not be making major political decisions, and thus far the response has been...?  Anyone?  Bueller?

...Yawning, cavernous, echoing silence.  Yep.  That's our liberal media for you.

FRC: Projecting So Hard, You Could Point Them At A Screen And Show Powerpoints!

Via Right Wing Watch, my favorite source for tracking the Religious Wrong's antics, comes this prayer directive from Family Research Council.  They're all whiny about the one-year anniversary of "Obamacare" and making dire promises that God is about to destroy America, no really, he's THISCLOSE now guys, any day now that fire's gonna rain down, I mean it this time...yeah, whatever.  And then there's this bit about the fight over defunding Planned Parenthood:

May God grant our House leaders courage and conviction to defend Life at any cost. May He stir consciences in the Senate and bring an unexpected miracle. May pro-abortion liberals fail in their effort to deceive America, and if a "shutdown" occurs, may they get the blame (Ex 9:13; Dt 31:6-8; Josh 23:6-9; Is 41:14-16; Jn 8:9; Eph :11-13).

When one uses phrases like "Republicans ought to draw a line in the sand," and throws the blame on the other side, for refusing to give into one's demands and let one run over them unopposed...I rather think the "other side" is not the problem. 

Dear FRC: Our side is not the one threatening shutdown.  I thought bearing false witness was against your moral code, yes?  Perhaps you should stop projecting your desires for victory "at any cost" and praying that the left takes the fall for the shutdown you people engineered, if it comes to that. 

PS:  You know one group of people that gets totally fucked in a government shutdown?  Military members and their families.  You know.  That group you venerate as the pinnacle of American valor (*cough* and try to speak for as if they are a monolithic mass *cough*) and use as a club to browbeat anyone who dares oppose America's militarism with the accusation that we are "not supporting the troops"?  Maybe you could try supporting the troops, by not making extremist demands and refusing to give so much as an inch from them even in the face of a government shutdown, hmm?  If nothing else, do it for the soldiers, you heartless fuckbags.