April 25, 2015

Gynotician Alert Of The Week: April 24, 2015

Gynotician Alert Of The Week: April 24, 2015

This week: Louisiana gynoticians continue efforts to block a Planned Parenthood health center; DC gynoticians are cool with discrimination against employees’ reproductive choices; and a Tennessee gynotician doesn’t think rape and incest are, ahem, ”verifiable.”

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Read more: http://plannedparenthoodaction.org/elections-politics/blog/gynotician-alert-week-april-24-2015/

April 24, 2015

Clinton’s First Campaign Speech Is All About Feminism

Clinton’s First Campaign Speech Is All About Feminism

The first speech of a presidential campaign is loaded with meaning, an opportunity to set the campaign's entire tone and outline its major themes. Barack Obama kicked off his 2008 campaign in Springfield, Illinois, to invoke the legacy of Abraham Lincoln and a larger theme of calling on a "divided house to stand together." In contrast, Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Mississippi, near the site where three civil rights workers had been murdered 16 years before, to make a speech about "states' rights" and secure the Republican stronghold over the Southern white vote that persists to this day.

Hillary Clinton announced her campaign online, but her first meatspace speech was held Thursday at the Women in the World Summit in New York City, an annual feminist shindig that's all about improving women's fortunes around the world. The choice of the location in itself sends a strong signal, and if there was any doubt that Clinton intends to run a woman-centric campaign, her speech erased it. "When women are held back, our country is held back. When women get ahead, everyone gets ahead," she declared.
The idea that uplifting women uplifts the nation has become standard fare in Democratic speech-making. For instance, in Obama's 2014 speech on equal pay, he said, "And part of that is fighting for fair pay for women—because when women succeed, America succeeds." When women make less money, he said, that's "less money for gas, less money for groceries, less money for child care, less money for college tuition, less money is going into retirement savings."

Clinton took this rhetoric to a bolder level. For one thing, she actually used the word feminist. "It is hard to believe that in 2015 so many women still pay a price for being mothers. It is also hard to believe that so many women are also paid less than many for the same work, with even wider gaps for women of color," she said. "And if you don’t believe what I say, look to the World Economic Forum, hardly a hotbed of feminist thought. Their rankings show that the United States is 65th out of 142 nations and other territories on equal pay."

She tied together other explicitly feminist issues, such as reproductive rights and the fight against sexual assault to the family-friendly equal-pay agenda. "There are those who offer themselves as leaders who see nothing wrong with denying women equal pay," she argued in a shot against Republicans. "There are those who offer themselves as leaders who would defund the country’s leading provider of family planning and want to let health insurance companies once again charge women just because of our gender." Clinton invoked the recent fight over the appointment of Loretta Lynch as attorney general: Republicans weren't explicitly sexist to Lynch, but her appointment was held up over an ugly fight over Republicans trying to attach anti-abortion provisions to every bill they possibly can.

Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/04/24/hillary_clinton_s_first_campaign_speech_it_s_all_about_feminism.html

It is a smart move. Perk women's interest first, then when the misogynistic backlash hits, what she says will be more powerful and it will get more women energized. I like it.

April 24, 2015

Michigan Senate committee to hear testimony on RFRA bill the same day marriage equality case is at S

Source: eclectablog

....at the Supreme Court


It’s hard not to be cynical about the timing of the Michigan Senate committee hearing on “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (RFRA) legislation on April 28th. The same day DeBoer v Snyder, the case for marriage equality, gets its day at the U.S. Supreme Court, Michigan Republicans have scheduled hearings on RFRA legislation similar to the RFRA legislation passed in Indiana that caused a rightful uproar. The Indiana legislation was changed after it was passed into law to include more protections for the LGBT community, but many critics say those protections don’t go far enough.

Michigan Senate Bill 4 claims to be all about protecting people of faith from government interference in their religious practice — which is a right so fundamental to America that it’s already protected under the U.S. Constitution. But as usual with most RFRA legislation, SB 4 is vaguely worded. That leaves the law open for interpretation that puts people’s rights at risk.

This is particularly true for the LGBT community, which is not protected under Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Since there is no law to protect the rights of the LGBT community there is no protection for LGBT people against religious discrimination that would be enshrined into law by SB 4.

But RFRA legislation has the potential to harm anyone — Muslims or Christians who are refused police protection or medical care by someone of a different faith, single mothers who are denied housing by someone who thinks they are sinners, or a teenager who is refused school counseling because he has a drinking problem that goes against someone’s beliefs. The more vague the language of the bill, the greater the danger.

Another troubling aspect of SB 4 is the vague definition of “exercise of religion,” which leaves it open to broad interpretation.

Read more: http://www.eclectablog.com/2015/04/michigan-senate-committee-to-hear-testimony-on-rfra-bill-the-same-day-marriage-equality-case-is-at-supreme-court.html

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You don't even have to cite a legitimate recognized religion. So go ahead and discriminate against Republicans based on your "deeply held belief" that they're subverting basic "god-given" human rights. Or something.

April 24, 2015

"I thought I had rights. But my baby had more constitutional rights that I did."

Abortion Rights at Risk: The GOP Opens a New Front in the War on Women

<snip>

Walker and Cruz have also favored the idea of granting separate legal status, or "personhood," to the unborn, which in pro-life rhetoric equates abortion with murder. But abortion is actually just the beginning. What granting personhood to fetuses really does, say many reproductive-rights advocates, is pit the rights of the unborn against the rights of the mother. "Pregnancy in our society tends to be idealized and women counted on to provide a perfect uterine environment," Northwestern University law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer recently wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times. "Fetal rights can be employed to justify any deviation from this standard." And this isn't simply a hypothetical, she and others point out. Pregnant women have been prosecuted or subject to forced interventions for substance abuse, for refusing to have a Caesarean section, for attempting suicide, even for falling down the stairs. In a future that seems straight out of The Handmaid's Tale, the interests of "fetal protection," Tuerkheimer noted, might lead to pregnancy itself becoming a matter of state regulation.

<snip>

"It is not only that laws like this deprive women of their liberty and almost every other civil right associated with being a person protected by the U.S. Constitution," says Sara Ainsworth, director of legal advocacy at the nonprofit National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which is representing both Beltran and Loertscher in cooperation with the Carr Center for Reproductive Justice at NYU School of Law. "These laws actually put women's health and the health of their pregnancies at risk — which is totally contradictory to the claimed intent of this law. Basically, the law's true purpose appears to be to control and stigmatize pregnant women who have used any amount of a drug or alcohol."

<snip>

"What this is really about is creating a separate legal status for pregnant women," says Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, who co-authored a 2013 study that documented more than 400 cases between 1973 and 2005 of pregnant women who were subject to arrest, detention or forced intervention by state authorities. "There is no way to grant separate rights to eggs and fetuses without removing rights from women."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/abortion-rights-at-risk-the-gop-opens-a-new-front-in-the-war-on-women-20150422

These are women who aren't necessarily addicts, and who quit using anything once they got pregnant. Yet they are punished anyway. The fetus has more rights than women do.

April 24, 2015

Listeria: Jeni's 2nd Ice Cream Company to Recall Products

Source: ABC News

A second ice cream company has recalled all of its products after health officials found listeria in a sample of its frozen treats.

Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams of Ohio said on its website Thursday that it recalled its frozen products after the listeria discovery. The action follows a similar recall by Texas-based Blue Bell Creameries Monday. Blue Bell's ice cream was linked to 10 listeria illnesses in four states, including three deaths, and listeria was found in several of the company's products.

The recalls are uncommon: Listeria isn't usually found in ice cream, since the bacteria can't grow at freezing temperatures.

A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said the agency has no evidence, for now, that the listeria found in Jeni's ice cream and the listeria found in Blue Bell ice cream are connected.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/listeria-jenis-2nd-ice-cream-company-stop-production-30537618

April 24, 2015

Anti-vaxxers go there: Now they’re comparing childhood immunization to rape

Source: Raw Story - T Bogg

In an atmosphere where anti-vaxx activists are only slightly more popular than polio but are considerably less popular than the measles, now comes another shrill blast from an anti-vaxx group which has compared immunizing children to rape.

Yes, they went there.

The Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network (AVSNI) posted a graphic to their Facebook page on Wednesday — since taken down — with an ALL CAP headline reading: “FORCED PENETRATION.”

<snip>

And because science is not on their side, anti-vaxxers are now resorting to even more hysterical claims, equating government mandates to forcible sexual assault, which is repulsive on so many levels. But then this is the inevitable logical progression once you’ve gone from linking vaccines to Nazi medical experiments to then comparing childhood vaccinations to the Holocaust.

What do you have left?

Apparently this:

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…which is grotesque, coming as it does from people who are not only immune to scientific consensus but now– apparently — from shame.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/anti-vaxxers-go-there-now-theyre-comparing-childhood-immunization-to-rpe/

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They know they've lost the battle.

April 24, 2015

Which State Was the Worst for Women This Week?

Which State Was the Worst for Women This Week?

This week, DoubleX is proud to inaugurate the Worst State of the Week award, for the member of the union that has shown the most creativity, originality, brio, and thought leadership in expressing its hostility to women's rights. Before we get to our first-ever winner, though, let's look at the runners-up.
Third prize goes to Colorado, whose legislature is exploiting a violent crime against a pregnant woman—one that resulted in her baby's death—to justify a bill defining fertilized eggs as persons, even though voters rejected the notion at the polls in November. Despite claiming that the bill would protect pregnant women, the long history of these "feticide" laws indicates that they are actually used as a pretext to arrest women for stillbirths or even on suspicion of drug use while pregnant—even if they give birth to healthy babies. To add insult to injury, Colorado Republicans are on the verge of destroying a family planning program credited with reducing the teen birthrate in the state by 40 percent over a five-year period.

In second place is Tennessee, where the legislature passed two bills restricting abortion access this week that are expected to be signed by the governor. When Democrats tried to amend the bill to create exceptions for women with mental health emergencies or who were victims of rape or incest, state Rep. Sheila Butt shot them down, insinuating that patients and providers would fake these situations in order to gain abortion access.

Despite such fierce competition, this week's winner is Alabama, where state legislators finally allowed the subtext to become text with a bill that equates abortion providers and their patients with sex offenders. Republicans in the state House, eager to shut down the state's one remaining abortion clinic in Huntsville, have concocted a bill banning abortion clinics from operating within 2,000 feet of a school. Local anti-choice fanatic James Henderson takes credit for the idea, saying, "We were advised ... that a good approach was to use the same standard of keeping sex offenders from public schools, which is 2,000 feet."


Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/04/23/what_s_the_worst_state_for_women_this_week_colorado_tennessee_and_alabama.html

April 23, 2015

OwnIt 2016

OwnIt 2016

7 in 10 voters support access to legal abortion.
Anti-choice candidates know this, and hide their true agendas.
GOP White House hopefuls don’t trust women.
See their records. Make them #OwnIt.

Here are your 2016 Republican Presidential hopefuls.
Check out their policies, statements, pledges and help us make them #OwnIt.

Read more: https://ownit2016.com/


There are links to share on social media.

April 22, 2015

Tennessee Anti-Choice Politician Can’t Decide if Women Are Stupid or Cunning

Tennessee Anti-Choice Politician Can’t Decide if Women Are Stupid or Cunning

Back in November, voters in Tennessee passed a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution, making abortion the only medical procedure not protected under the state's stringent privacy protections. Proponents of the amendment ran a campaign downplaying the severity of the bill, claiming it wasn't about restricting abortion access but about making the constitution "neutral" on the subject. In a completely unshocking turn, those reassurances that this is no big deal were immediately forgotten, and the Tennessee legislature got right to passing invasive, punitive bills meant to make abortion as miserable and expensive an experience as possible.

One of the two bills the legislature passed this week requires a 48-hour waiting period to get an abortion, during which time you will be subjected to a government-mandated guilt trip under the guise of "informed consent." Standard stuff, but the floor debate over this bill, posted at Raw Story, was a master class in the doublespeak and contradictory arguments forwarded by anti-choicers these days.

<snip>

Fitzhugh then tried again, offering an amendment that allowed exceptions for rape and incest victims. Butt, who just moments before was portraying women as hapless and in need of protection from greedy abortionists, immediately switched gears to another favorite anti-choice stereotype: the crafty villainess who cries rape. “This amendment appears political, because we understand in most instances, this”—by which she means rape—“is not verifiable.”

She then pivoted seamlessly right back to the women-are-dummies line: “Let’s make sure that these women have the information and the understanding to act.”

Women: They're soft-hearted fools who are too dumb to know what "abortion" is without a condescending lecture and they're cunning liars who cry rape to conceal their wanton ways. Whichever you need to believe right this second in order to keep them from getting abortions.

Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/04/22/tennessee_s_new_waiting_period_has_no_exceptions_for_rape_or_mental_health.html

They can't decide if we're children who don't know what we're doing or we're so smart we fool everybody. But overall, we're evil. Gawd, I hate those mother f*ckers.

April 22, 2015

First Female DEA Chief Resigns After Blamed For Not Fixing ‘Good Old Boy’ Culture

This article makes a very good point: First Female DEA Chief Resigns After Blamed For Not Fixing ‘Good Old Boy’ Culture

<snip>

Her resignation therefore fits into a pattern of women being given leadership of organizations or companies when they are already struggling with significant problems and then often getting pushed out when they can’t engineer a quick turnaround. This is the phenomenon dubbed by researches the “glass cliff.” Multiple studies have found that women and people of color are more likely to be promoted into leadership when companies are experiencing poor performance or grappling with other big challenges. White men are seen as more natural leaders and can usually hold onto power when things are going well, but a rough patch may make people more inclined to turn to women to try something new. Women are then more likely to be forced out of their jobs, and when they are, white men often are put back into power as the “savior.”

The same pattern has turned up for the first women to lead other government agencies. Julia Pierson, former director of the Secret Service, was also tasked with cleaning up an agency already rocked by scandals, including Secret Service agents hiring prostitutes, and then made to resign when another scandal hit. The first woman to be named postmaster general of the Postal Service comes in at a time when revenue has been falling by billions of dollars every year, it has defaulted on pension payments, and it’s on the brink of financial collapse.

But it crops up in many different places. Two women lost high-up leadership roles at NBC after the Brian Williams scandal. Mary Barra became the first female CEO of General Motors just before its airbag failures came to light. The first head to roll after JP Morgan lost billions to a massively failed trade made by a male trader was a woman, while the first high-profile executive blamed for the crisis was a woman. Xerox’s first female CEO took the job when the company was $17 billion in debt, while Sunoco’s first female CEO got the position after its shares had fallen 52 percent.

It happens to people of color too: JC Penney’s first back CEO was appointed after the last CEO blew a $4 billion hole in sales.

Part of the reason that there are so few women in government and corporate leadership is that they don’t get promoted as often. But the other side is that when they are, they are handed nearly impossible turnaround jobs and then pushed out if they don’t succeed.

Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/22/3649790/michele-leonhart-dea-glass-cliff/

I have long said that GM appointed Mary Barra as CEO in order to take the fall.