Yet Another Reason

If you're strongly anti-abortion and believe the government should regulate that female choice, then by all means vote GOP. However, if you're on the fence at all regarding the Republican agenda and are only along for fiscal or military reasons, this should give you yet another reason never to pull the lever for a Republican again:

The House voted 251-175 on Wednesday to pass the GOP's controversial anti-abortion measure H.R. 3, "The No Taxpayer Funding For Abortion Act." Sixteen Democrats joined 235 Republicans in approving it.
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The legislation would eliminate tax deductions for employer-provided health insurance plans that cover abortion, effectively raising costs for businesses that offer abortion-inclusive health care to employees. It could also deny Medicaid-based abortion care to women even if their health may be harmed by carrying the pregnancy to term.
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"This bill goes far beyond prohibiting federal funding [for abortion]," said Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY). "The real purpose and effect of this bill is to eliminate private health care choices for women by imposing significant tax penalties on families and small businesses when they use their own money to pay for health insurance or medical care.

The measure maintains exemptions for cases of rape, incest and when the mother's life is in danger. But a committee report left open the possibility that the legislation could deny federally-subsidized abortion in instances of statutory rape.

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"This bill is so extreme that it manipulates the tax code to advance anti-choice policies and could spur the IRS to audit rape and incest survivors who choose abortion care," said Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America.

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Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood, said she was "outraged" that the measure passed. "H.R. 3 is a dangerous bill that goes far beyond any other proposal ever introduced in Congress to take comprehensive health care coverage away from women," she said.

This is a tax increase on women and small businesses -- not exactly a fiscally conservative policy. And so much for the myth the GOP perpetuated that they are somehow concerned about jobs. While the President is likely to veto the GOP legislation, which is also unlikely to pass the U.S. Senate, states like Texas are already making it hard and harder on women:

Yesterday, the Texas Legislature passed legislation requiring doctors to perform a sonogram at least 24 hours before an abortion and to describe what the sonogram shows. Only in cases of rape, incest, or fetal abnormality is a woman allowed to bypass that requirement. Texas is facing it’s worst budget crisis since World War II. But apparently, with the nation racing to restrict women’s rights as much as humanly possible, Gov. Texas Perry (R) dubbed this anti-abortion bill as an “emergency priority” to fast-track its passage.

And who's supposed to pay for that sonogram?

The only good side of all this GOP overreach seems to be fundraising for Dems off the threat to a woman's right to control her own body. Like you can do here.

Fascist Revisionists

Welcome to the Goskomizdat 2010 -- Christianists taking over the school board and rewriting history books to suit their ideology:

Cynthia Dunbar, a lawyer from Richmond who is a strict constitutionalist and thinks the nation was founded on Christian beliefs, managed to cut Thomas Jefferson from a list of figures whose writings inspired revolutions in the late 18th century and 19th century, replacing him with St. Thomas Aquinas, John Calvin and William Blackstone. (Jefferson is not well liked among conservatives on the board because he coined the term “separation between church and state.”)

Dunbar and her allies deserve public humiliation if not treason trials for their fascistic use of power. Not only did Thomas Jefferson's writing inspire revolution around the globe, he's the author of our Declaration of Independence, the ultimate great revolutionary document of all time.

Obama may be President, but he hard right threat to this nation is only just getting started. Since Texas buys a disproportionate number of text books, there are other states that will be infected by this school board's lies.

Another argument for allowing Tejas secession.

Deep in the Heart

If Houston can elect an openly gay mayor, is there not hope for all of America?

Death Penalty FAIL?

At the urging of several different friends, I read The New Yorker piece last month about Todd Willingham, who was executed in Texas for a crime that may never have happened. This is the most prominent case right now of potential death penalty applied to an innocent man.

I won't go into all the details, and you can read the piece here, but essentially he was convicted of murdering his two young children by arson, on evidence which has arguably been disproven by breakthroughs in arson detection science, evidence provided by what appear to be woefully underqualified arson "experts" in northeast Texas.

I thought the story would be an uninteresting low-life tale; in fact it's a page-turner. But a new story is emerging, one of potential cover-up by Texas Governor Rick Perry (R), who is looking at a difficult primary battle against popular Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who's going after his job.

Perry has removed officials on the science panel investigating the Willingham case, just 48-hours prior to a key hearing with the scientist disproving the Willingham arson evidence, and replaced them with his own people. Sure looks like he's covering for a failed death penalty system -- and Perry's own failure to commute Willingham's sentence to give time for the evidence to be fully examined.

Hutch

Perry's going the demonization route, calling Willingham a "monster." Hutchison's campaign are using the apparent conflict of interest against Perry with a press release including:

The issue is Rick Perry’s heavy-handed politicization of a process and Commission established by the legislature to provide critical oversight. First, Rick Perry delayed the formation of the Texas Forensic Science Commission, then he tried to ensure it didn’t have funding and when all else failed, he fired everyone he could. The only thing Rick Perry’s actions have accomplished is giving liberals an argument to discredit the death penalty.

Nothing like watching GOPers fight it out, but the bigger issue here is the finality of the death penalty. Look, when I hear about a villain who kidnaps, rapes and murders a fourteen year-old girl, I say fry 'em. But justice is imperfect, especially in certain parts of the country, and arson is perhaps the hardest crime to pin down as murder. Even decades in prison capped by exoneration is better than exoneration post-lethal injection.

So what wonder is, with exonerations based on DNA evidence happening routinely these days, is there still a perfect argument for the state putting convicted individuals to death, rather than life imprisonment?

A Tale of Three Governors

Which one of these GOP Governors is doing best?

The "shooting" star?

The secessionist who seemed fine taking FEMA money?

The stimulus-embracer working seamlessly with President Obama?

Hint: I can tell you which one would have a chance to earn my crossover vote.