Medieval

The GOP War on Women's Reproductive Rights - astounding to other developed Western countries.

On the campaign trail, Presidential contender Mitt Romney couldn't care less if the loss of Planned Parenthood means women can't get the health services they depend upon. He's got so much money, he tells other people to "go elsewhere."

Using the assumption God's name to punish women...it's got a long and sordid history. In the Olde Days, they called them witches.

It's a 21st Century witch hunt, once again from the most inflexibly Conservative among us.

Can Democracy beat them back?

War on Women - or Humanity?

What the hell is going through the heads of the GOP candidates and leaders, if only from a political standpoint. You only want the votes of women who are against the right to control their own bodies? (And I don't just mean on the right to end an unwanted pregnancy.)

View the devastation:

Willard Mitt Romney is the so-called "moderate" in the GOP Presidential race, but it's time the press woke up to his wildly extremist positions:

How easily it rolls off his tongue: "Planned Parenthood -- gonna get rid of that." First off, it's a private organization, so he's going to "get rid of that?" Second, the use of "that" indicates how far he's distanced from Planned Parenthood -- and the huge amount of good it does for women who don't get health services in other ways. And, finally, there's that good it does; Willard willing to dismiss it/cut it without a second thought? Who the hell's life is he trying to make better as President? No one but himself (and his fellow 1-percenters)?

Willard has veered so far into extremism that he won't even stand by his positions from the previous Presidential race:

And how testy that guy gets when challenged. Is this the guy who's finger should be on the nuclear trigger?

The fact is that the Affordable Care Act is already working. So what this election is really all about, as George Lakoff so insightfully puts it, is a radical Conservative revision of this nation:

The Santorum Strategy is not just about Santorum. It is about pounding the most radical conservative ideas into the public mind by constant repetition during the Republican presidential campaign, whether by Santorum himself, by Gingrich or Ron Paul, by an intimidated Romney, or by the Republican House majority. The Republican presidential campaign is about a lot more than the campaign for the presidency. It is about guaranteeing a radical conservative future for America.

...

Liberals tend to underestimate the importance of public discourse and its effect on the brains of our citizens. All thought is physical. You think with your brain. You have no alternative. Brain circuitry strengthens with repeated activation. And language, far from being neutral, activates complex brain circuitry that is rooted in conservative and liberal moral systems. Conservative language, even when argued against, activates and strengthens conservative brain circuitry. This is extremely important for so-called "independents," who actually have both conservative and liberal moral systems in their brains and can shift back and forth. The more they hear conservative language over the next eight months, the more their conservative brain circuitry will be strengthened.

...

The radical conservative discourse of the Republican presidential race has the same purpose, and conservative Republicans are luring Democrats into making the same mistakes. Santorum, the purest radical conservative, is the best example. From the perspective of conservative moral values, he is making sense and arguing logically, making his moral values clear and coming across as straightforward and authentic, as Reagan did.

Lakoff goes on to describe the differences between the Progressive moral worldview and the Conservative one. It's very much worth reading as a whole, particularly when he shows how the Democrats may be missing the point and, even if they win the Presidency this year, may lose other office elections and the overall, long-term war. And he lays out the Conservative "logic" that leads to the decimation of critical governmental programs and safeguards that actually help Americans:

Here's how that logic goes.

• The strict father determines what happens in the family, including reproduction. Thus reproduction is the province of male authority.
• The strict father does not condone moral weakness and self-indulgence without moral consequences. Sex without reproductive consequences is thus seen as immoral.
• If the nation supports birth control for unmarried women, then the nation supports immoral behavior.
• The conservative stress on individual responsibility means that you and no one else should have to pay for your birth control -- not your employer, your HMO, or the taxpayers.
• Having to pay for your birth control also has a metaphorical religious value -- paying for your sins.
• This is a classical slippery slope narrative. If no one else should have to pay for your birth control, the next step is that no one else should have to pay for any of your health care.
• And the step after that is that no one else should be forced to pay for anyone else. This is, everything should be privatized -- no public education, safety nets, parks, or any public institutions or services.

It's war. On who is a great question -- because it isn't just women, no matter how much they are the target at the moment. If these GOoPers get in, kiss all the advances from the Affordable Care Act goodbye.

It's shaping up to be the most pivotal election of our era.

Oink

You'd think the age of the male chauvinist pig is long over, but then you wouldn't be taking into account House Republicans or Santorum supporter Foster Friess.

First, the contraception hearings run by Congressional committee chairman Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) featured, exactly, zero women:

Three Democrats walked out of a House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on religious liberty and the birth control rule on Thursday to protest Chairman Darrell Issa's (R-Calif.) refusal to allow a progressive woman to testify in favor of the Obama administration's contraception rule. The morning panel at the hearing consisted exclusively of men from conservative religious organizations.

"What I want to know is, where are the women?" Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asked Issa before walking out of the hearing after the first panel. "I look at this panel, and I don't see one single individual representing the tens of millions of women across the country who want and need insurance coverage for basic preventative health care services, including family planning. Where are the women?"

And then there's this wealthy Santorum campaign surrogate recommending the inexpensive birth control method of his use:

How refreshingly 19th Century of Issa and Friess. Way to help Obama with the female vote!

The Fascist Syrian Government

Andrew Sullivan has the brutal post on the torture, genital mutilation and murder under arrest of a thirteen year-old boy by Syrian authorities, with the video of his corpse being returned to his parents. I don't even want to embed here. Too awful.

This Assad was supposedly the good-guy doctor trained in the West, not his brutal old man. Well, unless he's a puppet, he's still in charge, and he now deserves the meathook for his deeds.

On top of all the slaughter of protesting civilians, this boy, Hamza al-Khateeb, is now a cause. Stupid, evil dictators. I guess I haven't paid all that much attention due to my feelings about Syria in relation to Israel as well as its collaboration with the current Iranian regime. But these are the people speaking, Arab Spring, repressive edition.

Fascism means deputizing the most sadistic and base to strike terror into the populace. It never lasts forever, but it can be on so many lifetimes, taken.

The President of Yemen is reneging on his promise to step away as well, returning to death as his political tactic.

Hook 'em.