My vagina really hates you — like, way down in its special place.1
The debate about H.R. 3 is still raging. After getting creamed in the media for their “forcible rape” shenanigans, House Republicans backtracked. They agreed to drop the “forcible rape” language and replace it with existing Hyde Amendment language. (Thanks, y’all! You’re aces!) The bill is still, however, a steaming pile of What the Fuck is Wrong With You:
H.R. 3 purports to be a ban on federal funding for abortion. This ban is punitive and terrible, to be sure, but H.R. 3 goes much, much further than that. The bill would also impose tax penalties on individuals and small businesses with insurance plans that include abortion. That’s right. Tax penalties. As in, people with insurance plans that cover abortion would have to pay higher taxes than people whose health plans don’t. Yep – you heard it right. If your insurance plan covers abortion – even if you never knew it, and even if you never used it – you could face a tax penalty. Depending on what kinds of tax benefits you’re eligible for, it could be substantial.
So what would this mean for a real family? Take a father of three working as an assembly lineman who loses his job when his manufacturing plant closes. Right now, he’s eligible for the Health Coverage Tax Credit to help with the costs of his $13,770 premium. But, because his insurance plan included coverage of abortion—even though he never knew about this benefit and no one in his family ever used it—H.R. 3 would suddenly make him ineligible for the benefit and would cost him $11,236.
Other tax benefits are on the line, too. Right now, a woman who makes $25,000 is eligible to deduct any amount over $1,875 she spends on health expenses, including her insurance premiums, from her taxable income. If H.R. 3 were enacted and her health insurance plan includes coverage of abortion, she would lose a $1,731 deduction. More than 7.5 million families claim this particular medical expense deductions—and each of them would lose the deduction if their plan covers abortion.
Anthony Weiner (known for his killer tirades) rightfully thinks that simply dropping “forcible rape” doesn’t make H.R. 3 any more palatable:
“Don’t let anyone who supports this bill ever say to you, “I’m for less government regulation. Oh, there’s too much regulation.” You’ve got to be kidding. You can’t vote for this thing and then say you’re for less government regulation. This is the mother of all government regulation. This is the regulation of an individual woman in a room with her doctor and Congressman Pitts, apparently. I mean, I can’t think of a bigger government regulation.”
This video should be scattered hither and yon throughout the United States of Intertrons. Anthony Weiner is spot on. This is nothing less than a stunning display of rank Teabilly hypocrisy. They are against government regulation when it comes to things they care about, and for government regulation when it comes to their religious anti-gay/forced-birth/we-love-Jesus pet projects. They promote intellectual dishonesty based on lies. They are liars on top of liars. Layered liars, if you will. (Or even if you won’t. I don’t really care. This is my post, damnit.)
Frankly, I’m surprised that these assholes haven’t been crippled by the cognitive dissonance which must plague them as they try to rationalize in their tiny brains their diametrically opposed views. (I envision smoke shooting out of their ears.)
These people cannot and should not be taken seriously. At all. EVER.
1 Yes, even my Special Place has a special place.
[cross-posted here at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
MikeJ
Tax breaks for insurance coverage that includes abortion are the same as the state sponsoring abortion. Therefore, tax breaks for donations to churches are the same as state sponsorship for religion.
Defund the asshole. No money for churches, any time, anywhere.
Ima get me a dwarf, head to the San Fransisco Opera house, and join the “Tax the Churches League”.
Mark S.
Holy fuck! I didn’t know that. What a bunch of cocksucking assholes.
freelancer
If your vag was a crayon, it wouldn’t hate me, even though I’m technically a whitey; but in actuality, I’m a burnt sienna without a tan.
+3
Strandedvandal
“It doesn’t sound terribly enticing, no.” Well played Sir.
Little Boots
More him. yes, he is good.
Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q)
But they honest to g*d believe that the unborn should have rights. Why, I cannot tell. Because they sure as shit don’t give a rats ass about any of these righteous unborns once they cross the cervical rubicon and become change status to the born. Then they are just a public nuisance, unless and until they can tote an M-16.
Sorry, as a woman, I simply can’t quite be reasonable about this.
geg6
Fuck these mother fuckers. No more tax breaks at all whatsoever for religions and religious organizations. Fucks these assholes as much as they have fucked all tg girls and boys they have fucked over the centuries. Fuck them, fuck them, fuck them. Religion and it’s associated pathologies must die. With prejudice.
NCBsoder
Thank you ABL. I’m old and tired and am tempted to look away. But because of you I look, and get angry all over again and get back in the fight. Jeez, I’m tired, but I will still fight for my daughter and all her girlfriends. Thank you ABL and damn them all to heck for their hypocrisy! I know if it was their daughter they’d do the same thing as me.
Gin & Tonic
Purely for the linguistic lulz, only to be appreciated by folks from Noo Yawk, would be the 2016 presidential debates between Anthony Weiner and Chris Christy. Verbal fireworks in more ways than one.
geg6
OT, but GO PITT! Backyard brawl, bitchez!
Pooh
That is a fucking righteous rant.
Studly Pantload
Some have gonads of steel, but Rep. Weiner has balls of fire.
suzanne
For serious. The government they want is so damn huge and all-encompassing that it has one of its minions in my fucking internal organs. Like the monster from “Cloverfield”. But in my uterus.
freelancer
@Another Commenter at Balloon Juice (fka Bella Q):
Aside from mockery and advocacy of our position, the last resort is to attack this patriarchal movement from the right of their own position. If the potential for life is the metric by which the Christian Right measures their concern for human beings, if before birth isn’t enough, and they want to precede and supersede the mores we’ve put in place because of their religious conviction, shouldn’t they honor what they say? If every potential human life should be protected at the behest of government power, which is what they want, why aren’t they advocating No-knock raids on every male who jacks off in this country?!
If what they preach, from an quasi-intellectual view, were to come to pass, then shouldn’t they be living as Biblically as they say we all should? The Bible states clearly that self-pleasure is a no no, so much so that the story of Onan is a parable about the sinfulness of “spilling your seed on the ground”.
But if the measure of life is that of the potential for lives lived, then across this country, and across the world, pleasurable acts of genocide are occurring this very minute.
To prize and prioritize “new” life over living life is to morally dangle a man’s ballsack over his own head as a figuratively mushy “sword of Damocles”. Men have never faced biblical or even something remotely resembling a legal dilemma. The day they do, is the day that every single man on the planet becomes a Pro-choice advocate and the issue disappears entirely from our national politics.
“Don’t want to face sincerely held religious objections to procreation? Don’t orgasm. Ever. Simple as that. You don’t like that, don’t vote for us.”
Snarki, child of Loki
“GOP VOTES FOR TAX INCREASE”
…and watch them weasel and squirm.
Ash Can
Call it what it is. In this particular case, it’s misogyny on parade. Republicans hate women.
Roger Moore
@freelancer:
Look at the gender of the “pro life” movement, and you’ll have your answer. Penalties for women trying to control their own reproduction, or even suffering from miscarriage? Hell yes! Penalties for men doing WTFTW? Hell no!
Not so much. Onan’s sin wasn’t guilty because spilling one’s seed on the ground is wrong in general. His sin was much more specific. His older brother Er died without progeny, so it was Onan’s duty to impregnate his sister-in-law, Tamar, whose child would be recognized as Er’s. The coitus interruptus with Tamar was intended to avoid providing an heir for Er, who would have precedence in inheritance over Onan’s own legal children. It was the disloyalty to his family that made God punish Onan, not the generic act of coitus interruptus.
Mark S.
@Roger Moore:
That’s certainly the most straightforward interpretation of the story of Onan. That’s why I can’t believe the stupid Catholic Church uses it to prohibit all birth control. It’s really the stupidest thing in the history of religion, and religion’s full of stupid things in its history.
slag
Just donated to Planned Parenthood this evening.
More like this! Please!
General Stuck
To quote my political hero and mentor Bill Moyers,
You think those politicians are bad, you should see their constituents. These fuckers are simply doing what they were elected to do. Drag us all back to the early 19th century, if we’re lucky. This will never become law, and it is the saving grace we call republican over reach. I love it when they propose this shit, it is political napalm in the morning and smells…… like victory.
freelancer
@General Stuck:
Stuck, you just gained a million points cred with me, FWIW.
piratedan
Don’t forget that Pitts is one of those bleeping C-Street Family bastards that cater to the “thoughtful Christian” legislators like Senator Ensign and Govenor Sandford. Upstanding men of high moral fiber.
Poika
Why don’t the Dems just scream that the GOP is trying to raise taxes?
Uloborus
Honestly, I really don’t think this is about misogyny. It’s not about hating women. It’s about not giving a flying fuck about anyone whatsoever’s life and happiness. They have a rule that helps define their little culture. They want to impose it come Hell or High Water. Its effect on humans is immaterial. That it happens to target women most sadistically is an accident. Their religion happens to have been defined by a misogynist (Paul).
Why is abortion in particular their absolute favorite? Because they can describe it as ‘baby killing’, no more. It just has the catchiest tag line, one that really boils the blood.
Sly
Murder is murder, as they love to say. And if you believe that abortion is murder then by extension you must believe that any woman who, of her own free will, receives an abortion is guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and should receive the same sentence as someone who hire’s a hitman to kill their spouse.
Try this little game with your favorite anti-choicer: “What criminal sentence do you think a woman should get for having an abortion?” The ethical contortions they go through to avoid saying “decades in jail” is a sight to behold. The answer I usually get (and this is by no means a scientific survey) falls under the category of forced religious counseling. They should be mandated to talk to a religious leader, though presumably this will be narrowly tailored to exclude religious leaders who are pro-choice. No excessive entanglement of government with religion there, no siree!
I typically follow that up with something along the lines of “So if I pay a hitman to kill my wife, then all I have to do is talk to a pastor?” Then the conversation abruptly ends with a spark of enlightenment or a dirty look.
Sly
@General Stuck:
I always loved Moyers for of his sense of the practical nature of politics, which is something I think even his most ardent fans ignore. In that regard, the full passage in which that quote appears deserves to be reprinted in full:
From Moyers on America, page 31:
freelancer
@Sly:
Did transcribe this from a hardcopy? I’d love to find a version of this in pdf or html for my kindle and donate the proceeds I would have spent on the paper copy to a charity of Moyer’s choice.
Yutsano
@Uloborus:
Your two statements countermand each other. And yes Christianity is at its very nature anti-woman. Or more specifically anti-modern woman. If they stay barefoot and pregnant and submissive they’re just tolerable.
Uloborus
@Yutsano:
No, they don’t countermand each other at all. Whatever the ORIGINAL motivation, the CURRENT motivation is not hatred of women. The current motivation is enforcing the rules that were passed down to them. The rules could end up favoring the sexual abuse of mostly male children by the priesthood and they wouldn’t give a damn about that either. However, claiming that people who defy your culture kill babies makes you feel all warm and awesome and morally superior and gives you a great excuse to unleash your hate. The motivation of anti-abortion fever is not hatred of women. It’s indifference to all human suffering in favor of simple abstract ideals and tribalism.
Jack
Cognitive dissonance requires cognition in the first place.
I’m not sure they are sapient.
Rockabilly
After masturbating this morning, I realize that I forgot to consider the rights of the 100 million sperm that I stuck into a napkin and threw away. Oh the mass murder…..
Very Reverend Crimson Fire of Compassion
@Yutsano: Close, but no cigar. “Modern woman” isn’t the first powerful image of femininity to cross the stage of world culture. Early Christianity was anti-independent woman of any era. They despised priestesses, courtesans, female oracles, queens who ruled in their own right. The anti-female vitriol of Christian scripture was a response to independent “uppity” women of their own and previous eras. The idea that woman has always been subjugated until the modern era is a damnable lie rooted in the Eurocentric myth of “progress” which has rationalized genocide and fascism from “manifest destiny” to “liebenschraum”.
Paul in KY
@Rockabilly: You are truly going to Hell ;-), or is that coming to Hell?
karen marie
I spoke to Congressman James McGovern’s office about this just a moment ago and was informed that “it’s still in committee.” McGovern agrees this should not be passed and will vote against it, but I requested that he and his fellow Democrats speak out loudly and publicly about this.
Unfortunately, that will only happen in my dreams.
zanequest
@Uloborus: This was supremely eloquently stated. It is so refreshing to read excellently written and highly intelligent prose. Deadly accurate.
pategp
Yes, you are quite right about that. Which makes it even more amazing that people voted them into office. Talk about playing Russian roulette with all six chambers loaded instead of just one! Of course, in a few years those same voters will have forgottonen all about this, and the reps up for re-election will deny that was ever their intent, and the cattle will moo and vote for them again.
pategp
@Mark S.: Yes, you are quite right about that. Which makes it even more amazing that people voted them into office. Talk about playing Russian roulette with all six chambers loaded instead of just one! Of course, in a few years those same voters will have forgottonen all about this, and the reps up for re-election will deny that was ever their intent, and the cattle will moo and vote for them again.
Note: I accidently removed the reference so this also posted as a separate comment.