Republicans are trying to climb inside your uterus again.
During the last budget showdown, the Republicans showed America its battle-plan in the War on Women: the GOP is trying like hell to defund Planned Parenthood. At the time, I wrote the following:
I have (or at least I think I have) avoided coming right out and stating that Republicans hate women. It seemed to be such a gross and unfair generalization.
But with each passing day, as they attempt to redefine “rape” and “rape victim”; as they attempt to pass legislation that permits Dr. Conscientious Objector to refuse to perform emergency abortion services and to also not require hospitals to transfer women to a facility that will provide such services (thus, quite literally, leaving women to die); as they attempt to redefine justifiable homicide such that the murder of any person threatening the life of a fetus becomes justified (does this include the murder of the mother herself? Can a scorned boyfriend or husband decide to murder his girlfriend or wife because he suspects that she intends to make a choice about her body and whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term?), it becomes more and more difficult for me to avoid stating the obvious:
REPUBLICANS.HATE.WOMEN.
I wasn’t wrong.
Republicans are at it again: This time, in a calculated political attack, they have requested financial records from Planned Parenthood Federation for America just to make sure that it isn’t violating the Hyde Amendment and using funds for abortion:
Last week, the Oversight subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, chaired by Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-FL), sent a letter to Planned Parenthood requesting around twelve years of financial documents as part of an investigation into whether the women’s health organization is misusing its federal funds.
“The committee has questions about the policies in place and actions undertaken by PPFA and its affiliates relating to its use of federal funding and its compliance with federal restrictions on the funding of abortions,” Stearns said in the letter.
Under the Hyde Amendment, federal funds cannot be used for abortions, and the organization submits to yearly audits to that end. But the committee’s requests are still aimed at making sure Planned Parenthood isn’t violating this law, asking for internal audits of how the organization spent its federal funds between 1998-2010, and how “segregation between family planning and abortion services is accomplished.”
You may recall during the April budget showdown, President Obama refused to make any cuts to Planned Parenthood. Boehner asked for cuts; Obama said “nope, zero.” (I wrote about the end result of the April budget showdown here.)
You may also recall that Planned Parenthoods in New Hampshire were forced to stop providing contraceptives to women because the all-Republican organization which awards the contracts required for Planned Parenthood to operate (called the Executive Council), refused to award the requisite contract to Planned Parenthood of Northern New England because Planned Parenthood performs abortions — even though, contrary to John Kyl’s patently false claims which were “not intended to be a factual statement”, abortions comprise a small percentage of services offered by Planned Parenthood, and no tax dollars are use for abortions because the Hyde Amendment prohibits it (I wrote about the New Hampshire Planned Parenthood showdown here).
There is, however, some good news from the warfront: Just a few weeks ago, the Obama Administration contracted with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England to provide family planning services in New Hampshire, thus ending a crisis faced by low-income women (and men). In short, women of New Hampshire will now be able to obtain contraceptives and cancer screenings:
Planned Parenthood of Northern New England says the federal government is contracting it for family planning services in New Hampshire that lost funding when the Executive Council decided not to rehire the organization.
State health officials had been searching for other providers who could offer family planning services — including contraception and cancer screenings — after the all-Republican council voted 3-2 in June against renewing a contract with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England.
Planned Parenthood said Tuesday that the award recognizes that it is “an essential and established part of the health care infrastructure in New Hampshire, serving almost 16,000 women, men and teens through health centers in Claremont, Derry, Exeter, Keene, Manchester and West Lebanon.”
I’m going to belabor this point: the Obama Administration stepped up to protect women’s health in New Hampshire from Republican incursion. Now consider, for a moment, what President Perry or Romney would do.
It’s a big deal.
[via Talking Points Memo]
[cross-posted at Angry Black Lady Chronicles]
Big Baby DougJ
This kind of thing too often flies under the radar because too many pro-choice people believe Roe v. Wade protects this from the wrath of the theocrats.
Jenny
I tired of hearing about what Obama has done for women.
What has he done for the oppressed white male blogger!?
Mike in NC
Hey, the 11 PM news is saying Newt Gingrich is rebooting his flailing joke of a presidential campaign by announcing a NEW! & IMPROVED! 21st Century version of the beloved “Contract
WithOn America”: Privatize Social Security, Repeal “ObamaCare”, Enact the Flat Tax, and Basically Screw the Middle Class Out of Existence. Win!Uriel
He’s graciously granted them a target for their endless, self-involved bitching. No single demographic has more to thank this president for than the oppressed white male blogger.
Mnemosyne
But I’ve been told that Obama is governing exactly like a Republican and that President Romney wouldn’t do anything differently than Obama has. Do you think maybe Jay B. is lying to me?
burnspbesq
The best possible outcome here is that PP responds to the letter with a polite but firm “we’ll be happy to provide these records in response to a subpoena from someone with jurisdiction to investigate us and authority to issue a subpoena, but since you’re not that person, Congressman, suck it.”
Alison
(To quoth myself from ABL’s blog…)
God I fucking hate anti-choicers. RAWR.
I don’t want kids at all, ever, no question. If the GOPers want to control my uterus so much, I’m happy to have it yanked out and I’ll FedEx it right to them. They can cuddle up with it at night and take it to the park and put up pics on FB tagged “Alison’s uterus on the swings, isn’t it cute??”
Assholes.
burnspbesq
@Mnemosyne:
In order for him to be lying, wouldn’t he have to know the difference between reality and his wacko fantasies? I just think he’s thoroughly confuzzled.
Bago
@Alison: Careful Alison. Someone might think you were hysterical. Pun intended.
Brian S
Republicans don’t hate women. They hate women with rights who are willing to exercise those rights. They’re totallyl okay with the women who subject themselves to manly power. And yes, I’m including women Republicans in that gross overgeneralization.
Uriel
@Mnemosyne:
Perish the thought! I seriously dout that such a widely respected observer as the renowned Jay B could be wrong on such matters. The only possible explination is that this is ‘just words(C)’ intended to lure PP into ‘the veal pen(R)’ so they can be ‘thrown under the bus (TM).’ Or some such. Because he’s a jerk that way.
But, never fear, he will defenately find some way to ‘sell us out.’*
*patent pending
Shade Tail
Hmph. Earlier today, I witnessed a “liberal” whining about how Obama isn’t standing up for Planned Parenthood. I just now copied the URL of that Chron article and sent it to him with a rather pointed note that he was criticizing Obama for pure bullshit reasons.
Gah. For those self-righteous twits to call themselves liberals is either a joke or a tragedy. They’re all tools of the GOP, knowingly or not.
Big Baby DougJ
@Jenny:
How about the oppressed black male Ivy League chaired professors and millionaire radio hosts? You’re forgetting that key demographic.
Corner Stone
@Mnemosyne:
What difference would it make? No one could ever out lie the BJ Champ.
ABL
Wow. No one’s called me racist yet?
Tsk tsk.
Brian S
@ABL: Someone right now is thinking “I could try the Margaret Sanger gambit right now,” I guarantee you.
AxelFoley
This should be a troll-free thread since it has nothing to do with race.
Unless we consider women to a different race than men.
Mnemosyne
@ABL:
I’m waiting for the “Shut Up and Get Me a Sandwich” progressives to come tell me that the health of millions of women isn’t important the way that, say, the government saying they could theoretically bomb a US citizen living in an al-Qaeda camp is important.
Which reminds me, if Obama is a horrible tyrant who’s panting to kill US citizens, why is al-Awlaki still walking around in perfect health? Wasn’t he supposed to be murdered by Obama, like, months ago?
Corner Stone
@ABL: Shouldn’t you be on twitter now, blocking eeerrrrone who does not agree with you.
AxelFoley
@ABL:
Shit, you beat me to it.
General Stuck
@AxelFoley:
The little darling miscreants are all tuckered out from another day of fapping at the moon. They need their ugly sleep to start a fresh day of bottom feeding. Except Corner Stone, that runs always on high performance bile, and whiskey.
Brian S
It’s kind of amazing how quiet it is in an ABL thread when the racists aren’t getting their hate on in it.
Corner Stone
@General Stuck: “Some times things are things. Other times things are other things, except when they are not. In those times some have sayings about things that aren’t things or other things. But that’s different.”
General Stuck
@Corner Stone:
LOL, somebody take CS’s bottle and put him to bed, before he hurts his self.
Yutsano
@General Stuck: I wonder if there will be more homophobic violent threats. Also. Too.
Mnemosyne
Well, if no one wants to fight, who wants to run from zombies? One of my co-workers is planning to do this (yes, it’s a real event, not an Onion special):
http://runforyourlives.com/
Helen
@ABL: That you are expecting it says TONS about you.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Hmm…I may to inform the work Dawg about this. He’s slightly obsessed with the undead.
General Stuck
@Mnemosyne:
Oh, that would be easy. Everybody knows Zombies can’t run, or at least not very fast. Just don’t get cornered in an abandoned cabin in the deep dark woods, and they should be good to go.
Brian S
@Helen: Well, the sun rises and sets a few million times, you tend to expect it will happen again. Same with racist bullshit in ABL’s threads.
Alison
@Helen: It sure does. Like – that she learns from CONSTANTLY REPEATED EXPERIENCES and maybe sorta sometimes draws conclusions from them and holds some expectations because of them.
SO CRAZY!
MikeJ
@Yutsano: Does bring up the whole fast zombies v slow zombies debate.
I’m solidly in the slow zombie fan camp. If being chased by them, at least you can stop for a beer.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
There is a special military category apart from the age groups.
@General Stuck:
Ah, but they will have both the classic “Night of the Living Dead” zombies and the speedy “28 Days Later” zombies chasing you through the obstacle course.
If I weren’t so disastrously out of shape, I might consider doing it myself. I always was good at Capture the Flag. Maybe next year.
General Stuck
Well, it’s sleepy time for me. I’ll probly have zombie dreams now, and no doubt the fast ones. Later Alligators.
Yutsano
@MikeJ: The running joke right now is that since we can chase a delinquent taxpayer after death (it’s true: ask Burnsy!) we therefore require a set of guidelines for the undead. The work Dawg is writing it. So far no big changes for vampires but zombies need more work since they tend to be unemployed.
Mnemosyne
@MikeJ:
That’s what Shaun and Ed were hoping, but it didn’t really work out that way.
And this may be a big honkin’ spoiler, but can I just say that Zombieland totally cheated their ending. It’s not a real zombie movie if none of the leads die, damn it!
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Ooh, wait, I didn’t catch the first time that there’s a new Dawg in town, so to speak. Do tell.
Uriel
Look- Fast, slow, it deosn’t matter. All zombies suffer from the same, easily exploitable weakness: ladders. None of them, regardless of brand, have ever been shown successfully navigating a ladder. All you have to do is grab on to the nearest fire escape and-You Win!
Stupidest monster craze ever. Now, evil ghosts- they’ll fuck your shit up.
MikeJ
@Uriel:
Vampires represent fear of aristocrats. Zombies represent fear of the proletariat.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
@Brian S:
It’s kind of amazing how quiet it is in an ABL thread when she isn’t getting her hate on in it by foolishly calling other people racists who are not.
.
.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: No big tale really. One of the guys who was hired at the same time I was is former active duty Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children. And in some bizarro fashion we’ve bonded. And oh yeah he’s sexy as hell. He is semi-taken though.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Well, semi-taken isn’t fully taken, so who knows?
(Of course, I had some notable disasters waiting around in vain for “semi-taken” guys to be freed up in my single days, but you’re smarter than me, right?)
Uriel
@MikeJ: That’s an interesting take on it, I’ll admit.
No one of importance
@Helen:
Oh yeah it does. I mean, it’s awful that BJ’s lone black blogger is attacked as racist every single time she posts here, but it would be a sign of insanity for ABL to expect different behaviour after a couple of hundred opportunities for the commentators here to not to show their pasty privileged arses at her just because she’s there.
For instance, look at you. Proving her point. Again.
Says TONS about you too.
ruemara
That’s impossible. I was told explicitly by my much more progressive than me internet friend, that Obama is a misogynist who she won’t vote for because of the dismissive, abusive language in his EO for ACA that reaffirmed the Hyde Amendment in the worst, most misogynistic manner possible. He hates women and their smelly uteri and has been a terrible, ineffective, wuss of president because he’s not the fighter Hillary would have been. Which is why she’s supporting John Huntsman and would not vote for Obama even if I put a gun to her head, because I would do that because I’m just supporting him because we may be the same shade. And I’m a self-hating woman. Who is woefully uninformed and a hero worshipper. Plus self hating.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: He’s at work. Work = no touchie. Not worth possibly messing things up at my job over that.
James E. Powell
I’ve noticed that many bloggers use the phrase ‘war on women’ to refer to Republican anti-abortion efforts. I do not think it is a war on women and I am certain that not all women see it that way. So why call it that?
I understand that Planned Parenthood does health care and even though I’m still pissed at the organization for endorsing Holy Joe I’d like to see some big shots stand up for them.
Does Planned Parenthood figure that they are better off flying under the radar?
No one of importance
A man married to Michelle Obama hates women?
Wow, you learn something every day.
So, I hear you’re self-hating :)
ABL
@No one of importance: indeed!
Alison
@ruemara: I guess I’m also a self-hating woman, so you’ve got company.
Also, I must be a self-hating Jew for supporting Obama who, as the sad, confused, wingnut Jews tell us, hates Israel and thus all Jews everywhere so much forever.
But me and my Jewy uterus support him and will happily vote for him.
SRW1
@Helen:
You’re half ways there, Madam. Anytime you speak up, you’re not only saying something about the topic at hand but by the way you say it, you also express something about yourself. Now all you have to internalize to go all the way, is that you are no exception.
Task for the day: What might your comment say about you?
Comrade Kevin
I think someone had his little hand slapped somewhere.
Lysana
@Mnemosyne:
Funny you should say that.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Comrade Kevin:
Ohhh, I wonder if AL will melt down over it? It would be irresponsible not to ask!
Stellar citizen, longtime commenter and all that, you know.
You think it was their hand? Sounds like ass pain to me.
bjacques
Somewhat related…The King of Saudi Arabia graciously quashed the sentence of the woman who illegally drove through town. She was facing 10 lashes. Also, women may get to vote in local elections, though for whom is not clear. Heady times to be sure; such radical reforms could tear the country apart.
BBC Newsnight had various talking heads on to discuss it last night. One was the author of a book called “My Guardian Knows Best,” who argued that the reforms weren’t really about freedom. She said some other things too, but I tuned her out and wondered why she was on TV flapping her yap and not in the kitchen fixing dinner. She must be a lousy cook.
It occurred to me later that she was there as a troll. Well played, BBC Newsnight.
Ash Can
@James E. Powell: I’m a woman, and I sure as damned hell see it that way.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@bjacques: “… but I tuned her out and wondered why she was on TV flapping her yap and not in the kitchen fixing dinner.”
Her ball and chain came off? It’s terrible when that happens.
Snarla
Awlaki reported killed this morning.
WereBear
@James E. Powell: What, it’s not a war on women? What kind of sexual and reproductive coercion are the Republicans imposing on men? They enshrine Viagra as covered under insurance, while defunding Planned Parenthood’s largely female contraceptive programs.
I’m a woman. I do think they hate me.
WereBear
Oh, crap, I said the V word.
What, it’s not a war on women? What kind of sexual and reproductive coercion are the Republicans imposing on men? They enshrine boner pills as covered under insurance, while defunding Planned Parenthood’s largely female contraceptive programs.
I’m a woman. I do think they hate me.
Ian
@Mnemosyne:
Black and white ( or blue and red ).
It can only be one, or the other.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@MikeJ: That’s kinda deep.
MattMinus
@ABL:
Obvious troll is obvious.
Jude
I’m late to this party, but ABL, I don’t know how you put up with people like Helen. Condescending motherfuckers who’ve never put up with a day of discrimination (overt or otherwise) in their lives who have the fucking nerve to call you an asshole for pointing out that there’s no shortage of racist dickwipes in this world?
Shit, I imagine I would’ve gone cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs on those sack wranglers a long time ago.
Lucky for me, though, I was born white and was able to avoid that kind of shit. Doesn’t mean it doesn’t piss me off when I see it, though.
Keep on writing; I love your stuff.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
I always thought that some BJers would enjoy this book:
Theories of International Politics and Zombies
It will make you think about your favorite Zombie flicks in a totally new way.
rikryah
this is a reason why it’s important who is President.
ABL, do you know about the bullshyt Personhood Amendment going on down in Mississippi? Maddow did a good piece on it this week
P. Kirby
@James E. Powell
It is a war on women. Yes, I’m a woman and a party that seeks to control or outright deny my access to health care, including reproductive health care, is a war with me.
wrb
@ABL:
Sexist.
So the president caved to Michelle, how is anyone supposed to be excited about voting for someone so spineless?
At least with Republicans you know what you’ll get, and they will live up to expectations.
Obama failed expectations
ABL
@rikryah: that’s on my list of stuff to deal with today. there’s too much craziness! i can’t keep up.
good one. ha! it’s sad when the line between snark and reality become so blurred.
Revrick
I’m a UCC clergyperson (our denominayion came out in favor of a woman’s right to choose in 1971) and basically all efforts to hinder that fundamental right of women is tyranny. To favor anti-choice legislation is to say that women are not fully competent human beings, that we cannot trust them to make the right moral choices so we must bring the whole coercive power of the state to bear upon them to ‘force’ them to make the right one. That’s the definition of tyranny. BTW we lopped Charles I’s head off over this very sort of thing.
Shade Tail
@MattMinus:
Yes. You are.