Conservative Libertarians Think Freedom Means Not Having Dominion Over Your Own Body

Conservative Libertarians Think Freedom Means Not Having Dominion Over Your Own Body

The Mercatus Institute, a libertarian-oriented — and Koch brothers-affiliated — think tank based out of George Mason University (a public university, for whatever that’s worth), regularly releases its ranking of American states in terms of “Freedom.” Their definition of “freedom” largely adheres to the standard American libertarian conception of “liberty,” which is to say it is oriented almost entirely around private property ownership and low taxation. As a result, America’s freest state this year turns out to be North Dakota. [2]

North Dakota has also been in the news for another reason recently. What was it, again? Oh, right, it passed the most restrictive antiabortion laws in the country. [3] Including a law specifically aimed at shutting down the state’s lone abortion provider. It passed this lawknowing it was unconstitutional [4].

The data Mercatus used, as far as I can tell, are largely from 2011. But these laws wouldn’t do a thing to change’s North Dakota’s ranking, because Mercatus doesn’t take reproductive rights into account at all. [5] In fact, no issues specifically related to women’s rights are taken into account. Same-sex marriage is included, but not housing employment anti-discrimination rules. They do weigh “‘smoker protection’ in employment,” though. (I think they are in favor of laws barring companies from firing smokers. Isn’t that the government interfering with the employer’s Freedoms?) There is also a list ranking the states in terms offriendliness to Bachelor Parties. [6]

[UPDATE: Mercatus opposes "smoker protection laws" and a state's rank fell if it had them. I apologize for getting that wrong, and assuming the Institute had an inconsistent position. Thank you to Radley Balko [7], whose work I've always sincerely admired, for correcting me and then calling me a hack.

I'd still note that in the report's scoring system [5], "Tobacco Freedom," which is mainly about smoking bans and cigarette taxes, makes up 4.1 percent of a state's "freedom ranking." "Marriage Freedom" is 2.1 percent. Freedom from "Asset Forfeiture" -- a frequently abused [8]police outgrowth of the drug war [9] -- is 0.1 percent, which would seem to indicate that it's included mainly to say that it was included.]

“Economic freedom” is of course their most important freedom, and so it is weighted the heaviest, with fiscal and regulatory matters making up a bit more than two-thirds of each state’s score. Which is how their No. 1 freest state is ranked 39th on the “Civil Liberties” list. Though that list is fairly useless, as their definition of “civil liberties” is “unrelated policies, such as fireworks laws, prostitution laws, and trans-fat bans.” On the list taking into account “incarceration rates, non-drug crime arrests, and drug enforcement,” Freest State North Dakota is at 24. (Second-freest state South Dakota is 48.) And Arizona has climbed to No. 11 on the overall list, because at no point are the rights of immigrants or people whom the police may suspect are immigrants taken into account.

Also fun is their “Right to Work” list [10], where every single state is either tied for first or tied for last. (It should be noted that many libertarians think there’s nothing particularly libertarian about Right to Work laws [11], which are strictly pro-business, not pro-”market.”)

And they made a cartoon.

So this is how the Mercatus Center defines freedom: the right of people with money to keep it all, and for everyone else to fuck off. Almost any Liberty issue that wouldn’t concern a straight, white, male capitalist is wholly ignored.

The Mercatus Center, coincidentally, is run in large part with money from Koch Industries. Charles Koch sits on its board, along with another high-ranking Koch Industries executive. Mercatus is effectively the in-house think tank for the Kochs, providing reports and research that support the ideological aims of the notorious brothers, and their ideological aims usually also support the long-term goal of the Kochs to make as much money for themselves as possible without anyone telling them to “pollute a bit less” or “pay taxes.”

Looking at the list, it’s clear that most Americans have “voted with their feet” and chosen to live primarily in our least free states. Bottoming out the list are California, the second-least free and most populous state, and New York, third in population and dead last in liberty.

I called North Dakota a “fucking shithole” on Twitter earlier, which was unfair of me, because while it is unreasonably, inhospitably freezing cold in much of the state for much of the year (and I say this as someone who grew up one state away) it is, on the whole, a reasonably pretty part of the country full of decent people (unless you are openly gay or transgendered or in need of an abortion obviously). I can more easily figure out why people, indigenous and immigrant, settled there than, say, Phoenix. But there is a reason that fewer people live in all of North Dakota than in Detroit, and there is a reason why the population of North Dakota slowly declined from the 1920s through the end of the 20th century: Not that many people want to live there. People are moving there now because of a natural resources boom (and those always last forever and always create permanent, stable communities, right?) not because North Dakota suddenly became a much nicer place to live, on account of freedom.

New York and California, though, are both super-nice, even though we confiscate more money than North Dakota, and spend it on things like mass transportation (freedom from having to own cars!) and helping people without means get food and healthcare (freedom from dying!). Koch industries co-owner David Koch, for the record, lives in New York City. Though I imagine he and his brother will soon pack up and relocate to sunny, free Grand Forks.

So Conservative-Libertardians think freedom consists about 90% of low taxes, low wages and having their boot on the back of anyone who makes less money. A nation based on that kind of "freedom" is not a democratic republic, it is an authoritarian nightmare.

The Republican March In North Dakota To Have Tyrannical Government Control of Women's Bodies

The Republican March In North Dakota To Have Tyrannical Government Control of Women's Bodies

On Tuesday afternoon, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple (R) signed into law three different abortion restrictions — HB 1305, HB 1456, and SB 2305 — that women’s health advocates say will effectively ban abortion in the state. The extreme legislation that has received the most media attention is HB 1456, an unconstitutional “fetal heartbeat” ban that would outlaw abortions after just six weeks of pregnancy, before many women even realize they’re pregnant. But when it comes to the new laws’ concrete effect on the lives of women in North Dakota, a lesser-known piece of legislation may actually pose an even bigger threat to reproductive rights.

North Dakota women will feel the immediate impact of SB 2305, which indirectly targets abortion access by over-regulating abortion providers — a popular anti-choice tactic known as the Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers, or TRAP. Abortion opponents push TRAP laws with the ultimate goal of forcing abortion clinics to close their doors.

TRAP laws are cleverly framed in terms of ensuring women’s safety, but they’re actually incredibly effective methods of cutting off access to reproductive care at health clinics. That’s why Tammi Kromenaker, the director of North Dakota’s last remaining abortion clinic, told RH Reality Check that SB 2305 could actually represent the most serious threat to women’s abortion services in the state:

    “We definitely see the TRAP bill as the one that will end abortion in the state,” Tammi Kromenaker, the director of Red River Women’s Clinic (RRWC), told RH Reality Check. RRWC is the only abortion clinic in North Dakota. “The other bills aren’t really a threat right now, but this one could close us.” [...]

    These bills have drawn attention away from the true threat to RRWC: Under the new TRAP bill, abortion providers would be forced to obtain hospital admitting privileges. But at least one of the two local hospitals won’t offer those privileges to the clinic — because the quality of care at RRWC is so high that the clinic doesn’t need them.

    Lawmakers proposed the bill under the guise of “women’s safety,” but Kromenaker points out that her clinic’s safety record is actually better than the average clinic safety records, showing that the “need” for the bill was completely fabricated. “This bill is intended to impose an impossible to meet requirement,” she said. “There is no other goal but to shut us down.”

North Dakota’s new six-week ban will likely be tied up in court for going much too far to undermine the constitutional protections in Roe v. Wade, which guarantees the right to first-trimester abortion services. And an even more radical “personhood” amendment, which could ban all abortions altogether if voters approve it on the 2014 November ballot, will face similar legal challenges if it becomes law. On the other hand, SB 2305 could force the Red River Women’s Clinic to close its doors relatively quickly — just like similar legislation has done to health clinics in other states.

Conservatives have some very creepy ideas about rights, children and women. As long as someone is a possible person, a clump of cells, they're all for the protection of that abstraction - going so far as to have the government make personal health care choices for individuals and their families. On the other hand they actively despise women, hate the idea of helping children with health care or education. And they're happy to use government to make sure that corporations have more power then women or children. Whatever values Republicans have, they're not patriotic American values. 

Conservatives Who Think That Women Should Have Fewer Rights Than Men May Cost Republicans Victory, But Save America From A Radical Agenda

Conservatives Who Think That Women Should Have Fewer Rights Than Men May Cost Republicans Victory, But Save America From A Radical Agenda

What if misogyny ends up costing Republicans the Senate? Judging by the polls in the final days before the election, this is not a crazy proposition — especially if “gaffes” on abortion, rape and contraception are equated by the electorate with extremism, repelling even ideologically sympathetic voters.

Just look at Indiana, a state that is choosing between two “pro-life” candidates, one of whom is a Democrat who has voted for House Republicans’ most restrictive legislation on reproductive rights. Still, Joe Donnelly managed to avoid doing what Richard Mourdock did – getting famous for talking insensitively about rape. They’ve been tied or within inches of each other for weeks, but as of today, the first post-rape-comment poll, Mourdock is down 11 points. Meanwhile, Mourdock’s rape-talking fellow traveler in Missouri, Senate candidate Todd Akin, is locked in a race that was never supposed to be competitive, and a cash infusion may come too late to save him. And in Connecticut and Massachusetts, both abortion and contraception have been used to pummel relatively moderate Republicans with the ever-rightward agenda of the national party, and for that reason and more, it’s looking like Democrats will prevail.

This is about more than the so-called gender gap, though women do tend to vote disproportionately to our share in the population and historically favor Democrats. And it’s about more than “pro-life” and “pro-choice,” where, at least as far as those fuzzy words go, the former has a slight edge in polling. When abortion conversations turn to rape, exceptions for which are broadly, if inconsistently, supported by voters, they also suddenly become about a broader callousness and indifference to suffering, one that jibes with messaging about slashing Medicare and Medicaid. Voters drifting away from Mourdock would probably never use the word “misogyny,” but as I’ve said, as the Republican agenda on sex and reproduction gets explained in full, we’re hearing very little about compassion for fetal life and a lot about women having sex.

Pro-choice activists have been saying this for years, but didn’t get much credence until elected Republicans gave a larger platform for marginal and largely discredited views — rape victims can’t get pregnant (Akin); exceptions to save a woman’s life are never needed (Rep. Joe Walsh); consensual sex, and getting pregnant from it, is as shameful as rape (GOP Senate candidate Tom Smith, who hasn’t been able to close the deal in Pennsylvania). The same goes for defunding Planned Parenthood and repealing Obamacare, or at the very least getting rid of the birth control coverage in it — these days, virtually uncontested across Republicans in office or running for it. That may work well in a House race, but it’s proving a tougher sell statewide — and, judging by Romney’s ads soft-pedaling his stances on abortion and contraception, nationally as well.

If you want to know where this all came from or where it’s going, check out Emily Bazelon’s profile of the Americans United for Life president in the New York  Times magazine. AUL has been as influential as any group in crafting the state-level abortion restrictions and rhetoric around them, taking the murky anti-choice rhetoric and mainstreaming it in a palatable and reasonable-sounding way. Yoest “believes that embryos have legal rights and opposes birth control, like the IUD, that she thinks ‘has life-ending properties.’” (She can think that, but it doesn’t make it medically accurate.) She refuses to discuss a study showing that the abortion rate drops dramatically when you make long-acting reversible birth control — like the IUD — free to women who want it, mimicking Obamacare’s full coverage under insurance. And yet she knows that when you talk about birth control and abortion as connected to women’s reproductive and sexual autonomy, the anti-choice side loses. She said as much on PBS, Bazelon notes: ““It’s really a red herring that the abortion lobby likes to bring up by conflating abortion and birth control … Because that would be, frankly, carrying water for the other side to allow them to redefine the issue in that way.”

Instead of outright repealing the 19th Amendment( guaranteeing women the right to vote) and other progressive legislation that have leveled the playing field over the years in one fail swoop, Republicans have been pretty successful in chipping away at the rights of women to be full citizens. And Mittens is no friend to more than have the country. He thinks conservatives and big government should control women,Top 6 Lies Romney Has Told Women in an Election Season Full of Whoppers, Mitt has assembled a binder full of bs on issues that matter to more than half the population

Republicans are resorting to some weird extortion to get the vote, The GOP Will Destroy America If We Reelect Obama, So We Must Let the GOP Win

Mitt Romney Endorsed Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock (R-IN) Who Calls Calls Rape Pregnancies A ‘Gift From God’

Mitt Romney Endorsed Senate Candidate Richard Mourdock (R-IN) Who Calls Calls Rape Pregnancies A ‘Gift From God’

NEW ALBANY, Indiana — At a debate this evening with his Democratic opponent Rep. Joe Donnelly (D-IN), Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock claimed that raped women should be forced to carry their rapist’s baby to term because their forced pregnancy is a “gift from God”:

    I believe life begins at conception. The only exception I have for to have an abortion is in the case of the life of the mother. I struggled with myself for a long time but I came to realize life is that gift from God, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape. It is something that God intended to happen.



Throughout his campaign, Mourdock has left no doubt that he believes in a sacred right to life that begins at conception and ends at birth. Earlier this year, Mourdock mocked the very idea that Social Security and Medicare — programs that millions of seniors depend on to save their lives — are even constitutional.

Update

In his post-debate press conference, Mourdock repeatedly asserted that he believes “God creates life” but, seemingly contradicting his own remarks from the debate, said God does not “pre-ordain[] rape.”

“What I said was, in answering the question form my position of faith, I said I believe that God creates life. I believe that as wholly and as fully as I can believe it. That God creates life,” Mourdock said. “Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don’t think that. That’s sick. Twisted. That’s not even close to what I said. What I said is that God creates life.”

Mourdock did, however, re-assert his belief that abortion should be illegal even for victims of rape and incest.

“I’ve said that consistently,” Mourdock said. “I’ve said that for a long, long time.”

Watch his post-debate comments:

Update

Earlier this week, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney starred in an ad calling upon Indiana voters to “join me in supporting Richard Mourdock for U.S. Senate.” This is the first time this election that Romney cut such an ad for a fellow Republican candidate.

So voting for Mitt Romney or  Richard Mourdock (R-IN) is not too different from voting for Islamic fundamentalists who believe that men and their interpretation of what God wants should be the culture and law that America lives under. Conservatives in Iran and Indiana seems to think that women are only three-fifths a person and thus should not have the same rights as men.

Conservative Media Pundits Help Romney Hide His Opposition To The Successful Auto Rescue. Romney's editorial attacking the rescue of the American auto industry might be too widely known for even the well oiled Republican propaganda machine to cover-up.

The ultra radical conservative Koch brothers and an assortment of wacky right-wing think tanks are determined to destroy Social Security because they believe it is part of a communist plot to take over America.

Shades of Todd Akin(R-MO) 2012 Romney - Ryan Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception

Shades of Todd Akin(R-MO) 2012 Romney - Ryan Republican Platform To Advocate Abortion Ban Without Rape Exception

Republican politicians have been falling over themselves to condemn from Rep. Todd Akin, the Republican Senate candidate in Missouri, who said Sunday that women who have experienced “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant because “the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” The Romney-Ryan campaign called Akin’s comments “insulting, inexcusable and frankly wrong,” in spite of Ryan’s close working relationship with Akin on a number of radical anti-abortion and contraception bills. A Romney spokesperson added that the “Romney-Ryan administration would not oppose abortion in instances of rape.”

But embracing a rape exception for abortion rights would put the campaign at odds with the Republican Party’s longstanding platform, the newest iteration of which will be officially unveiled at the Republican National Convention in Tampa. In spite of the massive public outcry from the right over Akin’s comments, the official GOP platform committee drafted a provision Monday supporting a “human life amendment” that would outlaw abortion without specifying exemptions for rape or incest. The platform reads:

    Faithful to the ‘self-evident’ truths enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, we assert the sanctity of human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution and endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children.

Heading the committee is Gov. Bob McDonnell (R-VA), best known for his “mandatory ultrasound” law requiring any woman getting an abortion to undergo an unnecessary ultrasound. McDonnell also revealed his regressive position on women’s rights in his college thesis, which slandered working women, contraception, and “fornicators.” It’s no surprise, then, that under his guidance, the Republican Party will reaffirm its support for a constitutional amendment that would outlaw abortion and likely many forms of contraception.

In saying they would not oppose a rape exception, Romney and Ryan are both changing their tune. Romney said in 2007 he would be “delighted” to sign a bill banning all abortions, and Ryan has been staunchly anti-abortion in all cases, even attempting to restrict abortion access to victims of “forcible rape” only.

The human life amendment has been a tenet of the Republican Party platform since the dawn of the Reagan era in 1980. It has survived for 32 years and nine presidential elections, even after former presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) pushed hard in 2000 for an explicit exception for rape and incest. McCain ceded the language to party officials during his own run in 2008.

One of the most backwards and Orwellian terms of our times is the conservative claim to being "pro-life". Is that supposed to be some kind of joke. They say they care about a bunch of cells in a woman's uterus, but once born they'll do more to see a golf course gets watered than to see that child has a good education, a job and medical care.

The Creators of the Financial Crisis Are Trying To Rewrite History

The record here is crystal clear: AIG and Hank Greenberg were charged by the New York Attorney General's Office—while I was attorney general—with fraud and deceptive accounting practices. The company settled for $1.64 billion, at the time the largest payment in history. Let me quote from the New York Times’ reporting of the settlement: "Under the settlement reached with the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the New York Attorney General's office, and the New York State Insurance Department, AIG acknowledged it had deceived the investing public and regulators." Further from the New York Times: "Mr. Greenberg, who was removed by AIG's board last march, remains under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Justice department and faces a lawsuit by the New York Attorney General, Eliot Spitzer."

After invoking his Fifth Amendment right to avoid testifying, Greenberg settled with the SEC for $15 million. And a federal judge, in a written opinion, found evidence that the conspiracy to deceive investors originated with Greenberg. Even CNBC covered Greenberg's settlement by saying "Ex-AIG CEO Greenberg settles fraud charges with SEC."

So Mr. Langone, despite your effort to talk about everything other than the facts of these cases, facts matter. These cases were absolutely correct, important, and went to the heart of the type of corporate fraud and defalcation that very nearly destroyed our economy.

Conservatives learned nothing from the financial collapse of 2007/2008. We need better regulation and fair enforcement. No exaggeration - check out most of the conservative web sites - they all claim it was caused by some vast conspiracy between Fannie May, Barney Frank and working class Americans. Because of course everyone on Wall Street is an angel who never does wrong.

The Depravity of Rep. Todd Akin(R-MO) Is Shared By Paul Ryan (R-WI) And Other Conservatives

It Isn’t Just Medicare: Don’t Forget Paul Ryan’s Vision for Medicaid

Someone needs to put Romney in a time machine and have his parents teach me what real values are. He just keeps lying about Obama and welfare reform. If he can only become president based on a blatant falsehood what does that say about his character, New Romney Welfare Ad Cites Newspaper That Says Its Welfare Reform Claims Have ‘Been Debunked’

When Did Conservatives Exploit Terrorist Deaths For Partisan Political Gain

When Did Conservatives Exploit Terrorist Deaths For Partisan Political Gain

Perusing the political media these days you can't help but notice the hand-wringing consensus that the Obama administration is running a risk by "politicizing" the death of Osama bin Laden. Foreign policy achievements, we're told, are somehow sacrosanct and shouldn't be sullied by the taint of electioneering.

The president, according to McClatchy, is in "a roiling dispute between his re-election campaign and Republicans, who accuse Obama of politicizing a unifying event by taking credit for ordering the raid that got bin Laden." The ever-eager Fox News reports that "President Obama faced mounting criticism Tuesday for allegedly politicizing the anniversary of Usama bin Laden's death, with Sen. John McCain scolding the commander-in-chief and former New York Gov. George Pataki going so far as to call on Obama to apologize."

It would be nice if the press, when wrestling with this narrative, could dive deep into their memories and travel all the way back to June 2006, when the government of Iraq announced that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq, had been killed in an airstrike. The Bush White House and the Republican Congressional majority, facing terrible poll numbers and an angry electorate, were ecstatic at the news that one of the world's most wanted terrorists had met his end at American hands and immediately set to work politicizing his death.

The New York Times reported on June 13, 2006:

    It came as Republicans began a new effort to use last week's events to turn the war to their political advantage after months of anxiety, and to sharpen attacks against Democrats. On Monday night, the president's top political strategist, Karl Rove, told supporters in New Hampshire that if the Democrats had their way, Iraq would fall to terrorists and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi would not have been killed.

    "When it gets tough, and when it gets difficult, they fall back on that party's old pattern of cutting and running," Mr. Rove said at a state Republican Party gathering in Manchester.

Rove (who is now busily and dishonestly trying to diminish the Bin Laden raid) was delivering a message that synced nicely with the House Republican strategy (elucidated in a confidential memo prepared by John Boehner) to use Zarqawi's death to draw "a portrait of contrasts between Republicans and Democrats with regard to one of the most important political issues of our era."

Per the memo:

    As a result of our efforts during this debate, Americans will recognize that on the issue of national security, they have a clear choice between a Republican Party aware of the stakes and dedicated to victory, versus a Democrat Party without a coherent national security policy that sheepishly dismisses the challenges America faces in a post- 9/11 world.

Of course, even if there were no high-profile example of Republicans "spiking the football" over the death of a terrorist, are we really to believe they wouldn't have done exactly that had he been killed under Bush's watch?

So please: before we lend credence to all the pearl-clutching bluster over "politicizing" the death of a terrorist, let's pay due respect to recent history and common sense.

Conservatives lied us into Iraq as a way to promote the conservative movement. They lied about connections between Iraq and Bin Laden. Conservatives exploited terrorism at the 2004 RNC conventions - as this video clearly shows. Conservatives have no shame and no honor when it comes to doing whatever they can to unjustly promote themselves, lie to the American people and trash the economy in their spare time. Conservatives are the enemy within. Everyday doing whatever they can to make America and Democracy weaker.

Romney Wrote NYT Op-Ed Entitled "Let Detroit go bankrupt." Now Claims Auto Industry Reorganization by Government Was His Idea

John McCain still whining about 'politicizing' Mitt Romney's opposition to bin Laden raid strategy. Of course McCain's personal war experiences were awful, yet he has exploited them for political gain at every opportunity.

Paul Ryan(R-WI) has a pleasant personality - that does not mean he should get away with being a fanatic. One who would gut Medicare and increase the deficit.


Michelle Malkin hates women. Hates equal pay for women who do the same work as men. Hates that women should not be discriminated against for health insurance. Malkin basically hates every democratic ideal America stands for.

How Strange That Providing Contraceptives Was Not an Issue During Bush Era, But Invites Conservative Outrage In Obama Era

How Strange That Providing Contraceptives Was Not an Issue During Bush Era, But Invites Conservative Outrage In Obama Era

President Barack Obama's decision to require most employers to cover birth control and insurers to offer it at no cost has created a firestorm of controversy [1]. But the central mandate—that most employers have to cover preventative care for women—has been law for over a decade. This point has been completely lost in the current controversy, as Republican presidential candidates and social conservatives claim that Obama has launched a war on religious liberty and the Catholic Church.

Despite the longstanding precedent, "no one screamed" until now, said Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert at George Washington University.

In December 2000, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ruled [2] that companies that provided prescription drugs to their employees but didn't provide birth control were in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination on the basis of sex. That opinion, which the George W. Bush administration did nothing to alter or withdraw when it took office the next month, is still in effect today—and because it relies on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it applies to all employers with 15 or more employees. Employers that don't offer prescription coverage or don't offer insurance at all are exempt, because they treat men and women equally—but under the EEOC's interpretation of the law, you can't offer other preventative care coverage without offering birth control coverage, too.

"It was, we thought at the time, a fairly straightforward application of Title VII principles," a top former EEOC official who was involved in the decision told Mother Jones. "All of these plans covered Viagra immediately, without thinking, and they were still declining to cover prescription contraceptives. It's a little bit jaw-dropping to see what is going on now…There was some press at the time but we issued guidances that were far, far more controversial."

After the EEOC opinion was approved in 2000, reproductive rights groups and employees who wanted birth control access sued employers that refused to comply. The next year, in Erickson v. Bartell Drug Co. [3], a federal court agreed with the EEOC's reasoning. Reproductive rights groups and others used that decision as leverage to force other companies to settle lawsuits and agree to change their insurance plans to include birth control. Some subsequent court decisions echoed Erickson, and some went the other way, but the rule (absent a Supreme Court decision) remained, and over the following decade, the percentage of employer-based plans offering contraceptive coverage tripled to 90 percent.

"We have used [the EEOC ruling] many times in negotiating with various employers," says Judy Waxman, the vice president for health and reproductive rights at the National Women's Law Center. "It has been in active use all this time. [President Obama's] policy is only new in the sense that it covers employers with less than 15 employees and with no copay for the individual. The basic rule has been in place since 2000."

Not even religious employers were exempt from the impact of the EEOC decision. Although Title VII allows religious institutions to discriminate on religious grounds, it doesn't allow them to discriminate on the basis of sex [4]—the kind of discrimination at issue in the EEOC ruling. DePaul University, the largest Roman Catholic university in America, added birth control coverage to its plans [5] after receiving an EEOC complaint several years ago. (DePaul officials did not respond to a request for comment.)

[1] http://www.npr.org/2012/02/03/146342576/contraception-provision-sets-off-firestorm
[2] http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/decision-contraception.html
[3] http://biotech.law.lsu.edu/cases/eeoc/Erickson_v_Bartell.htm
[4] http://www.civilrights.org/lgbt/enda/religious-exemption-1.html
[5] http://www.projectsycamore.com/media/images/bulletins/111020/OSVins.pdf

Like so much conservative manufactured outrage this one is not about the law. It is not about religious freedom - unless freedom means the right to treat women like second class citizens. Conservative Republicans do not like what the Obama administration did - mostly continue Bush policies on contraception - because they have a knee jerk opposition to anything Democrats do. Conservatives do not love the USA, they love the Anti-American conservative agenda.

NRA Member Calls Wayne LaPierre ‘Over The Edge,’ Says Others ‘Think He’s A Wingnut’. It is one thing to be pro right to possess a gun and quite another to have paranoid fantasies that someone is out to take your guns.

Fox Spreads Romney's Dubious Talking Point On Women's Job Losses. Why. Because no one at Fox news has a shred of honor or integrity. Those are American ideals. Fox News hates American ideals.

Dear Mitt and Ann Romney America Waits for Your Apology For Playing Victim

Dear Mitt and Ann Romney America Waits for Your Apology For Playing Victim

Mitt Romney’s “I know you are, but what am I?” strategy, declaring President Obama the real perpetrator of a “war on women,” got an assist from CNN Democratic analyst Hilary Rosen Wednesday, when she questioned whether Romney should use his wife, Ann, as his expert on women’s issues when she “never worked a day in her life.” As feminists have known thanks to the silly Mommy Wars over the last 20 years, every mother is a working mother. Rosen, who is herself a mom who also works outside the home, has now apologized, as has every prominent Democrat from President Obama to Debbie Wasserman Schultz to David Axelrod (and probably FDR, from the grave).

But Republicans still won’t shut up about it. An aggrieved Ann Romney even told Fox News, “I will tell you that Mitt said to me more times than I can imagine, Ann, your job is more important than mine,” and added that as the mother of five grown boys, “I know what it’s like to struggle.”

Well, I’d like to demand that Ann Romney apologize to all women for equating the “struggle” of a wealthy mother who had full-time household help to that of a poor or working-class job-holding mother, who must choose between her job and her children when a child gets sick. How dare you, madam? Have you no shame? I’d like to demand that Mitt Romney apologize for his wife’s remarks, too. I’d like to hear every prominent Republican denounce Ann Romney for her heinous insensitivity to non-wealthy mothers who must work outside the home.

leave it to wacky conservative to have fainting spells as soon as someone points out that someone who is a millionaire's wife does not have it as hard as the average American mom. Ann Romney Can't Fix Mitt's Women Problem

The underlying, legitimate, and not-at-all-novel point Rosen was making -- that the wealth of the Romney family has insulated them from many ordinary people's struggles -- was immediately lost in the cacophony of criticism. If there's one thing we can all agree on, it's that motherhood is divine and noble and saintly. (As a mother myself, I would know just what perfect human specimens all moms automatically are.) In a classy, modern touch, Ann Romney, in her Fox interview, also praised "all the dads home raising kids," thereby elevating the discussion, if only momentarily, from the retrograde notion that only women can or should raise children.
....His claim that women have been the disproportionate victims of job loss was widely criticized; his gestures to his wife as his ambassador to the women's vote made him sound like he viewed women as a foreign, distant community. His policy adviser, on a conference call specifically convened to promote the idea that it was Obama who was waging war on women, couldn't say where he stood on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Obama's landmark legislation on women's pay discrimination. This came in the wake of months of debate about access to contraception, "slutgate," vaginal probing, and so on, all of it thoroughly toxic for Republicans hoping to appeal to women voters. Recent polls have shown Romney losing the women's vote by nearly 20 points, but in trying to turn that around, he seemed to be wading into a type of identity politics he was ill-equipped to manage, and fumbling as a result.

The worse struggle the Romney family has ever faced is deciding what car to tell the chauffeur to bring around depending on which mansion they were living in at the time. Only a conservative who has never cleaned a floor, dug a ditch or emptied a bed pan would whine about how hard they have it.

Barney Frank Destroys Pretend Patriot Allen West

There have been plenty of diaries on Allen West calling members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus "communists."  Yes, this one is tangentially related to that.  However, Allen West's comments won't take center stage here.  Instead, the always astute and sharp Barney Frank's reply will be front and center.  It's really a shame that he'll be gone from Congress at the end of the year, but hopefully the utter destruction he rains on Republicans will continue.

Frank started by first slamming West and the GOP:

    "Not even Joe McCarthy would have said anything so stupid and dissociated from reality," Frank said in a call with The Huffington Post. "It's an indication of the significant deterioration of the Republican Party as a responsible entity that an ignorant, mean guy like Allen West is considered one of their stars."

He then gets considerably more serious, pointing out exactly what the intention of West, and others, is when they compare their political opponents to communists:

    "It is exactly the opposite of those of us in the Congressional Progressive Caucus who are in support of freedom, in support of democracy, in support of people's basic rights and civil liberties," he said. "Communism is really a reference to some of the worst human rights abuses of our time ... It is meant to delegitimize people and allow no basis for debate. It's a very nasty label."

    He added, "I very much object to being associated with Stalin or Khrushchev."

It is that second point that is most important.  So many on the right want to shut down the debate because they know the outcome once that debate happens.  Those atop the Republican Party see what has happened during their primary season.  As they have lurched even further to the right they alienate more and more voters.  The Republican establishment finally has their candidate, but only after he had to tack hard right to win the nomination.  That damage is done and no amount of shaking the Etch-A-Sketch is going to change that.

Frank hit the nail on the head.  The real problem is not Allen West.  It is that the Republican Party has descended so far into the abyss that someone like Allen West is a leader and is mainstream within the Republican Party.  That is what we must keep our eye on.  Yes, Allen West is the one who made the remarks.  However, he is just one of many capable of making them in the modern-day Republican Party.

West currently collects veterans benefits courtesy of those "communist" he complains about. He also collects a salary as a Congressman which all taxpayers pay for and has access to health care benefits subsidized by those "communists", whoever they might be. West is not a hypocrite, he is a poster child for hypocrisy. He baths in contradictory wacky myths. he obviously hates American values and traditions of decency.  In short West is not a man he is wart that leeches off America's greatness as he feds at the trough like a pig.

Obama Energy Policy Created 75,000 direct and indirect jobs and up to $44 billion in total economic output

Obama Energy Policy Created 75,000 direct and indirect jobs and up to $44 billion in total economic output

The Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, issued a study on Friday estimating the economic impact of investments that received federal support through the Treasury Department’s 1603 grant program.

The Section 1603 program was created under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to support the deployment of renewable energy resources. The 1603 program offered project developers the option to select a one-time cash payment in lieu of taking the Investment Tax Credit (ITC) or the Production Tax Credit (PTC), for which they would have otherwise been eligible.  
The NREL study makes clear that projects receiving payments from the 1603 program have supported tens of thousands of jobs while also diversifying our energy economy. In fact, the program’s primary goal was to jumpstart private financing for renewable energy projects. From both perspectives, the program has been a huge success.

NREL’s analysis estimates that up to 75,000 direct and indirect jobs and up to $44 billion in total economic output were supported by the design, manufacturing, construction, and installation of solar photovoltaic (PV) and wind projects funded by the 1603 Treasury grant program. In addition, the study estimates that the operation and maintenance of these solar and wind facilities will continue to sustain up to $1.8 billion per year in economic output over the lifetime of the facilities (20 – 30 years). 

When it comes to expanding domestic energy production, the 23,000 PV and large wind projects funded by the program between 2009 and late 2011 that the NREL study examined added 13.5 gigawatts of renewable energy to America’s electricity generation capacity – enough to power 3.4 million U.S. homes – and attracted more than $20 billion in direct investment from private, regional, and state sources, in addition to the approximately $9 billion in federal funds under the 1603 program. NREL’s analysis also estimated that economy-wide, these projects supported up to $44 billion in total economic output.

In fact, the 1603 program has played a central role in meeting President Obama’s goal of doubling domestic energy production from renewable sources like wind and solar in his first term – which we are well on track to achieve. Furthermore, it has played a critical role in building the infrastructure that America will need to continue to compete globally in clean energy for years to come, ensuring we do not cede the industries or the jobs of the 21st century to countries like China. And it has supported tens of thousands of jobs across the country. That is why President Obama has called on Congress to extend the highly successful 1603 program.

There is a nice graphic table at the link.

Neo-Fascist Gov.Scott Walker(R-WI) Quietly Signs Controversial Anti-Abortion, Abstinence Measures On Eve Of Holiday. Why Walker hates freedom, women and America is anyone's guess. Improper upbringing perhaps.

Reproductive Rights Are Civil Rights

Reproductive Rights Are Civil Rights

That requires that we look to history and the Constitution. I found myself doing that a few weeks back, sitting in the DC living room of Pamela Bridgewater, talking about slavery as the TV news followed the debate over whether the State of Virginia should force a woman to spread her legs and endure a plastic wand shoved into her vagina. Pamela has a lot of titles that, properly, ought to compel me to refer to her now as Professor Bridgewater—legal scholar, teacher at American University, reproductive rights activist, sex radical—but she is my friend and sister, and we were two women sitting around talking, so I shall alternate between the familiar and the formal.

“What a spectacle,” Pamela exclaimed, “Virginia, the birthplace of the slave breeding industry in America, is debating state-sanctioned rape. Imagine the woman who says No to this as a prerequisite for abortion. Will she be strapped down, her ankles shackled to stir-ups?”

“I suspect,” said I, “that partisans would say, ‘If she doesn’t agree, she is free to leave.’?”

“Right, which means she is coerced into childbearing or coerced into taking other measures to terminate her pregnancy, which may or may not be safe. Or she relents and says Yes, and that’s by coercion, too.”

“Scratch at modern life and there’s a little slave era just below the surface, so we’re right back to your argument.”

Pamela Bridgewater’s argument, expressed over the past several years in articles and forums, and at the heart of a book in final revision called Breeding a Nation: Reproductive Slavery and the Pursuit of Freedom, presents the most compelling conceptual and constitutional frame I know for considering women’s bodily integrity and defending it from the right.

More at the link. In the crazed minds of conservatives a clump of cells and corporations are people entitled to full rights as citizens, while women are not.

Women Have Never Liked Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback(R) So Now He Is Getting Revenge By Making All Women Only Three-fifths of a Person

Women Have Never Liked Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback(R) So Now He Is Getting Revenge By Making All Women Only Three-fifths of a Person

Women posted on Facebook to target Gov. Sam Brownback's support of an anti-abortion bill.
In protest of the governor’s support for a far-reaching anti-abortion bill, Kansas women have taken to GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s Facebook page to criticize his position. The postings mocked Brownback’s seemingly excessive interest in his neighbors’ reproductive and sexual health lives by addressing him as a women’s health expert:

    He’s vowed to sign into law the onerous “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” – a bill he freely admits that he has not read – that would permit doctors to withhold information from patients, force women to hear the fetal heartbeat prior to an abortion procedure, and contains the absolutely bananas provision that would require doctors to lie to women by telling them that abortions would increase the risk of breast cancer.

By Thursday, all of the comments from the “sarcasm bombing” had been scrubbed from Brownback’s Facebook wall, though RH Reality Check grabbed a couple of screenshots of the page:

Virginia Republicans faced similar backlash this week when residents of the state bombarded the Facebook pages of Republicans state Sen. Ryan McDougle — who sponsored the recently passed ultrasound bill — and Del. David Albo (R) with sarcastic posts “detailing anatomical happenings, asking questions and thanking Virginia Senate Republican caucus chairman Ryan McDougle for his concern of women’s health and rights.”

Will Gov Brownback be submitting urine samples every week so every American will know if he is taking Viagra. Will Kansas conservatives be setting up live video cams in their homes so the rest of America can watch and judge whether their personal sexual behavior is appropriate. Funny how much the world conservatives envision for the USA looks a lot like the old communists USSR.

Anti-American Conservative Legislators Are Trying to Turn Back The Clock To 1850 for American Women

How Lawmakers Lost Their Sense Of Shame

Connie Johnson is not afraid to be outrageous. The Democratic state senator from Oklahoma has watched in frustration for several years now as colleagues have rammed through bills limiting women's reproductive rights.

She tried debating and making speeches. Finally, earlier this month, she thought of something that made her point more clearly, or at least more graphically.

She introduced an amendment that would define life as beginning not at conception, but at "ejaculation."

"It wasn't until I got graphic that people finally heard what I was saying," Johnson says. "It was wonderful. If this is what it took to draw attention — to draw the world's attention to Oklahoma — I'm willing to do it."

Other legislators have used similarly provocative means to underline their point that bills addressing reproduction seem to be targeting women unfairly.

The Virginia Senate, for instance, last month rejected by two votes a measure, offered by Democrat Janet Howell, that would have required men to undergo a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before they could be prescribed drugs for erectile dysfunction. Howell's measure may have been a stunt, but it was also intended as a serious comment on the underlying measure being debated, which would have required women to undergo an intravaginal ultrasound exam prior to an abortion.

These bills themselves are part of a larger trend. Politicians have always thrived on attention. In the age of reality shows and instant hype through Twitter and cable coverage, however, it appears there are no longer any limits on what they are willing to say or do.

"There's always been an element of grandstanding in the legislative process," says Jack Pitney, a government professor at Claremont McKenna College. "If you're eager for attention, the new electronic environment makes it easier for such activities to get attention."

The New Media Environment

Politicians have always said things that are shocking. But now titillating words and deliberately agitating bills can resonate well beyond their states or the halls of Congress as they're picked up instantly by blogs and cable.

This week, Indiana state Rep. Bob Morris gained instant national notoriety with his argument that the Girl Scouts subvert "traditional American family values."

Morris has stuck to his guns, but other politicians caught up in a trap of their own words' making have ended up apologizing. Some may have originally meant what they said — but they perhaps never intended their words to travel so far, so fast.

That was obviously the case for Rep. John Sullivan, R-Okla., who complained at a Bixby town hall meeting on Wednesday that there was no way to get senators to pass the House version of the federal budget "other than me going over there with a gun and holding it to their head and maybe killing a couple of them."

Sullivan illustrated his remarks with a firearms gesture, but he quickly apologized when he was called on them by a national news organization, the liberal blog Talking Points Memo.

There used to be a saying - America Love It or Leave It- Maybe its time for conservatives to start loving American freedom and respecting the basic rights of citizens or go found their own backwards country.