Stating The Obvious

I'm very pleased that Debbie Stabenow and Debbie Wasserman Schultz called out the sexism of the GOP yesterday.

The call targeted Republican gubernatorial candidates Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Viriginia, as well as Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) and Republicans in general.

"I think we have an outdated view, an extreme view, a lack of understanding of what women's lives are like today and the role of women in America," Stabenow said. She wouldn't, however, use the word "sexist."

The lawmakers cited Republicans' opposition to health care reform as evidence, since women are usually in charge of their families' health care, and are disproportionately hurt by current health insurance policy.

But they also called out the NRCC's statement yesterday about House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, specifically that Gen. Stanley McChrystal "should put her in her place." That, said Wasserman-Schultz, is evidence of "a total lack of respect for women."

"It's perhaps understandable they wouldn't understand the needs of women," she added, saying 80 percent of House Republicans are men. (Although no one said "sexism" on the call, Wasserman-Schultz appeared on MSNBC soon after and said the NRCC comment "shows the shocking sexism in the Republican party today.)

Stabenow, who recently got into a tussle with her Finance Committee colleague Kyl, said she was shocked by the Republicans' attitude toward things like requiring insurers to cover basic maternity care.

"One of the most shocking things of the Senate Finance Committee markup was the extent to which my Republican colleagues weren't even aware of what they were saying that was so offensive to women," she said. Maternity care "is not a frill. This is not an extra for the majority of Americans who happen to be women."

In fact, it's Chris Christie's position on women's health issues, particularly mammograms, that is killing him in New Jersey. My sister-in-law, who lives in NJ, just finished her breast cancer treatments, and under Christie her health plan wouldn't have had to cover the early detection procedure that caught the tumor. Why should he care, as a white man? He doesn't need a mammogram or a papsmear.

Wasserman Schultz went further with her criticism on MSNBC:

"I think the place for a woman is at the top of the House of Representatives," said Wasserman Schultz.

"It's evidence they long for the days when a woman's place was in the kitchen. Now a woman is third in line for the presidency... But it's not surprising, coming from a party that's 80 percent male and 100 percent white," she added, referring to the composition of the House GOP conference.

We are a terrible country when it comes to female political representation, and the crap they have to go through probably enters into that. You have one political party that feels no compunction against acting like it's 1952 and women in politics are their secretaries. And that has a real-world effect on women's health and women's pay issues, among other things. Wasserman Schultz is absolutely right to push back on this.

As I was saying. When you have sexual harrassers like Bill O'Reilly leering at you every day, why would you want to deal with that? And I know he's talking to Michele Bachmann, who's in another stratosphere and clearly doesn't care, but this is the approach of the old boy's network. It's kind of sickening.

Owning By Proxy

Last night, Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad, who like to fancy themselves fiscal conservatives and whose entire rhetoric about health care has concerned "bending the cost curve" and reducing the price tag in the bill, joined with Republicans to hand up to $250 million dollars to states to teach children that sex is icky.

The Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday night approved an amendment providing tens of millions of dollars to fund abstinence education programs for teens.

The proposal, offered by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), would provide $50 million per year through 2014 exclusively for abstinence education programs. The measure would effectively reinstate the controversial Title V program, which offered $50 million per year to states for abstinence education, but prohibited them from tapping the funds for other sex-ed subjects like contraception. The same prohibition would accompany the Hatch amendment. “Abstinence education works,” the Utah Republican said.

The vote was 12 to 11, with Democratic Sens. Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and Kent Conrad (N.D.) voting with every Republican to secure passage of the measure.

Abstinence education doesn't work, this California Democrat says, backed up by every study ever done on the subject, including a 6-year study authorized by Congress that published in 2007. Even Max frickin' Baucus agrees, and his competing amendment on comprehensive sex ed, which also passed, wouldn't fund programs that were in his words "ineffective." Suzy Khimm has more on this.

I'm sure that giving in to Republican fears about liberated women, whether through this measure or trying to gut reproductive coverage in private insurance plans (thankfully, that amendment did fail in the Finance Committee today), will cause members of the party who don't think women should have the right to vote to flip on the bill and offer their support, right? We're just so close to consensus, and if we can just add to that 80% agreement with selling out women and futilely indoctrinating children to abstinence, we can all sing kumbaya and have a bill everyone can support, right?

Wrong. Republicans like Orrin Hatch will ask for concession after concession and offer nothing themselves. That's because they know that stooges like Blanche Lincoln and Kent Conrad will end up agreeing with them anyway, so there's no need to take ownership of the bill when you can own it by proxy.

Slightly off-topic, but this is a great story about 1,100 religious left leaders calling abortion "a moral decision" and demanding that women's rights not be sacrificed in the health care debate.

Afghan Elections As A Metaphor

The President has called the election in Afghanistan "successful." If by that he means successful in intimidating and defrauding the electorate, then I would agree.

Reports of fraud and intimidation in Afghanistan’s presidential election continued to mount Saturday, with anecdotal but widespread accounts of ballot-box stuffing, a lack of impartiality among election workers and voters casting ballots for others.

A particular concern was the notably low turnout of women, who election observer organizations said were disproportionately affected by the violence and intimidation.

Election officials said that all the reports needed to be investigated, and that it was too early to draw broad conclusions about the overall validity of the vote.

I don't think it's too early. Taliban militants are cutting off the purple ink-stained fingers of those who voted, and surely that had an effect on those who did not. Election officials allegedly pressured people to vote for certain candidates. Two candidates have already declared victory. And many women didn't even have a poll to use:

But women voters seemed to have faced disproportionate obstacles, election observer groups said.

Hundreds of polling stations for women (stations throughout the country were segregated to keep men and women from publicly mingling) did not even open in some areas where Taliban influence is high, but women also suffered discrimination and intimidation in some places in central and northern Afghanistan. Female candidates received threats and were largely ignored in news coverage of the elections, the observers said.

“The disproportionate effects of poor security conditions, widespread cultural opposition to women in public life and a number of attacks clearly aimed at deterring women’s activities all created significant obstacles,” the European Union observer mission said in its preliminary statement on Saturday.

The entire election seems marred by fraud, which is as you'd expect in a corrupt society such as Afghanistan. That further saps at the public trust in the central government, which the US wants to see in control of more than Kabul. The Taliban didn't engage in widespread attacks, but were successful in intimidating people in the areas they control. The election apparatus couldn't control the countryside and they basically validated a tribal, hierarchical society.

The elections basically were Afghanistan circa 2009. A mess.

The Speech

Barack Obama often gives these speeches in aggressively non-sound bite forms. The speech on race doesn't have one line that people recite over and over, nor does his DNC nomination speech, or his speeches in Europe, or his Inauguration speech. He would rather create an event, something that needs to be read or watched in full. This morning's speech to the Muslim world from Cairo was promoted intensely on Facebook and Twitter, and translated into multiple different languages. The intended audiences are overseas, and the ideas complex and not easily boiled down.

Today's speech starts as almost a historical lecture about the challenges between Muslim countries and the United States, and like many Obama speeches, he seeks common ground between the divides, and calls for a new beginning of mutual understanding and shared principles, focusing on what unites and not what divides. And he asks that the two sides listen to each other and be honest with one another.

I do so recognizing that change cannot happen overnight. No single speech can eradicate years of mistrust, nor can I answer in the time that I have all the complex questions that brought us to this point. But I am convinced that in order to move forward, we must say openly the things we hold in our hearts, and that too often are said only behind closed doors. There must be a sustained effort to listen to each other; to learn from each other; to respect one another; and to seek common ground. As the Holy Koran tells us, "Be conscious of God and speak always the truth." That is what I will try to do - to speak the truth as best I can, humbled by the task before us, and firm in my belief that the interests we share as human beings are far more powerful than the forces that drive us apart.

He addresses the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Israel/Palestine issue, the Iranian nuclear weapons crisis, democracy promotion, religious freedom and women's rights, doing the "on the one hand, on the other hand" shtick with almost all of them. Here's a good example, and a really keen take on the Israel/Palestine debate:

Around the world, the Jewish people were persecuted for centuries, and anti-Semitism in Europe culminated in an unprecedented Holocaust. Tomorrow, I will visit Buchenwald, which was part of a network of camps where Jews were enslaved, tortured, shot and gassed to death by the Third Reich. Six million Jews were killed - more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful. Threatening Israel with destruction - or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews - is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve.

On the other hand, it is also undeniable that the Palestinian people - Muslims and Christians - have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than sixty years they have endured the pain of dislocation. Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank, Gaza, and neighboring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations - large and small - that come with occupation. So let there be no doubt: the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity, and a state of their own.

For decades, there has been a stalemate: two peoples with legitimate aspirations, each with a painful history that makes compromise elusive. It is easy to point fingers - for Palestinians to point to the displacement brought by Israel's founding, and for Israelis to point to the constant hostility and attacks throughout its history from within its borders as well as beyond. But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: the only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states, where Israelis and Palestinians each live in peace and security.

There was a lot of honesty in the speech. Obama asserted that "our daughters can contribute just as much to society as our sons" to a part of the world where women are less equal. He said that "no system of government can or should be imposed upon one nation by any other" and acknowledged American roles in past overthrows of Muslim governments, particularly in Iran. He said that "No single nation should pick and choose which nations hold nuclear weapons," an oblique reference to Israel, and made a hedge on Iranian negotiations by admitting that they "should have the right to access peaceful nuclear power if it complies with its responsibilities under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."

The President, in other words, challenged the assumptions of both Americans and Egyptians, Christians and Muslims, Arabs and Israelis, and sought common understanding through honesty and a new foundation for dialogue. Some will see the speech as essentially empty, as if a speech could end all oppression in the Muslim world. And I agree that actions matter, and words fall hollow if not backed up by them; in fact, the rhetoric makes things WORSE if the actions do not match. But I also agree with MJ Rosenberg, that speaking to Muslims and Arabs as equals does have an impact. Marc Lynch has a good take as well. Ultimately, Obama seeks to bring the greater Muslim world forward into a new conversation and marginalize those extremists who pervert religion with violence, and refuses to use ideology as a wedge between the divides. In that respect the speech is not as important as its buildup and the environment created around it. You can see by the Al Qaeda freakout in reaction - as well as conservatives - that they both hate the crackup of the Manichean relationship between the Western and Muslim worlds.

More coverage in NYT and WaPo, and even from Thomas Friedman, though I advise you to read what's inside the quotes from Obama and not the Moustache's turgid prose.

The Work Goes On

Bill O'Reilly spent an entire hour last night assuming that the murder of George Tiller was actually an attack on him. He brushed past his rote one-line expression of sorrow, claimed that everything he ever said about Tiller was true and based on facts, and then played the "who's attacking me now" game for the rest of the program. It looked to me like his only regret at Tiller's murder was that he wasn't on vacation at the time.

O'Reilly hosted a couple far-right lawyers who have been active in trying to get Tiller's perfectly legal clinic shut down, using some of those "facts" that are actually vicious lies that show their bias. But Scott Roeder and the fascist movement also dedicated to this goal did not succeed. The clinic will stay open.

The slaying Sunday of one of the nation's most prominent abortion providers has left a local colleague outraged but with a renewed resolve. Dr. LeRoy Carhart of Bellevue is preparing to temporarily take the helm at his slain friend's clinic in Wichita, Kan.

"Harm one of us, it won't do anything to harm the movement," said Carhart, head of the Abortion and Contraception Clinic of Nebraska.

Carhart described himself as a close friend of Dr. George Tiller's. Tiller was shot and killed Sunday morning in the lobby of the Lutheran church he attends in Wichita, Kan. He was serving as an usher [...]

After Sunday's fatal shooting, Tiller's chief nurse called Carhart. Carhart made arrangements to keep his Bellevue clinic open while he is gone. When contacted Sunday, he said he was en route to Wichita to run Tiller's clinic for at least the next week.

That's key. Intimidation and extremism have helped deny access to women's health services across the country. But brave men and women are stepping up, and refusing to be cowed.

By the way, it's important to understand what Tiller provided, legal services that have been demonized by the right.

I know most of my readers are pro-choice but I still think it worth considering what it means to ask a woman to carry a pregnancy to term when she knows that the baby will have one of the following conditions:
Anencephaly
Trisomy 13
Trisomy 18
Trisomy 21
Polycystic kidney disease
Spina bifida
Hydrocephalus
Potter's syndrome
Lethal dwarfism
Holoprosencephaly
Anterior and posterior encephalocele
Non-immune hydrops

The cached version of Dr. Tiller's admission criteria shows the following:

Admission Criteria
In order to offer you an appointment, we require that a physician refer you to our center. In addition, we need your genetic counselor or doctor to provide us with gestational and diagnostic information regarding your pregnancy. Over the past twenty-five years, we have had experience with pregnancy terminations in such situations as anencephaly, Trisomy 13, 18, and 21, polycystic kidney disease, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, Potter's syndrome, lethal dwarfism, holoprosencephaly, anterior and posterior encephalocele, non-immune hydrops, and a variety of other very significant abnormalities.

Amanda Marcotte has a great video about this as well.

RH Reality Check: Late Term Abortions from RH Reality Check on Vimeo.

Domestic Terrorism That Works

I dashed off a short post about George Tiller's murder yesterday, but it's too important to just shake your head about and move on. As one of the only other doctors who performs the kind of abortions that Tiller provided said yesterday, Tiller's murder was an act of intimidation, meant not only for him but the entire medical community.

“I’m profoundly sad and I’m furious and I think the American people need to understand that we have a fascist movement in this country,” Dr. Warren Hern told The Colorado Independent on Sunday. “We don’t have to invade Iraq to find terrorists. They’re right here killing abortion doctors.”

“Every doctor that does abortions has been under an assassination threat for decades,” Hern said. “The anti-abortion movement message is, ‘Do what we tell you to do or we will kill you,’ and they do. This is a fascist movement.”

Hern laid blame for Tiller’s death at the feet of the anti-abortion movement’s encouragement of violence against abortion providers and the Republican Party’s “exploitation” of the extremist rhetoric.

“Dr. Tiller is dead by an anti-abortion assassin, and this is the absolutely inevitable consequence of 35 years of anti-abortion fanatic rhetoric and intimidation and assassination violence and exploitation by the Republican Party of this movement,” Hern told the Independent.

You can see simply from the sewage from the right wing in reaction to the murder that this killing will not be some sort of wake-up call for an extremist movement. In fact, what is more likely to happen is that the reactionaries recognize the success of their efforts. A substantial portion of the doctors willing to perform legal medical services for women died yesterday, and who, given the circumstance, will rise to take his place? Deciding to work at a women's health clinic means deciding to work at the most targeted sites for terrorism in America, and I cannot blame anyone for preferring a different line of work. Over the past ten years or so, access to abortion has plummeted, both through this kind of intimidation and chipping away by right-wing state and local governments. A legal right is not necessarily legal if you cannot find it.

Tiller's death is a wake-up call to the fact that our existing laws and regulatory bodies to protect against clinic violence aren't working as well as they should. As written, FACE (Freedom to Access at Clinic Entrances) provides a lot of protection for reproductive health providers. But we need an active task force -- or some other means of accountability -- to make sure the law is fully enforced. This is something Obama's Justice Department could commit to doing tomorrow, sending a strong signal that this type of domestic terrorism is not acceptable.

It's apparent that we need someone at the federal level who is paying attention. After all, Tiller's assassin was not acting in vacuum. Even if no national anti-choice group directly ordered him to fire that gun, he is a product of a culture that thrives on systematically threatening reproductive health care providers and women who seek abortions. Militant anti-choice groups like Operation Rescue -- which has endorsed intimidation tactics in the past -- released statements yesterday condemning Tiller's assassination.

But after years of sending the message to its avid base that Tiller was a sub-human monster, a press release expressing dismay at the killing does little good. On the sidebar of the Operation Rescue blog, near where the press release appeared, was a small image featuring Dr. Tiller's face, some very sinister-looking flames, and the words "America's Doctor of Death," linking to a detailed dossier about all of Tiller's offenses. Other groups keep databases of reproductive health providers' addresses and phone numbers, all but daring their members to conduct harassment campaigns.

Letting FACE go unenforced is not just bad for clinic staff. This pattern of intimidation can affect the quality of care women receive.

For his part, Attorney General Eric Holder has dispatched US Marshals to protect certain individuals and clinics. But the violence that has raged for over thirty years, and the movement of hate that fanned the flames in so-called "respectable" outlets, is sure to continue. Women don't have the same access to treatment that men do, simply put. And that's a problem for all of us.

...check out the profile of the suspect in custody in this case. There are hundreds, if not thousands of people willing to do this work.

...Greg Sargent makes the excellent point that the Department of Homeland Security's report on "right-wing extremism" looks pretty prescient right now.

Human Rights Tabled?

This is very disappointing from the Secretary of State, and I have to imagine, the Administration.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that she would not emphasize contentious issues such as human rights in talks this weekend with the Chinese, focusing instead on topics on which progress may be more likely: the global economy, climate change and security issues [...]

"We know what they're going to say because I've had those kinds of conversations for more than a decade with Chinese leaders," Clinton told reporters.

"We have to continue to press them. But our pressing on these issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and the security crisis."

This is that "common ground" approach that Obama wants to make a standard, and to be sure the United States has a long history, in both Democratic and Republican Administrations, of cozying up to human rights abusers. Of course, ghetto-izing human rights as a "side issue" and not one that is linked to, say, the economy (slave labor and sweatshops in China) or cooperation on security (how can we lecture some nations on human rights but not others with more clout) does no service to American or global interests. Especially when the White House tries to highlight Clinton's commitment to women's rights ON THE SAME TRIP.

I do believe that it’s important for someone in my position to raise the role of women on an ongoing basis, even in countries where women are not given full and equal rights. So I don’t think it’s enough that people deal with me; I want them to deal with their own women, I want them to think about giving all women the rights to be fully functioning, productive citizens. So that is part of the mission that I feel I carry as the Secretary of State of the United States, and that’s what I intend to promote as I travel around the world talking about a lot of these important matters that are really at the core of the kind of future we’re going to have for ourselves and our children.

Unless we're talking about China, and then women who criticize the government, along with men, can have their rights taken away. So can any woman living in Tibet.

Fair Pay On The Way

The Senate today passed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would allow women an increased statute of limitations for fighting unequal pay in the courts. The current law was that a woman like Ledbetter would have 180 days from the infraction (which, like most pay discrimination, is carried out in secret) to file a claim.

Ledbetter roamed the Capitol's halls on Thursday, explaining to lawmakers and reporters that she was unaware of the pay disparity during most of the 19 years she worked at Goodyear.

"Pay levels were a big secret," she said, "but an anonymous person left a note in my mailbox at work one day, comparing my pay to that of three male managers — and that's when I knew I'd been the victim of pay discrimination."

She calmly recalled how "I started at a lower salary, and they gave me lower raises, over and over again." She sought help from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission just before she retired in 1998, and the case wound through the courts.

After the Supreme Court ruled against her, three months later the House voted to override the decision, but a Senate filibuster stopped the effort.

The roll call is here. All Democrats voted yes, and five Republicans (Specter, Snowe, Murkowski, Hutchinson and Collins) joined them. Because of some amendments it needs to go back to the House for a reconciliation vote, but once that happens, Ledbetter should be the first major piece of legislation signed by President Obama into law.

Your Moment Of Zen

Here's your President on the 36th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision:

On the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, we are reminded that this decision not only protects women's health and reproductive freedom, but stands for a broader principle: that government should not intrude on our most private family matters. I remain committed to protecting a woman's right to choose.

While this is a sensitive and often divisive issue, no matter what our views, we are united in our determination to prevent unintended pregnancies, reduce the need for abortion, and support women and families in the choices they make. To accomplish these goals, we must work to find common ground to expand access to affordable contraception, accurate health information, and preventative services.

On this anniversary, we must also recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights and opportunities as our sons: the chance to attain a world-class education; to have fulfilling careers in any industry; to be treated fairly and paid equally for their work; and to have no limits on their dreams. That is what I want for women everywhere.

To quote Peggy Noonan, let us savor.

Some may quibble with the wording and the emphasis on finding common ground, but on this issue I look at the top line, and the commitment to preserving the right to choose and the right to privacy. This is pretty strong language, and compared to the past eight years, it's yet another sea change. However, he'd better get around to repealing the global gag rule, which didn't happen today. Carrots and sticks.

See also this great piece at Feministing on why Roe isn't enough. We already have a de facto ban on abortion in many states that have limited or eliminated access, and that has to stop.

Ledbetter Passes

I was happy to see Lily Ledbetter become such a rallying cry in the Democratic Party during the campaign season. She got a prime speaking spot at the DNC Convention and was cited multiple times by Barack Obama on the trail. The issue of equal pay for equal work is so elemental to basic fairness and women's rights, and it's great to see the House end the first week of business by strongly passing the measure today. This isn't only a question of fairness, but one that will have an impact on the economy. Americans have seen their wages grow stagnant or shrink even when the economy has grown, and anything that puts pressure to push wages upward can help in a recovery.

Howie Klein has more, including a look at the five House "Democrats" who voted against this bill. I'm sure all the women who voted for them might be surprised to hear that. Howie says the odds look decent for passage in the Senate as well.

Midnight Riders

This is the most unconscionable of Bush's "midnight regulations."

The Bush administration, as expected, announced new protections on Thursday for health care providers who oppose abortion and other medical procedures on religious or moral grounds.

“Doctors and other health care providers should not be forced to choose between good professional standing and violating their conscience,” Michael O. Leavitt, the secretary of Health and Human Services, said in a statement on his department’s Web site.

The rule prohibits recipients of federal money from discriminating against doctors, nurses and health care aides who refuse to take part in procedures because of their convictions, and it bars hospitals, clinics, doctors’ office and pharmacies from forcing their employees to assist in programs and activities financed by the department.

This will have profound consequences for women's health. There is nothing here that doesn't bar doctors from refusing to deliver birth control, for example, or the morning-after pill, or even let someone know where those services or family planning services can be provided. As Hilzoy said, this is a lazy person's dream.

This is a wonderful rule for slackers, since it provides a legally protected way to get paid while doing no work at all. Here's the plan:

(1) Get an MD, and a job as a doctor.
(2) Become a Christian Scientist.
(3) Announce your religious objection to participating in any medical procedure, or to supporting such procedures in any way (e.g., by doing the other doctors' paperwork. This refusal would be protected under the rule.)
(4) When your employer protests, explain that your right to refuse to participate in any medical procedure at all is legally protected under this rule.

Voila: white-collar welfare! See how easy?

I guess that makes it the Bartleby rule?

If you're not totally proud of your country right now, I'll give you another reason:

Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.

In all, 66 of the U.N.'s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 U.N. members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.

Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration was signed by all 27 European Union members, as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. There was broad opposition from Muslim nations, and the United States refused to sign, indicating that some parts of the declaration raised legal questions that needed further review.

It's a good thing we have a new President who would never validate anyone with beliefs like we see here with the conscience rule or criminalizing homosexuality. Oh wait...

(I should note, in the interest of fairness, that the Obama transition team is committed to reversing the provider conscience rule.)

Oh, Sarah

I love how the wingnuts are having heart attacks today because people are daring to suggest that their beloved jockey mom might not be such a woman of the people, just because she rung up a $150,000 bill - at the RNC's expense - to buy 10 weeks' worth of clothes. They can't keep the rationalizations coming fast enough. I hope at some point they explain away the fact that this conduct may be illegal.

I just got off the phone with a well-respected and well-known tax attorney who doesn't want to be identified.

I asked him earlier in the day whether Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin can avoid paying taxes on the $150,000 worth of clothes the RNC bought her, as she and the RNC maintain. (They said the RNC now owns the clothes; she's just borrowing them.)

He said that after consulting with a number of experts as his prominent firm, he thinks the RNC and Gov. Palin are wrong.

"It's probably not a 'gift,'" he said. "The issue is whether it counts as 'income.'"

Palin's claim that the pricey duds belong to the RNC and she's just "borrowing" them and will return them later reminds him, he says, of some of the issues going on in the prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens, R-Alaska. (Some of the issues, he specified, not the allegations of criminality.)

"This is exactly the issue with the Stevens case," he said, "When you loan something to someone can you call it a 'loan' if upon its return it has no practical value?"

Oh yeah, well... John Edwards is girly! Al Gore is fat!

Meanwhile, Palin wasn't even trusted to pick out her own clothes - that job fell to this Rove protege:

Does the name Jeff Larson sound familiar? It should. Larson is the Karl Rove protégé who’s a principal in the robocalling firm of FLS Connect (the “FLS” stands for Tony Feather, Jeff Larson, and Tom Syndhorst, all veteran Republican political operatives). Larson’s firm is the same one that launched the scurrilous robocalls against John McCain in 2000, and that McCain has now hired to make robocalls connecting Barack Obama to Bill Ayers. He’s also well known in Minnesota for leasing his basement apartment at a steeply discounted rate to embattled Republican Senator Norm Coleman. Evidently, Larson also has quite the eye for women’s fashion. Even hateful liberals would have to admit that Palin dresses awfully nicely.

He does have a keen eye, I'll give him that.

And if you want to say "Let's get back to the issues that matter" and away from such frivolity like illegal payments and bilking contributors for personal gain, well, OK:

Dr. James Dobson today asked Gov. Sarah Palin about her private conversations with Sen. McCain about the Republican platform's planks on life and marriage.

"In your private conversations with Senator McCain is it your impression that he also strongly supports those views? I know that he did not oppose that platform when it was written. Do you think he will implement it?" [...]

Governor Palin responded: "I do, from the bottom of my heart. I am such a strong believer that McCain believes in those strong planks and we do have good conversations about some of the details too, about the different planks and what they represent."

The 2008 GOP platform is a bit more conservative than it was in 2004. If McCain is going to implement it - something of which Palin is convinced from the bottom of her heart - then that means that McCain will support a constitutional amendment to ban all abortion (including those cases where the mother was raped or was the victim of incest), a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and he will oppose government-sponsored embryonic stem cell research.

This election isn't being won or lost on the McCain-Palin ticket's extreme views. But let's be clear - they're pretty darn extreme. And women who want a government that won't criminalize their behavior and help them when in need have a choice.

Approximately 1,400 women a year – four every day – die in the United States as a result of domestic violence. And 132,000 women report that they have been victims of a rape or attempted rape, and it is estimated that an even greater number have been raped, but do not report it.

Biden wrote and passed the landmark Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) which is the strongest legislation to date that criminalizes domestic violence and other forms of violence against women, provides victims with the support they deserve, and holds batterers accountable. Signed into law in 1994, the bill funds and helps communities, nonprofit organizations, and police combat domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking.

CA Campaign Update: CA-04, CA-11, LA Board of Supes

I'm going to try and do these once a day. No promises!

• CA-04: In partial response to the kerfuffle from yesterday's deceitful attack ad, Charlie Brown released two radio spots and a TV ad today. His wife Jan Brown narrates the TV spot, which foregrounds Charlie and his son's military service. (Sorry, not embeddable)

The radio spots are both solid attacks on Venturian Candidate Tom McClintock. Two men, two paths contrasts Brown's service and leadership with McClintock's life in politics, and his record on veterans (including donating 5% of his campaign funds) with McClintock's (voting against veteran's funding). Vote is a humorous spot discussing how McClintock can't vote for himself because he won't move into the district. There's also a lot on McClintock's per diem expenses from the State Senate. "L.A. Tom" is the frame they're going with, and they ask, "if he won't vote for himself, why should we?"

• CA-11: State Senator Ellen Corbett and Assemblywoman Mary Hayashi sent a letter to women in Jerry McNerney's district urging them to reject right-wing extremist Dean Andal. His record on women's issues is really retrograde.

To the Women of Congressional District 11:

If you are anything like us, you want a representative in Washington that not only reflects your values, but who also respects you.

Dean Andal just doesn’t qualify. In fact, Dean Andal’s record on women’s issues shows just how out of touch and extreme his views are.

In 1994, as a member of the State Assembly, Dean Andal opposed a common sense law that would have allowed women to wear pants in the workplace instead of being forced to wear skirts and dresses.

Andal also voted against requiring health insurance plans to cover cervical cancer screenings. He even voted against making sure that information about sexual harassment be included in mandatory workplace anti-discrimination posters.

Yet the most egregious affront to women he offered in his short term in the Assembly was his vote to restrict the definition of rape to exclude attacks where an incapacitated woman cannot resist.

And what’s worse, Andal’s was the only vote in the Assembly against expanding the definition. The only one.

Whether you’re a Democrat or a Republican, all women should be proud of the progress we have made. That's why it's so important that we don't send someone like Dean Andal to Congress. Someone with a record like Andal’s can be counted on to turn back the clock on all we have achieved.

• LA Board of Supes: There's a runoff in this seat between Councilman Bernard Parks and State Senator Mark Ridley-Thomas. While Ridley-Thomas is a solid progressive who understands the fundamental dysfunction of state government and will fight for progressive values on the powerful Board of Supes, Bernard Parks has hired Republican fixer Steve Kinney to help him win the race. Parks, who has a business-friendly record on the City Council, is receiving help from BizFed, a PAC notorious for pushing the same agenda. The wingnuts at the Lincoln Club have reportedly offered him support as well. At least the choice is now clear to voters - one candidate on the side of the corporate vultures, the other on the side of the people.

• Misc. I should note that Chris Bowers' House race forecast is up, and among California races, he lists CA-04 as a tossup, CA-11 as Lean D, and CA-26 & CA-50 as Likely R. I think he's selling a couple races short, but that's a pretty good conservative estimate.

Equal Pay

I'm pleasantly surprised to see equal pay make a prominent appearance in the Presidential election. Surprised and saddened - I can't believe this is still an issue in 21st-century America. But here we are, and the Obama campaign is certainly using this as a wedge issue. He's released an ad in Virginia and perhaps elsewhere on the issue, without posting it in his YouTube channel so that the McCain campaign would know what's coming:



I think it's especially effective to use the line about how McCain thinks women need only "education and training," as if they're a bunch of dopes who need to learn how to do their jobs if they want to get paid like the big boys.

In addition, Michelle Obama has posted at BlogHer about equal pay, revealing that she'll be campaigning with Lilly Ledbetter.

Lilly is from Alabama. For nearly 20 years, she worked for a Goodyear tire plant. She was the only female supervisor—so you know this is a tough, hard-working woman. One day, someone sent her an anonymous letter with a list of salaries of her co-workers. That’s how she found out that she was making less than the men she worked with—even men who were less senior than she was. And we’re not talking about a few dollars. Some of her male counterparts were making 40 percent more than she was—for doing the same work.

Over 20 years, that adds up to a lot of money—money that could have helped Lilly send her kids to college, provide some comfort in her everyday life, or prepare for her retirement.

So Lilly did the brave and difficult thing. She confronted this injustice. Her case went all the way to the Supreme Court. And in a 5-to-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that, according to the law, Lilly only had 180 days to complain about the pay discrimination. So because it had taken her 20 years to find out the truth, she had missed her chance at justice.

Well, some people in Congress decided to change that law, so it would no longer reward employers for hiding discrimination until they ran out the clock. Last July, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act passed the House. But this April, Republicans in the Senate blocked it. Now, Democrats in the Senate are working to bring Lilly’s bill back for another vote this fall.

My husband is a proud supporter of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.

Senator McCain does not support it. In fact, Senator McCain said that what women really need is more education and training.

It's a discrimination issue as well as an economic issue. The unemployment rate for women has seen the highest one-month spike in 33 years, and as state and local governments cut back in an economic downturn, women, who currently receive proportionately more government services, will continue to suffer. And getting 77 cents on the dollar compared to men doesn't help.

McCain may have hired a girl Friday to run with him (the narrowness of her issue silos as Vice President is embarrassing), but on women's issues, it's clear who is on the side of the people in this election.

They Think You're Stupid

The early results are not promising:

The first national polls on John McCain's pick of Sarah Palin yesterday came out today from Rasmussen and Gallup -- and contrary to what the GOP probably hoped, she scored less well with women than men.

Here's a finding from Gallup: Among Democratic women -- including those who may be disappointed that Hillary Clinton did not win the Democratic nomination -- 9% say Palin makes them more likely to support McCain, 15% less likely.

From Rasmussen: Some 38% of men said they were more likely to vote for McCain now, but only 32% of women. By a narrow 41% to 35% margin, men said she was not ready to be president -- but women soundly rejected her, 48% to 25%.

This seems to me like a classic example of a bunch of men deciding what women would want. Palin's gender is not nearly as important as her views on women's issues. She is aggressively anti-choice, is likely to be anti-birth control and wants our kids to be taught creationism. She doesn't believe in global warming and doesn't know anything about Iraq. Women are far more likely to look at the facts and not the chromosomes when it comes to this; if the first female Vice President is an unqualified disaster it sets back the cause of feminism years. That's unfair but just factual. And women are going to vote for someone who needs quick tutoring from an old man before he dies (that's the MCCAIN CAMPAIGN'S FRAMING):

Mr. McCain’s advisers said Friday that Mr. McCain was well aware that Ms. Palin would be criticized for her lack of foreign policy experience, but that he viewed her as exceptionally talented and intelligent and that he felt she would be able to be educated quickly.

“She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long,” said Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s top advisers, making light of concerns about Mr. McCain’s health, which Mr. McCain’s doctors reported as excellent in May.

I agree with Molly I - the McCain campaign believed the PUMA hype to such a degree that they thought going with a woman as some kind of bone to throw would be enough. It's classic Republican superficial thinking. And it's not going to work.

The Difference On Choice

There's actually quite a bit of cause for cheer with the Democratic Party platform, so let this be the first in a series.

Via Dylan Matthews, it looks like the forces of Jim Wallis didn't manage to overcome the Democratic platform this year. Here's the plank on reproductive health:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to affordable family planning services and comprehensive age-appropriate sex education which empowers people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions.

As Matthews notes, that's even stronger than the language of recent years, when the mantra was "safe, legal and rare." There's that bit about "reducing the need for abortions" but I would imagine that most reproductive rights advocates would strongly support that as it's constructed.

Contrast this with John McCain's retrograde position on choice, which is as reactionary as anyone on the theocon right;

The campaign website of the same man who, eight years ago, said Roe shouldn't be overturned now says, "John McCain believes Roe v. Wade is a flawed decision that must be overturned, and as president he will nominate judges who understand that courts should not be in the business of legislating from the bench." He sent heartfelt words to the National Right to Life Committee's annual convention: "I am pro-life," he told them, "because I know what it is like to live without human rights, where human life is accorded no inherent value. (NOTE: John McCain NEVER talks about his POW service -ed.) And I know that I have a personal obligation to advocate human rights wherever they are denied ... when we fail to respect the inherent dignity of all human life, born or unborn. " McCain's advisers have said that he will not fight to soften the Republican platform on abortion, and McCain himself has said that it would be "difficult" to choose a pro-choice running mate [...]

During his political career, McCain has participated in 130 reproductive health-related votes on Capitol Hill; of these, he voted with the anti-abortion camp in 125. McCain has consistently backed rights for the unborn, voting to cover fetuses under the State Children's Health Insurance Program and supporting the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, which allowed a "child in utero" to be recognized as a legal victim of a crime. He has voted in favor of the global gag rule, which prevents U.S. funds from going to international family-planning clinics that use their own money to perform abortions, offer information about abortion, or take a pro-choice stand. And he has voted to appoint half a dozen anti-abortion judges to the federal bench, as well as Samuel Alito, John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, and Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. During the Bork hearings, McCain attacked the Court's creation of a right to privacy in Roe v. Wade: "Whether one is pro-or anti-abortion," McCain said in an October 1987 hearing, "it is difficult to argue that the Court's opinion is not constitutionally suspect."

Some of these votes were, politically speaking, no-brainers for anyone vaguely in the pro-life camp. But McCain also joined efforts supported only by the radical wing of his party. He voted, for instance, with only one-fifth of the Senate to remove family-planning grants from a 1988 spending bill and with only 18 senators that same year against allowing Medicaid to pay for abortions in cases of rape or incest.

In 1994, the year after abortion provider David Gunn was killed outside a Florida clinic, McCain voted with 29 members of the Senate against establishing penalties for violent or threatening interference outside abortion clinics. Many solidly pro-life Republicans--Mitch McConnell, Kit Bond, John Danforth--voted in favor of the bill, called the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE). "We tried to get as many co-sponsors as we could, and we postured the thing as anti-vigilante violence," recalls Judy Appelbaum, a Washington lawyer who was counsel to Senator Edward Kennedy at the time and the lead Hill staffer on the bill. "We argued that, even if you oppose abortion, you should not condone these actions." According to Appelbaum, law enforcement officials, newspaper editorialists, health care providers, and law-and-order politicians all supported the bill. "There were a number of very anti-choice senators who voted for FACE," she says, "and [McCain] wasn't one of them." Instead, McCain joined senators like Orrin Hatch and Jesse Helms in opposition.

Despite a 25-year voting record on the issue, McCain has publicly sought to shade his statements and give everybody the impression that he's some kind of moderate on women's health. It's completely untrue, and this not only encompasses the 0 ratings from Planned Parenthood and NARAL, but his opposition to the Title X family-planning program, which offers free birth control and breast cancer screenings for low-income women. He's voted for abstinence-only education, against teen-pregnancy prevention programs, for parental notification laws for contraception programs, against mandating that health insurers cover birth control, for the "global gag rule" and for defunding United Nations agencies that provide family planning services for the poor.

McCain has tried in the past to limit his public statements on choice, but the record is very clear. The statements from those who know him best is clear. He's not just a hard-core conservative but a particularly brutish one, seeking nothing less than the control over women's bodies and women's health. This is a very important set of information to make public and widespread.

Sturgis Family Values

I once worked on a show about Sturgis, hosted by Kato Kaelin (my career is AWESOME). It doesn't take more than a cursory look to tell you that the place is depraved. So I was a little surprised hearing that John McCain was going to campaign there. I was more surprised hearing this:

McCain felt so comfortable at the event that he even volunteered his wife for the rally’s traditional beauty pageant, an infamously debauched event that’s been known to feature topless women.

“I encouraged Cindy to compete,” McCain said to cheers. “I told her with a little luck she could be the only woman ever to serve as first lady and Miss Buffalo Chip.”

Miss Buffalo Chip is basically a combination between a wet T-shirt contest and a rape.

I guess McCain is running on restoring honor and dignity to the White House, then? Women's rights groups should jump all over this one...

...Jesse nails this.

All I’m saying is that if Barack Obama had gone to an event with 20,000 people wasting gas to talk about energy and said that his wife should have simulated sucking a banana dick between another woman’s legs, this race would be fucking over.

Women For Obama

We're going to have to wade through a whole ocean of Village conventional wisdom this primary season, so it's hard to know where to begin. But the opening set of nonsense seems to be that because Barack Obama defeated a woman in the Democratic primary, he'll have some impossible task reaching Democratic women voters in the general election. This is actually demeaning to women voters, this suggestion that they are so emotionally attached and not rational thinkers with respect to electoral politics that they would vote against their own committed beliefs and interests. It's a big country and "women" voters represents about 60-70 million Americans, so there are going to be exceptions, but by and large Democratic women aren't fools and won't be running toward John McCain and his policies which hurt women who care about issues like public health, equal pay and a women's right to choose her own medical care.

Marilyn Authenreith, a mother of two in North Carolina, felt strongly about supporting Hillary Rodham Clinton in the Democratic presidential primary.

But once the former first lady quit the race, Authenreith switched allegiance to Barack Obama, mainly because she thinks that he -- unlike Republican John McCain -- will push for universal healthcare.

"I can't understand the thinking of how someone would jump from Hillary to McCain," she said. "It doesn't make any sense."

Now that the Democratic marathon is over, Clinton supporters like Authenreith are siding heavily with Obama over McCain, polls show. And Obama has taken a wide lead among female voters, belying months of political chatter and polls of primary voters suggesting that disappointment over Clinton's defeat might block the Illinois senator from enjoying his party's historic edge among women.

This was just made up by seven people at the major cable news nets, who just decided to uncritically parrot GOP talking points that women were fed up with Obama because he beat their gal. None of it had any basis in reality.

And for what it's worth, Obama himself is attentive to the issue.

Sen. Barack Obama hit back at Sen. John McCain's recent attempts to court women voters who flocked to Sen. Hillary Clinton's failed presidential bid in droves.

. "On almost every single issue that's important to women, he's been on the wrong side," the presumptive Democratic nominee told ABC News in an interview in Flint, Mich. Monday.

"You know, he is in favor of judges who would overturn Roe v. Wade. He has opposed equal pay. He has opposed the CHIP [Children's Health Insurance] program, that would make children insured," Obama said.

In particular, choice could be a powerful and winning issue in the general election. Many moderates have no idea how radical McCain's position is on Roe. You will see crossover support for Obama as long as there's enough education around the issue.

Despite the fact that the national focus seems to be on the economy, among pro-choice Independent women, pro-choice Republican women, and liberal to moderate Republican women, the issue of abortion produces a larger advantage for Democrats than the economy, the war in Iraq, or health care. Moreover, among these three groups critiques on McCain’s anti-choice position are the strongest attacks against him, trumping attacks on the economy, the war, and special interests.

There are plenty more examples of this conventional wisdom taking hold without basis in reality. More infuriating than the fact that pundits focus almost entirely on horse-race politics is that they frequently get the horse race completely wrong.

Clinton Magnanimous

It's kind of amazing that Obama supporters convinced themselves into thinking that Hillary Clinton, the lightning rod of the late 20th and the early 21st century, wasn't a partisan, and wouldn't come together to endorse the Democratic nominee wholeheartedly. Well, she did today, and it was a solid speech.

I think the rampant speculation about her political future is actually kind of boring, but clearly she's a major voice inside the party and will remain so for years to come, in whatever capacity she chooses. I frankly think that the whole "What does Hillary want?" line of questioning is pretty misogynist, as if she's someone that needs to be dealt with instead of someone who will set her own path.

And I loved how she addressed the issue of women's rights and women's equality inside the speech. It was the subtext undergirding her campaign, and I'm glad she made it over. She should have done it a long time ago.

Overall, we're finally starting to see the beginnings of unity inside the Democratic Party.

UPDATE: Obama's response:

"Obviously, I am thrilled and honored to have Senator Clinton's support. But more than that, I honor her today for the valiant and historic campaign she has run. She shattered barriers on behalf of my daughters and women everywhere, who now know that there are no limits to their dreams. And she inspired millions with her strength, courage and unyielding commitment to the cause of working Americans. Our party and our country are stronger because of the work she has done throughout her life, and I'm a better candidate for having had the privilege of competing with her in this campaign. No one knows better than Senator Clinton how desperately America and the American people need change, and I know she will continue to be in the forefront of that battle this fall and for years to come."

Anger

The most prominent emotion coming from yesterday's proceedings at the Rules and Bylaws Committee is anger. Eve Fairbanks wrote up some scenes from the Hillary protest outside the Marriott, and then there's this lady.



This is really disturbing. There's a great deal of anger within the Democratic Party, and I'm trying to figure out whether it's coming from former non-aligned Americans who were attracted by the promise of a woman President or core Democrats. Either way, it's sad. Once we got down to two candidates four months ago things got very personal and identity-based, and this kind of searing anger was inevitable. To an extent, on the outer edges, this is not fixable. There's nothing you can do outside of installing Hillary Clinton as President to satisfy the likes of Harriet Christian. Apparently the crowd at the protests yesterday was somewhat small, but you can't tell me that the thoughts of Harriet Christian represent a piece of the electorate. I don't know how big, but it's a piece.

The crusade for women's rights has merged with electoral politics here and a lot of people feel hurt and slighted. They've poured themselves into the vessel of Hillary as the first woman President and they feel it has been stolen from them. The DNC rules are too meager and thin to hold back the mountains of bullshit on both sides, the moral arguments both can make that they deserved the victory. So there is this sense of betrayal. I honestly don't know how you unify after betrayal.

I think Obama can win the election by increasing participation, and handing an election to Republicans just doesn't seem possible at this point in history, but it would be folly to ignore the very real pain and hurt being felt by Clinton supporters right now, particularly older women.