Servicewomen and Abortion

Dec. 1st, 2012 01:55 pm
redheadedfemme: (woman incubator)
"Abolition of a woman's right to abortion, when and if she wants it, amounts to compulsory maternity:  a form of rape by the State."  ~Edward Abbey

Huh. This is a neat little news article.

The Obama Administration released an official statement yesterday that includes support for abortion access for military survivors of rape. The statement[PDF] calls for changes to the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013, which details the military's budget, but supports an amendment that would allow military personnel to use their insurance to cover an abortion in cases of rape or incest. The statement also supports access to elective abortions for all servicewoman and military dependents when they use their own funds, including servicewomen overseas. 

Under the amendment, armed servicewomen would be granted the same rights as civilian women under federal policies that provide affordable abortion care to women who are the victims of rape or incest. Under the current policy, servicewomen are only eligible for abortion care if the woman's life is at risk.  

President Obama tends to do these things and doesn't trumpet them much, but I certainly appreciate his efforts. (Of course, it would be great if elective abortions were also covered by military insurance. Someday.) 


Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

The Scorpion's Tail

Nov. 18th, 2012 10:06 pm
redheadedfemme: (ignorance point of view)
Let's set up a sting, shall we?

Let's put together our hidden cameras and microphones, and walk into this jackass's store.

Southwest Shooting Authority in Pinetop, Ariz. took out an advertisement last week in the local newspaper, the White Mountain Independent, that spelled out the store's new policy in explicit terms.

"If you voted for Barack Obama your business is not welcome at Southwest Shooting Authority," the ad reads. "You have proven that you are not responsible enough to own a firearm."

Let's recruit a young man and woman, the former wearing a cowboy hat and shitkicker boots, with a telltale Skoals circle in his rear jeans pocket, the latter a wide-eyed, lipsticked, none-too-bright-looking blonde. Two walking cliches, in other words. Driving a battered, rusty 70's Ford pickup truck, of course, with a rifle rack in the back window, festooned with nasty Republican bumper stickers like these:

 
 
 
 
 
Into the gunstore we go. The shitkicker cowboy buys whatever gun he wants, after name-dropping Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, and Sarah Palin a few times, perhaps adding a couple of re-nig jokes along the way. After the purchase is completed, the two head for the door, and right as they leave the blonde turns and says, in a voice as sweet and sharp as cyanide:
 
"By the way, we voted for President Obama." 
 
I would pay good money for that to happen. 
 
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

The God of Number Crunching

Nov. 7th, 2012 11:21 pm
redheadedfemme: (kick nuts)
 This jpg is a perfect snapshot of the election.


The President couldn't have orchestrated this any better if he and Nate were in the White House basement right now building a time machine, preparing to go back a year and lay the groundwork for this historic victory.

In 2008 Nate Silver called 49 out of 50 states correctly. This time he hit every single state(the last I heard, Florida still has about 200,000 votes to count, but Obama is up 47K or thereabouts, so I believe he'll get Florida), as well as the popular vote (50 to 48 percent). Turnout was very similar to 2008 levels, with higher numbers of women, African Americans, and Latinos.

Mother Jones has an article on the election and the awesomeness of President Obama's ground game. The ground game mattered greatly in Florida, according to the Miami Herald. Forbes also has an interesting article about this, written from a small-business perspective.

Also, need I say how immensely satisfying it is that all of Karl Rove's and the other SuperPAC money--literally billions of dollars--got flushed down the toilet? I do not envy "Turd Blossom" today, trying to explain himself to Sheldon Adelson and the Koch Brothers.

In short, we did it, motherfrakkers.

Not only the President, but the 20 women now in the Senate (including Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Duckworth, who I'm proud to report I contributed to). Marriage equality wins in four states. And a whole host of progressive ballot measures passed at the polls.

A pretty damn good night.

Sigh of relief. Nate Silver was right and Mitt Romney's ass got booted. Some on MSNBC were praising his concession speech last night, but all I saw was the same insincere, smarmy slimeball I've always seen.

Goodbye, Mitt. We hardly knew ye.

Thank God.
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Nine Days

Oct. 28th, 2012 08:34 pm
redheadedfemme: (Default)
More newspaper endorsements for President Obama keep rolling in. I particularly like this one, from the deep red state of Kentucky, home of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (he of the infamous "our first priority is to make President Obama a one-term president" remark).

Separating rhetoric from reality is especially difficult when considering Republican Mitt Romney, because he has espoused so many conflicting positions. From abortion to taxes and trade with China, he has been all over the map.

Romney's a great salesman, but it's impossible to know what he's selling or predict what he would do if elected. This makes him a risky choice.

Barack Obama has a record as president, and though he has not led us to his post-partisan promised land, he has provided steady, principled leadership during an economic crisis.

I keep hearing people declare that Romney's going to win, but more and more I think that's pure fantasy. Nate Silver's Five Thirty Eight blog, for example, puts the president's chances of winning the Electoral College at 73% as of today; this has held steady for a while, and the Romney "bounce" of last month appears to be over. Sam Wang of Princeton predicts 300 electoral votes of President Obama, while Drew Linzer, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Emory University, predicts a whopping 332 electoral votes for Obama. He also has an interesting state-by-state polling analysis.

The Huffington Post's electoral map puts the President at 277 electoral votes (270 needed to win), while the lowest poll tracker I've seen, at Talking Points Memo, has Obama at 265--five short. If you average all these out, statistically the President has it in the bag.

Of course, anything can still happen, especially with Hurricane Sandy the nasty power-line-downing monkey wrench. The Obama campaign, naturally, isn't letting up, and is pounding away at early voting, which may be the President's saving grace. Fake Noise (Fox News), meanwhile, is still screaming "Benghazi," which I believe is the ultimate red herring, since most Americans (who at the moment are concerned with a hurricane and an election, in that order) couldn't give a pink rat's ass. As illustrated by this cartoon.

 
 
 
But hey, as the saying goes, keep screwing that pooch and see how far it gets you. 
 
I am cautiously optimistic. I also happen to be off work on Election Day, and probably won't get much sleep, since it very well may go down to the wire (in Ohio). But I just don't think whichever Mitt Romney is programmed to be on display this week is going to pull it off. 
 
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

The Snow is Falling

Oct. 19th, 2012 10:00 am
redheadedfemme: (ignorance point of view)

Paul Krugman has been firing on all cylinders recently. Now comes another indictment of the empty meatsack that is Mitt Romney. 


What do Mr. Romney’s economic advisers actually believe? As best as I can tell, they’re placing their faith in the confidence fairy, in the belief that their candidate’s victory would inspire an employment boom without the need for any real change in policy. In fact, in his infamous Boca Raton “47 percent” remarks, Mr. Romney himself asserted that he would give a big boost to the economy simply by being elected, “without actually doing anything.” And what about the overwhelming evidence that our weak economy isn’t about confidence, it’s about the hangover from a terrible financial crisis? Never mind.


To summarize, then, the true Romney plan is to create an economic boom through the sheer power of Mr. Romney’s personal awesomeness. But the campaign doesn’t dare say that, for fear that voters would (rightly) consider it ridiculous. So what we’re getting instead is an attempt to brazen it out with nakedly false claims. There’s no jobs plan; just a plan for a snow job on the American people.


Do go forth and read, please. And ponder the immense damage that would be inflicted on this country and its people if this joker was elected President. 


 

 
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Lipstick Jungle

Oct. 12th, 2012 09:27 pm
redheadedfemme: (ignorance point of view)
The Real Paul Ryan is Bad For America

(Can I point out how much I love Joe Biden? I loves me some Unca Joe.)

Charlie Pierce mops up the little pieces of Paul Ryan left by Joe Biden after the debate. (This is also why I don't wear lipstick.) 




Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Nearer My End To Thee

Sep. 15th, 2012 03:12 pm
redheadedfemme: (kick nuts)
  Oh man, I really really hope this is not just wishful thinking.

I've been wondering since the conventions why so many Republicans are so desperately clinging to the Romneybot, and telling so many lies to get him elected (in addition to the candidate's innate untruthfulness). This may be the reason.

When Mitt Romney loses—and, hopefully, when Democrats secure majorities in both Houses of Congress—I expect to see the end of the Republican Party. As the Bryan Fischer quote indicates, the rabid conservatives will blame the debacle on the GOP not being conservative enough. We might see an emergence of a radically right wing party, on the order of the National Front in France: nativist, fundamentally religious, and so far to the right as to be unable to appeal to voters outside of their circle. Whatever "moderates" are left in the party might form a rump GOP; but without the shocktroops of the Right, it too would have little electoral strength. We might very well be on the cusp of witnessing the demise of the conservative movement for a generation—enough time to put the country on a solid footing, so that when conservatives finally re-emerge as a political force, too much has changed to be undone. It's really the only hope the country has to survive as a decent place worth calling home.

Read the whole thing.


Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Asshat of the Day

Aug. 12th, 2012 05:40 am
redheadedfemme: (searching for fool)
By now, surely everyone has heard that Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate, so I'll turn the proceedings over to the irreplacable Charles Pierce.

We're not worthy, Charlie.

Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channelled for the general welfare.

To add my two cents: I would not vote for Mitt Romney if he was the Last Presidential Candidate on Earth and God Hirself was holding a gun to my head. I cannot believe any rational American citizen would contemplate putting this sleazy, arrogant, dishonest, lying slimeball into the highest office of the land.

But his pick of Paul Ryan for VP only solidifies my contempt. Paul Ryan, after all, wants to dismantle Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher system. No, make that a coupon system--you're given a fixed amount to purchase healthcare (just as a store coupon takes only fifty cents or a dollar off the actual cost of the merchandise), and if the annual cost of healthcare is rising beyond the value of your coupon, well, too bad, so sad, you have to make up the difference.

I didn't pay my Medicare taxes for all these years--fifty years by the time I retire--to have the system yanked out from under me just because Paul Ryan has some kind of juvenile Ayn Rand obsession.

Together, these two Twitrands constitute the worst Presidential ticket I have seen in my lifetime.

Vulture/Voucher 2012--"You People Are On Your Own"

Vote for them at your peril.
  • Feeling: irate
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Asshat of the Day

Aug. 12th, 2012 05:40 am
redheadedfemme: (searching for fool)
By now, surely everyone has heard that Mitt Romney picked Paul Ryan to be his running mate, so I'll turn the proceedings over to the irreplacable Charles Pierce.

We're not worthy, Charlie.

Paul Ryan is an authentically dangerous zealot. He does not want to reform entitlements. He wants to eliminate them. He wants to eliminate them because he doesn't believe they are a legitimate function of government. He is a smiling, aw-shucks murderer of opportunity, a creator of dystopias in which he never will have to live. This now is an argument not over what kind of political commonwealth we will have, but rather whether or not we will have one at all, because Paul Ryan does not believe in the most primary institution of that commonwealth: our government. The first three words of the Preamble to the Constitution make a lie out of every speech he's ever given. He looks at the country and sees its government as something alien that is holding down the individual entrepreneurial genius of 200 million people, and not as their creation, and the vehicle through which that genius can be channelled for the general welfare.

To add my two cents: I would not vote for Mitt Romney if he was the Last Presidential Candidate on Earth and God Hirself was holding a gun to my head. I cannot believe any rational American citizen would contemplate putting this sleazy, arrogant, dishonest, lying slimeball into the highest office of the land.

But his pick of Paul Ryan for VP only solidifies my contempt. Paul Ryan, after all, wants to dismantle Medicare as we know it, turning it into a voucher system. No, make that a coupon system--you're given a fixed amount to purchase healthcare (just as a store coupon takes only fifty cents or a dollar off the actual cost of the merchandise), and if the annual cost of healthcare is rising beyond the value of your coupon, well, too bad, so sad, you have to make up the difference.

I didn't pay my Medicare taxes for all these years--fifty years by the time I retire--to have the system yanked out from under me just because Paul Ryan has some kind of juvenile Ayn Rand obsession.

Together, these two Twitrands constitute the worst Presidential ticket I have seen in my lifetime.

Vulture/Voucher 2012--"You People Are On Your Own"

Vote for them at your peril.
  • Feeling: irate
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

"It was a pleasure to burn"

Jul. 10th, 2012 08:46 pm
redheadedfemme: (Cthulhu)

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”  ~George Orwell, Animal Farm

“The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others.”  ~Iain Banks, Complicity 

Scare-mongering?

Damn straight.

Joe Biden lays out Mitt Romney's dystopian Presidential horror show.

Imagine what the Supreme Court will look like after four years of Governor Romney. Imagine what it will act like. Imagine what it will mean for civil rights, voting rights, and so much we have fought so hard for. Imagine a Justice Department that supports, rather than challenges, continued efforts to suppress the right to vote. Because that’s what will happen if they win.

The Hunger Games, anyone? (Minus our female saviour, because she'll be perpetually barefoot and pregnant.) Yes, it's a good book, but I don't imagine Suzanne Collins wrote it with the idea of being a prophetess. 

Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

"It was a pleasure to burn"

Jul. 10th, 2012 08:46 pm
redheadedfemme: (Cthulhu)

“No one believes more firmly than Comrade Napoleon that all animals are equal. He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?”  ~George Orwell, Animal Farm

“The point is, there is no feasible excuse for what are, for what we have made of ourselves. We have chosen to put profits before people, money before morality, dividends before decency, fanaticism before fairness, and our own trivial comforts before the unspeakable agonies of others.”  ~Iain Banks, Complicity 

Scare-mongering?

Damn straight.

Joe Biden lays out Mitt Romney's dystopian Presidential horror show.

Imagine what the Supreme Court will look like after four years of Governor Romney. Imagine what it will act like. Imagine what it will mean for civil rights, voting rights, and so much we have fought so hard for. Imagine a Justice Department that supports, rather than challenges, continued efforts to suppress the right to vote. Because that’s what will happen if they win.

The Hunger Games, anyone? (Minus our female saviour, because she'll be perpetually barefoot and pregnant.) Yes, it's a good book, but I don't imagine Suzanne Collins wrote it with the idea of being a prophetess. 

Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

The Prickly Dish

May. 26th, 2012 04:29 pm
redheadedfemme: (politics)
Man. Andrew Sullivan is in an asshole-ripping mood today.

That last massive lie is at the core of Romney's political strategy. By removing that context (which is like talking about the sinking of the Titanic without mentionng the iceberg), Romney is knowingly arguing that the spending and debt levels of the last three years were some kind of choice by a president who just loves to strangle the US economy by spending much more money than we have. But the only president who made that choice was George W. Bush - by crippling revenues, even as he fought wars with no budgets and new entitlements with no end (Medicare D), rendering us bankrupt even as we desperately needed a rainy day surplus to fight the depression.

Obama did not have a serious choice; he had a fate. That fate was to pick up the pieces of the most catastrophic presidency in modern times. The final bouquet - after emptying the public coffers with no serious boost to employment, profits or growth - was the financial collapse, which both shrunk the economy, decimated revenues to 50 year lows, and automatically increased spending for the unemployed and poor in desperate need of help. Once you account for that - and the Nutting graph indeed shows that this was baked in the cake by the time Obama was elected - Obama has been, like most modern Democrats, far more fiscally conservative than any modern Republican.

The President should put Sully in charge of Internet outreach. 
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

The Prickly Dish

May. 26th, 2012 04:29 pm
redheadedfemme: (politics)
Man. Andrew Sullivan is in an asshole-ripping mood today.

That last massive lie is at the core of Romney's political strategy. By removing that context (which is like talking about the sinking of the Titanic without mentionng the iceberg), Romney is knowingly arguing that the spending and debt levels of the last three years were some kind of choice by a president who just loves to strangle the US economy by spending much more money than we have. But the only president who made that choice was George W. Bush - by crippling revenues, even as he fought wars with no budgets and new entitlements with no end (Medicare D), rendering us bankrupt even as we desperately needed a rainy day surplus to fight the depression.

Obama did not have a serious choice; he had a fate. That fate was to pick up the pieces of the most catastrophic presidency in modern times. The final bouquet - after emptying the public coffers with no serious boost to employment, profits or growth - was the financial collapse, which both shrunk the economy, decimated revenues to 50 year lows, and automatically increased spending for the unemployed and poor in desperate need of help. Once you account for that - and the Nutting graph indeed shows that this was baked in the cake by the time Obama was elected - Obama has been, like most modern Democrats, far more fiscally conservative than any modern Republican.

The President should put Sully in charge of Internet outreach. 
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

The Purity Brigade

Mar. 11th, 2012 10:00 pm
redheadedfemme: (stupid people large groups)
In my neck of the woods, this is called "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."

Centrist Women Tell of Disenchantment With Republicans 

You can't insult, belittle, demean and threaten 50% of the population and expect their support.

What's hilarious about this is that President Obama doesn't have to say a word. He's just standing back and watching the Republicans guarantee his re-election. The level of cluelessness on their part is just astonishing.

But I suppose that's what happens when you put purity and ideology (and religious precepts that absolutely do not belong in government) ahead of actually governing.
  • Feeling: thoughtful
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

The Purity Brigade

Mar. 11th, 2012 10:00 pm
redheadedfemme: (stupid people large groups)
In my neck of the woods, this is called "cutting off one's nose to spite one's face."

Centrist Women Tell of Disenchantment With Republicans 

You can't insult, belittle, demean and threaten 50% of the population and expect their support.

What's hilarious about this is that President Obama doesn't have to say a word. He's just standing back and watching the Republicans guarantee his re-election. The level of cluelessness on their part is just astonishing.

But I suppose that's what happens when you put purity and ideology (and religious precepts that absolutely do not belong in government) ahead of actually governing.
  • Feeling: thoughtful
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

"Reality bites...and doesn't let go"

Jan. 8th, 2012 04:29 pm
redheadedfemme: (debatable facts)

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." ~Abraham Lincoln

This is just beautiful.

Why I'm Leaving the Republican Party and Endorsing President Obama


( Warning: Political rant ahead )

  • Feeling: determined
  • Listening To: "A Place Among the Stones," Maire Brennan
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

"Reality bites...and doesn't let go"

Jan. 8th, 2012 04:29 pm
redheadedfemme: (debatable facts)

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg." ~Abraham Lincoln

This is just beautiful.

Why I'm Leaving the Republican Party and Endorsing President Obama


( Warning: Political rant ahead )

  • Feeling: determined
  • Listening To: "A Place Among the Stones," Maire Brennan
Tags:
  • Add Memory
  • Share This Entry

Profile

redheadedfemme: (Default)

November 2020

M T W T F S S
      1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
232425262728 29
30      

Favorite Femmeblogs

Favorite Geekblogs

Favorite Politiblogs

Favorite Writerblogs

Find Me On

Words To Live By

There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away. ~Emily Dickinson

Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it’s always you versus a blank sheet of paper (or a blank screen) and quite often the blank piece of paper wins. ~Neil Gaiman

Of course I am not worried about intimidating men. The type of man who will be intimidated by me is exactly the type of man I have no interest in. ~Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

The road to hell is paved with adverbs. ~Stephen King

The man who does not read has no advantage over the man who cannot read. ~Mark Twain

I feel free and strong. If I were not a reader of books I could not feel this way. ~Walter Tevis

A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one. ~George R.R. Martin

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Syndicate

RSS Atom
Page generated Jun. 6th, 2025 10:29 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios