ProgressOhio

Received via email from our friends at Americans United For Change:

What happened in Massachusetts yesterday is a call to action, not a cause for retreat.

The people of Massachusetts voted for change and they are frustrated with the seeming lack thereof. They are hurting and they have not yet seen Congress come forward to ease their pain, punish those who caused this crisis or make sure it cannot happen again.

Unfortunately, they picked the wrong side to blame. Regardless of how you feel about the way the health insurance reform effort has played out, it's important to note that most Democrats in Congress, and certainly the White House, supported swift, bold and effective change. The majority of Democrats in the Senate, for example, support the public health insurance option. But they couldn't get it done because the minority Republicans blocked an up-or-down vote.

When it comes to financial reform, the Obama Administration and Senate Banking Committee Chair Chris Dodd proposed strong legislation to reign in the abuses of the big banks that led to this mess in the first place. The banking committee's Republican leader, Senator Richard Shelby said "no way, no how, not ever."  

You get the idea: Lack of change is not for lack of trying on the part of the majority of congressional Democrats. But despite being the majority, the Republicans have blocked them from voting.

Scott Brown is only going to make it harder to do what we need to do in America - like clean up Wall Street and provide good, affordable health care for all. He has shown on the campaign trail that he will stand firmly with his Republican colleagues in favor of the Bush-era policies and politics that got us into this mess in the first place.

And if that doesn't scare you into fighting even harder, I don't know what will.

Call your member of Congress at 202-225-3121 or write your Senators and Members of Congress through our website.

Tell them to fight hard against Wall Street, the insurance companies and those elected officials who carry their water.

I was browsing the Half Price Books local interest section yesterday and found The Worlds of Ohio Women, copyright 1977, for $4. An essay by Mary Jo Ginty of Cleveland Women Together caught my attention:

"The development and widespread distribution of highly effective methods of contraception and the emergence of an overwhelming national concensus in favor of birth planning options among Americans in all social, economic, and ethnic groups, is a major achievement. The legalization of the right to terminate unwanted pregnancies, simpler less traumatic methods of sterilization, and a federal program to equalize access to these services, have all created the opportunity to now move forward with decisiveness to reduce to a minimum the incidents of unintended pregnancies and births."

Well, you've come a long way from asserting yourself in cigarette ads, baby. But as far as making strides in reproductive health, Ohio women are dismal failures.

Ms. Ginty's optimistic plan to "move forward with decisiveness" to reduce unintended pregnancies has been dismissed repeatedly by our legislators. The Ohio Prevention First Act, introduced three times and stalemated in the General Assembly, seeks to accomplish that very goal.

Here we are 32 years later. Our Ohio and congressional leaders continue to pander to pro-life extremists for their own political gain. I wonder how many of them have ever visited an abortion clinic or could objectively examine the facts.

In the current health care debate, it's clear that our reproductive rights are being used as an easily-sacrificed bargaining chip. Women are not just failing to make progress, our rights are being squelched.

They have no women members -- a serious empathy vacuum. They do not pay taxes like corporations do. They have no medical expertise. They have extremist views on contraceptive use.

So why are we allowing this group to hijack democratic health care reform?

Because when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops talks, Congress listens -- to the detriment of women's reproductive rights.

Apparently separation of church and state principles don't apply when you're talking about women.

Along with Planned Parenthood, I'm disappointed with the House's cave-in to pro-life extremists who seek to chip away at abortion rights established 36 years ago.

Over a century ago, proto-feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton recognized how religion keeps women down:

"When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that bibles, prayer-books, catechisms and encyclical letters are emanations from the brains of men, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of 'Thus sayeth the Lord.'"

As I see it, everyone can live by his or her convictions on this contentious issue. It's easy -- If you're against abortion, don't have one.

Many people think separation of church and state issues are petty. It brings to mind uprooted nativity scenes in town squares, nutty Zoroastrians, Bible-toting public school teachers and seemingly harmless public prayer sessions.

So what's wrong with a blithely Judeo-Christian government?

Plenty.

If you happen to be a person who has never worried about getting pregnant, separation of church and state issues may never concern you. However, if you are a woman seeking emergency contraception from a holier-than-thou pharmacist you might feel differently.

In the highly charged politics of reproductive rights, religion usually trumps individual rights.

As Sandhya Bathija points out in Whose Conscious Counts?  in the Americans United for Separation of Church and State newsletter, this kind of religious favoritism can logically be applied to these situtations:

• a police officer could refuse to protect a medical clinic because it conflicts with his religious beliefs;

• a nurse at a public hospital would be free to lecture an AIDS patient and his partner that God “doesn’t like the homosexual lifestyle” and they must pray for salvation;

• a city bus driver could decline to drive a bus that displays an atheist advertisement because it offends her as an evangelical Christian;

• an on-staff counselor can refuse to counsel unmarried or gay and lesbian employees on relationship issues.

Interesting article Prayer policy divides Shelby by Mary Beth Lane in the Dispatch today. Is it just me, or is anyone else disturbed by this?

"The Columbus City Council rotates opening prayers between two Catholic priests, Monsignor John Cody and the Rev. Michael Watson. Their prayers are nondenominational, generally asking for council members to be given wisdom and guidance, spokesman John Ivanic said.

"On occasion, he added, Watson ends a prayer by asking for help for the Buckeyes, the Bengals and the Browns."

Obvious question aside -- Whose side is God on when the Bengals play the Browns? -- these super-paternalistic, anti-choice leaders are making a mockery of the prayer itself.

I don't think this undemocratic expression of religion through government entities is right. It's not petty, and we shouldn't be afraid to criticize our leadership about it.

Grayson fits the description of an "agressive Progressive" and for all the obvious reasons, the righties don;t like it, but know they are powerless to do anything because he's just turning their own tatics against them.

Also interesting that though this speech on the floor was Thursday night before anyone knew about President Obama winning the Nobel,  Rep Grayson accurately predicts what comes to pass the very next day.

"They understand that if Barack Obama were somehow able to cure hunger in the world the Republicans would blame him for overpopulation"

"They understand that if Barack Obama could somehow bring about world peace they would blame him for destroying the defense industry."

"In fact, they understand that if Barack Obama has a BLT sandwhich tommorrow for lunch, they will try to ban bacon."

Watch It:

Full Transcript Below:

Dave Harding posted this recently: "During the debate of health care amendments involving required coverage today, GOP Sen. Jon Kyl (AZ) made an unbelievable statement: 'I don't need maternity care. And, so requiring that to be on my insurance policy is something that I don't need and will make the policy more expensive.'"

Unbelievable is right. How painful that a congressman should have so little empathy for half of his constituency.

Personally, I'm a very empowered female -- so much so, I just might explode. But it seems to me that the extreme oppression of some groups of women internationally and the more subtle expressions of sexism in this country are no good for anyone. Especially babies.

In Africa, rape has become weaponized. In the Middle East where the Taliban rules, women are routinely beaten for fraternizing with men. Our smarmy, super-rich ally The House of Saud regards women as pieces of property.

Most troubling because of its international influence is the Vatican. According to The Vatican's Women by Paul Hofmann, the pope rarely has any contact with women, except for his nun-housekeepers. What kind of world view is that?

I don't know about you, but the idea of a celibate priest lecturing me on married life gives me the creeps. This church leadership doesn't excommunicate child molesters or even murderers, but it does excommunicate those who ordain women priests. Geez...how can I take anyone seriously who has such a low opinion of me?

Anyhoo, getting back to our democracy. Just to review, we never did pass the Equal Rights Amendment, women still get paid 77 cents on the dollar compared to men, a woman is sexually assaulted every 2 1/2 minutes in this country, there is extreme discrimination when it comes to maternity health care, sexist legal language, etc., etc.

As a woman I wouldn't want to live anywhere besides the USA. But the male-only leadership of certain powerful and often secret fraternal organizations is not advancing American humanity. Most frightening is the "key man theory" and other holier-than-thou beliefs of the politically influential Family. (I can't even explain how far the destructive tentacles of these guys reach. Please read the book by Jeff Sharlet.)

From Augusta National Golf Club to Catholic Church influence, democracy suffers when one group's ability to pursue happiness trumps another group's.

I believe men are better off with partners and coworkers, not subordinates. (Just ask David Lettermen.)

This morning we posted the video oof Rep. Alan Grayson (D-FL) who last night, in a controversial speech on the House floor, announced that the Republican alternative health care proposals would force sick Americans to “die quickly”.

Well today after the Republicans went absolutely crazy about his speech, Rep. Grayson offered an apology, but not to Republicans and not to the House. . . he apologized to the dead and their families.

Watch It:

Last night here in this chamber I gave a speech. I’m not going to recount every single thing that I said, but I will point out that immediately after that speech, several Republicans asked me to apologize.

Well, I would like to apologize. I would like to apologize to the dead. And here’s why.

According to this study, "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults" which was published two weeks ago, 44,789 Americans die every year because they have no health insurance. That’s right, 44,789 Americans die every year, according to this Harvard study called "Health Insurance and Mortality in U.S. Adults." You can see it by going to our website, grayson.house.gov.

That is more than ten times the number of Americans who have died in the war in Iraq. It’s more than ten times the number of Americans who died in 9/11. But that was just once: this is every single year.
That’s right: every single year.

Take a look at this. Read it and weep. And I mean that – read it and weep because of all these Americans who are dying because they don’t have health insurance.

Now I think we should do something about that, and the Democratic healthcare plan does do something about that. It makes healthcare affordable for those who can’t afford insurance, and it saves these peoples’ lives.

Let’s remember that we should care about people even after they’re born.
So I call upon the Democratic members of the House, I call upon the Republican members of the House, I call upon all of us to do our jobs for the sake of America – for the sake of those dying people and their families.

I apologize to the dead and their families that we haven’t voted sooner to end this holocaust in America.

So much kooky stuff has been said about abortion by self-righteous humans who have never given birth -- it makes me angry. So backhanded is the rhetoric and so complex the health care debate, it's hard to get a handle on it. But I'll try.

First off, the following statements are false according to President Obama and Planned Parenthood, and utter BS according to me:

A public plan would be "forcing American citizens to directly subsidize abortion-on-demand with their tax dollars."
- Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) in a National Review Op-Ed

"They won’t pay for my surgery, but we’re forced to pay for abortions."
- Family Research Council TV advertisement

"Make no mistake about it - abortion will be funded by the government through the new healthcare plan."
- Ohio Right to Life in an email to supporters

-Sigh-  Beware of leading phrases like "abortion on demand." Do you know anyone who has demanded an abortion? No? I don't think I've ever known anyone who has even wanted an abortion, much less demanded one. I mean, get real. There are circumstances (including rape, maternal illness and genetic disease) where a woman and her family might decided that abortion is the right decision, but to characterize this as "abortion on demand" is highly uncompassionate.

What about naturally occurring abortions (i.e., miscarriages)? Is this health care excluded from the national insurance program proposals? How can the government tell the difference between induced abortions and those naturally occurring? Who will take responsibility for DIY abortions? A slippery slope, for sure.

How can you morally justify denying any kind of government support for millions of live births on the pretext of not-one-penny-for-public funding for abortions? Give me an f-in break, man.

The current scare-tactic health care debate regarding abortion could not be any more removed from the actual concerns of a frightened, pregnant 16-year-old.  You old white guys need to get some empathy.

It seems it happens every September 11.  Republicans head to their email lists and send around chain emails that are nothing but lies and smears.

I've gotten this one every year for the last 6 years in a row.

Fw: Do You Remember 1987?

Essentially the claim made in the email is that during the 1987 Iran-Contra hearings, Oliver North warned Congress that Osama bin Laden was "the most evil person alive" and that "an assassin team [should] be formed to eliminate him and his men from the face of the earth."

Those that do not know history are doomed to repeat it

The terrorist North mentioned in his testimony was not Osama bin Laden. It was Abu Nidal. However. to the extent that bin Laden was known to the western world in 1987, it was not as a "terrorist" but as one of the U.S.-backed "freedom fighters" participating in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden's hatred of the U.S. and conversion to "terrorist" status is not believed to have come about until the Gulf War of 1990-91, when he was outspokenly critical of Saudi Arabian dependence upon the U.S. military and denounced U.S. support of a "corrupt, materialist, and irreligious" Saudi monarchy. (The Saudi Arabian government stripped bin Laden of his citizenship in 1994 for his funding of militant fundamentalist Islamic groups.)

Oh and idiots:

Senator Al Gore of Tennessee was not a member of the United States Senate Select Committee on Secret Military Assistance to Iran and the Nicaraguan Opposition and therefore did not take part in the questioning of any witnesses before the Committee.

For 3 years I sent long replies back with the facts and copied everyone on the original distribution list, but the mail continues to arrive every year. This isn't teabaggers . . . the cc list includes doctors, dentists, lawyers and small business people. You know not necessarily nutjobs, but "real Republicans" . . .

Read the full email is below:.

Will the classless Angry Right bring up these three Marines who drove off a bridge and died at the hands of George Bush when Bush dies?  Will they make classless jokes about the thousands of innocents killed by Bush's war of choice?

Somehow I doubt it.

The rage, rage coming from the right that we're hearing against Kennedy really has nothing to do with Chappaquiddick. It has more to do with Kennedy successfully defeating losing, hateful, spiteful GOP agendas and policies and showing them up for the evil that they were. In voting on historic civil rights, immigration, educational, national security and health care issues, to name but a few, Senator Kennedy wasn't merely a man who had lived in history but one who made history as someone always near the very center of power in Washington, a man to whom Richard M. Nixon would personally extend a health care compromise.

But red-lensed moral relativism makes all the difference to those who weren't even alive or old enough to follow the news when Kennedy walked away from the scene of an accident that left a young woman dead. It may be true that perhaps Kennedy should've been impeached and thrown out of the Senate as a result of his crime. But if that had happened, who knows who would've succeeded him and Head Start perhaps wouldn't exist. Edward M. Kennedy, instead of being regarded an unpunished villain, ought to serve as a example of the value of giving a person a second chance.

The Bush clan had plenty of chances to make good, to make amends, to right the wrongs of their forebears. Ted Kennedy took his second chance and remained, with the ongoing blessings of the grateful voters of Massachusetts, in the Senate for another 40 years, justifying the second chance that fate gave him. The Bushes, far from making amends, entered public service to enrich themselves, to add a superficial patina of glitz and respectability to hide a subversive, corrupt, seditious past and present that merely served to shield them from accountability for their own crimes.

Mary Jo Kopechne's name is more famous than the names of any soldier that has died in Iraq or Afghanistan, even more of a household name than NFL safety Pat Tillman. Yet when George W. Bush's time comes, no one will bring up the names of some of the first casualties of his successful invasion and occupation but failed war in Iraq that was built on a dog-eared house of cards made up entirely of jokers. No one even on the left will bring up the names of Staff Sgt. Donald C. May, Jr., Lance Cpl. Patrick T. O'Day and Pfc. Francisco A. Martinez-Flores. Those three Marines died in exactly the same way Mary Jo Kopechne died when their tank drove off a bridge and plunged into the Euphrates less than a week after the invasion.

In the balance, I'd rather have a man like Ted Kennedy representing me and my interests than the scion of a long line of war criminals and profiteers who combined never had to face one tenth the accountability that Ted Kennedy endures even in death.

Jesus General 

See Also: The Angry Right: "Let He Who Is Without Sin Cast The First Stone"

Today in a town hall forum in Arizona, an elderly woman asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) whether President Obama knows “that we still live under a Constitution.”

To his credit, McCain distanced himself from the questioner’s claim, saying “I’m sure that he does.” He then added that Obama “respects the Constitution of the United States,” at which point the crowd broke out in loud boos.

But McCain stood firm, explaining that there’s just a “fundamental difference in philosophy and about the role of government.” “I am convinced the president is absolutely sincere in his beliefs,” he said, again eliciting boos and jeers from the crowd.

Watch It:

HT: Think Progress

Right before next year's primary election, Ohio taxpayers will foot the bill for a women's summit. Unlike most other such summits across America, this one will be headed by two men -- Gov. Ted Strickland and Lt. Gov Lee Fisher.

The other co-chairs: Their wives.

Aside from sending a message that women should be defined by their choice of a mate, this tells me that the Strickland administration continues to use the limited resources of the state to prop up Lee Fisher -- his hand-picked choice to be the Democrats' nominee for the U.S. Senate.

My candidate for the nomination is Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner. Well, if Ted's wife and Lee's wife are co-chairing the summit, shouldn't Jennifer Brunner's husband be a co-chair too?

You can read all about it here:

 http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/ohio-news/mens-names-removed-from-ohio-womens-event-flier-238178.html