Attorney General Michael Mukasey collapsed last night while giving a speech to the Federalist Society. According to the Justice Department: "The Attorney General is conscious, conversant and alert. His vital statistics are strong and he is in good spirits. He is receiving excellent care and appreciates all of the good wishes and prayers he has received. The doctors will keep him overnight for further observations."
Mukasey has been, in his short tenure, a surprisingly not-nightmarish AG (at least by comparison to Ashcroft and Gonzales, anyway).
Get well soon, M2.
Get Well Soon, AG Mukasey
Question of the Day
Who are your favorite movie President and First Lady?
(They don't necessarily have to be a matched pair.)
Despite my ardor for Morgan Freeman's President Beck in Deep Impact, and despite my fondness for the delectable pairing of Jack Lemmon and James Garner as former presidents Kramer and Douglas in My Fellow Americans, I think I've got to give top honors to Kevin Kline's Dave:
And although I do love Sigourney Weaver's First Lady Ellen Mitchell in that film, my hands-down favorite movie First Lady of all time is Shirley MacLaine's Tess Carlisle, a character loosely based on real-life former First Lady Bess Truman, in Guarding Tess:
Transgender Day of Remembrance
And brothers.
Today marks the 10th Annual Transgender Day of Remembrance, which is set aside to memorialize those killed as a result of anti-transgender hatred or prejudice resulting from fear and ignorance. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 spawned the "Remembering Our Dead" online project and candlelight vigil.
This year, we remember: Kellie Telesford of Thornton Heath, UK, Brian McGlothin of Cincinnati, Gabriela Alejandra Albornoz of Santiago, Chile, Patrick Murphy of Albuquerque, Stacy Brown of Baltimore, Adolphus Simmons of Charleston, Fedra of Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia, Ashley Sweeney of Detroit, Sanesha Stewart of the Bronx, Lawrence King of Oxnard, CA, Simmie Williams Jr. of Fort Lauderdale, Luna of Lisbon, Portugal, Lloyd Nixon of West Palm Beach, Felicia Melton-Smyth of Porta Vallarta, Mexico, Silvana Berisha of Hamburg, Germany, Ebony Whitaker of Memphis, Rosa Pazos of Sevilla, Spain, Juan Carlos Aucalle Coronel of Lombardi, Italy, Angie Zapata of Greeley, CO, Jaylynn L. Namauu of Makiki Honolulu, HI, Samantha Rangel Brandau of Milan, Italy, Nakhia Williams of Louisville, Ruby Molina of Sacramento, Aimee Wilcoxson of Aurora, CO, Duanna Johnson of Memphis, Dilek Ince of Ankara, Turkey, Teish Cannon of Syracuse, Ali of Iraq, and all the other trans women and men around the world who lost their lives to transphobia this year, whose faces we never saw and names we never heard, because they were living on the margins of societies who did not respect nor want them.
Julia Serano, a trans activist and author of Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity, noted, in a post at Feministing last year, that transphobia kills not just by violent action, but apathetic inaction.
Trans people are often targeted for violence because their gender presentation, appearance and/or anatomy falls outside the norms of what is considered acceptable for a woman or man. A large percentage of trans people who are killed are prostitutes, and their murders often go unreported or underreported due to the public presumption that those engaged in sex work are not deserving of attention or somehow had it coming to them.
Lacking federal employment protections, transgender men and women are at higher risk for lack of insurance, adding to the difficulty of securing routine medical care from welcoming practitioners. Transmen in particular can have trouble locating accommodating gynecological services for annual pap smears, risking undiagnosed cervical cancer. The great 2001 documentary Southern Comfort spans the last year in the life of Robert Eads, an FTM transsexual who died of ovarian cancer after two dozen doctors refused him treatment.
Some trans people are killed as the result of being denied medical services specifically because of their trans status, for example, Tyra Hunter, a transsexual woman who died in 1995 after being in a car accident. EMTs who arrived on the scene stopped providing her with medical care—and instead laughed and made slurs at her—upon discovering that she had male genitals.
That's the kind of hate crime that doesn't make headlines. Or even federal hate crimes statistics.
Shaker Lena also emails, as I was writing this post:
On August 18, 2008 a Philadelphia judge acquitted Terron Oates of murdering of Alexis King and instead convicted him of voluntary manslaughter, apparently accepting his "trans panic" defense, i.e. he was provoked by discovering that King was biologically male (even though the area he picked up King was a known district for transsexual prostitutes). Oates defense attorney argued that King was shot while fighting Oates for his gun -- even though she was shot in the back and side. The lesser charge meant Oates could be release after only 30 days because of credit for time served. Also, in Yuma, AZ the killer of Amancio Morales plea bargained down an attempted manslaughter charge. Morales, was a 23-year-old female impersonator, who was dressed in as a women when he was killed by what police called "violent trauma" from numerous stab wounds and was found floating in the river. Court records said Morales killer became enraged when he realized the Morales was biologically male.
Indeed.
Also, a number trans people were attacked in apparent hate crimes, including: an unnamed "man dressed as a woman" in Miami was the victim of a drive-by shooting on Sept. 29. He survive the attack; in Sacramento on May 27, a man described by police as a skinhead attacked two transgender homeless people, stabbing one of them.
Finally, while this is the Transgender Day of Remembrance, let us also remember our LGB brothers and sisters who have been beaten and killed during the past year.
We remember all the victims of violence and apathy today. The rest of the year, I'll continue to advocate on behalf of my trans sisters and brothers, I'll continue to pay attention, I'll continue to challenge the gender norms deviation from which feeds into violent transphobia, I'll stand with you fiercely, my friends.
[Photo via LA IndyMedia's coverage of 2006's Day of Remembrance.]
Rightward, Ho!
In the latest Gallup poll, Americans' antipathy for the GOP has increased yet again, with only 34% saying they view the GOP favorably and 61% saying they view the GOP unfavorably, "the highest Gallup has recorded for that party since the measure was established in 1992."
Couldn't happen to a nicer party.
Here's the real fun, though:
The Republican Party heads into the New Year with its brand tattered by the election after decisive losses in the 2008 presidential and congressional races. Such a defeat inevitably leads to introspection in party circles about its message going forward.Awesome. So if the GOP moves left to try to appeal to independents (who now prefer the Dems by 15 points), they lose their base. And if they move right to try to hold onto their base, they lose independents. Either way, they lose any hope of electoral victory. Titter.
Gallup addressed this issue in the recent poll with a question asking, "Over the next few years, would you like to see the Republican Party and its candidates move in a more conservative direction, a less conservative direction, or stay about the same?"
Most rank-and-file Republicans (59%) want to see the party move in a more conservative direction and another 28% want it to remain about the same. Only 12% would prefer to see the Republican Party become less conservative.
Good luck with all that.
The Radical Homosexual Agenda Revealed
The American Family Association is getting all worked up (and selling a DVD, of course) about the growing gay population of Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
Residents of the small Arkansas town of Eureka Springs noticed the homosexual community was growing. But they felt no threat. They went about their business as usual. Then, one day, they woke up to discover that their beloved Eureka Springs, a community which was known far and wide as a center for Christian entertainment—had changed. The City Council had been taken over by a small group of homosexual activists.I like the last part, especially. It sounds like the Key West of the Ozarks.
The Eureka Springs they knew is gone. It is now a national hub for homosexuals. Eureka Springs is becoming the San Francisco of Arkansas. The story of how this happened is told in the new AFA DVD “They’re Coming To Your Town.”
One of the first actions of the homosexual controlled City Council was to offer a “registry” where homosexuals could register their unofficial “marriage.” City Council member Joyce Zeller said the city will now be promoted, not as a Christian resort, but a city “selling peace, relaxation, history and sex.”
As Michael D. at Balloon Juice notes,
Not only can you get your very own burning cross from the American Family Association, but you can also order this handy DVD that let’s you in on a secret that we homosexuals are sworn to never reveal – that we have covert plans to take over every small town in America and implement the homosexual agenda**Michael then betrays the entire gay community by revealing the real radical homosexual agenda. Now that the cat's out of the bag, so to speak, I thought I'd share my own version of it:
**Homosexual AgendaSee what a threat I am to traditional family values?
1. Get up at 4
2. Drink 2 cups of coffee
3. Blog/write
4. Get stuck in traffic on way to work
5. Work
6. Lunch
7. Work
8. Get stuck in traffic on the way home from work
9. Blog/write
10. Dinner
11. TV
12. Bed
13. Get up at 4
Afterthought: I suppose it would be a waste of time to point out to the AFA that we're not "coming to your town." We're already there and have been all the time. Oogedy-boogedy.
(Cross-posted.)
Clinton and Murray Still Tenacious on HHS Rule
I got the following press release earlier today about Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray continuing to try to block the HHS rule that the Bush administration has been trying to ram through, even after a public comment period in which women raised objections far and wide:
SENATORS CLINTON AND MURRAY INTRODUCE LEGISLATION TO STOP NEW HHS RULE THAT WOULD UNDERMINE WOMEN'S HEALTH CAREPlanned Parenthood has also just issued a press release:
WASHINGTON, DC — In light of reports that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is preparing to enact a rule that would undermine critical health care services for women and families, Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) and Patty Murray (D-WA) today introduced legislation that would prevent the HHS rule from going into effect. The proposed HHS rule would require any health care entity that receives federal financing to certify in writing that none of its employees are required to assist in any way with medical services they find objectionable. The proposed bill would keep HHS from moving forward with this rule.
"In the final days of his administration, the President is again putting ideology first and attempting to roll back health care protections for women and families. The fact that the EEOC was never consulted in the drafting of this rule further illustrates that this is purely a political ploy. This HHS rule will threaten patients' rights, stand in the way of health care professionals, and restrict access to critical health care services for those who need them most. Senator Murray and I are standing up once again to the administration against this rule and will continue to fight for women's reproductive rights. President Bush is making a last-minute attempt to undermine women's health care, but our legislation will stop this rule and ensure that women can continue to get needed health care," said Senator Clinton.
"It's now clear that the Bush Administration is so desperate to move their political agenda forward that they are even willing to ignore the advice of their own appointed lawyers. But patient protection and access to care should never take a back seat to politics," Senator Murray said. "Senator Clinton and I are introducing this legislation to ensure that the health of patients always come first. For eight years this administration has worked to undermine women's health but they won't get away with it on their way out the door."
"This midnight regulation is another outrageous attempt by the Bush administration to deny women access to vital health care information and services," said Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards. "Planned Parenthood applauds members of Congress for taking on the task of undoing the abysmal policy mandates and we stand ready to work with them to ensure women have access to the full range of reproductive health care options."
Senators Clinton and Murray have led the effort to block HHS from implementing this new rule. Following a meeting with HHS Secretary Michael O. Leavitt on September 23, Senators Clinton and Murray led a group of 28 Senators urging Secretary Leavitt to halt the proposed HHS rule. Senators Clinton and Murray on called for the meeting with Secretary Leavitt on August 8 after Secretary Leavitt failed to reply to several letters from the Senators and instead defended the proposed HHS policies on his personal blog.
The senators have worked in the past to stop efforts by the Bush Administration to put in place ideological barriers to women's health. They successfully led the fight to secure an administration decision on the over-the-counter sale of Plan B emergency contraception after more than three years of Administration delay.
Washington, DC — Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) applauds Senators Hillary Clinton and Patty Murray for their effort to block the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from issuing a midnight regulation that would put women's access to basic health care in jeopardy with the introduction of the Protecting Patients and Health Care Act. The legislation recognizes that, with this sweeping regulation, HHS exceeded its authority under the statutes it is claiming to interpret.At this point, I don't know that there's anything we can do except contact the offices of Senator Clinton and Senator Murray with our support, or contact the offices of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and register our disagreement with the rule change once again.
"This pending health care refusal regulation poses a serious threat to a woman's ability to trust that she is getting complete and accurate health care information and services," said PPFA President Cecile Richards. "Senators Clinton and Murray are true champions of women's health, and their proposed legislation sends a strong signal to administrative agencies that Congress will not stand by as those agencies try to slip in ill-conceived midnight regulations."
The proposed regulation would allow providers, based on their personal biases, to withhold both services and the critical information women need to make fully informed decisions about their health care. HHS submitted its proposed rule in late August 2008, and is in violation of a White House directive to administrative agencies to finalize all proposed regulations by November 1, 2008. During the 30-day public comment period, roughly 200,000 comments were submitted in opposition to this regulation from medical associations, women's health organizations, members of Congress, state governors and attorneys general, religious leaders, and the general public.
This week, PPFA, the Center for Reproductive Rights, and the American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to the U.S. Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) at the Office of Management and Budget, urging OIRA to take its responsibilities seriously with respect to HHS. Read the letter here.
For complete information on the regulation, including links to the official comments from elected officials and advocacy organizations, click here.
Any other ideas? Leave 'em in comments.
[Previously on on the HHS Rule Change: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven.]
Pritzker for ComSec?
President-Elect Obama's team is reportedly vetting Penny Pritzker, a well-known Chicago billionaire businesswoman and philanthropist, for Commerce Secretary. Pritzker served as the campaign's finance chair and "ran his record-breaking fundraising effort."
Beyond that, I don't really know anything about her, except that her reputation is for being smart and pretty cool.
The Pritzker family founded and owns the Hyatt hotel chain. Their name is a very familiar one in Chicago, due to various charitable donations, e.g. the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago.
[Other reports say she's taken herself out of consideration. It's actually sort of well-known where she lives in Chicago, so that may be just to deflect attention while they prepare for the increased scrutiny.]
Boo-Hoo
(Droopy Dog voice) Nobody likes me. Boo-hoo-hoo. I'm just gonna go sit in this corner in the dark and chew on wet cigarette butts. Nobuddy wanna shake my hand. Boo-hoo-hoo.
Seriously, dude. You should just spend the next couple of months in Crawford. You. Are. Irrelevant.
(Energy dome tip.)
Playing with the Boys
You go, girl: Eri Yoshida, a 16-year-old girl with a mean, hard-to-hit, rare knuckleball has become the first female Japanese professional baseball player.
Eri Yoshida was inspired to learn how to throw the knuckler after seeing a video of Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield.Much like America, where baseball is the "national pastime" but only half the population plays the game professionally, Japan does not have a professional women's baseball league. So maybe we can all learn something from Eri Yoshida. Like how women weren't really only capable of playing professional baseball from the years 1943 to 1954. Just a thought.
…Yoshida said she wants to emulate Wakefield, who has built a successful major league career throwing a knuckleball, which is difficult to learn and even harder to throw with success.
"It's funny that I've reached that point in my career that people want to emulate me," Wakefield said. "I'm glad I had people like the Niekros, Charlie Hough and Tom Candiotti that I could look up to. I am deeply humbled that it is me this time."
…"Hope I can see her pitch one day," Wakefield said in a message he texted to the Red Sox that was relayed to The Associated Press. "I'm honored that someone wants to become me. I wish her the best of luck. Maybe I can learn something from her."
Yoshida started playing baseball when she was in the second grade, tagging along with her elder brother, now 19, and played first base on a boy's team in junior high school. She also joined her high school baseball club, but quit because the training was too tough. Then she joined a private club.
…"I'm really happy I stuck with baseball," Yoshida said in a news conference after she was chosen with 32 other players in the new league's draft.
Yoshimitsu Beats King
And Waxman beats Dingell:
Representative Henry Waxman won the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee, ousting John Dingell, the longest-serving member of the U.S. House.As Shaker Oddjob just said by email: "THAT'S CHANGE!! ...[T]he single largest reason why car fuel efficiency standards have not been meaningfully raised since the 1970's is because Dingell has been the chairman of the House committee most responsible for such legislation, and he's from Detroit. Waxman is a liberal and from California, the state where smog from automobiles has been the biggest air pollution problem."
House Democrats voted 137-122 for Waxman in a secret ballot, lawmakers said. Waxman, who currently leads the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said he argued that a change in leadership of the energy panel was needed to work with the incoming administration of President-elect Barack Obama.
"We have a new opportunity that only comes once in a generation," Waxman said. "We must meet the challenge."
(And so significant a problem that the state's Republican governor wanted to impose emission rules for vehicles sold in the state stricter than the federal requirements, which, of course, the Bush administration blocked.)
This is a big deal for the entire country with regard to the environment, and it's also the first sign that the Dems might be moving left again. Not too shabby.
[1,000 points to anyone who laughed at the title of the post.]
Why They Invented YouTube
Michele Bachmann, the right-wing congresswoman from Minnesota, says that she never called for the news media to investigate members of Congress who might be anti-American.
Colmes: You said you were concerned during the campaign that Obama had anti American views and you said the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look at the people and find out, are they pro-America or anti-AmericaAhem:
Bachmann: Actually that's not what I said. It's an urban legend that was created and that's not what I said.
I would say, what I would say is that the news media should do a penetrating expose and take a look -- I wish they would. I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out, are they pro-America or anti-America? I think the people would love to see an expose like that.I think we're done here.
(Cross-posted.)
Compassionate Coveragism
I'm sure this is all about the renowned staggering generosity of the insurance industry when it comes to the good health of the American public and has nothing to do with profit margins:
The health insurance industry said Wednesday that it would support a health care overhaul requiring insurers to accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability. But in return, the industry said, Congress should require all Americans to have coverage.The health insurance industry's in the bag for Clinton!!!!11!eleventy-one!!!
...In separate actions, the two trade groups, America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, announced their support for guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, in conjunction with an enforceable mandate for individual coverage.
In the absence of such a mandate, insurers said, many people will wait until they become sick before they buy insurance.
...[T]he industry's position differs from that of Mr. Obama in one significant respect. Insurers want the government to require everyone to have and maintain insurance. By contrast, Mr. Obama would, at least initially, apply the requirement only to children.
All snark aside, this is a fairly momentous turn of events that the same health insurance industry which tanked the Clintons' universal healthcare initiative in '94 is now publicly bargaining with the president-elect.
(Who should tell them to get stuffed so we can have proper socialized healthcare, but won't. But that's a whole other post.)
Quote of the Day
"I love him. That's a joke."—Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), on his relationship with outgoing Vice President Dick Cheney, who in 2004 famously told Leahy on the Senate floor to "fuck [him]self."
Napolitano to Head Homeland Security
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano has been tapped by President-Elect Obama to head the Department of Homeland Security, pending vetting.
I guess it's too much for which to hope that her first order of business will be to defang and rename the creepily fascistic DHS.
Because I don't really like this department or its (over)reach (I'm way more conservative than most conservatives on this one; leave it to them to love the federal bureau with the most Nazified name), I have what I'll call "not a good reaction" when I read stuff like:
She was the first governor to call for National Guard troops to secure the U.S.-Mexico borderas if that's a good thing.
The entire department is also a dysfunctional mess; as Steve notes: "Since its creation in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration's management of the newest cabinet agency has been a terrible mess. (A few years ago, House Democrats released a report noting that DHS set 33 clear goals for itself—and failed to meet all of them.)"
And it just doesn't need a clean-up; it needs a clear justification: The rationale for the department's continued existence needs to be defined by its next chief pretty swiftly, or it should be dismantled and the smaller agencies it encompassed returned to their independent purviews.
So, having been forthright about my problems with the position itself, let me just briefly say that I generally quite like Gov. Napolitano. She was the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney in Arizona, the first woman to serve as state attorney general for Arizona, the
She's a trailblazer, and she's tough. I'm sure she can do the job.
Top Chef Open Thread
Chef Tom Colicchio will drink. your. milkshake!!!
He will also eat your delectable-looking Quickfire amuse-bouche made from the contents of a Lunchables package and tell you that it is far too salty, lacks color, and could have a better texture.
[Sorry I missed the premiere last week, Shakers. But we're back on this week! Woot!]
Question of the Day
[We've done this one before, but it was really fun…]
Who's your favorite TV cop of all time?
Before immediately dismissing this as the stupid question of limited appeal it might appear to be at first blush, consider how many TV cops there actually are from which to choose! From Andy Griffith to Cagney & Lacey to the cops of both Hill and Jump streets and right on to the vast casts of the L&O and CSI franchises, there must be hundreds of TV cops for your consideration.
No question, my hands-down favorite cop of them all, though, is Abe Vigoda's Detective Fish from Barney Miller—the show my granddad, who was a detective with the NYPD, always said was the most realistic cop show on television.
Update on 8
State Supreme Court to hear challenges to Prop. 8:
The state Supreme Court plunged back into the same-sex marriage wars today, agreeing to decide the legality of a ballot measure that repealed the right of gay and lesbian couples to wed in California.Same-sex marriage will remain on hold while the court considers Prop 8's constitutionality; the court will also determine whether the 18,000 marriages between same-sex couples will be rendered null by Prop 8.
At the urging of both sponsors and opponents of Proposition 8, the justices voted 6-1 to grant review of lawsuits challenging the Nov. 4 initiative, with Justice Joyce Kennard dissenting.
How Prop 8 is contested will largely depend on those decisions. For example, if it's declared constitutional, but the 18,000 marriage are grandfathered in, that's going to create a very different set of legal circumstances than if Prop 8 is declared constitutional and the marriages are nullified.
Stay tuned...
