So the AP reports that an arrest warrant has been issued in association with the 2001 murder of Chandra Levy, and either the AP or Yahoo News sticks the report under the headline: "Warrant issued for immigrant in Chandra Levy death."
For immigrant?
It's accompanied by a mugshot of the suspect, a brown-skinned Salvadoran man named Ingmar Guandique. Clearly, we're meant to infer that he is an undocumented immigrant, and he may be, although the story never says that.
I'm going to go out on a limb and guess if Iain made the headlines for some reason, he wouldn't be referred to as "immigrant," despite the fact that he is one. And I'm further going to go out on a limb and suggest that's related to the fact that when people have said nasty shit about "immigrants" around me, and I point out I'm married to an immigrant, they explain to me like I'm the fucking idiot that he's not "that kind" of immigrant.
But the immigration debate in this country has nothing to do with racism, of course.
Hmm
Daily Kitteh: OMG Sophs Is Getting So Big!!!11! Edition
A Monitor Cat Retrospective
starring Sophs
Wee fingle!
Quote of the Day
"Let's be clear, the president is a great speaker—probably the greatest we've seen in a generation. I'm certainly not nearly as good of a speaker as he is. And I'm not the only one that's got that opinion."—Governor Bobby Jindal, who ain't lyin' (for a change).
HHS Rule Change Update
The Good News: The Obama administration is laying the groundwork to rescind the HHS Rule that puts women's access to basic healthcare in jeopardy by allowing providers, based on their personal biases, to withhold both services and information women need to make fully informed decisions about their healthcare.
Proposed by the Bush administration and put into effect in January (despite 200,000+ opposing views registered during the open comment period), the rule has already been challenged in federal court by several state governments and advocacy organizations, and now Team Obama is on the move:
A Health and Human Services official said the administration will publish notice of its intentions early next week, and open a 30-day comment period for advocates, medical groups and the public. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the official notice has not been completed.The Bad News: Team Obama reportedly does not want to jettison the idea of a conscience clause altogether:
The Obama administration supports the underlying federal laws that protect conscience rights, said the HHS official.That sounds to me like there's a distinct possibility the administration may not have a problem with a rule allowing medical professionals to refuse to perform even emergency abortions and dispense emergency contraception to sexual assault survivors—two major concerns regarding the original rule change. Ugh.
But the administration was concerned that the Bush regulation could also be used to refuse birth control, family planning services and counseling for vaccines and transfusions.
"The administration supports a tightly written conscience clause," said the HHS official. "While we are concerned about the Bush rule, we also understand there might be a need to clarify existing laws."
Graanted, it's one AP article, so I'll take a cautiously optimistic approach and wait and see what the administration's official line is (which we should know soon).
That said, I'm going to be profoundly unhappy with any federal support of conscience clauses. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I've yet to meet a conscience-clauser who wasn't a misogybag, transphobe or homobigot, but I'm pretty damn cynical about the contention that they're ever used for anything besides dressing up the same old tired-ass retrofuckery in a cloak of pearl-clutching martyrdom.
And I certainly hope that sounds precisely as contemptuous as I intended.
[H/T to Vanessa. Previously on on the HHS Rule Change: One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine.]
Number of the Day
$249,999.00. The number to which a total fucking idiot attorney interviewed by a total fucking idiot reporter wants to reduce her salary to avoid Obama's proposed tax increase on those making $250k or more.
As J.Chait correctly notes, "the tax code doesn't work that way. A tax increase affects the marginal dollar that a person gains. That's means only every dollar over $250,000 is taxed at a higher rate. Obama is not proposing a tax system whereby somebody who goes from $249,999 to $250,000 suddenly becomes poorer. Nobody has ever enacted a tax hike like that in the history of the United States."
Serious DOMA Challenge Under Way in MA
In October 2006, I posted about Dean Hara, the surviving spouse of openly gay Massachusetts Representative Gerry Studds, who was denied death benefits guaranteed to all other congressional spouses because the federal government does not recognize same-sex marriage. Hara and Studds were legally married in their home state of Massachusetts, which has legalized same-sex marriage, but the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) allows other states and the federal government to refuse to recognize the union.
At the time, I noted the case was a perfect example of why the "states' rights" argument about same-sex marriage is an intellectually bankrupt. Leaving each state, and the federal government, to recognize or not recognize same-sex marriage prevents even couples in states where same-sex marriage has been legalized from enjoying full equality, as the are yet denied federal benefits and are barred from relocating to any other state that doesn't recognize their marriage.
Well, now Dean Hara, along with fourteen other Massachusetts residents, is suing to challenge the constitutionality of DOMA.The suit, which legal specialists described as the first serious challenge to the federal law signed by President Bill Clinton, contends that the statute has deprived the plaintiffs of benefits enjoyed by heterosexual married couples.
And it would almost certainly open the door for challenges in the 30 states that have passed constitutional amendments banning same-sex marriage, on the basis that the states recognize out-of-state opposite-sex marriages. Without DOMA, which grants states the right to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states, states banning same-sex marriage are going to have a hard time arguing they're not discriminating when a straight couple who gets married in Massachusetts would have their union recognized but a gay couple who gets married in Massachusetts wouldn't.
Those benefits include health insurance for spouses of federal employees, tax deductions for couples who jointly file federal income tax returns, and the ability to use a spouse's last name on a passport.
…Mary L. Bonauto, the civil rights lawyer for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders who was lead counsel in Goodridge v. Dept. of Public Health - the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court case in 2003 that legalized same-sex marriage in the United States for the first time - said the suit asks the court to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act because it targets gays and lesbians for discrimination.
"This is a case that should go to the Supreme Court and in all likelihood will go to the Supreme Court," she said.
If the plaintiffs win, she said, it would not extend same-sex marriage beyond Massachusetts and Connecticut, the two states where it is legal.
But it would dismantle a federal statute that affects more than 1,000 marriage-related benefits, and it would be a huge victory on symbolic and practical levels for supporters of same-sex marriage, according to legal specialists.
It's one thing for a state to refuse to give out marriage licenses to same-sex couples or refuse to sanction legal marriage ceremonies between same-sex couples. But it's a whole other kettle of fish to deny the authenticity of a legal marriage performed in another state, but only for same-sex couples.
That's going to be a tough one to justify, not just ethically and logically, but constitutionally.
Opponents of marriage equality just need to give the fuck up already. This is like the losingest battle in the history of battles, and it's looking more losery every day. They ought to concede with whatever infinitesimal fragments of dignity they've got left and get off the damn tracks before the equality train runs them right the hell over. Idiots.
Absolutely Nothing!
My boyfriend Bob Herbert hits another one out of the park:
The singer Edwin Starr, who died in 2003, had a big hit in 1970 called "War" in which he asked again and again: "War, what is it good for?"Go read the whole thing. His point about Johnson, the Great Society, and Vietnam is well-taken indeed.
The U.S. economy is in free fall, the banking system is in a state of complete collapse and Americans all across the country are downsizing their standards of living. The nation as we've known it is fading before our very eyes, but we're still pouring billions of dollars into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq with missions we are still unable to define.
Even as the U.S. begins plans to reduce troop commitments in Iraq, it is sending thousands of additional troops into Afghanistan.
...We invaded Afghanistan more than seven years ago. We have not broken the back of Al Qaeda or the Taliban. We have not captured or killed Osama bin Laden. We don't even have an escalation strategy, much less an exit strategy. An honest assessment of the situation, taking into account the woefully corrupt and ineffective Afghan government led by the hapless Hamid Karzai, would lead inexorably to such terms as fiasco and quagmire.
Instead of cutting our losses, we appear to be doubling down.
The Politico Discovers Obama Is Black
Or something. Couple of things about this article, titled "Blacks, whites hear Obama differently" (which, I must admit, leaves me hoping there will be a follow-up "Asians, Hispanics hear Obama differently, from each other and also from blacks, whites"):
1. "Black-cent." OMGLOL.
2. While some of what's being discussed here is accurately categorized as "dog whistling," some of it is merely the product of a vernacular native to black communities—which wouldn't make it "dog whistling" unless Obama was trying to pass. But, since he isn't, that's just called "talking."
3. Even as I recognize (and agree) why it's actually, genuinely, hugely important for people to hear their president say some little thing like, "Nah, we straight," there's still a part of me that can't stop giggling at the thought of academics being asked to comment, essentially, on our president being black and young and cool.
Which really comes down to the way this article's written. It could have been good, but it's The Politico, so it tried to half-assedly hammer an important cultural story into some rigid race framework, cross-referenced with some largely irrelevant political communications framework, and ultimately achieved nada but FAIL.
Too bad.
Limbaugh 2012
That's where this is heading, Shakers—the bloviating shitsack who spends on drugs and sex tourism the millions he makes as the conscience of conservatives will be at the top of the Republican ticket in no time, since the entire party is now held in his thrall.
First, Georgia Representative Phil Gingrey criticized Limbaugh, only to end up on Limbaugh's show groveling in apology. Then, South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford obliquely called Limbaugh an idiot, for which Limbaugh lambasted him on his show, prompting a Sanford spokesperson to backpedal and claim Sanford wasn't referring to Limbaugh.
Then, this past weekend, RNC Chair Michael Steele took on Limbaugh, and the notion that he's the de facto head of the Republican Party, saying:
Rush Limbaugh is an entertainer. Rush Limbaugh's whole thing is entertainment. Yes, it is incendiary. Yes, it is ugly.So, yesterday, Limbaugh goes off on Steele, accusing him of—ZOMG!—wanting Obama to succeed (the nerve!), to which Steele responded, I shit you not: "I went back at that tape and I realized words that I said weren't what I was thinking."
Steele's genuflection to his conservagod was not, however, complete:
"My intent was not to go after Rush -- I have enormous respect for Rush Limbaugh," Steele told Politico in a telephone interview. "I was maybe a little bit inarticulate ... There was no attempt on my part to diminish his voice or his leadership."Wow.
Steele told Politico he tried to call Limbaugh after the show on Monday and said he hoped he would be able to talk to the radio host soon.
…And in a written statement issued to CNN, Steele said, "To the extent that my remarks helped the Democrats in Washington to take the focus, even for one minute, off of their irresponsible expansion of government, I truly apologize."
"I respect Rush Limbaugh, he is a national conservative leader, and in no way do I want to diminish his voice," Steele said.
On "Face the Nation" this weekend, Obama Chief-of-Staff Rahm Emanuel said Limbaugh is "the voice and the intellectual force and energy behind the Republican Party," who Republicans cannot criticize without having "to run back and apologize to him, and say they were misunderstood." And he's totally right.
It would be funny, if it weren't so goddamned dangerous.
Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime
Jimmy Fallon took over for Conan last night. Did anyone watch it? Was it any good?
Question of the Day
What toiletry/beauty product can you not live without?
I love more than I can say my alcohol-free Shiseido Pureness Balancing Softener, which is the only moisturizer I've found that can handle my combination skin without giving me terrible acne. (And both because it's expensive and because I'm petrified it will be discontinued, I use it so sparingly that Iain constantly mocks me: "Ooh, she deigns tae sprinkle soome liquid goold oon her face taenight!")
But probably the only thing I really can't live without is my toothbrush and toothpaste. I can't tolerate having dirty teeth. Brushing my teeth is the very first thing I do in the morning, even before I pee, and the very last thing I do before crawling into bed at night.
Prop 8 Goes to Court
The Supreme Court of California is bracing for arguments about the passage of Prop 8 last November and the future of the same-sex marriages that were legally performed during the time between the court ruled in favor of them and the passage of the constitutional amendment.
A year after the state Supreme Court entertained arguments on extending marriage to gay couples, many of the same lawyers will be back before the same justices this week arguing why California's voter-appproved ban on same-sex marriage should stand or fall.Amendment 2 here in Florida, passed at the same time and having the same intent of depriving gays and lesbians the equal right to marry as straight couples, is in no danger since there is no clause in the Florida referendum laws that provide for the caveat of disallowing an amendment that substantially revises the state Constitution itself, such as they have in California. But, as the article says, it will be important to see how this court rules because it provokes a dilemma for the defenders of the status quo: if same-sex marriage is such a threat to the fabric of our society that they claim it is, how can they then argue that Prop 8 does not substantially revise the California state constitution? You can't have it both ways. Either depriving an entire class of people of the right of equal protection under the law is a substantial revision, or it's not. Unless, of course, you believe that gay and lesbian citizens aren't worthy of equal protection in the first place. If that's the case, we have a whole new ball game.
The passage of Proposition 8 last November changed the state constitution to prohibit gay marriage and trumped the high court's decision as few months earlier to legalize it. But the ballot measure was appealed and the justices on Thursday are getting the final word on whether marriage is an institution that must accommodate two women or two men.
The debate will be framed by not only the gay and lesbian couples who see their struggle as the modern equivalent of prohibitions on interracial marriage, but the 7 million citizens who rejected that comparison in an $83 million election.
The stakes are high - for the 18,000 couples who married while same-sex weddings were legal, for gay marriage opponents who object on religious grounds and for others who are deeply divided on the issue. And whatever the court decides is likely to have ramifications not only for millions of Californians but also for other states grappling over gay marriage.
The court will also decide whether or not the same-sex marriages performed when they were legal are still valid. I'm not a lawyer, but I think the concept of applying a law retroactively is contrary both to the letter and the spirit of our laws and Constitution. If the marriages were once legal and performed legally with all the proper forms filled out, the state shouldn't be able to declare them invalid. It would be like passing an assault weapons ban and then trying to enforce it by going house to house and seizing any weapons that were purchased before the ban took effect. Let's see how long the NRA and the gun-owners would stand for that.
I'll leave it to the legal observers and experts to predict what will happen in the California Supreme Court. My own take is that the fight for Prop 8 and Amendment 2 should have been fought and won before the ballots were cast. While I understand and feel the same outrage and disappointment that the people of California and Florida would vote for inequality in this day and age, some of us -- myself included -- took it for granted that bigotry and religious dogma wouldn't hold sway. I hope the next time we won't be so cavalier. My biggest disappointment, however, is that there will be a lot more "next times."
Cross-posted from Bark Bark Woof Woof.
Lovely Lady Helpmate
So I'm reading the cover story about Michelle Obama in the latest issue of People (which you've got to buy the magazine to read), and it's quite a good interview, as far as these things go. (Obama is always just awesome, but the interviews tend to be sorta depressingly patriarchy-affirming.)
But one thing I notice is that the article repeatedly refers to her as President Obama's "helpmate." The article summary/subhead reads (emphasis mine):
Just one month on the job, the First Lady takes a break to talk to PEOPLE about loving her family's new life in the White House, her juggling act as mom-in-chief and helpmate to leader of the free world—and, yes, when we'll get to meet the First Puppy.Then, in the second paragraph:
She is, all at once, so many different things to so many different people: the first African-American First Lady; mom to two very young girls; Ivy League-educated lawyer on hiatus from her own career; fashion icon; traditional hostess and wifely helpmate.Later:
She recognizes that "helpmate" has taken on a whole new meaning as she watches her husband getting grayer by the month.Why the sudden quotes? No clue. If it's her word, she's not quoted in the article referring to herself as "helpmate," and I can't find any other articles in which she's quoted defining herself as her husband's "helpmate," either.
Finally, in the last paragraph again:
For now, she's just focused on the job at hand, saying she wants to live up to being the helpmate and role model Americans are looking for in a First Lady.WTF? It's such an odd word to use once, no less four times in the same article. It's weirdly belittling.
The most obvious word to use would be partner, which I'm guessing was not used for the very reason I like the word—its implicit suggestion of equality.
A "Conspiracy of Silence" in Texas
A new study of sex education in Texas (via RHReality Check) by the Texas Freedom Network reveals just what our federal abstinence-only dollars have been paying for. Texas spends far more on abstinence-only programs, $18 million in 2007, than any other state.
What those dollars have produced, according to TFN's study, is "generations of sexually illiterate young people" fed "grossly distorted or simply wrong" information "at a time of high rates of teen pregnancy and STDs." (And teen sex, period: According to the TFN's report, kids in Texas are having more sex--and more unsafe sex--than kids in the US as a whole.)
Among the TFN's astonishing findings:
• Ninety-four percent of Texas school districts offer no sexuality education (beyond basically slapping kids on the wrist and saying 'don't do it') whatsoever. Added to the 2.3 percent of school districts that teach nothing about sex at all, that's 3.7 million students who aren't taught the most basic information about how to protect themselves from pregnancy and STDs. School district officials contacted for the study responded with variations on "our kids learn about sex at home," with one school superintendent telling researchers, "Most of these kids live on a farm... They get a pretty good sex education from their animals." As the researchers note wryly, "We found it interesting that some officials seemed to interpret 'sexuality education' as mostly a 'how to' discussion. Given that Texas has one of the highest teen birthrates in the nation, clearly many of our young people already know 'how to.'"
• Textbooks used in abstinence-only sex education classes typically focus on motivational skills and "pep talks" for practicing abstinence, ignoring anatomy, puberty, menstrual and ovulation cycles, sexually transmitted diseases, and any information about contraception except (often inaccurate or misleading) data about the drawbacks and limitations of condoms and other birth control.
• The TFN found outright factual inaccuracies (distinct from distorted or merely misleading information) in 41 percent of school districts' sex-education materials--meaning that "more than two out of five Texas secondary schools teach children demonstrably incorrect information in sexuality education instruction." Inaccurate information about condoms was "by far the most common type of factual error" the researchers found. Classes teach that condoms "offer virtually no protection" against STDs; that condoms fail a third of the time, and that "Giving a condom to a teen is just like saying, 'Well if you insist on killing yourself by jumping off the bridge, at least wear these elbow pads – they may protect you some.'"
• The ab-only materials also frequently lied about STDs like HIV and HPV--claiming, for example, that "HIV can pass through condoms," that HIV can be transmitted by kissing, and that condoms provide no protection from HPV, strains of which can cause cervical cancer.
• Some more bizarre claims, taken directly from abstinence-only curricula: Sexually active teens are more likely to commit suicide; women who lubricate during sex are more likely to get pregnant; people who have sex before marriage are less able to be "intimate" later; "the divorce rate for two virgins who get married is less than 3%." One abstinence-only video directly equates HPV with death, suggesting that if a woman marries a man with genital warts she'll "probably end up with a radical hysterectomy, cervical cancer, and possibly death."
• And, predictably, the materials are loaded with gender stereotypes, of the "boys pursue, girls wait" and "a woman who has sex is like a used-up gift" variety. One textbook says that girls who dress provocatively are saying, “Here I am. Come take me"; another compares women, sexually, to "crock pots" and men to "microwaves." Gay kids, meanwhile, are invisible--relegated to warnings that class materials "shall not represent homosexuality as a normal or acceptable lifestyle" and that "students should be informed that homosexual acts are illegal in Texas and highly correlated with the transmission of AIDS."
These are public schools, in one of the largest states in the nation (one where, I should add, I grew up and received much more comprehensive sex education than kids are today. Who knew the '80s would seem enlightened in retrospect?) Obama and Congressional Democrats, to their credit, have taken some positive baby steps on ab-only--reducing 2009 funding for such programs by $14 million, for example--but it'll take a lot more than that to turn a tide of misinformation that is surely not limited to Texas. Obama pledged to cut federal spending on programs that "aren't working." By any measure, the $176 million we're spending on abstinence-only education qualifies.
Happy Blogiversary...
...to Bob, celebrating two years of Phydeaux Speaking and confusing the hell out of me with his URL! (Okay, I'm used to it now, but my dyslexic brain took a damn long time with that one, lol.)
Major Progress in Stem Cell Research
This should end the debate once and for all:
Scientists have found a way to make an almost limitless supply of stem cells that could safely be used in patients while avoiding the ethical dilemma of destroying embryos.Truly, a remarkable and significant step forward for medicine.
In a breakthrough that could have huge implications, British and Canadian scientists have found a way of reprogramming skin cells taken from adults, effectively winding the clock back on the cells until they were in an embryonic form.
The work has been hailed as a major step forward by scientists and welcomed by pro-life organisations, who called on researchers to halt other experiments which use stem cells collected from embryos made at IVF clinics.
Kids These Days
A local newspaper recently published an op-ed piece in favor of gay marriage that's been bouncing around the community here the last couple weeks.
It is within everyone that you have to be a better person, live for a better cause, and provide for the better life. It's my story, or rather struggle, that I hope you’ll see why America needs its views changed on homosexuality.But what makes this piece truly interesting is its lead sentence: "I’m 14 years old, and yes, I am gay."
I'm struck by the amount of courage this must have taken, to risk all that being "different" can entail, to expose one's self to verbal and physical abuse. But it also pleases me to know that we're in an age where a kid can write something like this, and that maybe his schoolmates' reactions will be nothing more than "hey, cool, whatever."
It reminds me that from here, things are only going to get better. Like Battlin' Bill Heslop said, "You can't stop progress."
Read the whole thing here.
Monday Blogaround
lol my plague-addled fat
Recommended Reading:
Cara: Arizona Legislature Considers Numerous Abortion Restrictions
Renee: Black Women Get Beat by the Police, Too
Matttbastard: Sharpening the Pitchfork
Dorothy Snarker: Lather, Rinse, Repeat
Tracey: GameStop Teaches Employees How to Talk to Female Customers
Dori: Why I Am a Purist
Heads-up, Losties: Rachel's latest recap is up!
Leave your links in comments...
You Know What?
I've come to the conclusion that Reagan was the worst president we've ever had. (I know everyone says Bush² is worse, but they're wrong. Without Reagan, Bush² would never have happened, for a number of reasons.) I'll be reading something, then all of a sudden I'll get to a line like "a decade later, the Reagan administration allowed these firms to merge and combine without fear of antitrust enforcement." ** And I keep seeing the same shit over and over again, seemingly at random whenever I pick up something new to read: "until Reagan changed that," "until Reagan changed that," "until Reagan changed that," "until Reagan changed that..." And none of it was for the better.
** A special prize to whoever is the first to name the book I am currently reading.
