Shakesville

Question of the Day

What's the most spectacularly out-of-character thing you've ever done?

Without question, my answer is moving to another country for someone with whom I had spent hardly any time in person, someone who was about to move to another country for me.

When I flew to Scotland to live there for awhile in May of 2002, to get to know Iain's friends and family and life before we returned to the US after securing his visa, we had spent a total of five weeks in each other's company. Countless hours on the phone and computer, but only five weeks—and vacation weeks at that, with no jobs or bills or daily stressors—together, face to face, getting to know each other's quirks and idiosyncrasies. Five weeks on our best behavior.

Damn. In retrospect, that was some serious trucknutzery. Neither one of us can believe we actually did it.

It seems to be working out well so far, lol.

On Surviving and Sex Ed

[Trigger warning for sexual violence.]

In addition to the assault on reproductive rights in Republican-held state legislatures across the nation, there has been a resurgence of interest in mandating abstinence-only sex education. Earlier this week, the North Dakota Senate "approved an amendment to a sex education bill (HB 1229) that would require public schools to teach abstinence-only sex education. The bill passed in the Senate by a vote of 39 to 8 and will now move to the state House for a vote."

It will certainly not come as a surprise to anyone who's spent more than about five seconds in this space that I am categorically disdainful of abstinence-only sex ed and support comprehensive sex education, so I'm pretty unthrilled about what's happening in North Dakota.

In this space, I've written a lot about the relationship between comprehensive sex education and reproductive rights: Empowering young people, especially young women, with good information about their reproduction is the best way to prevent unwanted pregnancies.

But there's another reason, more personal, about which I haven't written as much.

One of the most intractable complications of processing for me, after surviving sexual trauma as a teenager, was my Christian upbringing—a tradition on which a huge premium is placed on purity. (I don't mean to suggest this is true in all Christian traditions, but it was in the one in which I was raised.) I was quite explicitly expected to be a virgin bride.

My mother had been a virgin bride. My father had been a virgin groom. They expected their daughters to be virgins when we married, and we were expected to marry. It wasn't just from my parents that I learned of this expectation: In Sunday school, in confirmation class, in sermons—everyone from my ministers to my peers to Martin Luther himself admonished me to fiercely protect my virginity until I gifted it to my husband on my wedding night.

I was assumed to be straight and exhorted to get married and expected to be a virgin when I did.

I frankly wasn't even sure that I wanted to get married when I was raped at 16, but, after I was, I was sure that I wasn't going to be a virgin bride.

I had deeply internalized the Christian narratives about premarital sex sullying my very soul, and such was the lack of discussion surrounding consent in my young life that the idea nonconsensual sex might not "count" to whatever galactic referee was keeping score of such things never even crossed my mind.

I had also deeply internalized the cultural stereotypes of raped women being irreparably broken, women with broken minds and broken bodies.

Regarding myself as damaged goods, in both spirit and flesh, I figured it didn't matter if I engaged in sexual activity henceforth. And, beyond that grim calculation, that horrible, sad, shrugging relinquishment of my decision-making regarding sex because the decision had been made for me, was something yet worse: I didn't feel like I had any value anymore.

I'd spent my life learning that my worth as a female person was attached to my virginity.

My value as an unsullied cunt was gone; I tried instead to find value as a girl who knew how to give great head.

And, you know, that almost worked for awhile.

There exists a stereotype, a myth, that sexual trauma makes women more promiscuous. (And some women to react to sexual violence with promiscuity; there is no one singular, textbook, universal response to rape, no "right way" to be a survivor.) But it wasn't rape that made me more promiscuous than I otherwise might have been; it was the idea that I had lost my worth as a human and some fundamental goodness which had been wrapped inside my virginity.

Abstinence-only sex ed advocates insist that they're only trying to tell young people that the only 100% effective way to prevent pregnancy in abstinence, but, if that's all they wanted to convey, that line could be part of a comprehensive sex ed program. What they want to convey is that young people's worth, especially young women's worth, is predicated on maintaining their virginity.

That can be a mind-fuck for young women who lose their virginity consensually. For young women who are raped, it can be truly devastating.

I support comprehensive sex education not merely because it is a smarter and more effective program, but because it does not embed in young people bullshit narratives that stand to revictimize those among them who are victimized by sexual violence.

I am unsurprised to find, once again, the GOP does not share my concern.

Sure

Actual Headline: "Battling Big Abortion."

Sure. Like Big Oil or Big Pharma. Big Abortion.

The article, to which I'm not linking but it's easy enough to find if you're so inclined, is about funding Planned Parenthood and was authored by Mike Pence, Republican Representative and world-class embarrassment to Indiana progressives.

What passes for progress

[Trigger warning for LGBT-phobia]

The Institute of Medicine of the National Academies has issued a report on LGBT health:

While some research about the health of LGBT populations has been conducted, researchers still have a great deal to learn. To help assess the state of the science, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to assess current knowledge of the health status of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender populations; to identify research gaps and opportunities; and to outline a research agenda to help NIH focus its research in this area.

In order to address this, the committee recommends collecting data on sexual orientation and gender identity in health surveys administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other relevant federally funded surveys.

Yes, I whole-heartedly agree. In the year two-thousand-and-fucking-eleven, we should consider federal policies that 1) acknowledge the existence of LGBT people, and 2) do not treat us as if we're the scourge of the Earth. That'd be super.

After all,

lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender individuals have unique health experiences and needs, but as a nation, we do not know exactly what these experiences and needs are.

Yeah, you as a nation have some work to do.

I suppose it will be another many decades until the data is collected and we, as a nation, can contemplate not acting on any of the trends therein. After all, that's what we, as a nation, do with pretty much all instances where there are massive inequalities in access to health care or other universal human rights.

Sorry, I'm just a bit pissy because I live in a country where even the most privileged trans people (hi Mom!) have trouble obtaining essential medical care. While I suspect that the authors of the IOM study are aware of this, the U.S. is a nation where gaining access to birth control is a tricky matter. Given that fact, I don't see the scenario where those of us whose existence really flies in the face of God'sPlan(TM) have access to appropriate health care.

It's not that we as a nation don't know how to care for queer people, it's that we choose not to.

Via NCTE.

FYI

[Trigger warning for mention of rape.]

I'm getting quite a few emails about the Indiana State Republican Representative and professional dipshit who claims that rape exceptions to legislation banning abortions past 20 weeks is a loophole for women who will just lie about having been raped.

Some of the authors of these emails are quite perturbed with me about having failed to write about this story today.

Let me first note that I cannot write about every single important story every single day: 1. I don't always have the emotional wherewithal to write about every story regarding sexual violence that lands in my inbox. 2. One of the horrible realities of this shitty economy is that more and more people are contacting me with requests for resources on social services, including services for survivors of domestic and sexual violence, public resources for which are having their budgets slashed all over the country. I am spending more and more of my time doing unpaid social work, and sending a pissed off email demanding I write about something doesn't actually give me more time in my day.

I love getting tips from readers; I am hugely appreciative for them. I just ask that you please understand that managing this community has additional responsibilities to writing, and that, even if it didn't, I can't and won't write on demand.

Oh, and, by the way: Another reason I haven't written about that story today is because I wrote about it yesterday.

Daily Dose of Cute

Tils and Livs lie on the couch looking at the television

"Please be quiet; we're trying to watch Animal Cops: Houston."

Bring Out Your Espadrilles!

Since we're all so fondly remembering the Eighties today...

[Video transcript: Corey Haim gets funky and punky, with a free jazz improvization that's part Herbie Hancock, part Harold Faltermeyer. Corey explains his inspiration: "I think that we were all born with a certain inner-rhythm. Hearing a certain song can remind you of a time or event in your life that's special. Music is an expression that I can't live without."]

From Corey Haim: Me, Myself and I. Sorry, it's not as cool as James Brady at the White House, but it's kind of fun. Kind of. It reminds me of the time Stevie Wonder appeared on The Cosby Show. But in a different way, you know?

Speaking of the Cola Wars

James Brady was at the White House yesterday lobbying for gun control legislation.

Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to run to Montgomery Wards to pick up some shoulder pads for a Dynasty watching party tonight. It's gonna be wild. Ever mix TaB with Bartles & Jaymes? Just sayin'.

In Shit I Couldn't Make Up

The GOP War on Uteri evidently now includes treating the word "uterus" like it's a dirty word:

During last week's discussion about a bill that would prohibit governments from deducting union dues from a worker's paycheck, [Florida] state Rep. Scott Randolph, D-Orlando, used his time during floor debate to argue that Republicans are against regulations -- except when it comes to the little guys, or serves their specific interests.

At one point Randolph suggested that his wife "incorporate her uterus" to stop Republicans from pushing measures that would restrict abortions. Republicans, after all, wouldn't want to further regulate a Florida business.

Apparently the GOP leadership of the House didn't like the one-liner.

They told Democrats that Randolph is not to discuss body parts on the House floor.

..."It's not like I used slang," said Randolph, who actually got the line from his wife. He said Republicans voiced concern about young pages hearing the word uterus.

...House GOP spokeswoman Katie Betta: "The Speaker has been clear about his expectations for conduct on the House for during debate. At one point during the debate, he mentioned to the entire House that members of both parties needed to be mindful of decorum during debate.

"Additionally, the Speaker believes it is important for all Members to be mindful of and respectful to visitors and guests, particularly the young pages and messengers who are seated in the chamber during debates. In the past, if the debate is going to contain language that would be considered inappropriate for children and other guests, the Speaker will make an announcement in advance, asking children and others who may be uncomfortable with the subject matter to leave the floor and gallery."

Only by the unbearably stupid calculations of the GOP could it be considered "mindful and respectful" of (cis) female spectators of the proceedings to treat a party of their body like a shameful secret.

[H/T to Shaker MMC.]

A Thought

I'm beginning to think the "Third Term of Bush" label used on posts like the one below are unfair.* Given Obama's fondness for trickle-down economics, meddling in Latin America, and a grudge match with Qaddafi, perhaps it would be more accurate to call this the Third Term of Ronald Reagan.

Ah, well. It's not like he didn't warn us.

-------------------------

* No, I'm not.

[Related Reading: Obama Wishes the Gipper Happy Birthday, Whoops I Barfed on Your Time Magazine.]

Meanwhile, in Latin America...

Dispatch From El Salvador: Obama's Drug War Feels Eerily Familiar.

On the other side of San Salvador, in a heavily air-conditioned meeting hall of the Central American Parliament, Stanford-educated international relations expert Hector Perla responds to a recurring question from the crowd of academics, legislators, journalists and policymakers gathered to discuss U.S.-Salvadoran relations in the Obama era: "Are you saying that President Obama is no different from other U.S. Presidents?"

"What makes Obama different is the Obama doctrine," says Perla, an organizer of the conference who is a colleague of mine and an assistant Professor of Latino and Latin America Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "The Obama doctrine," he explains, "uses the rhetoric of respect for human rights, the rhetoric of peace, poverty alleviation and social justice on the one hand, while promoting militarization with the other hand. You can see it clearly in [Obama's] visit to the tomb of Monsenor Romero, a man recognized for his calls for peace. Obama visited the tomb as he was ordering the bombing and killing in Libya."

Nowhere are the contours of the Obama doctrine clearer, said Perla, than in the recent announcement of his $200 million anti-narco-trafficking initiative for Central America. Obama says it is the foundation for a "new joint security strategy" set to begin this spring. Perla noted that, in talking about the program, Obama emphasized its aim to "strengthen courts, civil society groups and institutions that uphold the rule of law"—but he left out mention of the funds to train and equip El Salvador's police and military forces.

Especially disturbing to Perla, a Salvadoran-American with family on both sides of the U.S.-Salvadoran divide, is that "nobody is talking about the failure of those plans (Mexico, Colombia)—how we've seen an astronomical rise in the numbers of killings and human rights abuses in Mexico and ongoing counterinsurgency and human rights abuses committed under cover of fighting the drug war in Colombia."

"In El Salvador, the U.S. is talking about policies of growth and security, promoting 'citizen security'," said Perla. "But when you look close, you see an expansion of many of the same policies of the Bush administration, only now you will have Plan Centroamerica to connect and integrate Plan Mexico to the north and Plan Colombia to the south."

I am truly at a loss for words to explain the depth of my regret and the overwhelming helplessness I feel in regard to US foreign policy.

That the same old violent shit is being peddled under human rights rhetoric somehow makes it even worse.

Two-Minute Nostalgia Sublime

Boom Crash Opera: "Onion Skin"

The battle hymn of a dangerous black woman…

It's been awhile, but Shakesville still feels like home!

Shall we?

Cross-posted from AngryBlackBitch.com

I am a black woman.

I am your enemy if you seek to oppress me and mine.

I am dangerous as hell if you seek power through my oppression.

I am suspect if you fear someone who does not actively seek to be like you, to please you, or to give you strength through my submission.

I am something to be feared if you fear the empowerment of others.

I am - unbought, unbossed, and unashamed.

Reproductive justice didn’t happen to me.

Fighting for the right to determine whether to have children, to raise the children we have, and to raise our families in communities free of violence and oppression…all of that wasn’t done to black women.

All of that was and is done with black women, by black women for black women.

We are of this movement.

Always have been.

Always will be.

So reproductive justice didn’t happen to me.

I am reproductive justice.

And you know and I know that you know that I know that you cannot advocate on behalf of black women if you do not trust black women.

But some will try.

A campaign is afoot.

A campaign that would define black women as genocidal…that claims that black children are a separate species that is endangered in the hands of black women…and that seeks to divide and conquer through the tired old tactic of blaming and shaming women in general and black women specifically.

Those who place racist billboards in our communities want to talk about dangerous places.

Okay…let’s talk about dangerous places.

Let’s talk about the infant mortality rate in America…about the lot of the born…about how each year having an infant that lives past the first year of life becomes more and more a privilege for the few and an expectation determined by race rather than a right of the masses. And let’s talk about how the stereotype of bad black mothers fuels the acceptance of high infant mortality rates just like it fuels the acceptance of low employment rates, low graduation rates and racial profiling.

As if all that is our due.

As if all that is to be expected.

Let’s talk about health care disparities…about how the same motherfuckers shouting about life vote against life saving programs and rally against expanding access to health care.

Let’s chat about how black women are more likely to lack access to cancer screenings, more likely to have a delayed cancer diagnosis, and more likely to die because of it.

And let’s talk about why funding for programs that provide low cost cancer screenings is under attack, why health care programs that serve poor women are under attack and why the some of the same people who chastise black women who do not breast feed won’t do a damn thing to help protect the breast health of a black woman.

Let’s talk about the lack of access to pre-natal care…the low birth weight of infants born into poverty…about how so many families struggle to provide diapers for their infants that there are multiple national campaigns trying to meet that need.

Let’s talk about prevention…and how that’s such an unpopular word. Let’s talk about how some see the wages of sex as illness, suffering and death…about how the same people protesting at the clinic can’t be bothered to baby sit at the shelter for homeless teen mother less than a block away. And let’s talk about those shelters…about how there are so many of them in St. Louis city…about the amazing women who live there and about the lack of funding for programs that help their families out. Let’s talk about the waiting lists at those shelters…about the sisters who get turned away…about the children who go to sleep hungry and wake up hungry and go to school hungry and walk back home to go to sleep hungry again.

Let’s talk about lies.

About how the Missouri legislature passed a law mandating that women who seek abortion services must be told that there are programs to help them with housing and child care and education if they choose to continue their pregnancy…about how those programs are the same programs the legislature cut funding for while they mocked those who needed those services on the floor of the people’s house.

Let’s talk about black babies born to black mothers who are shackled during labor.

Let’s talk about the removal of comprehensive sex education from our schools and how our young people enter adulthood with the abstinence only advice to put a quarter between their legs and squeeze.

Let’s talk about how the debate over life ends at birth…about the young women I’ve met who chose to have a baby only to find that the same people praising them for that decision won’t hire them, don’t want them moving into their neighborhood, will one day grab their handbag and lock their car door when that black baby becomes a black man who walks by them on the sidewalk.

But I don’t get to just "talk" about all that.

I’m a black woman - I live it.

I get to walk into a health care center to a shower of shouts from white men charging that I’m a race traitor, that I’m participating in black genocide, and that I bring shame upon black America…anti-choice activists who have been emboldened by a campaign that feeds right into the racism that lives just beneath the surface, that opportunistic infection that feeds off of billboard campaigns spouting rhetoric that backs up what they already hold true – that black women are lesser than, dangerous, inferior, lacking in humanity, unhinged, untrustworthy, reckless…

That black woman = violent.

I am a black woman.

That black woman = bad mother.

I am a black woman.

That black woman = sex object.

I am a black woman.

That black woman = irresponsible.

I am a black woman.

That black women are a problem.

I am a black woman.

That black women are unfit.

I am a black woman.

And so black women must be…wait for it…oppressed for our own good.

But...I AM A BLACK WOMAN.

The most dangerous place for my rights is in the hands of my oppressor.

And the most dangerous place for oppression is in my angry black hands.

Trust.

This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.

[Trigger warning for fat hatred, body policing.]

Fat Stigma Spreads Around the Globe. With the single exception of the quotes from Marianne and Alexandra Brewis, everything about that article is horrendo.

To be sure, jokes and negative perceptions about weight have been around for ages. In Mexico, for instance, a nickname like "gordo" which translates as "fatty," raises no eyebrows.

Sure. No one in Mexico has ever been bothered by being called gordo (or gordita) before. Except, of course, for the people who have.

Stephen McGarvey, a professor of community health at Brown University who studies Samoan health issues, noted that 25 years ago, Samoan study subjects living in Samoa and New Zealand who viewed thin and large body silhouettes mostly had positive feelings about bigger bodies. (The exception was young, educated women, who showed a preference for slimmer silhouettes.)

A preference for the silhouettes, or a preference for the status associated with slimmer silhouettes and the privilege slimmer silhouettes afford them? That's not semantics. That's the whole point of the concerns being raised in the article. And yet here it is, the preference for a "slimmer silhouette" just being reported without the merest suggestion that it might not be the thinness itself that's ultimately at the center of the preference, but the avoidance of all the negative associations with fatness.

Dr. McGarvey said that more extensive study was needed to determine just how much that had changed, and that it was important that public health campaigns intended to curb diabetes and high blood pressure did not end up creating negative images of overweight individuals.

Too late!

Don't get me wrong: I'm glad that Dr. McGarvey is raising these concerns, and I'm glad this issue is getting more attention. It's just, ugh, the reporting. I'm not sure the best way to present the idea that fat stigma is dangerous and proliferating by including quotes from a man who hates "fatties" on the bus and a woman whose friend would rather her children be anorexic than fat, but none from the fat people who are victimized by these attitudes.

(Note to the editor: Congrats on getting the message that headless fatty pix are dehumanizing garbage. Now apply same message to pix of disembodied female parts, thin or otherwise. Thanks.)

[H/T to everyone in the multiverse, and thanks to each and every one of you.]

Top Chef Open Thread

Top Chef season four winner Stephanie Izard, because I didn't even watch last night's ~~sausagefest~~ finale. Who won? Who cares!

The Fourth War

So, while we're still at war ~~with~~ in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan (shh!), the President has "secretly" expanded the scope of our support in Libya to include a covert force to assist rebel forces: "President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Obama signed the order, known as a presidential 'finding', within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter."

According to anonymous officials speaking to the New York Times, that order has already been put into action and clandestine CIA agents have been inserted "to gather intelligence for military airstrikes and to contact and vet the beleaguered rebels battling Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi's forces."

In addition to the C.I.A. presence, composed of an unknown number of Americans who had worked at the spy agency's station in Tripoli and others who arrived more recently, current and former British officials said that dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are working inside Libya. The British operatives have been directing airstrikes from British jets and gathering intelligence about the whereabouts of Libyan government tank columns, artillery pieces and missile installations, the officials said.

American officials hope that similar information gathered by American intelligence officers — including the location of Colonel Qaddafi's munitions depots and the clusters of government troops inside towns — might help weaken Libya's military enough to encourage defections within its ranks.

In addition, the American spies are meeting with rebels to try to fill in gaps in understanding who their leaders are and the allegiances of the groups opposed to Colonel Qaddafi, said United States government officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the activities. American officials cautioned, though, that the Western operatives were not directing the actions of rebel forces.

Meanwhile, Secretary Clinton reportedly informed Congress that "the White House would forge ahead with military action in Libya even if Congress passed a resolution constraining the mission." As profoundly infuriating as that is, there should be no surprise that this is the Obama administration's position, given that Obama himself did not consider his predecessor's expansion of executive power a breach of the president's authority. (Something I was assured didn't matter during the election.)

David Dayen wonders if the order "has anything to do with the Libyan expat resident of Northern Virginia, 10 miles from Langley, showing up in Benghazi to command the rebel army" and says, quite rightly, the debate, such as it is, about this action "looks like a clown show."

And Emptywheel, noting that we're technically providing materially support to terrorists, "no matter how we try to spin arming rebels as an act of peace," asks where Obama will try himself for material support for terrorism.

I guess since Gitmo's still open, he can just send himself there. Indefinitely.

Open Thread

Hosted by a corkscrew.

Question of the Day

Where is your favorite place to meet people?

Interpret as you wish: It could mean your favorite place to make new friends, your favorite place to meet potential romantic partners, your favorite place to network, whatever.

Meat space and virtual space responses welcome, too, natch.

Ms. Popular

In Gallup's latest polling, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's favorable ratings are one point off her all-time high:

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's favorable rating from Americans is now 66%, up from 61% in July 2010 and her highest rating to date while serving in the Obama administration. The current rating is just one percentage point below her all-time high rating of 67%, from December 1998.

...The latest results are from a March 25-27 Gallup poll conducted while the United States was actively involved in enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya, a policy Clinton reportedly advocated. The same poll finds Clinton rated more positively than other top administration officials. Obama receives a 54% favorable rating, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, 52%, and Vice President Joe Biden, 46%.

Clinton enjoys extraordinary popularity among women, and particularly women 50 and older. She also receives support from a solid majority of independents and 40% of Republicans.

Underscoring that views of Clinton and Obama are not one and the same, Clinton is seen in a favorable light by 45% of those who separately say they disapprove of the job Obama is doing as president. Naturally, she is also viewed favorably by 89% of those who approve of Obama's job performance.

I find it interesting, but not surprising, that Clinton appears to be held to different standards re: the unpopular Libya intervention than the President and the Secretary of Defense.

One might argue that she's the beneficiary of the soft bigotry of low expectations, that the numbers are reflecting the prejudice that she's a woman and thus can't be held responsible for hawkishness. But I'm guessing whatever influence that might have, it's counterbalanced by her being the target of claims that Obama is being manipulated by his female advisers, a cadre of warmongering harpies led by Clinton.

My thought instead is that Clinton's long career of advocating for the marginalized, alienated, and dispossessed has created a context for her advocacy that Obama and Gates do not enjoy. (And this high-larious anecdote does not make her seem a hawk, but a rebel ally.) If one believes that it is, in fact, eminently possible to support military intervention in good faith, I believe that good faith is being (quite understandably) extended to Secretary Clinton.

Totes Pro-Life

Your totes pro-life GOP, ladies, gents, and gender rebels:

A proposed law making its way through the South Carolina legislature would loosen gun ownership to an astonishing level. If passed, legal gun owners could bring their weapons to restaurants, day-care centers, and churches. The bill's sponsor, state Rep. Thad Viers (R), says that expanding the places that one can carry a concealed weapon in the state is an effective anti-crime measure:

"It puts criminals on the defense," said state Rep. Thad Viers, R-Horry, a co-sponsor of the bill and the owner of about 25 firearms and a concealed weapons permit. "Criminals don't know if you're carrying or not."
Amazingly, the only debate in the legislature appears to be whether the bill goes far enough. Ed Kelleher, president of GrassRoots South Carolina, a powerful gun group in the state, says the bill "violates the constitutional rights of gun owners" because it only allows for adult, state residents to carry guns in these places — not young people or out-of-state residents. "While the bill might make it better for people in South Carolina, it's going to be a lot worse for others, including those visiting us," Kelleher said. "We depend on tourism here, and this has chilling effect on that."

That would be truly hilarious if it weren't so fucking frightening.

At Think Progress, George also notes: "South Carolina has the ninth-highest rate of firearm murders by state, according to FBI statistics. Just over 68 percent of murders in the state are done with a gun."

"MORE OF THAT!" - The GOP.