[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
The Virtual Pub Is Open
[Explanations: lol your fat. pathetic anger bread. hey your gay.]
TFIF, Shakers!
Belly up to the bar,
and name your poison!
Texas Rejects Federal Funding for Healthcare
by Shaker scatx, a liberal, a feminist, a wife, a mother, a professional historian, and an optimist.
Yesterday, the Texas Health and Human Services commissioner signed a rule that says that any clinic or other "affiliates of abortion providers" who participated in the Medicaid-funded Texas' Women's Health Program will no longer receive financial support from the state.
This $40-million/year program is jointly funded by the federal government. The fed, in fact, pays $9 for every $1 that Texas puts into the pot for this program. The program provides "basic healthcare and family planning services to low-income and uninsured" people (mainly women) "who would not otherwise be eligible for Medicaid unless pregnant."
Texas politicians, though, did not want ANY of this money to go to ANY program that could even be loosely affiliated with a clinic that does abortion (of course, thanks to the Hyde Amendment, none of these dollars would ever go towards abortion anyhow). This was specifically an attempt on their part to deny money to any Planned Parenthood clinics, even those that have never provided abortion services.
The Obama administration has said repeatedly (we remember you, Indiana) that a state does not have the right to pick and choose who receives Medicaid money. In response, Texas politicians decided to simply forego the federal funding, cheating many people, many poor women, out of health care that they otherwise do not have any way to access.
By cutting out this federal funding, the Texas Tribune posits that 130,000 low-income people will lose access to such services as cancer screenings, birth control, or general health exams. The Austin Chronicle estimates that when you combine these new cuts with other funding cuts to reproductive health, nearly 350,000 poor people will lose access to health care here in Texas.
I'm so sad about this. I'm frustrated. At the end of a week where we have been bombarded by news about Virginia's possible mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds before abortion (that has been shelved completely now), I keep saying to myself (and to Twitter and Tumblr) that the only state in the country who ALREADY HAS mandatory yet often medically-unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds is Texas (today is day 18 since the law went into effect even after it was ruled unconstitutional; Oklahoma also has a bill that mandates it but it never went into effect after courts there ruled it unconstitutional).
I feel (and I know) that Texas is in a dire situation when it comes to reproductive rights and reproductive health care. I don't know why we aren't getting the press down here and I don't know how to make that happen. I'm just screaming from my Twitter feed and crying at my computer.
Texas politicians have chosen to turn down federal money that would help give poor people in this poor state health care simply as a roundabout way to hurt Planned Parenthood. That is a morally bankrupt decision. If this is the extreme that the Texas GOP must go to win their fight, what is it exactly that they are fighting for? I have many different answers to that question and none of them are good.
I am scared for my state. I'm scared for people here who relied on these programs. I scared of the climate and culture that would justify such actions.
And I know, as I look around at the rest of the country, that states like Oklahoma and South Dakota and Mississippi and Alabama are in their own state of emergencies. The national media that rallied so hard around Virginia needs to look south and west. We need that outrage here, too.
I often feel like I am screaming alone in a soundproof room. What do we do? HOW do we stop this? I want these answers. I NEED these answers.
Texas is in crisis.
Random YouTubery
Yesterday, after I posted the Suspicious of Broccoli Puppy, Shaker J sent me this video of her pup Ducky, who, having just returned from the groomers last week, and, despite having walked by a mirror many times without showing much interest, suddenly became very curious about the reflection of the clean, well-coiffed little dog with a bow on her head!
Video Description: A little black dog with a bow on her head barks and jumps at her reflection in a long mirror. Runs away, comes back, runs away, comes back. Ferocious! LOL!
I Write Letters
Dear Republicans:
When Pat Buchanan is telling you that you're going too far with all the attacks on reproductive rights, you have DERAILED.
Pat Buchanan!
You are to the right of Pat Buchanan!
PAT FUCKING BUCHANAN!
Take a nap.
No love,
Liss
Daily Dose of Cute
Guess who's thinking about Tony again?
Up to no good and plotting something tricksy, no doubt.
Someone's fixing to give me an anxiety attack.
When he wakes up, Zombie Dog will eat your BRAINZZZZZZZ!!!
Must stay awake...don't want to miss anything...
Ha Ha Great News Reporting, WaPo!
Karen Santorum: Husband's presidential run is 'God's will':
Rick Santorum's wife granted a rare interview Thursday, telling conservative talk show host Glenn Beck that she initially had been against her husband running for president but finally concluded it was "God's will." ... But she said she prayed on the matter, and finally changed her mind after the passage of the 2010 health care overhaul.A. If I am wrong and an anthropomorphic god exists, and his will is that Rick Santorum be president, then I hate god.
"I did always feel in my heart that God had big plans for Rick. Eventually it was there, tugging at my heart," she said. "When Obamacare passed, that was it. That put the fire in my belly."
B. Obviously I am a heathen atheist monster, but I did attend church at least once a week and usually more for the first 18 years of my life, followed by four years at a Catholic university, and getting angry about extending healthcare to people does not resonate with either the Protestant or Catholic doctrine to which I was exposed in exacting detail. I've actually read the Bible, and that Jesus fella was pretty insistent on caring for the sick and the poor. HE COULDN'T SHUT UP ABOUT THAT JUNK! He was such a blabbermouth about the sick the poor the sick the poor the sick the poor that he never even had any time to talk about abortion or same-sex marriage!
I guess what I'm saying is that maybe that fire in Karen Santorum's belly was just a bad case of indigestion! Which, in fairness, is very easy to mistake for a divine exhortation to the presidency.
Project Runway All-Stars: Open Thread
Seychelles, my belle...
My head nearly exploded during this episode from the racist ignorance. I swear if anyone else said another word about Chileans wearing ponchos, I was going to go on a rampage. As it was, Spudsy and I had to rant and rave about it endlessly on the phone immediately after we'd both finished the episode. Yiiiiiiiiiiiikes.
On a more positive note, I didn't think anyone could make me not miss Tim Gunn (besides Tim Gunn), but Joanna Coles is great. I really dig her on the show, despite the fact I have vehemently disagreed with her in the past.
Quote of the Day
"We are expected to believe that using birth control or the decision to have an abortion—for any reason—prevents us from learning the 'consequences' of our actions, namely, of having sex. In other words, the argument goes, women are too ignorant, too thoughtless, and too confused to make decisions about their own bodies, so the state has an obligation to step in and teach them a moral lesson. But Republicans are forgetting that women have been paying the consequences of life without family planning for thousands of years."—Martha Plimpton. In case you needed yet another reason to love her.
[H/T to Shaker Kate217.]
Friday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by kittens.
Recommended Reading:
Autumn: The "Bathroom Bill" Meme: Addressing Thomas Lee Benson's Story [Content Note: The post at this link discusses transphobia and transphobic memes.]
New Black Woman: Just When You Thought the Birther Movement Was Over… [Content Note: The post at this link contains discussion of birtherism and racism.]
Amadi: Possibly the Most Inappropriate Response from an Elected Official Ever [Content Note: The post at this link centers around an exchange over proposed legislation in Pennsylvania which would mandate endovaginal ultrasounds for most abortion-seeking people in the state.]
Tami: Can a Chocolate City Catch a Break?
Brian: Disney's Wonderful World of Fat Shaming
Eugene: The Book Surgeon
Andy: Mark Ruffalo's "The Incredible Hulk" Makes His Debut
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
This is so the worst thing you're going to read all day.
[Content Note: Rape culture; rape jokes.]
Another tiresome article about whether rape jokes are funny, giving lots of space to women who say they are and complain that criticizing rape jokes is asking survivors who process with humor to not process their assaults.
I've said pretty much everything I've got to say on this exhausting subject here, although I will underline once again that I am a survivor who finds value in processing via humor. I just also happen to be a survivor who understands and respects that not all survivors do—and that even those who do don't necessarily want to stumble across rape humor, even if it's another survivor working through her shit.
Which means I'm a survivor that understands the value of a closed group and a public space. I have friends, some of them also survivors, with whom I can safely make rape jokes (of the sort where the punchline is that rape is horrible and rapists are gross) and they can make them to me. In private. Within the safety and trust that comes with the intimacy of friendship.
Someone who argues against public rape jokes isn't telling me I can't process that way. They're not stopping me from doing what I need to do. And I don't feel the slightest bit limited in my ability to explore whatever dark shit I need to explore because I restrict my gallows humor to spaces where I know it isn't going to harm anyone.
In the age of social media, the boundaries between private and public are ever blurred, and I certainly think this is part of why rape jokes are proliferating at this particular time. But during an election year in which lack of agency and consent are central to virtually every major policy issue, the gravity of public rape jokes should be evident.
If one supports reproductive choice, if one supports ending foreign wars, if one supports closing Gitmo, if one supports rescinding invasive TSA policies, if one supports same-sex marriage, if one supports trans* protections, if one supports immigration reform, if one supports prison reform, if one supports environmental policies that don't harm local residents, if one supports universal healthcare, or any one of hundreds of other issues that are predicated on respecting other human bodies and choices, one needs to rigorously uphold consent, agency, and bodily autonomy in all arenas. The end.
Because the issue is not really whether rape jokes or funny. The issue is whether they're dangerous. And they are.
Reproductive Rights Updates: Virginia & South Dakota
Some sorta good news, some...not.
The sorta good news from Virginia yesterday was that the "personhood" bill was killed in the Senate for this legislative session.
RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — A bill that would define life as starting at conception is done this year in the Virginia Legislature.So, it will still likely come back. Especially after this WTF-ery (emphasis mine):
With no debate, the Senate voted 24-14 Thursday to send the so-called "personhood" bill back to committee and carry it over to 2013.
The vote sidetracking the most sweeping of several anti-abortion bills came hours after the Senate Education and Health Committee endorsed it on an 8-7 party-line vote, with Democrats voting against it. The bill passed after an amendment clarifying that no provision in it would restrict the use of federally approved contraception.Just. What. What the hell?
At least three times, the committee chairman, Sen. Steve Martin, threatened to have police remove opponents of the bill after they spoke out during debate.
Also, they have this to consider:
Another bill still before legislators would eliminate government funding for abortions under Medicaid for indigent women whose fetuses with severe deformities.The House has has already passed that legislation.
GOP: We hate the poor SOOOOOOOO MUCH!
***
In South Dakota, the state all other anti-choice legislators try to make their state emulate, the legislators have re-written aspects of anti-choice legislation (which Liss and I wrote about here and here) that is currently in court.
PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Even though South Dakota's year-old abortion law is tied up in a court challenge, the state Senate on Thursday gave final legislative approval to a bill that would change some of the law's counseling requirements for women seeking abortions.While it's nice you realize this, the bills you all already passed "provide unnecessary government intrusions". Ahem.
The bill leaves intact the current law's requirements that women seeking abortions wait 72 hours and undergo counseling at pregnancy help centers that discourage abortions. But it changes provisions dealing with a woman's first consultation with a doctor at an abortion clinic and requires that counselors at the pregnancy help centers be licensed.
The Senate voted 26-7 to pass the bill, which has also been approved by the House. It next goes to Gov. Dennis Daugaard for his signature.
[...]
Sen. Eldon Nygaard, R-Vermillion, said the new requirements would even require a doctor at an abortion clinic to talk to a woman about her religious beliefs.
"This bill, if we pass it, would provide unnecessary government intrusions into private decisions," Nygaard said.
So this bill, on the good side--if there can be one--requires the counselors at "crisis pregnancy centers" actually be licensed professionals. CPCs are notorious for not having any actual medical personnel on staff (and not telling anyone that they do not). The completely asinine aspects--as usual--is that it says that a doctor who is going to perform the abortion must take into account a person's mental health history, their religious beliefs, any coercion attempts (so discussing their familial/living situation), and their age to determine if they will "risk mental health problems" because of having an abortion.
So, if a person's beliefs generally say that abortion is wrongity-wrong-wrong-wrong and their home life is heavy on that environment but they have, for whatever reason, decided it was the option they need now, a doctor must take into account those beliefs and their environment to determine if they're at risk for depression after & therefore, not do the procedure. And if you recall (.pdf):
There is evidence that stigma around abortion, rather than the abortion itself, can have negative mental health consequences. A woman may have negative emotions after an abortion because she thinks her partner, family or community will condemn or exclude her for deciding to have an abortion. According to the APA, the “most methodologically strong studies...showed that interpersonal concerns, including feelings of stigma, perceived need for secrecy, exposure to antiabortion picketing, and low perceived or anticipated social support for the abortion decision, negatively affected women’s postabortion psychological experiences.”Oh South Dakota, you never really change.
The Parks and Rec Open Thread
(Hereafter be spoilers.)
"You can either burn these hats in a fire, OR you can use a blowtorch."—Ann. LOL!
"And then I remembered that alcohol exists."—April. LOL!
Donna: "What are you making?" Ron: "Eggs." LOL!
"Andy, he's kissing my face!"—Chris. LOL!
Oh, Maude. There were a lot of funny and/or sweet things in last night's episode, although my absolute favorite moment was this. Awwwww! Ron's story about his two jobs in middle school! Donna's cousin is Ginuwine! Leslie's sign drama! OMG LOL! I liked the Ann-Tom arc the first part of the episode, and hated it the second part of the episode. Yes, you were both being stupid. No, realizing it is not a reason to stay together. Please just break up immediately. Scatx cleverly observed when we were discussing the episode that the lonely heart in the group is Chris Traeger (Rob Lowe), who is traditionally handsome, privileged, and professional successful. In a show filled with ladies, including lady characters who are single, it's the kyriarchetypical stud who is longing for romance and companionship. I dearly loved when everyone gave Jerry the gift certificate to a B&B for him and Gail in his favorite place ever—Muncie, Indiana. OMG. Laughblub. True Fact: There are no misty mountains in Indiana. It is very flat!What did you think?
Bob Morris Is So Sorry!
Indiana State Representative and Professor of Smartology at Genius University Bob Morris (R-Idiculous) is very sorry for for saying the Girl Scouts is a 'radicalized organization' that promotes abortion and homosexuality. He's so so so sorry! But mostly he sincerely hopes "that this statement will end the publicity with regard to my letter. I look forward to moving on to more important issues of state policy."
Like turning Indiana into the most conservative bootstrappin' backwater in the nation.
Primarily Awful
GOOD MORNING! Isn't is SO EXCITING that Mitt Romney's losing-to-Obama aspirations might be thwarted by Rick Santorum?! And by EXCITING, obviously I mean TERRIBLE! SO TERRIBLE!
The thing I most love about the possibility of Mitt Romney—who is a horrible garbage monster of a candidate that should never be allowed anywhere near the Oval Office but is by comparison to Rick Santorum an angel who is also a genius—losing the nomination to Santorum is the perfect, perfect bookend it will create (and, really, already has created) to the Democrats' concession on reproductive choice.
You see, in 2006, the Democrats decided that it was better to have ANYONE with a D after hir name in a House or Senate seat, even if that person was anti-choice. And so they ran Bob Casey, a man who was both anti-choice and a supporter of anti-choice SCOTUS justice Sam Alito, because they believed only an anti-choice candidate could beat Santorum. The Democratic leadership's support of the anti-choice Casey was vociferously protested by progressive feminists such as myself who predicted that demoting women's fundamental right to bodily autonomy to a negotiable platform plank would inevitably lead to an expectation of the Dems to concede ground on choice on the federal level.
We were dismissed as hysterics and trouble-makers who did not understand the way politics works.
It was aggressively 'splained to us that Casey would beat Santorum, and become a reliable Democratic ally to women despite being anti-choice, and Santorum would go away forever.
Bob Casey did beat Santorum. He went on to co-sponsor the Senate version of the anti-choice Stupak amendment. And Rick Santorum, of course, has a realistic shot at becoming the next President of the United States.
A nation which is more amenable to anti-choice rhetoric than it was even 6 years ago. Huh. I wonder how that happened.
* * *
If being beaten by an anti-choice Democrat was the best thing that ever happened to Rick Santorum, running against Mitt Romney and his unique capacity to implode has to be second. This week in Imploding Romney News: Possibly breaking campaign laws, pissing off conservatives, and failing to seal the deal in Michigan.
Meanwhile, incredibly, Rick Santorum is finding increasing support among women. Or maybe it's not that incredible. The sort of conservative women who like the Santorums of the world are a breed I don't claim to understand. I have Republican female friends, and even they don't get it. They loathe Santorum.
BECAUSE HE IS TERRIBLE, NO DOI!
In other news, Newt Gingrich is still in the race, still being funded by some weirdo in Vegas, and still evidently believes he has a chance of winning the nomination. NO YOU DON'T, NEWT GINGRICH! I can't even see any of the remaining prestestants choosing him as a running mate. Maybe someone is paying him to waste Sheldon Adelson's money. Sheldon Adelson, you should CHECK INTO THAT!
Something something Ron Paul and squeezy handshakes. [Content Note: Various inappropriate language at link, which is a collection of Ron Paul supporters reaction to Rick Santorum shaking Ron Paul's hand very hard after the last debate.] Squeezy handshakers are THE WORST! So I am not surprised that Rick Santorum, who is also THE WORST, is a squeezy handshaker.
I am bitterly amused, however, that Ron Paul supporters are OUTRAGED at the harm of a squeezy handshake, but definitely support institutional racism and federal ownership of bodies with uteri. COOL! So cool your stupid inconsistent ethics!
Finally, some bozo at the Daily Mail (to which I'm not linking because barf) thinks Romney and Ron Paul may have already struck a deal for Paul to be Romney's running mate if he wins the nomination. GO TEAM RO-RO!
Talk about these things! Or don't. Whatever makes you happy. Life is short.
Maryland Senate Approves Civil Marriage Protection Act
So that's some good news to end the day. Yay!
Gov. Martin O'Malley, who sponsored the bill, plans to sign it within the week. Yay!
It's not all peaches and cream here in The Crab Cake State. Two caveats: This doesn't go into effect until next year. And that all but guarantees a referendum come November.
Still, it's good news and a big win.
Random YouTubery
Video Description: A tiny fluffy puppy barks at and challenges a piece of broccoli lying on the floor.
