[Content note: Misogyny, gun culture, homophobia]
Wednesday News Spurts:
An Ohio anti-choice group is getting all pro-life (HA!) by auctioning off assault rifles in a fundraiser. Super.
Huge explosions have ripped through a munitions depot in Russia where up to 13 million shells were stored.
Chipotle promotes butt stuff! (Not my experience, but hey.)
A national study confirms that same-sex couples experience discrimination in the rental housing market.
Men in tutus, this guy is on to you! Also: whut?
Country singer Slim Whitman, whose song saved the world in the film Mars Attacks!, died today. He was 90.
In The News
Happy Juneteenth!
[Image via Monica.]
Today is Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the US. If you aren't familiar with the history of Juneteeth, this is an excellent primer.
Currently, 42 states recognize Juneteenth as a state holiday or state holiday observance. There are celebrations is many parts of the country, often parades or cookouts or community parties or fairs, at which attendees, depending on what's been organized for the local observance, can dance, sing, have poetry slams, play games, participate in Miss Juneteenth pageants, all kinds of fun stuff! Often following a public reading of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Local to me, in past years, there have been outdoor concerts and picnics, public readings, and free community financial seminars. Which might not seem so celebratory, but read this report today care of Algernon Austin at the Economic Policy Institute about "50 years of recessionary-level unemployment in black America," and the relevance of financial empowerment as part of a celebration of black freedom quickly becomes evident.
This is a good resource for finding Juneteenth celebrations near you, but not everything is listed, so check Google if you don't find what you need. And if there's nothing near you, you can always put up a yard sign to help celebrate, and do some awareness-raising in communities where Juneteenth isn't being marked with a public event.
Happy Juneteenth!
[Please feel welcome and encouraged to leave information about Juneteeth events in comments.]
Your Beltway Media
Isaac Chotiner interviews two of the co-founders of Politico for The New Republic, and it is exactly as nauseating as you'd imagine it to be, as two privileged dudes navel-gaze about the importance of their inside barfball publication that passes off political gossip and scandal as news and yawns in the face of anything that affects anyone beyond the borders of Cities That Matter.
This is one of the most incredible things I have read from political journalists:
Isaac Chotiner: But what is the larger mission, besides bringing this news to your niche audience? When The New York Times does some story on pensions and the Long Island Rail Road, that story might not come out and say, "Our goal is to fix the pension system at LIRR," but that is the upshot.HA HA MAYBE.
Editor-in-Chief John F. Harris: [impersonating a pompous Times editor] "Our goal is to win a Pulitzer Prize, and this is the project for that."
IC: So what is it for you? Do you want good government? To keep politicians honest? What?
Executive Editor Jim VandeHei: Helping people understand Washington. Not how they want it to be, not what you think is important, but how it operates. We also really want to save for-profit, nonpartisan journalism. We want to prove there is a business model that works.
JH: We have an obligation to be interesting. We don't think of ourselves as the electric company or the water company: [impersonating a virtuous but self-righteous public-utility CEO] "Well, we have a responsibility..." That was a mindset in a previous generation of journalists. That mindset might have even been legitimate. There really were only a handful of establishments reporting on this stuff and making judgments on its relative importance. People were looking to editors to say, "Tell me what I should think about." We are in an era where everyone is his or her own editor and will decide what they care about. If we are boring, there is no market for that. Nor is there a public calling to be boring.
IC: You don't think there is any public calling to be perhaps boring if pensions are being stolen?
JH: I don't know. Maybe if I lived on Long Island, it wouldn't be that boring.
You know, there are a lot—a lot—of problems with the US press, and many, many, many very smart people have been writing about these vast and varied problems for years, but perhaps there is no single greater problem among them than the unrelenting contempt that so many national journalists have for the average citizen outside of major media centers. At best, this contempt manifests as pandering sops to caricatures of the saintly but simple residents of the heartland. At worst, it's just naked disdain. Maybe if I lived on Long Island, it wouldn't be that boring. Fuck. You.
* * *
This part of the interview is pretty incredible, too:
IC: I am sure you have heard the criticism that Politico is a tough place for women to work. Do you think that is a fair criticism?Whooooooooops nope. Actually the premise which I find deeply condescending is the conflation of being a woman in a male-dominated (by "happenstance"!) work environment with being a person with a sore foot. Fuck. You.
JH: During our launch, we were starting from scratch—it was a tough place to work, period. Not just for women. The happenstance that the four co-founders were men was just that. It has become a better place to work. The place is now built for the long haul. I don't view creating opportunities in a gender context.
IC: But there are statistics that I am sure you have seen. The departure rate for women at Politico is twice as high as it is for men. The Washington Post wrote about this. There were also statistics about how, when one of you guys publishes a piece that is co-bylined, it is almost 100 percent of the time with another male writer.
JVH: Wait a second. I want to add to what John said. I find this critique both offensive and wrong. Go ask any of the women in the newsroom if it is a hard place to work. More of our leadership jobs are filled by women than men. The company is run as much by women as men. Three or four years ago, did some women leave? Did some men leave? Certainly. Certainly. We were a start-up. It is an intense culture. And I am sure you could find people saying, "I didn't like it because I was a guy, because I was tall, because I was short, because my foot hurt." I am sure some women felt like it was a macho environment. I don't think women would say that today.
IC: The critique I've heard is that it's an atmosphere rather than overt sexism.
JVH: You have heard it where?
IC: From people I have talked to.
JVH: Like who? I don't mean to be combative, but talk to people who work at Politico now—
IC: I talked to people who worked at Politico.
JVH: How would you like me to talk to people at The New Republic who told me you guys don’t have any women? Why is that?
IC: I am not—
JVH: No, you respond to that charge. If you are going to make that charge, and you are going to make it on the record—there is no one here who would make that allegation now. It was offensive to me, just like it was offensive to you.
IC: If I had hiring power at The New Republic, that would be a fair question to ask.
JH: I think women would find the premise deeply condescending.
These are the people moderating the national conversation, folks.
House Passes 20-Week Abortion Ban
[Content Note: Hostility to agency.]
Last night, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill banning abortions after 20 weeks, with exceptions for pregnancies as a result of rape or incest, but only if the crime is reported to law enforcement. The bill passed 228-196.
It has no chance of passing in the Democratically-controlled Senate, which has not even scheduled a vote on the legislation, and "the White House issued a veto threat Monday, calling the bill an 'assault on a woman's right to choose.'"
The passing of this bill in the House, and the attendant debate which preceded its passage, was all theater for the benefit of the Republican base. But it also matters, because the war on agency which has seen an unprecedented number of anti-choice pieces of legislation in state houses across the nation has now arrived on the federal level, empowering the anti-choice movement.
This is state-sponsored terrorism on behalf of an inherently violent ideology that values fetuses more highly than the people who carry them.
Will our President give a national address about the war on agency now, at long last, now that the House is passing legislation designed to chip away at Roe and render it an empty statute? Or is a statement from the White House all we're going to get?
I expect more.
I expect the ostensibly pro-choice Democratic leadership to get as involved in this fight as the anti-choice Republicans are. I expect national pro-choice legislators to use their platforms to change the conversation about choice, instead of hiding from the word abortion like it's a grave shame. I expect our President and his still overwhelmingly male party to stop treating the fight for reproductive rights like woman's work.
That this legislation has no chance of becoming law (right now) is good news. But this escalation in the war on agency is intolerable. Our national conversation still treats abortion like it's shameful, a "necessary evil," but the shame—the "evil," if you believe in that sort of thing—is a nation that refuses to trust women and other people with uteri, that refuses us our agency, that refuses us our autonomy, that refuses us decency.
Question of the Day
What popular band do/did you just never understand the appeal of?
I never really got 'N Sync, and I'm saying that as someone who saw NKOTB in concert not once, not twice, but five times. And, I kinda like some of Justin Timberlake's solo stuff. The whole 'N Sync thing just baffled me, though.
[Originally posted November 08, 2010.]
Photo of the Day
From the Telegraph's Pictures of the Day for 18 June 2013: Protestors march in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Protests set off by a 10-cent hike in public transport fares have clearly moved beyond that issue to tap into widespread frustration in Brazil about a heavy tax burden, politicians widely viewed as corrupt, and woeful public education, health, and transport systems. The protests come as the nation hosts the Confederations Cup soccer tournament and prepares for next month's papal visit. [AP Photo]These protests are the largest in Brazil in over 20 years, "as more than 200,000 demonstrators take to the streets of Sao Paulo, Brasilia, Rio de Janeiro, and four other major cities to rally on a range of social issues."
Flula Makes the NSA a Solid Offer
Flula, a young white man speaking in German-accented English directly to the camera while sitting in his car: I'm hearing now that, you know, this NSA, they are tapsing everything—my phone conversation and email to messagings with people, you know, computer, hacksing my data of things in my laptop... [shrugs] I say: Okay. You know? NSA, please, do it. My doors, my doors have open, you know? I am not a hider of things; I'm not a dirty, dirty person; you know, I'm squeaksy clean. I think. So do it.Seems fair.
I—I only think perhaps maybe we, you know, make some—make some trade together. You know? If I trade and give to you my data, you know, my privates, perhaps you can give to me something, you know? Maybe you might be like, like my secretary, you know, for a little bit.
Um, for example, um, when you are inside hacksing my laptop, at next time you're doing it, um, as you are hacksing and looking at data, perhaps also you may, ah, clean it up my desktop. You have seen it. It is a— [sighs] I cannot find anything on this—on this desktop! So many icon and [points in the air as if around a desktop screen] photo, photo, photo, image, image, file, file, file, Microsoft Word document, Word document, oh look Excel, and watch out there's 18 of the PowerPoints here, here, here... [sighs]
I cannot find things, so, you know, perhaps clean this for me, you know, on the next time you's here. Or if you are listen to my call, and you can hear I'm maybe in argument, um, with person, you just start to speak, and say, "Excuse me, excuse me—sorry, guys, I must interruption. This is Stacy, uh, you know, Secretary of Flula; he have another call with, like, you know, President of, who knows, Bulgaria or something. [shrugs] You know? BOOM. Problem done; we are out. You know? You have helped me.
These tasks—I think these tasks are nice. I give to you my privates; you give to me, ah, some secretary work. We are evening stevening, so, I think. [shrugs] What do you think? You know? Tell me. Tell me, NSA, what you think—yes or no we should do it—in your secrets way, you know. Send to me a fly robot [mimes a fly buzzing around and flying to his ear]—tiny fly robot who whisper "yes, let's do it," or I don't know what is your system.
Yeah. Okay. Thank you! Bye-bye!
Quote of the Day
"Smart parents are more likely to have smart children, and their greater intelligence will be reflected, on average, in higher incomes. Of course, IQ is only one dimension of talent, but it is easy to believe that other dimensions, such as self-control, ability to focus, and interpersonal skills, have a degree of genetic heritability as well."—Greg Mankiw, former economic adviser to President George W. Bush and Not-President Mitt Romney, in a new paper entitled "Defending the One Percent."
At long last! Finally someone BRAVE ENOUGH to defend the One Percent!
(As you may recall, Mankiw is also a stupendous comedian, who's got some great material about the social safety net.)
You know, leaving aside the total bullshit of IQ being an effective measure of some arbitrary definition of intelligence, I just love the bootstraps-flavored idea that the US rewards intelligence, diligence, and interpersonal skills with wealth. Sure. If there's one thing I always say after meeting a privileged corporate CEO who spends more time on the golf course than in the office where his average employee annually makes a fraction of his hourly wage, and whose primary long-term contribution to the firm will be a PR disaster after he's fired by the board for ethics violations and sent on his way with a seven-figure golden parachute, it's: "What an intelligent and diligent worker with great interpersonal skills that fancy gentleman is! Couldn't we pay nurses less to give him more money?"
2FA, #21
From a conversation after I randomly texted Deeks an image of Val Kilmer one day. I think it was after seeing Val Kilmer talking about how he's been writing a screenplay about Mark Twain for ten years. For the record, neither of us really wants Val Kilmer to be galactic king. And I don't really want to run everything. Deeky does, though.
Fatsronauts 101
Fatsronauts 101 is a series in which I address assumptions and stereotypes about fat people that treat us as a monolith and are used to dehumanize and marginalize us. If there is a stereotype you'd like me to address, email me.
[Content Note: Fat bias; medical malfeasance; body policing.]
#20: Fat people aren't that bright.
This is a narrative about fat people that we see expressed all the time, whether it's surprise at some demonstration of intelligence (see, for example, the shock expressed all over the internet that Mama June had the foresight to financially plan for her children's future, or the existence of fat PhD candidates), or contemptuous head-shaking at our failure to exhibit comprehension of how Not Being Fat works: The last time I visited my previous doctor, whose prescription for everything is "lose weight," and tried to address with him that my level of fitness changes based on diet/exercise changes but my weight doesn't, he responded by laughing in my face and telling me: "Eat less. Get moving. It isn't rocket science."
Well. I may not be a rocket scientist, but at least I can read. Competently enough to know that humans aren't Bunsen burners.
Anyway.
Fat people are stupid. This is a narrative that gets transmitted all the time. We are too stupid to understand our own bodies. We are too stupid to be engaged in our own healthcare. We are too stupid to make "good choices." We are too stupid to understand how weight loss works. There is a website called "You Are Fat Because You're Stupid." If we are content in our bodies, we are too stupid to realize we should be embarrassed of ourselves and filled with self-loathing. Multiple studies have been funded purporting to find a link between "obesity and stupidity." Surveys have found there is job discrimination based on employers' assumption that fat applicants aren't as smart. If a filmmaker or showrunner wants to indicate that a character is soooooo stupid, there's a pretty good chance that character will be fat. The caricature of the Stupid Middle-American is always fat. Adorably daft animated characters in children's stories are usually fat. If there's a good-hearted but simple-minded (male) character in a fantasy series, odds are on fat.
"Fat and stupid" go together like a fat horse and a stupid carriage.
This particular prejudice has played out in my life over and over. If I deal with someone (who isn't a rank misogynist) about, say, a problem with a utility bill on the phone, I'm treated like a capable and intelligent person. If I deal with someone in person, I am more likely than not going to be treated like I am immensely stupid, right down to a slow, condescending speech pattern reflective of a presumption I cannot understand any words with more than two syllables.
When I worked in an office, there were times when I spoke to clients, subcontractors, vendors, whomever, on the phone first, and was treated like a capable and intelligent person, only to have every trace of confidence that I am capable and intelligent subsequently evaporate into thin air as soon as they met me in person and discovered I am fat. They literally spoke to me like I was an entirely different person.
(Naturally, this will be an experience common not only to fat people, but people across multiple intersecting populations, who are presumed to be capable and intelligent over the phone, but not by some people after discovering they are interacting with a person of color, or a trans* person, or a person with a visible disability, as examples.)
There is, of course, no evidence that fat people as a population are any less intelligent than thin people. But the stereotype persists.
Fat people aren't a monolith. There are smart fat people, and not-so-smart fat people. There isn't much more to say besides that. If you look at a fat person, and presume zie must be stupid because you monolithize fat people into one giant lump of indistinguishable humanity, the person with the thinking problem is you.
-------------------------
Previously:
#19: All fat people hate/want to change their bodies.
#18: You can diagnose fat people's health issues by looking at them.
#17: Fat people's choices are always dictated by their fat.
#16: You are helping fat people by shaming them.
#15: Fat people hate having their pictures taken.
#14: All fat people are unhealthy.
#13: Fat people looooooooooove Twinkies!
#12: Fat people don't like/want to see media representations of themselves.
#11: No one wants to be fat.
#10: Fat people need you to intervene in their lives.
#9: Fat people don't know how they look.
#8: Fat people don't deserve anything nice.
#7: Fat people are permission slips for thin people to eat what they want.
#6: Any fat person eating a salad or exercising is trying to lose weight.
#5: Fat is axiomatically ugly.
#4: Fat people eat enormous amounts of food.
#3: Fat people are jolly/mean, and fat people are shy/loud.
#2: I can tell how someone eats all the time, because of how they eat around me.
#1: Everyone who is fat is fat for the same reason.
In The News
[Content note: Misogyny, racism, rape, rape culture, war]
Masturbating Fetuses!:
The Taliban and the U.S. announced that they will hold formal talks on finding a political solution to ending nearly 12 years of war in Afghanistan.
Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a bill that blocks local governments from implementing paid sick leave legislation. That seems like some real good legislation!
The whole Birther thing is back (Thanks, Congressman Jeff Duncan!), which is kind of surprising because it is stupid.
Do you need a Periodic Table of the Muppets? You do.
Also: Sesame Street has created the first Muppet to have a parent in jail. Neat!
Police arrested and detained 13 women's rights activists Thursday after anti-rape protests swelled in West Bengal, India. The protests were centered on two recent high-profile rape cases in the state.
Technical Sergeant Jaime Rodriguez was sentenced to 27 years in prison for sexually assaulting over 20 women during his 13-year tenure in the Air Force.
Alliterative news: An activist and a street artist have teamed up to beautify boarded-up buildings in Baltimore. Neat!
Seriously. Masturbating fetuses. Read this one again.
Daily Dose of Cute
Everything about that face. Everything.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Number of the Day
50%: The percentage of female astronauts in NASA's new class, "the highest percentage of female astronaut candidates ever selected by NASA."
Monday's announcement came on the eve of the 30th anniversary of the launch of the first American woman in space, Sally Ride. She died last summer.Among the men joining NOAA Station Chief Christina M. Hammock, Marine Corps Major Nicole Aunapu Mann, Army Major Anne C. McClain, and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School Jessica U. Meir, Ph.D., is Navy Commander Victor J. Glover, who is African American. Given how long the iconic image of a US astronaut was/has been white and male, diversity in the program is so important. And exciting!
The eight — all in their 30s — were chosen from more than 6,000 applications received early last year, the second largest number ever received. They will report for duty in August at Johnson Space Center in Houston and join 49 astronauts currently at NASA.
...NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said these new candidates will help lead the first human mission to an asteroid in the 2020s, and then Mars, sometime in the following decade. They also may be among the first to fly to the space station aboard commercial spacecraft launched from the U.S., he noted. Russia ferries the astronauts now.
"These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we're doing big, bold things here — developing missions to go farther into space than ever before," Bolden said in a statement.
You can read the bios of all eight of the 2013 Astronaut Candidate Class here.
And Then This Happened
[Content Note: Misogyny; harassment; disablist language.]
So, late last month, the Women in Secularism conference got off to a rip-roaring start with an opening lecture by a male speaker (of course), Ron Lindsay, the CEO of the Center for Inquiry, who included in his address his Important Concerns about the concept of male privilege:
I am concerned the concept of privilege may be misapplied in some instances. First, some people think it has dispositive explanatory power in all situations, so, if for example, in a particular situation there are fewer women than men in a given managerial position, and intentional discrimination is ruled out, well, then privilege must be at work. But that's not true; there may be other explanations. The concept of privilege can do some explanatory work at a general level, but in particular, individualized situations, other factors may be more significant. To bring this point home let's consider an example of another broad generalization which is unquestionably true, namely that people with college degrees earn more over their lifetime than those who have only high school diplomas. As I said, as a general matter, this is unquestionably true as statistics have shown this to be the case. Nonetheless in any particular case, when comparing two individuals, one with a high school degree and one with a college degree, the generalization may not hold.This was such a typical, tiresome, garbage lecture from a secular dude, who has yet to learn the basic principle of communication that if you're talking (i.e. not shutting up) then you aren't listening, and who doesn't believe women are experts on our own lived experiences (!!!), that it would hardly merit comment, except for the entirely predictable fall-out that followed when women rightly objected.
But it's the second misapplication of the concept of privilege that troubles me most. I'm talking about the situation where the concept of privilege is used to try to silence others, as a justification for saying, "shut up and listen." Shut up, because you're a man and you cannot possibly know what it's like to experience x, y, and z, and anything you say is bound to be mistaken in some way, but, of course, you're too blinded by your privilege even to realize that.
This approach doesn't work. It certainly doesn't work for me.
...By the way, with respect to the "Shut up and listen" meme, I hope it's clear that it's the "shut up" part that troubles me, not the "listen" part. Listening is good. People do have different life experiences, and many women have had experiences and perspectives from which men can and should learn. But having had certain experiences does not automatically turn one into an authority to whom others must defer. Listen, listen carefully, but where appropriate, question and engage.
Harassment. Threats. Harassment. Threats. Non-apologies. Harassment. Threats. Condescending lectures. Harassment. Threats. Etc.
Rebecca Watson details everything here, including the response from the Center for Inquiry Board of Directors, after "dozens of letters (including one signed by the majority of Women in Secularism speakers) were sent to the Center for Inquiry's Board of Directors, begging them to do something to restore CFI's reputation as a humanist organization that cares about women and their ongoing harassment." The response, in its entirety:
Center for Inquiry Board of Directors Statement on the CEO and the Women in Secularism 2 ConferenceOh. They're "unhappy with the controversy." Not unhappy with their CEO being a condescending, mansplaining annoyfuck who scolds women who ask men to examine their privilege, but with "the controversy," which was caused by women who took issue with their CEO being a condescending, mansplaining annoyfuck who scolded them in the opening address of a conference called "Women in Secularism." PERFECT.
The mission of the Center for Inquiry is to foster a secular society based on science, reason, freedom of inquiry, and humanist values.
The Center for Inquiry, including its CEO, is dedicated to advancing the status of women and promoting women's issues, and this was the motivation for its sponsorship of the two Women in Secularism conferences. The CFI Board wishes to express its unhappiness with the controversy surrounding the recent Women in Secularism Conference 2.
CFI believes in respectful debate and dialogue. We appreciate the many insights and varied opinions communicated to us. Going forward, we will endeavor to work with all elements of the secular movement to enhance our common values and strengthen our solidarity as we struggle together for full equality and respect for women around the world.
Why this female atheist isn't a part of movement atheism, part one million and twelve.
TV Corner: Defiance
Is anyone else watching the series Defiance, which is in its first season on Syfy? Iain and I have been watching it, and, although it's still finding its stride, it's compelling enough that we've kept watching it. The basic premise is the struggle for post-apocalyptic survival in a town called Defiance (formerly St. Louis) after Earth has been terraformed and humans and aliens are living together, or trying to. Within the town, there are power struggles and various intrigues, set against the backdrop of pressure from a meddling federal alliance and some larger nefarious plot being orchestrated by people presumed to be allies to the leaders in Defiance.
There are a couple recognizable faces from Lost (Fionnula Flanagan and Grant Bowler) and a couple from Dexter (Julie Benz and Jaime Murray), as well as Gale Harold from the US Queer as Folk and Graham Greene, who's been in a million things.
The show references/borrows pieces from Star Wars (especially in its basically-a-Western style), Battlestar Galactica, and Dr. Who, among others, but it has its own aesthetic, which is coming more clearly into focus as the first season continues.
It's got a pretty typical structure for similar series, in that there's a long plot arc, but each episode contains its own mini-drama which gets resolved by the end of the episode (usually). The balance between the long and short arcs feels off to me at this point; that's definitely the weak point of the show for me. And there are a lot of characters to keep up with, which is probably part of the problem in achieving a good story balance. Among those many characters, however, are a lot of interesting female characters, and it passes the Bechdel Test all over the place.
Anyway. Anyone else watching and want to talk about it? Since I left out spoilers for the main page post, please be sure to mark spoilers in comments, so anyone who wants to skip them can.
Also: Anyone playing the video game?
Santorum 4 Prez
Rick Santorum still wants to be president. Of the country. Despite the fact he couldn't get elected president of his local Moose Lodge. Which probably don't even have presidents. But it wouldn't stop Rick Santorum from running. And he'd still lose. To anyone else. Anyway.
Almost everybody has written off Rick Santorum as a 2016 contender — everybody, that is, except Rick Santorum.That message? That his party has been taken over by elites from "big East Coast cities" who don't understand that the Republican Party needs to appeal to people in working class towns. Which I have to admit is pretty smart. Since the Republican Party has never tried pandering to the white working class before. *that face*
Behind the scenes, the former Pennsylvania senator is quietly preparing for another presidential run. Trips to Iowa are in the works, he's meeting daily with his advisers, and he's already fine-tuning his message for the early primaries.
"I've always thought that the Republican party can do well with the middle of America, with people that work hard and have a family," he says.This fucking guy. What a thinker! No one in the Republican Party has ever devised such a cunning strategy as to sneer at big city elites and appeal to "middle America" with race-baiting, homophobic, Christian supremacist dogwhistles about "people who work hard and have a family." How does this genius come up with this stuff?!
Back in December, [Santorum's longtime strategist, John Brabender] hosted a Christmas party in Northern Virginia for Santorum's inner circle that served as a reunion — and as an informal strategy session. Over drinks at the River Creek Club in Leesburg, Va., the senator's friends and allies debated the pros and cons of another run.Well, listen, when your friends whom you pay to work for you on political campaigns decide that you've got to run for president, then you've got to run for president. Taking the career advice of friends who call you "the boss" because you are literally their boss is just solid decision-making.
By midnight, the consensus was clear: "The boss," as his friends call him, should jump into the 2016 race, if at all possible.
For now, Santorum's nonprofit organization, Patriot Voices, is his chief vehicle for staying in play. He's working to develop the group into a film and educational outfit that informs voters about issues he considers important.I don't know about y'all, but I can't WAIT to see Masturbating Fetuses: A Patriot Voices Production. Starring Rick Santorum as Dr. Coolio Stethoscope. Who is not just a doctor, but also THE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA.
[H/T to Jordan.]
Good Morning! Or Whatever! Here's a New One!
[Content Note: Hostility to agency.]
Texas Congressman Michael Burgess, who is a Republican (she wrote, as if you couldn't guess, ha ha), supports a national law banning all abortions after 15 weeks and says that masturbating fetuses are the PROOF. Look it up—it's SCIENCE. (No, it's not.)
"Watch a sonogram of a 15-week baby, and they have movements that are purposeful," said Burgess, a former OB/GYN. "They stroke their face. If they're a male baby, they may have their hand between their legs. If they feel pleasure, why is it so hard to believe that they could feel pain?"Perfect. I mean, that is just a perfect argument. Case closed, your honor!
The legislation currently under consideration in the House seeks to ban abortions after 20 weeks, on the discredited premise that fetuses feel pain after 20 weeks.
"Well, I think all the members are cognizant of the fact that this is not a Congress that cares much about science," said Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY), the Rules Committee's ranking member.And that about sums it up.
