Unsurprisingly...
...Sen. Wendy Davis thinks Gov. Rick Perry is the worst, too.
Perry invoked Davis' experience as a teenage mother at the National Right to Life conference in Dallas Thursday, telling attendees that it was "unfortunate" that she "hasn't learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters."Yup.
"They are small words that reflect a dark and negative point of view," Davis told the Associated Press Thursday. "Our governor should reflect our Texas values. Sadly, Gov. Perry fails that test."
She also added that his comment was "without dignity and tarnishes the high office he holds."
Hey, remember when this guy was running for president? HA HA WHOOPS.
Immigration Bill Passes Senate; House GOP Says No Way
This afternoon, the much ballyhooed bipartisan immigration reform bill passed the US Senate. And basically what happened is that, in exchange for meager progress for migrant workers and a path to citizenship for "eligible" immigrants, the Democrats agreed to Republicans' proposals to militarize the border and establish biometric tracking at airports.
Ultimately, senators voted on a plan that attempts to fortify the U.S.-Mexico border and other exit points across the country while also providing opportunities for millions of eligible immigrants to apply for permanent status and eventually citizenship.What a neat deal!
At a cost of roughly $30 billion, the legislation would double the number of U.S. Border Patrol agents along the U.S.-Mexico border to roughly 40,000 and require the construction of 700 miles of fencing along the southern border. In addition to a "surge" of border agents, the federal government would be required to begin using military-style technology, including radar and unmanned aerial drones to track illegal border crossings.
The Department of Homeland Security also would be required to establish a biometric tracking system at the nation's 30 largest airports and eventually at border crossings and seaports to catch people attempting to leave the country with overstayed visas.
...In an attempt to address the needs of a broad cross-section of the business community that relies on immigrant laborers, the agreement also would increase the number of visas available to high-skilled workers, most of whom work in the fields of science and technology, and lower-skilled people who take jobs in the construction and hospitality industries. Immigrant farm workers would be admitted under a temporary guest worker program.
Naturally, it's still not terrible enough for House Republicans to get behind it.
Most House Republicans have dismissed the Senate bill as providing insufficient border security measures and being too generous to the nation's illegal immigrants.We need immediate and meaningful immigration reform to provide a path to citizenship and better worker protections for migrant workers of all skill levels. What we don't need is more America 2.0 bullshit and militarized borders in a gross expansion of government spending and federal policing, proposed by the (ha ha) party of small government.
Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), a key deputy GOP whip, on Thursday labeled the Senate bill a "pipe dream" that won't come up for a vote in the House.
"The House has no capacity to move that bill in its entirety," Roskam said at a breakfast hosted by the National Review. "It just won't happen."
♥ Senator Leticia Van de Putte ♥
At the end of Texas Senator Wendy Davis' epic filibuster Tuesday night, after it had been ended by her mendacious Republican colleagues, right before midnight, Senator Leticia Van de Putte took the mic. And then this happened:
Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, a middle-aged Latina woman, holds a mic and says: "Mr. President, a parliamentary inquiry." Offscreen, the president of the state senate, a white man, says, "State your inquiry." Van de Putte asks, "At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over the male colleagues in the room?" Cheers and applause. The video ends after a few moments, but the cheering and applause continued for ages.So, she's awesome, basically.
Yesterday, she penned a piece for the Houston Chronicle titled "Why I stood with Wendy: Texas women must be heard." [NB: Not only women need access to a full spectrum of reproductive choice.] You should definitely read the whole thing, because it is very good! I especially loved this:
Unfortunately, some of my Senate colleagues do not believe in trusting women with their reproductive organs. It's amazing to me that they do not trust women with a choice, but they trust them with a child.BOOM.
If you would like to send her a thank-you for also standing up for women and other people with uteri in Texas and throughout the country, you can send a note to her here.
Rick Perry is the Worst.
[Content Note: Hostility to agency; appropriations; rape culture.]
Igor at Think Progress:
Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) directly attacked state Sen. Wendy Davis (D) during a speech at the National Right to Life conference on Thursday, arguing that the state senator who filibustered for 13 hours to defeat an omnibus anti-abortion bill should have learned from her own life experiences as a single mother to value "every life."This fucking guy.
"Who are we to say that children born into the worst of circumstances can't grow to live successful lives?" Perry asked, before suggesting that Davis' own struggles should have turned her against abortion:
PERRY: In fact, even the woman who filibustered the Senate the other day was born into difficult circumstances. She was the daughter of a single woman, she was a teenage mother herself. She managed to eventually graduate from Harvard Law School and serve in the Texas senate. It is just unfortunate that she hasn't learned from her own example that every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters....During his remarks, the Texas governor also described Davis' filibuster as "hijacking of the Democratic process" and said of the pro-choice movement, "the louder they scream, the more we know that we are getting something done."
Of course it's no surprise that a dirtbag who is keen to legislate what women and other people with uteri are allowed to do with our bodies would, without a hint of compunction, presume to lecture a woman on what lessons she should have gleaned from her lived experience. He feels just as entitled to own and control Wendy Davis' story as he does entitled to own and control her body.
And blah blah insert here another 3,000-word screed that would never penetrate Rick Perry's skull if it were delivered typed on a paper airplane flown directly into his ear about how recognizing that "every life must be given a chance to realize its full potential and that every life matters" is precisely why those of us who are pro-choice are, since we actually value the actual lives of actual people who have actually been born.
Also: Did a male governor of a state with a disproportionately male legislature who are trying to legislate control over primarily women's bodies seriously just say "the louder they scream, the more we know that we are getting something done"? Because WHAT. THE. FUCK.
I have previously noted on many occasions (here, was probably the fist time) that I'm hard-pressed to see why I should be any less contemptuous of a man who sits at a big mahogany desk in a government building making decisions about my body without my consent than I should be of the man who used physical force to make decisions about my body without my consent.
It is an observation by which anti-choice legislators are outraged. They are horrified to be compared, even obliquely, to sexual predators. As well they should be. I am horrified to have to make it. But anyone who holds the position that zie should be able to legislate away my bodily autonomy and supersede my consent about what happens to my body shouldn't be too goddamned surprised by the comparison.
And anyone who does it while proudly bellowing, about mostly-male legislators seeking control of mostly-female bodies to the sounds of screaming protest, "the louder they scream, the more we know that we are getting something done" really, really shouldn't be surprised.
Asshole.
Daily Dose of Cute
Livsy: Professional Snugglepuss.
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
In The News
Deeky W. Gashlycrumb, MD is currently filling his phone dictionary with absurd and/or dirty words, so you're stuck with me today.
[Content Note: Worker exploitation; gun violence; racism; appropriations; homophobia; death penalty.]
You should definitely read this article about US "temp towns." Temporary blue-collar workers are one of the most exploited employee demographics, and one of the least visible.
In totally unrelated (ahem) news, average CEO compensation in the US last year was $14.1 million, or 272.9 times that of a typical worker.
Rachel Jeantel, the last person to speak to her friend Trayvon Martin, testified at George Zimmerman's trial yesterday, telling the court the last thing she heard was Martin yelling "Get off," before the phone went dead. Blub.
Johnny Depp says of his (supercool) role in The Lone Ranger that "It's my small contribution to righting the wrongs committed in the past. It was very important to me to represent the American Indians and it's really the only reason I made the movie." Oh cool. I guess we can expect Depp, who made $50,000,000 for Alice in Wonderland and $55,500,000 for the last Pirates of the Caribbean film, to donate whatever enormous paycheck he earned for The Lone Ranger to First Nations charities. Since he didn't make the movie for the money and all.
Justice Antonin Scalia is the worst, and lifetime appointments are terrible.
Nate Silver crunches the numbers on same-sex marriage and finds that, by August 1, "the availability of same-sex marriage in the United States as a percentage of population will have more than doubled within the year... By August, about 95 million Americans out of a population of 314 million—about 30 percent—will live in states where same-sex marriage is legal." Neat! Also: That is not enough! 100% OR BUST.
In Australia, Julia Gillard (who gave that great speech on misogyny) is out as Prime Minister and Kevin Rudd is in. Australia loses its first female PM, but Rudd is the first sitting Australian PM to support same-sex marriage.
Texas executed its 500th inmate last night. What a grim and horrible record.
Hillary Clinton will run for president whether she likes it or not!
And finally: Oprah once again tops Forbes' list of Most Powerful people. You know what that means! Everyone is getting a brand new caaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrr! (No, they're not. Sorry!)
More Paula Deen
[Content Note: Racism.]
The fallout continues for Paula Deen, after the disclosure of her practiced racism as part of a discrimination suit filed by employees. She has now lost two more major deals, from Caesars Entertainment Corporation and Walmart. And Walmart is pretty much an expert on racism, so.
Anyway.
In an attempt to manage the crisis, which was apparently organized by the PR firm of Yikes & Whoops, Deen went on The Today Show to do the interview with Matt Lauer she canceled last week due to exhaustion. And she had some pretty amazing things to say, like how she definitely wouldn't have fired herself for using racial slurs and engaging in employment discrimination, and how "every one of God's creatures was created equal. I believe that everyone should be treated equal, that's the way I was raised and that's the way I live my life," sure, okay, and also this:
The Today host then questioned Deen on whether she can understand why some African-Americans could find her racially insensitive language offensive.
"I don't know, I have asked myself that so many times," Deen answered. "It's very distressing for me to go into my kitchens and hear what these young people are calling each other...it's very distressing for me."
"I think for this problem to be worked on, that these young people are gonna have to take control and start showing respect for each other."
*record scratch*
HA HA PAULA DEEN SAYS HER YOUNG BLACK EMPLOYEES LACK CONTROL AND RESPECT. THEY DO. THE LADY WHO IS ALLEGED TO HAVE WANTED TO THROW A PLANTATION WEDDING AND TO HAVE PAID HER BLACK EMPLOYEES WITH BEER AND WHO ADMITS USING RACIAL SLURS SAYS HER YOUNG BLACK EMPLOYEES LACK CONTROL AND RESPECT.
Listen, Paula Deen, you need to stop talking at this point. And it's not because I give a fuck how deep a hole you dig yourself into; it's because racism harms people, and going on a national chat show to defend yourself by blaming your young black employees for racism is itself racism. And it is harmful. And it is deeply fucking wrong. I can't say it any more plainly than that.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
"I think [the Supreme Court decision on DOMA] was wrong. [The justices substituted] their own judgment for the judgment of a Republican Congress and a Democratic President. In the Republican Congress in the '90s and Bill Clinton. I thought that Justice Kennedy's opinion was, in many respects, incredibly insulting to those people, 340-some members of Congress who voted for the Defense of Marriage Act, and Bill Clinton. He basically said that the only reason to pass that bill was to demean people. That's a heck of a thing to say about Bill Clinton and about the Republican Congress back in the '90s. And it's just another example of judicial supremacy, rather than having the government run by the people we actually vote for."—Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, confessing that he doesn't understand how the fuck the Supreme Court works.
I couldn't be less thrilled about the undue power held by essentially one swing-voter on a bitterly partisan Court, nor about the Court's service to corporations rather than to people, but being unhappy with a decision (ha ha or SO MANY DECISIONS) that the Court doesn't mean I imagine the better option is putting marginalized people's civil rights to a vote.
And, by the way, all the conservatives who keep making this same argument: I am on to you. I get that matters of social justice tend to not go your way in the courts, and that the tyranny of the majority tends to work out better, especially once you rig the game. (Or just break the rules.) This is all a lot of high-falutin' talk for people who just want to put minority rights to a ballot to which the most privileged people who are reluctant to yield their privilege justly are the most likely to have access. If you were honest brokers, you'd just say, "The Court stinks. Long live mob rule."
Anyway.
I also love (hate) this argument that the Court reversing a piece of discriminatory legislation is "insulting" to the bigots who instituted it. Yes, excellent (terrible) point, Chris Christie! Let us forever keep denying same-sex couples their fundamental and constitutionally-guaranteed equality, because we don't want to hurt the delicate fee-fees of their oppressors.
And considering Bill Clinton is happy the gross legislation he signed into law has now been rendered to the dustbin of history, I don't think we need to worry about him.
Shut up, Chris Christie.
$7200
Hey, you know how Texas Governor Rick Perry has decided to call another special session because the first special session didn't pass his grody anti-abortion bill thanks to an incredible filibuster and a massive outpouring of voters? REMEMBER THAT?
Well, it has been pointed out to me in email that the Texas legislators make $7,200 per year (plus per diem) and are usually expected to hold second jobs in addition to their legislative work. (Unless, of course, they're rich enough to treat politics like a game and/or corrupt enough to leverage their political power into more money. But this is not the ideal, is what I am saying.)
Asking legislators to work an extra 30 days (again!) without more pay because the governor's pet bill wasn't ready and/or didn't get passed in the regular session is bullshit. And yet here we are. Because Rick Perry and his Republican buddies don't give a shit about people who have different bodies, different salaries, different responsibilities, or different anything from them and their Privilege Club.
Much credit to eastsidekate for pointing this out.
Cross-linking: I'm compiling a filibuster retrospective here, for those who missed the live-tweeting the first time and/or found the 140-character limits a little confusingly terse.
Of Course
Texas Governor Rick Perry is a fucking jerk:
In the wake of the Senate's failure to enact abortion legislation before last night's midnight deadline, Gov. Rick Perry Wednesday called the Legislature back for a second special session to begin Monday at 2 p.m.Pretty much every single thing about that statement enrages me, but I CANNOT EVEN DEAL with how "prevent us from doing what he people of this state hired us to do" totally disappears that Senator Wendy Davis was doing what the people who were in that chamber cheering elected her to do.
The call for the session also includes transporation and juvenile justice legislation, both of which also fell by the wayside in last night's chaotic fight over legsilation that would make Texas' abortion laws among the most restrictive in the nation.
"I am calling the Legislature back into session because too much important work remains undone for the people of Texas," said Perry in a statement. "Through their duly elected representatives, the citizens of our state have made crystal clear their priorities for our great state. Texans value life and want to protect women and the unborn. Texans want a transportation system that keeps them moving. Texans want a court system that is fair and just. We will not allow the breakdown of decorum and decency to prevent us from doing what the people of this state hired us to do."
Which is to say nothing of all the Texans who were cheering her on from their homes.
There's certainly been a breakdown of decorum and decency in Texas, all right, but it ain't Wendy Davis and her senate allies and supporters who are the culprits.
Rick Perry, you are the worst. THE WORST.
[H/T to Shaker mary_k, in comments.]
Number of the Day
Six: The number of states "already moving ahead with voter ID laws, some of which had already been rejected as discriminatory under the Voting Rights Act," less than 24 hours after the Supreme Court's garbage nightmare of a decision that essentially obliterated the Voting Rights Act.
Before 1965, when the law was first passed, state and local governments came up with ever-inventive ways to keep blacks from voting, forcing the federal government to launch countless legal battles. When Texas was prohibited from holding all-white primaries in 1927, for example, it passed a new law to allow the party leadership to decide who could vote. They chose an all-white primary.This is particularly bad news in light of the fact that, in 2008, the Court upheld Indiana's bullshit voter ID law.
"Early attempts to cope with this vile infection resembled battling the Hydra," said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, in her fierce dissent of the Supreme Court's ruling.
"Whenever one form of voting discrimination was identified and prohibited, others sprang up in its place. This Court repeatedly encountered the remarkable 'variety and persistence' of laws disenfranchising minority citizens," she continued.
Since last year, 41 states have introduced some form of restrictive voting legislation, and of those 18 passed laws. Among the most popular are those that require voters to show a photo ID in order to vote, which proponents say helps to counter fraud — a phenomenon that almost never happens (pdf), analysts say.
I consider the right to vote about as close to sacred as anything gets in my secular world, and I have nothing but unadulterated contempt for anyone who tries to deny that right. I am so fucking angry about the disenfranchisement that will happen as a result of this foolish, loathsome, utterly wrong decision. I urge you (again) to sign the NAACP's petition to Congress.
Buncha goddamn shameless cheats who can't win on the merits [sic] of their barfy robber baron policies, so they rig the game. A stolen victory feels just as good when you've got a lump of petrified avarice where your social conscience oughtta be.
[H/T to Amadi.]
♥ Wendy Davis ♥
A little recommended reading: Elizabeth Plank's 10 Reasons You Should Love Wendy Davis.
[H/T to Shaker superior olive (Bethany), in comments.]
* * *
[Content Note: Anti-choice terrorism.]
Also: Do you remember in March of last year when I wrote about a Texas State Senator whose office was firebombed? That was Wendy Davis.
At the time, she said: "It's a sad but true fact of public service that we have to feel concerned sometimes for our personal safety. But we can't let that stop us."
She knows exactly what she's risking. And she stood the fuck up there for 13 hours and did it anyway.
In the News
[Content note: Homophobia, misogyny]
The Stars At Night Are Big And Bright:
A new law in Iowa gives that state's governor final say on whether the state will fund medically necessary abortions for poor women.
Paul Giamatti is joining the cast of Downtown Abby.
Devo drummer Alan Myers has died after a battle with cancer.
Glenn Beck makes more money per year than Lady Gaga, Oprah and Rush Limbaugh. Gross.
Check this out: Fat People: #IAmNotADisease.
Fox News is super pissed!
Did you buy a box of Twinkies off eBay for like $100? If so: whoops!
Quote of the Day
"Who cares?"—House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, responding to a question at a Capitol Hill press conference about Rep. Michele Bachmann's statement that SCOTUS had tried to "undo what a holy God has instituted" by striking down Section 3 of DOMA.
The exchange begins at the two-minute mark in the below video.
Transcript starting at 2:00:[H/T to Alison.]
Male reporter, offscreen: Congresswoman Bachmann put out a statement, and she essentially said that, ah, that the decision today cannot undo god's order. How do you guys react to that?
Pelosi, standing with a group of male democrats around a podium, with a shrug: Who cares?
[laughter]
