It has been a while but we have a woman nominee for a major political party

I've been busy this summer, but upon getting back from Arizona (and watching the RNC while crossing my fingers Cleveland would exist after it), I wanted to post something this week. So I'm posting this video of a 102 year old woman who got to cast AZ's delegates for Hillary.



But I wanted to follow it up with this image:

Wednesday's front page with coverage of Hillary Clinton's historic night at #DemConvention pic.twitter.com/PhAySTk5JU

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) July 27, 2016

We come so far and got absolutely no where. Well done guys. Well done. Regardless of your feelings on Hillary last night was incredible.

I’ve been called a lot of words beginning with C, but complacent hasn’t been one of them

To be honest, only cunt comes to mind. But I consider myself a contrarian so we’ll add that to cunt.

Complacent, though, that is shaming, right? Like, hey, you’re not doing enough for the status of women. Well, Debbie, (I can call her Debbie, right?) I think you’re not doing enough for women. I think it is easy to think of reproductive justice as the only women issue, and that should be our lady responsibility alone, but I feel like class issues are women’s issues and race issues, and the band plays on. And honestly, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of having one debate, one subject define who I am as a person. Welp, K has a vagina so abortion must be the issue for her. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t date anti-choice, but I like to think I’m more than my reproductive function regardless of whether I’m being defined by the right or left, men or women.

It is the time the men pull their fair share on this too. I know a lot of clinic escorts, want to guess how many men I know who do it? Yeah, none. Where are the progressive dudes? Right at the socialist reading group. What guys don’t want to maybe take a bullet for other’s civil rights? I’m being hyperbolic and dramatic. But there is something to this. I enjoyed the reading group too, but I’m wondering where the commitment to social justice ends. Hell, where does the commitment to economic justice end? Because there was a lot of condescension and shade thrown in that room focused on a man who was clearly struggling with a lot of issues.

But I’m circling back to what I believe to be the real problem. This idea that woman have to run to the front on reproductive issues but stand in the back on others. It is what the left does to people of color too, so don’t get me wrong I’m not blind. Black men can talk about police brutality, but we don’t want to hear about the long-term consequences of a completely and actively undereducated population or reparations. No, we should frame the education discussion in this country about whether or not we should pay for Trump’s kid’s college education (Hi Hilary!). If we’re going to point fingers about those are who aren’t doing enough, let’s call some out: mainstream Democrats, including the ladies, and the white dudes on our team. They are complacent. They are so complacent they think they can continue to tell us where to show up and what to do, and we’ll just do it because who else do we have? Pass. I’m not here for that. If you can’t meet me for mine, then I can’t come for yours. Some groups/people are all about solidarity, but those groups and people seem to get the shaft when it is time for people to show up for them. There is a wait your turn mentality around all of this. This “you won’t mind” concept that what they prioritize is somehow more important than everything else.

For example, when you talk to progressives about antichoicers in the states stripping rights away they laugh it off like these are some fundamentalist zealots—won’t go anywhere. They’d be right on one count; these people are ridiculous, but it is a lot less funny now that there are three clinics in Texas. What the Dems and progressive don’t seem to realize that with every election cycle where people of color and women lose more and more rights, there are fewer reasons to vote Democrat.

Well, Debbie threw down the gantlet. Young women are complacent, well maybe, but let’s see how complacent they are come the primary—maybe all the ladies can write in bell hooks—or the general when they stay at home. When the left pretends their base will just show up because they did for Obama.

In a surprising turn of events, only men support the anti-abortion bill

I know you’re shocked. You’re thinking, “Kari, what do you mean only men would want to subjugate women to second class citizens? I thought for sure there would be some woman somewhere who hates women.” Well, of course there are, and one of them even spoke in favor of this shit show, but then other lady Republicans decided they were going to shut that down, you know like pregnancy (Akin, #neverforget).

These lady Republicans were concerned about the “Pain Capable Unborn Child Protection Act’s” restrictive language as it would most likely hurt the GOP’s chances to appeal to women and young people. Guys, there are now signs of life and strategy coming out of the GOP. I don’t know if I should be trilled or very scared. This specific legislation could ban abortions after the 20^th week of pregnancy with exceptions for rape, but only if the rape was reported to law enforcement, and I’m going to make the leap here and assume that reported means the police believe her…because we don’t have a problem on the right not believing rape victims. The vote was scheduled for Thursday, but Wednesday night the ladies pulled out. The resistance block out of the right was led by Renee Ellmers (R-N.C.) and Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.).

Of course, after the bill was dropped the Republicans scrambled to set up another one. This one reaffirms no federal funding for abortions, which is terrible, but also called the Hyde Amendment, which has been on the books for a while. Of course, this fancy new one will increase taxes on businesses. But I digress.

This whole thing is amazing to me. First because the Republicans are showing signs that they have little control over their members. Second, which members are they having trouble with: the women. I can’t imagine a group of men more out of touch with women than the GOP, but at least now we know the women in their party aren’t insane. Finally, the women seem to know what is up, which we got a glimpse of before when the lady Dems met with the lady Republicans and didn’t let the boys join in the games. Then, you know, legislation was passed.

Show of hands, anyone else for the removal of men from the legislative process? Just throwing out ideas here.

Hey everyone, here is a simplistic view of the “War on Women”

These kinds of pieces make me irate, mostly because they are dismissive of anything not included in the piece. Also, I have no love for Matthew Yglesias. Yglesias wrote a response (?) to Rand Paul’s assertion that women have won the “war on women”, which you know by our equal representation in all branches of government, and the recognition of women as people who have rights to autonomy in our lives over things like medical decisions, and finally we live in a country where sexual assault is taken seriously and met with harsh mandatory minimum sentencing…see what I did there with pointing out a few of the areas where women aren’t treated equally or with equity.

Yglesias points out inconsistencies in the logic of Republicans point fingers at Democrats as declaring a “war on women”, focusing mostly on Dems inability to keep it in their pants. Yglesias points out, justly, that anyone making this sort of argument as missing the point, which is the “war on women” is a matter of public policy. Yglesias argues that conservative ideas aren’t palatable to women. Again he isn’t wrong there.

Then Yglesias brings out a variety of policy issues where women side more with Democrats than Republicans, but he didn’t explain that women aren’t a monolith or that many of the underlying issues that push women toward Democratic policies are discriminatory. He notes that women are more likely to be low-wage earners, live longer, and responsible for care responsibilities within the family. But these aren’t simple. Women earn lower wages because of structural systems that keep women in poverty. This is much worse when you include race, class, sexuality, etc. There are social constructs in place to keep women disadvantaged, and Republican policies aim to make these social constructs law.

And I would agree with Yglesias’ assertion, “Now of course Republicans object that these policies [anti-women] aren’t motivated by animus toward women.” I don’t think all Republicans hate women, well some do. Republicans are concerned about is centralizing their power as they claw to keep their party alive. They aren’t just fighting women, they are pushing people of color back every chance they get too.

Yglesias concludes by saying as long as X is true then Y will always be. Sub in any “women’s issue” for X, and women’s vote for Y. This a take issue with too because nothing is that simple. Women are a diverse group of people, and it feels like Yglesias is asserting women will vote a certain way because we’re single issue voters? unable to understand the consequences of policy as they relate outside ourselves?

I was opposed to the language “war on women” for a long time, but I’m coming around to it. Mostly when I look at the information surrounding sexual assaults does this language become more and more useful. I look at the “war on women” as something like the Cold War. Something is happening, we’re not seeing or being told about it till after the fact, and the policies are resulting in the suffering of a lot of people, both direct and indirect targets and victims.

How we got here?

I was listening to my favorite podcast earlier this week, Citizen Radio, and they were discussing the government shutdown. Allison stated the government shutdown isn’t really about healthcare it is about ideologues who want to abolish the government and those who want to have government.

This is what we have. We have a government run by an elite few who can afford to run for office, which is exceedingly expensive, and then these representatives are puppets for money, which translates largely to corporations and their fanatical base. These representatives are the most privileged amongst us, and continue to represent privilege as they cling to power like dying men to breath. As a result they buy into and prop up the American mythos of the self-made-man, women’s work is housework and motherhood, people of color are burdens on the system, LGBTQ individuals are deviant, and Christianity supersedes all other faiths among many other examples. Thus trying to prevent any power shift to those they believe to be a threat.

The Government shutdown (2013) is entirely the GOP’s fault. Dems aren’t obligated to debate with them over something that is already law and was upheld by the Supreme Court. That’s not how government works, and if our elected officials don’t know that then they need to fund schools ASAP. But they do know that, which is why we’re shutdown because that was the end goal here. Now, why would they want the government to shut down? I’m not entirely sure. I know their base are a bunch of fundamentalists who think end times is approaching, but this isn’t going to reinforce the belief that government isn’t needed. Instead it is going to demonstrate just how much a federal government is needed.

In a GOP wet dream, everyone will realize that government isn’t needed because nothing changed during the shutdown, or maybe because this is a wet dream, all social welfare programs and Obamacare ended immediately. You know a throw back to the days of the Confederacy. I don't agree with something my government does, better quit. Regardless, everyone will rejoice because capitalism will be straight up the law of the land, not entirely different than life now except we have the federal government with its regulations to protect us a bit.

However, what we’re going to see is more like this: the immediate shutdowns of parks, etc. This will be mocked by the right wing without any thought given to the workers out of work. Then in a week or so, underfunded social welfare programs are going to feel the burn. This might not impact the Right’s whole base, but some of them are going to be. How do we know? Because red states disproportionally use social welfare programs…might have something to do with capitalism run amok without regulation. But sure, enough of the wealth GOP backers are fine with this as with the shutdown of OSHA. However, they might start singing a different tune when we get to the federal agencies in charge of our food. Sure private companies can take a lot of the workload except the federal inspections. Hey meat eaters, you may want to cut back next month, right in time for Thanksgiving. So how many people need to get sick before the government can reopen?

I’m a labor person. To me, then I heard shutdown I knew Congress members were still going to collect paycheck. And probably continued to be piss drunk on the floor, but I thought about the low-wage workers who are getting screwed.

I’m not absolving the Democrats. They have a lot of problems too, but in this specific instance, it isn’t us. I will say that the left has contributed to the system where this is possible. We don’t hostage take like the right, but we gerrymander too, which is what enabled this. There are Tea Party reps on the House floor because state GOP redistricted to accommodate. The Dems did too in Maryland, and lefty places, but we didn’t elect as many left wing reformers.  I’m not advocating answering the GOP with leftists, though I would support leftist candidates.

So yes, the GOP shutdown the government because they are having a tantrum that they think will yield more votes for them in the future, and because they can go home and say they stood up to big government by shutting it down for a day, a week, a month, whatever. But every US citizen is to blame for letting our political leaders do this. We didn’t hold the Dems responsible when they started giving into the GOP’s hostage taking, and we didn’t take them to task for it. This all conditioned the GOP to think this was a perfectly good way to get their agenda across.

On yesterday’s Capitol Hill chase, Miriam Carey, 34-years-old, was a mom with a history of mental illness including postpartum depression. She tried to drive through White House barriers and then set off the chase that ended by the Capitol building. Finally, when she got out of her car, she was shot by several police officers. A law enforcement official says she was unarmed, and it is not known whether she posed immediate danger. Carey was traveling with her one-year-old daughter, and the girl was unharmed but is now in protective custody. Carey was also a black woman, which adds to the controversy around this. We can obviously talk about how the police protecting everyone on the Hill yesterday are working without pay, but I think we need to address that Carey was unarmed when she exited her vehicle. Also, maybe now we come back to that conversation post-Newtown about mental illness in this country and the lack of available resources?

I’m rarely good at tragedies immediately after they occur. I’m better a few days later when everyone is ready to be rational. I have emotional responses like everyone else, but I’m not the type of person to be lost to them, so my initial responses can be off-putting to those who expect similar emotional views. So when everyone is ready to have a conversation about postpartum depression and women’s healthcare let me know. Until then, I’ll be over here.

VAWA finally passes Congress and has been sent to President Obama

I came dangerously close to losing my damn mind over this one. I still can’t believe it took this long to pass a bill that prosecutors people who beat their partners.

Rosalind S. Helderman for the Washington Post had a write about on it. The House passed the reauthorization of VAWA that includes protects for Native American women and same sex couples on Thursday. This is the version of VAWA passed by the Senate (sans 22 Republican Senators). It passed the House in a 286 to 138 vote. Only 87 Republicans joined the 199 Democrats to pass the bill, which left 138 conservatives opposing the bill. 

 They opposed the bill for a number of reasons, but most just because they’re all assholes. Their reasons include the new protections for LGBTQ individuals. Just digest for a minute that more Republicans voted against this bill than for it. Also, this marks the third time that Speaker Boehner allowed legislation to move off the floor without the support of a majority of his members.

This time however, the passage of the legislation seems to be rooted in the GOP wanting to get past the Violence Against Women Act issue, because you know it looks bad to vote against anything that benefits women if you expect some of them to vote for you ever again. Issue? Fuck you guys.

This reauthorization expands the authority of tribal courts to prosecute nonnative American men who are accused of crimes on Indian reservations, this address a particular problem of abuse on reservations. This specific provision caused a lot of problems for the House Republicans who believe it to be unconstitutional to expand tribal authority. Yep, think about the racial implications and say it with me, “Fuck those guys.”

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA.) crafted one version of the bill ignoring LGBTQ people and attempted to compromise on the Native American provision. Cantor said this about his bill: “Our goal in strength in the Violence Against Women Act is simple: We want to help all women who are faced with violent, abusive or dangerous situations.” Except LGBTQ people and Native Americans.

His version was defeated in a 166 to 257 vote with unified opposition from the Democrats and a block of Republicans, some of whom are allies of Native Americans.

Other Republicans oppose VAWA all together because they are awful human beings and think this sort of thing should be left to the locals. House leaders decided to proceed on a vote on the bill adopted by the Senate because the GOP has been taken to task and correctly dubbed the party that hates women after some sexist and all around awful comments on rape in the last year.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) said this shows how the House Republican leaders need Democrats to get bills approved: “If we have to supply the votes, we should be helping to write the bills.”

Well, like I said about damn time. VAWA is vital to protecting people in violent situations and prosecuting the offenders. 

Ohio's House GOP Offenders: 

• Steve Chabot: (202) 225-2216
• Bill Johnson: (202) 225-5705
• Jim Jordan: (202) 225-2676
• Bob Latta: (202) 225-6405
• Brad Wenstro:(202) 225-3164

Feel free to give these tools a call.