252 replies to this topic

[wedjat]

Hilary's done w/politics after her stint.

[artcinco]

If the polls are looking bad Obama will throw Biden under the bus for Hillary.

[Mr. Roboto]

Male congressmen now being inundated with handmade vaginas.

[Zimbochick]

[freedom78]

Technically, government does control men's reproductive choices.

[Mr. Roboto]

WASHINGTON -- In his new memoir, Arlen Specter, the moderate Republican senator from Pennsylvania who famously switched to the Democratic Party in 2009, decries the partisanship and extremism in modern politics.

One of the issues that exemplifies these characteristics, Specter argues in "Life Among the Cannibals," is the controversy surrounding women's reproductive rights.

"The abortion issue continues to drive Senate polarization and paralysis," he writes. "Some Democratic senators will not support a pro-life nominee, and some Republican senators will not support a pro-choice nominee. 'Extremist' often serves as code for pro-choice or pro-life."

Specter was one of the few pro-choice Republicans in the Senate -- a breed that will become even rarer in Congress with the impending retirement of Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine).

In an interview with The Huffington Post on Friday, Specter said he believes that "some Republicans" are waging a war on women -- a term that Democrats frequently invoke regarding the GOP's attempts to defund Planned Parenthood and restrict access to contraception.

"I think some Republicans are," he said. "I wouldn't categorize the whole party that way, but there enough of them that it gives credence to the charge."

When asked whether he thinks the GOP is hurting its prospects with women voters, he exclaimed, "Terribly! Terribly!"

"You can't win a presidency, a general election in Pennsylvania with that stand," he said. "The suburbs of places like Philadelphia decide the presidential election. Everybody knows where California and New York are going. Everybody knows where Texas and Mississippi and Louisiana are going. But Florida and Pennsylvania and a few other states determine it. That just won't sell. That's why [Rick] Santorum got drubbed in 2006 [during his Senate reelection race]."

The latest controversy is the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, a landmark piece of legislation that has never before sparked partisan battles -- until now.

On Feb. 2, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved legislation (S. 1925) reauthorizing VAWA, which expired in September. The bill was sponsored by Chair Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) -- who is not on the committee -- and cosponsored by 34 senators from both parties. Nevertheless, the legislation attracted no GOP support among committee members and passed out of committee on a party-line vote of 10-8. It was, according to Leahy's office, the first time VAWA legislation did not receive bipartisan backing out of committee.

Specter, along with then-Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.), was an original cosponsor of VAWA.

When asked what he thinks of the law becoming partisan, he said, "I think it's very sad."

"I have followed Sen. [Jeff] Sessions' comments to the press that there are some provisions they don't like. But the basic Act is very very important and ought to be passed. Whatever differences there are can be worked out on the floor with amendments," he added.

Sessions, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, recently said he favors reauthorizing VAWA, but he accused Democrats of being the ones to make it political and argued that the current version has provisions that "almost seem to invite opposition."

“You think that’s possible?" he told The New York Times. "You think they might have put things in there we couldn’t support that maybe then they could accuse you of not being supportive of fighting violence against women?”

The Judiciary Committee's objections, led by Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and several conservative organizations, are not over the VAWA as a whole, but over a few new provisions in the reauthorization -- specifically, protections for LGBT individuals, undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic abuse and the authority of Native American tribes to prosecute crimes.

The Leahy bill enumerates protections for LGBT victims of domestic violence, forbidding discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by VAWA grantees.

The reauthorization also expands the availability of visas for undocumented immigrants who have been victims of domestic violence and may be reluctant to come forward because of the risk of deportation. VAWA has always protected this group of individuals, but the reauthorization would raise the cap on visas for battered women and sexual assault victims from 10,000 to 15,000. The additional visas would come from recaptured visas in previous years that haven't been utilized.

Additionally, the reauthorization provides limited jurisdiction to tribes to be able to prosecute against Native American and non-Native American offenders in domestic violence cases. The tribal provision is taken from the SAVE Native Women Act, which had bipartisan support and passed out of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

Supporters of VAWA have stepped up their push to reauthorize the legislation, although it has not yet come up for a vote in the Senate.

[Zimbochick]

Arizona Representative Jack Harper refers to a constituent as a 'baby-killer' for opposing SB1539.

http://www.azcentral...o/1531412083001

[Mr. Roboto]

Planned Parenthood Bombed In Wisconsin

[Mr. Roboto]

Todd Stave understands why protesters target the clinic he leases to a late-term abortion provider in Germantown, Maryland. He owns the building, not the business inside it, but still: Even though the protesters' signs are graphic and disturbing, and even though he does not agree with the point they're trying to make, he acknowledges that they should be able to protest his tenant's work.

[Related: Georgia lawmaker counters abortion bill with one restricting vasectomies]

"Totally appropriate. It's their right," he told Washington Post columnist Petula Dvorak. "They are protected by the First Amendment. And outside the clinic is probably the most appropriate place for them to express their views."

But when the protesters showed up at his daughter's middle school in Rockville, Maryland, last September, they took things too far.

One large banner featured his photo, his name, his phone number, and the words "Please STOP the Child Killing" -- even though he's the clinic's landlord, not the doctor. The posters didn't name his children but, since they share his last name, it's an easy connection to make. (Since the protesters did not set foot on school property -- though their graphic signs and photos of mangled fetuses were visible to students -- the presence was not against the law.)

"It's horribly outrageous that they're going out in front of a middle school," he told The Washington Post at the time. "It is way crossing the line. I very much respect the right of the protesters to do so in front of the clinic, or the steps of Capitol Hill, or the courthouse. But in front of a middle school is really not an appropriate place to do anything except protest for better teacher wages or the school budget."

Harassing children in the name of protecting the unborn? Apparently, anti-abortion group Defend Life is fine with that. Jack Ames, the director of the Baltimore-based group that organized that protest, told the Washington Post that he thought the middle school was "a very good public venue" and complained that picketing the clinic Stave owns is difficult because it's located inside a private office park.

Soon after that, Stave started receiving dozens of harassing phone calls at home, day and night. Rather than bowing to the bullies, who demanded that he terminate Dr. LeRoy Carhart's lease, he wrote down the names and numbers of the people calling him -- and then he and about 20 friends started calling them back. Politely.

"In a very calm, very respectful voice, they said that the Stave family thanks you for your prayers," he told The Washington Post. "They cannot terminate the lease, and they do not want to. They support women's rights." Stave's supporters did their research: During these calls, they would politely ask how the anti-abortion protester's children were doing and mention their names and the names of their schools if they could find that information easily. "And then," Stave explained, "we'd tell them that we bless their home" and mention the protester's address.

At first, only a handful of friends were making the calls on Stave's behalf. But more and more people offered to help. Soon, more than 5,000 volunteers were returning the harassing calls with polite words of thanks, and Stave founded Voice of Choice so they could help do the same for others.

"We use email, telephone, and social media in peaceful, person-to-person counter-protests against groups that target abortion facilities, providers, and patients, as well as their families and communities," the group's website explains. "We don't question anyone's right to express opinions and ideals; we challenge their bullying tactics and their contempt."

Still, anti-abortion protesters are chafing at Stave's tactics. A member of Operation Rescue told LifeNews.com that he received "over a hundred text messages in a 48-hour period by a phone number originating from Stave's area code." (He does not mention how Stave obtained his phone number.) Operation Rescue's president, Troy Newman, said that one of Stave's counter-phone calls was to Michael Martelli, the head of the Maryland Coalition for Life, a Christian pro-life group that launched a campaign against Stave in September 2011; he says that the call "threatened his family and his children by name."

Meanwhile, a website called WhoisToddStave.com (which was taken down sometime in late March but is still available in Google's cache), uses language and videos that are nearly identical to what Newman told LifeNews.com. (A message left by Yahoo! Shine for Martelli and the Maryland Coalition for Life was not immediately returned.) The Colorado Coalition for Life put a positive spin on Stave's counter-protest, calling his supporters heathens and calling the phone calls "an awesome opportunity to share the Gospel with the lost."

Stave -- whose father, a doctor who performed abortions, used to run a women's reproductive health clinic on the property Stave now leases to Carhart -- is clear about which side of the abortion debate he's on. "I've been a member of this fight since Roe v. Wade, since I was 5 years old," he said. He says that he's glad that the personhood bills in Mississippi and elsewhere have failed because it shows that, in spite of what conservative lawmakers may think, "the majority of voters want to see women's rights preserved."

Still, "We must all respect the process," Stave wrote in a letter on the Voice of Choice website. "The people who started and supported the [personhood] initiative should be recognized for trying to effect change in their communities in a legal and proper manner. They were not violent, and they did not infringe on the rights of others."

Thanks to the thousands of polite phone calls, the harassment by phone has stopped. But anti-abortion groups continue to target Stave and his family: While he was out of town in mid-March, his Rockville neighborhood and his sister's in Potomac were papered with flyers comparing him to Hitler, featuring color photographs of bloody, dismembered fetuses and Holocaust victims hanging from nooses. (You can see the flier here, but be warned: The images are extremely disturbing.)

When protesters turn to terrorist tactics -- police are investigating a small, homemade bomb that exploded outside the Appleton Health Center, a Planned Parenthood affiliate, on Sunday night -- do they undermine their message? What do you think Stave's kinder, gentler counter-protest?

http://shine.yahoo.c...-185200305.html

[artcinco]

I like that guy's ingenuity. It reminds me of that story of the strippers who were tired of some church group protesting outside the club decided to show up outside the church on Sunday and do a promotion for the club.

As long as everyone operates within the law I see no problem.


#iThing #word

[freedom78]

I see plenty of problems, regardless of the law, in the same sense that I have a problem with the God-hates-fags people protesting funerals. I agree that this is absolutely protected speech, but whatever happened to being a decent person? Showing pictures of mutilated babies to school children falls well outside my definition of decency.

I do find it amusing that his response was an overwhelming surge of polite calls...and now the other side says they're being threatened, as if zealots showing up to yell at kids isn't far more threatening.

[artcinco]

Well, sure the school protests and the funeral protests are unseemly, but worth putting up with if you want to have freedom of speech.


#iThing #word

[PERM BANNED]

y

[freedom78]

Well, sure the school protests and the funeral protests are unseemly, but worth putting up with if you want to have freedom of speech.


#iThing #word

If by "put up with" you mean that government shouldn't arrest them, then I agree. If you mean we should tolerate and accept such speech, then I disagree. Civil liberties protect them from government, but not from the negative repercussions of the citizenry (provided that those repercussions are not, themselves, illegal).

[artcinco]

I think we are in agreement.


#iThing #word