Women's Issues

*tip of the hat, to the GB's political issues watchdogs

February 08, 2019

WASHINGTON — A divided Supreme Court stopped Louisiana from enforcing new regulations on abortion clinics in a test of the conservative court’s views on abortion rights.

The justices said by a 5-4 vote late Thursday that they will not allow the state to put into effect a law that requires abortion providers to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court’s four liberals in putting a hold on the law, pending a full review of the case.

tRump’s two Supreme Court appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, were among the four conservative members of the court who would have allowed the law to take effect.

The law had been scheduled to take effect Monday, but Justice Samuel Alito delayed the effective date at least through Thursday to give the justices more time. He and Justice Clarence Thomas were the other dissenters Thursday.

The justices could decide this spring whether to add the case to their calendar for the term that begins in October.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/na...law-for-now/NV5b2biNqBoa9dtHV8IIoK/story.html

There are those, that don't want to hear it. But, she sang it, because it needs to be heard.

"I chose "The Joke" because I just feel like it's an important song at this time and in this country," she states, "and I think that that song's success says more about our nation's willingness to receive it than it does actually what I'm saying and what I'm doing."

She adds, "It's music with a message, and it's a harsh message; you know, it's a message about needing to do better and about the plight of the displaced peoples in this world. Refugees, asylum seekers, economic migrants, and also about gender dysphoria and its place in our country and our need for understanding and acceptance."

You're feeling nervous, aren't you, boy?
With your quiet voice and impeccable style
Don't ever let them steal your joy
And your gentle ways, to keep 'em from running wild
They can kick dirt in your face
Dress you down, and tell you that your place
Is in the middle, when they hate the way you shine
I see you tugging on your shirt
Trying to hide inside of it and hide how much it hurts

You get discouraged, don't you, girl?
It's your brother's world for a while longer
We gotta dance with the devil on a river
To beat the stream
Call it living the dream, call it kicking the ladder
They come to kick dirt in your face
To call you weak and then displace you
After carrying your baby on your back across the desert
I saw your eyes behind your hair
And you're looking tired, but you don't look scared

Let 'em laugh while they can
Let 'em spin, let 'em scatter in the wind
I have been to the movies, I've seen how it ends
And the joke's on them

Brandi Carlile was given recognition, and a chance to give many more a chance to hear it.

DCist
DCist
@DCist

Those Handmaids at the National Mall weren't another protest: The Hulu series filmed on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial today.

5:30 PM - 15 Feb 2019

Someone made a joke about Mike Pence, and his wife, Mother, kidnapping a Handmaid.



Mike Pence and Mother are exactly the people that would participate in rape, if it was sanctioned by the state, and their religion.

Mother would be present.

The usual Friday Night Massacre Attempt by tRump Loyalists

They were unusually impatient, this week. tRump Loyalists usually wait until the Democrats and this year's version of Moderates, go home.

It is school vacation week... grandkids to visit ? New moms on the beat ?

tRump To Bar Abortion Referrals From Family Planning Clinics

The Root Verified Account
@TheRoot

Trump administration moves to stop family planning clinics from issuing abortions or abortion clinics, a move that would gut Planned Parenthood of near $60 million in funds:


12:35 PM - 22 Feb 2019


Under the new mandate, which opponents have vowed to challenge in court, federally funded family planning clinics could no longer refer a patient for abortion and would have to have to maintain a “clear physical and financial separation” between services funded by the government and any organization that provides abortions or referrals for abortions. Recipients of grants under the Title X program, which serves mostly low-income women, were already prohibited from performing abortions with those funds.

Democratic members of Congress last week objected to what they have called an “unconventional and nontransparent” review process for the rule and called on the Office of Management and Budget to send it back to HHS for more analysis. In a Feb. 15 letter, Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland and Senators Patty Murray of Washington, Kamala Harris of California and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire called out HHS for taking numerous shortcuts.

Among other concerns, they said there was no advanced public notice and no early outreach to groups that participate in the program. Their letter pointed out that HHS had failed to provide an adequate cost-benefit analysis or to account for the rule’s negative health impacts on the poor women the program serves. And it noted that “numerous major medical associations, 15 governors, 200 members of Congress, more than 20 state and local health departments, and more than 500,000 members of the public submitted comments opposing the rule on constitutional, legal, ethical, and policy grounds.”

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation...-abortion-referrals-from-286-million-program/

All of the click bait, big names, outrage, controversy headlines, just washed this news away, and out of sight.

This happened, after the Big Religious Jamboree Prayer Breakfast.

They did not need to overthrow our American government, or create a new Christian-based government, to steal children.

Why did American judges quit their jobs, concerning immigrant courts ? The courts of justice became completely corrupted by Trump administration demands.

Christians did not merely milk the system for federal cash.
They trafficked immigrant babies, toddlers and children.

Trump's government told the adopting families that they do not have to give the children back.

In future, there will be a generous supply of new borns, babies, and toddlers available for adoption.

Millions will be losing dependable sources for birth control and safe abortions.

Rewire.News Verified Account
@Rewire_News

What is the Title X family planning program, and why are the administration’s policies such a threat to reproductive health access?

Rewire.News
Rewire.News Verified Account
@Rewire_News

The @HHSGov released its final version of new regulations for #TitleX programs, which bans federal family planning funds from going to health providers who perform or refer abortion services—amounting to a domestic gag rule, repro rights advocates say.

11:52 AM - 22 Feb 2019

That is correct.

The Trump Loyalist government has hit on way to cut Planned Parenthood out of the loop.

The lower classes will be transformed into a breeding pool for Christian baby trafficking, if Democrats cannot thwart this move.

Adding financial burdens to Planned Parenthood, while starving Planned Parenthood of funding.

Rewire.News Verified Account
@Rewire_News Replying to @HHSGov @transscribe @mlaurahuss

The gag rule would require providers to physically separate their #TitleX practices from their abortion services, meaning everything from building new entrances and exits, to opening completely new facilities and hiring more staff.

11:56 AM - 22 Feb 2019

Once, again, the Christians are stepping between a woman and her doctor.

Gag rule- no talking about abortion.

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/22/6905...ing-changes-to-federal-family-planning-progra

What are Christian offering, now that their scam will be funded by federal dollars ?

ADVICE FROM THE 1950's

Close your legs, and try not to get raped.
Russian roulette style pregnancy.

Got Clothes Hanger ?

All but three Democrats voted against a procedural motion on the Born-Alive
Abortion Survivors Protection Act

Why did Trump Loyalists wait until now, to try to revise a standing law?

Why did they fail to revise the law, when they knew the Democrats could not fight back ?


Now, the Trump Loyalists have a political propaganda headline!

"Not only do Democrats allow late term abortions, Democrats refuse to give medical assistance to babies that survive abortion!"

"Do not vote for Democrats!"

In a medical sense, the Trump Loyalist revision of the law was pointless. It would harm, more than it would help.

Democrats refuse to assist Trump Loyalists in spreading the myth of the Executed Baby.
It is Trump Loyalists that are executing viable immigrant fetuses and babies,
in the I.C.E prisons.

Two dead immigrant babies, according to public records.

(It was admitted that the true number of detained immigrant children were hidden.)

Trump's stealth plan did not include legitimte funding.
People are not inanimate obejects.
People are inconvenient.
Women give birth.


The Trump Loyalist party wishes to punish the woman, the doctor, and the family, for saving a woman's life through late term abortion.

A tragic pregnancy is a reality. The present law has provisions for a fetus that is removed from a woman's body.

What is the point of the Trump Loyalists effort ?

Political theatre.

Trump Loyalists do not want to remove the medical resource that might save a member of their family. (They are hypocritical enough, to use power, position, and favors, to reserve the privilege for themselves, under cover of secrecy. ) It would be useful, to have control of who is permitted access to that resource. Blocking Democrats from having access to medical secrets kept by Trump Loyalist doctors, is a political choice. The premise that a Trump Loyalist would never have an abortion, is most likely a myth. Exposure of the fact, would be politically damaging to a Trump Loyalist. The few Trump Loyalist abortions exposed to the public, have been elaborately explained and excused.

They want the ability to put doctors in jail.
They want the ability to make it a financial burden.
They want to make it emotionally painful.
They want to make the pregnant woman suffer.
Sadly, they want the fetus to suffer, too.

Notice how the headline is worded

"Senate blocks bill on medical care for children born alive after attempted abortion'

This is a fucking lie, because the current law provides medical help for the delivered fetus or baby. Rushing the fetus or baby away from its current location and doctor, might increase suffering, or cause it to die before it gets to the hospital. It just serves to take control, and the decision making process away from the doctor and the parents. It serves to deliver the doctor into Trump Loyalist clutches.

The whole point of the decision making process was to save the life of the woman, reduce suffering for both the woman and the product of a tragic pregnancy, and to minimize the financial burden on the family.

Nailing the fetus to the cross after it enters the world, is inhumanely cruel. Not that Trump Loyalists would care...

Their Christian hospitals would make huge profits, attending to the product of tragedy, while it pointessly suffers in agony, for hours, days, weeks, a month, a few months.

Because the Christian God/god willed it, that the corporation that owns the hospital reward the CEO with fabulous wealth, and contribute campaign funds to worthy Christian candidates, like Trump, and all his Loyalists.

A man at the head of an anti-abortion non profit

Andy Schoonover of Lion Venture Partners. Schoonover has been the executive director of Austin LifeCare since 2017, according to the nonprofit's federal tax filings.

"We fear and mourn for those patients now, knowing they'll be greeted by non-licensed workers in an unregulated facility posing as medical staff, waiting to force their political ideology on someone who simply wants to have an abortion."


Austin LifeCare warns its clients of the purported "spiritual, emotional, and psychological effects that can occur after an abortion," offering "Bible studies" to cope. On a visit to the center in 2015, the Chronicle discovered literature designed to discourage and shame women out of choosing abortion care, with overt religious tones and medical mistruths. However, Austin LifeCare, like other CPCs in Texas, has received tens of thousands in taxpayer dollars through the state's Alternatives to Abortion program, and in 2010 successfully sued the city of Austin to overturn its "truth in advertising" ordinance requiring CPCs to inform clients that they offer few services and do not make referrals for abortion care.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/new...-clinic-displaced-by-crisis-pregnancy-center/

Millions for Propaganda ... Nothing for Women's Health


Texas heavily underwrites anti-abortion centers, while slashing reproductive care


April 17, 2015

As conservatives cut the family planning budget by $74 million (two-thirds of the previous allotment) and blocked state dollars to Planned Parenthood, they simultaneously raised funding for the unregulated, unlicensed CPCs. By the Department of State Health Services' own estimation, some 180,000 women lost access to basic care each year following the cuts as 82 state-funded family planning clinics eventually closed their doors or stopped offering services.

https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2015-04-17/millions-for-propaganda-nothing-for-womens-health/

One CPC tactic, in particular, has the potential to place pregnant clients' health at risk; delaying doctors' visits and ultrasound appointments are integral to the CPC strategy. Counselors assure clients they have ample time to decide whether they want an abortion, while pushing visits further into the future – making pregnancy increasingly irreversible. As costs associated with abortion increase after the first trimester, and the procedure itself has been made illegal after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the delay can add substantial barriers to access.

A NARAL investigator recounted the strategy to the Chronicle. When she called Austin LifeCare to make an appointment, counselors persisted in delaying by weeks both her initial appointment and a potential sonogram. When vulnerable abortion-seeking women, in crisis mode and understandably drawn to the offering of a "free sonogram" – perhaps not realizing the procedure fails to fulfill the Texas law's pre-abortion, 24-hour requirement – finally reach actual health clinics, they often arrive with false information about their own gestation, say reproductive rights groups, and dangerously late in the timing for a safe abortion.

"In the end it results in people getting misinformation and delays in individual choice and access to abortion procedures. These women thought they had more time, which is just devastating to people who are trying to decide what's best for them and their family."

The Trump Loyalist party made certain that the Anti-abortion judges they prefered, were promoted and appointed. They are certain that they can legislate their way into forcing women into accepting second class citizenship, again.

https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/ve...e-abortion-clinic-with-fetus-as-co-plaintiff/

‘Very scary’: Alabama judge allows boyfriend to sue abortion clinic — with fetus as co-plaintiff

March 6, 2019

"When the fetus becomes a person as per Alabama 'personhood law,' a woman is rendered a walking incubator with less rights than a fetus and the man."


Madison County probate court Judge Frank Barger allowed Ryan Magers to name the fetus his girlfriend had aborted as a co-plaintiff in his case against Alabama Women’s Center.

The judge’s decision to establish an estate for the fetus, allowing the suit to move forward, came four months after the passage of Amendment 2 by voters in a state referendum last November. The law, which passed by 18 percentage points, gives fetuses the same legal rights held by a person under the state constitution.

Jessica Valenti Verified Account
@JessicaValenti

An Alabama man is mad that his girlfriend got an abortion against his wishes, so he’s suing the clinic. How did the county respond? By declaring the aborted embryo (she was just 6 wks pregnant) a person with legal rights

7:45 AM - 5 Mar 2019

Mona Eltahawy Verified Account
@monaeltahawy

This is the USA in the year 2019: a man AND a fetus are suing an abortion clinic. The woman? When the fetus becomes a person as per Alabama “personhood law,” a woman is rendered a walking incubator with less rights than a fetus and the man.

10:30 AM - 5 Mar 2019

The Un-People, according to White Evangelist Christian Supremacists

Poor people, Democrats, minority community members, LGBT community members, intersex people, women, Native Americans

Mike Pence is waiting in the wings, to become the true Supreme Leader of the Prosperous, Wealthy, White, Religious, Real People of God/god.

Nuclear Option means that Republicans can change the rules without the support of Senate Democrats

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is reportedly pursuing a “nuclear option” rule change to make it easier to push through a flood of President Donald Trump’s right-wing judges.

Under the new rules, nominees for lifetime appointments on lower courts would only require a simple majority of votes rather than the current 67. Critics condemned the move as “hijacking” the federal judiciary and pointed out that even if Democrats regain control of the Senate and White House in the next election, they may not have any more spots to fill post-2020.

Brian Fallon Verified Account
@brianefallon

This is a hijacking of the third branch of government. When Democrats regain power they will need to add seats across the judiciary to restore any sense of balance and legitimacy.

4:18 AM - 6 Mar 2019


Burgess Everett Verified Account
@burgessev

After confirming Trump circuit judges McConnell preps new nuclear option to speed Trump’s district judges. May be very few vacancies for the next president to fill: Trump will have roughly 20 percent of Circuits

Story with @marianne_levine politico

3:47 AM - 6 Mar 2019


President Donald Trump’s stream of judges is about to become a torrent.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and his GOP caucus have long prioritized confirming conservative judges to lifetime appointments. But they’re about to accelerate their ability to unilaterally approve many nominees in dramatic fashion.

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/06/trump-mcconnell-judges-1205722

Alliance for Justice Verified Account
@AFJustice

The final vote on Chad Readler's nomination is at 4pm ET. #StopReadler #courtsmatter

10:35 AM - 6 Mar 2019

The Leadership Conference Verified Account
@civilrightsorg

Judicial nominee Chad Readler has: ✔sought to weaken health care protections ✔worked to undermine voting rights ✔defended anti-immigration & anti-LGBTQ policies ✔a record hostile to reproductive freedom ✔undermined public ed ✔fought against consumer protections

#StopReadler

2:57 PM - 5 Mar 2019

Alliance for Justice
Alliance for Justice Verified Account
@AFJustice

With Chad Readler's nomination, Republicans have sent a signal loud and clear: if you work to undermine protections for people with preexisting conditions, you'll be rewarded with a job for life. - @ChrisMurphyCT.

#ProtectOurCare #StopReadler

8:18 AM - 5 Mar 2019

Chad Readler, a senior political appointee in the Justice Department – bears equal responsibility for jeopardizing the health of millions. In his role at DOJ, Readler filed the government’s brief in the case, in which the Trump Administration argued that key provisions of the ACA were unconstitutional. Tellingly, Readler was then nominated to a highly influential federal judgeship in the Sixth Circuit – on the very same day he filed his brief.

Readler’s decision to file the brief was so striking that three Justice Department lawyers refused to sign it, and a veteran Justice Department lawyer resigned in protest. Chad Readler, in contrast, apparently could sleep at night knowing that if his legal argument was successful, over 50 million Americans, including cancer patients, people with disabilities, and pregnant women, would lose health insurance.

Should we have expected anything different from Readler? The answer, sadly, is no.

Like almost all Trump judicial nominees, Readler has a record of working to undermine constitutional rights and legal protections for all Americans. He has attacked voting rights and rights for women and LGBTQ Americans; worked to eliminate the right to public education in Ohio; defended attacks on immigrants; and sought to weaken protections for workers and consumers.

https://afj.org/blog/chad-readler-lack-of-conscience

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins will not support President Donald Trump’s judicial nominee to serve on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers parts of Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Tennessee.

The Republican senator from Maine announced on Tuesday she would vote against confirming Chad Readler, because of his “decision not to defend the Affordable Care Act, including its provisions protecting individuals with pre-existing conditions,” in his capacity as acting assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Division from January 2017 to September 2018.

“Rather than defend the law and its protections for individuals with pre-existing conditions,” Readler, in the United States v. Texas, “argued they should be invalidated,” Collins said — a decision she called “wrong and implausible.”

https://wgme.com/news/local/collins-opposes-trump-judicial-nominee-over-affordable-care-act-stance

Religious right reveals true agenda in Alabama case: Give men veto power over abortions


Alabama man moves forward with suit claiming the right to block his girlfriend from getting an abortion


It was always about putting women's bodies under male control.

This week, under Alabama's new personhood law, the court declared that Magers had a right to sue.

Magers' argument is simple: He wanted his girlfriend to have the baby. She didn't. He believes that men have a right to force childbirth on women they've laid claim to.


t shouldn't be surprising that the religious right's move, straight out of the gate, is to use this new personhood law to force women into unwanted relationships with controlling men.

It's about taking away women's freedom and putting them under men's control.

The fact that unwanted childbirth traps women in bad relationships or makes it harder for them to succeed at work or school isn't a side effect of anti-choice activism — it's the goal.

Last month, the evangelical Christian world was rocked by a series of reports in the Houston Chronicle and San Antonio Express-News on widespread sexual abuse and resulting cover-ups within the Southern Baptist Convention.

Hundreds of men over many years taking advantage of their roles as church leaders to sexually abuse congregants.

Salon reported on a similar history within evangelical universities last June.

Schools have been accused of covering for sexual harassment and even rape.

While these kinds of abuses happen in secular organizations as well, these reports suggest that the religious adherence to traditional gender norms can often make the situation worse, with more efforts to make excuses for male misbehavior and shift blame onto victims.

For all the posturing that conservative religious leaders do about sexual morality, the evidence shows that their true ideology is simply male domination. As much as some would wish otherwise, there's simply no way to separate anti-abortion ideology from a culture of protecting sexual abusers and shunning their victims. Both are rooted in a view of male entitlement to women's bodies, and a loathing of women who try to claim freedom and autonomy for themselves.

https://www.salon.com/2019/03/06/re...bama-case-give-men-veto-power-over-abortions/

Hypocrisy, and punishing the victim!

Ya don't say!

Really ? Really?

It is not about stealing a single, independent woman's child, and giving it to some Loyal Christian Trump zombie family ? Not satisfied with stealing children from immigrant mothers ?

bodysong said:

Click to expand...

Fixed that for you.

Slushy, is that you?

Abuse prevention: how to turn off the gaslighters

It’s a coercive and insidious form of psychological torture, but gaslighting can be recognised and stopped

article author
Anna Moore

‘It’s the term for a special sort of torture – the kind designed to discredit and disorient its victims, make them doubt what they know, distrust and turn against themselves.’


As a study in psychological abuse, it’s a devastatingly accurate picture. Eight decades on, gaslighting is the go-to term for a special sort of torture – the kind designed to discredit and disorient its victims, make them doubt what they know, distrust and turn against themselves.

Gaslighting is the deepest kind of moral wrong

In the US, President Trump’s blend of lying, denying and intimidation has sparked cries of gaslighting from NBC to USA Today to Teen Vogue.


So what gives gaslighting its dark power? Kate Abramson, philosophy professor at the University of Indiana, calls it the “deepest kind of moral wrong”.

“Imagine you’re going through the worst experience you’ve ever had,” she says, “and, at the same time, you’re being told it’s not happening.” So perhaps that’s some executive emerging from a hotel bathroom naked. At the same time, he’s saying: “We haven’t done anything!” When you’ve escaped, he bombards you with gifts while insisting “nothing happened”. He assures you that he’s done this with lots of women – he names many – they always end up “throwing themselves at me”.

“There aren’t many ways of interacting that manage to be simultaneously wrong in so many dimensions,” says Abramson. It’s not just the abuse, but the erasure of abuse as it happens. It’s the obliteration of another person’s perspective, insistence that it’s not the action that’s wrong, but their reaction. “If your judgment is ‘irrational’, you can no longer be a source of challenge,” says Abramson.

“We all question whether we’re right about something. Gaslighting takes that necessary quality for human interaction and uses it to undermine our ability to interact at all. And that’s dark.”

“A gaslighter is someone who can’t bear other viewpoints,” says Abramson. “They need the way they see the world to be placed beyond dispute, and set out to destroy not just differing perspectives, but the source as well.” If you have one in your life, advises Sarkis, “the best thing you can do is get as far away as possible.”


How to spot a gaslighter

Their apologies are always conditional When someone says, “I’m sorry you feel that way,” that’s not an apology; the other person is not taking responsibility for their behaviour, they’re simply manipulating you. Gaslighters will only apologise if they are trying to get something out of you.

They use splitting Gaslighters love to pit people against each other. This is known as splitting. An example would be lying to one friend about another, saying a mutual friend had said something unflattering about them.

Gaslighters are the ultimate agitators and instigators The gaslighters will then watch comfortably from the sidelines, the very fight that they caused.

They’ll do anything to get in with you Gaslighters are good at buttering people up. As soon as you fulfil their needs, they drop their mask of niceness. Trust your gut. If the friendliness seems phoney, beware.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...se-prevention-how-to-turn-off-the-gaslighters

The Senate just confirmed a judge who interned at an anti-LGBTQ group. She’ll serve for life.

Allison Rushing


Rushing’s confirmation drew quick condemnation from Democrats and civil rights and LGBTQ groups.


Rushing’s nomination drew vocal opposition from a coalition of more than 200 civil rights organizations, the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights, which is led by Vanita Gupta, who headed the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama.

“In their quest to remake the federal courts, Republicans rushed to confirm an inexperienced ideologue to a lifetime appointment in North Carolina despite her never having practiced there,” the coalition said in a statement. “Rushing has denounced marriage equality, opposed remedies for discriminatory lending practices, and rejected efforts to end housing discrimination against domestic and sexual violence survivors. Her record clearly shows she will not be a fair and independent judge — a reality with dire consequences for Fourth Circuit cases and the American people.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-m...-serve-life/?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.429e670bd61d

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America do not get respect, pity, or sympathy, from NRA supporters, or Trump Loyalists


In a hearing in the New Hampshire house of representatives on Tuesday for a bill that would make it easier to restrict access to guns for people who pose an immediate threat to themselves or others, a number of Republican male legislators turned up wearing pearls.

Advocates from the group Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America said the message being conveyed was clear: opponents of gun violence were “clutching their pearls”.

“It really is shameful to behave that way when your constituents are being brave enough to share their stories,” Shannon Watts, founder of the group told the Washington Post.

Of the 13 legislators, 10 were men, and half of them were wearing pearls, Watts wrote on Twitter, sharing an image of the hearing that soon went viral. “Meanwhile, their constituents are in tears as they testify about gun suicides and domestic gun violence in their families.”

Among them were state representatives Daryl Abbas, Scott Wallace and David Welch.

Shannon Watts (@shannonrwatts)

Of the 13 person ERPO hearing committee, 10 of the lawmakers are men; half of them are wearing pearls to mock @MomsDemand volunteers. Meanwhile, their constituents are in tears as they testify about gun suicides and domestic gun violence in their families. #NHPolitics pic****itter.com/eVIS73yfoR
March 5, 2019

Many people condemned the gesture.

ElizabethSchatzDoyle (@elizabethdoyle)

Moms are not "clutching their pearls" over gun violence. They are BURYING their children over gun violence. These are preventable deaths save for your selfishness & greed, #NHPolitics. You should be ashamed. #MomsDemand

March 5, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...ublicans-pearl-necklaces-gun-violence-victims

The Extrmist Religious Right's campaign against women's independence, sexual freedom, and choice in sexual reproduction, reaches its highest and most concentrated activity just before International Women's Day.

Direct competition.


UCSF Bixby Center
@UCSFBixby

The domestic gag rule "forces providers into an impossible choice: Will we care for the pregnant person in front of us & make a requested referral for abortion related services, or will we accept funds allowing us to care for 1000s of others?" #NoGagRule

11:25 AM - 27 Feb 2019

"As midwives, nurses, physicians and public health practitioners, and as patients ourselves, we cannot accept the president's domestic gag rule—which inserts politics into the patient-provider relationship."

“Title X is popular, successful, and has had bipartisan support for decades,” Dr. McAneny said. “Our country is at a 30-year low for unintended pregnancy and an historic low for pregnancy among teenagers — largely because of expanded access to birth control. We should not be walking back from that progress.”

The new rule will withhold funds to qualified family planning providers, such as Planned Parenthood, that also offer abortion services. By dramatically revising the Title X family-planning program, the rule will also prohibit, in most cases, referrals for abortion and restrict counseling about abortion services. The rule also will eliminate requirements that Title X sites offer a broad range of medically approved family planning methods and pregnancy options counseling.

Two-thirds of Title X patients had family incomes below the federal poverty level and 3.6 million qualified for subsidized or free services, according to the 2017 national summary.

Title X funds were used for more than 2.4 million screenings for gonorrhea, more than 2.1 million for chlamydia, and about 1.2 million for HIV. Title X clinics also provided 2.8 million patients with some type of contraception. The clinics also conducted cervical cancer screening Pap tests for about 650,000 patients, and performed nearly 900,000 breast exams.

“The AMA also strongly objects to the administration’s plan to withhold federal family planning funding from entities that provide critical medical services to vulnerable populations,” said Dr. McAneny. “Millions of women depend on the Title X program for access to much-needed healthcare including cancer screenings, birth control, STI testing and treatment, and other exams. This is the wrong prescription and threatens to compound a health equity deficit in this nation. Women should have access to these medical services regardless of where they live, how much money they make, their background, or whether they have health insurance.”

https://www.ama-assn.org/delivering...ederal-regulations-impose-gag-rule-physicians

Robert Kahne
@rkahne

This was the most devastating week of my life. We had our 20 week ultrasound and discovered that our baby's brain had not developed, and that it would likely die before it was born and would only live a few hours if carried to term. We terminated the pregnancy.

1:22 PM - 9 Mar 2019 from Louisville, KY

Robert Kahne
@rkahne Replying to @rkahne

One horrifying wrinkle in this world-shattering situation was that SB 9, the fetal heartbeat bill, was poised to pass on Thursday. If it had, we wouldn't have been able to have the procedure at all. While our daughter had no brain and a malformed spine, she had a heartbeat.

1:25 PM - 9 Mar 2019 from Louisville, KY

Terry England, Georgia Republican Lawmaker, Compares Women To Farm Animals

“Life gives us many experiences,” England explained. “I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive — delivering pigs, dead and alive. … It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/09/terry-england-farm-animals_n_1335976.html

What the Georgia man with a hobby farm does not say, is that the cows and pigs either kill their newborns, or neglect them until die. Horses have been known to choose to abort the foals they carry, for their own reasons. Does the gentleman farmer coldly allow the unfortunate deformed newborn animal to die in agony, while the mother bleeds to death ?

Is there a point to forcing a human being to go through a process that may kill them, or cause them to suffer for the rest of their lives, if there is nothing but more suffering after the process is completed ?

Hypocritical mysogynist sexist pigs work for FOX TV and tRump White House

Why did Bill Shine leave his job at the tRump White House ?

A former president of Fox News and protege of the late Roger Ailes, Bill Shine, 55, was recruited to the White House last July by Trump to help buff the president’s public image and direct his communications strategy.

"Upon becoming the Trump administration’s sixth White House communications director in 18 months last July, he received a 68-day extension on his financial disclosure form. The form, released to the Reporter on Friday, indicates he will now be paid simultaneously by both the Trump-friendly Fox News network and the White House."

$$$,$$$,$$$

(Bill Shine fulfilled his obligation by performing a hatchet job. The propaganda farce in El Paso gave tRump a chance to slap Bill Shine in the face, just as tRump slapped John Kelly's face, in public.)

Shine is now a bona fide (secret) member of the tRump Alliance, and public member of the 2020 re-election campaign.


Shocking! Forced prostitution ring operates down the street from tRump's Winter White House. The woman that forces women to prostitute themselves, also fills tRump's campaign purse by providing donors to his campaign.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/tucker-carlson-calls-women-extremely-primitive-in-unearthed-audio

Currently, John Kelly is busy generating headlines of his own

Kelly was speaking at an event at Duke University. He also told the audience he didn't believe in building a wall from "sea to shining sea" and that he opposed the president's decision to deploy active-duty troops to the Southern border. Kelly is a retired four-star general and was considered one of the most hawkish voices in the White House on the topic of illegal immigration.

Kelly's recent comments contradict his own arguments on behalf of the separation policy in the days after it was announced by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in which he argued it could be an effective deterrent to stem the flow of migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/fact-check-friday-trump-opts-shock-jock-politics/story?id=61565159

"It could be a tough deterrent — would be a tough deterrent," Kelly said in a May 2018 interview with NPR. "A much faster turnaround on asylum seekers."

Dirty Work

https://medium.com/@TrumpTimer/day-...with-stink-of-trump-all-over-him-40d3d6d9d8e2

In the NPR interview, Kelly also spoke about the Trump administration’s efforts to fight illegal immigration. He said most people coming into the country illegally ‘‘are not bad people,’’ but said they won’t assimilate easily.

‘‘They’re overwhelmingly rural people. In the countries they come from, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-grade educations are kind of the norm,’’ Kelly said. ‘‘They don’t speak English; obviously that’s a big thing. ... They don’t integrate well; they don’t have skills.’’

https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/po...ussia-probe/AN7PnCU8OEpgjFdPfZRbyN/story.html

The Trump judge-confirming machine has arguably been run better than anything else in his administration – perhaps because he has had relatively little to do with it.



Unlike past presidents, Trump has turned the job of picking nominees over, almost wholly, to the White House counsel’s office, which in turn has worked from lists drawn up by the Federalist Society, the country’s premier network of conservative lawyers.

The Republican Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, has done his part by clearing long-standing hurdles in the nominating process, including one by which home-state senators from either party could veto an undesirable pick. On Wednesday, Politico reported that McConnell planned to go further, by ending a rule requiring 30 hours of debate on each judicial nominee.


“The appeals courts are crucially important, because every year they resolve 50,000 or so cases, and the supreme court decides fewer than 100,” said Carl Tobias, a professor at Richmond School of Law specializing in federal judicial selection. “And so for 99.9% of cases, the court of last resort is the appeals court in your region, and so it really is critically important.”


https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/10/trump-legacy-conservative-judges-district-courts


Mitch McConnell

But even before Obama had named Garland, and in fact only hours after Scalia's death was announced, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell declared any appointment by the sitting president to be null and void. He said the next Supreme Court justice should be chosen by the next president — to be elected later that year.

https://www.npr.org/2018/06/29/6244...errick-garland-in-2016-and-why-it-matters-now

Dar'shun Kendrick Verified Account
@DarshunKendrick

Ggggooooodddd morning! Introducing my "testicular bill of rights" legislative package. You want some regulation of bodies and choice? Done!

6:13 AM - 11 Mar 2019


Mother Jones Verified Account
@MotherJones

In GA last week, Republicans introduced an anti-abortion bill in the House. It passed. In response, a group of black female Democrats introduced a bill to require men 55 & older to report to police whenever they “release sperm from their testicles."

10:11 AM - 13 Mar 2019

“testicular bill of rights”

* Require men to get permission from their sex partner before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication.
* Ban vasectomy procedures in Georgia and penalize doctors who perform them.
* Make having sex without a condom an “aggravated assault” crime for men.
* Require men to begin paying child support when the woman is six weeks and one day pregnant per a paternity test required at the same time.
* Create a 24-hour “waiting period” for men who wish to purchase porn or sex toys in the state of Georgia.



Kendrick’s testicular bill of rights is a direct answer to HB 481, the “heartbeat bill” passed by her Republican colleagues in the Georgia House of Representatives last week. The bill would ban abortion in Georgia at about six weeks, when a detectable heartbeat is first found in a fetus.

At six weeks, many women do not yet know they are pregnant.


Current Georgia law allows pregnant women to have legal abortions at up to 20 weeks.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...ne-lawmakers-answer-antiabortion-legislation/

"So why did I post about drafting my 'testicular bill of rights'? It's simple. To show the absurdity when a woman tries to regulate a man's body like HB 481 and other anti-choice bills are doing in regulating women's bodies."

Georgia law allows abortions up to 20 weeks. HB 481, which Kendrick calls the "Women's Womb Takeover" bill, passed the Georgia House 93-73. If it is approved by the Senate before the legislative session ends in April, as is expected, it will head to the desk of Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who has vowed to sign it.
—Georgia state Rep. Dar'shun Kendrick

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2...ms-testicular-bill-rights-would-restrict-mens

You might want to add this expose to your list.
https://youtu.be/FV_MAiHMgSI
words fail

Chattanooga, Tennessee hasn’t had an abortion clinic since 1993

A Tennessee judge has been rebuked for denying the request of a woman on house arrest to travel to Atlanta for an abortion.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reports the 23-year-old woman was at least 10 weeks pregnant with twins when accepted into General Sessions Court Judge Lila Statom's Mental Health Court in February. The woman, who had pleaded guilty to theft and domestic assault, asked for permission to get the abortion last week, while on house arrest.

Hamilton County Criminal Court Judge Tom Greenholtz said Monday that Statom injected her personal beliefs in denying that request and violated the woman's constitutional rights.

Attorney David Barrow said Statom still wouldn't resolve the case, so he left the woman's probation officer a message and drove her to Atlanta himself Wednesday.

original article found at Chattanooga Times Free Press

covered by New York Times

United Nations CSW Verified Account
@ UN_CSW
New York

Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) is a functional commission of the UN Economic and Social Council. 63rd session (#CSW63) will take place 11-22March 2019.

unwomen.org/csw

Christian conservatives in Trump administration build global antiabortion coalition

"...at the U.N.'s Commission on the Status of Women meeting, where U.S. negotiators are seeking to excise references to "universal access to sexual and reproductive health and rights" -- which they argue promotes abortion and normalizes sexual activity among youth -- in an annual document about empowering women. They also want to replace "gender-responsive" with "family-centered" in calls for more-inclusive public services.

At a meeting of the World Health Organization at its headquarters in Geneva in late January that drew leaders from 34 countries to discuss pandemic influenza and how to protect refugees, observers said U.S. representatives were more focused on speaking about women and families. ... During one side meeting in a lounge adjacent to the main conference hall, Huber and Garrett Grigsby, director of HHS’s global affairs office who previously led Christian Connections for International Health, pitched their plan to representatives from an African country.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/heal...id=ss_tw&utm_term=.f0a75b3dc7a0&noredirect=on

2005

U.S.-supported anti-AIDS policies that promote abstinence and discourage condom use among the young are likely to lead to rising HIV infection rates in Africa, a U.S. human-rights group warned Tuesday in a report.

In a study focused on Uganda, Human Rights Watch said that African youths are increasingly being taught that abstinence until marriage is the only proper way to prevent HIV infection and that condom use is mainly for the promiscuous.

Uganda, which receives $8 million from the U.S. government each year to promote abstinence programs for youth, "is gradually removing condoms from its HIV/AIDS strategy, and the consequences could be fatal," said Tony Tate, a researcher in Human Rights Watch's children's rights division and one of the report's authors. "Delaying sex is surely a healthy choice for young Ugandans, but youth have a right to know that there are other effective means of HIV prevention."

Teachers in Uganda told researchers from the human-rights group that they have been instructed by U.S. contractors not to discuss condoms in schools because the country's new policy is "abstinence only" for youth, particularly young teens.

But in a nation with nearly a million AIDS orphans, some of whom sell sex to survive, and many more teens who fail to abstain, the decision to deny children information about condoms threatens to send HIV infection rates up again, researchers and Ugandan activists said Tuesday.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/-1/article/p2p-101325121/

2019

Maine women vote for dignity, safety, and hygiene.

Men are making decisions for women, when they
know fuck-all about the realities of the matter.

(Old white Republican man will not die from toxic shock syndrome, or have his reproductive organs removed because he did not get adequate hygiene supplies. )

(A woman is asked to decide if she will chance her reproductive health and well being, against being able to contact her lawyer, her child, her family. She cannot afford both, if she has to pay for everything she needs.)


Republican lawmaker Richard Pickett of Dixfield made the comment at a hearing on a bill to make having free tampons, sanitary pads and menstrual cups a right for the state's female prisoners, local journalist Alex Acquisto initially tweeted. By Monday, the news had spread to The Maine Beacon.

“Quite frankly, and I don’t mean this in any disrespect, the jail system and the correctional system was never meant to be a country club,” Pickett said during a hearing for bill LD 628, reported Acquisto, who works for The Bangor Daily News.

https://www.newsweek.com/richard-pickett-periods-prison-menstrual-maine-law-representative-1367450

Pickett further argued that the bill is an example of lawmakers trying to “micromanage” the criminal justice system, saying: “Sometimes when you gotta look at things, when you have something that is working and something that is there, you can’t continue to micromanage the jail systems,” Acquisto reported.

However, in her testimony, Meagan Sway, policy counsel for the ACLU of Maine, explained that LD 628 is crucial to safeguarding this access “so that future commissioners are not tempted to save money in their budgets or use menstrual products as tools of control by denying women access to basic necessities.”

http://mainebeacon.com/maine-gop-re...products-would-make-jails-like-country-clubs/

L.D. 628, a bill proposed by state Rep. Charlotte Warren, D-Hallowell, would help by making comprehensive access to free menstrual products a right for women in the state prison system or one of the county jails.

The bill shouldn’t stop there – the products should be free, but they should also be of adequate quality, and they should be available as needed, without requiring permission.

Testimony and news stories in Maine and elsewhere have shown that the power has been abused. It’s time to take it off the table.

https://www.pressherald.com/2019/03...ve-unrestricted-access-to-menstrual-products/

March 15, 2019

Provide Free Pads and Tampons in Jail Passes First Hurdle in CO Legislature

“The majority of people in jail custody have few resources. If people in jail custody are able to purchase menstrual hygiene products at the jail’s commissary, the menstrual hygiene products are often unaffordable. In some jails, it takes time for money to be deposited for commissary use and for commissary privileges to effectuate.”

https://coloradotimesrecorder.com/2...-passes-first-hurdle-in-co-legislature/14437/


Federal Prisons Made Menstrual Products Free


02/07/2018

Now Some States May Follow Suit

“I can’t imagine something more uncomfortable than not having the menstrual products you need for your period,” one lawmaker said.


https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/state-prison-free-pads-tampons_us_5a7b427be4b08dfc92ff5231

Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant on Thursday signed one of the strictest abortion laws in the nation — a measure that bans most abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, about six weeks into pregnancy.

Bryant’s action came despite a federal judge’s ruling last year that struck down a less-restrictive law limiting abortions in the state. The New York-based Center for Reproductive Rights called the new measure “cruel and clearly unconstitutional” and said it would sue Mississippi to try to block the law from taking effect on July 1.

http://time.com/5556314/mississippi-heartbeat-abortion-law/