Handmaid's Tale files

gotsnowgotslush

skates like Eck
Joined
Dec 24, 2007
Posts
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Magaret Atwood's book, has re- emerged, and may have a sequel.

New TV series, on Hulu, due to start April 26, 2017

Margaret Atwood on why we need science fiction

"We want wisdom. We want hope. We want to be good. Therefore we sometimes tell ourselves warning stories that deal with the darker side of some of our other wants. As William Blake noted long ago, the human imagination drives the world. At first it drove only the human world, which was once very small in comparison to the huge and powerful natural world around it. Now we're close to being in control of everything..."


"But it is still the human imagination, in all its diversity, that directs what we do with our tools. Literature is an uttering, or outering, of the human imagination. It lets the shadowy forms of thought and feeling - heaven, hell, monsters, angels and all - out into the light, where we can take a good look at them and perhaps come to a better understanding of who we are and what we want, and what the limits to those wants may be. Understanding the imagination is no longer a pastime, but a necessity; because increasingly, if we can imagine it, we'll be able to do it."


https://www.theguardian.com/film/2005/jun/17/sciencefictionfantasyandhorror.margaretatwood

Illegitimi non carborundum ?

The bastards wore nearly everyone in America down with their constant attacks on Hillary Clinton, and anyone that had a drop of worth.

The bastards are wearing down good people, that genuinely care.


The bastards are filling positions of grave importance.


Prime example -

Gov. Robert Bentley of Alabama, his wife of fifty years,Diane (that divorced him) married mistress Rebekah Caldwell Mason, and her husband, Jon Mason

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...governors-impeachment-proceedings-are-on-hold

High Court Greenlights Impeachment Proceedings For Alabama Governor

April 8, 201711:0

http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-...es-impeachment-proceedings-after-court-ruling

He posed as a man of pristine and untouchable reputation. There is no possible way he can justify anything that he has done. Just another selfish, hypocritical bastard, that sold everyone else, out.
 
The Gorsuch Fight Changed the Senate, Will It Change the Court ?

April 9, 2017

By eliminating the filibuster to secure the judge's confirmation,Republicans in the Senate have done more than change the body's internal procedures; they have recalibrated the separation of powers.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/08/...ill-it-change-the-court.html?ref=opinion&_r=0


Republicans invoked the “nuclear option” in the Senate Thursday, unilaterally rewriting the chamber’s rules to allow President Donald Trump’s nominee to ascend to the Supreme Court.


“We will sadly point to today as a turning point in the history of the Senate and the Supreme Court,” said Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.

The rules change is known as the “nuclear option” because of its far-reaching implications.

https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2017/04/06/showdown-at-hand-over-trumps-supreme-court-nominee


In 2005, a bipartisan deal headed off GOP plans to remove the filibuster barrier for lower-court nominees, but in 2013 Democrats took the step, leaving the filibuster in place only for Supreme Court justices.

Now it too is gone. For now the filibuster barrier on legislation will remain, though many fear it could be the next to go.


http://littlegreenfootballs.com/art...Confirmation_of_Neil_Gorsuch_to_Supreme_Court


This basically cements the Supreme Court into a conservative majority for the foreseeable future. Yes, that’s very depressing news, and there’s no way to sugar coat it. This is exactly why the Republican Party lined up to support Trump even though many of them despised him: because they knew they could use him to push their regressive ideology into every aspect of the federal government.


http://www.npr.org/2017/04/07/522902281/senate-confirms-gorsuch-to-supreme-court


Republicans blocked or delayed executive branch and lower court nominations 79 times. That's more than half of all the 149 filibusters used against presidential nominees in the nation's history.

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/republicans-democrats-senate-filibuster-gorsuch

As Ian Millhiser, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, explained to the Washington Post, Gorsuch hurt his chances with Democrats throughout the process: "He mansplained fairly basic concepts to women senators. He pushed way too hard on the 'I'm not going to express a view about anything, ever' fallback—much harder than previous nominees. And then, after the Supreme Court unanimously overturned one of his opinions, he defended himself by misrepresenting his own opinion." On the third day of Gorsuch's confirmation hearings, the Supreme Court handed down a unanimous opinion overturning Gorsuch's approach to enforcement of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a piece of Gorsuch's record that had particularly irked Democrats.

Gorsuch will soon be a Supreme Court justice, but his confirmation will go down as a major moment in the continued breakdown of the US Senate.



http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/04/republicans-democrats-senate-filibuster-gorsuch


"Senate Republicans have shown today that nothing is sacred when it comes to pushing forward Trump's agenda. Neil Gorsuch is an extremist who couldn't get confirmed by the Senate's rules. Senate Republicans have resorted to tossing out a 200-year-old rule to confirm a nominee who will pull our country's progress into reverse. Once again, Republicans are rigging the game to push Trump's corrupt agenda. If Neil Gorsuch can't get 60 votes in the Senate, he can't be trusted with a lifetime appointment on the highest court in the nation."

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2017/04/06/republican-party-nukes-us-senate-trumps-corrupt-agenda
 
Opponents of easing the filibuster warn that the next and likely step is to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which allows any one senator to hold up a piece of legislation and requires a 60-vote threshold to break the logjam and move such a bill forward. Critics of the filibuster say the maneuver is abused and used so regularly that it has rendered the Senate incapable of acting on even routine legislative matters.

The filibuster and the rights it gives to individual senators and the minority party are reasons why the Senate has long considered itself "the greatest deliberative body in the world."

But the use of filibusters and the polarization between the two parties have dramatically increased in the past two decades, making it harder and harder for the Senate to reach bipartisan consensus even on matters like the annual 12 spending bills.

The impact of McConnell's move Thursday is a matter of heated debate, and its long-term effects are unpredictable. Advocates of changing the Senate rules on filibusters say it may be a necessary evolution for a polarized Congress to function in the modern era, while opponents say it threatens to send the nation further down a path where the two parties are so opposed that bipartisanship and centrism are relics of another era.

http://news.wgbh.org/2017/04/06/pol...lls-nuclear-trigger-ease-gorsuch-confirmation
 
This comment will be totally off topic-unlike most of mine which are usually spot on.

I read Heinlein's wiki, not all of it because it was just as wordy as you are :). He was a registered Republican. He believed people have a duty to society.

That was my take on him. Duty to society can be twisted to mean whatever you want it to. If you are on a plane, it crashes and everyone survives, is you energy best spent blaming or berating the pilot, or do you think you could contribute in a more positive way?

5c9e1b0da2815ee954b78407bc30357d.jpg
 
Duty to society can be twisted to mean whatever you want it to. If you are on a plane, it crashes and everyone survives, is you energy best spent blaming or berating the pilot, or do you think you could contribute in a more positive way?

It depends...did the pilot purposefully do things (like say attempt to take away healthcare for millions of people) to crash the plane? If so the pilot deserves a good screaming at. Your analogy isn't a very good one.

Perhaps Twain is a better quote "loyalty to the nation all the time, loyalty to the government when it deserves it."
 
What is the overall message that airlines have been sending to passengers?

No dogs.
No children.
No disabled.
No elderly.
No elderly with medical problems.
No non English speaking.
No severely disabled.
No suspicious.

Direct scoop

http://www.wlky.com/article/wlky-talks-to-kentucky-man-pulled-from-united-flight/9261494


United Airlines

"Fuck off, and stop bothering us with this unimportant, infinitesimal, tiny problem. We will get back to you April 30th, or not. pffttttt"

One goon batters him, until he has a concussion, and is too disoriented to cling to his seat and resist.They drag him out of his seat. They drag his body down the aisle. Did they hurt him, again, on the stairway?



United CEO finally apologizes to battered victim after blaming him for being ‘belligerent

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/un...ctim-after-blaming-him-for-being-belligerent/


http://jezebel.com/united-airlines-ceo-explains-that-brutalized-passenger-1794208303

In the report included by Oscar Munoz on the circumstances of the man’s removal, there is even more emphasis on how the customer set up his own fall because he “raised his voice and refused to comply with crew member instructions” and as they demanded he leave again and “became more and more disruptive and belligerent.”
 
5 completely insane things Christian fundamentalists are teaching their kids


June 17, 2015

1. The Loch Ness Monster Disproves Evolution
Science PACE (Packet of Accelerated Christian Education) 1099 contains this priceless wisdom:

Some scientists speculate that Noah took small or baby dinosaurs on the Ark…. are dinosaurs still alive today? With some recent photographs and testimonies of those who claimed to have seen one, scientists are becoming more convinced of their existence…

This caused a media storm when it was revealed that ACE schools would be eligible for Louisiana’s school voucher program. Earlier this year it was reported that ACE had removed the Loch Ness Monster claim, but this is only the case outside of the United States. The information which replaces Nessie for international students is scarcely any better:

2. Solar Fusion Is a Myth

That’s because, contrary to their assumptions, the sun is not a massive gas boiler gradually shrinking as it burns fuel. It’s a fusion reactor. This doesn’t fit their model, so they outright deny the truth:

3. Japanese Whaling Boat Found a Dinosaur

(It was a decaying basking shark.) This, lie, supporting the denial of evolution, remains in American editions today.

4. Evolution Has Been Discredited

(If you insist on questioning the examples PACE places before you, you will face the accusation of being-

"...a person who is not right with God."

5. Humans Footprints Found Beside Dino Tracks

Unfortunately, the human tracks aren’t real. They may have been a hoax.


http://www.salon.com/2015/06/17/5_c...tian_fundamentalists_are_teaching_their_kids/
 
It's supposed to be really good. I would watch that kind of stuff in the morning all the time.
 
April 7, 2017

"Thanks to the president of the United States, we have now seen the structural support system that allows workplace sexual harassment to persist, writ large."

"And it is sickening."


http://www.chicagotribune.com/busin...lace-harassment-0409-biz-20170407-column.html

"Everything that has happened in the last week is reinforcing a message that sexual harassment isn't taken seriously, that serial harassers will be protected, and that powerful people can do whatever they want without consequences," said Maya Raghu, director of workplace equality at the National Women's Law Center, a women's rights advocacy group in Washington. "If you're a victim and want to report, there will be serious negative consequences for your job and your career. It's essentially saying that putting up with sexual harassment is the price that women have to pay for keeping a job."

Rollback of President Obama's executive orders

April 4, 2017

Trump took away women's worker protections right before Equal Pay Day. More specifically, on March 27, Trump signed a bill rolling back the Obama-era Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule.


Executive Order 13502, Feb. 6, 2009, encouraging executive agencies to consider “project labor agreements in connection with large-scale construction projects in order to promote economy and efficiency in Federal procurement.”

Executive Order 13627, Sept. 25, 2012, “strengthening protections against trafficking in persons in federal contracts”

Executive Order 13658, Feb. 12, 2014, establishing a $10.10 hourly minimum wage for contractors and allowing for annual increases.

Executive Order 13665, April 8, 2014, prohibiting retaliation against any contract employee or applicant who “has inquired about, discussed, or disclosed the compensation of the employee or applicant or another employee or applicant.”

Executive Order 13672, July 21, 2014, “prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity”

Executive Order 13673, July 31, 2014, the Fair Pay and Safe Workplace directive “to require prospective federal contractors to disclose labor law violations and give agencies guidance on how to consider labor violations when awarding federal contracts”

Executive Order 13693, March 19, 2015, “to maintain Federal leadership in sustainability and greenhouse gas emission reductions”

Executive Order 13706, Sept. 7, 2015, “establishing paid sick leave for federal contractors.”


https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...ace-reversal-by-trump/?utm_term=.9335b54e6e45



http://www.workplacefairness.org/news

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/...t-are-we-settling-for.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0
 
People who read The Handmaid’s Tale think it could never happen here — but it already did

April 17, 2017

BILL MOYERS: Seventeenth-century theology? How would you sum it up?

MARGARET ATWOOD: The argument about predestination.

BILL MOYERS: Being the elect or the not elected.

MARGARET ATWOOD: Being the elect or the nonelect. There is a heresy called the antinomian heresy. And somebody says that Tony Blair’s a member, but never mind that. Under antinomianism you’re convinced that you are one of the elect, alright that you are one of the elect, that you are destined to be elect from birth. That you’re going to be saved no matter what, and therefore you can do anything, because you’re already marked as one of the elect. So that of course just let’s you do all the most atrocious things you might be inclined to do, while still believing that you are justified.

I think it’s the kind of event that replays itself throughout history when cultures come under stress. When societies come under stress these kinds of things happen. People start looking around for essentially human sacrifices. They start looking around for somebody they can blame. And they feel if only they can demolish that person, then everything’s going be okay. And it’s of course never true, but there are these periods in history. If things aren’t going well, it must be the Communists. Let’s have Joe McCarthy. You know things aren’t going well. It must be them liberals. Whoever it may be.



https://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/pe...t-could-never-happen-here-but-it-already-did/


MARGARET ATWOOD, THE PROPHET OF DYSTOPIA

Her fiction has imagined societies riddled with misogyny, oppression, and environmental havoc. These visions now feel all too real


Atwood argues, women have been put on notice that hard-won rights may be only provisional. “It’s the return to patriarchy,” she said, as she paged through the clippings. “Look at his Cabinet!” she said of Trump. “Look at the kind of laws that people have put through in the states. Absolutely they want to overturn Roe v. Wade, and they will have to deal with the consequences if they do. You’re going to have a lot more orphanages, aren’t you? A lot more dead women, a lot more illegal abortions, a lot more families with children in them left without a mother. They want it ‘back to the way it was.’

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/17/margaret-atwood-the-prophet-of-dystopia



Never has American democracy felt so challenged.” The necessary conditions for dictatorship, Atwood noted, include the shutting down of independent media, which mutes the expression of contrary or subversive opinions; writers form part of the fragile barrier standing between authoritarian control and open democracy. “There are still places on this planet where to be caught reading you, or even me, would incur a severe penalty,” Atwood said. “I hope there will soon be fewer such places.” Her voice dropped to a stage whisper: “I am not holding my breath.”
 
I've read that book from cover-to-cover, and it's nothing compared to Orwell. Nothing. Nada. Zero.

This book aint got nothing on thought crimes and think speech.

And before anybody says it, yes... it was a college assignment. 'sigh' I didn't know about SJWs back then.
 
A delicate, gargantuan mechanism that fosters a brutal message?

Spreading the hate...


"...student chapter of a far-right libertarian think tank, the American Enterprise Institute, asked him to speak, and AEI picked up the tab.


Another conservative nonprofit, Young America’s Foundation, also establishes student chapters at numerous universities and sends bigoted scholars and lecturers including Ann Coulter, David Horowitz and Ted Nugent to speak at their campus events free of charge. Bankrolling these nonprofits are conservative mega-donors including Charles and David Koch and the DeVos family, who by funding the organizations enable hate speech at institutions of higher education.


http://www.alternet.org/right-wing/...tionally-funding-hate-speech-college-campuses
 
Discontinuing the “Let Girls Learn” program is another slap in the face from the Trump administration to the women of the world since he took office. Just three days after his inauguration and two days after the record-breaking global Women’s Marches, Trump signed an executive order that that bans U.S. aid to overseas non-governmental organizations that provide or advise on abortions.

Last month, on #EqualPayDay, it came to light that Trump had rescinded President Obama’s Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces order, the rolling back of which negatively impacts women in terms of fair pay and harassment suits.


http://www.advocate.com/women/2017/5/01/trump-deals-blow-michelle-obama-all-women
 
Three blows taken at Democracy, today.

Listed in Handmaid's Tale, were punishments for people that did not conform to the Extreme Religious Right's idea of lawful.

The excuse given for the loss of freedom, liberty, and charity for nearly everyone, was the failure of reproduction of healthy babies.


What is the excuse, for what was put into motion, by our Un- President. today ? Is it because the nation as a whole, rejects the idea that the Christian religion should dominate our government ?

What is produced by our current Un- President, is a twisted message.
"Do not take what is said by me, to be serious or threatening."
"I don't stand by anything."

We are asked to believe that his true supporters are located in low income, struggling, patches of rural areas in America. His own words, deny that this is the truth.

"Those people, they are not my true friends, my true friends are billionaires, like me."

National Prayer Day 2017

Last night, Donald Trump dined with Religious Right leaders as he prepared to sign an executive order weakening contraception coverage requirements for health insurance plans and directing the IRS to exempt houses of worship from enforcement of a law prohibiting a wide variety of tax-exempt entities from openly engaging in electoral politics.

Guests of the White House

Texas pastor Robert Jeffress, James Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family; Jim Garlow, a California pastor who was one of the chief organizers behind Proposition 8; Ralph Reed, the head of the Faith and Freedom Coalition; televangelist Paula White; author Eric Metaxas; pastor Ramiro Pena; Richard Land; Samuel Rodriguez; and Billy Graham’s son Franklin Graham.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/donald-trump-hosts-far-right-pastors-before-executive-order/


The House voted for a replacement for President Obama's ACA health care plan. They do not care who it will hurt.
 
May 4, 2017

Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz returned to vote, to deny health insurance to people with pre-existing conditions- raped women, abused women, women that had C- section surgery. Insurance paid for his major surgery for a pre-existing condition. April 26, 2017 Chaffetz announced his intention to have surgery on his pre- existing foot injury. He rolled himself in, on his modern, wheeled, knee walker, to take part in removing insurance from millions of people.

https://mic.com/articles/176092/und...considered-a-preexisting-condition#.JAVVmii64

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...-leave-from-congress-due-to-foot-surgery.html

Why are Republicans House members unconcerned ?

Because, the ACA repeal is not about health care. It’s about giving a massive, nearly $1 trillion tax cut to the nation’s highest-income households.

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/the-secret-republican-plan-to-redistribute-americas-wealth

Designed to essentially work as a Dodd-Frank kryptonite...


Unaccompanied by noise, fanfare, distress or celebrations with beer- House Financial Services Committee voted 34 to 26 to repeal and replace Dodd-Frank with the Financial Choice Act


The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was born out of Dodd-Frank.


Financial Choice Act gives Congress control of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s budget, which it could take down to a much less dictatorial $0.

Additionally, CNN Money reports, the bill would “create an alternative path for banks to bypass a number of . . . tough restrictions under the law, if they meet a certain measure of bank capital” and give the president the power to fire the heads of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Housing Finance Agency “at any time for any—or no—reason at all.”

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/05/the-secret-republican-plan-to-redistribute-americas-wealth

"The regulators are running the banks. So we're going to do a very major haircut on Dodd-Frank," Trump said last month during a CEO town hall in Washington, D.C."


http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/trumps-banksters-and-rollback-dodd-frank


The biggest banks are far bigger today than they were in 2008. Then, the five largest had 25 percent of U.S. banking assets. Today they have 44 percent.

Getting rid of Dodd-Frank triples the odds of another financial crisis.

Meanwhile, Trump has brought more banksters into his administration than any in any previous administration – mostly, from Goldman Sachs.


http://robertreich.org/post/160218921180

If Trump and friends have a problem with Russian monies... hmmm
 
Would Donald Trump object to a demand from the Extreme Right religious ?Would Donald Trump accept the suspension of the Constitution ?Would Donald Trump protest the declaration of martial law ?

Not long ago, there was involuntary lobotomy therapy.

The Left sandpapered away, at the harms from the past. Currently, the Right sandpapers away at the humane and caring protections and provisions.

Conversion therapy is available as a choice for adults- the controversial therapy is still legal for adults.

Donald Welch is an evangelical minister and licensed therapist who's in charge of counseling at the Skyline Wesleyan Church in San Diego. He is arguing that the ban on conversion therapy interferes with his rights to free speech.

The court filing explains Welch counsels minors in his capacity as minister, and cannot contradict the teachings of the church, which include the belief that sexuality is "to be expressed only in a monogamous, lifelong marriage between one man and one woman."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...on-therapy-ban

May I, 2017

Supreme Court has again rejected a challenge to California's ban on so-called gay conversion therapy.

The justices did not comment Monday in turning away an appeal from a San Diego minister and others who argued the law violated their 1st Amendment religious freedoms.

The federal appeals court in San Francisco had previously upheld the law in dismissing the constitutional challenge.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/wash...htmlstory.html

The U.S. Supreme Court rejected an appeal to a California law banning therapists from trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation through conversion therapy, allowing the law to stand

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2017/05/...t-people-harm/


May 1, 2017

Recently, a process server attempted to serve Obama at his Washington, D.C.. home with Klayman’s lawsuit but was turned away by the Secret Service, which prompted Klayman to post a video accusing Obama of hating the Bible and trying to impose Sharia law on America.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/l...ur-holy-bible/

Tonight, after correcting the record yet again, Maher said, “I don’t think Rick Santorum is lying on purpose. I think Rick Santorum’s sin is most Republicans’ sin – they live in a bubble. They only see sh*t on right wing blogs and websites and Fox News. This ‘alternative fact’ nonsense did not start with Trump, it started a long time ago at the Sexual Harassment Network."

http://deadline.com/2017/05/donald-t...on-1202080474/
 
Senate bars women from healthcare working group


Now that the House of Representatives has passed legislation to undo Barack Obama’s healthcare law, it’s the Senate’s turn to draft legislation. Republicans selected 13 men – and no women – to do that.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2017/may/09/senate-healthcare-working-group-no-women

gsgs comment-

"all-male makeup of the 13-member group"

13 Wealthy White Republican men decide that every woman in the United States do not have penises, so they can be excluded, disregarded, and ignored.

/end gsgs comment

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell fended off criticism Tuesday that a working group of Republican senators he's asked to craft a health care bill lacks women, saying all 52 GOP senators were shaping the legislation.

The all-male makeup of the 13-member group was clearly an irritant among some of the chamber's five GOP women. It also became a target for Democrats eager to paint the evolving Republican legislation as a measure that's damaging to women needing medical care, even as key decisions are being made by men.

http://www.stamfordadvocate.com/new...GOP-to-drop-their-plan-to-repeal-11132198.php

"Thirteen men are deciding the future of American health care tonight,” Burnett said on air. “Why couldn’t they find one woman to represent the concerns of 126 million female adults in the United States of America?"

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto...ealth_care_working_group_says_women_aren.html

13 Senators in health working group so far:

Alexander
Lee
Cotton
Gardner
Portman
Cruz
Toomey
Enzi
Hatch
McConnell
Cornyn
Thune
Barrasso

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/senate-republicans-obamacare-repeal-planned-parenthood

March 10, 2017

GOP Lawmaker Asks Why Men Should Pay for Prenatal Care



Republican Representative John Shimkus asked the question-

"What about men having to purchase prenatal care?”

Rep. Renee L. Ellmers (R-N.C.) asked the question-

“To the best of your knowledge, has a man ever delivered a baby?” Ellmers asked.
 
The "optics" of tye exclusion look bad ? McConnell previously said the optics were unimportant.

. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) cosigned a letter earlier this year objecting to the House's proposal to end Medicaid expansion, which has helped lower the uninsured rate for adults in her home state from 22 percent in 2011 to 8.7 percent in 2015. Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) have both objected to the bill's provision defunding Planned Parenthood. Collins' absence from the working group is particularly surprising, since the Maine senator has taken a leading role in crafting one of the few fully fleshed-out alternative proposals to the House's bill.

A minor adjustment, McConnell decided one woman could listen in, as the men discussed important matters.

May 9, 2017

According to the Hill, the all-male group revising the American Health Care Act invited at least one woman to a meeting on Tuesday afternoon — Republican Senator Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia.

“We’re going to be talking about Medicaid; that’s the issue I’m concerned about,” Capito — whose state expanded Medicaid coverage under Obamacare — told reporters. When asked if she’ll return for subsequent meetings, she said, “I don’t know.”


http://nymag.com/thecut/2017/05/senate-gop-allows-women-to-join-health-care-group.html

"Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) cosigned a letter earlier this year objecting to the House's proposal to end Medicaid expansion, which has helped lower the uninsured rate for adults in her home state from 22 percent in 2011 to 8.7 percent in 2015. Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) have both objected to the bill's provision defunding Planned Parenthood. Collins' absence from the working group is particularly surprising, since the Maine senator has taken a leading role in crafting one of the few fully fleshed-out alternative proposals to the House's bill."

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/05/senate-republicans-obamacare-repeal-planned-parenthood
 
"In one of the show’s most horrifying sequences, Ofglen wakes up in a hospital bed to find her genitals have been mutilated. That’s right: The Handmaid’s Tale reserves its ugliest, most woman-hating punishment for poor Rory Gilmore."

http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood...-episode-5-faithful-alexis-bledel-death-scene


The report said that psychologists participated in interrogations at CIA black sites, helping to “identify vulnerabilities of detainees and collaborate with interrogators in exploiting them.” Medical personnel in Iraq and Afghanistan were also involved in interrogations.


Military physicians and other health professionals participated in the “design, use and monitoring of waterboarding,” the report said. Doctors and nurses helped to force-feed detainees on hunger strike, using restraint chairs and nasal feeding tubes. At Guantanamo Bay, medical records were shared with interrogators and used for intelligence gathering, leading many detainees to refuse medical treatment, the report found.

“A health professional has an obligation not to participate in acts that deliberately impose pain or suffering on a person,” the report said. “Replacing ethical standards with a legal one — that is, only to refrain from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment — eviscerates the ethical standards.”


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/a...s-participated-in-torture-of-terror-suspects/
 
Women make up over 50% of the population. Any country which does not make a concerted effort to include women is denying itself 50% of its brain power. This is 2017. Are women with experience and education so lacking that any sort of government initiative does not have at least 1/3 women? To do so is short sighted and just asking for bad press.
 
May 13, 2017

Something odd, occurred this week, on Boston Common. A distorted mirror's reflection of the Berkeley confrontation.


http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/05/14/teens-bbring-4chan-politics-to-boston

Message- The 1% needs the people of the United States to be divided, and fighting amongst themselves. The Tea Party grew in an artificial womb, and was a success. Their newest creation has attracted teenagers. May 13, 2017 A sad picture, is the mother that delivers her son to this event, because she loves and cares for him. Did he witness the sight of one of his comrades (a full grown man) crossing the police enforced line, to punch a teenaged girl ?

A lovely Mother's Day, for her ?
 
Accomplished, Before Emperor Carrot was due to arrive in Saudi Arabia. He will not be forced to explain why it is not possible to buy a nice, decent bride in America.


This past week, Chris Christie voted to keep forced marriages on the books, as legal.

Freedom, for a female citizen to choose who she might marry ?Better, she be married to someone her father approves of. Better, she lose her virginity to her husband, even if it is a rape. Better she bears her rapist's child, than to bear a bastard.

Is mutilation of female genitals legal, in New Jersey ?


http://www.nj.com/opinion/index.ssf...barring_minors_from_m.html#incart_river_index


http://www.independent.co.uk/voices...ious-freedom-end-female-liberty-a7742196.html
 
As you travel across the Middle East, including Turkey, you will see the cities belong to men. The streets belong to men … women are being pushed back into the private space.” She said that in Turkey politics at local, regional and national level is overwhelmingly male. “It is very masculinist, it is very divisive and it’s very aggressive,” she said. “And the few women that exist in that space de-feminise and desexualise themselves.”


It is the systems themelves we need to look at, argued social activist and psychotherapist Leyla Hussein, who campaigns against female genital mutilation (FGM). For example the 52% of white women who voted for Trump.

“Look at our education system, in the UK our biology books don’t feature the clitoris,” she said. “Girls education is important but when we don’t educate girls about their rights, their body and their right to their sexual freedom – I don’t care what university she’s been to because she’s still stuck in that same system.”

There is a greater awareness among victims and complainants that institutions – like the police and the crown prosecution service – are taking it more seriously. So, on that level there is progress. But there is a note of caution. Sitting [in court] you see again and again how the system re-traumatises victims and complainants. The appreciation of these issues in the profession is not great.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...afak-its-a-crucial-moment-for-global-feminism
 
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