Lindsey v. Women

The thing about the tantrums we saw last week, both from Brett Kavanaugh and Lindsey Graham, was that they both sounded like men who had been spending way too much time with the "president."  It makes sense, doesn't it, that if he can get away with it, they can too.  And they did.

Women like Susan Collins, who pretend to be pro-women, are really throwbacks, as are any republican women who will tolerate and make excuses for raging men, and minimize the assaults on women.  I guess because she is a women, successful in the republican party, she knew to keep her head down, study the notes she was given, and act like she was taking the high road.

The double-talk we heard last week may have taken us by surprise, but shouldn't have.  It was the same double-talk we heard during the Clarence Thomas hearing.  The woman was confused; the woman allowed herself to be put in that position; the woman waited until she had something to gain (?!) by coming forward when she did; while we sympathize with the woman, we don't believe her.  The man is having his reputation destroyed; his family and career are being harmed; his sincerity cannot be doubted.  Lies excused, attacks rationalized.

Why wouldn't Kavanaugh stick it out?  He had powerful and loud men on his side.  Donald Trump has insulted every-damn-body in the world, and knows that they will stand by him as long as he has power to wield.  And, like Clarence Thomas in 1991, Kavanaugh ends up not having his family and career destroyed:  he ends up with a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

And then there is Lindsey.  He has been taken for a ride -- and not just on the golf course -- more than once by Trump.  But he has what Trump preys on:  ambition.  So he has been strung along since November of 2016, at first tentatively throwing his support, and then with more fervor, no, fever.  What we witnessed from Graham last week was nothing short of hysteria.  He was indeed crazed.

Like Kavanaugh, he had been spending a lot of time listening to presidential rants and invective, to the point where reason was a distant memory, calm was no longer even in the repertoire.

So it was no surprise that after Graham's rant, women -- and good men -- across the country rose up with outrage.  We need to do something NOW, and the passion and determination is NOW.

I was not surprised to receive an email during that time from the South Carolina Democratic Party.  What did surprise me was that they were promoting past chair and bombast Jaime Harrison as their choice to oppose Lindsey Graham in 2020.

First of all, I have heard Harrison speak just a few times, including a couple of appearances on Rachel Maddow before the 2016 SC primaries.  I may be wrong, but it seems that whatever question he is asked, Harrison will respond with a long-winded replay of who he is and how he got here.  Harrison's success as chair can only be summed up by the Democrats' losses in local, state and national government during his reign.

That said, the most important thing about where the party stands today is that they are not RIGHT NOW promoting a woman to run against Lindsey Graham in 2020.  With the successes of women running for office across the country, with the rage and determination that resulted from the mockery of a Senate Supreme Court nomination hearing, it never occurred to our state party that Graham's assault was an invitation.

Had the situation been reversed -- and I am happy to say that wouldn't have ever happened -- but if it had -- by the end of the tirade, there would have been meetings and "bindersful of women" to parade in front of the electorate; fund raising emails promising the revenge of victimized women would have gone out in minutes.

While republicans disdain women, they know how to use us.  That is why we had a Nikki Haley as governor, but we can't seem to promote and elect a Democratic woman governor.  It pains me to say it, but they will use Nikki all the way to the presidency, and she will be happy to be used.

We do have fantastic women on the political stage in South Carolina.  While the party might jump on board when they smell success, they don't put their money or their mouth into finding and promoting women that are right here for the running.

We don't just have smart and motivated women, we have organizations right here in South Carolina that will help.

Right off the top, we have South Carolina Democratic Women's Council, and local chapters, including Charleston County Democratic Women.  I wish I could say women were well represented on the Democratic Party websites, but you have to look hard to find them.  If you want to hook up with the Women's Council or CCDW, your best bet is to look on Facebook.

Then there are the women's action networks that have grown HUGE since 2016.  WREN -- Women's Rights and Empowerment Network -- is fighting for women's issues across the state, from wage equality to healthcare to empowering women to seek leadership roles in business and, yes, politics.  Emerge America opened its doors in South Carolina in 2017.   I can't speak highly enough about the work they are doing to encourage and train women to run for political office.  Thinking you can do a better job than the jackasses now in office?  Get in touch with Emerge SC.  Want to help women who have decided to run?  Contact Emerge SC.

And of course we have great groups here in South Carolina like Planned Parenthood Action Fund and the American Association of University Women, both of which can be counted on to promote women in government as well as women's issues in healthcare and education.

Then there are all the women right here, right now, that we should be persuading to take on Lindsey Graham.  Just a few names come to mind; I'm sure we can put our heads together and think of lots more:

SC Representative Gilda Cobb-Hunter from Orangeburg 

Linda Ketner, who in 2008 nearly defeated 4-term incumbent Henry Brown for US Congress District 1 

Margie Bright Matthews, SC state Senator for District 45

State Senator Mia McLeod from Richmond County, 

So, here we are.  Do we jump up and down and wave our hands so that our Democratic Party will listen to us?  Do we -- both women and men -- insist on being represented equally in government and especially in the Democratic Party?

And most important TODAY, after Lindsey Graham invited us to step up and challenge him, do we find a woman who will fight for us, so that a misogynist like Lindsey will not be holding down that seat and voting against our interests in Congress after 2020?

Write, call, email your state and local Democratic Party.  They won't take this step unless it is absolutely clear we will accept no less.  Spread the word on Facebook, at home, at work, community meetings.

Finding and supporting a woman to step up and take on Lindsey Graham for Senate in 2020 needs to start now.  And it should really be a no-brainer.

It is time for Lindsey to go.  And he seems to agree.

"I hope the American people can see through this sham."

Being Pro-Life

Last week I read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood for the first time.  It was published in 1985, and found itself suddenly on the best seller list after the election of Donald Trump.  In this dystopian future, corporate greed and science run amok have caused massive infertility.  Religious extremists have banned pornography and forced those women who are capable to breed for the higher class of women who are infertile.  Ironically, Mary McCarthy reviewed it in the Times in 1986 and found it "powerless to scare."  I imagine if I had read it in '85 it would have made me angry.  Now that I am older and have an adult daughter, in the era of Trump when every day results in another horrific attack on liberties, it made me enormously sad.

At the same time, I happened upon an essay by Gloria Steinem from 1980 entitled, "If Hitler Were Alive, Whose Side Would He Be On?"  Gains by women in the Weimar Republic, increased freedom to work and access to abortion, were immediately eradicated by Hitler.  In the U.S. in 1973,  Roe v. Wade produced an immediate backlash, with the first anti-abortion law, attacking the poor by denying Medicaid funding for abortion.  We have seen that the anti-abortion movement, which never goes away, becomes more fervent whenever women's rights grow.  During the Obama presidency, we saw gains in access to contraception along with victories in the fight for employment equality.  The Trump backlash, led by old white men like Lindsey Graham, grows in fervor as the women's rights movement has taken on renewed energy, and the #MeToo movement seeks to hold men responsible for sexual assault and harassment.

So here we are in 2018 with minorities and the poor being attacked by the federal government, from DACA to Muslim immigrants, to attempts to do away with the minimum wage.  And front and center are the legislative assaults on women's reproductive rights.  Right-wing states' rights advocates are pushing federal twenty-week abortion bans, falsely named "pain-capable."  Personhood bills are cropping up like kudzu, along with new and improved twisted bills like "dismemberment abortion ban," which would prohibit second trimester abortions.  Be horrified but don't be surprised to learn that Trump appointee Scott Lloyd proposed something called an "abortion reversal" in order to stop a teenage detainee from completing an abortion already in progress.

And conservative darling David Brooks weighed in last week, offering his unsolicited advice to Democrats, suggesting that we go along with the twenty-week abortion ban because it affects so few women and we could trade them for something else we wanted to get done, I assume something more important than those few women wrestling with the tragedy of fetal abnormalities.  

Under the heading, With Friends Like These...: Bernie Sanders campaigns for an anti-abortion candidate.  And in 2018, we in South Carolina have a Democratic candidate for governor who proposes registering pregnant women "so the state can track their offspring and offer services if their children are not thriving."  This in a state that refused Medicaid expansion and wants to enforce work rules for anyone seeking public assistance.  I shudder to imagine what "services" would be offered.

I have talked ad nauseum about the twenty-week abortion ban, and its basis in false science.  I have ranted about a movement that calls itself "pro-life" but opposes health care for all and gun regulation.  A movement that claims to be for the family but cheers on the separation and deportation of immigrants.

How did we EVER allow this movement to get away with calling itself "pro-life" anyway?  The evil wordsmiths of the right wing have created fabrications of language that would make George Orwell blush.  Paul Ryan's "American Health Care Act" was designed to take health care away from millions of Americans.  Whenever you hear a republican talk about "gun safety" you can bet they are going to get behind whatever jackass bill the NRA hands them, and that bill will allow (or require) more guns in public places, across state lines, on college campuses, in elementary schools.

And you can bet that they all call themselves "pro-life."

It is time to take back the label "pro-life."

I am pro-life.  I believe women and children -- and men for that matter -- should all have good health care.  We live in a country of great wealth, that few of us see.  Without leaving the Koch brothers homeless we could increase their taxes and provide health care for all.

I am pro-life.  I believe that guns and gun owners should be registered, that background checks should be required.  I believe that guns do not belong on the streets, and assault weapons do not belong anywhere outside of a licensed shooting range.  I believe that police officers as well as children playing in their front yards or attending school as well as someone drinking in a bar deserve the right to be safe from an unstable individual with a gun.

I am pro-life.  I believe that women have the right to decide how to care for their bodies, privately and with the advice of a licensed physician.  Period.  In a country where "a man's home is his castle" and George Zimmerman was allowed to "stand his ground" and shoot an unarmed teenager and collect his gun on the way out of the courtroom, you are NOT allowed to legislate a woman's contraception or pregnancy.  There is not an abortion epidemic; there is an epidemic of violence against women, and attacks on reproductive freedom are part of that assault.  There is nothing "Christian" about the "Christian right."  They more resemble the Taliban than Christianity.

I am pro-life.  I respect the right of women to choose to give birth.  I completely respect and admire women who choose to give birth despite fetal abnormalities, or other hardship.  It takes a strength I don't have, and nobody has the right to make that decision for the pregnant woman.  I do not respect those few who have said that they made a mistake by having an abortion, so they choose to prevent other women from making their mistake.  Likewise, if there is a God, she/he made it so that if you choose to have an abortion, you get to do it again when you're ready, so stop talking about all the babies we could have had in the world.  If I had not had an abortion in 1973, I would not have my two wonderful children today. 

There are a lot of different rationales for being anti-abortion.  Those billionaires who fund our right-wing legislators mostly don't really care about abortion; they mostly like the distraction it causes while they pillage and plunder workers and the environment.  Lindsey Graham knows it is a dog whistle that will keep his right-wing base from championing a more extreme primary opponent and keep the big donors happy.

Right-wing Christians entertain so many twisted rationales for their beliefs that it would be impossible to generalize.  Fact free and projected from their own needs and fears, you can find the Rapture Ready, those that believe pregnancy is God's punishment for sex, and those that believe that the fetus is a little tiny baby with an erection that can pleasure itself and feel pain and that is going to be cut up into pieces with full awareness during an abortion.  If that latter image horrifies you, that is exactly its intent.

The anti-abortion movement is mostly powered by those who will keep poor and minority women -- and girls -- from being able to determine their own lives.  This is why, despite all the moaning about killing babies, these same people oppose free contraception, accurate sexual and reproductive health education in the schools, and health clinics like Planned Parenthood that provide reproductive care apart from abortion.  It is the 21st century rendition of keeping them (us) barefoot and in the kitchen.

And this is not just about women.  Smart men know that preventing women from controlling their own reproductive lives can throw an entire family into turmoil.  Not able to work to their potential.  Inadequate time or finances for the rest of the family.  The stress of having to live with a pregnancy; the stress of knowing there are options out there, but you have been prohibited from taking them.

In America, we are prohibiting women from options that are available to the rest of the developed world.  In Canada, Justin Trudeau has recently reaffirmed his commitment to reproductive rights, despite conservative protest.  When we take part in the phony dialogue about when abortion is acceptable, we are agreeing that women are incapable of determining their own paths.

When I was young, Catholics were taking a lot of crap for their large families, and Prescott Bush worked to support Planned Parenthood; later, George H.W. Bush crusaded in Congress for family planning funding.  Back then, they knew that unwanted pregnancies were a drain on resources, but now we have a government that believes it is worth the waste to keep the poor struggling.  With government assistance cut down to bare bones, a poor woman won't get contraceptive care, and when she gets pregnant, can't get an abortion, so she -- and her child -- will spend their lives living hand to mouth.  They won't be able to hold a job much less keep their children well fed and healthy.

Pro-life?  Bullshit.  It is time to take it back.  Time to say:  I am pro-choice because I am pro-life.

It is time to stop drawing lines in the sand for pregnant women to struggle with.  It is none of your damned business.  Embryos and fetuses are not cute little miniature babies.  Viability is the false argument that began it all.  It doesn't matter if it is viable if it is inside a woman's body.  Late term abortions are rare and occur when there are severe fetal anomalies.  Only a woman should make that decision.  Using science or religion to create legislation to control a woman is unacceptable.  We are not incubators.

If you want to save lives, make gun safety laws, provide health care and good education, make sure the poor all have a roof over their heads.  Don't invent an epidemic that doesn't exist so that you can win elections.

For those of you who would like to learn more -- and I hope you do -- here are two excellent books:

Pro:  Reclaiming Abortion Rights by Katha Pollitt

Life's Work: A Moral Argument for Choice by Dr. Willie Parker

The Morality of Abortion

the Ironic Cherry reads...

Life's Work:

A Moral Argument for Choice

by Dr. Willie Parker

This is a book with heart.  It is a short book; I wanted it to go on forever, but I wanted it to end so I could sit here and write about it.  I want to take each one of you by the hand and bring you to the library to check out your own copy of it.  I want to read it out loud to you.  I know I am unable to describe it to my own satisfaction, to the point where you can't wait to read it yourself.  But I will try.

Dr. Willie Parker begins his story by talking about "The Women."  It is the women, us, to which he has devoted his life's work.  He is a man of faith, African American, raised in the South, in poverty.  He acknowledges his hard work and intellect, but appreciates the support of family and educators that brought him to the work he now does.

He is a physician who performs abortions, visiting clinics where there are no other abortion doctors, in states where legislatures have chipped away at women's right to choose to have an abortion.  He is an activist, serving on boards from Planned Parenthood to the Center for Reproductive Rights, traveling to D.C. and throughout the country to give testimony in support of women's reproductive rights.

In Life's Work, Dr. Parker takes us through the changes in his life's philosophy, in which he went from being an Ob/Gyn who avoided abortion to becoming one of the nation's foremost advocates and front-line abortion doctors.  He speaks from a personal perspective, telling how he began to question the rigid moralism of the scripture, and how he became a "born again born again" Christian.  He also speaks clearly from a medical point of view, describing the aspects of the abortion procedure, because he knows that too much myth and distortion controls the conversation.  He tells us to speak out, speak to one another, speak without fear.

Speak without fear.  Dr. Parker has lived, since he has made his decision to work in the service of women who seek abortion, with the knowledge of the risk he is taking.  Each and every day that he walks into one of the clinics in which he works, he has to walk the gauntlet of antis carrying signs and yelling to the women who are merely seeking to live their lives freely.

He calls them "antis."  He does not give them any more title than that.  He writes about and debunks the lies that have been perpetuated, that doctors have been forced by legislators to tell.  He talks about the TRAP laws, those laws that are created under the pretense of protecting the safety of women, but which sole purpose is to close clinics and to make abortion inaccessible.

He tells us about the women and girls who come to the clinics, and those who are forced to carry a pregnancy to term because clinics have closed down or rules about waiting periods run out the legal timeline.  He tells about how doctors have been threatened, how laws have made it harder to practice.  He tells about the terrorists who threaten and who have killed.  And he talks about people who use their religious beliefs to intimidate and to control, and of the people of faith who have stepped up to help provide access to abortions to women who seek them.

Dr. Parker describes the changes in language on the left, wherein sincere abortion rights proponents tried to compromise with the antis, by talking about how abortion was a bad but necessary option, and how we need to make abortion safe, accessible and rare.  And how this reframing actually worked to fuel the antis.  He states with medical authority that abortion is not a "bad" thing; it is a medical procedure, a simple and safe one.  It does not have the essence of evil with which the religious right has attempted to imbue it.

In 2014, in PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights, Katha Pollitt began the conversation we needed to be having.  We needed to hear that we have no need to feel guilt or shame, we have the right to medical privacy and medical choices.  The government needs to get the hell out of our reproductive lives.  And, as borne out during the Women's March, we women (and men) are beginning to wake up from that deluded sleep that since Roe v. Wade led us to think we would no longer have to fight.

And now, Dr. Willie Parker has added another strong voice to our fight.

I hope you will take the time to give this book a read.  It is not just an important book, it is inspirational. 

I'm With Wendy

Weary with Trump fatigue, I had the good fortune to hear Wendy Davis speak at the 100 year anniversary celebration of Planned Parenthood last night.

from Post & Courier

I made my way through the half dozen misfits carrying Defund Planned Parenthood signs (the Post & Courier reported two dozen) into Cannon Green, where the event was held.  I would have been more disconcerted by the creepy protesters, but it is pretty much the same small bunch that show up at any event where women are celebrating the fight for freedom, privacy and the right to the best medical care.  Someone commented, "Well, this is the south."  But back in the 80's, when I lived in Stony Brook, Long Island, there was a small clinic in a strip mall a half mile from my home, where every Saturday morning the local scruffy old men and sad looking women would carry their nasty signs.  So, South Carolina, don't be too quick to take all the credit for misogyny.

I had been ruminating for a couple of days about the bizarre turn of events wherein Bernie Sanders threw his support behind an anti-abortion mayoral candidate.  Apparently he was right on all the other issues, so Bernie claimed his stance on abortion was less consequential than having his opponent win.  Apparently Bernie forgot that he was the politician with clout, that he could have stood up to candidate Mello the way he stood up to the Democratic Party last summer.  He didn't mind doing the "my way or the highway" until it came down to women's reproductive rights.

After all, the guy had the support of "the labor movement and environmentalists and Native Americans and the African American community and the Latino community" so of course he would offer his support.

Seems he forgot that 1/2 of all those people are women.

And sadly, women who will fight their hearts out for all people whose rights are being trammeled will forget, or make excuses for, not fighting for our own rights.

Wendy Davis spoke last night about her own coming to awareness of this during her run for governor.  Once, upon being asked if she was a feminist, she said no -- she still sounded amazed as she recounted the experience.  And later, during the dirty campaign in which her parenting was being dragged through the mud, when she was asked if she thought she was being treated differently because she was a woman... she said no.

And she said we have all done that at some point in our lives.  We still suffer the cultural bias that our welfare comes second, that it is our job to take care of everyone else before ourselves.  That if we stand up for our rights we are being selfish -- and none of us wants to be selfish.

Imagine Bernie saying he would stand behind a candidate who was right on all the issues except that he thought African Americans should not be entitled to the same education as white children.  Or that businesses had a right to not serve members of the LGBT community.  Or that immigrants should be required to show proof of citizenship whenever asked.

This whole "big tent" argument is so typical of Democrats, who live with so much insecurity about their identity that you can argue them into a pretzel on just about anything.  Suppose someone wants to be a Democrat, holds Democratic values in everything but abortion -- do we keep them out of the party?

OMG, don't be ridiculous people.  Anyone can be in the Democratic Party.  But we don't have to support a candidate who is against any one of those values.  Not if we value our values.

I am thinking of the leaders of the Women's March, who initially agreed to partner with the anti-abortion group New Wave Feminists, and then after backlash, changed their mind.  Come to our march, we are all-inclusive, stand with us, but you cannot lead us because your cause is against one group's individual rights.

I am not quite as open-minded.  It angers me that a group which purpose is to deny women rights would call itself "Feminist."  Just as I was appalled that Susan B. Anthony's name had been taken over into the anti-abortion cause.

And there it is again, that double standard.  We would not have welcomed marchers who held signs that were anti-Muslim (pro-Christian freedom), or anti-LGBT (pro-traditional families), but there were signs and banners that heralded "Feminists for Life" and other anti-choice (pro-life) messages.

Ayn Rand said it best (!) when she talked about the importance of selfishness.  Of course, she got it screwed up pretty badly when profit and greed came in to play.  But taking care of ourselves first is a bit like the announcement the flight attendant makes before take-off.  If those oxygen masks come down, you need to put one on yourself before you put them on your kids.  Otherwise, you aren't going to be around and functioning to take care of them at all.

Last night, Davis spoke about why everyone needs to support women's right to determine their own reproductive path.  When women succeed, when they are free to join the work force, make a living wage and work to their potential -- whenever that happens -- the economy flourishes.  Our families flourish.  Our democracy flourishes.

And I have to say it.  I am not as old as Bernie, but I am getting there, so at the risk of offending any men out there, I will speak my mind.  Women are smarter.  Women are able to learn more and faster, juggle more important tasks, because they have always had to do that.  Unless we are Mitt Romney's wife, we don't get away with just raising the kids.  When we work, we work harder, but always having to take care of all those important jobs outside of work.  We can squeeze a lot into the day, and do it well.  And we can prioritize, and get it right.

We empathize.  We don't have to be living on $2 a day, as too many Americans are doing, or live without health care.  We can understand what that means to our quality of life, and also how the suffering of others ripples through the rest of America.

What we women need to do now is put that oxygen mask on ourselves before we take care of anyone else.  We need to stop letting right wingnuts and christian extremists tie our hands, cut off our ability to live well and then criticize us for not working hard enough to succeed.

What do you get angry about?  Really, really angry?  Take that anger and personalize it.  Don't minimize what it means when our Democratic Party suggests that they can support a candidate who won't fight for us just because he will fight for other groups.

And we need to stop trying to find a rational argument that will convince the anti-abortion bigots that it is their right to determine the path of our lives.  The argument is:  It is my body, and it is none of your business.

After all, that argument has been working quite well for the NRA, despite all the lives lost because of their perceived right to carry weapons.  But that is an argument for another day.

Playing at the Town Hall

One thing you can say about our own Lindsey Graham is that he is having a good ole time.  I watched all I could tolerate of his performance at his town hall on April 1, about a half hour.  Of the two of us, he was the only one really enjoying himself.

He knew he was being televised, and he had a full house, in a way a captive audience at his mercy.  Which I must say was a pretty clever turnaround after all the legislators who have been caught as though running red-handed from a crime scene.  Which they pretty much were, given the horrendous acts they had committed on their constituents over the past years.

Anyway, the thing about Lindsey is that he does a smooth transition, back and forth, from a level headed, rational person to a rabid right wingnut.  Likewise, his strut across the stage and his ready laugh go from charming to a bit maniacal.

What he did on Saturday was maintain control even in the face of a furious, fed up audience.  They were actually constituents, but he sure made it feel like they were an audience.

He started off with Russia.  Russia was easy.  I could tell he knew he nailed it with the audience, because we all know that Russia is the bad guy.  Trump was another easy one, because by now we all have shorthand for what we think of him, and we knew he agreed.  And that even though he hoped the Senate could do a sound investigation, the most important thing was not to get in the way of the FBI.

Once he got us all warmed up he tossed the bucket of cold water at us.  Gorsuch.  He’s been playing that tune since the nomination.  Lindsey Graham LOVES Neil Gorsuch.  How could he not?  Gorsuch is as slick as they come – as I learned to say in the South, he cleans up real good.  But underneath that well-dressed white haired dignified suit of armor is an angry, mean control freak.  Gorsuch is going to act out every damn thing Graham can only dream of.  He will consistently rule for corporations, which I don’t even think is the most important issue for Graham.  More important, he will take down women, dashing any hope for reproductive rights, worker rights, and basically, self-determination here in the 21^st century.

Because Lindsey truly has a thing about women.  He could be reasonable about Obama, but when it comes to Hillary, his hatred is visceral.  And lately, you can see it in his eyes when he talks about Susan Rice.  Women in power.  Competent women.

So when those types of issues come up, that’s when we see crazy Lindsey.  That’s when facts fly out the window.  I believe this is why his defense of Gorsuch on Saturday was so shrill.  As though he had no idea that the nominee was even more right-wing than Scalia, he told the group that if they couldn’t see how qualified Gorsuch is then “you are blinded by your own partisanship.”  And that our problem with Gorsuch was entirely to do with Trump (and not Merrick Garland):  “You want to set the election aside because you can’t accept the results – that’s your problem,” adding, inevitably, that Trump is being investigated by the FBI, big deal, “so was Hillary Clinton.”  And of course, bringing up the made-up “Biden rule,” as though he has so much respect for Biden’s philosophy that he would follow him anywhere.

After that things went downhill.

There was the usual “Obamacare is failing,” followed by the very strange accusation that the ACA “was not designed to get us health care but to get single payer through the back door.”  A truly through-the-looking-glass moment as I recalled progressives’ anger at Obama, who had not just omitted the possibility of single-payer altogether, but also did away with a “public option” at the polite request of the insurance industry.

When that idiocy brought about some loud boos, he laughed and said, “Good fun!  This is better than going to the Flower Show.”  And proceeded to tell folks that if they like single payer, well, Canada has it.  And if we want his insurance we can join the military, apparently believing that his stint in the military is what makes him deserving of government health care, and not just being an American.  Adding that the VA system is a failure not because it does not have the funding to streamline and have more doctors, but because it is a monopoly.  Ending with a fantastical suggestion for improving health care with a combination of managed care for people of high risk (anybody remember the abomination known as managed care?), tax credits, and allowing sales across state lines.  Done and done.  Everybody insured.

About Betsy DeVos:  “She has spent most of her life working on alternatives to failing schools.”  The alternative being taking money out of public schools to profit private schools.

Around about that time, Graham had a brief attack of sanity.  Regarding social security and medicare, he offered that those with high incomes, like himself, should pay more, take less.  But then came the trade-off:  We should all be willing to raise the retirement and Medicare ages.

Now this has been a bee in Lindsey's bonnet for a very long time.  Way back in 2011, I made an ad for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee pleading with Lindsey not to change the social security retirement age.  It was actually featured on Keith Olbermann's Countdown; it was my fifteen minutes of fame and a truly proud moment.

Point being, that Lindsey is so out of touch with his constituents that he has no clue how many of us finally retire with aches and pains and actual disabilities at age 62, or force ourselves to work to age 66.  He has dismissed us whiners by saying we can just apply for disability, as though his gang of criminals has made it real easy for people who are hurting to cash in.  He has no idea how, thanks to folks on his side of the aisle, Medicare has been chipped and hacked at until it requires costly private supplements, another boon for the insurance industry.  I don't know how people survived before the pharmaceutical boondoggle known as Medicare Part D, but the way it stands now, with the drug plan, we are all in a position where cutting meds in half or living without them -- or not -- is a real option.

And then there is Planned Parenthood, where Lindsey has his final split from reality.  Again, a woman thing.  He doesn't much care about facts at this point, saying that the debate about funding "is about providing abortion services."

Lindsey is not an idiot.  He knows the government does not pay for abortion services -- although they damn well should -- yet he contends that this is the crux of the issue.  And this sometimes rational legislator is willing to not just vote for, but support cutting a truly essential source of women's reproductive health care because they also do abortions.  Like his blind spot with Hillary, the thought of women making their own choices about their bodies brings him to near Trump-level irrationality.

And I am just sick to death of having these unmarried old white guys obsessing over control of women's bodies.

But we are indeed left with crazy Uncle Lindsey.  He might toss you a quarter, but then you have to listen to him rant about Hillary and abortion if you want to keep it.  Unlike the other unmarried right wingnut who "represents" South Carolina in the Senate, at least Lindsey's head clears every once in awhile.  Is it good enough?

Graham has fought off challenges from the right.  He has lately blown away what the state Democratic Party seemed to think was its best chance, a challenger with the all the right stands on the issues, but one who was outmatched in the ability to take center stage.

Invincible?  I'm afraid it would take lots of money and a candidate brimming with personality and chutzpah, who could talk to the folks as though they were having barbecue and beer, and damned, knew what they were going through with that dad-gum gub'mint and was shore gonna fix it.  Somebody who could make even a thick-headed southerner admit that they didn't want their nutty next-door neighbor carrying a gun, or their teenage daughter having to have a baby when that nasty boy she was with got her knocked up.

That would surely do it.  And there's somebody out there just dying to step up. 

What We Want to Hear

I turned on the TV last night and of course, there was that ugly face with the tiny mouth.  Surrounded by gullible people hanging on every ridiculous word.  I was only able to watch for less than five minutes.  I had heard it all before, in various forms, many times over the past couple of years, but not by someone who had the authority of the presidency behind him.  So, nauseated, I turned it off and watched a movie.

The thing that is hardest to grapple with, and I am being brutally honest with myself here, is that the words coming out of the mouth are words we all want to hear.  Jobs are going to come back.  We are not going to let corporations push us around.  We are not going to have to suffer low wages anymore.  And all in that calm and sonorous voice that he has rehearsed, so that he doesn't break into the rhythms and bellicosity of the madman that he really is.

And so, he tells us what we want to hear.  And then he tells magnificent, appalling lies.  Millions of illegal votes.  Lying media.  People who are going to try to stop him from fighting for us, and to prevent us from getting what we deserve.

This is the world of the dictator.  This is how it happens.  Convinced that we should be afraid, that our secure lives no longer exist.  And the germ of truth is that, yes, our way of life has been threatened, our quality of life drastically reduced.  But the bait and switch is that those who have caused this to happen -- greedy corporations, right-wing millionaires and billionaires, power mad religious leaders and arms dealers -- are the ones who will be given greater power in the years to come.  Job security, health care, safety in our homes and in the streets, they will continue to die.

If Trump does his job well, the blame for the failure to come will be placed solidly in the laps of those who are trying to right the wrongs:  liberal democrats, the media, progressive leaders, responsible and knowledgeable judges.  He succeeded so well in turning reason on its head during his campaign, it stands to reason that these falsehoods will continue to work.

Except...

...except if the media continues to expose the lies.  They need to continue to learn to stop focusing on the wizard and get behind the curtain to expose the carnival barker.  And they need those of us who can to pay for their product, the hard won facts of the investigation.

...except if those lawyers and legal systems that have fought against discrimination and hate continue to make public the evil that turns us one against the other.  Who have run on a shoestring budget under the best of times, and now need more staff and greater publicity, and who need us to give what we can whenever we can.

...and except if each of us will fearlessly defend each of us.  We need to be united in the face of bigotry and scapegoating, because turning us against each other is the clearest path to the success of a dictator.  This is not just trying to correct lies and misleading information when our family and friends repeat it, although this is important.  We need to see each of our causes as our own.  I am a white-haired white woman who will never be stopped and frisked; I am not going to be forced to register my existence based on my religion.  But my daughter's reproductive freedom, and her privacy and right to the best medical care and advice will be threatened.  I will never have laws made that will monitor my use of a public restroom, or will tell me who I can marry.  But I may well lose the admittedly minimal financial security provided by social security, and like others of all ages, my health insurance.

Our right to live where we want will be jeopardized, especially if the Kochs or Trumps decide they need an oil pipeline or a luxury hotel or golf course where our homes are located.  We will be excluded from ever more places in our own country.  We will be denied access to information, as well as the right to speak our mind (as I am doing now) or question the words of others.

We -- most of us -- have lived under the assumption all our lives that we were free.  Free to talk, free to move around, free to believe as we choose, free to associate with whomever we want.

Imagine those freedoms gone, because they may be.  The "law and order" candidate will soon be in charge.  Those who thought that was a good idea may soon find that they are also on the wrong end of the law, especially if it conflicts with the special interests that will be running the country.  People who thought "religious freedom" meant that they were free may be shocked to find that some of their beliefs are no longer able to be freely expressed.  Chances are, every one of us could be on the wrong side of the "law" in these years when might will make right.

Yes, that has always been true.  But some of us were safer than others.  And most of us could feel secure in the knowledge that our own little differences weren't the ones under scrutiny.  But in a dictatorship, the tides can turn in an instant.  We have seen the man coming into power contradict himself within the same sentence.  He holds to no moral code, his only consistent value is his own importance.  He will and has attacked a perceived enemy and then welcomed him as a brother; likewise, he has thrown partners to the wolves and will do so again if it serves his own ego.

So who can trust Donald Trump?  Not any of us.  But today he is the most powerful man in the world.  Today it is us against him.  When he tries to tell us what we want to hear, we need to be brutally honest with ourselves.  If we can do this, and if we stand together, we can fight the tyranny.

Women's Rights Attacked at the Blink of an Eye -- Again

I had to drag myself away from the Donald Trump reality show to get back to reality today.  The reality being that here in South Carolina, officials are continuing to sneak in changes to abortion regulations that restrict women's rights and demean the dignity of us all.

It was the Post and Courier, as well as other state newspapers, that highlighted that state health officials are considering requiring a husband's consent before a married woman could get an abortion.  When this incredible piece of information hit the news, DHEC quickly walked it back.  They claim that this stipulation was included in error.  Apparently because a husband's consent is only required during the third trimester. 

At this point I am feeling like I have been hit with so much shit that I don't even know where to go next.

First of all, I can't believe that we have a law that requires a husband's consent to an abortion under any circumstance.  When did that happen???  How do we allow that to go unchallenged?

But then, read on.  In addition to the "errant" husband's consent requirement, there are restrictions on who can perform the abortion: this simple procedure would require a board certified OB/GYN, prohibiting qualified medical professionals from performing an abortion.

And for those women who weren't yet feeling assaulted and discredited by the system, there is mandated testing for syphilis, gonorhea and chlamydia.  That's right, our government is going to make sure you women feel dirty, or at least know that they think you are.  And they would require a Pap smear, a test no longer recommended for women under 21.  Of course, the added punishment is the cost of all the unnecessary tests.

It is egregious that government continues to hammer away at women's right to access reproductive health care, and it takes my breath away that so many pieces of South Carolina's government are involved in the process.  I am thankful that Planned Parenthood South Atlantic has its eyes open to alert us to these abuses.  And I am glad to see our own Post & Courier keeping us informed.

But being informed isn't enough.  We need to strike back each time a proposed regulation would seek to erode our rights.  As we know, each step leads to another step, with the goal being a ban on women's right to abortion, and eventually contraception.

DHEC is accepting comments on these outrageous proposed regulations until Monday.  That doesn't leave much time.  You can fill out their comment form via this link:

http://www.scdhec.gov/Apps/Health/HRPublicComments/Default.aspx


At the top of the form select proposed regulation.  Under that choose "Notice of proposed regulation."  Complete personal information and then add your comment.  Here are some sample comments from Planned Parenthood.

Don't let them get away with taking away our freedoms.  Reproductive rights mean better health for women and their families, and reproductive rights mean economic freedom.

And vote!  Vote these misogynistic hypocrites out of office, so we can get down to improving the quality of life in South Carolina and in the U.S.

I know all this is hard work, so take a break on twitter at #TrumpBookReport . You'll be glad you did.

What to Do about the Women

In South Carolina, women don't fare very well.  Whether it is health care, employment, violence, education, reproductive rights... you know what I mean.  And in spite of all the anti-abortion verbiage about protecting women, pregnant women, babies and children remain vulnerable.

On Thursday, September 1, Charleston County Democratic Women will hold its first meeting after the summer hiatus.  The featured speaker will be Jane Perdue of the Center for Women, founded in 1990, and which mission is "Dedicated to empowering and enriching women in their private and public lives."

The end goal is to increase the presence of women professionally and in elected office.  But to get there, so many things have to change.  Our daughters need to be healthy, well-fed and well educated.  They need to live in homes and walk through neighborhoods that are safe.  As they grow older, they need to have the same opportunities for higher education, employment and economic growth as men, and all those criteria need to cut across race as well.

In South Carolina, preterm birth rate is 4th highest in the nation; while the infant mortality rate has declined, there is a dramatic racial divide.  With the state's continued refusal to expand Medicaid, women and children continue to experience the harmful results.  Last year, attacks on Planned Parenthood threatened to shut down a valuable source of women's health care.  Control of our reproductive health means control of emotional and economic well-being.  South Carolina ranks #1 in violence against women.  We are still debating whether or not to allow our schools to provide medically accurate sex education to students.

What all the above means is that here in South Carolina, girls and women are faced with constant hurdles to living a good life.

The Center for Women addresses each of these issues with education and advocacy.

The year of our first woman president should be the year we move the girls and women of South Carolina into the 21st century.

Please go to the Charleston County Democratic Women Facebook page and say you will attend this important meeting on Thursday, September 1, at the Holiday Inn.  Men are welcome, because what improves the lives of women improves all our lives.  Registration is at 6, the buffet dinner is $20.00.  And please take the opportunity to become a member.

I look forward to seeing you there.  

Using Children

One would have thought that when Carly Fiorina herded children on a field trip into an anti-abortion rally the fallout would have been enough to convince the most rabid anti-abortionist that using children was a line that should not be crossed.

But yesterday, in a move so offensive it has moved the bar even lower, our own governor Nikki Haley signed the 20-week abortion ban into law surrounded by children.

In this extremely clever and contrived photo op, Haley is surrounded by adorable children, the older ones as well as an infant held by one assumes its mother in the background.  The picture was taken at Hidden Treasure Christian School, a school for special needs children.

What I would like to know is:  where did they hide the severely disabled children?  You know, the ones who aren't beautiful, or who might not want to look on attentively at the governor as she smirks for the camera.  I assume they have a few kids enrolled who don't look like they were delivered from the womb on an angel's wings.  Could it be that the message might not have been so irresistible if the children did not look so delectable?

And what is the message?  Here, too, is the evil genius of today's media smart anti-abortion movement.  By posing with these children as she signs the anti-abortion ban, the message is that these wonderful children might not be there if their equally wonderful mothers had chosen to have an abortion.  Haley is demonstrating that those aborted "babies" in fact do have a place in God's world, where people like her and the good folks at Hidden Treasure would love them like their own.

Damn liar.

Just how many children with severe disabilities are born because their mothers had inadequate health care thanks to Nikki Haley refusing to accept federal Medicaid funding?  And how many women have gotten inadequate treatment because there are too few clinics -- don't let's forget, Nikki Haley spent our tax dollars to investigate Planned Parenthood for bogus complaints, and would have these clinics closed, making it even harder for uninsured or inadequately insured pregnant women to have the care they need.  And even more tragically, how many wanted babies do not survive because of South Carolina's refusal to provide adequate health care -- and food and housing -- to all pregnant women?

And, for the record, many, many women choose to bring at-risk pregnancies to term.  The decision to have a late-term abortion is rare.  Without the intrusion of the state of South Carolina, many women weigh their ability to care for a disabled child against the cost to their families, financial means and stresses, and their own emotional resources and supports.  It is obscene to continue to promote the myth that women who decide to have a late-term abortion based on fetal risk factors are callous and selfish.  It is obscene to paint such women as murderers.  And it is a damned lie to imply that this decision is made frivolously, or frequently. 

I would like very much to know how this special needs school selects their students.  Where do the children who are unable to communicate, who cannot learn toileting skills, who need to be fed and moved from place to place?  And what other support does Haley provide for mothers who are unable to work in order to stay with their severely disabled children?  The assumption -- the lie -- is that the decision to have a late-term abortion is frivolous, and what a smug and self-satisfied attitude.  When a woman makes that choice, it is a hard one.  And when a disabled child is born to a woman with little to no support system, here in South Carolina you can bet that rarely are those kids in attendance at Hidden Treasure Christian School.

And then there is the matter of having this photo op and signing this law at a Christian school.  A school that by law and by the tenets of the constitution, is not a government funded or sponsored institution.  Of course, it could be that, were Nikki Haley to try to find such a pleasing picture in a public school, she would have to settle for the actual real-life tough cases of disability, the ones that the Christian school can screen out.  The kids that go to schools that are inadequately funded, with teachers that are underpaid in schools that are understaffed.

If you are reading this blog, you know me, and you know that when I saw the photo and the article yesterday, I was spitting mad.  After I posted the link on Facebook, I wrote a letter to The State.  I would have written one to the Post & Courier but could not because of their 30-day rule.  So I would like to share my letter with you here, and, if you too agree that Haley's message is as inappropriate, cruel and self-serving as the law itself, please join me in sharing with social media, contacting the governor's office, and in writing letters to the editor.

This is what I wrote:

Governor Haley's photo op commemorating her signing of the 20-week abortion ban is abhorrent in so many ways.  First of all, it makes apparent that this has been a religious cause, and not based on science, as its supporters falsely claimed.  And using special needs children in such a way is the lowest kind of publicity stunt, featuring religious indoctrination and coercion of those who are not yet able to make their own decisions, and about a very adult issue.  Signing the bill at a Christian school makes it clear that in South Carolina, there is no separation of church and state:  if you do not believe in the God of Nikki Haley and our legislators, your beliefs will not be honored as reflected by our laws.

I hope that the flagrant misuse of the power of government as represented by this bill signing, makes it that much easier for the Supreme Court to find this law unconstitutional.

Those who are celebrating their victory with the passage of this law have already indicated that this is just the start.  Because this was about extremist religion and misogyny, and never about science, they are not only posing for pictures in a Christian setting, they are planning for further attacks on women's reproductive rights.  Let's let them know that this is a Pyrrhic victory, and the battle is nowhere near over.

H 3114

I always write my best words in the early morning hours.  Unfortunately, I write them in my head as I lay in bed wishing I could catch another hour's sleep.  This morning, I was writing words of anger at the fact -- the fact -- of the obscene twenty-week abortion ban, the obscenely named "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" becoming law.

In a state that continues to rank above average in infant mortality, in which our governor has proudly fought federal health care for the poor, our legislature continues to waste our time and precious dollars on bills that would force women to turn their reproductive health over to the government.

In a state where gun violence rules families and neighborhoods, bills promoting the unabashed toting of weapons are as plentiful as, well, as anti-abortion bills.

But over the past years there has been a growing movement, voices that will be heard over the misogynists that have run amok over our state governments.

The headlines began in 2012 with two women representatives being banned from the Michigan House floor after Lisa Brown said the word "vagina" while speaking. 

In 2013 a woman in the Texas legislature, Wendy Davis, in pink sneakers, filibustered an anti-abortion bill that would close abortion clinics throughout the state.

Over these past years, women have come forward to talk about their abortions, no longer hiding from public opinion, realizing that unless we can put faces to the right to have an abortion, that right will be lost.

And each indignity, each lie, has added fuel to our fire.  From Hobby Lobby claiming religious freedom as the principle from which they could deny an employee contraceptive care, to the false identities used to film and edit a meeting with representatives of Planned Parenthood, women are realizing they have had enough and they are fighting back.  The younger generation, those who do not have memories from before Roe v. Wade, are aware that this important freedom is being jeopardized.  And they are pissed off.

Not too long ago, I worried that young woman, because they had always had this right, would not see that it was at risk.  I was wrong.  You can see it all over the media these days.

There is Amy Schumer's "ask your doctor" video and Samantha Bee's segment on Texas' attacks on abortion clinics ("How does removing access to health care improve health care?").  And John Oliver recently turned his pen to a scathing indictment of Texas HB 2, that bill that Wendy Davis filibustered against in 2013 and which is now being challenged in the Supreme Court.  

I have often whined about the failure of movies to show abortion as a normal medical option, but that is happening too.  Grandma, with Lily Tomlin, is a breath of fresh air and a paean to the strength of women who have had to endure the pressure and the venom of the anti-abortionist while making such an important and personal decision.

Yes, I think we have all had it.  Right now it is the Supreme Court hearing regarding that awful Texas bill that has closed most clinics in the state for reasons having nothing to do with women's safety and everything to do with limiting access.  But it is also the fact that more women (and girls), denied access to safe abortions, are seeking information on how to self-abort.  It has come down to life and death, to the days of coat hangars and back alleys, once again.

And because of this, woman are willing to fight, for themselves, for their daughters and their mothers.  Men are standing up and fighting for the women that they love and respect, who should have the right to the best health care and to make the best choices without government interference.

So while my sleep-riddled words this morning were variations on the angry and mocking words I have written before, as I became fully awake it occurred to me that H 3114 is one more step towards taking our bodies and our rights back.  We have fought hard and learned that there is no way that reason can influence those mean-spirited and intellectually limited narcissists in our state legislatures.  But armies of women can make enough noise, as we have before, and change those legislatures.

I am looking forward to women, young and old, standing up to run against the tyrants, with loud and fearless voices.  They may not have the corporate money of the right-wing, but they have the power of the cause.  I have said before that when we take back our government and our rights, it will not be with candidates who are cautious and try not to ruffle the electorate.  We are the electorate, and there really are more of us that want our rights protected.  If we aren't afraid to fight, we will eventually win.

So just as the Texas bill was weaseled into law, so goes H 3114.  But that is not the end of the fight.  It is a battle that has energized those of us who truly value life and freedom, and we will not let it go so easily.