GLAA Forum

Stupak is as Stupak does

The Maddow Blog writes:

Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) has been threatening to derail health reform over the issue of abortion. Stupak objects to the idea that any federal money would go toward abortion services, to the point where he'd ban women from using their own money on a public exchange to buy private insurance that covers abortions.

Repeatedly Stupak has cited a block of Democrats who'll vote with him against health reform, saying at various times that he had as many as 20 lawmakers lined up to vote no. More recently, Stupak has said he has 11 lawmakers on his side -- a group that, taken with Stupak, has come to be known as the Stupak Dozen.

Yet Stupak never names the people in his dozen. Now a senior House leadership aide who has conducted an informal whip count on the abortion issue tells us this about the "Stupak dozen": "We do not see more than four or five members standing with Bart when this bill is actually brought to the floor."

The kicker here is that what Stupak is asking for -- that the Senate adopt the same anti-abortion amendment he tacked on to the House bill -- can't be done. Health reform can pass now only through the budget reconciliation process, and the only changes to the House and Senate bills that are allowed under reconciliation are ones that directly affect the budget....

What's more, the Senate bill already clearly bans the use of federal money for abortions. Stupak is asking for an impossible fix to an imaginary problem.

Also, Stupak refuses to discuss the absurdly low rent he paid for years at the C Street House. If he accepted rent subsidies without reporting them, that's going to be a problem for him. Let's see how long he can stonewall. Meanwhile, The Hill reports, Stupak's anti-abortion shenanigans have earned him a Democratic challenger, Connie Saltonstall.

Tim Tebow Super Bowl ad: much ado about nothing?

Cyd Zeigler Jr. at OutSports writes:

What were they thinking? The Focus on the Family ad that aired during the Super Bowl aimed at fighting abortion instead promoted domestic violence with Tim Tebow tackling his mother. When it aired, everyone at the party looked at each other with a “what in hell did I just see” look.

Okay, does her son tackling her represent a man trying to force a woman to have an abortion, or force her not to have an abortion? Or is it a reference to incest? Or was the commercial supposed to have been created by someone with so-called Post Abortion Stress Syndrome? Or what? One of the advantages of free speech is that it gives people the chance to demonstrate how disturbed they are.

Roeder convicted of murdering Kan. abortion provider

AP reports swift and sure justice for a cold-blooded, unrepentant murderer:

A man who said he killed prominent Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller in order to save the lives of unborn children was convicted Friday of murder.

The jury deliberated for just 37 minutes before finding Scott Roeder, 51, of Kansas City, Mo., guilty of premeditated, first-degree murder in the May 31 shooting death.

He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years when he is sentenced March 9. Prosecutor Nola Foulston said she would pursue a so-called "Hard 50" sentence, which would require Roeder to serve at least 50 years before he can be considered for parole.

37 minutes is about the time it takes to read the judge's instructions. Not only was there no reasonable doubt, there was no doubt whatever.

Female genital mutilation occurring in U.S.

Lynn Harris writes in Salon:

Some girls came back from this past winter break with Christmas loot, ski tans, still more to say about "Twilight: New Moon." But others, women's health experts suspect, came back with deep, and literal, wounds to heal. According to human rights advocates and service providers, families in the U.S. who have immigrated from countries where female genital mutilation (FGM) is practiced often take their daughters home, when school is out, to be cut.

Yes, FGM is practiced -- or at least planned -- on U.S. soil, on girls in immigrant families who were born and/or raised here. Perhaps even among people you know: Not long ago, a concerned mother posted on my Brooklyn-area parenting list-serv that she believed an eight-year-old friend of her daughter's had undergone some form of the procedure in her home country in the Middle East (and appeared to be markedly traumatized). Archana Pyati, an asylum attorney for Sanctuary for Families in New York, has encountered dozens of FGM cases just in the past six months. "The majority of our African clients have been through it, and most often, they are fighting to protect their daughters," she says. (Older relatives with "seniority" often push for the procedure.) "It is our hope that by recognizing that FGM may be occurring under our noses we will become better able to respond to it, just as we would any other form of violence against children," she says.

FGM is already against federal law (and is against the law in 17 states), but that isn't enough. Attention needs to be brought to bear against this violent, cruel, deeply misogynistic, traditional practice.

Seattle lesbian couple helps rescue woman from D.C. Metro tracks

The Washington Post reports:

"Help!" the disabled woman cried, her motorized wheelchair overturned a few feet away as she lay sprawled on the Metro tracks at Union Station just before midnight one day last week.

Michelle Kleisath, a 29-year-old anthropology doctoral student from Seattle, was among a crowd gathered on the platform, watching aghast. She pulled her phone from her pocket to call 911 but realized there was not enough time.

"She's going to die," Kleisath, who was in the District attending a conference on race relations, recalled thinking. "Someone has to get her off."

But thanks mainly to Kleisath and her partner, Chilan T. Ta, 26, a transportation engineering student from Seattle, disaster was averted. The couple, with help from other bystanders, rescued the woman....

Kleisath, a bicyclist, said that when she reached the woman, she realized she would be unable to lift her alone. She looked up to the platform, spotted a tall man in a dark jacket, and realized he was the panhandler she had just given a dollar to after he had complained about rising Metro fares.

"Please, come down and help me," she called. The man immediately jumped down. Another man followed, and a third. Together, they lifted the injured woman onto the platform.

(Photo by Chilan T. Ta shows Ta, left, and Michelle Kleisath in a photo from a New York trip.)

Coakley's pre-mortem blames national Democrats, not herself

Democratic senatorial candidate Martha Coakley (or is that Croakley?) doesn't even wait for the polls to close in Massachusetts before lashing out. Marc Ambinder gives us a tartly annotated look at her pre-mortem memo, leaked by a Coakley adviser. I am not sure what to excerpt, but have a look yourself. I am still rooting against the odds for the Democratic turnout machine to pull out a victory, but this candidate gets less appealing the more she reveals about her attitude. If she loses as expected, can we please get a another candidate for 2012, preferably one who is delighted to stand outside Fenway in the cold talking to people?

Chait to Democrats: take a deep breath

In the face of Martha Coakley's apparently dire situation in today's special election in Massachusetts for U.S. Senator, Jonathan Chait at TNR urges Democrats not to panic:

The difference between the parties is that Republicans ignore the establishment’s advice. After Obama’s election, conventional wisdom insisted that the GOP would have to move to the center. Instead the party moved further right. And whatever the policy merits, it has worked politically. If Republicans had cooperated more with Obama, it would have given him bipartisan accomplishments and made him even more popular.

The GOP’s ability to ignore establishment nostrums in the face of defeat is its great electoral strength. Democrats, by contrast, have a congenital tendency to panic. Abandoning health care reform after they’ve already paid whatever political cost that comes from voting for it in both houses would be suicide. Even if Coakley loses, the House could pass the Senate bill as is, avoiding the need to break a filibuster, and tinker with it in a reconciliation bill that can’t be filibustered. The only thing preventing the Democrats from following through would be sheer panic.

Remember the classic scene in It’s a Wonderful Life? Facing a run on his building and loan, George Bailey tries to explain to his frantic customers how to look after their self-interest. “Don't you see what's happening?” he pleads, “Potter isn't selling. Potter's buying! And why? Because we're panicking and he's not.” President Obama’s great challenge right now is to be his party’s George Bailey.

One thought I have is that, if the Democrats are going to be harangued endlessly for not being able to pass their agenda despite having a "filibuster-proof majority" — when it is painfully evident by now that having 60 senators caucusing with them does not automatically translate into 60 votes on any given substantive or procedural vote — then they might be better off losing a seat or two so that some of the attention can properly return to GOP obstructionism.

Another thought is that, if Coakley loses tonight (or whenever the final result is known), Scott Brown only has the seat for two years before he has to run again. His telegenic b.s. will look a lot less compelling after his true colors are displayed in office. That, along with a lot of reawakened Democrats, could make for a big difference in 2012. And a setback in the congressional midterms could end up helping President Obama, just as it helped Bill Clinton after 1994. In any case, Chait is right: the worst thing the Democrats can do is panic. I have been wanting for some time to order an emergency airdrop of surplus spines onto the U.S. Capitol grounds, but I seem to have misplaced the go codes.

Scott Brown suggested Obama was born out of wedlock

Scott Brown, the smiling Republican candidate for U.S. Senate in Tuesday's special election in Massachusetts, suggested during an interview at the 2008 Republican National Convention that Barack Obama may have been born out of wedlock.

What a sleazy, gratuitous insinuation. And how was Obama's mother's age when she bore him relevant to the presidential election? This looks like the same anything-goes politics of the Teabaggers and Birthers that are supporting Brown. Martha Coakley, the Democratic candidate, should not have taken the race for granted, but I sure hope the voters of Massachusetts don't end up with morning-after pangs as some of their neighbors in Connecticut did after re-electing Lieberman.

(Hat tip: Joan Walsh, Salon.com.)

Palin signs on with Fox News

Howard Kurtz reports:

Sarah Palin, who regularly rips the media, is becoming a television pundit at a place where she's likely to feel at home.

A Fox News executive says the network will shortly announce that the former vice-presidential nominee is signing on as a contributor.

Palin, who resigned as governor of Alaska last summer, will appear as a commentator on various Fox shows. She will also host an occasional program that will examine inspirational tales involving ordinary Americans.

No surprise here. Why should she make her comments free via Facebook when she can get paid by Rupert Murdoch?

My far-flung correspondents

Bay Windows has already posted my latest column, "Feedback Farrago," on its website. This week I rummage through my mailbag. Here's an excerpt:

On Christmas Eve, "ex-gay" advocate Sharon Kass copied me on a message to Chicago-based gay writer Paul Varnell: "Untreated homosexuality, like other untreated emotional disorders, involves rage, depression, anxiety, and narcissism ... In 1999, the victim of ’gay’ lust-aggression was thirteen-year-old Jesse Dirkhising. In 2006, it was thirty-two-year-old Robert Wone ... Do you really think the American people are gonna stand for this? The plain illogic of homosexuality works against it politically. And ex-gay information is spreading. There is life after ’gay.’ And it’s better."

Instead of responding with rage, depression, anxiety, and narcissism, I wrote, "Your reference to the illogic is a nice touch, given your preposterous generalizing from a few cherry-picked horror stories. And heterosexuality should be suppressed because of the crimes of [straight serial killer] Ted Bundy ... Get help. You are making Baby Jesus cry."

After I wrote in defense of abortion rights last June, a reader identified as "Pat_1425" wrote, "Abortion is genocide. Your moral equivocation and your advocacy of genocide undermine your credibility. You are no different than Adolf Hitler or Pol Pot. The only good abortionist is a dead abortionist." I accused him of "an authoritarian perspective fundamentally at odds with American governing structures and traditions of liberty." Since he appeared to call for my violent death, I also forwarded his email to the police, and he soon received a visit from the FBI. I love a good argument, but saying you want me dead? Not cool.

One anti-gay obsessive sent me a series of obnoxious rants. I finally replied: "I thought you should know that someone using your name has been sending me the most absurd letters." (This was once written by a member of Congress to a constituent, and as a taxpayer I feel entitled to use it.)

Last week, a woman named Salwa sent the following: "As determined by the Bible, if you are non-Israelite, you are a foreign woman; and the Bible makes known that the foreign women are but prostitutes, rubbish, dirt, robber etc." I replied, "Dear Salwa, I have no idea who you are, but I am rather sure that I am not a foreign woman." Not that there is anything wrong with that.

As usual, the column will also appear in this Thursday's Metro Weekly.