Me Me Me Me Me

Quoted in The Indianapolis Star

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Tue, 29 May 2012 21:00:00 +0000

For those who missed it, I was quoted in a story on the front page of today’s The Indianapolis Star. I was interviewed by reporter Chris Sikich for his story Allisonville Road bridge project in Indianapolis to begin Wednesday. Any my big quote?

I’m expecting it to be a mess.

Eloquent, no?

But it was on the front page.

Mitt Romney: A Man Without the Instincts or Moral Fiber to Do What’s Right

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Tue, 29 May 2012 20:32:00 +0000

In several posts over the last few months, I’ve taken Mitt Romney to task for his tepid responses to over-the-top rhetoric from Rush Limbaugh’s “slut” and “prostitute” accusations (and lies) to Ted Nugent’s violent fantasies to the attacks against Romney’s chosen spokesperson who just happened to be gay to his failure to really accept responsibility for or demonstrate that he learned anything from being a high school bully (see Insults, Apologies, and the False Equivalency in the War of Words, Mitt Romney, Ted Nugent, Dana Loesch, the Politics of Hate, and the Fear of the Voting Base, Bullying and the Lessons Learned (Mitt Romney Edition)). The genie that Sarah Palin let out of the bottle in the 2008 campaign and which John McCain tried unsuccessfully to tamp down is now in full swing. And Mitt Romney has demonstrated that he has either no interest in preventing hate-filled or racist rhetoric or that he simply doesn’t have the spine to do so. In either case, that is neither a winning formula for a presidential candidate nor the hallmark of a man who would be a successful occupant of the Oval Office.

Several new incidents have occurred that offered Romney further chances to demonstrate that he understands the importance of using the bully pulpit to call out that which is wrong … but following each of those incidents he has settled for the role of the coward, willing to allow others to engage in hate speech while he simply looks around as if to say, “Who, me?” while washing his hands of any sort of responsibility or need to call intolerable behavior just that.

The most well-known of these recent incidents is Donald Trump’s return to spouting birther nonsense and claiming that President Obama is a liar (on the basis of … well … nothing, really). And all of this came just a few days before Romney shared a stage with Trump for a major fundraiser. So what did Romney say in response to Trump’s birther comments?

You know, I don't agree with all the people who support me and my guess is they don't all agree with everything I believe in. But I need to get 50.1 percent or more and I'm appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.

Now let me be clear about one thing: I don’t hold a candidate responsible for everything that every supporter of that candidate has to say. That’s foolish. But…

You see, there are supporters and then there are supporters. There is a difference between someone who believes in the candidate’s position and maybe even offers a few dollars of support and a billionaire that the campaign actively sought an endorsement from. There is a difference between someone who attends a campaign rally and someone who hosts a high dollar campaign fundraiser. There is a difference between an “average Joe” and a egotistical television personality with a name and hairdo recognizable to virtually everyone. It isn’t a case of “guilt by association” to ask Romney about the statements of someone that Romney has gone out of his way to work with and from whom Romney expects aid in raising millions of dollars because that association is one of Romney’s own choosing and one that he could set aside if it was the right thing to do and if he had the moral fiber to recognize and act upon that.

Romney hasn’t rejected Trump’s endorsement (or money) any more than he’s rejected Ted Nugent’s endorsement. Compare that to the actions of Sen. McCain in 2008 when he rejected Rev. John Hagee’s endorsement because of things that Hagee had said about the Catholic Church and the Holocaust. Sen. McCain understood that doing what’s right was more important than an endorsement and that integrity was more important than winning. Romney, who has already proven that he will do or say (or even “believe”) anything to get the nomination, is also proving that there is nothing too low for him allow his supporters or surrogates to say or do.

Moreover, Trump isn’t the only Romney supporter who has been engaging in birtherism in recent weeks. You’ve probably heard about the efforts of Arizona’s Secretary of State Ken Bennett to get Hawaii to certify President Obama’s birth certificate. Bennett went so far as to tell an Arizona radio station that he might keep President Obama off of the November ballot. While Hawaii has now certified the birth certificate and Bennett has “apologized” saying “if I embarrassed the state, I apologize” (emphasis added, and note that the apology is for embarrassing the state, not for the harm to the political process or President Obama), Romney has said nothing about the matter. And why should he, you ask? Again, Romney isn’t responsible for the idiotic statements or actions of other Republican office holders. However, in addition to being the Arizona Secretary of State … Bennett is the co-chair of Romney’s campaign in Arizona. So, while Romney may not be responsible for the statements of just anyone, he certainly should be held accountable for the statements of his surrogates and his chosen campaign officials.

And it’s not just how Romney has responded (or not…) to Trump and birtherism. For example, consider the following exchanges between Sen. McCain and voters back in 2008.

Now compare Sen. McCain’s reaction above to how Mitt Romney responds when a woman suggests that President Obama should be tried for treason.

Quite a striking difference, no? To be fair, when asked by reporters after the event, Romney did say that he did not agree with the woman’s comments that President Obama should be tried for treason. But he didn’t have the spine or moral instincts to tell her (and the audience who cheered her) that she was wrong. And he didn’t volunteer that opinion until asked by reporters. Hard to get that 50.1% if you tell people something that they don’t want to hear I guess.

There is yet one more recent example that I want to touch on, one that has gotten very little attention. A few weeks ago, Romney held a “secret” meeting with a group of conservative (right-wing?) online writers and bloggers. Included in that meeting was blogger Dan Riehl of RiehlWorldView (I’m not going to provide a link because … well, because I don’t want to give him any traffic and some of the views that he offers are just … well, keep reading). Without going into too many specifics, I can safely say that Riehl doesn’t seem to have any sort of internal filter on the things that come out of his mouth (or, fingers, I suppose). I’ve had my own run-in with him on Twitter and seen how he responds to those with whom he disagrees. Riehl is the sort of character who, rather than discussing facts or issues, throws ad hominem attacks and seems to have a fixation on using sexual references and innuendo as his favorite form of attack. So a few days ago, following an appearance on MSNBC by Joan Walsh (the editor-at-large of Salon.com), Riehl went on the (sexual) offensive again, with, among other things, the following tweets:

I don’t mind Joan Walsh getting low, but if she’s going to open her mouth, wish she’d do something I might actually enjoy for once!

And

I think I may have just discovered the most polite way of telling Joan Walsh to suck on this. lol

And

&, please, no indignant protestations of any alleged sexist attack. The woman is a pox, not a woman as ive evr considered sum1 2 B 1

Nice guy, huh?

Moreover, as Mediate notes, Riehl has a history of this sort of incendiary, sexually charged attack:

The Romney campaign could not have known that Dan Riehl was going to make this particular attack on Joan Walsh, but Riehl’s history includes sexist attacks on Meghan McCain, publishing photos of a rival blogger’s 4 year-old niece under the headline “Is Jeff Poor A Pedophile?,” and publishing another article wondering, as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s wife lay in the hospital after a serious car accident, “Isn’t It Time To Euthanize Reid’s Wife?”

This isn’t even his first foray into speculative oral sex fiction. Riehl previously targeted The Daily Caller’s Tucker Carlson with his fellatio fantasies, publishing an article entitled “Breaking: Tucker Carlson To Give Head On Pennsylvania Avenue.”

This is the sort of person that Romney is inviting to secret meetings to help him win the White House. Again, Romney isn’t responsible for what every blogger has to say any more than President Obama is responsible for what I have to say; Romney isn’t even responsible for what every blogger who supports him has to say. But when one of his chosen bloggers engages in hyper-sexualized attacks of the sort that Riehl has a history of making and when he makes such an attack after being invited into Romney’s secret cabal of bloggers, then doesn’t Romney have an obligation to stand up and say “this is wrong” or “I appreciate Dan Riehl’s help but his attack on Joan Walsh was over-the-top and unacceptable”?

Recall, of course, that when Hillary Rosen, a pundit not affiliated with the Obama campaign made far less offensive statements, leading members of the Obama campaign called out those statements literally within hours and President Obama did so the following day. And none of those statements minced words; they tackled her comments head on with strong rejections.

But when prominent Romney supporters dabble in birtherism (well, in the case of Trump, “dabble” is probably a total understatement), when supporters accuse President Obama of treason, when hand-picked bloggers engage in sexual verbal attacks, what we hear from the Romney campaign is barely a hint of criticism which serves only to register his implicit support for those statements.

Based on his conduct in incident after incident, Romney has demonstrated over and over and over that he has neither the spine nor moral fiber to be President.

How to Respond to “Facts” That Aren’t?

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 25 May 2012 17:48:00 +0000

Several times over the last few weeks, I’ve heard someone tell me a “fact” about President Obama’s policies that I know to be false. For example, I was reminded that President Obama signed a UN treaty that will eliminate the Second Amendment. False. Another person complained to me about how much their taxes had gone up because President Obama raised their taxes. False. Someone else said that they didn’t think it was right that President Obama wanted to force churches to recognize gay marriages. False. Those are just some highlights.

So here’s the question: What is the best way to respond to these people? I can explain that UN treaty has to do with arms trafficking and has nothing to do with domestic US gun laws (or that a treaty cannot trump the Constitution). I can talk about tax policy and how taxes have been lowered and are at their lowest rates in 50 years (give or take). And I can talk about same-sex marriage until I’m literally blue in the face.

But the people who cite these “facts” don’t appear to be willing to listen. They head it on Faux News or read it in a chain email that they received from a “trusted” source or even in a mailer from their legislator (and a politician would never lie, right?). And so when these people go into the polls, they are making their choices on policy decisions based on lies. As I’ve said over and over, if that person has a different view than I do, that’s fine (though I’d like to convince them and bring them around to the side of light and good). But if that person’s honest viewpoint is based on dishonest, fraudulent, false information, then of what value is that viewpoint? People don’t want to believe that they’ve been lied to or manipulated, but they often seem unwilling to trust contrary information. The chain email is more reliable than The New York Times because “the mainstream media is biased in favor of liberals” or something similar. And if they heard it on Faux News, then it must be true!

Thus, I’m curious to know how others confront this sort of situation. And please don’t say that you just ignore it or walk away. Allowing a lie to stand just helps make it true to those who repeat it over and over again. But what strategies work to get people to take a realistic look at the false information that they’ve been fed? Which sources of information are deemed reliable enough to justify a reconsideration of “facts”? What styles of argument or explanation work to help debunk the lies that people have latched onto and taken as truth?

Maybe I’m being a bit overdramatic, but I think that the solution to this problem is central to the stability of our political process because we cannot make good decisions on complicated issues if our reasoning is based on fraud and lies.

Objections to Marriage Equality Just Don’t Make Sense

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Wed, 16 May 2012 21:05:00 +0000

In the wake of President Obama’s announcement that he supports same-sex marriage, the response that I keep hearing from opponents of marriage equality is that allowing gays to marry will somehow damage the institution of marriage. And, though I’ve written about this before (over and over, it seems; see for example Can Somebody Help Me Understand…?), I still don’t understand how the actions of one couple in formalizing their loving relationship will have any impact whatsoever on other couples. What is the fear or concern that opponents of same-sex marriage are really expressing? Is there really something beyond homophobia or the “ick factor” of a gay sex?

If you are an opponent of marriage equality, will you decide not to get married because gay couples can get married? Will you divorce your spouse because gay couples can marry? Will you suddenly decide not to adopt? I didn’t think so. Thus, I’m really having a hard time understanding how a gay marriage will impact heterosexual marriages or heterosexual individuals. How will someone else’s happiness harm you?

One line of explanation is that allowing gay couples to marry would be “changing the definition of marriage”. OK. I’m not sure that I agree. But let’s work with that for a moment. Why is changing the definition of marriage a problem? Again, if the definition is changed to become more inclusive will that cause you to not get married or force you to get divorced? Of course not. So what’s the problem? Not terribly long ago, the definition of marriage in many states also exclude interracial marriages. Did changing that definition have some sort of societal-wide adverse consequences upon single-race marriages?

Even as the law stands right now (and without even focusing on the fact that some states allow same-sex marriage), the definition of marriage already varies from state to state. In most states, individuals must be 18 to get married, but in Nebraska they need to be 19 and in Mississippi they need to be 21 (and does that seem odd to anyone else?). But even those rules aren’t hard and fast as most (all?) states allow individuals to marry when they are young, sometimes even younger than the age of majority when certain conditions are met. Thus, we cannot even reliably say that a marriage is the union of an adult man and an adult woman (as some kids can marry and some adults cannot); nor can we even say it is the union of a man and woman as those under majority age (as low as 14 in some states, I think I read) certainly aren’t “men” and “women” so far as common understanding goes.

Similarly, some states allow people to marry a first cousin, while others do not.

We don’t have to look back too far to see how definitions of marriage have changed, either. Mitt Romney may claim that the definition of marriage is 3,000 years old … but to do so he has to ignore the fact that his great-grandparents were not only polygamists, but that they fled to Mexico when Utah was changing its law defining marriage to outlaw polygamy.

And think back to your European history classes. Sure marriages may have been between one prince and one princess, but were those sorts of arranged political marriages what we think of when we think of the definition of marriage? We don’t seem to mind the idea of Orthodox Jews or Gypsies arranging marriages for their children, often to people in other states whom those to be wed have never met. Yet that sort of “marriage” falls within the commonly understood definition of marriage while a union based on love does not?

For that matter, there is some argument to be made that same-sex relationships were not only recognized in medieval Europe, but even the subject of religious rites within both the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Obviously, there remains some debate on this subject, but history and tradition aren’t quite as clear-cut as opponents of marriage equality would like you to believe.

Perhaps I’m mistaken, but don’t Catholic nuns consider themselves to be “married” to Jesus? Wouldn’t that expand the definition of marriage to include a woman and her deity or a woman and ancient (though dead) prophet (depending of course of your view of Catholic theology)?

One of the things that really burns me about this whole discussion is the way so many marriage equality opponents fall back upon religious understanding of marriage. Remind me again what Jesus said about homosexuality? Oh, wait. He didn’t. More importantly, equality opponents seize upon a few lines from the Bible to brand homosexuality as an abomination and thus infer that something that is an abomination cannot be natural (i.e., G-d could not have created gay people because G-d made man in G-d’s image and wouldn’t create an abomination; thus homosexuals must have chosen that “lifestyle” and decided to become abominations). Therefore, the reasoning seems to go, if homosexuality is unnatural, then certainly we shouldn’t condone it or give it recognition in law. Do I have that right?

But the problems with this line of reasoning should be obvious. First, is the question of “pick & choose” theology. In other words, why are some things that G-d said were abominations still considered to be abominations while others now have entire restaurant chains devoted to them (I’m looking at you Red Lobster)? And if G-d didn’t make gay humans, why did G-d apparently make gay animals … or shrimp? If animals without a cloven hoof are unclean, why didn’t G-d cleave the hooves of those animals? If animals that don’t chew their cud are unclean, why didn’t G-d make all animals chew their cud? And so and and so on and so on… I keep failing to find the sermon where Jesus says, “Keep stoning the gays, but go ahead and have a cheeseburger and a shrimp cocktail; stop believing that a woman’s life comes before that of her fetus, but go ahead and cut your hair and wear cotton-polyester blends; keep owning slaves but don’t stone your daughters.” I guess I missed that chapter. Oh, and why is it that the Bible seems to prohibit gay male sex but not lesbian sex? Maybe G-d had a subscription to Showtime?

Second, it’s important to remember that biblical references have been used to justify all sorts of things over the centuries, whether it be slavery, laws against inter-racial marriage, laws against women’s suffrage, and who knows what else. How many Jews have been killed in the name of G-d or Jesus or the Bible? When we hear about a thief in Saudi Arabia having his hand cut off we recoil in horror; yet the Bible does call for a hand for a hand, doesn’t it? And when was the last time you saw a new groom demand that his non-virgin bride be stoned following their wedding?

We also need to recall that atheists are allowed to marry. How does a religious understanding of the definition of marriage address that? And what of Buddhists or Jains or African animists? How do the words of one (or two or three) faith traditions define the traditions or understandings of those people? If you’re an opponent of marriage equality, you really don’t want to learn about Native American cultures and the Two-Spirit or berdache. But of course, that religious tradition doesn’t matter here in “Christian” America, does it?

Then again, if a religious definition of marriage was truly central to our understanding of marriage, then shouldn’t we ban inter-religious marriages (especially, say, among a Christian and non-Christian)? Shouldn’t we ban atheists from marriage entirely?

Oh, and before I conclude the discussion of the definition of marriage in the context of religion, it may be worth going back to the Bible and examining the “marriages” of Abraham and Solomon (for example). Just how many wives did they have? What exactly was the relationship between David and Jonathan and why were they kissing? Also, if you would, remind me again who Jesus married? Many religions seem to hold a place of honor for practitioners who live a life of celibacy and faith; yet how is it that we view men and women deciding to live a celibate life without procreating as perfectly normal (or even a choice to be honored) but two people sharing their love with one another as unnatural if they are of the same sex?

Though this particular horse was long ago beaten on this blog, I continue to note that one of the objections to marriage equality is that it doesn’t produce children. But, as I’ve said here in the past, a marriage where one of the partners is infertile doesn’t produce children either. Nor does a marriage where the couple elects not to have children. And yet we don’t prohibit infertile couples from marrying, we don’t require men to divorce post-menopausal women, and we don’t require that marriage licenses include a promise to bear offspring. So what exactly does have procreation have to do with prohibiting same-sex marriage? Don’t forget that a same-sex marriage may produce children through one of the partners or via adoption.

Which, of course, leads to yet another commonly heard refrain, that children do better with a mother and a father. That may be true (though I’m not convinced that is what the scientific evidence actually says; it may be more accurate to say that children do better in a two-parent household than in a single-parent household). But the end result (oft-heard) of that reasoning is that we would rather have children remain in foster care than be adopted by two loving parents if one of those parents is gay. Perhaps children do better with both a mother and father. Perhaps. But they probably also do better if the parents are rich. And smart. And don’t live in Mississippi. Or smoke. But we don’t use those criteria to determine who can adopt. I mean think about it. Are we really so scared of “the gays” that we’d prefer children to grow up without any parental involvement or as wards of the state in a foster care environment than allow them to be raised by people who may desperately want a child just because the prospective parents are gay? Perhaps we should ban all non-Christians from adopting, too. After all, we wouldn’t want adopted children to be exposed to … gasp … Islam or Judaism or atheism, would we. No, that would be bad for the children, right?.

Another point that I can’t let slide is the suggestion that marriage equality means that churches, synagogues, or mosques would be required to solemnize or recognize same-sex marriages. That is completely false. No religious affiliation is presently required to recognize any marriage that it doesn’t want to recognize. A rabbi cannot be compelled to officiate at the marriage of a Jew to a Methodist; a priest cannot be compelled to say mass at the marriage of a Catholic to a Muslim, and no member of the clergy would be obligated to sanction the marriage of a man to another man. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying to you or just painfully stupid. Don’t forget, we also allow judges and certain other public officials to conduct marriages that have absolutely nothing to do with religion. Similarly, the Catholic church doesn’t allow divorces (usually) and a Jewish divorce (a get) is difficult to obtain; yet the government has no problem allowing a couple to obtain a divorce whether or not their religion recognizes that divorce.

And that’s really the whole point, isn’t it? Marriage may be a religious doctrine (at least to some religions). But it is also a civil contract between two people that the state recognizes and helps to enforce. As I’ve also mentioned previously, the state does not recognize consecration or bar mitzvah or communion or any of a host of other religious observances. Just marriage. So ask this question: If a civil union was completely and totally the same as marriage in all but the name, then would you support civil unions? And if a civil union was completely and totally the same as marriage in all but the name … then what would be wrong with just calling it a marriage and erasing the fiction that the two were somehow something different?

Thus, when I reflect on all of this, I can really only draw one conclusion: Virtually all of the objections that people raise to marriage equality are mere excuses for the true problem. Religion is an easy out; tradition sounds good. But none of these objections, when really analyzed and mulled over, hold much water. Nope. It seems to me that the real objection isn’t religion and it isn’t tradition and it certainly isn’t procreation. Nope. The real objection is a simple objection to homosexuality and homosexuals. Many people find it “icky” and the idea of sanctioning it feels wrong because of that “ick factor”. And, so, what better way to avoid something that feels “wrong” to you than to try to sweep that which makes you feel uncomfortable under the proverbial rug. Sure there will be gays around, but if they can’t get married then maybe you won’t have to be exposed to them and all that icky gay sex. And then your world will be just that much happier and safer of a place, right? In the end, it seems to me that many in our society are willing to discriminate against people solely on the basis of who they are and simply because who they are makes some people uncomfortable. I don’t think that most marriage equality opponents are evil or even, really, bigoted; rather, they are uncomfortable by homosexuality and would prefer to keep it at a distance.

Or could it be that deep down, those people might be questioning their own sexuality? Ooh. Best not go there…

Bullying and the Lessons Learned (Mitt Romney Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Mon, 14 May 2012 21:32:00 +0000

Do you remember that time in your senior year of high school when you gathered a group of your friends, led them through school in search of a kid who was unpopular because he was different (or maybe even homosexual!), had your friends tackle and hold down that unpopular kid, and then, while this kid was being held down, kicking and screaming for help, you cut his hair so that he would better conform to your idea of what a student at your school should look like?

Do you remember that?

But I bet you would remember that if you’d done it, wouldn’t you?

I suspect that each of us have a handful of memories of actions in which we engaged, especially as kids, and of which we are now ashamed. I bet each of us has done things that hurt someone, whether intentionally or not, that we we bear as painful reminders of our own failings.

Depending on the severity of those incidents, on the harm caused, and on our own ages at the time, those actions may be better left in the past and may not reflect on the character of a person today. But in other cases, again, depending on things like severity, harm, and age, those actions may, in fact, properly reflect on the character of a person, even years later. And, perhaps more importantly, how we responded to those actions may offer further insight upon our character.

For example, I certainly recall with shame the fact that my friends and I (and, in fact, most of my 3rd-grade class) teased a boy in our class who occasionally soiled his underwear. I think that at the time we knew that we were in the wrong. But we were 8 or 9 years old. Now, nearly 40 years later, I still remember that. I wince when I think about those words and deeds. And I think back upon those moments when I see others being teased today. Have I always done all I could to stop teasing or to help those who might be the target of the “popular crowd”? Of course not. But I have tried, as often as possible, to stand up when I see bullying or other forms of targeted injustice and say, “No. Stop. Wrong.”

Events in my past, events in my childhood, created memories and taught me lessons of right and wrong upon which I can and have based my adult behavior.

So what can we learn about Mitt Romney’s character when we learn not only that he led a pack of high school seniors to tackle and hold down a gay kid so that Romney could cut that kid’s hair as the kid kicked and screamed for help, but that he doesn’t even remember the incident? There is a part of me that is (almost) willing to forgive Romney for the bullying incident itself. He was a high school student at the time, not an adult (or was he already 18…?). But… But given the severity of the incident (it would be one thing if the kid hadn’t been kicking and screaming for help…), Romney’s age (he was either 17 or even an 18 year old adult at the time), I don’t think that I can give him that free pass. And I factor into that the fact that Romney was not just “any other kid” but rather a class leader at a tony private school and the son of the state’s sitting governor. But, by the same token, I’m not sure that the bullying incident, in and of itself, tells us much about Romney’s character that can be extrapolated 47 years into the future.

After all, are you the same person now that you were as an 18-year-old? I know that I’m not (hell, I was even kinda Republican-leaning back then). People grow and learn and change.

But what I can’t reconcile, what forces me to keep coming back to this incident from Romney’s past, is the fact that he doesn’t even remember the incident? And note that he doesn’t deny that the incident happened. That would be one thing. Then we’d be facing a he said/she said sort of situation where it is the credibility of the various players that is in question. But Romney doesn’t deny the incident. Rather, he doesn’t remember it. How can anybody not remember an incident like that?

Well, I suppose one could forget an incident like that if it wasn’t isolated. If you had a habit of bullying those around you then you’d probably be far less likely to remember any particular incident. Or, if you didn’t draw any lessons from that incident, if you didn’t recognize in the days and weeks that followed (when, presumably, you would still recall it) that your conduct was wrong, if you felt no guilt or remorse for the pain that you’d caused in another… In that case, I guess I wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t recall the incident because operating with that sort of mindset, that kind of incident simply wouldn’t have been memorable. If causing extreme emotional grief to another is not internalized and processed and recognized as wrong, then why should it be any more memorable than what color shirt you wore on June 17, 1982, or what you had to eat on the last day of 3rd grade?

And so I think that the lesson to be learned about Mitt Romney’s character is that the sociopathic bullying of a presumably gay student as high school senior didn’t make a mark upon Romney’s development into the person that he is today. That, I believe, is the frightening aspect of this whole story. Thus, whether it was Romney’s oft-repeated line that he “likes to fire people”, his suggestion that we allow the Detroit to go bankrupt or the housing market to hit bottom, or his actions as a Mormon bishop when he tried to force a parishioner from having a necessary, life-saving abortion, it seems that the failure to internalize and grow from the lessons by an extreme bullying incident have had continuing ramifications on who the adult Mitt Romney really is today. Perhaps Romney’s failure to learn from that bullying episode, his seemingly jovial desire for underwater homeowners or auto workers to experience hardship, his disregard for a woman’s health, are mere examples demonstrating that Romney is, in fact, a cold-hearted, callous individual without real concern for others to whom he doesn’t share some sort of close relationship. Is that the kind of personality we want in the White House?

In 2008, much was made of the word “empathy” when it came to selection of political leaders. But when one of the major factors facing our country is the plight of those who are either facing continued unemployment or a weak economy or even bullying, then isn’t some degree of empathy important? One of the criticisms leveled against Romney is that he is out of touch with the experience of working class Americans. If he is out of touch and lacks the empathy to try to understand that experience, then can we really expect a President Romney to act in the best interests of those who are suffering?

Furthermore, just think of this: Romney could have used this incident as an opportunity to take a strong stand against bullying. He could have called out those who still want to target kids who are different (especially gay). He could have said, “Gee, I still oppose gay marriage, but we as a country really need to be sure that gay teens aren’t being bullied to the point of suicide.” But he didn’t do that. You see, that’s another of Romney’s massive character flaws. He won’t stand up, use a bully (pun intended) pulpit and call out wrong behavior. When his new foreign policy spokesman was was hounded out of the job because he was openly gay, did Romney stand up and so, “I won’t accept homophobic bigotry; I only want to judge people on the basis of their skills and merit”? No. He didn’t. When Rush Limbaugh attacked Sandra Fluke, Romney could only say (through a spokesperson) that Limbaugh’s comments weren’t the “language he would have used”. Again, Romney could have called out Limbaugh’s language, could have made his deceitful and over-the-top allegations and insults a learning opportunity. He could have taken the proverbial high road. But he didn’t.

It seems to me that whenever Mitt Romney has a chance to show his character by standing up for the victim … he fails; rather, he demonstrates his total lack of empathy as he offers weak non-apology statements out of a seeming fear of criticizing the bullies. Is that the kind of personality we want in the White House?

There is one other element peripherally related to this incident that I want to address. After the initial story about Romney’s bulling incident, those on the right (e.g., Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity) began a “he did it too” defense, pointing to a passage from President Obama’s book Dreams From My Father in which Obama related a bullying incident from his own youth. They point to this passage, describing events shortly after Obama returned to Hawaii from Indonesia (5th grade, I believe):

There was one other child in my class, though, who reminded me of a different sort of pain. Her name was Coretta, and before my arrival she had been the only black person in our grade. She was plump and dark and didn’t seem to have many friends. From the first day, we avoided each other but watched from a distance, as if direct contact would only remind us more keenly of our isolation.

Finally, during recess one hot, cloudless day, we found ourselves occupying the same corner of the playground. I don’t remember what we said to each other, but I remember that suddenly she was chasing me around the jungle gym and swings. She was laughing brightly, and I teased her and dodged this way and that, until she finally caught me and we fell to the ground breathless. When I looked up, I saw a group of children, faceless before the glare of the sun, pointing down at us.

“Coretta has a boyfriend! Coretta has a boyfriend!”

The chants grew louder as a few more kids circled us.

“She’s not my g-girlfriend,” I stammered. I looked to Coretta for some assistance, but she just stood there looking down at the ground. “Coretta’s got a boyfriend! Why don’t you kiss her, mister boyfriend?”

“I’m not her boyfriend!” I shouted. I ran up to Coretta and gave her a slight shove; she staggered back and looked up at me, but still said nothing. “Leave me alone!” I shouted again. And suddenly Coretta was running, faster and faster, until she disappeared from sight. Appreciative laughs rose around me. Then the bell rang, and the teachers appeared to round us back into class.

But there are several important distinctions that I want to draw. First, I think that there is an enormous difference between a 5th-grader and a senior in high school. Second, young Obama’s actions, though wrong, were in the context of being the victim of teasing himself. Third, Obama wrote about his past conduct and did so years before he was a candidate for Senate, let alone President. He wasn’t forced to discuss this part of his childhood; he did so voluntarily. But most importantly, and directly related to the points that I’ve tried to make above with regard to Romney’s failure to learn from his bullying incident, is the passage from Obama’s book following the portion quoted repeatedly by those on the right, which those pushing the “Obama is a bully” narrative have completely omitted (go ahead, Google “Obama bully girl” and see how many of the links that turn up include the previous quote but not the following):

For the rest of the afternoon, I was haunted by the look on Coretta’s face just before she had started to run: her disappointment, and the accusation. I wanted to explain to her somehow that it had been nothing personal; I’d just never had a girlfriend before and saw no particular need to have one now. But I didn’t even know if that was true. I knew only that it was too late for explanations, that somehow I’d been tested and found wanting; and whenever I snuck a glance at Coretta’s desk, I would see her with her head bent over her work, appearing as if nothing had happened, pulled into herself and asking no favors.

My act of betrayal bought me some room from the other children, and like Coretta, I was mostly left alone.

In other words, some 24 or so years after the incident, Obama apparently still had a fairly fresh recollection of his actions and his emotional response and failure to do what was right. A much lesser act of bullying by a much younger boy created memorable remorse for Obama; a much harsher act of bullying by a much older boy (or even a man), left no memory at all for Romney.

And there, in a proverbial nutshell, is an important distinction between these two men.

Richard Mourdock: Wrong, Not “Right”, for Indiana

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Wed, 09 May 2012 17:50:00 +0000

So Indiana Treasurer Richard Mourdock has defeated six-term Senator Richard Lugar in Indiana’s Republican primary. Wow. Lugar had been one of our senators since 1976 and he’d been widely respected as one of the best senators in Washington during that time. Speaking just for myself, I’ve had several excellent experiences with Sen. Lugar over the years, though I must admit that I’ve lost respect for him in recent years as I felt that he lost his independence and moved right (for more on this see I’m Losing Respect for Sen. Lugar posted September 2010 and I’m Losing Respect for Sen. Lugar (update) posted May 2011). But apparently times change and now the Tea Party rage and desire to return to 1950 (or is it 1850?) has claimed the scalp of one of the true remaining “statesmen” in Washington.

Over the next six months you’re going to hear a lot about Richard Mourdock. I’m sure that I’ll write about him at some length because the idea of him being my senator is, frankly, terrifying. But today, in the wake of his victory yesterday, I wanted to take a brief moment and just highlight a few of the things about Mourdock that you may not know and which should (I hope) begin to give readers pause at the idea of this man being your senator (let alone voting for him).

As Indiana Treasurer, he invested Indiana pension funds into automotive stocks and funds that were, at the time the investments were made, essentially junk bonds.
When Chrysler finally went into bankruptcy and the creditors reached an agreement that was approved by the bankruptcy Court, Mourdock, acting as Indiana Treasurer, went to court to try to stop the settlement. He took his claim to the Supreme Court and lost. A few things about this whole fiasco are worth noting specifically:
- Mourdock, paid millions in state funds to lawyers (mostly in New York, not here in Indiana);
- One of the Court’s findings in its ruling against Mourdock was that even if Mourdock and Indiana prevailed in the litigation, there was no scenario in which Indiana would get more money than under the approved settlement (go ahead and read that again); and
- Had Mourdock’s lawsuit succeeded, not only would Indiana have received less money than under the settlement, but Chrysler would have been liquidated and the auto industry would likely have been thrown into a massive collapse, likely at the cost of hundreds of thousands of jobs in Indiana.
Mourdock believes that the 17th Amendment to the Constitution (calling for the direct election of senators by the people) should be repealed so that state legislatures would once again elect senators. The 17th Amendment was ratified in 1913.
Mourdock also apparently believes that both Social Security and Medicare are unconstitutional.
Mourdock claims that one of the principal problems in Washington these days is that there is too much bipartisanship. He’s also said that if elected to a minority caucus in the Senate, his principal focus would be, not on legislating or working with Democrats, but on campaigning to elect more Republicans.
I can’t forget this: During the 2010 race for Treasurer, Mourdock’s opponent, Pete Buttigieg repeatedly challenged Mourdock to debate the issues (in particular the Chrysler bankruptcy litigation and bad investments). Mourdock didn’t just refuse; he refused to even respond to Buttigieg’s requests. However, that didn’t stop Mourdock and his entourage from showing up in front of Buttigieg’s house one evening for a little publicity stunt speech while Buttigieg was touring the state to meet voters.

Finally (and yes, I realize that this is largely repetitive of one of the points made above), I think some of what Mourdock had to say just this morning during an interview with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd is worth listening to and reflecting upon:

Transcript (emphasis added):

CHUCK TODD: You have said that there needs to be more partisanship in Washington. How do you square that with being a legislator?
RICHARD MOURDOCK: Well, what I've said is that I certainly think bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view. [...] Bipartisanship means they have to come our way [...] To me, the highlight of politics, frankly, is to inflict my opinion on someone else with a microphone or in front of a camera. [...] Even those Republicans who more often than not vote the right way aren't coming back into their states or their districts and getting in front of the unfriendly crowds and unfriendly microphones to make the point as to why our point of view is good. [...] I feel I can defend the purpose of conservatism, and more Republicans should be doing it just as I want to.

Seriously. I don’t know about you, but he sounds less like someone who wants to be a Senator and more like a spoiled 4-year-old who says, “play by my rules or I’m taking my ball and bat and going home.” And, though it was perhaps an inadvertent word choice, I think the fact that Mourdock believes the the highlight of politics is to “inflict” his opinion on others is … um … just wow.

If you want to be sure that Mourdock never gets anywhere close to the United States Senate, then please show a little love to his Democratic opponent Joe Donnelly.

Stand Your Ground: Stun Gun at School

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Wed, 02 May 2012 19:54:00 +0000

Today’s edition of The Indianapolis Star included a story about an Indianapolis teenager who was mercilessly teased at school because he is gay (flamboyantly so, apparently). Eventually, when the school administration was either helpless or unwilling to really help this young man (they blamed him for the bullying that he was subjected to noting that his manner of dress and the accessories he wore essentially invited torment) his mother sent him to school with a stun gun. When confronted by a group of bullies, the young man shot the stun gun into the air and the bullies backed off.

I’m sure you can guess where this is going, right?

Yep. The boy is now subject to a disciplinary hearing and may be expelled for bringing a weapon to school. He may also be subject to prosecution because it is illegal to have a stun gun if you’re under 18. He didn’t hurt anyone and he did manage to defend himself from the bullies. But he may be expelled from school and subject to prosecution while those who made is life intolerable — not to mention school officials who did little or nothing to help — may suffer no adverse consequences.

But here’s the really, really sad thing. Had this boy taken with him, not a stun gun, but an actual handgun, and had he not shot into the air, but rather, into the body of a bully threatening violence, then Indiana’s “stand your ground” law might have protected him from any sort of legal consequences. In fact, this was almost precisely the scenario that I outlined in my post Stand Your Ground: A Further Analysis, published just over a month ago. To repeat what I noted then, Indiana’s “stand your ground” states:

[A] person:

(1) is justified in using deadly force; and

(2) does not have a duty to retreat;

if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.

And I said this:

Once again, I’m not advocating violence. I don’t want the [gay teens] of the world to take guns to school or to resort to violence to respond to the epidemic of bullying that adults and schools seem impotent (or unwilling) to check. But when we think about the stories we hear over and over again about gay teens (and other teens, not just gays) who have been bullied to the point that they feel that they have no option other than suicide, shouldn’t we worry?

One other thing that I wanted to mention. According to the article:

[The mother] said she called the school about students following [her son] home from the bus stop, but school officials said they could not do anything since the students were not on school property.

Hmm. Interesting. Because unless I’m mistaken, we’ve seen schools all across Indiana and the country taking action against students for conduct on social media even when not on school property. See my discussion in Schools, Free Speech, and Social Media. But when a child is physically bullied, suddenly the fact that the bullying is “not on school property” becomes relevant and a defense for the school not to act? If anything, I’d think it would be the opposite. That is, a school shouldn’t be involved in conduct unrelated to school (such as social media done from home) but should be involved in conduct closely tied to school (such as walking to and from the school bus).

David McIntosh’s Political Flyer That Omits Parts of the Constitution

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Tue, 01 May 2012 20:49:00 +0000

This past weekend, our household (well, my wife actually…) received a direct mailing from David McIntosh for Indiana. The mailer is two-sided, one devoted to McIntosh’s anti-abortion credentials, the other to his pro-gun stance. Both sides of the mailer are worthy of examination … and scorn.

First, let’s take a look at the pro-gun side of the mailing (as it is what first caught my eye):

(Note that I’ve redacted my address…). So take a moment and read the mailer (and in case it’s difficult to read, I’ve reprinted the text below). Oh, and notice the neat picture of McIntosh with a gun!

“… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

My 2nd Amendment platform begins and ends with that statement. This Amendment deserves a much more honest treatment than most candidates afford it. For too long, politicians have done a great disservice to the Bill of Rights by relegating the 2nd Amendment to a quaint privilege for sportsmen, conjuring images of hunters wearing blaze orange. The reality is that it is a fundamental right so highly revered that the Founding Fathers purposefully placed it in the Bill of Rights following our right to free speech, press, assembly, and the petitioning of government. It represents the Constitutional guarantee of our liberties, as well as our right to protect our families and our homes. As your congressman, I will be a staunch guarding of our right to bear arms.

Now let’s break this statement down into a few interesting pieces. First, go back and re-read the introductory quotation and first sentence:

“… the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

My 2nd Amendment platform begins and ends with that statement.

Notice anything odd there? Like perhaps the fact that McIntosh’s “2nd Amendment platform begins and ends” with only a portion of the 2nd Amendment? As a refresher, here is the actual text of the 2nd Amendment:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Interesting, isn’t it, that in a mailer complaining that the 2nd Amendment deserves an “honest treatment” and noting its fundamental character, McIntosh can’t be bothered to, you known, actually recite the entirety of the 2nd Amendment. Which of course raises the question: Why does his platform on the 2nd Amendment omit the phrase “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State”? Might it be that McIntosh, like many pro-gun, strict constructionists, need to read the Militia clause out of the Constitution in order to advance their view of what the 2nd Amendment really means? Then again, reading something out of the Constitution isn’t very strict constructionist, is it? Or, ask the question this way: If we are to place such importance on the precise placement of the 2nd Amendment within the Bill of Rights, then shouldn’t we also, you known, place similar importance on all of the words in the Amendment? If it was so important that it came second, then must not the Militia clause be similarly important. I’d go a step further even and suggest that the fact that the Militia clause comes before the right granted and rather than after it, the Founding Fathers must have thought that explanatory introduction was very important. And that, of course, leads to the inevitable question of what the Founding Fathers meant when they talked about a Militia and why they felt the need to include that prefatory phrase in the 2nd Amendment. Unfortunately, the Supreme Court’s conservative justices have also essentially redacted the Militia clause from the 2nd Amendment. So much for vaunted conservative strict constructionism. Remind me again about “activist judges”…

Moreover, don’t you find it interesting that McIntosh tries to boil opposition to unfettered gun rights into a discussion of “a quaint privilege for sportsmen, conjuring images of hunters wearing blaze orange”? No mention of automatic weapons, armor piercing bullets, and an unfathomable number of deaths by gunshot in our homes and on our streets? For that matter, while McIntosh forgets about the Militia clause he also seems to forget about the types of arms the Founding Fathers were talking about. I had a little fun with this notion in my post Should Justice Alito’s Views on Evolving Technology in the First Amendment Context Also Be Applied to Second Amendment Jurisprudence?

Another thing worth mentioning about McIntosh’s views on guns: At a recent forum for the candidates seeking the GOP nomination in Indiana’s 5th Congressional District, McIntosh and the other candidates were ask to answer “yes” or “no” as to whether they would support a federal “stand your ground” law.

McIntosh is the 3rd candidate from the left (the others are, from the left, Susan Brooks, John McGoff, David McIntosh, Bill Salin, Wayne Sebold, and Jack Lugar; sorry about the shaky camera…). Note that former federal prosecutor Susan Brooks, former Marion County Coroner and National Guard Brigadier General John McGoff, and Marion Mayor Wayne Sebold all respond “no” to this question. I examined the problems with Indiana’s “stand your ground” law in my posts Stand Your Ground: An Analysis and Stand Your Ground: A Further Analysis.

And there’s one more aspect to the pro-gun side of the mailer that I want to take a brief look at. As I noted, McIntosh finds the placement of the 2nd Amendment important, noting “that the Founding Fathers purposefully placed it in the Bill of Rights following our right to free speech, press, assembly, and the petitioning of government.” Read that again. Notice anything missing? Maybe it’s just me, but I find a reference to the 1st Amendment that omits religion particularly noteworthy. I suspect that most people, when asked what the 1st Amendment says, wouldn’t remember the part about assembly and petitioning the government; but I also suspect that they do remember the freedoms of speech, press, and religion (not to mention the establishment clause). So why is the mention of religion in the 1st Amendment conspicuously absent from the McIntosh mailing?

Which brings me to McIntosh’s anti-abortion position.

Once again, in case the text is hard to read:

I have always supported bills that say abortion is wrong, because my faith and upbringing taught me all people deserve the same rights of life and liberty. It is our duty to protect these rights for the vulnerable; from the unborn to the most elderly among us. It is a responsibility I take seriously.

I have several comments. First, I appreciate that McIntosh’s views are an expression of his faith and upbringing. That’s fine. But how, then, does he square that with my faith and upbringing that tells me that abortion is permissible (at least under some circumstances)? For a more detailed discussion of this, please see my post Keep Your Religious Doctrine Out of My State’s Laws (posted in the first month of this blog’s existence). Scroll down to the section “Beginning of human physical life”. And for those who don’t want take the time to read that old post, let me at least offer a portion of the testimony from Rabbi Dennis C. Sasso to the Indiana General Assembly in 2006:

Writing into state law what is essentially the doctrinal view of a particular segment of the faith community would impair the freedom of religion of Hoosier citizens whose religious traditions and ethical stances call them to a different understanding of when does human personhood begin. It is regrettable use of political and religious ideology to trump science, threaten pluralism, assault tolerance and encroach on the privacy of citizens.

The issue is not "When does life begin?" Life exists even before conception. The sperm is life. The ovum is life. Every cell and organism is a living entity. Adherents of the Eastern faith, Jainism, gently sweep the path in front of them as they walk in order to avoid stepping on living creatures.

The issue is not "when does life begin", but when is human personhood, that intangible moral and legal category upon which hinge so many privileges and responsibilities of identity and citizenship, established. And on this issue, science offers no answers and theologians and ethicists have and will continue to differ.

While some people of faith may choose to affirm that human personhood begins at conception, at the moment when the ovum and sperm meet, Judaism affirms that personhood begins at birth. In a contest between the fetus and the mother, the Jewish moral tradition will not only permit, but require, that preference be given to the mother.

Until birth, while the fetus is certainly to be cherished and protected, it is not considered an independent legal entity. Judaism honors and protects the fetus. Ours is a tradition that celebrates parenthood and family, but in a contest between the embryo or the fetus and the mother, Judaism preeminently protects the rights of the mother as a viable human person. Both her physiological and psychological needs are to be given preferential status over the rights of the developing fetus.

Do McIntosh’s faith and upbringing trump mine? I also want to address one other aspect of McIntosh’s statement:

It is our duty to protect these rights for the vulnerable; from the unborn to the most elderly among us. It is a responsibility I take seriously.

Really? He takes seriously the duty to protect the rights for the vulnerable? You see, from my perspective, McIntosh and those who share his views seem only to care about protecting the unborn; once a fetus emerges from the womb, that child, should Republican policies prevail, will be essentially on its own (or, in the words of the protest sign shown in my post Proof of the Hypocrisy or That Sign Was True: If you want a Republican to care about you Remain a Fetus). If the family is too poor to afford food or shelter or adequate medical care? Tough luck. And when that child becomes elderly and infirm and needs Medicare? Well, McIntosh supports privatizing Medicare into a voucher system (go back and watch the rest of the video that I posted above).

It’s easy for politicians like McIntosh to claim that they want to protect the vulnerable … but when given the opportunity, they rarely rise to the challenge, instead choosing to side with those who are anything but vulnerable.

Nothing quite like omitting parts of the Constitution while proclaiming how much you love it; nothing like proclaiming the importance of protecting the vulnerable as a crass way to make your possession against reproductive rights clear. And there, folks, is the campaign of David McIntosh.

Oh, and did I mention that he doesn’t even live in Indiana?

Advertisements Do Not Equate to Endorsements

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:54:00 +0000

When I looked at this blog online a few minutes ago, I noticed an advertisement for Richard Mourdock for US Senate. Gag! Please recognize that I do not control the ads that Google places on my site. I’m actually tempted to cancel the ads (after all, I’ve earned a whopping $4.89 in ad revenue since I started this blog back in December 2007). But, on the off chance that someone wants to click through and help me earn a few bucks, I’m going to leave the ads up for now. Hint. Hint.

But please, please understand, that the appearance of a candidate, issue, or product in an advertisement on this blog is not indicative of an endorsement by me of that candidate, issue, or product. Rather, it is an automated placement made by Google on the basis of the topics and keywords it finds in my posts.

If I endorse a candidate or product, I will say so directly!

Mississippi’s Governor: Stupid, Evil, or Both?

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:49:00 +0000

This is almost hard to process. Here is Mississippi’s Republican Governor Phil Bryant speaking on a conservative radio show:

Did you catch what he said at about 0:34?

Even if you believe in abortion, the hypocrisy of the left that now tried to kill this bill, that says that I should have never signed it, the true hypocrisy is that their one mission in life is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb. And it doesn’t really matter, they don’t care if the mother’s life is in jeopardy, that if something goes wrong that a doctor can’t admit them to a local hospital, that he’s not even board certified.

(Emphasis added.)

See, that comes as news to me. I’m a supporter of a woman’s right to reproductive choice. I didn’t know that my “one mission in life is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb.” And please recognize that this statement isn’t from some fringe candidate or a spokesperson for the anti-choice lobby. No. This is the sitting governor of the State of Mississippi.

I don’t really want to spend any time discussing the substance of the bill being addressed, other than to say that it is one of the standard sort of anti-choice bills that we’ve seen in Indiana and across the country that seek to ban abortions via stealth. In the case of the Mississippi bill, abortions could only be performed by a board certified OB-GYN with admitting privileges at a local hospital. As Huffington Post and other have noted:

While all of the physicians at the one clinic in the state are currently board certified OB-GYNs, only one of them has admitting privileges at a local hospital. The other two physicians can't get privileges because they live out of state, and the owner of the clinic has said it can't operate with only one doctor on staff.

For what it’s worth, I wrote about bills like this several years ago: IN Touch: Abortion Ruse and Keep Your Religious Doctrine Out of My State's Laws (scroll down to the section on Hospital Privileges).

Perhaps Gov. Bryant should focus on real problems. For example, according to the most recent data that I could find, Mississippi ranks worst in the US in infant mortality (10.6 per 1,000 live births; by comparison, Louisiana ranks second worst with 9.9 per 1,000 live births, Indiana is 10th with 8.0 per 1,000, and Washington, Massachusetts, and California are the best, with 4.7, 4.9, and 5.0, respectively). Mississippi also ranks 48th in number of doctors (177.9 per 100,000 residents), ranks 48th in the percentage of people 25 or over with a bachelor’s degree (19.4 percent), and ranks 48th in the average salary of school teachers. I tried to find statistics for things like rape, incest, and so forth, but that information wasn’t as readily accessible.

But back to the main point. Does Gov. Bryant really believe that the “one mission in life” of pro-choice advocates — or of the much broader “left” that he cites — “is to abort children, is to kill children in the womb”? Seriously? Because if he really believes that he is either stupid or evil (or maybe both).

We can’t allow elected leaders to use such divisive, such over-the-top, such antagonistic language without calling out their behavior. We’ve seen abortion providers killed; we’ve seen clinics bombed. What sort of reaction might the most hardcore (and slightly unbalanced) in the anti-choice community do now that they’ve heard the Governor of Mississippi proclaim that choice advocates and those on the left have, as their “one mission in life” to “abort children” and “kill children in the womb”.

I wrote the bulk of this post earlier in the week. And then I sat on it. There was more that I wanted to say … but frankly (and a bit out of character) I was at a loss for words. I really want to write more on this. But I’m so disgusted that I’m just going to stop now before I say something even more harsh.

And in the Ongoing War on Women…

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:44:00 +0000

Prominent Republicans like Speaker John Boehner, Sen. Mitch McConnell, Sen. John McCain, and Republican National Committee Chair Reince Preibus tell us that there is no Republican war on women, though I’m not sure how much attention you want to pay to Preibus given that in his effort to prove that the war on women was a fiction, he chose to compare women to caterpillars. Um. OK. So I guess their claims help un-explain some of the recent events in the war on women.

For example, yesterday, the Senate voted 68-31 to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act. Guess what? Every Democrat voted in favor of the legislation. But you know what else? All five Republican women in the Senate also voted in favor of the reauthorization. Or, if we want to look at it a bit differently, all 38 votes against the bill were cast by Republican men. Interestingly, of the two Republican senators often mentioned as a potential vice presidential candidate, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) voted against reauthorization while Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) voted in favor.

The fact that there isn’t a war against women probably explains why the Republican dominated Wisconsin legislature passed — and the Republican Governor signed — a bill to eliminate Wisconsin’s equal pay law. One of the bill’s Republican supporters helpfully noted that women don’t care about money as much as men. Nope. That doesn’t sound like a shot in the war on women. Not at all.

And it is the deep concern that some Republicans have for women that must explain why Florida Gov. Rick Scott used his line item veto to strip from the state’s budget $1.5 million for rape crisis centers. He’s obviously expressing his deep concern for the women of Florida who aren’t raped by saving them a handful of tax dollars.

I’m sure that presumptive GOP candidate Mitt Romney has helped to make it clear that there isn’t a Republican war on women by choosing as his campaign’s judicial advisor none other than Judge Robert Bork who, according to this recent article in Huffington Post (internal links omitted):

hopes to wipe out not only the constitutional right to privacy, especially the right to contraception and to abortion, but decades of Equal Protection decisions handed down by what he calls a feminized Supreme Court deploying “sterile feminist logic” to guarantee equal treatment and inclusion of women. Bork is no casual chauvinist but rather a sworn enemy of feminism, a political force that he considers “totalitarian” and in which, he has concluded, “the extremists are the movement.”

So that is the judicial philosophy upon which Romney will be making decision. Noted. I’d love to hear Romney answer whether he agrees with Judge Bork’s views on feminism. Actually, I’d love to hear Ann Romney explain whether she agrees with Judge Bork’s views on feminism.

Should you happen to hear Mitt Romney claim that President Obama is conducting his own war against women, you might want to consider something provable by empirical evidence: Mitt Romney is full of BS. You see, Romney keeps claiming that President Obama’s policies have caused harm to women and, as proof, claims that 92% of jobs lost under President Obama have been women. Not so fast, say those who actually study issues like this. I won’t take the time to dive into the numbers, but it’s worth taking some time to read what FactCheck.org and Politifact.org (which rated Romney’s claim “mostly false”)have to say. But this chart is worth noting.

While I’m talking about Mitt Romney, I can’t forget his wife Ann’s comment several days ago, especially given her role in the faux controversy stirred by Hillary Rosen’s boneheaded remark about Ann Romney not working a day in her life (recall, that Rosen was really talking about working for a wage outside the home). So after telling people that Rosen’s comment was like a “birthday present” Ann Romney waded back into the issue of working women and said (emphasis added):

I love the fact that there are women out there who don’t have a choice and they must go to work and they still have to raise the kids. Thank goodness that we value those people too. And sometimes life isn’t easy for any of us.

She loves that there are women who “don’t have a choice and they must go to work”? Wait, what?

I can’t remember if I touched on this before, but women visiting Arizona need to be very careful now. Why? Well, under the new law adopted in Arizona to help further limit access to abortions, the state now considers that a pregnancy commenced “from the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman”. In other words, in Arizona, a woman can be considered pregnant before she has a fertilized egg or, I suppose, without even having sex. For a bit more on the war on women on the reproductive rights front, check out the list of bills noted in this Huffington Post article.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the dismissive response of Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Illinois) about his Democratic challenger Tammy Duckworth. Perhaps you will recall Rep. Walsh; I posted a video of his wife taking him to task for his unpaid child support obligations. By contrast, Duckworth, while serving in Iraq, lost the lower part of both legs and had her right arm partially destroyed when the helicopter she was co-piloting was shot down. Following her recovery, Duckworth was the Director of the Illinois Department of Veterans Affairs and Assistant Secretary for Public and Intergovernmental Affairs in the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. So what did Rep. Walsh have to say about her? Well, in response to a statement in which he seemed to make light of her military service and failed to acknowledge her government service, Rep. Walsh, showing a classic streak of chivalry, said, “What else has she done? Female, wounded veteran … ehhh.”

Nope. Clearly there is no such thing as a war on women. Nope. Nothing to see. Move along, move along.

Oh, and remember how I mentioned that Sen. Mitch McConnell thinks that the war on women isn’t real? His specific claim was that the war on women was “manufactured issue”. In support of that proposition, Sen. McConnell said:

There is no issue. Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison and Kelly Ayotte from New Hampshire and Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe from Maine I think would be the first to say — and Lisa Murkowski from Alaska — “we don’t see any evidence of this.”

But guess what? Yup. You know what’s coming… Three of the five senators McConnell mentions came out, in one way or another, and essentially agreed that there is a war on women. For example, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) said regarding the debate over women’s access to contraception that:

I feel like it’s a retro-debate that took place in the 1950s… It’s sort of back to the future, isn’t it? And it is surprising in the 21st century we would be revisiting this issue.

Similarly, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) talked about her support for Planned Parenthood. But best of all are the comments from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) who first expressed regret over her vote for the Blunt amendment (the amendment that would have permitted businesses to withhold contraception coverage on religious or moral grounds) and said “I have never had a vote I’ve taken where I have felt that I let down more people that believed in me”. Then, a few days later, in response to claims by Republican men — like Sen. McConnell — that here is no war on women, said:

It makes no sense to make this attack on women… If you don’t feel this is an attack, you need to go home and talk to your wife and your daughters.

“Attack”. Her word. Not mine. Hmm. Doesn’t the use of the word “attack” sort of bring to mind … um … oh, I don’t know … maybe, um, like … a war? On women.

Stay tuned for future episodes. Same Bat Time. Same Bat Channel. (Look it up if you’re too young…)

Who Shares Responsibility for Educating Children Attending Public Schools?

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 17:40:00 +0000

My children are in sixth grade at Clay Middle School (part of Carmel Clay Schools). Prior to last week, I’d never had any real cause to examine the student handbook provided to Clay students. But then my daughter came home upset about the school’s intent to adopt a more rigorous enforcement regime for its dress code. I looked at the dress code to see what upset her and, while much of the dress code seems appropriate and reasonable, a few elements seem to go a bit too far. But that is a discussion for another day.

Instead, I want to focus on something else that I discovered in the student handbook. I decided, after the discussion over the dress code, to see what else the handbook might say. I didn’t get very far before my blood began to boil (or at least simmer slightly):

Philosophy

In stating our philosophy for Clay Middle we would like to quote from the Carmel-Clay Policies Book:

Recognizing that the purpose of education is to help the individual to develop his potential in order that he might achieve and maintain a positive status in a rapidly changing democratic society, we believe Carmel Clay Schools must provide a program of activities covering all phases of growth.

We are concerned with helping every individual develop to the highest degree his intellectual capacities, with due regard for physical, moral, and social aspects of individual development, in an atmosphere of self-disciplined behavior.

We believe it is the responsibility of the school to maintain the fundamental concepts of American democracy by instruction, example, and practice. We further believe that education is a continuing process, and that the responsibility of educating must be the combined effort of the school, the church, and the home.

All activities, curricular and co-curricular, should be educational experiences designed to promote constructive growth of the individual.

Finally, we believe administrators, teachers, and parents must motivate and guide each student to think logically, positively, and actively for the enrichment of himself and of the society in which he lives.

By and large, that Philosophy is commendable. But did you pick upon the part that prompted this post? Here it is again (emphasis added):

We further believe that education is a continuing process, and that the responsibility of educating must be the combined effort of the school, the church, and the home.

Oh, really? The responsibility for educating our children must include the efforts of the church?

So I decided to do a bit of research and see what the Carmel Clay Policies Book has to say given that it is being quoted for Clay Middle School’s philosophy. Sure enough, the exact same sentence is found in the Policies Book. Well, now. To quote a certain church lady, isn’t that special?

OK. So I can already hear some of you saying, “Gee, what’s the big deal?” Simple. The school (or the school system) has no business pushing off any responsibility onto “the church”. Certainly a parent can choose to place responsibility for some portion of the child’s education on to a church. And I suppose a student can make that determination, too. But the school should not be devolving responsibility to or sharing responsibility with a church.

Why not? Several reasons.

First, let’s recall the First Amendment and the separation of church and state. The school is an arm of the state. It is the job of the school to educate children. At least as far as the structure of our political system is designed, it is not the job of the church to educate children; children are obligated to attend school but they are not obligated to attend a house of worship (or even to believe in a deity). Furthermore, by suggesting that the church plays a role in the combined effort of educating children, aren’t the school and school system essentially endorsing the participation by students in religious affiliation, if not observance? Is that the role of the school and school board?

And how does this belief in the responsibility of the church impact students who are not affiliated with a church or who are … gasp … atheists? Are those students only receiving two-thirds of the education that the school and school system believe are necessary? Remember, the Philosophy uses the commandment “must” not just a simple suggestion like “should”.

It’s probably worth recalling what Article 1 of Indiana’s Constitution has to say:

Section 3. No law shall, in any case whatever, control the free exercise and enjoyment of religious opinions, or interfere with the rights of conscience.

Section 4. No preference shall be given, by law, to any creed, religious society, or mode of worship; and no person shall be compelled to attend, erect, or support, any place of worship, or to maintain any ministry, against his consent.

Perhaps even more important is Article 8 of Indiana’s Constitution (you did know that Indiana’s Constitution has an entire article dealing with public education, right?):

Section 1. Knowledge and learning, generally diffused throughout a community, being essential to the preservation of a free government; it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to encourage, by all suitable means, moral, intellectual, scientific, and agricultural improvement; and to provide, by law, for a general and uniform system of Common Schools, wherein tuition shall be without charge, and equally open to all.

Hmm. You know what I don’t see in Article 8 Section 1 of the Indiana Constitution? I don’t see a reliance upon or belief that the church is a necessary component to the education of Hoosier children or that the responsibility for teaching students must include the church. (Of course, I’m not sure that my kids are getting much of an “agricultural improvement” either, though that omission is just fine by me…)

And why do the school and school system believe that the church has responsibility for educating children? What is the church teaching that the school is not? What is the church teaching that parents are not? If your answer is that the church is “teaching morals” or some such, then I would ask you the following questions: First, why isn’t the school and why aren’t parents teaching those morals? Sorry, but I have a hard time believing that children are going to learn sound morals from a stranger at church if those morals are not also taught and reinforced in the home … and school. Second, does that mean that someone who is either not affiliated with a church or who does not believe in a deity cannot learn morals due to the absence of a church? Or is there something that the school and school system think that churches are teaching that is valuable to children but which the schools can’t teach? Hmm.

Let’s see. Schools teach math, science, history, languages, writing, reading, art, athletics, music, and so on and so forth. So what is that schools aren’t or can’t teach that the church can? Hmm. Let’s think. What could it be? Might it be, you know, just perhaps, religion? Which brings me back to the original point. Is it appropriate for the government, in the form of a school or school board, to be advocating religious belief, affiliation, or education? I don’t think so. If parents want their children to receive a religious education to supplement (or in place of) the education offered by the public schools they are free to do so. But, by the same token, if parents don’t choose to inculcate their children with religious belief or to provide supplementary religious education, then isn’t that fine, too? Why must (in the word of the school system and school) a student’s education include a religious education?

Moreover, ask yourself this: Why is it just the church that bears a share of the responsibility for educating a child? Why not the Girls Scouts and Boy Scouts (well, other than that whole notion that the Girl Scouts are a communist front for Planned Parenthood…)? Schools aren’t teaching kids how to tie knots, row a canoe, or build a fire. So shouldn’t the involvement of scouts to help children learn those sorts of skills be added to the educational responsibility roll? What about cotillion or dance schools? I’m pretty sure that public schools aren’t teaching children how to waltz (square dance, maybe), but that seems like an important skill that children ought not miss. Should it be reflected in the school’s philosophy, too? What about skills like self-defense or even marksmanship? Should those be part of the educational philosophy? And, perhaps most importantly, what about the logical skills involved in debunking someone else’s religious beliefs? Are those skills being taught in school? Hmm. I know that a lot of parents want us to “teach” controversies like intelligent design or avoid things like global warming. Should we be “teaching the controversy” that argues for or against the existence of a deity? Should the school be teaching which religions are “real” or even “right”? If the school thinks the church is an important component of the educational process, the it seems that the inverse of that is also important.

And it’s worth noting the sentence that immediately precedes the one with which I’ve taken issue:

We believe it is the responsibility of the school to maintain the fundamental concepts of American democracy by instruction, example, and practice.

It would seem that by advocating for the involvement of the church in the educational process, the school and school system are violating “the fundamental concept[] of American democracy” by ignoring the constitutional separation of church and state.

As I was finishing this post, I decided to take a few more minutes and peruse the handbooks for some of the other Carmel Clay schools. Creekside Middle School has the same sentence in its handbook but neither Carmel Middle School nor Carmel High School do (I searched for the word “church”; I didn’t read the entire handbook). But each of those latter two schools have something in their handbooks missing from both the Clay Middle School and Creekside Middle School handbooks:

Diversity Statement

As a member of the Carmel Clay school community, Carmel High School is dedicated to fostering an environment which promotes education and well being regardless of ability, age, appearance, gender, nationality, race, religion, sexual orientation, and socio-economic status. All educational programs, activities, and interactions are enriched by celebrating uniqueness as well as commonalities. Respect for human diversity will be encouraged, followed, and enforced by the Carmel Clay schools.

Carmel Clay Schools is committed to equal opportunity and does not discriminate on the basis of age, race, color, religion, sex, disabling conditions, or national origin including limited English proficiency.

(From the Carmel High School Student Handbook.) I didn’t take the time to look at the handbooks of the elementary schools. In case you’re wondering, the Carmel Clay Policies Book does include a section on nondiscrimination and equal access.

I’m not sure what, if anything, to make of the fact that the two schools that do have a diversity statement do not have the sentence denoting the responsibility of the church in a student’s education while the two schools that do include responsibility of the church do not have a diversity statement. To quote Arsenio Hall: “Things that make you go, hmmm.”

Updated April 27, 2012 to correct an ugly typo.

Mitt Romney, Ted Nugent, Dana Loesch, the Politics of Hate, and the Fear of the Voting Base

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 21:23:00 +0000

I’m reluctantly wading back in to several topics that I’ve written about in recent weeks (and a theme that has permeated this blog since its inception). Let me start by revisiting, briefly, the remarks made by Democratic pundit and strategist Hillary Rosen last week when she inarticulately suggested that Mitt Romney’s wife Ann had not “worked a day in her life” (when, what Rosen was really talking about, was work outside of the home). As I pointed out in my post Insults, Apologies, and the False Equivalency in the War of Words, within hours after making her statement, David Axelrod (President Obama’s chief political strategist) and Jim Messina (President Obama’s campaign chair) both expressed outrage at Rosen’s comment. And within twenty-four hours, President Obama personally took issue with Rosen’s comment and spoke at some length about the issue.

And, before I go further, please remember that Rosen’s statement, though inarticulate, was actually addressed at a substantive issue.

Now let’s compare how Mitt Romney and his campaign respond to outrageous comments. First, again as I related in Insults, Apologies, and False Equivalency in the War of Words, when Rush Limbaugh went on his three day orgy or rage against a student who was concerned with access to birth control for healthcare reasons, calling her a “slut” and “prostitute”, suggesting that she began having sex in middle school, alleging that she had so much sex she couldn’t afford birth control, and requesting that she send him videotapes of her sexual encounters, what did Mitt Romney have to say?

I’ll just say this, which is, it’s not the language I would have used.

Um, gee, Mitt. What language would you have used? Note that Romney doesn’t take issue with the substance of Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke. He doesn’t say, “Gee, Rush, you were lying because Ms. Fluke never discussed her sex life,” or “Rush, a personal attack against a woman testifying about healthcare needs is inappropriate.” Nope. Romney just said Rush’s attack was “not the language I would have used.” Would Romney have substituted “tramp” for “slut” or maybe “harlot” for “prostitute”? Would he have asked for a DVD instead of a video? Would he have claimed that Fluke began having sex in junior high instead of middle school?

Why didn’t Romney issue a harsher condemnation of Limbaugh’s attacks? Could it be that Romney, like many others on the right, are afraid of Limbaugh? Could it be that Romney is afraid that, should he criticize Limbaugh too much, he’ll wind up alienating the Republican base that he needs come November? Could it be that he recognizes that many of those whose votes he is relying on believe the sorts of things that Rush said and that to call out those comments would suggest to his voting base that they are wrong?

And, before I go further, ask yourself the degree to which Rosen’s one-time comment about Ann Romney and work is comparable to Limbaugh’s three day diatribe about Fluke being a slut, prostitute, etc. I think that Rosen’s one comment is not even in the same proverbial ballpark of offensiveness. Does anyone disagree?

Which brings me to this past weekend and the comments from ’70s era rock star Ted Nugent who is known for some of his highly inflammatory rhetoric. But before diving into what Nugent said, let’s first remember this: Nugent publicly endorsed Mitt Romney after the two spoke on the phone for a while and discussed issues that were important to Nugent. In my mind, that makes Nugent more than just a run-of-the-mill celebrity endorser; after all, how many people are able to get Romney to spend time discussing issues with them on the phone? And the Romney camp (which now claims that they didn’t “seek” Nugent’s endorsement) was certainly thrilled when they got it, as evidenced by the gleeful tweet from Tagg Romney on March 2, 2012: “Ted Nugent endorsed my Dad today. Ted Nugent? How cool is that?! He joins Kid Rock as great Detroit musicians on team Mitt! (the tweet has now been deleted from Twitter … hmm, I wonder why?). Romney’s own comments about the endorsement? On a radio interview shortly afterward, Romney said, “it’s been fun getting to know Ted”.

Of course, one might wonder about why the Romney campaign would welcome Nugent’s endorsement in the first place (or why Romney would want to get to know him), given some of Nugent’s prior “colorful” commentary such as:

About Hillary Clinton: “You probably can’t use the term ‘toxic cunt’ in your magazine, but that’s what she is. Her very existence insults the spirit of individualism in this country. This bitch is nothing but a two-bit whore for Fidel Castro.”
During an August 21, 2007, concert, while brandishing what appeared to be two assault rifles, Nugent said, “hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these, you punk,” adding, “hey Obama, he’s a piece of shit, I told him to suck on my machine gun.” He went on to say that while he was in New York, “I said, ‘hey Hillary [Clinton], you might want to ride one of these into the sunset, you worthless bitch.’” He also said that Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) “might want to suck on my machine gun,” adding of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), “ride one of these you worthless whore.”
In 1990, Nugent conducted an interview with the Detroit Free Press Magazine and stated, “Apartheid isn't that cut and dry. All men are not created equal. The preponderance of South Africa is a different breed of man… They still put bones in their noses, they still walk around naked, they wipe their butts with their hands… These are different people. You give 'em toothpaste, they fucking eat it.”

Those are but three of many, many, many examples.*

But Nugent did endorse Romney and the Romney campaign welcomed that endorsement. So how does the Romney campaign respond to Nugent’s most recent outrageous comments at last weekend’s National Rifle Association convention (watch the video or read the transcript below; I’ve highlighted my “favorite” parts):

We've got people from every walk of life here. These people are NRA members because they know that we left the slave lands of tyranny, and we came to a new land, and our founding fathers wrote down self-evident truths.

But each and every person in here, I hope they grasp that their current membership and their activism is only good. And if you were a good bass player, you couldn't be in my band. 'Cause where I come from, good sucks. You gotta be one stone-cold hell-raisin' bad mofo to hang out with Uncle Ted.

And in order to be one stone-cold, hell-raisin' bad mofo, each and every one of you — if you can't get a couple of hundred people each, each of you — some of you, I bet you can get a couple thousand. Your goal should be to be able to get a couple of thousand people, per person who's here, to vote for Mitt Romney in November.

Because if you don't galvanize people who really understand an experiment in self-government, and understand the U.S. Constitution — there are flag-draped coffins coming home right now of heroes in the military, who took a vow, a pledge to defend and uphold the U.S. Constitution.* If that dead Marine isn't worth it to you to demand that the enemies in the White House are ousted, then you probably ought to just move to France. It's that serious.

If you don't know that our government is wiping its ass with the Constitution, you're living under a rock someplace. And that there's a dead soldier, an airman, a Marine, a seaman, a hero of the military that just got his legs blown off for the U.S. Constitution, and we've got a president and attorney general who doesn't even like the Constitution. We’ve got four Supreme Court justices who don’t believe in the Constitution.

Does everybody know here that four of the Supreme Court justices not only determined you don’t have the right to keep and bear arms, four Supreme Court justices signed their name to a declaration that Americans have no fundamental right to self-defense. That sounds like a stoned hippie. That doesn’t sound like a Supreme Court anything. It sounds like a supremely intellectually vacuous punk. To think that a human could think that humans don't have a basic right to self-defense is so bizarre to me — as to — my brain can't accept the information. And if you want more of those kinds of evil, anti-American people on the Supreme Court, then don't get involved, and let Obama take office again.

Because I'll tell you this right now: If Barack Obama becomes the president in November, again, I will either be dead or in jail by this time next year. Why are you laughing? Do you think that's funny? That's not funny at all. I'm serious as a heart attack.

So, being at the NRA event, God bless you, good indicator, but if you can't go home and get everybody in your lives to clean house in this vile, evil, America-hating administration, I don't even know what you're made out of. And if you're taking offense at that, tough. I see warriors amongst us. I see people who get it. You made a lot of sacrifices to be here at NRA. It was a long trip for a lot of you. You're giving up valuable time to make a statement for freedom. If you can't galvanize and promote and recruit people to vote for Mitt Romney, we're done. We'll be a suburb of Indonesia next year.

Our president, attorney general, our vice president, Hillary Clinton, they're criminals. They're criminals. That guy on the radio the other day said, 'Well, name the crimes.' About 10 minutes later, I said, "Have you had enough?" I mean, who doesn't know the crimes our government is committing?

So, God bless you for being here. I feel a positive energy. But turn up the heat. Take this energy and this belief in freedom home with you, and get everybody you know to get involved and engaged. Because it isn't the enemy that ruined America. It's good people who bent over and let the enemy in. If the coyote's in your living room, pissing on your couch, it's not the coyote's fault. It's your fault for not shooting him.

So, it's an important time. So, you're talking about exhibits, you're talking about hardware and ammo and everyone's fondling sporting goods and everybody's got a big old sexy grin on their face 'cause they're surrounded by ballistic celebration — that's cool. But what I feel in this room, is I feel this: I'm not taking this crap anymore. I've about had it. Leave my damned paycheck alone. Unless you can be accountable, you get nothing. And if you take that adamant, we-the-people defiance — remember, we're Americans because we defied the king. We didn't negotiate and compromise with the king. We defied the emperors. We are patriots. We are Braveheart. We need to ride into that battlefield and chop their heads off in November. Any questions?

(Transcript via Politifact.)

Note that these comments were so outrageous, so over-the-top, that the Secret Service interviewed Nugent yesterday. Apparently the Secret Service isn’t terribly keen on obviously violent rhetoric directed at the President. And while no charges were filed, it’s not everybody who gets a visit from the Secret Service (well, other than Colombian hookers).

So, did Mitt Romney step up to a podium and castigate Nugent for his comments? Did he reject the endorsement? (Remember in 2008 when Sen. John McCain rejected the endorsement of Pastor John Hagee after news broke of Hagee’s claim that the Holocaust was caused by G-d and his reference to the Catholic church as the “great whore”?) When faced with Nugent’s outrageous comments, did Romney follow Sen. McCain’s example or have a Bill Clinton “Sister Souljah” moment? Did Romney say “gee, I really want people to vote for me, but I don’t welcome people who express support for me through hate speech”? Did pigs fly beside the Space Shuttle as it landed in Washington earlier this week? No. Here’s what Mitt Romney had to say (speaking through a spokesperson and not on his own) about Nugent’s comments. I hope you’re braced for this harsh condemnation:

Divisive language is offensive no matter what side of the political aisle it comes from,” said Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul. “Mitt Romney believes everyone needs to be civil.”

Wow! The leadership that Romney exhibits in situations like this is just stunning isn’t it? Of course, I bet that we are expected to believe that Romney will be much more forceful in dealing with Vladimir Putin or Mahmoud Achmedinajad, right? How about a big campaign contributor that wants something from President Romney? I mean, think about it for a minute. First, Romney didn’t address the comments; his spokesperson did. And even then, she couldn’t just condemn Nugent’s comments or even try to distance the Romney campaign from Nugent. Nope. All that she could do was talk about divisive language from both sides. Um, when the Romney campaign was firing at the Democrats for Hillary Rosen’s comments, did they talk about what Rosen said and the attack on Ann Romney (ignoring all sorts of right-wing attacks on Michelle Obama, for example) or did they talk about “divisive language” from both sides? Exactly.

Romney is too scared of alienating those who latch onto comments like Nugent’s. If he pushes away those voters who love hearing people talking about killing President Obama (even if metaphorically) or calling he and the others in his administration “evil” or “criminals” or “anti-American”, then who exactly will be left to vote for Romney? I just hope that independent voters understand how damaging this kind of speech and response (or lack thereof) is to our system of government and the civil discourse upon which it is based.

But there’s another point that I want to make, too. In the wake of the criticism that has been directed at him over his weekend comments, Nugent decided to appear on the radio program of Dana Loesch. You remember Loesch, don’t you? She’s the Tea Party leader, radio personality, and CNN paid contributor that I wrote about last month in CNN Provides a Platform for a Vile Voice of the Tea Party. Loesch was fresh off an appearance at a Tea Party rally in which she claimed said, “What did women receive for supporting the left? You’ve seen it here with your Occupy movement, haven’t you? They get raped.” She hosted Nugent for a discussion. Hmm. How did that conversation go (listen if you dare; text below)?

National Rifle Association board member and Washington Times columnist Ted Nugent refused to back down from his recent inflammatory comments about the Obama administration in a radio interview with CNN contributor Dana Loesch on The Dana Show. Nugent told Loesch that “I will stand by my speech” and said that he was being attacked with the “Saul Alinsky Rules for Radicals playbook.”

…

Nugent insisted to Loesch that his message had been “100 percent positive,” and Loesch agreed that he was being used as a “scapegoat” by the Obama administration.

Later in the interview, Nugent added more derogatory comments about Democrats. He described Democratic chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as a “brain-dead, soulless, heartless idiot,” and said House Minority Leader Rep. Nancy Pelosi was a “sub-human scoundrel.”

Asked about a request from the Democrats that Mitt Romney (who sought and received Nugent's endorsement) distance himself from Nugent's comments, Nugent claimed that “Mitt Romney knows what I'm saying is true. He puts it into words for him, I put it into words for me.”

“Sub-human”? Seriously? That’s the anglicized word for what the Nazis called untermensch. Here’s a nice, brief article on Nazi propaganda and the depiction of Jews (and others) as sub-humans (published by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Do I really need to discuss the results of describing and denigrating others as being “sub-human”? And note that of two women at whom Nugent was directing his anger (Rep. Nancy Pelosi and Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, now head of the DNC), one of them is Jewish. Nugent also told Loesch that he was a “black Jew at a Nazi-Klan rally” (real black Jew and blogger Adam Serwer responded on Twitter, “Actual black Jew says you’re not”).

So I’m sure you can imagine the horror that Dana Loesch expressed when Nugent used that term, right? Um, but guess what? She didn’t express horror. She didn’t say, “Gee, Ted, that sort of inflammatory rhetoric really crosses some lines that shouldn’t be crossed” or “Wow, Ted, I know that you don’t like those women, I don’t either, but don’t you think that calling them ‘sub-human’ is going just a tiny bit too far?” Nope. Instead, Loesch when Nugent finished that portion of his rant, said “Yep.” She found the denigration of others as subhuman to be A-OK.

You know, on second thought, perhaps you should go back and listen to that interview. It’s got a little bit of virtually every right-wing conspiracy claim and baseless allegation after baseless allegation that gives fire to much of the right’s hatred of President Obama. And by listening to Nugent and Loesch and hearing the absolute hate and vitriol in their voices, you may gain a further understanding of the current thinking from much of the ~~far-~~right.

Perhaps someone can explain to me why Loesch is still employed by CNN. For that matter, why would any radio station continue to give her airtime? And why would any political organization want to be associated with someone who so clearly demonstrates that they have no standards of simple human decency?

And this is what the November 2012 elections will, in large part, be about. No, I don’t mean we’ll be voting on whether we think this kind of rhetoric is acceptable or whether someone is or is not a sub-human. Rather, far, far too many people will be making up their minds on who to vote for on the basis of this sort of inflammatory, derogatory, denigrating hate speech and the kind of “facts be damned” conspiracy-minded arguments offered by people like Nugent and Loesch. Tax policy, the future of Medicare, energy policies, all of these are complicated. But whether someone is a sub-human, whether the person is an American citizen, whether someone deserves to be killed for their beliefs? Now those are subjects that it is easy for people to wrap their brains (and Confederate flags) around.

*It’s also worth remembering that Ted Nugent is a draft dodger. He has said that he neither showered nor changed clothes for 30 days prior to his draft hearing and, for the last few days, defecated and urinated in his clothes, so that he would be rejected. And then he lied about being in school in order to get a deferment. So pardon me if I don’t take his discussions about the bravery of American soldiers at full face value. Oh, and did I forget to mention the time that Nugent had the parents of his underage lover sign her over to him as her guardian (he was 30…) so that they could continue to have sex? For a fun little expose on Nugent written by someone on the right, please take a look at Ted Nugent Shoulda Been “In Jail or Dead” Long Before Obama: Draft-Dodging Multi-Baby Daddy Child Predator by Debbie Schlussel. And if that doesn’t turn your stomach enough, you can read some more of Nugent’s “thoughts” on on this page dedicated to helping people learn about the leadership of the National Rifle Association. Reader beware.

Teabonics: More Reasons to Fear the Teabaggers (2012 Bonus Edition)

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:20:00 +0000

Almost two years ago, I posted Teabonics: More Reasons to Fear the Teabaggers, yet another in my series of photos of Tea Party rallies. While most of the posts were aimed at pointing out racism and violent rhetoric, my Teabonics post took a more humorous look at the Tea Party.

Well today, Tax Day 2012, the Tea Party held several (tiny) rallies across the country. A friend on Twitter P.J. Nicolatore posted a photo from one of these rallies that I couldn’t help but smile at … and post here for your enjoyment:

Well, I guess the media might be lying if it called these folks “rascists”.

How hard is it really to have correct spelling on your poster?

Here are links to my other posts on signs from Tea Party rallies:

A Sampling of Signs from the "Tea Bag" Parties That You Didn't See on the News
A Sampling of Signs from the "Tea Bag" Parties That You Didn't See on the News (update 1)
Here We Go Again: More “Tax Protest” Signs
Here We Go Again: More “Tax Protest” Signs (Part 2)
Here We Go Again: More “Tax Protest” Signs (Part 3)
Here We Go Again: More “Tax Protest” Signs (Part 4)
Tea Party Idiots Are Back ... and Just as Vile
How Do We Respond?

Update: A few minutes after this post went live, P.J. Nicolatore posted links to a few more photos that I now share for your enjoyment:

Go ahead. Take your time. I’ll wait.

I guess I’m not sure why this guy is upset that our elected leaders are not betraying American citizens. Does he wish that they were? Odd point of view for a Tea Partier.

Repeat after me: Q is followed by U, Q is followed by … oh, never mind. And just out of curiosity, why do you suppose that this fellow thinks that PResident Obama is “sqatting”? Might it have anything to do with, oh, I don’t know, the fact that he he doesn’t think President Obama is a natural born United States citizen who is eligible to be President? Remember, there’s no “rascism” in the Tea Party.

Insults, Apologies, and the False Equivalency in the War of Words

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 18:30:00 +0000

On Wednesday night, Democratic strategist Hillary Rosen claimed that Mitt Romney’s wife Ann had never worked a day in her life. The comment became a viral controversy almost immediately. Rosen’s comments and the resulting firestorm have been likened to Rush Limbaugh referring to Sandra Fluke as a “slut” and “prostitute” and a number of other controversies of recent vintage. But I want to look a bit more closely at a few things, including both what was said and meant as well as the aftermath.

So, first let’s understand who Hillary Rosen is … and is not. According to Wikipedia (again, I know, I know), she is a lobbyist and a democratic pundit. She is a paid contributor to CNN. She is also an activist for gay rights (she is a lesbian). But she is not a consultant to either the Obama campaign or to the Democratic National Committee. She is a TV talking head.

Next, as always in these sorts of kerfuffles, it is important to go beyond the one-line sound bite and review precisely what was said, in its entirety and in context (I’ve highlighted the statement that has generated the controversy):

With respect to economic issues, I think actually that Mitt Romney is right, that ultimately women care more about the economic well-being of their families and the like. But he doesn’t connect on that issue either. What you have is Mitt Romney running around the country saying, “Well, you know my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues and when I listen to my wife that’s what I’m hearing.”

Guess what? His wife has actually never worked a day in her life. She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing in terms of how do we feed our kids, how do we send them to school and why do we worry about their future.

So I think that, yes, it’s about these positions and yes, I think there will be a war of words about the positions. But there’s something much more fundamental about Mitt Romney. He just seems so old-fashioned when it comes to women and I think that comes across and I think that that’s going to hurt him over the long term. He just doesn’t really see us as equal.

(Transcript from About.com.)

Clearly Rosen’s comment about Ann Romney having never worked was wrong and inappropriate. But consider the following: First, let’s revise that statement ever-so-slightly and see if it remains quite to troubling. What if we add the phrase “outside the home” to the end of the sentence? Does that change how you feel about what Rosen said? Now, normally I’d probably argue that changing a quotation like that isn’t fair. But go back and read the next sentence of Rosen’s statement and then think again about the point that Rosen was trying to make. Was Rosen denigrating Ann Romney’s work as a mother or was Rosen critiquing Ann Romney’s understanding of the struggles of women who do work outside the home? Not to put too crass of a point on it, but how many working women have dressage horses and a “couple” of Cadillacs?

I think Ann Romney, and all women who have chosen to stay home and raise their children, are to be applauded and recognized for their efforts and contributions. Heaven knows that I hear it when I don’t give my wife enough credit for her efforts with our kids. But I think that there is a difference between a woman has is able to choose to stay home with her children and one who is not economically stable enough to make that choice. I’m sure that Ann Romney, like other stay-at-home moms, had to work very hard in the day-to-day effort to raise her children. But do we think that she ever worried whether she’d be able to afford to put food on the table or clothes on their backs? Did she ever have to skip a meal because the family couldn’t afford for both she and her children to eat? Did she ever skip any of her medications because they couldn’t afford it and pay for medications needed by her children (or food or shelter)? Did she ever miss a school play or a sporting event because her boss wouldn’t give her time off or because she couldn’t afford not to get her paycheck? Did she ever worry about if her children would get into college, let alone whether the family could afford to pay for college? Of course not. And I don’t begrudge her any of the financial security she and her family have. After all, it’s what most of us strive for. But there is a difference between Ann Romney’s life experience and that of a mother who has to work outside the home to support or help support her family.

In the end, I think that the point that Rosen was trying to make, however inarticulately, was valid. Ann Romney has “never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing”. And thus, while she may tell Mitt Romney that women really care about economic issues, her discussion of those issues, however sincere and well-meaning, is not a concern spoken from experience. And that’s OK, too. I mean I’ve never been pregnant or had an abortion, but there’s nothing wrong with me speaking out on the issue. But my understanding of the issue is obviously tempered by the fact that I’m not a woman, I can’t get pregnant, and those are issues that I have not and will not have to face myself. We don’t have to have experience to speak out or about issues, but the experience or lack thereof is an element in what we have to say.

Now leaving aside the substance of what Rosen said, the various responses are really interesting. First, it’s worth noting that Rosen herself apologized and tried to explain better what she meant. Her apology came less than a day after the original statement.

Let's put the faux “war against stay at home moms” to rest once and for all. As a mom I know that raising children is the hardest job there is. As a pundit, I know my words on CNN last night were poorly chosen. In response to Mitt Romney on the campaign trail referring to his wife as a better person to answer questions about women than he is, I was discussing his lack of a record on the plight of women’s financial struggles. Here is my more fulsome view of the issues. As a partner in a firm full of women who work outside of the home as well as stay at home mothers, all with plenty of children, gender equality is not a talking point for me. It is an issue I live every day. I apologize to Ann Romney and anyone else who was offended. Let’s declare peace in this phony war and go back to focus on the substance.

In addition, almost immediately, David Axelrod, President Obama’s chief political strategist and Jim Messina, Obama’s campaign chair, both expressed their outrage at Rosen’s original comment. And those expressions of outrage came within hours of the comment. In fact, I saw the apologies before I’d even heard of the controversy. Michelle Obama talked about her support for stay-at-home mothers and the respect that they deserve. And even President Obama weighed in on the comment:

President Obama strongly disagreed with Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen’s controversial comment about Ann Romney, saying today that “there’s no tougher job than being a mom.”

“Anybody who would argue otherwise, I think, probably needs to rethink their statement,” the president told Bruce Aune of ABC’s Cedar Rapids affiliate KCRG.

…

The president went a step further, suggesting candidates’ families should be off limits. “I don’t have a lot of patience for commentary about the spouses of political candidates,” he told KCRG.

“My general view is those of us who are in the public life, we’re fair game. Our families are civilians,” he said. “I haven’t met Mrs. Romney, but she seems like a very nice woman who is supportive of her family and supportive of her husband. I don’t know if she necessarily volunteered for this job so, you know, we don’t need to be directing comments at them. I think me and Governor Romney are going to have more than enough to argue about during the course of this campaign.”

One of the problems here is that Rosen’s comment has sparked another case of false equivalency; that is, equating Rosen’s comment to comments from the other side of the political divide and somehow believing that all “bad” comments are equal and sort of cancel each other out. Of course Rush Limbaugh’s attacks on Sandra Fluke are the most obvious comparison. But that comparison is both wrong and worth analyzing a bit further.

First, recall that Limbaugh didn’t just call Fluke a “slut” and “prostitute” one time; rather, he continued his attack against her for three days. His comment was a mistake in what he was trying to say. Second, his attack against Fluke was full of outright lies. And the larger point he was trying to make? Well, it didn’t really have anything at all to do with what Fluke was testifying about. She was was talking about birth control for health reasons; Limbaugh was talking about sex.

And unlike Rosen who apologized the very next day, it took Limbaugh several days to issue his non-apology (see my discussion of Limbaugh’s faux apology Anatomy of an Apology). And that “apology” only came after pressure from the public began to build on his advertisers.

Let’s also compare the relative status and importance of Rosen and Limbaugh to the left and right, respectively. Had you ever heard of Rosen before this? I’ll admit, as much of a political and news junkie as I am, I don’t recall ever having heard of her before. But I bet that you’d heard of Rush Limbaugh before, right? How much influence does Rosen have on Democrats? How much does Limbaugh have on Republicans? Exactly.

And then let’s think about the responses to the comments. As mentioned previously, even though Rosen is not associated with either the Obama campaign or the DNC, representatives of those organizations almost immediately took to social media to criticize her statements. And by the next day President Obama was doing so as well. Now compare those responses to the virtual silence from Republicans following Limbaugh’s attack (not to mention the numerous bloggers on the right who defended or repeated Limbaugh’s attack). It wasn’t until several days after Limbaugh’s attack that Romney responded at all. His response? “I’ll just say this, which is, it’s not the language I would have used.” Wow. Such a strong condemnation! Please go back and re-read President Obama’s comment regarding the statement about Ann Romney “not working” and compare that to Romney’s statement about Sandra Fluke being a “slut” and “prostitute” who is “having so much sex” she can’t afford her birth control. So, Gov. Romney, what language would you have used?

Or consider some of the things that CNN’s Republican pundits have said. Remember my post CNN Provides a Platform for a Vile Voice of the Tea Party about Dana Loesch and her baseless accusations of sexual crimes and favorable comments about a blatantly anti-Semitic article? Funny, but I don’t recall hearing Mitt Romney’s campaign manager or the chair of the Republican National Committee denouncing Loesch.

Then there is CNN contributor Erick Erikson who accused President Obama of choosing to “pervert God’s word” and suggested that President Obama was only “claiming” to be a Christian. Where was the firestorm over those allegations? Where was the condemnation from the Romney campaign, the RNC, and others? Where was the apology?

Or what about when Limbaugh, Fox contributor Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck and others criticized Michelle Obama for shopping at Target? Or when the Drudge Report blamed Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” exercise campaign for pedestrian deaths (seriously)? Or when one of the Breitbart websites attacked Michelle Obama for her weight and her healthy eating advocacy in blatantly racist terms (and just so you can see how bad it really is, here’s a cartoon that ran on a Breitbart website):

Seriously. Have you heard Mitt Romney or the RNC criticize Breitbart’s sites for running this cartoon?

Bloggers on the right even criticized Michelle Obama for a joke that was written for her to say during a guest appearance on iCarly (to praise the show for supporting American soldiers).

Barely a word of critique (if any at all) of any of this from Mitt Romney (or the other Republican candidates), from the RNC, or from any other important voices on the right. Apologies? Yeah, right.

I could probably go on and on. There’s the picture of Marie Antoinette with Michelle Obama’s head (and muscular arms). There’s the United States Congressman complaining that Michelle Obama has an overly large posterior (a comment for which he did apologize). And heaven help you if you should happen to go read some of what is said about Michelle Obama on right wing blogs. And we all know what the right has to say about President Obama (Muslim, Marxist, Terrorist, etc., etc., etc.). Where were “god-fearing” people like Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, and Rick Santorum when preachers talk about praying for Obama’s death?

The point, though, is this. Someone on the left said something wrong. It was an inarticulate way to try to make a substantive point. She apologized. And people all across her side of the political aisle (and up and down the chain of command) jumped, not to her defense, but to call out and condemn her comments. But when someone on the right says something — and the something is likely to be far harsher, far crueler, far less likely to have anything whatsoever to do with any sort of substance, and far more likely to be based on race — then those on the right rush, not to criticize the statement, but to defend it. Or they stay silent. Apologies are rarely forthcoming. This whole evidence gives proof to the notion of false equivalency and appropriateness of response. One side criticizes and apologizes. The other says far harsher things without apology or critique.

Perhaps voters can show that we see through these sorts of games.

Update

Shortly after posting the above entry, I remembered something else that I’d meant to touch on. Yesterday, in response to Rosen’s comment, the Catholic League tweeted the following:

Lesbian Dem Hilary Rosen tells Ann Romney she never worked a day in her life. Unlike Rosen, who had to adopt kids, Ann raised 5 of her own.

Yes, that’s right. The Catholic League felt the need not only to raise Rosen’s sexual orientation but also to demean the fact that she “had to adopt kids”. Query the purpose of noting that Rosen is gay (and to those who say, “but you did it in the beginning of this post”, the reason I did so was because I’d intended to mention this tweet). And is the notion that Rosen “had to adopt kids” any less offensive than the suggestion that Ann Romney never worked? I’d argue that it is a much more offensive statement, especially as it is not tied to any substance whatsoever; it doesn’t make any kind of point at all.

To their credit, the Republican National Committee (via spokesperson Sean Spicer) promptly criticized the Catholic League for the tweet:

The @catholicleague should be encouraging adoption, not demeaning the parents who are blessed to raise these children

Except, notice that the RNC’s spokesperson only mentions the adoption portion of the attack on Rosen; he says nothing about the Catholic League raising Rosen’s sexual orientation as an issue. Oh, and I haven’t heard Mitt Romney (or Ann Romney … or how about Catholic Rick Santorum?) criticize the Catholic League yet.

A Missed Opportunity? Indianapolis and the Zipline

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:43:00 +0000

One of the most talked about attractions during the recent Super Bowl festivities in Indianapolis was the zipline that ran for several blocks down the center of Capitol Avenue. People waited in line for hours to pay $10 for the brief thrill. Thousands had the opportunity (I, unfortunately, never managed to…). It was featured on TV coverage and provided an exciting backdrop to much of the anchor coverage from Super Bowl Village.

But then the game was played, the crowds went home, Super Bowl Village was dismantled, and down came the zipline.

Shortly thereafter, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway talked about possibly installing a zipline for the Indianapolis 500. Ultimately, they chose not to do so. But I think the idea of a zipline at the Speedway missed the point. You see, I don’t think that people were so excited about the zipline per se; after all, there are ziplines that can be found all over (this website lists five in Indiana). Instead, I think that there was something special about the location of Super Bowl zipline … and I think that the City of Indianapolis will miss an opportunity if it doesn’t recognize that uniqueness and capitalize upon it.

So what do I think made the zipline unique? Simple: It’s location. It wasn’t in a remote state park; it wasn’t at an amusement park; it wasn’t at a venue known for sports or other activities. It was in the heart of a vibrant, active downtown. And it went right down the center of the street. I think that made it special and memorable and an activity for which people were willing to wait and pay.

So why not recapture that?

Obviously, it’s not possible to permanently close a street for the purpose of installing a zipline. I get that. But there are a number of other places within downtown Indianapolis that an urban zipline could be installed:

From the top of the Emmis Building, across the Soldiers & Sailors monument, to the area by Christ Church Cathedral or Bank One.
From the west side of the Soldiers & Sailors monument, along and over the sidewalk, toward the Statehouse.
Down the center of the new pedestrian mall on George Street.
From the Indiana Historical Society along the canal.
In or along one of the parks that make up the American Legion mall.
In or around the NCAA Hall of Champions or Eiteljorg Museum.
Military Park.

Sure, there would be obstacles to overcome. What activity doesn’t have obstacles? But think of the benefit to the City. Think of the stories that visitors will tell about their visit to Indianapolis, with the zipline ride in the heart of the City. Think of the families from central Indiana who might choose to come downtown on a weekend for that activity … and while downtown, what else might they choose to do?

Maybe I’m off base, but I think that something cool and exciting like an urban zipline could become one of those permanent fixtures that a city becomes known for as well as another thing to draw local residents to downtown and all of the other activities to be found. I can see a family coming down on a Saturday afternoon to ride the zipline … and then taking the kids to one of the museums. Or how about this? Offer a discount (or even a free ride) with a museum admission?

We saw something that people loved, that they were willing to wait in line and pay for. So why let it just fade away to a nice memory? Capitalize on its success and find a way to incorporate it into the life of the city.

The where are the how are mere details. If a permanent urban attraction is a good idea, Indianapolis has shown time and time again that where there is a will, there is a way.

So what do you think? Would a downtown zipline be cool? Would you pay a few bucks to give it a try? Do you think it would be an attraction that tourists would take note of? If a downtown zipline sounds like a good idea, let me know. More importantly, let others — and the City — know too!

Schools, Free Speech, and Social Media

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 17:56:00 +0000

How much control should a school be able to exert over a student with regard to the student’s conduct outside of school? With the continued increase in the use of social media, whether in the form of Facebook, Twitter, or any of a host of other new media sources, this question is being asked more and more often. And so far, I think that schools are often overstepping their bounds and depriving students of their protected free speech rights.

A story in The Indianapolis Star earlier this week (not available online, apparently) offers a prime example of the way the issue plays out. Apparently a student at an Indiana high school tweeted a profanity in the middle of the night. The school, contending that the student had used either the laptop provided by the school or the school’s computer network, expelled the student.

Now, my point here is not to defend the student for using Twitter to fire off an expletive; nor is it my goal to discuss whether expulsion was the appropriate punishment. Rather, I want to discuss whether the school has any business policing this or similar conduct.

So let’s start by throwing away the idea of new social media and, instead, focusing on more traditional forms of communication. Thus, for example, in thinking about the student mentioned above, let’s presume that he wasn’t using Twitter or a laptop or any technology at all. But, rather, while sitting in study hall or at lunch he took out a piece of paper and wrote a note to some friends and that note included an expletive. Does that change your feelings at all? What if the note was written, not in school, but at the kitchen table in his house?

One thing to keep in mind is that courts have held over the years that students don’t lose their First Amendment rights simply by walking through the doors to the school. On the other hand, schools are allowed to discipline a student or restrict speech to the extent that it has an impact on the educational process at the school or is disruptive. Thus, for example, in the most well-known case on the subject, Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the United States Supreme Court analyzed a school’s effort to stop students from wearing black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam war and, ultimately, ruled that wearing the armbands was protected free speech that did not disrupt the educational process.

Now, while I’ll grant that a note (or tweet) with an expletive is a far cry from an anti-war message, the broader question of how that speech disrupts the school’s educational process remains the key question. I would argue that the note (or tweet) has absolutely no impact on the school or the educational process and thus should not be subject to control by the school. My belief on that subject is furthered when the speech in question is done outside of the confines of the school. And frankly, I’m having a hard time getting worked up over the issue of whether the computer that the student used was his personal computer or one provided by the school; would the note written by the student be subject to less protection if the paper or pencil had been provided by the school?

Well, you might ask, what if the message was actually about the school or a teacher? Should that matter? In response to that query, I’d ask the following question in return: If a kid stands on a street corner and yells, “Mr. _____ is a jerk who gives too much homework” or “Mrs. _____ is a bitch because her grading is unfair” would the school have the right to discipline the student? I don’t think that there is an exception to the right to freedom of speech that restricts that speech if it is insulting to a teacher; that would be a content-based prior restraint that would, I think, run afoul of the First Amendment. And frankly I doubt that many schools would argue that they could discipline a kid for that kind of speech anyway. So why does identical speech on social media seemingly fall within the purview of a school’s right to punish?

But schools appear to be going even further in the zeal to enforce some kind of discipline on students. Witness, for example, the two girls from northern Indiana who, during their summer vacation, posted racy pictures of themselves on Facebook. Their high school kicked them off the volleyball team. Now query what business it is of the school to monitor and punish what students do when not in school, let alone on summer break? And query further just why the school was monitoring the girls’ Facebook pages in the first place? And ask yourself whether the school would have taken the same action had the photo not been on Facebook, but say, in a swimsuit calendar or if the girl had a role in a movie that required her to dress racy (think Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby … or was it Blue Lagoon? … all those years ago)?

If a student is convicted of a crime, then the school might have a right to impose discipline (but query whether that would be a form of double jeopardy prohibited by the Constitution). And if a student “abuses” his or her right to free speech within the school environment in a way that disrupts the educational process, then the school certainly has a right to discipline (for example, a student who won’t let a teacher teach because he keeps yelling or calling the teacher names or a student who uses his free speech rights to bully another student). But when that conduct is not disruptive (black armbands) then the school ought not to be attempting to discipline the student (and query, then, whether the I Heart Boobies wrist bands are disruptive or more in line with the anti-war black armbands). I’m somewhat torn on the issue of whether a school can discipline a student for exercising free speech rights to advocate illegal conduct at a school related event (the students that held up a “bong hits for Jesus sign” at a school-related activity). But when the speech is not disruptive to the school and educational process, the school ought not be imposing discipline.

And when that speech is outside of the school confines, then the nature of the disruption should, I think, be much, much higher in order for the school to properly become involved. Thus, it would probably be OK if a school were to discipline a student for creating a fake Facebook page that appeared to be that of a teacher or if a student were to invade the privacy of a teacher or give instructions on how to hack into the school’s computer system. And, it might also be acceptable for a school to impose discipline if the speech was the in the nature of bullying another student as, I think, an argument could be made that such would, indeed, disrupt the educational process of the school.

But if a student is simply exercising his or her First Amendment rights to engage in speech with others, especially when doing so outside of the school confines, then the school should not be involved and discipline should not issue. Social media may be new and different but we shouldn’t just presume that because it is new and different that it is subject to a greater degree of control and abridgement of the freedom of speech inherent to students.

Stand Your Ground: A Further Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 17:30:00 +0000

Earlier today, I posted Stand Your Ground: An Analysis. I actually wrote that post yesterday, but forgot to press the Publish button. Anyway, this morning on the way to work, I heard a story (well, a series of stories) on NPR that got me thinking again about Indiana’s “stand your ground” law and its implications for certain situations. The stories dealt with the movie Bully (including a review) and its R rating (followed by the decision to release the film unrated). And from there, I started thinking about the victims of bullying. And the extent to which they have a right to stand their ground.

So, please take a moment and reread this provision from Indiana’s stand your ground statute and then I’m going to offer a scenario for you to think about:

(c) A person is justified in using reasonable force against any other person to protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person:

(1) is justified in using deadly force; and

(2) does not have a duty to retreat;

if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.

Now, with that in mind, consider the following scenario:

Johnny is a freshman in high school. Every school day is miserable for Johnny as he is the target of near-constant bullying because he is gay. The name-calling he can live with (sticks and stones and all that…), but it is the physical abuse that has left him considering suicide. Sometimes, it’s as simple as being pushed from behind or shoved sideways into the walls or lockers, but other times it involves being punched or hit. Changing before gym class is always a disaster as some of the other boys push and hit him. He can’t even try to take a shower or use the restrooms at school anymore. His wallet and lunch money have been stolen countless times, his lunch tray upended into his lap, his backpack stolen, his cellphone stomped on. He’s told the school but the administration doesn’t really seem to care that much, so long as nobody gets too seriously hurt. After all, boys will be boys. Oh, and not to mention, that this is a state that refused to enhance protections from bullying for gay youth out of a faux concern for the First Amendment rights of the bulliers. Johnny has told his parents, too; after all, it’s hard to hide a black eye. But they don’t really seem to have come to terms with his being gay and haven’t wanted to rock the community boat, so to speak. So day after day, Johnny goes to school and wonders whether today will be the day that someone finally hurts him badly enough to send him to the hospital … or whether today will be the day he gets up the guts to … check out. And then one day, Johnny finds his father’s gun. He puts it in his backpack and takes it to school. And when one of those bullies shoves Johnny into a locker, but before the punch comes, Johnny pulls out that gun and kills the bully. And maybe a few of the other bullies who were hanging around, cheering on their leader.

Is Johnny covered by Indiana’s stand your ground statute?

And how will those who advocate laws like the stand your ground statute react to this kind of situation?

Once again, I’m not advocating violence. I don’t want the Johnnies of the world to take guns to school or to resort to violence to respond to the epidemic of bullying that adults and schools seem impotent (or unwilling) to check. But when we think about the stories we hear over and over again about gay teens (and other teens, not just gays) who have been bullied to the point that they feel that they have no option other than suicide, shouldn’t we worry?

I suspect that most bullied teens have never heard of laws like stand your ground … at least they’d never heard of these kinds of laws until the Trayvon Martin story went viral. But now those youth, many of whom are growing into their own forms of social consciousness may have heard of these sorts of laws, may have heard about states giving people the right to use deadly force in apparent self-defense. And one of these kids may realize that, hey!, I can put an end to this bullying and I won’t be punished. Thus, we shouldn’t be surprised when we hear of a bullied teen deciding to point the gun, not at his or her own forehead, but at the bully who made life so intolerable. And then the question will become whether that act was justified, whether the force was reasonable, whether laws like “stand your ground” are equally applicable to the victims of bullying.

Is that a road down which we really want to walk?

Stand Your Ground: An Analysis

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:04:00 +0000

Earlier this month, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels signed into a law a bill that was designed to “remedy” a controversial decision of the Indiana Supreme Court. Without going into too much detail, the issue was whether a homeowner could use force against a police officer to prevent that officer from illegally entering the homeowner’s house. The bill signed into law by Gov. Daniels recognizes that the so-called “castle doctrine” (the right to use force and no obligation to retreat from your home) applies, even if used against police officers.

In all honesty, I didn’t pay too much attention to this particular bill. On one hand, I was offended at the notion of police officers being allowed to conduct an unlawful entry and the homeowner not being able to prevent it. On the other hand, the idea that we would ever condone using force against a police officer just seems wrong. After all, if the entry is unlawful, the homeowner has recourse through the courts against the officer and the municipality for the unlawful entry. That seems a much better resolution that force which, in many instances, is likely to escalate.

But it was the ongoing story of the killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida and the impact of Florida’s so-called “stand your ground” law that caught my attention. Because, and I was not aware of this, Indiana (largely at the behest of the National Rifle Association) passed a very similar “stand your ground” law back in 2006. Now that I’ve looked at that law, I must stay that I’m more than a bit scared of its real-world implications. But first, let’s look at the actual text of the law. (Text in bold was added in 2012; text in ~~strikeout~~ was deleted in 2012; I hope the formatting works as expected…)

Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of Indiana:

SECTION 1. IC 35-41-3-2, AS AMENDED BY P.L.189-2006, SECTION 1, IS AMENDED TO READ AS FOLLOWS [EFFECTIVE UPON PASSAGE]: Sec. 2. (a) In enacting this section, the general assembly finds and declares that it is the policy of this state to recognize the unique character of a citizen’s home and to ensure that a citizen feels secure in his or her own home against unlawful intrusion by another individual or a public servant. By reaffirming the long standing right of a citizen to protect his or her home against unlawful intrusion, however, the general assembly does not intend to diminish in any way the other robust self defense rights that citizens of this state have always enjoyed. Accordingly, the general assembly also finds and declares that it is the policy of this state that people have a right to defend themselves and third parties from physical harm and crime. The purpose of this section is to provide the citizens of this state with a lawful means of carrying out this policy.

(b) As used in this section, “public servant” means a person described in IC 35-41-1-17, IC 35-31.5-2-129, or IC 35-31.5-2-185.

(c) A person is justified in using reasonable force against ~~another~~ any other person to protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person:

(1) is justified in using deadly force; and

(2) does not have a duty to retreat;

if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.

~~(b)~~ (d) A person:

(1) is justified in using reasonable force, including deadly force, against ~~another~~ any other person; and

(2) does not have a duty to retreat;

if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or terminate the other person’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle.

~~(c)~~ (e) With respect to property other than a dwelling, curtilage, or an occupied motor vehicle, a person is justified in using reasonable force against ~~another~~ any other person if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to immediately prevent or terminate the other person’s trespass on or criminal interference with property lawfully in the person’s possession, lawfully in possession of a member of the person’s immediate family, or belonging to a person whose property the person has authority to protect. However, a person:

(1) is justified in using deadly force; and

(2) does not have a duty to retreat;

only if that force is justified under subsection ~~(a).~~ (c).

~~(d)~~ (f) A person is justified in using reasonable force, including deadly force, against ~~another~~ any other person and does not have a duty to retreat if the person reasonably believes that the force is necessary to prevent or stop the other person from hijacking, attempting to hijack, or otherwise seizing or attempting to seize unlawful control of an aircraft in flight. For purposes of this subsection, an aircraft is considered to be in flight while the aircraft is:

(1) on the ground in Indiana:

(A) after the doors of the aircraft are closed for takeoff; and

(B) until the aircraft takes off;

(2) in the airspace above Indiana; or

(3) on the ground in Indiana:

(A) after the aircraft lands; and

(B) before the doors of the aircraft are opened after landing.

~~(e)~~ (g) Notwithstanding subsections ~~(a),~~ ~~(b)~~ ~~and~~ ~~(c),~~ (c) through (e), a person is not justified in using force if:

(1) the person is committing or is escaping after the commission of a crime;

(2) the person provokes unlawful action by another person with intent to cause bodily injury to the other person; or

(3) the person has entered into combat with another person or is the initial aggressor unless the person withdraws from the encounter and communicates to the other person the intent to do so and the other person nevertheless continues or threatens to continue unlawful action.

~~(f)~~ (h) Notwithstanding subsection ~~(d),~~ (f), a person is not justified in using force if the person:

(1) is committing, or is escaping after the commission of, a crime;

(2) provokes unlawful action by another person, with intent to cause bodily injury to the other person; or

(3) continues to combat another person after the other person withdraws from the encounter and communicates the other person’s intent to stop hijacking, attempting to hijack, or otherwise seizing or attempting to seize unlawful control of an aircraft in flight.

(i) A person is justified in using reasonable force against a public servant if the person reasonably believes the force is necessary to:

(1) protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force;

(2) prevent or terminate the public servant’s unlawful entry of or attack on the person’s dwelling, curtilage, or occupied motor vehicle; or

(3) prevent or terminate the public servant’s unlawful trespass on or criminal interference with property lawfully in the person’s possession, lawfully in possession of a member of the person’s immediate family, or belonging to a person whose property the person has authority to protect.

(j) Notwithstanding subsection (i), a person is not justified in using force against a public servant if:

(1) the person is committing or is escaping after the commission of a crime;

(2) the person provokes action by the public servant with intent to cause bodily injury to the public servant;

(3) the person has entered into combat with the public servant or is the initial aggressor, unless the person withdraws from the encounter and communicates to the public servant the intent to do so and the public servant nevertheless continues or threatens to continue unlawful action; or

(4) the person reasonably believes the public servant is:

(A) acting lawfully; or

(B) engaged in the lawful execution of the public servant’s official duties.

(k) A person is not justified in using deadly force against a public servant whom the person knows or reasonably should know is a public servant unless:

(1) the person reasonably believes that the public servant is:

(A) acting unlawfully; or

(B) not engaged in the execution of the public servant’s official duties; and

(2) the force is reasonably necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person.

SECTION 2. An emergency is declared for this act.

Yeah, I know, I know. For the non-lawyers out there, that’s quite a mouthful. But, as I mentioned before, it’s not the castle doctrine that I want to focus on, but rather, the stand your ground component of the law. Let me reprint the most relevant portion (and I’ve highlighted the section I want to discuss):

(c) A person is justified in using reasonable force against any other person to protect the person or a third person from what the person reasonably believes to be the imminent use of unlawful force. However, a person:

(1) is justified in using deadly force; and

(2) does not have a duty to retreat;

if the person reasonably believes that that force is necessary to prevent serious bodily injury to the person or a third person or the commission of a forcible felony. No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.

Go ahead. Read it again. I’ll wait.

Done? OK.

Now, with that law fresh in your mind, I want you to think about the following scenarios and, in each case, decide whether you have the right to shoot to kill.

You see a little old lady being robbed on the street. Her attacked is grabbing her purse and pushing her down toward the ground. You believe that the only way to stop the robber from getting away with her purse is to shoot him.
You see two boys engaging in a fist fight and you notice that one of them has a knife in his pants pocket.
You see an adult yelling at a child and hitting that child in the parking lot of a shopping mall. The adult is not hitting the child’s face, but is doing more than spanking the child’s butt.
You are walking through an alley and you see several rough looking men. You think that you hear them call you a mark.
You are a woman and your husband decides that he wants to have sex, even after you’ve said no. He pushes you onto the bed and starts to lower his pants.
As you are pulling up your driveway after a night out, you see someone trying to jimmy open your garage door.
You hear a sound and walk out to the patio of your lake house and see someone pulling away from the dock in your motorboat. (You may want to look at Section (e), too.)
You get into an argument with someone at a bar (you looked at his girlfriend the wrong way) and he yells, “I’m gonna kill you!”

Now I’m certainly not an expert in criminal law. But it seems to me that in each of the examples that I’ve given, a legitimate (though not necessarily winning) argument could be made that you have the statutory authority to use deadly force. And note that only three of these eight cases involve actual self-defense and several don’t involve likelihood of personal injury at all.

I think that we all need to be able to defend ourselves. And we shouldn’t get in trouble for trying to help someone else. But I do worry about the statutory authorization to use force — including deadly force — in some of these sorts of situation. Yes, we want to protect innocent people from being hurt; but what risk of unintended consequences or death or serious injury caused by mistake are we willing to accept?

One further point that I want to note, and some have apparently suggested that this is a point that was directly at issue in the Travyon Martin/George Zimmerman matter:

No person in this state shall be placed in legal jeopardy of any kind whatsoever for protecting the person or a third person by reasonable means necessary.

Of course, the real question is what means were necessary. But I’d certainly argue that if you were to use force in any of the instances set forth above, that you would certainly have a decent argument that your use of force was a reasonable means. And so, here’s the proverbial rub. If you are arrested or brought to trial, you are placed in legal jeopardy. Note that the statute doesn’t say that the circumstances surrounding your use of force are a defense to or justification for the use of that force, but that you can’t be placed in legal jeopardy. Think of it this way: Absent this law, if you were to shoot and kill the men in that dark alley that you worried were about to assault or rob you and the state decided to prosecute you for murder (or manslaughter or whatever), your defense would be self-defense and it would up to a jury (I think…) to decide if your use of force was justified and, with that in mind, whether your conduct was criminal. But with the stand your ground legislation, the question most likely could never get to a jury because that would mean that you had already been placed in legal jeopardy. I suppose that, so long as you can articulate any sort of reasonable basis for your use of force, then the police and prosecutors would be hamstrung and unable to arrest or prosecute you. And query whether that is any different if they don’t believe you.

I think that these stand your ground laws have enormous potential for very bad unintended consequences. And, while I’m not suggesting that self-defense or the prevention of a forcible crime not be legitimate defenses, I think that I’d be more comfortable if the analysis of whether a person acted properly was conducted by a jury with all of the facts rather than in a split-second decision or by a police officer confronted by a “reasonable” explanation. Let’s allow the legal system work rather than trying to pre-judge certain outcomes.

In Today’s Episode of The War on Women

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 20:05:00 +0000

Three new attacks in the ongoing war on women caught my eye this weekend.

First, you’ll recall that in Wisconsin a state legislator introduced a bill that identified single-parenthood as a form of child abuse or neglect. Well, one of the co-sponsors of that legislation is so opposed to divorce that he wants to ban it, even in cases of domestic abuse.

Instead of leaving an abusive situation, women should try to remember the things they love about their husbands, Representative Don Pridemore said. “If they can re-find those reasons and get back to why they got married in the first place it might help,” he told a local news station.

Pridemore — who, coincidentally, is a co-sponsor of Republican state Senator Glenn Grothman’s “being single causes child abuse” bill … also said that while he thinks women are capable of caring for a family “in certain situations,” fathers are the only ones who provide structure and discipline. If they don’t grow up with married biological parents, Pridemore says, “kids tend to go astray.”

So, women of Wisconsin, even if your husband beats you, remember why you loved him and stick around because, you known, if you don’t, you’ll be abusing your kids. Or something. And I’d really like to hear what Rep. Pridemore would say to a woman impregnated in a sexual assault by her abusive husband. My suspicion is that Rep. Pridemore would probably be the sort of fellow who would tell that woman that she didn’t have the right to say “no” to her husband in the first place. Furthermore, what do you think he would say to a woman impregnated by a third-party rapist? I mean, I’m sure he would be opposed to her getting an abortion, but given that he views single-parenthood as a form of abuse or neglect, who is the woman supposed to marry? The rapist? Because, you know, that kid needs a father to keep from going astray. According to Rep. Pridemore, that raped mother, by herself, might not be capable of caring for her family and might even be guilty of abusing or neglecting the child by failing to get married.

Not to be outdone, a Republican legislator in Kansas compared women who are raped to … wait for it … flat tires. Seriously. How and why, you ask? Well, Kansas was debating legislation (which passed) to prohibit abortions from being covered as a standard part of an insurance policy. Instead, abortion coverage could only be obtained through an abortion rider that, obviously, only women would have to buy.

Rep. Barbara Bollier, a Mission Hills Republican who supports abortion rights, questioned whether women would buy abortion-only policies long before they have crisis or unwanted pregnancies or are rape victims.

During the House’s debate, Rep. Pete DeGraaf, a Mulvane Republican who supports the bill, told her: “We do need to plan ahead, don't we, in life?”

Bollier asked him, “And so women need to plan ahead for issues that they have no control over with a pregnancy?”

DeGraaf drew groans of protest from some House members when he responded, “I have spare tire on my car.”

“I also have life insurance,” he added. “I have a lot of things that I plan ahead for.”

In other words, women should purchase abortion insurance just in case they are raped and want to terminate the pregnancy … just like we have spare tires in our cars. Of course one might ask why women have to get a special policy; I presume a standard insurance policy that is legal in Kansas would pay the hospital bills of both men and women who were injured by a criminal. But only women would have to have coverage for a certain type of result of a criminal act.

And remember Indiana Rep. Jim Morris who criticized the Girl Scouts last month before offering a sort of half-assed apology? Well, when the Indiana General Assembly’s session was over, he took to the opinion pages of the conservative Washington Times to rehash his contempt for the Girl Scouts and their “agenda” and progressive ideals. But he didn’t limit his assault:

As for the culture wars, the left had just dispensed with the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation when they turned their attentions to me. Today, they are bludgeoning Rush Limbaugh and tomorrow they will find a fresh new target. My advice to that target is to never back down.

So far, all of the victories in the culture war have gone to the progressives. Nearly all of our most revered institutions, such as universities and major charitable organizations, have been infiltrated and transformed by agents of the left. It is hard to believe that Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and nearly all of the now reliably liberal Ivy League universities, were founded as conservative Christian seminaries, just as it is impossible to imagine what conservative industrialists, like Henry Ford, would think of the politics of the board of directors of the foundations that bear their names.

Whatever concessions we make will be followed up with angry demands that we abandon even more of our core principles. If we accept homosexual members today they will demand that we have anti-Christian leadership of our Christian groups tomorrow, as is the case at Vanderbilt University. Each new appeasement is welcomed by the left with their moving the goal post yet again, and anyone who objects, like myself, may be subjected to the full force and fury of a monolithic cultural warfare machine.

Nothing short of the destruction of our faith and values would satisfy progressives. We have been left with no choice but to refuse to cede even one more inch of ground in this bloody culture war. The time for resolve is now.

A “bloody culture war”? I’m familiar with attacks on abortion clinics and doctors who perform abortions. Both bombs and guns have been used. And I’m familiar with gays who have been beaten or even killed (strung up on a fence and left to die, in one infamous case) or so severely bullied that they have no course but suicide. Did I mention that many of those committing suicide were children? And yet Morris, on the same side apparently as those who threaten abortion clinics and bully gay teens is refusing to cede more ground in the “bloody culture war”? Look, I don’t advocate violence, but I don’t see Morris’ nose being particularly bloodied. I mean, nobody has stopped him from praying or saying really, really stupid things or even hating gays. On the other hand, it does sound like Morris is making an appeal, at least implicitly, to violence, at least it is if that’s what it takes to win the “bloody culture war”. So look for Morris and those who think like him to be on the front lines against equality for gays (maybe using a tire iron to make their point?) or at an abortion clinic protest (perhaps with a Molotov cocktail?). Remember this is a “blood war” from which people like Morris will refuse to “cede even one more inch”.

Oh, and “all of the victories in the culture war have gone to progressives”? Really? I guess that would explain the rollback of abortion rights, the defunding of programs that benefit women, children, and the poor, the expansion of tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, votes to enshrine discrimination against gays into state constitutions, and so forth? The problem is that Morris and those like him are simply terrified of progress and the fact that many people simply don’t share his worldview that harkens back to the world portrayed in Leave it to Beaver or maybe The Andy Griffith Show (if not The Scarlet Letter). A world that tolerates gays, that recognizes that women can make their own decisions, and that values helping those least able to help themselves is apparently antithetical to people like Bob Morris. And Don Pridemore. And Pete DeGraaf.

But those are the people who are being elected to office and until they’ve been replaced by legislators who are tired of the “bloody culture war” then the fight will, I’m afraid, go on and on.

The War on Women: The Attacks Keep Coming

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 17:56:00 +0000

The war on women being waged by some Republicans just keeps raging. Here are just a few of the newest attacks.

In Congress, Republicans are delaying reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. Why? Because Democrats have added language to make the law more applicable on Native American reservations (where it apparently can’t be applied to the non-Native spouse of a Native American woman because the tribal police don’t have appropriate jurisdiction), to provide more protections at shelters to battered homosexuals, and to make it easier for undocumented aliens to be protected from deportation if they come forward to report spousal abuse. Good reasons to object to reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, no? But leave it to Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council to offer the real explanation: He called the Violence Against Women Act “a slush fund for the feminist lobby”.

In Idaho, the state legislator who sponsored that state’s mandatory ultrasound bill responded to criticism that the bill did not include an exception for rape or interest. His explanation?

Rape and incest was used as a reason to oppose this. I would hope that when a woman goes in to a physician with a rape issue, that physician will indeed ask her about perhaps her marriage, was this pregnancy caused by normal relations in a marriage or was it truly caused by a rape. I assume that's part of the counseling that goes on.

In Tennessee, a bill before the legislature would require the state to publish detailed information about doctors who perform abortions and about the women who had abortions. The data would not include the woman’s name, but would include “her age, race, county, marital status, education level, number of children, the location of the procedure and how many times she has been pregnant.” If I’m not mistaken, a similar law was passed in Oklahoma a few years ago … and stayed by a federal court. And think about this for a moment: Even if the report doesn’t include the woman’s identity, in a rural community won’t it be somewhat obvious? And what does a woman’s race have to do with anything?

The Governor of Pennsylvania, responding to criticism about that state’s new mandatory ultrasound law, told women seeking an abortion who are forced to undergo a potentially invasive and medically unnecessary ultrasound procedure: “You just have to close your eyes”.

In Alaska, a bill is pending that would mandate ultrasounds, forbid doctors from disclosing all of the various options available to pregnant women or give referrals for abortions, and require the pregnant woman to get permission for an abortion from the man who impregnated her.

And now a woman Republican in Arizona, seemingly in an effort to be sure that Arizona stays one step crazier than other states, has suggested that women seeking an abortion be required to view an actual abortion first.

But at least one Republican isn’t so keen on some of the positions that members of his party have taken. Earlier this week, Rep. Richard Hanna (R-NY), spoke at a rally for equal rights:

“I think these are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault,” he told the crowd of mostly women. “I’ll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side — my side — has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message. You need to remind people that you vote, you matter, and that they can’t succeed without your help.”

…

Hanna, a pro-choice Republican and co-sponsor of the Equal Rights Amendment, acknowledged that women’s continuing fight for equality is meeting some resistance among his Republican colleagues. He urged women to become more politically active on their own behalf.

“This is a dogfight, it’s a fistfight, and you have all the cards,” he said. “I can only tell you to get out there and use them. Tell the other women, the other 51 percent of the population, to kick in a few of their bucks. Make it matter, get out there, get on TV, advertise, talk about this. The fact that you want [the ERA] is evidence that you deserve it and you need it.”

This shaping up to be a very interesting election, indeed.

Did You Known that Jews Were Once Expelled from Kentucky, Tennessee, and Other Parts of the United States?

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 17:38:00 +0000

I like to think that I have a pretty good grasp of history. I’ve taken plenty of history courses and read plenty of history books over the years. I’m not suggesting that I’m an expert in all things historical or in all epochs or regions. But I do feel like my knowledge of American and Jewish history, in particular, is at least above average. That’s why I was so surprised when I learned about General Order No. 11 issued by Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on December 17, 1862, in the midst of the Civil War.

What did General Order No. 11 say?

The Jews, as a class violating every regulation of trade established by the Treasury Department and also department orders, are hereby expelled from the Department [of the Tennessee] within twenty-four hours from the receipt of this order.
Post commanders will see to it that all of this class of people be furnished passes and required to leave, and any one returning after such notification will be arrested and held in confinement until an opportunity occurs of sending them out as prisoners, unless furnished with permit from headquarters.
No passes will be given these people to visit headquarters for the purpose of making personal application of trade permits.

On the same day that he issued General Order No. 11, Gen. Grant wrote to the Secretary of War to explain his reasoning:

I have long since believed that in spite of all the vigilance that can be infused into Post Commanders, that the Specie regulations of the Treasury Dept. have been violated, and that mostly by Jews and other unprincipled traders. So well satisfied of this have I been at this that I instructed the Commdg Officer at Columbus [Kentucky] to refuse all permits to Jews to come south, and frequently have had them expelled from the Dept. [of the Tennessee]. But they come in with their Carpet sacks in spite of all that can be done to prevent it. The Jews seem to be a privileged class that can travel any where. They will land at any wood yard or landing on the river and make their way through the country. If not permitted to buy Cotton themselves they will act as agents for someone else who will be at a Military post, with a Treasury permit to receive Cotton and pay for it in Treasury notes which the Jew will buy up at an agreed rate, paying gold.

There is but one way that I know of to reach this case. That is for Government to buy all the Cotton at a fixed rate and send it to Cairo, St Louis, or some other point to be sold. Then all traders, they are a curse to the Army, might be expelled.

Seriously.

General Order No. 11 was revoked just a few weeks later on the orders of President Lincoln.

But still…

I’ll readily admit that I’m not a Civil War buff and that Reconstruction was my least favorite era of American history to study. But this I would have remembered.

Maybe it was discussed in one of the numerous days of Sunday School that I missed. Maybe I skimmed that particular chapter in one of the numerous history books that I read in high school and college. Maybe.

Anyway, I happened upon the story of General Order No. 11 a few nights ago when someone on Twitter posted a link to a fascinating, in depth article in Slate by Jonathan D. Sarna. The article is a bit on the long side, but for anyone interested in either Civil War or Reconstruction-era history or Jewish history, the article is well-worth reading. And no, the focus of the entire article is not on the immediate impact of General Order No. 11 on Jews and their expulsion. Rather, the article focuses on the aftermath of General Order No. 11 in the post-War era and, in particular, the administration of President Ulysses S. Grant. One of the conclusions that Sarna draws is summed up by this paragraph:

[D]uring the eight years of Grant’s presidency, memories of General Orders No. 11 surfaced repeatedly. Eager to prove that he was above prejudice, Grant appointed more Jews to public office than any of his predecessors, and, in the name of human rights, extended unprecedented support to persecuted Jews in Russia and Romania. Time and again, partly as a result of his enlarged vision of what it meant to be an American and partly in order to live down General Orders No. 11, Grant consciously worked to assist Jews and secure them equality.

In other words, the focus of the article is on how one anti-Semitic act, taken on the basis of anti-Semitic stereotypes eventually led to greater inclusion of Jews in the political process.

Go. Read. Then come back and tell me what you think.

CNN Provides a Platform for a Vile Voice of the Tea Party

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 19:36:00 +0000

This may be a slightly odd, somewhat confusing post, so just hang in there. I think that the pieces will tie together … eventually.

A few weeks ago I was in Atlanta for one of my daughter’s cheerleading competitions (she did very well, thanks for asking…). Coincidentally, to the events I’m going to discuss, we happened to be staying in the Omni CNN Center hotel and took a tour of CNN after the competition was over. Anyway, on Friday night before the competition really began, my son and I found ourselves killing time in a big holding room that my daughter’s gym had rented for the weekend. He was busy playing games on his iPod touch and I … well, I think I now know why Twitter was invented. I spent my evening reading and responding to all sorts of things on Twitter.

But one tweet that evening set off a whole interesting sequence of tweets that, in a roundabout way led to this post.

Things got going about 7:15 that evening. I’d read a tweet from Charles Johnson, owner of the Little Green Footballs website. Johnson, you may remember from my post Apparently I’m Not Eligible to Run for Office as a Republican; How About You? was a conservative blogger who (in)famously parted ways with the right (that discussion is at the bottom of the previous link); his reasoning is worth reviewing. Anyway, the tweet by Johnson led me to his blog post CNN’s Dana Loesch Equates Mandatory Trans-Vaginal Ultrasound to Having Sex in which he recounts how Dana Loesch equated Virginia’s proposed trans-vaginal ultrasound to the act of having sex in the first place.

Who is Dana Loesch, you may ask. She is a Tea Party leader from St. Louis. She has her own St. Louis-based radio show and she is also an editor of Andrew Breitbart’s “Big” sites. And Loesch is now a CNN contributor, hired by the network to provide the Tea Party viewpoint to CNN’s election coverage. Wikipedia has a brief biography. She has not shied away from controversial acts or positions, whether advertising a rally at which pictures of a Congressman were burned and a coffin was carried to his house, or commending US soldiers for desecrating the bodies of Aghans they’d killed, noting that she’d like to “drop trou” and urinate on the corpses too, notwithstanding that desecration of a body in that way is a war crime.

So, anyway, back to that Friday night tweet. Following Johnson’s post about Loesch’s comments, she expressed her anger toward Johnson on Twitter and called him a pervert. One of her far-right colleagues took up the call and tossed off a somewhat offensive tweet about Johnson. Loesch then followed with this:

I wouldn't be shocked if he has to live so many miles from schools as per the law.

In other words, Loesch was suggesting that Johnson was a sex offender and thus had to live away from schools. Her colleague then wrote:

I hear sirens going off if he so much as rides his bicycle 2 close. Did U know it has a cool horn. Beep Beep - Uncle Charlie's hre!

To which Loesch responded:

'Step inside my van for some candy!'

Now, as I mentioned, it was a Friday night and I was stuck in a room at a convention center … and I was bored. So I decided to toss of a tweet of my own (DLoesch is Loesch’s twitter handle; Lizardoid is Johnson’s twitter handle):

@DLoesch Just curious: Are you alleging that @Lizardoid is a child molester? Allegations like that have consequences.

Not surprisingly, Loesch didn’t respond. But within minutes her followers did. Over the next few days, I engaged in quite a running dialogue with these people, none of whom ever made any attempt to discuss substance; rather they simply spent their time making personal attacks against both me and Johnson (he and I exchanged a few laughs over the whole thing). The two most interesting/curious parts of these events were my discovery of a few people who actually created brand new Twitter accounts for the sole purpose of sending “nastygrams” my way and being called a homophobe. Why was I called a homophobe, you ask, especially knowing what I’ve written here about gay rights or that I was the chair of a prominent gay rights organization? Ah, well you see one of these Loesch supporters called me “penis breath” in a tweet. In response, I said:

Ooh. You're soooo smart. You called me a name with a term that implies I'm gay. Wow. I'm so impressed!

And later, after further attacks from the Loesch follower, I replied:

First, where have I ever insulted women? Second, what is the point of insulting me? Does it make you macho?

Ah, I fell into a well-laid trap. For apparently, in the world of the far-right loony bin, suggesting that the term “penis breath” might be an insult is evidence of homophobia. I’m not joking. When I tried to patiently explain that I was not a homophobe and gave, as evidence, my association with Indiana Equality, the charming Loesch supporter tweeted:

By the way, that's just like saying "I can't be racist because I have a black friend".

To which I responded (and after which that crazed tweeter decided to go away…):

More like "I can't be racist because I was head of local NAACP chapter and worked hard for equal rights".

Anyway, after giving me a few good laughs and something with which to occupy myself during the cheerleading competition (when not watching my daughter or hanging out with some friends…), the whole Twitter episode died down and went away (though I did pick up some new followers and make some new online friends). I’d meant to write about this series of events but never quite got around to it. I did send several tweets to @CNN asking them why they continue to employ someone like Dana Loesch. Not surprisingly, I never heard back from them.

So why am I bringing this up again now?

Remember yesterday’s post Just How Low Can the Attacks Go? in which I discussed how a right-wing blogger had transferred the criticism of Sandra Fluke (in particular, the criticism of things that she didn’t really say) to an anti-Semitic attack on her boyfriend? Right. Well guess what Dana Loesch had to say about that anti-Semitic attack:

I appreciate his fight --> @brooksbayne .

As I’m sure you can guess, that is the Twitter handle of the author of the offensive, anti-Semitic blog post. It’s also worth noting how Brooks Bayne has taken to defending his post:

honestly, i'm glad we're having the discussion. please, read this book: amzn.to/zV8AiQ it's only one book, but it'll get u started.

The book that Bayne links to is The Culture of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century Intellectual and Political Movements by Kevin MacDonald. Who is Kevin MacDonald and why is Bayne linking to his book? Here’s what the Anti-Defamation League has to say about MacDonald:

Kevin MacDonald is an anti-Semitic tenured professor of evolutionary psychology at California State University, Long Beach, where he has worked since 1985. Couching his views as legitimate intellectual inquiry, MacDonald has asserted that anti-Semitism, including the anti-Jewish hatred exhibited by the Nazis and those who carried out the Spanish Inquisition, is a “rational” response to Judaism. MacDonald also regularly argues that Jews are a “hostile elite” in American society who undermine the country’s European heritage and traditions in an effort to "destroy Europeans." According to MacDonald, Jews maintain their elite position by fostering non-white immigration into America to alter the country’s “racial hierarchy” and by creating intellectual movements that weaken ethnic European identity. His arguments mimic those of anti-Semites from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Oh, and if that wasn’t enough, he is a contributor to David Duke’s radio program and on the board of A3P (American Third Position), an avowed white supremacist group. Charming. And that’s the author who Brooks Bayne wants you to start with to understand his anti-Semitic argument against Sandra Fluke’s boyfriend. The anti-Semitic argument that Dana Loesch appreciates.

But it’s worth noting that anti-Semitism is apparently a hot topic in the Loesch household. The day before her “appreciation” of Bayne’s anti-Semitic attack, Loesch’s husband Chris accused CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien of being anti-Semitic:

She won't apologize because it's cool and edgy to be an anti-Semitic leftist right now.

What did O’Brien do to deserve that allegation? She disagreed with a Breitbart supporter in an on-air interview and argued with him over the definition of critical race theory. That Breitbart supporter, Joel Pollack, is Jewish. And what does Dana Loesch think of her husband calling one of Loesch’s fellow CNN employees anti-Semitic? Well, when Eric Boehlert of Media Matters for America retweeted Chris Loesch’s tweet, Dana Loesch responded:

When will @Eric Boehlert go full Klan and hire Duke to write for MMfA? He uses his talking points.

You see, Boehlert and the folks at Media Matters for America are accused of being anti-Semitic because some people from Media Matters have been critical of Israel and of American Jewish support for Israel. I vehemently disagree with some of the things that have come from Media Matters on the subject of Israel and Jewish support for Israel, but comparing those actions, even if anti-Semitic, to the KKK and David Duke? Seriously? So you see, to Loesch only the left can really be anti-Semitic. Criticism of Jews from the right is apparently hunky dory and “appreciated”. If the left criticizes Jews for their support of Israel, that is anti-Semitic, but if the right criticizes Jews for … well … being Jewish or believing in social justice or being around other Jews … that is not anti-Semitic. At least not to people like Loesch.

So, why, one might ask, is Dana Loesh still on CNN?

And that is, I hope obviously, the purpose of this post.

Dana Loesch is entitled to have whatever loathsome points of view she wants. And I guess if a St. Louis radio station wants to continue to give her airtime, then that is their decision (though I think the exodus of advertisers from Rush Limbaugh may make for an interesting case study). But why has CNN continued to turn to Loesch for her opinion? Why is CNN providing a platform for a woman who accuses people of sex crimes, who supports (and would like to commit) war crimes, and who “appreciates” anti-Semitic arguments? CNN suspended Roland Martin for making some homophobic tweets, but Loesch is still with CNN. Why? Why does CNN feel that particular voice and viewpoint worthy of being given a televised platform from which she can call attention to her views?

Next time you hear Loesch on CNN, remember what some of her other opinions and beliefs are and factor that into what you hear her say. And remember, when you hear the Tea Party or an Andrew Breitbart supporter say that they aren’t about racism or offensive behavior, suggest that they look more carefully at one of their own national spokespeople.

One final, tangentially-related point. If the Tea Party and those opposed to President Obama really aren’t racist, then I suppose none of them will be purchasing this bumper sticker:

Nope. No racism here. Move along.

Just How Low Can the Attacks Go?

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 22:38:00 +0000

Last week I wrote in some detail about Rush Limbaugh’s faux apology and the smearing of law student Sandra Fluke. As I pointed out then, Fluke’s testimony to Congress about birth control was primarily focused on the cost of birth control to treat medical issues and not for birth control purposes. And as I also pointed out, her testimony was about other women. Fluke did not testify about her own needs or about her own sexuality. But that hasn’t stopped Rush Limbaugh and others on the right from ripping into Fluke and making all sorts of jokes about her sex life (how many times have you heard the comment that she’s having so much sex that she can’t afford her birth control?).

Well, one blogger has not decided to take this line of attack even further into … are you ready? … an anti-Semitic attack on Fluke’s boyfriend and his family.

Seriously.

Now, before reading what this blogger has to say, remember one important thing: Because Fluke was not testifying about her own sexuality, the identity or character of her boyfriend (let alone his family) is completely and totally irrelevant.

So, here is the post Sandra Fluke’s Boyfriend, Adam “Cutie Pants” Mutterperl, And His Radical Socialist Family from blogger Brooks Bayne. Go read it, if you dare, but as you do so, try playing the following game: See just how many anti-Semitic tropes you can find. But should you choose not to waste your time reading this drivel, let me at least highlight a few of my “favorite” parts (and, as you read them, also ask yourself what any of this has to do with whether women should be entitled to birth control medication as a part of their insurance). I’ve omitted internal links:

Anyway, on to Adam’s “typical Democrat family”. The term BIll O’Reilly used to describe Bill Mutterperl is “Democratic stalwart”. However, as soon as I heard his name in a story about Sandra Fluke, I almost choked, due to my sudden epiphany. Why? Because anyone familiar with Boston and New York political history knows about the wealthy Mutterperl family’s long tradition of supporting the typical Jewish variant of socialism. Bill Mutterperl’s family are much more than Democratic stalwarts.

…

The Mutterperl family, via Adam’s great grandfather Sol’s handbag fortune, established the “Mutterperl Scholarship Endowment Fund” in 1951 for Brandeis University. This school, as some people call it, is named for Louis Brandeis, a secular Jew, Zionist, and United States Supreme Court Justice appointed by Woodrow Wilson. Brandeis was a self-proclaimed socialist. Herbert Marcuse, the famous Frankfurt School Marxist, came to Brandeis in 1954, three years after the Mutterperl fund was created. Brandeis University is one of the nation’s leading petri dishes for anti-American and neo-Marxist thought.

…

Sol was also supportive of unions and was the Director of the United Jewish Appeal (now The Jewish Federations of North America) a Jewish “social” organization. From the JFNA website:

The Federation movement, collectively among the top 10 charities on the continent, protects and enhances the well-being of Jews worldwide through the values of tikkun olam (repairing the world), tzedakah (charity and social justice) and Torah (Jewish learning).

There’s that “social justice” code word again. Jewish Socialism is linked to a very progressive concept of the above tikkun olam. New Bedford, MA, where Raphael Mutterperl ran the family’s manufacturing arm, was a hotbed of Marxist trade-unionism in early 20th century America. Why? It was easy to “sell” radical trade-unionism to a whole people group who were brought up in the lap of Weimar Marxian ideology, because New Bedford had many new eastern-European Jewish immigrants living there at the time, including, of course, the Mutterperl family.

…

Oh, as a complete aside, check out Adam’s grandpappy, Martin Mutterperl, hanging out with Cass Sunstein’s, (another Obama appointee, Regulatory Czarina, and overall radical leftist) great-uncle, Alexander Cass Sunstein, and Samuel “Subway Sam” Rosoff, the guy who killed one of his detractors over a labor union spat, in Palm Beach back in 1965, at the Ambassador Hotel …. Purely coincidence, I’m sure, since they’re all associated with Marxists, socialists, and trade-unionists of Eastern-European, Jewish, descent. There are some other interesting names in this list. Can you spot them?! Just kidding. Move along. Nothing to see here, hobbits.

Apparently, this is what now passes for discourse on the wingnut fringe.

And I thought far-right Republicans were supposed to love Jews? Oh, wait. Sorry. I forgot. They love Israel. They love the idea of “Greater Israel”. They love the idea of everything Israel stands for … except, well, you know … all those things Israel stands for (like equality). And they love the idea of Jews going to Israel so that we can help bring about Armageddon before we are “perfected”. Loving Jews who stand up for democratic principles of equality and fairness here in the US? Eh, not so much. And I guess it’s OK for people like Mitt Romney and Donald Trump to make lots of money, but not “socialist” Jews. Nope.

And that’s apparently why we should discount Sandra Fluke’s testimony about why women need access to birth control. Who knew?

Some Examples of the War on Women (update)

noreply@blogger.com (MSWallack) — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 18:21:00 +0000

Yesterday I posted Some Examples of the War on Women. Last night I read an article about an almost unbelievable new attack on women, this time emanating from Arizona and, believe it or not, from a woman legislator (and hat tip to reader Karin for posting a comment about this new attack last night). The Republican Whip in Arizona has sponsored a bill that … and I hope you’re sitting down … requires women who want a birth control benefit in their insurance coverage to provide their employer with a certificate providing evidence of a medical condition, such as endometriosis or polycystic ovarian syndrome, that can be treated with birth control.

Think about that for a second. If this bill were to pass, an Arizona employer could ask a woman about her medical condition and the medications she takes for that condition. Could you imagine what would happen if a bill were introduced allowing employers to ask men about the drugs that they were taking, perhaps requiring men who take Viagra to provide a certificate from their spouse that the man really does have erectile dysfunction? Yeah, I’m sure that would pass. In what other situation is an employer allowed to ask an employee about their medical condition or the drugs they take? Should a Scientologist employer be able to ask an employee if they are receiving any mental health treatment or taking drugs for depression or anxiety?' Should any employer be able to ask an employer about any medical condition (other than, perhaps, a medical condition that might reasonably interfere with the employee’s ability to perform the job function)?

By the way, I think one aspect of the explanation given by the bill’s sponsor is truly worth considering:

We live in America; we don’t live in the Soviet Union.

Right. Because here in freedom-loving America it makes perfect sense to ask women about whether they are taking medication for birth control purposes; they’d never ask invasive questions about sex back in the old Soviet Union. Wait. Um. Er.

And consider this, too. Arizona, like many other states is, I believe, an at will state. That means that an employer can fire an employee for any reason, so long as the reason is not one of a select group of discriminatory reasons (i.e., the employer can’t fire the employee for being African-American or Muslim or female). But if the employer asked for the certificate and the woman refused to provide it, could the employer then fire the woman for being “loose” or for using birth control against the employer’s religious beliefs or moral convictions? What about an employer who refused to hire single women or who fired women who got divorced (hey, isn’t divorce against some religious teachings, too)?

I want to quote one thing that Karin said in her comment, because I think that it really makes the point:

When is this going to end? … I'm beyond bemused and have slid into scared to death for myself and the younger women in this country. Wake the hell up ladies!

Oh, and did you catch Mitt Romney’s comment about Planned Parenthood yesterday? No, he didn’t just say he wanted to defund it. That wouldn’t really be news anymore (though it is worth considering the fact that Mrs. Romney has contributed to Planned Parenthood from their joint checking account). No. Romney went even further. And, before reading what he said, please remember two things: 1) Planned Parenthood is a private non-profit organization that 2) provides a broad range of health care services (including such things as mammograms and cancer screening) to and for women, in particular poor women. So what did Romney say about Planned Parenthood in an interview yesterday?

Planned Parenthood, we're going to get rid of that.

And I also forgot to include another doozy from Rick Santorum during an interview earlier this year with CNN’s Piers Morgan who asked Santorum about his opposition to abortion, even in cases of rape:

Well, you can make the argument that if she doesn’t have this baby, if she kills her child, that that, too, could ruin her life. And this is not an easy choice. I understand that. As horrible as the way that that son or daughter and son was created, it still is her child. And whether she has that child or doesn’t, it will always be her child. And she will always know that. And so to embrace her and to love her and to support her and get her through this very difficult time, I’ve always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. As you know, we have to, in lots of different aspects of our life. We have horrible things happen. I can’t think of anything more horrible. But, nevertheless, we have to make the best out of a bad situation.

In Santorum’s sick world (yeah, what the hell, go ahead and click on the word Santorum; sorry, but I couldn’t help myself) when a man violently shoves his penis into a woman’s vagina in a dark alley, when an adult abuses a relationship with a child and forces her to have sex even though she is too young to consent, or when a woman is taken advantage of after having too much to drink or being spiked with a date rape drug … then G-d is giving that woman a gift. Hey, I’m not a woman. I’m not a mother. And I’ve never been raped. But I’ll take a wild ass guess here. I’m sure that the woman will love that child. But I also have no doubt that every time the woman looks at that child she will remember the violent or non-consensual act at its conception. Maybe I’m off base, but I don’t think that most women, many women even, would view getting raped as a gift from G-d.

And I’m sure that Republicans like Rick Santorum will do everything that they can to create programs to help pregnant women and then to help them with their offspring, like creating programs to help them pay for food and medicine and … oh, wait. That’s right. They want to cut those sorts of programs too, because, you know, we need to give millionaires more money.

If you see, hear, or read about any other aspects of the GOP’s war on women, let me know.