Bernie!

Love, love, love Senator Bernie Sanders. He is a true progressive champion, and pulls no punches when it comes to calling out the (in the words of FDR) "malefactors of great wealth." But what I really love about him is that he doesn't just point fingers, he also offers solutions for closing the inequality gap - from real tax reform to sensible regulations on the financial industry, to strengthening civil rights protections. Now if we could only get enough other Democrats to join him.  The Republicans, to absolutely no one's surprise, would seem to be a lost cause.

Sanders had a great piece in the Huffington Post yesterday reminding us again who the big money boyz are behind the conservative movement, and why they are a danger to our republic:

Given the reality that the Koch brothers are now the most important and powerful players in American politics, it is important to know what they want and what their agenda is.

It is not widely known that David Koch was the Libertarian Party vice-presidential candidate in 1980. He believed that Ronald Reagan was much too liberal. Despite Mr. Koch putting a substantial sum of money into the campaign, his ticket only received 1 percent of the vote. Most Americans thought the Libertarian Party platform of 1980 was extremist and way out of touch with what the American people wanted and needed.

Fast-forward 34 years and the most significant reality of modern politics is how successful David Koch and like-minded billionaires have been in moving the Republican Party to the extreme right. Amazingly, much of what was considered "extremist" and "kooky" in 1980 has become part of today's mainstream Republican thinking.

These brothers, literally born of Bircherism (their father was one of the founders of the John Birch Society), have steadily moved their extreme agenda into the heart of the Republican party. The "vast rightwing conspiracy" Hillary Clinton was mocked mercilessly for calling out is paying serious dividends. Good for Senator Sanders and others in the Democratic Party for continuing to reveal the men behind the curtain.

"Personhood"

Yesterday, I read a really disturbing piece by Greg Sargent in which he discusses the GOP candidates for Senate, and how many of them support the notion of "fetal personhood":

The issue isn’t being discussed at all by Washington prognosticators these days. But you can bet that some of the most hard fought Senate races this fall will feature big fights over “Personhood” measures, which have declared that full human rights begin at the moment of fertilization.

. . . 

This has already appeared in the Colorado Senate race, but it will likely become an issue in other races, too. In Colorado, the Republican candidate, GOP Rep. Cory Gardner, renounced his previous support for Personhood after entering the contest, admitting it would “restrict contraception,” but Dems seized on the reversal to argue that Gardner only supports protecting women’s health when politically necessary.

Gardner co-sponsored the “Life at Conception Act,” which provides for Constitutional protection of the right to life of each “preborn human person,” defined as existing from the “moment of fertilization.” The Pro-Life Alliance describes this as a “Personhood” measure. 

Other GOP Senate candidates are on record in similar fashion. Co-sponsors of the Life at Conception Act include Rep. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Rep. Steve Daines of Montana, both expected general election candidates. Meanwhile, according to McClatchy, three leading GOP Senate candidates in North Carolina — Thom Tillis, Greg Brannon, and Mark Harris — all favor a “Personhood” constitutional amendment that would “grant legal protections to a fertilized human egg and possibly ban some forms of birth control.” 

I am astounded that we have moved so far rightward/slipped so far backward that one of our two major political parties has adopted as a fundamental principle the idea that pregnant women are not to be considered adult persons. Because, make no mistake, if a fertilized egg is fully invested with the rights of personhood, a pregnant woman must necessarily lose her rights as a full-fledged person, because she loses the right of bodily autonomy. We do not compel people to donate their organs (or even perform CPR) to save someone who would otherwise die, but "personhood" laws would force a woman to lend out her body to keep a zygote alive, even if it is against her will.

We already restrict the rights of pregnant women by criminalizing their conduct if they cannot overcome an addiction to drugs or alcohol while pregnant. If a fertilized egg is officially classified as a person with equal rights to life as the woman carrying it, what else will be criminalized? If you relax in a hot tub against a doctor's recommendation and miscarry will you be arrested?  Or ride a horse? Or go jogging? Or have a glass of wine at a restaurant where there are "witnesses" to your conduct? Considering the fact that up to 20% of known pregnancies end in miscarriage, it seems likely that pregnant women will automatically become a suspected class, to be watched, supervised, and prosecuted if something happens to the "person" they are carrying. The Handmaid's Tale as instruction manual.

It will be interesting to see what kind of push-back these laws get from the medical community and the large numbers of people who access fertility treatments on one hand, and contraception on the other. If every fertilized egg is suddenly granted the rights of personhood, in vitro fertilization must be outlawed. So too hormonal birth control, as any eggs that do accidentally get fertilized won't be able to properly implant and develop in the altered hormonal environment. There go another couple of chunks of female autonomy.

I know to many people, the vision I'm talking about here seems far fetched. I mean didn't the voters of Mississippi reject a "personhood" amendment just a few years ago? Well, the overwhelming number of voters (and even a majority of NRA members) support greater regulation of gun sales and ownership, and yet, since the tragedy at Newtown, changes in gun laws have overwhelmingly been in the direction of loosening them, not tightening them. It only takes a small number of fanatics to impose their will, and we are seeing anti-feminist fanatics ascending to positions of power in our government. Birth control access is under attack; access to abortion is being dealt a death by a thousand cuts; The GOP opposes equal-pay laws; sexual assault is regarded as a minor problem at worst; and fetal personhood is back on the agenda. Reactionary forces are on the march, and I for one am scared to death thinking about where they want to take us.

The Divide

Matt Taibbi has a new book out, and it looks interesting:

Taibbi wrote “The Divide” to demonstrate that unequal wealth is producing grotesquely unequal outcomes in criminal justice. You might say that’s an old story, but Taibbi believes that, just as income disparities are growing ever wider, so, too, are disparities in who attracts the attention of cops and prosecutors and who doesn’t. Violent crime has fallen by 44 percent in America over the past two decades, but during that same period the prison population has more than doubled, skewing heavily black and poor. In essence, poverty itself is being criminalized. Meanwhile, at the other end of the income distribution, an epidemic of white-collar crime has overtaken the financial sector, indicated, for instance, by a proliferation of record-breaking civil settlements. But partly because of an embarrassing succession of botched Justice Department prosecutions, and partly because of a growing worry (first enunciated by Attorney General Eric Holder when he was Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general) that any aggressive prosecution of big banks could destabilize the economy, Wall Street has come, under President Obama, to enjoy near-total immunity from criminal prosecution. It had more to fear, ironically, when George W. Bush was president.

Taibbi has committed some of the best acts of journalism out there on the predatory nature of our financial system, how the big boys rig the game for their own benefit (at our great expense), and how they keep getting away with it. The fact that he was doing this writing for Rolling Stone particularly makes me smile.

While I don't always appreciate Tiabbi's, shall we say, flamboyant prose style, he does a great job explaining very complicated financial issues in a way a lay person can understand. His articles are always very well-sourced, and he pulls no punches when it comes to identifying the greed-heads, scoundrels, and outright crooks masquerading as Masters of the Universe.

After spending many years focusing on how powerful financial interests have gamed the system, resulting in economic inequality equal to that of the Gilded Age, Taibbi now seems to be turning his attention on what that rigged system means for the rest of us. My guess is it ain't gonna be pretty.

The Toughest Job You'll Ever Love . . .

. . . or will want to run screaming from, your sanity now a sad little puddle on the floor:



I know this is an emotionally manipulative greeting card ad trying to get us to buy Mother's Day cards, but my mom sent it to me as a little reminder that it's okay if we don't always live up to the job description, because the job description is a killer.

Thanks, Mamma. You are the best.

Super Awesome

Supersisters!

Published in 1979, the Supersisters trading cards were a playful, informative, and accessible way to spread feminism to younger audiences. The series was inspired by Lois Rich's daughter, an eight-year-old baseball-card collector, who asked why there weren't any pictures of girls on the cards. With a grant from the New York State Education Department, Lois Rich and her sister, Barbara Egerman, contacted five hundred women of achievement and created cards of the first seventy-two to respond.

What I wouldn't give for a set of these.

Moral Indeed

Nice profile in Mother Jones on Rev. William Barber and the Moral Mondays movement:

On the last Monday of April 2013, Barber led a modest group of clergy and activists into the state legislative building in Raleigh. They sang "We Shall Overcome," quoted the Bible, and blocked the doors to the Senate chambers. Barber leaned on his cane as capitol police led him away in handcuffs.

That might have been the end of just another symbolic protest, but then something happened: The following Monday, more than 100 protesters showed up at the capitol. Over the next few months, the weekly crowds at the "Moral Mondays" protests grew to include hundreds, and then thousands, not just in Raleigh but also in towns around the state. The largest gathering, in February, drew more than 15,000 people. More than 900 protesters have been arrested for civil disobedience over the past year. Copycat movements have started in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, and Alabama in response to GOP legislation regarding Medicaid and gun control. 

Taken in july at an education-focused Moral Monday rally.

Some of us were more interested in what was going on than others.

 A few of the teachers did comment that they were glad to see the boys reading to pass the time.

Tax Man and the Moochers

So today's the day we all sit around complaining about how much we have to pay in taxes to support those lazy good-for-nothing moochers who live the good life on the government's dime. You know, these guys:

On tax day, when millions of American taxpayers and small businesses pay their fair share to support critical public services and the economy, they will also get stuck with a multi-billion dollar tax bill to cover the massive subsidies and tax breaks that benefit the country’s largest employer and richest family. 

Walmart is the largest private employer in the United States,1 with 1.4 million employees.2 The company, which is number one on the Fortune 500 in 2013 and number two on the Global 500,3 had $16 billion in profits last year on revenues of $473 billion.4 The Walton family, which owns more than 50 percent of Walmart shares,5 reaps billions in annual dividends from the company.6 The six Walton heirs are the wealthiest family in America, with a net worth of $148.8 billion.7 Collectively, these six Waltons have more wealth than 49 million American families combined.8 

This report finds that the American public is providing enormous tax breaks and tax subsidies to Walmart and the Walton family, further boosting corporate profits and the family’s already massive wealth at everyone else’s expense. 

The whole report is worth reading, although it is guaranteed to make you angry. The crazy thing is this doesn't begin to take into account all of the ways the Waltons benefit at our expense. The report only focuses on the taxes they avoid paying, and the way we subsidize their low-paid workforce, but what about all of the extra services they use (that they clearly aren't paying for)?

How many times do you use the police each year compared to Wal-Mart stores across the country. Access the court system much? Wal-Mart does on a daily basis. Their trucks use our roads; their container ships use our ports; they get great value when we sign trade agreements allowing them to import cheap goods from China. They over-consume every one of these "common goods," profit handsomely from them, and then do not come close to paying their share of taxes, while underpaying their workers so the rest of us get stuck making up the difference.  

Next time a right-wing relative starts talking about the makers and takers, share this report with them so they can see who the real moochers are.