Novara
Novara's JournalMichigan Senate committee to hear testimony on RFRA bill the same day marriage equality case is at S
Source: eclectablog
....at the Supreme Court
It’s hard not to be cynical about the timing of the Michigan Senate committee hearing on “Religious Freedom Restoration Act” (RFRA) legislation on April 28th. The same day DeBoer v Snyder, the case for marriage equality, gets its day at the U.S. Supreme Court, Michigan Republicans have scheduled hearings on RFRA legislation similar to the RFRA legislation passed in Indiana that caused a rightful uproar. The Indiana legislation was changed after it was passed into law to include more protections for the LGBT community, but many critics say those protections don’t go far enough.
Michigan Senate Bill 4 claims to be all about protecting people of faith from government interference in their religious practice — which is a right so fundamental to America that it’s already protected under the U.S. Constitution. But as usual with most RFRA legislation, SB 4 is vaguely worded. That leaves the law open for interpretation that puts people’s rights at risk.
This is particularly true for the LGBT community, which is not protected under Michigan’s Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act. Since there is no law to protect the rights of the LGBT community there is no protection for LGBT people against religious discrimination that would be enshrined into law by SB 4.
But RFRA legislation has the potential to harm anyone — Muslims or Christians who are refused police protection or medical care by someone of a different faith, single mothers who are denied housing by someone who thinks they are sinners, or a teenager who is refused school counseling because he has a drinking problem that goes against someone’s beliefs. The more vague the language of the bill, the greater the danger.
Another troubling aspect of SB 4 is the vague definition of “exercise of religion,” which leaves it open to broad interpretation.
Read more: http://www.eclectablog.com/2015/04/michigan-senate-committee-to-hear-testimony-on-rfra-bill-the-same-day-marriage-equality-case-is-at-supreme-court.html
You don't even have to cite a legitimate recognized religion. So go ahead and discriminate against Republicans based on your "deeply held belief" that they're subverting basic "god-given" human rights. Or something.
"I thought I had rights. But my baby had more constitutional rights that I did."
Abortion Rights at Risk: The GOP Opens a New Front in the War on Women<snip>
Walker and Cruz have also favored the idea of granting separate legal status, or "personhood," to the unborn, which in pro-life rhetoric equates abortion with murder. But abortion is actually just the beginning. What granting personhood to fetuses really does, say many reproductive-rights advocates, is pit the rights of the unborn against the rights of the mother. "Pregnancy in our society tends to be idealized and women counted on to provide a perfect uterine environment," Northwestern University law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer recently wrote in an op-ed in The New York Times. "Fetal rights can be employed to justify any deviation from this standard." And this isn't simply a hypothetical, she and others point out. Pregnant women have been prosecuted or subject to forced interventions for substance abuse, for refusing to have a Caesarean section, for attempting suicide, even for falling down the stairs. In a future that seems straight out of The Handmaid's Tale, the interests of "fetal protection," Tuerkheimer noted, might lead to pregnancy itself becoming a matter of state regulation.
<snip>
"It is not only that laws like this deprive women of their liberty and almost every other civil right associated with being a person protected by the U.S. Constitution," says Sara Ainsworth, director of legal advocacy at the nonprofit National Advocates for Pregnant Women, which is representing both Beltran and Loertscher in cooperation with the Carr Center for Reproductive Justice at NYU School of Law. "These laws actually put women's health and the health of their pregnancies at risk — which is totally contradictory to the claimed intent of this law. Basically, the law's true purpose appears to be to control and stigmatize pregnant women who have used any amount of a drug or alcohol."
<snip>
"What this is really about is creating a separate legal status for pregnant women," says Lynn Paltrow, executive director of National Advocates for Pregnant Women, who co-authored a 2013 study that documented more than 400 cases between 1973 and 2005 of pregnant women who were subject to arrest, detention or forced intervention by state authorities. "There is no way to grant separate rights to eggs and fetuses without removing rights from women."
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/abortion-rights-at-risk-the-gop-opens-a-new-front-in-the-war-on-women-20150422
These are women who aren't necessarily addicts, and who quit using anything once they got pregnant. Yet they are punished anyway. The fetus has more rights than women do.
Listeria: Jeni's 2nd Ice Cream Company to Recall Products
Source: ABC News
A second ice cream company has recalled all of its products after health officials found listeria in a sample of its frozen treats.
Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams of Ohio said on its website Thursday that it recalled its frozen products after the listeria discovery. The action follows a similar recall by Texas-based Blue Bell Creameries Monday. Blue Bell's ice cream was linked to 10 listeria illnesses in four states, including three deaths, and listeria was found in several of the company's products.
The recalls are uncommon: Listeria isn't usually found in ice cream, since the bacteria can't grow at freezing temperatures.
A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said the agency has no evidence, for now, that the listeria found in Jeni's ice cream and the listeria found in Blue Bell ice cream are connected.
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/listeria-jenis-2nd-ice-cream-company-stop-production-30537618
Anti-vaxxers go there: Now they’re comparing childhood immunization to rape
Source: Raw Story - T Bogg
In an atmosphere where anti-vaxx activists are only slightly more popular than polio but are considerably less popular than the measles, now comes another shrill blast from an anti-vaxx group which has compared immunizing children to rape.
Yes, they went there.
The Australian Vaccination Skeptics Network (AVSNI) posted a graphic to their Facebook page on Wednesday — since taken down — with an ALL CAP headline reading: “FORCED PENETRATION.”
<snip>
And because science is not on their side, anti-vaxxers are now resorting to even more hysterical claims, equating government mandates to forcible sexual assault, which is repulsive on so many levels. But then this is the inevitable logical progression once you’ve gone from linking vaccines to Nazi medical experiments to then comparing childhood vaccinations to the Holocaust.
What do you have left?
Apparently this:
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…which is grotesque, coming as it does from people who are not only immune to scientific consensus but now– apparently — from shame.
Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2015/04/anti-vaxxers-go-there-now-theyre-comparing-childhood-immunization-to-rpe/
They know they've lost the battle.
Which State Was the Worst for Women This Week?
Which State Was the Worst for Women This Week?This week, DoubleX is proud to inaugurate the Worst State of the Week award, for the member of the union that has shown the most creativity, originality, brio, and thought leadership in expressing its hostility to women's rights. Before we get to our first-ever winner, though, let's look at the runners-up.
Third prize goes to Colorado, whose legislature is exploiting a violent crime against a pregnant woman—one that resulted in her baby's death—to justify a bill defining fertilized eggs as persons, even though voters rejected the notion at the polls in November. Despite claiming that the bill would protect pregnant women, the long history of these "feticide" laws indicates that they are actually used as a pretext to arrest women for stillbirths or even on suspicion of drug use while pregnant—even if they give birth to healthy babies. To add insult to injury, Colorado Republicans are on the verge of destroying a family planning program credited with reducing the teen birthrate in the state by 40 percent over a five-year period.
In second place is Tennessee, where the legislature passed two bills restricting abortion access this week that are expected to be signed by the governor. When Democrats tried to amend the bill to create exceptions for women with mental health emergencies or who were victims of rape or incest, state Rep. Sheila Butt shot them down, insinuating that patients and providers would fake these situations in order to gain abortion access.
Despite such fierce competition, this week's winner is Alabama, where state legislators finally allowed the subtext to become text with a bill that equates abortion providers and their patients with sex offenders. Republicans in the state House, eager to shut down the state's one remaining abortion clinic in Huntsville, have concocted a bill banning abortion clinics from operating within 2,000 feet of a school. Local anti-choice fanatic James Henderson takes credit for the idea, saying, "We were advised ... that a good approach was to use the same standard of keeping sex offenders from public schools, which is 2,000 feet."
Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/04/23/what_s_the_worst_state_for_women_this_week_colorado_tennessee_and_alabama.html
OwnIt 2016
OwnIt 20167 in 10 voters support access to legal abortion.
Anti-choice candidates know this, and hide their true agendas.
GOP White House hopefuls don’t trust women.
See their records. Make them #OwnIt.
Here are your 2016 Republican Presidential hopefuls.
Check out their policies, statements, pledges and help us make them #OwnIt.
Read more: https://ownit2016.com/
There are links to share on social media.
Tennessee Anti-Choice Politician Can’t Decide if Women Are Stupid or Cunning
Tennessee Anti-Choice Politician Can’t Decide if Women Are Stupid or CunningBack in November, voters in Tennessee passed a ballot initiative to amend the state constitution, making abortion the only medical procedure not protected under the state's stringent privacy protections. Proponents of the amendment ran a campaign downplaying the severity of the bill, claiming it wasn't about restricting abortion access but about making the constitution "neutral" on the subject. In a completely unshocking turn, those reassurances that this is no big deal were immediately forgotten, and the Tennessee legislature got right to passing invasive, punitive bills meant to make abortion as miserable and expensive an experience as possible.
One of the two bills the legislature passed this week requires a 48-hour waiting period to get an abortion, during which time you will be subjected to a government-mandated guilt trip under the guise of "informed consent." Standard stuff, but the floor debate over this bill, posted at Raw Story, was a master class in the doublespeak and contradictory arguments forwarded by anti-choicers these days.
<snip>
Fitzhugh then tried again, offering an amendment that allowed exceptions for rape and incest victims. Butt, who just moments before was portraying women as hapless and in need of protection from greedy abortionists, immediately switched gears to another favorite anti-choice stereotype: the crafty villainess who cries rape. “This amendment appears political, because we understand in most instances, this”—by which she means rape—“is not verifiable.”
She then pivoted seamlessly right back to the women-are-dummies line: “Let’s make sure that these women have the information and the understanding to act.”
Women: They're soft-hearted fools who are too dumb to know what "abortion" is without a condescending lecture and they're cunning liars who cry rape to conceal their wanton ways. Whichever you need to believe right this second in order to keep them from getting abortions.
Read more: http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2015/04/22/tennessee_s_new_waiting_period_has_no_exceptions_for_rape_or_mental_health.html
They can't decide if we're children who don't know what we're doing or we're so smart we fool everybody. But overall, we're evil. Gawd, I hate those mother f*ckers.
First Female DEA Chief Resigns After Blamed For Not Fixing ‘Good Old Boy’ Culture
This article makes a very good point: First Female DEA Chief Resigns After Blamed For Not Fixing ‘Good Old Boy’ Culture
<snip>
Her resignation therefore fits into a pattern of women being given leadership of organizations or companies when they are already struggling with significant problems and then often getting pushed out when they can’t engineer a quick turnaround. This is the phenomenon dubbed by researches the “glass cliff.” Multiple studies have found that women and people of color are more likely to be promoted into leadership when companies are experiencing poor performance or grappling with other big challenges. White men are seen as more natural leaders and can usually hold onto power when things are going well, but a rough patch may make people more inclined to turn to women to try something new. Women are then more likely to be forced out of their jobs, and when they are, white men often are put back into power as the “savior.”
The same pattern has turned up for the first women to lead other government agencies. Julia Pierson, former director of the Secret Service, was also tasked with cleaning up an agency already rocked by scandals, including Secret Service agents hiring prostitutes, and then made to resign when another scandal hit. The first woman to be named postmaster general of the Postal Service comes in at a time when revenue has been falling by billions of dollars every year, it has defaulted on pension payments, and it’s on the brink of financial collapse.
But it crops up in many different places. Two women lost high-up leadership roles at NBC after the Brian Williams scandal. Mary Barra became the first female CEO of General Motors just before its airbag failures came to light. The first head to roll after JP Morgan lost billions to a massively failed trade made by a male trader was a woman, while the first high-profile executive blamed for the crisis was a woman. Xerox’s first female CEO took the job when the company was $17 billion in debt, while Sunoco’s first female CEO got the position after its shares had fallen 52 percent.
It happens to people of color too: JC Penney’s first back CEO was appointed after the last CEO blew a $4 billion hole in sales.
Part of the reason that there are so few women in government and corporate leadership is that they don’t get promoted as often. But the other side is that when they are, they are handed nearly impossible turnaround jobs and then pushed out if they don’t succeed.
Read more: http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/04/22/3649790/michele-leonhart-dea-glass-cliff/
I have long said that GM appointed Mary Barra as CEO in order to take the fall.
Human Trafficking Senate Compromise Will Deny Abortion Funding to Survivors
Source: RH Reality Check
Senators announced a compromise Tuesday that would move two long-stalled legislative items: a human trafficking bill that has been embroiled in a fight over abortion restrictions, and the confirmation of Loretta Lynch to be the nation’s first Black female attorney general.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) had refused to bring Lynch’s confirmation up for a vote until the Senate passed the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA), despite Lynch’s undisputed qualifications and strong record on prosecuting human traffickers. The tactic enraged advocates and Black leaders, some of whom staged a hunger strike in protest.
McConnell said Tuesday that once the JVTA is passed, the Senate will move on to Lynch “in the next day or so.”
The compromise on the trafficking bill was a limited victory for pro-choice advocates. It stopped Republican efforts to expand the reach of the anti-choice Hyde Amendment, but it will have the effect of restricting abortion services for underage victims of sex trafficking.
“This bill, and the deal reached, are a perfect example of why the so-called Hyde Amendment is bad policy and harmful to women,” Ilyse Hogue, president of NARAL Pro-Choice America, said in a statement. “Because of the Hyde Amendment, this bill still denies the most vulnerable women necessary access to vital health services.”
Hogue noted that up to 80 percent of trafficking victims end up pregnant, often multiple times, and called it “abhorrent” that Republicans picked a fight over denying these survivors the full range of health care.
Read more: http://rhrealitycheck.org/article/2015/04/21/human-trafficking-senate-compromise-will-deny-abortion-funding-survivors/
Senate 'Resolves' Fight over Abortion Provision in Sex Trafficking Bill
Senate 'Resolves' Fight over Abortion Provision in Sex Trafficking BillAfter a month of arguing, the Senate has reached a weird little compromise that will allow a bill to pass that aids victims of sex trafficking. It got held up because Senate Republicans were concerned some of those sex trafficking victims might need abortion care.
That’s why Senate Republicans snuck anti-abortion language into the bill in March. The bill collects money from people convicted of trafficking and use that money to help victims; the Republican’ new language stipulated that the money would be restricted by the Hyde Amendment, the law which bans federal funding for abortion.
The “compromise,” as the New York Times reports, splits that funding money in two: half of it goes to a general fund and won’t be subject to abortion restrictions. But it also can’t be used for healthcare services of any kind for trafficking victims, only for things like legal aid, shelter, and counseling. The other half of the money can be used for healthcare and medical services, but it’s subject to the Hyde Amendment.
In other words, then, none of the money can legally be used for abortion care. That really doesn’t look like a compromise.
Read more: http://jezebel.com/senate-resolves-fight-over-abortion-provision-in-sex-tr-1699215547
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