Recently in History Category

Back in the day before I had health insurance, I received the bulk of my health care at the wonderful Boulder Valley Womens Health Center. If my appointment happened to fall on the day when Operation Rescue was protesting, I would have to walk through people spitting at me, yelling at me, calling me a baby killer, throwing photographs of fetuses at my feet, and basically making the process of trying to get my cholesterol and blood sugar numbers as difficult as possible. I, personally, always relished the opportunity to face down the protesters. I held my head up high, smiled at them, and walked right on past. As long as they remained at a safe and legal distance, it was within their right to scream whatever popped into their head, no matter how disrespectful, cruel, or outright crazy.

But anyone who doesn't think they are there to terrorize patients is making a huge miscalculation. They are there to make patients feel unsafe and to attempt to make women feel ashamed, not only about their bodies, but their sexuality. That, in my opinion, is an outrage.

Organized protest is considered by the right to life movement as the tip of the spear. The real terrorism is found in bombings and assassinations:

• Dr. Barnett Slepian and Robert Sanderson (killed in 1998)


• Dr. Jack Fainman and another unnamed physician (wounded in 1997)


• Dr. Hugh Short (wounded in 1995)


• Dr. John Bayard Britton, James H. Barrett, Shannon Lowney and Leanne Nichols (killed in 1994)


• Dr. Garson Romalis and five others (wounded in 1994)


• Dr. David Gunn (killed in 1993)


• Dr. George Tiller (wounded in 1993)

When She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named refuses to use the label "terrorists" to describe the people who perpetrate violence against physicians and their patients, make no mistake regarding her intention. She is not simply using dog-whistle code under a winking guise, she is broadcasting loud and clear to the anti-choice fanatics that their actions will be given a pass and that in her, they have finally found a leader who will support their agenda.

See it for yourself:

Thanks to Meteor Blades over at the Daily Kos for the list of those killed by Anti-Choice terrorists

Joe The Plumber sure has proved to be a useful hack for the GOP. This evening, during one of the weakest interviews ever aired on CNN, She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named was asked whether she thought Barack Obama was a socialist. Her reply? That she, herself, wouldn't call Obama a socialist, but that Joe, The Plumber, sure thinks he is and he represents the American people.

I have to admit now that this election has turned me into somewhat of a ranting madwoman, obsessed with political hypocrisy and the hate filled propaganda machine. I bet you've noticed. I am not sure how to climb back off the ruined ledge of big business democracy and at the risk of sounding like the dude on the corner holding the cardboard sign and screaming about black helicopters, I can't help but feel that the process is slowly killing the animal.

The good news, of course, is that with the advent of the interweb, its series of tubes, and (most importantly) YouTube, we can now all educate ourselves by going right to the horse's mouth (so to speak). Certain politicians have not yet caught onto the fact that EVERY SINGLE WORD that comes out of their mouths in public, even spit from under clenched teeth, is being caught on tape and will be distributed to the masses within moments. The days of plausibly deniability are over. You say it, you own it.

Such is the lesson to be learned this week by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) and Rep. Robin Hayes (R-NC). Ms. Bachmann was actually being interviewed on Hardball at the time of her astounding call for the media to launch a "penetrating expose" on the American legislature and who is pro-American and who is anti-American. She can spin it ten ways from Sunday, but her call for the second coming of the House Un-American Activities Committee is on video. She may have thought she would be embraced by She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named for trumpeting her call to class warfare, but I am thinking she will, instead, be thrown under the political bus.

Then there is Mr. Hayes, who opened a McCain/Palin rally by saying:

"Liberals hate real Americans that work and accomplish and achieve and believe in God."

This came just after the congressman said that he wanted to "make sure we don't say something stupid, make sure we don't say something we don't mean." I guess you only mean it if you're not caught on tape saying it.

I called Congressman Hayes campaign office directly and I spoke with the assistant to the Communications Director (I am getting to know quite a few of those GOP CDs these days). I told him that I wanted to get confirmation of his statements directly from his office instead of relying on the filter of the "mainstream media". He was saddened by the affair but admitted that he had, indeed, made that statement. He testified to the Congressman's character and that he was not just a decent man, but a great man. It was an interesting exchange and I gave his campaign points for not trying to force the cat back into the bag, as so many politicians attempt to do, even in the face of an audio archive.

Which brings me back to that queen of manipulation, She-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named. She has the nerve to imply that she isn't calling Barack Obama a socialist, but that Real Americans™ think that's exactly what he is and she is just real concerned, y'all. It's too late in the evening to collect all of her speeches this week. If you google Obama, socialist, and GOP, there are more examples of deft mob manipulation that you'll care to see. That's the thing about the internet. It's just so much easier to discover which politicians are balls out, shameless liars.

As an addendum, the Vice President is not "in charge" of the US Senate and has no constitutional authority to "make a lot of good policy changes." Regardless of Dick Cheney and his questionable extra-branch activities, the office of VP is not actually described in the Constitution as "flexible". You want to be veep so gosh darn bad? How about you sit down on that plane of yours and read the United States Constitution. If you can't read the WHOLE thing (I know, I know, it's looooong), how about just Article 1, Section 3, which states:

The Vice President of the United States shall be president of the Senate, but shall have no vote, unless they be equally divided.

Or how about Article 2, Section 1. Or how about the 20th Amendment? Or the 25th Amendment?

Call me an elitist, but I want the people sitting in the Executive Branch to not only be smarter than I am, more educated than I am, more articulate than I am, and more experienced than I am, but I demand they be more familiar with the Constitution than I am. You want to effect policy change and speak for the Real Americans™ who live in Pro-American pockets of Real America™? Then run for Congress as Alaska's single Representative At Large. You can talk until you're blue in the face about the reg'lar Americans you directly serve. Vice President, on the other hand, is not an office for which you are qualified.