yesterday's child

oceanicsteam:

Vs closing a tax loophole. I literally can’t post all the articles I have bookmarked under War on Women(Or the current GOP religious zeal of worshiping the rich) because I just don’t want my tubmlr to have 2 dozen posts a day. Reminder, this is two days after 31 Republicans in the Senate, all of them men(none of the 5 Republican women voted nay for obvious reasons) voted against reauthorizing the Violence Against Women Act.

The general election campaign for president is springing to life, now that Mitt Romney is all but certain to be President Obama’s Republican opponent next fall. On Capitol Hill, though, the battle over who will sign or veto Congress’ bills next year is already blazing.

In two key votes this past week, many Republicans fell in step with candidate Romney and his quest for more support from younger voters and women.

Lawmakers have known for a long time that the 3.4 percent interest rate for federally subsidized college loans will double on July 1 unless Congress acts. Still, for months, Republican lawmakers ignored Democrats’ calls for action. In fact, the budget recently passed by House Republicans and endorsed by Romney assumes student loan rates will double.

But then on Monday, just as Obama began talking up the issue on college campuses in three states, Romney declared he did not want those rates to go up.

“I fully support the effort to extend the low interest rate on student loans,” he said.

And on Wednesday, at a hastily called news conference, House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he too wanted to avoid a student loan rate hike.

“Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the aisle here on the Capitol have long agreed this was a problem that must be addressed,” he said.

A reporter asked Boehner if he was doing Romney’s bidding.

“I’m doing my own,” he responded.

Closing Ranks

But another leading House Republican, Rep. David Dreier of California, said GOP lawmakers are closing ranks around presumptive nominee Romney.

“It’s going to be no secret that as we head into the conventions and the campaign itself and into the fall, we’re going to be … singing from the same page,” said Dreier, chairman of the Rules Committee.

At the White House, spokesman Jay Carney gave Obama credit for the Republicans’ about-face on student loans.

“We know what their position was; we are glad they changed it; and they changed it in large part because the president took his argument out to the country, and they felt that pressure,” Carney said.

On Tuesday, the president appeared alongside talk show host Jimmy Fallon to “slow jam” about a student loan fix.

“What we’ve said is simple,” Obama said over a sultry beat provided by The Roots. “Now is not the time to make school more expensive for our young people.”

Democrats’ Response

House Republicans passed legislation Friday extending the subsidized student loans another year. Unlike the Senate Democrats’ bill, which pays for the fix by closing a tax loophole, the House bill is paid for by abolishing the new health care law’s Prevention and Public Health Fund.

That prompted a veto threat from the White House and scorn from House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

“They say, ‘OK, we won’t allow it to double, but we’re going to take the money from women’s health,’ ” Pelosi said. “Should be no surprise to anyone, because they have an ongoing assault on women’s health and this is in their budget, and this is just a continuation of that.”

Boehner responded angrily. “Now we’re going to have a fight over women’s health. Give me a break!” he said. “This, the latest plank in the so-called war on women — entirely created, entirely created, by my colleagues across the aisle for political gain.”

Meanwhile, 15 Senate Republicans joined forces with Democrats this week to reauthorize the 1994 Violence Against Women Act. They did so after Romney said he supported the measure.

That drew ridicule from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.: “The Etch A Sketch is coming sooner than I thought.”

Claremont McKenna College congressional expert Jack Pitney said this year’s election has clearly required some fast repositioning on Capitol Hill.

“No doubt Republicans are feeling pressure not only from Romney’s position, but from constituent communications,” he said. “These are measures that enjoy a lot of support in the general public, and Republicans are responding to that looking ahead to the fall election.”

And hoping they’ll widen their party’s base of support.

rabbleprochoice:

barackobama:

President Obama, at the Women’s Leadership Forum yesterday, on the GOP’s assault on women’s health

This is why I’ll be voting for him again.

Love,

Rabble

thegirlwiththefinchertattoo:

impudentstrumpet:

celluloidlove:

Elizabeth Banks: I Thank Birth Control Pills for My Son

Just over a year ago, my son Felix was born via gestational surrogacy. He came out of me nine months early and because of my broken belly, his babycake was baked in a wonderful angel’s oven and now — I can’t believe it — he’s a year old and walking. He has expanded my capacity for joy a thousand-fold.

His life would have been much harder to come by if not for the birth control pill. How’s that, you ask? Well, it’s a simple fact: The pill is used for many situations that have nothing to do with the prevention of pregnancy. The pill was prescribed to me when hormonally induced migraines kept me locked up in dark rooms for days at a time. It was prescribed to me to regulate insanely painful cramps every month — cramps so painful that I often vomited.

And here’s a little secret I am happy to blow the lid off of: The pill is often prescribed during the IVF (in vitro fertilization) process to help MAKE BABIES! That’s right, women dealing with infertility are often put on the pill to help regulate a cycle so that they might have a more successful IVF. The pill is used to manage ovarian cysts, endometriosis and other conditions too. Not to mention, it helps couples plan for wanted children.

Obviously, I’m not a doctor. I’m just a woman grateful for my necessary and very helpful medication. And I’m sure glad I don’t have to discuss any of these conditions, including infertility, with my employer.

A girlfriend and I recently wondered what would be more mortifying: having to tell her male employer she needed birth control to mitigate a heavy flow or just bleeding all over herself in the office?

So with that image in mind, I encourage all women — and the men in their lives — to protect access to birth control, and encourage our politicians to take women’s health issues out of the political process.

For more information, please visit the most comprehensive and willing advocates for women’s health in America: www.plannedparenthood.org.

I love this woman.

(Source: lizcrissplanty, via rabbleprochoice)

All of the Doonesbury texas abortion cartoons

thepoliticalnotebook:

Part of a Doonesbury comic strip about a piece of Texas abortion legislation signed into law by Rick Perry in May of 2010. Several US newspapers, like the Kansas City Star, are refusing to run the comic at all, while others are putting it in the editorial page instead of the comics page. This portion does not show all of the cartoon, which includes the woman being asked: “Do your parents know you’re a slut?” The cartoon ends with a nurse preparing the transvaginal ultrasound, saying “By the authority invested in me by the GOP base, I thee rape.”

In an email with the Guardian, cartoonist Garry Trudeau wrote in regards to the last piece of the cartoon: “That falls within the legal definition of rape. Coercion need not be physically violent to meet the threshold. Many people here are now referring to trans-vaginal sonograms as ‘state rape’. That seems about right to me”

Read the rest of Trudeau’s correspondence with the Guardian in this article.

(via robot-heart-politics)

columbiarose:

spenacethemenace:

queernonymoose:

anticapitalist:

An Ohio State Senator is turning the tables on men seeking to regualate women’s access to reproductive health. Sen. Nina Turner (D-Cleveland) has introduced legislation regulating men’s access to erectile dysfunction drugs. The Dayton Daily News has the details:

Before getting a prescription for Viagra or other erectile dysfunction drugs, men would have to see a sex therapist, receive a cardiac stress test and get a notarized affidavit signed by a sexual partner affirming impotency, if state Sen. Nina Turner has her way.

The Cleveland Democrat introduced Senate Bill 307 this week.

A critic of efforts to restrict abortion and contraception for women, Turner says she is concerned about men’s reproductive health… Turner said if state policymakers want to legislate women’s health choices through measures such as House Bill 125, known as the ‘Heartbeat bill,’ they should also be able to legislate men’s reproductive health.

Turner’s bill tracks FDA guidelines which recommends doctors determine whether the root cause of men’s sexual disfunction is physical or psychological. She describes her bill as an effort to “legislate it the same way mostly men say they want to legislate a woman’s womb.”

There have been similar efforts in other states. An Illinois bill would require men to watch a “horrific video” on the side effects of Viagra. In Virginia, Sen. Janet Howell (D) submitted a bill requiring men to undergo adigital rectal exambefore recieving a prescription for erectile disfunction drugs.

Conservative commentators such as Sean Hannity have dismissed the comparison, claiming that Viagra — unlike birth control — treats a “medical problem.” Most women, however, use birth control for medical purposes other than family planning.

THIS IS FUCKING BRILLIANT

lets wait for folks claiming misandry in 3…2…1.

Why would anyone call this misandry? That right there is equality!

Me and Sandy were just talking about all the men in women’s wombs, I like this a lot. *claps*

Sadly i have a feeling this will fail like similar ones before it.. but i applaud the attempt!! 

(via vexedvagabond)

(via ‘Doonesbury’ creator Garry Trudeau discusses divisive strips about abortion - The Washington Post)

“I chose the topic of compulsory sonograms because it was in the news and because of its relevance to the broader battle over women’s health currently being waged in several states. For some reason, the GOP has chosen 2012 to re-litigate reproductive freedom, an issue that was resolved decades ago. Why [Rick] Santorum, [Rush] Limbaugh et al. thought this would be a good time to declare war on half the electorate, I cannot say. But to ignore it would have been comedy malpractice.

Texas’s HB-15 [bill] isn’t hard to explain: The bill says that in order for a woman to obtain a perfectly legal medical procedure, she is first compelled by law to endure a vaginal probe with a hard, plastic 10-inch wand. The World Health Organization defines rape as “physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration — even if slight — of the vulva or anus, using a penis, other body parts or an object.” You tell me the difference.”

loverwife:

[image description: two .gifs from The Colbert Report with white captions; both .gifs show Stephen Colbert speaking; captions read “Contraception leads to more babies born out of wedlock./The same exact way that fire extinguishers cause fires.”]

(Source: drunkonstevphen, via lipstick-feminists)

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ), is a man who trusts women. Lautenberg made these comments at today’s hearing on the Blunt Amendment. (via menwhotrustwomen)

(via robot-heart-politics)

I Got All Protested On At Planned Parenthood | xoJane