Sam B Brings It

Let's review:

1. Eggs ain't chickens
2. Tadpoles ain't frogs
3. Ain't nuthin' goin' on in my daughter's uterus that's any of your goddamned business

So fuck off, motherfucker. And then fuck off some more. And keep fucking off until you get all the way back here - and then fuck off again.

And let's try to remember that abortion restrictions have almost no effect on any woman living at or above the basic Middle Class level.  The women in Jagoff Dan Flynn's life will hop on a plane to Montreal or Vancouver (to visit an old friend - or to attend an important Jesus-ey thing), and be back all spiffed up, and in plenty of time to make Sunday services where I'm sure they'll be praying for re-election and for a god-sent firebomb to mysteriously destroy whatever's left of those evil Planned Parenthood clinics.  

This shit has nothing to do with health - women's or otherwise - it has everything to do with power.

How Do You Spell "Entitlement"?

... I spell it a-s-s-h-o-l-e-w-i-t-h-a-g-u-n.

via Raw Story:

A Pennsylvania woman was murdered after she rejected the romantic overtures of a man she encountered at a Pittsburgh bar.

Janese Talton-Jackson, the 29 year-old mother of three children, was at Cliff’s Bar as closing time neared on January 22. A man, identified by police as Charles McKinney, approached Talton-Jackson and asked her out on a date, according to CBS Pittsburgh. She rejected the man’s advances and he then followed her outside and eventually shot her in the chest. She was pronounced dead at the scene.

 

Today's Quote

"Make no mistake. This is your father's Republican Party.  This is the exact same trans-vaginal ultrasound, all-white-guy committee chair, aspirin-between-your-knees Republican Party we've have fighting for 30 years.  Shame on them. They're trying to fool women. And shame on us if we let them get away with it. They don't support women. They don't respect women. So don't tell me that there's no "war on women". And don't bother asking for a truce. We didn't start this fight, but mark my words - we are going to win it. But if we don't show up for this battle in 2016, we will pay the price for a generation to come. Just imagine what a Republican President and a Republican Congress would do."  

--Stephanie Schriock, EMILY's List

God Love Larry Wilmore

Today's Unsociable Media

So I had a brief encounter with a coupla Facebook friends today.

It starts out OK - the guy posting it was trying (I tho't) to call attention to the fact that here in USAmerica Inc, the government (meaning us) shouldn't be trying to dictate what a woman has to wear in order to be in line with some bullshit arbitrary standard according to some bullshit arbitrary theocrat's taste or style sensibilities, or whatever it is he deems appropriate as far as them gals bein' seen in public.

But then it degenerates into this shitty little Mean-Girls-High-School-Fuck-Around-Festival-Of-Shaming, followed closely by a doubling down of rationalizations that seem to indicate an almost total lack of self-awareness (maybe even deliberately so), and I'm left to cogitate over how easy it is to get carried along with doing exactly the opposite of what it seems you were trying to do in the first place(?)

It is a wonderment - even tho' I've been guilty of riding that donkey too.  But y'know what?  Fuck that.  You're supposed to have learned a few things by the time you hit - oh, I dunno - sixty-fucking-years-old!

Here's the thing, kids:  Shaming somebody for anything having to do with their condition as a human being is not OK.  Do you really hold yourself in such high regard? Or is it that your own self-worth is so lousy you have to go out of your way to shit on somebody else to make yourself feel - what - funny, clever, hip, or just better somehow?  Any way you cut it, Skeezix, those are your problems - and while I'm happy to do what I can to help you deal with 'em, don't expect me to carry 'em around for you, while you look for a convenient victim to stomp on.

In the end - you pull that shit - you're just a fuckin' bully.

Well said, Girl In Yoga Pants.  Well said indeed.

Next Up at UVa

The story continues.  And it just gets weirder as UVa appoints former Deputy US AG Mark Filip to head up the investigation into the total fucked-up-edness of a party culture (this time centering around Phi Kappa Psi) bordering on straight-up Caligula.

From our "local" rag The Daily Progress:

Late in a day of unrest Thursday on Grounds, University of Virginia officials announced the appointment of former U.S. Deputy Attorney General Mark Filip to lead a review of the school’s policy and procedures for dealing with sexual assaults.

A statement from Rector George Keith Martin released just after 8 p.m. broke a nearly daylong silence from university leaders, including President Teresa A. Sullivan, in the wake of allegations of a September 2012 gang rape at the Phi Kappa Psi house at UVa.

An account of the attack detailed in a nearly 9,000-word story in Rolling Stone ignited a storm of scrutiny Wednesday.

Earlier in a day when hundreds of students rallied and vandals shattered windows and spray-painted messages of protest on the walls of the house on Madison Lane, Phi Kappa Psi voluntarily surrendered its fraternal agreement with UVa and suspended all chapter activities. Charlottesville police are investigating the rape allegations at Sullivan’s request.

In case you missed them - here's a coupla details I find interesting.

First, from the Daily Progress article:

The Governing Board of the Inter-Fraternity Council at UVa released a statement saying members were “horrified, disgusted, and viscerally saddened” by the story.

“That some fraternity men commit sexual assault is irreconcilable with everything we hope our community to be, and we are mortified that any fraternity member is responsible for perpetrating such a heinous crime,” they said in the statement.

BTW - a member of that Council was interviewed at length by Rolling Stone (weeks if not months before publication), so translation: "We are shocked - shocked - to find there's rape going on here!" 

Second, Mark Filip is a Phi Kappa Psi alum.  Let that one sink in for a bit.  I'm not saying there's no value in the guy being somebody who knows his way around a fraternity.  But when there's an obvious problem with foxes in the chicken coop, I hafta be just a little skeptical about hiring a coyote to look into it for me.

To be real clear here, I don't want anybody throwing shit at the Frat House or at the little Frat Rats living there.  

This kinda nonsense might feel OK at the time, but it just makes it easier for some people to rationalize sympathy for the perps:

That said, it's not gonna hurt my feelings one little bit if we find a way to put an end to the elitist entitlement legacy bullshit that persists in the continuation of anything so obviously toxic to a democracy as The Greek System is.

So, take whatever action against PKP necessary to facilitate its demise.  I'd like nothing better than to sue the fuck out of 'em, and then bulldoze the house.

Use the money from the lawsuit to build a brand new Women's Health and Crisis Intervention Center - right there in the heart of Frat-boy Fuck-around Central.

Require every Fraternity and Sorority to contribute half of their dues (and whatever other income they get) to the maintenance and support and perpetuation of the thing until time itself crumbles into the dust.

EvilleMike has spoken.  So let it be written.  So let it be done.

Lance The Boil

When it seems like the world's all fucked up, one thing we have to stop and consider seriously is that maybe the world's just all fucked up.

Eventually, ya gotta get all that putrefaction out. If you don't drain the abscess, it just gets worse.

The UVa rape thing:

...At that same moment, she says, she detected movement in the room – and felt someone bump into her. Jackie began to scream.

"Shut up," she heard a man's voice say as a body barreled into her, tripping her backward and sending them both crashing through a low glass table. There was a heavy person on top of her, spreading open her thighs, and another person kneeling on her hair, hands pinning down her arms, sharp shards digging into her back, and excited male voices rising all around her. When yet another hand clamped over her mouth, Jackie bit it, and the hand became a fist that punched her in the face. The men surrounding her began to laugh. For a hopeful moment Jackie wondered if this wasn't some collegiate prank. Perhaps at any second someone would flick on the lights and they'd return to the party.

"Grab its motherfucking leg," she heard a voice say. And that's when Jackie knew she was going to be raped.

The Bill Cosby rape thing:

If Shonda Rhimes had a show called How to Get Away With Rape, it would only need one episode, and it would be a short one.

The hot-shot lawyer main character would give her client this advice: be a respected figure in your own community and target victims with lower status than your own. If you follow those rules, people will be uncomfortable with the consequences of believing your victims. They will not want to do that work. In fact, they will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid it.

Show over; roll credits.

On Tuesday, Janice Dickinson became the 15th woman to accuse Bill Cosby of raping, drugging, or sexually assaulting her, and the fifth to do so publicly. These women tell a similar story: that they met Cosby when they were young women. That he spent time with them under the guise of professional mentorship. And that he, at some point, drugged their drinks and assaulted them while they were incapacitated.

First:

"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." --Edmund Burke

And then:
"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of the pain. The victim demands action, engagement, and remembering. . . . In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. Secrecy and silence are the perpetrator’s first line of defense. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure that no one listens. To this end, he marshals an impressive array of arguments, from the most blatant denial to the most sophisticated and elegant rationalization. After every atrocity one can expect to hear the same predictable apologies: it never happened; the victim lies; the victim exaggerates; the victim brought it on herself; and in any case it is time to forget the past and move on. The more powerful the perpetrator, the greater is his prerogative to name and define reality, and the more completely his arguments prevail" --Judith Herman, 1997, Trauma and Recovery (pg 7-8)

No Shame

Standards

Allowing somebody else to impose any kind of arbitrary "standards of beauty" on us is at least a little iffy.  Buying into the manipulative bullshit of advertising and manufactured opinion, and then remaining apathetic about it is dangerous for a society and too often deadly for individuals.



Just the way you are, ladies.  Honest.

Rules Please

The amazing Jay Smooth:

Kaili's Pissed

One observation - the Hobby Lobby decision is a near-perfect metaphor for exactly the kind of botched abortions that are prob'ly headed our way because of this mis-guided and poorly- informed, deliberately ignorant "conservative movement" that seems bent on pulling down American Democracy and replacing it with Christian Sharia.

But here's Kaili Joy Gray to girlsplain it to us from a perspective that's only shared by - oh I dunno - a few gazillion other women:

Of course I am mad. My vagina is getting uncomfortably crowded, what with all of that compelling government interest to protect me from myself, and those sincerely held religious beliefs, and the counseling, and the men telling me JUST DON’T HAVE SEX. There’s hardly room for my doctor to even get up in there to make sure my oh-so-important vagina is actually in fine working order, which I know is beside the point to everyone else taking up space for freedom and liberty and Jesus. But it’s really the only point that should matter.

But also too - keeping in mind my first basic tenet (it's never about what they tell us it's about):  This decision is being sold to us as if it's Rep vs Dem, or Librul vs Conservadope, or Godless Big Gubmint vs Holy Little Guy Business Owner - that's bullshit - or mostly bullshit anyway.  This ends up being about furthering the cause of establishing and reinforcing the primacy of Corporation-as-Citizen.

SCOTUS just found another way to push the envelope, using the 1st amendment for cover - Corporations are people who now have the right to free speech (Citizens United) and (the right to nullify federal law by claiming) religious freedom (Hobby Lobby)...and at some point I think we can look forward to a lawsuit on behalf of some poor mistreated corporation whose 'freedom of association' is being denied by the mean ol' bureaucrats at SEC and DoJ et al - so we can say good-bye to Anti-Trust laws and every trace of rules and regulations that prohibit the use of important business tools like Collusion and Price-Fixing and Market Manipulation, and all the other elements of a Libertarian Free Market Utopia.

So let's go ahead and fuss at each other about Church and State, and Bodily Integrity, and  Red Team vs Blue Team - all of which are plenty important btw - just let's be sure we're paying attention to what's behind the curtain too.

Today's Toons

Dear Rush

So if them wimmins could just not "do the one thing that makes birth control necessary..." - funny how guys like Limbaugh can't quite bring themselves to talk about sex in any way that's not coded and secretive and laced with the adolescent snickering that reinforces the stilted manipulating notion that sex is dirty, and that a total slut is the only kind of woman who'd actually want to have sex - especially with an emotionally crippled bucket of pus like Rush Limbaugh.

But anyway, it does kinda pop into my brain that given the facts emerging now about sexual assault being lots more of a frequent and widespread problem, maybe birth control needs to be considered just another tool in the Self Defense Kit for every woman - right along with the whistle and the mace and the pocket .38, which of course, can be yours now for the low low price of $289.99 -  available online!

It's just a pure wonderment the NRA hasn't hired me on as a marketing consultant.  I got truly great ideas.

Today's Yeesh

Can't imagine why Repubs are having such difficulty appealing to Them Wimmins.



This lunkhead says it straight out - women are ornamental.  And so what he obviously thinks is a great idea is to treat them like so many prize heifers to be won (ie: owned) by the awesomely virile and irresistible manliness of GOP candidates and party organizers.  Because we fucked up 94 years ago when we "gave" them the vote, so now I guess we gotta pay some attention to 'em, even tho' they're not really people, they're just "the gals".

Y'know fellas - they don't even pull this kinda high school fuck-around bullshit in high school anymore.

Cosmo Strikes Out

This appeared on Cosmo's Facebook page, and reaffirms what most of us have known for a while about dumfuk magazines "for women".

(paraphrasing a favorite comment):

Dear Cosmo -

Kindly take your ridiculous, arbitrary dictates of what women should want to look like and shove 'em back up your ass.

Sincerely,

Every guy on the planet who's had to spend hours reassuring a wife, girlfriend or daughter (ie: any real-world-perfect-for-me woman) that she's not fat and grotesque, all because assholes like you insist on undermining her confidence by playing on her fears just so you can sell her a load of shit she doesn't need in the first fucking place.

A Woman's Work

We're 5 years post-Ledbetter, and it's kinda like it never happened.  I just really don't get what people have against what I was always taught were basic American concepts like equality and fairness and treating regular human beings like regular human beings.  When did the idea of lookin' out for each other become all "girly" and weak, or a political liability, or nice and warm and fuzzy, but something we simply can't afford anymore?  That's pretty fucked up right there.

From The Institute for Women's Policy Research:

Nearly 60 percent (59.3 percent) of women would earn more if working women were paid the same as men of the same age with similar education and hours of work.

The poverty rate for women would be cut in half, falling to 3.9 percent from 8.1 percent among working women. The very high poverty rate for working single mothers would fall by nearly half, from 28.7 percent to 15.0 percent.
The total increase in women’s earnings with pay equity represents more than 14 times what the Federal and state governments spent in fiscal year 2012 on Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF).

Excerpts from The Shriver Report, A Woman’s Nation Pushes Back from the Brink, and additional information are available at ShriverReport.org and AmericanProgress.org.

C'mon all you hardcore pragmatic capitalists - pay a little out, take a shitload back in.  Isn't that what you guys are always saying it's all about?  Or are you just too meat-headed to do the right thing until it jumps up and kicks you in the nuts?

(hat tip = FB friend MM)

Today's PSA

"Sorry, we didn't agree to this - this wasn't in the script..."



75% of all Americans know someone who is (or was) a victim of Domestic Violence - that's 232,500,000 of us.

Every day, 4 Americans are murdered by their intimate partners. Four. Every. Fucking. Day.

Worth a visit - RAINN

Ann The Man Coulter

What she said:

“By the way, Republicans don’t have a problem with women. They have a problem with unmarried women who think, ‘No, we don’t need national defense, we need our birth control paid for.’ [...] And why? Because single women look at the government as their husbands. [They say] ‘Please provide for me, please take care of me.’”

Coulter is a single woman.  Coulter pisses on other single women for "being dependent on Government" - "please provide for me; please take care of me", etc.

If you substitute 'GOP' for 'government', then it becomes clear that Ms Coulter is slagging herself.

Just another self-loathing 'conservative' who hates herself for being who she is.

For any 'conservatives' out there who are starting to get wise to the Long Con that Repubs are running; who would like to get back to a better spot on the political spectrum; who just wanna be regular humans again?  First thing ya gotta do is get Ann Coulter's dick outa yer mouth.

hat tip = Addicting Info

Yo, Texas

Judges in the lower courts keep knocking down these attempts to deny women their rights, but I don't believe it has anything to do with anything short of getting an appeal up to SCOTUS in an attempt to blow up Roe v Wade.

Dallas Morning News

The Week

They're All The Same

Yeah, but not really.

hat tip = The Richmonder