Sat Mar 24, 2012 at 04:00 PM PDT
How about electing more, better women?
We've seen report after report that Republican women are saying they won't vote for Republicans in the election if the party doesn't stop attacking women's basic health care.
As Markos wrote this week, polls continue to show that Republicans are looking at a massive gender gap in this year's election.
Even some Republicans are starting to call on their party to lay off the ladies. Sens. Lisa Murkowski, Kay Bailey Hutchison and John McCain—all of whom voted for the Blunt amendment to allow employers to veto health insurance for women's basic health care—have all since expressed concern about their party's constant assault on women's basic health care. (Too bad they weren't concerned before they voted with their party.)
It's not as if these senators have seen the light and are now supporters of women's rights. But they've seen the writing on the wall, and they know that by screwing over women, Republicans are really screwing over themselves.
Meanwhile, the National Republican Committee is so terrified of the backlash it will inevitably face this year that it's trying to Karl Rove its way out of its self-inflicted mess with the "I know you are but what am I" strategy. The RNC released a laughably bad ad attacking President Obama for waging a war on women because of, um, Bill Maher and stuff so there shut up. Others, like Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, are trying to make it all go away by insisting that the War on Women is nothing but "political theater for the Democrats."
And then there was this remarkable speech from Republican—yes, Republican—Rep. Richard Hanna at a rally for the Equal Rights Amendment in New York this week:
"I think these are very precarious times for women, it seems. So many of your rights are under assault," he told the crowd of mostly women. "I'll tell you this: Contribute your money to people who speak out on your behalf, because the other side -- my side -- has a lot of it. And you need to send your own message. You need to remind people that you vote, you matter, and that they can't succeed without your help." [...] "This is a dogfight, it's a fistfight, and you have all the cards," he said. "I can only tell you to get out there and use them. Tell the other women, the other 51 percent of the population, to kick in a few of their bucks. Make it matter, get out there, get on TV, advertise, talk about this. The fact that you want [the ERA] is evidence that you deserve it and you need it."He's right. The best way to stop the Republican Party from winning its war is to kick their sorry, woman-hating asses out of office, and, even better, to replace them with more, better women at the federal and state level. Like in Wisconsin, a state that has been particularly brutal in its war on women, where Republicans are actually trying to pass a law that would equate single motherhood with child abuse. They're even claiming that women in abusive relationships should focus on the positive and "get back to why they got married in the first place" because "it might help" them to stay in their abusive relationships. You know, for the kids.
This is the state where even a State Supreme Court justice feels free to physically assault a female colleague because, well, she just made him so gosh darned angry that he couldn't resist his "reflex" to choke her.
So here are this week's marching orders: Let's follow Rep. Richard Hanna's advice and kick in a few of our bucks to elect more, better women who will fight for us and against the Republican War on Women:
- Click here to donate to Daily Kos-endorsed women running for election to the House and Senate.
- Click here to donate to the Wisconsin recall fund to send more, better women to the state Senate to stop the Wisconsin War on Women.
This week’s good, bad and ugly below the fold.
- Yes, the gender pay gap is real, and it's really bad in the financial industry.
- It's also really bad if you happen to work for Idaho's Republican Gov. Butch Otter:
Dan Popkey of the Idaho Statesman reports that Otter's 44-person Cabinet has 33 men and 11 women, with the men earning a median salary of $103,002 and the women earning a median of $85,446. The highest-paid woman on the Cabinet is Agriculture Director Celia Gould [...] Fifteen men earn more than she does, including Commerce Director Jeffrey Sayer, who has been on the job for less than six months and oversees about one-fifth as many employees as Gould.
- Did you know women pay up to 81 percent more than men for their health insurance?
- Fight like a girl.
- Tennessee is considering a bill to create a public, online registry of doctors who perform abortions, including all sorts of personal and totally irrelevant information about their patients. If you think this sounds like just another way for anti-woman terrorists to target health care providers and their patients, you're right.
- Just how bad is the War on Women in Alaska? This bad:
And if you’re not fully convinced yet that Alaska is the next front in the GOP’s war on women, you just have to listen to State Rep. Alan Dick. He said in a House Health and Social Services Committee Hearing last week that he doesn’t believe that when a woman is pregnant, it’s really “her pregnancy.” As a matter of fact, he would advocate for criminalizing women who have an abortion without the permission via written signature from the man who impregnated her. He stated, “If I thought that the man’s signature was required… required, in order for a woman to have an abortion, I’d have a little more peace about it…” He didn’t say whether a rapist would be able to send his signature by fax from prison, or not. But he’ll have “peace” and women will require a permission slip for their own bodies.
- Stupid lawsuit of the week:
A St. Louis business owner is suing the administration of President Barack Obama over the requirement that companies' health insurance policies include full coverage of contraceptives. Frank O'Brien, who owns O'Brien Industrial Holdings, said the birth control rule violates his religious beliefs, according to the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in St. Louis. [...]
Yeah, because nothing says "devout" like having a statue. But dang it, Mr. O'Brien and his ceramic statues aren't going to stand by while women have insurance coverage of their basic health care, just because that mean ol' Obama forced him, against his religious liberty, to suddenly, out of the blue, start providing insurance coverage for birth control. But wait. What's this?
"He is a very devout Catholic. He's got a religious statue in the lobby of his office," said O'Brien's attorney, Francis Manion. "That's what religious diversity and pluralism is all about. There are certain companies that you know don't do certain things."
The company's current United Healthcare insurance for its 87 employees includes coverage of birth control.
Never mind. - Oh look. Two more executives jumped off the sinking ship that is Susan G. Komen for the Cure. And oops, there goes its chairman of the board. Such a shame that "employee morale is in the toilet" and founder and CEO Nancy Brinker is "in complete meltdown," as she ignores the increasingly desperate calls for her to step down. Too bad, so sad. Cry me a river.
- This is why we can't have nice things:
Tony Perkins, head of Family Research Council, today called the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) currently under debate in the Senate a “slush fund” that’s unfair to men [...] Calling Democrats the “real architects behind the ‘war on women,” and claiming the Left is trying to paint “Republicans as a party of sexist Neanderthals,” Perkins misogynistically cites the most anti-feminist woman alive, Phyllis Schafly and says she “explains how the bill discriminates against men and violates basic legal protocol. Even if a woman has no proof of the abuse, ‘any man who is accused of domestic violence effectively loses a long list of constitutional rights accorded to ordinary criminals’.”
You know what to do, right? Click here to sign the petition to tell Senate Republicans to renew the Violence Against Women Act.
- This is just so wrong:
The New Hampshire legislature badly wants to tell women that abortion will cause breast cancer, despite the fact this is not true. In fact, they wanted it so badly they were willing to make it a felony if doctors don't lie to patients seeking an abortion.
- Belvedere Vodka thinks rape is a hilarious way to sell alcohol. But don't worry. They're awful sorry if anyone is offended.
- Women are continuing to find funny and clever ways to fight back against their anti-woman legislators. For you knitters out there, check out Government Free VJJ for instructions on how to knit your anti-woman representative his very own vagina so he'll stay the hell out of yours.
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