Right To Vote/Right To Marry: The Red States

Barney Frank retired from Congress last year. Obama picked a series of crooked Wall Street operators for positions he should have tried filling with brilliant and proven tribunes of the public like Barney and Brad Miller (D-NC), who also resigned last year. I'm not certain what Brad is up to now but Barney has certainly not faded away. Having been for so many years the most noteworthy openly gay Member of Congress, media turned to him in droves for comments about the grudging and narrow Supreme Court ruling that struck down DOMA and kind of struck down California's hateful Prop 8. And Barney, who recently married his partner, was as gleeful as all members of the LGBT community. Like me... well, probably more than me. I'm less an assimilationist and, although I'm happy for the folks who wanted and needed this, I fear it is another deadly blow against what helped make the gay community unique and nonconformist.

But, like Barney, I'm not exactly singing the praises of the Supreme Court. The 5 conservative bastards did something far more destructive the day before by striking down the Voting Rights Act. It's a much bigger deal than letting gays marry-- because it will inevitably lead to a far more conservative and intolerant government, one that could do a great deal of harm to, among others, the LGBT community. Thursday Barney was on MSNBC's Morning Joe and he said that if he had been empowered to decide one Supreme Court decision this week, he would have taken up the case on the 1965 Voting Rights Act and not the Prop 8 marriage ban that is no longer supported by California voters anyway. He explained that the "terrible decision killing the Voting Rights Act" is far more harmful to the country than the marriage equality case. "Racial discrimination," he asserted, correctly, "has been much worse [than discrimination against the LGBT community] in this country and if I could have frankly picked one decision this week,  I'll be honest, it wouldn't have been the gay marriage one. I wish I could have reversed that terrible decision killing the Voting Rights Act because I think there are still serious issues there in democracy." It would be amazing if Scalia, who's 77, wakes up in hell tomorrow and Obama nominates Frank to replace him. And if we all get unicorns for our birthdays.

This wasn't lost on Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chairs Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) and Keith Ellison (D-MN). They got it just right when they commented on the Supreme Court rulings this week in a joint statement:

“We celebrate today’s decision by the Supreme Court to respect the right of all Americans to marry who they love. The road to today’s victories started 44 years ago at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village, where the gay community made a public stand against institutional discrimination. Since that day, LGBT Americans have worked tirelessly for equal rights under the law. The decisions made by the Supreme Court today reaffirm those rights and move our country closer to fulfilling the promise in our Constitution of equal rights for all.

“While today’s rulings were a positive step forward, yesterday’s Supreme Court decision to weaken the Voting Rights Act endangers voting rights and is a troubling step backward. We should celebrate the victory for marriage equality by working together to defend the voices of millions of Americans who may face increased discrimination at the polls after yesterday’s decision. Senator Harry Reid has already vowed that the Senate will act quickly to fix the problems created by yesterday’s ruling. The House should follow his lead as soon as possible.”

So what can, realistically, be done to fix the problem before the Republican just start barring minorities from voting across the Old Confederacy and in states they control like Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wisconsin, the Dakotas and Indiana? The Senate is where it will start, of course. Patrick Leahy (D-VT), chairman of the Judiciary Committee: "I intend to take immediate action to ensure that we will have a strong and reconstituted Voting Rights Act that protects against racial discrimination in voting." He says he plans to start right after the 4th of July break. Unfortunately, Leahy's counterpart in the House is an old line unreconstructed Confederate and racist pig, Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) and he's not likely to allow any kind of protections for minorities to get through his committee, which is stuffed full of teabaggers and bigots and boasts some of the most contemptible partisan extremists in Congress, like Steve King (R-IA), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Jim Jordan (R-OH), Lamar Smith (R-TX), Spencer Bachus (R-AL), Darrell Issa (R-CA), Randy Forbes (R-VA), Trey Gowdy (R-SC), Ted Poe (R-TX), George Holding (R-NC), Doug Collins (R-GA), Ron DeSantis (R-FL) and Jason Smith (R-MO).

Pelosi was whistling in the wind when she said "I would like to see something called... the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, which would address the concerns that the Court put in its decision about Section 4. It’s really a step backward and it’s not a reflection of what is happening in our country in some of these places. And when we put that bill together, when it was passed last time, it passed overwhelming, overwhelming 98 to nothing in the Senate and 390-something to almost nothing in the House. And it was bipartisan and we came to terms on it, in a way that we were all jubilant about the passage of it, Democrats and Republicans alike.”

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Wendy Davis For Governor Of Texas?

Most Texas politicians-- both sides of the aisle-- got A+ or A grades from the NRA. Blue Dog Pete Gallego got an A- and Ft. Worth freshman Dem, Marc Veasy, was given a B+. Remember state Senator Leticia Van de Putte standing up the other night and asking what it takes for a woman senator to get recognized in the male-dominated Texas Senate? The NRA rated her a B. Of the dozens and dozens of Texas politicians the NRA rated, only six, all Democrats, got an F. One of those six was state Senator Wendy Davis.

In 2011, the Texas legislature passed a number of bills to gerrymander the state and to discourage voting among minorities. Davis voted against all of them. The conservative organizations that rate the work of Texas legislators all flunked Davis and the progressive organization and non-partisan reform groups all gave her the big thumbs up. Her average score among environmental groups is close to 100%. NARAL and the Texas Humane Society gave her 100%. Last year she was endorsed by the AFL-CIO, SEIU and the Texas League of Conservation Voters.

After watching her heroic performance Tuesday night, I called Michael Keegan, president of People for the American Way, Wednesday morning and asked him if she was a member of PFAW's Young Elected Officials. He acknowledged her youthful energy but pointed out that the cutoff age is 35 and that Davis, regardless of how great she looks and how much energy she has, is 50. I would have guessed 30's. But she was born in 1963 in Forth Worth, where is the area she represents in the Texas state Senate now-- although probably not for long, since Texas Republicans plan to gerrymander her district to get rid of her.

She comes from a broken home, started working at age 14, married when she was still a teenager, had a daughter and was divorced all before she was 20. She worked her way through college as a waitress, graduated #1 in her class from Texas Christian University... and then went to Harvard Law for her law degree. An inspiring American success story... but it may still be early in this story. Since finding herself on the national stage this week, there's a Texas-wide Draft Wendy for Governor movement which is gaining steam across the country.

This wasn't her first big deal filibuster. In 2011 she launched one against Rick Perry's budget because it chopped $4 billion from public education and gave much of it to his cronies and campaign donors in the private education arena. Perry called a special session back then too.

Right wingers have had Wendy Davis in their sites for a long time. On March 20, 2012, two Molotov cocktails were thrown at her office in Fort Worth. No one can say for sure where Rep. Steve Stockman, who was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing, was at the time. The police picked up a different homeless, crazy guy. Will Davis run for governor? No one knows for sure and that probably includes her, although she told Chris Hayes in the video above, she's thinking about it. Although there's no governor's campaign fund open for her yet, so people are contributing to her state Senate campaign fund-- and all that money is transferable into a gubernatorial race if she decides to run. Of course, not everyone is as enthusiastic as progressives are:

Could Davis beat Rick Perry if he runs again? Rachel Maddow is having trouble understanding why anyone votes for Perry. I don't get that either.

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Paul LePage, What A Goober!

Roland's visiting the ancestral homeland this week, Maine. He just called me and told me Democratic Rep. Mike Michaud might as well move into Blaine House now because no one in Maine wants another minute of the state being embarrassed by their accidental governor, Paul LePage. (LePage says he may not even run for reelection and seek Michaud's open House seat instead!) Rachel Maddow's report from Thursday night (above) is just stunning. I mean you think Rick Perry (R-TX), Rick Scott (R-FL), Scott Walker (R-WI), Tom Corbett (R-PA) and John Kasich (R-OH) are idiots? LePage makes them all look like geniuses by comparison. Even the New York Daily News was offended by his vulgar language on TV.

Maine’s often-brash Republican governor-- who once told the Portland branch of the NAACP to “kiss my butt,” called protesters “idiots,” referred to government managers as “corrupt” and compared the IRS to the Gestapo-- has done it again.

But this time critics say he’s gone too far.

Gov. Paul LePage used crude language Thursday to express his frustration over the state budget, targeting a Democratic opponent with a sexually vulgar phrase to describe how he believes he is taking advantage of the people.

The remarks, made to journalists from two television stations and one newspaper, were targeted at state Sen. Troy Jackson, an assistant Democratic Leader who criticized the governor’s veto announcement and call for 60-day reprieve to negotiate a new budget as a political stunt. Jackson said that the Legislature had enough votes to override the veto and that there was no need for lawmakers to negotiate with LePage.

LePage said Jackson “claims to be for the people, but he’s the first one to give it to the people without providing Vaseline.”

...Sen. Seth Goodall, Democratic leader, said there should be no room for personal attacks and insults on someone’s character in Maine government.

“Language like this is offensive, no matter who says it. We expect more in our schools. We expect more at home around our kitchen table. And surely we expect more from our governor.”

Jackson said that he has not seen the video but that he has heard the governor’s comments and is not bothered by them.

“I’ve had a lot of people say nasty things about me in the past. ... That’s OK, that’s democracy,” Jackson told reporters. “But I do think it’s inappropriate the way he said it. We can be disagreeable without making nasty comments like that, and I just think it’s unfortunate that the man that is supposed to be the leader of our state makes comments like that.”

The Bangor Daily News has been keeping a tally of some of LePage's most embarrassing comments.

• June 18, 2013: Gov. Paul LePage created a stir again on Tuesday when he ordered his administration to stop speaking to the Portland Press Herald, Kennebec Journal and Waterville Sentinel.

• May 29, 2013: “Next year I would like you to create a Legislature that doesn’t speak back.”-- LePage speaking to students with his second annual Governor’s Promising STEM Youth Awards, who brought robots they had built to the State House for the recognition ceremony.

• May 29, 2013: “The minute we start stifling our speech, we might as well go home, roll up our sleeves and get our guns out.”-- LePage commenting about censorship by Democrats, related to the television screen outside his office.

• May 23, 2013: If I have to remove myself from the toxic climate of censorship by Democrats in the State House to defend the taxpayers of Maine, then that’s what I will do.”-- LePage threatens to move his office from the State House after Democratic  leaders refused to allow him to place a television screen outside his office.

• May 19, 2013: “The people of the state of Maine are being played for patsies.”-- LePage after being denied the ability to speak to the Appropriations Committee at the conclusion of a rare Sunday meeting.

• March 1, 2013: “I don’t care if it’s my bills. I’ll veto my own bills.”-- LePage promises to veto any bill that comes across his desk until the Legislature passes his plan to repay $484 million owed to the state’s hospitals.

• Jan. 9, 2013: “ If you’ve got a job and you’re going to be intimidated, give it up and we’ll get somebody who can do the job. I am asking them for the good of the kids of the state of Maine, please go away. We don’t need you. We need some people with backbones.”-- LePage calling on the members of Maine’s charter school commission to resign, a day after the seven-member panel rejected four out of five applications for new charter schools.

• January 2013: “ You guys, you’re idiots and you’re just as bad if not worse than those other guys.”-- LePage comparing independent lawmakers to Democrats during a meeting with three independent legislators on alternate approaches to balancing the state budget.

• Nov. 9, 2012: “ If you want a good education in Maine, and I get criticized by my opponents because I’m hard on education, but if you want a good education, go to an academy. If you want a good education go to private schools. If you can’t afford it, tough luck. You can go to the public school.”-- LePage discusses school choice during an “Eggs ‘n Issues” talk at York County Community College.

• July 12, 2012: “ The Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad-- yet.”-- LePage compares the IRS to the Gestapo during an interview with Seven Days, an alternative weekly newspaper in Burlington, Vt. He later apologized for his remarks.

• April 27, 2012: “The problem is the middle management of the state is about as corrupt as you can be. Believe me, we’re trying every day to get them to go to work, but it’s hard.”-- LePage responds to a question about fees at a town hall forum in Newport.

• March 31, 2012: “That [criticism] is coming from a little spoiled brat from Portland. He’s very fortunate that his granddad was born ahead of him.”-- LePage on Sen. Justin Alfond, D-Portland, when asked about Democratic calls for an investigation of the Department of Health and Human Services.

• March 15, 2012: “The press. Reading newspapers in the state of Maine is like paying somebody to tell you lies.”-- LePage to a student who asked him what he didn’t like about his job during his appearance as keynote speaker at a Career Conversations event at Waterville Junior High School.

• March 25, 2011: “ I’d laugh at them, the idiots. That’s what I would do. Come on! Get over yourselves!”-- LePage when asked what he would do if people formed a human chain to block the removal of the mural from the state Department of Labor.

• February 2011: “The only thing that I’ve heard is if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.”-- LePage saying he has yet to see enough science to support a ban on BPA, a common additive to plastics that some research suggests may interfere with hormone levels and could cause long-term problems.

• Jan. 14, 2011: “ Tell them to kiss my butt.”-- LePage to reporters in response to suggestions from NAACP members and others that his decision not to attend ceremonies honoring Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was part of a negative pattern.

• September 2010: “As your governor, you’re going to be seeing a lot of me on the front page, saying ‘Governor LePage tells Obama to go to hell.’”-- LePage telling a crowd of fishermen that, if elected, they could expect to see him stand up to the Obama administration.

But Rachel was right not to dwell on the clownish comments and to go to what's behind LePage's increasingly bizarre behavior and why Mainers are so, so sorry they ever made it possible for him to slip into office (with 38% of the vote in a close 3-way race)-- his very controversial commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, Patricia Aho, a former corporate lobbyist for the industrial polluters she's supposed to be regulating. Predictably, she's isn't regulating; she's cheerleading... and worse. This report on Aho is what kicked off the latest set of scandals and led to LePage moving to prevent the Portland Press Herald and its two subsidiaries from covering state government. The report underscores LePage's contempt for environmental protections and his allegiance to the corporate polluters who have funded his career. In short, the report found that Aho scuttled programs and fought against laws that were opposed by many of her former clients in the chemical, drug, oil, and real estate development industries. Under Aho, the DEP has:

Frozen the Kid Safe Products Act – a 2008 law to protect fetuses, babies and children from potentially damaging chemicals-- by blocking efforts to bring more chemicals under the law’s jurisdiction, chemicals produced by Aho’s former lobbying clients.

Reduced enforcement actions by 49 percent against large developers and landowners. Aho had unsuccessfully fought to weaken many of the laws at issue as the longtime lobbyist of the Maine Real Estate and Development Association.

Fought to roll back recycling programs that are strongly opposed by former clients of Aho and a still-active lobbyist, Ann Robinson, the governor’s regulatory reform adviser.

Oversaw a purge of information from the DEP’s website and a clampdown on its personnel, restricting their ability to communicate relevant information to lawmakers, the public, policy staff and one another.

...When full, it is the state's fifth largest freshwater body, nurturing a local tourist economy and providing boating and swimming opportunities for thousands of residents and others visiting Maine.

But on days like this-- when the dam owner opens the sluiceways of the Long Falls Dam to generate power farther downstream-- the lake begins to disappear, leaving behind thousands of acres of muddy and largely lifeless bottom. Docks are left high and dry and shorefront homes, camps and parks become isolated behind hundreds of yards of exposed, foul-smelling muck.

"They're killing our area up here," says Jay Wyman, a longtime selectman in Eustis, where many families moved in 1950 when the newly completed dam drowned their nearby hometowns of Flagstaff and Dead River.

People in the Eustis region fought for nearly a decade to defend their livelihoods, property values and tax base by pressuring state authorities to require the dam owner to keep the lake fuller in summer and early fall as part of its federal relicensing, which comes up for review only three or four times each century.

They'd sparred with the longtime owner, Florida Power & Light, from the hearing rooms of Augusta to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

By the summer of 2011, it looked like they would win-- until the state's top environmental official stepped in.

That's when the state commissioner of environmental protection, Patricia Aho-- who just months before had been working as a lobbyist for the law firm which represented the Florida power company-- met with Matthew Manahan, who was FPL's attorney and Aho's former colleague at Pierce Atwood, the state's largest law firm. After the meeting, Aho's department quietly did exactly what FPL hoped it would: nothing.

Despite detailed briefings from staff experts and a last-minute warning from the Attorney General's Office, the DEP quietly let the clock run out, missing a critical federal deadline to influence what happens at the dam for another quarter-century.

Her spokeswoman would later claim it had been an oversight, suggesting staff had dropped the ball when, internal documents and interviews with former staff reveal, the ball had been taken from them and handed to Pierce Atwood's client for an easy layup.

It is not an isolated incident.

A seven-month Maine Sunday Telegram investigation has found that commissioner Aho has acted against a range of consumer protection, pollution reduction and climate preparedness laws she had previously tried but failed to stop from passing the Legislature as a lobbyist for chemical, drug, oil and automobile companies. Present and former department employees say they have been pressured not to vigorously implement or enforce these laws, which were long opposed by companies represented by the commissioner's former law firm.

A model for Republican governance whenever they're able to grab power. It's why Maine is about to watch a landslide victory for Democrats across the state. The last PPP survey of Maine voters, back in January, was already boding poorly for LePage and they said he "is in danger of losing his bid for re-election."

LePage’s job approval rating is significantly underwater at -16, with 39% approving and 55% disapproving. 18% of Republicans and 54% of independents disapprove of the job that LePage is doing as governor.

“Paul LePage’s chances at reelection appear contingent on there being both a strong Democratic candidate and a strong independent candidate on the ballot next year,” said Dean Debnam, President of Public Policy Polling. “He would have very little chance in a race against just one serious opponent.”

John Baldacci is the favorite of Democratic primary voters with 28% support, followed by Chellie Pingree (21%), Mike Michaud (19%), Emily Cain (6%), Janet Mills (4%), Ethan Strimling (3%) and Jeremy Fischer (2%). Steve Woods picked up 0% support, while 16% of respondents support someone else or are undecided. Baldacci and Pingree are ahead because of their popularity among liberal Democrats.

With his +35 approval rating, Congressman Michaud would be the most competitive Democrat against LePage in a general election, primarily because of his crossover appeal to Republicans and independents. Michaud trails LePage by only 4 points (30/34) in a three-way contest, which is within the poll’s margin of error, and he beats LePage by 21 points in a two-way match-up (36/57).

Jeb Bush will be up in Maine July 2, trying to give LePage a boost. He'll be able to raise some money for sure, but a boost in popularity? Not likely. In 1992, Mainers voted for Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush came in third. Mainers also gace comfortable margins to John Kerry and Al Gore against Bush the Younger. Obama beat McCain and Romney. Recent polling shows Mainers would flock to the polls to support Hillary Clinton over Jeb Bush in 2016. But the super-wealthy, who are likely to make campaign contributions, will go to Jeb's event and contribute to LePage, even if they're holding their noses while writing the checks.

For those concerned about LePage bringing his clown show to Congress and supplanting Louie Gohmert and Michele Bachmann as the national laughingstocks, he's not likely to win Michaud's house seat. There are two congressional districts in the state. ME-01 is Portland and the southwest corner of the state including Kennebunkport, Brunswick and Augusta. ME-02 is the rest of the state and includes Lewiston-Auburn, Bangor, Orono, everything along the Canadian border and lots of moose. ME-01 has a PVI of D+9 and Obama beat Romney 59-38%. ME-02 is a little closer. The PVI is D+2 and Obama "only" beat Romney 53-44%. Other than in a fluke caused by an oddity in the California voting system for Gary Miller and David Valadao, no Republican has won in any district anyone that is bluer than a D+1. Michaud was reelected in November with a 16 point margin, 58-42%. In 2010, the year of the Great Blue Dog Apocalypse-- and Michaud is a Blue Dog-- he had a closer call, but still won with a 10 point margin, 55-45%. LePage will be lucky if he gets his old job back at Marden's Surplus and Salvage.

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When Did The GOP Become The Party of Unrelenting Misogyny?

Yesterday, crazed woman-hater--and very sick, deranged closet case-- Trent Franks (R-AZ) finally got a bill passed... kind of. Even Republicans found his rape comments so offensive and so dangerous to GOP election prospects that they took him off the case before the vote and put up an anti-Choice woman as the bill's "sponsor," Tennessee crackpot Marsha Blackburn. Franks'/Blackburn's offensive, ugly anti-woman bill would ban abortions after 20 weeks. The exemptions are premised on a Republican ideological psychosis that "women lie" and can't be trusted. It's pure authoritarian, Big Brother-knows-best legislation that targets women in a grotesque and completely un-American way. And it passed. It passed 228-196 in the House, although not before another sick Republican crackpot, Michael Burgess (R-TX), once an Ob/Gyn, went off on a crazy rant about how fetuses start masturbating at 15 weeks and therefore feel pain. (A similar crazy bill, in Arizona, has already been struck down as patently unconstitutional by a federal appeals court.) Women convicted under the Republican law could go to prison for as many as five years.

The DCCC is already rending their garments over the horrible Republicans who voted against women. I would be more likely to believe the depth of their feelings if they moved to cut off the six Democrats who cross the aisle to vote with the Republicans against women, particularly Matheson and McIntyre who will lose their seats without intensive care from the DCCC:

• Henry Cuellar (Blue Dog-TX)
• Dan Lipinksi (IL)
• Jim Matheson (Blue Dog-UT)
• Mike McIntyre (Blue Dog/New Dem-NC)
• Collin Peterson (Blue Dog-MN)
• Nick Rahall (WV)

Six Republicans cross the aisle in the other direction: Charlie Dent (R-PA), Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ), Richard Hanna (R-NY), and John Runyan (R-NJ) because the bill was too extreme and Paul Broun (R-GA) and Rob Woodall (R-GA) because the bill wasn't extreme enough. Closet case Aaron Schock (R-IL) was too frightened to vote and hid in the little boy's room.

The White House has already said that were the bill to ever pass the Senate-- there's zero chance of that happening thanks to the defeat last year of anti-woman crusaders Todd Akin (R-MO), Richard Mourdock (R-IN), Connie Mack IV (R-FL), Josh Mandel (R-OH), Denny Rehberg (R-MT), Tom Smith (R-PA), Tommy Thompson (R-WI), Rick Berg (R-ND), and George Allen (R-VA)-- Obama would veto it. “[It] would unacceptably restrict women’s health and reproductive rights and is an assault on a woman’s right to choose. Women should be able to make their own choices about their bodies and their health care, and Government should not inject itself into decisions best made between a woman and her doctor. This bill is a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade and shows contempt for women’s health and rights, the role doctors play in their patients’ health care decisions, and the Constitution."

Going into the vote yesterday, the National Right to Life Committee threatened to oppose any Members of Congress who opposed the bill. Extremist psychopath, John Bircher and Republican Senate candidate Paul Broun (R-GA) promptly announced he would vote NO... because the bill is too liberal.

U.S. Rep. Paul Broun, R-Athens, on Monday night pulled his support for a measure that would ban a woman’s right to abortion after the 20th week of pregnancy, highlighting a split between the foremost national anti-abortion group and its Georgia counterpart.

Language was recently added to the measure that would make exceptions for cases of rape and incest. National Right to Life recognizes those two exceptions.

But Georgia Right to Life does not. Things are about to get nasty.

"Any lawmaker who votes to allow unlimited abortion in the sixth month or later is voting to encourage a continuation of the horrors associated with the likes of Kermit Gosnell," said NRLC Legislative Director Douglas Johnson in a press release that arrive this morning.

Georgia Right to Life has yet to be heard from officially, but on WSB Radio last night, Erick Erickson of Redstate.com reported that GRTL was in the process of phoning members of Congress, urging them to vote against the bill.

The legislation has no chance of becoming law. (A Georgia version already exists and is under court challenge.) But the open split in a Washington scenario has major implications for Georgia’s race for U.S. Senate. Broun is a major contender. Another is former secretary of state Karen Handel, who has fought with GRTL in the past. The organization has refused to certify her as a “pro-life” candidate because of her endorsement of the rape and incest exceptions to abortion regulation.

Raúl Grijalva (D-AZ) spoke for all Democrats and non-misogynists when he spoke after the vote yesterday:

“Republicans are once again trying to restrict the rights of American women to make medical decisions. It’s obvious they haven’t listened to the American people in pursuing this unconstitutional waste of time. It’s less obvious who they think they’re serving with this.

“Women who seek these services are often in extreme economic straits or have discovered serious health risks in their pregnancy. In defending the bill, the author said the incidence of pregnancies from sexual violence is ‘very low.’ I suggest he tell that to the 30,000 women across the country who give birth as a result of rape each year.

“After receiving heavy public condemnation, Republicans introduced an exception for victims of rape. This is too little, too late. We cannot allow the conversation we have about reproductive health to be driven by men who so easily dismiss victims of rape. The women and men of this country are watching this debate. Last-minute fig leaves aren’t going to cut it.

“Despite their endless promises to the contrary, Republicans won’t focus on job creation. The House has now voted 37 times to repeal Obamacare, which prevents insurance companies from charging women more for the same coverage they offer men. Now we’re voting on a bill to restrict women’s rights to make health care decisions. Where are the jobs?

“It’s time to stop hurting America’s women and put people back to work.”

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Conservative Men Further Ramp Up Their War Against Women

In the video above, from Tuesday evening, Rachel discusses Republican Party self-interest. She's a smart gal but she can't get her head around how exactly it is self-interest-- considering so many women vote nowadays-- for the Republican Party, as a party, to go so conspicuously out of its way to alienate and further alienate women as a class of people. If you ever had any doubt that the Republicans are waging a war against women-- dictated by their crazy conservative and misogynistic patriarchal base-- just watch the clip. And it's not just in primitive and backward Southern states like Mississippi. Republican governors and legislators in Wisconsin, Iowa and Ohio, for example, are going full bore against women as well. In fact, wherever Republicans control both the governor's mansion and the state legislature, they are passing legislation to control women's lives and force women to give up personal freedoms.

And nationally, despite the absolute certainty it will never become law, Eric Cantor and John Boehner have gone ahead and agreed to allow the House to vote on a bill by deformed and bitter Arizona closet case/woman hater Trent Franks that will criminalize abortion nationally after 20 weeks. But what Rachel didn't have time to get into in her excellent blow-by-blow in he latest developments in the brutal Republican War Against Women is a brand new development that was breaking while she was on the air. This one is primitive, savage and patriarchal... but not Republican. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and a longtime shill for the Military Industrial Complex (as well, alas, as the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee) declared he's removing a measure aimed at curbing sexual assault in the military from a defense spending bill.

Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand, Democrat of New York, offered a measure that would give military prosecutors rather than commanders the power to decide which sexual assault crimes to try, with the goal of increasing the number of people who report crimes without fear of retaliation. Mr. Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said he would replace Ms. Gillibrand’s measure-- which has 27 co-sponsors, including four Republicans-- with one that would require a senior military officer to review decisions by commanders who decline to prosecute sexual assault cases. Although Mr. Levin’s measure would change the current system, it would keep prosecution of sexual assault cases within the chain of command, as the military wants.

Mr. Levin’s decision to support military brass in their resistance to Ms. Gillibrand’s proposal sets up a confrontation between a long-serving chairman of the committee with strong ties to the armed forces and a relatively new female member-- one of a record seven women serving on the committee-- who has made sexual assault in the military a signature issue.

“They basically embrace the status quo here,” said Senator Barbara Boxer, Democrat of California, a co-sponsor of Ms. Gillibrand’s bill. “It’s outrageous.”

A recent Pentagon survey found that an estimated 26,000 assaults took place last year. Senior military officials have repeatedly traipsed to Capitol Hill this spring to lament the problem but have been ridiculed by members of both parties of the Armed Services Committee for failing to make a dent in the problem.

In an odd twist Tuesday, Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, told Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel that Congress could seek to replace commanders in power with state prosecutors to deal with the military sexual assault cases. “To do things as they’ve always been done is not acceptable,” Mr. Leahy said.

Mr. Leahy made his comments during a spending hearing that included Mr. Hagel and Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “I’m just throwing that out there,” Mr. Leahy said. “I’m not looking for an answer.”

State courts already have the authority over rape and sexual assault cases should a victim choose to go to civilian law enforcement, but such cases are rare because the military prefers to prosecute its own personnel.

“If word gets out that the military justice system is not properly attentive to these cases, military personnel will vote with their feet,” said Eugene R. Fidell, who teaches military justice at Yale Law School.

The House this week is expected to pass its own defense bill, which contains provisions to punish sexual assault crimes in the military more harshly and make it difficult for commanders to overturn convictions.

The Senate bill is also expected to include measures that would provide victims of sexual assault with a special military lawyer and that would automatically remove convicted sex offenders from the military. Other expected provisions would require a commander to provide written justification for any decision commuting or lessening a sentence after a guilty verdict in a court-martial.

Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, is in the meantime still holding up the nomination of Lt. Gen. Susan Helms of the Air Force to become vice commander of the United States Space Command because General Helms overturned a jury conviction in a sexual assault case without public explanation.

“I continue to have deep concerns with Lieutenant General Helms’s decision, while a commander and courts-martial convening authority, to overturn the jury verdict of a military court-martial in which the jury found an Air Force officer guilty of sexual assault,” Ms. McCaskill said in remarks submitted to the Congressional Record.

Ms. Gillbrand may have a chance to renew her measure on the Senate floor this summer, something she will almost certainly seek. “Senator Gillibrand has nerves of steel,” Mr. Fidell said. “Whether her bill is what Congress should enact I don’t know, but I commend her for standing her ground.”

Levin, age 78, won't be seeking a 7th term in the Senate. This is another example of old men trying to control the lives of younger women. There's a deep generational and gender divide on these issues and it's tragic that a Democrat rather than some reactionary fossil like Chuck Grassley, Jim Inhofe, Richard Shelby or Pat Roberts would be holding the banner for Bronze Age misogyny-- and rape-- today.

UPDATE: A Message From The Fighters For Equality At The DCCC

Steve Israel and Co. are up in arms over the anti-Choice Republicans. Let's see how many of the top priority Frontline Democrats they fund-- like Matheson, Barrow and McIntyre for exampl-- vote with the Republicans on this.

An all-male group of House Republicans on the Judiciary Committee is expected to pass a bill today that will ban abortions nationally after 20 weeks of pregnancy. The measures makes no exception for cases of rape, incest or when the mother’s health is jeopardized.

Americans consistently rate jobs and the economy as their greatest concern, not re-fighting battles over a woman’s right to choose. The measure, sponsored by anti-woman zealot Trent Franks of Arizona, is expected to be sent to the full House for a vote next week and would effectively overturn Roe vs. Wade.

“Today, another all-male group of House Republicans will interject their ideology between a woman and her doctor, effectively overturn Roe vs. Wade, reverse our rights and open yet another front in the war on women. Yet again, House Republicans are trying to prove that they’re the most extreme, anti-woman legislature in American history,” said Emily Bittner of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “House Republicans are blindly focusing on the tired ideological battles of the past like a woman’s right to choose, rather than focusing on problem-solving. And the American people know that every day House Republicans waste fighting over ideology is a day they refused to solve our country’s problems.”

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Will Boehner Be The Scapegoat For Republican Nihilism?

Thomas Kean, Sr., the former New Jersey Governor, not the crackpot son ("Jr."), didn't bat an eye last week when he made a point by mentioning that "my party is nuts today." And he was very clear that he was talking about the Republican national party, not the New Jersey state GOP. And it's all about what's happened to the GOP with the back-to-back defeats of mainstream conservatives John McCain and Mitt Romney by [African-American] Barack Hussein Obama. Let's go back-- via Lee Fang's new book, The Machine: A Field Guide to the Resurgent Right-- to the time right after Obama beat McCain in 2008. "Eric Cantor," he reminds is, "quickly flamed out in his own early attempt to establish an organization of conservative leaders." It was a sign of things to come for a floundering Republican Party.

Dubbed the National Council for a New America, Cantor’s group recruited several GOP governors, like Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, and lawmakers who would supposedly rebrand what it meant to be conservative and drop the “nostalgia” for old, failed policies. Social conservatives, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and former Ohio secretary of state Ken Blackwell, sharply rebuked Cantor for excluding topics like gay marriage or abortion from the National Council website issue page. Conservative leaders involved in their own conservative movement leadership committees, such as Newt Gingrich and Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, were not initially invited to Cantor’s group. Perkins attacked Cantor for “running scared on the claims of the left and the media that social conservatism is a dead-end for the GOP.” But the true death knell for Cantor’s National Council came when Rush Limbaugh called it a “scam” and a backdoor attempt by “people who don’t believe in conservatism” to “leave Reagan behind.” Cantor mustered only a single public event for his group, a town hall session with former governors Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush at a pizza parlor in suburban Virginia. Shortly after Limbaugh’s comments, Cantor quietly abandoned his effort, which only lasted about a month after it began in the early stages of the Obama presidency. Cantor’s effort at moderation was the only organized attempt for the right to move toward the center after Bush. Its quick death sent a signal that conservative power would remain with activists on the far right.

Four years later, Republicans are thrashing around as incoherently as ever trying, unsuccessfully, to find a message that goes beyond, "the Black guy isn't a legitimate president of the United States." This week Paul Kane asserted in the Washington Post that, in fact, House Republicans have now broken unto fight factions. Keane's "my party if nuts" comment doesn't even begin to tell the story of how extremist anti-American Confederates have infiltrated and taken control of one of America's (formerly) mainstream political parties.

On New Year’s Day, in a cramped room in the Capitol basement, House Republican leaders faced an angry caucus. Democrats had negotiated them into a corner-- virtually every American would be hit with a massive tax increase unless the House agreed to block the hikes for everyone but the wealthy.

A freshman lawmaker seized a microphone and demanded to know how the leaders planned to vote. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) was a yes, but his top two lieutenants were opposed.

“If you’re for this and they’re against, we’ve got problems,” Rep. Stephen Lee Fincher (R-Tenn.) shouted at Boehner and more than 200 lawmakers present, according to Republicans who attended the closed-door meeting. Sure enough, they had problems. Hours later, Democrats helped Boehner pass the measure over the opposition of more than 60 percent of GOP lawmakers.

That vote, to avert the “fiscal cliff,” marked a breaking point for House Republicans, who had disintegrated into squabbling factions, no longer able to agree on-- much less execute-- some of the most basic government functions.

Ever since, Boehner has cautiously tried to steer his party away from that bitter moment, with varying success. A short-term strategy, which conservatives called “the Williamsburg Accord,” emerged from a bruising mid-January retreat. It restored enough unity to permit the House to dodge a government shutdown, badger the Senate into passing its first budget in four years and open investigations of the Obama White House.

But beyond those limited efforts, the House has not approved ambitious legislation this year. Lawmakers have instead focused on trying to re-brand the party around kitchen-table issues-- although even some of those bills have run into trouble. And the most momentous policy decisions, including an immigration overhaul and a fresh deadline for raising the federal debt limit, have no coherent strategy to consolidate Republicans, much less take on the Democrats.

...The leaders have come under intense scrutiny. Barely 36 hours after the caustic New Year’s Day vote, Boehner faced a coup attempt from a clutch of renegade conservatives. The cabal quickly fell apart when several Republicans, after a night of prayer, said God told them to spare the speaker. Still, Boehner came within a few votes of failing to secure his speakership on the initial vote, an outcome that would have forced a second ballot for the first time in nearly a century.

The coming battles will test Boehner’s power and, many Republicans privately suggested, potentially reveal whether it’s time for him to go.

“This is a big summer and fall, a test for all concerned,” said Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), a close Boehner ally.

At the moment, House leaders have no plan for passing the test.

On a recent Wednesday afternoon, House Republicans filed into the same Capitol basement room, HC5, where they fought on New Year’s Day. They filtered past clearly marked NO SMOKING signs-- which, as always, the Camel-smoking Boehner ignored-- and settled into the same hard plastic chairs that have served as Washington’s toughest ideological fault line of the past 30 months.

The windowless room with two large-screen TVs and a couple of microphones on either side was handed over to rank-and-file Republicans, nearly 40 of whom waited their turn to offer ideas for what the GOP should try to get later this year in return for agreeing to raise the debt ceiling.

Some wanted more energy exploration, some entitlement reform and one lawmaker pushed to attach antiabortion measures to the legislative package, according to Republicans in the room.

This is the price of remaining in charge in today’s House: Boehner must always appear to be working from the bottom up, never seeming to impose his will.

...Many within the party wonder if there’s any approach Republicans will unify behind this time.

Several veteran Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity to criticize their colleagues, said they fear there are too many extreme budget hawks to approve a deal with GOP votes alone, further hampering their leverage in negotiations with the Senate.

Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is trying to rally support for a broad rewrite of the tax code in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.

But many conservatives consider that insufficient to meet the Williamsburg agreement, which they hold requires a path to balancing the budget within a decade. At Williamsburg, Republicans also agreed to put off the debt ceiling fight until the fall and agreed to fund the government at sequester levels.

Some conservatives are talking about circulating a petition to impose an internal rule forbidding Boehner from advancing legislation that does not have majority support in the Republican Conference, a restriction that would have torpedoed the fiscal cliff bill.

Boehner has ducked specifics about the fall. “We’ve not made any decisions at this point,” he told reporters recently.

He said that Republicans are in a similar spot on immigration, indicating that the rank and file do not understand the issue.

“We’ve got to educate our members and we’ve got to help educate them about the hundreds of issues that are involved,” he said.

...Late last year, leaders finally tried to assert themselves over the restive caucus. They ejected Schweikert and three others from key committees, moves widely viewed as coming from McCarthy, a rare moment when he cracked the whip.

Also, many members of the 2010 class are still sore about the financial quandary that then-Rep. Jeff Landry (R) was in last fall in Louisiana when facing Rep. Charles W. Boustany Jr. (R) in an election caused by redistricting. Landry’s friends said he was rebuffed by influential corporate donors, who believed leadership favored the four-term Boustany. Landry lost badly, outspent by a 2-to-1 margin.

Then came the chairman’s race for the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of conservatives. The most influential lawmakers and activists backed Rep. Tom Graves (Ga.), who had rocky relations with leaders. Yet Rep. Steve Scalise (La.) won the secret ballot-- an outcome thought to be orchestrated behind the scenes by Boehner and Cantor.

If leaders got what they wanted, though, some rank and file still did not come around.

Just past noon on Jan. 3, as the 113th Congress was being sworn in, Boehner faced a rare coup attempt. The normally composed McCarthy stood on the House floor screaming at Rep. Raul R. Labrador (R-Idaho) and Fincher, who had been approached Jan. 1 by other conservatives interested in ousting the speaker. Boehner had pulled Fincher into the speaker’s office that morning for a conversation, several GOP sources said.

The conservatives had decided that Boehner was too overbearing, too top-down. The central gripe was freewheeling backroom negotiations with Obama, talking about trading $1 trillion in new taxes for what they considered modest entitlement reforms.

“It seemed like we did a lot of things without collaboration,” said Rep. Steve Southerland II (R-Fla.), a 47-year-old funeral home operator elected in 2010 whose Capitol Hill townhouse became a regular meeting spot for agitated lawmakers.

About 17 defectors were needed to deny Boehner an outright majority. The hope was that if they could block the speaker on the first ballot, they could convene the GOP conference in HC5 and compel someone else-- maybe Cantor, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.) or Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Tex.)-- to challenge Boehner. Even if no one stood up and Boehner won on a second ballot, it would have been a humiliating rebuke.

Southerland, who has previously talked about his role only with the conservative Weekly Standard, said he read the Old Testament the night before the vote. He read the story of Saul and David, as the king of Israel tried to kill the future king. David wins and, with a chance to kill the king, decides to spare Saul.

Southerland woke up convinced that Boehner should be spared. Others, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they, too, prayed before siding with Boehner.

Maybe right-wing sociopaths like Southerland should step away from the Old Testament now and then and try the New one Jesus brought-- the one all conservative loath and fear and only pay lip service to. In any case, Southerland and other teabaggers buckled when the vote came and Boehner was re-elected-- albeit just barely-- by his fractious party.

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North Carolina Republicans' Move To Shut Down Student Voting Provokes Social Unrest

The video above is from Rachel Maddow's Monday MSNBC show. It's another story of how Republicans-gone-wild are trying to turn back history, this time the enfranchisement of college students in 1971. Many conservatives have fought that right from day one by putting obstacles in the way of students voting in the towns where their colleges were located. Republicans in control of legislatures across the country are doing it again.

In 2010, after the Tea Party takeover of the General Court of New Hampshire, which is what Granite Staters call their 400 member legislature, preventing college students from voting became a top legislative priority for Republicans. The state Senate wound up with 19 Republicans and only 5 Democrats and the GOP margin in the lower house was 298-104. They worked towards overturning marriage equality, reinstating the death penalty, cutting back on women's choice, putting up barriers to union organizing and taking away students' right to vote.

Are college students residents of the towns where they attend school, or are they interlopers, merely stopping in along the way with little vested interest in local affairs?

The controversial question has been posed in New Hampshire, where proposed legislation would take away students’ right to vote in their college town unless they lived there before enrolling and intended to stay-- a move that could have possible overtones for the first-in-the-nation primary.

Already, the weeks-old legislation is getting serious attention from Republicans and stirring angry responses from Democrats who say the bill is a thinly veiled effort to bar liberal-leaning students from casting ballots. Election law specialists in New Hampshire and beyond have offered criticism-- the proposal, they say, flouts court rulings on the question-- while college students are crossing party lines to protest the bill.

“We think that we are part of the communities where we are going to school and we think it’s wrong for the state to choose its voters,’’ said Jeremy Kaufmann, president of Dartmouth College Democrats, which is working with Dartmouth College Republicans to craft a retort to the bill at an as-yet unscheduled legislative hearing... [The] bill extends the same voting restrictions to members of the military and federal employees temporarily stationed in the state. Currently, military members and federal employees, like college students, are permitted to vote in New Hampshire while they are in the state.

...College student voting dramatically expanded in 1971, when the 26th Amendment lowered the voting age from 21 years of age to 18 in response to concerns that 18-year-olds could be drafted to serve in the Vietnam War but had no electoral say.

Questions quickly arose over whether students should vote at home or where they go to school. A 1972 US Supreme Court ruling that held that the town of Hanover could not bar a Dartmouth College student from voting because his parents lived in Hawaii and he planned to leave Hanover after graduation.

...Richard Sunderland, president of Dartmouth College Republicans, said the measure should be defeated, despite any advantage that might give to Democrats. The answer to that issue lies not in restricting the votes of college students, he said, but in broadening the appeal of the GOP to college students.

“Attacking the right to vote is attacking a symptom, not the problem itself,’’ he said.

The Republican efforts failed in New Hampshire because the state had a Democratic governor. North Carolina doesn't; they have puppet Pat... and a demented, anti-democracy General Assembly determined to keep students from voting. And that's led to protests and dozens of arrests in Raleigh.

Many of those arrested last week, including the Rev. William Barber, president of the North Carolina chapter of the NAACP, were among the more than 80 people who crowded into the Legislative Building rotunda leading to the Senate chambers to observe and join in chants of protest.

...The group arrested Monday included Barber's 20-year-old son, William Joseph Barber III, a student at North Carolina Central University; William Chafe, former dean of Arts and Sciences at Duke University; Robert Korstad, a professor of public policy and history at Duke; Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, an historian at the University of North Carolina; Charles van der Horst, a professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and members of the social justice group Raging Grannies.

"I started in 1954 at the Youth March for Integrated Schools in New York," said Vicki Ryder of Raging Grannies. "I've been doing this for a long time."

She and her fellow protestors directed their anger at the GOP-controlled legislature, which has refused to accept federal dollars to expand Medicaid to provide health insurance to more poor people, cut unemployment benefits, ended the earned income tax credit and passed new voting restrictions. Republicans have controlled the Legislature since 2011.

Van der Horst said those policies, in addition to efforts to restrict access to abortion, expose hypocrisy within the GOP ranks.

"These people don't believe in the sanctity of life," he said. "They believe in protecting their own wealth and their own power."

Even before the demonstrations and arrests started, this is how the University of North Carolina's student paper, the Daily Tar Heel was covering the Republican Party War On Education.

Proposals in the N.C. General Assembly ranging from tuition hikes to student group functions have brought a bedrock issue to the fore: the degree to which UNC-system campuses will continue to be granted autonomy from the state.

And they have drawn the ire of UNC administrators and students.

University administrators lobbied against the 12.3 percent tuition increase for out-of-state students at six schools, including UNC-CH, proposed in Gov. Pat McCrory’s budget.

Drew Moretz, vice president for government relations for the UNC system, met with McCrory’s team while his budget was being drafted to discuss concerns.

He said the tuition increase could result in fewer students enrolling at system schools, which could discourage businesses from staying in the state.

...Bruce Carney, provost for UNC-CH, said the money from tuition increases would funnel into the state’s general fund rather than universities.

“Increasing the tuition and keeping the money is the legislature’s prerogative, but morally it’s indefensible,” he said.

“The revenues from tuition increases should be going to support students, the faculties, the libraries and the University operations.”

UNC, Chapel Hill senior Zaina Alsous, who was arrested Wednesday at a protest along with students from UNC campuses at Charlotte and Greensboro, pointed out that "we’re even seeing public education, normally a bedrock of our state, under devastating attack from those in power” and called for mass resistance. Puppet Pat seems oblivious and won't talk about anything but his plans for offshore drilling and fracking.

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