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The GOP War On Women Demands A New Women’s Rights Agenda for America

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“Feminism” with a capital “F” is making a roaring comeback, thanks to the Republican War On Women: misogyny on steroids. It’s time we demand a new women’s rights agenda.

As a young girl growing up in basketball-crazed Indiana, I used to go to bed often crying myself to sleep as I was explicitly prohibited from playing on my school’s basketball team because I was a girl.

This was an enraging situation, indeed intolerable and I took action to level the playing field in a number of creative ways: I challenged every boy in the neighborhood — among them were Rocky Hollingsworth, Shorty Miller and John Patty ( real names) – to a game of “21.” I beat them methodically, recording their humiliating defeats for posterity in my first “little black book” of life.

It was 1966 — only two years after the Civil Rights Act became law and included sex as a protected class of Americans — when I ceremoniously confronted Mr. Willen, the principal of Lincoln Junior High School in Indianapolis, by thrusting my little black book into his face as prima facie evidence, arguing that if I can beat the boys, why can’t I join them too and proudly wear the uniform of the Lincoln Junior High basketball team? Why can’t I too feel the thrill of sinking a 15-foot jump shot from the corner before a cheering crowd?

In retrospect, the Willen encounter turned out to be my first lobbying experience (which has become a life-long avocation) and he compromised by inviting me to participate in an intramural sports wrestling program, an odious prospect I imagine he calculated to offer, thinking I would be dissuaded from pursuing my “ridiculous” goal of playing on the basketball team. But I leapt at the chance to demonstrate that I could play with the big boys, although it took me on a temporarily circuitous path away from my immediate goal of playing basketball.

My experience with Willen and the neighborhood boys taught me very early in life that girls were always a step down and you had to fight like hell to push against the invisible wall of sex discrimination. I experienced the searing taunts of “why do you want to be a boy?” and felt the loud silence of disapproval from my tongue-clucking teachers and classmates, who were horrified at my behavior and physically turned away from me because I sought to dribble and shoot a ball!

I did not ultimately benefit from the passage of the Title IX law that passed in 1972, the year I graduated from high school, but I have witnessed the thrilling transformation of women’s sports in America that has given girls the experience of physical discipline along with the special bonding with women teammates while playing for high school and NCAA titles and competing for Olympic medals in a multitude of sports.

There has been push back by the right wing on Title IX too, and who is surprised by it? Those of us who are the women of the “Baby Boomer” generation, who knew life before Title IX and were denied graduate school education via quotas which admitted minuscule numbers of women; who dodged and managed unplanned pregnancies before the Supreme Court decided in Griswold v. Connecticut which provided that women possessed the constitutionally-protected right of privacy to seek birth control for themselves and their families in 1965; and who were forced to seek illegal, back-alley abortions, while many died from botched abortions, before Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court in 1973, agreeing that women had the right to safe, legal abortions in the first trimester of pregnancy.

 

Consequently, these overt, sustained and outrageous attacks by elected officials of the Republican Party and their supporters—in Congress and state legislatures–on these hard fought gains is enraging and frightening for women’s rights advocates and has all the tell-tale signs of radicalizing a new generation of women, and some men, waking them up to the reality that misogyny has been openly tolerated by American society and its culture, writ large for a very long time.

 

A third, significant advance was achieved in 1994 when the domestic violence movement achieved passage of the first Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that was made federal law, marking 30 years of sustained advances on behalf of American women. Now Republicans in the Senate are blocking a floor vote on reauthorization of VAWA that extends protections to same-sex couples and illegal immigrants who may have been victimized by violent partners.

One of the first setbacks to women’s access to legal abortion was dealt by President Reagan in 1983 when he ordered military hospitals to no longer offer abortions to women service members or family members, effectively denying a constitutionally protected medical procedure to women who are serving our country, arguably putting them at great risk if forced to seek an illegal abortion, because medical privacy in the military is more permeable with real possibilities of misconduct charges for pregnancy out of wedlock, as an example.

These legal advances have taken decades to manifest which now reflect equal access for women in education, who have higher enrollments in colleges than men and have achieved parity in professional and graduate schools, save hard sciences; had achieved women’s access to birth control and safe, legal abortion procedures that was private and negotiated between a woman and her doctor and advances that have provided some protection and legal advocacy, albeit imperfectly, to women and some men, who are survivors of domestic violence.

Consequently, the overt, sustained and outrageous attacks by elected officials of the Republican Party and their supporters—in Congress and in state legislatures–on these hard fought gains is enraging and frightening for women’s rights advocates and has all the tell-tale signs of radicalizing a new generation of women, and some men, waking them up to the reality that misogyny has been openly tolerated by American society and its culture, writ large for a very long time.

“Feminism” with a capital “F” is making a roaring comeback, thanks to Republican misogyny on steroids.

Right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh’s over-the-top attacks on Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown University law student, labeling her a “slut” and “prostitute” for her advocacy before Congress calling for universities, including religion-affiliated ones, to provide insurance covered contraceptives for women’s health, may mark a turning point in American social and cultural history.

Limbaugh’s sustained efforts to paint Fluke as a modern-day Hester Prynne, the fictionally created “Scarlet Letter” adulteress of the 18th century, backfired against him, causing a firestorm and uprising by women and their supporters who effectively pressured more than 100 advertisers to drop Limbaugh’s show in less than two weeks. This could be a watershed moment in America, which has marked a momentary wholesale rejection of misogyny and sexism in the Fluke example. I hope it is such and time will tell if my supposition is true.

But a focus on Republican transgressions does not give Democrats a pass, which are not exempt from infection by this disease and should not get a pass when it is warranted. Bill Maher, a so-called comedian who appears regularly on HBO, customarily refers to women as “twats” and c_ _nts, contributed $1 million to the Obama Super PAC.  Maher waded into the Limbaugh firestorm by defending his lame apology to Fluke. Since then, David Axelrod, the Obama campaign manager who was scheduled to appear on Maher’s show has since indicated he will not be appearing for the time being. Nonetheless, the Obama Super PAC has accepted the money and does not appear it will be returning it anytime soon.

 

Women still earn less than men in America–making 78 percent of what men earn on average, according to the 2010 census.

The Senate has yet to ratify the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We share this sad exception with countries such as Iran, Somalia and Sudan (and two small Pacific island countries).

The United States also has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the Western Hemisphere and the only modern democracy that has not ratified CEDAW.

The U.S. is ranked 78th by the International Parliamentary Union (tied with Turkmenistan) in women’s elected representation in Congress—16.8 percent are women (73) in the House of Representatives and 17 percent (17) in the Senate.

We are one of the lowest ranking Western democracies in the world with respect to women holding elected office.

 

With every challenge, there is opportunity and in this moment, we need to fight like hell. The state-by-state efforts to roll back access to legal abortion and now incredulously, these new obstructions to birth control medication too, reminds of the virulent attacks against the LGBT community who has been forced to fight these vigilantes similarly in a protracted battle to protect gains or fend off anti-homosexual measures on a state-by-state basis for years.

These tactics are not new strategies, but in the moment, there is an energized new coterie of right wing legislators who are initiating these rollbacks from Arizona to Pennsylvania. They must be stopped and turned out of office now and should be replaced with pro-choice women and men, who are across the board the most progressive lawmakers in support of policies and programs that uplift “others” in our society– those who have been left out of the American political compact–like the LGBT community, for example. Now more than ever, we need to elect many more pro-choice women to elective office.  It’s as if the Republic hangs in the balance amid this craziness that feels run-amuk and out-of-control. We don’t have another second to waste.

So in this election year it’s time to pull out our little black books, tell our stories and bring to bear not only the law, but also our votes. Civil disobedience actions have to be put on the table as a strategy that goes into the mix. It was effectively used in Virginia recently when demonstrators forced Gov. Bob McConnell to withdraw his support of state-sanctioned rape that would have required women to undergo a transvaginal sonogram prior to exercising their legal right to an abortion.

Grounding out a strategic women’s rights agenda in America must be sought with elevated efforts led by the president of the United States in view of these recalcitrant and calculated attacks on women’s lives and their bodies.

No one could be more proud of Secretary Hillary Clinton’s paradigm-shifting women and girls global agenda-setting at the State Department intended for the world, beyond America’s shores. And even though then-First Lady Hillary Clinton electrified the world’s women in Beijing in 1995 when she uttered “women’s rights are human rights and human rights are women’s rights,” America does not measure up to international human rights standards when it comes to women’s rights, where we decidedly lag behind Northern Europe and a number of Western European countries, in everything from political elected leadership to family medical leave and child care support.

Women still earn less than men in America–making 78 percent of what men earn on average, according to the 2010 census. And although women live longer than men in America, they are charged more for health insurance, which is to be remedied within two years by the Obama healthcare act. The Senate has yet to ratify the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). We share this sad exception with countries such as Iran, Somalia and Sudan (and two small Pacific island countries). The United States also has the dubious distinction of being the only country in the Western Hemisphere and the only modern democracy that has not ratified CEDAW.

The U.S. is ranked 78th by the International Parliamentary Union (tied with Turkmenistan) in women’s elected representation in Congress—16.8 percent are women (73) in the House of Representation and  17 percent (17) in the Senate.  We are one of the lowest ranking Western democracies in the world with respect to women holding elected office.

All of us–women, people of color and LGBT people are intertwined in this struggle–those of us who seek to tangibly manifest the pursuit of happiness; the promise of America’s Declaration of Independence is to seek civil rights and human rights predicated on  America’s political compact that it has carried out during the past 235 years–to bend toward freedom and  the arc of justice and to flourish in all our diversity–to this we strain and struggle toward and shall not yield.

Images by DonkeyHotey: Aspirin, Chastity Belt

Tanya L. Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University who teaches about human rights in Eurasia and is a Harriman Institute affiliated faculty member. Prior to teaching at Columbia, Domi worked internationally for more than a decade on issues related to democratic transitional development, including political and media development, human rights, gender issues, sex trafficking, and media freedom.

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‘Assassination of Political Rivals as an Official Act’: AOC Warns Take Trump ‘Seriously’

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April 25, 2024

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Democratic U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is responding to Thursday’s U.S. Supreme Court hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was a U.S. president, and she delivered a strong warning in response.

Trump’s attorney argued before the nation’s highest court that the ex-president could have ordered the assassination of a political rival and not face criminal prosecution unless he was first impeached by the House of Representatives and then convicted by the Senate.

But even then, Trump attorney John Sauer argued, if assassinating his political rival were done as an “official act,” he would be automatically immune from all prosecution.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor, presenting the hypothetical, expressed, “there are some things that are so fundamentally evil that they have to be protected against.”

RELATED: Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

“If the president decides that his rival is a corrupt person, and he orders the military, or orders someone to assassinate him, is that within his official acts for which he can get immunity?” she asked.

“It would depend on the hypothetical, but we can see that could well be an official act,” Trump attorney Sauer quickly replied.

Sauer later claimed that if a president ordered the U.S. military to wage a coup, he could also be immune from prosecution, again, if it were an “official act.”

The Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, a retired U.S. Naval War College professor and an expert on Russia, nuclear weapons, and national security affairs, was quick to poke a large hole in that hypothetical.

“If the president suspends the Senate, you can’t prosecute him because it’s not an official act until the Senate impeaches …. Uh oh,” he declared.

RELATED: Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez blasted the Trump team.

“The assassination of political rivals as an official act,” the New York Democrat wrote.

“Understand what the Trump team is arguing for here. Take it seriously and at face value,” she said, issuing a warning: “This is not a game.”

Marc Elias, who has been an attorney to top Democrats and the Democratic National Committee, remarked, “I am in shock that a lawyer stood in the U.S Supreme Court and said that a president could assassinate his political opponent and it would be immune as ‘an official act.’ I am in despair that several Justices seemed to think this answer made perfect sense.”

CNN legal analyst Norm Eisen, a former U.S. Ambassador and White House Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform under President Barack Obama, boiled it down: “Trump is seeking dictatorial powers.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

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Justices’ Views on Trump Immunity Stun Experts: ‘Watching the Constitution Be Rewritten’

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16 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Legal experts appeared somewhat pleased during the first half of the Supreme Court’s historic hearing on Donald Trump’s claim he has “absolute immunity” from criminal prosecution because he was the President of the United States, as the justice appeared unwilling to accept that claim, but were stunned later when the right-wing justices questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s attorney. Many experts are suggesting the ex-president may have won at least a part of the day, and some are expressing concern about the future of American democracy.

“Former President Trump seems likely to win at least a partial victory from the Supreme Court in his effort to avoid prosecution for his role in Jan. 6,” Axios reports. “A definitive ruling against Trump — a clear rejection of his theory of immunity that would allow his Jan. 6 trial to promptly resume — seemed to be the least likely outcome.”

The most likely outcome “might be for the high court to punt, perhaps kicking the case back to lower courts for more nuanced hearings. That would still be a victory for Trump, who has sought first and foremost to delay a trial in the Jan. 6 case until after Inauguration Day in 2025.”

Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern, who covers the courts and the law, noted: “This did NOT go very well [for Special Counsel] Jack Smith’s team. Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh think Trump’s Jan. 6 prosecution is unconstitutional. Maybe Gorsuch too. Roberts is skeptical of the charges. Barrett is more amenable to Smith but still wants some immunity.”

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

Civil rights attorney and Tufts University professor Matthew Segal, responding to Stern’s remarks, commented: “If this is true, and if Trump becomes president again, there is likely no limit to the harm he’d be willing to cause — to the country, and to specific individuals — under the aegis of this immunity.”

Noted foreign policy, national security and political affairs analyst and commentator David Rothkopf observed: “Feels like the court is leaning toward creating new immunity protections for a president. It’s amazing. We’re watching the Constitution be rewritten in front of our eyes in real time.”

“Frog in boiling water alert,” warned Ian Bassin, a former Associate White House Counsel under President Barack Obama. “Who could have imagined 8 years ago that in the Trump era the Supreme Court would be considering whether a president should be above the law for assassinating opponents or ordering a military coup and that *at least* four justices might agree.”

NYU professor of law Melissa Murray responded to Bassin: “We are normalizing authoritarianism.”

Trump’s attorney, John Sauer, argued before the Supreme Court justices that if Trump had a political rival assassinated, he could only be prosecuted if he had first been impeach by the U.S. House of Representatives then convicted by the U.S. Senate.

During oral arguments Thursday, MSNBC host Chris Hayes commented on social media, “Something that drives me a little insane, I’ll admit, is that Trump’s OWN LAWYERS at his impeachment told the Senators to vote not to convict him BECAUSE he could be prosecuted if it came to that. Now they’re arguing that the only way he could be prosecuted is if they convicted.”

READ MORE: Biden Campaign Hammers Trump Over Infamous COVID Comment

Attorney and former FBI agent Asha Rangappa warned, “It’s worth highlighting that Trump’s lawyers are setting up another argument for a second Trump presidency: Criminal laws don’t apply to the President unless they specifically say so…this lays the groundwork for saying (in the future) he can’t be impeached for conduct he can’t be prosecuted for.”

But NYU and Harvard professor of law Ryan Goodman shared a different perspective.

“Due to Trump attorney’s concessions in Supreme Court oral argument, there’s now a very clear path for DOJ’s case to go forward. It’d be a travesty for Justices to delay matters further. Justice Amy Coney Barrett got Trump attorney to concede core allegations are private acts.”

NYU professor of history Ruth Ben-Ghiat, an expert scholar on authoritarians, fascism, and democracy concluded, “Folks, whatever the Court does, having this case heard and the idea of having immunity for a military coup taken seriously by being debated is a big victory in the information war that MAGA and allies wage alongside legal battles. Authoritarians specialize in normalizing extreme ideas and and involves giving them a respected platform.”

The Nation’s justice correspondent Elie Mystal offered up a prediction: “Court doesn’t come back till May 9th which will be a decision day. But I think they won’t decide *this* case until July 3rd for max delay. And that decision will be 5-4 to remand the case back to DC, for additional delay.”

Watch the video above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

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Justices Slam Trump Lawyer: ‘Why Is It the President Would Not Be Required to Follow the Law?’

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19 hours ago

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April 25, 2024

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Justices on the U.S. Supreme Court hearing Donald Trump’s claim of absolute immunity early on appeared at best skeptical, were able to get his attorney to admit personal criminal acts can be prosecuted, appeared to skewer his argument a president must be impeached and convicted before he can be criminally prosecuted, and peppered him with questions exposing what some experts see is the apparent weakness of his case.

Legal experts appeared to believe, based on the Justices’ questions and statements, Trump will lose his claim of absolute presidential immunity, and may remand the case back to the lower court that already ruled against him, but these observations came during Justices’ questioning of Trump attorney John Sauer, and before they questioned the U.S. Dept. of Justice’s Michael Dreeben.

“I can say with reasonable confidence that if you’re arguing a case in the Supreme Court of the United States and Justices Alito and Sotomayor are tag-teaming you, you are going to lose,” noted attorney George Conway, who has argued a case before the nation’s highest court and obtained a unanimous decision.

But some are also warning that the justices will delay so Special Counsel Jack Smith’s prosecution of Trump will not take place before the November election.

READ MORE: ‘To Do God Knows What’: Local Elections Official Reads Lara Trump the Riot Act

“This argument still has a ways to go,” observed UCLA professor of law Rick Hasen, one of the top election law scholars in the county. “But it is easy to see the Court (1) siding against Trump on the merits but (2) in a way that requires further proceedings that easily push this case past the election (to a point where Trump could end this prosecution if elected).”

The Economist’s Supreme Court reporter Steven Mazie appeared to agree: “So, big picture: the (already slim) chances of Jack Smith actually getting his 2020 election-subversion case in front of a jury before the 2024 election are dwindling before our eyes.”

One of the most stunning lines of questioning came from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said, “If someone with those kinds of powers, the most powerful person in the world with the greatest amount of authority, could go into Office knowing that there would be no potential penalty for committing crimes. I’m trying to understand what the disincentive is, from turning the Oval Office into, you know, the seat of criminal activity in this country.”

READ MORE: ‘Doesn’t Care if Pregnant Women Live or Die’: Alito Slammed Over Emergency Abortion Remarks

She also warned, “If the potential for criminal liability is taken off the table, wouldn’t there be a significant risk that future presidents would be emboldened to commit crimes with abandon while they’re in office? It’s right now the fact that we’re having this debate because, OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] has said that presidents might be prosecuted. Presidents, from the beginning of time have understood that that’s a possibility. That might be what has kept this office from turning into the kind of crime center that I’m envisioning, but once we say, ‘no criminal liability, Mr. President, you can do whatever you want,’ I’m worried that we would have a worse problem than the problem of the president feeling constrained to follow the law while he’s in office.”

“Why is it as a matter of theory,” Justice Jackson said, “and I’m hoping you can sort of zoom way out here, that the president would not be required to follow the law when he is performing his official acts?”

“So,” she added later, “I guess I don’t understand why Congress in every criminal statute would have to say and the President is included. I thought that was the sort of background understanding that if they’re enacting a generally applicable criminal statute, it applies to the President just like everyone else.”

Another critical moment came when Justice Elena Kagan asked, “If a president sells nuclear secrets to a foreign adversary, is that immune?”

Professor of law Jennifer Taub observed, “This is truly a remarkable moment. A former U.S. president is at his criminal trial in New York, while at the same time the U.S. Supreme Court is hearing his lawyer’s argument that he should be immune from prosecution in an entirely different federal criminal case.”

Watch the videos above or at this link.

READ MORE: ‘Blood on Your Hands’: Tennessee Republicans OK Arming Teachers After Deadly School Shooting

 

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