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UPDATED: The GOP’s War On Women And Children

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From breast pumps to Big Bird, and from food stamps to family planning, the GOP is waging a war on America’s women and children. Full-fledged Republican battles against women now include anti-abortion bills, anti-contraception efforts, bills that literally would allow women to die in hospitals across America to protect “conscience rights” of doctors, attempts to defund Planned Parenthood, and GOP-sponsored bills that reduce, hamper, or even attempt to eliminate women’s constitutional rights to abortion and reproductive health services.

Yes, despite the fact that 64% of Americans say unemployment and the economy in general are “the most important problems facing this country today,” the GOP has chosen to focus on effectively eliminating the constitutional right to abortion.

The New York Times reports, “A comprehensive global study of abortion has concluded that abortion rates are similar in countries where it is legal and those where it is not, suggesting that outlawing the procedure does little to deter women seeking it,” and adds, “the researchers found that abortion was safe in countries where it was legal, but dangerous in countries where it was outlawed and performed clandestinely.”

The Times quotes Dr. Paul Van Look, director of the W.H.O. Department of Reproductive Health and Research, as saying, “What we see is that the law does not influence a woman’s decision to have an abortion. If there’s an unplanned pregnancy, it does not matter if the law is restrictive or liberal.” Van Look adds, “Generally, where abortion is legal it will be provided in a safe manner… And the opposite is also true: where it is illegal, it is likely to be unsafe, performed under unsafe conditions by poorly trained providers.”

Not satisfied at attempting to end abortion, however, Republicans are attempting right now to end entire programs that provide food and health services to five million low-income Americans.

Republicans are even proposing “personhood” bills, which declare as a full-fledged human the two cells joined at the instant of conception – effectively outlawing abortion. Eliminating abortion is so far ahead of everything else on the Republican agenda — despite Speaker of the House John Boehner’s promise to focus on jobs — that they’re even willing to pass legislation that might make it legal to murder an abortion provider. And all this on the heels of the GOP’s attempt to redefine rape. And like something out of The Onion, or “Saturday Night Live,” there is even a Republican battle on breast pumps.

Yes, breast pumps. Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has decided to attack First Lady Michelle Obama, the government’s role in health care, the President’s policies, and the needy, by saying, “I’ve given birth to five babies and I breast-fed every single one of these babies,” Bachmann said on Laura Ingraham’s radio show. “To think that government has to go out and buy my breast pump for my babies. I mean, you want to talk about the nanny state?”

But even her own state residents disagree. “The government isn’t buying nursing women breast pumps (nor telling them they must buy them),” writes Susan Perry in the Minnesota Post. “The IRS is simply permitting women to purchase a pump and other breast-feeding supplies with their flexible spending accounts — as they can now buy other health-related items, such as hearing aids, contact-lens solution and over-the-counter pain relievers.”

Read: “Sarah Palin’s Breast Pump Problem“

Children are not exempt from the GOP wrath either. Right now, a Republican lawmaker in Missouri has proposed a bill “eliminating the prohibition on employment of children under 14.” Marcus Baram in The Huffington Post says that state Senator Jane Cunningham “defends the bill, saying that it’s important to cultivate a work ethic in young people.”

Shameful. If parents want to “cultivate a work ethic” in their young children, let them cut the grass, get a paper route, volunteer at the local library, walk the neighbor’s dog, or babysit.

Of course, after gutting child labor laws, what do you think is the next logical move? Yup. Repealing minimum wage laws. There are currently Republican-led attempts to repeal minimum wage laws now in (at least) Nevada and Missouri, as well as a national conversation taking place across America.

Citing an op-ed in a local Massachusetts newspaper that the “free market” should determine wages, a letter to the editor titled, “Where’s GOP concern for US workers?,” sarcastically mocks the idea. “He suggests that the federal minimum wage law be eliminated and that the free market determine that wage, which he feels could be $7 per hour rather than $8 and therefore create more jobs. But why stop there? Just think how many jobs could be created if minimum wages fell to $5 or even $3. And, as he implies, if we cut back or eliminate paid sick days and some paid time off for personal needs, employers would be able to hire more workers.”

A New York Times editorial this week calls the GOP’s focus “out of control,” and asks, “Are there any adults in charge of the House?”

“On Tuesday, the House began debating the list of proposed cuts, and more than 500 amendments were filed, mostly from Republicans trying to cut still more out of — or end — programs they dislike. One would stop paying dues to the United Nations. Others would cut all financing for the health care reform law, or Planned Parenthood, or any foreign aid to a country that regularly disagrees with the United States at the United Nations.”

The United Nations is one of the most important institutions women and children have. Whatever its shortcomings, the United Nations helps provide food to millions of women and children, specifically. It is unconscionable for the GOP to attempt to deny them the small amount of funding we do.

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Susan Rice, last week called these efforts by the GOP “short-sighted.” The American Foreign Press writes, “According to the ambassador, out of every dollar paid in tax by Americans 34 cents goes to Social Security and Medicare, 22 cents to national security and just one tenth of a cent on UN dues.”

But taking food out of the mouths of women and children is not the only overseas mission Republicans have. The GOP is attempting to “eliminate the $440 million in funding for the State Department, foreign operations, and related programs “for international population control, family planning, and reproductive health.”

Typical. Republicans time and again want to do something and ignore the consequences. But taking money out of the mouths of women and children, and taking money out of family planning services is a one-two punch that adds up to insanity.

Back here in the U.S., Barbara Bush, wife of George H.W. Bush, took Republican Governor of Texas, Rick Perry, to task. Writing an op-ed in the Houston Chronicle, “We can’t afford to cut education,” the former First Lady cited Texas’ embarrassing statistics, including ranking “49th in verbal SAT scores, 47th in literacy and 46th in average math SAT scores,” and “36th in the nation in high school graduation rates.” She adds, “An estimated 3.8 million Texans do not have a high school diploma.”

Mrs. Bush then asks, “In light of these statistics, can we afford to cut the number of teachers, increase class sizes, eliminate scholarships for underprivileged students and close several community colleges?”

Gail Collins of The New York Times picked this up and wrote in response, “You may not be surprised to hear that Governor Perry has rejected new taxes. He’s also currently refusing $830 million in federal aid to education because the Democratic members of Congress from Texas — ticked off because Perry used $3.2 billion in stimulus dollars for schools to plug other holes in his budget — put in special language requiring that this time Texas actually use the money for the kids.”

Collins continues, writing, “the Perry government is a huge fan of the deeply ineffective abstinence-only sex education. Texas gobbles up more federal funds than any other state for the purpose of teaching kids that the only way to avoid unwanted pregnancies is to avoid sex entirely,” and reveals that Texas “refused to accept federal money for more expansive, “evidence-based” programs.”

Calling House Republican leaders’ cuts “draconian,” and “devastating to women and girls at every stage of their lives,” Nancy Duff Campbell, co-president of the National Women’s Law Center, writing in The Hill, says, “The same House Republican leaders who voted to extend lavish tax breaks for the very wealthiest are now insisting that those who can least afford it sacrifice the most.”

She details some of the cuts Republicans want to make to the federal budget this year, and she’s kind when she calls them “draconian.”

Many Americans aren’t aware of a forty-one year-old federal program called Title X, which House Republicans want to scrap. Why? Because it provides funding to five million low-income women and children in the form of family planning (which Republicans hear solely as “abortion,”) contraception, and health care.

The Republican bill in the House, according to Campbell, “gouges key federal early learning investments—Head Start, Early Head Start and the Child Care Development Block Grant,” and “slashes funding for programs that promote the health of pregnant women, infants and young children,” including programs that provide “food, counseling and other supports to millions of low-income pregnant women, new mothers and infants.”

Those new mothers and infants may be mighty surprised to learn that the GOP is also waging war on Big Bird. Yes, the GOP wants to pull the plug on PBS. Claiming, “public broadcasting’s furry friends are political animals,” ultra-conservative Republican Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina says that in Washington, D.C., “Sesame Street turns into K Street and Elmo is a lobbyist.” DeMint exposes his irrational fears. “At this rate, Americans can expect Big Bird to start filming commercials to hype ObamaCare.”

DeMint and the rest of his Republican friends have a plan to prevent that too. The House is doing everything it can to repeal “Obamacare.” And if they can’t repeal health care reform, they can sure defund it. And they’re trying.

Yes, the Republicans have gone overboard, and are attacking women and children, and those least able to help themselves. Ironically, and sadistically, the fact is that Republican efforts will lead to even more needy women and children, literally left out in the cold, un-fed, un-educated, without health care, or a future.

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OPINION

Noem Defends Shooting Her 14-Month Old Puppy to Death, Brags She Has Media ‘Gasping’

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9 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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Republican Governor Kristi Noem of South Dakota, a top potential Trump vice presidential running mate pick, revealed in a forthcoming book she “hated” her 14-month old puppy and shot it to death. Massive online outrage ensued, including accusations of “animal cruelty” and “cold-blooded murder,” but the pro-life former member of Congress is defending her actions and bragging she had the media “gasping.”

“Cricket was a wirehair pointer, about 14 months old,” Noem writes in her soon-to-be released book, according to The Guardian which reports “the dog, a female, had an ‘aggressive personality’ and needed to be trained to be used for hunting pheasant.”

“By taking Cricket on a pheasant hunt with older dogs, Noem says, she hoped to calm the young dog down and begin to teach her how to behave. Unfortunately, Cricket ruined the hunt, going ‘out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life’.”

“Then, on the way home after the hunt, as Noem stopped to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped Noem’s truck and attacked the family’s chickens, ‘grabb[ing] one chicken at a time, crunching it to death with one bite, then dropping it to attack another’.”

READ MORE: President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

“Cricket the untrainable dog, Noem writes, behaved like ‘a trained assassin’.”

Except Cricket wasn’t trained. Online several people with experience training dogs have said Noem did everything wrong.

“I hated that dog,” Noem wrote, calling the young girl pup “untrainable,” “dangerous to anyone she came in contact with,” and “less than worthless … as a hunting dog.”

“At that moment,” Noem wrote, “I realized I had to put her down.”

“It was not a pleasant job,” she added, “but it had to be done. And after it was over, I realized another unpleasant job needed to be done.”

The Guardian reports Noem went on that day to slaughter a goat that “smelled ‘disgusting, musky, rancid’ and ‘loved to chase’ Noem’s children, knocking them down and ruining their clothes.”

She dragged both animals separately into a gravel pit and shot them one at a time. The puppy died after one shell, but the goat took two.

On social media Noem expressed no regret, no sadness, no empathy for the animals others say did not need to die, and certainly did not need to die so cruelly.

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

But she did use the opportunity to promote her book.

Attorney and legal analyst Jeffrey Evan Gold says Governor Noem’s actions might have violated state law.

“You slaughtered a 14-month-old puppy because it wasn’t good at the ‘job’ you chose for it?” he asked. “SD § 40-1-2.3. ‘No person owning or responsible for the care of an animal may neglect, abandon, or mistreat the animal.'”

The Democratic National Committee released a statement saying, “Kristi Noem’s extreme record goes beyond bizarre rants about killing her pets – she also previously said a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry out her pregnancy, does not support exceptions for rape or incest, and has threatened to throw pharmacists in jail for providing medication abortions.”

Former Trump White House Director of Strategic Communications Alyssa Farah Griffin, now a co-host on “The View” wrote, “There are countless organizations that re-home dogs from owners who are incapable of properly training and caring for them.”

The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson blasted the South Dakota governor.

“Kristi Noem is trash,” he began. “Decades with hunting- and bird-dogs, and the number I’ve killed because they were chicken-sharp or had too much prey drive is ZERO. Puppies need slow exposure to birds, and bird-scent.”

“She killed a puppy because she was lazy at training bird dogs, not because it was a bad dog,” he added. “Not every dog is for the field, but 99.9% of them are trainable or re-homeable. We have one now who was never going in the field, but I didn’t kill her. She’s sleeping on the couch. You down old dogs, hurt dogs, and sick dogs humanely, not by shooting them and tossing them in a gravel pit. Unsporting and deliberately cruel…but she wrote this to prove the cruelty is the point.”

Melissa Jo Peltier, a writer and producer of the “Dog Whisperer with Cesar Millan” series, also heaped strong criticism on Noem.

“After 10+ years working with Cesar Millan & other highly specialized trainers, I believe NO dog should be put down just because they can’t or won’t do what we decide WE want them to,” Peltier said in a lengthy statement. “Dogs MUST be who they are. Sadly, that’s often who WE teach them to be. And our species is a hot mess. I would have happily taken Kristi Noem’s puppy & rehomed it. What she did is animal cruelty & cold blooded murder in my book.”

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

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OPINION

President Hands Howard Stern Live Interview After NY Times Melts Down Over Biden Brush-Off

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13 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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President Joe Biden gave an nearly-unannounced, last-minute, live exclusive interview Friday morning to Howard Stern, the SiriusXM radio host who for decades, from the mid-1990s to about 2015, was a top Trump friend, fan, and aficionado. But the impetus behind the President’s move appears to be a rare and unsigned statement from the The New York Times Company, defending the “paper of record” after months of anger from the public over what some say is its biased negative coverage of the Biden presidency and, especially, a Thursday report by Politico claiming Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger is furious the President has refused to give the “Grey Lady” an in-person  interview.

“The Times’ desire for a sit-down interview with Biden by the newspaper’s White House team is no secret around the West Wing or within the D.C. bureau,” Politico reported. “Getting the president on the record with the paper of record is a top priority for publisher A.G. Sulzberger. So much so that last May, when Vice President Kamala Harris arrived at the newspaper’s midtown headquarters for an off-the-record meeting with around 40 Times journalists, Sulzberger devoted several minutes to asking her why Biden was still refusing to grant the paper — or any major newspaper — an interview.”

“In Sulzberger’s view,” Politico explained, “only an interview with a paper like the Times can verify that the 81-year-old Biden is still fit to hold the presidency.”

But it was this statement that made Politico’s scoop go viral.

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

“’All these Biden people think that the problem is Peter Baker or whatever reporter they’re mad at that day,’ one Times journalist said. ‘It’s A.G. He’s the one who is pissed [that] Biden hasn’t done any interviews and quietly encourages all the tough reporting on his age.'”

Popular Information founder Judd Legum in March documented The New York Times’ (and other top papers’) obsession with Biden’s age after the Hur Report.

Thursday evening the Times put out a “scorching” statement, as Politico later reported, not on the newspaper’s website but on the company’s corporate website, not addressing the Politico piece directly but calling it “troubling” that President Biden “has so actively and effectively avoided questions from independent journalists during his term.”

Media watchers and critics pushed back on the Times’ statement.

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

“NYT issues an unprecedented statement slamming Biden for ‘actively and effectively avoid[ing] questions from independent journalists during his term’ and claiming it’s their ‘independence’ that Biden dislikes, when it’s actually that they’re dying to trip him up,” wrote media critic Dan Froomkin, editor of Press Watch.

Froomkin also pointed to a 2017 report from Poynter, a top journalism site published by The Poynter Institute, that pointed out the poor job the Times did of interviewing then-President Trump.

Others, including former Biden Deputy Secretary of State Brian McKeon, debunked the Times’ claim President Biden hasn’t given interviews to independent journalists by pointing to Biden’s interviews with CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and a 20-minute sit-down interview with veteran journalist John Harwood for ProPublica.

Former Chicago Sun-Times editor Mark Jacob, now a media critic who publishes Stop the Presses, offered a more colorful take of Biden’s decision to go on Howard Stern.

The Times itself just last month reported on a “wide-ranging interview” President Biden gave to The New Yorker.

Watch the video and read the social media posts 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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CNN Smacks Down Trump Rant Courthouse So ‘Heavily Guarded’ MAGA Cannot Attend His Trial

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15 hours ago

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April 26, 2024

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Donald Trump’s Friday morning claim Manhattan’s Criminal Courts Building is “heavily guarded” so his supporters cannot attend his trial was torched by a top CNN anchor. The ex-president, facing 34 felony charges in New York, had been urging his followers to show up and protest on the courthouse steps, but few have.

“I’m at the heavily guarded Courthouse. Security is that of Fort Knox, all so that MAGA will not be able to attend this trial, presided over by a highly conflicted pawn of the Democrat Party. It is a sight to behold! Getting ready to do my Courthouse presser. Two minutes!” Trump wrote Friday morning on his Truth Social account.

CNN’s Kaitlan Collins supplied a different view.

“Again, the courthouse is open the public. The park outside, where a handful of his supporters have gathered on trials days, is easily accessible,” she wrote minutes after his post.

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

Trump has tried to rile up his followers to come out and make a strong showing.

On Monday Trump urged his supporters to “rally behind MAGA” and “go out and peacefully protest” at courthouses across the country, while complaining that “people who truly LOVE our Country, and want to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, are not allowed to ‘Peacefully Protest,’ and are rudely and systematically shut down and ushered off to far away ‘holding areas,’ essentially denying them their Constitutional Rights.”

On Wednesday Trump claimed, “The Courthouse area in Lower Manhattan is in a COMPLETE LOCKDOWN mode, not for reasons of safety, but because they don’t want any of the thousands of MAGA supporters to be present. If they did the same thing at Columbia, and other locations, there would be no problem with the protesters!”

After detailing several of his false claims about security measures prohibiting his followers from being able to show their support and protest, CNN published a fact-check on Wednesday:

“Trump’s claims are all false. The police have not turned away ‘thousands of people’ from the courthouse during his trial; only a handful of Trump supporters have shown up to demonstrate near the building,” CNN reported.

“And while there are various security measures in place in the area, including some street closures enforced by police officers and barricades, it’s not true that ‘for blocks you can’t get near this courthouse.’ In reality, the designated protest zone for the trial is at a park directly across the street from the courthouse – and, in addition, people are permitted to drive right up to the front of the courthouse and walk into the building, which remains open to the public. If people show up early enough in the morning, they can even get into the trial courtroom itself or the overflow room that shows near-live video of the proceedings.”

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

 

 

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