From Jezebel’s The Ten Scariest Places to Have Ladyparts in America.

With states governments from coast to coast working tirelessly to make sure no woman has sex for pleasure without suffering the consequences of blessed, precious motherhood, it may be tempting to believe that if you have a uterus, the entire country has become hostile territory. Well, we’ve got good news and bad news: The good news is that wherever you are, things could probably be much worse for your ladyparts. Unless, that is, you live in one of the ten scariest places to have ladyparts. The bad news is that these ten places exist.

You’re out of luck if you’re a woman and living in certain cities (I’d say most cities) in Texas, Tennessee, Idaho, Georgia, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Ohio, Kansas, South Dakota…as well as anywhere in ‘lovely’ Mississippi.

Sorry, Magnolia staters. Mississippi is far and away the scariest place to be a woman.

Barring judicial injunction, as of July 1, operations at the state’s only abortion clinic will be threatened because of a new law signed into law by Governor Phil Bryant. Every state that Mississippi touches has a 24-hour waiting period in place for women who want to have abortions, and earlier this year, the House passed a law barring women from receiving prescriptions for RU-486 via Skype or teleconference, so ladies in Mississippi are triply fucked.
The state also leads the nation in teen pregnancy and obesity, and worst in child wellness, but despite all of its problems that aren’t related to women having too many abortions, Mississippi’s legislators have stuck to something they know they can control— whether or not the ladies stay pregnant. They’re surprisingly mum, though, on making sure that the environment for pregnant ladies is devoid of pollutants that could cause birth defects and difficult pregnancies and stuff. Nope, let’s keep everything unregulated but the squishy baby houses.

If you live in Mississippi, you have my sincerest condolences.

The scariest part of all this is how bold the anti-choicers have become in restricting legal abortions in red states…and they’re getting away with it. Read the entire article and find out why “there’s nothing to dance about if you’re a set of fallopian tubes with the misfortune of finding yourself in Pocatello, Idaho.”

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This should be the final word on the Hilary Rosen issue (Ann Romney does not understand the plight of working women)…but it won’t be. Republicans are going to milk every ounce of faux rage out of this one.

To tie so many talking heads who appear on cable every day to either campaign is a preposterous exercise, and a standard neither side of the political debate should want. If the Obama camp is responsible for Rosen, is Romney responsible for GOP Rep. Allen West’s outrageous accusation that 80 Democrats are communists? Is he responsible for Sherriff Joe Arapaio (Romney’s ’08 Arizona campaign chairman) and his birther conspiracy theories? Absolutely not. If that were the standard, the campaign would just be day after day of candidates disavowing random pundits and supporters’ comments. That Republicans feel they have to stoop to this suggests a real desperation. Let’s not let this become the new normal.

Too late. It is the normal in Republican politics and has been for a long time now. Furthermore, you can expect to see a lot more of it in the weeks and months ahead.

It matters not to Republicans that Hilary Rosen is neither a spokeswoman for the DNC nor an advisor to the President. She is a paid political commentator for CNN. Period. She also happens to be a democrat which is all Republicans need to know to somehow tie her comment in with President Obama. Politically, it’s the right move for Republicans. Romney was way behind with women voters. Ethically, the Republican ploy is wrong in so many ways but since when did doing the right thing have anything to do with politics…especially Republican politics.

At the root of all this is the false-equivalence fallacy that Republicans are hoping to set up to counter the real attacks on women’s rights they have been engaged in for the last several months.  Steve Benen explains.

One the one hand, we have a party that has pushed for restricting contraception; cutting off Planned Parenthood; state-mandated, medically-unnecessary transvaginal ultrasounds; forcing physicians to lie to patients about abortion and breast cancer; abortion taxes; abortion waiting periods; trap laws at abortion clinics, forcing women to tell their employers why they want birth control, opposition to prenatal care, and measures that make it harder for women to fight pay discrimination.

On the other hand, we have a media pundit with no connection to her party’s presidential campaign who said something about Mitt Romney’s wife professional background.

Whatever one chooses to call what it is Republicans are striving to do with women’s rights, the bottom line is that it is part of their public policy. They are not mere words. They are actions which have been taken at the state level which affect in very real ways matters pertaining to women’s health. And there is nothing to suggest that given the power once more, Republicans would not move forward in the same manner at the federal level. Case in point: the Blunt amendment.

At the best of times, Republican’s brand of politics is depraved. In times of desperation, as they currently find themselves in…watch out. Think of a rabid dog, foaming at the mouth, forced by it’s own insanity into a corner and you’ll have an idea of what to look forward to over the next six months.

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So now that the President’s speech on jobs in front of a joint session of Congress has a date (next Thursday instead of Wednesday) and the White House has promised that it’ll have an early start (can’t have it interfering with the NFL opener, god forbid), is everyone excited and happy?  Well, don’t be.  Ezra Klein explains.

Obama’s speech will achieve nothing. It will go nowhere because it has nowhere to go. A speech can rally the base, and maybe even temporarily change the topic in the news. But it can’t change the fundamental fact of politics right now, which is that the two parties disagree on the most profound question in Washington. It’s not: How do we fix the economy? It is: Who should win the next election? So long as Republicans and Democrats disagree on that, there will be no significant cooperation on substantive issues. Boehner simply will not cut off his party’s candidates at the knees, especially its presidential contenders, by handing Obama a major economic accomplishment. Because he controls the House of Representatives, that means Obama — and, by extension, the U.S. — is not going to get a major economic accomplishment.

And if anyone believes differently, they simply have not been paying attention to the political scene for the last three years. Here’s the opening paragraph from a NYT’s piece written 18 months ago.

Before the health care fight, before the economic stimulus package, before President Obama even took office, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican minority leader, had a strategy for his party: use his extensive knowledge of Senate procedure to slow things down, take advantage of the difficulties Democrats would have in governing and deny Democrats any Republican support on big legislation.

If that was true then (it was), it’s even more true now with the general election a little more than a year away.  Republicans understand only too well that any recovery in the economy between now and election day works against their ultimate goal – victory in 2012.  For all their bluster and rhetoric (“[Republicans] have made creating a better environment for job creation our number one focus”), Republicans would rather see the unemployment numbers exceed 10%.  And as a result of that mindset, no matter what the President says next Thursday, it will be criticized and ripped to shreds by Congressional Republicans, by every candidate in the GOP primary, by every Tea Party official across the country, by Fox News and by every right-wing radio jock, newspaper and blog.

You don’t have to wait for the morning after President Obama’s job speech to read what Republican’s thought about it.  Those reviews were written three years ago – November 4, 2008 to be precise.

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There’s not too much more one can say about Republican’s total disregard for the middle class and poor which has not been said before.  Trying to play nice with these heartless bastards is pointless.  They just don’t care and appear to be incapable of feeling embarrassment or shame as they continue their campaign of blatant hypocrisy, lies and spin.  Bernie Sanders spells it out.
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• Majority of Republicans in Congress:  scum.

• Majority of Democrats in Congress:  cowards.

• Majority of Conservatives:  pathetically misinformed.

• Liberals and progressives:  disillusioned if not downright discouraged.

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It takes a special kind of evil to deny the unemployed extended benefits while at the same time calling for permanent tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires – a move which will increase the deficit by $700 billion over the next decade.

Washington is poised to stop providing extended unemployment benefits despite the huge number of laid-off workers, the paucity of job openings, the high rate of underemployment in every sector of the economy and stubbornly slow economic growth. That’s because Republicans in the Senate insist that, unlike the hefty tax cuts they covet for the wealthy, the comparatively slender subsidies for the unemployed must not be financed with borrowed money. This penuriousness is not just hypocritical, it’s bad economics.

The current federal program, which offers up to 73 extra weeks of unemployment benefits to idled workers, is due to expire Nov. 30. If it does, about 2 million unemployed people will have their benefits cut off in December.

…and it takes a special and pathetic kind of stupid to buy into so blatant an example of Republican hypocrisy.

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By September 2006, the situation in Iraq had deteriorated horribly and Democrats were calling for a reduction of troops in Iraq.  Sen. Mitch McConnell, outraged, lashed out at Dems.

“The Democrat leadership finally agrees on something — unfortunately it’s retreat,” McConnell said in a Sept. 5, 2006, statement in response to a Democratic letter asking Bush to change his Iraq policy. Using blistering language, McConnell continued:

“Whether they call it ‘redeployment’ or ‘phased withdrawal,’ the effect is the same: We would leave Americans more vulnerable and Iraqis at the mercy of al-Qaeda, a terrorist group whose aim — toward Iraqis and Americans — is clear.”

Understandable.  McConnell was concerned about endangering American lives.  Furthermore, the Senator, compassionate man that he is, had the well-being of Iraqis in mind.  Sweet.  I had always thought of McConnell as being little more than a scumbag.  Might I have been wrong?  It’s difficult to not respect a man who places country before all other considerations and shows compassion for the citizens of a nation of which he had a hand in blowing up to hell and back .  Quite a guy that Mitch McConnell.

In passing, here’s a passage from President Bush’s Decision Points...

In September 2006, with the midterm elections approaching, my friend Mitch McConnell came to the Oval Office. The senior senator from Kentucky and Republican whip had asked to see me alone. Mitch has a sharp political nose, and he smelled trouble.

“Mr. President,” he said, “your unpopularity is going to cost us control of the Congress.”

Mitch had a point. Many Americans were tired of my presidency…

“Well, Mitch,” I asked, “what do you want me to do about it?” 

“Mr. President,” he said, “bring some troops home from Iraq.”

What?!!?  What happened to Mitch’s concern about weakening national security and leaving Americans more vulnerable?  What about al-Qaeda evildoers terrorizing innocent Iraqis?  Surely the lives of Americans was more important than winning a stinking midterm election, was it not?

C’mon Mitch, say it ain’t so, you two-timing, hypocritical weasel!

That folks, is your Republican Party of America – a party that never ceases to find new ways to screw and deceive you.

Scumbags, the entire lot.

UPDATE.

McConnell’s hometown paper, the Louisville Courier-Journal, had this to say in an editorial.

At the time that Sen. McConnell was privately advising Mr. Bush to reduce troop levels in Iraq, he was elsewhere excoriating congressional Democrats who had urged the same thing. “The Democrat[ic] leadership finally agrees on something — unfortunately it’s retreat,” Sen. McConnell had said in a statement on Sept. 5, 2006, about a Democratic letter to Mr. Bush appealing for cuts in troop levels. Sen. McConnell, who publicly was a stout defender of the war and Mr. Bush’s conduct of the conflict, accused the Democrats of advocating a position that would endanger Americans and leave Iraqis at the mercy of al-Qaida.

Unless he is prepared to call a former president of his own party a liar, Mr. McConnell has a choice. He can admit that he did not actually believe the Iraq mission was vital to American security, regardless of what he said at the time. Or he can explain why the fortunes of the Republican Party are of greater importance than the safety of the United States.

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Republican hypocrisy exposed in Jon Stewart fashion.

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What do you have to look forward to when Republicans finally do take over the reins of government?   This.  And it ain’t pretty.

House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) believes that a “political rebellion” akin to the American revolution of 1776 is brewing, that the Social Security retirement age should be raised to 70, and that the Wall Street reform bill currently moving through Congress is comparable to “killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.”

In an explosive interview with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, the GOP leader also charged that Democrats are “snuffing out the America that I grew up in.” He added, “Right now, we’ve got more Americans engaged in their government than at any time in our history. There’s a political rebellion brewing, and I don’t think we’ve seen anything like it since 1776.”

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Ensuring there’s enough money to pay for the war will require reforming the country’s entitlement system, Boehner said. He said he’d favor increasing the Social Security retirement age to 70 for people who have at least 20 years until retirement, tying cost-of-living increases to the consumer price index rather than wage inflation and limiting payments to those who need them.

“We need to look at the American people and explain to them that we’re broke,” Boehner said. “If you have substantial non-Social Security income while you’re retired, why are we paying you at a time when we’re broke? We just need to be honest with people.

Honest?  The hypocrisy is astounding.  Cut down on Social Security but extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich is what this guy is saying.  Why is it that honesty is something which the middle class and poor need to deal with but the rich are exempt?  The same people who didn’t give a damn for deficit spending during the eight years of insanity and abuse under Bush have now made this their number one priority.  And they’re asking to be taken seriously.  Really?

Why not get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan, wars which cannot be won under any conditions, and then they would not have to worry about finding funds to pay for them?  Is the trillion already spent on those two pointless wars not enough?

Imagine a Sarah Palin White House with Boehner and McConnell in charge of the House and Senate respectively and know that there is no terrorist organization in existence which could be more destructive to America than what these fools are capable of doing.

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Republican Rep. Mark Souder:

“I sinned against God, my wife and my family by having a mutual relationship with a part-time member of my staff.”

Dana Milbank asks:

When was it, exactly, that the Republican revolution merged with the sexual revolution?

With each passing year, the class notes for the famous House Republicans Class of ’94 get more lurid.

Yes, Souder is simply another politician, Republican and Democrat, who has been unfaithful.  No big story there…except that Souder is yet another conservative hypocrite who preached family values while screwing around on his wife.  It is that aspect of the story which disgusts me most.  The classic case was Newt Gingrich who, day after day, pounded Bill Clinton over the Lewinsky matter while he himself was in the midst of a sizzling affair.  Scumbags.

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In case you haven’t been following the latest, greatest reality show – Republican Hypocrisy – here’s a snippet from the latest episode.

Republican Senator John Cornyn, 2005 version, comments on Bush’s Supreme court nominee Harriet Miers.

“Although she has no prior judicial experience, this was true for nearly 40 percent of the men and women who have served as Supreme Court justices.  Indeed, rather than make her nomination less desirable, many of us believe that her long career in private practice will be to her credit.”

Republican Senator John Cornyn, 2010 version, comments on Obama’s Supreme court nominee Elena Kagan.

“The president says he wants to appoint somebody who will understand how the court’s decisions will impact regular people,” said Cornyn, a Republican who sits on the Judiciary Committee that will first consider Kagan’s nomination. “I don’t see how Ms. Kagan meets the president’s own standard. Her lack of experience as a practicing lawyer and a practicing judge are things that do not argue in her favor.”

If you’re capable of placing your brain in a box thereby suspending all rational though, then this is the show for you.  A few million Fox viewers can attest to that very fact.

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