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Because John McCain is a misogynist nutbag. As are his fellow Republicans.

Yesterday, Republican Senators successfully filibustered — that’s right, not just voted against but fucking filibustered — a bill that would provide those who have been the victims of discriminatory pay with more legal recourse. In other words, they filibustered a civil rights bill. Because Republicans have so learned the error of their prejudiced ways.

Republicans said the proposal to ease the time constraints would prompt more lawsuits and lead to litigation over outdated cases. “This debate today is not about allowing, favoring or supporting discrimination,” said Senator Johnny Isakson, Republican of Georgia.

[. . .]

Mr. McCain, who was campaigning in Louisiana, skipped the vote but told reporters he would have opposed the bill since it could contribute to frivolous lawsuits harmful to businesses.

Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah, accused Democrats of unfairly trying to paint opponents of the bill as unsympathetic to victims of salary discrimination. “The only ones who will see an increase in pay are some of the trial lawyers who bring the cases,” he said.

Um, what exactly, Senator Hatch, is being unfairly represented? Victims of unfair pay discrimination need a recourse, and you are actively denying it to them. You’re openly protecting companies who have a history of discrimination. And you are allowing, favoring or supporting discrimination, Senator Isakson, by refusing to hold those corporations who have engaged in it responsible for their actions. This is pretty fucking simple.

John McCain didn’t show up to vote — but did support the “it would provoke lawsuits” argument (um, assholes, that’s the point), and had this to say:

“They need the education and training, particularly since more and more women are heads of their households, as much or more than anybody else,” McCain said. “And it’s hard for them to leave their families when they don’t have somebody to take care of them.

“It’s a vicious cycle that’s affecting women, particularly in a part of the country like this, where mining is the mainstay; traditionally, women have not gone into that line of work, to say the least,” he said.

Oh, I see: so Senator McCain, you’re going to start supporting flexible work schedules and reduced working hours for both parents? You’re going to promote men taking a more active role in child-rearing and support social services that help women with child care? You’re also going to support those who are genuinely stuck in low paying jobs because a lack of educational opportunity with resources, and work to improve school systems and economic equality?

Um . . . no. McCain supports the “free market” — the very same free market that allows employers to discriminate against women, racial minorities, the disabled and LGBTQ individuals. He’s just using an opportunity to remind everyone that women belong back in the kitchen with a child on each hip. He also needed to point out that women are only paid less is because we just can’t stop popping out the kiddies, are uneducated and don’t do equal work — even though the Ledbetter case shows that this argument is a bunch of shit.

Below the jump, what I think of McCain and the Senate Republicans (all but six of whom voted to block the measure).

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Popularity: 18% [?]

The Pennsylvania Democratic primary is today. I could be slightly more enthused.

In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve more or less dropped out of campaign coverage. The answer is simple: things have gotten ugly. And with apologies to Clinton supporters, I don’t understand why she is still in it (yeah, I know: “to win it”).

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Popularity: 15% [?]

Alright, alright. So I went from loving John Edwards to really hating on him. And I stand by everything I said.

But . . . dude’s starting to win me over.

I mean, he makes some excellent points; who doesn’t want to be a jet ski-riding spy? I know that I do.

Also, happy anniversary to me.

Popularity: 14% [?]

I know that in crazy anti-choice wingnut land, logic isn’t exactly popular. But I do believe they’ve reached new heights of insult to basic reason. The Oklahoma Senate has passed a new bill that is more or less a hodgepodge of anti-abortion legislation. Take a look at the emphasized lines at the end of this excerpt.

SB 1878 combines various pieces of abortion legislation proposed this session.

One provision would require women who seek an abortion to undergo an ultrasound within one hour of the procedure.

Dr. Dana Stone, an Oklahoma City physician who is the chairwoman of the Oklahoma Section of the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, said the ultrasound legislation was of great concern to her because of its invasive nature early in pregnancy.

“The patient has no ability to opt out,” she said.

Lamb noted that the legislation does not require a woman to view the ultrasound images.

It does require that the images be displayed so the woman may see them. It also requires the examiner to give a medical description of the images, to include dimensions of the embryo or fetus and the presence of cardiac activity.

The bill also would require minors who seek abortions to provide written parental consent. Lamb said that is needed to ensure that minors aren’t coerced into ending pregnancy.

I reread those sentences several times, flabbergasted and convinced that I had interpreted them incorrectly. But no, I can still read. An author of the bill is actually arguing that requiring a minor to get written permission from her parents to have an abortion would ensure that she has not been coerced into ending a pregnancy.

Here is a list of anti-choice beliefs that one would have to buy into for this to make even a remote amount of sense:

1. All men are sexual predators
2. Therefore, women do not want abortions but are always pushed into them by their partners who want to continue having casual unprotected sex without consequences
3. The decision to end a pregnancy is somehow fundamentally different from the decision to continue a pregnancy
4. Until 18, all females are the property of their parents
5. Until 18, one does not have a fundamental right to health care
6. All parents are anti-choice, and none of them are abusive, which means that they could never be the ones who are coercing their daughter into an abortion
7. Somehow, these anti-choice parents would never use the requirement of written permission to coerce her daughter out of an abortion, except . . .
8. As stated, pregnant women are helpless and one could never actually want an abortions for her own reasons (like not wanting a baby). And if she does, she just needs to be talked down because all those baby-making hormones are making her a little irrational and unable to understand how very badly she really does want to become a mommy in several months. So allowing parents to force their daughters to give birth is a plus.

What really does scare me though is that 38 out of 48 legislators apparently bought into this argument. All who opposed the bill were Democrats, but 14 Democrats were in favor of it. And here is one of the fucking geniuses who OK Dems can count among their ranks.

Sen. Debbe Leftwich, D-Oklahoma City, voted for the measure but said she was concerned that it would require victims of rape and incest to view an ultrasound.

Well, it’s good to know that she had some concern for the extreme emotional distress that the bill could impose upon victims of rape and incest who are already going to be in the middle of an unthinkable experience . . . and then voted for it anyway.

What a proud day for democracy, both capital and lower D.

Popularity: 15% [?]

You’ve probably already read about Barack Obama’s statements regarding teen pregnancy and the outrage it has inspired in forced-birth proponents. Amanda has already wonderfully skewered the reaction. This is what Obama said:

“When it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include — which should include abstinence education and teaching the children — teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include — it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I’ve got two daughters. 9 years old and 6 years old. I am going to teach them first of all about values and morals. But if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby. I don’t want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so it doesn’t make sense to not give them information.”

I mean, really, with all the talk about sex not being anything casual and engaging in sex is a “mistake,” it would seem that Obama is pandering enough to the religious right “sex-is-bad-mmkay?” crowd. But no, instead he has made them very, very angry. Honestly, I think they’re pissed because of his reasonable assertion that telling kids not to have sex doesn’t mean they’re going to listen. But in typical “the liberal made a reasonable point — quick, make everyone look over here!” fashion, they’re screaming and hollering about how Obama said that babies are punishment. They also claim that his comments were about abortion, which is blatantly false, even if the comments he made do easily carry over and most likely influence his pro-choice views.

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Popularity: 21% [?]

I don’t think there are many people, with any candidate preference, who would argue that Obama is not incredibly engaging and likable. Whether you want to vote for the guy or not, let’s face it; he has charisma.

But watch the NY Times turn “Obama is charming” into “Obama makes women giggle and swoon and he’s so cute that they’ll just have to vote for him.”

Senator Barack Obama didn’t go on “The View” on Friday solely to talk about race and the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. He also wanted to address the gender issue. And if the fluttery response of the show’s five co-hosts is any harbinger, Mr. Obama will not have any trouble assuaging female voters if Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton drops out of the Democratic race for the White House.

Barbara Walters told Mr. Obama he was “sexy-looking.” Sherri Shepherd announced that she had shifted her support from Mrs. Clinton to Mr. Obama; she made Joy Behar temporarily switch seats with her during a break so she could chat up the candidate. Even Elisabeth Hasselbeck, a Republican, told Mr. Obama how moved she was by his speech to the 2004 Democratic convention.

[. . .]

Mr. Obama used body language to bridge the gender gap. The candidate who is sometimes attacked by feminists as a golden youth passing over them on his way to the old boys’ club reminded the co-hosts that he was “surrounded by women” at home.

He patted Ms. Behar’s arm and whispered so intimately into Ms. Walters’s ear that Ms. Hasselbeck accused them of “canoodling.” Mr. Obama is an effective speaker, but he is just as smooth at wordless communication: he mixed a cool and somewhat princely demeanor with warm smiles and touches.

Oh yeah, those feminists are totally bitchy Obama-haters. But when he looks at normal women with those deep brown eyes and flashes those pearly whites . . .

You know, if Obama is the nominee (and I think he will be), I have no doubt that he will indeed win many female votes. And being good looking has never hurt. But maybe his popularity with female voters will have more to do with the facts that women tend to vote Democratic, Obama is surprisingly progressive on women’s issues and John McCain, er, hates us? It’s just a hunch I have.

[Image via The Onion.]

Popularity: 13% [?]

UPDATE: The Washington Post happens to have an interesting article today on this very subject. It’s actually more intelligent than you might expect, though be forewarned that some of the quotes are really obnoxious and precisely what I rail against here.

—

I can’t say that Geraldine Ferraro should have quit while she was ahead, because I’m rather unconvinced that at any point she was ahead. But it certainly wouldn’t hurt for her to stop making things worse on herself (and despite the fact that she is no longer a part of the campaign, Hillary Clinton, too). In addition to complaining that the simple acknowledgment of her remarks about Obama being racist is in fact racist against white people, she is now apparently very offended that her name came up in Obama’s speech about race.

The former New York congresswoman and Democratic vice presidential nominee got the race debate going a few weeks ago with her comments in a California newspaper that Obama had gotten to where he was — on the verge of knocking off Ferraro’s favored candidate, Hillary Clinton — because he is a black man.

Today, she surfaced again in the same paper, the Daily Breeze in Torrance, to say that she objected vehemently to Obama’s linkage in his speech between her comments and the inflammatory excerpts of sermons by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s longtime pastor.

“To equate what I said with what this racist bigot has said from the pulpit is unbelievable,” Ferraro told the paper. “He gave a very good speech on race relations, but he did not address the fact that this man is up there spewing hatred.”

Overall, Ferraro said, she thought the speech was “excellent,” but she lamented that Obama did not go further in condemning Wright. She surmised that Obama was limited in that regard because he did not want to offend black voters, which she called the base of Obama’s support.

“I think they got as far as they could go politically,” she said. “They’re looking at their base. Their base is African Americans. They’re looking at that and they’re trying to walk a very thin line. They don’t want to offend the African Americans, and this is the way he did it.”

Yeah, here’s the thing: he was defending you, asshole.

Do I think it’s a mistake that Ferraro’s name came up? Of course not, it was a deliberate move to point out that if anyone in this campaign can be accused of racism, it’s not the Obama campaign. However, the fact remains that he defended her and in fact criticized the “dismissal” of her comments by referring to them as “racist.”

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Popularity: 15% [?]

What did everyone think of New York Governor David Paterson’s inaugural speech? (transcript and video.)

Due to the whole not having a computer thing, I haven’t had the time to read other blog reactions. I did listen to a majority of the speech on the radio (I had somewhere to be) and read the part that I missed. Honestly, I was pretty impressed. He was very personable, charming and most of his jokes were actually funny. I was also kind of surprised that he so clearly rebuked Spitzer:

Of course, I never expected to have the honor of serving as Governor of New York State. But our constitution demands it. This transition today is an historic message to the world that we live among the same values that we profess, and that we are a government of laws and not individuals. Today we can be proud of our democracy.

Granted, he kind of had to say something. And I’m not so sure that I agree with him (I don’t think that “we” live by the values that we profess — I think that Spitzer just acted stupidly enough to destroy any good will towards him that might have saved his sorry ass). But I do appreciate the sentiment and that he is trying to distance himself from Spitzer rather than act as an apologist or simply pretend like the whole thing never happened.

I have to say that I was also very pleasantly surprised that the first words he said with regards to policy and agenda were single mothers, children living in poverty and social justice:

It’s that New York families are more challenges today than they were yesterday. And if we are going to build a viable future for New York, we are going to have to help single mothers who have two jobs. We are going to have to give children better schools and families who don’t have health care some redress.

It’s refreshing to see a NY governor not jump straight to “wasteful spending” (which is a problem, but hardly the biggest, and generally an excuse to cut money from the places that need it most) and, the all-time favorite, high property taxes. When Paterson did address property taxes, he also did it in the context of affordable housing rather than just an easy applause line.

I studied the same issues and had the same experiences, hopes, and frustrations as so many other New Yorkers. I am chagrined at the high cost of education for my family. And the prohibitive price of health care.

I have talked to New Yorkers for decades about the crumbling upstate economy, the crush of property taxes and the lack of affordable housing. These are issues that we will continue to focus and address, but we can do more.

There is also the historic aspect; we’re looking at the first black governor of NY, the third black governor in the U.S., and one of the few governors to have a disability, depending on how you define “disability,” that tends to provoke pity from the well-meaning but clueless and inspire immediate bias.

As I’ve mentioned, I was also once greatly impressed by Governor Spitzer, so I do not entirely trust my immediate impressions.  But I do know that Governor Paterson has a great record with regards to social justice, poverty and promoting equal opportunity for racial minorities, women and the disabled.  In fact, he largely made his career off of these issues.  And even if it does turn out that he’s not all he’s cracked up to be, we do know this much: he’d have to pull out all the stops to disappoint us more than the last guy.

From Paterson’s speech:

I was born in the borough of Brooklyn. I was educated on Long Island. Harlem is my home. This is where I learned love for family and appreciation for community.

I have confronted the prejudice of race and challenged the issues of my own disability. I have served in government for over two decades. I stand willing and able to lead this state to a brighter future and a better tomorrow.

Let me reintroduce myself. I am David Paterson and I am the Governor of New York State.

Welcome, Governor Paterson. May you serve us well and with integrity.

Popularity: 15% [?]

I’m pissed off about the Spitzer thing, if you haven’t noticed. Happy that he resigned, but still really pissed. And so right about now, my patience for Democratic politicians who are going to act like absolute fucking morons is virtually non-existent.

Sorry about that, Geraldine Ferraro and those hellbent on defending her for absolutely no good reason. I’m not going to play it nice.

Regardless of my mood, the comments that Ferraro made are outrageously offensive. If you somehow haven’t heard them, here you go:

“If Obama was a white man, he would not be in this position. And if he was a woman of any color, he would not be in this position. He happens to be very lucky to be who he is. And the country is caught up in the concept.”

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Popularity: 22% [?]

I thought I’d point out, just in case you haven’t noticed, that Silda Spitzer is totally to blame for the fact that her husband had sex with a (many) prostitute(s), and we should be questioning her actions. Just yet another game of “a man did something really stupid and selfish, so let’s all look disapprovingly at his wife.”

Now, when Dr. Laura Schlessinger says things like this — “When the wife does not focus in on the needs and the feelings, sexually, personally, to make him feel like a man, to make him feel like a success, to make him feel like her hero, he’s very susceptible to the charm of some other woman making him feel what he needs” — we can’t act surprised and hold a straight face at the same time. That’s just Dr. Laura deciding to get out of bed in the morning; it sucks, but what are you going to do? In the end, despite the fact that the hosts apparently sat there stunned by the delusional and offensive nature of the statement, whose idea was it to have her on the show in the first place? Of course the producer knew that she was going to say something like that, and it’s precisely what they were looking for.

But I’m a lot more interested in the LA Times article about how Silda has been the focus of many conversations about the scandal:

This scandal has many salacious details, but it was the image of Silda Wall Spitzer at her man’s side that dominated conversations across the country Tuesday.

That moment of public humiliation stayed with people — men and women, Democrats and Republicans. At a beauty salon in Brooklyn Heights, at the Mellow Mushroom pizzeria in midtown Atlanta, at a Denver office building, at a bar in the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, the same questions came up:

How could she?

Why did she?

Haven’t we seen this play one too many times?

Why do we go through this ritual of public shame and repentance, with the political wife standing mutely before the TV cameras as her husband admits his sexual indiscretion?

“I find it nauseating . . . phony and awful,” said Leah Schanzer, 38, a doctoral student who stopped for coffee at a Starbucks in New York City. She gave an exaggerated shudder.

“It makes it seem like she’s Susie Homemaker,” said her friend Leslie Heller, 47. “She shouldn’t be standing there, next to him.”

[ . . . ]

“She should’ve said, ‘This is your fight. This is your battle. You stand there and get yourself out of it,’ ” said Linda Walters, 61. The Denver resident said she divorced her own cheating spouse.

It’s true: how could she do it? I mean, after spending so many years in elected office under the promise to uphold the law, not to mention claiming to be a strong champion for women, how could she go and throw it all away with the hypocritical and disgustingly selfish move of sleeping with a . . .

Wait, what’s that? Silda didn’t hire prostitutes? She’s not the one who broke the law? You mean that she’s not even in elected office and therefore holds absolutely no responsibility to us, and that she wasn’t the one who decided to fuck over the entire Democratic party with her inability to keep it in her pants? She didn’t even publicly humiliate a spouse?

Well that’s odd, then.

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Popularity: 24% [?]

Well you’ve certainly fucked things up, now haven’t you?

I was at the FPA conference in the Empire State Plaza, yesterday. That’d be Family Planned Advocates of NY State. You may remember that you were scheduled to speak there that morning, though with so much else going on, I wouldn’t be surprised if it slipped your mind.

You spoke there last year, and I was honestly very impressed. You were by far the most famous public official whose presence I’ve ever been in, but much more than that, you were unwaveringly pro-choice and pro-woman. Of course, you were at a conference for family planning supporters. But the media was there, and I’ve heard that other prominent speakers have not taken the opportunity to make a statement nearly as dramatic and affirmative. Frankly, I was very happily surprised with your display of enthusiasm and dedication. I’m almost embarrassed to remember how lucky I felt to have you as a governor. I thought “for a politician, this guy is pretty great.”

When you didn’t show up this morning, we were told that you had a “last minute emergency” that needed attending to. And I suppose that you did! Of course, you didn’t tell organizers the reason, and the news hadn’t broken yet, so we spent the whole morning talking about what an amazing governor you are. All of the legislators and other speakers invoked your name a lot of times, and I’d say that despite your absence, you probably got the most applause of the entire morning! That made us look and feel pretty foolish.

But don’t worry. That’s not why I’m mad at you. I have far more important and rational reasons than that.

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Popularity: 24% [?]