Citizens' Daily Lobby

Robbie Wills’ most recent campaign flyer wins my vote for most reprehensible piece of campaign propaganda for 2010 (so far).    Let’s fact check:

Joyce Elliott wants to restrict gun rights:  Joyce gets a C- from the NRA.   That’s fairly middle of the road, and Mr. Wills only gets a B according to 2008 data.  Joyce Elliott even voted with the Arkansas Rifle and Pistol  Association 86% of the time in 2001 (relying on Project Vote Smart site for this information, because the NRA and ARPA sites are very hard to navigate and it’s almost impossible to find their ratings lists).

Joyce Elliott wants to outlaw school prayer: False. She voted against a bill (AR HB2971) that would have given overly-broad freedoms to student groups.  The bill does NOT seek to outlaw school prayer, and it appropriately died in the Senate.

Joyce Elliott favors legalizing the “radical partial birth abortion” procedure: Misleading: First,  prior to the referenced bill (AR HR1113 of 2009, now AR Act 196)  the rarely performed procedure was not explicitly banned in Arkansas.   Elliott and others voted against this nasty piece of legislation because  inadequate provisions were made to protect physicians performing a late-term abortion for the health of the mother and inadequate provisions were made to protect the woman’s privacy, among other things.   Partial-birth abortion, as vile as it may be when used for reasons other than life of the mother, is performed so rarely as to be a virtual straw man used by the Pro-Life lobby to erode abortion rights in general.

Joyce Elliott is ineffective:   False. Joyce Elliott is the Senate Majority Leader.  She was named one of the 10 most influential legislators in 2009 by Talk Business, and actually ranked higher on this list than Mr. Wills (she was third, he was last).  Try again, Mr. Wills.

When is enough enough?  If Mr. Wills fails to apologize for this outrageous campaign mailer, I will likely not vote for him in any election.

There is always much offensive material in the John Boozman newsletters, little substance, and even less documentation to back up his regurgitated right-wing talking points. And of course, there are no novel ideas, absolutely none.  On tax day, he outdid himself in a rush to take advantage of the Tea Party anti-tax mentality.  The old boy managed to hit  the Scary Conservative Hot Buttons of the Hour,  health care reform and abortion, especially hard.  What do  these issues have in common?  Taxes, of course.  High taxes for the average American.  High taxes going to questionable (providing health care for the less fortunate) and even downright evil (the feds are gonna pay for abortions!!!) uses.   The Arkansas taxpayer deserves to know the many ways the truth is distorted in this newsletter.

“Federal, state, and local taxes claim almost 27 percent of the average American’s income.”

True.  But Boozman neglects to mention what percent of income the average American Corporation spends on taxes.  Would you believe 2/3 of US corporations paid no income taxes at all between 1998-2005 according to the Government Accountability Office?  Think that rate’s higher now?  Check out the Forbes report on taxes paid (or not owed) by the largest US corporations.  Exxon Mobile reportedly got a tax credit last year.  Tax shelters and business practices of these corporations shift an estimated $100 billion dollars  of tax burden onto the backs of the average American.  Boozman conveniently leaves corporations out of the equation, preferring to place the blame on health care and the government services.

“President Obama and the Majority party are spending the federal government into a record deficit of $1.5 trillion dollars this year alone.”

Really, John?  President Obama is spending all our money?  The truth is the largest consumer of your tax dollar is the military at 26%.  And interest on loans due to national defense is also a big share (full story here).

Finally, in the most despicable and manipulative of the statements in the newsletter

“For a vast majority of Americans, the cost of the health care bill is especially painful. The new law means their tax dollars will now be used to fund abortion services.”

How many times does the truth need to be told in order for people to understand it?   Bans on federal funding for abortion were not only upheld in the new legislation, they were restated, and some believe even strengthened.    Maybe Mr. Boozman is only familiar with the bill passed in the House last year, which did have some loopholes for abortion.  The truth is that the Senate went out of its way to reinstate the barriers.  Mr. Boozman may have fogotten the executive order signed by Barack Obama himself.  That order expressly forbids the use of federal money to pay for abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or to save the life of the mother.  Conservatives should not let their strong convictions about abortion make them susceptible to this sort of manipulation.  Get the facts.

Your tax money can’t pay for abortions, but it can go to “Faith-Based” organizations that pressure and manipulate women to forgo abortion.   Physicians and pharmacists educated in the public university system, subsidized by your tax dollars, may refuse to perform abortions or even to prescribe or administer the morning after birth control.   That’s what your tax dollars can do.

Tim Griffin and his fellow Repealers would have us believe the recently passed health care reform measures are America’s Armageddon, but they are long on rhetoric and short on details.  Once past the word “socialism,” they run out of ammunition.  The truth is that the health care reform bill is a lot less socialistic than even Medicare, and certainly less so than Social Security.

Groups like the newly-formed Arkansas Community Organizations and the National Women’s Law Center are helping get the word out about benefits of health care reform.   Women in Arkansas stand to benefit substantially when reforms are enacted, according to a report by the Women’s Law Center (full text and references here).

• Health reform will impose strict regulations on insurance carriers, including the elimination of gender rating for individuals and small businesses with up to 100 employees; a requirement that health insurers accept all applicants for coverage regardless of their medical history; and a prohibition on pre-existing condition exclusions.

• Health reform extends Medicaid eligibility to people with incomes at or below 133% of the federal poverty level (FPL), providing more low-income women and their families with access to this essential program. Under this expansion, up to 75,200 uninsured women in Arkansas will be newly eligible for Medicaid coverage.

• Health reform will make coverage more affordable for low and middle-income families by providing health insurance subsidies to those with family incomes between 133 and 400% of the FPL. Approximately 142,000 women in Arkansas will be eligible for a health insurance subsidy to help with premiums and out-of-pocket costs.

• Health reform will require all new health insurance plans sold to individuals and small businesses—both in and outside of the Health Insurance Exchange—to cover a broad range of medical services—including maternity care, prescription drugs, and mental health services. In addition, all new health plans will be required to cover preventive care (including women’s health services, such as mammograms) without cost-sharing.

I am taking a break from a marathon attempt to prepare a fundable NIH grant (Not as easy as it might sound.  It’s a lot easier for a corporation to get money from the government for failing than it is for a scientist to get money from the government for succeeding these days) in order to write this brief aside about an issue dear to my heart:  Division of labor in the modern two-income family. That women who work outside the home still bear a disproportionate burden of housework is a widely reported phenomenon.   One might expect the situation among the “enlightened” of academia to be more equitable.   Not so.    An article from the American Association of University Professors entitled Housework Is an Academic Affair, paints a bleaker story:

“Findings from our study, based on data collected in 2006–07, show that despite women’s considerable gains in science in recent decades, female scientists do nearly twice as much housework as their male counterparts. Partnered women scientists at places like Stanford University do 54 percent of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry in their households; partnered men scientists do just 28 percent. This translates to more than ten hours a week for women— in addition to the nearly sixty hours a week they are already working as scientists—and to just five hours for men. When the call came from Stockholm early one October morning, Nobel Prize– winner Carol W. Greider was not working in her lab or sleeping. She was doing laundry. She is far from alone. Highly talented women scientists are investing substantial time in housework…

Among several survey items relating to partnerships and households, respondents were asked to report their percent share, their partner’s percent share, and “paid help/other’s” percent share of seven household tasks, parenting, and elder care. Findings indicate that scientists’ homes reflect a traditional division of domestic labor. Women scientists at elite research universities, like most women across the United States, continue to do the lion’s share of housework (figure 1). Their share of core household tasks (defined as cooking and grocery shopping, laundry, and housecleaning) is almost double that of men scientists (54 percent versus 28 percent). These tasks exhaust nearly twenty hours a week (as compared with four to five hours a week for more periodic tasks like yard and car care, house repair, and finances), meaning that women take on a significantly larger share of the most time-intensive jobs.

We examined variations in household labor by partner’s employment status (figure 2). It comes as no surprise that men scientists with stay-at-home partners do the least core household labor in our study. It is part of the current social contract that stay-at-home wives do the majority (76 percent) of core domestic work. Only thirteen women scientists in our sample have a stay-at-home partner; while these women take on proportionately less work than their partners, they still assume a greater share of core tasks than do most men scientists…

Women also assume a disproportionate share of child and elder care. In our sample, women scientists do 54 percent of parenting labor in their households, and men scientists do 36 percent (“parenting labor” refers to physical, psychosocial, and intellectual responsibilities). The extra hours women put in have real consequences for their careers. As Mary Ann Mason and Marc Goulden have shown in their much cited 2002 Academe article, “Do Babies Matter?” women who have children within five years of receiving their doctorate are less likely to achieve tenure than are men with “early babies.””

Men, you are the beneficiaries of all this work and career sacrifice.   If you have a wife who works and still does the majority of chores around the house you should immediately do the following:

1) Say “thank you.”

2) Pick a chore, any chore, and git ‘er done.

In fairness, I have to add that those of you who have partners who do the lion’s share of housework (you know who you are) should thank your lucky stars, thank your partner, and do something nice for him right away.

I respect the work that Jane Hamsher’s organization (Firedoglake.com) is doing to promote and defend Progressive causes.    I cannot respect some of the tactics she employs.   Today I received a message from Ms. Hamsher entitled “Mrs. Lieberman.”  It seems that Joe’s wife, Hadassah Lieberman, is a former insurance lobbyist.  Today, she is employed in some capacity at Komen for the Cure (Global Ambassador).  Ms. Hamsher is petitioning Komen to fire Hadassah, calling her employment there an “inherent conflict of interest.”

I don’t know anything about Hadassah Lieberman’s position on health care reform.  I think she should be given the right to speak for herself and to remain independent from her more famous spouse.  After all, Wendell Potter was also employed by the health care industry, but today he is a strong voice for reform.  Women in this country continue to fight every day for the right to be seen as an entire person, even when they are married.   For many, and I am among them, even the use of “Mrs.” is offensive.

This is sexism at a not-so-subtle level.  It is also a thinly-veiled attack on a respected charity that does wonderful work for women, and Ms. Hamsher is sinking to the level of the GOP with this action.  Perhaps that’s what it will take to win the battle for health care reform.   Perhaps this is a sign of how desperate the battle has become for Progressives.

Why is it that the same people screaming bloody murder in their fear of possibly having to foot the bill for someone else’s health problems are so often the people literally screaming “bloody murder” about abortion?   Have those babies, ladies, but don’t count on any help once those precious infants are breathing air.   The same people who brought us the Colorado personhood amendment, seeking to declare “personhood” all the way back to the moment the sperm meets the egg, are trying to get the same sort of amendment on the ballot right here in Arkansas.

Peterr over at Firedoglake spent some time last month wondering what the impact of such legislation might be in Missouri, where organizers are alread gathering signatures.  Because all deaths, especially of children under 18, must be reported, every miscarriage (and that’s about 1/5 of confirmed pregancies) could conceivably be subject to extensive investigation.

He’s right.  I’ll go one further:  pregnant women could be subjected to strict dietary regimes and activity restrictions, legally, in the name of preserving the health of the fetus.   Intrauterine prophylatic devices would be illegal.

It sounds ridiculous, but these are the people who brought us the Terrii  Schiavo circus.  They will go there.  They really will.

Randall Terry, abortion opponent and radical activist, is pushing the envelope of public discourse yet again.  The website OverturnRoe.com is offering a contest to make the best “burn in hell” video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Harry Reid.  The site has an instructional video demonstrating how to burn effigies of the two leaders.  One can even print effigy posters at the site.  Please don’t click the link unless you have a high tolerance for craziness, because the content is disturbing.  Please tell me that no real people participate in this type of thing…

I would like to see some Republican leaders publicly repudiating this type of behavior.  It’s no only uncivil, it’s also a very un-Christ-like thing for those who call themselves Christians to do.  I suppose that’s unlikely considering the party has been hijacked by extreme conservatives under the banner of the likes of Sarah Palin, who is openly campaigning for a Conservative (call it Tea) Party candidate in New York.

The Susan B. Anthony List has released its hit list for the 2010 elections.    The campaign, “Votes Have Consequences,”  purports to be an attack on Congressmen who vote for abortion rights.   A quick look at the hit list suggests there may be a more pragmatic purpose behind the push:  hitting the weakest Democratic  incumbents while they are down.  RH Reality Check makes the case.

The lawmakers on Musgrave’s 2010 hot seat: Sens. Michael Bennett (CO), Blanche Lincoln (AR), Harry Reid (NV), and Reps. Alan Grayson (FL-08), Debbie Halvorson (IL-11), Frank Kratovil (MD-01), Suzanne Kosmas( FL-24), Walt Minnick (ID-01), Glenn Nye (VA-02), Tom Perriello (VA-05), Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01), and Harry Teague (NM-02).

Curiously, several of lawmakers on the list, like Reid, Lincoln and Minnick, are hardly reliable champions of protecting comprehensive reproductive health care with voting records scoring at or well below 50 percent on choice issues. All the representatives, with the exception of Shea-Porter, are freshman legislators in districts formerly held by Republicans.

Senator Lincoln has made herself some new enemies, but with the entire Republican Party gunning for her seat (almost literally the entire Arkansas GOP has declared for the race),  she’s a likely target for any group allied with the party.    The Susan B. Anthony List, headed by a bitterly rejected Republican Congresswoman from Colorado, is just another Republican tool.  Using groups like this one, the GOP gets more mileage from the abortion issue than GM gets from the Chevy Volt.