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This post reminds me that I need to clean up this blog and get back to work.  Even with most of the bums kicked out of Congress and a wonderful president there is so much work to do.

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Oh yeah, and I’m still alive.  Just taking some time to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up with graduation a month away.   Scary.

William Ludwig – WWJV4.com

Obama Rally draws 70,000+ in Portland

[youtube width="250" height="197"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ4XsemlDP4[/youtube]

Alright, I know that there are more important things going on in the world than just another campaign rally. It feels like the primary has been going on for years and the last thing people want to read about is some random rally in Portland. Just kidding! 70,000 PEOPLE! Seriously have we ever had such an amazing and exciting time to be a Democrat. Wow. (h/t Crooks and Liars)

McCain has a Serious Lobbyist Issue

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After running on his “record” as being “anti-lobbyist” and promising to “clean up” Washington John McCain is developing a real lobbyist problem. A problem in that his campaign is run, staffed, and financed almost entirely by lobbyists. Worse than that several high ranking lobbyists in his campaign have been linked to horrible causes. For more read this from The Carpetbagger Report.

All the News you Need to Know

• The Legislatures in Tennessee are trying to push through a bill to teach the glories of the Bible in public schools. I think that learning about the history of all religions is a good idea, focusing entirely on “the greatest and most popular book in history” in order to teach students “our culture and our highest and best values” isn’t.
• I hadn’t heard this bit of craziness but apparently there is this thing going around about the world ending in 2012 because thats when the Mayan calender ends. Spoiler alert! The world isn’t going to end and here is a good explanation why.
• Four of the Philadelphia police officers were fired after the videotaped beating of three suspects. Several others were demoted and/or suspended. Only four?
• I don’t watch Fox News so I hadn’t heard this but apparently there is a silly smear campaign that Barack Obama is the most liberal Democratic Senator. Sadly this isn’t true.
• Emergency contraception has been approved for over the counter sale in Canada. While here in America the religious right is trying to ban all birth control. * Sigh *
• The Alliance Defense Fund is looking for pastors to knowingly break the law that prevents churches from engaging directly in partisan politics. The goal being to sue to have the rules removed so that they can make the transition into a full blown theocracy easier.

Video of the Day

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h/t Eschaton

Have a wonderful day
William ~ WWJV4.com

Rape Charges Dismissed Because Victim Not A Virgin

Melanie Ross, a rape victim from Georgia, had her case dismissed in large part because of her past sexual history. Against federal and state law the trial judge ordered Ross to disclose her entire personal history under the premise that prior sexual conduct is proof of consent. Because as we all know only virgins can be raped!! Read the rest here before I start swearing. This story pisses me off.

Bush Travels to Israel to Celebrate 60 Year Anniversary

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Somehow he finds time to make a false and misleading political attack against Obama. Playing monkey see monkey doo McCain and Leiberman follow the leader. Of course they are playing dumb now (if playing is the right word) on their attempted Nazi smear. Joe Bidens excellent statements on Hardball are the video of the day below.

Everything Else You Need To Know

• Following up on the Marietta bar owner who is selling racist Obama: Curious George T-Shirts. Turns out that the company that owns the Curious George image is rather unhappy about the usage of their property ans is considering suing his racist ass. (h/t Melissa McEwen @ Shakesville)
• Congress passed the Farm Bill with a veto proof majority.  Of course no bill is perfect but this bill should be better than nothing.  I’m not up to speed on this bill so if I get time I’ll post more on it when I am better educated.  Comments on this are more than welcome.
• Republicans in Congress blocked passage of the Iraq funding bill due to its inclusion of measures to help pay for the war and to increase veterans benefits.  Both issues that Republicans oppose.
• Republicans also apparently hate first responders.
• UC Berkeley is going to court over their Understanding Evolution web site because they had the gall to say the truth. Specifically the truth that “some religious beliefs explicitly contradict science”. In crazy world saying the truth is a violation of the separation of church and state. (h/t Richard Dawkins)
• Obama sent out a flyer titled “Faith, Hope, Change” to voters in Kentucky in an effort to gain support among evangelicals. I think its a good move and its about time liberals stood up to the popular misconception that only Republicans can be Christians.
• Eric Zorn has listed 8 reasons why Obama should destroy my dreams of a unity ticket. Some of them are pretty good. Damn you and your logical arguments. (h/t Logan @ Loganotron)

Video of the Day

Joe Biden, who says that Bush’s smear against Obama was Bullshit, appears on Hardball to discuss the subject more.  Its worth watching until the end because as always Biden does an excellent job of pointing out the many errors in this attack.

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We’ve made it past the first vote — and we’re gearing up for round two in the Senate on the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which would have a major impact on the lives of women who’ve been subject to pay discrimination.

With 57 Senators voting in our favor, we are now just 3 votes away from moving the bill forward. And we need your help to make fair pay a reality for women.

Here at the National Women’s Law Center, we’re reaching out to Senators in key states who voted the wrong way the first time around. If you live in one of the following states, at least one of your Senators voted against the bill: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia. Please e-mail that Senator now.

If you don’t live in one of those states, please forward this eCard to your friends, family, and contacts who do.

Thank you again for your support on this key bill. We couldn’t have made it this far without you.

Please, if you live in Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Indiana, Iowa, Florida, Nebraska, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, or Virginia please email your senator and try to get them to support fair pay for women.  This is one of those issues where our congress has the opportunity to address a serious injustice, we just need to help them along.

I know people who know people in Nebraska and my wife has family in Texas so we will be sending a few of these cards out.  I wish there was more to be done but maybe this little bit will make the difference.  They are only needing 3 more votes.  You never know your call or email may be the one that makes it happen.  Isn’t this what makes our Nation great?

Thanks once again

William ~ WWJV4.com

A large group of evangelicals are urging a pullback from involvement in politics because they fear that they would become “useful idiots” exploited for partisan gain. I wonder why after happily playing the part of “useful idiots” to the Republican party for the past 15 years they have decided now is the time to back away? Better late than never. The story does say that ultra conservative fundamentalist groups have no intention of breaking away from politics. No surprise.

Since yesterday was a Wednesday there were lots of calls for Clinton to drop out. I still agree with everything I said back in February. According to my (probably wrong) math the popular vote has been split 50.2% Obama 49.8% Clinton. This is too close to call at this point and is the best argument for letting everyone vote.

Lawrence Webb has become the first openly gay African-American elected to public office in Virginia. This is kind of a big deal.

Remember 10 months ago when those scary middle easterners were acting all terroristy on the Seattle ferry? Well the FBI has called off their global manhunt after the two turned themselves in. As it turns out they were just tourists taking pictures. Kind of makes this look pretty damn silly don’t you think?

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Kathy (from Birmingham Blues ) has posted a guest post at Shakesville that seriously pisses me off. Its about three brave young women who rescued a 17 year old girl who was being gang raped by a bunch of college guys last year. Since that time the girls have been threatened and insulted for standing up for the victim and the DA won’t prosecute. Its just the same ol’ boys will be boys and if you get drunk and they gang rape you its your own fault BULLSHIT. Drinking and driving is a serious crime but apparently drinking and raping is just fine. Now I’m all pissed off again.

Moving on before this turns into a rant.

I wrote the other day about McCains’ pledge to continue the Bush presidency by electing more Bush judges. Well Crooks and Liars has a wonderful post about one of those judges that McCain supported back when I was 12, Robert Bork. If you don’t have time to read it the summery is that Robert Bork is a right wing nutjob and McCain made a loving tribute to him in a speech while fighting for his nomination. I guess George W. Bush isn’t McCain’s first mancrush.

Speaking of Bush, he is proving that even a lame duck still has veto power by threatening to veto both farm aid and housing relief bills on the basis that they don’t kill enough kittens or something. He sure didn’t have any problems when it was rich people in trouble though did he.

Oh and since I’m from KS here is an extra FU for Pat Roberts (R-KS) who also does not support helping out working class families. Just another reason to support Jim Slattery.

CNN showed video of 15 police officers repeatedly beating three suspects in Philly. I’ll try to write more on this as information becomes available. Until then watch the video and let me know what you think.

Have a great day everyone and don’t hesitate to post comments on anything currently going on in the news or across the blogosphere. I probably won’t have time to do any posting the rest of the day but I’ll be around do approve comments. Thanks.

William ~ WWJV4.com

Rush Limbaugh has been trying to get Republicans to interfere with the Democratic process of voting for the presidential candidates in what he is calling “Operation Chaos“. I would thank that just thought of disrupting the foundation that our free democracy is built upon should sicken anyone who truly loves America. Apparently white supremacists loving Sean Hannity disagrees with me.

On that note while I would never condone anyone interfering with the voting process in any way here are some online polls that you can vote on. (h/t PZ Meyers Link Here and Here). The bottom two polls are on the same page.

• Should local governmental bodies be allowed to open their meetings with a prayer?
• Do you believe the Virgin Mary has appeared as an apparition? and
• Are you surprised the church officially recognized the Virgin Mary sightings from the 1600s?

Vice President Al Gore gave an interview with NPR the other day. During that interview he spoke very critically about George W. Bush’s approval of torture. (h/t Think Progress).

GORE: Ultimately the guarantor of our freedoms are the people. And these kinds of outrages, a president saying that he has the right turn George Washington’s 200-plus year prohibition against torture and torture anyone he wants with his assistants gathering in the basement of the White House — according to recent revelations — personally reviewing the kinds of torture techniques being used prisoner by prisoner, its obscene.

New treatments can reduce the chance of transmission of HIV from mother to infant to nearly 0%. This will be very useful in the future once the anti-choicers have taken away women’s right to use birth control.

Washington University has announced its plans to award anti-feminist and all around bitch Phyllis Schlafly an honorary doctorate. As a “national leader of the conservative movement” Phyllis Schlafly has stated that it is impossible for married women to be raped and has pushed for bans on women in “non-traditional” fields. Read more about how the students are protesting and what you can do to help over at Feministing.

The Office of Special Council was raided by the FBI as they sought evidence on charges of alleged obstruction of justice by agency chief Mr. Bloch. Now we will get to hear the “obstruction of justice isn’t even a real crime” argument that conservatives used when Scooter Libby was convicted all over again.

Only in Texas would it be illegal to operate a needle exchange program. Needle exchange programs are highly effective in cutting down on the spread of blood borne diseases such as hepatitis and HIV.

Pennsylvania voted yesterday on an constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. How fitting that they should try to restrict marriage rights shortly after Mildred Loving passed away. UPDATE Looks like the amendment has been abandoned! Yay!

Wolfrum over at Shakesville has posted a great summery on the false right wing talking points on oil prices. Very informative and well written. I learned a lot from reading it and highly recommend it.

William ~ WWJV4.com

McCain still hates farmers. Nothing to say here really. Maybe if they were rich businessmen with hot lobbyists they could get something out of the old man.

Post-War Veteran Suicides May Exceed War Casualties: Because of a lack of mental health care for returning war veterans it is very likely that psychiatric illness may claim more lives than combat. Remember last month when the VA was caught concealing suicide numbers, how likely do you think it is that this administration is going to be honest about this epidemic?

New Jersey has approved paid family leave for same sex couples as well as married couples. This is a big step forward. Now to get the rest of the states to accept that in America everyone is equal.

Eleanor Badger over at RH Reality Check has a good writeup of a practice that the anti-choicers are using to shut down abortion providers known as TRAP (Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers).

230 top economists have signed a letter condemning Clinton’s idea to offset the cost by adding a windfall tax to the oil companies. Oddly little attention has been paid to McCain’s even worse gas tax plan. See Obama’s response here.

In ultra conservative Florida a substitute teacher lost his job after being accused of wizardry. yeah, wizardry. This boggles my mind and I live in Kansas so I have developed a pretty high tolerance for this fundamentalist crap.

Pat Tillmans mother was on 60 minutes reminding America of the deception that surrounded her sons death. Watch it at Think Progress.

Women in Malaysia may need a letter giving them permission to leave the country. This move to control women is being sold as a measure to protect them from being tricked into carrying drugs. You know, because women are too dumb to take care of themselves apparently.

Apparently in a move to increase the number of abortions anti-choicers are planning to protest against contraception. You know, that stuff that prevents unwanted pregnancies and therefore abortions. If you want to see the kind of woman who could promote such craziness here is Pam Stenzel. Pam wants to teach your kids that birth control can kill them and that abortions make girls anorexic, depressed and suicidal. (h/t Feministing)

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And finally I wanted to point out this post by Melissa McEwen at Shakesville. Its about a young girl who had the courage to fight back against her assaulter and the horrible consequences that followed. This story deserves a post of its own but I don’t have the time. Besides I doubt I could do it justice after Melissa’s post. This is my response to anyone who has ever wondered why women don’t fight back.

That is pretty much my roundup of the news from yesterday. If you have any comments please feel free to post them. Also if I missed anything please post that as well.

William ~ WWJV4

As predicted the story has spread quickly on both sides of the pro-choice debate. The response from the anti-choicers has been as predictable as always, but not so on the pro-choice side. Thats to be expected though from a group that sees the world in many shades of grey and not in absolutes. One advantage of this approach is you don’t look so foolish when things aren’t as they first appear. That seems to be the case here.

First the school came out with a statement saying that the art piece was performance art and wasn’t real.

Ms. Shvarts is engaged in performance art. Her art project includes visual representations, a press release and other narrative materials. She stated to three senior Yale University officials today, including two deans, that she did not impregnate herself and that she did not induce any miscarriages. The entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity surrounding form and function of a woman’s body.

She is an artist and has the right to express herself through performance art.

Had these acts been real, they would have violated basic ethical standards and raised serious mental and physical health concerns.
Helaine S. Klasky — Yale University, Spokesperson

Aliza Schvarts is standing by her original claim that she did in fact artificially inseminate herself while taking herbs to induce miscarriage.  Personally I would say that the most likely scenareo at this point is that it is in fact a performance art piece.  As such the contradictions and vague message makes perfect sense.

The debate and response to the performance is part of the art and while some may disagree I think it has great value.  As I clarified in a comment to my earlier post there is value in forcing people to ponder whether their support of womens rights and reproductive freedom is absolute or if its just theoretical.  Real or not her art project has accomplished that.

As we seldom get many comments (though the quality has recently improved greatly) I suggest heading over to Feministing as the discussion there is very good.  Of course I love hearing your thoughts too so please dont hesitate to post a comment.

William ~ WWJV4.com

Support The Fair Pay Restoration Act

Equal pay day is the day of the year in which women catch up to men in earnings from the year before. This year Equal Pay Day is recognized on Tuesday, April 22nd. Currently in America white women working full time jobs make on average make only 77 cents to the males dollar. For minorities the disparity is even greater. African American women earn 63 cents per dollar while Hispanic women are making a mere 53 cents on the dollar.

At WWJV4.com Summer and I strongly believe that our nation needs to recognize this difference and work to correct it. In its recent Ledbetter v. Goodyear ruling the Supreme Court made it virtually impossible for women to fight against this pay discrimination.

This ruling imposed the unreasonable requirement that women discover pay discrimination and file suit within 180 days. Sadly Pay is almost always confidential and the effects of pay discrimination are generally incurred over a long period of time. Therefore this ruling effectively eliminates any possibility of a successful legal solution to pay discrimination.

This is why we are supporting The Fair Pay Restoration Act (S. 1843) which will return women’s ability to fight for fair pay. Please join us in supporting equal pay for women by contacting your Senators and spreading the word about this bill.

Thanks.
William and Summer
WWJV4.com