Add An Anal Ultrasound and It's Perfect

Mary Lou Marzian's bill, that is.

Digby:

Well, One woman legislator is trying to illustrate the issue for her male colleagues:

Conservative legislators in Kentucky, emboldened by the election of Gov. Matt Bevin (R), are moving swiftly to pass numerous new restrictions on women’s access to abortion. Bevin has already signed into law a stricter “informed consent” bill that requires a face-to-face consultation with a healthcare provider, while a forced ultrasound bill sailed easily through a Senate committee this week. (Jezebel notes that though women would be required to receive an ultrasound before an abortion, the bill does allow them to avert their eyes.)

One lawmaker, however, is trying to turn all of these restrictions on women back on men. Rep. Mary Lou Marzian (D) has filed a new bill (HB 396) creating numerous restrictions for men to access medication for erectile dysfunction, such as Viagra or Cialis. HB 396 adds the following four steps a man would have to undergo:

He must have two office visits on two different calendar days before the health care practitioner prescribes a drug for erectile dysfunction to him. 

He can only be prescribed the drug if he is married. 

He must produce a signed and dated letter from his current spouse providing consent for the prescription. 

He must make a sworn statement on a Bible that he will only use the prescription when having sexual relations with his current spouse.

Marzian, one of only three House members who opposed the informed consent bill, knows that her tongue-in-cheek bill likely won’t go anywhere, but she hopes it will help raise awareness among lawmakers about the way abortion laws intrude on a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body.

In an interview with WDRB Friday, she explained her thinking, “How would this body of men feel if the government was injecting into their private medical decisions?” The intent of her legislation is to “have government insert itself into the personal, private decisions of men — since we have already inserted it into our personal, private decisions of women.”

I would add the necessity of an anal ultrasound just because.

This isn't the first time women have brought this up God knows. And it never changes a thing. But it should focus the minds of any progressive types who don't think there's any chance that women will lose their right to self-determination. These extremist wingnuts are relentless and no matter how much time passes these ridiculous proposals keep coming up, unchanged and without any sense that they are antediluvian throwbacks. They're out there and they have political power. If they get the chance to do this, they will.

I don't get what objections there might be to Marzian's bill.  All those forced-birth motherfuckers are jeebus-feerin' kristans, right? Never crossed their minds to fuck anybody outside the fambly. And they're always whipping out the bibble for swearing something or other.

As for the anal ultrasound, give it a try, boys.  You might like it.

Religious Coercion Bill Temporarily Stopped

I've never been so happy to be wrong about Steve "Not Quite As Cowardly As I Thought" Beshear

Beth Musgrave at the Herald:

The sponsor of a controversial religious freedom bill said Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear told him Friday afternoon that Beshear will veto the measure.

Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville, said Beshear told him during a more than hour-long conversation in the governor's Capitol office Friday that he intends to veto House Bill 279, citing concerns that the measure could create legal headaches.

Damron said he believes he will have the 51 votes required to override the veto, noting that Beshear did not ask him or Democratic House leaders to refrain from trying to override the bill. Republican Senate leaders have also said they have the votes needed to override a veto.House Bill 279 passed the House with only seven dissenting votes. It passed the Republican-led Senate 29-6.

SNIP

Conservative groups who backed the religious freedom bill criticized Beshear Friday.

"It won't be comforting for many Kentuckians to know that the ACLU is now calling the shots in the governor's office," said Martin Cothran, spokesman for The Family Foundation. "Religious people should not have to ask permission from the ACLU and gay rights groups to believe what they believe."

This is not a religious "freedom" bill and they know it.  It's a bill that allows freakazoids to turn the Commonwealth into a theocracy just like Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan under the Taliban.

This bill puts freakazoids above the law. That is as unconstitutional, as undemocratic and as un-American as it gets.

Joe Sonka has the deets, including Beshear's full statement, which includes a number of strong public health and public safety objections to the bill, but again fails to address the fundamental issue of placing religion - especially religious bigotry and abuse - above the law.

From the Fairness Coalition, which pulled out all the stops on this one:

CALL NOW: Leave a message for "House Leadership" & "My Rep" to UPHOLD #HB279 VETO! 800.372.7181

This is a great day for civil rights in our commonwealth! Governor Steve Beshear has vetoed House Bill 279, a move to preserve Kentucky's legacy as civil rights leader of the South! Please send Governor Beshear a note of sincere thanks.

But the fight's not over yet. We must ask House Leadership to let the veto stand by not taking a vote to override it and allowing for a necessary year to study the potential effects of this measure, thus ensuring future passage of the most responsibly written piece of legislation that preserves both civil rights and religious freedom in Kentucky.

Thanks for your continued efforts to defeat House Bill 279!

In Fairness,

Chris Hartman, Director

Again, missing the point. ANY bill that puts religion above the law is an abomination and must be stopped. No amount of "civil rights exceptions" will make such a bill acceptable.

Some Pro-Voting Ideas for State Legislators

This time, instead of waiting for repug racists to start ramming voter suppression bills through the legislature, make your liberal reps file these instead. Of 11 reforms proposed by Think Progress, I selected the six I think are most needed in Kentucky.

Scott Keyes at Think Progress:

The past two years have not been kind to voting rights. Across the country, the Tea Party wave of 2010 led to new restrictive voting measures, including photo identification requirements and cuts in early voting. In total, these changes had the potential to disenfranchise more than 5 million Americans.

However, with progressive victories in the 2012 election and a renewed awareness of the need to protect the ballot box, 2013 could be a banner year for voting rights.

Rather than continuing to solely play defense, the Center for American Progress has released a report detailing 11 pieces of state legislation that voting rights advocates can use to go on offense in 2013:

1. Online voter registration. Less than 63 percent of Americans aged 18-34 were registered to vote in 2009, yet a Nielsen survey found that these young citizens were by far the most electronically connected, with 88 percent having an Internet connection at home. Modernizing the voter-registration process and allowing people to register online would be a boon for the overall number of voters in our country.

2. Election Day registration. Most states bar their residents from registering in the weeks just before an election—at a time when media coverage is at a fever pitch and less-engaged citizens are just starting to tune in. Some states, such as Pennsylvania, stop allowing people to register 30 days before an election. Election Day registration eliminates that barrier, helping a significant number of Americans vote. In 2008 alone, more than 1 million individuals registered on Election Day in these states. Studies have found that Election Day registration boosts turnout on average by 7-percentage points to 14-percentage points.

4. Expand early voting. Early voting is one of the most important realms of voting rights over the past decade. It offers citizens more flexibility to vote at their convenience—not everyone can take off an hour or two from work on the first Tuesday of November—and allows election officials to spread the process of counting ballots over a number of days or weeks, rather than getting inundated all at once. It’s also a major boon for minority turnout. Many African American churches, for instance, participate in a “souls to the polls” voting drive on the Sunday before Election Day helping boost black early voting rates. Currently, 16 states don’t offer early voting.
 
5. Allow voters to cast a ballot in any county polling location. One of the most exciting new developments in the past couple years is the advent of polling centers. Rather than restricting voters to one assigned precinct where they must cast their ballot, a handful of counties now allow residents to vote at any polling location in their home county. Travis County, Texas, home to Austin, for example, conducted a study of its new policy after it was introduced in 2011 and found that allowing voters to cast a ballot at any of the county’s 207 polling locations led directly to a 1.4 percent increase in turnout. Approximately one in three voters ended up going to a different polling location than their usual one.

6. No-excuse absentee voting. For many Americans taking time off during the work day to vote is not an option. Fortunately for them an increasing number of states are enacting “no-excuse absentee” laws that allow anyone who requests an absentee ballot to receive one, not just individuals who will be out of town or have another reason barring them from voting on Election Day.

10. Restore voting rights to ex-felons. Felons in most states aren’t just barred from voting while in prison; a handful of states strip them of their voting rights for the rest of their life, even after completing their sentence. As a result, 3.1 million Americans were disenfranchised in 2008. If we as a society want to reintegrate people with felony convictions back into society after they finish their prison terms, it makes little sense to permanently brand them with a scarlet letter.

 A bill to restore voting rights to ex-felons has already been pre-filed for the Kentucky General Assembly, but it needs more support.

Bills to Watch Out For

If we learned nothing else from the stealth passage of the Right to Freeload by the Michigan legislature, we learned that you cannot take your eyes off those motherfuckers for an instant.

The Kentucky General Assembly opens its 2013 session next week and you just know they're champing at the bit to show that when it comes to fucking over their constituents, Michigan lawmakers ain't got nothing on Kentucky's corrupt morons.

As Steve M writes:

So the GOP has plenty of agenda left. The agenda is making America either Republican or ungovernable. Parts of America are the former, and in D.C. the Republicans will settle for the latter -- for now.

Here are some Top 10 ALEC/Koch Brothers/freakazoid hits probably coming to Frankfort next week:

vaginal probe/forcing doctors to rape their patients

right to freeload

drug testing (non-corporate) welfare recipients

voter suppression

tax cuts for corporations but not for working families

vouchers/charter schools (your tax dollars for religious indoctrination)

"conscience" or "religious freedom" - allowing doctors and pharmacists to refuse to give you legal treatment and drugs you need because they don't like it.

gut Obamacare: various attempts to prevent Governor Beshear from expanding Medicaid and building an insurance exchange.

Look for them here.

An Answer From the President

If you signed the petition to the White House demanding action to end gun violence, you got this email today.  If you didn't sign, or didn't get the email, I've copied it below.

The most important part is this:

If you have additional ideas and are interested in further engagement with the White House on this issue, please let us know and share your thoughts here: 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/share-your-thoughts-reducing-gun-violenc

Write. Write every day. Stay on them. Don't let them off the hook.

Here's the whole thing:

A Message from President Obama about Your Petition on Reducing Gun Violence

By Bruce Reed, Chief of Staff to Vice President Biden

In the days since the tragedy in Newtown, Americans from all over the country have called for action to deter mass shootings and reduce gun violence. Hundreds of thousands of you have signed petitions on We the People

I'm writing you today to thank you for speaking up, to update you on an important development, and to encourage you to continue engaging with the White House on this critical issue.

First, you should know that President Obama is paying close to attention to the public response to this tragedy. In fact, he sat down to record a message specifically for those of you who have joined the conversation using We the People. Watch it now

On Wednesday, the President outlined a series of first steps we can take to begin the work of ending this cycle of violence. This is what he said:

"We know this is a complex issue that stirs deeply held passions and political divides. And as I said on Sunday night, there's no law or set of laws that can prevent every senseless act of violence in our society. We're going to need to work on making access to mental health care at least as easy as access to a gun. We're going to need to look more closely at a culture that all too often glorifies guns and violence. And any actions we must take must begin inside the home and inside our hearts.

But the fact that this problem is complex can no longer be an excuse for doing nothing. The fact that we can't prevent every act of violence doesn't mean we can't steadily reduce the violence, and prevent the very worst violence."

Vice President Biden has been asked to work with members of the Administration, Congress, and the general public to come up with a set of concrete policy proposals by next month -- proposals the President intends to push swiftly. The President asked the Vice President to lead this effort in part because he wrote and passed the 1994 Crime Bill that helped law enforcement bring down the rate of violent crime in America. That bill included the assault weapons ban, which expired in 2004.

As the Vice President's Chief of Staff, I'm going to do everything I can to ensure we run a process that includes perspectives from all sides of the issue, which is why I wanted to respond to your petition myself. Two decades ago, as domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, I first worked with Joe Biden as he fought to enact the Crime Bill, the assault weapons ban, and the Brady Bill. I will never forget what a key role the voices of concerned citizens like you played in that vital process.

The President called on Congress to pass important legislation "banning the sale of military-style assault weapons," "banning the sale of high-capacity ammunition clips," and "requiring background checks before all gun purchases, so that criminals can’t take advantage of legal loopholes to buy a gun from somebody who won’t take the responsibility of doing a background check at all."

An issue this serious and complex isn't going to be resolved with a single legislative proposal or policy prescription. And let's be clear, any action we take will respect the Second Amendment. As the President said:

"Look, like the majority of Americans, I believe that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms. This country has a strong tradition of gun ownership that's been handed down from generation to generation. Obviously across the country there are regional differences. There are differences between how people feel in urban areas and rural areas. And the fact is the vast majority of gun owners in America are responsible -- they buy their guns legally and they use them safely, whether for hunting or sport shooting, collection or protection.

But you know what, I am also betting that the majority -- the vast majority -- of responsible, law-abiding gun owners would be some of the first to say that we should be able to keep an irresponsible, law-breaking few from buying a weapon of war. I'm willing to bet that they don't think that using a gun and using common sense are incompatible ideas -- that an unbalanced man shouldn't be able to get his hands on a military-style assault rifle so easily; that in this age of technology, we should be able to check someone's criminal records before he or she can check out at a gun show; that if we work harder to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, there would be fewer atrocities like the one in Newtown -- or any of the lesser-known tragedies that visit small towns and big cities all across America every day."

The President said it best: "Ultimately if this effort is to succeed it's going to require the help of the American people -- it's going to require all of you. If we're going to change things, it's going to take a wave of Americans -- mothers and fathers, daughters and sons, pastors, law enforcement, mental health professionals -- and, yes, gun owners -- standing up and saying 'enough' on behalf of our kids."

So let's continue this conversation and get something meaningful done. If you have additional ideas and are interested in further engagement with the White House on this issue, please let us know and share your thoughts here

http://www.whitehouse.gov/share-your-thoughts-reducing-gun-violenc

Thank you for speaking out and staying involved.