A couple of weeks ago the Georgia legislature, in its infinite and abiding wisdom, passed a measure which would allow concealed weapons in bars, parks and on mass transit.  Oddly enough, a number of Atlantans seem to think this is a bad idea - particularly restaurateurs, transit folks and the guy who runs the airport.

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and others have urged Governor Sonny Perdue to veto this measure on the grounds that it's sheer idiocy liable to encourage vigilantism, not to mention terribly difficult to enforce the honor system when drinking is involved.  I honestly don't know about the vigilantism argument, but I grok the drunken stupidity one completely.  We get enough club shootings in downtown ATL; I've no idea why the legislature would want to encourage more of them.

What is disturbing, aside from the idea of guns on the buses, or in the airport, or in the punch-drunk clubs at 3 AM, is the fact that it's terribly easy to get a CCW (concealed carry permit) in Georgia.  We're a shall-issue state, which means if you can buy a handgun, you can get a CCW.  You don't even have to take safety training or prove you know how to use the darned thing.

I'm not entirely anti-gun.  They have their places and their uses, but this proposal is a bad idea and Perdue needs to consider much more than his NRA street cred when deciding whether or not to sign this thing into law.

As part of the I Believe series, I propose the following:

With proceeds to go to providing frogs for biology classes.

Unless ET objects to the frogs, in which case I suggest home chemistry sets for every kid.

Regarding the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (S. 1843), which the House passed last year and upon which the Senate is set to vote today, I had to ask yesterday what reasonable person could possibly oppose it.  The New York Times was kind enough to give me an answer today:

 Wait for it...

Wait for it...

Senate Republicans, of course!  The esteemed Senator from Kentucky, Mitch McConnell is on record with the Times as saying "We think that this bill is primarily designed to create a massive amount of new litigation in our country."  He is not on record as complaining about uppity women trying to screw the white menz out of their rightful place in the hierarchy and take away their jobs and emasculate them with pixie sticks, but that's probably not far off.

Meanwhile, the right-on Senator from Maine, Olympia Snowe, a co-sponsor of the bill, resorted to very strong language against the Republicans who wish to deny the bill the floor: "unfortunate," she said.  McConnell had better be careful, from Ms. Snowe that's tantamount to pulling out the pixie stick.

Majority Leader Reid has delayed the Senate's convening today until 5:00 PM so that all of the presidential campaigners can be on hand for this critical vote.  Maverick McCain is not expected to attend.  He's too busy with his It's Hip to Be Poor Tour of the Downtrodden to be bothered with actually doing anything to, you know, help them or crazy stuff like that.

If you believe, as I do, that the ability to do the same job as well as or better than one's counterparts merits a salary at the very least commensurate with theirs, then get on the horn and call your Congress Critter (by phone at 866-338-1015 or email) - 'specially if he's a weasel who runs at the sight of pixie sticks.  Wankers.

UPDATED, From WaPo, the Senators aren't the only ones askeered of letting the great unwashed have their day(s) in court, our wonderful Weasel-in-Chief has threatened to veto the bill should it somehow make it out of the Senate.  To put this in perspective, it's not just a women's issue.  The original court decision has already had an impact on other kinds of discrimination suits:

the bill is a needed remedy for a ruling that is already having far-reaching and unexpected effects, limiting access to the courts by female athletes seeking to compete in a male-dominated sport, disabled people seeking to enforce fair housing laws and workers pressing claims of age discrimination, as well as women who are paid less than their male co-workers, according to a survey of federal court cases.

So now it's not just the uppity women who need to be quashed, but also the disabled and the old.  Of course, the disabled have always been a thorn in our national sides, demanding ridiculous things like wheelchair access or braille in elevators.  And don't get me started on people over 25 - completely useless, senile quacks, all of 'em.

"The impact of this decision was enormous," said Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, a national association of civil rights, women's and consumer organizations, which conducted the survey. "It's not just American workers who are affected, but those seeking redress to remedy all kinds of discriminatory actions."

Say it with me, class:  Wankers.

UPDATE 2: Shame on you, Johnny Isakson (R-GA) for suggesting this bill will unfairly "allow people to file discrimination suits against employers for deeds decades old." (AP)  The bill will do no such thing - unless that discrimination is still ongoing, decades later, and at least one instance occured within the last six months.  Your obfuscation borders on a lie, sir, and shoves a knife in the back of every working person who ever voted for you. 

Saxby Chambliss, the other R-GA - not to be confused, however temptingly, with Zaxby's the Chicken Place (Zaxby's at least peddles something tasty, unlike the Senator who got himself elected by calling Max Cleland a coward) - also voted against.

Weasels.

UPDATE 3:  It's over for today.  42 Senators voted to block the debate.  57 voted in favor of debate, falling short of the magic number 60.

 

For more on this, see Happy Equal Pay Day.

Today is the 12th annual celebration of Equal Pay Day, a day not when women actually achieve equal earning power with similarly qualified men, but on day on which we are reminded we haven't achieved that yet, because today is the day we catch up with their earnings from last year.   The exact date varies because some years it takes us a little longer to catch up than others, but it's always on a Tuesday - that's the day in week 2 when women catch up to men's earnings in week 1.

But hey, at least we're allowed to collect a paycheck at all now, which is something, I guess.  The Supreme Court has done what it can fairly recently to see to it we don't get to pester our employers overmuch about it, though, having rendered a 5-4 decision in Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Co. (May 2007) which "prohibits an employee from legally challenging a case of wage discrimination more than 180 days after the original discriminatory act occurred." (Feminist Majority Foundation)

180 days after the original discriminatory act.  That means that even if the discrimination is ongoing, a woman cannot file suit, which, of course, assumes we both become aware of the issue and can form a substantive claim of discrimination - notoriously difficult to prove in the first place, let alone within 6 months.  The ruling effectively shut down any wage discrimination suits by any woman, ever.

So, you want to know how to celebrate today?  Give your old Senator a ringy-dingy (by phone at 866-338-1015 or email) and let him or her know you want them to support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act (S. 1843), to be voted upon tomorrow.  The Act would reinstate the previous interpretation that each discriminatory paycheck constitutes a new act of discrimination and thereby restarts the 180-day clock for filing a complaint with the EEOC.

I appreciate that, for various reasons, some people are opposed equitable remuneration.  I don't get it, but I acknowledge it.  This isn't that, though; it simply affords the right to be heard.  What reasonable person could oppose that?

For more on this, see I Had to Ask.

The Bush White House doesn't believe ordinary Americans are entitled to much, if any, privacy: they flag library books for government inquiry into those who read them, they tap wires without warrants, they reserve the right to read our mail and pruriently wonder at what goes on in our bedrooms.  And none of this even comes close to touching the ongoing outrage of suspending habeas corpus and actively promoting torture.

The pattern has become such that one wonders what, if anything, this White House would hold as off-limits.

In terms of off-limits to their own insatiable hunger for absolute power, the answer is obviously "nothing."  Yet the AP reports that, while average citizens are entitled to exceedingly little personal space free from unreasonable search, seizure and subjugation, the White House does believe something sacrosanct - the Secret Service White House visitor logs.   The American people, it seems, are not entitled to know who sees our president, on company-time, in the building which we have generously provided.  Apparently such knowledge would grossly impair the president's ability to "gather advice."  Evidently, public knowledge of the President's visitors would be so damaging to the President that he could no longer have the kinds of visitors he likes to have without people getting all nosy and up-in-his-business and snotty about having stupid things like "rights."

Meh.  Stupid people, wanting to know things like who has direct, personal access to the leader of our country.  Don't they know that's not important?  Not really.  Not as important as anything really important - like muppets.  Or pop-tarts.

The local NBC station reports that a Georgia woman is requesting that the state court of appeals reconsider her sexual assault case.  The article also indicates her intention to appeal to the state Supreme Court.  It appears she was a student at Mercer University in 2003.  She claims to have been raped there while at a fraternity house.  The original judge in the case:

determined lacerations do not prove rape, and that she had to list her past sexual partners, since only virgins can bring a case for sexual battery in civil court.

I am not aware of any legal virginity requirement* as a prerequisite to pursuing rape charges, particularly when the victim can present corroborating evidence commonly accepted by most courts run by judges of less than 10% Neanderthal heritage - namely, lacerations.

So, it's bad enough this throwback to the 1300s relies on faulty synaptic wiring to reach a conclusion my doormat would know was incorrect, he orders the woman to pay the defendant's legal fees - since, you know, she's not a virgin and therefore cannot be raped.  But the real kicker is this - the defendant in this case is Daniel Day, who happens to be the son of Georgia State Representative Burke Day, whose name you just might recognize from the Days Inn hotel chain.

The defendant's attorney maintains his client's innocence, of course, and suggests the victim was only faking it to extort cash out of the family.  'Cause it's such a fun way to spend your time, taking the stand and testifying in your rape case against the guy who (edited 04/03/08 at 4:30 to add the word allegedly, which I've just realized was forgotten when I first posted) assaulted you, and having to lay out your entire life and sexual history for complete strangers to "ooh," and "aah" and envy you over.  It's like conga-ing barefoot with Pol Pot across a field of broken glass interspersed with rotting meat.  Ooh fun.  Sign me up!

The judge's name is not mentioned in this article, but the victim's is.  Some people just use up entirely too much air for no good purpose.

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*  I recognize that civil law differs from criminal, and that for a very long time women, and their virginity, were treated, and considered under law, as men's property.  The civil case, in those days, would have arisen from the father's loss of money (in terms of having to provide a larger dowry to form a less favorable marraige, or in terms of thereby being saddled with the care of his damaged goods for the rest of her life).  I am not, however, aware of any such law currently on Georgia's books.  If I am mistaken in this, please let me know so I can begin writing the appropriate letters.

Like most people, I have this internal barometer that slides up or down as I read news stories.  This particular item set that indicator a-fluttering, bouncing up and down like a cake-high 5 year old at an all-out birthday bash:

Whenever one of the arms of this particular administration begin reaching for things, my hackles rise.  Call it Pavlovian, but historic repetition of complete and utter disregard for what "the people" think or need in favor of what the political apex momentarily hankers for has taught me that when this government begins to ask about a program which benefits working families more than it benefits corporations or the wealthy, then that program is not long for this world.

Brian Reid, the author of the WaPo article, also wondered what this meant, and found an AP story (quoted from the WaPo text):

"This is meant to be a very objective review," Victoria Lipnic, assistant secretary for the Labor Department's Employment Standards Administration, said in an interview with The Associated Press.

"We're genuinely in search of information and having looked at the issues now for a number of years ... it became apparent we really needed some fresh thinking on this. I am hoping that is what all of this will yield," she said.

Hmm, "fresh thinking," eh?  Like Mr. Reid, I would love to see some "fresh thinking" which included paid leave under FMLA (which is currently unpaid), extended the leave, expanded protections (both in people covered and in specific job-protection).  I'd also like to see some creative solutions to the problems inherent in being both a medical caregiver and a wage-earner, such as mandating that companies which offer telecommuting options to employees should also offer that option, on a trial basis (say, 30 days to begin, with the option to reevaluate and continue in 30 day increments) to employees in good standing applying for FMLA-covered leave.

However, the Pavlovian response rises again, and I cannot help but wonder if the fears of a couple of years ago, that the Bush administration would attempt to gut FMLA in its continuing war against working families, were prescient and that, politically wounded as the cur is, he lashes out now to grab his petty revenge against a nation which repudiated him.  After all, the hard right, which still supports the guy, usually "encourages" women to stay at home, rendering largely FMLA moot for their own families (when taken with the fundamentalist view that women should stay at home and be caregivers, while men should work and be heads of the house, and never the twain shall meet) and, as anything that benefits women who work outside the home over women who do not must come from Satan and cannot, therefore, be used, targeting the law would do real, painful damage to those uppity folks who had the nerve to oppose the Supreme Will of the self-styled demigod that is George Bush.

Or maybe not.  I really don't know.  The "chilling little note" reads as follows:

The deadline for comments is 5:00PM EST, February 2, 2007.  If you've some experience with FMLA, please send a note to the Labor Department at whdcomments@dol.gov.  Fresh thinking doesn't have to equal a net negative, and I'll be happy to provide my input if it means protecting and/or expanding protections for working families.

In another, totally unsurprising, development in the Center for Reproductive Right's (CRR) Plan-B case against the government, the Bush administration is fighting the November subpoena authorizing the plaintiff to obtain more than three years of administration documents relating to the initial rejection, and ultimate approval (with restrictions) of the drug.


Lest we forget, the FDA, through former acting commissioner Lester M. Crawford, refused to cooperate with the initial GAO investigation, Scott McClellan's calendar shows an entry on April 21, 2003 for a "conference call w/Jay Lefkwitz re: Plan B submis," and FDA scientist Florence Houn testified to statements by Janet Woodcock, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Operations, that it was necessary to reject the Plan B application to appease the Bush administration.

Bush's pets at the Justice Department seem to be basing part of their objection on a November 21 stay (which appear to have gone unreported, at least on Google news) which relieved the FDA from having to turn over any additional documents.  CRR lawyers maintain that the stay applied only to the FDA agency itself, leaving executive administration documents subject to the open subpoena, while the Justice Department insists "the stay, until lifted, made it 'inappropriate' for Center lawyers to pursue the subpoena."  (Forbes).  Government lawyers assert that the stay in favor of the FDA translates into the requirement for a higher standard of evidence for any subpoena of any government document.

I'm only vaguely surprised they're not claiming "national security" or "executive privilege."  Wait for it; I'm sure we'll see it eventually.

This is not a blind fishing expedition. It is a legitimate inquiry based on reasonable corroborating evidence into Bush interference in public health, to its detriment, for no other reason than political gain.  That the FDA is enjoined, at this time, from having to turn over further documents is irrelevant to the specific matter at hand: the White House is not a division of the FDA and, as such, is not subject to that protection.

Let me repeat that: the White House is not a division of the FDA.  That Mr. Bush thinks he is, is one of the very foundations of this suit against his administration.  How's that for corroboration?

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See Also:
Federal Judge Allows Subpoena for White House Plan-B Related Documents

You may or may not be aware of the case of Sergio Hernandez.

He's from Cobb County, Georgia (home of the infamous "evolution is just a theory" stickers for science textbooks).  He's either 21 or 22 years old.  He impregnated a 15 year old.  After the family obtained a restraining order at the girl's request (because she feared him), he broke in, kidnapped her and the baby at gunpoint from her mother's home, and fled to North Carolina, where he was apprehended.

The man is in custody.  This, in my view as a parent, is a good thing.  If my 15 year old child were taken from my home at gunpoint and other members of my family threatened with death if they attempted to intervene, I don't believe I'd be disposed to welcome the "alleged" felon into my family.  I believe I'd be inclined to think he belonged in jail for a spell (where I tend to think most kidnappers should idle for at least a while), regardless of whether my underage child had ever consented to a sexual relationship before filing for and receiving a restraining order.

Jim Wooten at AJC's Thinking Right, however, writes in today's column:

Is he serious?  I don't know; he sounds serious.  If so, he might as well "promote marriage" between female victims of sexual assault and their oh so magnanimous rapists.  This girl is a child - 14 when the relationship began with the 20 or 21 year old (presumably, at the time). I wonder if Mr. Wooten has ever heard the term "statutory rape," which is defined according to the official Georgia Code:

Aside from the issues of multiple violations of a duly issued restraining order, kidnapping of two minors at gunpoint, and interstate flight (which, were the girl a wealthy Buckhead deb instead of, well, not, would probably be sufficient to put him away for some time), if Hernandez was 21 when he impregnated this girl, he owes the state a minimum of 10 years.

Marriage, really?  Should Nicole Simpson simply have sucked it up and remarried OJ?  Should Elizabeth Smart just have submitted to a forced plural marriage?

Consenting to sex, once or even many times, does not mean a female abdicates her right to make any and all other decisions for herself, including whether or not she wants to run away with a man whom she clearly fears.  And, particularly in the case of minors unable to  legally consent (that would be people under the age of 16 in Georgia, remember), it is the state's responsibility to protect both the minor's and the parents' interests from sexual predators who would prey upon them, assault them, threaten to kill their families, and forcibly remove them from their homes.

Or perhaps Mr. Wooten was making a joke.  If so, he's just as funny as Michael Richards.

Yesterday President Bush did for bipartisanship the same thing he did for unity: he renominated six previously blocked candidates for the federal bench, and of course he wants them confirmed during the lame duck session (WaPo).

Over at Thinking Right, Jim Wooten thinks this a fantastic idea.  He's honest enough to admit that they have to be pushed now because they won't be confirmed after January, but he also suffers from the partisan myopia which assumes any objection to any act must be based on partisan politics - leaving no room for, oh say, independent thought, or conscience, or criminal acts or any one of a number of reasons which might also form the basis of a reasonable objection to most neoconservative proposals. 

In the case of North Carolina Judge Terrence Boyle, renominated for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, one hasn't to search far to locate a reasonable objection - the 4th Circuit, one of the most conservative courts in the country (and so acknowledged by both sides) has reversed him more than 150 times, double the average reversal rate (Alliance for Justice).  Boyle's judicial attitude toward Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act is at odds not only with Congress (which may be expected from time to time), but also at odds with established legal precedent and with current Supreme Court decisions (Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law).  Boyle also sports a past rife with conflicts of interest, adjudicating "at least nine cases involving corporations in which he reported stock holdings -- a violation of federal law" (Courting Influence).

Michael B. Wallace, renominated for the 5th Circuit, received a unanimous "unqualified" rating from the non-partisan American Bar Association - he's the first federal nominee in 25 years to achieve that distinction (MSNBC).   Like bad news our of Iraq, the Bush administration immediately dismissed the ABA rating, saying that the ABA was entitled to their facts, but GWB had his own.

The WaPo article quotes White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore as follows:

"We are hopeful that the days of judicial obstruction are behind us," said White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore. Noting that a Republican Senate confirmed 15 of Bill Clinton's nominees to the federal appeals bench in his last two years as president, she added: "We are hopeful that President Bush's nominees will receive a fair up-or-down vote."

Hmm, perhaps.  The Senate did only hold 15 hearings on judiciary appointments during 1999-2000, and this would indicate they confirmed all 15 nominees upon whom they held hearings.  But under Republican Congressional control, 45.3% of Clinton appellate nominees were returned to the White House, and at the end of the administration 81 judicial vacancies still remained (Civilrights.org).  Republicans, therefore, particularly any of those in the Senate between 1996-2000, cannot speak from experience regarding productive bipartisanship with a president from the opposing party.

Arlen Specter (R-PA; Chair, Senate Judiciary Committee) stated that he would not move the nominations during the lame duck session.

Conservatives say they hope Bush is looking for a fight and will use this to test the Democratic commitment to bipartisanship.  Bipartisanship.  They keep using that word.  I do not think it means what they think it means.  Bipartisanship means working together to find viable compromise solutions, not Democrats remaining silent in the Congress and submitting meekly to Republican overlords because they've assumed divinity, invested themselves with pretensions to omniscience and appointed themselves Gods of the Earth.

Bush sending these already rejected (by a majority Republican Congress, no less!) nominees back to the lame duck Congress is not a test of Democratic commitment to bipartisanship, but a flagrant denial of it by this administration.  To think otherwise is to confuse "ham" with "potato salad."

In just 12 years.

South Africa officially ended their legally entrenched discriminatory practices against non-whites in 1994, eventually adopting a constitution predicated on the idea that all citizens were equal under the law and therefore deserved equal treatment with regard to civil rights and responsibilities.

That concept held firm in South Africa as the parliament voted today, 230-41, to legalize same sex marriages, becoming only the fifth nation in the world to remove legal impediments.

In a concession to religious groups, Parliament allowed a loophole permitting judges to refuse to marry couples based on grounds of conscience.  That loophole is expected to be challenged, however, because as OUT program manager Melanie Judge said, "We can’t be in the situation where civil officers can decide who they want to marry and who they don’t want to marry.  They aren’t able to refuse to marry a black person and a white person. This is unconstitutional.”  (NY Times)

Indeed.

WaPo reports a federal ruling that the Center for Reproductive Rights can subpoena "more than three years of Plan B-related communications between the White House's domestic-policy office and select Food and Drug Administration officials. The documents include e-mails, letters and records of conversations."

In 2004, the FDA overruled its Advisory Panel's 23-4 positive recommendation, rejecting an application to make the emergency contraceptive available over the counter.  Steven Gaulson, at the time the acting director of the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, admitted he overrode the opinions of both his staff and advisory committees. (USA Today)

The Center for Reproductive Rights (CRR) filed a complaint challenging the ruling in January 2005.  The suit alleged that the FDA broke its own regulations in the approval process for and ultimate rejection of the application.  As they have gathered more evidence, the CRR added that "officials planned to drag out the approval process for the contraceptive for political reasons."  (Reuters/Medscape)

In May 2005, WaPo ran a page 2 story on panel member W. David Hager, an OB/GYN and apparent preacher, who stated he was asked to write a "minority report that would outline why over-the-counter sales should be rejected."  Hager, a proponent of abstinence-only education opposed to emergency contraception on religious grounds, obliged.  At one point, he told at least one journalist in an email that the request for the report came from someone at the FDA, though he had revised his story by the time the WaPo article ran.

Biologist Susan Wood, assistant FDA commissioner for women's health and director of the agency's Office of Women's Health, resigned in protest in September 2005, citing political disruption of agency function and interference in agency decisions. (WaPo)

WaPo followed up in October 2005 with a page 5 story that Lester M. Crawford, acting commissioner of the FDA for the period in question, refused to cooperate with an inquiry by the Government Accountability Office investigating the decision and any ties to the White House.

In May 2006, the Austin Chronicle reported:

Women's reproductive rights advocates have long suspected the White House may have had a hand in prompting McClellan's baseless refusal, and last week CRR attorney Bonnie Jones told federal Magistrate Viktor Pohorelsky that she may have found that missing link, in the form of an entry in McClellan's appointment calendar, reports New York's Newsday. According to the daily, McClellan's calendar for April 21, 2003 contains a notation that he had a "conference call w/Jay Lefkwitz re: Plan B submis" – an apparent reference to the petition filed just days before seeking FDA approval for over-the-counter Plan B sales. At the time, Lefkowitz served as President George W. Bush's deputy assistant for domestic policy; the calendar notation was notable, at least in part, because consultations with the White House are not part of the standard FDA drug approval process, the daily reports.

Kaiser Network reported August 4, 2006 that:

 FDA Deputy Commissioner for Operations Janet Woodcock in January 2004 said it was necessary for the agency to reject Barr Laboratories application for nonprescription sales of its emergency contraceptive Plan B in order "to appease the [Bush] administration's constituents," agency scientist Florence Houn testified in a deposition  (emphasis mine)

After much back and forth, Barr Laboratories submitted a revised application, proposing Plan B be made available without prescription to women 18 and older (as opposed to 16, which had been on the previous filing) in August of 2006, and the FDA did approve that application.  Many, myself among them, suspect the approval was finally granted as a last-ditch effort to obfuscate White House interference only because the lawsuit would not go away.

Thankfully, the suit continues even after the quasi-approval granted by the FDA, and the judge is requiring that the White House turn over its records.  Enforcing the order, as we've learned repeatedly from this administration, may well drag on for months, however.