Tea party conservatives latch onto GOP fear-mongering tactics, and manufacture car and highway fund troubles

Why would Henry Lamb want General Motors to fail? Why would conservatives attack GPS? Why would conservatives want US citizens to fear the government is watching them through their cars?

Because it incites fear, an emotion that has carried conservatives to victory many times over. Except I wearied of the Orwellian call to collapse in a paranoid state of shock onto a fainting couch a while back, and I hope I can count on my fellow Americans to do the same: think logically, ignore fear-mongering, and research emotional scare stories. Then decide for yourself whether you support it, and if you don't make sure you can back another solution.

We've got problems, and we need solutions.

The most recent Huddle 'Round the Campfire Scare Story hit my inbox today, and after a tsunami of similar, I was motivated to take this one on, but understand, it's really my personal criticism and deconstruction of the plethora of anti-government, get rid of taxes scare tactic divisive insanity that I've simply lost all patience for.

So let's start with the story by Henry Lamb, the founder and former executive director of Environmental Conservation Organization (ECO) and chairman of Sovereignty International. He is also a columnist for the conservative website WorldNetDaily. (Go research those to understand what they are and what they stand for. Don't assume based on the names.)

Health care crisis, lack of state and federal aid crushing American cities

A recent report highlights the economic threat the current health care system creates for American cities, which are typically ignored in the discussion about health care reform. The report, put out by Families USA---a nonprofit and nonpartisan national organization that advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans---found that, "...cities are profoundly affected by the rising number of uninsured Americans and the rising cost of providing coverage for their own employees. These problems have an impact on all city residents, regardless of their health insurance status, and they affect cities’ ability to fulfill other municipal functions as well."

"Our cities face the dual challenges of assisting a rising number of uninsured Americans and providing increasingly expensive health coverage for their own employees," Ron Pollack, Executive Director of Families USA, said.

Pollock's statement summarizes the key findings of the report, which concluded that cities have been overlooked and left to manage local health care crises on their own, which poses a risk to the budgets of other city services, such as police and fire protection, schools, parks, and the repair of city streets and other infrastructure.

"Today's report makes crystal clear what many of us in cities across America—who are faced with the spiraling costs of health care both for our employees and our citizens—understand all too well," said Philadelphia’s Mayor Michael A. Nutter. “It's threatening our economies, our families and our futures. It is time for Washington to stop the excuses and fix our broken health care system.”

The report is based on extensive surveys and research of thirteen cities nationwide, which all had consistent results. Immunizations are one of the largest burdens on cities.

Other key findings include...

Go Read It: Important political news and action you might have missed...and shouldn't

Anti-Choice in HHS?

Remember HHS and the Conscience Rule? President Obama put in place a new "Conscience" leader at the HHS. Read more about it here: ABORTION FOE TO LEAD HHS FAITH-BASED OFFICE:

President Obama has appointed Alexia Kelley, executive director of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG), to head the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services. Kelley is a leading proponent of "common ground" abortion reduction -- only CACG's common ground is at odds with that of Obama. While the administration favors reducing the need for abortion by reducing unintended pregnancies, Kelley has made clear that she seeks instead to reduce access to abortion.

Some sources have indicated that Kelley may do more talk than action, but we'll see.

What do you think about this appointment?

Border security---the next step

In a Town Hall meeting this week I was struck---when the opportunity presented itself through a constituent question---by Rep. Pete Olson (R-TX) not grabbing the opportunity to hammer home the SOP GOP talking point about "rounding up the brown and shipping them back where they belong." Instead, he spoke about creating a secure border---not to prevent illegal immigration, which he did not even mention (shock! stun!), but to prevent crime. He did engage in some bigoted pejorative depiction of the country of Mexico as a landless scary place (we must all be kept in fear all the time---I imagine as soon as they find a fear talking point about Canada, it will be employed), but otherwise stuck to security. I puzzled for two days until I received this notice from the White House: "Napolitano, Holder, and Kerlikowske Announcing Southwest Border Counternarcotics Strategy"

Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Department of Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano, and Director of National Drug Control Policy Gil Kerlikowske released President Obama’s strategy to stem the flow of illegal drugs and their illicit proceeds across the Southwest border and reduce associated crime and violence in the region.

Ah ha.

Keep reading to see more news you need to know but might have missed!

Campaign Laments Missed Opportunity for Children’s Health Coverage Despite Bipartisan Sponsorship and Support

Austin, Texas—The Texas Finish Line Campaign, a collaboration of more than 70 organizations seeking access to affordable, comprehensive health coverage for all Texas children, expressed disappointment in the failure of Texas leadership to advance a popular Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) measure that would have provided health coverage to 80,000 uninsured Texas kids. 

The proposal, which expired in the final hours of the 81^st Legislative session, would have allowed families lacking affordable health care coverage options for their children to “buy-in” to the state’s current CHIP program, an idea that won the support of the Metro 8, the state’s eight largest chambers of commerce, leaders in business and health care and bipartisan majorities in the Texas House and Senate. 

We commend the bipartisan champions in the legislature who stood by their convictions until the very end.  Ultimately the bill was derailed not on its merits, but because time expired and the top legislative leadership—the lieutenant governor, speaker of the house, and governor—failed to intervene and ensure the bill’s passage.

In failing to pass the legislation, Texas loses access to millions of dollars in federal matching funds made available to states earlier this year through the federal CHIP reauthorization.  Without maximizing our state investment in CHIP, Texas taxpayers continue to surrender millions of Texas taxpayer income to other states.  In addition to the state’s lost financial opportunity, privately insured taxpayers and local hospital districts continue to foot the bill of rising health care costs, insurance premiums, and local taxes that support hospital emergency rooms providing care for growing numbers of uninsured who lack access to cost-effective preventive care.

The Campaign expresses gratitude to the many statewide voices that supported this effort, including the 70+ organizations listed below and their constituents, and the thousands of advocates across the state who contributed to this effort.

Studies by the Texas Hospital Association and others show that making health coverage affordable and accessible was a top priority of Texas voters for this legislative session.  In addition, thousands of calls logged in to the governor’s, lieutenant governor’s and speaker’s offices demonstrated overwhelming voter support for this issue.

Political women worldwide face sexism

As different as our cultures are in so many ways and to so many different degrees, this weekend women in Iran and the United States both experienced something similar: sexism in politics.

In Iran, "Iranian presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Moussavi on Sunday condemned those of his female supporters who refuse to follow the country's strict Muslim dress code, one day after outlining his plans for women's rights in the country."

Moussavi's discussion of women's rights included

The candidate attacked the various barriers faced by women's rights activists and pledged to review "all discriminatory and unjust regulations against women's legal and judicial security"; to devise "comprehensive plans for the promotion of women's rights at the country's social, economic, and political stage"; and to work towards "eliminating violence against women by adopting legal supportive measures." 

Sounds wonderful...excluding the condition: so long as the women dress in the head to toe covering hijab and don't do anything any Muslim men might call immoral.

We can't compare the plight of women in the US and Iran, but sexism does transcend nationality, and women worldwide deal with it daily. Even in the US, men and women alike hold women to a different bar.

When the men hand out and dictate freedom, they are still the patriarchy in control. It's not freedom, friends. It's a favor from the master that might be revoked at any minute. Today, you get a cushy job in the Big House, but woe to she who offends the master because then it's back to the fields for you, girl.

We spend so much time differentiating the experience of oppressive sexist patriarchal cultures that are not the United States that sometimes we forget how very universal the experience of a woman in power can be, and even a woman not in power.

It's not so overt as dictates about total cover dress, but the media never holds back on discussion of how women look, even if it's not at all relevant to the job they are doing. Likewise, women are still held up to a strict "moral and personality" code that apparently can disqualify them from rising through the ranks. Hello, glass ceiling, my old friend.

In the United States, women were treated to media repeating like mindless tape players the conservative bailiwick of criticizing the assertive, intelligent, and successful woman. In this case, pundits and talking heads alike were breathing fire down the neck of Supreme Court of the United States nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor.

TX Gov Perry threatens CHIP veto even as amendment dies fast death in Texas House, supporters rally to revive bill

The Children’s Health Insurance Program is designed to ensure that uninsured and lower-income children receive the health care they need. Advocates are excellent at invoking the true face of children who need, receive, and benefit from CHIP and SCHIP. Who doesn’t want to help children, especially sick children?

Governor Rick Perry and the Texas state representatives, that’s who.

Alleging that this, “is not what I consider to be a piece of legislation that has the vast support of the people of the state of Texas,” Perry was clear that he did not support the bi-partisan twice-passed Senate plan to get up to 80,000 more children into the government-subsidized Children's Health Insurance Program.

He is likely to veto the measure, if it manages to make it to his desk. Unfortunately, even that is in question after the antics this week in the Texas Legislature when House Democrats halted action to kill the controversial voter ID bill. As a result, unfortunately, the CHIP bill, among others, was endangered. With the session close on the horizon, the Texas Senate worked late to pass the Senate version of the CHIP expansion bill by a vote of 29-2. They attached the bill to a newborn screening bill and returned it to the House.

The House simply needed to pass the bill. This seemed possible, since earlier they had approved Rep Garnet Coleman’s version of the bill 87-55.

However, on Thursday evening, Speaker Joe Strauss ruled that the Senate’s CHIP amendment was not germane to the bill it was attached to, and that, as they say, was that.

We can question and speculate for days about why the Senate attached the bill to the newborn screening bill instead of to Coleman’s CHIP bill, whether Strauss was right, or even if this is moot since Perry would veto the bill on its own or as an amendment.

I think it’s more important, though, to talk about the bottom line and why it’s essential that all Texans contact their elected representatives, as well as the Governor and Speaker, to express support for CHIP. That means talking about the myths versus facts of CHIP.

Texas legislators shift money from family planning clinics, see rise in teen pregnancy

I listen with incredulity as conservative GOP talking heads pontificate about "liberal judicial activists" who "legislate from the bench."

It's a magic trick, that, as they gesture madly with one hand and quickly redirect funding and legislate morality behind their backs and ours with the other hand.

In a Dallas Morning News story released Friday, we find out that

"Clinics that have been providing family-planning services find themselves on the losing end of a fight over how the state can best provide birth control, screenings for sexually transmitted diseases and other services.

. . .
Over the last four years, lawmakers have diverted millions of dollars from the specialty clinics such as Planned Parenthood to expand family-planning services at community health centers, which provide a broader range of services. In the current legislative session, lawmakers may give back some money to the specialty clinics – but only what's left unused by the health centers."

On the surface, you might think, "It seems to make sense, to fund community health centers."

But let's look at some more information to show why this isn't the best use of funding, and how it's more morality restrictions that negatively affect women's health care.

Fem2.0-MOMocrats Live Chat: Feminism is Where You Are/What You Do

Moderators: Jaelithe Judy, Julie Pippert, Joanne Bamberger & Cynematic of MOMocrats

Fem2.0 Twittercast: Feminism is Where You Are/What You Do
Sunday, May 24, 2009, 10 PM EST
We'll be using Cover-it-Live to live chat (more than 140 characters allowed, hurray!) and also pull in tweets from Twitter tagged #fem2.

Today, we're joining up with the folks at Fem2.0 to continue the discussion from last week, which started with the discussion of feminism, moms who blog, the feminist blogosphere, and what intersection there is among all three.

To start the conversation, we have a beautiful post by a GrandMOMocrat (who happens to be MOMocrat Jaelithe's mother). Please read the lovely essay by Diana Harvestmoon-Stewart about combining motherhood, feminism, and activism.

It may shed new light on the previous Fem2pt0 conversation, which was framed here: "Mommies and Feminists: the Great Divide."

Here's how we've framed the Fem2pt0 chat for this week:

Cynematic says: No matter where we are in our respective life cycles–raising children or choosing to be childfree, a young adult or older woman, mother to boys or girls, caretaker of the generations before you–if you’re a feminist, you’ve probably brought that sensibility with you to your activism.

We want to turn the question on end a little. What are you active in, and how does that inform your feminism? Where are you geographically, so you can connect with others on the chat? What do you need to do your work? How would your work be different if there was a critical mass of feminists there? Or is that already the case?

Let’s move off labels, identities, and the preconceptions that can come attached to those. Let’s find as many different feminisms as we can through the kinds of way it’s practiced.

More food for thought: feminisms in the context of family or community, Naomi Wolf

Is Release of Torture Photos Necessary? The MOMocrats Debate Obama's Decision.

Last Wednesday, under the advice of Pentagon officials, President Obama reversed a decision to comply with an appeals court's May 28th deadline for the public release of dozens photos depicting acts of abuse and torture perpetrated on detainees in U.S. custody by U.S. military personnel. The President now argues the public release of the photos should be withheld from public view because the situations depicted in the photos have already been investigated by the Pentagon, and some of the U.S. personnel who perpetrated the abuses have already been punished. Obama said in a May 13 press statement:

[. . .] this is not a situation in which the Pentagon has concealed or sought to justify inappropriate action. Rather, it has gone through the appropriate and regular processes. And the individuals who were involved have been identified, and appropriate actions have been taken.

It's therefore my belief that the publication of these photos would not add any additional benefit to our understanding of what was carried out in the past by a small number of individuals. In fact, the most direct consequence of releasing them, I believe, would be to further inflame anti-American opinion and to put our troops in greater danger.

Moreover, I fear the publication of these photos may only have a chilling effect on future investigations of detainee abuse. And obviously the thing that is most important in my mind is making sure that we are abiding by the Army Manual and that we are swiftly investigating any instances in which individuals have not acted appropriately, and that they are appropriately sanctioned. That's my aim and I do not believe that the release of these photos at this time would further that goal.

Now, let me be clear: I am concerned about how the release of these photos would be -- would impact on the safety of our troops. I have made it very clear to all who are within the chain of command, however, of the United States Armed Forces that the abuse of detainees in our custody is prohibited and will not be tolerated.

When we at MOMocrats discussed President Obama's decision to fight the court-ordered release of these photos, we discovered that our writers held a range of views on the pros and cons of the President's new position. Here is what six of the MOMocrats had to say about whether or not more photos of U.S. troops abusing and torturing prisoners should be publicly released:

Double X Double Slam: Women, Mothers Marginalized More Than Ever?

Yesterday, I read this article, "Raising the Baby Question," at The Nation. I was steamed in a way I haven't been in a long time. Here comes this young (24 year old) reporter who writes an article with outrageous claims. Nona Willis Aronowitz, the writer, posits this theory: feminist writers ignore mother and family issues, and mother and family writers ignore feminist issues.

She cites a few blogs, books, and Web sites, which she claims proves her point.

Even though they don't, really, and she ignores a huge, active population of women who are feminist and family writers who are actively not just writing about but are also doing something about feminism, politics, and family issues.

Case in point: the MOMocrats.

We are merely one among many, including: WomenCount, BlogHer, MomsRising, PunditMom, Political Voices of Women, The Girl Revolution, the late great Moms Speak Up, and more, including the many individuals who contribute their voices at group sites and personal sites. Just check out the Just Posts, for example, to see a lengthy list of women writers---some mothers, some not---who are delving into issues related to feminism, politics, social justice, life as a woman, life as a mother, and more. I became involved with the MOMocrats, in fact, because I was blogging so often about these topics at my personal blog, and had, through that, connected with both the Just Posts and Political Voices of Women.

Nevertheless, Willis Aronowitz claims that, "There's a palpable disconnect between these two worlds [mother and feminist], and it's starting to worry me."

Actually, that's dead wrong.

I don't think Willis Aronowitz means to be totally incorrect in an article on a national site.

I think she just missed a lot of relevant information.

Her side point, the one she ought to have pursued, is dead on, though, "Most feminist mom organizations and websites like Sistas on the Rise or Hip Mama are local and grassroots, often excluded from discussions of feminism in the national media."

Too true.

However, national media---collapsing under its own auspice currently---isn't the end all be all, and grassroots organizations have a wonderful outreach.

Can it be bigger? Should it be bigger? Yes.

That doesn't affect, however, how empowering and effecting it feels when a fellow mother at my daughter's school catches me one morning to say, "My friends and I, we hate the news, but oh we love MOMocrats, read it every day!"