The Council of National Policy is a name everyone needs to be made aware of

 Go here for the video.

Yup.

 

It's not about babies. It's about control.

Because they said no.

Sounds silly, right?  Well...

John Oliver takes on the horrible and illogical anti-abortion laws being passed.

Dinosaurs to twanging bras to bright spots on Ceres.

How dinosaurs became birds.

There shouldn't be any public schools because they teach liberal stuff.

Olive oil kills cancer cells.

Slut-shamers and anti-abortionists share the same fear of women being able to control their own bodies.  And what happened after a boy twanged her bra several times.

What are poopers?  Ok, I laughed at the misspelling but the blog post is hilarious.

Supermassive black holes that shouldn't exist but do.

Portland harnesses the power of the sewers to create electricity.

Jeb Bush.

Mysterious bright spots on Ceres.  And a weird orbit of 3753 Cruithne around the Earth.

Terrorism will not destroy America.  Our hysteria about it might.

The post-Roe world

Amanda Marcotte:

They don’t really want you to never have your abortion, but they think you need to work harder for it. To quote Dr. Minto, “Women are forced to crawl around like goddamn criminals,” and that’s roughly what many people think they should have to do in order to get an abortion. The idea that it’s a major hassle but that you get to have one anyway is the point—a sort of state-mandated penance and shaming period for you. This is the reality of how things play out. We know this because of how many anti-choice policies amount to telling women to work harder and endure more shaming: Ultrasounds, waiting periods, etc. And we know this because this is the logic underpinning clinic protest. They pretend it’s to talk women out of it, but it’s mostly to make sure women can’t go in without assholes trying to shame them first.

Becoming a survivor rather than a victim.

Where the right-to-lifers want us all to live

On Wednesday, National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) announced a lawsuit has been filed in federal court seeking the immediate release from state custody of a pregnant Wisconsin woman who was involuntarily detained at a drug treatment facility despite no evidence she was using drugs while pregnant. 

Alicia Beltran, a 28-year-old pregnant woman confided in health-care workers about her prior use of painkillers and her efforts to end that use on her own during an early prenatal care visit. On July 18, Wisconsin law enforcement officials arrested her under a 1997 Wisconsin law, which gives the state the power to forcibly detain any pregnant woman who “habitually lacks self-control” and poses a “substantial risk” to the health of an egg, embryo, or fetus. 

[snip] 

NAPW notes in its announcement of the lawsuit that Beltran “was forcibly taken into custody by law enforcement when she was 15 weeks pregnant, put into handcuffs and shackles, and brought to a court hearing. Although a lawyer had already been appointed to represent her fetus, Ms. Beltran had no right to counsel—and therefore had no attorney—at the initial court appearance. Then, without testimony from a single medical expert, the court ordered her to be detained at an inpatient drug treatment program two hours from her home.”

Attorney Linda Vanden Heuvel, who represents Beltran, explained in a statement that “[l]ocking up Ms. Beltran, under the Wisconsin law, does not serve the best interests of Ms. Beltran’s future child and most certainly tramples the rights of Ms. Beltran, a woman who was not in fact using any controlled substances at the time of her arrest and who is committed to having a healthy pregnancy.”

Tramping through Tuesday

This week in FAIL.

How to have an argument on Facebook.

How To Spot And Out A Pro-’Lifer’ That Really Just Hates Women And Sex

More about CISPA

The loosey-goosey retirement of Georgie Bush.

BP Gulf disaster... worse than we thought.

The Republican War on Women continues...

Kansas Senate Prepares To Kill Reproductive Rights, Republicans Mock Rape Victims while France... France Makes Contraception and Abortion Free

Update 4/5: But amazingly there is a federal judge:

Judge Orders Morning-After Pill Available for All Ages 

A federal judge ruled Friday that the government must make the most common morning-after pill available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. In his ruling, he also accused the federal government of “bad faith” in dealing with the requests to make the pill universally available, and said its actions had been politically motivated.

North Dakota. Who would want to live there anyway?

Short and sweet

Or bitter, depending...

Iowa Anti-Choicers Admit They Want to Imprison Women for Abortion

James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change and Bernie Sanders comes over the hill with the cavalry.... or maybe just a cattle prod to try and activate Congress.

Drano plastic bottle bombs.

Russian dashboard cams.  I don't think I'll ever want to drive in Russia....

Teachers.

Our daily bread may be killing us.  Obviously all we can eat now is dirt mixed with a few leaves...

Wal Mart is distressed that the poor are not buying enough of their stuff.  Nice that they had time to climb down from that pile of money they're sitting on.

If it's Tuesday, it must be...

Why men should not vote.

Trying to find some reason women should not take birth control.

Citizens United Repeal Amendment Goes Viral Via Reddit

Krugman talks about austerians.

Plane safety.

Our pile of guns doesn't make us safer:

It doesn't matter how many thousands of lives are lost (between 2001 and 2010, about 270,000 U.S. residents died in shootings, including homicide, suicide and accidents). And it doesn't seem to matter how many mass killings there are, like the one Friday at the elementary school in Connecticut.

Doonesbury agrees.

DNA can be changed.

The Republican war on women's naughty bits

Rapists can get child visitation rights.

Sheriff Candidate OK With Deadly Force To Stop Abortions



 If rape victims must have their rapist's baby, then logically...

Update 8/23:


 

And so forth and so on...

Martian plate tectonics!  360 degree panorama!

She wasn't a fetus so the Republicans don't care.  But if there's a fetus involved: Kansas Doctor Under Attack For Not Forcing Ten Year Old Rape Victim To Give Birth

Ohio is afraid of letting people vote.

Good guy bank.

You can fool some of the people all of the time.  The Ryan plan, and what choosing Ryan didn't and did do for Romney.

Romney supports Tranquility Bay, a Mormon behavior reformation camp that tortures kids.... and more on this.

Mute button.

The starfish story.  Found on this thread of Reddit.

The fun never ends

Well... it's one way to get that tithing money...Mormon Church 'owns unregulated gun sale website'

 Did Mitt Romney Take the 2009 Swiss Bank Account Amnesty and An Ex-Mormon Describes Some 'Secrets' Of The Church... that just might affect a president Romney's actions...

A State-By-State Guide to 2012’s Anti-Choice Laws (So Far) and the shift to deny even rape and incest victims an abortion.

 Missouri Votes to Allow Christians to Discriminate Against Non-Believers

 Sobering: Almost Half of Americans Die Close to Penniless

Boiling in a vat of stupid

SCOTUS: Total Betrayal of Democracy

Kansas Board of Health Revokes License of Doctor for Not Forcing Ten-Year-Olds to Give Birth

Shocking Interglacial Shift to Hot Arctic Tied to Rapid Antarctic Ice Melt



Saudi Arabia beheads woman for 'sorcery'

 What privatizing prisons brings us... money over people. Man Dies After Prison Tries To ‘Cut Costs’ By Denying Him Care

 The Big Ag companies, poisoning workers in the fields so they can bring us poisoned food. Poisoning Workers at the Bottom of the Food Chain

 


 The United States of America... not the greatest country in the world anymore.

 

Bisphenol A exposure linked to brain tumor diagnosis.

What war does to soldiers.

Vagina monologues

The frantic silencing of the women Michigan state representatives who dared to mention women's naughty bits didn't prevent one of them from saying: "If they are going to legislate my anatomy, I see no reason why I cannot mention it.” So I will mention this again because they want to make our sex lives their business, they must make their sex lives our business.: my idea for an amendment: Any politician who supports negating a woman's right for reproductive control must sign a legal document that states he (or she) has never and will never use (nor his/her significant other) an abortifacient (a hormonal birth control pill), has never masturbated, never had an abortion nor encouraged anyone to have one, had sex with anyone before marriage, had sex only with spouse and had sex only for procreation. And the politician must agree that after extensive research if they have lied they must resign.

The Republican War on Women

Continues apace: A handy list of jaw-dropping idiocies. Like this one: "H.R. 2299–would prevent women under 18 from crossing state lines to get an abortion without their parents’ consent." So... they will start arresting teen-aged girls at the borders? Really?

There's more:  A list State by state.

Jan Brewer signs 'life begins at menstruation' bill, the most draconian anti-abortion law so far

The life begins at menstruation law goes into effect in 90 days 

• It sets the gestational age as beginning on the first day of a woman’s last period, rather than at fertilization. Which, in practice, means that a virgin can get pregnant and instead of barring abortions after 20 weeks as the law states, actually cuts the time to 18 weeks. 

• Medication abortions (by pill), usually done at home or a clinic within the first nine weeks of pregnancy, must now be done by a medical provider who has hospital privileges within 30 miles of where the procedure takes place. The law also mandates outdated protocol that Nash says may cause confusion. The provision is an attempt to shut down medication abortions altogether. North Dakota and Oklahoma are in litigation over similar provisions in their laws. 

• Sex education is not mandated in Arizona, but any such education must now prioritize birth and adoption. • Health-care facilities must up signs warning against abortion "coercion." 

• She state health department must set up a website focusing on alternatives to abortion and displaying photos of fetuses. 

• "Counseling" is required for women aiming seeking abortions because of fetal abnormalities. Such counseling must include perinatal hospice information. 

• Previous requirements are reiterated for a notarized parental consent form for minors and a mandatory ultrasound screening 24 hours before having an abortion.

And then there are just idiots: Tennessee Senate Approves Bill To Warn Students That Hand-Holding Is A ‘Gateway Sexual Activity’

Republicans don't understand this rumpus about the little women.. who need little words to understand things... Where does Romney stand about the Violence Against Women Act?

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Other countries are doing the same:  Honduras wants raped women to have the rapist's baby   Honduras Supreme Court Upholds Absolute Ban on Emergency Contraception, Opens Door to Criminalize Women and Medical Professionals

All we can do and must do is fight back. Planned Parenthood sues Texas over Women’s Health Program

Removing Doonesbury from the comics page

To the editorial page (or censoring it all together) because he's not marching in lockstep with the anti-choicers?  It's too true to be funny?  It will scare the children?  Make the kids ask for explanations? It makes fun of middle-aged male legislators?  All of the above?