Tag: jindal

The GOP’s contempt for women

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Source: WashPost

Author: Katrina vanden Heuvel

Emphasis Mine

During the Republican primary in 2012, one of Mitt Romney’s most damaging gaffes was saying that he would “get rid of” Planned Parenthood. If only that were the Republican Party’s biggest problem with women today.

Leading in the early polls, billionaire blowhard Donald Trump ignited a firestorm of controversy when he said that Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who moderated last week’s presidential debate in Cleveland, had “blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.” Trump was angry that Kelly had the gall to ask, among other things, how Trump justified his lengthy record of misogynist attacks on women. (“The big problem this country has is being politically correct,” he answered, ridiculously conflating political correctness with common decency.)

However, Trump’s ugly bombast is a distraction from a far more serious problem for the GOP. Three years after Romney lost the women’s vote by a double-digit margin, in part because of his support for defunding Planned Parenthood, the presidential debates last week made clear Republicans have only become more disrespectful toward women’s bodies, more deranged in their hatred of Planned Parenthood and more dismissive of female voters.

The rhetorical assault on women began in Thursday’s “undercard debate,” where seven Republican also-rans tried to breathe life into their listless campaigns. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal reflected the party’s disdainful attitude when he promised to investigate Planned Parenthood with “the Department of Justice and the IRS and everybody else that we can send from the federal government.” Carly Fiorina, who was crowned the “winner” of the debate by many observers, likewise attacked Hillary Clinton for “defending Planned Parenthood.” And despite being the only candidate who identifies as pro-choice, former New York governor George Pataki called for defunding Planned Parenthood, which he accused of showing a “hideous disrespect for life.”

But the most deplorable statements came when the top-tier candidates — all men, of course — took the stage in prime time. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio denied that he believes rape and incest victims should be legally permitted to have abortions, adding that future generations will “call us barbarians for for murdering millions of babies.” And Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker went a step further by defending his opposition to abortion even when the woman’s life is in danger, while criticizing Clinton’s “radical position” of supporting Planned Parenthood.

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee delivered the most grotesque line of the night. “It’s time that we recognize the Supreme Court is not the supreme being, and we change the policy to be pro-life and protect children instead of rip up their body parts and sell them like they’re parts to a Buick,” he said. Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.) echoed Jindal, pledging that he would order the Justice Department to investigate Planned Parenthood on his first day in office.

Finally, there was former Florida governor Jeb Bush, the supposed “moderate” in the race. “As governor of Florida, I defunded Planned Parenthood,” he boasted, adding, “We were the first state to do a ‘choose life’ license plate.” For Bush, the debate came just a few days after he got himself in hot water for saying, “I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues.” And while Bush later said he “misspoke,” insisting that he merely wants to divert funds from Planned Parenthood into community health centers, his record suggests otherwise: In Florida, Bush redirected money from Planned Parenthood into abstinence education and funded “crisis pregnancy centers” that discourage women from having abortions.

Regardless, what Bush meant to say is irrelevant. Women’s health is clearly not a priority for the GOP. Neither are women, in general. On the contrary, the gleeful cheering by the debate audience showed that disrespect for women’s bodies is baked into the party’s DNA. That’s why Republicans are attacking Planned Parenthood — an organization that has provided cancer screenings, birth control and other health-care services to millions of women in the United States — with increasing hostility, and it’s why the position that was once a liability for Romney has now become a litmus test for GOP contenders.

In the short term, GOP primary candidates may benefit from staking out such extremist positions, but they are undoubtedly alienating female voters and making it even more difficult to ever win a national election. As the party gets smaller and more conservative, GOP leaders’ anti-woman vitriol is getting worse and their stances on women’s health issues are getting more dangerous. Unless they change course soon, the party will only continue to shrink, and the cycle will continue. Indeed, with their distorted view of “life,” Republicans may be trapped in a death spiral from which they cannot escape.

Read more from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s archive or follow her on Twitter.

See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-gops-problems-with-women-go-far-beyond-donald-trump/2015/08/11/d13a1c56-3f97-11e5-bfe3-ff1d8549bfd2_story.html

5 Bobby Jindal Moments That Prove His ‘Stupid Party’ Bona Fides

The Louisiana governor’s support of the Religious Right’s attack on gay rights should give you pause.

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Source: Right Wing Watch, via AlterNet

Author: Brian Tashman

Emphasis Mine

It is almost sad to watch Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, struggling at 0 percent in presidential polls, embrace the “dumbed-down conservatism” and “stupid party” mantras that he once vociferously denounced. Jindal, who today made his presidential bid official today, has by now emerged as a “stupid party” standard-bearer:

Spreading Creationism

As we’ve reported, “Jindal has led an aggressive push in his home state for the privatization of public education and the taxpayer funding of religious schools, even directing taxpayer dollars to schools espousing Creationism, which he said would let kids ‘be exposed to the best facts.’”

Thanks to Jindal’s policies, taxpayer money is now going towards Creationist schools which teach that humans and dinosaurs lived side-by-side, citing  dragons and the Loch Ness monster as proof. At the same time, Jindal has cut the state university system’s budget to the bone and advocated for even deeper cuts.

Jindal’s support for Creationism in schools has brought international notoriety to the state, as over 70 Nobel Laureates signed a letter reminding the governor that “scientific education should accurately portray the premises and processes of science. Teaching religious ideas mislabeled as science is detrimental to scientific education: It sets up a false conflict between science and religion, misleads our youth about the nature of scientific inquiry, and thereby compromises our ability to respond to the problems of an increasingly technological world.”

Sharia A-Comin’!

While Jindal made Louisiana a laughingstock with his stand for Creationism, he brought the state further disrepute when he traveled abroad to claim that Sharia law “no-go zones” are springing up around Europe and will soon come to the United States. Seemingly relying on debunked talking points from Fox News and anti-Muslim activists, Jindal didn’t know how to react when a reporter in London asked if he could name a single Sharia law “no-go zone” in the British capital. He responded that he did not actually know where they exist.

Anti-Gay Activism

Jindal has been so committed to the Religious Right’s attack on gay rights that when state lawmakers backed away from legislation that would have potentially enshrined discrimination into law, Jindal signed an executive order based on the controversial bill. The governor believes that gay rights opponents are the “real victims of discrimination” in American society, pointing to A&E’s temporary suspension of the show Duck Dynasty after one of the cast members made racist and homophobic statements in a magazine interview as a sign that First Amendment freedoms are under “assault” as part of a “war on religious liberty.”

Religious freedom laws which don’t include protections for anti-LGBT businesses, Jindal warned, are “dangerous” and represent “an attack on our Constitution.”

A closeally of anti-gay extremist Tony Perkins, Jindal has also courted radical figures such as David Lane, who organized Jindal’s “Response” prayer rally. Prayer rally organizers distributed materials blaming gays for Hurricane Katrina and the whole thing was paid for by the American Family Association , one of the most virulently anti-LGBT groups in the country.

Caving To Anti-Tax Extremists

When it came to choosing between solving Louisiana’s self-inflicted budget crisis or catering to a D.C. lobbyist, Jindal chose the latter, leading to a rebellion even among his fellow Republicans. Jindal wants to keep his no-tax bona fides in place for the presidential campaign, and as a result has to please anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, whom some in Louisiana have called “Governor Norquist” since Jindal will apparently only approve budget plans that have his blessing.

Instead of raising taxes outright to stave off a budget shortfall, the governor worked with Norquist on an opaque and complicated revenue scheme known as the SAVE Act which one lawmaker called the “DUMB Act.” With actions like these, it is no wonder that not even a third of Louisiana voters give Jindal a positive job approval rating.

Common Core Reversal

Once such a strong public supporter of Common Core that his endorsement of the education standards was featured in a pro-Common-Core ad by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Jindal read the polls about GOP resistance to Common Core — and the many conspiracy theories surrounding it — and has since emerged as one of its most vociferous critics.

Of course, Jindal’s attacks on Common Core defied reality, as he claims that it is a federal government takeover of education policy, even though it is and always has been a state-led initiative. “Look at the math, it makes absolutely no sense to a lot of our kids, including my own children,” he said.

He has even gone so far to file a lawsuit to block the implementation of Common Core, an effort rejected in court.

 

Brian Tashman is a research associate at Right Wing Watch, the blog of People for the American Way.

See: http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/5-bobby-jindal-moments-prove-his-stupid-party-bona-fides?akid=13251.123424.vcMfzg&rd=1&src=newsletter1038465&t=13

More on the GOP threat to our Recovery

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“The Ecstasy and the Agony”

Frank was really Rich today, and, amongst his words of celebration, was a warning.  Samples:

“The good news for Obama is that he needn’t worry about the Republicans. They’re committing suicide.”

“…the party is trying to lock down its white country-club blowhards.”

“G.O.P. pseudopopulism ran riot last week as right-wing troops rallied around their latest Joe the Plumber: Rick Santelli, the ranting CNBC foe of Obama’s mortgage rescue program….The Santelli revolution’s flameout was just another confirmation that hard-core Republican radicals are now the G.O.P.’s problem, not the president’s. Rahm Emanuel has it right when he says the administration must try bipartisanship, but it doesn’t have to succeed. Voters give Obama credit for trying, and he can even claim success with many Republican governors, from Schwarzenegger to Crist. Now he can move on and let his childish adversaries fight among themselves, with Rush Limbaugh as the arbitrating babysitter. (Last week he gave Jindal a thumb’s up.)”

Mr Rich goes on to warn us on potential problems.

see: “http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/01/opinion/01rich.html?ref=opinion”

The author sees the current GOP media situation as being caused by, among other facts:

o  They are so used to being able to run all over Democrats, minorities, the under-privileged,  and ‘Liberals’,that they do not yet realize may people are living in hard times, and wish a different message.

o They don’t yet realize the impact of the opposition having control of the executive and legislative branches.

Does the GOP stumbling mean we can go on auto-pilot and win the next three elections?  No, we must work hard, but we will take all of the help we can get!

A bad week for the GOP is a good week for you & me

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From:Huff Post http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-jenkins/worst-week-ever-republica_b_170378.html

“When Republicans suffered a disastrous beating in November’s election, it would have been fair to assume that things could not get worse for them: the-most-liberal-Senator was to be president, Nancy-Pelosi-from-San-Francisco was going to lead a massive Democratic majority in the House, and assorted socialists were going to run things. That was bad, yes, but this week, just like the stock market (funny how that goes), Republicans hit yet a new low. In recent days, Republican leaders were called cheesy, off-putting, disastrous, untrustworthy, and inconsequential, not by Democrats, but by their party’s own members, from high-profile commentators to Governors.

The highlight of the GOP week was, of course, Governor Bobby Jindal’s response to Barack Obama’s Congressional address. The best that can be said for Jindal’s performance is that it channeled Kenneth the Page from 30 Rock, presumably not the objective, even for someone who willingly changed his name to “Bobby.” ”

As the author is not hip to ’30 Rock’ (Rock yes, 30 no), I don’t dig the Page ref, but love the verbage.