“This is not surprising considering he made the same evolution in 2008,” the statement said. “It’s too bad he didn’t choose to follow through on those promises after his election.”

They also invited Obama to visit the Arizona border, the busiest illegal entry point in the nation, rather than El Paso, where illegal traffic has plummeted in the last two decades.

“It is no wonder the President chose El Paso and not Tucson as a backdrop to talk about immigration reform,” the senators said.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, also a Republican, also said Obama should have gone to Arizona, saying in a statement: “Our state remains America’s gateway for illegal immigration, and we continue to bear the brunt of the federal government’s failure on this issue.”

“If the president felt confident in declaring the border secure, he should have come to tell the people of Arizona face-to-face,” she said.

Young Congressman Quayle is dissatisfied with the President on border security:

Republican U.S. Rep. Ben Quayle said Obama’s speech was “driven by politics and politics alone.”

“Instead of real solutions and reforms, the president offered finger pointing and spin,” he said. “The U.S. border with Mexico is far from secure. No campaign speech can change that fact.”

Finger pointing and spin! Gosh, that’s harsh. I was curious to see what legislation Quayle, who is on the Border and Maritime Security Subcommittee of the Homeland Security Committee, has sponsored on immigration and border control. The answer is none.

I had big plans for this past weekend. I was going to through my clothes. Y’all know what an ordeal that is. “These pants haven’t fit me in six years but if I start going to the gym regularly again…” But then there was this federal budget showdown dealio last week where the GOP was all “we WILL shut this mutha down if we don’t get to be all up in the ladybusiness of the ladies!”

They want to defund Planned Parenthood, and this has been widely (and wrongly) reported as a “showdown over abortion funding”. The Hyde Amendment prohibits federal funding for abortion and Planned Parenthood does not use it for that purpose. Abortions are performed in separate clinics using private funds. Anti-choicers are mostly using a disingenuous and far-fetched fungibility argument – federal funds for birth control and medical exams frees up other money that can be used for abortion. Which is like saying that because a food stamp recipient is getting federal help to buy food they now have more money to buy beer, which means the federal government is buying their beer. Not quite. You still can’t buy beer with a food stamp card and Planned Parenthood cannot use federal funds for abortion.

Our own AZ Rep. Kimberly Yee didn’t bother with the convoluted fungibility argument when she appeared on the Channel 12 Lunchcast today. Toward the end of the segment, she busted right out with the accusation that PP uses federal funds for abortion. Right in front of Bryan Howard, AZ Planned Parenthood President, who promptly corrected her.

Yee explains that her support for all the anti-choice legislative dreck coming out of Center for Arizona Policy is motivated by a deep desire to protect women from the harmful consequences of abortion. Aw thanks, Kimberly. One of the bills (H.B. 2384/S.B. 1265) that passed prohibits state tax credits to any organization that “a) provides, pays for, promotes, provides coverage of or provides referrals for abortions; or b) financially supports any other entity that provides, pays for, promotes, provides coverage of or provides referrals for abortions.” Gosh, what organization might they be targeting with that? Oh yes, the largest provider of contraception and preventive health care to low income women.

So back to me and why my skinny pants remain unmolested in my closet. Because oh my lord the misogynist hordes were out in droves on Facebook this weekend! And I’m telling y’all, it isn’t really about abortion and it certainly isn’t about life for the zealously anti-choice. Believe you me a lot of your neighbors are burning with rage that low income Trampy McSluttersons are not only having unauthorized sex but are totally getting away with it via being provided respectful taxpayer subsidized health care. Since most rank and file anti-choicers aren’t as sophisticated as the trained professional activists in the movement, it never takes long to get them off the “pro-life” script and talking about how they really feel. Press them a little on their positions, ask a couple of open-ended questions, and blam! They forget all about life and babies and have a complete meltdown, screaming about how poor women need to keep their legs closed and stop expecting taxpayers to help pay for their birth control. Which would be an odd position for someone against abortion to take, considering that consistent contraception use prevents abortion. But this isn’t about abortion and definitely is not about life. Or the budget.

I did come across one guy who described himself as a pro-life activist. Also as an environmentalist, a former Democrat, and formerly pro-choice. I’m going to share his comments here because it will become very obvious that even those who have the slick compassionate-sounding professional talking points down pat can’t disguise the anti-contraception and punish-poor-women strain that runs deeply through the anti-choice movement.

Here’s him assuring us of how much anti-choicers now care about poor women, when questioned about why they never seem to care about the baby after it’s born:

Funny, XXXXX…I remember when I was on the side of the pro-choicers it used to be great fun bashing the pro-lifers with what I perceived as their hypocrisy for not having a mechanism to deal with all those babies. Alas, the pro-lifers have finally pulled their heads out over the past year and have been doing a pretty good job of setting up crisis pregnancy centers, early childhood aid, and the like. I have come to believe that what I once thought was hypocrisy was actually just ignorance of how much poverty can suck.

They know poverty sucks now? Great! Maybe they can let our “pro-life” Republican legislators and Governor know about that so they’ll stop gutting programs that keep poor people from falling through the cracks.

[I]f PP was serious in its denials that Fed Funds are not used for abortion …it would spin off the abortion facilities into a seperate organization. Pro-lifers have no moral choice – we believe a fetus IS a human being, and it’s wrong to kill innocent human beings. (Like the qualifier “innocent” :) However, if abortions were handled by a seperate entity, it would be easier to get funding for purely contraceptive / sexual health reasons. Note the medium-sized # of GOP officials who vote for some gay rights issues, because they don’t feel it’s right to impose religion on others, but who also vote against abortion because they can’t get away from the fact that it’s murder.

So GOP politicians would be totally okay with funding PP if only the abortion operation were spun off into a completely separate entity? Awesome! Oh wait, Planned Parenthood already does that, and yet social conservatives still don’t want funds to go to non-abortion services like contraception and Pap smears.

Here he is trying to convince me that opponents of contraception are a tiny fringe in the movement:

Donna, sorry, you’re wrong. The goal of VERY FEW of the anti-abortion movement is no abortion and no contraception. There are SOMEWHAT GREATER numbers of that movement that oppose free contraception to kids, based on the “message it sends”. However, as a bulk, I’d say the majority of the anti-abortion people couldn’t care less about contraception. I know, I work with them all the time. Abortion is the unifying factor across a surprisingly diverse set of groups.

Yeah, a tiny irrelevant fringe, except for all those people who worry about what message free contraception sends to kids. What message would that be, Professional Anti-Choice Talking Points Dude? In case I hadn’t gotten the message the first time about how accepting of contraception the majority of anti-choice activists are:

If abortion is ever banned, the people who want contraception banned will be marginalized.

Right. Because they’re so marginalized now.

Like I said, there are those who think it’s ok to impose their religion on others, and others who just want to protect life. The pro-life movement has both. They are united in their desire to ban abortion. Should that ever happen, the people who don’t care about contraception will evaporate. I’m one of them. I really have no desire to stop people from getting contraception. Indeed, I would fight for people’s right to have contraception. Abortion is a different matter.

Meaning that the “pro-life” movement will be officially anti-contraception should abortion be banned. And because being against birth control is far from a fringe position within that movement there will be plenty of people remaining to move on to the next item on the anti-choice agenda after banning abortion, which is eliminating access to contraception, by legal or effective means. And I have a feeling Dude will be right there with them.

I should qualify it by saying I’m not a big fan of contraception at government expense – at least not Federal government expense. There are exceptions, but we’re no where close to that debate.

He tipped his hand there. Folks, it really is about sex and punishing (certain) women for it.

Arizona PIRG Education Fund Releases New High Speed Rail Report

Calls on State of Arizona and ADOT to Follow Through on Commitment to High Speed Rail Funding & Development

Today the Arizona PIRG Education Fund released its new report The Right Track: Building a 21st Century High Speed Rail System for America which quantifies the benefits of high speed rail and sets recommendations for future investment.

Recently, the Obama administration announced that 31 states will receive a portion of $8 billion in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to plan & build high speed rail. Arizona was not awarded any money in this most recent round of grants, although the state did receive $1 million from the Federal Railroad Administration in 2008 to begin design of a Phoenix-Tucson passenger rail line.

“A national network of fast, frequent and dependable trains is a critical tool for reinventing the nation’s economy. Our state has previously recognized the need to greatly improve our rail system and now needs to be committed to building off of the momentum provided by the Administration,” said Jesse Victor, Transportation Associate for the Arizona PIRG Education Fund.

The Arizona PIRG Education Fund report analyzes the potential of high speed rail in nine different regions, including the Southwest. According to data cited in the report:

• The completion of a national high-speed rail network will curb congestion by reducing car travel by 29 million trips and air travel by nearly 500,000 flights annually.
• The task of building out the nation’s high speed passenger rail network is estimated to generate up to 1.6 million construction jobs, providing a needed shot in the arm for America’s manufacturing sector.
• A national high speed rail network will reduce global warming pollution by 6 billion pounds, the equivalent of taking almost a half a million cars off the road.
“The Phoenix area light rail represents a great step our state has taken toward a 21st century transportation solution to reduce the amount of time we spend in traffic, create jobs, reduce our dependence on oil and the pollution we spew into the air. As a mode of public transportation that has already proven far more popular than was even expected, Arizona decision makers must remain committed to ensuring rail’s continued success and expansion throughout our state,” Victor stated.

The report concludes with public interest recommendations for how to spend high speed rail investments including the need to invest adequate resources, maximizing “bang for the buck,” assuring transparency, setting standards and measuring progress.

-30-

The Right Track: Building a 21st Century High Speed Rail System for America can be downloaded at www.arizonapirg.org

The Right Track pdf

Some perspective: In the executive summary of that 77 page report, you’ll learn that China is spending $293 billion on high speed rail while the U.S. is spending a total of $10.5 billion. I’m looking forward to reading the whole thing tomorrow.

Per an AP article about the Senate Conference deliberations earlier this evening:

…Nebraska, Louisiana, Vermont and Massachusetts. These states are getting more federal help with Medicaid than other states. In the case of Nebraska — represented by Sen. Ben Nelson, who’s providing the critical 60th vote for the legislation to pass — the federal government is picking up 100 percent of the tab of a planned expansion of the program, in perpetuity…

In perpetuity! Kyl and McCain, especially McCain, what have y’all done for us lately? For that matter, what is Jan Brewer doing to get more federal dollars for AHCCCS?

Say what you will about Ben Nelson, DINO corporate sell-out and religious reactionary panderer extraordinaire, but the man knows how to take care of his constituents.

From the AP article:

A handful of physician-owned hospitals being built around the country — including one in Bellevue, Neb. — which would be permitted to get referrals from the doctors who own them, avoiding a new ban in the Senate bill that will apply to hospitals built in the future. Without mentioning Nebraska or other states by name, the Senate bill pushes back some legal deadlines by several months, in effect making a few hospitals that are near completion eligible to continue receiving referrals from the doctors who own them. The provision was described by a pair of health industry lobbyists who spoke on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely. Chalk up another win for Nelson.

Wowzers.

No, it’s because of this: The California legislature has passed single-payer health care for their state. Twice. Governor Schwartzenegger has vetoed it both times. As soon as they elect a Democratic governor, the largest state in the union will have single payer. Other states will follow suit. Single payer advocates in Maryland are pushing a plan of their own and have considerable legislative and popular support for it. The health care “reform” before Congress right now specifically disallows the creation of single payer plans by states. Think that’s not a big part of the sense of urgency to get something passed by the end of the year?

I’m not fooled for a second by the “please don’t throw us in the briar patch!” theatrics of the insurance lobby or the GOP in Congress. Believe me, they want this turkey passed every bit as much as the DLCers do. The kibosh on single payer is every bit as important, if not more important, than the mandate. For those who naively think passing some form of reform will “bring us one step closer to single payer”, I’ve got some swamp land in Mesa to sell you.

So no worries, cheerleaders, you’ll get your bill and the perfect will not be the enemy of the good. It will probably help a lot of people get health care that they need. That is an unvarnished good. But know that this is a further entrenchment of private insurers and pretty much a guarantee that we will not have single payer in this country for a long, long time. If ever.

And to my Republican and conservative readers: Now that you know this, doesn’t it put you in the untenable position of having to support the bill?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Dec. 4, 2009

Arizona Democratic Party announces 2009 Hall of Fame inductees

The Arizona Democratic Party is pleased to announce its Hall of Fame inductees for 2009. The six inductees and three Chair’s Award recipients join a long list of Arizona Democrats who have provided extraordinary service and leadership to the party and the state.

“These inductees are being honored for, in many cases, a lifetime of service to the Arizona Democratic Party,” said Don Bivens, ADP chairman. “It’s important that we recognize their hard work and sacrifice on behalf of candidates, campaigns and party activities.”

The 2009 Hall of Fame Inductees are:
Rick DeGraw of Phoenix
Leroy and Mary Jane Dyson of Tucson
Stanley and Barbara Lubin of Phoenix
Carolyn Maxon of Phoenix

Recipients of the 2009 Chair’s Award are:
Paul and Flo Eckstein of Phoenix
Chairman Ned Norris, Jr. of the Tohono O’odham Nation

Grassroots volunteers and elected officials gathered on the Sunday before Thanksgiving to honor the Hall of Fame inductees. The Phoenix Wyndham dinner event included special guests Attorney General Terry Goddard and Arizona Congressman Harry Mitchell. The keynote speaker was U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich.

Stabenow is the senator who famously challenged Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., over his comment that because he doesn’t need maternity care, it should not be covered by insurance policies (see video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jj6pqajvB8). At the dinner, Stabenow gave a rousing speech to Arizona Democrats about the importance of continuing the fight for what is just and fair.

For a comprehensive list of Arizona Democratic Party Hall of Fame inductees, go to http://www.azdem.org/about/108

###

I attended that event. Good times and Sen. Stabenow was charming, delightful, and on point. I’m reminded that I didn’t blog about Kyl’s asinine remark about men not needing maternity coverage and, thus, being entitled to lower health insurance premiums and I’m rather surprised I didn’t. Because my head exploded clean out of my skull when I heard it. Seriously.

Stabenow’s quick thinking retort about Kyl’s mom needing maternity coverage was good, but I would have pointed out that his wife needed maternity care to bear his two children, unless they adopted in which case some other woman needed medical attention in order that Jon Kyl could experience the joys of paternity. It’s all too typical for anti-choicers, particularly of the dude-ly persuasion, to pretend that the ladies become pregnant all by their lonesomes. While we’re on the topic of Kyl’s anti-choiceyness – it takes some mighty colossal chutzpah to take the position that women ought to be compelled by law to carry pregnancies to term while being all “Pssht, pay for it yourselves, bitches”. Excuse me? Nice family values you got there, Chief.

In the shellacking Kyl was getting in the lefty blogosphere, there were a lot of people making comparisons to coverage for Viagra and prostate screenings. Yeah, but hardly anyone seemed to grasp the most salient reason for why men should help foot the bill for maternity coverage. Once again, and in all-caps for the hard-of-hearing:

BECAUSE WOMEN DON’T GET PREGNANT BY THEMSELVES!

Sheesh. What’s so hard about that to understand? Certainly, pregnancy is a medical condition borne entirely by the woman but it is not caused entirely by the woman. Pregnancy leads to children, who are considered intrinsically rewarding to many of the people who bring them into the world. Some of those people happen to be men. We like to call them “fathers”.

Alrighty then. So back to me and why I was angry. No, not for the aforementioned reasons, though they are all valid. I was furious because I know that group health policies price 18 to 45 year old women’s premiums substantially higher than their male counterparts. Why? Some of it can be explained away by women needing more routine preventive care like pap smears. But much of the disparity is due to expenses related to contraception, pregnancy, and childbirth. Not to belabor (pardon the pun) the matter or anything, but those things presuppose the involvement of, what are those people called again? Oh yeah, men.

Which means that I get to pay a higher insurance premium than a guy my age does, though I am a childfree curmudgeon with no maternal instinct. I get the Uterus Penalty just because I have one, though I have no intention of using mine. As do women who have had all the kids they intend to have but are still of childbearing age. I’m picturing some male anti-choicer knob who pickets Planned Parenthood every Tuesday and Thursday and has five kids paying lower health insurance premiums than I do. It really chaps my hide. That is bogosity extraordinaire,

The insurance companies can argue from a purely actuarial risk standpoint it makes sense to charge women more than men because of pregnancy related expenses but when we’re talking about insurance reform that spreads the cost of health care around more fairly, it’s time to do away with unfair gender rating that penalizes the possessors of the uteri, whether they intend to use them or not.

Call Senator Kyl’s office now. Tell him dudes shouldn’t be able to fob the costs of becoming fathers or those of avoiding becoming fathers onto the childless curmudgeon women anymore.

Franken’s amendment ended up passing, 68-30. Here’s a list of the Senators who showed broad support for Roman Polanski by voting against it:

Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Kyl (R-AZ)
McCain (R-AZ)
McConnell (R-KY)
Risch (R-ID)
Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

ADDENDUM: It’s been pointed out to me that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbied against the Franken amendment as well:

“Republicans point out that the amendment was opposed by a host of business interests, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and applies to a wide range of companies, including IBM and Boeing.”

I guess we must cover up crimes like rape in order to save capitalism.

Lovely. Thanks Kyl and McCain, for standing strong against rape. /sarcasm

Next up, if you thought the abortion bill that just passed in Arizona was an atrocious violation of women’s privacy and dignity get a load of what Oklahoma wants to put women through:

A new Oklahoma law requires physicians to disclose detailed information on women’s abortions to the State’s Department Of Health, which will then post the collected data on a public website. The controversial measure comes into effect on November 1 and will cost $281,285 to implement, $256,285 each subsequent year to maintain.

Oklahoma women undergoing abortion procedures will be legally forced to reveal:

1) Date of abortion
2) Country in which abortion is performed
3) Age of mother
4) Marital status of mother
5) Race of mother
6) Years of education of mother
7) State or foreign country of residence of mother
8) Total number of previous pregnancies of the mother

This might be what we have to look forward to next session, ladies. Could it be any more imperative to win in 2010?

Sen. Jon Kyl (-Arizona) In Office – Earmarks Requested

Fiscal Year: 2008	Number	Cost
Solo Earmarks	3	$11,784,000
With Other Members	28	$117,338,500
All Sponsored Earmarks	31	$129,122,500

It’s all good, though.   Those earmarks have a “specific definition”, which makes them not earmarks.   Somehow.

It’s one of the reasons I find Republican hyperventilating over the earmarks more than a little disingenuous. McCain was ranting on the floor yesterday, blaming President Obama for earmarks McCain’s fellow senators stuffed into the bill. Perhaps, before McCain castigates the White House, he can spend some time talking to his own Republican colleagues about their notion of fiscal responsibility.

He can start with his fellow Arizonan, Sen. Jon Kyl (R). It was Kyl who complained bitterly about spending in the stimulus package, which he described as “billions of dollars of earmarks and pork.” It’s the same Kyl who requested $118 million in earmarks in the omnibus bill.

Asked about the hypocrisy, Kyl told Fox News over the weekend, “I would suggest that they’re not earmarks under the definition, because we have a specific definition.”

Of course he does. How convenient.

“…specific definition”?? What’s Kyl’s definition of “earmark”, then?