Listen Up Dems: Repressive Societies Prioritize Controlling Women's Reproduction

Anne of Carversville has tracked the Republican War on Women in-depth since 2007. The assault on women has gained huge momentum under Trump, and this 2007 essay written by Steven Conn, now the W.E Smith Professor of History at Miami University, is more relevant today than ever. 

Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Rep. Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico lit a bonfire among Democrats when he said earlier in August that abortion rights shouldn't be a "litmus test" for Democrats. 

Abortion rights activists including myself erupted, imploring leaders like Cecile Richards, the president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, to remain defiant with the Democratic Party. Richards couldn’t be clearer on how wrong she thinks Luján is, telling Politico. “It’s a shocking sort of misunderstanding of actually where the country is … which is overwhelmingly supportive of abortion rights and also, who are the ground troops that kind of fuel the election of candidates.” 

“Fundamentally, perhaps [what] he’s missing is, people can distinguish between their own personal feelings and what they believe government or politicians should do. And people even in some of the most conservative areas of the country who may themselves personally say, ‘I would never choose to have an abortion,’ or, ‘That’s not something that’s right for me,’ also, absolutely do not believe politicians should be making decisions about pregnancy for women,” Richards argues. “I think he’s totally wrong and I’ll use every opportunity to convince him of that.”

The truth is that Trump and conservative Republicans are coming at women's body autonomy with a torch -- the same torches that burned in Charlottesville. The alt-right believes that women's essential purpose is to breed. The white supremacists want white babies and they are poised to insist Handmaiden style that they -- THE MEN -- have control over women's bodies. It's positively disgusting to understand that in the aftermath of Hillary's defeat, Democratic men want to bring the Blue Dog Southern Democrats back into the party -- when they would be far more conservative today than 50 years ago. 

Might Hillary Clinton Become A Guest Pastor In The Methodist Church? What A Brilliant Idea!

Hillary Clinton speaks at Union Baptist Church in Durham, North Carolina, in October 2016.

Hillary Clinton just might become a preacher. The Atlantic writes that's what she told Bill Shillady, Hillary's longtime pastor, at a photo shoot for his new book focused on the daily devotionals he sent Hillary during the 2016 campaign. The story has legs, according to former Newsweek editor Kenneth Woodward who said that Clinton told him in 1994 that the idea of becoming an ordained Methodist minister was on her mind "all the time". She requested his confidentiality, however, saying "It will make me seem much too pious."

Religion is on Hillary's mind, however, and I doubt it's only because she seeks to rehabilitate her public image, as suggested by Hillary's critics. Hillary clearly sees the way right-wing Christians are demanding that theirs is the only valid American faith, when America worships at least four visions of God, according to an ongoing 2010 project at Baylor University by Paul Froese and Christopher Bader, one that has really caught our eye at AOC. The original research surveyed in-depth 1,648 US adults. But the online research -- which I took -- covered over 100,000 people.

We must broaden the definition of God in America, because the right-wingers who have cloaked themselves in religion and its most rigid beliefs are not the only religious people in America.

Two books are slated to come out of Clinton world early this fall: 'What Happened',Clinton’s personal account of the election, and 'Strong for a Moment' Like This, Shillady’s book of devotionals. Shillady, who runs the United Methodist City Society in New York, wrote the book at Clinton’s suggestion; he said his is the only book for which Clinton has agreed to write a foreword. Clinton and her staffers read and approved the copy ahead of time, writes The Atlantic.

My pleasure of discovering this article came in validating Shillady's devotional to Hillary the day after she lost the election. He wrote:

Jesus completed the excruciating task of giving up his life as a sacrifice for the sins of the world. It was his faith and belief in his heavenly Father, that gave him the grace and peace to submit to Friday. While death had seemingly won, Jesus knew better. When he said, "It is finished," it wasn't meant to be a statement of concession. It was a declaration that a new day was on the way.

Friday is finished. Sunday is coming. Death will be shattered. Hope will be restored. But first, we must live through the darkness and seeming hopelessness of Friday.

As for Hillary attending the seminary, that's doubtful, according to Shillady. 

 “I think it would be more of … her guest preaching at some point,” he said. “We have a long history of lay preachers in the United Methodist Church.”

Since the election, “I think her faith is stronger,” Shillady explained. “I haven’t noticed anything different, except that I think she is more relaxed than I’ve ever seen her.” I will pursue this discovery of Hillary's current thinking to see if there is any way that Anne of Carversville can contribute to a new project, one that acknowledges the importance of religion in American lives, while working to educate and communicate that the vision of God in America is not singular. ~ Anne

Eric Bolling Suspended At Fox News With Claims That He Sent C#ck Shots To Fox Women

Fox News' Eric Bolling

Birds of a feather do flock together. Yet another white male is taking a tumble at Fox News for sexual harassment, with Fox's suspension of yet another Fox personality who acts like god, when the subject is women. To be reasonable here, 'The Specialist's' co-host Eric Bolling's c#ck photo was sent to multiple women colleagues at Fox News Channel and sister network Fox Business several years ago, not last week. 

The intended recipients and others in and out of Fox -- a total of 14 people -- confirmed the story, which broke on Friday, written by HuffPost's Yashar Ali. While an investigation is conducted, Bolling is suspended from his broadcasts. 

We've written before about Bolling, a former commodities trader, working at Fox News and Fox Business since 2007, arriving from CNBC. Ali writes that Bolling regularly made sexist comments on-air. He got our attention in September 2014 while discussing the first woman fighter pilot from the United Arab Emirates leading a bombing of the Islamic State. 

Bolling asked on air if instead of speaking of “boots on the ground” in a military sense, it would be more appropriate to say “boobs on the ground.” The crass host apologized the next day, saying that his wife gave him “a look” when he arrived home. Presumably, Bolling slept in the guest bedroom this weekend. 

In a note of irony, Eric Bolling engaged in a major Twitter war in 2014 with disgraced former Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner, himself involved in a major texting scandal.  “He is a sick human being, to continue to do this time and time again, continue to get caught, saying he’s not going to do it again, gets caught again," Bolling pontificated.