When the election really heats up, you can be sure that this vote on freezing Planned Parenthood funding—as well eliminating parts of Obamacare— will become a major issue. While the Affordable Care Act may not be terribly popular among the general population, hundreds of thousands have received better insurance coverage through the plans, and the biggest criticism is just that the administration didn’t go far enough when it comes to regulating the industry and making healthcare more affordable. As for Planned Parenthood, despite the ongoing criticism and attacks from the right wing, approximately 60 percent of voters still want the organization to continue being funded.The anti-abortion movement is pointing to the Planned Parenthood defunding vote as a sign of changing momentum. Alliance Defending Freedom notes in a press release that in 2011 a defunding vote failed the Senate 42 to 58, a sign of how far the right has progressed that now a defunding bill actually passed the Senate instead. But even their own voting numbers show that the momentum they claim isn’t there. In fact, there more votes against the defunding measure in December than there were in August, when the Senate previously voted against funding but could not get the 60 votes needed for its passage. This is even truer once you take into consideration that Majority Leader McConnell switched his nay vote to a yea since it wasn’t needed as a procedural move this time.American voters support Planned Parenthood, and that support will no doubt continue even as the organization is attacked both politically and physically. Thankfully, the funding will remain intact thanks to President Obama, who will veto the bill. And when November comes around, those right-wing-pandering senators may very well see just how much the mainstream voters disagree—and likely lose their majority in the process.
Category Archives: Feminism
Palestinian MP sentenced to 15 months in Israeli prison | PNN
An Israeli military court on Sunday evening sentenced member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) Khalida Jarrar to 15 months in prison.The leftist PFLP member, feminist and human-rights activist, Khalida Jarrar was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces from her home in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, on 2 April 2015, for her political opinions.
According tho the Palestinian Information Center (PIC), the Israeli government charged her on 12 accounts, and after 25 court hearings, the prosecution and the court settled on three main charges: Providing assistance to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), incitement against Israel, and membership in the PFLP.
Source: Palestinian MP sentenced to 15 months in Israeli prison | PNN
Humans of New York
“I knew immediately after my husband’s death that I would have to let go of my dreams. I fell into a deep depression. I was going to be a single mother so I’d have to focus everything on raising my child. I thought that I would never be able to do anything in my life again. I skipped the orientation for the German university. I missed my German language lessons. Everything seemed to be slipping away. I gave birth to my daughter and moved in with my parents. When I saw my daughter, I realized that I needed to get my life back on track. She’d already lost her father. I didn’t want her to lose her mother too. So I enrolled at the University of Damascus and continued with my studies. I graduated once again at the top of my class. I began to work as a professor while I applied for my PhD. My daughter was getting bigger. Everything seemed to be getting back on track. Then the war came.”
Source: Humans of New York
Mimi Writes…….: Monday Mimisms ~ Chasing Happy
Happy.
I’ll keep reaching. But what used to make me happy only scratches the surface these days. What’s underneath in the pages of years gone by is where the real substance lies in all of us. Other people need that Well. And as you age, you learn to keep the sacred parts to yourself for those bubbly moments in the middle of the day that make you smile and give away the residual parts borne of your own struggles to others. You are no longer restless. There’s a contentment that comes with some living. It doesn’t matter how you lived so much anymore, but why you lived and who you loved.Can I make someone else happy today?I hope so. That’s the real happy.
Why the Planned Parenthood shooting was always about Black lives

I craved an intersectional framework that acknowledged a linkage between these incidents. When it was reported that Dear had been taken into police custody alive – a harsh juxtaposition to the way McDonald and so many other Black people like him have been killed by police authorities almost on sight – a connection was made: in an anti-Black nation, white privilege and power dictates who lives and who dies. This is a necessary connection that cannot be understated. But it is an observation that reroutes us back to a discourse of Black Lives Matter that does not consider how an attack on Planned Parenthood is always also an attack on Black lives.The history of the problematic divides between race activism and gender activism, particularly the fight for access to reproductive health, is just as rich as the history of said movements themselves. It is no secret that despite the contributions of women and queer folks to strengthen their reach and impact, prominent racial justice movements – including the Abolitionist, Civil Rights, and Black Power movements – maintained male-dominated leadership structures and recognition. And even more disturbing, cases of sexual violence and assault against Black women have also been documented within those movements. From Clarence Thomas to Bill Cosby to R. Kelly, Black leadership and iconicity are continuously sheathed in male privilege and dominance, often at the expense of Black women. Even in the midst of the Chicago protests against the murder of McDonald, several Black women activists were physically and verbally assaulted by Black male elders and activists.Along a similar vein, eugenics supporter Margaret Sanger has left a nasty stain on the legacy of Planned Parenthood. It’s a stain that Planned Parenthood has let settle and concretize by failing to address how this history has residually lingered. Cecile Richards, a liberal white woman, is the current president and public face of Planned Parenthood. But Richards’ individuality aside, the political face of Planned Parenthood has also always been that of white, liberal femaleness. Creating a narrative that protects the reproductive rights of liberal, white women has often resulted in the erasure of the experiences, labor, and activism of the poor people of color that need the affordable services of Planned Parenthood the most. As a former patient, clinic escort, and employee of Planned Parenthood, I know firsthand just how alienating, discouraging, and violent this history can be for Black women attempting to do intersectional reproductive justice work.Intersectionality mattered then and it matters now. When we talk about Black lives mattering we are talking about the right and access of all of us (women, queer, and trans Black folks included) to seek the health treatment and care that determines whether or not we survive. When we talk about reproductive rights, we are talking about providing access and resources to those most economically and politically marginalized. So an act of domestic terrorism against an organization that provides reproductive health care services to economically disadvantaged communities is absolutely an attack on Black lives. If you think there can be a movement for Black lives while not supporting reproductive rights, you’ve missed the mark. If you think you can advocate for reproductive rights without a framework that prioritizes Black women, you have missed the mark.Before we knew that one of the victims was a Black veteran; and before we learned that Dear was given a choice to live – a choice that is too often denied to Black folks – the shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood was about race. There’s levels to this shit and we have to engage them all.
Source: Why the Planned Parenthood shooting was always about Black lives
Why Feminism Can’t Be Replaced By Equalism Or Humanism. | Rebelle Society
When people say that feminism should change its name to something that doesn’t include fem, it is clear that they have not taken a single hour out of their lives to find out what patriarchy means or what issues women and men face in today’s world.To say that feminism should be replaced by humanism, just because the word offends some people simply because of the feminine connotation of it, is to take away another right from women, and to take away their representation in this movement they have worked for endlessly.To say that feminism should be replaced by humanism shows that you care so much more about the name than the sacred struggle that feminism embodies.
Source: Why Feminism Can’t Be Replaced By Equalism Or Humanism. | Rebelle Society
Afghan Women’s Writing Project | Welcome My Baby
When I was born no one was happyNo one smiledNo one said, “Welcome my baby,Welcome my sister.”Why? What is my sin?I am a human, a girl.A woman is brutally beatenon the street without reasonA girl is slanderedStoned by the peopleA woman is forced to have illicit relationsoutside of her marriage.She cannot defend herselfA man burns his wife’s bodyNo one defends herWhy? What is her sin?I can’t be silent.I can’t accept that.I want to say, “Welcome my babyWelcome my sister.” By Manizha
More than 1,000 women in secret Facebook group name men who troll women online – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
More than 1,100 women are tackling online abuse by naming and shaming “trolls” in a Twitter campaign which launched this morning.Members of a secret Facebook group are tweeting out names of more than 150 men who trolled Clementine Ford — with comments including “go to the bathroom and kill yourself” and “bitches like you are the reason why some men are prone to violence” — after a male Meriton employee was fired for calling her a “slut” online.The hashtag #EndViolenceAgainstWomen and screenshots of the abuse would also be included.Within 20 minutes of its launch this morning the hashtag was trending at number one in Australia.Sydney author and columnist Kerri Sackville is leading the charge against the men she has labelled trolls, saying she is sick of seeing women, particularly those in the media, maliciously threatened with rape and murder online.”When you abuse one woman you abuse all of us … I said to my friend there has to be something we can do,” Sackville told the ABC.
It’s funny now, after nearly three years of… – One Costume A Day
http://onecostumeaday.tumblr.com/post/134471232099/its-funny-now-after-nearly-three-years-of
It’s funny now, after nearly three years of working on this project, I find that whenever I’m upset, I become strongly, almost viscerally compelled to paint my face. After learning of the San Bernardino and Savannah shootings yesterday, this is what came out. Go be a force of beauty in the world today. And then call your senator, your representative, and support your local organizations working for stricter gun control laws.
Somali journalist killed in Mogadishu by bomb planted in her car – Reporters Without Borders
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the targeted killing of national radio and TV journalist Hindiya Mohamed in Mogadishu today.Mohamed, who worked for Radio Mogadishu and Somali National TV, was badly wounded by a bomb planted in her car and died from her injuries in Madina Hospital a few hours later.No organization has claimed the bombing but it had all the hallmarks of an operation by the Islamist rebel militia Al Shabaab. This group had already targeted journalists from the national media of the Somali State against which it is fighting.“We are appalled to learn of yet another journalist’s death in Somalia,” said Cléa Kahn-Sriber, the head of RSF’s Africa desk. “The government must do everything possible to arrest those responsible for such attacks and bring them to justice. The impunity reigning in Somalia just encourages murders of this kind. Our thoughts are with Hindiya Mohamed’s family,especially her children, which has already suffered so much.”Mohamed’s husband, Liban Ali Nur, a journalist who also worked for national television, was killed in a suicide bombing in September 2012 at The Village, a Mogadishu restaurant frequented by media personnel. The bombing was claimed by Al Shabaab at the time, which said it had intended to kill journalists.Mohamed is the 38th journalist to be killed in connection with their work in Somalia since 2010. Ranked 172nd out of 180 countries in the 2015 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Somalia is Africa’s deadliest country for media personnel.
Source: Somali journalist killed in Mogadishu by bomb planted in her car – Reporters Without Borders









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