Brother Tom spells it out:
Our show begins this Monday at 3 PM Pacific. Are you ready?
Not ready? Then GET ready. You can receive the show in any number of ways.
"...over the weekend, we will be changing from a recorded promo to live transmissions of whatever is going on in the studio. Would you like to hear some of the preparations? You are IN!"
Tom Leykis
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Thursday, March 29, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
7 of the most misandric bills from across the country
1. The Spilled Semen Amendment Oklahoma state senator Constance Johnson introduced an amendment to that state’s Personhood bill, SB 1433, that would essentially outlaw masturbation for men. Johnson’s amendment proposed that the legislation include a provision that men ejaculating anywhere outside a woman’s vagina be considered “an action against an unborn child.”
Johnson wrote about the amendment in the Guardian:
My action to amend the so-called “Personhood” bill – SB 1433, introduced by Senator Brian Crain (Republican, Tulsa) – represents the culmination of my and many other Oklahomans’ frustration regarding the ridiculousness of our reproductive policy initiatives in Oklahoma. I have received overwhelmingly positive responses from men and women in Oklahoma – and worldwide. The Personhood bill would potentially allow governmental intrusion into families’ personal lives by policing what happens to a woman’s eggs without any similar thought to what happens to a man’s sperm.
2. The Viagra Amendment
Illinois state Rep. Kelly Cassidy proposed an amendment to a bill including a provision for mandatory pre-abortion ultrasounds that would require men trying to get a Viagra prescription to watch a graphic video about the dangers of the drug beforehand.
Cassidy told Huffington Post, “If they’re serious about us not being about to make our own health care decisions, then I’m just as serious about them not being able to make theirs.”
The amendment was attached to the “Ultrasound Opportunity Act,” Illinois HB4085, which is still working its way through the Illinois legislature.
3. The Viagra Bill: Ohio SB 307
The best-known protest bill in the works is that of Nina Turner, an Ohio state senator. Turner has introduced a bill that would require men to, among other things, get an affidavit from a sexual partner affirming their impotency before they could get a prescription for Viagra. Men trying to get Viagra would also have to see a sex therapist and undergo a cardiac stress test.
And it doesn’t end there. After being prescribed the drug, men would have to have a cardiac stress test every 90 days to affirm their fitness for sexual activity, plus do three sessions of outpatient counseling.
Turner got quite a bit of attention for the bill, including an appearance on MSNBC. It was intended to protest the Ohio “heartbeat bill” which would ban abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. It’s unlikely to pass.
I discussed this here. Stacey Newman's photo in this post too.
4. Missouri HB1853: The Vasectomy Bill
This bill, introduced by Missouri State Rep. Stacey Newman, would stop men from getting vasectomies unless the procedure would prevent serious injury or death.
The bill’s language is strong: “A vasectomy shall only be performed to avert the death of the man or avert serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the man. No such condition shall be deemed to exist if it is based on a diagnosis or claim of a mental or emotional condition of the man or that the man will purposefully engage in conduct which he intends to result in his death or in substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function.”
Newman said in a statement, “If we are going to seriously restrict access to birth control used by over 98 percent of Missouri women and widely used since 1960, then it’s only fair we legislate men’s access as well.” Her bill was in response to the Missouri House’s attempt to block the Obama administration’s contraception mandate.
5. The Rectal Exam Amendment
Virginia state senator Janet Howell proposed an amendment to the state’s anti-abortion bill (recently signed by Gov. Bob McDonnell but sans transvaginal ultrasound mandate) that would require men to undergo a rectal exam and cardiac stress test before being treated for erectile dysfunction.
The amendment didn’t pass, but came close — it was narrowly defeated by a vote of 21 to 19. Six of the seven women in the Virginia State Senate voted in favor of the amendment.
6. Personhood Rights For Sperm
The Wilmington, Delaware City Council passed a resolution calling on the Delaware legislature to classify sperm as people. The logic: if personhood rights can be extended to fertilized eggs, then they should also be extended to sperm. The resolution calls them “egg people” and “sperm people.”
If the resolution were to be turned into law, men would be legally barred from harming their sperm in any way. The councilwoman who introduced the resolution, Loretta Walsh, described it as tongue-in-cheek — which didn’t stop Personhood USA from issuing a strongly-worded statement.
“This kind of political showboating has no place in government, at any level,” said Personhood USA spokeswoman Jennifer Mason in the statement.
7. The Pennsylvania Erectile Dysfunction Bill
Unlike the other protest bills, this one is the work of a man. Pennsylvania state senator Larry Farnese plans to introduce legislation this week that would, like Turner’s, force men to undergo a battery of tests before being treated for erectile dysfunction. Under the legislation, men would have to watch a video on the side effects of Viagra, get a prostate exam, and receive cardiac stress tests and sex therapy.
The anti-abortion bill in the Pennsylvania legislature right now is thought to be one of the most restrictive in the country. Like Virginia’s, it would require women to get an ultrasound before getting an abortion. Farnese released a statement saying “I’m submitting legislation that will require men to undergo a few similarly evasive [sic] tests in order to show that this effort is ridiculous and that we should be protecting and expanding, not watering down, health services for women.”
Source:click here
Men have created laws that benefited women and now that women have legislative capability what are they doing? Hurting men. It seems that women have forgotten what male legislators did for them by passing laws that benefited them. I guess they don't care as long as they are hurting men.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
VAWA goes before the Senate
The following is from SAVE:
In the last week, Senator Leahy (D-VT) gathered enough co-sponsors to avoid a filibuster, and the Senate is expected to vote on the Violence Against Women Act (S.1925) very soon.
This means time is running short to take action.
Let's make sure that every senator knows that without accountability, accreditation and equal protection, VAWA is a flawed bill. Let's make sure they know that we want them to vote NO.
Find your senators' phone numbers here: click here.
Or call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, where an operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
The vote could be this week, so please call right now.
Sincerely,
Teri
Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org
I guess it's going down to the wire. If we can kill this in the Senate let's do it. Let's send those emails or make those calls however you want to do it. Let's hold them accountable.
In the last week, Senator Leahy (D-VT) gathered enough co-sponsors to avoid a filibuster, and the Senate is expected to vote on the Violence Against Women Act (S.1925) very soon.
This means time is running short to take action.
Let's make sure that every senator knows that without accountability, accreditation and equal protection, VAWA is a flawed bill. Let's make sure they know that we want them to vote NO.
Find your senators' phone numbers here: click here.
Or call the Capitol switchboard at (202) 224-3121, where an operator will connect you directly with the Senate office you request.
The vote could be this week, so please call right now.
Sincerely,
Teri
Teri Stoddard, Program Director
Stop Abusive and Violent Environments
www.saveservices.org
I guess it's going down to the wire. If we can kill this in the Senate let's do it. Let's send those emails or make those calls however you want to do it. Let's hold them accountable.
Monday, March 26, 2012
More on the SPLC
You might recall how the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) put on its list various men's rights groups that they listed as "hate groups" click here. Well now there are other groups that SPLC labeled as "hate groups" yet they aren't. Here is a list of these so-called "hate groups" (no,they are not MRA's):
link 1
link 2
link 3
link 4
The thing is that Radfemhub is collecting donations for the SPLC. The irony is that Radfemhub is an actual hate group,in fact they are the ones whose posts were in the agent orange files. So why is SPLC working with Radfemhub? Birds of a feather flock together,even if they are birds of hate.
The thing is that Radfemhub is collecting donations for the SPLC. The irony is that Radfemhub is an actual hate group,in fact they are the ones whose posts were in the agent orange files. So why is SPLC working with Radfemhub? Birds of a feather flock together,even if they are birds of hate.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Brother Tom is back
From an email concerning Tom Leykis:
Shock Jock Tom Leykis Returns After Three Year Absence…But Not to Radio
Longtime LA radio shock jock Tom Leykis returns Monday, April 2nd at 3 PM Pacific time, uncut and uncensored, with a daily show produced specifically for internet distribution at http://www.blowmeuptom.com/.
Longtime LA radio shock jock Tom Leykis takes his show to the internet beginning on April 2nd. Blow me up Tom
Imagine having three years to learn as much as you can about new ways of doing things, about what is possible, as well as having time to relax and refresh.
Burbank, CA (PRWEB) March 23, 2012
After 21 years of outraging Southern California drive time radio listeners, Tom Leykis left the air in February of 2009. And, as so often happens in the radio business, listeners were left wondering why he was gone and where he went.
The answers will be found when Leykis returns for a new daily show after an amazing 37 months off the air when The Tom Leykis Show on April 2nd at 3 PM Pacific time. And this time, he’s taking no chances of being made invisible again by the brick-and-mortar terrestrial radio industry because the show will be heard live and on 24/7 streamed replays athttp://www.blowmeuptom.com/ as well as through media players such as the TuneIn application for Android phones and iPhones, but not on radio.
Leykis, who for 12 years was one of LA’s top-rated afternoon radio personalities on LA’s former KLSX 97.1 FM (and who for eight years was the afternoon counterpart to Howard Stern’s legendary morning show), suddenly left the air when the station’s owner, CBS Radio, decided for economic reasons to change the station’s format to top-40.
So why didn’t Leykis, who had never in his career been out of work for more than a few months, simply go to another radio station and pick up where he left off? It was because he had signed a five-year guaranteed contract to provide his daily show and any potential streams or podcasts exclusively to CBS. The result was that, when KLSX changed format, Leykis was paid his full salary to do absolutely nothing from 2009 until March 31st 2012, which is one week from Saturday.
"After taking a few months off, I took a good hard look at the radio business that I’ve loved since I was a kid and realized that it’s now in a world of hurt. Deregulation of the broadcasting business allowed companies that once owned a dozen radio stations to, within about a decade, own hundreds of stations,” Leykis says.
“And they didn’t buy those stations with money stashed in a mattress. The companies borrowed money and, in many cases, are in economic situations that mirror those of the underwater homeowners we read so much about.”
So Leykis, as he has so many times in his career, decided to reinvent himself as an entrepreneur, creating his internet audio content company The New Normal New Normal Network in 2010.
Leykis says that, rather than feeling like punishment, having three years off with full pay has been “liberating.”
“Imagine having three years to learn as much as you can about new ways of doing things, about what is possible, as well as having time to relax and refresh,” he says.
“What I found,” says Leykis, “was that, unlike radio, we start with a clean balance sheet and that we can produce the same or better content without real estate, without big, expensive and outdated equipment such as transmitters and satellite dishes, and without government regulation. We can be heard anywhere in the world rather than in select radio markets. We can produce technically better-sounding audio content more cheaply and we don’t have limitations as to content or what kinds or advertising we can accept. And we don’t have to answer to the FCC.”
Tom Leykis (Twitter: @TomLeykis) sees another benefit too. “Because we don’t start with a mountain of debt, beholden to private equity groups or hedge funds, we can sell advertising at a far more reasonable price than a local radio station,” he says.
“We are offering special rates to small and medium sized businesses that feel that they’ve been shut out from radio advertising over recent years by stations who need to keep pushing ad rates higher just to pay their Wall Street debt service,” Leykis says. The New Normal has set up a special phone number for businesses who are looking for an alternative to radio advertising: (818) 52-RADIO (527-2346).
And what about the recent controversies involving Rush Limbaugh or KFI Radio’s John & Ken Show? “Those are good examples of the influence of large conglomerate ownership of the broadcasting industry,” says Leykis. “Whether you agree with what those hosts said or not, what made talk radio great for all those years was the ability to be outrageous and to not have to apologize for it. That’s another great reason for moving my business to the internet.”
Is he excited to be returning to doing a daily call-in show? “Absolutely,” he says, “but this time it’s as much about taking pride of ownership as it is about doing an outrageous show.”
Welcome back,brother Tom we have missed you and what is on radio is not the same. It's good to see a brother MRA back at his post getting the message out. Looking forward to April 2.
Shock Jock Tom Leykis Returns After Three Year Absence…But Not to Radio
Longtime LA radio shock jock Tom Leykis returns Monday, April 2nd at 3 PM Pacific time, uncut and uncensored, with a daily show produced specifically for internet distribution at http://www.blowmeuptom.com/.
Longtime LA radio shock jock Tom Leykis takes his show to the internet beginning on April 2nd. Blow me up Tom
Imagine having three years to learn as much as you can about new ways of doing things, about what is possible, as well as having time to relax and refresh.
Burbank, CA (PRWEB) March 23, 2012
After 21 years of outraging Southern California drive time radio listeners, Tom Leykis left the air in February of 2009. And, as so often happens in the radio business, listeners were left wondering why he was gone and where he went.
The answers will be found when Leykis returns for a new daily show after an amazing 37 months off the air when The Tom Leykis Show on April 2nd at 3 PM Pacific time. And this time, he’s taking no chances of being made invisible again by the brick-and-mortar terrestrial radio industry because the show will be heard live and on 24/7 streamed replays athttp://www.blowmeuptom.com/ as well as through media players such as the TuneIn application for Android phones and iPhones, but not on radio.
Leykis, who for 12 years was one of LA’s top-rated afternoon radio personalities on LA’s former KLSX 97.1 FM (and who for eight years was the afternoon counterpart to Howard Stern’s legendary morning show), suddenly left the air when the station’s owner, CBS Radio, decided for economic reasons to change the station’s format to top-40.
So why didn’t Leykis, who had never in his career been out of work for more than a few months, simply go to another radio station and pick up where he left off? It was because he had signed a five-year guaranteed contract to provide his daily show and any potential streams or podcasts exclusively to CBS. The result was that, when KLSX changed format, Leykis was paid his full salary to do absolutely nothing from 2009 until March 31st 2012, which is one week from Saturday.
"After taking a few months off, I took a good hard look at the radio business that I’ve loved since I was a kid and realized that it’s now in a world of hurt. Deregulation of the broadcasting business allowed companies that once owned a dozen radio stations to, within about a decade, own hundreds of stations,” Leykis says.
“And they didn’t buy those stations with money stashed in a mattress. The companies borrowed money and, in many cases, are in economic situations that mirror those of the underwater homeowners we read so much about.”
So Leykis, as he has so many times in his career, decided to reinvent himself as an entrepreneur, creating his internet audio content company The New Normal New Normal Network in 2010.
Leykis says that, rather than feeling like punishment, having three years off with full pay has been “liberating.”
“Imagine having three years to learn as much as you can about new ways of doing things, about what is possible, as well as having time to relax and refresh,” he says.
“What I found,” says Leykis, “was that, unlike radio, we start with a clean balance sheet and that we can produce the same or better content without real estate, without big, expensive and outdated equipment such as transmitters and satellite dishes, and without government regulation. We can be heard anywhere in the world rather than in select radio markets. We can produce technically better-sounding audio content more cheaply and we don’t have limitations as to content or what kinds or advertising we can accept. And we don’t have to answer to the FCC.”
Tom Leykis (Twitter: @TomLeykis) sees another benefit too. “Because we don’t start with a mountain of debt, beholden to private equity groups or hedge funds, we can sell advertising at a far more reasonable price than a local radio station,” he says.
“We are offering special rates to small and medium sized businesses that feel that they’ve been shut out from radio advertising over recent years by stations who need to keep pushing ad rates higher just to pay their Wall Street debt service,” Leykis says. The New Normal has set up a special phone number for businesses who are looking for an alternative to radio advertising: (818) 52-RADIO (527-2346).
And what about the recent controversies involving Rush Limbaugh or KFI Radio’s John & Ken Show? “Those are good examples of the influence of large conglomerate ownership of the broadcasting industry,” says Leykis. “Whether you agree with what those hosts said or not, what made talk radio great for all those years was the ability to be outrageous and to not have to apologize for it. That’s another great reason for moving my business to the internet.”
Is he excited to be returning to doing a daily call-in show? “Absolutely,” he says, “but this time it’s as much about taking pride of ownership as it is about doing an outrageous show.”
Welcome back,brother Tom we have missed you and what is on radio is not the same. It's good to see a brother MRA back at his post getting the message out. Looking forward to April 2.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Pro-MRA music video
Check this video out. It fucking rocks. Finally a pro-MRA video that tells it like it is. Thank you Jade Michael for this video. May it be played throughout the MRM community.
Thursday, March 22, 2012
Mainstream media takes notice of VAWA status
TUESDAY, MAR 20, 2012 4:45 AM PACIFIC
DAYLIGHT TIME The coming fight over violence against women
Republicans are determined to demagogue the Violence Against Women Act.
They're wrong on the politics and the facts
BY IRIN CARMON
Reauthorizing the once-bipartisan Violence Against Women Act used to be a matter of Senate routine, but it has now gone the way of debt-ceiling negotiations — into the trenches of partisan warfare. Reading recent reports of the coming Capitol Hill showdown on the VAWA, you would either conclude that Republicans are broadening their assault on women, or Democrats have politicized the bill with various poison pills involving LGBT rights, immigration and Native American communities. What gets lost in both explanations is the merits of the actual changes.
While VAWA has not yet faced a full Senate vote, all Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted in February against reauthorization. Democrats are clearly trying to use this to capitalize on the recent interest in Republican misogyny, which, legislatively speaking, has become mainstreamed in the party. Sen. Dianne Feinstein asserted on the Senate floor last week that “This is one more step in the removal of rights for women.” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shot back Thursday, citing a Politico article to suggest Sen. Chuck Schumer “is sitting up at night trying to figure out a way to create an issue where there isn’t one … to help Democrats get reelected.”
The Democrats’ latest land mine, according to McConnell and his caucus, is to have quietly made VAWA a vehicle for radical causes. Sen. Jeff Sessions complained, “You think they might have put things in there we couldn’t support that maybe then they could accuse you of not being supportive of fighting violence against women?” Sen. Chuck Grassley has accused Democrats of adding specialized provisions about same-sex partner violence, immigration and Native American jurisdictional issues that are “not consensus items,” to make Republicans look pro-domestic violence.
See if you can make sense of the following Grassley condemnation: “The substitute creates so many new programs for underserved populations that it risks losing focus on helping victims, period … If every group is a priority, no group is a priority.” Apparently, victims can’t come from underserved populations – or be particularly vulnerable because of it.
Then there is the faction of the Republican base that has always opposed VAWA, well before the recent measures. It made its opinions known in a Feb. 2 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee signed by groups including the Family Research Council, claiming VAWA “destroys the family by obscuring real violence in order to promote the feminist agenda.” One of the signatories to the letter, Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, recently elaborated, saying VAWA “offers women both a ‘tactical advantage’ and a ‘powerful weapon’ when they want to ‘get back’ at a man, have regrets the next morning, or want out of a marriage for any reason at all.” (It’s not clear where any of these scare quotes come from.)
Notably, they didn’t mention the LGBT, immigration or Native American-specific provisions, though the letter did warn darkly that the reauthorization would “add expensive new programs, such as one that would serve to ‘re-educate’ school children into domestic violence ideology.”
It helps then, amid the uproar, to remember what it is, exactly, that VAWA does, and understand how its supporters have proposed to modify it. Before its passage in 1994, not all states had stalking laws, and many had weaker laws on sex crimes, both of which got an indirect push from the federal law. So did funding to help training and collaboration between law enforcement, shelters, and medical professionals. “Before, it felt like each person, each department was [dealing with victims] in a vacuum and not talking to one another,” says Sue Else, president of the U.S. National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Since its passage, the Network reports a 51 percent increase in reporting by women and 37 percent increase in reporting by men, who, despite the act’s title, are also covered under it. At the same time, the number of individuals killed by intimate partners has decreased, by 34 percent for women and by 57 percent for men. (The more dramatic figure for men may be due to a smaller overall figure being more sensitive to percentage shifts; Else also suggested in an interview that women now have more recourse before reaching a desperate situation.) An increase in protection orders, says Else, has lowered the number of instances of domestic violence, in the process reducing law enforcement and hospital costs.
The new VAWA is not as radically different from earlier versions as Republicans suggest. Longtime advocates of the law argue that the expansions for these groups are incremental. “It’s not so much novel as it is an evolution,” says Lisalyn R. Jacobs, the vice president for government relations at Legal Momentum, who has worked on VAWA since just after President Clinton signed it in 1994. “Over the course of 18 years, obviously we’ve learned a lot.” Previous versions of VAWA already included some separate provisions for Native women. Groups that work with LGBT populations already get VAWA funds in many cases. And the U.S. already issues 10,000 U visas annually for the abused immigrant spouses of citizens. The new version of VAWA would add 5,000 visas a year, “a smaller increase than has been requested by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” according to a memo from sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy’s office.
Advocates sound exasperated that their years of effort have been ensnared in political maneuvering. Take the provisions about Native American women, who suffer domestic violence at a far higher rate than the general population, and who have been separately addressed in VAWA since its first version. “[Republicans] would leave you with the impression that this VAWA is unique in its focus on the particular needs of Native women,” says Jacobs. “Nothing could be further from the truth.” The new bill simply eliminates the hurdle for Native women married to non-Native men, as 51 percent of Native women are, and living on reservations that requires them to report abuse to non-Native law enforcement. Instead, it gives some authority to tribal authorities in responding to a domestic violence report.
“With particular respect to the Native issues,” says Jacobs, “we did not have a clue that [Grassley] had any issue about that until we got to the markup last month. Any number of people had met with his staff on numerous occasions” without hearing about any objections.
As for the immigration issue, Grassley said recently that “the questions had to do with the additions that have been made to this bill related to illegal immigrant visas.” Under the assumption that women pretend to be abused rather than be deported, Grassley tried unsuccessfully to force an amendment that would have required that the crime be reported within 60 days and that it be under active investigation, making it significantly more difficult to qualify.
But the visas already long made possible by VAWA are fairly narrow in scope: The abused immigrant spouse, child or parent has to have lost status due to domestic violence in a marriage to a U.S. citizen, and therefore be eligible to petition directly to the Department of Homeland Security to qualify for a new visa. The additional 5,000 visas will help clear the backlog that has built up due to bureaucratic red tape.
These U visas, initially created by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, also aid in law enforcement purposes. As Jacobs puts it, “The green card can become a weapon of abuse; for example, ‘Go sell drugs for me or I’ll withdraw your petition.’”
Finally, there’s the assumption that there is some sort of vast expansion of resources or recognition to LGBT communities. In fact, VAWA grants administered by the states have gone to groups that have served LGBT communities for years; separately, in 2010, the Justice Department issued a memo clarifying that criminal provisions in VAWA apply regardless of gender or sexuality. What’s new in the most recent VAWA is the anti-discrimination language, saying that grantees can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Like the new measures for immigrant and Native American women, the new language doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Says Jacobs, “While we knew that same-sex relationships were not the favorite things of lots of people on Capitol Hill, we didn’t think we were breaking a lot of new ground.”
While Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were recalcitrant, the current bill still has Republican co-sponsors and supporters, including Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who publicly recanted her party-line vote on contraception and who joined the Senate women on the floor in support of VAWA. According to the New York Times, she warned her party in a closed-door meeting that if it picked this battle, it would cede the Democrats’ war on women line. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee seems to hope it can pull an “I know you are but what am I” on the Democrats with women. It recently released a video claiming it was Obama who was attacking women, mostly because he took money from Bill Maher. Best of luck with that one.
Source:click here
I want to address two things:
Advocates sound exasperated that their years of effort have been ensnared in political maneuvering.
I'll bet they are. This is the last thing they wanted,which was for someone to stand up to them the bullies they are. What used to get approved in 6 minutes has now gone on for 6 months and it still isn't settled yet.
“It’s not so much novel as it is an evolution,” says Lisalyn R. Jacobs, the vice president for government relations at Legal Momentum, who has worked on VAWA since just after President Clinton signed it in 1994. “Over the course of 18 years, obviously we’ve learned a lot.”
Lisalyn R. Jacobs. Where have we heard that name before? Oh yeah:here
It looks like this fight is heating up. Speaking of VAWA join the debate on VAWA in the previous post. If you are anti-VAWA then by all means join in.
DAYLIGHT TIME The coming fight over violence against women
Republicans are determined to demagogue the Violence Against Women Act.
They're wrong on the politics and the facts
BY IRIN CARMON
Reauthorizing the once-bipartisan Violence Against Women Act used to be a matter of Senate routine, but it has now gone the way of debt-ceiling negotiations — into the trenches of partisan warfare. Reading recent reports of the coming Capitol Hill showdown on the VAWA, you would either conclude that Republicans are broadening their assault on women, or Democrats have politicized the bill with various poison pills involving LGBT rights, immigration and Native American communities. What gets lost in both explanations is the merits of the actual changes.
While VAWA has not yet faced a full Senate vote, all Republicans on the Judiciary Committee voted in February against reauthorization. Democrats are clearly trying to use this to capitalize on the recent interest in Republican misogyny, which, legislatively speaking, has become mainstreamed in the party. Sen. Dianne Feinstein asserted on the Senate floor last week that “This is one more step in the removal of rights for women.” Majority Leader Mitch McConnell shot back Thursday, citing a Politico article to suggest Sen. Chuck Schumer “is sitting up at night trying to figure out a way to create an issue where there isn’t one … to help Democrats get reelected.”
The Democrats’ latest land mine, according to McConnell and his caucus, is to have quietly made VAWA a vehicle for radical causes. Sen. Jeff Sessions complained, “You think they might have put things in there we couldn’t support that maybe then they could accuse you of not being supportive of fighting violence against women?” Sen. Chuck Grassley has accused Democrats of adding specialized provisions about same-sex partner violence, immigration and Native American jurisdictional issues that are “not consensus items,” to make Republicans look pro-domestic violence.
See if you can make sense of the following Grassley condemnation: “The substitute creates so many new programs for underserved populations that it risks losing focus on helping victims, period … If every group is a priority, no group is a priority.” Apparently, victims can’t come from underserved populations – or be particularly vulnerable because of it.
Then there is the faction of the Republican base that has always opposed VAWA, well before the recent measures. It made its opinions known in a Feb. 2 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee signed by groups including the Family Research Council, claiming VAWA “destroys the family by obscuring real violence in order to promote the feminist agenda.” One of the signatories to the letter, Janice Shaw Crouse, senior fellow of Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye Institute, recently elaborated, saying VAWA “offers women both a ‘tactical advantage’ and a ‘powerful weapon’ when they want to ‘get back’ at a man, have regrets the next morning, or want out of a marriage for any reason at all.” (It’s not clear where any of these scare quotes come from.)
Notably, they didn’t mention the LGBT, immigration or Native American-specific provisions, though the letter did warn darkly that the reauthorization would “add expensive new programs, such as one that would serve to ‘re-educate’ school children into domestic violence ideology.”
It helps then, amid the uproar, to remember what it is, exactly, that VAWA does, and understand how its supporters have proposed to modify it. Before its passage in 1994, not all states had stalking laws, and many had weaker laws on sex crimes, both of which got an indirect push from the federal law. So did funding to help training and collaboration between law enforcement, shelters, and medical professionals. “Before, it felt like each person, each department was [dealing with victims] in a vacuum and not talking to one another,” says Sue Else, president of the U.S. National Network to End Domestic Violence.
Since its passage, the Network reports a 51 percent increase in reporting by women and 37 percent increase in reporting by men, who, despite the act’s title, are also covered under it. At the same time, the number of individuals killed by intimate partners has decreased, by 34 percent for women and by 57 percent for men. (The more dramatic figure for men may be due to a smaller overall figure being more sensitive to percentage shifts; Else also suggested in an interview that women now have more recourse before reaching a desperate situation.) An increase in protection orders, says Else, has lowered the number of instances of domestic violence, in the process reducing law enforcement and hospital costs.
The new VAWA is not as radically different from earlier versions as Republicans suggest. Longtime advocates of the law argue that the expansions for these groups are incremental. “It’s not so much novel as it is an evolution,” says Lisalyn R. Jacobs, the vice president for government relations at Legal Momentum, who has worked on VAWA since just after President Clinton signed it in 1994. “Over the course of 18 years, obviously we’ve learned a lot.” Previous versions of VAWA already included some separate provisions for Native women. Groups that work with LGBT populations already get VAWA funds in many cases. And the U.S. already issues 10,000 U visas annually for the abused immigrant spouses of citizens. The new version of VAWA would add 5,000 visas a year, “a smaller increase than has been requested by the Secretary of Homeland Security,” according to a memo from sponsor Sen. Patrick Leahy’s office.
Advocates sound exasperated that their years of effort have been ensnared in political maneuvering. Take the provisions about Native American women, who suffer domestic violence at a far higher rate than the general population, and who have been separately addressed in VAWA since its first version. “[Republicans] would leave you with the impression that this VAWA is unique in its focus on the particular needs of Native women,” says Jacobs. “Nothing could be further from the truth.” The new bill simply eliminates the hurdle for Native women married to non-Native men, as 51 percent of Native women are, and living on reservations that requires them to report abuse to non-Native law enforcement. Instead, it gives some authority to tribal authorities in responding to a domestic violence report.
“With particular respect to the Native issues,” says Jacobs, “we did not have a clue that [Grassley] had any issue about that until we got to the markup last month. Any number of people had met with his staff on numerous occasions” without hearing about any objections.
As for the immigration issue, Grassley said recently that “the questions had to do with the additions that have been made to this bill related to illegal immigrant visas.” Under the assumption that women pretend to be abused rather than be deported, Grassley tried unsuccessfully to force an amendment that would have required that the crime be reported within 60 days and that it be under active investigation, making it significantly more difficult to qualify.
But the visas already long made possible by VAWA are fairly narrow in scope: The abused immigrant spouse, child or parent has to have lost status due to domestic violence in a marriage to a U.S. citizen, and therefore be eligible to petition directly to the Department of Homeland Security to qualify for a new visa. The additional 5,000 visas will help clear the backlog that has built up due to bureaucratic red tape.
These U visas, initially created by the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, also aid in law enforcement purposes. As Jacobs puts it, “The green card can become a weapon of abuse; for example, ‘Go sell drugs for me or I’ll withdraw your petition.’”
Finally, there’s the assumption that there is some sort of vast expansion of resources or recognition to LGBT communities. In fact, VAWA grants administered by the states have gone to groups that have served LGBT communities for years; separately, in 2010, the Justice Department issued a memo clarifying that criminal provisions in VAWA apply regardless of gender or sexuality. What’s new in the most recent VAWA is the anti-discrimination language, saying that grantees can’t discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. Like the new measures for immigrant and Native American women, the new language doesn’t reinvent the wheel. Says Jacobs, “While we knew that same-sex relationships were not the favorite things of lots of people on Capitol Hill, we didn’t think we were breaking a lot of new ground.”
While Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee were recalcitrant, the current bill still has Republican co-sponsors and supporters, including Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who publicly recanted her party-line vote on contraception and who joined the Senate women on the floor in support of VAWA. According to the New York Times, she warned her party in a closed-door meeting that if it picked this battle, it would cede the Democrats’ war on women line. Meanwhile, the Republican National Committee seems to hope it can pull an “I know you are but what am I” on the Democrats with women. It recently released a video claiming it was Obama who was attacking women, mostly because he took money from Bill Maher. Best of luck with that one.
Source:click here
I want to address two things:
Advocates sound exasperated that their years of effort have been ensnared in political maneuvering.
I'll bet they are. This is the last thing they wanted,which was for someone to stand up to them the bullies they are. What used to get approved in 6 minutes has now gone on for 6 months and it still isn't settled yet.
“It’s not so much novel as it is an evolution,” says Lisalyn R. Jacobs, the vice president for government relations at Legal Momentum, who has worked on VAWA since just after President Clinton signed it in 1994. “Over the course of 18 years, obviously we’ve learned a lot.”
Lisalyn R. Jacobs. Where have we heard that name before? Oh yeah:here
It looks like this fight is heating up. Speaking of VAWA join the debate on VAWA in the previous post. If you are anti-VAWA then by all means join in.
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