The Stupak-Pitts Amendment to the recently passed House of Representatives health care reform bill denies health insurance coverage of abortion for women subscribing to a “public option” plan or receiving federal subsidies to buy mandated health insurance.

So, in effect, the reproductive rights of all women in America could be dropped from health insurance coverage. Here’s the analysis from Planned Parenthood legal experts:

Thus, if a plan wants to offer coverage in the exchange to both groups of individuals, it would have to offer two different plans: one with abortion coverage for women without subsidies and one without abortion coverage for women with subsidies. These private insurance plans would need to be identified as either providing or not providing coverage for abortion.

Health insurance plans are highly unlikely to operate in this manner, and it is not even clear that this is feasible under the administration of the exchange and affordability credits. As one alternative, the Stupak amendment purports to allow women to purchase a separate, single-service “abortion rider,” but abortion riders don’t exist. In the five states that only allow abortion coverage through a separate rider, there is no evidence that they are available.

Furthermore, women are unlikely to think ahead to choose a plan that includes abortion coverage, since they do not plan for unplanned pregnancy. In addition, it is not clear that health plans would even be allowed to offer two separate plans under other provisions of the act, such as the anti-discrimination and guaranteed-issue provisions. Those elements of the bill, which are very important to consumers, may make it impossible for plans to provide two separate plans, one that includes abortion and another that does not.

Realistically, the actual effect of the Stupak-Pitts amendment is to ban abortion coverage across the entire exchange, for women with both subsidized and unsubsidized coverage.

Link via Mikhaela.

The U.S. Supreme Court may uphold a woman’s right to a medical procedure on her own body, but the House health care plan doesn’t care. And what is the justification for that? Why are women’s reproductive rights expendable? Reach back into the lizard brain of patriarchy and you dredge up the assumption that only “sluts” need abortions. Only women who are irresponsible with their bodies need to resort to “baby killing”, so of course it is right for men to make their reproductive decisions for them. Really, without this underlying patronizing attitude, it’s hard to think of any other reason to deny women access to legal medical treatment that so fundamentally affects their bodies.

Anyway, you can always nag Obama to oppose this, like I did (and he does, anyway, for what that’s worth on its own) or you can take Kate Harding’s advice: tell the Democrats to go fuck themselves. Or something like that. Sounds good to me!

Jesus on a pogo stick, I drew Sarah Palin again. Seriously, this has got to stop. But her parallel bizarro world keeps having consequences on our own real world, like the recent push against a moderate Republican congressional candidate in New York State. I don’t know how they do things in big ol’ Alaska, but most of the Republicans I knew in New York were of the moderate kind. They don’t need no carpet-bagging movement conservatives coming from outside and interfering. Hence, Scozzafava’s endorsement of her former Democratic rival.

Anyhoo, Palin’s continued presence in political life - including her $1.25 million ghost-written memoir - goes against logic and decency. As does Maurice Greenberg’s resurgence on Wall Street, the Barney Frank “TARP on steroids” bill, and the carrion-devouring take-overs that make folks like Warren Buffett only more powerful.

UPDATE: Aww, even The Palin has limits. New York’s 23rd rejected her endorsed conservative candidate and elected the first Democrat to win that seat since, um, before the Civil War. Michael Steele may brush this off, but it should be apparent that the major Republican wins last night in Virginia and New Jersey were by moderates responding to local politics. However, so long as the movement conservatives have Maine to crow about, they won’t notice that voters are rejecting their bullshit.

For information on FOXNews’ right-to-lie suit, go here. As for Obama’s “open government” initiatives, David Froomkin wrote a critical piece last June that touched on both the refreshing and the limitations aspects. That said, Froomkin’s perspective is still rather “Washington insider” (what with writing for The Post, it’s to be expected) and focused on journalist access. I’d like to know more about FOI requests, particularly related to issues of national security, domestic espionage, all that torture stuff, et cetera. Governments have been historically unforthcoming - even (gasp) mendacious - on those subjects.

If you’re wondering if you missed an update last Wednesday, you didn’t. I did. Have you noticed some flu shit going around? It got my 5 year-old last week. He’s just ducky now, but it took up most of the previous weekend and a few school days. Meanwhile I got sick TWICE, though not with the flu, my wife got knocked with what I had only harder, and my daughter just got through whatever she contacted. What frustrates me to no end is that I am definitely in the Get Vaccinated camp, yet every time I call the doctor’s office, they got nuthin’. Not their fault, there’s a shortage, but it is hard to respond to a flu emergency when you don’t have access to the proper treatments. Argh.

FWIW, I have an opinion on Obama’s Peace Prize - but, honestly, this is one issue I don’t care that much about to opine upon. I have been more interested in how quickly unthinking partisanship dominated the conversation about the award. Yeah, yeah - big surprise. Is it possible for adults to act like adults? Ever? About anything? Mind you, this is coming from the guy who drew a monster pooping graves last week, so that should tell you something. I am not sure exactly what.

No, it’s not a subtle toon, is it.

I meant to draw and post this a couple weeks ago, when it would have been more timely, as a Pentagon internal report on Afghanistan prepared for President Obama was leaked to the press. The call for escalating the war seems as pointless as the calls for escalating the war in Iraq. Or will someone seriously say, “The Surge worked!” with a straight face?

You may have noticed a real slacking of the updating around here. Sorry about that. More personal stuff. I won’t go into it. But I will be updating once a week for awhile as I try to get back on track. Eventually I aim to resume the Tuesday-Thursday schedule, probably after the first of the year. So for the rest of this one, expect a new toon every Wednesday. Split the difference, I reckon.

I meant to post this last Tuesday, the day of President Obama’s address to students. That would have been really, really, really timely. But I have kids of my own starting school, one entering Kindergarten and the other entering Middle Schüle, so I got sidetracked with all the preparations. After I missed my golden opportunity, I thought this toon’s relevance would be shot; but no, this weekend the right wing racist blowhard faction came out in force. The kid’s sign in the last panel is not far off from actual signs on display at protests against, um… big government? Health care reform? A black guy in the White House? It was hard to tell.

So, yeah, this toon is still ahead of its expiration date. Not fresh, but not too stale.

Posting late today, so I’ll keep the production notes brief. This toon took a lot of photo-referencing: in order of appearance, Boss Tweed (based on Thomas Nast’s caricature, of course); Teddy Roosevelt and John D. Rockefeller; Joseph Stiglitz and Dick Cheney (no ref needed for him; he’s old hat for me); Obama (ditto), John Boehner and Michael Steele.

Panel one also required reference for 19th Century Irish-Americans, a real challenge, because most visual information we have of them comes from pretty vicious stereotypes. Think leprechaun, only more violent, apish, and drunk. But I found a decent photo that suggested worker dress styles of the period. I suppose I could have just dug up “Gangs of New York,” but I prefer primary source material if it’s available. I have a lot of empathy for Irish-American immigrants of that period; it’s too bad the political machines exploited racial animosities and labor competition to corral the power base. Good thing we’ve gotten past all that.

Yes, that was low-level irony. Don’t make me use a <sarcasm> tag.

As widely reported, the International Association of Athletics Federations has ordered a gender test of South African athlete Caster Semenya, a woman whose physical characteristics have more masculine signifiers than female. She has faced a lifetime of such challenges, yet it is possible that she could still fail this testing, because there are so many ambiguities. Hey, I wonder if all that genetic variation that has allowed our species (and others, of course) to adapt and evolve has something to do with these gender “gray areas”? They certainly defy the stricter — sexist, gay panicked — codes patriarchal societies across the globe want to impose.

Semenya’s experience no doubt resonates with many transgendered folks. A trans woman in Pennsylvania has filed a suit against Manpower, because one of the temp agency’s local offices demanded a gender certification from her doctor, including a picture of her genitals. Someone seriously thought this was a reasonable request? WTF!? “Hey, you want a ten dollar an hour job? Show us your junk!” Insensitive, dehumanizing and seriously fucked up. Yet such are the mainstream culture’s views of the trans community, perpetuated by both religious righties promoting “reparative therapy” and high profile comedians going for cheap laughs.

Here’s a fuller quote of the Jefferson aphorism William Kostric had truncated on a placard along with his open carry penis gun:

“What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, 1787. ME 6:373, Papers 12:356

Charming, isn’t it? Almost Stalinesque. In that light, Kostric’s use of the verb “water” is off the mark; it’s really time to poop on the tree of liberty.

Lately libertarians have been invoking the “wisdom of Our Founders” as an argument against health care reform, as if any of the slavers and smugglers from the 18th Century had any clue about medicine, socialized or otherwise. When the Constitution was written, doctors were still cutting off legs without anesthetic or washing their hands. Still, Ben Franklin thought the fire department and the post office served essential social needs, so had the issue come up, he might have seen merit in universal access to health care. Who knows?

But say the Founders had explicit objections to government involvement in health care. Who cares? They’re dead. We live. We need health care.

Selective nostalgia aside, the libertarian obeisance to every aphorism culled from speeches and letters written by Jefferson, et al. rests upon the admirable job they performed in putting together a functioning republican system of government. Admirable, but not perfect, nor without problems that proved disastrous the longer they festered: the 3/5 compromise, the electoral college. To their credit, the Framer Founder Freak Brothers knew they were fallible and built into the Constitution itself the means with which to amend it — hence, the 13th and 14th Amendments overriding the 3/5 compromise. Not without blood, of course. A lot of blood.

In what universe does a public official shirk her responsibilities and yet dominate the public discourse with a Facebook note to such an extent that responsible legislation gets dumped out of fear of the ignorance she has created?

Oh, that would be ours. In a parallel universe I suppose people are just laughing at Parallel Palin, forcing her into hiding, where she lives out a life of disgrace. And Parallel Grassley is forced to write out his words and eat them on live TV.

In the third panel, that bus is the real deal:

From a WaPo article about the powerful interests tossing gasoline on the fire.