Bad Deeds for 3-29-2012

Republican Lawmaker Thinks Women Are Better Off Beaten Than Divorced – Meet Wisconsin Republican Rep. Don Pridemore. He’s best known for his avid support of Wisconsin’s puppy mills, but he is the co-sponsor of the bill that declares single mothers are a cause of child abuse. Pridemore apparently is positioning himself as an expert on abuse, since he also has some very helpful advice for women who are victims of domestic violence.

Don’t leave him, just try to remember what you loved about him in the first place.

“Representative Don Pridemore, told TODAY’S TMJ4 he thinks even in abusive relationships, there are other options than divorce. ‘If they can refind those reasons and get back to why they got married in the first place it might help,’ said Representative Don Pridemore.”

And without even a trace of irony, he also claims that the reason women can’t single parent — one of the reasons he supports the bill — is because children will “go astray” since the father is usually the “disciplinarian.”

So to clarify, single parent homes run by mothers cause child abuse, but if there is spousal abuse in a two parent home the wife should stay with her husband, especially since he is needed because he is obviously the disciplinarian.

Let him beat you, let him beat your children, whatever it goes on in a house is just fine as long as you stay married.

Tea Party Group King Street Patriots Illegally Aided the Republican Party – A Travis County district court judge ruled this week that a Houston-based tea party group is not a nonprofit corporation as it claims, but an unregistered political action committee that illegally aided the Republican Party through its poll-watching efforts during the 2010 elections.

The summary judgment by Judge John Dietz upheld several Texas campaign finance laws that had been challenged on constitutional grounds by King Street Patriots, a tea party organization known for its “True the Vote” effort to uncover voter fraud.

The ruling grew out of a 2010 lawsuit filed by the Texas Democratic Party against the King Street Patriots. The Democrats charged that the organization made unlawful political contributions to the Texas Republican Party and various Republican candidates by training poll watchers in cooperation with the party and its candidates and by holding candidate forums only for GOP candidates.

Republican Cuts Were Too Much for Legislative Staffer – Allison Catalano, 26, went to work for state Rep. Myra Crownover, R-Denton, in August after graduating from the University of North Texas. She started as an unpaid intern and became a paid staffer.

It was a promising start to what she calls her “first ‘big girl’ job after graduation.”

Then she saw something she couldn’t stomach – GOP-led cuts and restrictions in family planning programs “announced as a victory.” That’s where her letter came in.

After thanking Crownover for the opportunity to work for her, Catalano wrote, “Your decision to cut the funding of clinics that provide free and low-cost health care to over 100,000 low-income Texas women is shameful. … I cannot in good conscience continue to be associated with you or a Legislature that would so unabashedly and unapologetically belittle the hard-fought rights of women. … Trampling the rights of women in an effort to grandstand against the federal government is simply wrong and I cannot be a part of it.”

Republicans Refusing to Pass Bill to Fix Bridges and Provide Jobs – More than 17 percent of construction trades workers are looking for jobs. Meanwhile, 68,842 American bridges are deficient. More than 282 million vehicles cross those bridges every day. And many public transit systems have serious problems and are in need of critical upgrades.

But obstructionists in the House of Representatives—led by House Speaker John Boehner—are refusing to pass the Senate’s bipartisan surface transportation bill.

Tell Speaker Boehner and GOP obstructionists: Stop holding jobs and public safety hostage—pass the Senate’s bipartisan surface transportation bill immediately!

Romney Says Tough Luck to Sick People Without Medical Insurance – Last night on the Jay Leno show Romney was asked what he would do to help people with preexisting medical conditions who are denied coverage by insurance companies. Romney’s answer: nothing.

For Romney this simply isn’t his, or our, problem. So long as there’s no gap in coverage (say from losing a job or being kicked off one plan for exhaustion of benefits) then coverage should still exist. But if they’ve never been insured before, or if they are so unfortunate that at some time, even briefly, they lost coverage, well then they are gaming the system and don’t deserve insurance coverage to begin with.

Under this approach people born with a preexisting condition would be completely unable to ever get insurance. This is why the mandate is so important because it not only guarantees coverage for individuals, it spreads the costs for insurance companies in covering their most expensive clients. And insurance companies have already said that without the mandate they’ll simply go back to denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions because after all, it’s the profitable thing to do.

 

 

Regards,

Jim