Victoria Brownworth

      Imagine your child’s school without teachers, aides, counselors, nurses and custodians.
      Imagine your child in a classroom with 33 other students and no teacher’s aide.
      Imagine your child without an early education. Or an art or music education. Or sports. 
      Imagine your child needs summer school–either because he or she is behind and needs to catch up, or because he or she is gifted and wants to skip ahead–but summer school is gone.
      Starting in next month, you won’t have to imagine any of these alarming possibilities. Due to a record $689 million budget shortfall, the Philadelphia School District–already in worrisome straits–will be cutting 1,260 teachers, 650 aides, 420 custodians, 180 counselors and 51 nurses. More than 400 office positions will also be cut.
      Then there are the program cuts. Full-day kindergarten, which is credited with preparing kids for first grade by familiarizing them with both a classroom setting and an all-day program, as well as beginning the steps toward reading and math skills, will be cut to a half day.
      Music and arts programs will be cut, as will all athletics. Among the other cuts: No summer school and curtailed special ed programs.
      These numbers are not proposals; they are definitive. Michael Masch, chief financial officer of the School District, was succinct in detailing the cuts and why they were necessary: “We have an unprecedented level of revenue decline.  There has never been a year to our knowledge in which school district revenue has declined at all, not in decades.”
       A budget shortfall was expected, but not to this degree. And unless money falls out of the sky and into the district offices, these cuts go into effect June 1. Gov. Corbett has already explained that the money issue is not Harrisburg’s problem. According to Corbett, the federal government has not provided adequate funding and the state, also running at a deficit, can’t make up the difference. The city is also strapped, having forced most workers to take a ten percent pay cut.
       What will the district cuts mean? Bad news for students. Class size will be maximized to 33 students. Fewer teachers and aides means less individualized attention, so students doing poorly are more likely to fail. Students struggling with issues from home will have fewer places to turn, with the decrease in counselors. There will be one counselor for every 400 students, whereas now it is an already untenable one for every 300.
       Students are also bound to get sick, as 30 percent of the custodian force will be cut, which will make cleaning and disinfecting schools immeasurably harder. And with the cuts in school nurses, there will now be one nurse for every 750 students, whereas it was previously one for every 650.
       The worst aspect of the cuts is what it means for kids who are on the edge. Philadelphia already has high truancy and drop-out rates. Overtaxed teachers are less able to identify students who need extra help and without the managerial help of aides to keep unruly students in line, classrooms are likely to be more easily disrupted, which cuts down on class time and makes it harder for students to focus.  

        If your child is a C student who needs reinforcement as well as classroom discipline, will that child fall through the cracks? Children with achievement issues rarely have academic support at home. Often they are the children of teenage parents and/or in single parent families. They get all their academic rigor from school.
        And what if your child is a special education student? Or has other learning disabilities? Slashing those programs leaves the most vulnerable children at the highest risk.
        The most extreme cut is kindergarten. For nearly a century it has been estalished that kindergarten socializes children in a group and gives them a foundation for their elementary education. High risk students–which is a majority of Philadelphia’s school kids–are most in need of early education intervention. Cutting the kindergarten day in half is like cutting a textbook in half.  What’s more, many parents need their children in school for the full school day because they need to work and can’t afford child care. The stress on many families will be immense.
         Art, music and athletics provide necessary creative outlets for children with little access to these things at home. Cutting these programs cuts a major lifeline for many kids at risk. Plus, given that nearly half of all public school children in Philadelphia are living at or below the poverty level, the importance of a school lunch cannot be overestimated, either.
        The idea that education is optional is simply nuts, yet increasingly both federal and state governments are making cuts in education as if it were a luxury, instead of a necessity.
         The quickest way to create an underclass in society–with all its concomitant problems–is by withholding education from a segment of the population already deprived of other basics. It’s also a fast-track to criminal behavior. Students who stay in school are less likely to get involved with gangs or other criminal behavior. But in order for many students to stay in school, the lure has to be intense. And if teachers can’t teach, that lure will fade easily and quickly.
         If the state can’t provide money for the shortfall, the federal government has to step in. The city has to demand action. School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman should be doing this, but as with all things related to Philadelphia’s schools, Ackerman’s attention appears to be elsewhere.
        Since it’s an election year, perhaps Mayor Nutter will step in. But regardless, without intervention, these cuts could destroy much of the fragile fabric of the school system in Philadelphia. Close to 4,000 jobs will be lost. But as dire as that is, the impact on the students will be that much worse.
       Philadelphia’s students are now at tremendous risk and need help. The question is, will they get it before these cuts kick in?
      
 

I read Mark Segal’s column in PGN last week with dismay. He endorsed Obama with laudatory comments and added as his rationale that Gavin Newsom and Elizabeth Birch had also endorsed him.

Early endorsements are always dicey, but early endorsements of incumbents who have done little for constituents are a mistake.

I voted for Barack Obama in 2008, despite having reservations about his centrist record. But if the election were held today, I could not, in good conscience, cast another vote for President Obama. Voting for or endorsing 2011′s Obama would be a vote/endorsement for continuation of three wars and incursions into Pakistan and Yemen, torture, extraordinary rendition, civil liberties curtailment, corporate greed, environmental irresponsibility. It would be endorsement of an administration that has proven time and again that it is anti-populist, anti-poor, anti-woman and anti-queer and which feels more Republican than Democratic.

As a life-long leftist progressive, there’s no way I can support these things.

Segal calls Obama a friend to the queer community–although with no basis for comparison–and cites Gavin Newsom and Elizabeth Birch as supporters. But in the real-world queer community, outside the community of elites, disappointment with Obama is huge as the November 2010 elections proved. Newsom, a straight politician in San Francisco and Birch, a centrist capitulator, are names average queers could not care less about.

As a life-long activist, I have serious concerns about Obama’s credibility as a candidate. I would ask Segal and any other queer–or straight–American: Why does Obama deserve a second term?

Here’s why he shouldn’t. He has reneged on nearly every campaign promise he made as candidate Obama. He calls himself a fierce advocate for queers, but the only consistent advocacy during his administration has been capitulation to Republican thuggery and corporate fraud. The recent budget disaster is an indicator of Obama’s lack of leadership. The budget was due in September–when the Democrats still held a wide majority in Congress in addition to the White House. Obama was nowhere to be found. Now we have what the Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid called “Draconian cuts” to the poor and working Americans–ten percent of whom are queer.

Under Obama’s tenure military rape has escalated as a study last week noted. Rapes of lesbians and straight women in the military have gone unremarked by Obama.

Also unremarked is the detention–which Amnesty International has referred to as torture–of Bradley Manning, the gay soldier alleged to have provided Wikileaks with thousands of documents. Manning is being held in solitary confinement and must spend 12 hours a day nude. Obama said simply, “The Pentagon says there’s no problem.”

Seriously?

DADT is actually still in effect, despite the January recision of it and its implementation remains at the discretion of the President and will continue until 60 days after Obama declares it’s “safe” for the straight military to cope with queer soldiers and Marines. DOMA is still the law.

These are only a few in a long list of concerns about Obama. Telling Obama now that the slate is clean and he’s our guy is no way to get what we need and want as both queers and Americans. Obama must be held accountable; endorsements 20 months before the election are rewards for a job not done.

I myself am working with other progressives to get a real Democrat running for 2012. Russ Feingold–a long-time real friend to the LGBTQ community–is the name being floated most often.

The queer community as well as the rest of real America needs a President who is working for us, not for himself. We do not yet have that in Obama.—VAB

According to the near-daily emails i receive from the DNC, DSCC and Obama’s Organizing for America, the crowning achievement of the Obama Administration has been health care reform.

According to the Republicans, their raison d’etre and the alleged mandate from the electorate after the November 2010 election is overturning health care reform.

Only problem: There is no health care reform. The most important elements were a public option, a premium cap and a mandate for everyone to have health insurance. Not one of those vital elements was part of the final health care reform package. The Democrats–despite having had a majority in Congress and the White House when health care reform was in play–capitulated at every turn with the end result being no public option, no premium caps and no mandate.

Instead, health care reform devolved into an handful of changes that don’t even go into effect until 2014 and 2015, respectively. In the interim, there are still 52 million Americans who are uninsured or under-insured. Throughout the country health care premiums are doubling and tripling, which will eventually mean even more uninsured, not fewer.

One of the major tenets of health care reform was supposed to be a clause the disallowed health insurers from refusing to insure people with pre-existing conditions. Except that clause doesn’t go into effect until December 2014–a full two years after the next election and more than three and a half years from now.

This gap allows health insurance companies free rein to raise premiums, cut or refuse insurance to people with pre-existing conditions and make myraid changes in health care plans altering coverage.

And how many Americans even know that health care reform is in the future, not already in effect?

In January, my health insurance premium went up as it has every year for the past 11 years. I have a standard HMO from one of the nation’s two largest insurers. I do not have dental or eye, but I do have a prescription plan which raises my premium. I pay more than $1,000 a month–a month–for the HMO.

In December 2010, my co-pay to see my primary care physician or any other doctor in the system was $5. I had no co-pay for X-rays, a $35 co-pay for a trip to the ER and a $5 co-pay for my prescriptions.

No more. It seems that in addition to raising my premium in January, my insurer also raised the rates for everything else–even though the higher premium is supposed to cover those things.

I found out about these hidden increases the hard way: By having to pay. In February, I received a call from my insurer telling me that I was late paying my bill. I explained that I simply hadn’t had enough money to pay for it yet and was there a way I could pay less.

I was told there was a far lower rate–I just had to have a thorough phyiscal to make sure I had no pre-existing conditions. I said that wasn’t legal anymore since health care reform and was told that didn’t go into effect for several more years: December 2014.

Then there were those hidden fees. At the doctor’s office the co-pay was now $20. Then yesterday I went to pick up one of my heart medications at the drugstore only to find that I could only get 30 pills at a time instead of 90. In December, I paid $15 for those 90 pills. Yesterday I paid $35 for 30.

I stood at the prescription window arguing with the pharmacy assistant who called the insurer. The change had been made in January. I just never knew about it.

Between January and now, I have spent more than $1,000 in these hidden fees added to my already raised premium.

I know I am not alone in this. Nationwide the increase in premiums has been as much as 60 percent in some states, like California and New Jersey. Meanwhile, how many hidden fees have been added to each plan? 

A totally non-scientific polling of close friends and family found that more than two-thirds had had an exponential increase in both their premiums and those hidden fees.

So for all those congressional Democrats out there crowing about health care reform—you have a lot of nerve, given your own stellar health care coverage paid for by me and other Americans. And for those Republicans still whining about health care reform–read the bill. Nothing’s happened yet.

Both parties should remember this: November 2012 is an election for everyone. And for those of us who will have paid thousands of extra dollars in the interim, or have lost our health insurance or still been unable to get it due to the fact that health care reform isn’t, do remember: We vote. —VAB

Those of us attending Ash Wednesday Mass at the Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul were expecting to get the usual solemn prelude to the Lenten season. Instead we were treated to a mea culpa from Cardinal Justin Rigali, whose stentorian voice echoed through the church telling attendees about the most recent scandal involving priests sexually assaulting children. He explained that 21 priests had been suspended two days before and were on administrative leave pending a Church investigation into allegations of sexual abuse.

The suspension is the most sweeping in the history of the sexual-abuse scandal that has rocked the Roman Catholic Church in the U.S. since 2003.

Rigali’s apology, however, was less dramatic. The cardinal said, “I am truly sorry for the harm done to the victims of sexual abuse, as well as to the members of our community who suffer as a result of this great evil and crime.”

Rigali’s statement was yet another shock for Philadelphia Catholics. Walking into the basilica for Mass, we passed men and women who were victim/survivors of sexual abuse by priests walking in a silent, painful picket line carrying signs demanding justice for the victims. It was a line that was difficult to cross, given the suffering these men and women have experienced, some for decades. Supporters of the victims were also on the line, as were members of SNAP, the group working to expose sexual abuse in the priesthood.

A grand jury report released Feb. 10 found 37 priests and various management personnel in the Archdiocese responsible for both “predatory sexual abuse of minor children” and a subsequent cover-up of that abuse. That report followed a 3,000 page 2005 grand jury report which had cited 63 priests, monsignors and bishops involved in what then-District Attorney Lynn Abraham called a horrific pattern of rape, sodomy and child torture.

Due to a five-year statute of limitations rule, none of those noted in the first grand jury report could be prosecuted. But the law was changed in 2007, which means all those mentioned in the most recent report can be prosecuted.

District Attorney Seth Williams has stated that he intends to prosecute wherever possible. Charges have already been filed against four clergy and one administrator. On March 14, charges were filed against Monsignor William Lynn for conspiracy. Lynn is the highest-ranking member of the Church in the U.S. to be charged with a crime related to covering up the sexual abuse. One local attorney noted that any culpability at all will result in prison time; just knowing that a predatory priest was still involved with children would be enough to convict.

One hopes so. It will obviously take prosecutions in open court and convictions to make it clear to the Church hierarchy that predation by a significant percentage of priests is ongoing despite all claims by that same Church hierarchy to the contrary. Rigali himself greeted the grand jury report with denial, stating to reporters that “there were no priests” in active ministry “who have an admitted or established allegation of sexual abuse of a minor against them.”

Rigali was brought in to clean up the mess left by his predecessor, Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua, who may himself be charged in subsequent actions by the District Attorney’s office as a co-conspirator. (Bevilacqua is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, so it’s unlikely he will actually be taken to trial.)

Whether Rigali himself knew there were still predatory priests actively assaulting minors in and around Philadelphia under his watch, he’s still culpable.

But culpability appears to mean nothing to the Cardinal, who has faced numerous demands to resign since the Feb. 10 report. In a smug response to local reporter Dave Schratweizer on March 14 immediately after Rigali held a closed-door meeting with over 100 priests from the area to “discuss the situation,” Rigali said he has to resign at 75 anyway. But Rigali turned 75 last April and the Pope does not have to accept his resignation until he is 80.

Rigali doesn’t get it. He immediately suspended three priests after the grand jury report, then weeks later, the 21. He made the decision that charges against eight other priests were “unfounded.”(A decision that should be made by the District Attorney, not the Archdiocese.) Neither Rigali nor the Archdiocese will reveal the names of the priests who have been suspended. Parishioners will have to wait to discover this on their own when their parish priests are no longer there. (While on suspension, the priests in question may not celebrate mass, hear confessions or wear the collar.)

This tone-deafness to the outrage of Philadelphia Catholics and the victims of the abuse has typified the way the Church hierarchy has addressed the entire scandal. One item that was revealed March 14 is that the Philadelphia Archdiocese was requesting medical files from alleged victims. This would mean the Church knew it was perpetrating fraud against those victims, just as bishops and monsignors have consistently moved offending priests from one parish to another, unbeknownst to parishioners.

As more of these priests have charges filed against them and their names become public, we can expect that more victims will come forward as they recognize their attackers. It’s been made clear from the records provided to the grand jury that most of these men are multiple offenders.

Catholics and other Philadelphians need to familiarize themselves with the contents of the grand jury report. It’s important to understand that the euphemistic “sexual abuse” means forcible rape and sodomy and that members of the Archdiocese knowingly covered up that rape and sodomy, choosing to protect sexual predators rather than child victims.

One woman noted on March 14 that she had been raped repeatedly by her parish priest from the age of eight and it had taken 30 years for her to get that priest taken out of the parish because none of the Archdiocesan leadership would address her complaints.

Were these priests ordinary men living and working in our communities and perpetrating the acts they are accused of, they would be behind bars. The special dispensation for priests to rape and sodomize the boys and girls in their care must not continue. These men must be treated like any other predatory criminal and the Church hierarchy must address their own culpability in allowing these acts to continue while ignoring the cries of their victims.—VAB

There’s just no accepting what President Obama is handing out these days. If the definition of insanity is expecting a new result from the same old same old, then one of us is nuts.

Or maybe I really am trying to keep hope alive.

Obama’s  press conference yesterday was, unsurprisingly, a disappointment, but then Obama didn’t drink Tiger Blood at the podium, although he did talk about winning and did blow a lot of smoke.  He and Charlie Sheen have more in common than the straight-laced Obama would like to think.

The question that caught my attention was from ABC’s thorn-in-the-side of the White House, Senior Correspondent Jake Tapper. Tapper brought up the most egregious news-you’re-not-seeing issue: the torture of Bradley Manning.
 I’ve been wondering when Manning, the soldier accused of leaking thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks–some of which are said to have provided the impetus for the recent spate of revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa–would ever hit the national non-blogging news. He finally did in the press conference.

It’s been my contention all along that Manning’s story has been ignored because he’s gay.  He’s like a prototype of why we have to acknowledge queers in the military.  His anger with DADT is said to have been a factor in his leaking of the documents. And silencing him has been paramount in the Obama Administration, just like it has been about every queer issue that has been raised during Obama’s tenure in the White House.

 Manning was arrested May 26, 2010 and has been kept in solitary confinement under brutal circumstances ever since–denied access to even a pillow and blanket in the cell in which he is forced to spend 23 hours a day. Back in January, Amnesty International was so concerned that his treatment was “unnecessarily harsh and punitive” and in “breach of the U.S.A.’s obligations under international standards and treaties,” that it entreated Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to address Manning’s circumstances immediately.

 Here is what AI objected to in Manning’s treatment: “23-hour/day solitary confinement; barred even from exercising in his cell; one hour total outside his cell per day where he’s allowed to walk around in circles in a room alone while shackled, and is returned to his cell the minute he stops walking; forced to respond to guards’ inquiries literally every 5 minutes, all day, everyday; and awakened at night each time he is curled up in the corner of his bed or otherwise outside the guards’ full view.”
 

March 5 it was revealed by the New York Times that Manning’s treatment would include forced nudity, which is specifically banned by the Geneva Conventions as inhumane. Manning will be required to be totally nude throughout the night and also in the morning outside his cell for check-in. This is supposedly to ensure that Manning does not harm himself.  But according to the Pentagon, Manning is not on suicide watch. Which means the nudity is just more torture.

 Tapper asked Obama about Manning. Much as he had asked Bush about Abu Ghraib, I might add, since I have a memory, unlike so many other Americans, including, apparently, the Democratic president now justifying the torture of an American soldier by the U.S. military.

President Obama told Tapper: “With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are. I can’t go into details about some of their concerns, but some of this has to do with Private Manning’s safety as well.”

 Manning’s safety? Seriously? And since when do we ask the foxes how well they are guarding the henhouse when the world’s premiere human rights organization says their mouths are full of feathers? Is this really the best answer the President could muster about an issue so fundamental to who we are as a nation?

 The news out of Japan post- earthquake/tsunami is tragic and horrifying, but that’s a natural disaster over which no one had control (although the Japanese government has certainly been right on top of it). The incarceration and torture of Bradley Manning–who as a gay man was already being tortured under DADT–is well within the control of the President and the Pentagon. 

Well within their control. 

 Obama is considering military intervention in Libya due to human rights abuses there. Check the man in the mirror, sir. Your hypocrisy is showing.—VAB

 Charlie Sheen has been the top pop culture story in the news for two weeks now, with no sign of media attention abating. The story has been so pervasive, it’s crossed over from tabloid TV shows like “ET” and “Extra” to the national news on every network. When the highest paid TV actor in Hollywood begins acting out 24/7, it’s news.

But Sheen’s bad behavior isn’t new. His obvious mental breakdown, whether prompted by his well-documented drug and alcohol abuse or simply by extreme stress, may be news, but it is far from the first time he has landed in the headlines.

Sheen has a long history of “problems” with women. Yet amidst the media deconstruction of his current mental state, there has been almost no attention to one of Sheen’s most dominant traits: abuse of women.

Throughout Sheen’s recent out-of-control behavior, he has repeatedly referred to himself as a “winner” and called his own life “perfect” and one others only dream of and wish to emulate.

Let’s hope not.

Sheen recently separated from his third wife. He is living with two young women he calls his “goddesses”–a porn star and his children’s former nanny. Both are under 25; Sheen is 45.

That scenario, of course, is pure Hollywood. Hugh Hefner is about to marry his latest girlfriend: He’s 84 and she’s 24.

But Hugh Hefner hasn’t been the subject of numerous 911 calls from the women in his life. Sheen has.

On Christmas 2009, Sheen’s estranged wife Brooke Mueller, mother of his three-year-old twin sons (Sheen has five children), called 911 to report that Sheen had hit her and threatened her with a knife. The 911 tape was typical of a frightened, abused woman: she was hysterical and crying and in obvious fear for her life.

In October 2010, police arrested Sheen in New York’s Plaza Hotel after he threatened a prostitute whom he alleged had stolen his watch from his hotel room. Sheen was briefly hospitalized after that event.

Accounts of Sheen’s brutality toward women began when the actor was in his early twenties.

In 1990, Sheen was arrested for accidentally shooting his then-fiancee, actress Kelly Preston, during an argument. Charges were dropped and the engagement was broken off.

In 1995, soon after his first marriage, Sheen was named as one of the clients of Hollywood madam, Heidi Fleiss.

In 2006, Sheen’s second wife, actress Denise Richards, filed for divorce while seven months pregnant with the couple’s second child. She alleged Sheen had threatened her with violence.

Between 2007 and the 2009 incident with Mueller, Sheen was arrested several times and charged with assault. He was banned from owning a gun for life.

On March 3, Mueller was awarded custody of the couple’s twin sons because Sheen had allegedly threatened her with extreme violence, including hitting her in the head and stabbing her in the eye, and she feared for the boys’ welfare.

When Sheen was fired on March 7 from his job at Warner Brothers, the 11-page dismissal letter referred to Sheen’s “moral turpitude” with regard to women.

Charlie Sheen is hardly the first Hollywood actor to behave badly toward women. It was only a few months ago that Oscar-winner Mel Gibson was in the news for allegedly beating his girlfriend and breaking her teeth.

But why gloss over the extent of Sheen’s domestic violence history and ignore the teachable moment his current spate of bad behavior offers?

Too often the news you’re not seeing is news related to women. That has certainly been the case with Sheen. With all the attention being given to the actor and all the addiction specialists and other experts being queried about his behavior, why not a single domestic violence expert?

Sheen’s story should be used as a cautionary tale. Whether Sheen’s drug and alcohol abuse and addictions instigated his violence toward women or merely exacerbated it, no one knows for sure. But what is certain is that Sheen has been violent with every woman he has been involved with and that violence has been extreme enough to warrant police intervention in each relationship.

For too long violence against women has been the subtext, not the main text, in stories about out-of-control men. It’s not too late to note one man’s history of violence toward women and its link to other violent and erratic behavior. Violence against women shouldn’t be an acceptable diversion in Hollywood or elsewhere. And the story of Charlie Sheen and his treatment of the women in his life should make that very, very clear.—VAB

Rachel Maddow has a Ph.d. She’s smart. She’s politically motivated. She has reason to be left of center. But she has a fatal flaw: She’s an unrepentant Obama apologist.

Tonight she proclaimed that President Obama had delivered a “smackdown” to GOP governors by moving up the date of the health care reform opt-out to 2014. This, she proclaimed, meant that health care reform was off the table for the 2012 election and thus no Republican governor could challenge Obama on that issue in the election.

Huh? This is still missing the point entirely, alas. But then I find the Obama apologists not much different from the Bush apologists. Except it’s always more disappointing to see people we like and admire so taken in so easily. 

Republicans don’t need to make health care reform an issue for 2012. They made it an issue for 2010 while Obama literally went on vacation and let the Republicans control the entire debate and run the table. Then he topped it off by ignoring the economy and as a consequence Republicans won overwhelmingly. 

That was a smackdown. 

All the problems we have now with the Republicans are a direct result of Obama not saying any of this in April 2009 when it mattered. When it could have made a difference. When it could have saved actual lives, since this isn’t just a little blogosphere debate between the bad Republicans and the heroic President. Yeah, Obama sure put the smackdown on them. Two years too late. Meanwhile health care reform–such as it is–will likely be dismantled by the Republican controlled  and Democratic ignored Congress by the time the election rolls around. Starting with women’s reproductive rights about which Obama has said not one word and about which Harry Reid has said not one word and about which Nancy Pelosi has only talked to her choir on the center left blogosphere.

And about which our Rachel has not held Obama responsible for one minute like he’s only the president when we like what he does but we don’t need to hold him accountable for inaction. If only all these people would apply the same standard to Obama that they did to Bush, we might get an actual Democrat as a challenger for 2012. If only.

I’m trying to become resigned to another term of Obama. But I certainly do not have to be gleeful about it like Maddow was tonight. Because some of us have memory and Obama sure didn’t smackdown the Republicans on tax cuts for the wealthy or on the budget he signed today. Somehow it’s difficult for me to see how cutting $2.5 billion in LIHEAP grants to the poor is a smackdown to the Republicans. 

It’s time to stop looking for the silver lining and tell it like it is. Which is nowhere near a smackdown to any Republican by our Republican-lite president.—VAB  

       There are some singular moments we never thought we’d witness that TV has brought us: the fall of the Berlin Wall, Nelson Mandela’s release, election of the first black president in America and now, the overturning of the dictatorial Mubarak regime in Egypt.
        Wow.
         Watching a revolution unfold daily on one’s TV is nothing short of astounding.  The power of TV in this process cannot be overstated.  Two days into the 18 day revolution, Egyptian state TV ceased to broadcast any scenes of the masses of people flooding squares in Cairo, Alexandria and other cities. The idea was if people didn’t see what was going on, they would just simmer down and go back home.

         The revolution will be televised. And while today the outrage spread to other countries—Iran, Yemen, Algeria—whether or not other dictatorial governments can be overthrown remains to be seen.  

       In Egypt, just getting the news out was difficult enough. Hired thugs set upon journalists and others were detained by Mubarak’s police force. Anderson Cooper was beaten and Christiane Amanpour was surrounded by a group of men so angry, that when she got in her car they beat the car and threw a rock through the windshield, injuring her driver. Lama Hasan, who was also doing simultaneous translation during her interviews, was tear gassed more than once. The pro-Mubarak supporters insisted that it was foreign journalists who had created the revolution. But the scenes on TV told a wholly different story.

        Regrettably, yesterday two major newspapers decided that Cooper’s journalism was over the top: he used the words ”lie” and “lying” and “liars” in describing lies told by the Egyptian government (making those people liars) who were, well, lying. Both the Washington Post and the LA Times took Cooper to task. And yet, he was right.
         Throughout the revolution in Egypt,  al-Jazeera, BBC and networks in the U.S. continued to broadcast images and stories that could not be ignored. The Mubarak government was forced to stop assaulting the media and the pro-Mubarak thugs withdrew. In their place swarms of almost wholly peaceful demonstrators took up residence in the streets, bringing the country to a virtual standstill, demanding Mubarak step down until he did on Feb. 11. But telling the story is part of the story. Which is why what Cooper said and did–he was beaten and detained but still reported the story—should be applauded, not demeaned.
           One did not have to have a drop of Egyptian blood to be moved to tears by the scenes of hundreds of thousands of people in the streets, cheering and celebrating. One man said simply, “Today I am finally, fully, Egyptian. I am free to be Egyptian.”
        It was beyond extraordinary.
         What will be interesting for international audiences in the coming weeks is what else will be revealed by TV news as the transition of power is made. According to a report on “Nightline” Feb. 12, Mubarak has billions squirrelled away (while his people lived on less than $2 a day) plus 17 homes, including one in London. And while the Swiss took the extraordinary move of freezing his Swiss bank accounts (imagine if they had done that with the Nazis…) on Feb. 11, he has more than $70 billion in various places, much of it gotten, it would seem, from the U.S.
        According to one TV news report on Feb. 12, Mubarak may find going to London impossible because there is talk of trying him in The Hague. But we’d like to know how that would actually work since the majority of Western governments have either turned a blind eye to his human rights abuses, used his country for extraordinary rendition (which has bben happening even under this Administration)  or supported his regime outright, like the U.S. has done to the tune of more than $3 billion each year in foreign aid plus billions in private jets and other aircraft and other perks (thanks to ABC’s Brian Ross for those latter tidbits).
 Regardless of what happens to Mubarak, the Egyptian people are defining their own destiny. One can only look on with awe and hope that outside interests–including our own–let them define it for them, not for us.
           Speaking of defining one’s own destiny, in the news you’re not seeing here–which impacts every woman and girl in America–the Republicans and their conservative Democrat friends are attempting to eviscerate choice via three bills currently in the House which are likely going to pass: H.R. 3, H.R. 217 and H.R, 358.  Taking a tack from the Bush Administration, they are going after family planning clinics first.

          Tyranny comes in many forms, it seems, even in a democracy.

       House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was talking to her friends in the center-left blogosphere about this on Feb. 11 with alacrity in a conference call. She said that the Republicans (she failed, as always, to mention the conservative Democrats, even though one sponsored on of these bills) are trying to erode women’s civil rights.
       But apparently Pelosi felt unable to call up her local TV stations or any one of the national news outlets to repeat the same story, because unfortunately, when it comes to speaking beyond the center-left choir, Pelosi can’t quite get there. And really–would the local San Francisco affiliates be unwilling to talk with her? In the most liberal district in America? Seriously?
       Pelosi’s failure to rally the Democratic and constituent troops, we might remind her, is part of why she lost her job and the Republicans gained the biggest House majority since the 1920s back in November. Time to recoup.
        It is the former Speaker’s job to command every resource she can to win votes for her side and there is nothing more powerful than the TV media which has always adored her and been willing to put her soignee self on the tube any time she wanted. (Like to promote Obama’s warrantless wiretapping, for example.)
        Since the lives of millions of women are literally in her hands with these three bills, why not call up her longtime buddies Diane Sawyer at ABC or Katie Couric at CBS or even Rachel Maddow at MSNBC–any one of them would be willing to tell her story.
         The short version is that these bills–which Pelosi says have over 200 votes for them already–will make it impossible for poor women, women who have been raped and women who are in emergency situations to get abortions. These bills would be a backdoor curtailing of a woman’s legal right to choose. Women will be forced to have the children of rapists. Women will die.
        Pelosi has a moral responsibility to get her face on TV and talk about this. Especially since she (cravenly, we think) put out a fundraising email on Feb. 12 asking for money for the DSCC based on these bills. 
         But for now, as long as Pelosi (who leads the Democrats) refuses to come forward and other Democrats follow her cowardly lead, this dangerous move in the House is most definitely the news you’re not seeing. And it’s not because state-sponsored TV blacked out the story, but because the fear among the Democrats of taking a moral or even legal stand trumps the lives of women.
        Take a look at the scenes on your TV from Egypt and feel just a little shame, please. No one is asking you to risk your life or prison. We just want you to put your elegant face on the evening news to plead for the lives of women.
         Which is your job, after all.

          That’s the news you’re not seeing: The lives here being destroyed despite a law protecting them, despite democracy, despite the vote. Sometimes the story is closer than we think.—VAB

On Jan. 19, Dr. Kermit Gosnell was arrested and charged in the murders of one woman and seven infants who all met their deaths at his hands in his abortion clinic at 38th and Lancaster in University City. The clinic, which preyed on low-income women and reportedly did a cash business reaping in excess of  $15,000 a day, was situated just five blocks from one of the best hospitals in the country–a hospital which was routinely sent patients suffering the effects of the often grisly and botched surgeries performed at the clinic every day for more than 20 years.
 A grand jury delivered a verdict two weeks ago in the case, after hearing weeks worth of stomach-churning testimony from witnesses and victims. The testimony included statements that hundreds of women and girls were victimized in their efforts to seek illegal late-term abortions, that hundreds of women and girls suffered grave physical injuries than included perforated uteruses and colons and that hundreds of live children were killed in a process called “snipping” where Gosnell took scissors, stabbed them into the back of the head of the newborn infants and cut their spinal cords.
 District Attorney Seth Williams told reporters that he would have liked to bring more murder and assault charges against Gosnell, but because he only has the eight bodies, these are the cases he can actually prosecute.
 The Gosnell case should be national news. That it is not underscores the lack of concern for the lives of poor women and women of color, the victims in this case. It also says that reproductive rights belong to the wealthy and that for poor women, choice is most often what is foisted upon them.
 It is alleged by both Williams and the grand jury that politics may have played a role in the fact that the clinic had gone unregulated and unexamined by any health department personnel since 1993.
 According to sources in Harrisburg, there was lax regulatory monitoring of such clinics since the end of the Casey administration. The late Gov. Bob Casey (D) was staunchly pro-life and the Abortion Control Act was strictly enforced throughout the state during his administration. It is alleged that under the pro-choice administrations of Tom Ridge (R) and Ed Rendell (D), there was no attention paid to clinics like Gosnell’s.
 There’s no proof of this. But what went on at Gosnell’s clinic was as horrifying as it was illegal. State health department officials pledged to investigate such clinics never did. This raises serious questions about how abortions are being performed in Philadelphia and also whether the lives of women and girls–and live babies–are being put at risk by unscrupulous doctors more concerned with preying upon desperate women for money than with helping them.
 The law is succinct: abortions in the first and second trimesters of pregnancy are legal. Third trimester abortions are legal under certain circumstances, none of which were met at Gosnell’s clinic. And under the Abortion Control Act in Pennsylvania, women have to be made aware of the length of gestation and the risks involved to the mother in terminating a pregnancy. 
 According to women who had procedures at the clinic and the findings of the grand jury, Gosnell lied to women about their gestation. He taught his staff how to do ultrasounds to make the fetus look smaller and would tell a woman she was at the 20 week cut off when she was often further along in her pregnancy. These lies put women at high risk for complications and meant the likelihood of a live birth was quite high–something unlikely in properly performed abortions.