News & Articles

Republicans drinking. Painting by Andy Thomas

   After observing and experiencing the machinations and voting records of the Republican Party from Nixon to Reagan To Bush To Trump, one can arrive at only  one conclusion: it is anti-life. The Trump-White-Republican (Trumwhiticans) Party calls itself pro-life when it comes to abortion.  But when we examine political platforms and voting records, the only period the Trumwhitican Party is actually pro-life is the nine-months from conception to birth. After birth they forget it takes money ($260,000) to age 18), parents, a village, a state, and a nation to raise children. Look at what Trumwhiticans have opposed. As an example, is health care a privilege of wealth or a right? 

    Real conservatives such as Otto von Bismarck and Winston Churchill agreed it was important for a nation to have healthy citizens. Both instituted universal care for Germany and Great Britain. We are now the only developed nation without universal care.  Trumwhiticans seem happy to pay over $10,000 per capita for health care--and forget about 37 million Americans without insurance. Great Britain covers all citizens for half that price. That’s “conservative?”

   What does the Trumwhitican Party believe in? Let’s try this list: low taxes, free markets, the white race, the Second Amendment, fossil fuels, voter suppression, deregulation, and “personal responsibility” Over the last two centuries, from Jim Crow laws to Charlottesville to the Mexican border, it has gradually become our largest white hate group, denigrating reds, blacks, browns, yellows, greens, and members of the LBGTQ community.

   What has the Trumwhitican Party been against? Let’s try this list: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, education funding, Head Start, kindergarten, pre-school, OSHA safety regulations, living wage, welfare programs, food stamps, the Women’s, Infants, and Children’s Food and Nutrition program (WIC), gun controls, LBGTQ rights, solar and wind power, abortion, and thousands of clean  air, clean water, and lake and river pollution regulations. Trumwhiticans even oppose seatbelt, motorcycle helmet, and car seat regulations. Aren’t all of these programs pro-life?

A Paid Family Leave Program For North Dakota? Good Luck With That!

   I see a Fargo Democrat has introduced a paid family leave bill in the North Dakota anti-life Trumwhitican legislature which would offer up to 12 weeks of coverage per year and 66% of wages capped at $4,000 a month. It would be funded by employees paying two cents on every $10 of wages. Karla Rose Hanson outlines the reasons for her bill: “Countless North Dakota families face the problem of choosing between their job and temporarily taking care of a loved one.” Will it ever get out of committee? What are the odds of getting killed by lightning?

   Of the 193 countries belonging to the United Nations only eight do not have a national  paid parental leave program. Yes, you guessed right. The United States is one of the eight. Let’s look at a few of the 185 that have paid programs.
   Australia provides 12 months, some of which can be used before the child is due. If there are complications new mothers can ask for an additional 12 months. The payment is $695 per week for a maximum of 18 weeks. Anyone on a salary less than $150,000 is eligible. New fathers get two weeks of paid leave at $695 a week.  Australia also pays 50% of childcare costs up to $7,000 a year. This is certainly a pro-life program. Ghana has a 12-week paid program which it wants to extend to 16 weeks. India provides 26 weeks of paid leave, eight weeks before birth and 18 weeks after. If the mother has two other children she is entitled to 12 weeks’ maternity leave, six weeks prenatal and six weeks postnatal.

   Sweden has a pro-life paid program where both parents are allowed to stay off work for 18 months and are paid for 480 days of leave as they may choose. Fathers are entitled to 10 days of paternity leave after delivery (20 days if twins!). Among other interesting clauses in Sweden: parents with children under eight are legally provided with the right to work 32 hours instead of 40. None of these countries has gone bankrupt.

Christine Bauer: “Roe vs.Wade: Choice Is Imperative”

   It is axiomatic that the North Dakota legislature, always spending much of their time on sex, is passing all kinds of abortion bills again with the hope that The U.S. Supreme Court will somehow overturn Roe vs. Wade--so we can return to herbal poisonous potions, clothes hangers, back alleys, and falling-down-stairs-days of past centuries. Fortunately, over 25% of abortions today are accomplished with two simple drugs. The medical procedure itself is less dangerous than a tonsillectomy. The number by drugs will skyrocket if abortions are banned. UPS will be very busy.

   In an article published on the 46th anniversary of Roe vs. Wade, Christine Bauer writes: “I can’t help remembering how I felt about this constitutional right for women back in 1984, when I was 18 years old, pregnant, and terrified. My most prominent feeling was one of gratitude. I was grateful that I had a choice-grateful that I could not be forced to endure a pregnancy and bring a child into this world when I was grossly unprepared to do so, emotionally, intellectually, and financially. I was thankful that I had the right to choose, guaranteed to me and other women by the court on January 22, 1973….Nearly 34 years after I made my personal choice, I am frustrated and dismayed that we are still distracted by and debating a woman’s right to choose. Think of what we could achieve as a country if we’d quit fighting over abortion rights—which nearly 60% of Americans agree should be legal in all or some cases—and come together to support women and motherhood and catch up to the rest of the world.” (By the way, in her case she chose adoption and had the baby.)

How Come A Perfect God Makes So Many Imperfect Babies?

   I have been listening to Roman Catholic and Lutheran sermons for 80 years. I have never heard answers to the above question. Priests and ministers will preach that the Bible says God checks out all humans while they are in the womb. One would think with those heavenly diagnoses a woman would never have a miscarriage, no baby would be strangled by the cord just before birth, no human will be born with two sets of genitalia—and that no one would be LBGTQ plus about 50 other genders.

  Previous research indicated women miscarried 10 to 20% of the time. One respected survey of 1,221,546 pregnancies in Denmark between 1978 and 1992 claimed the miscarriage rate was 13.5%. But new research summarized by evolutionary geneticist William Richard Rice of the University of California reveals that miscarriages could result during half of all pregnancies.

   In some studies abnormalities in the number of chromosomes cause about 50% of miscarriages. The main problem is many women don’t even know they are pregnant because most miscarriages occur in the first 12 weeks, and women may miscarry without knowing it. The miscarry rate also goes up with age, so Rice concludes, with many women marrying just before 30, a higher rate is the norm today. 

  Rice writes: “Miscarriage is the predominant outcome of fertilization, and a natural and inevitable part of human reproduction at all ages. Modern birth control with access to elective abortions markedly reduces rather than increases the lifetime number of abortions a woman produces. Access to birth control can reduce the number of miscarriages a woman will have in her lifetime.”

Who Says Members Of The LBGTQ Community Are Second-Class Citizens?

   The North Dakota legislature and the Trumwhitican Party certainly make that claim. (Plant scientists have just determined that strawberries have a gender identity of male and female. Inquiring minds want to know. When will the North Dakota legislature debate and prevent the sale of gay berries?) Do you know that there are twice as many transgender people in the military service on a percentage basis than there are in the civilian population?  They are protecting your ass. Transgenders have joined the military to gain affordable housing, a decent wage, health care, and other basic needs. Before the idiotic Trump ban proposed by “Christians” who seem to have no idea what Jesus Christ preached, the military was one of the few avenues to a career, a good income, health care, and educational opportunities.

   The following was written by Lt. Colonel Jennifer N. Pritzker, a transgender who served the U.S. Army for 27 years. She was later promoted to full colonel in the Illinois National Guard: “I am a transgender woman. Before my transition, I served  in the U.S. Army. I am also a Republican. It’s a mistake for the Republican party to ask me to choose between my true identity and my philosophy of government. For much of my life, I couldn’t explore my femininity without significant risk. If the military discovered I dressed as a woman, felt like a woman and Identified as a woman, my career would have ended immediately. (Here is her important point.) My wish is that more Americans understood the expression of gender. The medical community has known for decades that sex and gender cannot be determined solely by birth anatomy or chromosomes. There are many physical, social, and psychological elements that form a person’s gender identity. Transgender people such as myself need to express our internal identity so that others can see as we see ourselves.” She doesn’t have Satan whispering in her ears. She is not “intrinsically evil” as the Vatican argues. My God, wake up and join the human race in the 21st Century. If you are going by your gut instead of facts and science, remember the only way to examine your gut means your head must be in a very dark place.

Why Have “Christians” Turned On Jesus Christ?  Politics, Of Course!

   I see that great “Christian” leader the Reverend Franklin Graham says he has never heard or seen a lie from the lips or tweets of King Donald.  I didn’t know he was deaf and blind. Everybody else knows that if Trump’s lips or fingers are moving he is lying. The last count I saw was 8,158 about two weeks ago. But, no matter.     Some “Christians” think the lying pussy-grabber was appointed by God to be president of the United States. Franklin Graham is one of them. Some think his judicial appointments will overturn Roe vs. Wade. Maybe not. Actually over 75% of the American public, identifying as at least luke-warm Christians, say abortion is justified under Prenatal health, Rape, Incest, and health of the Mother (often abbreviated to PRIM). Only the Roman Catholic Church officially opposes abortion in all circumstances. We already know what about 90% of Catholics think of that. All other denominations, many represented by the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), the Southern Baptist Convention, the Church of latter-Day Saints, the Missouri Synod Lutherans, and the Episcopalians, say that at least some aspects of abortion ( PRIM) are justified.

   I think women will continue to fight to have jurisdiction over their bodies and will eventually win the argument regardless of right-wing “Christian” judges. I think the attitude of a deeply Christian mother who told her daughter her position on abortion will win the day: “You shouldn’t have a baby because you are pregnant. You should have a baby because you want to be a mother, because you want to have a family.” That makes a great deal of sense.