Don't look now, but your hubris is showing...

The opening salvo for the fate of Women's Rights was launched yesterday when Congress added a clause into a much-needed spending bill that would permit health car providers from denying services to patients, particularly those who are anti-Choice.

House and Senate negotiators have tucked a potentially far-reaching anti-abortion provision into a $388 billion must-pass spending bill, complicating plans for Congress to wrap up its business and adjourn for the year.

The provision may be an early indication of the growing political muscle of social conservatives who provided crucial support for Republican candidates, including President Bush, in the election.

House officials said Saturday morning that the final details of the spending measure were worked out before midnight and that the bill was filed for the House vote on Saturday.

The abortion language would bar federal, state and local agencies from withholding taxpayer money from health care providers that refuse to provide or pay for abortions or refuse to offer abortion counseling or referrals. Current federal law, aimed at protecting Roman Catholic doctors, provides such "conscience protection'' to doctors who do not want to undergo abortion training. The new language would expand that protection to all health care providers, including hospitals, doctors, clinics and insurers.

This can have extremely far-reaching implications. Doctors take an oath to provide health care to their patients, not to pick and choose when and where or to whom those services are provided.

Contact your Congresspeople and media outlets and tell them that American's are in favor of a women's right to choose. They no that already. It's wy they introduce the bill on Friday and then vote on it on Saturday. No debate this, especially in the national media. We can't lose any ground, no matter how small it may seem, without putting up a hell of a fight.

The up-side of getting down to this business so soon after their rise to power is we will be able to see who the "moderate" republicans are exactly and how effective they are in blocking the extremism of the majority of their party.

Narrowly escaping my civic duty...

Today I was scheduled for jury duty at the Superior Court in Brooklyn Heights. Like all people called for jury duty, I had a million other things to do and this was an inconveinant time at work. It's always an inconveniant time at work though, so I figured I should go.

Less than two years ago, I've served jury duty in New Jersey, back when my permanent residence was still my parent's house. (In fact I still get informtion about voting in New Jersey sent to their house though I vote in New York. I've toyed with the idea of voting twice thanks to the conveiniance of the smelly old PATH system.) It was the summer of 2003 when I spent the day sitting in an uncomfortable chair in a hot, dark room reading trashy magazines. Not unlike my everyday life, but this place had no Diet Coke, only terrible coffee with sugar. No Equal! Not even Sweet'n Low!

As I've blogged before, it's as if civics is my religion. I find nothing more thrilling than the chance to be a part of the process of government. But even I was dreading the long days of sitting and waiting. And there is always the fear of being sequestered!

So I called to explain how I've been to jury duty in Jersey in 2003, but the lady on the phone told me that it didn't matter a lick to the state of New York. I like here now and I have a committment to the people of this state. So I showed up at 8:45 this morning and sat in an even more uncomfortable chair in a hotter, darker room devoid of any coffee at all. We had to watch a video hosted by Ed Bradley of 60 Minutes and Diane Sawyer of ABC's Primetime. In the movie it was explained to us how in olden times, people used to be bound and gagged and thrown into a river to determine their guilt or innocence, so we should be grateful and all stop complaining about the lack of sugar substitiute.

On the off chance that the ornery woman on the phone was wrong, I explained my New Jersey service. A very polite young woman told me I shouldn't be here. She said the crazy phone lady was either ignorant or lazy, but probably both. I had only to send proof of my service and I was free to go. She told me to pack up and leave, though she didn't give me the complimentary copy of The Daily News.

I feel slightly guilty for not staying to serve, and if I could be guarenteed I would be on a jury for days and not have to sit around and wait, then I may have stayed to enjoy. I'm sure it would be just like Law and Order, right down to the wisecracks and the overbearing attorneys.

The Secretary of Selling-Out gets out...

As expected, Powell resigned today and will leave as a replacement is chosen.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said today that he would resign as soon as a successor was chosen, the result of what he described as a longstanding agreement with President Bush that he would serve only four years as the nation's chief diplomat.

According to reports of the Washington buzz, it is highly likely that current National Secretary Advisor Condoleezza Rice will be Powell's successor. While Powell has known as a reasonable voice in an otherwise radical administration, whose ideas of loyalty to the president win out every time to his ideals and instincts, Rice's only contribution is her unquestionable loyalty coupled with her unquestionable incompetence.

People give Powell a pass, knowing that he disagrees with the way this war has been justified and waged to this point. The only problem is that this debate happens behind closed doors. Staying on message and supporting your boss is respectable asset to a point, but going to bat for a lie, the way he has done so often in the last four years, has tarnished his reputation. He will always be remembered as the man who went to the U.N. and lied to the world about our intelligence and our threats and cost over a thousand U.S. troops their lives.

When you align yourself so closely with war criminals and crooks, you are complicit in their crimes. Powell's resignation of his position should have happened two years ago before the resignation of his integrity and our respect.

Binging on lies, purging all debate...

In a rare moment of horrifying honesty, the president is staying true to his word. Shortly after the election, in an even more rare moment of press conferencing, Bush told reporters that he intends to "reach out to all who shres my goals."

Accroding to today's Newsday, the White House has ordered the new CIA chief Peter Goss to "purge" the agency of people who disagree or have been perceived as disloyal.

The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

"The agency is being purged on instructions from the White House," said a former senior CIA official who maintains close ties to both the agency and to the White House. "Goss was given instructions ... to get rid of those soft leakers and liberal Democrats. The CIA is looked on by the White House as a hotbed of liberals and people who have been obstructing the president's agenda."

How about purging those at the agency who failed us all so miserablely by allowing faulty intelligence to be used to decieve the country into war? Or we could purge the agency of its complete subordination to a criminal administration. I can think of a lot of purging that can be done around Washington, but it certainly doesn't include purging all those who disagree with this president.