Entries for January 2009

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

I'm not sure I agree with my colleague John A. Farrell's take on whether the Republicans made a mistake by opposing President Obama's stimulus bill in the U.S. House:

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

Well, President Obama is barely into his second week in office and his flimflam promise of post-partisanship has shown itself to be the campaign lie it always seemed to many of us to be. The veiled myth of post-partisanship was revealed as the curtain was pulled back on the House vote on the stimulus package yesterday: The bill passed with no Republican support. That, even after Mr. Obama tossed women's health aside and caved into Republican demands to cut out hundreds of millions of dollars to provide birth control to low-income women.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

This little ditty about the True Woman Manifesto and so-called submissive feminists is wending its way around the Web, drawing choruses of excoriation from true, or progressive, feminists.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

Not sure what Joan Walsh said to prompt former (thank god) U.S. Rep. Dick Armey to retort as follows. But whatever it was, Armey's loose lips have shown him to be the chauvinist he and many of his old guard GOP buddies are. In fact, Armey will now be seen as the GOP's "aren't we out of it?" poster child. As the party reforms after its trouncing at the polls in November, it should consult Armey on what it needs to do, and then do the complete opposite.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog

My colleague Sam Dealey posts against the Lilly Ledbetter Law, which President Obama is due to sign today, as the first bill signing of his administration. The law makes it easier for people who believe they've been discriminated against in terms of pay to sue employers.

Sam: I'm against frivolous litigation, too. But methinks you stretch the possibilities posed by the Ledbetter Law to the point where they don't just break, they get nuked. In your post of yesterday you wrote:

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

Judith Scott probably never set out to be a First Amendment heroine. But she is as far as I'm concerned. As described in my Scripps Howard Newspaper column, she has filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Virginia for what she claims was a retaliatory firing. Her proselytizing boss at the Blacksburg, Va., Middle School, whose acts are detailed in her court filing, kept trying to force her to participate in unlawful prayer meetings and religious events at work.

By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog.

Very interesting post on alternet.org about whether Sarah Palin gives right-wingers a chance to launch something called free-market feminism and brand her as a lure to younger, slightly more progressive Republican or conservative women. The article explains how she appeals to Bible conservatives with her lifestyle (heterosexual marriage, lots of kids and a great career) but also to free-marketers with her beliefs.