Air Force Officer In Charge Of Sexual Assault Prevention Arrested For Sexual Assault

Air Force Officer In Charge Of Sexual Assault Prevention Arrested For Sexual Assault: The officer in charge of the U.S. Air Force’s response to sexual assault was himself arrested for sexual battery this weekend, drawing attention yet again to the extent of rape culture in the armed services. Lt. Col. Jeff Krusinski is accused of assaulting a woman in an Arlington, VA, parking lot early Sunday morning. According [...]/p

Elizabeth Smart: Abstinence Education Teaches Rape Victims They’re Worthless, Dirty, And Filthy

Elizabeth Smart: Abstinence Education Teaches Rape Victims They’re Worthless, Dirty, And Filthy: Elizabeth Smart became a household name after she was kidnapped from her home in Salt Lake City, UT at the age of 14 and held in captivity for nine months. She was forced into a polygamous marriage, tethered to a metal cable, and raped daily until she was rescued from her captors nine months later. [...]/p

Sequestration Devastates Education Programs, But Congress Fails To Notice

Sequestration Devastates Education Programs, But Congress Fails To Notice: For two months now, Congress has ignored reports about how the sequester is causing kids to be kicked off Head Start and seniors to lose their Meals on Wheels services. But after just a few days of reports that passengers had to wait longer before boarding their flights, Congress rushed to pass a last minute [...]/p

Mitt Romney's Advice for Recent Female Grads: "Have a Quiver Full of Kids" | Alternet

Mitt Romney's Advice for Recent Female Grads: "Have a Quiver Full of Kids" | Alternet
"Don't expect wealth and power, Romney warned the women of the Southern Virginia University's graduating class. Just get married and make lots of babies!"

Exposed: How Murdoch, Bill Gates and Big Corporations are Data Mining our Schools

Exposed: How Murdoch, Bill Gates and Big Corporations are Data Mining our Schools
"Starting next year, those scores, along with students' personal information – race, economic background, report cards, discipline records and personal addresses – will be stored in a database designed by Wireless Generation, a subsidiary of media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.

That's right, Rupert Murdoch can read your child's report card anytime he likes and he knows where your kid is sleeping."

Most U.S. Women Want Birth Control Pills To Be Available Over The Counter

Most U.S. Women Want Birth Control Pills To Be Available Over The Counter: Nearly two-thirds of women in the United States wish they could purchase their birth control pills over the counter, according to a new nationally-representative survey from Ibis Reproductive Health. About 30 percent of respondents who don’t currently use birth control, or who have opted for a less effective contraceptive method like condoms, reported that they [...]/p

GOP Senator: I Voted Against Equal Pay For Women Because We Have Enough Laws

GOP Senator: I Voted Against Equal Pay For Women Because We Have Enough Laws: WARREN, NH — Women in full-time year-round jobs earned 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Yet, at a town hall earlier this week, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) claimed that Congress has done enough to ensure that women receive equal pay for equal work. Indeed, she justified her vote against legislation intended to [...]/p

'Devout Christian' Army Officer and His Wife Charged With Horrific Child Abuse

'Devout Christian' Army Officer and His Wife Charged With Horrific Child Abuse
"Federal authorities have charged an Army major and his wife with abusing their adopted and foster children through beatings, breaking their bones, failing to get them medical help, depriving them of drinking water and training their biological kids to take part in the mistreatment."

GOP Uses Picture Of Obama Consoling A Newtown Victim To Gloat About Obama’s ‘Defeats’

GOP Uses Picture Of Obama Consoling A Newtown Victim To Gloat About Obama’s ‘Defeats’: Earlier today, the Republican National Committee released a one minute video gloating that President Obama has experienced a “string of defeats” during the first 100 days of his second term. Of course, the reason for these “defeats” is that the GOP retains the power to unilaterally block progress in the Senate through filibusters, and they [...]/p

Another Government Is Necessary: The People Can Rule Better Than the Elites

Another Government Is Necessary: The People Can Rule Better Than the Elites
"More people are taking action in their communities to meet their basic needs because of government corruption at all levels that protects the status quo when urgent change is needed. People are moving on many fronts to challenge the system and create the world they want to see."

Pregnant T-Mobile Employee Forced to Take Vacation Time to Use Bathroom, Fired Over 12 Cent Error | Alternet

Pregnant T-Mobile Employee Forced to Take Vacation Time to Use Bathroom, Fired Over 12 Cent Error | Alternet
"T-Mobile forced a pregnant employee to clock out every time she used the restroom, even after she obtained, by company request, a doctor’s note urging her to drink more water, ABC reports."

Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products | Common Dreams

Report: Toxic Chemicals Found in Thousands of Children's Products | Common Dreams
"Walmart alone reported a total of 459 instances of products containing chemicals including arsenic, cadmium, phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA), and mercury."

How Indiana Republicans Snuck Through A New Law To Shut Down Abortion Clinics

How Indiana Republicans Snuck Through A New Law To Shut Down Abortion Clinics: On Wednesday morning, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R) approved Senate Enrolled Act 371, a measure that imposes unnecessary restrictions on non-surgical abortion clinics with the specific goal of forcing a Planned Parenthood affiliate to close its doors. Planned Parenthood of Indiana, in conjunction with the ACLU, has vowed to fight the new law and will [...]/p

U.S. Government Reminds Colleges: Don’t Punish Students Who Speak Up About Sexual Assault

U.S. Government Reminds Colleges: Don’t Punish Students Who Speak Up About Sexual Assault: Over the past several months, students and faculty on several college campuses have filed federal complaints with the U.S. Department of Education, alleging that their universities’ administrations have perpetrated rape culture by mishandling sexual assault cases. But university officials don’t always take those allegations very well. A University of North Carolina student was threatened with [...]/p

GOP Targets Women With Ads For Bill That Would Weaken Overtime Pay

GOP Targets Women With Ads For Bill That Would Weaken Overtime Pay: In a bid for women’s support and votes, the GOP launched an aggressive ad campaign on “mommy blogs” on Tuesday. The ads will tout its deceptively titled Working Families Flexibility Act that would weaken overtime pay laws: The banner ads will be featured on over 100 websites popular among women and geo-targeted to be viewed [...]/p

Swarthmore College Allegedly Underreported Sexual Assaults, Dissuaded Victims From Coming Forward

Swarthmore College Allegedly Underreported Sexual Assaults, Dissuaded Victims From Coming Forward: A group of Swarthmore students are filing a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against their Philadelphia-area college, alleging the elite private institution has been mishandling the sexual crimes that occur on campus. The students say that Swarthmore has violated federal law by failing to accurately report sexual assault cases, as well as by [...]/p

VIEWPOINT: Why Birth Control Needs To Be Both Over The Counter And On Your Insurance Plan

VIEWPOINT: Why Birth Control Needs To Be Both Over The Counter And On Your Insurance Plan: In February, amidst the ongoing battle over religious employers and no co-pay contraception, the Obama administration quietly issued a set of frequently asked questions to shed light on how insurance companies should implement the health reform law’s new requirement to cover contraception with no cost sharing. The FAQ makes it crystal clear that insurers must [...]/p

When Your Boss Steals Your Wages: The Invisible Epidemic

When Your Boss Steals Your Wages: The Invisible Epidemic
"Who gets cheated?Women, minorities, immigrants, and workers at the bottom of the wage scale are hardest hit, but wage theft is thriving across the employment spectrum."

How State Lawmakers Are Working To Make Abortion Too Expensive For Low-Income Women

How State Lawmakers Are Working To Make Abortion Too Expensive For Low-Income Women: In the ongoing war on women’s reproductive rights, the mounting pile of state-level abortion restrictions are pulling some parts of the country back to a time before Roe v. Wade, when a woman’s abortion access was largely dependent on her privilege. Even though Roe still stands, it doesn’t necessarily do much to protect the economically [...]/p

Police Shut Down Protest Of NC GOP, Arrest 8 Members Of The Clergy And A Woman In A Wheelchair

Police Shut Down Protest Of NC GOP, Arrest 8 Members Of The Clergy And A Woman In A Wheelchair: North Carolina capitol police arrested 17 people yesterday after protesters gathered in front of the doors to the state senate chamber in an act of civil disobedience against the Republican-led state legislature’s agenda. The arrestees included eight members of the clergy, and a woman in a wheelchair that a spokesperson for The Advancement Project identified [...]/p

GOP War On Women Stigmatizing Patients While Closing Clinics

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Meet the Billionaire Bankrolling Austerity, As He Stands to Make Billions More From Privatization of Safety Net | Alternet

Meet the Billionaire Bankrolling Austerity, As He Stands to Make Billions More From Privatization of Safety Net | Alternet
"The motivation behind the world-wide economic con of austerity has been discovered. And, the source is none other than Pete Peterson – the debt-obsessed billionaire who stands to make billions off the privatization of our social safety net."

Long Hours Are Pushing Mothers Out Of Male-Dominated Jobs

Long Hours Are Pushing Mothers Out Of Male-Dominated Jobs: While progress was steadily made to integrate women into traditionally male jobs for many decades, in recent years the rate has slowed considerably. There are many factors that lead men and women to end up in different occupations, but a new study has found that one big reason, particularly when it comes to women with [...]/p

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Maybe Bush v. Gore Wasn't the Best Decision | Alternet

Justice Sandra Day O’Connor: Maybe Bush v. Gore Wasn't the Best Decision | Alternet
"Bush v. Gore demonstrates how justices who are determined to reach a certain result are capable of bending both the law and their own prior jurisprudence in order to achieve it."

Obama Speech To Planned Parenthood A First In US History

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Obama Stands Up For Women In Address To Planned Parenthood

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University Of Arizona Student Tells Women: ‘You Deserve Rape’

University Of Arizona Student Tells Women: ‘You Deserve Rape’: "In other sermons, Saxton has cursed people who are gay, have pre-marital sex, masturbate or have lustful thoughts. His Twitter account is rife with anti-Muslim sentiment, as well; last month he tweeted, “There will come a time when the sword will be put to the heathen"."

12 Programs Congress Refuses To Save From Automatic Spending Cuts

12 Programs Congress Refuses To Save From Automatic Spending Cuts: After thousands of flight delays across the country this week, the United States Senate voted Thursday night to give the Federal Aviation Administration the flexibility to keep the nation’s airports running smoothly. The delays were caused by the furlough of air traffic controllers, who were rotating off the job because of sequestration’s automatic budget cuts [...]/p

Jackass of the Day: Arizona University Student Sermonizes With Sign Saying "You Deserve Rape" | Alternet

Jackass of the Day: Arizona University Student Sermonizes With Sign Saying "You Deserve Rape" | Alternet
"Dean Saxton, a junior, stirred controversy Tuesday for manically sermonizing in a campus square whilst wielding a sign emblazoned, “You Deserve Rape,” reports the  Arizona Daily Wildcat, AU’s campus newspaper."

How An Excel Spreadsheet Error Hurt The Economy

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Soon, There May Be Fewer Doctors Receiving Birth Control Training, And That’s A Big Problem

Soon, There May Be Fewer Doctors Receiving Birth Control Training, And That’s A Big Problem: Thursday marks the last day to comment on a new curriculum for training medical professionals proposed by The Family Medicine Committee of the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME), a group that most Americans have likely never heard of before. But it’s an obscure issue with huge implications. Thursday’s deadline is important because it [...]/p

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet

50 Reasons You Despised George W. Bush's Presidency: A Reminder on the Day of His Presidential Library Dedication | Alternet
"Amazingly, the Bush library seeks to ask visitors "What would you have done?" if you were in this president’s shoes. The ex-president’s defenders are betting that the public will reconsider their judgments after a hefty dose of historical amnesia. Bush has been absent from political debates in recent years, instead making millions in private speeches."

New Mexico GOP Official Calls 19-Year-Old ‘A Radical Bitch’

New Mexico GOP Official Calls 19-Year-Old ‘A Radical Bitch’: Steve Kush, executive director of the Bernalillo County Republican Party in New Mexico, took to Twitter on Tuesday to verbally abuse a 19-year-old Working America volunteer who testified in favor of raising the minimum wage. Bernalillo County, the largest county in New Mexico, was considering a proposal to increase the county minimum wage from $7.50 [...]/p

How To Help The Middle Class Without Spending Government Money

How To Help The Middle Class Without Spending Government Money: The middle class has been shrinking since the recession as most of the country’s wealth has traveled upward. But any policy aimed at helping working families that also comes with a hefty price tag has little chance of passing through Congress and becoming law. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for trying to bolster the [...]/p

Megachurch Pastor Preaches for Women to Submit: 'You're a Nag' Like Chinese Water Torture

Megachurch Pastor Preaches for Women to Submit: 'You're a Nag' Like Chinese Water Torture
"The founding pastor of a Washington state megachurch on Sunday told female parishioners that God wanted them to submit to their husbands and that they shouldn't be a "nag," likening them to Chinese water torture."

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation

Conservative Group Photoshops Out Minorities In Mailer Opposing Pro-Voting Legislation: A conservative group connected to Colorado’s Secretary of State has been sending political mailers — including a picture of a darker-skinned woman whose face was digitally removed and replaced with a white woman’s face — in an attempt to oppose a landmark voting bill that may soon become law. Colorado is currently considering a major [...]/p

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet

Republicans Too Busy Ranting on Fox News to Actually Write Any Bills | Alternet
"Has the party become "post-policy"? The modern GOP simply have given up on and lost the capacity for developing policy ideas."

Kansas Governor Writes 'JESUS Mary' on Notes for Anti-Abortion Bill | Common Dreams

Kansas Governor Writes 'JESUS Mary' on Notes for Anti-Abortion Bill | Common Dreams
"Next to the extreme anti-abortion bill Kansas Governor Sam Brownback (R) signed into lawon Friday were notes on which he wrote JESUS + Mary at the top and further down that it was a bill that would create "a culture of life," an Associated Press photo reveals."

The Rightwing Donors Who Fuel America's Culture Wars | Common Dreams

The Rightwing Donors Who Fuel America's Culture Wars | Common Dreams
"Alabama, Tennessee, North Dakota, and Mississippi are among the latest to impose unprecedented restrictions on women's access to abortionservices. All told, in the first three months of this year, 694 provisions related to reproductive health have come before state legislatures, more than half of them involving abortion restrictions."

Michigan High School Chooses To Protect Star Basketball Player Instead Of His Rape Victims

Michigan High School Chooses To Protect Star Basketball Player Instead Of His Rape Victims: The National Women’s Law Center is joining forces with a Michigan-area law firm to file a complaint on behalf of a young woman who was sexually assaulted by one of her high school’s star basketball players. As RH Reality Check reports, the complaint alleges that high school administrators did nothing to help advocate for the [...]/p

Steubenville Football Coach Gets Contract Extension After Involvement In Rape Scandal

Steubenville Football Coach Gets Contract Extension After Involvement In Rape Scandal: Reno Saccocia has been the head football coach at Steubenville High School since 1983. He has won 311 football games, made 23 appearances in the state playoffs, and captured three Ohio state championships. That, apparently, is all that matters to the school board that covers the high school, because it just gave Saccocia — who [...]/p

Kansas Governor Approves Sweeping Anti-Abortion Law, Writes ‘JESUS Mary’ In His Notes On The Bill

Kansas Governor Approves Sweeping Anti-Abortion Law, Writes ‘JESUS Mary’ In His Notes On The Bill: Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) has signed a stringent anti-abortion bill that blocks tax breaks for abortion providers, requires doctors to tell women about the disputed link between abortion and breast cancer, and defines life as beginning at conception in the state constitution. However, despite the fact that the omnibus legislation is 70 pages long, [...]/p

Sen. Flake Lied To Shooting Victim's Mother -- In Writing

Sen. Flake Lied To Shooting Victim's Mother -- In Writing
"So Sen. Jeff "Empty Suit, Empty Soul" Flake, Scott Brown 2.0, is such a mewling little coward, he tells the mother of a mass shooting victim he, like her, supports expanding background checks -- then votes to kill the bill."

Senator Told Shooting Victim’s Mother He Supported Background Checks, Then Voted Against Them

Senator Told Shooting Victim’s Mother He Supported Background Checks, Then Voted Against Them: Shortly before the a crucial Senate vote to expand background checks in gun transactions, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) sent a letter to the mother of a shooting victim claiming that he was “truly sorry” for her son’s death and that “strengthening background checks is something we agree on.” A few days later, he voted to [...]/p

Plan B Ruling: Fox and Family Research Council Seize Opportunity to Spread Misinformation

Plan B Ruling: Fox and Family Research Council Seize Opportunity to Spread Misinformation
"The Fox News response to the recent Plan B ruling provides a graphic example of how the channel uses what it calls "fair and balanced" reporting to create false perceptions."

Why An Anti-Birth Control CEO’s Big Mouth May Force His Lawyers To Toss Him Under The Bus

Why An Anti-Birth Control CEO’s Big Mouth May Force His Lawyers To Toss Him Under The Bus: As ThinkProgress explained on Monday, the CEO of a company challenging the Obama Administration’s rules promoting access to birth control made statements to the press which could destroy the basis of this case. Since then, the CEO went even further in undercutting the basis of his case. Indeed, the CEO’s most recent statements are so [...]/p

Did a Spreadsheet Error Cost You Your Job? | Common Dreams

Did a Spreadsheet Error Cost You Your Job? | Common Dreams
"Did an Excel error cost you your job? This is what people around the world should be asking after researchers at the University of Massachusetts uncovered a serious calculationmistake. The mistake was in an enormously influential paper by Carmen Reinhart and Ken Rogoff, two prominent economists, which purports to show that high levels of government debt lead to slow economic growth. This paper has been widely cited by political figures around the world who have been pushing the case for cutting back government spending and raising taxes. House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan famously cited Reinhart and Rogoff when he laid out his budget earlier this year. So have many of the politicians now pushing for cuts in Social Security and Medicare."

Tucson Victim's Mother: We're 'Not Defeated'

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Senate Ignores Americans, Chooses Doing Nothing On Guns

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High Schooler Protests ‘Slut-Shaming’ Abstinence Assembly Despite Alleged Threats From Her Principal

High Schooler Protests ‘Slut-Shaming’ Abstinence Assembly Despite Alleged Threats From Her Principal: A West Virginia high school student is filing an injunction against her principal, who she claims is threatening to punish her for speaking out against an factually inaccurate abstinence assembly at her school. Katelyn Campbell, who is the student body vice president at George Washington High School, alleges her principal threatened to call the college [...]/p

Top Iowa Elections Official: Pass Voter ID So The GOP Can Kill Abortion Rights And Marriage Equality

Top Iowa Elections Official: Pass Voter ID So The GOP Can Kill Abortion Rights And Marriage Equality: At a social conservatives’ conference this week, Iowa’s Secretary of State argued that Republicans need to pass voter ID in order to advance their top policy goals, including banning abortion and same-sex marriage. Matt Schultz (R), elected in the Tea Party wave of 2010, spoke at length about his support for implementing voter ID in [...]/p

North Dakota, Home To Nation’s Strictest Abortion Law, Approves Yet Another Ban For Good Measure

North Dakota, Home To Nation’s Strictest Abortion Law, Approves Yet Another Ban For Good Measure: Last month, North Dakota enacted the most stringent abortion restriction in the nation: a radical “fetal heartbeat” ban to criminalize all abortion services after just six weeks of pregnancy. Women’s health advocates are preparing to fight the unconstitutional law in court, and North Dakota has already requested a $400,000 budget increase to fund those legal [...]/p

New Hampshire Lawmaker Calls All Women ‘Vaginas’

New Hampshire Lawmaker Calls All Women ‘Vaginas’: New Hampshire State Rep. Peter Hansen (R) sparked a firestorm in the state house after he sent a recent email to an internal house listserv that referred to women as “vaginas.” Hansen was defending the state’s “stand your ground” bill, which one lawmaker had challenged with stories about how retreating from a confrontational situation is [...]/p

Accused Rapists Scribbled Messages All Over 15-Year-Old Audrie Pott’s Unconscious Body

Accused Rapists Scribbled Messages All Over 15-Year-Old Audrie Pott’s Unconscious Body: In an emotional press conference on Monday, Lisa Pott, whose stepdaughter Audrie killed herself last fall after allegedly being raped, read a series of Audrie’s Facebook messages sent shortly before her suicide: “My life is ruined. I can’t do anything to fix it. I just want this to go away. My life is over. The [...]/p

How A Right-Wing CEO’s Big Mouth Could Kill His Attack On Birth Control

How A Right-Wing CEO’s Big Mouth Could Kill His Attack On Birth Control: pEden Foods is one of several for-profit corporations challenging Obama Administration rules requiring most employer-provided health plans to cover birth control, on the questionable legal theory that Eden is immune to these rules because its owner has religious objections to birth control. According to Eden’s legal complaint, Eden’s owner “Michael Potter holds religious beliefs that [...]/p