Thursday Appointments: SOS Hillary Rodham Clinton
SECRETARY OF STATE HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON
8:30 a.m. Secretary Clinton meets with Congressman Hal Rogers, at the Department of State.
9:15 a.m. Secretary Clinton meets with the Assistant Secretaries of the Regional Bureaus, at the Department of State.
11:15 a.m. Secretary Clinton attends a meeting at the White House.
1:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with Senator John Kerry, at the Department of State.
2:30 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, at the Department of State.
3:00 p.m. Secretary Clinton meets with Lieutenant General Michael Moeller, U.S. Security Coordinator for the Israel-Palestinian Authority
3:45 p.m. Secretary Clinton joins President Obama’s bilateral meeting with Colombian President Samuel Santos, at the White House.
4:45 p.m. Secretary Clinton holds a bilateral meeting with UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, at the Department of State.
6:30 p.m. Secretary Clinton attends the Woodrow Wilson Awards Reception and Dinner, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC.
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“6:30 p.m. Secretary Clinton attends the Woodrow Wilson Awards Reception and Dinner, at the Four Seasons Hotel in Washington, DC.”
Is she receiving an award?
I don’t think so. Here’s the organization/event page:
http://www.wilsoncenter.org/awards/index.cfm?groupid=C77F77BC-A3D1-8FA7-392F0CBBD142B76C&fuseaction=Award_for_Public_Service.welcome
OT, but on the subject of women:
http://www.alternet.org/story/150526/10_states_with_the_most_shocking_anti-woman_legislation?akid=6797.246062.IvZ2rW&rd=1&t=2
As disgusted as I am with the democrats one thing that has kept me voting for them is the hope that we can get better Supreme Court justices on the bench – the SCOTUS has been stacked with conservative activists for almost two decades and I bring this up because there comes a point where Roe means nothing if the states make it impossible for women to get abortion services. There are equal protection, privacy and substantive due process issues.
I think the younger generation (and even maybe some people in my generation) have totally taken Roe for granted. I was born in ’69 so I don’t really remember a time when abortion was illegal on the federal level. Eviscerating these abortion laws and making it impossible for women to get the services they need of course impacts poor and lower middle class women the most- as usual. Rich women can, and always have, gone to other countries to get abortions if need be. It will also push some into the back alleys.
During the 1980’s and 1990’s there were frequent women’s rights marches in Washington DC to let the politicians know we were watching- I went to every single on of them. But now? I hardly ever see Planned Parenthood or NARAL officers on TV/radio etc. I think it’s time for women to wake up from our complacency and send a message- a loud one.
I hope people realize that Roe v. Wade doesn’t stand in isolation from other cases- it is built on the right of unmarried women to obtain contraceptives (that was illegal for a period of time) and other privacy rights- if Roe is overruled or if states continue to chip away at it it could open the door to us going back to the 1950’s when even obtaining contraception was difficult. THAT would wake some women up but do we have to let it get to that?
More and more I think the US is devolving socially. This ultra-conservative political movement threatens to undo decades of progress in labor rights, women’s rights, human rights, environmental protection etc. Is that what people want? I love how the media frames believing in affordable, accessible healthcare is considered a “Far left” position but the media rarely label these wingnuts as “extreme” or on the “far right”- no, they are just “principled.” Nice double standard. The media hates the left contrary to what some believe (as does the Democratic establishment)- they are corporate and love to hug what they see as the middle but is actually the middle-right.
A thoughtful, reasoned reply, as I’ve learned to expect from you, stacy!
I know we’re preaching to the converted here, but I think you’re right that people take the right for granted and the history is important to know.
I was born in ’53, so was about 20 when the SCOTUS ruling in Roe v Wade was issued (ironically, greatly overshadowed in the news that day by Lyndon Johnson’s death). I remember well the horrifying stories about the many women who died or had devastating medical sequelae from trying to induce their own abortions (coat-hangers, etc) or going to untrained quacks. For every picture of an aborted fetus produced by the pro-life crowd, I could produce pictures of women maimed and killed in back alleys because of restrictive laws on abortions. Roe didn’t lead to a massive increase in the number of abortions; it led to a dramatic decrease in pregnancy-related morbidity and mortality. It also eventually led to bombings of abortion clinics and murders of abortion providers — all in the name of the sanctity of life. The irony of that has never ceased to amaze me.
Four years after Roe, thanks to Henry Hyde & company, federal funding for abortion was banned in all but the “most extreme” cases (rape, incest, imminent danger to mother). By the early 80’s, the physical health, rape, and incest exceptions were dropped. It took another 15 years or so for those exceptions to be reinstated, and now they’re under attack again. Only 17 states use their own funding to finance most abortions for women on Medicaid; the others follow the more restrictive federal standards (i.e. will pay for abortions only in cases of life endangerment, rape or incest).
Think about this: about 15% of all women and 40% of poor women of reproductive age are enrolled in Medicaid. Amazingly, most poor women who need abortions (which cost on average $400) do find a way to have them, but are forced to delay getting them because of the time needed to come up with the money and to divert money meant for rent, utility bills, food or clothing for themselves and their children. The longer the delay, the higher the cost, the greater the risks. And of course, anywhere from 20-30% of poor women simply cannot scrape together the funds and are forced to have children they never intended.
Stacy, sometimes you make the point — I’m paraphrasing — that every Congressman who votes for military interventions abroad should also accept reinstatement of the draft without exceptions/deferrals. I’ve often thought that every member of the pro-life movement — especially the most vociferous, ferocious ones — should also agree to take in one child of poor women forced by restrictive state and federal laws to have children they cannot afford to raise.
Many of the democrats have stopped championing women’s rights. The anti-choice folks are so gung ho about the human rights of a fetus but interestingly, don’t care much about the life of the mother OR the child once it shoots out of the uterus- then it can starve, be abused, have no shelter, be born addicted to crack, no health care and they don’t care.
Obviously people have a right to oppose abortion just like they have a right to not believe in homosexuality. Here’s the thing though- their religious beliefs should not prevent you or I or any other person from exercising their/our rights.
It’s also interesting that the very people who are the most vocal against abortion also oppose all the tried and true ways of preventing unwanted pregnancies. How are we supposed to interpret that?
Ok, so now the New York Times is limiting access to 20 free articles a month? That I can use in one day. Readership is going to drop off a lot I suspect with those kinds of restrictions.
T.
I’m not paying to read anything in the NYT.
OK, I admit it. I subscribe to weekend delivery, but mostly for the book review, magazine section, and X-word. Plus unlimited online.
Question- what’s the difference between the international edition and the national edition? I have a friend who says some of their more controversial opinion pieces (ie. more liberal) usually appear in the international edition and sometimes only on the online version, not the print edition. I didn’t know there were two different editions, international and national.
I think the paywall thing is going to backfire. he other thing I don’t like about it is that people who don’t have enough money just won’t have access. I don’t think that’s right. Right now the GOP is trying to kill net neutrality and if that isn’t vetoed or if the GOP retakes all of Congress or the WH we could actually end up with a two-tiered internet system where huge, billion-dollar internet providers serve as gatekeepers for content, with some content being billed at a higher price. One of the great things about the internet is that as the price of computers continues to go down, the poor have great access to a wealth of information. Access to this information is a human rights issue- some Boston inner city schools have few computers while kids that go to the private, mostly white schools in the burbs are tripping over computers and have their desks wired for computer access so they can bring laptops. Which kids do you think will have a better chance of getting into Harvard, or any college for that matter?
Ok, I’m getting off topic here.
I didn’t realize that either (differences betw national and international editions of the Times).
Re: who gets into Harvard, you should see the transformation of white, liberal NY parents when their son/daughter doesn’t get in, but a black classmate does. You’ve never heard such grumbling about affirmative action…!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/apr/07/israeli-wikileaks-cables-julian-assange
Interesting that Wikileaks has turned over cables dealing with Israel to Israeli newspapers.
Not surprising. Assange said he offered Israel cables to the US media and they didn’t want them. So our media will print cables that some claim harm US interests, but they won’t print cables that may show Israel in an unflattering light? Hmmm….interesting, that. The Israeli media is much better at debating such issues than we are, which is also interesting.
All along the media has been cherry picking which cables it will focus on- for example, on of the reasons we heard so much about Iran in the last document dump was because the US govt and the media CHOSE to focus on that. Why people don’t find that problematic is beyond me. I guess people are just happy so long as they are hearing what they want to hear. It’s not the media’s job to champion a particular issue or a particular side of an issue and yet that is what they do every single day. That ensures government abuse and a stupid citizenry.
The cables in SA’s link don’t seem terribly damning (of Israel), unless I’m missing something.
Did you hear/see Amb. Rice’s comments to Congress the other day basically saying that the U.S. will fight all attempts to criticize Israel at the UN and she framed the administration’s recent veto of the settlement resolution as some sort of morally upstanding effort by the Obama administration to veto anti-Israel resolutions.
So I guess Israel can do anything it damn well pleases and I guess every other country at the UN, including our Western allies, are all anti-Israel because THEY voted for the resolution. So essentially even though the settlements in the OT are illegal under international law the US considers it anti-Israel to bring that inconvenient fact up at the UN. I guess the Palestinians just have to suck it up and accept the US doesn’t give a sh*t about them. Could this administration pander just a wee bit more to the Lobby? So much for change you can believe in. Cowards. I’d love to know what they would do if they had to live in open air prisons in Gaza and had their children rounded up at night or their kids denied medical treatment because they aren’t allowed through a border crossing.
I wonder if anyone is planning a pro-Palestinian protest for September when the PA appeals to the General Assembly for statehood recognition?
I wonder too.