Update on the Fox News Downfall

In addition to Bill O'Reilly's well deserved exit from Fox News, on Monday, the door slammed on now former co-President of Fox News, Bill Shine, amid a cluster of NEW law suits over both corporate sexism and racial discrimination.  Some of those stories include reports of black female employees being coerced into arm wrestling white female employees, for the gratification of their white male bosses.

Shein took over from sex crazed exec and office pervert (alleged) Roger Ailes, effectively the founder of Fox News.  It appears he did not do much if anything to change the toxic misogynistic and racist culture of the organization.

Further rumors that are credible say that Sean Hannity will be out by Friday, giving rise to rumors that Fox News may be on its way to a substantial decline or even a possible collapse.

We have another deplorable supporting the Fox News misogyny, Michael Reagan weighing in.
Another anti-women conservative, the son of the disastrous conservative president Ronald Reagan,
who tweeted in defense of Fake News, apparently ignoring that the dress of women on camera was dictated by the management:

"If women are going to wear low cut dresses that show cleavage don't be harassed when we men look. Or should we sue for sexual arousal?"

Apparently Reagan never got the memo or the upbringing that men and women are each of us responsible for our own feelings and reactions, and especially for unacceptable behavior.  The issue here is that unacceptable behavior, including unprofessional conduct. 

It is ironic that so many of the women of Fox News are now found on MSNBC.  Perhaps even more surprising is that there is an apparent friendship and mutual adration society that has quietly existed for a while now between Roger Ailes and MSNBC  super star Rachel Maddow.  The story goes that Ailes is a huge admirer of the work done by Maddow.  It is worth noting that as Maddow has gained experience she has surpassed the performance of Fox News, particularly in the more desirable demographics.

I found it ironic while posting the news of the departure of another figure from the right wing propaganda outlet, notorious for its factual inaccuracies and partisan malice, grotesque hypocrisy, racism and on-air sexism, that some of the more ignorant right wing trolls claimed that the worst thing that ever happened at Fox News was some slightly salty language.  They denied the findings of the law firm that Fox hired to investigate the charges against the company which found them to be true.  And credible journalism like the New York Times reported that the sexual harassment extended at times to women being intimidated into being groped, kissed against their will, and women being coerced to perform oral sex acts on executive in the Fox News offices during working hours.  The trolls were apparently a mixture of women and men on the right, among some of the most misinformed individuals I have ever encountered (based on their expressed beliefs appearing in comments), which argues well for the accuracy of Hillary Clinton that both sexism and misogyny were factors in her election defeat.

In other news supporting the contention that the radical right are members of an adult version of the Little Rascals' "He Man Women Haters Club" has been the news that Rep. Fisher in New Hampshire was one of the originators of a particularly toxic and noxious sub reddit, a type of forum / website, in which he makes the observation

..on The Red Pill made by one of Fisher’s alleged usernames in 2008 reads, “rape isn’t an absolute bad, because the rapist I think probably likes it a lot. I think he’d say it’s quite good, really.”

...The Red Pill frequently normalizes rape, diminishes female intelligence and discusses the best ways to pick up women, including “negging,” a tactic in which men say backhanded compliments to women in order to lower their confidence and make them more open to sexual advances.

This is conservatism in the 21st Century.  Those who do not share these deplorable and repugnant views in how they conduct themselves are however far too willing to include in their party and their politics those who do act and think like this in devaluing and demeaning women.  This is the GOP that accepted TRump as a candidate and support him in his presidency.  This thinking is where the racist and the sexism in policy originates on the right.  And the Evangelical Right is smack in the middle of it, as are the far right white supremacists and other people Hillary Clinton correctly identified  as deplorables.  Just as Racism drove right wing hatred of Obama for being bi-racial, this misogyny drove the hatred of Hillary Clinton.  Neither was rational or objective. No one repudiates it on the right, no one drives out these people on the right.

Fox News and Republican candidates and Conservative polices all normalize the view of women as lesser, not equal.  This is true in opposing equal pay for women as much as in treating women as sexual objects or second class citizens without the same rights and true equality.  The right is attempting to make misogyny socially acceptable and to make other hate such as racism, religious intolerance, and hate and fear for the LGBT acceptable.  The opposition to so-called "political correctness" is just one facet of this effort to undermine women in society.

And in other news another Right Wing Extremist, a be able to have an abortion as the result of either.

From CBS News:

Mourdock, a Tea Party-backed candidate who beat longtime moderate Senator Richard Lugar in the state's Republican nominating contest earlier this year, expressed his view that "life begins at conception" and that he would only allow abortions in circumstances in which the mother's life was in danger.

...Republican candidate Richard Mourdock suggested that pregnancies resulting from rape are "something that God intended to happen,"

His assertion, lacking internal logic, that nothing happens without the will of God would then presumably extend as well to murder or crimes against humanity.  Because nothing can happen without God's will making it so -- which should include abortion, giving the majority of conceptions do not implant or otherwise naturally terminate, so.......approved by God. This is the same mindset that gives rapists custody of their children conceived from criminal acts, and the same mindset in other parts of the world that see no crime in rape, if the victim subsequently marries the rapist, because then "all good".

I have to wonder if Murdock were raped, but did not get pregnant, if he would still find that an Act consistent with the approval of God? I'm betting absent the accident of pregnancy he would not.

So much for the Second Amendment protects the First's Freedoms.

Anita Sarkeesian, a feminist known for her critical look at how women are portrayed in popular media cancelled a talk at Utah State University, citing Utah gun laws, after an email threatening a campus shooting was sent to the school.

The e-mail threatened "the deadliest school shooting in American history" if Anita Sarkeesian was allowed to speak at the school. The email is purported to have been written by a student with access to a semiautomatic rifle, several pistols and pipe bombs.

"I'm giving you a chance to stop it," the message reads, demanding that Sarkeesian's presentation be canceled.

The writer of the threatening email called Sarkeesian "everything wrong with the feminist woman" and blames feminism for the emasculation of Western men. The message also referred  to Marc Lepine, the gunman behind a deadly attack against women at a Canadian university in 1989, as a hero and promised a similar shooting at USU, specifically referencing Sarkeesian, attendees at the presentation, and students and staff at the women's center.

Sarkeesian asked school officials whether firearms would be allowed in the auditorium where she was scheduled to speak. USU officials replied that, in accordance with Utah law, anyone with a valid concealed carry permit would be able to enter with a gun, according to a statement released by the university.

Sarkeesian said she requested pat-downs or metal detectors for those coming to the presentation but was denied based on Utah's firearms laws.

Of course, the lawful gun owners would be protecting a crazy.

Or else become yet another mass shooter thanks to crappy US gun laws.

Or as one person commented on Facebook:

But only a good guy with a gun can stop a bad guy with a gun! So clearly what was necessary was for pro-Sarkaasian partisans to also show up armed, and then we could have a multi-way shoot-out in a crowded auditorium. Freedom!

To be honest, guns don't guarantee freedom--they never have. What guarantees freedom are people who are willing to speak out, especially if what they say is unpopular.

Those who kill only create martyrs.

See also:

• Anita Sarkeesian, Video Game Critic, Cancels Speech After Threats of Massacre - NYTimes.com
• ‘Gamergate’: Feminist video game critic Anita Sarkeesian cancels Utah lecture after threat - The Washington Post
• Anita Sarkeesian cancels Utah State speech after mass-shooting threat - LA Times

March 8th is International Women's DayConservatives don't VALUE Women, they just try to control, restrict and dominate women and girls

Next door in South Dakota we have another example of racism meeting misogyny, and attempt by right wingers to intrude more of THEIR religious bias into governmental authority, using it AGAINST women, their families, clergy, and doctors.

The radical right just cannot let people make their own decisions. Rabid conservatives in South Dakota are trying to pass a law that would make it a felony to have an abortion because of gender selection of the embryo - and they are blaming this on a small increase in the Asian population of the state, not on any actual indication that such abortions are taking place in the U.S., by Asians or anyone else.

Earlier this week, the gender abortion ban deadlocked in the Senate, after having passed the House, as noted in SF Gate.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota's proposed ban on gender-selective abortions would stigmatize Asian-Americans and promote racial stereotypes, opponents of the measure said during a hearing Monday.
Lena Tran, an Asian-American student at the University of South Dakota, said the ban would result in racial profiling against Asian women in doctors' offices.
"I personally would not get an abortion," Tran said to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. "I do not want my friends and neighbors to look at me with suspicion."

We should not be passing racist bills in this country, directed at someone's ethnicity or country of origin. This is both racist, and just one more effort to prevent women from making decisions about their bodies and their reproductive health that is their constitutional right.

I don't actually find the Radical Right valuing women in the U.S.

They oppose paying women equal compensation for equal work, they oppose paying a fair minimum wage which affects women more than men, they support legislation that is intended to take away autonomy of women over their own bodies, and to shame and humiliate women with costly and intrusive procedures like medically unnecessary ultrasounds. The extremist conservatives on the Radical Right opposed the Equal Rights Amendment - they do not WANT equal rights for women. The radical right opposes affirmative action, which seeks to advance women more proportionately in education and employment on the basis of merit. The Radical Right fought passage of the [Anti] Violence Against Women Act, and have supported a pro-rape culture, including attempting to redefine rape so as to exclude existing rape definitions such as statutory rape and rape where a woman is rendered incapacitated by drugs or alcohol. The Radical hateful right also has done their level best to cut aid to single mothers.

The radical right has passed laws that REQUIRE a doctor to give women seeking abortions medically INACCURATE information, and they have passed laws that allow a doctor, as a matter of his or her conscience, to LIE to women about their medical care and health, including lying to them about even being pregnant. And of course we have the radical right's support for abstinence only sex education which ALSO promotes medically inaccurate information being taught, and which teaches women that they have no value if they are not virgins when they marry or if they have sex without deciding to get married -- an exclusively religious belief that devalues women and puts them at risk of unwanted pregnancies and sexually transmitted disease.

The radical right also has cut funding for health care for women, and is opposing making contraception affordable for women under the ACA --- which is necessary for women to be able to be in control of their reproductive years, affecting their education and career choices. The radical right also gives little authority or roles of significance to women in politics, and the radical religious right insists on dominion or domination of men over women, and that women must submit themselves to ALL male authority.

THIS is how the radical right 'values women and girls'.

So for the radical right in South Dakota to claim that this legislation or legislation like it is about valuing women is a crock of excrement. From SFGate:

Rep. Don Haggar, R-Sioux Falls, suggested during a House debate that the bill was necessary because of an influx of immigrants to the state. And Rep. Stace Nelson, R-Fulton, said that he spent 18 years in Asia in the military and believes parts of the world don't value women as much as he values his daughters.

The SF Gate article continues outlining that this is a solution seeking a problem, not the other way round, and I provide a larger context to the why this is NOT valid legislation immediately following.

No one at Monday's hearing endorsed sex-selective abortions, and there are no available statistics to demonstrate that sex-selective abortions have taken place in the state.
"We really have no indication as to whether this is really a problem. Or is this a solution looking for a problem?" asked Sen. Bruce Rampelberg, R-Rapid City. A Fiscal Impact Statement on the bill says, "violations are likely to be rare, and successful prosecutions very rare."
South Dakota is among a number of states proposing legislation to ban gender-selective abortions. A similar bill that explicitly references race is currently being challenged in Arizona courts. The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion rights nonprofit whose statistics are widely respected, reports that seven other states already have laws banning abortion based on the gender of a fetus. Such laws remain in effect in six states.

The very definition of right wing big government is reducing rights, and passing laws that don't actually address real problems, issues or behavior.

While there ARE cultures and countries that engage in widespread sex-selection abortions, there is no evidence that we have a problem with that here. In China for example, where there is a fairly strict policy of one child per couple, the ratio of boys to girls being born is 80 girls for every 100 boys. The normal ratio of male to female births is approximately 106 male births to every 100 female births, while the actual ratio of adults world wide is roughly 101 males to 100 females. This is actually a separate specialized field of scientific research:

In the United States, the sex ratios at birth over the period 1970–2002 were 1.05 for the white non-Hispanic population, 1.04 for Mexican Americans, 1.03 for African Americans and Indians, and 1.07 for mothers of Chinese or Filipino ethnicity. Among Western European countries ca. 2001, the ratios ranged from 1.04 in Belgium to 1.07 in Switzerland,Italy, Ireland and Portugal. In the aggregated results of 56 Demographic and Health Surveys^[ in African countries, the ratio is 1.03, though there is also considerable country-to-country variation.
Even in the absence of sex selection practices, a range of "normal" sex ratios at birth of between 103 to 108 boys per 100 girls has been observed in different economically developed countries, and among different ethnic and racial groups within a given country.
In an extensive study, carried out around 2005, of sex ratio at birth in the United States from 1940 over 62 years, statistical evidence suggested the following: For mothers having their first baby, the total sex ratio at birth was 1.06 overall, with some years at 1.07. For mothers having babies after the first, this ratio consistently decreased with each additional baby from 1.06 towards 1.03. The age of the mother affected the ratio: the overall ratio was 1.05 for mothers aged 25 to 35 at the time of birth; while mothers who were below the age of 15 or above 40 had babies with a sex ratio ranging between 0.94 to 1.11, and a total sex ratio of 1.04. This United States study also noted that American mothers of Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Cuban and Japanese ethnicity had the highest sex ratio, with years as high as 1.14 and average sex ratio of 1.07 over the 62 year study period.

While there are more males at the baby end of the life span spectrum, in nearly every society and culture, women out live men, resulting in more women at the elderly end of the life spectrum. Gender ratios are not constant.

China has an acknowledged problem with gender selection and they are having to address it as noted here in the Financial Times from last November:

Population growth in China is a concern for policy makers because the working-age population peaked in 2012, so the country faces having fewer workers available to support a growing army of the elderly. That peak has come at an earlier stage than in neighbouring economies, lending weight to the opinion of some observers that “China will become old before it gets rich”.

Demographers consider that to keep the population from falling, each woman, on average, must produce 2.06 babies, or an average of one daughter each. While males slightly outnumber females at birth everywhere, they are more likely to die in infancy.
But women in China would need to produce 2.2 children each to keep population level. That is because the nation’s gender imbalance is among the highest in the world, with 1.17 boys for every girl, a level that demographers have warned could lead to social unrest in years to come. Even China’s neighbours such as South Korea and Japan, which have fertility rates of 1.23 and 1.34 per woman, do not need as high a birth rate to hold the population level.

China and other countries with large and poor populations HAVE had problems with gender selection abortions, but those countries and cultures, with large numbers of poor and uneducated people comprising their populations, as they try to become more industrialized and developed, are addressing those issues and backward beliefs. We don't have the problem here and we should not pass legislation that targets and punishes immigrants from those cultures who come here.

This law represents the worst of what is wrong with the radical right. Those who more genuinely value and support women and girls are found on the left, opposing horrible legislation like this. As we approach the International Day of the Woman, this legislation and the legislation like it, is doubly repugnant and offensive.