The Escalation of Anti-Abortion Violence Ten Years After Dr. George Tiller’s Murder

The Escalation of Anti-Abortion Violence Ten Years After Dr. George Tiller’s Murder

By Jill Heaviside & Rosann Mariappuram. First published on Rewire.News

As we mark the tenth anniversary of the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, it is incredible to think that, just over a month ago, Republican Sen. Ben Sasse was really asking how “the pro-life position is in any way violent.”

Violence has been a central tenet of the anti-abortion movement since before the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. As activists have sought control over the reproductive freedom of millions of people—particularly women of color, low-income women and families, and queer, gender-nonconforming, and transgender communities—they have used violence as a tactic of control, abuse, and fear across the United States.

Dr. Tiller was Wichita’s only abortion provider for 40 years and was known for his deep commitment to trusting women and their families’ reproductive health decisions. Because of his work, Dr. Tiller was a target of many anti-abortion groups; before he was killed, he survived a clinic bombing and a prior shooting.

Dr. Tiller’s murder wasn’t an isolated incident. Anti-abortion extremists have killed at least 11 people since the 1990s. Their violent history includes the first recorded murder of an abortion provider, Dr. David Gunn, in 1993, and the 2015 shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, which claimed three lives and injured nine people.

Tallahassee Shooter Of Six Women, Killing Two, Had History of Incel Ideology & Misogyny

DR. NANCY VAN VESSEM (L) AND MAURA BINKLEY (R). PHOTO: TBH/FACEBOOK

Tallahassee Shooter Of Six Women, Killing Two, Had History of Incel Ideology & Misogyny

While Trump tries to scare the hell out of women over immigrants, he doesn't mention the white dude firing on six women -- killing Dr. Nancy Van Vessem, 61, who worked at Florida State University’s College of Medicine, and FSU student Maura Binkley, 21. -- in a yoga studio in Tallahassee on Friday.

NY Mag writes that the assassin -- who killed himself -- left a digital footprint of right-wing extremism and references to the anti-women 'incel ideology'. There is a strong probability that this unreported attack due to Tues. elections is the fourth attack by a right-wing extremist in the US in less than 2 weeks.

Facts-driven people know that right-wing extremism is a far greater threat to women than refugees. The Friday shooter Scott Paul Beierle, 40, shot one of the women six times. The Florida graduate and military veteran has a history of harassing young women, including two arrests for groping in 2012 and 2016.

Buzzfeed  News characterized the shooter as “a far-right extremist and self-proclaimed misogynist who railed against women, black people, and immigrants in a series of online videos and songs”:

In 2014, Beierle filmed several videos of himself in a You Tube channel, offering extremely racist and misogynistic opinions, in which he called women “sluts” and “whores,” and lamented “the collective treachery” of girls he had went to high school with.”

Who's For Burning It All Down? American Women Are Thinking About The French Revolution

I've been thinking and reading a lot about the French Revolution this past week. The willingness of the French to have both a carving of Lilith AND Eve with Adam on the Notre Dame Cathedral tells me not to be afraid.

Unlike John Ashcroft throwing a drape over Lady Justice's naked breast in the nation's capitol, the French have never covered up Adam, Lilith and Eve -- Adam's first wife but she was too bossy and stormed out of the Garden of Eden, refusing to submit to Adam.

So France survived the French Revolution. I haven't checked on the tiki torches or just how unruly the mobs became, but France survived -- white male superiority intact, but they did get rid of the king. Writer Maya Singer is on the same track, and she makes a lot of sense.

And this pondering of a burn it down revolution is written for Vogue magazine. VOGUE MAGAZINE IN AMERICA. Bob Dylan would be proud.

When Trump tells you all those college-educated white Republican women leaving the party are running home to take care of their men and male children after the Kavanaugh hearings, don't take the bite of this poison apple.

Educated Republican women can walk and chew gum at the same time. You know . . . womanly multitasking, brains firing on all cylinders.. . that sort of thing. I quote Maya Singer:

"If you’d asked me, before last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearings with Judge Brett Kavanaugh and Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, where we were on the road to revolution, I’d have said we were somewhere around “the people are very mad but they’re working within the system.” As of today, I feel like the revolution could kick off any minute now, because with the vote to send Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, the GOP (and Joe Manchin) have officially flipped us the bird.

When I say “us,” I mean all of us. Not just women. Not just Democrats. Standing by Brett Kavanaugh—a historically disliked nominee, with crappy poll numbers (even before Dr. Ford came forward with a credible allegation that he’d sexually assaulted her in their teens) who walked right up to the line of perjuring himself in his Senate testimony and exposed himself as a both a jerk and a partisan hack—was, make no mistake about it, a display of power. A president who badly lost the popular vote, abetted by 51 Senators who represent a mere 44 percent of Americans, rammed through their nominee just to show us they could. Trump and McConnell could have easily jettisoned Kavanaugh in favor of an equally conservative replacement; instead, fearful of looking weak, they stuck with him, not in spite of all the protest but because of it. God forbid they seem to entertain the concerns of their constituents, because then those constituents might think they have a claim on how this country is run, and who for.

Ask yourself: For whom, right now, is this country being run?"

ADL Issues First Report Documenting Intersection Of Misogyny and White Supremacy

ADL Issues First Report Documenting Intersection Of Misogyny and White Supremacy

Misogyny is a key element of the so-called alt-right movement and there is a strong link between men’s rights activism and white supremacy, a report has found.

The Anti-Defamation League’s report argues hatred of women is a “dangerous and underestimated component of extremism”. 

The research – titled 'When Women are the Enemy: The Intersection of Misogyny and White Supremacy' – found the increasingly popular narrative of white men as victims of feminism has been a key driving force behind the misogyny which has become rife in far right movements.

“Misogyny has the potential to act as a gateway into the white supremacist world,” Jessica Reaves, the report’s author who is an expert at the league’s Centre on Extremism, said.

“The hatred and resentment of women voiced by groups like involuntary celibates and men’s rights activists is disturbingly similar to white supremacists’ hatred of minorities. And some white supremacists, especially those on the alt-right, use the same degrading, violent anti-woman rhetoric we hear coming from misogynist groups.”

The Anti-Defamation League – a Jewish NGO based in the US which fights antisemitism and all forms of bigotry -- found a strong connection between men's rights activism and incel (short for "involuntarily celibate") language and the perpetuation of rape culture and violence against women who refuse men their "rightful" sexual experiences. 

Nigerian Girls Raped By Boko Haram Are Now Raped By Nigerian Security Forces 'Protecting' Them

Nigerian Girls Raped By Boko Haram Are Now Raped By Nigerian Security Forces 'Protecting' Them

While my self-appointed Grade A feminist friends (note that I have been demoted) obsess with the injustice against the wonderful supporter of women Sen. Al Franken, who resigned yesterday, my own focus today is the dreadful lives of these poor Nigerian girls. (And beating Roy Moore in Alabama) First these innocent young girls were kidnapped from their schools and raped repeatedly for three years by Boko Haram terrorists. Many have babies. And now, having escaped to a Nigerian camp where they are supposed to be safe, these girls are being raped by the men who are supposed to protect them.

Al Franken is a fine, fine, fine man. But I object to him becoming the face of women's rights injustice against men, when women of every age are suffering around the world -- and here in America -- because we do not have body autonomy of ANY KIND. Life is not 'fair' for billions of people around the world. And it's not "fair" at all for these young women.

Meryl Streep Is Furious With Karl Lagerfeld's Calling Her 'Cheap' & Ruining Her 20th Oscar Nomination Celebration

The superb actor and feminist Meryl Streep showcased her Elie Saab off-the-shoulder peacock blue fashion statement at the Oscars. Streep is being honored for her 20th nomination for her role in 'Florence Foster Jenkins'. 

The activist actor was not amused at the accusations leveled against her by Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld that Streep commissioned a custom Chanel creation but cancelled it when the House refused to pay her to wear it. 

A representative for Streep fought back that Lagerfeld's statement was false and that it is against her personal ethics to be paid to wear a gown on the red carpet. Lagerfeld, who I personally believe has no time for Meryl Streep's feminist activism, subsequently admitted that the error was his and that he regretted the controversy. But Meryl dismissed Lagerfeld's so-called apology, saying that his comments has eclipsed her celebration-worthy 20th nomination. 

"I do not take this lightly, and Mr. Lagerfeld's generic 'statement' of regret for this 'controversy' was not an apology," her statement read. 

The imperious Karl Lagerfeld is accustomed to having the last word on everything and Streep wasn't having it. Bravo, Meryl! She accused the designer of defaming her -- which he certainly did suggesting that she accepted bribes to wear clothes --, her stylist and the "illustrious designer" (Elie Saab) whose dress she chose to wear. Streep also castigated WWD for printing the "defamation" in the first place. 

The story received global attention, Streep said, and continues "to overwhelm my appearance at the Oscars, on the occasion of my record-breaking 20th nomination, and to eclipse this honour in the eyes of the media, my colleagues and the audience."

The always haughty Lagerfeld told WWD: "“After we gift her a dress that’s €100,000, we found later we had to pay,” he said. “We give them dresses, we make the dresses, but we don’t pay ... A genius actress, but cheapness also, no?”

A spokesperson for Chanel said that they had engaged in conversations with Streep’s stylist to design a dress for her to wear to the Academy Awards, but were well aware that she was considering options from other design houses: “When informed by the stylist that Ms Streep had chosen a dress by another designer there was no mention of the reason. Chanel wishes to express our continued and deep respect for Ms Streep.” 

I suspect that Meryl Streep is up to her nostrils with self-important men. President Trump unleashed a Tweet storm against her earlier in the awards season. Trump & Lagerfeld actually make good company. ~ Anne

Rudy Giuliani Sells His Soul & Reputation To Trump Misogyny & Egocentric White Male Nationalism

Rudy Giuliani Sells His Soul & Reputation To Trump Misogyny & Egocentric White Male Nationalism

The asshat known as Rudi Giuliani, former mayor of New York, whose second wife Donna Hanover found out he was leaving her for the third wife Judith Nathan in a May,2000 New York press conference in Bryant Park, had a few choice words today about a woman president. I saw it live.

You see, Rudi Giuliani had a lot of style in telling wife #2 that she was toast, almost as much style as Giuliani's recent crude remark about immigrant dishwashers at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel.

Realistically, we shouldn't be upset that Rudi Giuliani suggested today that Donald Trump would be a better president "than a woman". Is that any woman, Rudy? Or just Hillary Clinton who won the Senate seat you were seeking until your spectacular marital problems and prostate cancer caused you to retreat from your campaign. Was the problem really your health?