What bothers me about our shared political space is how eagerly people react to the superficial, trivial stuff and how readily they dismiss anything of substance.
Take, for instance, the current drama over Kasich’s “women left their kitchens” comment. There is plenty to dislike about Kasich but his actual record as governor never even gets discussed. Instead, everybody descends into a ridiculous paroxysm over an entirely reasonable, casual comment. I’m not even interested in finding out which specific orthodoxy this particular comment happened to slight because these regular bouts of outrage are growing too indistinguishable and too frequent.
Clarissa's Blog 
I can’t help but think Kasich must be glad about this “current drama.” People are talking about him, people are being reminded he is still in the race. It is free publicity.
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It’s weird that he’s still in the race. I’m guessing he’s taking his New Hampshire results way too seriously.
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You’re right — Kasich has gotten more coverage on the cable news shows in the last two days than he usually gets in a week.
Amanda Marcotte is all upset, too:
http://www.salon.com/2016/02/22/john_kasich_makes_play_for_the_misogynist_vote_he_wants_women_out_of_the_doctors_office_and_into_the_kitchen/
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Yeah … it is big news when a Republican show compassion for someone not immediately related to them …as if hugging someone is that unique among human beings!
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I thought his comment was troubling if only it reveals how backwards our country remain in terms of gender and work. Still, I absolutely agree with you. I am 100 times more concerned with the violently anti-choice policies he has pushed through the Ohio legislature.
I’m actually all the more concerned because Kasich describes himself (and is referred to by commentators) as a “moderate” candidate. It is inexplicable to me that conservatives can represent being anti-abortion as somehow a remotely reasonable position and that liberals just let it happen.
When I see the gigantic strides that the left has made when it comes to gay marriage, it saddens me to see how easily the fight for reproductive freedom has been abandoned. To some extent, this is why we need a female president. Men–even liberal men– just won’t fight this battle. Being anti-choice needs become a deeply embarrassing position– one that people will not cop to in the public square. And discussions about Kasich’s silly comments about kitchens derail the hope for real political change.
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Kasich’s official website states that he supports abortion rights in cases of rape, incest, and when medically necessary for the life of the mother. He opposes “non-therapeutic” and partial-birth abortions. How are these views “violently anti-choice”?
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Below is an article that describes his anti-choice policies further. Here is a salient quotation:
“Since Kasich entered office, half of the state’s surgical abortion clinics have stopped providing abortion services, including Center for Choice. In 2011, there were 16 surgical abortion providers in Ohio serving nearly 2.3 million women of reproductive age. By 2013, the number had dropped to 14. The next year, after a slew of restrictions passed in the budget, that number dipped to 10. By 2015, eight abortion providers had closed their doors, moved to different states or stopped providing services. No state, other than Texas, with nearly 6 million women of reproductive age, has lost so many clinics in this span of time. After a clinic an hour south of Cleveland was approved this summer to start performing surgical abortions, the now nearly 2.5 million women of reproductive age in Ohio have nine surgical abortion providers to choose from. (Women in their first trimester of pregnancy have the option of abortion through surgery or medication. In 2014, only 5 percent of women who had abortions in Ohio opted for the medication method. The state requires doctors administering medication abortions to adhere to an older standard, one known to have high failure rates, and many of Ohio’s abortion providers do not offer abortions via medication for this reason.”
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/john-kasichs-quiet-campaign-to-cut-abortion-access/
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When I see the gigantic strides that the left has made when it comes to gay marriage, it saddens me to see how easily the fight for reproductive freedom has been abandoned. To some extent, this is why we need a female president. Men–even liberal men– just won’t fight this battle. Being anti-choice needs become a deeply embarrassing position– one that people will not cop to in the public square. And discussions about Kasich’s silly comments about kitchens derail the hope for real political change.
Liberal men and feminists do not have the same interests even if they ally together in the interest of coalition building. I’m not sure HRC will fight as much as you’d want her to for individual uterine sovereignty.
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“I’m not sure HRC will fight as much as you’d want her to for individual uterine sovereignty.”
I agree–sadly. That being said, the issue is just so salient to women’s advancement that I can’t imagine them being completely ignored by a female (liberal) president or casually offered up as a bargaining chip.
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No candidate in either party has more liberal views on abortion than Donald Trump (although he’s lying through the teeth about his personal beliefs).
If he’s elected, access to legal abortion will be the least of the country’s problems.
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I agree with you ..it is total BS that NO one is screaming bloody murder about his signing the stop funding Planned Parent hood bill in OH.
He should be crucified in public for endangering so many American citizens.
Yet ANOTHER stellar example of GOP/Republican governance in 21st Century America …another repeal of 20th Century America … the right to access of safe abortions.
Willful ignorance is NOT BLISSful …just plain stupid!
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Hi, Gerald, do some reading of older posts on this website. You’ll find that several of the NON-republican, very feminist liberals posting here got extremely upset and STOPPED donating to Planned Parenthood after they saw the PP personel casually discussing selling chopped-up baby parts while they were munching salad during lunch.
I’m a Republican doctor, and that dialogue didn’t bother me at all. (It’s just normal doctor “shop talk” during meals, when we think that no lay persons in the hospital cafeteria are listening.)
To repeat: It was the Democratic progressives here who got upset and stopped donating — not the (very) few Republicans.
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“To repeat: It was the Democratic progressives here who got upset and stopped donating — not the (very) few Republicans.”
I didn’t. 🙂 It was actually a source of slight disagreement between Clarissa and me. I didn’t find the PP “scandal” to be particularly scandalous. So don’t paint all of us “very feminist liberals” with too broad a brush.
Actually, I think Clarissa might be in a bit of a minority position in that she is a feminist who was upset by the video. In general, those videos were largely meaningful to a conservative audience– not to feminist liberals.
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I don’t know a single person who isn’t devastated by the video. Again, it doesn’t detract from the value of the organization. Every large outfit will end up having its share of opportunistic freaks. One example is Bernie Sanders’s campaign. There are some very unsavory characters associated with it. But the campaign is good. Bernie is doing something very important. His message is great.
And it’s the same with PP. A great organization with a bunch of rotten, stinky apples.
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So funny. I remember our host being mainly upset that PP’s executive director was so well-compensated and evidently, not as competent as we women’s health proponents might wish. We will either have to search the archives or wait for/if she chimes in, I guess.
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This is such a polite and gentle rendering of what I said that I didn’t even recognize it at first. 🙂
Yes, Cecile Richards is an overpaid idiot loser. I’m still not over that at all. The organization is great but this particular bureaucrat is not doing her job.
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On a related note, while I’m not generally a Conor Friedersdorf fan, he made a good point about the way the media has been covering Trump:
“A Martian following election coverage via GoGo in-flight WIFI would never know that Trump’s pledge to revenge-kill family members of terrorists—a war crime—violated more important Earth-taboos than his calling a campaign rival “a pussy.” Watching CBS or NBC or ABC, the Martian would likewise conclude that Trump calling Ted Cruz “a pussy” was worse than calling Mexican migrants rapists.”
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Precisely. If the pussy comment were the worst Trump ever said, we could all just relax. But it isn’t really his choice of vocabulary that is so scary about him.
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