Keyes’ Company

Daily Dolt: Fran Eaton, Lying Liar

Eaton tries to lie herself out yesterday’s lie. She claims the below proves that Ginsburg thought the ERA would eliminate survivor benefits for women who choose to stay home.

“Congress and the President should direct their attention to the concept that pervades the Code: that the adult world is (and should be) divided into two classes – independent men, whose primary responsibility is to win bread for a family, and dependent women, whose primary responsibility is to care for children and household. This concept must be eliminated from the code if it is to reflect the equality principle.”

Of course, this is directly contradicted by the text of page 45 in which the recommendations for Social Security changes include making the language gender neutral so that men and women have equal access to survivor benefits regardless who who works and who might stay at home.

But what is even more telling is how she uses the quote above that doesn’t even make the argument she claims it makes.  It talks about making the code gender neutral, not eliminating benefits for women who didn’t work outside the home.

What Fran cannot do is cite the next paragraph that demonstrates just how much of a liar Fran is:

Underlying the recommendations made in this report is the fundamental point that allocation of responsibilities within the family is a matter properly determined solely by the individuals involved.  Government should not steer individual decisions concerning household or breadwinning roles by casting the law’s weight on the side of (or against) a particular method of ordering private relationships.  Rather, a policy of strict neutrality should be pursued.  That policy should accomodate both traditional and innovative patterns.  At the same time, it should assure removal of artificial constraints so that women and men willing to explore their full potential as human beings may create new traditions by their actions.

Combine this with the recommendations on page 45 and what is clear is that Ginsburg argued for expanding benefits to widowers as well as widows, not to eliminate benefits to widows.

Why Eaton feels the need to lie about the report is beyond me, but she clearly did.  And the Southtown Star helped her in that endeavor.

Ouch, The Stupid! It Burns! Daily Dolt: Fran Eaton

Fran Eaton pulls out the Phyllis Schlafley lie book on the ERA

Pro-traditional family activists are very concerned that with the ERA, states will be forced to issue marriage licenses to any two persons who request them because the ERA eliminates discrimination based on sex.

The horrors.  But more to the point, passing the ERA would require than any differentiation based on sex by the government at any level be a suspect classification that would require a strict scrutiny test.  The ERA wouldn’t eliminate any differentiation based on gender, it would simply put the burden on the state to demonstrate there was a compelling state interest in treating the sexes differently.  Abortion rights and same sex marriage rights in states that have adopted them have primarily relied upon privacy rights. Those that do rely upon state level ERA provisions largely have more sweeping interpretations of text.  To put it simply, the ban on same sex marriage hits both genders the same way so no differentiation occurs.  The exceptions to such an interpretation are far smaller than the interpretation of the few states that have even considered the argument. Abortion wise, there are only two states where such an argument has been successful.  Federal law bases abortion on privacy grounds, not gender differentiation.

But Madigan may not be aware that stay-at-home moms and widows will be affected by the passage of the ERA. Women who have chosen a career of taking care of their families instead of a career outside the home no longer will be able to tap into their husband’s Social Security reserves upon his retirement or death.

Because sex no longer will be a factor, provisions within Social Security set aside for women who haven’t paid into the system will be discontinued. This is the opinion of none else than U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

This is where one asks if the Southtown Star has editors. For those interested in the report, I have uploaded it here.

The problem here is, this report was written 30 years ago and much has changed. The  gender bias in the Social Security code is largely eliminated with survivors or either gender eligible for Social Security benefits under the same conditions.
But where Fran is lying outright is in stating the opinion of Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  First, though kind of a secondary point, the report doesn’t address what the passage of the ERA would do, it simply lays out where the authors find evidence of differential treatment by sex in the US Code.

More importantly, Eaton specifically lies about Ginsburg’s position in the report because Ginsburg and her co-author argue to make it easier for women or men who stay at home to collect Social Security benefits, not that eliminating the bias would lead to a loss of benefits.  Don’t believe me?  Read page 45 of the report.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg actually argued for improved support for individuals who stayed at home and worked instead of entering the formalized workforce.

In other words, the Southtown Star has let one of their columnists brazenly lie about a matter of public policy in their pages.  It’s not an opinion Eaton is offering, she states the argument based on what she claims to be a fact about the report which is demonstrably false.  There is simply no excuse for this sort of shoddy work by a newspaper.  One expects it out of Eaton who seldom concerns herself with accuracy, but putting it in the Southtown start is inexcusable.

But not only will the ERA’s passage stir the hackles of little old ladies and helpless widows, 18-year-old college women may be up in arms

No longer will military registration be required of just males, it also will be required of females – again, no discrimination based on sex. While more and more young women are choosing the military as a career option, if the draft were to be enacted in a stepped-up defense in the war on terror, our 18-year-old women would be forced into service along with our 18-year-old men.

This is, of course, completely baffling.  If the country were to require the draft to be reinstated, there is no argument made by her against drafting women other than women might not want to go.  Most guys don’t either.  Hence, why one has a draft.  Given physical standards would largely separate women and men, women could take over a large share of the support functions along with the men who don’t meet physical standards for combat.

It Must Be the Water

Family Taxpayers Network has a hysterical rant up about Oberweis picking on their poor candidate:

Oberweis is running one of the filthiest campaigns we’ve ever seen. What’s really despicable about it is he’s running it against one of the few really decent public servants we have left in Illinois. Oberweis is willing to forget about all the truly bad players out there. He’s now instead using his milk money to smear one truly good man.
Hastert, Topinka and all of their old pals are fine, let’s instead destroy Chris Lauzen, probably the best champion for conservative causes in Springfield. What Oberweis is doing is not only selfish and insane, it’s downright disgraceful.
No, Lauzen isn’t perfect. No one is. But Chris is head and shoulders above nearly everyone else in Springfield. Chris is a man of integrity who has stood-up for Republican principles time and time again. Often he’s had to stand alone.
Frankly, if Lauzen had run for Governor in 2006, he almost certainly would have been our man. But he didn’t. And it’s just as well. Chris is truly Congressional material. He deserves a promotion to Washington.
Oberweis on the other hand still has no political accomplishments he can point to. His only strategy is to tear a good man down.
Sure, we were tough on Topinka in 2006. But Topinka had a long history of nastiness, wackiness and dishonesty. She has always belonged in the Democratic Party and she was unworthy of Republican support. The bottom line is Chris Lauzen is not Judy Baar Topinka.
Jim cried poor to us when he ran for Governor. But now he’s sparing no expense on mud and attack dogs. Oberweis is paying Alan Keyes’ former New Jersey hit-man at least $15,000 a month to trash Lauzen. But that’s just for starters. Oberweis is throwing plenty more cash at the former Hastert staffers he put on the campaign payroll. He’s also advertising on the sewer blogs.
This is all happening with Hastert’s blessing of course. As recently as early December, Hastert was still pretending that he didn’t know who he would endorse – even though some of his former senior staff was already on the Oberweis campaign. It was all just more dishonesty and stonewalling from The Quitter.
But Hastert did all he could to keep up the phony charade as long as possible, telling the Beacon News on December 1st that he would only support a “positive” candidate and not “somebody that’s going to do political trash talk all the time.”
Well, obviously trash talk is all Oberweis has done this campaign. It’s another dishonest scam exposed, and it’s another filthy chapter added to Hastert’s shameful legacy.
Jim Oberweis has finally found his true home. We can only hope that in eight days it will also be the final resting place for a failed political career that once had promise, but now ends with dishonor.
You see, he’s negative and that’s a horrible thing. Unlike FTN which is ….

Daily Dolt: Illinois Review

Entertainingly Silly 

Earth to Ted, Caroline, Patrick and others who are marketing Sen. Barack Obama as the new JFK.  Kennedy family, get over yourselves.  If you really think Sen. Barack Obama is the new JFK, then maybe you didn’t know the record of the real JFK from 1947 to 1963. Let’s review the bidding.

If you live in Illinois and voted for JFK or Nixon in the 1960 election, I am sorry to be the one to do the math but even if that was your first vote you have at least passed your 68th birthday and are on your way to the “gettin up there” stage of life. So what? So that’s a very long time to hold on to a myth that was never real to start with and expect that it will impress people whose only knowledge of JFK comes from fawning historians and aging journalists.

During 1962, Jack Kennedy was alive and well. Everyone called him Jack.  No one ever called him “John Fitzgerald” in that mournful patter until after he was murdered by a communist in 1963.  If you still doubt that and are an honest person, read Gerald Posner’s book, Case Closed, and set aside your doubts for all time.

Yes, the Kennedy family doesn’t know anything about the history of their own family.  But Illinois Review will correct that for them.  And throw in a Assassination Conspiracy theory to boot.

Funny Thing About Validating Right Wing Loons

It comes to bite your candidate in the ass….

Taylor Marsh tries to use the Alan Keyes claim that Obama is for infanticide and that is why he needs to be vetted. This, of course, comes from Stanek who has misrepresented the differences between the federal and the state level on many occasions.

What was one of Stanek’s most recent pieces:

Hillary vs. Obama: Who’s the biggest baby killing champion?

They are going to lie about whomever the candidate is and they’ll do all the same things to Clinton.  Trying to split Democrats by using right wing talking points only gives wingnuts some aura of respectability.

Congratulations on screwing your own candidate! Beautifully done.

Perhaps you’d like to discuss how Stanek’s defense of beating women to stop them from having an abortion is wonderful. From that column:

One of the best scenes in the Godfather movie trilogy was in “Godfather II,” when Kay Corleone (Diane Keaton) told her husband Michael (Al Pacino) she was taking their two children and leaving him. The dialogue:

Michael: Do you expect me to let you take my children from me?…. Don’t you know that’s an impossibility, that that could never happen, that I’d use all my power to keep something like that from ever happening?…. I know you blame me for losing the baby. Yes. I know what that meant to you. Kay. I swear I’ll make it up to you…. I’ll change. And you’ll forget about this miscarriage, and we’ll have another child, and we’ll go on, you and I, we’ll go on.

kay.jpgKay: Oh – oh, Michael, Michael, you are blind. It wasn’t a miscarriage. It was an abortion, an abortion, Michael! Just like our marriage is an abortion, something that’s unholy and evil. I didn’t want your son, Michael! I wouldn’t bring another one of your sons into this world! It was an abortion, Michael. It was a son, a son, and I had it killed, because this must all end. I know now that it’s over. I knew it then. There would be no way, Michael, no way you could ever forgive me, not with this Sicilian thing that’s been going on for 2,000 years….

SLAP.

Michael: You won’t take my family!

And she doesn’t.

That spontaneous slap was the reaction of a real man who a woman had just told she aborted his baby. Compare that to the modern day cowardly male response, “It’s your choice. Whatever you decide, I’ll support you.” Or worse, his threat to abandon her if she does not abort.

It was this fierce devotion to family that strangely endeared us to the Corleone men despite their otherwise heinous behavior.

Or the more recent column:

In Mr. Brooks, the teenage daughter of serial killer Earl Brooks (Costner) turns up pregnant midway through her first semester of college. When Jane tells her parents, Earl emphatically states abortion is out of the question and offers to raise the baby. Jane is equally emphatically abortion minded until that moment, when she says she will reconsider. Typical. If a mother in a crisis pregnancy is offered love and support, she will most often choose life.

I won’t give away the end of Mr. Brooks except to say the prospect of his seeing future grandchild became Earl’s motivation for a life or death decision.

All of this is way twisted, I know. But similar to Godfather II, even a schizophrenic serial killer knows abortion is wrong, and similar to Godfather II, this became a redeeming quality of one who had no others.

Mr. Brooks’ pro-life stance was an obviously planned juxtaposition.

On one hand he was a serial killer no better than Dahmer and Gacy.

On the other, he was pro-life. Of of all possible character attributes, the writer and director chose this as Mr. Brooks’ one featured nobility, something they decided demonstrated the exact opposite of the schizophrenic killer mentality.

Why is that?

Stanek, Keyes, the entire wingnut crew over at Illinois Review are going to attack whomever our nominee is. Don’t help them by giving them some sort of relevance.