Video: Anderson Cooper Interviews New Witness March 29, 2012

Man Targeted by Florida's Shoot First Law Lives to Warn Others

A Few Too Many Bags of Trash?

In Florida that could lead to grave injury, even death. The trash above is not the trash mentioned in report and is simply used as an illustration. Nice park though.

Picture shared using native Flickr coding and allowed via Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) rollover to see Flickr name of photographer who has no connection to this blog or blogger.

So this guy puts out eight bags of trash, instead of six and his neighbor gets upset.  Pretty soon the neighbor has gotten a gun and shoots him. Later, claiming that the man tried to enter his house, the shooter gets off scot-free.
See Reuters report at the Orlando Sentinel Man lives to tell of Florida "Shoot First" horror

Florida's Tough Vote Registration Law Already Cutting Down New Voter Registrations

Cutting down on new voters is job one for Republicans when students and minorities are usually underrepresented on voter rolls.  Students potentially may be forced to reregister every year.
Tell a friend in Florida to register today. If they don't register they have no voting rights nor right to complain.
http://bit.ly/H41CjC

Video: Lawrence O'Donnell and Others Analyze Security Cam Video From Zimmerman's Arrival at Police Station Showing No Signs of Injury

Videos might be very busy, not want to come down. I saw lots of stalling last night. That's because O'Donnell's about the only one who is really checking this crime out beyond just accepting the words of Zimmerman and his friends and family.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

The Lawrence O'Donnell videos make George Zimmerman look like a liar.  I hope they work for you.  I'm not only getting about 15-25 seconds of each.  Keep trying.  This appears to be a horrible case of murder that Zimmerman's wealthy and connected father who is a retired Virginia judge wants swept under the rug. (Sorry, earlier sources said Zimmerman Sr. had been a judge for Orange County Florida, but tonight, I think someone on the O'Donnell show said he worked in Virginia.  Still a very powerful man and he's using his power to get his son off a charge of murder one.)  Don't you wish you were a son of privilege?

Video: Must See Is Zimmerman's Friend Lying? #riptrayvon #justice4trayon #hoodiesup #trayvonmartin #millionhoodies

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 (See video above for the whole interview. Lawrence doesn't lay down and roll over for this guy)


This interview establishes two things I think are very important and can remember right now this morning. Lawrence and his fellow journalists do not believe Joe Oliver is a "close friend" or even a close acquaintance of George Zimmerman though he claims that he is. And Mr. Oliver claims he's not getting paid.

Lawrence leaves that hanging after finding that Mr. Oliver is not seeking employment at this time in his own profession (news reporting/anchoring according to some who appear to say he even once hosted his own show at CNN, you know like Dana Loesch does now).

 So a guy who had such a good position on CNN, doesn't want work right now so he can defend a man who is likely not even a close acquaintance for free.

Yeah, that sounds just about right to me /not.  Maybe he's promised money or a job in the future?   That would jibe with not getting paid for this, but...)

I think whether Mr. Oliver has a job is important. If he is expecting payment for this at any time, that would change everything. I guess he could be banking on the 1% helping his career in the future, that would be a back payment of a kind, and many journalists avoid controversies to please their 1% masters, or come down on the side of billionaires entirely so it's not unknown to happen.

If he is getting paid that raises the question of how a mortgage underwriter could afford it.  Yeah, his dad is a retired judge (once made money) but still.  Hiring your own CNN reporter?  Still looking at legal fees?  Yeah/no.

Who's paying?  NRA, GOP,  ALEC, Koch Brothers, all of the above??

There is more on the video, but I don't remember everything that they learned. People lie to news reporters who often cannot directly challenge them because of liable laws, and frankly the 1% own the news media and the future of everyone who is in it.

BTW, I was going to post this last night when the memory was fresh, but the machine was tired and began a kind of stalling maneuver it does. In some circumstances I can turn off and on, but that didn't work that time. (It is possible some one fell asleep with Netflix on and that creates such a drag on the internet that all the spyware, Google and others use, affects just trying to write a post.)

"High Tech #Piracy" Helped Damage Aquisition Price of Direct TV, Aided Purchase By News Corp Aiing Murdoch's Empire's Growing Wealth and Power

Apparently News Corp has been going around the world damaging media companies, and then snatching them up at reduced prices according to emails acquired by the Australian Financial Review.

A secret unit within Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation promoted a wave of high-tech piracy in Australia that damaged Austar, Optus and Foxtel at a time when News was moving to take control of the Australian pay TV industry.
The piracy cost the Australian pay TV companies up to $50 million a year and helped cripple the finances of Austar, which Foxtel is now in the process of acquiring.
...
A four-year investigation by The Australian Financial Review has revealed a global trail of corporate dirty tricks directed against competitors by a secretive group of former policemen and intelligence officers within News Corp known as Operational Security.
Their actions devastated News’s competitors, and the resulting waves of high-tech piracy assisted News to bid for pay TV businesses at reduced prices – including DirecTV in the US, Telepiu in Italy and Austar.

 Though such acquisitions as these may not seem like the smoking gun that shows how Rupert Murdoch controls the news media and politics (and he actually doesn't, still needing the help of other billionaires and their sycophant media owners and politicians) it was instrumental in making money that helps Murdoch's family and employees to control minds, media, and politicians.

The AFR does note that companies purchased by the Murdoch family's branches also had other financial weaknesses, but how about being able to knock 25% that new car you want or a college education?  You end up in better financial situation than if you paid full price and could go on to acquire other stuff you want.  For Rupert Murdoch and company that's "brains".

Remember in the run up to the Iraq war, when the country was against going in how News Corp, along with featuring Bush administration principles telling us lies, and implying that Iraq was just about to get nuclear weapon capability, they interrupted a popular (aren't they all) music award show for an interview by Bill O'Reilly with some war hawk on which they talked about how we absolutely had to go into Iraq (or the implication was that disaster would strike the US).

Well we did go into Iraq and disaster did strike the US leading to both high unemployment, and highest ever rents in our history.  Millions of young, middle aged, and older people are suffering and the news media doesn't have to tell you about each other because Murdoch and other billionaires own them.

Most of those people wouldn't have gotten to be billionaires if they believed in fair play.  Part of fair play is telling people what reality is if you are in the business of reporting it in news media or portraying it in entertainment media.  Well, "fuck that", say the billionaires, we'd rather bend reality to pander to other billionaires who sell stuff, or are seeking to control minds so people don't turn out "libral" and mess with our ability to rip everyone off through market schemes, war, and tax cuts for the rich, tax hikes for everyone else.

And the big money that Murdoch made harming other companies before buying them and letting the prices recover appears to be part of the seed money that makes that man so immensely powerful.  Hitler is sitting in Hell as jealous as anything though he knows that he'll be seeing Rupert soon, because he was never that powerful, he could only destroy people and things.  He couldn't build a sustainable future.

If liberals don't pull together and support the best we have in the US that can hold off the worst of the building fascism, we are all going down into war, and third world conditions.  And I'll be plain with you, Obama isn't the greatest thing I can ever imagine, but he's the only thing decent that can maintain power in the White House right now.  The Democrats aren't perfect or even completely on our side in Congress, but they are slower at putting us into deep holes of misery, death, and debt than the Republicans.

America needs to clean house, especially of the Rupert family.  Their illegal actions are now available to actually strip their power.  But a weakened Democratic party can't fight these people.  We need more power for the most liberal Democrats and then later we can push them to the left.  If we continue to believe in conspiracy theories like how Obama wants to put you in jail for the rest of your life, and therefore refuse to support what strength they have the Democrats will abandon all of us and turn to the billionaires, leaving the rest of us in a kind of unacknowledged slavery.

It happened before.  It's known as The Dark Ages which lasted over a thousand years.  And that period was only broken by a massive die off of people due to the great plague, aka The Black Death.

(To be honest, the democracy of Greece and Rome were short lived and not free for everyone, but they were a damn sight better than what followed for a millennium.)

Now we have proof that Rupert's empire was illegally gotten.  We should work to tell everyon about the criminal acts that put News International in charge of most of the minds in the world, and of the horror the family Murdoch pushes and is likely to put in charge of the world's minds.

Global Post also reports 

Meanwhile, the British broadcasting watchdog Ofcom is set to investigate claims that a subsidiary of News Corp. helped to destroy one of the company's British pay-TV rivals via piracy, the Independent reported.
The TV regulator's interest comes after a BBC's Panorama program alleged NDS, a London-based News Corp. company specializing in satellite television technology, leaked codes that could have been used to create counterfeit smart cards for the now defunct ITV Digital.

See: News Corp unit promoted piracy against rivals: report.  That GP report also has the material I quoted from its original source at AFR, but I linked directly to AFR so I didn't need to link to the GP for that part or include the AFR lines in the 5 sentence into s 5 sentence limit lower limit for fair use copy as determined by a recent federal court decision on which I reported here last week.

#California Has Most Densely Populated Cities in Nation #census #us #cities #landuse #wilderness

California's Big Sur Coastline

Spectacular geography and rapid development since WW2 has led to highly compartmentalized land use.

Picture shared via native Flickr coding and allowed via Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) Roll over to see Flickr name of photographer who has no connection to this blog or blogger.

Rapid growth during and since WW2 has led California to develop dense cities compared to the East Coast reports John King at the San Francisco Chronicle reporting on US Census data.

Land use is chopped into urban, producing, and wild areas by history and geography.

See full report for further explanation: California cities most densely populated in U.S.

Though many other areas in the US have challenging and beautiful land, California also has the population attracted originally by the war effort and then by trade, weather, Hollywood and all that followed.

Could #TrayvonMartin's Family Sue Sources That Trash His Memory For Slander?

Million Hoodies March, NYC, March 21, 2012

Thousands marched for Justice for Trayvon Martin who was killed by a wannabe Neighborhood Watch captain, February 26, 2012

Photo shared using Flickr's native coding and allowed via Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

There are awful things being said about Trayvon Martin, with, I'm guessing the idea or the contract to protect white, right wing, gun-hugger rights (possibly at the behest of FOX News whose constant push for bigotry and support of the NRA is under fire after the killing of Trayvon Martin).

Dan Linehan of Wagist comes up with a total pile-on of  Trayvon ending up with the idea that because a tattooed teen was pissed off by being asked why what he was doing by a neighborhood watch captain, he attacked the poor overweight guy and therefore deserved to get shot to death with a pistol that requires a lot of force for its size to pull the trigger (according to a video shown by I think Jennifer Granholm).

Oh, and he might have been selling weed at some time in the past year (Upgraded in the title of Linehan piece to a much more deadly product "Drugs").

Dude, I don't use it, but Marijuana is an herb not a drug.  Only creepy right wingers and the jack booted authorities that serve them consider it a "drug".

A fellow writer at Wagist calls himself a liberal, but I haven't seen Linehan describe his positions.  Both writers have pushed for more gun rights or at least gun ownership, the liberal saying he wanted fellow libs to  lay down of line of fire while he runs from Whole Foods to his Prius to save him from the unemployed or something.  That sounds more like what a person making a Teaparty friendly joke would say, not a liberal.

But to sum up, this guy makes a huge case that Trayvon Martin didn't fit the image of  the younger image of him.  Funny, Dude, our society has made sure blcks get pulled over in their cars everywhere they go, and have much harder times getting well paying jobs, and then you claim, that if their kids don't turn out like your ivy league ass they deserve to be accosted everywhere, and better not respond inappropriately or they deserve to get  killed, (and, of course, that fits right in with Florida's shoot to kill if they make you feel creepy law).

Dude, people don't have to be like you to deserve respect.

And the cops themselves told George Zimmerman to back off:

Dispatch: "Are you following him?"

GZ:  Uh, yeah.

Dispatch: "Okay, we don't need you to do that."

Well, Zimmerman didn't back off.

Linehan did not contact one person who knew Mr. Martin that I could see.  He has included no evidence that he contacted the school either though other reports did say a few things about Trayvon's relations at school, using pictures, messages from Trayvon's social media makes an ugly worst case scenario from their details.  He says being in the wrong place at school won't  get you a ten day suspension.  An AP report also noted that Martin also had tardies. Dan Lineham apparently doesn't know how public schools punish heavily unless its like a first problem or you're white.  Really, Dude, have you ever gone to an inner city school or did you grow up in the "burbs".  Don't even answer that because it doesn't matter, unless you're black too.  You obviously don't get it.

If you put people in the poverty box, they aren't going to grow up like you.  You have little right to judge them and decide that a black man has no right to fend off an aggressive attitude from a wannabe cop,  if that is what really happened.  You don't know.  You just made up the scenario that put Zimmerman, and FOX News, and gun rights for whites, in the best spotlight, and decided that was it.

You are simply the worst journalist on the web and one of the most racist jerks whose blog I've ever read.

Go get your checks from FOX and the NRA.  I'm sure you will fool a lot more racists like yourself and put people of color in danger for another decade.

I believe that the family should be able to sue for slander.  This guy probably got a fat check or two for this crap, and at least the truth would come out whether he got any facts from anywhere or pulled them out of his ***.  That might mitigate the racism that FOX and NRA are trying to recover, just because the actual facts of what happened that day would come out. The ACLU, NAACP, and other sources may be able to help the family get a lawyer.

See Wagist: Was Trayvon Martin a Drug Dealer?

He does have links to sources of pictures of Trayvon there.  I guess the family should get those taken down, but they are too busy being heartbroken and real to understand how racists will use them.

Though, Trayvon is gone, his memory is worth something.  It's not Marilyn Monroe, but if right wingers and gun nuts trash it, the value will be ruined.  Someone get these people a lawyer.  (I'm not one and only talked to one once in my life.  I'm not trying to push a profession, but don't think FOX, the GOP, or haters should be able to trash this family's son's memory.)

The Reasoning Behind Florida's #StandYourGround Law That Led to Death of #TrayvonMartin

The reasoning behind Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law is that there are good people and bad people according to an analysis from Isaac-Davy Aronson in 2007 is that there are good people and bad people.

And good people don't make bad decisions.  Good people know when they are threatened and when they are not, and when to use deadly force.

Like, according to Mr. Aronson, Mr Kenneth Allen, who felt threatened when Jason Ronsenbloom, talked back to his lecture over leaving 8 bags of trash out for pickup instead of obeying the limit of 6. 

And, like the president at the time; George W. Bush, who was such a good person he could disregard Congress with signing statements that flatly admitted he wouldn't be carrying out the wished of Congress though he would keep the law on the books in some kind of compromise; "good people" can do no wrong.

Of course, the people most of us are likely to see first as "good people" are those who look like the majority  So, generally the white Anglo-saxon others in this nation are likely to hold sway.  Some people who feel alienated also turn to their own kind as the best role models for good.  That can create not only the white dominant superiority, but also, minority embattlement syndrome.  Trayvon Martin's case may have brought it to the attention of Americans this time in a big way, but apparently the law has led to the shooting of many minorities.

And criminal proceedings are the first step towards justice.  If earlier cases didn't just let the person of white Northern European descent walk free after shooting people of more complex or darker ancestry, then maybe George Zimmerman would have thought twice about confronting Trayvon Martin, or even of carrying a gun around playing "Neighborhood Watch".

That just adds to the injustice of the Trayvon Martin killing.  It could have been stopped  before a delusional, wannabe, who was possibly high on drugs or alcohol, killed a young man who had his whole life ahead of him, and wanted to become a pilot.

There will be more horrific killings if such laws stand and continue to be used to justify white Northern Europeans and their security lackeys (police, guards, and neighborhood watchdogs of all descent) killing minority individuals.

Maybe we should boycott Florida until they get that law changed or repealed.

#NYPD Killers of Sean Bell Off the Force #seanbell #trayvonmartin #NYC #millionhoodies

An Undercover Detective has been fired by NYPD Chief Ray Kelly and three others will resign over 5 years after Sean Bell was killed the morning before his wedding.  A fifth officer on the scene that morning has already resigned.  Being fired means Gescard Isnora will lose his pension and health benefits a problem that union lawyers are attempting to change. Isnora was found to be the first shooter after the cops became scared that Bell and his friends had weapons.

See Detective in Sean Bell case fired.

Friends of Trayvon Describe Him as All Around Good Guy. Fox Correspondent Derides the "Hoody"

Apparently, Trayvon Martin was a success as a teen, not someone obsessed with making a million before he was thirty most likely, but a sensible, fun loving, nice kid who had been in a junior football team, and after he became too old for it still helped out in the snack stand. The only school problems noted in an AP report were some tardies leading to a short suspension.

 He and his father seem to have taken good care of each other, and should be an inspiration to all of us. Trayvon's sense of family extended to his father's girlfriends son, described by the AP as a "soon-to-be stepbrother" for whom he was buying the Skittles. See AP Link below this post for more details on Trayvon

While I have some sympathy for George Zimmerman who was probably fighting discrimination himself for his Hispanic looks and who appeared to think if he was tough enough he could gain a middle class wage and respect by becoming a police officer, this case shows off the essence of racism.

 If you look a young person who is not like you and instantly see a threat, no matter how hard you personally have struggled in life, you have a problem with it.

If, like FOX new's, Giraldo Rivera you claim that the big problem is "The Hoody" which many working class people wear because it keeps them warm and one doesn't have to choose which fashion statement to put on today, you have a problem with prejudice. And, BTW Mr Rivera, just because you're one of the few people of ethnicity on FOX News does it mean you aren't a racist.

Those seeking to push middle and working class Americans into a slave class status, love interracial problems since it helps foster their agenda. 

Slain teen's friends say he never picked a fight 

Cenk Uygur Paul Ryan's and the GOP Budget Plan That Would "that would create $4.3 trillion debt in 10 years" through tax cuts to the wealthy

Despite ending Medicare as we know it the plan from the GOP darling (who received Social Security payments as a teen enabling the deal from the Wisconsin Congressman to pay outright for college instead of being entangled in large, often high interest, debt after graduation) would leave the US with even more debt.

If you want to be left with a puny voucher during your last years of desperate medical need vote GOP this year or don't vote at all, because they have the plan perfected, now and are eager to get to passing it through the Congress and getting it signed by a GOP president.

Petitions For Justice on Trayvon Martin Shooting, info on Million Hoodies March in NYC, and Twitter handles of Congressionals:

I decided to look for more petitions calling for the proper prosecution of Trayvon's Martin's killer.  I didn't want to miss one.

I've only found two, right now.  I have to go to work, but will be signing them tonight and looking for others.

Also I found a page that has the Twitter handles of a lot of  Congress members so you can Tweet them, Tweet at them, and just in general nudge them to make sure a proper investigation is done.

Also tell them to stop supporting the NRA's "Stand your Ground" laws that gave George Zimmerman the idea he could kill a teen in cold blood. 

Petition #1 Prosecute the killer of our son, 17-year-old Trayvon Martin

Petition #2  Attorney General Holder: See That Justice is Done

Facebook event:
Million Hoodies March in NYC  6 pm Union Square

They have a link to one of the petitions above too.

You can take a picture of yourself in your in your hoodie and share it at the facebook group's wall.


This guy started the Million Hoodies March

Twitter handles for Congress members here.  (You may get propaganda back from their staff and others, but at least you've told them.) 

Or go to Thomas.loc.gov for email and mail options.  (Though email and other systems often break down at important times, like now.)

Don't let up.  Don't let them hide behind business as usual, especially the Republicans that have promoted the gun laws that let racists kill teens.

Whaling Groups Say "Pay Us To Stop"

Slaughtered Pilot Whales, Hvalba, Faroe Islands

Way to drag your ugly activities into a nice looking picture, dudes.

Picture from Wikimedia Commons and covered by their license for reuse Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported

A writer at The Economist says some people are arguing that environmental groups should be paying whalers to cease and desist instead of harassing them.

My comment:

What a great idea.  And we can also pay burglars to not steal stuff out of peoples houses, or Wall Street bankers to not rip off their  clients.

I wouldn't mind if someone paid me to not try to catch the last of a yellow light.

Still the trade off isn't really that static in ways the author notes and misses.

Mr. Babbage tells us to remember that we are paying the whalers to replace the money they would make on the open market, but if whale meat therefore became unavailable because whalers aren't whaling then it would instantly become "scarce"and therefore much more valuable.

Driving spiraling costs to cover the increase or leading to cheating.

Whether or not you want to contribute to the effort to stop whalers, the truth is that, if the whole whaling harassment scheme is dismantled and the payment demands for not whaling escalate to unreasonable levels, we would face the fact that the whole infrastructure of the whaling harassment system would need to be rebuilt. It seems to have taken over 20 years to get good disruptions of the Japanese whaling of in the waters off Antarctic waters built up until it is severely restricting the catch..  Are we going to force them to dismantle it so they can afford payments to whalers and hope it doesn't need to be rebuilt after a few years as "pirate" whalers (probably the same groups that were whaling before) step in to make the precious metal level money that a reimbursed whaling embargo has encouraged for the products of the slaughter?  How long, in fact, until the world gives up and tells the whalers to just go ahead and kill them all?


Then again being able to pay off whalers, sure would put to rest the lies that whaling for modern societies was just a way to keep in touch with their heritage.  But in fact, if the whaling nations are asking to be paid off, that actually does the exact same thing, though I note that you're not likely to learn that from mainstream news sources who are careful not to insult big money sources.


Want some more good news?  I've read evidence that monetary and political support for whaling in at least one nation appears to be a disguised crony payback scheme.   Similar games may be going on in the other nations still promoting whaling.  Does the world believe environmentalists should fund corrupt politicians at ever increasing costs to keep a horrific slaughter from happening?

The Economist (mobile format): Good whale hunting

More news on whales and whaling:

Saboteurs blamed as Japan whale catch falls short
Following an even more disastrous season for the Japanese Whaling fleet this year's catch fell short of 1/3 of it's desired catch.

Rare whale swims up West Coast at 100 miles per day

Yahoo! Gets Heat for Whale and Dolphin Meat Sales

Proof: Restiction of Abortion Kills Women

Grindelwald Valley and Eiger

Yes, that is the Alp featured in "The Eiger Sanction".
I know. It looks so peaceful from here.

Republicans pretend that restricting abortion and contraception is just a way to pretty up life in the United States, but there are ramifications from killing and maiming women to putting religion in charge of our lives.  The Founding Fathers didn't want any of that to happen.

Picture shared using Flickr's native code (found at site)and allowed via Creative Commons License Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0) Rollover for Flickr name of photographer.

What do the so-called "Right to Life" people have to say about the fact that restricting abortion and safe, affordable contraception through prohibitions or costs kills women? How can they justify denying women what they need to take care of the family they have by forcing them to bear children repeatedly until they can no longer be the best benefit to them and, indeed, may no longer be alive. These women are often times wives, mothers, care givers, and workers. In fact, according to "POVERTY AND HIV/AIDS IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA" families most at risk through poverty are often headed by women. And that is true in the United States as well.

But:

 See excerpted abstract from Obstetrics and Gynecology republished by the US Government's NIH: "Unsafe Abortion: Unnecessary Maternal Mortality":

Every year, worldwide, about 42 million women with unintended pregnancies choose abortion, and nearly half of these procedures, 20 million, are unsafe. Some 68,000 women die of unsafe abortion annually, making it one of the leading causes of maternal mortality (13%). Of the women who survive unsafe abortion, 5 million will suffer long-term health complications. Unsafe abortion is thus a pressing issue. Both of the primary methods for preventing unsafe abortion—less restrictive abortion laws and greater contraceptive use—face social, religious, and political obstacles, particularly in developing nations, where most unsafe abortions (97%) occur. Even where these obstacles are overcome, women and health care providers need to be educated about contraception and the availability of legal and safe abortion, and women need better access to safe abortion and post-abortion services. Otherwise, desperate women, facing the financial burdens and social stigma of unintended pregnancy and believing they have no other option, will continue to risk their lives by undergoing unsafe abortions.

The report also says that in developed countries only 3% of abortions are unsafe, but with the GOP forcing states to make abortion more expensive (through reimbursed ultrasounds) or less available that number will rise. Plus our nation informs others how to treat their women, directly and indirectly.

For example:

During the Bush administration, US money for women's health sources was denied to groups who offered abortion and then even for those who offered hormonal contraception, and groups that offered and recommended the use of condoms for birth and HIV control faced steeper challenges for getting US government dollars as compared to US groups in Africa who pushed the failed practices of  "Abstinence Only" policies putting the lives of African women at risk over and over again.

Do your friends endanger the lives of women?  Explain to them that birth control, condoms for HIV/AIDS and other venereal disease prevention, as well as abortion is essential to healthy families in regions like Africa, South America and other third world nations where women are under the boot of the Catholic Church and other hyper religious groups either as it controls the minds of their government officials (as in South America) or because they are the largest medical benefactors (like in Africa).

Instead of helping the women of  the third world, are we going to allow more women in the US face death because they cannot afford or not allowed to have effective birth control and/or safe abortion?

Think about it.

I know men care about this too.  It affects their quality of life.  When a woman is facing the decision of whether or not she and her partner can afford to raise another child in this world, they have to face any difficulties that are have been thrown in their way.  It is nearly criminal the obstacles  that Republicans in state governments will put in front of a pregnant woman, up to doubling the price of an abortion because they thought they could capture the Evangelical vote by doing so. 

And Mrs. Santorum pretending these state regulations don't matter because her husband won't do anything about contraception and abortion is a slap in the face.  Yeah, Honey, that's exactly what we are saying.  He won't do anything.  He'll let the states and the Church run right over women until they are seeking  unsafe abortions in back alleys, or trying to do it themselves. 

Welcome to the Third World, America.  Even the sputtering economy of the Reagan years,  and the wars the George W. Bush administration started and didn't end, did not bring so many women to the edge where they could lose their lives so easily.  The new crop of Republican leaders may do so.