Republican Gynaecology

[Dawn Meredith]

:vomit:

Mike Huckabee Would Like to Remind You That Rape Has Created Some Extraordinary People

John Cook

Why is everybody so down on rape? This is what Mike Huckabee wanted to know today, on his radio program, which also featured Rep. Todd "Legitimate Rape" Akin as a guest. For instance, did you know that Ethel Waters was conceived when her mother got raped? Do you know what a world without rape would look like? A world without Ethel Waters, that's what.
This is what Mike Huckabee said today, as transcribed by the Los Angeles Times' James Rainey, about the upside of being raped and then getting pregnant:

"Ethel Waters, for example, was the result of a forcible rape," Huckabee said of the late American gospel singer. One-time presidential candidate Huckabee added: "I used to work for James Robison back in the 1970s, he leads a large Christian organization. He, himself, was the result of a forcible rape. And so I know it happens, and yet even from those horrible, horrible tragedies of rape, which are inexcusable and indefensible, life has come and sometimes, you know, those people are able to do extraordinary things."

Anyway, stop being so racist against rape-babies, everyone.

Just amazing. The comments just keep getting worse on this subject. I caught a segment of Rachel Maddow last night and was horrified by just how many dim bulbs in the Republican party have insisted over the years that a woman cannot become pregant by a "legitimate" rape. Maybe it's the water. Floride lowers the iq.

Even members of his party are calling for Aiken to step aside. Thus far he's "just saying no".

Dawn

[Peter Lemkin]

Since good people have come out of rapes, and legitimate rapes have either clever hormones or suicidal sperm that 'do the right thing'....we can legalize rape; kill all abortionists; and life in prison for all women who have one. Republilogic. Solved.

Next problem......?

Frickin INSANITY:what:

[Peter Lemkin]

AMY GOODMAN: Republicans are mounting increasing pressure on Missouri Congressmember Todd Akin to end his bid to unseat Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill after he claimed women's bodies can prevent pregnancies in cases of what he called "legitimate rape." Republicans had been hoping an Akin victory could help the party regain control of the Senate. Akin is a six-term Congress member with Tea Party backing. The controversy began Sunday when a local TV reporter asked Akin about his opposition to abortion in all cases.

CHARLES JACO: What about in the case of rape? Should it be legal or not?

REP. TODD AKIN: Well, you know, people always want to try and make that as one of those things: "Well, how do youhow do you slice this particularly tough sort of ethical question?" It seems to me, first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down. But let's assume that maybe that didn't work or something. You know, I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child.

AMY GOODMAN: After the interview aired, Todd Akin issued a statement saying he, quote, "misspoke in this interview and it does not reflect the deep empathy I hold for the thousands of women who are raped and abused every year," unquote. Politico revealed this morning that Akin has also recorded a TV ad to apologize for his comments.

REP. TODD AKIN: I'm Todd Akin, and I approve this message. Rape is an evil act. I used the wrong words in the wrong way, and for that I apologize. As the father of two daughters, I want tough justice for predators. I have a compassionate heart for the victims of sexual assault, and I pray for them. The fact is, rape can lead to pregnancy. The truth is, rape has many victims. The mistake I made was in the words I said, not in the heart I hold. I ask for your forgiveness.

AMY GOODMAN: Despite Todd Akin's apology, the Republican establishment has unleashed a campaign to drive Akin out of the race. The National Republican Senatorial Committee declared it would withdraw support for Akin, as did the Republican advocacy group Crossroads GPS. Under Missouri law, candidates can withdraw 11 weeks before Election Day. That deadline is 5:00 p.m. today Missouri time.

While presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has criticized Akin's remarks, questions have been raised about ties between Akin and vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan. In 2011, Ryan and Akin co-sponsored the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act.

On Monday, President Barack Obama addressed the controversy during a surprise briefing at the White House.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Rape is rape. And the idea that we should be parsing and qualifying and slicing what types of rape we're talking about doesn't make sense to the American people and certainly doesn't make sense to me. So, what I think these comments do underscore is why we shouldn't have a bunch of politicians, a majority of whom are men, making healthcare decisions on behalf of women.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, for more, we're joined by Michelle Goldberg, senior writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast. Her latest piece is titled "Todd Akin's Rape Comment Was Bad, but His Abortion Views Are Much Worse." She's also author of Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, as well as The Means of Reproduction: Sex, Power, and the Future of the World.

Michelle Goldberg, welcome back to Democracy Now!

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Hey, thanks for having me.

AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. So let's go through everything Akin said, what his views are, and let's go beyond Sunday, but we'll start there.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: OK. So, what Akin said, obviously, that was controversial and that differs from the vast majority of his Republican colleagues is only his views about the kind of magic powers of the uterus to activate in cases of rape and somehow kill sperm, and this is a canard that has kind of floated around the far right. The reason that it's so toxic is because it suggestsit's because it's not just because of his view that women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term, even if they're the result of rape, but because he's essentially arguing that women who have been impregnated by rapeand, you know, according to the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, that's about 32,000 women in America a yearthat he's suggesting that they weren't really raped or that, you know, some of the other people who've kind of peddled this junk science says, "Well, you know, the juices don't flow if she's raped," the implication being that if she gets pregnant, it's because she somehow enjoyed it, or, you know, there's also an old, medieval superstition about how a woman can't conceive unless she hasunless she has an orgasm, which seems to feed into some of this. So that's the part that's toxic, I think, across the board for even anti-abortion Republicans.

But what there's no difference between, there's no difference between Akin's views on abortionon abortion policy and on abortion law and that of Ryan and many other Republicans, including many of the Republican headliners at the RNC next week. And I think that one of the reasons there's such a huge push to get him out of the race is because that's not particularly something that the Republican Party wants to highlight right now.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's talk about Todd Akin and the man who was charged to call him and tell him to get out of the race, the presumptive vice-presidential Republican nominee, Paul Ryan.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right. So, Paul Ryan, like Todd Akin, does not believe that there should be any exceptions to a total abortion ban for cases of rape and incest. He, in the past, has only supported exceptions that would save a mother's life, not save a mother's health, you know, and again. So he believes and has always believed and has sponsored legislation to the effect that a woman who gets pregnant through rape should be forced by the government to carry that baby to term.

They've collaborated on several pieces of legislation. They co-sponsored thethey co-sponsored what was basically a federal personhood amendment, which would give the full rights of an American citizen to a fertilized egg and which a lot of legal scholars say would not only outlaw all forms of abortion but would outlaw the morning-after pill, would outlaw some forms of birth control, would outlawwould outlaw common forms of in vitro fertilization. They also both co-sponsored the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, which you explained before. And there was a lot of provisions in the No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act, or H.R. 3. One of the interesting provisions was that they tried toright now, there's anfederal law bans federal funding for abortion for low-income women and government employees and military servicemembers. Theywell, actually, this is interesting, because Akin and Ryan have also both opposed legislation that would allow funding for abortions for female servicemembers who have been raped. And as you know, you know, rape in the military is at kind of epidemic levels. But federal law right now bans federal funding for abortion in cases of rape and incest. They tried to change that to federal funding bans abortion except in cases of, quote-unquote, "forcible rape." That, if you heard Todd Akin speaking yesterday on Mike Huckabee's show, he said that by "legitimate rape" he meant to say "forcible rape."

AMY GOODMAN: Actually, let's go right to Huckabee's show.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: OK.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's go to that comment of Congressman Akin.

REP. TODD AKIN: I've really made a couple of serious mistakes here that were just wrong, and I need to apologize for those. First, I might say that I've always been committed to pro-life, and it was because I didn't want to harm the most vulnerable. But likewise, I care deeply, you know, for the victims of people who have been raped, and they're equally vulnerable. And a rape is equally tragic. And I made that statement in error. Let me be clear: rape is never legitimate. It's an evil act that's committed by violent predators. I used the wrong words in the wrong way. What I said was ill-conceived, and it was wrong. And for that, I apologize.

AMY GOODMAN: That was Todd Akin on the former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's radio show.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right. Mike Huckabee, another one who's speaking at the Republican National Convention, who also believes that rapethat abortion should be banned in cases of rape and incest.

But, so here's why this phrase "forcible rape" is interesting. In 1999, a guy named John Willke, who's the founder of the National Right to Life Committee, wrote an article. My guess is it's the article where Todd Akin got his ideas about female reproductive biology, because it basicallyit makes the same argument that he made, that when feminists or pro-choice advocates talk about an abortion exception for rape, it's kind of a canard because, in fact, rapepregnancy related from rape is extremely rare because of the trauma of rape sets off a kind of endocrine response that makes pregnancy impossible. One of the things he talks about in this article is he says, you know, pro-life advocates should always make a distinctionshould always talk about forcible rape as opposed to rape.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Willke.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: This is Willke. For twofor a couple of reasons. I mean, partly to distinguish it from statutory rape, and he also argues that a lot of women simply claim rape after they've become pregnant from consensual sex. So, the fact that this phrase has kind of entered thenot just the Republican lexicon, but that they've actually tried to write it into law is significant. And, of course, what it implies is that there is real rape or legitimate rape, and then lesser forms of rape, for which kind of exemptions shouldn't be made.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, of course, if you talk about forcible rape, which was in the legislation co-sponsored by Akin and Ryan

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: that suggests there's something called, what, "voluntary rape."

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right, exactly, yes, voluntary rape, nonviolent rape. Again, part of what they're talking about is statutory rape, you know, the kind ofbecause there's a massive gap in people's ages. But again, that means that essentially, you know, a 13-year-old girl with a 30-year-old man, she wouldn't be kind of entitled to any sort of federal protection if she gets pregnant. But, yeah, beyond that, it's a little unclear. I mean, forcible rape is a term that's in a lot of state penal codes, but it's unclear what that would mean at the federal level in terms of funding, you know, whether it would, say, bar funding in a case where a woman was drugged or, you know, where a woman was simply threatened. To me, the point is, is that it was clearly an attempt to narrow the rape exemption and to say that some forms of rape are not as serious as others and don't really count.

AMY GOODMAN: I wanted to stay with John Willke for a minute, the article you mentioned that he wrote called "Assault Rape Pregnancies Are Rare," in it Willke arguing that rape statistics are uncertain because some women are, quote, "pregnant from consensual intercourse, have later claimed rape," also writing, quote, "To get and stay pregnant a woman's body must produce a very sophisticated mix of hormones. Hormone production is controlled by a part of the brain that is easily influenced by emotions. There's no greater emotional trauma that can be experienced by a woman than an assault rape," unquote. That's John C. Willke, often referred to as the father of the pro-life movement. You also report that Willke endorsed Governor Romney for president in 2007.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right, well, and not just that Willke endorsed, because, you know, no politician is responsible for their endorsers, but the Romney campaign really touted him as a major surrogate and as a kind ofyou know, as a really credible voice to the anti-abortion community.

AMY GOODMAN: And he's not the only one. You've got, back in July 2010, Nevada Senate candidate Sharron Angle [asked] on a conservative radio show, "What do you say to a young girl who's raped by her father? Let's say she's pregnant. How do you explain this to her in terms of wanting her to go through with the process of having the baby?" She's asked this question. And she says, "I think two wrongs don't make a right. I have been in the situation of counseling young girls, not 13 but 15, who have had very at risk, difficult pregnancies. And my counsel was to look for alternatives, which they did. They found that they had made what was really a lemon situation into lemonade."

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right. And this, I think, is the real issue. I mean, I don't think that voters have less reason to be concerned about Todd Akin's kind of fantastical notions about female reproductive biology. What really matters is the policies that he supports and, you know, the policy of kind of forcing rape victims, like I said, to carry pregnancies to term against their will. And that's a view that used to be fairly marginal in the Republican PartyI mean, you know, as little as five or six years agobut has now become incredibly mainstream, to the point where it's, you know, been espoused by both of the last two Republican vice-presidential nominees.

AMY GOODMAN: We're talking to Michelle Goldberg, a senior writer for Newsweek/The Daily Beast, who has been covering these issues. Now what happens, and where does Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan go?

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right. Well, my sense is they want him out of the race precisely because he highlights this issue that they don't want to talk about. If you saw the National Review op-edor the National Review editorial saying, you know, "Akin, get out," it was partly because, as they said, you know, other Republicans hold this minority position but are able to talk about it in a way that doesn't make them unelectable. Akin can't do that. So, you know, every day that we're talking about Akin, we're not just talking about Akin, we're also talking about Ryan and, you know, the kind of incredible rightward lurch of the Republican Party. So, they're trying to get him out. You know, they've said they were going to withdraw support. Crossroads GPS, you know, the

AMY GOODMAN: Karl Rove.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right, they're withdrawing support. But as of now, it doesn't look like Akin is going anywhere. And I think what will be really interesting to see is the degree to which kind of the Christian right rallies around him, because, you know, some major Christian right organizations, Family Research Council

AMY GOODMAN: Have already endorsed him.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Yeah, have alreadyand not just endorsed him, but kind of said that he should stay in the race.

AMY GOODMAN: Right, endorsing him staying. I want to go to Paul Ryan, who'sno one is calling for him to step out

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right, certainly.

AMY GOODMAN: his view on birth control. Earlier this year, Congressman Ryan told David Gregory on Meet the Press he wasn't concerned about Republicans overplaying their hand on the issue of contraception and women's health. He suggested the government requiring employers to pay for birth control would violate people's freedom of religion. Let's go to that clip.

REP. PAUL RYAN: What we're getting from the White House with this conscience issue, it's not an issue about contraception, it's an issue that reveals a political philosophy that the president is showing that basically treats our constitutional rights as if they're revocable privileges from our government, not inalienable rights by our creator. And so, what I would simply say is, we're seeing this new government activism, sort of a paternalistic, arrogant political philosophy, that puts new government-granted rights in the way of our constitutional rights. And so, what I think it really is is that it's an argument for freedom, for our founding principles and for protecting those constitutional rights, which right now with his new mandate from HHS, like I said, it's really not about contraception, it's about violating our First Amendment rights to religious freedom and of conscience.

AMY GOODMAN: That's Congressmember Paul Ryan.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: You know, I don't have the slightest idea about what his kind of personal belief is about contraception. He's not like Rick Santorum, who has said that he wanted to use the power of the presidency to kind of inveigh against its evils. What we do know about him is that he co-sponsored the sanctity of human life amendment, the, you know, so-calledI mean, notsorry, sanctity of human life law, the so-called personhood, federal personhood bill, which, whatever his intentions were regarding contraception, in practice would have banned or at least allowed states to ban many common forms of birth control, including the IUD, the birth control pill, certainly the morning-after pill.

AMY GOODMAN: Because it gives personhood to a fertilized egg.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right, and because some of these methods of birth control work to prevent implantation as opposed to fertilization. So, yes, once kind of sperm meets egg, that entity has as many rights asyou know, as you or I.

AMY GOODMAN: So you have Mitt Romney saying at the Iowa State Fair last year that corporations are people. Then you have Paul Ryan saying that zygotes are people

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right. And nobody

AMY GOODMAN: because they're saying fertilized eggs are people.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: But somehow, nobody will say that women are people. I mean, one of the interesting things about this is that, you know, when Paul Ryan wrote this op-ed about how he reconciles his pro-life absolutism with his kind of Ayn Randian libertarianism, he talked about the rights of theyou know, the rights of the fertilized egg or the rights of the embryo or fetus. He didn't kind of mention women in this piece even once, I mean, even to kind of consider their rights or agency. It was just a nonissue to him.

AMY GOODMAN: His views on Planned Parenthood and where they stand?

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: He wants to completely defund it, you know, as does Mitt Romney. So, in that sense, there's no difference between them. I think they both want toyou know, in the past, it was really typical for Republicans to want to, you know, put a lot of limits on Planned Parenthood, to make sure money given to Planned Parenthood for family planning activities was sequestered from any of their kind of abortion-related services. No, they both want to completely strip Planned Parenthood of alland not just Planned Parenthood, all kind of federal family planning programs of all funding.

AMY GOODMAN: Let's turn to an ad approved by the Obama administration that features a series of women talking about Mitt Romney's plans to defund Planned Parenthood.

Ah, thought we had that. But I also want to talk about Mitt Romney and his stance right now on Akin. He came out pretty quickly

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: and said this is offensive. But let's go back a little bit to Sandra Fluke, the young law school student who wanted to testify before Congress about the importance of funding of contraception for students, and Rush Limbaugh's attack on her

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Mm-hmm.

AMY GOODMAN: calling her a slut and a prostitute. He even said that they should post video of her onlineshe should be forced to post video of herself online having sex. When he called her a slut, what exactly were Mitt Romney's words?

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: I believe they werethey were something to the effect of, "I would have used different language."

AMY GOODMAN: In fact, with Akin, he also came out a little softer at the beginning, before this tidal wave of anger, not as explicitly as he recently just talked about his views being offensive.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Well, and there's a couplethere's a lot of differences between RushRush Limbaugh is obviously a much more powerful figure, with a lot more support, than Todd Akin is. You know, Todd Akin had already kind of defied the Republican Party in this race. You know, he already had alienated a lot of Republicans. And also, this language, because, again, it seemed to kind of impugn the morality of rape victims who become pregnant, including, you know, anti-abortion rape victims, that outraged not just, you know, people on the left, but it alsoyou know, you have people like Michelle Malkin and Ann Coulter and people like that calling for him to step aside. There's a group called Live Action, which is known for sending people undercover into abortion clinics to try to prove that they're doing something sinister. You know, one of the things that they've been trying to prove is that abortion clinics aren't reporting instances of rape, and soyou know, so the idea that kind of rape victims don't get pregnant is anathema to them. You know, the personhood people, the people who have been pushing these personhood amendments all across the country

AMY GOODMAN: That Paul Ryan supports.

MICHELLE GOLDBERG: Right, that Paul Ryan supports, they have people on their staff who gowho they say areor, I have nowho I'm sure are babyor, whose mothers were rape victims and who brought them to term and, you know, who go around saying, "I have a right to live." So, this is notyou know, so, the idea that kind of, again, that rape never results in pregnancy, it's not as if this is a kind of universal message among the anti-abortion movement, although it is part of the pseudoscience that garners some of them.

[Jan Klimkowski]

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Winner.

[Magda Hassan]

Top VAWA Opponents Partnered with Convicted Wife-Beater and Group Tied to Mail Order Bride Firm

Submitted by Josh Glasstetter on Wed, 05/16/2012 - 12:57pm
The House of Representatives is poised to pass a hobbled version of the Violence Against Women Act Reauthorization (VAWA) later today. The House GOP version actually rolls back some current protections and excludes other key protections contained in the Senate version of the bill, which was passed with bipartisan support in April.
In past years, VAWA enjoyed bipartisan support and garnered little controversy. This time around, however, top Religious Right groups have rallied against the bill due to the protections it would extend to immigrant, Native American, and LGBT victims of domestic abuse. These groups, including the Family Research Council, Concerned Women for America, Eagle Forum, and the Southern Baptist Convention'sEthics and Religious Liberty Commission, made noise on Capitol Hill and are most directly responsible for the events that will unfold in the House today.

It's worth noting then that these groups partnered in their lobbying efforts with a convicted wife-beater and a group tied to a mail order bride firm. The anti-VAWA coalition, led by Concerned Women for America, wrote earlier this year to Senators:

We, the undersigned, representing millions of Americans nationwide, are writing today to oppose the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). This nice-sounding bill is deceitful because it destroys the family by obscuring real violence in order to promote the feminist agenda. […]

There is no denying the very real problem of violence against women and children. However, the programs promoted in VAWA are harmful for families. VAWA often encourages the demise of the family as a means to eliminate violence.

Further, this legislation continues to use overly broad definitions of domestic violence. These broad definitions actually squander the resources for victims of actual violence by failing to properly prioritize and assess victims. Victims who can show physical evidence of abuse should be our primary focus.

The letter was signed by leaders from major Religious Right groups like FRC, Eagle Forum, Liberty Counsel, Traditional Values Coalition, and the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. It was also signed by Timothy Johnson, former vice chair of the North Carolina Republican Party and founder and president of the Frederick Douglass Foundation, a small organization focused on outreach to conservative African Americans.

But there's a big problem with partnering with Johnson on an issue like VAWA, and it's been widely reported. Back in 2009, when Johnson was running for vice chair of the NC GOP, the media reported on his felony domestic violence conviction from 1996. He responded by releasing a statement of supportfrom his ex-wife "Were I a resident of the state I would vote for him." Except she never said that. Months later the media reported that Johnson had fabricated the endorsement:

"I absolutely did not say that," Ofelia Felix-Johnson, now living in Nebraska, tells Xpress. "This was not done with my consent, and I didn't even know about it. I didn't appreciate him putting my name out there when I had nothing to do with it."

On the other hand, this did happen, as Sarah Posner reported at Alternet:

According to court records, Johnson was arrested on Christmas Day 1995 in Cleveland, Ohio, and was later indicted by a grand jury for two felony counts, one of felonious assault and the other of kidnapping. According to the arrest report, when the police arrived, they found Felix-Johnson bleeding from the face. Timothy Johnson told the officers, according to their report, "I admit it. I hit her, that's the only way I can get her attention." Felix-Johnson told the officers he restrained her on the couch, holding down her neck. One officer reports Ofelia Felix-Johnson saying that Johnson also punched her breasts, saying that she had no heart, and hit her over the back and buttocks with a plastic shoe rack, breaking the rack. The police report in the court file states that Johnson broke his wife's nose and toes, causing her to be hospitalized.

Johnson pleaded guilty to one count of felony aggravated assault and was sentenced to 18 months in prison, which was suspended. A few years later, Johnson was arrested again on domestic violence charges:

In 1998, Johnson was arrested by the Perrysburg Police, again on domestic violence charges. According to the police report, Johnson provided a "very similar" account of the incident to that his wife Ofelia and 14-year-old son gave police. Both wife and son reported that Johnson had Ofelia Felix-Johnson in a wrist lock, and when the son attempted to stop Johnson from hurting his mother, Johnson put the son in a head lock such that he was "unable to breathe and was choking up food," according to the police report. After the son broke free, the police report continues, Johnson "put his right hand around [the boy's] throat and pushed [him] against the wall with his back to the wall and choked [the boy] for about 5 seconds."

According to court records, Ofelia Felix-Johnson did not appear for the hearing, and the charges were dismissed. Johnson told AlterNet that "the incident that took place wasn't domestic violence. My ex-wife and I had a disagreement. And as always, well the person says, well I know you have this past on you so I'll just call the police. And as you said, there was no conviction and there was no trial. You know why? Because there was nothing there."

Given Johnson's well-reported history of domestic violence and well-reported efforts to fabricate support from his battered ex-wife, it boggles the mind that Religious Right leaders would sign on to the above letter with him. In fact, their partnership with Johnson seems to take the War on Women to an entirely new level.

Another notable name on that letter is Philip Cook, the director of Stop Abusive and Violent Environments (SAVE), on whose site the letter is hosted. SAVE has been lobbying House Republicans, with much success, to roll back protections for immigrant victims of domestic violence under VAWA. As Laura Bassett reported last week at the Huffington Post, SAVE's treasurer "has a major financial interest in reducing immigrant protections":

Natasha Spivack, started international "marriage service" Encounters International in 1993 with the aim of arranging marriages between U.S. men and Russian women. "The Woman Of Your Dreams Just May have a Russian Accent," states the company's website.

A federal jury in Baltimore awarded one of the Russian brides matched by Encounters International a settlement of $434,000 after she claimed to have been beaten by her American husband and claimed that the company failed to screen candidates properly. The woman also claimed that Encounters International neglected to tell her about a law allowing immigrants to escape abusive marriages without fear of automatic deportation. […]

Rosie Hidalgo, director of public policy for the anti-domestic violence organization Casa de Esperanza, said she has notified Republican members of the House Judiciary Committee that SAVE Services had strong connections to Encounters International, and pointed out that there have been no studies documenting immigration fraud on the part of U.S. anti-domestic violence programs.

"It's shocking to me that the people who are advocating for these anti-immigrant provisions are the people who have a monetary interest in not holding batterers accountable and not holding marriage broker agencies accountable," she told HuffPost. "These are the ones reaching out to House Republicans, and Republicans are supporting the policies they're pushing."

This is the company that the Religious Right keeps, and they sadly have a great deal of influence in the House. Today's vote in the House will reveal just how much.
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/to...bride-firm

[Charles Drago]

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Winner.

Should be a big turnout, given how they just keep coming and coming.

[Magda Hassan]

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[Magda Hassan]