1) The Affordable Care Act guaranteed access to birth control, maternity care and breast-feeding supplies. These vital services are threated by President Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress with their intent to repeal it.
2) More and more state legislatures have been seized by reactionary lawmakers who want to impose drastic abortion restrictions.
3) The Family Medical Leave Act provides up to 12 weeks of paid leave but fewer than 40 percent of workers qualify. Women are fighting to expand their rights.
4) Women earn 80 percent of men’s pay. Women seek to close the gap.
5) One in three women has been victim of physical violence by a spouse. This is one of the hardest problems to solve.
6) Sexual violence is also hard to solve. One in six women has been raped or the victim of attempted rape. Rape and attempted rape are highest among transgenders.
Women are 51 percent of the U.S. population and 47 percent of the workforce, but make up just 19 percent of Congress and only one-fourth of state legislatures.
‘A DAY WITHOUT WOMEN’
Women went on strike and held rallies in 50 countries to mark International Women’s Day on March 8. Many women skipped work and refused to shop, showing their economic strength and political clout.
Twenty Democratic women lawmakers walked out of Congress to join the protests. “We are resisting President Trump’s and congressional Republican policies,” Rep. Barbara Lee, California Democrat, told a crowd.
In New York city, a statue of a defiant young girl was placed in front of the Wall Street statue of a charging bull. The girl statue symbolized women’s demand for corporate boards to increase its number of women.
The bronze sculpture by artist Kristen Visbal was aptly titled “Fearless Girl.” A plaque was put at the feet of the statue also aptly titled: “Know the power of women. SHE makes a difference.”
In Washington, demonstrators marched in front of the White House chanting “shame on Trump” and “our lives and our bodies matter.”
Spokeswoman Cassady Fendlay said it is important for white women to stand in solidarity with minority women. “Throughout history the strikes that have the biggest impact are the ones where people already the target of oppression participate,” Fendlay said.
Despite the anger of many demonstrators, women around the globe were actually “deploying as an army of love,” Doug Stanglin declared in USATODAY.
DEATH PENALTY REDUX
In the latest obscenity about the death penalty, prison officials in Arkansas are racing to execute eight men in 10 days before an execution drug expires. They are among 34 prisoners on Death Row but that hardly makes Arkansas the murder capital of the country. That sad distinction belongs to Texas.
The eight men in Arkansas were convicted of murders in 1989 and 1990. However, legal challenges and difficulty in getting the drugs for lethal injection have delayed executions nearly 20 years.
Something similar is happening in Ohio, supposedly a more enlightened state than Arkansas.
John Kasich, Republican governor of Ohio, postponed the execution of a child killer, scheduled in February, until May. The execution of seven others was postponed. Kasich said the delays were caused by the timing of oral arguments in federal appeals court in Cincinnati.
Beth McCann, a newly elected district attorney in Denver, has it right. She said her office would no longer seek the death penalty. “I don’t think the state should be in the business of killing people,” she said.
Amen. Executions violate the Eighth Amendment prohibition of “cruel and unusual punishments.”
CONGRESS MUST RESCUE POST OFFICE
The Post Office renders a tremendous service to the American people from the tip of Maine, to Hawaii and all the way across the Pacific to the Marshall Islands and Guam. It’s shameful treatment by Congress.
The postal service operates under a 2006 law that governs what if can charge for stamps and how much it must pay into retiree health funds. The health-fund provision expired last year, requiring the postal service to pay a staggering $6 billion annually into the health fund.
Congress should immediately pass a law allowing an increase in stamp costs and revamping the health-fund structure. Justice demands it.
BULLY FOR HER
Cressida Dick has been named the first woman police commissioner in the 158-year history of Scotland Yard.
Ms. Dick, 56, began her policing career as a beat cop in the West End of London.
Jake Highton is an emeritus professor of journalism from the University of Nevada, Reno. (jake.highton.1496@gmail.com)
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