Rachel Ford is a programmer, and since 8:00 to 5:00 doesn't provide enough opportunity to bask in screen glare, she writes in her spare time. She was raised a very fundamentalist Christian, but eventually "saw the light." Rachel's personal blog is Rachel's Hobbit Hole, where she discusses everything from Tolkien to state politics.
In a Madison, Wisconsin town hall hosted by Fox News Channel’s Megyn Kelly, Ted Cruz fielded questions from Kelly and audience members. One self-described moderate, pro-choice Republican woman voiced her concerns that Cruz would ban abortion. As usual when asked a potentially risky question, Cruz employed a combination of duplicity and outright dishonesty in his answer. Read more
Remember Robert Bentley, the “family values” governor of Alabama whose extramarital activities recently came to light? When a recording surfaced of a 2014 conversation in which Bentley told a woman (not, for the record, his wife, who recently filed for divorce after fifty years of marriage) how much he loved touching her breasts, it put to rest the whole notion that Bentley was the “family values” guy he had always claimed to be. The anti-gay crusader, it seems, was only fired up about preserving marriage in the sense of denying it to other people, not depriving himself of extramarital dalliances. Read more
When it comes to unsavory religious fanatics, Ted Cruz certainly comes to mind, but there are many more associated with his campaign that don’t get nearly as much attention. While Samantha Bee’s show Full Frontal is off this week, she did leave a present for viewers: a roundup of some of Cruz’s more horrifying faith-based besties. Read more
If you thought anti-abortion activists were solely focused on shutting down Planned Parenthood, this week showed how wrong that thinking was. Another vehicle to prevent women from having abortions involves requiring strict adherence to the scientifically outdated FDA guidelines for using the abortion-inducing drug mifepristone. Even though more current data exists (the old guidelines were based off clinical tests in the 1990s, before the drug was approved), and the medically accepted usage has changed with the newer data, there were anti-abortion groups opposed to the FDA following the science where it leads. In fact, several states passed laws forcing doctors to adhere to the old FDA standards – only for abortion drugs, of course. And, naturally, this was all done in the name of protecting women. The FDA, however, at the request of the company that produces the drug, examined the data, and subsequently updated the guidelines to account for new evidence. Which is exactly how things should work — with change reflecting progress — but it caused much wailing and gnashing of teeth from the anti-choice community. But you’d be wrong in thinking “pro-life” activists were simply going to let this slide. Consider Arizona’s Republican Governor Doug Ducey who, last week, after the FDA updated their guidelines, still signed into law a bill that requires adherence to the old, now-scientifically inaccurate guidelines. Read more
According to Iberia Parish (Louisiana) Sheriff Louis M. Ackal, believing in God is necessary in ensuring you have good police officers. That was his reasoning last year when his department put “In God We Trust” stickers on all vehicles. But while God-belief is a requirement for good policing, apparently “not beating inmates” isn’t. (In chapel, no less.) Recently, Sheriff Ackal was indicted by a Grand Jury as part of a federal probe into abuses committed by the department. Read more
