• The Susan B. Komen Foundation decides to stop contributions to Planned Parenthood, then backs away and fires its vice-president, a former GOP candidate for Maryland governor running on an anti-Planned Parenthood platform.

• How many of the witnesses will offer testimony in support of the administration's position? According to Democrats, zero. How many can speak to issues regarding contraception and/or preventive health care? Again, zero. Issa invited nine people to testify, and each of them will tell Issa exactly what he wants to hear. Democrats were initially offered a chance to have one   witness testify, but when they selected a female law student at Georgetown, Republican committee staffers rejected the choice, arguing that she would only be able to speak to issues regarding contraception access -- and this was a hearing about religious liberty.

• Republican presidential hopeful Rick Santorum declares birth control is “harmful to women.”

• Every day three women in America are killed by their husbands or boyfriends. Yet, the Republican Party is opposing the extension of the Violence Against Women Act because it helps too many women. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) is leading the charge against reauthorization over provisions that offer protections to domestic abuse victims that happen to be LGBT or undocumented immigrants. (In other words, straight white women only, please.)

• Sen. Roy Blunt, (R-MO), has vowed to push for a vote on his legislation to overturn the new birth control requirement, possibly this week, despite Obama’s efforts to quiet the controversy on Friday by tweaking the rule. Blunt’s move, in turn, has sparked a fierce lobbying campaign by women’s health advocates, who say his legislation is a “radical” effort to block a gamut of women’s health services, not just contraception.

• The GOP state legislative supermajority state in Virginia passed a law in which women are forced to be vaginally penetrated with an ultrasound probe to determine the age of the fetus before allowing a woman to terminate her pregnancy. The bill passed over bitter yet futile objections from Democrats. And one GOP delegate caused the House to ripple when he said most abortions come as "matters of lifestyle convenience."

And these are just for openers! It's as if conservative leaders have taken leave of their frikkin' humanity.

“Chicks Up Front”

In the 1960's, when the San Francisco Bay Area was a giant, nine county fermentation tank of political and social change, there seemed to be a “protest du jour” going on all the time. There were huge rallies at San Francisco State, Berkeley, San Jose State, even snooty old Stanford, down in Palo Alto. The Yippies were at their height of fame (or infamy, perhaps, if you were an indignant working adult). At times it got out of hand, and the cops usually could be stoked up enough to react unpleasantly in order to break us up. They routinely banged kids over the head with batons and hauled them off for a few hours. 

In 1969, then-Governor Ronald Reagan even sent in the National Guard (pictured above)  when, in Berkeley, kids were protesting against the university taking over a local vacant lot called Peoples Park, near the UC campus, which served as a camp ground for street people. It got ugly as hell. One kid, sitting on a rooftop watching all the goings-on, was even shotgunned to death by the Berkeley cops.

That was when organizers created a tactic which they thought would keep the blue meanies from beating us all up by putting girls at the head of the demonstration to face off with the cops. “Chicks up front!” became almost a battle cry. (Along with “Don't trust anyone over 30!”) It was the women who were obviously the willing sacrificial lambs. 

It's time to get the “chicks up front” once again. This time to the polls. 

And filing for elective office, too. In the House there are 74 female Representatives (23%). The Senate has 16 females (16%). These are the highest numbers of women members in the history of the Congress! Of the 16 female Senators, 11 are Democrats and 5 are Republicans. Of the 74 female Representatives, 53 are Democrats and 21 are Republicans.

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