Tag: domestic violence

(TRIGGER WARNING) Comparing Bernie Sanders to a domestic abuser minimizes domestic abuse

AUTHOR’S NOTE: This blog post contains a tweet that includes an image depicting violence against women. Reader discretion is strongly advised.

The Democratic Party is being increasingly dominated by two forms of progressivism. One form of progressivism prioritizes human rights issues, especially in regards to women’s reproductive rights, over other issues. This form of progressivism is associated with very liberal voters who voted for Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic presidential primaries/caucuses, who are the core base of support, although not 100% of the support, of the resistance to the Trump Administration. The other form of progressivism prioritizes economic issues, especially in regards to efforts to reduce income inequality, over other issues. This form of progressivism is very strongly associated with Bernie Sanders, in fact, Sanders has often by criticized by progressive critics of Sanders for having supported candidates for public office who oppose abortion rights (although Bernie himself has a very pro-choice voting record as a U.S. Senator) and not regarding reproductive rights as an important issue.

Sanders has come under extremely heavy criticism for publicly endorsing Omaha, Nebraska mayoral candidate Heath Mello, who, as a member of Nebraska’s unicameral state legislature, voted for legislation that required doctors to give women who consider terminating a pregnancy a list of ultrasound providers. Although Mello has publicly disavowed his past support for anti-abortion legislation, the bill that he supported as a state legislator was designed purely to shame women, and nobody can re-write history.

Sanders’s support for Mello has prompted a large amount of criticism from progressive critics of Sanders. While most of the criticism has been over the fact that Sanders has, despite being pro-choice himself, endorsed anti-choice politicians from time to time, as well as Sanders not regarding women’s rights issues as important, there has been at least one example of criticism of Sanders that goes straight into the gutter of American politics. This was a tweet that somebody going under the alias “BroStoogeRally” posted about Bernie endorsing Jon Ossoff, a pro-choice and anti-interventionist Democrat who is running in a special election in the 6th Congressional District of Georgia:

Really? Bernie endorses a candidate with a realistic chance of winning a U.S. House seat that was previously held by a Republican who is now a member of the Trump Cabinet, and this guy has the gall to compare Bernie to a domestic abuser? Bernie is, to my knowledge, not a domestic abuser, and comparing someone like Bernie to a domestic abuser minimizes violence against women, which is a serious problem in America. Although these statistics date back to no later than late 2014, nearly 5 million American women each year experience physical violence by an intimate partner, one in four American women will be victims of severe violence by an intimate partner, and over 38 million American women have experienced physical intimate partner violence at some point in their lifetimes. It is inherently clear that domestic violence is a major problem in America, and using graphic images of domestic violence to compare political figures who aren’t domestic abusers to domestic abusers minimizes the serious problem in America that is domestic violence.

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I spent over two weeks in a mental institution in Indiana when I was 9 years old or so

For those of you who have been following the Wisconsin gubernatorial race extensively, you may have known about a TV ad which the campaign of Democratic candidate Mary Burke is either currently running or has run which features Erin Forrest, the chairwoman of the Jefferson County (WI) Democratic Party who entered into a deferred prosecution agreement and served probation in order to get domestic violence charges against her dropped.

Normally, I would write a blog post on The Prairie Badger, my blog about Wisconsin politics, and criticize Forrest for effectively blacklisting Scott Michalak, a unsuccessful Wisconsin State Assembly candidate in 2012, over some sort of domestic violence issue that Michalak had in which I’m not familiar with the details of, when Forrest had domestic violence issues of her own not long after the 2012 elections in Wisconsin.

However, I’m going to do something completely different instead.

I’m guessing that nobody who is reading this blog knows about this part of my past, but, when I was 9 years old or so, I spent a little over two weeks in a mental institution in Vigo County, Indiana. I spent a little over two weeks in a mental institution when I was an elementary school-age child because, when I was, if I recall correctly, a fourth-grade student at a public elementary school in Westville, Illinois, I frequently acted in a violent manner toward people around me. Because my behavioral issues were so severe, my parents sent me to Charter Behavioral Health (now known as Harsha Behavioral Center) near Terre Haute, Indiana.

I don’t credit spending two weeks in what could best be described as a minimum-security mental institution with improving my behavior, as my behavioral health slowly improved as I grew older to the point that my only behavioral health issues are ones usually associated with people who, like me, have Asperger’s syndrome, such as being obsessive about certain subjects that I’m interested in and having difficulty properly communicating with people. Additionally, I would never act in a violent manner toward anyone nowadays. However, the fact that I once spent time in a behavioral health institution is something that will haunt me for the rest of my life.

I cannot, in good conscience, write a blog post criticizing a political figure for hypocrisy when it would be hypocritical for me to do so. That’s why I felt the need to admit that I once spent time in a behavioral health institution when I was a child.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell should resign immediately over Ray Rice incident

The Associated Press is reporting that an unnamed NFL executive had received a copy of the security camera video tape showing former Baltimore Ravens wide receiver Ray Rice physically assaulting the woman who was then his fiancé and is now his wife in an elevator all the way back in April, many months before Rice was initially suspended for two games and then indefinitely by the NFL after the video tape was published by TMZ.

This isn’t the first time that Goodell and other NFL executives bungled their response to the Ray Rice incident. Goodell was initially suspended for only two games despite the NFL commissioner’s office having suspended players for longer periods of time in the past for things that, in my opinion, are lesser offenses than domestic violence. There should have been a proper investigation by the commissioner’s office into Ray Rice beating up a woman in an elevator, but there wasn’t one. Furthermore, Goodell has not yet issued a formal apology over his bungling of the NFL’s response of Ray Rice incident.

The way that NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and other NFL executives have handled this situation is, in my opinion, absolutely disgusting, and there is no excuse for Goodell and other NFL executives to effectively protect a domestic abuser for several months. Commissioner Goodell should resign immediately, and here’s a petition that you can sign in order to tell Goodell that you want him to resign.

FOX News supports domestic violence

The hosts of the FOX News morning program FOX & Friends, think that former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice beating the woman who is now his wife unconscious in an elevator is a laughing matter:

The hosts of Fox & Friends on Monday turned video of NFL player Ray Rice punching his then-girlfriend unconscious in an elevator into a joke, saying that in the future she should “take the stairs.”

[…]

“I think the message is take the stairs,” (Brian Kilmeade) added, as co-host Anna Kooiman giggled.

“The message is, when you’re in an elevator, there’s a camera,” (Steve) Doocy concluded.

There’s a reason why I referred to Rice as a former Baltimore Ravens running back: the Ravens have officially fired Rice from the team due to the fact that he physically assaulted the woman who he is now married to.

I’m not laughing at a professional athlete beating a woman until she was unconscious, and that’s because it’s not funny at all. Domestic violence is a very serious problem in this country, and anyone who thinks that domestic violence is something worth laughing at or making jokes about is effectively defending those who physically abuse wives, fiancés, and girlfriends. Sadly, defending the most disgusting people in society is nothing new for FOX News, which is a far-right propaganda network.