So there's rumors circulating on Twitter that "the Stupak bloc" has succeeded in muscling the religious right's misogynist puppet's anti-abortion language in the Senate bill. Of course, the rumors are coming from a blogger who desperately wants to see not only Health Care Reform killed but President Obama fail.

We know though that Congress as a whole threw women under the bus a long time ago. Yet most people failed to realize is that the largest political minority to vote with them was Latino. I wrote about this in Machismo at Work : Members of the CHC who voted for the Stupak Amendment and against women's rights; so allow me to go meta:

If you are not looking closely, some of these votes do not make sense given the previous voting record of people like Costa ad Rodriguez. After all, wasn't Ciro Rodriguez a darling of the netroots? And yet when you look closely at their lists of donors, their votes actually become not just sinister but cynical as well (as in the case of John Salazar). So we can't just blame it on the fact that all of these guys happen to be Roman Catholics or members of the Blue Dog Coalition. It's those donors lists for 2008 and 2010 that really paint a clearer picture of their "conservatism".

Last but not least, compared to the Congressional Black Caucus, the CHC delegation voted atrociously : Artur Davis was the lone member of the CBC who voted for Stupak. Why couldn't the CHC conjure such discipline when voting a measure that would basically kill women's right to an abortion? Or are their votes exactly correlated to the 2007 "whore" scandal that rocked the CHC thanks to John Baca's leadership in disrespecting the women of the caucus?

In that post I was trying to figure out why did a vast majority of Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Los Siete Infames, voted with Stupak. Am too much of a cynic to believe they were voting with their pure Catholic hearts. What I found out at the time was that all seven had been heavily funded by the insurance industry.

What I didn't think of at the time, was the potential connection their votes would have with passing comprehensive immigration reform. Lindsey Graham today uncovered that ugly truth:
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I really urge everybody to read the CPAC 2010 straw poll results (PDF DOWNLOAD). Many have been belittling the poll, including FOXNews, because Ron Paul became CPACs candidate of choice for president in 2012. Yet if you look at the numbers, the results are rather eye-opening:

64% of respondents identified as male and 85% of all respondents to the poll are below the age of 55. This is significant given that it puts them all at odds with the media age of members of Congress (which is 56 years).

So for the vast majority of "the future" (aka, the youth and young and younger middle aged) of the conservative movement, abortion, gay marriage and immigrant criminalization are close to zilch in importance. Even national security (aka "War On Terrorism") comes in at a distant 18% as a second choice. In the first choice round is just but 8% compared to the whopping 35% of "reduce the federal government".

For reproductive rights, immigration and LGBT rights advocates, this poll is actually a treasure trove of counter-talking points.

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Justice is finally served in Whichita, Kansas.

Scott Roeder was convicted of first degree murder for killing Dr. George Tiller at Reformation Lutheran Church. He also was convicted of two counts of aggravated assault for threatening to shoot church ushers Keith Martin and Gary Hoepner as he fled the scene of the crime.
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N.O.W., NARAL and NATIONAL RIGHT TO LIFE COMMITTEE all oppose the senate bill. NOW spokespeople "excoriated" the bill. From National Organization for Women opposes Senate health bill - The Hill's Blog Briefing Room:

The leader of the National Organization for Women (NOW) excoriated the language in the health bill curtailing federal support for insurance plan covering abortions, which was inserted to win the 60th vote of Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.).

"The so-called health care reform bill now before the Senate, with the addition of Majority Leader Harry Reid's Manager's Amendment, amounts to a health insurance bill for half the population and a sweeping anti-abortion law for the rest of us," NOW President Terry O'Neill said in a statement.

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It takes a certain kind of moxie for an advocacy organization to basically go on the record as praising a group of machistas for taking away the rights from one group to allegedly favor another one. That's exactly what Janet Murguía and her platitude spewing machine just published on their website. Am particularly flabbergasted by the two following paragraphs:

National Council of La Raza: LANDMARK HOUSE HEALTH CARE REFORM BILL IS GOOD FOR LATINOS, SENATE NEEDS TO COMPLETE THE TASK AND BUILD ON THE HOUSE EFFORT, SAYS NCLR

The leadership of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) deserves special recognition for successfully fending off the efforts of some lawmakers to add onerous, costly, and unnecessary immigrant restrictions to health care that would have harmed U.S. citizen children. In addition, members of the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Progressive Caucus, and the CHC, as well as Rep. Henry Waxman, deserve considerable praise for their efforts to secure and protect meaningful access to health care for Latino families, children, and all families of color.

Despite serious gains, however, the House bill is still too tough on legal immigrants and their access to public health care. For example, the bill would continue the mandatory five-year bar for legal immigrants to access public health services. To promote an equitable system for all, restrictions on legal immigrants’ access to federal aid such as Medicaid, Medicare, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) must be removed. Furthermore, roadblocks to insurance must be eliminated by removing excessive verification requirements that raise costs, increase barriers to health care, and have been proven to harm many U.S. citizens.

SHAME ON YOU JANET MURGUÍA! SHAME ON YOU FOR KISSING UP TO DESPICABLE WOMEN-HATING HISPANICS! SHAME ON YOU FOR SELLING OUT THE INTEREST OF ALL WOMEN, INCLUDING LATINAS, IN THE ALLEGED NAME OF IMMIGRANTS!

And yet, it doesn't have to be this way.

Look at the world of difference offered by the Latina Institute with their post, Women and Immigrants --- left on the sidelines of health care reform:
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As we noted before, 64 Democrats voted against women's right to health insurance funded abortion procedures. Many of these Democrats have claimed the ultimate fallacy: That proponents of forced pregnancy shouldn't "pay with their tax money" for abortions because it infringes on their civil liberties. As if anti-war activists and pacifists could claim the same when it comes to funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and any other wars they oppose.

Yet I'd like to focus on the "hispanics" that voted against women's rights. Long-time readers now that even though I am a proud  Puerto Rican and blatina, I've never been one to shy away from writing about the ugliness and even atrocities perpetrated by Latin Americans. It should come as no surprise my willingness to call out these so-called Hispanics and Latinos of dubiosity. Particularly since in Latin America and the US Latino community we have to still wrangle with the social and political consequences of the machismo and marianismo myths that permeate the cultures of Latin America.

Am listing all seven members of the Congressional Hispanics Caucus for a variety of reasons: If you are not looking closely, some of these votes do not make sense given the previous voting record of people like Costa ad Rodriguez. After all, wasn't Ciro Rodriguez a darling of the netroots? And yet when you look closely at their lists of donors, their votes actually become not just sinister but cynical as well (as in the case of John Salazar). So we can't just blame it on the fact that all of these guys happen to be Roman Catholics or members of the Blue Dog Coalition. It's those donors lists for 2008 and 2010 that really paint a clearer picture of their "conservatism".

Last but not least, compared to the Congressional Black Caucus, the CHC delegation voted atrociously : Artur Davis was the lone member of the CBC who voted for Stupak. Why couldn't the CHC conjure such discipline when voting a measure that would basically kill women's right to an abortion? Or are their votes exactly correlated to the 2007 "whore" scandal that rocked the CHC thanks to John Baca's leadership in disrespecting the women of the caucus?

Let's take a quick look at the faces of Los Siete Infames (the infamous 7) :
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