anti-choice

"In the last two days alone, I've gotten 2000 telephone calls, and 99% said this agreement is a bad agreement; we can and must do better," says Senator Bernie Sanders of President Obama's deal with Republicans to extend the Bush tax cuts for all in exchange for a one-year extension of unemployment benefits and other concessions. "You can't do better unless you get out there and fight. Maybe it's time for our Republican friends to start compromising."Senator Sanders joins us via Skype from Washington, D.C., where earlier today House Democrats voted not to take up the compromise agreed to by the president. He discusses the compromise as it stands, tax breaks, unemployment insurance, and the need for Democrats to get off the defensive and push back."The Democratic base would be less angry at our leadership if they would really stand up for something," notes Loretta Ross of SisterSong, "Democrats need to stop flinching every time someone says the word 'abortion'." ; Democrats are on the defensive, and meanwhile anti-choice activists are ramping up their efforts to deny women the right to an abortion, not just in the South, where the "Freedom Rides for Life" that we detailed here at GRITtv in our "Conspiracy Tactics" series began, but across the country.Loretta joins us in studio along with Lynn Paltrow of National Advocates for Pregnant Women to discuss the state of the reproductive justice movement: what are the latest tactics from the anti-choicers, what can be done to fight back, and why we need to not be afraid of the word abortion.Environmental advocates in Cancun were appalled this morning when Thomas Goldtooth of the Indigenous Environmental Network was denied entry to the UN Climate Change Conference following his participation in a demonstration of environmental groups on Thursday.

“We're all veterans of a war againt the poor in the United States. We have a tremendous opportunity to have a vocation as peacemakers," says Kathy Kelly, a veteran peacemaker herself. ; Recently returned from another trip to Afghanistan where she spoke to everyday citizens, including men and women, Kelly notes that the average person on the ground there has little awareness of the September 11 attacks, despite the rationale for the U.S. occupation.Kelly joins us in studio to discuss the situation in Afghanistan, Obama's trip to India and arms deals, and why quoting Gandhi comes with responsibilities.As anti-abortion activist Flip Benham faces trial for stalking and violating a law against residential picketing, we zero in once again on the various tactics of the anti-choice movement. From "Wanted" posters with abortion providers' faces, names and addresses to the use of racially-loaded language by Frank Pavone and his Priests for Life group--a decidedly white organization claiming concern for African-American babies, Charles Stuart for GRITtv Digs keeps an eye on the movement in this third installment of "Conspiracy Tactics."Finally, as Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal stalls in Congress, Laura wonders what it is about our military that keeps it such a deadly place for women, as well as gay and lesbian service members.

"The US has basically already lost the war in Afghanistan, if they even knew what victory was defined at in the beginning," says Jeremy Scahill, just back from two weeks reporting unembedded in that country. The Taliban there are not unlike the Tea Party here, he notes, not popular in themselves but rather as a protest against the failures of the current regime.Then, this week, two bombs were found in packages in cargo holds on two planes from Yemen. Is this a new front on the "war on terror"? Jeremy fills us in on the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan, the soft war in Yemen and other countries, and why the wars have been conspicuously absent from this year's election campaigns.In our first installment of our new GRITtv Digs investigative series "Conspiracy Tactics," we were introduced to a new concept in the anti-choice movement: the co-opting of Civil Rights Movement language and strategies to break up the progressive coalition. In this segment, reproductive justice leaders in the African-American community question the sudden interest of white Conservatives in black women and their babies.

In the wake of health care reform, new attempts to restrict women's access to abortion services have surged. Nebraska has passed a new law that criminalizes abortions after 20 weeks of gestation on the basis of "fetal pain," and another that forces women to undergo mental health examination before obtaining an abortion at all. Eesha Pandit of MergerWatch and Raising Women's Voices For the Healthcare We Need returns to GRITtv to discuss the new attacks on women's right to choose and the chilling effect they're intended to have. Is the economy coming back--or is our debt going to sink us? Are people who don't pay taxes this year just freeloading? Did Virginia's governor really forget that slavery was a big part of the Civil War? Who's fact-checking the news, and what about that WikiLeaks tape, anyway? Danny Schechter, News Dissector, and Lizz Winstead, cofounder of the Daily Show, join us in studio to answer these and other pressing questions about the week in news. Finally, the Tea Party supposedly originated from opposition to taxes and government spending. Yet a New York Times poll finds something a little different behind the anger. Laura discusses.