On Wednesday, I wrote an article for The Stir in support of Susan G. Komen for the Cure pulling their funding from Planned Parenthood. I expected some nasty comments, but was unprepared for the level of hate I received over it.

I got called a whole host of nasty things, but the general theme was, “Jenny is a f*cking liar spreading hate speech with her disgusting anti-choice lies.”

Whoa. What did I say that could induce such vitriol?

Besides, Planned Parenthood doesn’t even offer mammograms, which are the surest way to detect early signs of cancer. How much money do they need to be able to tell a patient, “Yup, that feels like a lump — here’s the number for a place that can actually help you”?

Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood pushes abortions, lies about fetal development, and gives advice to pimps on how to set up brothels full of underage sex slaves. Think abortion accounts for only 3 percent of their services provided? Think again.

All backed up with links. But of course, those links don’t count, because they take you to sights like LifeNews.com, or even my own blog, to a guest post from a friend about her personal experience with post-abortion syndrome.

So apparently that friend is lying about her personal experience and emotions. Um, ok.

These are people that probably think Media Matters for America is a credible news source. I could link them to a list of articles on Big Journalism detailing what a shady organization MMFA is, but since it’s Big Journalism, I’d probably just be spreading more vicious lies.

After the first 200 (there are currently 300+) comments, I started mentioning it on Twitter, and some of my friends jumped to my defense. Ben Howe went to town in the comments, politely and firmly defending me, the truth, and life. Jason Whitman wrote an article featuring the piece. Susan Cloud rallied the troops on Twitter, and booked me on The Mark Davis Show to talk about it.

So Mark and I chatted about it, and of course it was totally fun doing a radio hit, even if the subject matter wasn’t so pleasant. Click here to listen: Jenny on The Mark Davis Show 2/3/2012

While I was on the air, news broke that Komen reversed their decision, and would continue to fund Planned Parenthood. That made me so mad, I could spit nails. Did they bow to the nasty pressure exerted by the far liberal left, or was it their intention all along to get a boost in donations?

Later, Komen board member John Raffaelli told Greg Sargent from the Washington Post that nothing is set in stone:

“It would be highly unfair to ask us to commit to any organization that doesn’t go through a grant process that shows that the money we raise is used to carry out our mission,” Raffaelli said. “We’re a humanitarian organization. We have a mission. Tell me you can help carry out our mission and we will sit down at the table.”

So now maybe Komen won’t continue funding in the future? What side of the fence are you on, Komen? Stop yanking us around. You guys can spend your funds as you see fit, and we can choose whether or not to donate to you based on the organizations you support. You’re not making anyone happy trying to straddle both sides of the fence.

Seriously we had so much to say about Susan G. Komen, Planned Parenthood, the Rangers, Josh Hamilton, and drinking as a recovering alcoholic or a pregnant lady… that we didn’t have time for anything else!

So forgive us this one time for doing Two Hot Topics from Two Hot Chicks instead of our regular Top 7.

We’ll see you guys next week with seven topics, live from CPAC in Washington, DC.

Happy listening!

Let’s dive right in, shall we?

This Week at The Stir:

I wrote about author Charles Murray and his ‘elitist bubble’ concept published in his new book, Coming Apart, The State of White America, 1960-2012. I scored a 37. I think that number, like my age and my weight, is just a number.

Apparently food stamps are going to fix the economy. They’re going to fix it so well that the government is giving out $75,000 grants to groups that devise ways to sign more people up for food stamps.

This one on Susan G. Komen defunding Planned Parenthood got such a hateful reaction that Mark Davis’s producer Susan contacted me to be on the show tomorrow morning to talk about it. Some people are just mean. If you’d like to listen in, I’ll be on at 7:04 Pacific, which means I’ll be locked in the garage or something while poor Leif wrangles the kids to get ready for school. I love you, Honey!

The Latest on Moms Matter:

This State of the Union Analysis is technically from last week, but seeing as CafeMom hasn’t posted this week’s article yet, I thought I’d include it anyway. Hey, it’s my site, I can post what I want to!  (Even emoticons!)

What Happened on Glee:

Glee was new this week, which means I shut everyone out of my bedroom at 8pm on Tuesday to watch high school musical drama, write about it, and call it ‘work.’ My job kinda rocks. I ended up talking more about my marriage than the show though.

Happy reading!

Because that’s the way life goes.

My mom was taking care of her that day, and they were at bible study. Thing 2’s class was on the playground, and apparently the little dare devil decided to jump onto or off of the monkey bars. The details remain unclear, but Thing 2’s account of it was, “I was on dah playgroun’, an’ I was on dah monkey bars, an’ den I went ‘weeeee!’ Den nobody catched me.”

(I was going to play a video here, but I can’t work the technology, which is totally annoying, and also why I need a technical assistant. Interested in applying? I pay in gummy bears. Meanwhile I’ll just put up a photo.)

Toothless Wonder

One tooth was lost on the playground, the other shortly thereafter at the dentist’s office. And a molar was cracked. A molar not ‘scheduled’ to fall out until she’s twelvish. I was just going to let it be, until I found out that without a bridge, she could develop speech issues, and speech therapy is way too much to wrestle into my schedule, so new teeth it is.

Only insurance doesn’t cover a bridge, because it’s cosmetic. Oh, and they don’t cover porcelain crowns either, only silver. And this is a tooth she will have until middle school. All said and done — close to $800 in dental work. Thank goodness we keep an emergency fund for rainy day expenses like that.

See? That’s what some people do. They forgo fancy restaurants and fun new toys so that when unexpected expenses occur, they can cover the cost. If we were too poor for whatever reason, the group of mamas and grammas at bible study that day all offered to pitch in their own money to help us out, even though it was none of their faults. Communities rally, given the chance.

And I’m sure the dentist would’ve been willing to work out a payment plan, had it come to that.

Anyway, today was the big day that Thing 2 got her new teeth. She was a trooper, the dentist and his assistant were awesome, and my little hooligan is so proud of her new teeth.

When we got home, she climbed onto the kitchen counter and jumped off. Time to start socking away cash into the rainy day fund again…

Smile, Cheese Ball!

But I’d rather not need a trial lawyer.

Anyway. I got to bum around the recording studio for the Hugh Hewitt Show, which was being guest-hosted that day by my friend Larry O’Connor. Friday morning, when I was in the middle of doing Top 7 with Ashley, Larry pinged me to ask if I wanted to do a segment on the show. Um, hello, yes please.

So I said something along the lines of, “YEESSSSS!!!” and then told him that next time he hosted to give me some notice because I wouldn’t mind driving up to LA to go in-studio. Larry told me that it was Irvine, not LA, and I had an invitation. Irvine is way closer to San Diego than LA. It just so happened that Leif was working from home, so I didn’t have to worry about the kids, and I asked him if he minded if I went, and he said, “Go! Be smart. Be funny. Be cute. Be you.”

Side note – I love that man.

Wrapped up Top 7, hopped in the shower, did some quick hair and make-up, then hit the road. When I got there, it was 2:55, and the show started at 3. I called Larry to find out where exactly I was going, and he came out to get me, and then we RAN back to the studio, where he fell into the chair behind the mic just in time to start hosting a nationally syndicated talk radio show.

Sometimes my timing is impeccable.

Hugh wasn’t there, but his crew was, and it was lovely to meet them. I’ve been following his producer Duane Patterson for a while on Twitter, but I didn’t think he’d have any clue who I was, because really, why would he?

“Hi, I’m Jenny! Nice to meet you!”

“Duane,” he said, shaking my hand, and then added with a wink and a smile, “This is Salem. You can’t say dipsh!t on air.”

In case you didn’t know (and I didn’t until last summer), Salem is the Christian broadcasting network that runs The Hugh Hewitt Show. And on Thursday night, Duane had been on Larry’s regular Internet radio show. And Thursday is when I do my weekly Quickie with Jenny on The Larry O’Connor Show. And I had said that particular cuss word on that particular show, which is actually pretty unusual for me. I rarely cuss on air or in print, saving those words for the most impact when the situation calls for it. It totally called for it on Thursday.

So now I’m apparently the girl that says dipsh!t on the radio. But I do know better than to do that on a Salem drive time show. Give me some credit, Duane!

It was all kinds of awesome watching the behind the scenes stuff … Adam with the hand signals from the room with all kinds of technical-looking equipment, Duane with the 30-second warnings in the headphones, Larry forgetting to push the button to bring a caller on, because he’s used to his producer Meredith Dake doing that for him … it was very cool.

During the second hour, a real-live congressman came in for a live interview, and I got to sit right next to him. Representative John Campbell was a peach, and it makes me happy that there are people like him in Congress. When he came in, Larry introduced me as a Mom Blogger, which is basically what I am, which also means that while I was listening to the show in Hugh Hewitt’s office, I was on my laptop tweeting, chatting in the Hughniverse chat room, and taking notes for an article I have due Monday morning on the whole Newt vs. Mitt thing since that’s what they were talking about.

When we cut to break, Congressman Campbell looked over at me and asked, “I don’t mean to be nosey, but what are you doing over there?”

‘This? This is what I do. Talk to people on Twitter and in chat rooms. Write stuff. I’m going to be on the radio in the next hour, I do that too. I. Love. My. Job.”

Then we talked about Twitter a little bit more, and I told him he should use it more to communicate, and also warned him against ever sending DMs, because as Anthony Weiner knows, sometimes you mess up and send pictures of your junk out to the world instead of as a DM. It’s better to just avoid it if you’re a public figure.

Then again, John Campbell doesn’t seem like the type to do that anyway.

So I finally got to go on the radio with Larry, and what did I end up saying?

“I’ve been lobbying my husband for a sister wife.”

“Newt makes my eye twitch.”

“She insists on looking like a dude, and I don’t understand it.” 

Clearly, I am a ridiculous person. But y’all already knew that, right?

Happy listening!

Jenny on Hugh

1. The State of the Union
2. More Solyndra and Green Energy Fail
3. Death Row Inmate Mocks Taxpayers
4. Who’s the Racist Now?
5. The Power of the Private Sector (in Vegas!)
6. Rand Paul and the TSA
7. French Elle, Michelle Obama, and Fashion in the African-American Community

Sunday marked the 39^th anniversary of Roe versus Wade, the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. If you’re one of my eight regular readers, you know that I am adamantly against abortion. I’m also pro-choice (the decision happens at the sex part, not the pregnancy part), pro-birth control, and pro-women.

My heart breaks for women that have had an abortion, and now have to carry around the weight of what they’ve done their entire lives. I wish I could take that pain away. Since my M.O. when I can’t think of something eloquent and perfect to say is to shove scripture at you (God always says it better than me anyway), I’ll just tell you what Psalm 103:12 says:

As far as the east is from the west, 
 so far does he remove our transgressions from us.

God loves you. And I love you too. And I have the deepest gratitude for the ladies that have come forward and shared their stories about how ending their pregnancies brought them anything but peace and freedom.

A good friend of mine, who has asked to remain anonymous, wrote the following. She is one of the loveliest women I know; strong, smart, capable, compassionate, a wonderfully devoted wife and mother … the list could go on. I cannot imagine her as this scared girl with how I know her today.

I hope that her story can change one mind about carrying to term. I hope that it brings hope to another post-abortive mama, that she is not alone in her sorrow. I hope that it brings perspective to anyone that condemns the mother instead of the culture in this pro-abortion era we’re living in.

Thank you for writing this, my beautiful friend.

I was 23.  I’d just gotten out of my first serious relationship, which lasted 5 years and was very physically abusive by the end.  Anyone who’s been through that will understand how I was left in a very emotionally weak and confused state.

I started a relationship way too fast with a really great guy who had baggage of his own.  I was enjoying my freedom and finally sowing my wild oats.  We were both responsible employees who worked really hard at our jobs, and we were playing hard on nights and weekends.  Too hard.  Less than 3 months into the relationship I was pregnant.

Maybe it’s a coping mechanism.  Maybe I really have changed.  Maybe it’s both.  I can’t wrap my brain around who I was and what I did then.  Not because it was so evil, but because it was so weak.  Almost immediately, and without really considering any other choices, my boyfriend and I decided I would have an abortion.

The reasons seemed simple and valid on the surface, but I now see they were complicated and based in distortion.  The reasons I listed to the few people I told (who happened to all be people I knew would tell me I was doing the right thing) were that I was worried the baby was already messed up from the partying I was doing before I knew I was pregnant (if I’d stopped then the baby would have been fine) and that I couldn’t take the time off work.  I didn’t know how I would support the child.

I didn’t want to hurt my mom more than I already had.  That turns my stomach now, and it’s why I remain silent.  Not because she would judge me, but because she would love and forgive me, grieve for her lost grandchild and be mortified at the notion I did this for her.  No, this secret will at least go to her grave.

Nevertheless, the reason I had an abortion has nothing to do with my uterus, my blood-alcohol level, my bank balance, my age or my boyfriend’s character.  The reason I had an abortion is that I didn’t feel I was worthy or capable of motherhood.

I saw myself as trash, so I trashed my baby.

The truth is it would have been hard, but we would have been ok.  I wouldn’t have lost my job, my family would have rallied around me and my first child would be where she belongs… with me.  And if I didn’t have that support system she could at least be with a family worthy of her and I wouldn’t be haunted by the ghost within me.  I would be MORE free, and I would be MORE empowered had I chosen life.   I know this.

But that’s not what happened.  What happened was one cold, dark January morning I prayed for the first time in a long time.  I asked God to intervene if this wasn’t His will (what an absurd statement).  Then I heard the familiar clunk of my boyfriend’s boots coming up the stairs to my apartment, followed by his knock.  Those sounds usually brought a smile to my face, but they never would again.

We had to travel to another town.  When we stopped for gas halfway his truck died.  He had jumper cables, but the person we asked to help flat out refused .  No one does that.  No one does that unless you prayed for sign from God to not have an abortion.

They really are mills.  There was a security guard at the front door where we signed in and showed id.  It must have been a very important tooth I was having pulled.  Then the regular clipboard paperwork.  The waiting room was packed.  Only one other woman had a male accompanying her.  After a while I was called back for a blood draw, then sent back to the waiting room until the next thing and the next thing.  I can’t remember the whole pre-op process, but mark my words — we were cattle.

I eventually got the “counseling” I had promised.  I was handed pill after pill interrupted by a stack of waivers to sign.  The administrator asked if I was sure I wanted to do this.  I said, “I guess.”

I was sent to the waiting room one more time until the drugs kicked in.  You’ll forgive me and probably be relieved I’m not going to go into too much detail here.  A man I refuse to refer to as a doctor proceeded to suck my child and a piece of my soul out of my body with the shop-vac from Hell, then left.  A nurse stayed.  I think they gave me some more drugs and about a half hour later we were ushered out the back door.

I went home and watched Stella Got Her Groove Back.  The next morning I woke up and returned to my life as if nothing had happened just like the pretty pamphlet said I would.

It worked for a while, but a couple of years later I just started unraveling.  Reality hit me.  What I’d done.  What I’d lost.  What was permanent.  I was drinking way too much, and I sabotaged my relationship.  At this point I had come to the realization that I had indeed killed my own child and would have to live with it for eternity.

Those who “supported” my choice were scarce and uninterested in what I was going through now.  No baby, no loss.  However, if I’d miscarried at the same stage of pregnancy the loss would have been valid.  This is where post-abortion syndrome is born.

A post-abortive woman has the burden or karma of having to grieve for their child, but they often do it alone.  On top of that they have to process their hand in it.  These feelings are often attributed to the guilt the pro-life movement puts on post-abortive women, but when this started I was pro-choice and remained so for a long time.  This is a real loss.  If you care about women, if you trust women as George Tiller claimed to you won’t minimize it.

The last shreds of denial and escape were aborted when I married my husband and had my first child.  Thank God something compelled me to share my experience with him early in our relationship.  There are so many women carrying this around and NO ONE in their life knows.  He educated himself on what I was going through and is still loving me through it today.

I finally found an online message board where I practically lived for over a year.  I went through the grieving process just as if I’d lost one of my living children today.  I will never go to a place that dark again, and yes, I considered suicide.  I’ve now healed and forgiven myself as much as I ever will.  I wish I could go back, but I can’t.  There’s no place to go but forward, so I’ve done my best.  I’m also loathe to give that darkness one more iota of time or energy.

The pro-life community provided hope and love and dried my tears, while the pro-choice community told me I was imagining things.  Thanks for nothing, sisters.

Nowadays, I’m not so much concerned with winning the argument over when life begins and whether abortion should be legal or not, as I am that women are making serious, permanent decisions without knowing what they’re in for, be it physically, emotionally and/or spiritually.

Just a heads up for them.  I’d give anything to go back and get one for myself.

1. Ashley’s New Job with Senatorial Candidate Ted Cruz
2. The GOP Primary
3. The Hunger Games (Awesome Book!)
4. Scarlet ‘F’ Wristbands for Fat Kids
5. The Keystone Pipeline
6. SOPA
7. Jenny’s Upcoming Weekend in LA

1. California Crunchies at the Farmers’ Market
2. So, You Want To Be an Iranian Scientist?
3. The GOP’s Super PAC War
4. The Supreme Court Sides with Religious School
5. Marines Pee On Dead Terrorists (And This Is a Problem?)
6. School Dress Codes … For Teachers
7. Bacon = Cancer

As much as it irritates me to have to defend Romney, I gotta say that he’s right. He did not say that he enjoys firing people; he said that he enjoyed the ability to do so. He enjoys freedom. He doesn’t care for bad service.

What is wrong with that?

Last Saturday I fired a restaurant.

No really, I did. I will never be going back to this particular establishment, because the service was abominable. I will no longer give them money to provide me with delicious melted cheese and singed knuckle hair (that will make sense later, I promise).

You’re fired.

It was my birthday on Saturday, and I had an actual birthday party for the first time since I turned 21, but that one kinda sucked because I had to cut the night short to go home and nurse my 10-week-old infant because she wouldn’t take a bottle (she’s still just as stubborn eight years later, by the way).

This year I wanted a party. That’s it. I wanted to go out to a restaurant with my friends, order four cocktails, and generally be the center of attention for a night before going back to my glamorous life of wiping noses and working from my couch in velour pajama pants and chipped nail polish. A girl’s gotta live a little, after all.

My awesome and amazing hubby Leif done good this year. He planned a party for me, invited my friends to my first 29^th birthday celebration, and even flew Ashley Sewell out from Texas to celebrate with me. It was supposed to be a surprise, but I totally figured it out. But it was fun to tell everyone that Leif got me an Ashley for my birthday.

We met up with everyone downtown and proceeded to make merriment. Our waitress seemed a little strange at first, but I blew it off because it was my birthday and besides, maybe she was having an off day. We’ve all had those.

The first *real* issue came when my friend Michelle ordered a cocktail with a sugared rim. Ok, so there’s this cocktail (at another restaurant) I love called a vanilla lemon lust, and Michelle fell in love with it too when we went there, so every time we’ve gone out together since, she asks me to order for her.

“She’d like a lemon drop made with vanilla vodka, and served in a cocktail glass with a sugared rim and a twist.”

That’s easy, right? Well this waitress asked me three times what a cocktail glass was before I finally gave in and called it a martini glass. Then she got it, and made some strange comment about why didn’t I just call it that. Uh, because a martini is made with gin and vermouth and served in a cocktail glass.

By the time she came back, so much of the drink had spilled over the edge that the sugared rim was virtually nonexistent. Michelle asked if I would send it back, and I said yes, because the sugared rim is the best part. She was kind of shy about it, which I understand because I usually am too, but it was my birthday, and I’m always better at taking care of my friends than taking care of myself (I think most chicks are like this) so I got the waitress’s attention.

“Excuse me, but is it possible to get this drink re-poured into a glass with a sugared rim?”

She stared at me and said, “It is sugared.”

Michelle pointed to the one spot of sugar and said as politely as possible, “Only in this one spot … it’s just that the sugared rim is the best part…”

The waitress came over and examined the glass, and again insisted that it was sugared. She said, “That’s the best I can do, because the sugar dissolves when the alcohol sloshes on it.”

Yes, she just admitted that she doesn’t know how to carry drinks.

“Could you please bring us another glass with a sugar rim, and we can just pour it ourselves?” My friend was going to get her sugar, gosh darn it!

At that point, Miss Sunshine rolled her eyes, grabbed the glass, and announced snidely, “I’ll take care of it. It’s just going to be a shorter pour.”

A shorter pour? Eye-rolling?  Uh… yeah, that just happened.

When it came time to choose our main courses, she insisted that we choose a certain style of cooking. We even asked about the other methods, and she told us that they weren’t important because they weren’t as good as what she was recommending. Ok fine, whatever. Later that evening when we got the bill, we found out that the methods she recommended cost extra. Of course.

Throughout the evening, whenever we could get her to wait on us, she acted like she was doing us a favor. The eye-rolls and generally bitchiness probably did quite a bit to prepare me for when the girls are teenagers, but for my birthday party, it was no bueno. There were multiple empty glasses left on the table, we couldn’t get extra sauces, and she almost lit Leif’s hair on fire.

Yeah, you heard me.

We were just starting on second dessert (more on this in a minute), when our waitress lit a shot of alcohol on fire and poured it over our chocolate fondue. She held it too close to Leif’s hair, and the entire table gasped. Did she apologize? Act horrified at her ineptitude? Nope. She just said out loud, “I haven’t had knuckle hair in years! I can’t even have acrylics anymore, because they kept melting off.”

Appetizing.

Several of us speared some marshmallows and tried to toast them over the fire on the chocolate, and the lady pushed past us to stir the alcohol (along with the fire) into the chocolate. No toasted marshmallows for us, no apology or explanation from Suzie Sunshine.

So let me get back to the second dessert part of the evening. Remember all of those empty glasses on the table? As dessert was being set up, our waitress had to clear some of those away. She lifted one carelessly and abruptly, which resulted in a hard impact with the hanging pendant light.

Glass went everywhere. All over the table. All over our dishes. In my cleavage.

At least she apologized for that one. She started clearing the plates of dippers for the fondue, and wasn’t going to replace all of the dishes. Everyone at the table was frustrated at this point. We’d stopped ordering drinks because we didn’t want to give the restaurant any more of our business. In between picking bit of glass off of laps, out of hair, and from in between boobs, we insisted that everything be replaced.

After that came the fire and knuckle hair comment.

Finally got to the end of our evening and got the (ginormous) bill, where we learned that our specialty cooking styles had cost extra. We also discovered that we had been overcharged for a few drinks. Our waitress had ended her shift at that point, and the new guy taking care of us took the extra drink charges off, but said he couldn’t do anything about the cooking charges.

That’s when I said something I’ve never ever said before.

I’d like to speak with the manager.

He seemed the decent sort of guy, and apologized several times to everyone as we all regaled him with the story I just told you. I told him that normally I’d let it go, everyone has bad days, but the service was atrocious, and it being my birthday and all, I just couldn’t. He took the extra charges off our bill, gave us a 10% discount, and told us that he would have a talk with Miss Grouchy Pants.

Now Mr. Manager couldn’t see because his back was to the door, but our waitress (who we thought had left for the evening) poked her head in the room THREE times to angrily glare at us. We were just the teensiest bit skeered of her. Chick obviously has issues and is definitely in the wrong line of work.

So yeah, I agree with Mitt Romney (ack! Never thought I’d be typing that…) on the issue of firing people. I’m glad that I have the ability to fire people. It’s not fun. I wish everyone could just be awesome and not suck at his or her job. The world would be a better place, and all birthday parties would be splendiferous. But that’s not how the world works.

That restaurant is so totally fired.