It was bad enough that I was pulled over for something I didn't actually do. What made it worse was that my drivers' license, which I had paid to renew a couple of months before, had not been renewed, nor had I been notified that it wasn't renewed.

Driving with an expired license meant they could impound my car and leave me there standing in my PJs after a morning school drop. I opted to walk home and leave the car parked instead.

Unraveling all of this took me some time, mostly due to name changes. I was born with one name, acquired another one in 1978 when I was married for the first time, dropped that in 1989 when I was divorced and went back to my maiden name, then married in 1989 and had a new last name. It's not all that uncommon, actually.

Evidently somewhere along the way the Social Security Administration hadn't caught up with the name changes, so when they ran the renewal for my drivers' license there was a mismatch, which caused my license not to renew, but evidently didn't give the DMV a reason to let me know that.

Understanding the problem was far easier than fixing it. In California, your identity on your drivers' license must match up with your Social Security name of record, thanks to the Real ID Act. If it doesn't, you won't get a license. It doesn't matter how many certified documents you plunk on the table, and in my case, I plunked plenty.

I was missing one crucial document, one I could not get. I had my certified (long form) birth certificate with raised seal, I had a certified copy of my divorce decree changing my name back to my maiden name, and I had a certified copy of my current marriage certificate. Social Security had my maiden name, but to prove your identity with the Social Security administration, you must supply twodocuments with that name on them.

Of course, I only had one, and it was not acceptable under their requirements. This is because Social Security requires a drivers' license to establish identity. Can you say Catch-22? In order to get my drivers' license issued, I had to have a Social Security match. I didn't. And in order to establish my identity for Social Security, I had to have a valid drivers' license which I no longer had because my license had expired.

Alternatively, the Social Security office (after three trips), said they might accept a yearbook photo or other photo ID with my maiden name, but this was in 2005 and I hadn't had that name on anything since, oh, 1978 or so.

On December 23, 2005 I finally had a meltdown at the Social Security Administration window at 4:00 pm after sitting there with every document I could find to demonstrate that I was in fact who I was. Keep in mind that my first name never changed. My picture on my expired drivers' license was me. No one disputed that. I was due in court the first week of 2006 and expected to produce a valid drivers' license or go to jail, and they were deadly serious about that, as I discovered.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I actually did burst into tears in abject frustration that day, and the nice public worker at the window finally had mercy on me and agreed to take copies of all of my documents and get a supervisor to approve my name change. But because of the holidays, she couldn't promise me the name change would actually appear in their database anytime soon.

So I went to court and landed in front of a judge and assistant DA who surely must be Tea Party members today. Yes, I was hostile. Yes, I was frustrated. I certainly wasn't humble enough for them, because I was angry -- furious, in fact -- that I was being humiliated in public because I couldn't satisfy the idiotic bureaucratic Catch-22 requirements to actually be standing there with a verified drivers' license, and no, I couldn't even show them a temporary license because the databases were still mismatched.

However, they didn't toss me in the clink. I was granted a grumpy ten-day extension, and a kind DMV worker agreed to call me the minute the databases matched. One day before the extension expired, I was handed my temporary license with my name which now matches up with the Social Security database.

It took two and a half months from the day of the ticket to the day I was able to finally say my identity was established.

I'm a white, middle-aged mom of three. I've voted in every single election since I was 18. I've lived at the same address for twenty years. I'm hardly a transient, and I'm hardly stuffing the ballot box.If California had VoterID laws like the states that have put them into effect, I would have been banned from voting in any election that was held in that 2 1/2 months. And if I hadn't been pulled over for that citation, I could possibly have been ignorant of the fact that my license wasn't renewed for months, since renewal usually means you pay the fee and at some point you receive a sticker, but who pays attention to that?

It's not just the poor, elderly, and people of color affected by these laws. It's women. Lots of women. Women who change their names on their Social Security card but wait to change them on their license until the next renewal. Women who use both names. Many, many women.The fallout is just beginning and time is short.

People need to understand how these Voter ID laws disenfranchise ordinary people -- Republican AND Democrat -- for reasons that are bogus, stupid, and discriminate against women.

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Mitt Romney is not hitting his general election campaign with much aplomb this week. While it's true that he's wildly unpopular with women, that is not entirely Mittens' fault. After all, the whole GOP is wildly unpopular with women, and he's one of them. The leader, in fact. No matter how he tries to pander to women, he'll fail because he hasn't got the first clue what he's talking about.

Take this simple question put to the Romney campaign spokesmen this morning by Sam Stein over at the Huffington Post. It's easy enough: Does Mitt Romney support the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?

Their answer? Silence. And then..."Um, we'll get back to you on that."

Really, guys? That's just pathetic. There's no other word for it, but then this campaign is pathetic so far. If they can't answer a simple question like that they should just give up on women altogether and soon, because here's the thing. We women have brains, and we don't need to be told what to think or shoved into some weird alternate reality where up is down.

It's pretty straightforward: Women don't like Mitt because Republicans hate women. Doesn't really get any clearer than that, and the only people who have set women back over the past few years happen to have the letter (R) behind their names.

Besides Romney's GOP-ness and his choice of advisors, who I view as being as evil as their Dear Leader Rove himself, there's another reason I loathe him and his campaign. Bob Cesca put it into focus quite nicely earlier this week when he awarded Mitt Romney and his campaign the Most Cynical Ever Award:

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This stuff just writes itself. I've been out of town on college tours with my daughter for the past two days and as I slogged through the mountains of email, these two news alerts were right next to each other. Yes, these things happened on the same day.

That video at the top is President Obama's remarks at the White House Forum on Women and the Economy. Here's a snippet of what he said after making some heartfelt remarks about the impact of women in his life, especially his grandmother and mother.

Now, think about it. When women make less than men for the same work, that hurts families who have to get by with less and businesses who have fewer customers with less to spend. When a job doesn’t offer family leave to care for a new baby or sick leave to care for an ailing parent, that burdens men as well. When an insurance plan denies women coverage because of preexisting conditions, that puts a strain on emergency rooms and drives up costs of care for everybody. When any of our citizens can’t fulfill the potential that they have because of factors that have nothing to do with talent, or character, or work ethic, that diminishes us all. It holds all of us back. And it says something about who we are as Americans.

Right now, women are a growing number of breadwinners in the household. But they’re still earning just 77 cents for every dollar a man does -- even less if you’re an African American or Latina woman. Overall, a woman with a college degree doing the same work as a man will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars less over the course of her career.

Independently of the President's effort, another executive was making some decisions about how important women are to the economy as well, via Huffington Post:

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Reince Priebus wants you to believe there's no right-wing war on women, at least not as far as the Republican Party is concerned. But he's not telling you the whole story.

The ugly truth is that the recent outbreak of viral misogyny among right-wingers is really only the tip of the iceberg. Underneath the unpleasant Rush Limbaugh bloviation eruptions is a massive lava bed of festering male insecurities and psychopathic hatred of women -- and it's only bubbling to the surface now in relatively watered-down forms.

To understand this, you need to look at the festering pit of pathetic maledom that the "men's rights" movement has become in recent years. A recent piece by Arthur Goldwag in the SPLC's Intelligence Report delves these depths with aplomb:

The men’s movement also includes mail-order-bride shoppers, unregenerate batterers, and wannabe pickup artists who are eager to learn the secrets of “game”—the psychological tricks that supposedly make it easy to seduce women. George Sodini, who confided his seething rage at women to his blog before shooting 12 women, three of them fatally, was one of the latter. Before his 2009 murder spree at a Pittsburgh-area gym, he was a student — though clearly not a very apt one — of R. Don Steele, the author of How to Date Young Women: For Men Over 35. “I dress good, am clean-shaven, bathe, touch of cologne — yet 30 million women rejected me over an 18 or 25-year period,” Sodini wrote with the kind of pathos presumably typical of Steele’s readers.

Other movement adherents have forsworn sex altogether, or at least romantic relationships and marriage; the acronym they use for themselves is MGTOW, for “Men Going Their Own Way.” “If you are willing to marry a woman — any woman — in the West then you must also be willing to become the next murder-suicide story when she threatens to file for divorce, steal your kids out of your life and extort you for every current and future dollar you will ever earn,” wrote one commenter at The Spearhead. “If a man kidnapped your children, stole your home, your wallet and your bank account, you’d be more than willing to kill him in self defense. Why is it any different when ex-wives do it with the full force of the law behind them?”

Some take an inordinate interest in extremely young women, or fetishize what they see as the ultra-feminine (read: docile) characteristics of South American and Asian women. Others, who have internalized Christian “headship” doctrine, are desperately seeking the “submissive” women such doctrine celebrates. Still others are simply sexually awkward, and nonplussed and befuddled by society’s changing mores. The common denominator is their resentment of feminism and of females in general.

As the piece explains, this version of manhood has irregular eruptions in a variety of locales around the country in the form of raging psychopaths who embark on murderous sprees against women:

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Earlier this week, President Obama released a special message to Planned Parenthood and women. It didn't get a lot of attention in the mainstream at all, but it's important nevertheless. I confess to being so preoccupied with the Supreme Court arguments I let it get away from me.

Here's the transcript:

For you, and for most Americans, protecting women's health is a mission that stands above politics. And yet, over the past year, you've had to stand up to politicians who want to deny millions of women the care they rely on, and inject themselves into decisions that are best made between a woman and her doctor.

Let's be clear here: Women are not an interest group.

They're mothers, and daughters, and sisters, and wives. They're half of this country. They're perfectly capable of making their own choices about their health.

So we're grateful that, through it all, you never forgot who you're fighting for: The woman with a new lease on life because a mammogram caught her cancer in time; the woman who can sleep easier at night because of a cervical cancer screening; the woman who is able to choose when to start a family, because she could afford contraception.

So when some professional politicians casually say that they'll "get rid of" Planned Parenthood, don't forget what they're really talking about: Eliminating the funding for preventive care that millions of women rely on, and leaving them to fend for themselves.

That's why, last year, when Republicans in Congress threatened to shut down the government unless we stopped funding Planned Parenthood, I had a simple answer: No.

But we know this debate is far from over. We must continue to send the message loud and clear: If you truly value families, you shouldn't play politics with a woman's health.

It's why I know that Planned Parenthood will continue providing care, no matter what. I know you'll never stop fighting to protect the healthcare and the choices that America's women deserve.

As long as I have the privilege of being your president, neither will I. Thanks.

Planned Parenthood appreciates the support, and if you want to show your appreciation, they have a petition here.

Jennifer Granholm has a great op-ed on The Politico today about sexual McCarthyism, the disease on the right causing them to make women their targets. Mandating transvaginal ultrasound. Demonizing women who dare to speak for the right to contraceptives. Even proposing laws that allow an employer to fire a woman for using contraceptives.

About that Arizona legislation. My first question was how on earth any employer would even know a female employee had used contraception. How could they know without violating health privacy laws? Someone suggested to me that all they'd have to do is ask. Imagine that conversation.

Sexual McCarthyism. Have you ever used contraceptives? Are you using them now? Have you had an abortion? And say, are any of your friends Commie Pinkos?

Granholm:

Consider this: After the election of 2010 that saw Republicans gain control of state Legislatures across the country, more than 1,100 anti-choice laws were introduced in 2011 — a new record. Eighty-three measures have been passed into law. So far in 2012, an additional 430 were introduced. We may break the record again this year.

In some cases, these bills are reaching beyond abortion and right into control over women’s health care in general.

Take Texas. Gov. Rick Perry and the 80 percent male state Legislature. They said they would forgo $35 million in federal funding to keep Planned Parenthood from getting one dime of it. Eleven Planned Parenthood clinics have shut down. This comes even though Texas already bars clinics that take such money from performing abortions.

After an uproar, Perry has since said that Texas will find the money “somewhere” for these clinics — but the Legislature has already cut the budget for care from $111 million to $38 million this year. It’s estimated the cuts would lead to 400,000 women losing health care services. This could mean 20,500 additional births because of lost access to contraception — costing the state $57 million in maternity bills.

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After bleeding sponsors for the past couple of days it seems Rush Limbaugh has taken stock of what he said last week and issued a "statement." I call it a statement and not an apology because it really isn't much of an apology. Here's the full text.

For over 20 years, I have illustrated the absurd with absurdity, three hours a day, five days a week. In this instance, I chose the wrong words in my analogy of the situation. I did not mean a personal attack on Ms. Fluke.

I think it is absolutely absurd that during these very serious political times, we are discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress. I personally do not agree that American citizens should pay for these social activities. What happened to personal responsibility and accountability? Where do we draw the line? If this is accepted as the norm, what will follow? Will we be debating if taxpayers should pay for new sneakers for all students that are interested in running to keep fit?In my monologue, I posited that it is not our business whatsoever to know what is going on in anyone's bedroom nor do I think it is a topic that should reach a Presidential level.

My choice of words was not the best, and in the attempt to be humorous, I created a national stir. I sincerely apologize to Ms. Fluke for the insulting word choices.

Let's take this apart a little bit. We begin with "illustrated the absurd with absurdity..." This is the excuse he always uses for whatever he says. He is an entertainer, entertaining. Yes, because it's so entertaining to suggest that hungry children dumpster-dive for their dinner. Or to call those hungry children "waifs and serfs dependent on the state." Or saying he hopes President Obama fails.

Har-dee-har-har, Rushbo. It's not funny, nor was it intended to be funny. Not even a little bit.

On to the second paragraph, which is where he shows plainly that he did not intend a real, true apology. By framing contraception as something for a "social activity," he endeavors to minimize and trivialize women's health needs. Yes, contraception is used to prevent pregnancy, for married and single women. But Sandra Fluke's testimony very specifically pointed to other uses for it, including treatment of PCOS (an incredibly debilitating condition), endometriosis, pelvic inflammation, ovarian cysts, and other conditions specific to women. Further, some women use it to actually regulate their cycles so they can become pregnant. Some young women use it to treat acne!

These are not social. These are not recreational. These are serious health issues. They matter, and they should be covered as part of health insurance that provides basic benefits. Rush Limbaugh intentionally tried to frame this as a debate about sex when it was never a debate about sex. He did it, and Fox News picked up the banner and marched forward with it to the point where now the "slut" meme has been echoed all over the Internet by the far-right wing.

I wonder, would he find it a joking matter if cholesterol medications were removed from a list of basic benefits? Or heart stents? Or blood thinners? They aren't optional for someone who is at risk of a heart attack.

His attack on a private citizen named Sandra Fluke was reprehensible, but the real damage done is the misinformation he spread about why contraception is a health issue, why it should be deemed a basic benefit in any health insurance policy, and why women should have affordable access to it.

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It's a start. But where is Meg Whitman? She's sending big money off to the Republican party but has nothing to say about the de facto leader of her party trashing a law student as a "slut," or calling for her to make sex tapes to prove she needs contraceptives? Really?

And what of Sarah Palin, who should really be furious that her Fearless Leader called her daughter a slut and contraceptive payments "thievery"? Bristol, after all, could have saved Palin some embarrassment if she'd bothered to use birth control back in 2008. I'm betting that Alaska-paid health insurance helped Bristol (and Sarah) out with the expenses of her baby's birth, but of course, that's not thievery. Right?

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RedState, home of CNN's Erick Erickson, front-paged this masterpiece of wingnuttery on Monday about Rick Santorum which begins,

Left-leaning elitist pundits are scratching their heads. After two weeks of liberals trying to convince women that Rick Santorum wants to rip the birth control out of their hands and put them in the kitchen, more and more women are supporting Rick Santorum. “How could this be?” they ask. Answer: We are smarter than you think.

If by "women" this blogger means "Republican women not in Arizona" -- and if by "more and more" she means "some" -- then yes, this statement is technically correct.

But just what is a "Femi-regular" you ask?

Let me offer a little primer on American women to the liberal elitist folks who spend too much time in New York and Washington DC and not enough time where Femi-regulars live. “Femi-regulars” is a term I coined during the 2008 election when leftists just couldn’t grasp the appeal of gun-toting Sarah Palin. Palin, I explained, like most women, was a femi-regular, not a femi-nazi (a tag coined by Rush Limbaugh to label rabid, man- hating feminists).

It's never a good sign when you have to explain your neologism. But this blogger isn't referring to the same Sarah Palin who is one of the most reviled figures in American politics, is she? Because Palin's "appeal" seems difficult for the entire country to grasp, not just New York liberals.

Most women are femi-regulars. They are strong women who are too busy accomplishing important things to worry about the divide and conquer strategies of leftists. They are more interested in voting for principled, honest, strong, America-loving folks who will stand up to evil, advance liberty and let our free enterprise flourish—all things that they see in Rick Santorum. They don’t vote as women; they vote as Americans.

Let's take a look at how "most women" have voted in the last, say, three presidential elections.

2008
Obama 56 percent, McPalin 43 percent

2004
Kerry 51 percent, Bush 48 percent

2000
Gore 54 percent, Bush 43 percent

Those Femi-regulars sure love them some Democrats!

Anyway, I'm not sure I follow the logic here.

Most women are Femi-regulars who vote Democratic.
Most Femi-regulars support Rick Santorum.
Therefore, most Democratic women support Rick Santorum.

Sadly, this is what happens when your only three news sources are Faux News, Rush Limbaugh and Newsmax.

What kind of woman supports Rick Santorum?

I've always, you know, I believe and I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created— in the sense of rape—but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you.

We don't know, so we had to imagine. Rick is still seen by some as a promising candidate, supportable by right wing fundamentalist leaders. This enthusiasm is only dampened by the fact that nobody outside of right wing fundamentalist leaders particularly gives a flying fuck about Rick Santorum.

But as his campaign flounders awkwardly along like—Oh, I dunno—a man-on-dog sexual pairing trying to jog mid-tryst, it's a good time to be reminded: There are piggish elements within our body politic who will always, always, always abuse women's rights for political gain. And that Rick Santorum's "google problem" was never just Dan Savage's brilliant gag, it has always been the things that he actually says and does.

Frothy lube may stain your futon, but Santorum stains the American political landscape—until such time as his well-established inability to win actual votes brings the Santorum slide to a messy end.