Ivanka Trump Met With Cecile Richards Of Planned Parenthood

Cecile Richards' meeting with Ivanka Trump has gone previously unreported, writes Politico. It happened when the Trump daughter was on her own listening tour with Democrats and progressives. Given Ivanka's total silence -- ONE NOT MAINTAINED BY THE BUSH WOMEN AS FIRST LADIES -- has created a bitter fissure between her and Cecile Richards.

Dawn Laguens, executive vice president of Planned Parenthood, pretty perfectly articulated the problem with this meeting, which appears to not have done anything to influence Trump's actions for and within the administration. "You don’t get to have it both ways," Laguens told Politico in response to Trump's public persona and private actions. "You don’t get to say women should have great child care when maternity benefits are on the chopping block.”

I wrote about this very issue of Complicity on Ivanka's part yesterday. Personally, I will not give her an inch on her refusal to stand for women. Instead she spews this upper class bs far and wide, and she is every bit the Stepford daughter as Melania is the Stepford wife.

Millions of women's lives in the US and around the world -- including millions of women who will die -- will be buried in Ivanka Trump's silence over her father's expansion of the Mexico City policy, aka the global gag rule. None of us are saying that she could change her father's mind and the Republican party in their anti-woman agenda.

But as an activist on behalf of poor and lower-class women worldwide for years, I have no respect for Ivanka Trump -- especially when the Bush women have quietly -- not with front page headlines -- have continued to stand for Planned Parenthood over the years.

Ivanka Trump does not deserve my respect, and I will not give it to her until she stands for poor and lower-class women wherever they live. Presently, she is on a blonde ambition tour, planning her own run for office. Only a privileged, rich white daughter could find her in this enviable position when her father seats her next to Angela Merkel, while hiring only four female cabinet members -- the lowest since Ronald Reagan. ~ Anne

Melinda Gates On How Birth Control Made Indonesia World's 8th Largest Economy

Melinda Gates return recently from Indonesia -- a trip planned long before President Donald Trump reinstituted the Mexico City rule, aka the global gag rule, in a significantly harsher updated version. 

Melinda and Bill Gates have one of the world's best brain banks when the topic is transforming economies -- not only with lip service words about empowering women -- but also with giving them access to contraceptives. As Melinda explains in her USA op ed, contraceptives are one of the greatest anti-poverty innovations the world has ever seen. 

Fifty years ago, fewer than one in 10 Indonesian women used birth control. The average Indonesian woman had five or six children and the entire family lived in extreme poverty. 

When offered support from donor nations like the US, Indonesia implemented a hugely successful family planning initiative in give decades. Today most women in Indonesia have two or three children, who stay longer in school. More women work outside the home and not only did family incomes rise, but so did the entire country's. 

Today, Indonesia has the globe's eight largest economies and family planning is a key reason. But now access to contraception is perilous across the world, because of proposed cuts by the Trump administration to family planning. 

Read AOC's Women News in-depth from (a furious) Melinda Gates about the impact of political budget cuts from the Trump administration. We MUST view these cuts through a dual lens. Yes, they are part of a massive attempt to cut everything from arts funding in America to school lunches. But the cuts to women's health are also politically motivated to curb women's empowerment and advancement worldwide.

The majority of members of the Trump administration say they believe in women's empowerment while taking every move to cut of funding to clinics who even utter the word 'abortion' not even offer them in their facilities. By greatly expanding the language in the Mexico City rule, the Trump administration is cutting off any access to contraceptives at the same time. His ultra right-wing administration has advanced this agenda around women for years. 

Does Kellyanne Conway Really Live In An Alternate Universe?

Writing for The Atlantic, Molly Ball takes a more serious look at Kellyanne Conway, giving her major credit for articulating the anti-immigration policy that came to dominate the Donald Trump primary and presidential campaigns. 

In 2014, Conway was part of a group of Republicans that produced a poll for FWD.us, an immigration-advocacy nonprofit founded by Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. The poll showed that immigration reform was a political necessity for the GOP—a finding that contradicted the line Conway had been pushing since the 1990s. Two months later, Blueberry -- her Secret Service code name -- produced a different poll, demonstrating that “enforcement of current law” and “encouraging illegal immigrants to return to their home countries” could be a winning message. Conway's new findings were rebuffed by Republican donors. But Steve Bannon's far-right wing Breitbart.com called it a "blockbuster".