GO, GRETCHEN!

I agree with Rachel Maddow that state senator Gretchen Whitmer deserves our respect and awe for sharing her very personal reasons why "rape insurance" is a dreadful idea. I can't find the Maddow interview footage--a shame since it's one of the most powerful ones of the week--but with Gretchen is strong, humble, passionate, lovely and touching. You can tell that it took a lot for her to tell the story of her own sexual assault. With a setback for reporting rampant military rape, unemployment allowed to expire by Congress and the anniversary of Sandy Hook, which gripped the nation for weeks, translating into zero gun reform legislation, you get the sense that the US is a very cruel and barbaric place. MSNBC: "The Michigan state legislature yesterday finished passing a bill that requires women to buy separate coverage ahead of time for abortion if they want to have coverage for it at all. The measure applies to private health insurance, and it has no exceptions for rape or incest. For that reason, opponents have been calling the new plan “rape insurance,” which is tough terminology, to be sure. As we’ve seen in places like Virginia, what you call something really matters." MORE: MSNBC ALSO ON MSNBC: First up from the God Machine this week is a story out of Oklahoma, where state Republican officials were so eager to promote government-endorsed religious displays, they inadvertently opened the door to religious monuments they really won’t like. A New York-based Satanic group plans to submit designs this month for a monument it wants to erect on the grounds of the Oklahoma state capitol. The move comes after the state’s Republican legislature authorized a privately funded Ten Commandments monument to be placed on capitol grounds last year, according to the Associated Press. A spokesman for the New York-based Satanic Temple credited Oklahoma Rep. Mike Ritze (R) – who championed and helped to fund the Commandments monument – for clearing the path for his organization. “He’s helping a satanic agenda grow more than any of us possibly could,” the spokesman, Lucian Greaves, said. “You don’t walk around and see too many satanic temples around, but when you open the door to public spaces for us, that’s when you’re going to see us.” MORE: MSNBC