10 Things Old White Republicans Can Do Instead of Trying to Pass Anti-Choice Legislation

Old white Republicans seem to have quite a bit of time on their hands, and they seem to think passing anti-choice legislation is a good way to pass the time. I thought I’d offer some tips on things they could do instead. (h/t to Jen for the idea.)

1. Shuffleboard.

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2. Contra. Not the Nicaraguan guerrilla group—I’m talking about the 1980’s Nintendo classic. (Psst! There’s a secret code that can get you nearly unlimited lives. If you promise to stop trying to pass all this restrictive legislation, I’ll tell you what the code is.)

© 1988 Konami

© 1988 Konami

3. Duck hunting. This can be accomplished with the Nintendo or in real life.

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4. Ensuring the people have access to affordable contraception.

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5. Arm wrestling. 

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6. Fly fishing.

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7. Building a ship in a bottle.

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8. Southern-style cooking (I hear there’s a vacancy in the Southern-style cooking TV show market coming up.)

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9. Guaranteeing adequate and effective sex education.

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10. Retiring.

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Here are a few things you should not do instead of trying to pass restrictive anti-choice legislation:

1. Constitutional amendments that involve marriage.

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2. Starting your own pornography company.

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3. Drone strikes.

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Photo credits: jimb from morguefile.com; ‘Contra’ © 1988 Konami, via Wikipedia; nasirkhan from morguefile.com; jppi from morguefile.com; Bombadil77 [GFDL, CC BY-SA 3.0, CC BY 2.5], via Wikimedia Commons; seriousfun from morguefile.com; Remi Jouan (Photo taken by Remi Jouan) [GFDL, CC-BY-SA-3.0 or CC-BY-SA-2.5-2.0-1.0], via Wikimedia Commons; LifeisGood from morguefile.com; Katherin Parker Bryden (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons; Seemann from morguefile.com; sullivan from morguefile.com; Mkey (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0], via Wikimedia Commons; US Air Force (http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2005/s2421.htm) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

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The “Unruly Mob” Smears Continue, but Help Comes from Unexpected Places

The North Texas Tea Party is at it again, insisting that the bulk of the opposition to SB5’s reincarnations, HB2 and SB9, comes from out-of-state people and local Austinites motivated primarily by free food.

There is a core of about 1500-2000 of Austin residents college, homeless, and others) that could just about qualify as semi-professional protestors. We’ve seen the same ones at education rallies, pro-abortion rallies, gay rights rallies, etc. They consider it fun and worthwhile WHEN the free food is involved. But try asking them who their state rep or state Senator is.

(Dawnna Dukes and Kirk Watson. I did not have to look that up. But I digress.)

And now, our folks have found Craiglist entries offering to PAY people to show up, as has happened before; a standard MoveOn tactic.  Add to that a NATIONALLY orchestrated effort for buses from all over (some possibly out of state) by the well-oiled community organizor types.

I was there yesterday. If there was free food, no one offered it to me. I was cheering and wearing orange, and yet I had to buy my own lunch. It’s almost like I wanted to be there because I believe in the cause. Hmmmm….

I’m wondering if anyone has photographs of these buses “possibly” coming from out of state. It would take many, many buses to get so many people to the Capitol. Anyone?

Then there’s the thing about the Craigslist ad. The NTTP blog does not provide a link or any other evidence of these ads, so I asked the author if he had links or screenshots. A quick Google search, however, turned up two pages addressing it.

Townhall.com has a brief (i.e. five sentence) piece by Katie Pavlich linking to a Craigslist ad (since deleted, as Craigslist ads usually are) and including the following picture (titled “ScreenShot2013-07-01at103755AM_zpsd0f53d76”):

Via townhall.com

Via townhall.com

That sounds very….general. At the very least, the fact that an organization is trying to hire activists in a town with more than 50,000 university students should not be surprising to anyone. To link this ad directly to the current protest effort at the state Capitol takes a bit of imagination.

A rather thorough debunking of the Craigslist claim came from Breitbart.com, of all places. John Sexton contacted the group that posted the ad and wrote the following:

I called Grassroots Campaigns and spoke to an individual there familiar with the ad. He explained it is part of an ongoing campaign being run on behalf of Planned Parenthood. PP has been hiring grassroots fundraisers since last summer. The Craigslist ad is part of that fundraising campaign, not an attempt to hire protest organizers.

There is another link on the ad itself which leads to this page offering full time “Assistant Canvas Director” jobs. The job description reads in part “Canvass in the field for four days per week, to train new and experienced staff in the field and meet personal fundraising requirements.” So it’s definitely a fundraising job.

Planned Parenthood is working with Grassroots Campaigns to hire fundraisers in Austin and also, it appears, in other locations around the country. These job listings are not part of the recent attempts to block SB5 though it’s probably not a stretch to imagine some of the folks will be participating in the protests.

From looking at his Twitter feed, I feel confident in saying that Mr. Sexton and I disagree on many things. That said, I am immensely grateful for his work to debunk this claim. The only way any progress is possible in the long-term is if the two (or more) sides can argue the actual issues, not slander one another. I try to refute misinformation on my side when I see it—and it does happen. I couldn’t leave a comment on the Breitbart story, so I tweeted my gratitude to Mr. Sexton.


He replied:


I truly believe we should applaud good journalism everywhere we see it. I am not talking to you, North Texas Tea Party.

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That Time a 20-Week Abortion Ban Was Found Unconstitutional – Isaacson v. Horne

800px-Entering_Arizona_on_I-10_WestboundArizona passed House Bill 2036 (PDF file), a law banning abortions after 20 weeks, in 2012. After a federal district court declined to issue a preliminary injunction barring enforcement of the law in Isaacson v. Horne (“Isaacson 1“), 884 F.Supp.2d 961 (D. Ariz. 2012), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed earlier this year, finding the law unconstitutional. Isaacson v. Horne (“Isaacson 2“), No. 12-16670, slip op. (9th Cir., May 21, 2013). I mention this now because Texas is trying something similar.

I. HOUSE BILL 2036

Section 7 of Arizona’s HB2036 added two sections to title 36, chapter 20, article 1 of the Arizona Revised Statutes, which covers general provisions for abortion. Section 36-2158 required doctors to give various information to women seeking abortions, with different sets of information depending on whether the fetus had been diagnosed with a “lethal fetal condition” or not. The information had to be provided at least 24 hours before performing an abortion. Section 36-2159 prohibited abortions if the “probable gestational age of the unborn child,” as determined by the physician, is twenty weeks or more. Violating this restriction could subject a doctor to loss of license and criminal liability.

Section 9 of HB2036 listed findings that, according to the Legislature, supported section 7 and the rest of the bill. These included supposed complications that become more likely in late-term abortions, the state’s interest in “protecting the health of women,” and fetal pain.

II. ISAACSON 1 – U.S. DISTRICT COURT, DISTRICT OF ARIZONA

The plaintiffs in Isaacson were three medical doctors who filed suit against the state attorney general, officials for Maricopa and Pima Counties, and the Arizona Medical Board and its director. The filed suit on July 12, 2012, seeking a preliminary injunction to bar enforcement of section 7 of the law, which was to take effect on August 2. They specifically objected to the 20-week ban. Continue reading

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