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RIGHT WING EXTREMISM

Senator Who Says 13 Year Olds Can Consent to Sex Now Under Fire for Blocking Bill GOP Claims Promotes ‘Abortion Tourism’

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Republican U.S. Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma is under fire after blocking a Democratic bill that would codify into law the right to travel across state lines to obtain an abortion. Some states with or considering abortion bans have also signaled they will make it illegal to leave the state to do so.

“No state has banned interstate travel for adult women seeking to obtain an abortion. This seems to be just trying to inflame, to raise what-ifs,” Lankford, who favors a nationwide abortion ban, told his Senate colleagues Thursday, HuffPost reports.

Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana, claimed Democrats’ “legislation would lead to ‘abortion tourism’ and that it would ‘protect the greed of woke corporations’ who have pledged to cover travel costs of their employees,” HuffPost’s Igor Bobic adds.

READ MORE: ‘We Would Hope She Would Understand’: Anti-Abortion Group Official Says 10 Year Old Should Have Given Birth to Rapist’s Baby

“Lankford also uses ‘abortion tourism’ language after blocking right to travel bill,” Bobic also reported on social media:

“Hey, come to our state stay in our hotels and have an abortion here, we’ll have a package for you set up to be able to do that,” he says of blue states.

The Washington Post’s Mike DeBonis adds that in addition to terms like “abortion tourism,” Republicans have called crossing state lines to obtain an abortion, “fly-in abortions,” and women “being trafficked across state lines.”

Several Republicans downplayed the threat of state lawmakers banning interstate travel for the purpose of obtaining an out-of-state abortion.

“It’s already protected in the Constitution,” Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) claimed, as did Justice Brett Kavanaugh in his concurring opinion in the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade.

Legal experts aren’t so sure, HuffPost notes.

READ MORE: Head of Anti-Abortion Group Stuns Lawmakers by Declaring Raped 10 Year Old Girl’s Abortion Is ‘Not a Abortion’

Meanwhile, on social media, Lankford and his fellow Republicans were highly criticized.

“‘Abortion tourism’ is such a cute reframe for ‘Desperately booking last minute travel and uprooting my life to get a very basic healthcare procedure where my bodily autonomy is recognized,'” said sexual and reproductive health researcher and writer Andréa (Dre) Becker, who has a PhD in medical sociology.

“Did not have ‘abortion tourism’ on my 2022 Bingo Card for ‘Vile Things Republicans Will Say to Invalidate The Humanity of Women and Girls,'” tweeted Jane van Dis MD, Assistant Professor ObGyn.

“Sen Lankford just blocked protections for interstate travel for abortion,” said popular political commentator Lindy Li. “This is the same Lankford who said under oath that a 13-YR-OLD could consent to sex.”

“Christian extremists who force birth on rape victims & validate the rape of kids are the most dangerous [people] in the nation,” she added.

The Associated Press last month reported that “in a 2010 deposition … given a week after he was elected to his first term in the U.S. House, Lankford testified that he believed a 13-year-old could consent to sex.”

“Yes, I think they can,” Lankford said, the AP reported. When an attorney later said, “if I ask you that question in terms of your position as a father,” the AP reports “Lankford maintained his stance.”

“Make no mistake,” tweeted freelance journalist Kaz Weida. “What Republican Lankford is saying is that it’s essential to monitor the movements & restrict the freedom of women. She is just a vessel and whatever clump of cells that resides in her uterus has more rights than she does.”

“He’s reducing women to breeding stock,” she added.

Former Republican and retired U.S. Naval War College professor Tom Nichols, a popular social media commentator, pointed to the remarks Lankford made (above) on the Senate floor Thursday.

“When Lankford says it’s ‘to inflame,’ he means ‘because we’re thinking of doing it.'”

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law

Arkansas Senator Files Bill to Abolish State Library, Give Education Department Control

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The right-wing war on knowledge continues as an Arkansas state senator filed a bill Thursday to abolish the State Library as well as the library board.

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro), along with State Rep. Wayne Long (R-Bradford), filed Senate Bill 536 on Thursday. The bill would not just remove all references to the State Library from existing laws, but also put the state’s other libraries under the control of the Arkansas Department of Education.

A previous version of the bill, SB184, would have also shuttered the Arkansas Educational Television Commission, which oversees the state’s PBS stations, according to the Arkansas Advocate.

READ MORE: Clean Up Alabama Wants State to Dump ‘Marxist’ American Library Association

The Arkansas State Library is not just a regular library. In addition to providing information to state agencies and lawmakers, it also distributes funding to the other libraries around the state. Under SB536, the Department of Education would take on all its responsibilities. The State Library is officially a part of the Department of Education already, but it operates as an independent organization.

While the proposal may sound like a shuffling-around of duties, the main thrust of the bill is to allow more direct control over the Arkansas library system by controlling the purse strings. The bill would keep libraries from distributing “age-inappropriate materials” to those under 17 years old and sex education materials from those under 12. Libraries would also have to set up a system where those in the community could request that certain items be banned for minors, according to KARK-TV. Those that don’t meet these restrictions will have state funding pulled.

Earlier legislation filed by Sullivan and passed into law includes Act 242, which ended the requirement for library directors to have a master’s degree in library science, the Advocate reported.  Sullivan, however, was unsuccessful with a proposed amendment to another bill that would strip funding from libraries affiliated with the American Library Association—meaning most, if not all of them. That amendment was rejected this week over concerns the language in it was too broad, according to the Advocate.

The ALA has been a target of right-wing politicians and activists upset with its free speech stance and fights against censorship. Sullivan in particular has objected to a provision in the ALA’s Library Bill of Rights protecting library access for all ages, the Advocate reported. He also called for the state’s chapter of the ALA to be defunded—despite the fact that it receives no state funding.

Image via Shutterstock

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BIGOTRY

Texas to Investigate Anonymous Complaint Teachers Used Trans Student’s Pronouns

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After a Moms for Liberty member claimed that teachers at a Texas high school used a trans student’s new name and proper pronouns, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott ordered an investigation.

On February 13, Denise Bell of the right wing, anti-LGBTQ group Moms for Liberty, addressed the Houston Independent School Board. She read a statement that she said came from the parents of a trans student at Bellaire High School. The parents were upset that teachers used the student’s new name and pronouns, according to Erin in the Morning. The anonymous statement Bell read said that the change happened without parental consent, and “goes against our Christian faith, the advice of [their] therapist and quite frankly common sense.”

Bell then claimed that the school district was “purposely and secretively transitioning minors.”

READ MORE: GOP Candidate Complaining She Wasn’t Allowed to ‘Have Kids Laugh At’ Transgender Students in Viral Video Draws Rebuke

State Representative Steve Toth—who represents a different district than the school is in—informed Abbott of the complaint in a letter on February 26. Two weeks later, Abbott replied to Toth’s letter, revealing he told the Texas Education Agency to investigate the Bellaire High School, accusing the teachers of helping “to ‘socially transition’ a student—violating the express wishes of the child’s mother,” which Abbott called “inappropriate and potentially unlawful.”

Abbott directed the TEA to not just determine whether or not the teachers did indeed use the trans student’s name and pronouns, but also open a full investigation into the school. TEA was told to find out if the school had also violated “policies concerning sexual education curriculum, parental consent for communications with students, mental health services or guidance to students, and parent grievances”; if any school employees had “engaged in misconduct”; and whether any student “has been subjected to abuse or neglect.”

That last one has a footnote on “abuse or neglect,” referring to a statement from President Donald Trump’s March 4 speech in front of a joint session of Congress:

“A few years ago, January Littlejohn and her husband discovered that their daughter’s school had secretly socially transitioned their 13-year-old little girl. Teachers and administrators conspired to deceive January and her husband, while encouraging her daughter to use a new name and pronouns—‘they/them’ pronouns, actually—all without telling January, who is here tonight and is now a courageous advocate against this form of child abuse.”

This is not the first time Abbott and his administration have attacked the state’s trans community. In his “State of the State Address” this year, he said that teachers who discuss gender transition with students should be fired, according to KTRK-TV. Texas has also banned trans students from sports as well as the use of puberty blockers in cases of minors experiencing gender dysphoria, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Image via Shutterstock

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AMERICA FIRST?

Tim Walz: ‘Racism’ Motivates MAGA Movement to Pardon Derek Chauvin

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Minnesota Governor Tim Walz didn’t mince words when asked what the motivation was for the new movement among MAGA Republicans to convince President Donald Trump to pardon Derek Chauvin, the former police officer who killed George Floyd in 2020.

“Racism. It’s racist. OK? That’s what I believe,” Walz said in an interview with Semafor published Wednesday.

The calls to pardon Chauvin started with an online petition earlier this month, according to The Independent. The pardon push picked up steam this week when conservative commentator Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire launched a webseries, “The Case of Derek Chauvin.” Shapiro claims the officer was convicted on “extraordinarily scanty evidence,” saying Floyd did not die from having Chauvin’s knee on his neck for over nine minutes, but rather from drugs in Floyd’s system and heart disease.

READ MORE: Derek Chauvin Sentenced to 22-and-a-Half Years for Murder of George Floyd – Less Than Maximum Possible Sentence

Walz, however, disputes this interpretation of events.

“This was a man who murdered George Floyd on TV,” Walz said, adding that a pardon “would undermine the faith in the system.”

The White House, however, has denied that a Chauvin pardon is in Trump’s plans. Earlier this month, Trump said he hadn’t even heard about a push to pardon Floyd’s killer, and on Wednesday, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt repeated that a pardon is “not something he’s considering at this time,” according to The Grio.

However, some commentators, like The Hill’s Juan Williams are skeptical, pointing out that Trump has pardoned two police officers convicted of killing a Black man in the first days of his second term.

In 2020, after the killing, Trump condemned Chauvin.

“We all saw what we saw. It’s hard to conceive anything other than what we did see. It should have never happened,” Trump said.

If Trump were to pardon Chauvin, it would be largely moot. Presidents can only pardon those convicted on federal charges. Chauvin was convicted on both federal and Minnesota state charges. In the event Trump cleared the federal charges, the main thing that would happen is that Chauvin would be moved from the federal prison in Big Spring, Texas to a Minnesota state prison.

Minnesota sentenced Chauvin to 22 and a half years for murder; on the federal level, he was sentenced to 21 years for violating Floyd’s civil rights. Barring a federal pardon, the two sentences are running concurrently, not consecutively.

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