The Turner Diaries

If you're not a reader of the Hollywood Reporter you probably missed Thursday's brilliant OpEd by actress and activist Kathleen Turner: I've Had Enough. I serve with Kathleen on the board of People For the American Way and have found her to be an inspiration for many years. Her passion for equality is infectious and uplifting.

Oh, please.

I would have thought by now that I wouldn’t be reading news stories about a "who’s who of the next generation of Republican Party leaders"-- all men-- running around trying to enact a national ban on abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

I had hoped I wouldn’t see another photo of a male governor, surrounded by smiling men, signing a bill forbidding counselors from even discussing abortion with rape survivors.

Or another, who had promised women in his state that he wouldn’t pass any more abortion restrictions, sneaking through an effort to close clinics in a motorcycle safety law.

I would have thought that at least most members of the House of Representatives would have learned the basic facts of reproduction, for instance that rape can in fact result in pregnancy.

A question I have been longing to ask-- Who the hell are you to tell me what I can do with my body?

Instead of making progress in cementing women’s rights to control our own bodies and our own futures, it feels these days like we’re sliding back down the long hill that we had to climb in the first place.

That’s why it was so exhilarating to watch Texas firebrand Wendy Davis literally stand up for 12 hours on behalf of women in her state… and so predictably deflating to have her filibuster stopped by men who literally refused to let her speak.

The Guttmacher Institute counts 43 new restrictions on reproductive rights in just the first six months of this year. A new report from People For the American Way outlines some of the most common ways right-wing politicians are trying to cut down on women’s access to reproductive care. They range from devious (laws like the new one in North Carolina that seek to close abortion clinics by regulating them out of existence) to just plain offensive (unenforceable bans on “race- and sex-selective” abortions).

Thank the Lord for the Wendy Davises of the world. Because everywhere that right-wing male politicians are trying to roll back the rights of women, progressive women legislators are there to speak up against them. I think of Lucy Flores, a Nevada Assemblywoman, who had the courage to speak of her own experience with abortion when she argued on behalf of comprehensive sex education in schools-- and was met with death threats. I think of the African-American women legislators in Florida who walked out of the statehouse when conservative lawmakers dared to compare black women who choose abortions to the Ku Klux Klan.

40 years after Roe v. Wade, we’re still fighting for the right to control our own bodies and to make our voices heard. But we sure won’t go down quietly. In last year’s presidential and Senate elections, women sent an unequivocal signal that we won’t be messed with. A new NARAL poll in Virginia finds that gubernatorial candidate Ken Cuccinelli’s regressive anti-woman policies are more than enough to turn women out to vote.

Let’s make sure that when we go to vote, we aren’t just voting against whatever backwards policies conservatives are pushing. Let’s vote for leaders like Wendy Davis and Lucy Flores, people who know what it’s like to be marginalized and won’t back down from fighting back.

I'd like to add to her list of women willing to stand up and fight against self-satisfied patriarchal-minded men, New Jersey state Senator Barbara Buono who has spent her entire career fighting men like these and has now taken on the uphill battle of fighting media-darling Chris Christie in his reelection battle. He is as aggressively anti-Choice and anti-equality as he can get away with. And yet the media remains asleep to the dangers-- or eager for a "good fight" in 2016 pitting Hillary Clinton against Christie, the only Republican who can beat her-- in Gerogia! The media has declared the New Jersey race done and Christie the winner by a landslide. Blue America doesn't accept that. Wednesday, Gail Collins, pretty much skipping over the Senate race entirely, already fighting against Christie 2016 on the pages of the NY Times:

There’s a side to Christie that reminds women of their worst boyfriends. In his race for governor in 2009, he won male voters by a wide margin. But women went for his opponent, Gov. Jon Corzine, 50 percent to 45 percent. This is a particularly startling figure when you add in the fact that Corzine had the personal warmth and communication skills of an unconscious flounder.

Democrats were eyeing that gender gap when they chose Barbara Buono, a state senator, and Milly Silva, a labor leader, to run for governor and lieutenant governor this fall. They’re bucking long odds. Christie’s record has a lot of weak spots, but he was terrific when it came to the cardinal rule in politics, which is to show up for bad weather. Voters never forget good behavior in a storm, and Christie was pretty near pitch-perfect during Hurricane Sandy.

But let’s get back to that infant race for the Republican presidential nomination. The WMUR Granite State Poll, which had Christie on top in New Hampshire, put Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky in second. So it was kind of fascinating last week when they got into a fight, carried out long-distance at top volume.

Christie started it, when he laced into a “strain of libertarianism” that he termed “very dangerous” to national security. This was a garbled broadside against Paul’s recent campaign against the government’s mass collection of phone and e-mail records. “I want them to come to New Jersey and sit across from the widows and the orphans (of 9/11) and have that conversation,” he concluded.

...In the end, the governor scored points only when the Yelling Guy was replaced by the rational politician with an actual point to make. What if it turns out that the most celebrated aspect of Chris Christie-- his high-decibel tough-talking-- is really his biggest handicap as a national candidate?

In that New Hampshire poll, Christie got 27 percent of the male vote and 14 percent of the women. All the other candidates mentioned were pretty much gender gapless. It’s just one little poll, but maybe we’re onto something. Maybe quiet and sane trumps loud and crazy, even in Republican primary politics.

Yeah... whatever. Or maybe people who recognize the danger of a Chris Christie-- loud or quiet-- should get behind stopping him now-- in New Jersey-- by standing up for Barbara Buono. Despite the pollsters and pundits, this race isn't over yet. You can help here.