Mike Pence’s War on Planned Parenthood

MoonHowler

Indiana Congressman Mike Pence has declared a personal war on Planned Parenthood in hopes of ending abortion.  For the past three legislative sessions,  he has  targeted Planned Parenthood by introducing legislation that would deny Title X funds to any organization providing abortions.  According to Politico:

This week, Pence went even further, introducing an amendment to the continuing resolution that would strip Planned Parenthood — and Planned Parenthood alone — of all federal funding.

Pence’s latest maneuver comes at an inopportune time for many in the Republican Party.

Some GOP leaders — including Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels — have urged their party to downplay hot-button social issues in order to win over moderate voters ahead of the 2012 presidential race. Others, like House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), have said House Republicans must focus on creating jobs and cutting spending.

Rep. Pence remains the darling of social conservatives. Many supported him for the presidential race in 2012, despite the fact he has said he will not run. Pence has not ruled out the possibility of running for Indiana governor.

Alert!  Update: 

Minutes ago, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to bar Planned Parenthood from all federal funding for any purpose whatsoever. That means no funding to Planned Parenthood health centers for birth control, lifesaving cancer screenings, HIV testing, and other essential care.

Read More

Egyptian Revolt: Not so Peaceful

MoonHowler

Much has been said about peaceful demonstration and the Egyptian people just wanting to be free.  Perhaps we need to re-examine how peaceful the revolt really was.  The Cairo Museum was broken in to and artifacts from antiquity were damaged or stolen.  There were hundreds of deaths.  Supposedly nice people were hurling stones.  Anderson Cooper and Fox News crew Greg Palkot and Olaf Wiig  were  beaten up pretty badly.  And on Friday, as it was all supposedly coming to an end, the Huffington Post reported:

On Friday February 11, the day Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak stepped down, CBS correspondent Lara Logan was covering the jubilation in Tahrir Square for a 60 MINUTES story when she and her team and their security were surrounded by a dangerous element amidst the celebration. It was a mob of more than 200 people whipped into frenzy.

Read More

I’m simply asking you utopian rubes, keep politics out of my fallopian tubes”

MoonHowler

From Politico:

“Desperate Housewives” star Felicity Huffman and her husband, actor William H. Macy, marked the 38th anniversary of Roe v. Wade in Washington on Thursday with a song.

 Huffman, who emceed the NARAL Pro-Choice luncheon in the vast Omni Shoreham Hotel ballroom, invited her husband to join her on stage. He obliged, ukulele in hand, and the two sung ditty about abortion rights.

 “Some like government big, some want it small, and some people dream of no government at all. I’m simply asking you utopian rubes, keep politics out of my fallopian tubes,” went one verse.

Reminder, the issue is simply who choses, you or the government?  Many of us find it amazing that those who advocate less government, smaller government, still want government in the business of reproduction decisions. 

Who makes the most deeply personal decisions for us?  Certainly not congressmen or women that don’t even know us. 

 Huffman and Macy  entertain about a subject many of us take very seriously. 

NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia Renounces Unscrupulous Physician

MoonHowler

All who bought the line of BS being pushed by Attorney General Ken Cucinelli and Supervisor John Stirrup need to be aware of the following letter I received from NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia.  Without the AG’s ‘interpretation,’ Virginia has the tools, ways and means to regulate unscrupulous abortion providers.  Virginia always has retained the ability to stop physicians and clinical practices not in keeping with high medical standards. 

Dear Moon:

We recently learned that physician Steven Brigham, the owner of abortion provider American Women’s Services, which lists offices in Fairfax and Virginia Beach, has been accused of egregious medical misconduct in other states.

Dr. Brigham’s egregious and unscrupulous actions are wholly inconsistent with the excellent record of safety established by other providers in the field of women’s reproductive health care services.
 
We support the highest standards for women’s health, which is why abortion remains one of the safest surgical procedures performed in the United States. The charges against Dr. Brigham are serious, appalling and out of line with the values for which we stand. We call on state authorities to use the power of current state laws to ensure that Dr. Brigham is never allowed to provide services to women again.

Fortunately, in Virginia, abortion care is highly regulated through the Board of Health Professions, Board of Medicine, OSHA and other regulatory bodies and laws. We have seen the effectiveness of current Virginia regulations, as one of Brigham’s associates was recently denied a medical license in the Commonwealth as she had her license suspended elsewhere. The heinous actions of Dr. Brigham do not point to the need for further regulations targeting abortion providers, but for states to prosecute Dr. Brigham under current statutes.

We support the efforts of the National Abortion Federation over the years calling for investigation of Brigham and his clinics. NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia has worked and will continue to work to make sure Virginians have access to the highest standard of abortion care.

If you have questions about the situation or want to know how to talk about it with your friends, please contact us.

For choice,

Tarina Keene
Executive Director

Hopefully, our board of supervisors, the Manassas City Council, and Governor McDonnell will see Cucinelli’s gestures for what they are–an attempt to regulate abortion providers right out of business.  Those seeking further regulation need to familiarize themselves with current regulations rather than preying upon people’s fears and emotions. 

 

Fimian, Pharmacies and Birth Control

MoonHowler

For the past several days I have been seeing and hearing a Gerry Connolly campaign commercial that paints Candidate Keith Fimian as an extremist.  Most campaign ads are background noise to me so it went in one ear and out the other.  Besides, most campaign ads are full of hyperbole and exaggeration.  Then I perked up my ears.  The ad said that Fimian supported the rights of pharmacists to not dispense contraception.  Now THAT IS extremist. 

I have tried researching this allegation, without much luck.  I even went to the  Legatuswebsite.  Fimian is a member of Legatus, which is a Catholic organization, founded by Dominos Pizza Magnet Tom Monaghan for very wealthy Catholic business folks and their spouses.  I didn’t find out much there either.  Maybe it’s me.  However, I haven’t heard anything which disputes this claim.  This makes me nervous. 

There has been somewhat of an uproar the past several years about pharmacists with religious objections being forced to dispense contraception, in particular, the morning after pill.  NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia  has this to say:

In addition to lack of contraceptive equity, Virginia’s so-called “conscience clause” allows pharmacists to decide which prescriptions they will and will not provide. This means that a pharmacist could legally refuse to fill a doctor’s prescription for birth control or stock or distribute emergency contraception. Since when do pharmacists get to step inside the doctor-patient relationship and refuse to fill necessary prescriptions?

 

Conscience Clause?  Where did that come from?  Someone slipped that one by me.  The more I google, the more I unearth and the angrier I get.  This thread needs to be a work in progress.  First of all, anyone who has knowledge of Fimian’s position on allowing pharmacists to cherry pick what prescriptions they will fill, please let us know.  I don’t have a bone to pick with private pharmacies who post, in clear view on their door that they do not sell or dispense contraception.  However, other stores open to the public without disclaimers should really not be involved in type of exclusionary behavior.  I consider it equivalent to the Muslim cab driver who wouldn’t let bottles of liquor in his cab.  Find another job. 

Secondly, what kinds of legislation have been passed that allow ‘conscience clauses and require pharmacist counselling?  How offensive.  If one works for a pharmacy, the job is to fill prescriptions, not chime in with a moral opinion.  If that is an issue, go work for a private religious hospital or pharmacy. 

I would especially welcome and appreciate word from the Fimian campaign that this information is indeed false.  This is the year 2010, in the United States of America.  Griswald was decided 45 years ago. 

 

 

 

 

The Rude and the Crude

MoonHowler

Much has been said in recent weeks about women–in particular women who have the unutterable gall to go in to politics.  Christine O’Donnell has been the butt of many a joke as well as a little known young woman named Krystal Ball who is running for Congress in the 1st District.  

Christine O’Donnell  should just stop talking  about the witch thing.  Who cares?   No one really thinks she was a witch. She was a kid.  Kids experiment with stuff.  How do you ever learn if you aren’t confronted with a few things where you have to decide if this is something you should be doing or not. 

O’Donnell’s problem is she hasn’t renounced any of her ideas she espoused as a young person.  She doesn’t seem to have refined any of them.  Her remarks on masturbation will follow her to the ends of the earth.  She needs to kill them off.  She needs to say the point of going to the Senate is not to be self serving or something…anything.  She needs to take contol and not let those remarks from 12 years ago define her and what she is all about.

 

Leno was rude.  Letterman was crude about Sarah Palin’s daugher, Willow.  Real crude. 

Krystal Ball’s  relative anonymity has gotten a shot in the arm, although probably not the kind she wanted.  Someone got hold of some pictures of her and her first husband and friends at a Christmas party, in some frat party type poses.  Naturally the pictures went  viral and local bloggers had a hayday, especially those of the opposing party.  Krystal Ball was not deterred.

The bloggers  who posted Ball’s party pictures apparently were never young themselves.  They never acted out and they never had a good time.  They are as disrespectful as Leno and Letterman. The women they disrespect are someone’s wife, mother, daughter, sister. 

Like their politics, hate their politics but cut the dehumanizing crap out. Stick to the issues. Right now it just appears that there is a lot of one handed typing going on.  It sounds like Bob Marshall’s Luv Canal Frat boys in a locker room. 

And when you are old enough to be someone’s grandmother, you get to say these things without missing a beat. Grow  up, boys.

 

Old Town Merchants pt 2

MoonHowler

Let’s see if this second post on the subject brings out the wrath of the christian right [lower case intentional]  like the first one did.  If that happens, we can always rename the thread “Greg Letiecq fights pornography with pornography.”  But I digress…..

News & Messenger  reporter Keith Walker has up-to-date coverage of the latest plan for the City of Manassas during Fall Festival, which is one of the city’s biggest events.  About 50 people are expected to gather in protest at City Hall sometime during the Fall Festival. 

Apparently the plan to coerce merchants into closing their doors between noon and 1 pm didn’t pan out.  I know of 1 merchant who ran off the visitor who came to garner support for her cause.  Picture a restaurant owner telling everyone to stop eating and to get up and leave right at noon.  Sort of makes one chuckle, if some idealistic person didn’t take it seriously.  What shopkeeper closes down during the busiest time of the biggest sale day of the year?

The leader of this pack was quoted in the News and Messenger:

MANASSAS, Va. —

Jennifer Basinger said she’s expecting about 50 people to show up at Manassas City Hall on Saturday to rally against an adult store set to open Oct. 20 on Battle Street in Old Town.

She said KK’s Temptations won’t fit in with the historic nature of the area.

“The shop I feel — and many do — is just not consistent with what Old Town is about,” Basinger said.

However, she doesn’t have anything against Kim and Kristina Skokan, the mother-and-daughter team who plan to open the store.

“It’s not a personal vendetta against the owner. It’s not an ugly, self-righteous march at all,” the 39-year-old Basinger said. “It’s really just wanting to keep Old Town the way it is.”
Basinger said the group will restrict itself to the area around City Hall between noon and 2 p.m. to avoid disrupting the Fall Jubilee that is also taking place Saturday.

“It’s peaceful. It’s non-confrontational. It’s not meant to take any thunder away from the fall festival,” she said. “It’s not going to be a bunch of people marching into Old Town.”

Reality check!  I saw an email or 2 and I don’t think you say some of that stuff to someone you don’t have a vendetta against.  Perhaps I just have different values.   Ms. Basinger needs to be more honest and forthright about that one. 

Another reality check involves the image you want to create for your city.  Do you want to stage a protest of any sort on your biggest tourism day of the year?  Why not just bring Mr. Fernandez back with a few native Americans to parade around.  I am sure he would be glad to accommodate.  Anything to embarrass the City.  How is this different?  At least if Mr. F paraded around with Native Americans you could tell the guests coming in from other areas that it was just the Tea Party, getting ready to dump a few barrels of tea overboard. 

Furthermore, what is it that these people want the City of Manassas to do?  The City  has caved in to every demand.  Many people I know are so disgusted with the City for acquiescing to this group of christian conservatives  [lower case intentional] that they are simply not going to spend money in the City.  In trying to please everyone, you please no one. 

Most of the City Councilpersons are nice people who take their elected position seriously.  They try to represent their constituents, rather than advance their own agendas.  What I don’t think they realize is that many people find KK Temptations a welcome addition to the City.  It breaks up the ho hum and the restaurants.  An even bigger number don’t care one way or the other. 

Kim Skokan and her daughter have postponed their grand opening out of deference to the City merchants who will be their new neighbors.  They didn’t want to draw attention away from a big sales day. They have dotted every i and crossed every t.  Perhaps they, too, have been just a little too accommodating to those who are all about control and bullying.  (and elections)

 

Really, Really Big Government: No Exceptions

MoonHowler

At least 5 senatorial candidates have gone on record, very recently, (no blaming the past) as being very much in favor of what the rest of us would call big government–government intrusion into people’s personal lives–the kind of government intrusion that heretofore has gotten people labeled part of the reactionary fringe. These 5 candidates have stated that they are opposed to abortion even in  cases of rape or incest.

Even those politicians in the pro-life movement, with the except of only a couple of people, have not stated that they think a woman should be forced by the government to bear the child of her rapist. This position is extremism and it certainly isn’t getting government out of people’s business.

Shame on these 5. Women and girls are attacked and sexually abused daily. Those who are exposed to incest have an increased chance of pregnancy because of the repeated behavior. And yes, it does happen, horrifying as it sounds.

This kind of intrusion goes beyond the pale and illustrates that real everyday people aren’t running for office. These people are idealists and social busy bodies who are clueless about some of the hardships of life that face some people daily. If they truly are against big government, they will pull in their horns on this issue. Otherwise they are just as bad as the people they so desperately want to replace or worse. 

Not only will pro choice women shun these candidates, but some who generally consider them pro-life will do the same.  Most people want a safety net in there.  No exceptions for rape and incest  is hardcore extremism.

Additional information from Rachel Maddow

Sarah Palin’s Web Video: ‘Mama Grizzlies’ And ‘Pink Elephants’ Preparing to ‘Stampede’ Washington

MoonHowler

I am not sure women are going to fall for this nonsense.  Maybe the women I know are just different from the Palin kind of women. The women I know think for themselves and don’t need to get behind a Ms. Sound byte to have their voices heard.

The video is getting rave reviews in conservative circles. What’s unique or catchy about it, or is it just more of the same?

So is Sarah Palin the cheerleader for Republicans? Tea Partiers? Women? Conservatives? I am really not sure who she represents. All I know is, she quite her elected post to persue loftier ambitions. I can only assume she plans on running for President.

Fetal Dolls handed out on Campus of Norfolk Elementary School

MoonHowler

An employee at a Norfolk, Virginia elementary school is on administrative leave for handing out fetal dolls on the campus. The principal of Oak Wood Elementary has also been placed on administrative leave. It is unclear what the principal’s role in this matter was. According to the Richmond Times Dispatch:

The investigation began after The Virginian-Pilot inquired this week about reports that the dolls had been distributed to students at Oakwood.

School board member Kirk Houston Sr. called the fetus dolls a “pro-life” tool. He said distributing them to students was inappropriate and unacceptable.

The Washington Post reports:

The Virginian-Pilot reports that the dolls, which were distributed to students at Oakwood Elementary School in Norfolk over weeks or months, are not authorized instructional materials.

The dolls, in pink and brown and about 4 inches long, came with a “pro-life” message and information on fetal growth, the paper reports.

School officials have begun an investigation. The employee who distributed the dolls has not been identified

.

What would possess a person to do something this foolish? Talk about a captive audience and also an audience that is a little young to have anti abortion rhetoric pushed on them.  Fetus dolls just should not be part of a public school setting.

[fetus doll picture from the AP]

Bristol Palin Spotted Clubbing

MoonHowler

 

Bristol Palin went clubbing Wednesday night, according to nydailynews.com.  So what’s the big deal, other than she was under-age? 

Oh Bristol, don’t you know by now that someone is always watching?

Miss Palin may have spent Wednesday morning celebrating the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy — but she spent Wednesday evening fretting that her cover would be blown at NYC hot spot 1Oak.

“Bristol was there around 1 a.m. with friends,” a partygoer says. “She was trying to have fun, but she looked like she was terrified that people would recognize her and start gawking. It seems like she couldn’t even relax.”  A second denizen of the club backed up the sighting.

We can’t blame Bristol for being nervous: After spending all day at events like “The Harsh Truth: Teen Moms Tell All” — and tirelessly promoting her new good-girl image — showing up at a 21-and-over venue may not have been the best idea.

The Palins are making a huge mistake trotting out Bristol to be the poster child for abstinence-only pregnancy prevention programs.  In the first place, its horribly hypocritical.  A classic case of closing the barn door after the horse is out of the barn.  Bristol Palin seems like a nice enough kid.  She has a year old child, she is continuing her education.  She was involved with a guy who should be the poster boy for who you want your daughter to stay away from.  Her mother is now a millionaire politician turned author ex-governor, if having a ghost writer counts. 

If we are to keep politicos kids as sacred cows, and I believe they are, then politico’s kids should not take public positions.  Bristol Palin has a job to do.  She needs to enjoy her youth at the same time she is raising her child.  That’s not an easy task.  She should not be expected to go out there and tell all the other kids to not have sex.  My mother’s Day wish for Young Ms. Palin is that she toss aside politics and get on with the difficult task ahead of her which would be being a kid while raising a kid.  It almost feels like she is having to serve penance because she had a kid.  Bristol Palin owes none of us any apologies if she will just be herself.

[bold mine for those too lazy to read the post.]

The Pill Turns 50

MoonHowler


What better tribute to mothers than a birthday party for The Pill. The Pill has probably been one of the top 5 inventions of the last century that has altered our society the most.

In Sunday’s Washington Post, columnist Elaine Tyler May celebrates The Pill:

Forget the single girl and the sexual revolution. The pill was not anti-mother; it was for mothers. And it changed motherhood more than it changed anything else. Its great accomplishment was not in preventing motherhood, but in making it better by allowing women to have children on their own terms.

A glance at history tells us that  up through the late 19th  century, nearly all women seemed to have endless children. My own grandfather was one of 9. These weren’t country people. Sure, they had rural roots but they weren’t having children to work the farm. They had children because they didn’t know how to not have children. Endless childbirth robbed women of their health and often their lives.  My own great grandmother was a victim. It’s impossible to take a cursory walk through a 19th century cemetery without noticing the number of untimely deaths of women in their child-bearing years. 

Women did a little better as they moved through the 20th century toward 1960, when the FDA approved the use of THE Pill for contraceptive purposes. Barrier methods of contraception as well as some chemical products improved a woman’s chanced of preventing unwanted pregnancy. However, it wasn’t until 1960 that The Pill really altered the way American couples married and had families.

The Pill wasn’t without great controversy. Even FDA approval was not easy to come by. There were moral and religious objections, social objections, and a fear that sexual behavior would somehow alter our sexual mores forever. Perhaps it did. However, there is something very liberating about being able to control one’s own reproduction.  It is almost frightening to realize the Griswald vs. Connecticut wasn’t decided until 1965, making contraception of any kind a right of privacy.  Griswold guaranteed that states could not prevent the use of contraception.  Griswold isn’t 50 yet. 

 

The Griswold Case 

The pill: Making motherhood better for 50 years

From the Washington Post:

UVA President Sends Strong Message on Toxic Relationships and Domestic Abuse

MoonHowler
Candleight Vigil for Yeardly Love
Candleight Vigil for Yeardly Love

UVA President John Casteen III delivered a chilling, emotional speech to those gathered at the candlelight vigil for slain lacrosse player Yeardly Love. His message should be repeated over and over in middle schools, high schools, colleges and universities, churches, libraries–just about anywhere there are women.

Casteen told the mourners  that we are all responsible for getting people help who are entangled and trapped in toxic, violent relationships. We can not longer just tell our friends, relatives and acquaintances to ditch a toxic relationship. We have to step forward and perhaps make some of those unpopular calls. Doing so might just save someone’s life–someone like Yeardly Love’s life.

The fraternity of silence and the culture of hiding abuse can no longer be tolerated.

President Casteen’s  remarks at the candlelight vigil for Yeardley Love:

There are profound ironies in our gathering here tonight for this purpose. This is the spring time. It’s the time of year for renewal, for new beginnings. And yet we have come here to grieve the ending of a young life, of Yeardley Love’s life, one full of promise and high prospects—and one not unlike yours.

I want to talk tonight about Yeardley Love, and I want to talk about you, and about this community—about us. Some of what I have to say is very hard. Bear with me, and listen.

Read More

Covering the Breast of Goddess Virtue

MoonHowler

 Apparently AG Ken Cuccinelli feels the Goddess Virtue is revealing too much wardrobe malfunction on the Virginia State Seal.  He is now handing out pins with less …errr….cleavage?  It sounds like he has been listening to too many Iranian clerics for his own good. 

Traditional Virginia Seal
Traditional Virginia Seal
Cuccinelli Goddess Virtue
Cuccinelli Goddess Virtue

The Cuccinelli goddess is more modest. Perhaps he is trying to prevent earthquakes like that wacko in the middle east.

 According to Fox News:

Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi angered women’s groups around the world on Monday when he claimed that promiscuous women were responsible for literally making the earth move.

“Many women who do not dress modestly … lead young men astray, corrupt their chastity and spread adultery in society, which (consequently) increases earthquakes,” Sedighi said.

“What can we do to avoid being buried under the rubble?” he asked during a prayer sermon on Friday. “There is no other solution but to take refuge in religion and to adapt our lives to Islam’s moral codes.”

So is Ken is trying to prevent our own Boob-quake here in Virginia with his new pins? Is he like the Taliban or something? The Virginia State Seal has the goddess Virtue vanquishing a tyrant. Sic Semper Tyrannis: Thus always to tryrants. Not that most NORMAL people have ever noticed, but her left breast is slighly exposed, in goddess warrior like fashion–classical art and all.

The Norfolk Pilot states:

When the new design came up at a staff meeting, workers in attendance said Cuccinelli joked that it converts a risqué image into a PG one.

The joke might be on him, said University of Virginia political scientist Larry Sabato.

“When you ask to be ridiculed, it usually happens. And it will happen here, nationally,” he said. “This is classical art, for goodness’ sake.”

It wouldn’t be the first time that Cuccinelli has found himself in a punch line since taking office. The conservative Republican made Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” in March after he advised state colleges and universities they lack the legal authority to protect gay employees from discrimination.

“You can’t be gay in college?” host Jon Stewart asked in mock disbelief. “That’s the whole point of going to college!”

If the jokes start to fly, Cuccinelli can’t say he didn’t see it coming, Sabato said – not after what happened in 2002, when U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ordered drapes installed to cover partially nude statues at the Justice Department. “Ashcroft had one excuse: it hadn’t been done before and he wasn’t prepared for the critical onslaught that he faced,” Sabato said. “Cuccinelli has no excuse at all. He knows what’s coming because of what happened to Ashcroft. You can only conclude that he enjoys being the center of pointless controversy.”

Efforts to reach Cuccinelli on Friday were unsuccessful.

His spokesman, Brian Gottstein, said the pin was paid for by Cuccinelli’s political action committee, not with taxpayer funds. He acknowledged that the attorney general has pointed out Virtus’ “more modest attire,” adding that the rendition chosen by his boss “harkens back to an older version of the seal.”

The Great Seal of the Commonwealth is a two-sided image dates back to the year  1776.

The Code of Virginia stands firmly on its description of the State Seal:

The side depicted on the state flag features Virtus standing victoriously over Tyranny, a male figure prone on the ground in defeat, his crown fallen from his head. Beneath him is the motto Sic Semper Tyrannis: Thus Always to Tyrants.

Click the link for exact wording.
 
Now we know why Taliban Cooch is sending out those beg letters! He needs to buy new pins to hand out with Goddess Virtue fully clothed. He appears to have little regard for Virginia traditions, the Virginia Constitution, and anything past his own sense of misguided morality. Perhaps he is now an ‘earther’ in addition to being a birther. You know, one of those people who think showing breasts causes earthquakes.

When is our AG going to stop with the circus sideshow stuff? He just has too many attention seeking behaviors for most Virginians. Larry Sabato is correct. The Cooch’s behavior is juvenile and distracting from real governance.   Meanwhile, Virginians anxiously await being the butt of yet more jokes on late night comedy.

Huffingtontonpost Coverage

Trust Women/Respect Choice signed into law! Thanks Governor McDonnell

MoonHowler

trust women

Thanks to Governor Bob McDonnell for doing the right thing. He has signed the Trust Women/Respect Choice license plate into law and has maintained the funding for prevention services. $15 for each plate will go towards Planned Parenthood.

The license plate faced a three-month back and forth challenge in the General Assembly. Apparently some of our legislators confused reproductive rights with first amendment rights and tried all sorts of sneaky tricks to stop the stream of money into Planned Parenthood.

Virginia is one of only FOUR states to have a pro-choice license plate, let alone one with a funding stream supporting reproductive health care services.

Hat Tip to Governor McDonnell. Frankly, I am pleasantly surprised. This really was a free speech issue.

The governor can be emailed from the here. I have already emailed him a thank you.