Women\'s Issues

The Michigan Messenger’s Todd Heywood reports:
While the state is coming down from its second temporary shut down in two years, ever increasing unemployment and unresolved budget issues, Michigan House Republicans this week introduced legislation to amend the state constitution to define life as beginning at fertilization.
The resolution to amend the constitution was introduced by Democratic [...]

Does the conservative Minnesota Republican congresswoman now support abortion rights? How else can one read the following statement, made earlier today Tuesday on Sean Hannity’s radio program? From TPM’s Eric Kleefeld:
“That’s why people need to continue to go to the town halls, continue to melt the phone lines of their liberal members of Congress,” said [...]

From Washington Post columnist Kathleen Parker comes this simple but not-much-discussed observation: Empathy is not, as some seem to think, a scourge peculiar to Hispanic females. Indeed, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) is as empathetic as Sonia Sotomayor, Parker appropriately pointed out yesterday, the only distinction being that their empathies rest with different folks.
Senators also hammered [...]

For a comedian-turned-politician with no formal legal training, the newest senator and Judiciary Committee member, Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) asked Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor some of the most complex but elucidating questions about Supreme Court cases we’ve heard yet. After bonding with Sotomayor over their mutual love of the Perry Mason show as kids, [...]

Earlier today I talked to Jill Stanek, an anti-abortion rights activist who hounded Barack Obama over his vote against Illinois’s Born Alive Infant Protection Act, about the possibility of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin stepping out as a pro-life advocate after she leaves the governor’s office.
“It would be exciting if Sarah Palin were to decide to [...]

The National Organization for Women nominates David Letterman for a slot in its “Hall of Shame” for his joke about the governor of Alaska’s daughter getting “knocked up” at a Yankees game.
After two nights of “jokes” at the expense of Palin and her family, Letterman tried to explain himself and offer something of an apology. [...]

Despite delivering on his promise of wings and Guinness, Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry failed to draw a crowd to his news conference at the National Press Club today about, among other things, the recent murder of Kansas abortion provider Dr. George Tiller. Terry repeated his previous statements regarding Tiller’s culpability for “child-killing,” but added [...]

Former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted on Fox News’ “Hannity” that maybe Sotomayor herself isn’t a racist. Still, he insisted, her statements are.
“In my newsletter I went a step too far in saying that she is a racist because I don’t know her and there’s no evidence [of racism] in her court decisions,” Gingrich [...]

Avid observers of the circus surrounding Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court may be interested to know that her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee’s questionnaire were completed in record time and are now available here on the Judiciary Committee’s Website — all 172 pages of them.
My own quick perusal hasn’t revealed anything [...]

How is it possible that the FBI was told repeatedly just days before the murder of Dr. George Tiller that Scott Roeder, now the leading suspect, had repeatedly broken federal law by vandalizing the women’s health clinic where Tiller worked, including gluing the locks of the clinic, and the FBI did nothing about it?
Meanwhile, if [...]