Tag Archives: Independence

Samantha Bee grills Texas legislator on abortion in hilarious, cringe-worthy clip

Samantha Bee grills Texas legislator on abortion in hilarious, cringe-worthy clip

By on 2 Mar 2016 4:54 pmcommentsShare

Happy Texas Independence Day! Seems like the perfect time to celebrate all things Lone Star: chili con queso, Willie Nelson, and limiting women’s access to reproductive health care.

In advance of this oh-so-important holiday, Samantha Bee spoke with Texas state Rep. Dan Flynn (R) on Monday’s Full Frontal, the only late night satirical show hosted by a woman — and, coincidentally, the only late night show in which the host doesn’t get a desk.

Rep. Flynn is the co-author of HB2, the 2013 bill that closed nearly half of Texas’ abortion clinics and whose constitutionality is currently being debated in the Supreme Court. The bill required abortion clinics to perform cost-prohibitive upgrades to meet the standards of ambulatory care centers, which have, among other pretty arbitrary requirements: wide corridors, janitors’ closets of a specified size, separate locker rooms for men and women, and white walls. None of these standards are required for DIY abortions, by the way, which desperate Texan women are increasingly resorting to as their access to actual clinics is heavily limited. 

It should come as a surprise to no one that Rep. Flynn doesn’t actually know anything about abortion other than the fact that he is against it. But rather than be honest about his opposition to abortion, Rep. Flynn and his cohort claim HB2 is all about preserving women’s health. “We’re not removing access to health care,” Flynn told Samantha Bee. “We’re improving it.” Because the real threat to women isn’t a lack of access to abortion, it’s lavender walls at the doctor’s office.

If the Supreme Court upholds or fails to rule on HB2, the second-largest state in the Union will be left with only 10 abortion clinics. Already, some women in the state must drive hundreds of miles to find a clinic — which often means they simply never go. And that’s exactly the point, as HB2 co-author Rep. Jason Isaac (R-Texas) told NPR:

“Hopefully,” Isaac said, “they’ll be more preventative and not get pregnant.” Women who live far from a clinic should realize, he said, that, “Hey, that might still be an option legally, but now I live 300 miles away from the nearest place — I should probably be more careful.”

Enjoy your independence, Texas — just kidding! You’re still, unfortunately, part of the United States. And as for women’s rights, well, you just don’t have a whole lot to celebrate.

For more on the connections between reproductive rights and the environment, watch this Grist classic:

Share

Please

enable JavaScript

to view the comments.

Find this article interesting?

Donate now to support our work.Climate on the Mind

A Grist Special Series

Get Grist in your inbox

Read this article:

Samantha Bee grills Texas legislator on abortion in hilarious, cringe-worthy clip

Posted in Anchor, FF, GE, Jason, LAI, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Samantha Bee grills Texas legislator on abortion in hilarious, cringe-worthy clip

New York City Is Not the Bohemia You May Think It Is

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>

Greenwich Village, 1917:

On a cold winter’s night in January 1917, socialist artists mounted to the top of Washington Arch and strung up some balloons. Gertrude Drick then read aloud the document she and Ellis had prepared, declaring the secession of Greenwich Village from the America of big business and small minds. They called on President Wilson to extend protection to their domain as one of the small nations, the “Free and Independent Republic of Washington Square.”

“Declaration of Independence of the Greenwich Republic” John Sloan Manuscript Collection, Delaware Art Museum.

Greenwich Village, 2015:

Capital One Opening Coffee-Shop-Meets-Bank Concept on Union Square

View original – 

New York City Is Not the Bohemia You May Think It Is

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New York City Is Not the Bohemia You May Think It Is

Video: A Drone Shoots Hauntingly Beautiful Footage of Buffalo’s Snowstorm

Mother Jones

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC “-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN” “http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/loose.dtd”>
James Grimaldi/YouTube

Flying personal camera-equipped drones directly over big events like the Hong Kong protests and Independence Day fireworks is becoming commonplace. Now come these amazing aerial images of Buffalo, New York, besieged by snow for the third day in a row. The Buffalo area was coated with up to six feet of snow on Wednesday and there’s been even more today. The eighth storm-related death was annouced this morning.

When the storm first set in, James Grimaldi of West Seneca, New York, sent his drone into the blizzard to film a bizarre world drained of color, and uploaded the stunning results to his YouTube channel. (Grimaldi has also posted his drone videos to his CNN’s iReport page.)

Grimaldi’s second-day video reveals the vast extent of the snow, the result of a massive “lake-effect snowfall event“. The houses now look like giant mushrooms:

And finally, posted today, a new storm bearing down on Grimaldi’s suburb:

This weekend’s forecasted rain won’t help recovery efforts. “We’re going to have a lot of water running off quickly,” the Weather Channel’s Wayne Verno told NBC News. “We’ll more than likely see some flooding.”

This article: 

Video: A Drone Shoots Hauntingly Beautiful Footage of Buffalo’s Snowstorm

Posted in alo, Anchor, FF, GE, LG, ONA, Radius, Uncategorized, Venta | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Video: A Drone Shoots Hauntingly Beautiful Footage of Buffalo’s Snowstorm

Power From the Wind: Achieving Energy Independence

[amzn_product_post]

Posted in New Society Publishers | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Power From the Wind: Achieving Energy Independence

Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America

[amzn_product_post]

Posted in Penguin Books | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America