Sen. Tim Johnson is planning on holding a press conference tomorrow:
(Reuters) – Senate Banking Committee Chairman Tim Johnson, a South Dakota Democrat, does not plan to run for re-election when his current term ends in 2014, sources close to the matter and key Capitol Hill staffers said on Monday.
His son could end up running for the seat, as could Former Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin who lost in 2010.
Overall, 35 of the 100 Senate seats are up for election in 2014, of which 21 are now held by Democrats and 14 are held by Republicans. The Republicans need a net gain of six seats to take control of the chamber.
Gulp. We cannot afford to lose the Senate.
MSNBC’s Krystal Ball had this reaction on the Twitter Machine:
Here are the next two from Rachel Maddow who clearly and urgently delineates the War on Women in states that are doing away with women’s ability to access reproductive health services.
Sure, Roe v. Wade is still around, and women have a constitutional right to an abortion, but that doesn’t mean conservatives in several states aren’t making that nearly impossible, and defunct, by requiring clinics to do things clinics just cannot do.
Please watch all the segments we’ve made available in both posts. This is about as disturbing as it gets for women’s rights as “illegal, violent, threatening behavior” and obstacles to medical programs continue under the protection of state laws. Harassing and intimidating easy female targets, hostility and scare tactics aimed at physicians and other personnel, are all working, although they are being bravely resisted and outmaneuvered when possible.
Clinics are closing, health services are disappearing, and women are being deprived of care as well as their rights.
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For a very long time now, the GOP has divided America with their self-righteous insistence on legislating religion, their own beliefs, and illogical reliance on what they feel is moral superiority. But their “us vs. them”, our-way-only attitude is destructive, no matter how they label it.
The War on Women, the GOP’s hypocritical intrusive government overreach, under the guise of “our morals are better than your morals”, “our god is more valid than your god (or lack thereof)” have become so invasive, so prevalent, that thankfully, more and more (badly needed) commentary is making its way out there, including by Rachel Maddow (on a regular basis).
But over the last 30 years or so, something has happened to reshape the country’s moral geography. Everyone knows about the rise of Moral Majority-style Christian evangelicals as a potent force in right-wing politics. It injected a certain aggressive moralism into our political discourse and led to campaigns against abortion rights, homosexual rights, sexual freedom and other issues perceived as and then framed as moral matters. As a result, our politics became “moralized”; they were transformed into a contest of one set of values pitted against another. [...]
One can see this division in something as simple as the denigration of the term “liberal,” the “L” word, with its attendant idea that to be compassionate, caring and tolerant — virtues that had been celebrated, if only via lip service, by most Americans — is really to be mush-minded, weak and, more concretely, willing to give taxpayer largesse to the undeserving and lazy. (This was essentially the argument that some Republicans, such as former Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.), used when they sought to deny an extension of unemployment benefits. [...]
If compassion is seen as softness, tolerance as a kind of promiscuity, community as a leech on individuals and fairness as another word for scheming, we are a harder nation than we used to be, and arguably a less moral one as well.In undergoing a revolution for the nation’s soul, we may have found ourselves losing it.
And who is suffering as a result? The poor, the middle class, women, minorities, LGBT groups, unions, children, disenfranchised voters… which means, of course, Democrats.
As I watched this segment of The Rachel Maddow Show last night, I felt my blood pressure go through the ceiling. I also experienced that all too familiar sinking feeling of helplessness as Rachel detailed how a woman’s constitutional right to choose and right to privacy are slipping away.
Abortion is legal. Abortion is a gut-wrenching, personal decision that should be between a woman, her doctor, and anyone else she decides should be included.
To watch state after state destroy those rights is shocking. To witness those rights being stomped on because of differing beliefs– beliefs– is alarming. Forcing one’s own morals upon others is not the job of lawmakers, nor is telling women what to do with their body, or their time, for that matter.
And finally, to observe the sheer and utter hypocrisy of politicians who rail against “big government” as they use it as a tool to negatively affect the health, and the very lives, of women– to wage a war on women– that is immoral.
As always, Rachel Maddow puts it all into perspective for us. Watch and weep:
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