Iowa GOP Targeting Everything Except Fetuses And The NRA

Guest post from Ruth Thompson

The “Running with Scissors Administration” is striking fear in the hearts of everyone but fetuses and the NRA.

In Iowa, so far this session we’ve seen our Republican friends introducing a bill that if passed would force people who file suit and lose to pay the legal fees of the party they filed suit against. The same week they dropped a bill that would allow a woman who sought and got an abortion to sue the physician who performed the abortion, if she feels any emotional distress or regret for the procedure at any time in her life, with no statute of limitations or statute of repose.

Fertilized eggs are persons, they can sue their doctors, there should be strict rules about how they should be disposed of should they not make it down the chute, contraception, other than condoms is murder on fertilized eggs – shall I go on? Nah, we get that they love zygotes, but educating living, breathing children – meh.

So far they’ve gutted funding for education, stripped teachers of collective bargaining rights and are now demanding that there be an almost equal balance between registered Democrat and Republican faculty in Iowa universities. Someone better tell Senator Chelgren that his degree from Sizzler U doesn’t qualify him to teach at University of Iowa and seriously, where on earth are we going to find that many Republicans with honest-to-goodness PhDs? Buckle up, buttercups, we are just rounding first funnel (tomorrow). I can’t wait to see them sliding into home!

Everything we’ve seen from them indicates that they lack the good judgement to avoid pissing on their own shoes when they visit the strictly-gender-enforced restroom. They’ve attacked voting rights, Planned Parenthood, public sector workers, minimum wage workers, Des Moines Waterworks, LGBTQ protections, education, and yes, even paper bags. Apparently the only thing they don’t hate this session (besides cold hard cash from the Koch brothers) is guns.

They love guns so much that they want us to be able not only stand our ground with them, but tote them on school campuses and libraries – anywhere but the Capitol. And considering how much harm they’ve done in the few short weeks they’ve had the majority, you don’t have to think very hard about why they’d be restricted at the Statehouse.

Only three short days ago, Senator Rob Hogg gave us the heads up on a “dirty dozen” bad bills and encouraged us to call/write our representatives, show up at the Capitol and generally raise hell about. But never call them slackers – the GOP majority have introduced HSB 169 which takes away worker’s compensation or reduces benefits for injured workers and HSB 163 to do away with bottle deposits and HSB 133 requiring us to turn our neighbors in for not being properly documented and requiring local police to do the work of ICE agents.

Some of this stuff will pass. Some of it won’t. We can only be sure of a few things this session: shenanigans, hatefulness and nonsense will likely prevail and another election cycle will begin in a year. Right now we need to be holding every member of the general assembly accountable, giving credit to those who deserve it and heaping shame on those who deserve it and holding on to the energy and anger we feel right now all the way through 2018. Continue to show up and get loud. Identify and support candidates who support your values. Don’t let a single republican go uncontested in a single race. Come on Democrats, Independents, Progressives, Pink Pussies, Bernie Bros and Betties, Clintonistas or whatever you’re calling yourselves these days – RESIST and keep resisting!!!!

by Ruth Thompson
Posted 3/2/17