After getting their asses kicked in an election, most political parties take stock and modify their message to appeal to a broader range of the electorate. And that's sort of what the GOP is doing right now. Instead of whipping up white nationalist hysteria over a nonexistent ...read more
Republicans are desperate. Trump is as unpopular as he's ever been, he just surrendered unconditionally to Nancy Pelosi after a disastrous and unnecessary 35 day government shutdown of his own creation, and he's threatening to do again but this time with the promise of crashing ...read more
Nowhere is the war on women more visible than in the actions of anti-choice politicians and activists who are wasting millions of dollars in their quest to overturn Roe v. Wade. The latest attack on women’s rights comes from Ohio, where 20 House Republicans signed on to a ...read more
Republican lawmakers in Arizona put forth Senate Bill 1394 that seeks to require more information about why a woman is getting an abortion. There are 11 proposed check boxes for women to look over and decide what best suits their decision to end their pregnancy. Reasons include: ...read more
On Friday, March for Life organizers gathered in Washington to spread their anti-abortion messages, filled with alternative facts and incorrect findings, with the aim to shame women and take away our control of our own uteruses. President Donald Trump was there, making him the ...read more
The Banter Long Read: Earlier this week, the White House signaled its support for a bill that would criminalize all abortions after the 20th week of pregnancy... To continue reading this article, please go here. You'll get unrestricted access to all our member's content, and your ...read more
Yesterday Congressman Tim Murphy, Representative for Pennsylvania’s 18th district, resigned amidst a scandal after it was revealed he’d impregnated his mistress and then pressured her to get an abortion. While opponents were quick to point out the hypocrisy of the “Family ...read more
On Tuesday, the House passed a bill that would criminalize all abortions that occur after the 20th week of pregnancy. And today, President Trump signaled that he'd sign the bill if it makes it through the Senate and lands on his desk. But of course this is a matter of science, ...read more
Updated (Friday): Wonders never cease. You really have to stand in awe of the huge brass balls on lawmakers in Oklahoma. In a move sure to get them put over a judge's knee and spanked until they can't sit for a year, they just passed a measure that would effectively ban abortion ...read more
Over the weekend, misshapen demagogue Ted Cruz responded to a question regarding his one-time support for banning the sale of dildos, vibrators and artificial vaginas in his home state of Texas. When asked whether he'd move to ban retail sales of sex toys if elected president, ...read more
Earlier this week, we covered the story of Missouri Republican Kurt Schaefer, the chairman of the state legislature's "Sanctity of Life Committee." As you might recall, Schaefer wants all Missouri abortion clinics, especially Planned Parenthood locations, to provide for his ...read more
It seems like months ago when Donald Trump accidentally let it slip that women who have illegal abortions should be punished somehow. In reality, it's only been two weeks since Trump said what most anti-choice conservatives have secretly known all along -- that if abortion is ...read more
Sorry, science, you lose again. According to former Florida Governor and current Republican presidential no-hopeful Jeb Bush, that thing Carly Fiorina swears she saw wriggling on a Planned Parenthood table isn't actually a fetus. That's what he told CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday ...read more
Yes, when the facts don't work in your favor, by all means just bury the evidence. Republican governor and hairless Middle-earth cave-dweller Rick Scott was so thoroughly butthurt to discover that state investigators failed to find any wrongdoing on behalf of Planned Parenthood ...read more
As the media shakes off its collective hangover from the political nerd equivalent of a Toga Party, the headlines about Thursday night's GOP debate have followed some predictable trajectories. Donald Trump was the big winner (unless you're a butthurt Republican Party shill), and ...read more
Earlier this week, Bobby Jindal chose to block all Medicaid funds from going to Louisiana Planned Parenthood facilities even though none of the Planned Parenthood locations in his state provide abortion services. In other words, he's simply blocking Medicaid recipients from ...read more
As we've reported numerous times here, in the absence of actually being able to repeal Roe v Wade, the Republicans have been systematically attempting to make it as difficult as possible to have a safe and legal abortion. Rather than banning it, state legislatures have decided ...read more
Sarah Palin has attached herself to the latest non-scandal drummed up by Republican hacks with a serious vengeance. Not only has Palin been vocally calling for the complete destruction of Planned Parenthood, she is now sharing monstrously offensive and racist photos on facebook ...read more
While Republican leaders and the conservative media continue to try to capitalize on the fraudulent video "sting" showing a Planned Parenthood official discussing fetal tissue donation over a salad, the rest of the world is apparently unimpressed with the entire spectacle. The ...read more
You might've seen a hidden video circulating social media purporting to show a Planned Parenthood official describing how the organization sells body parts from aborted fetuses. The official goes on to describe in detail how abortions are performed in order to preserve the ...read more
A couple of days ago, Fox News Contributor and member of the network's "Medical A-Team" Dr. Keith Ablow expressed his belief that men should be able to veto women's abortions. Here he is discussing an unfortunate case regarding a recently split celebrity couple who are arguing ...read more
Photo by David McNew/Getty Images On Monday, we discussed how Pastor Robert Jeffress said that legal same-sex marriage would lead to legal polygamy, legal child marriages and the End Times. Question: if same-sex marriage will lead to the End Times, does it really matter what ...read more
A prosecutor and jury in Indiana decided that 33-year-old Purvi Patel didn't simply have a still-born miscarriage. Instead, they charged that Patel induced labor and left the approximately 25-week fetus to die in a dumpster, and so she became the first American to be convicted ...read more
There were a couple of news stories this weekend that really fleshed out the contours of the culture war on abortion rights in completely different, yet related, ways. First, there was West Virginia State Delegate Brian Kurcaba, who became nationally famous for saying that ...read more
To hear the mainstream media tell it, Republicans were thwarted in their efforts to pass an anti-abortion bill that contained an odious rape and incest exception by women in the House Republican caucus who found the measure too extreme. This is even the story being told by ...read more
We all remember former Rep. Todd Akin, the Missouri Republican who coined the phrase "legitimate rape" and spotted Democrats a huge gender gap during the 2012 election, followed by a soul-searching "autopsy report" and GOP candidate workshops on how to talk to the ladies, right? ...read more
One of the lowest forms of human life -- short of criminal kind -- are the anti-abortion protesters who not only think it's acceptable to harass patients as they enter women's health clinics, but consider it their moral duty. Contrary to what they believe, the most powerful ...read more
It's hard to write anything about the complexities of the abortion debate without first offering a disclaimer or at the very least a declaration of intent. The entire subject is such a third rail within our politics and culture that it often seems as if there's no other opinion ...read more
The conundrum for the fetal personhood movement has been whether to define abortion as murder, carrying with it all of the penalties that go along with committing murder. Nation Review contributor Kevin D. Williamson appears to have locked down what the consequences should be ...read more
President Obama's nomination of Judge Michael Boggs for a lifetime appointment to a federal District Court has been a source of fierce opposition from progressive Democrats, who scored a victory this week by effectively killing the nod in the Senate Judiciary Committee. ...read more
Gov. Rick Perry (R-Oops) sank to a new low, both intellectually and morally, when he tried to rob Joan Rivers' grave to pimp his anti-abortion law. During a Q&A session at the Texas Tribune Festival, Perry was asked why he had supported and signed Texas HB2, a measure that ...read more
Imagine the geyser of insanity that would erupt if gun control activists began to actively track gun owners and dealers via their license plates. Well, it appears as if anti-choice, anti-abortion activists are doing exactly that to so-called "abortionists." Actually, "stalk" is ...read more
Among the manyreactions to the Supreme Court's Hobby Lobby decision, which granted women's bosses the power to deny them the access to contraception that the law says they're entitled to as part of their earned benefits, none were as clever or hilarious as that of Jasmine Shea. ...read more
The problem with an apology that's demanded is that it's an apology that's insincere. If the world is coming down on top of you and people are calling for your head and insisting that you agree to an act of contrition to make amends for your sins, by its very nature that act ...read more
151 years ago today, the Army of the Potomac under the command of Major General George Meade, narrowly thwarted total annihilation at the hands of Robert E. Lee and his First Corp commander, James Longstreet, in the hills outside a small Pennsylvania town called Gettysburg. If ...read more
If you jumped into your time-traveling DeLorean, set the flux-capacitor to 1993, and traveled back in time to ask former President Bill Clinton about the scope of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which he signed that year, it's doubtful he'd agree that neither this ...read more
It's been fascinating over the past 24 hours watching people react with confusion to the Supreme Court's ruling in the Hobby Lobby birth control case. This isn't because what the high court did was completely predictable, but because so many out there seem baffled that a ruling ...read more
The Supreme Court decision in Burwell v Hobby Lobby Stores continues to confound me. It's difficult to get beyond the basic dumbness of the conservative justices who utterly failed to recognize that the Affordable Care Act absolutely does not mandate that corporations buy ...read more
We turn now to the Pope-is-Catholic and Water-is-Wet file to learn that Karl Rove lied on Fox News Channel today (shocking, I know), repeating that the Affordable Care Act covers abortion-inducing morning after pills. It doesn't. Today on Fox News Channel: "It was not about ...read more
We've covered this several times already, but even otherwise smart liberals who support the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) continue to get this one wrong. The ACA (Obamacare) does not cover any contraception that prevents implantation of a fertilized egg ...read more
Thursday was the one-year anniversary of Texas state Sen. Wendy Davis’ famous filibuster against the enactment of abortion restrictions in the state. While the 11-hour protest made her a national darling of the Democratic Party, you won’t find language about abortion anywhere on ...read more
Hey! Did you know that the majority of Catholics ignore the teachings of their own church when it comes to their sex lives? As shocking as it is that people would have such little regard for the sage sexual wisdom of a group of single old celibate men in funny hats, it's true. ...read more
You might be excused for missing the start of this year's National Right to Life Convention, which ironically aims to deny women the right to do with their lives -- and bodies -- as they please. One of the speakers at this anti-choice hoedown in Louisville, Ky. is pastor Joy ...read more
As The Daily Banter's Michael Luciano reported earlier today, the Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision Thursday on a Massachusetts case involving the constitutionality of protest buffer zones around abortion clinics. Simply put, clinics and municipalities can no longer ...read more
On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in McCullen v. Coakley that a Massachusetts law creating a 35-foot "buffer zone" around the entrance to reproductive health clinics is unconstitutional. While the ruling is a resounding victory for free speech, it's also a victory ...read more
Singer Toni Braxton is getting a lot of attention for her new book, Unbreak My Heart, and not all of it is good. The R&B mainstay and reality TV star has become something of a star among anti-abortion conservatives, and a subject of ire among autism advocates, over ...read more
Yesterday, we learned that Hobby Lobby, which is challenging the federal government over Obamacare's mandatory contraception coverage, offers its employees a 401(k) retirement plan that happens to invest $73 million in pharmaceutical companies that develop and produce various ...read more
The Supreme Court heard arguments in the dual Obamacare contraceptive cases, Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. and Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius yesterday, and the upshot is that prospects are looking rather grim for the government's case. As we've discussed ...read more
Virginia State Senator Steve Martin, an anti-choice Republican, received a pro-choice Valentine's Day card from an activist group and decided to rant about it on Facebook. Here's the choice paragraph in which he refers to expecting mothers as "hosts." "You can count on me to ...read more
It seems obvious, doesn't it? Contraception, and easy access to it, prevents unintended pregnancies and, therefore, abortions. So why is it that the anti-choice movement is also opposed to women having access to free contraception via the Obamacare health insurance plans -- I ...read more