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For Immediate Release
July, 09 2013, 02:23pm EDT
Contact:
Email: media@reproductivefreedomforall.org
NARAL Pro-Choice America and North Carolina on Popular Opposition to Anti-Choice Bill HB695
Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue and NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina Executive Director Suzanne Buckley were on-the-ground in North Carolina to oppose anti-choice bill HB695 and are available to comment on the referral of the legislation to the House for a concurrence vote.
NARAL Pro-Choice America released the following remarks as prepared from President Ilyse Hogue's address to a rally of concerned North Carolina voters this morning opposing the legislation:
WASHINGTON
Today, NARAL Pro-Choice America President Ilyse Hogue and NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina Executive Director Suzanne Buckley were on-the-ground in North Carolina to oppose anti-choice bill HB695 and are available to comment on the referral of the legislation to the House for a concurrence vote.
NARAL Pro-Choice America released the following remarks as prepared from President Ilyse Hogue's address to a rally of concerned North Carolina voters this morning opposing the legislation:
"North Carolina is not alone. In too many states, politicians are carrying the water for a radical minority who think they know how to live our lives better than we do. And these folks believe the ends justify the means. They don't care if women get hurt, if children are lied to, and they certainly don't care if politicians skirt due process, the laws of our land, to get their way.
"Are these North Carolina values? Are these American values? Inserting politicians into our private medical decisions? Shutting down the clinics we depend on? Turning doctors into criminals? Forcing teachers to lie to students about abortion?
"I'm guessing that parents here in North Carolina teach their kids the difference between right and wrong, just like my parents did in Texas. And I bet one of the first lessons you learned, just like I did, was that cheaters never win."
For her full remarks as prepared for the rally today, click here. Please note that these remarks may have been modified for delivery.
NARAL Pro-Choice North Carolina released the following excerpt from testimony as submitted to the House Health and Human Services Committee by Executive Director Suzanne Buckley:
"House Bill 695 is out of touch with the more than three-quarters of North Carolinians who believe lawmakers have no place in a woman's personal, private reproductive health care decisions. The vast majority of North Carolinians want the legislature to focus on jobs, the economy, education, and access to health care, not stripping away women's reproductive choices, decimating civil rights and attacking the poor."
North Carolina's HB695 includes a package of bills that threatens to close all but one clinic in the state. It includes measures that would: require abortion providers to undergo unnecessary building renovations designed solely to put them out of business, criminalize doctors who provide abortion care to intimidate them out of offering care at all, and prohibit insurers from offering policies that cover abortions - even if the insured pays entirely with their own funds or if the woman's health is in danger.
View NARAL's campaign to hold Governor McCrory to his word: SheDecidesNC.org
Read NARAL's statement on HB695.
To speak to Ilyse Hogue or Suzanne Buckley, please contact Christina DiPasquale at 202.716.1953 or Christina@fitzgibbonmedia.com.
For over 50 years, Reproductive Freedom for All (formerly NARAL Pro-Choice America) has fought to protect and advance reproductive freedom at the federal and state levels—including access to abortion care, birth control, pregnancy and post-partum care, and paid family leave—for everybody. Reproductive Freedom for All is powered by its more than 4 million members from every state and congressional district in the country, representing the 8 in 10 Americans who support legal abortion.
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Texas AG Paxton Files 'Baseless' Lawsuit to Unseat 13 Democratic State Lawmakers
"This seat doesn't belong to him or me—it belongs to the people," one targeted legislator defiantly declared.
Aug 08, 2025
Republican Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton on Friday sued former Congressman Beto O'Rourke and his political action committee in what critics called a "baseless" bid to oust 13 Democratic lawmakers who left the state in an effort to thwart a GOP gerrymandering scheme.
Paxton's office claimed that O'Rourke, a Democrat, and his Powered by People PAC illegally solicited donations to cover personal expenses for Democratic state legislators who fled Texas in an effort to block a Republican plan to rig the state's congressional map at the behest of President Donald Trump.
Paxton is seeking a temporary restraining order and an injunction to stop O'Rourke and Powered by People from raising or distributing funds to support the more than 50 Democratic lawmakers who left Texas. The attorney general argued that 13 state legislative seats "have been vacated due to continued unlawful absences."
"Democrat runaways are likely accepting Beto Bribes to underwrite their jet-setting sideshow in far-flung places and misleadingly raising political funds to pay for personal expenses," Paxton alleged in a statement. "This out-of-state, cowardly cabal is abandoning their constitutional duties. I will not allow failed political has-beens to buy off Texas elected officials."
This, after Paxton and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows (R-83) asked an Illinois court to enforce civil arrest warrants issued Monday in a bid to compel Democratic state legislators to return to Austin to vote on the legislation. U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) also enlisted the FBI's assistance to track down and arrest the absconding Democrats.
O'Rourke said Friday that Powered by People filed a retaliatory lawsuit accusing Paxton of using "the power of the state of Texas to try and intimidate Mr. O'Rourke from challenging defendant in a free and fair election."
"The guy impeached for bribery is going after the folks trying to stop the theft of five congressional seats," O'Rourke told KVUE. "Let's stop these thugs before they steal our country."
Targeted Democratic lawmakers also waxed defiant, backed by officials in the states to which they fled including Illinois, where Gov. JB Pritzer asserted that "there literally is no federal law applicable to this situation."
Texas state Rep. James Talarico (D-50) said on social media that "Ken Paxton just filed a lawsuit to remove me from office. But this seat doesn't belong to him or me—it belongs to the people."
Advocacy groups also denounced Paxton's lawsuit, with Brett Edkins, managing director of policy and political affairs at Stand Up America, contending that the attorney general and Texas Republicans "are so desperate to pass their partisan redistricting scheme that they're launching a baseless legal assault to unseat democratically elected lawmakers."
"It's just the latest threat against lawmakers who refuse to carry out Trump's demands and rig congressional maps to bank five new Republican congressional districts," Edkins added. "The courts shouldn't entertain this undemocratic attack for even one second."
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'The Clown Show Continues': Billy Long Out at IRS, But Probe to Persist
Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden said that "my investigators have obtained alarming information pertaining to Long's conduct at the IRS that we have begun to investigate."
Aug 08, 2025
Less than two months after U.S. Senate Republicans confirmed Billy Long as head of the Internal Revenue Service, the scandal-plagued commissioner confirmed on Friday that he is leaving the IRS to serve as President Donald Trump's ambassador to Iceland.
U.S. Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—who opposed Long's IRS nomination with the rest of the chamber's Democrats—pledged in a Friday statement that a probe of the outgoing commissioner will continue.
"From the minute Trump announced Billy Long as his IRS pick it was obvious this would end badly, but every Senate Republican voted to confirm his nomination anyway," said Wyden. "He didn't even last two months on the job. Let's not forget that there wasn't a vacancy at the time Trump announced Long's nomination. Danny Werfel, a skilled leader with fans among Democrats and Republicans, had years left on his term."
The senator pointed out that "in just a handful of months, Trump and his crew have already gutted taxpayer service, weaponized IRS data against innocent taxpayers, and set us up for disaster when next year's filing season comes around. This is what Trump does—pick incompetent, unserious people for serious jobs, and sit back as the damage piles up."
"Billy Long left Congress a few years ago and went straight into the tax fraud industry, his only real experience in tax before his nomination," he added. "My investigators have obtained alarming information pertaining to Long's conduct at the IRS that we have begun to investigate, and that process will continue regardless of whether Trump stashes Long away in some foreign embassy."
The ouster was initially reported by The New York Times, which noted that "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent will serve as acting commissioner until a permanent replacement takes office," according to a senior Trump administration official.
Long then confirmed the development on his personal social media account, saying that "it is a honor to serve my friend President Trump and I am excited to take on my new role as the ambassador to Iceland. I am thrilled to answer his call to service and deeply committed to advancing his bold agenda. Exciting times ahead!"
He later added a joke about Immigration and Customs Enforcement: "I saw where former Superman actor Dean Cain says he's joining ICE so I got all fired up and thought I'd do the same. So I called Donald Trump last night and told him I wanted to join ICE and I guess he thought I said Iceland? Oh well."
A spokesperson for Bessent's department, which includes the IRS, said in a statement: "Treasury thanks Commissioner Long for his commitment to public service and the American people. His zeal and enthusiasm to bring a fresh perspective to the federal government was evident in both the House of Representatives and as part of the Trump administration. A new candidate for commissioner will be announced at the appropriate time."
Long previously represented Missouri in the U.S. House, where Ways and Means Committee Ranking Member Richard Neal (D-Mass.) responded to the IRS commissioner's exit with a statement blasting Trump.
"We don't even need more details on Trump's latest scuttle to know how damaging his presidency has been for the IRS," Neal said. "With nearly a new commissioner each month and weakened customer service from his mass firings, the rampant instability comes at the expense of all who rely on it. One thing is for sure: Secretary Bessent should focus on his own job before collecting more responsibility."
Several critics, including Neal, highlighted that Long was preceded by several IRS leaders this year. As retired Adm. Mike Franken, a former Democratic U.S. Senate candidate from Iowa, put it on social media: "IRS Commissioner Billy Long is removed, the sixth change this year, by the guy who only hires 'the very best people.' The clown show continues."
Long's firing prompted widespread speculation that he was leaving the IRS because he refused to comply with an order from the president. Journalist Josh Marshall wondered, "How bad did the ask have to be for a Trumpy sleazebag like Billy Long to say no?"
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In Swipe at UK, Huckabee Cites Allied Bombing of Dresden to Defend Israel's Gaza Genocide
"Justifying today's atrocities by pointing to yesterday's doesn't make it moral," said one critic. "It makes it monstrous."
Aug 08, 2025
Amid growing international condemnation of Israel's annihilation and starvation of Gaza—including from staunch ally Britain—U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee on Friday attempted to defend the genocidal assault on Gaza by invoking one of the most notorious Allied atrocities of World War II.
Appearing on Fox News' "Fox & Friends," Huckabee singled out the United Kingdom after Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticized Israel's U.S.-backed plan to fully occupy Gaza and ethnically cleanse approximately 1 million Palestinians from parts of the embattled coastal enclave.
"They never get credit for the things they do to try to prevent civilian loss of life," Huckabee said of Israel, whose 22-month assault and siege of Gaza has left at least 226,600 Palestinians dead, wounded, or missing amid loosened rules of engagement effectively allowing an unlimited number of civilians to be killed while targeting a single Hamas member, no matter how low-ranking.
Mike Huckabee on genocide accusations against Israel: "Just remember Dresden. Over 25,000 civilians were killed in that bombing alone, and it wasn't food that the British were sending in to Germany."
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) August 8, 2025 at 5:23 AM
"You have got the Brits out there complaining about humanitarian aid and the fact that they don't like the way Israel is prosecuting the war," Huckabee continued. "I would remind the British to go back and look at their own history. At the end of World War II they weren't dropping food into Germany, they were dropping massive bombs. Just remember Dresden—over 25,000 civilians were killed in that bombing alone."
U.S. and British warplanes indiscriminately bombed Dresden with munitions including 4,000-pound "blockbusters" and incendiary explosives over two days in February 1945. The heat generated by the inferno melted human flesh, turning many victims into piles of goop. Men, women, children; the sick and the elderly; refugees and Allied prisoners of war—even the animals in the city zoo—were incinerated together.
Acclaimed author Kurt Vonnegut—an American POW imprisoned in Dresden at the time, whose seminal novel Slaughterhouse-Five was inspired by the firebombing—later described the attack as "carnage unfathomable." After viewing images of the bombing, then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill asked: "Are we beasts? Are we taking this too far?"
As the old adage posits, "history is written by the victors," and no Allied officials were ever held accountable for atrocities committed against their Axis enemies. However, after the war, the Nuremberg trials, Fourth Geneva Convention, and Genocide Convention sought to ensure that horrors like Nazi and Japanese war crimes and what the British described as the "terror bombing" of Germany never happened again.
Huckabee's comments drew stinging rebuke on social media.
"So Mike Huckabee's defense of mass civilian death is... referencing more mass civilian death?" one U.S. military veteran said on X.
"Justifying today's atrocities by pointing to yesterday's doesn't make it moral. It makes it monstrous," he added. "In fact, the lesson of Dresden should be never again, not 'do it again.' But here we have a U.S. diplomat cosplaying a foreign country's mouthpiece for atrocities."
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