Tag Archives: birth control

Lt. Governor Matt Birk? We Need to Know a Lot More

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Former Minnesota State Senator Scott Jensen (R-Chaska) announced who he believes is the second most qualified Minnesotan, after him, to run Minnesota’s state government during very challenging times.  Jensen picked — fake gjallarhorn, please! — the Minnesota Vikings’ former Center Matt Birk. 

A celebrity! Intriguing! Fresh!

An all-white male ticket! That has got to be first for Republicans, right?

Predictably, the Birk announcement got a lot of uncritical news coverage in Minnesota, particularly from local TV and radio newsrooms.  These are some of the same jock sniffers who spend roughly one-third of most news broadcasts building up local athletes as heroes.

And who knows, the Birk stunt just might work, politically speaking.  After all, this is a state that “shocked the world” and elected an outlandish and churlish former fake wrestler, and then was shocked when he turned out to be an outlandish and churlish fake Governor.

To be fair, Birk is certainly no Ventura. The Saint Paul native is Harvard educated, and not clownish like Ventura . He’s also done a lot of admirable charitable work in the community. On many levels, I admire him.

But he’s applying to be Governor, and he is largely an unknown quantity on policy issues. So maybe the local media should pump the breaks just a bit on the Birk bandwagon. You know, like maybe ask him a few questions about his actual plans and positions? 

Reasons for Skepticism

Here’s a few reasons why skepticism is warranted:

He’s an Extremist Abortion Banner.  One of the few Birk policy positions we know about is that he supports overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion during the first trimester of pregnancy.  Birk feels so strongly about this that he refused to join his Baltimore Ravens teammates in being honored at the White House, because Birk would have had to stand in proximity with then-President Barack Obama, who opposes overturning Roe.  

Citizen Birk obviously had every right to express that opinion. But he is now applying to be Lieutenant Governor for all of Minnesota, and this position puts him at odds with the a huge majority of the people he seeks to represent. Surveys show that two-thirds (67%) of Minnesotans oppose overturning Roe. 

At a time when it looks likely that the court is about to overturn Roe and start allowing state governments to take away women’s abortion rights, Birk’s refusal to listen to two-thirds of his constituents on this timely issue is a particularly big deal.

He’s an Extremist Marriage Equality Banner.  Abortion isn’t the only issue where Birk is out of step with a majority of Minnesotans. In 2012, he very actively campaigned in favor of the Minnesota Marriage Amendment that would have changed the Minnesota constitution to specifically prohibit marriage equality for same-sex couples. 

Once again, Birk is on the right wing fringe, ignoring the opinions of two-thirds of his would-be constituents. A 2018 poll shows 67 percent of Minnesotans support same sex marriage. 

Birk’s positions on abortion rights and marriage equality would seem to portend how he would come down on other socially conservative changes being pushed by the far-right, such as book banning and “don’t say gay” laws.

He’s Unqualified for the Job. Then there’s the small matter of qualifications. Birk currently has as much directly relevant experience to be a heartbeat away from the top position in state government as current Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan has to be a professional football player.  

After electing a wealthy celebrity with no governing experience President blew up in the nation’s face, maybe we should be a little more cautious about hiring someone who has never done any actual state governance to lead a very complex $48.5 billion per biennium endeavor. How many times do we have to make this same mistake?

He’s Hitched His Wagon to a Extremist Quack.  Even if you like Birk as a player, philanthropist, and sports analyst, and I do, you should learn a little more about his running mate Scott Jensen before signing up to be a Jensen-Birk supporter.  

For instance, the non-partisan fact-checking organization Politifact cited Jensen as a major source of its 2020 “Lie of the Year 2020 about coronavirus downplaying and denial. This is arguably the most lethal political lie of our times, and Jensen played a very prominent and destructive role spreading it. 

Jensen also joined U.S. Capitol insurrectionist Simone Gold and others in suing the federal government to prevent children from receiving COVID-19 vaccines.

But apparently none of this bothered Birk.

COVID denial and anti-vax messaging earned Jensen a lot of love on Fox News and other far-right outlets, but now he is trying to win a plurality of votes in Minnesota, a state with the second highest rate or boosted residents, and where about three-fourths (74%) of voting age residents rejected Jensen’s ignorant, irresponsible medical quackery and got themselves vaccinated.

What We Don’t Know

Beyond the handful of issues cited here, Minnesotans have no idea where Birk stands on a whole host of other important issues. 

Paid family and medical leave?  Public funding for free birth control, which is proven to dramatically reduce unplanned pregnancies and abortions?  Giving Minnesotans the option to buy into MinnesotCare?  Prayer in public schools? Which religion’s prayer? Taxpayers subsidizing billionaire sports team owners’ stadiums?  Making the wealthiest 1% of Minnesotans, which includes Birk, pay higher taxes to fund education improvements?  Accepting Obamacare funding for Medicare expansion in Minnesota? Maintaining the MNsure Obamacare insurance exchange? “Don’t say gay” laws to punish teachers who mention gay people in school? Allowing parents to ban books from school libraries? 

In addition, the state where a majority (52.4%) of 2020 voters rejected Trump should know whether Birk voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020, and whether he plans to vote for the insurrection inciter in 2024.  We also must know whether Birk supports the Big Lie that Trump didn’t lose the 2020 election.

I’m very interested to know the answers to these questions. Is Birk Trumpy enough to win far-right primary votes, but too Trumpy to win swing voters in the general election? Or will Birk expose himself to be insufficiently Trumpy, and subsequently be a “kiss of death” for Jensen in the primaries, where Trump loyalists are dominant and demand total obedience.

To be clear, I deeply respect the man’s ability to calmly read a defense with another man’s hands nestled firmly in his buttocks. Skol!

But maybe Minnesotans deserve to know more about Matt Birk than that.

Gimme a “V’: How to reduce the number of abortions to almost zero

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Guest post by Noel Holston

Every year, more than 500,000 men in the United States undergo a minor surgery to block sperm from mingling with the semen they ejaculate from their penises. As you probably know, even if you’ve not had one, the procedure is called vasectomy. 

A vasectomy doesn’t affect a man’s ability to get an erection or to ejaculate. He still produces seminal fluid; there just aren’t any squiggly-wiggly swimmers in it. The body absorbs the sperm produced by the testes so, in slang terms, a guy fire blanks.

According to the American Urological Association, a vasectomy prevents pregnancy better than any other method of birth control (except, of course, abstaining from sex).  Only 1 to 2 women out of 1,000 will get pregnant in the year after their partners have had a vasectomy.

Ponder that statistic as I sketch out a modest suggestion for reducing the number of abortions in our country to near zero, a goal espoused by both pro-choice and anti-abortion advocates.

Almost all vasectomies can be reversed. That being the case, what if we required all males, upon turning 18, the age at which they can vote, to undergo vasectomies?

Once their tubes – they’re called the “vas,” by the way – are snipped and tied and their negative sperm counts have been confirmed, they can resume whatever sex lives they had before the surgery. They’ll still be wise to take precautions, such as condoms, to reduce their chances of spreading or contracting sexually transmitted diseases.

If a man subsequently decides he wants to be the father a child and is intimately acquainted with a woman who wants to be the mother – or if a woman requests a man to make her pregnant – they can apply for a license to reproduce and complete a contract that establishes the responsibilities they expect from each other over the course of the first 18 years of whatever child they bring into the world.

The would-be father will then undergo a vasectomy reversal which, because the healing typically takes 1 to 3 weeks, imposes a de facto waiting period during which he, the would-be mother, or both can have a change of heart.

Unwanted pregnancies under this system would be nearly nonexistent, and abortion, while it would still be available under the same Roe v. Wade terms as now, would be an option seldom exercised.

Downsides?

Well, the mandatory part does violate privacy rights (though not as much as the state commandeering a pregnant woman’s body for nine months). If vasectomy could settle one of our most polarizing issues, isn’t it worth putting to a vote? If the initiative failed, we could always go the voluntary route, backed by a clever advertising campaign and incentives — free football tickets, craft beer, perhaps even cash. It wouldn’t be quite as effective, but it would still improve on the status quo.

No doubt there would be those who would argue that mass vasectomy will increase promiscuity. Perhaps, but recent studies indicate that Americans are engaging in sex less frequently than in the past, when it was more of a taboo and birth control was less accessible and effective. That worry seems moot.

That leaves male fear, which is just plain silly. I had this procedure decades ago. It was a temporary inconvenience. I’ve had no problems and no regrets.

The “V” sign has long stood for victory. Let’s give it another meaning. Let’s win one for the snipper.

Note: Noel Holston is a freelance writer who lives in Athens, Georgia. He’s a contributing essayist to Medium.com, TVWorthWatching.com, and other websites. He previously wrote about television and radio at Newsday (200-2005) and, as a crosstown counterpart to the Pioneer Press’s Brian Lambert, at the Star Tribune  (1986-2000).  He’s the author of “Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery,” which is scheduled for publication fall of 2019 by Skyhorse.

Reality Check Needed In GOP Debate Venues

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GOP_debate_audience_-_Google_SearchIf I were a political party chair, I would make one simple adjustment to make my party more competitive. I would only allow general election swing voters to attend candidate debates.

In general elections, history tells us that the Republican nominee is going to win most Republican voters and lose most Democratic voters. Therefore, their fate is usually going to be determined by their relative ability to attract the roughly one-third of the electorate who are undecided and/or don’t have predictable partisan voting patterns.

If only these type of “swing voters” were sitting in the audience of the debates, candidates would get the kind of reality check that they just don’t get when speaking at partisan debates, rallies, fundraisers, and interest group endorsement interviews.

For instance, when billionaire Donald Trump demeans women, Hispanics, immigrants, and other large voting blocks, he wouldn’t hear the roar of approval he hears from his loyal supporters. He would hear the groans of a broader group of Americans, 59% of whom now have an unfavorable opinion of Mr. Trump, by far the worst of all Republican candidates.

When Dr. Ben Carson says the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the worst thing since slavery, he wouldn’t be rewarded with the hoots and hollers he gets at gatherings of extreme conservatives. Instead, he would hear disapproval from Independent voters, a plurality of whom want the ACA either maintained or expanded (only 30% want it repealed).

When Senator Marco Rubio brags about his legislation opposing Affordable Care Act funding of birth control, he won’t hear the “amens” he gets at gatherings of his anti-abortion supporters.   He’ll hear boos from the 69% of Americans, and 77% of women, who support that ACA birth control benefit.

When Jeb Bush describes his predictable plan to further cut taxes for the wealthiest Americans, he won’t get the cheers he gets from the GOP establishment. He’ll hear boos from the 66% of Independent voters who want to increase income taxes on people earning over $250,000 per year.

When Senator Ted Cruz, Senator Rick Santorum, Governor Bobby Jindal and Dr. Carson all tout their support for a constitutional amendment banning same sex couples from getting married, an audience of swing voters would not react nearly as positively as conservative audiences do.   After all, a solid majority (61%) of Independents now favor same sex marriages.

To save their party, Republican candidates desperately need a reality check to prevent them from taking extreme positions that sell well with extreme right wing activists, but harm them in general elections, when they need to win a majority of middle-of-the-road voters. Removing the conservative hallelujah chorus from presidential debate audiences would be one good way to begin to inject such a reality check.