Wednesday, June 26, 2013

What the Fuck Just Happened in Texas: TL;DR Edition.

You may have noticed that the interwebs have been blowing up over the past 24 hours or so with stuff about the Texas Senate and hashtags like #standwithwendy. Amidst all the tweeting and tumbling, I've noticed that there have been a few people who have no idea what's going on, probably because they couldn't seem to find anything about it on the news. I know that a lot of people don't have the time to wade through hundreds of posts on multiple sites  to piece together the whole story, so I've compiled a quick tl;dr guide to get you up to speed. You're welcome.

So, it basically started when Governor Dick Perry called a special legislative session and gave them last-minute instructions to pass an anti-abortion bill that would shut down all but five clinics in a state that's close to 800 miles across in both directions.

Here's what the bill looked like:


So Senator Wendy Davis announced that she intended to filibuster:


They told her that meant that she had to speak—without stopping—for 13 hours, and couldn't sit, lean, eat, take a drink of water, go to the bathroom, or stray from the topic:


She was eventually told to sit down after 11 hours because talking about sonograms (which are required to have an abortion in Texas) wasn't "germane to the discussion":


Every major news outlet while all this was happening:


Except CNN, who were all:

MUFFINS!
Then Senator Van De Putte called out the President of the Senate for ignoring parliamentary procedure and refusing to recognize her because he was trying to force the vote and didn't want to:

"At what point must a female senator raise her hand or her voice to be recognized over her male colleagues?"
The President impotently tried to quiet the cheering crowd after that burn:


But the entire gallery was like:


They tried to vote on it anyway:


The vote was too late to be legal, so they tried to change the journal to say it happened before midnight:

Just kidding. Those assholes aren't nearly cool enough to be the Doctor.
But the entire Internet already had screenshots:


So they had to concede:


The End.

P.S. I'm sorry for all of this.


13 comments:

Ericamos said...

haha PERFECT explanation!! :)

Mandi said...

That was the most beautiful thing I've ever read/watched. Well played, sir.

snark said...

Aw, thanks!

lindseytownsend said...

Brilliant and spot on!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the chuckles in this otherwise GOP sham.

Amber said...

This is perfect. Except now you have to add something about Dick Perry calling a secondary session. Oh, and Wendy apparently not "learning her lesson" from being a teen mother. God, he makes me ashamed to be a Texan.

Doyu Shonin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Doyu Shonin said...

Stand AGAIN with Wendy. All the way to the Governor's mansion.

Annie Sisk said...

Just the most awesomest of awesome things I've seen today - including the boot-and-kilt-wearing flaming-bagpipes player's take on AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" - and THAT was EPIC.

Claudia said...

Thanks from a Texas woman for this bit of humor for a truly draconian issue.

Unknown said...

Robert Downey Jr. in drag. Their argument is thus invalid.

Karen said...

Thanks for breaking it all down in such an entertainingly wonderful way. Ending with Downey in drag is always epic.

Anonymous said...

wow, we are still second class citizens, thanks for the very creative e enactment of this fancy political footwork ...love it

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