Smart Bitches Trashy Books | All of the romance, none of the bullshit.

The Bitchery inbox, it is a busy place. Candy and I received an email asking us to give our readers a heads up regarding the campaign of Theresa Spry, who is running as a Democrat against incumbent state Senator Bill Napoli.

Remember Bill Napoli? Yeah, the “rape is real only if it’s hella rape” dude.

Ms. Spry is a member of the Oglala Lakota Nation and has an absolute monster list of qualifications and experience that would make her an excellent addition to the state senate of South Dakota. Plus there’s that issue of Bill Napoli’s description of who might be “entitled” to an abortion:

There is one more reason this race is so very important. My opponent, incumbent Senator Bill Napoli, is a leader of the extremist faction of the legislature that this year gave us HB 1215. The controversial abortion bill that is so extreme that thousands of people strongly opposed it. You may recall Senator Napoli’s defense of that bill on National Television. When asked why there were no exceptions for rape, incest or to save the life of the mother, Senator Napoli invented one. He said: “a real-life description to me would be a rape victim, brutally raped, savaged. The girl is a virgin. She is religious. She planned on saving her virginity until she was married. She was brutalized and raped, sodomized as bad as you can possibly make it and is impregnated. I mean that girl could be so messed up, physically and psychologically, that carrying the child could very well threaten her life”

In this case, Senator Napoli “reasoned” that the woman would be entitled to obtain an abortion. Apparently he has never actually read the bill. No one else who has read it can find this exception.

My Campaign has before it the task of informing thoughtful men and women in this district about Mr. Napoli’s extremist views, of which this dreadful misogyny is but one example. To make it very clear that he simply does NOT represent the voters of
District 35. 

Candy and I, despite not being anywhere close to South Dakota, want to make every effort to help Ms. Spry in her efforts to unseat Bill Napoli. I’ve created a fundraising site through ActBlue: Smart Bitches for Theresa Spry. Creating this site will enable Ms. Spry’s campaign to know that donations are coming through our site, and will enable us to know how much we’ve raised. Political donations are capped in South Dakota at $250.00US, so that means any amount is helpful.

Please note: due to regulations surrounding political donations, your donation will be logged under your legal name and will be public record at various sites.

There’s been some commentary recently as to whether this is a political site or a romance novel site. I want to be clear: this is a specific example of an issue we both feel strongly about, and our response to Napoli, by whose actions we were horrified. We’re not turning into Smart Bitches-Daily Kos, and we fully recognize that readers who come to our site for news and dish on romance novels come from all positions on the political spectrum. We respect your views, and we respect even more our collective ability to disagree and discuss our positions with respect and candor - something that has been sorely lacking in most online and televised political debate.

We are not demanding that you donate; if this isn’t an issue that speaks to you, we completely understand. But we wanted to make it as easy and collaborative an effort as possible, hence our campaign site at ActBlue.

(And here Candy pipes up like a smart-ass to say: C’mon. You know you want to help do your part in napoling Napoli.)

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