Next week is the all-important Super Tuesday, the single biggest day on the Republican Presidential primary calendar. There will be ten states voting that day: Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Massachusetts, South Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vermont, Virginia.

While everyone was high-fiving the pullback by the Virginia legislature of their trans-vaginal ultrasound bill and happily discussing how conservatives had overreached on social issues, the GOP determinedly made their changes and passed a mandatory ultrasound bill that contains several provisions humiliating to women and may become the GOP’s model for other states.

The Republican Party has decided to run on a platform of sticking a speculum inside of women, but every time people find out about it, the GOP backs off. In Virginia, the trans-vaginal ultrasound bill was changed to a trans-abdominal ultrasound. The State Senate passed over a chance to vote on that bill yesterday, but may take it up today. In Alabama, the outrage over a trans-vaginal ultrasound bill didn’t even last 24 hours before the bill sponsor agreed to changes.

And now for something I didn’t think in January I would have reason to update: the abortion bills across the country which mandate that the women receive an ultrasound before getting the legal medical procedure. Virginia gave up, for now, forcing transvaginal ultrasounds, but continued with still medically unnecessary and invasive procedures designed to shame and humiliate women. And many other states are doing the same.

Ho, ho, ho — now that’s activism, friends. Virginia Delegate Dave Albo (R-42) describes how his wife denied sex with him after the vaginal ultrasound bill was discussed on The Rachel Maddow Show.

The bill in Virginia requiring all abortion seekers get a mandatory ultrasound is now in peril, after the right-wing Senator who introduced the trans-vaginal ultrasound requirement rebelled against changes asked for by Governor Bob McDonnell.

Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell is now in full retreat mode on that bill mandating that women seeking an abortion in the state must get a trans-vaginal ultrasound (colloquially known as “state rape”) beforehand. We saw hints of this earlier today from a spokesman. But McDonnell has now put out his own statement, asking for amendments to the bill that would modify the ultrasound from trans-vaginal to trans-abdominal

After the all-male panel on birth control in the House Oversight Committee last week (wait, I’m supposed to be fair and say that the SECOND panel of the day had a couple women on it), plenty of people joked on Twitter about an all-female panel on Viagra. House Democrats aren’t doing that, but they are giving their star witness from the Oversight Committee panel, the one Darrell Issa didn’t allow to testify, a chance to speak.

Dayen’s news roundup from Tuesday, February 21, noting stories about the Greek settlement and its pain, the AG-bank settlement and its holes and carve outs, the Supreme Court, unemployment, contraception, Virginia’s vaginal saga, marriage equality, and much more.

The Virginia abortion bill, which would mandate that the women seeking an abortion get a trans-vaginal ultrasound – a forcible assault at the very least – before having the procedure, has received entirely too much notoriety for the tastes of conservative lawmakers in the state. Today, as Laura Conaway reports, protesters held a silent demonstration outside the Virginia legislature, which was enough for them to delay the vote on the measure.