Sam Alito to women: You are not without electoral and political power.
Women to Sam Alito: We heard you, bitch.
Although I’m happy with the results in Ohio, I agree with Roy the fact we’re not seeing more conservative hand-wringing about getting these heathens onboard the Forced Birth bandwagon is itself an ominous sign. It’s further indication they regard the days of persuasion as dead, and are working towards the day when persuasion is no longer necessary because they will be able to implement their policies without the consent of the governed.
Sure, in the main it's bipartisan, but this business of declaring "we'll do this whether you want it or not" out loud kind of elevates the Republican version, as does the thinking behind it.
Who knew that Shelby County vs. Holder would have this sort of downstream effect?
(Well, everybody that knew that a Republican Court and Republican Congress would try to curtail voting rights in multiple ways and for multiple reasons but I digress. . .)
Explicit or implicit, it’s been a disaster for the nation.
That said, making it explicit might help to let’s say decades of GOP efforts to lock in their domination. Then again, that’s always the risk with overreaching…
Absolutely. Trump is leading the charge. He pledges to transform America's governing philosophy from an (imperfect) iteration of a democracy to a "my way or the highway" autocracy.
Ha ha, I remember when I got dragged by some conservative blog for commenting that some GOP guy seemed to be complaining that all these elections were a burden. Now it's more and more "perhaps the public shouldn't be allowed to choose if they're irresponsible with their choice".
It’s like in Our Fair State: you pass referenda to legalize cannabis and combat public corruption, and the state ruling party just ignores it or tables it indefinitely. But that doesn’t mean you quit trying. Keep at it, and eventually you win, and younger voters who are invested in the fight aren’t willing to cede ground when they get older and have a chance to run things.
I guess he’s the least worst, of all the really bad options of available dotards, in what’s left of chaos caucus.
Bottom line: CNN needs an imbecile to decipher all the nonsensical, hare brained ideas his fellow travelers and imbecilic cohorts have been spewing...:)
Yes, anything, everything that gets him out of the house and thereby get a break from staining the place with Santorum dripping— oh, I can’t believe that I said even that.
"Why oh why is Rick Santorum still being consulted on anything?"
Here, lemme bothsides this thing for just a sec: MSNBC had Tim Ryan on for post-election analysis and helpful advice on what Biden should do to win. Tim was available because he lost the Ohio Senate race to JD Vance and now has nothing but time on his hands. Just like Claire McCaskill is available to offer helpful how-to-win advice because she lost her own race for re-election. See a pattern here?
McCaskill’s race might not have been winnable that year, but as you note… SHE LOST! Despite being as “centrist” as the physical laws of the universe allow! However, despite that, centrist strategy can never fail, so anybody suggesting otherwise needs to ShutUpShutUpShutUp.
They even had Joe Crowley on once. Now, maybe Joe has some interesting ideas about some things, but as usual, the question was "How Democrats can win." The person who sent Joe into an early retirement wasn't available for comment.
Ah yes, the "we're a republic, not a democracy" canard. Which while disingenuous, is at least closer to reflecting what conservatives are trying to accomplish: disenfranchise and gerrymander so the elected "representatives" reflect conservative policies rather than the will of the majority.
This morning Olbermann quoted The Rules of the Game, the classic French film many considered to be the best film ever made. Certainly top five. Here, Roy quotes Citizen Kane, another top five classic. I got to say, I approve of my choice of media.
This is such a cash cow. I'm sure when Dobbs passed ,most of the hierarchy in the anti-abortion industry wondered"What the hell? Why would they go and do something like that?" And I think if they were to be honest about it, The last thing any of the street level zealots want is illegal abortions. Whatever would they do with their Saturday mornings?
Same with the gun lobby. If your state has a law setting the minimum age for a hunting license at 8 years old, they've got a bill to lower it to 6. And if it's already 6...
There ALWAYS has to be some thing they haven't got yet, no matter how much they've already got. You can imagine the worried strategy sessions right before the legislative session starts: "Shit, what can we ask for this year? Is there anything left?"
Madison has a bunch of high-priced steakhouses ringing the Capitol square that all make a nice profit off the red-meat cravings of Republican legislators and gun lobbyists. Think of all the restaurant workers thrown out of their jobs if we got rid of our gun laws too quickly!
Conservatives believe teenagers can't be allowed to transition because their brains are still growing and they barely can assemble a coherent thought, but will buy an assault rifle for their 8 year old because they "need to learn responsibility".
Wisconsin is a benighted state, thanks to Scot Walker and gerrymandering, surrounded by more enlightened states. Watching the residents of Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois enjoy the blessings of liberty is making her citizens more and more dissatisfied with poor job prospects, declining public school and university quality, horrendous racism and 19th century reproductive laws. Slowly, the light is dawning in their Cheesehead brains that it is not unions, eggheads and Blacks that are depriving them of their neighbors’ advantages but the Republicans they foolishly put in charge, thinking they would be protected from the threat of scary change. They got the change they didn’t bargain for and they’re starting to get restive. Should the newly liberal state Supreme Court reverse the gerrymandering and restore reproductive rights, it may tip the the scales enough to start the process of rebuilding a progressive state its citizens can be proud of.
Or, the children will grow up and move away to Madison or out of state, leaving their elders to wonder where it all went wrong.
Agreed! Religious fanatics cannot be reasoned with; they are as much ruthless as they are relentless.
If they can’t achieve their goals through the front door, then they will never stop trying to achieve them through the back door; like electing a charlatan who owes his political allegiance to the Federalist Society; installing forced birthed, non-elected judges to do their bidding.
Did anyone watch Last Week Tonight on Sunday, with John Oliver?
Two ideas have come to mind by pro-choice activists.
One: offer abortion services on a ship sailing in international waters off the Gulf of Mexico to all the Confederacy of Dunces; I mean Confederate states.
Two: start a religion which offers abortion services. One group created Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic: an online clinic that provides religious medication abortion care. The clinic provides abortion medication via mail to those in New Mexico who wish to perform The Satanic Temple's Religious Abortion Ritual.
All we need to do is be creative and out think these buffoons. It’s not like these people are geniuses; more like a relentless bunch of keystone cops with lots of money and too much time on their hands.
I see that my (Ohio's) Junior Senator has decided after this election, that clearly direct democracy doesn't work and abortion must go to the Federal Level because.........
I've also heard that the Congressional Republicans want to punish the entire country until Ohio comes to it's senses and gets rid of abortion (and apparently birth control, since that was also protected by issue 1) Very Old Testiment.
They really can't help themselves. Telling people they are sociopaths who want to murder their own children is, unsurprisingly, not effective messaging. Telling people "sure, you can abort that fetus now, but wait until you're burning in a lake of fire in Hell, then we'll see who has the last laugh" is not effective messaging. But they Just. Can't. Help. Themselves.
I've seen a few of them react to Tuesday with "We lost because nobody's out there making the case for saving the babies." Bless their hearts, some vestigial interest in actually persuading people instead of just bending us to their will through the power of Christian Sharia Law. Do your best boys, I look forward to seeing what you got.
No, really! They just forgot to explain, in simple terms that even lady-brains could understand, why the whorish brood-sows should be forced to carry to term. Well, that's my language, I'm sure they could put it better if they only tried.
I saw something like this already. Sure being a mom is hard, but if women only gave it a chance, they'd realize it's the best thing ever. So we'll do them a favor by MAKING them give it a chance.
Conservatives are losing because they are ignoring the case for acknowledgement of the women. They believe if a woman has a tiny bit of extra genetic material in her uterus, she stops being a person and turns into a Gestational Carrier. Normies see this argument for what it is -- erasure of full personhood and the right to autonomy for half the population -- and vote accordingly.
Sure, sex is great, but have you tried trampling on the rights of half the citizens in your country because you are in a fertility cult that relishes control over others' lives? What a rush!
Yeah JayDee Vance asserting that unplanned pregnancies result in “social scorn” was despicable. As though no person/couple has ever had an unplanned pregnancy and was just treated normally. I know it was a TV show, but how about Rachel on Friends? If it brought universal scorn, they never could’ve used that storyline!
Well i made a comment, about the Brethren's love of imaginary "innocent " preborn life (as opposed to real, messy, inconvenient babies, and the sinful sluts who should be forced to have'em) and the hollowness of JDVance suggesting "pro life" policies for those who need material help, after decades of GOP attacks on just such policies: and somehow, trying a minor edit, hid it. Grrr.
It's amusing watching clowns like Vance bloviating on the idea that Republicans would support a bunch of social programs to help people with kids. Uh, have you met your party JD?
Hey, here's an idea, how about a monthly fully-refundable tax credit, say, $300 per child? I'm sure the Republicans would all get behind that, wouldn't they? Look, it's even got "tax credit" in its name, just like what you give to the oil & gas industry!
Right? Or maybe expand SNAP to cover more people? How about expand Medicaid? No, well I'm sure they'll come up with something. Probably jail time for selling contraceptives.
Speaking of Ohio's Junior Senator, there was a copy of Hillbilly Elegy in one of the Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, the house also has a yard sign that says "Not Voting is the #1 Cause of Unwanted Presidencies" [cartoon of Trump in a diaper.]
And I think I can pinpoint the EXACT moment when they bought that book: November 2016, when were all still reeling and looking for any explanation for what the fuck just happened, and JD Vance had a standing invite to the NPR microphone. Just look at how far JD has come since then.
"Currently, laws protecting all preborn children..."
Man, that term -- unborn children -- chilling.
And -- a little ironically -- a perversion of language. (Speaking of perversions of language, it's not actually pro-abortion, it's pro-choice. Abortion is only part of it.)
Anyway, my foolishly hopeful side.
I'm aware of the concept that there's a huge bloc of voters happy to vote for choice even while electing and reelecting opponents of same. So choice's W's wouldn't change that but Beshear's win, the VA lege wins, to a lesser degree the weed win in OH suggests that just maybe enough voters have sussed out the idea that the GOP is thoroughly repulsive.
Not to say, though, that I can't be wrong. I much prefer underestimating the American voter...
Back in the early days of the Christofascist project, 1985 or thereabouts, I actually went to a Christian bookstore and bought a tome by Tim LaHaye about "the war for the mind" or some such. Wish I still had it - I seem to recall I made margin notes... Anyhoo, at one point LaHaye is yacketing about the absurdity of the idea of "pre-banning books", asserting it's just as ridiculous as "pre-boarding" a flight. And that's what I think of when I see this "pre-born child" dumbassery.
Only thing that changed in the Magnolia state is the flag, and that's only because it was so much the Confederate Battle Flag (AKA the Hickenkreuz) to be a national embarrassment.
I was working in the marketing department for a large hotel. There were probably 20 of us in the department altogether. A couple of managers, five or six sales staff and their admin crew, some general administration personnel and me. I did all the writing for everybody. They were all stupid and it really showed when they tried to write something.
One of the clerks was this mousey lady of indeterminate age with thin brown hair and a large prominent mole on her forehead. Just about dead center. On Friday afternoons as we cleaned up our desk and shut down for the weekend we would all discuss our weekend plans. We were all taking our kids to get the pumpkins or going for a bike ride with our spouses or driving to Southwest Ohio to look at the leaves. I don't know if anybody ever asked mousey lady about her weekend plans but she always volunteered she was going to go " Save the Babies"I.e.
go down to the clinic with the people from her church and horribly harass women that already have enough problems without the harassment bullshit.
Save the babies. Her eyes lit up when she said that.
I've often thought the fantasy of being the heroic Player One who valiantly fights against the forces of evil in their own mental video games is the mentality motivating many clinic protesters. Scoring extra points with God at each level, etc. -- praying the rosary gets you one point, leafleting two, screaming at the women earns you more, getting arrested advances you to the next level, lol.
That miserable lady might have been the happiest person I ever met. The whole anti -abortion thing really hit for her. She's probably still around (old and evil is more of a rule than an exception)
When I was much younger and single I lived in an apartment complex with occasional weeknight bbq get togethers. There was a couple slightly older than me who would attend, except the husband would have some conversations with those in the vicinity and the wife spent also all the time doing and redoing her fingernails and eye makeup and looking at the people and her husband with disinterest or distain. Most of us were single and spent time flirting with each other . I would ask some couples what was up with those two, but just got shrugs. Husband was never far enough away to have much conversation.
The only time she came to life by bringing up a concerning story - - She had heard that some man had lured a little girl in K-mart into a dressing room and put boys clothing on her and walked the disguised child out of the store. Wanted to know if anyone knew about that. Someone told her that probably wasn't a true story and the woman went back to her nails.
They've got quite a bag of tricks, and in Ohio they tried 'em all: "Summarizing" the ballot initiative with language out of a Chick Tract, purging thousands of voters from the rolls shortly before the election, and let's not forget "Every ballot initiative shall need 60% except for this one, which needs only 50."
But in the end, it's like the Wizard of Oz, just an old white guy with a bag of tricks and an amplifier to make his voice louder. Sometimes the tricks work, sometimes that pesky lil' dog pulls back the curtain.
I remember when Scott Walker got Voter ID enacted in Wisconsin, Republicans were ecstatic, Democrats were despondent, but we all worked harder on voter education and outreach and it hasn't been the game-changer the Republicans were expecting.
Interesting to click through and re-read the assertions by David Freedom that women wouldn't be prosecuted for abortion, given the state of Idaho has not only arrested a case of traitors slinking off to Oregon to do their foul deed, but wrote the charges specifically to keep prosecuting even if their law is overturned.
And the red states have certainly come through with pre-natal care for women they're forcing to carry to term, huh?
FIGHT EVERY ELECTION. Make the bastards defend every micron of territory and spend all their money. A few of those races will break though and we can send in more soldiers to follow!
One of the right-wing responses I've seen is to point out that Republicans were seriously out-spent in Ohio, in the Kentucky Governor's race, in the Virginia legislative races. You'd think, since they've got most of the world's billionaires on their team, this wouldn't be a problem, but it turns out the billionaires can be pretty stingy.
What is this, evidence of learning? The voters have been pretty damn clear they're not goin' for that sore-loser shit, are Republicans actually getting the message? Ha ha ha, had you goin' there for a second, didn't I?
Yep, this is of a piece in the greater trajectory of the Republican Party since, oh, 1963, when the force of Righteous Anger made Goldwater the nominee. It's literally a Crusade to Save America from Itself. Every insane policy has justifications (not arguments, they gave up on those decades ago) invoking Freedom, Life, Decency, and the Pursuit of the appropriate kinds of Happiness, because they need to motivate themselves, not us. The reason they Will. Not. Stop. is because their passion dovetails neatly with the Republican Party's growing desire to jettison representative democracy to hold onto power. They need each other to fulfill their respective dreams, and as Dr. Hunter S. Thompson prophesied years ago, when the going gets Weird the Weird turn Pro. It's gonna get really, really Weird for as long as the Republican Party exists as a going concern. Without the Party behind them the lunatics are just little old ladies in tennis shoes. Putting Trump in a SuperMax changes nothing about the forces he stumbled into running a grift in 2015, because without the Party as it is constituted now he's RFK Jr.
Gosh, I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "weird", are you saying it's not a totally normal thing to have a "porn partner" who monitors your internet usage? Or an adopted adult son just 10 years younger than yourself?
Sam Alito to women: You are not without electoral and political power.
Women to Sam Alito: We heard you, bitch.
Although I’m happy with the results in Ohio, I agree with Roy the fact we’re not seeing more conservative hand-wringing about getting these heathens onboard the Forced Birth bandwagon is itself an ominous sign. It’s further indication they regard the days of persuasion as dead, and are working towards the day when persuasion is no longer necessary because they will be able to implement their policies without the consent of the governed.
Ignoring the will of the majority has been a bipartisan thing for quite awhile.
Likewise, of course conservatives don't see the pro-choice votes as a war lost but just a battle lost in a continuing war.
Sure, in the main it's bipartisan, but this business of declaring "we'll do this whether you want it or not" out loud kind of elevates the Republican version, as does the thinking behind it.
Who knew that Shelby County vs. Holder would have this sort of downstream effect?
(Well, everybody that knew that a Republican Court and Republican Congress would try to curtail voting rights in multiple ways and for multiple reasons but I digress. . .)
Explicit or implicit, it’s been a disaster for the nation.
That said, making it explicit might help to let’s say decades of GOP efforts to lock in their domination. Then again, that’s always the risk with overreaching…
Any wonder why they're all-in on Trump '24? He's promising to end democracy. That's an explicit part of his campaign.
Absolutely. Trump is leading the charge. He pledges to transform America's governing philosophy from an (imperfect) iteration of a democracy to a "my way or the highway" autocracy.
"It's so much easier in a dictatorship. Especially if I'm the dictator"
George W. Bush
The painter guy? Who throws out first pitches at ballgames?
Ha ha, I remember when I got dragged by some conservative blog for commenting that some GOP guy seemed to be complaining that all these elections were a burden. Now it's more and more "perhaps the public shouldn't be allowed to choose if they're irresponsible with their choice".
iTs a rEpuBLic nOt a DEmoCracY!
(If I had strikethrough I’d use it on “republic” and replace it with “autocracy”)
Who knew typography could be so much fun?
Îndeëd!
Gettin' high on yer own supply!
I'll find some reassurance in the fact that he NEVER keeps his promises.
I have noticed that he does not talk about abortion anymore, and if he does, he criticized the extreme positions of the other candidates.
It’s like in Our Fair State: you pass referenda to legalize cannabis and combat public corruption, and the state ruling party just ignores it or tables it indefinitely. But that doesn’t mean you quit trying. Keep at it, and eventually you win, and younger voters who are invested in the fight aren’t willing to cede ground when they get older and have a chance to run things.
Wasn't the marijuana one like worded wrongly according to SCOSD?
Of course. Any technicality to negate it.
As Rick Santorum said, “[P]ure democracies are not the way to run a country.”
Why oh why is Rick Santorum still being consulted on anything?
Consider the consultees.
I guess he’s the least worst, of all the really bad options of available dotards, in what’s left of chaos caucus.
Bottom line: CNN needs an imbecile to decipher all the nonsensical, hare brained ideas his fellow travelers and imbecilic cohorts have been spewing...:)
It was only NewsMax so of no importance.
Just imagine the excitement in the Santorum household when the phone rang.
Yes, anything, everything that gets him out of the house and thereby get a break from staining the place with Santorum dripping— oh, I can’t believe that I said even that.
Sometimes ya gotta say whatcha gotta say...
Encouragement not required.
I stand corrected. CNN has already scraped the bottom of the barrel when they hired Kayleigh McEnany...:)
Bottom of the barrel are the santorum drippings.
Don't get the idea that you gotta KEEP sayin' it...
"Why oh why is Rick Santorum still being consulted on anything?"
Here, lemme bothsides this thing for just a sec: MSNBC had Tim Ryan on for post-election analysis and helpful advice on what Biden should do to win. Tim was available because he lost the Ohio Senate race to JD Vance and now has nothing but time on his hands. Just like Claire McCaskill is available to offer helpful how-to-win advice because she lost her own race for re-election. See a pattern here?
McCaskill’s race might not have been winnable that year, but as you note… SHE LOST! Despite being as “centrist” as the physical laws of the universe allow! However, despite that, centrist strategy can never fail, so anybody suggesting otherwise needs to ShutUpShutUpShutUp.
They even had Joe Crowley on once. Now, maybe Joe has some interesting ideas about some things, but as usual, the question was "How Democrats can win." The person who sent Joe into an early retirement wasn't available for comment.
He’s still frothy!
Ah yes, the "we're a republic, not a democracy" canard. Which while disingenuous, is at least closer to reflecting what conservatives are trying to accomplish: disenfranchise and gerrymander so the elected "representatives" reflect conservative policies rather than the will of the majority.
Easier done than said.
I'm here for the pure, uncut democracy. Let me mainline that shit, oh yeah.
For some reason I envisioned Warren the Ape from “Greg the Bunny” saying that, with a face powdery-white from blow.
This morning Olbermann quoted The Rules of the Game, the classic French film many considered to be the best film ever made. Certainly top five. Here, Roy quotes Citizen Kane, another top five classic. I got to say, I approve of my choice of media.
This is such a cash cow. I'm sure when Dobbs passed ,most of the hierarchy in the anti-abortion industry wondered"What the hell? Why would they go and do something like that?" And I think if they were to be honest about it, The last thing any of the street level zealots want is illegal abortions. Whatever would they do with their Saturday mornings?
What was "The Rules of the Game" quote?
Octave : The awful thing about life is this: Everybody has their reasons.
Lotta money to be raked in promising something that's juuuuuuuuuussssssst around the corner.
Same with the gun lobby. If your state has a law setting the minimum age for a hunting license at 8 years old, they've got a bill to lower it to 6. And if it's already 6...
There ALWAYS has to be some thing they haven't got yet, no matter how much they've already got. You can imagine the worried strategy sessions right before the legislative session starts: "Shit, what can we ask for this year? Is there anything left?"
Madison has a bunch of high-priced steakhouses ringing the Capitol square that all make a nice profit off the red-meat cravings of Republican legislators and gun lobbyists. Think of all the restaurant workers thrown out of their jobs if we got rid of our gun laws too quickly!
Last time I checked, one of them (with some farm-to-table pretensions) had the name of "Graft."
Honest Graft's Steaks and Chops
I seen my ribeye and I took it.
2 marks!
Conservatives believe teenagers can't be allowed to transition because their brains are still growing and they barely can assemble a coherent thought, but will buy an assault rifle for their 8 year old because they "need to learn responsibility".
You're making one of your "points", aren't you?
Wisconsin is a benighted state, thanks to Scot Walker and gerrymandering, surrounded by more enlightened states. Watching the residents of Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois enjoy the blessings of liberty is making her citizens more and more dissatisfied with poor job prospects, declining public school and university quality, horrendous racism and 19th century reproductive laws. Slowly, the light is dawning in their Cheesehead brains that it is not unions, eggheads and Blacks that are depriving them of their neighbors’ advantages but the Republicans they foolishly put in charge, thinking they would be protected from the threat of scary change. They got the change they didn’t bargain for and they’re starting to get restive. Should the newly liberal state Supreme Court reverse the gerrymandering and restore reproductive rights, it may tip the the scales enough to start the process of rebuilding a progressive state its citizens can be proud of.
Or, the children will grow up and move away to Madison or out of state, leaving their elders to wonder where it all went wrong.
Oh, and fuck Charlie Sykes.
Thanks for this, these days I'll take all the optimism I can get.
Hey, Wisconsin can just take example from Idaho and arrest any kids attempting to flee for greener pastures!
Agreed! Religious fanatics cannot be reasoned with; they are as much ruthless as they are relentless.
If they can’t achieve their goals through the front door, then they will never stop trying to achieve them through the back door; like electing a charlatan who owes his political allegiance to the Federalist Society; installing forced birthed, non-elected judges to do their bidding.
Did anyone watch Last Week Tonight on Sunday, with John Oliver?
Two ideas have come to mind by pro-choice activists.
One: offer abortion services on a ship sailing in international waters off the Gulf of Mexico to all the Confederacy of Dunces; I mean Confederate states.
Two: start a religion which offers abortion services. One group created Samuel Alito's Mom's Satanic Abortion Clinic: an online clinic that provides religious medication abortion care. The clinic provides abortion medication via mail to those in New Mexico who wish to perform The Satanic Temple's Religious Abortion Ritual.
All we need to do is be creative and out think these buffoons. It’s not like these people are geniuses; more like a relentless bunch of keystone cops with lots of money and too much time on their hands.
Just saying...:)
Hearted for the organization's name.
It’s based on the premise that when Alito was born, his mom didn’t have a choice; making the case for legalized abortion...:)
I see that my (Ohio's) Junior Senator has decided after this election, that clearly direct democracy doesn't work and abortion must go to the Federal Level because.........
I've also heard that the Congressional Republicans want to punish the entire country until Ohio comes to it's senses and gets rid of abortion (and apparently birth control, since that was also protected by issue 1) Very Old Testiment.
They really can't help themselves. Telling people they are sociopaths who want to murder their own children is, unsurprisingly, not effective messaging. Telling people "sure, you can abort that fetus now, but wait until you're burning in a lake of fire in Hell, then we'll see who has the last laugh" is not effective messaging. But they Just. Can't. Help. Themselves.
I've seen a few of them react to Tuesday with "We lost because nobody's out there making the case for saving the babies." Bless their hearts, some vestigial interest in actually persuading people instead of just bending us to their will through the power of Christian Sharia Law. Do your best boys, I look forward to seeing what you got.
"nobody's out there" my ASS.
No, really! They just forgot to explain, in simple terms that even lady-brains could understand, why the whorish brood-sows should be forced to carry to term. Well, that's my language, I'm sure they could put it better if they only tried.
I saw something like this already. Sure being a mom is hard, but if women only gave it a chance, they'd realize it's the best thing ever. So we'll do them a favor by MAKING them give it a chance.
Somebody forgot to tell them about all the women seeking abortions who are already mothers.
Conservatives are losing because they are ignoring the case for acknowledgement of the women. They believe if a woman has a tiny bit of extra genetic material in her uterus, she stops being a person and turns into a Gestational Carrier. Normies see this argument for what it is -- erasure of full personhood and the right to autonomy for half the population -- and vote accordingly.
Also, a lot of dudes and ladies like sex but don't want kids right now. That simple really.
I blame God for making sex so enjoyable.
The ONE time I can't blame the parents.
Sure, sex is great, but have you tried trampling on the rights of half the citizens in your country because you are in a fertility cult that relishes control over others' lives? What a rush!
Well, that, and porn. But if you get in too deep, ask your "adopted" son to monitor your porn intake. It's the family way!
*describing the wide range of non-reproductive sexual activities to Bible chuds and watching their brains explode*
Yeah JayDee Vance asserting that unplanned pregnancies result in “social scorn” was despicable. As though no person/couple has ever had an unplanned pregnancy and was just treated normally. I know it was a TV show, but how about Rachel on Friends? If it brought universal scorn, they never could’ve used that storyline!
I have a smidgeon of a vision what they might consider an "unplanned" pregnancy...I can't reveal it...I just can't...
They believe if a woman has a tiny bit of extra genetic material in her uterus, she stops being a person and turns into a Gestational Carrier.
As if they ever believed a woman was a person
Well i made a comment, about the Brethren's love of imaginary "innocent " preborn life (as opposed to real, messy, inconvenient babies, and the sinful sluts who should be forced to have'em) and the hollowness of JDVance suggesting "pro life" policies for those who need material help, after decades of GOP attacks on just such policies: and somehow, trying a minor edit, hid it. Grrr.
It's amusing watching clowns like Vance bloviating on the idea that Republicans would support a bunch of social programs to help people with kids. Uh, have you met your party JD?
Hey, here's an idea, how about a monthly fully-refundable tax credit, say, $300 per child? I'm sure the Republicans would all get behind that, wouldn't they? Look, it's even got "tax credit" in its name, just like what you give to the oil & gas industry!
"Well, if we just handed out money to people, they'd just stay home all day!"
"Like you want women to do anyway?"
"... you're making one of your 'points', aren't you?"
Right? Or maybe expand SNAP to cover more people? How about expand Medicaid? No, well I'm sure they'll come up with something. Probably jail time for selling contraceptives.
Has he read his own book? About bootstraps and hearty self-sufficient holler people?
Speaking of Ohio's Junior Senator, there was a copy of Hillbilly Elegy in one of the Little Free Libraries in my neighborhood, the house also has a yard sign that says "Not Voting is the #1 Cause of Unwanted Presidencies" [cartoon of Trump in a diaper.]
And I think I can pinpoint the EXACT moment when they bought that book: November 2016, when were all still reeling and looking for any explanation for what the fuck just happened, and JD Vance had a standing invite to the NPR microphone. Just look at how far JD has come since then.
Do you have time to notate it thoroughly and put it back?
The Old Testament is the testier of the two Testaments.
TELL IT, Brutha!
"Currently, laws protecting all preborn children..."
Man, that term -- unborn children -- chilling.
And -- a little ironically -- a perversion of language. (Speaking of perversions of language, it's not actually pro-abortion, it's pro-choice. Abortion is only part of it.)
Anyway, my foolishly hopeful side.
I'm aware of the concept that there's a huge bloc of voters happy to vote for choice even while electing and reelecting opponents of same. So choice's W's wouldn't change that but Beshear's win, the VA lege wins, to a lesser degree the weed win in OH suggests that just maybe enough voters have sussed out the idea that the GOP is thoroughly repulsive.
Not to say, though, that I can't be wrong. I much prefer underestimating the American voter...
"unborn children" is a term of art within the confines of unborn minds.
And yes, American voters – Humanity's Shame.
Back in the early days of the Christofascist project, 1985 or thereabouts, I actually went to a Christian bookstore and bought a tome by Tim LaHaye about "the war for the mind" or some such. Wish I still had it - I seem to recall I made margin notes... Anyhoo, at one point LaHaye is yacketing about the absurdity of the idea of "pre-banning books", asserting it's just as ridiculous as "pre-boarding" a flight. And that's what I think of when I see this "pre-born child" dumbassery.
Fascinating. Not to go all semiotic or whatever, but all those pre-s have different meanings.
But pre-born still scares the shit out of me. I know the concept is old but that phrase...!
Preborn sounds like a term a used car dealer might come up with. You know pre used car.
Is that you, my Hamma?
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just like a lawyer to split hairs.
Maybe we can start calling embryos "used eggs" instead of the ridiculous "preborn babies." It makes just as much sense, or I should say non-sense.
This whole thread is getting scrambled...
Thanks, my new identity is "Egg, long past its expiration date."
"well-trodden rakes"
I think we're gonna need a rafta new rakes!
"the pro-life laws in the Magnolia State are also probably safe"
It's the PEOPLE we are worried about!
Only thing that changed in the Magnolia state is the flag, and that's only because it was so much the Confederate Battle Flag (AKA the Hickenkreuz) to be a national embarrassment.
I'm encouraged to hear Mississippi is capable of embarrassment. I hadn't thought it possible.
It's Mississippi, the most restrictive ballot-measure law they have is when they stopped accepting "X" as a signature.
I was working in the marketing department for a large hotel. There were probably 20 of us in the department altogether. A couple of managers, five or six sales staff and their admin crew, some general administration personnel and me. I did all the writing for everybody. They were all stupid and it really showed when they tried to write something.
One of the clerks was this mousey lady of indeterminate age with thin brown hair and a large prominent mole on her forehead. Just about dead center. On Friday afternoons as we cleaned up our desk and shut down for the weekend we would all discuss our weekend plans. We were all taking our kids to get the pumpkins or going for a bike ride with our spouses or driving to Southwest Ohio to look at the leaves. I don't know if anybody ever asked mousey lady about her weekend plans but she always volunteered she was going to go " Save the Babies"I.e.
go down to the clinic with the people from her church and horribly harass women that already have enough problems without the harassment bullshit.
Save the babies. Her eyes lit up when she said that.
Yeah. The certainty of (pushing along) god's will.
Gott Mit Uns
I've often thought the fantasy of being the heroic Player One who valiantly fights against the forces of evil in their own mental video games is the mentality motivating many clinic protesters. Scoring extra points with God at each level, etc. -- praying the rosary gets you one point, leafleting two, screaming at the women earns you more, getting arrested advances you to the next level, lol.
That miserable lady might have been the happiest person I ever met. The whole anti -abortion thing really hit for her. She's probably still around (old and evil is more of a rule than an exception)
Happiness is overrated.
Those evangelicals would rather die than validate the whore of Babylon by praying the rosary
When I was much younger and single I lived in an apartment complex with occasional weeknight bbq get togethers. There was a couple slightly older than me who would attend, except the husband would have some conversations with those in the vicinity and the wife spent also all the time doing and redoing her fingernails and eye makeup and looking at the people and her husband with disinterest or distain. Most of us were single and spent time flirting with each other . I would ask some couples what was up with those two, but just got shrugs. Husband was never far enough away to have much conversation.
The only time she came to life by bringing up a concerning story - - She had heard that some man had lured a little girl in K-mart into a dressing room and put boys clothing on her and walked the disguised child out of the store. Wanted to know if anyone knew about that. Someone told her that probably wasn't a true story and the woman went back to her nails.
Alt. title: "Be Not Conceived"
Life Begins at Deception.
And ended when they couldn't afford to keep printing it.
They've got quite a bag of tricks, and in Ohio they tried 'em all: "Summarizing" the ballot initiative with language out of a Chick Tract, purging thousands of voters from the rolls shortly before the election, and let's not forget "Every ballot initiative shall need 60% except for this one, which needs only 50."
But in the end, it's like the Wizard of Oz, just an old white guy with a bag of tricks and an amplifier to make his voice louder. Sometimes the tricks work, sometimes that pesky lil' dog pulls back the curtain.
I remember when Scott Walker got Voter ID enacted in Wisconsin, Republicans were ecstatic, Democrats were despondent, but we all worked harder on voter education and outreach and it hasn't been the game-changer the Republicans were expecting.
Interesting to click through and re-read the assertions by David Freedom that women wouldn't be prosecuted for abortion, given the state of Idaho has not only arrested a case of traitors slinking off to Oregon to do their foul deed, but wrote the charges specifically to keep prosecuting even if their law is overturned.
And the red states have certainly come through with pre-natal care for women they're forcing to carry to term, huh?
Well, I'm sure all those ladies who turned out to vote in massive numbers on Tuesday were just confused about the law, you know how ladies are.
Ladies, I leave the OOF! to you.
FIGHT EVERY ELECTION. Make the bastards defend every micron of territory and spend all their money. A few of those races will break though and we can send in more soldiers to follow!
One of the right-wing responses I've seen is to point out that Republicans were seriously out-spent in Ohio, in the Kentucky Governor's race, in the Virginia legislative races. You'd think, since they've got most of the world's billionaires on their team, this wouldn't be a problem, but it turns out the billionaires can be pretty stingy.
I'm surprised the "2000 Mules" cadre hasn't oozed out of their bunker and started shouting about stolen elections.
What is this, evidence of learning? The voters have been pretty damn clear they're not goin' for that sore-loser shit, are Republicans actually getting the message? Ha ha ha, had you goin' there for a second, didn't I?
The Democrats could do a lot worse next year than run on legal abortion and legal weed at the Federal level.
and state and local – we need the Triad!
So NR wants to win over hearts and minds. Where have I heard that before?
To be fair, they need them as part of an eldritch ritual. Iä! Iä!
Yep, this is of a piece in the greater trajectory of the Republican Party since, oh, 1963, when the force of Righteous Anger made Goldwater the nominee. It's literally a Crusade to Save America from Itself. Every insane policy has justifications (not arguments, they gave up on those decades ago) invoking Freedom, Life, Decency, and the Pursuit of the appropriate kinds of Happiness, because they need to motivate themselves, not us. The reason they Will. Not. Stop. is because their passion dovetails neatly with the Republican Party's growing desire to jettison representative democracy to hold onto power. They need each other to fulfill their respective dreams, and as Dr. Hunter S. Thompson prophesied years ago, when the going gets Weird the Weird turn Pro. It's gonna get really, really Weird for as long as the Republican Party exists as a going concern. Without the Party behind them the lunatics are just little old ladies in tennis shoes. Putting Trump in a SuperMax changes nothing about the forces he stumbled into running a grift in 2015, because without the Party as it is constituted now he's RFK Jr.
but with a sense of humor...
Gosh, I have no idea what you're talking about when you say "weird", are you saying it's not a totally normal thing to have a "porn partner" who monitors your internet usage? Or an adopted adult son just 10 years younger than yourself?
You're just attending the wrong kind of church. Look for one with a box of snakes in the back.
I'm pretty sure it is not the "adopted" son that is his porn partner
Oh, a different son. Got it. So bizarre relationships with all the kids?