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You are here: Home / Politics / Biden Administration in Action / Merrick Garland on Texas Law Requiring Women to Prove Their Miscarriage Was Not Intentional

Merrick Garland on Texas Law Requiring Women to Prove Their Miscarriage Was Not Intentional

by WaterGirl|  September 6, 20212:03 pm| 243 Comments

This post is in: Biden Administration in Action, Civil Rights, Political Action, Supreme Court, The War On Women, Women's Rights

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Merrick Garland on Texas Law Requiring Women to Prove Their Miscarriage Was Not Intentional

This is Act 1, with surely more acts to follow:

Statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland Regarding Texas SB8

The U.S. Department of Justice today issued the following statement from Attorney General Merrick B. Garland regarding Texas SB8:

“While the Justice Department urgently explores all options to challenge Texas SB8 in order to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion, we will continue to protect those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services pursuant to our criminal and civil enforcement of the FACE Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248.

“The FACE Act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services. It also prohibits intentional property damage of a facility providing reproductive health services. The department has consistently obtained criminal and civil remedies for violations of the FACE Act since it was signed into law in 1994, and it will continue to do so now.

“The department will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack. We have reached out to U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and FBI field offices in Texas and across the country to discuss our enforcement authorities.

“We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act.”

If you have an incident, concern, or questions, please contact the FBI at FBI.gov/tips or through the complaint portal civilrights.justice.gov.

Screen capture from the link above – we should be publicizing this far and wide:

Merrick Garland on Texas Law Requiring Women to Prove Their Miscarriage Was Not Intentional 1

h/t  mrmoshpotato

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Reader Interactions

243Comments

  1. 1.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 2:16 pm

    I hope the “Supremely Right-Wing Court” comes to rue the day that they allowed this travesty to become law.

  2. 2.

    Steeplejack

    September 6, 2021 at 2:17 pm

    Apposite thread from @RSchooley:

    Still getting scolding responses to a tweet yesterday along the lines of “Stop. Merrick Garland’s got this.” Which I very much hope is true, but by no fault of his own he’s in a “Relax, Mueller’s got this” world and “working quietly” just hits different now.

    People are understandably nervous about Garland’s low-key approach, both about January 6 specifically and about things like this generally.

  3. 3.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 2:20 pm

    @Steeplejack: Who was the attorney general that let all that shit fly under T****?

    Who are the people who are understandably nervous?

  4. 4.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 2:21 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    While the Justice Department urgently explores all options to challenge Texas SB8 in order to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion, we will continue to protect those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services pursuant to our criminal and civil enforcement of the FACE Act, 18 U.S.C. § 248.

    “The FACE Act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services. It also prohibits intentional property damage of a facility providing reproductive health services. The department has consistently obtained criminal and civil remedies for violations of the FACE Act since it was signed into law in 1994, and it will continue to do so now.

    “The department will provide support from federal law enforcement when an abortion clinic or reproductive health center is under attack. We have reached out to U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and FBI field offices in Texas and across the country to discuss our enforcement authorities.

    “We will not tolerate violence against those seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services, physical obstruction or property damage in violation of the FACE Act.”

    If you have an incident, concern, or questions, please contact the FBI at FBI.gov/tips or through the complaint portal civilrights.justice.gov.

    Which part of this seems low-key to you?

  5. 5.

    Eunicecycle

    September 6, 2021 at 2:24 pm

    I see lots of talk about opposing violent means to stop abortion but the Texas law doesn’t use violence. I don’t see Garland’s response as addressing the issues in the law.

    ETA: IANAL obviously

  6. 6.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    @Eunicecycle:

    It doesn’t. It’s a messaging statement.  The only statute he has to work with doesn’t address the Texas situation.

  7. 7.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 2:26 pm

    @Eunicecycle:  This certainly seems to apply:

    …or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.

    But I am not a lawyer, either.

  8. 8.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 2:27 pm

    @Baud: You don’t think this covers the Texas law?  I do, but I am not a lawyer so I am asking you.

    …or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.

    edit: I think this statement is also a strong signal that “open season on women” is not going to fly under this administration.  I hope this helps other  states like Florida slow their roll in trying to pass something similar.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 2:29 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Lawsuits under the Texas law filed after an abortion has happened, I believe.  It’s the law itself that intimidates people to not to provide abortions.

  10. 10.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 2:30 pm

    @Eunicecycle:

    IANAL but obstruction, intimidation or interference would seem to me to be applicable.

  11. 11.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 2:31 pm

    @Baud: So do you think this statement from the US Attorney General is irrelevant?  That it has no bearing on the situation that has been created with this appalling law?

  12. 12.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 2:32 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I think it’s meant cause people to hesitate before filing one of these bogus lawsuits.

  13. 13.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 2:38 pm

    @Baud: As I said at #8, I think this statement is also a strong signal that “open season on women” is not going to fly under this administration.  I hope this helps other  states like Florida slow their roll in trying to pass something similar.

    I think it’s also an attempt to stop the mob from forming in response to the law.

  14. 14.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 2:41 pm

    @WaterGirl: 

    Agreed. Like I said, messaging.

    Perhaps the Texas law will inspire abortion terrorists, in which case the FACE Act will be directly applicable.

  15. 15.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 2:41 pm

    @Steeplejack: TheRealHoarse was incandescent that Garland wasn’t burning up the airwaves before the ruling and dissents were even released. I thought it was over the top, given that we didn’t even know their “reasoning” yet.

    A limited temporary restraining order is in place:

    A Travis County Judge granted three Texas Planned Parenthood affiliates a temporary restraining order against Texas Right To Life Friday evening, blocking the anti-abortion rights group from suing them under the state’s new restrictive abortion law.

    In her ruling, Judge Guerra Gamble said the order was given to maintain the status quo while the courts determine if the law is valid.

    “It is clear to me that there is a great deal of harm that could come from not granting the TRO,” said Gamble.

    A temporary injunction hearing is scheduled for the morning of Sept. 13.

    […]

    Garland will use every tool he has – like this anti-intimidation law – and do it thoughtfully. It takes time.

    He and his team know what they’re doing. They can’t make new laws, and people jumping on them demanding that they somehow do, or somehow fix it via green-lantern-bully-pulpiting, are not helping.

    My $0.02.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  16. 16.

    craigie

    September 6, 2021 at 2:41 pm

    As I understand it (a dangerous phrase) the law allows anyone to sue anyone, and if they don’t respond, it’s an automatic judgement. And of course responding costs money, but only for the “defendant”.

    If that’s accurate, why not take the law at its word and start suing everyone in sight? It won’t matter that these are pointless suits, it will a) clog up the courts and b) result in a least some stuck pig screaming from some right winger forced birther who ends up with a judgement of $10K against them. For conservatives, nothing really happens until it happens to them.

  17. 17.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 2:44 pm

    @WaterGirl: the neoliberal democrat party is acting like existing law, being enforced, can defeat the right (of which, actually, the democrat party is a part)

    the fleftist movement wants grand gestures

  18. 18.

    Steeplejack

    September 6, 2021 at 3:00 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    It’s low-key in the sense that, as others have already pointed out in this thread, it talks past the critical issue with a callback to the status quo ante. Garland’s statement focuses on “reproductive health centers” and related violence (or threats), but the (new) problems occur before that: (1) women are going to be afraid to be seen going to an abortion provider, whether they end up receiving “abortion services” or not, because that immediately exposes them to the bounty hunters—no violence or threats involved; (2) and abortion providers are reportedly already curtailing or ceasing their provision of abortion services because of the new law, which also reduces the relevance of the FACE Act. The new Texas law takes the focus away from abortion providers and distributes it to Stasi-like informers and vigilantes.

    It would be nice to get a feeling that the DOJ recognizes this as a fundamentally different situation that might require some thinking outside the box.

    I am not a lawyer, and this situation is incredibly complicated, but this statement doesn’t fill me with confidence that the DOJ—at least for public consumption—is getting all the nuances. This Texas law (until overturned) is basically breaking new ground in the law, and I don’t think the DOJ is going to be able to get by just relying on what (sort of) worked before.

  19. 19.

    Eunicecycle

    September 6, 2021 at 3:01 pm

    @WaterGirl: but the words before that talk about the threat of or the use of force. I don’t see the law as using any force.

  20. 20.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 3:02 pm

    @WaterGirl: ​
     

    The FACE Act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that…interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services.

    The only interference the FACE act addresses, is that done by use or threat of force and physical obstruction.

    This is waving a club when you’re being attacked with poison gas. The response has no impact on the actual threat.

  21. 21.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 3:06 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I think this statement is also a strong signal that “open season on women” is not going to fly under this administration.

    It’s an admission of impotence.  If I were playing the black pieces here, I’d be laughing my head off.

  22. 22.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 3:06 pm

    @Baud:

    Up until now they haven’t really gotten what they want, 100% control over women’s bodies.

    This TX law gives them that. The SC said sure why not.

    And we know there will be violence because that seems to be entirely the point in the first place and it involves humans, so there will be.

    And correct me if I’m wrong but Garland is the attorney general, his actions are to support the law, not assault people. This is Texas law, it’s been “approved” by the SC. Is he supposed to ride into Texas on his white horse and take military action? He worked for TLG and his hands were tied, he could have quit and who would have taken his place? He works for President Biden and he has room and guidance to actually do his job.

  23. 23.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 3:07 pm

    @Ruckus:

    . Is he supposed to ride into Texas on his white horse and take military action?

    According to Twitter, apparently so.

  24. 24.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 3:09 pm

    We used to ask ourselves if we’d support a Democratic Trump.

    I think the answer is, that’s exactly what a lot of us want.

  25. 25.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 3:14 pm

    @Another Scott: ​
     

    He and his team know what they’re doing. They can’t make new laws, and people jumping on them demanding that they somehow do, or somehow fix it via green-lantern-bully-pulpiting, are not helping.

    I’m sorry, but this bit of let’s-pretend that the FACE Act is of any use here makes me wonder if the Attorney General of the United States has taken leave of his senses.

    I can deal with the bad news that the Federal government is limited in what it can do here. The pretense of a strong response when they’ve got nothin’, OTOH, scares the shit out of me.

  26. 26.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 6, 2021 at 3:15 pm

    @Baud: no question the idea of a benign dictator underlies most Green Lantern/Do Something twitterism: A good President can/should/must govern by hurling righteous thunderbolts from the Oval Office.

    Jon Fugelsang, who is not stupid, said in 2016 that President Bernie would govern by executive order and lose re-election but leave America irrevocably transformed for the better.

  27. 27.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:16 pm

    @Steeplejack:

    I am not a lawyer, and this situation is incredibly complicated, but this statement doesn’t fill me with confidence that the DOJ—at least for public consumption—is getting all the nuances. This Texas law (until overturned) is basically breaking new ground in the law, and I don’t think the DOJ is going to be able to get by just relying on what (sort of) worked before.

    Do you really think the DOJ doesn’t recognize the complexity of the situation, or doesn’t get all the nuances?

    You are welcome to think that, but I think it’s absurd to think that Merrick Garland doesn’t get it.

    “While the Justice Department urgently explores all options to challenge Texas SB8 in order to protect the constitutional rights of women and other persons, including access to an abortion…”

    What part of the bolded statement leads you to think they don’t understand that the world is on fire over this law?

  28. 28.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 3:17 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Where did Garland characterize this response as strong or weak or anything.  He gave a response that his statutory authoriries allowed him to give.

  29. 29.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:17 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: I guess we’ll find out soon enough.

  30. 30.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 3:18 pm

    @Ruckus:

    He worked for TLG

    ‘Scuse my ignorance, but who or what is TLG?

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 3:18 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    I’ve been in a closed room with the most effective tear gas and had to take off my gas mask. This is what the military did to us in boot camp to show us it is bad but it doesn’t kill you. BTW just because of the way we got to leave the room I was the last out. This is non lethal tear gas and it was a physical assault, no doubt about it. Poison gas is a physical assault, no different than being shot at or having a night stick upside the head. All of them can kill you. Some are just more likely.

    And when a club is what you have, it’s what you wave. The supreme court allowed the law. They said it’s OK. Had the SC not said that this would be an entirely different event. The state legislature of Texas is at fault and the supreme court is at fault. The current federal administration is not.

  32. 32.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 3:18 pm

    @Ruckus: if merrick garland were mitt romney, he could be the avenging horseman

  33. 33.

    Steeplejack

    September 6, 2021 at 3:18 pm

    @Another Scott:

    They can’t make new laws, and people jumping on them demanding that they somehow do, or somehow fix it via green-lantern-bully-pulpiting, are not helping.

    Is my straw-man allergy acting up a bit? I’m not calling for some immediate “Green Lantern” fix. But I do think Garland and the DOJ could be more on point in addressing the actual issue. “Violence at abortion centers” is not it, or not all of it.

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 3:18 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: I take it as an appropriate, pre-emptive, message to the yahoos not to even think about using violence and intimidation against abortion providers and clinics.

    Nothing more.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    Yep.  It’s very frustrating.

  36. 36.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 3:19 pm

    @Baud: it’s what the bruenigs, & the staves of the jacobin & intercept, & the announcers at cumtown, chapo, & bad faith want

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    September 6, 2021 at 3:20 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Every E.O. is revocable, merely by the stroke of a pen.

  38. 38.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 3:20 pm

    @Baud:

    I think the answer is, that’s exactly what a lot of us want.

    I want the truth.  If it’s bad news, gimme the bad news.  But don’t tell me that, by God, we’ll show them because we’ve got the best Nerf guns around, and we’re not afraid to use them.

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:20 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose: Who cares what they want?

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    September 6, 2021 at 3:20 pm

    @Baud:

    C’mon, man. That’s bullshit, at least as far as this blog goes.

  41. 41.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 3:22 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    The Last Guy. I’m not allowed to use my preference so that I don’t have to type that disgusting name referencing the disgusting time and disgusting maladministration of the worst attempt of someone’s imitation of a human being.

  42. 42.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:23 pm

    @Steeplejack: Baud can answer for himself, and no doubt will.

    But I read Baud’s comments to mean that based on expectations that are expressed regarding what Biden/Garland should immediately do in any given situation – regardless of what the law allows or not – is an indication that at some level, conscious or not, people do want that at some level.

  43. 43.

    Steeplejack

    September 6, 2021 at 3:25 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Then let me just say that their messaging could be a little more congruent with the whole “Don’t worry, we’ve got this” thing. A lot of people are worried about a Mueller 2.0 situation.

    I will be interested to hear what valued commenter Kay thinks.

  44. 44.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:26 pm

    @Ruckus:

    If “I’m not allowed to use my preference” in reference to my saying I hate the phrase you use for Trump, please don’t mistake that for not being allowed to use your old nickname for him.

    Although I do appreciate getting to read your comments again!

  45. 45.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    @WaterGirl: exactly

    but their cynical posturing & hectoring & rodentfornication in primary season & from the sidelines is a great way to suppress already weak turnout (as in 2010, when barryhussein needed to learn a lesson)

  46. 46.

    Eunicecycle

    September 6, 2021 at 3:27 pm

    As I’ve said before, IANAL. But I read somewhere that what the SC said was since no one has been injured yet they couldn’t rule on it. Which I think is bull in many ways, as I feel just by reading it anyone with a brain can see there is so much room for abuse, especially how now everyone has “standing” and you can accuse anyone of anything without proof. So the defendant has to prove a negative.

  47. 47.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 3:28 pm

    @Baud: ​
     

    Where did Garland characterize this response as strong or weak or anything.

    Did you fucking read it??? Sure comes across as forceful language to me.

  48. 48.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:29 pm

    @Steeplejack: Uncertainty is very uncomfortable, especially when the stakes are so high.  We just can’t know what is going to happen, and a long series of institutions over the past 4 years have let us down, so it’s understandable that no one has confidence that things are going to turn out okay.

    But I’m sure not ready to conclude that all is lost.

    I can’t tell from your comment whether you think Garland is saying “don’t worry, we’ve got this” but they don’t have it, or if you’re staying that Garland should be saying “don’t worry, we’ve got this”, but he isn’t saying it.

  49. 49.

    Steeplejack

    September 6, 2021 at 3:30 pm

    @Ruckus:

    Jesus, just go with “TFG” (the former guy), which is what everybody uses, and spare us all a l0t of confusion.

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:30 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose: Representing their views here on BJ only helps spread their messages, which is why I wrote “who cares?”

  51. 51.

    bk

    September 6, 2021 at 3:31 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose: piss off

  52. 52.

    trnc

    September 6, 2021 at 3:31 pm

    @Baud: 

    It doesn’t. It’s a messaging statement. The only statute he has to work with doesn’t address the Texas situation.

    IANACS*, but as long as Roe v Wade stands, isn’t any attempt before 24 weeks to intimidate a woman into not getting an abortion or to outright prevent it a civil rights violation subject to prosecution by the DOJ? While Texas may have successfully skirted judicial review with it’s private citizen enforcement scheme, private citizens can be sued under federal law for civil rights violations.

    *Constitutional Scholar

  53. 53.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 3:36 pm

    @Baud:

    @Baud:

    I’d say tempers are running wild a bit. First this country might have elected one of the worst human beings, who has accomplished nothing good in his entire putrid life and said OK that’s the way it rolls and then he proceeded to fuck up everything he had anything to do with, and much he didn’t, including the supreme court. Second, his rise to the bottom empowered the TX legislature/governor to make an abomination into law and the supreme court, which TLG rendered into disaster (like everything else he touches) and it is once again left for the left to clean up the mess that is the vast majority of the conservative party in this country so that we can be an actual country and not an insane asylum with patients and attendants.

    So yes, I’d say tempers are expected to be a bit hotter for a while longer.

  54. 54.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 3:36 pm

    @Eunicecycle:

    The majority opinion was sophistry:

    The applicants now before us have raised serious questions regarding the constitutionality of the Texas law at issue. But their application also presents complex and novel antecedent procedural questions on which they have not carried their burden. […] In light of such issues, we cannot say the applicants have met their burden to prevail in an injunction or stay application. In reaching this conclusion, we stress that we do not purport to resolve definitively any jurisdictional or substantive claim in the applicants’ lawsuit. In particular, this order is not based on any conclusion about the constitutionality of Texas’s law, and in no way limits other procedurally proper challenges to the Texas law, including in Texas state courts.

    IOW: Yes the law might be unconstitutional, but since Texas wrote a double-secret probation novel statute, we can’t do anything yet. Sucks to be you. Maybe we’ll decide differently later; maybe not. We think it sucks to be you so much that we won’t even sign it.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  55. 55.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 3:37 pm

    @Baud:

    I think the people who want a Democratic Trump are in denial.  Those of us talking about the Supreme Court in 2016 had no sway with the progressive Twitterati.  It didn’t interest the Bernistas one bit. Now all of a sudden they want Biden and Garland to do something.  That was our job as voters and we blew it.  Some of them have been so arrogant and condescending in the way they have discussed policy in the last two presidential election cycles and will never admit they fucked up when it comes to the courts.

  56. 56.

    Professor Bigfoot

    September 6, 2021 at 3:38 pm

    @Steeplejack: I know in polite company it’s “the former guy,” but i always read it as “this fucking guy,” always in Joe Pesci’s voice.

  57. 57.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:39 pm

    I think the country is primed for violence over this Texas law, and I see this as Garland trying to pour cold water on that before it starts for real.

    Cognitive dissonance is painful.  It’s hard to hope for better outcomes when we have collectively eaten so many shit sandwiches in the past few years.  So I get why for some people it’s less painful to assume the worst.

    But damn, Biden showed some really cojones with Afghanistan – he’s got a real spine and he has shown over and over again that he cares about doing what’s right.

    Do we really want to fight with one another about hypotheticals related to whether this DOJ is going to suck on this issue?  News bulletin: we can’t know in advance.

  58. 58.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:41 pm

    @trnc: That is my take, as well.

  59. 59.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 3:41 pm

    @Baud: Yes if by us you mean people of the Do Something Twitter and their echo chamber in the MSM and liberal blogs who think having elebenty Twitter followers is a political achievement for a law maker

    They  are petulant and mostly white.

  60. 60.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 3:41 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose:

    Dude, I don’t know what kind of drugs you are on but they seem to be pretty damn strong.

    I haven’t seen writing like yours since Timothy Leary was considered a god by a too large segment of the population. Get help, or at least a secure position that you can’t fall from.

  61. 61.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 3:44 pm

    @MomSense: Cosign.

    These are the same people who were bleating about drones and fell for Snowden and Greenwald when Obama was the President. Fell completely silent when the Orange Clown took power about the dronez.

  62. 62.

    James E Powell

    September 6, 2021 at 3:46 pm

    @MomSense:

    Those of us talking about the Supreme Court in 2016 had no sway with the progressive Twitterati.  It didn’t interest the Bernistas one bit. Now all of a sudden they want Biden and Garland to do something.  That was our job as voters and we blew it.

    Agree completely and I always hasten to add 2000 into the mix.

    Arguing the importance of the supreme court to Bernistas, as with the Naderites before them, not only failed to persuade, it made them angry. They’d respond as if we were insulting them with trivia when the real issues were Goldman Sachs speeches and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

  63. 63.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 3:46 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    People not reading my comments sort of nulls out having written them in the first place.

    So I see it as use the moniker I invented for myself to use and have many people not read/pie me or not use it. I chose option B.

  64. 64.

    Eunicecycle

    September 6, 2021 at 3:47 pm

    @MomSense: Amen! I was telling everyone who would listen “Supreme Court!” but they just couldn’t vote for Hillary.

  65. 65.

    Kay

    September 6, 2021 at 3:48 pm

    I don’t understand why they issued the statement. Abortion is banned in Texas. The attorney general can’t do anything about it.

    No provider in Texas is going to provide abortions when they’re banned under state law, whether or not that is a state enforcement mechanism. They’re not going to violate the law.

    If anything this statement muddies the water and leads people to believe there’s some remedy, when there isn’t a remedy, barring a codification of Roe. If they want to “message”, it’s a really simple message- they banned abortions in Texas and now 25 other states will follow.

  66. 66.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 6, 2021 at 3:49 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    I presume with appropriate pinkie-ring gesture.

  67. 67.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 3:49 pm

    The FACE Act prohibits the use or threat of force and physical obstruction that injures, intimidates, or interferes with a person seeking to obtain or provide reproductive health services. It also prohibits intentional property damage of a facility providing reproductive health services.

    IANAL, but if the abortion clinics in Texas have shut their doors, I don’t see how this protects their facilities. If they’re not providing reproductive health services, then they’re not a facility providing reproductive health services. A mob tearing down a no-longer-operative abortion clinic wouldn’t be interfering with the seeking or providing of reproductive health services.

    So my non-lawyerly guess is that this declaration is even more toothless than it looks.

    Look, this is not about giving up hope. Giving up hope is not something I do, and I don’t recommend it for anyone else either. This is about not setting yourself up for disappointment by looking for hope in directions where you’re not going to find it.

  68. 68.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 3:50 pm

    @Kay:

    The law applies to anyone “helping”.

    RAICES Texas:

    NEWS 09.01.2021

    RAICES Vows To Disobey Abortion Ban. Some laws are meant to be broken.

    (San Antonio, Texas) – The ban on abortion in Texas is an abomination. We want to send a very clear message: RAICES will not obey this archaic and sexist law.

    For immigrants, access to health care is already limited by financial, cultural and legal barriers like the Public Charge Rule, which allows the government to count enrollment in public benefits, like health care assistance, against a person’s green card application. SB 8 will worsen immigrants’ fear of seeking medical care, and makes a life-saving medical procedure illegal.

    RAICES assisted and gave financial support to immigrants seeking abortion in Texas for years, and will continue to do so — no matter what.

    We stand in solidarity with reproductive justice organizations on the ground in Texas and we recommit to continuing the fight to help people access safe and legal abortions.

    – Jonathan Ryan, CEO and President, RAICES

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  69. 69.

    zhena gogolia

    September 6, 2021 at 3:51 pm

    @MomSense: Absolutely right.

  70. 70.

    burnspbesq

    September 6, 2021 at 3:54 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Remind me again what law school your degree is from.

    It may be a stretch, but the FACE act is the best tool Garland has, and I applaud him for making the threat. If the possibility of Federal indictment deters even one Texas vigilante while the merits of SB 8 get litigated, it was worth it.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:54 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot: I have never noticed your nym before.  I like it!

  72. 72.

    Kay

    September 6, 2021 at 3:55 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    Hope is fine but the reality is they banned abortions in Texas. The attorney general can sue I suppose but there’s no abortion right to protect in Texas. It’s against the law.

  73. 73.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 3:55 pm

    @zhena gogolia: They think

    Making #hashtags trend on Twitter is activism.

    #Abolish XYZ , # Defund ABC

    Latest was Abolish the Senate

  74. 74.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 3:56 pm

    @Another Scott:

    So even this supreme court majority thinks this law stinks enough that an actual review is in order, once the first person is actually affected by the law they just said might be OK?

    Way to stake out a position supreme court.

    Although I have to say that if no one is harmed by a law then OK. But failure to see how this law will harm many, many people is pretty slim pickings, given the process of this law and the history of the situation that the law supposedly addresses.

  75. 75.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 3:57 pm

    @Kay: Are you suggesting that we just give up then?  Because that’s what it sounds like you are saying.

  76. 76.

    Kay

    September 6, 2021 at 3:57 pm

    @Another Scott:

    It’s a fine and defiant statement but they need a provider, and no licensed provider is going to violate a state law banning abortion. If they’re going to help them get an abortion they better prepare for a long ride, because they aren’t getting one in Texas.

  77. 77.

    Mallard Filmore

    September 6, 2021 at 4:00 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot: 

    I know in polite company it’s “the former guy,” but i always read it as “this fucking guy,” always in Joe Pesci’s voice.

    Make it “That fucking guy” and I will be forever happy.

  78. 78.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 4:01 pm

    @Ruckus: The SCOTUS 5 seems to be saying their hands are tied.  “You didn’t meet the burden, and oh this is really interesting!  Wow, the state isn’t enforcing it, so there’s nobody to issue an injunction against!!  Clever!!1  What can we do??”

    They obviously want to satisfy the anti-Roe people, but they don’t want their bloody handprints on it – so they didn’t hear actual arguments nor sign it.

    “Not my fault!”

    It such cynical sophistry.  And it’s worse that they think people will fall for it.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  79. 79.

    Matt McIrvin

    September 6, 2021 at 4:04 pm

    @Baud:

    We used to ask ourselves if we’d support a Democratic Trump.

    I think the answer is, that’s exactly what a lot of us want.

    If you have reason to believe someone is plotting to kill you, if they supported junior Klansmen marching around with tiki torches and decided to let a pandemic just burn in your neighborhood and like to make little funny jokes about dropping you out of a helicopter, having a civil debate and a vote over whether they should have control of the government is not a happy-making situation. It really erodes one’s faith in democracy.

  80. 80.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 4:05 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot:

    Same take here.

    Also I don’t see why there can only be one moniker for someone who is one of the worst human beings, who aspired to and achieved being the worst president ever, the only thing he’s ever set out to do and accomplished. Someone that distinguished in setting a goal and achieving it should be known far and wide and differing monikers showing his success at being the worst (a rather low bar, that he buried at least a foot lower) should be encouraged.

  81. 81.

    Kay

    September 6, 2021 at 4:08 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I think the best thing the DOJ could do is explain that Texas banned abortions, because even the people on this blog don’t seem to understand that rather crucial fact.

    I’m not blaming Garland. I just don’t see the point of pretending he can protect abortion rights in Texas when there are no abortion rights in Texas. We’re past the point of “messaging” here. Just tell people the truth. The only shot we have is political blowback to the Texas abortion ban. It doesn’t have to be hysterical or “hopeless”. It just is. The only question is what voters will do about it.

  82. 82.

    trnc

    September 6, 2021 at 4:08 pm

    @Kay: I don’t understand why they issued the statement. Abortion is banned in Texas. The attorney general can’t do anything about it.

    Does this mean you don’t believe the state law encourages civil rights violations that can be prosecuted by the DOJ? Abortions before 24 weeks are still constitutional.

  83. 83.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:09 pm

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Then those people have officially become owned by the right and they are probably going to get what they feared most if the rest of us aren’t numerous enough to stop them on our own.

    I am have no more sympathy for the political equivalent of antivaxxers than I do for actual antivaxxers.

  84. 84.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:09 pm

    The immediate problem is a law. No one has used the law and as far as I know, no one has violated the law.

    So the only valid response is law.

    I swear (mentioned above) Hoarse Whisperer and Elie Mystel were both — Why don’t the feds DO SOMETHING??

    What? Send in the national guard? Invade Texas? Arrest the TX legislature?

    And for the record — the Feds, writ large, did do something in the form of a US Supreme Court order.

    But I see the same squawkers demand that some Democrat solve this problem now so that they can go back to complaining about other democrats doing other terrible things that they have no control over.

    Law is the answer, regardless how much you admired Trump’s lawless ways.

    ETA, Then again, Biden has probably not tried the alohamora spell.

  85. 85.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 4:09 pm

    @James E Powell:

    Some of those Naderites went on to complain about Citizens United.  Yes Citizens United Never Timid was a travesty made possible by Bush W’s appointment of Alito and Roberts. So thanks Naderites, not just the voters but also all the people who pushed the lie there’s no difference between the parties.

  86. 86.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 4:10 pm

    @Kay:

    I think the best thing the DOJ could do is explain that Texas banned abortions, because even the people on this blog don’t seem to understand that rather crucial fact.

    Really?

  87. 87.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 4:11 pm

    @Another Scott:

    I believe we see the situation the same.

    Let me put it in less polite english.  The SC didn’t want to touch this POS law with a 100 ft pole because that would destroy their conservative bona fides with the regressive side of politics.

  88. 88.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 4:12 pm

    @Ruckus:

    that would destroy their conservative bona fides

    That ship has already sailed.

  89. 89.

    Benw

    September 6, 2021 at 4:14 pm

    @Baud: You’re not usually so definitive. I’m not even sure what a Dem TFG is?

  90. 90.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 4:14 pm

    @Ruckus: metoprolol mostly

  91. 91.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:14 pm

    @MomSense: This.

    Waves! ?‍♂️

  92. 92.

    Kay

    September 6, 2021 at 4:15 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    I don’t think “hope” has any role in this. It’s not a matter of my attitude toward the Texas law. The enforcement mechanism is a sneaky trick and carries all kinds of horrible potential as to other laws, but the basic fact doesn’t seem to be getting thru-they banned abortions in Texas. Garland can’t repeal the Texas law and providers will follow it, because they’re not criminals.

  93. 93.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 4:16 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:
    Trump escalated drone strikes and yet all of a sudden that issue went silent.

  94. 94.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:18 pm

    @WaterGirl: I agree. I was only half kidding when I said SCOTUS was ushering in the Age of the Assassins. Steve Vladek had a short thread on why the substance of the decision of SCOTUS was awful — but the way they did it was even worse for our country.

    Losing an issue is part of the give and take of law and politics. But losing to an unreasoned narrow majority regarding an issue in a heavily gerrymandered state will undo us.

  95. 95.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:18 pm

    @Benw:

    In this case it’s performative dick wagging followed by lawless and ultimately fruitless action of some sort.

  96. 96.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:19 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: And male — don’t forget male.

  97. 97.

    J R in WV

    September 6, 2021 at 4:19 pm

    Folks can do what they want, but I put MontyMongoose in the pie filter a long time ago. What it’s for is inane bullshit like Monty’s spew.

    I don’t think this law will apply much to TX SB8 so far, but at least the Feds are watching.

    While most abortions are forbidden, from what news reports I have seen a very few patients are in time, before the fraudulent “fetal-heartbeat” generated by ultrasound units is present. Those abortions are continuing from the news reports I have seen, so there’s every chance a RWNJ will file a shit against one of those very early patients.

    At six weeks an embryo is the size of a garden pea, so there are no heart valves to create a “fetal-heartbeat” — so the foundation of TX SB8 is a lie based upon crooked ultrasound units. But the Supremes don’t typically want to deal with truth/falsehood issues, esp when those issues interfere with their desires.

  98. 98.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    @Immanentize: Yes that too.

  99. 99.

    Kay

    September 6, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    @trnc:

    They probably don’t want to challenge it because they’ll lose when they take it up. In any case, that IS something that I would leave to the DOJ, their approach. What they do when.

    But they can’t do “messaging”. They won’t be good at it and we’re past the point of “messaging” anyway. Voters have a decision to make. Explain to them they must make a decision. If they want a right to choose they cannot elect Republicans.

  100. 100.

    laura

    September 6, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    I’m hoping that the Texas women start some in your fucking face art pronto. Find out which law firms are trolling for potential bounty cases and start delivering used Kotex and Tampons. Abortion, miscarriage, period? Leave it to the legal system to figure it all out.

    I’m sorry to see the fuss budgeting about the testicular fortitude of Merrick Garland’s statement and want more direct action because by design, this is a legal gordian knot and by design this should be called out in symbolic action that cuts to the chase. For fucks sake – it’s 2021 and the minority party is undoing (or planning to undo) the legal rights of women and girls and make vigilantism pay. Time to wave the bloody pad and call a fucker out whenever and wherever and however that doesn’t require waiting for the tender mercies of the elected and appointed.

  101. 101.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:20 pm

    @Ruckus: Snerk. His writing always reminds me of the Illuminatus Trilogy — but with added made-up catch phrases, nicknames, and unconnected clauses.

    Feed your head

  102. 102.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 4:22 pm

    @Immanentize:

    Hey Imm!

    I think there is a Misery life begins at conception law on deck so that is something to look forward to. That should put an end to RU-486.

  103. 103.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 4:23 pm

    @WaterGirl:

    Not saying it hasn’t.

    I’m saying that they seemed to think it would. That this is likely the best response that their minds could come up with without saying that the law is crap.

    And in my limited knowledge of the law it may actually have been. They may even have wanted to strike it down, it was 5/4 but they are conservatives and abortion is a sin to them, at least open available abortion is, behind closed doors and unbeknown to the public it is likely fine or at least when considered necessary for maintaining one’s conservative standing, you know health and viability and all. But that’s not the conservative stance and they can’t say that and remain in good standing in the club, which is/seems far more important than the law.

  104. 104.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:23 pm

    @Kay: I think Garland’s statement might be directed at people seeking abortion services in neighboring states. My friends in San Antonio report people are already creating “militias” to prevent people from doing so. It may be trying to get ahead of that horror.

  105. 105.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 6, 2021 at 4:23 pm

    @MomSense: Claire McCaskill was just talking about that on the Nicolle Wallace program

  106. 106.

    DTTM

    September 6, 2021 at 4:24 pm

    Following up on s-cat’s comments, I admit to hate reading a Times commenter, Karen Garcia, who writes a blog called “sardonicky” who writes scathingly about the Obamas constantly, uses words “neoliberal”, “oligarchy”, voted for Jill Stein, and was a little too sympathetic to the 6 January rioters.

    Who are these people? Are there a lot of them? Where in the political spectrum is a “sardonicky”? Some input would be welcome. Thanks…

  107. 107.

    geg6

    September 6, 2021 at 4:24 pm

    @Kay:

    I do believe that is exactly what they are saying.  And RAICES is saying we’re still going to help these women get abortions out-of-state even though we’re going to get sued for doing it.  It’s not an unclear statement and they are right that TX will allow them to be sued.  I’m not sure I get why you think they don’t know that’s exactly what is going to happen.

  108. 108.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:26 pm

    @MomSense: i have said this before, but if they make life begin at conception, they will be overturning about 50% of the basic law in property, contract, family law,  trusts and estates, etc. Ask Kay!

    The anti-choice zealots have not thought one step past pwning the libs

  109. 109.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 6, 2021 at 4:26 pm

    @Ruckus:

    You can have as many three-letter monikers as you want. Just don’t skip the minor detail of letting people know what they mean! It’s all about communication, right?

  110. 110.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:27 pm

    @Immanentize:

    That makes sense.

  111. 111.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 6, 2021 at 4:27 pm

    @DTTM:

    Who are these people? Are there a lot of them?

    in absolute terms, no, but 2000 and 2016 suggest there are enough of them to really fuck with the country

  112. 112.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 4:28 pm

    @Immanentize:

    Its also a problem that they don’t actually understand conception.

  113. 113.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:30 pm

    @MomSense:

    They just can’t conceive of it.

  114. 114.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 4:32 pm

    @Immanentize:

    His writing always reminds me of the Illuminatus Trilogy

    I’d been wondering if that was where your nym was from.  “A fairy tale for paranoids!”

  115. 115.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 4:33 pm

    @Baud:

    ?

  116. 116.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:33 pm

    @MomSense: That is because of tales of a virgin birth, no doubt.

  117. 117.

    geg6

    September 6, 2021 at 4:33 pm

     

    @Kay:

    the people on this blog don’t seem to understand that rather crucial fact.

    WTF are you talking about?  What an asinine, condescending, bullshit thing to say.

  118. 118.

    MomSense

    September 6, 2021 at 4:34 pm

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I love Claire.

  119. 119.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    September 6, 2021 at 4:35 pm

    @Baud: InconCEIVable! /Vizzini

  120. 120.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:36 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: No, although my nym does get a lot of play in the book — I actually took it from the Catholic version/meaning of the phrase which basically means “make heaven on earth” not “bring on the apocalypse”

  121. 121.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 4:36 pm

    @Kay:  I am having trouble following in your comment #99.

    Who is “they” in that comment?  Is it all the same they, or are you referencing different entities using they?

  122. 122.

    Doug R

    September 6, 2021 at 4:37 pm

    @WaterGirl: Yeah, 123,000 evacuated in 2 weeks and 200 million shots in 100 days-Biden’s shown some skill.

  123. 123.

    regularguy

    September 6, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    @Mallard Filmore:

     

    Yup “That fucking guy” is what “TFG” means to me

  124. 124.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 4:38 pm

    @Steeplejack (phone):

    This is the 21st century. We are supposed to be somewhat educated and savvy, make something up or ignore it.

    I did exactly what you said, I made up monikers. Others didn’t know the code and asked. I answered and they didn’t like what I answered. Which is why I used the moniker in the first place. This isn’t a Rhodes Scholar debate, it’s a blog.

    Hell it’s a blog with a pie filter. You don’t like my wit and charm, pie me. I won’t mind and I won’t know. And you won’t have to make up rules about how I’m supposed to think and write.

    Which I very, very likely won’t follow anyway.

  125. 125.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:39 pm

    @MomSense: You know that is my favorite hypothetical for students:

    Life by law in a state begins at conception. A building is on fire. On the left side is a fertility clinic with thousands of fertilized eggs. On the right side is a couple of apartments and a small child is yelling out the window “Fire! help! Save me.!!” Which way must a fireman turn?

  126. 126.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 4:40 pm

    @MomSense:

    I don’t recall, was conception explained in the Bible?

  127. 127.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 4:43 pm

    @MomSense:

    I do too, now. Wasn’t always a big fan, but since she lost her Senate seat she’s gone all NMFTG* and I love the segments when she’s on with Nicolle or Joy.

    *For Steeplejack: No More Fucks To Give :-)

  128. 128.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 4:44 pm

    @Immanentize: I want to know what the answers are!

  129. 129.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:45 pm

    @Immanentize:

    Which set of parents are richer?

  130. 130.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:46 pm

    @Baud: or, who is better insured, the lab or the kid?

  131. 131.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:47 pm

    @Immanentize:

    The real tragedy is the loss of the building.

  132. 132.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:47 pm

    @WaterGirl: There are no answers, only more questions. ☸️

  133. 133.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 4:47 pm

    @Ruckus:

    Others didn’t know the code and asked. I answered and they didn’t like what I answered.

    I didn’t know the code. I asked. You answered. You have no idea whether or not I liked what you answered because I never said a word about it one way or the other.

  134. 134.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 4:48 pm

    @Immanentize: Good one.

    Another good one: IVF fertility treatments are almost never a case of fertilize-one-egg and see-what-happens.

    Harpers:

    […]

    Now, if anti-choice protesters truly believe that every fertilized egg is a person (“life begins at conception” is a popular phrase), they’d be protesting en masse because clinics that provide IVF (in vitro fertilization) extract eggs, fertilize them in a lab, and then implant them in a womb. Most people produce more than one viable embryo. Those excess embryos can be saved in case IVF implementation doesn’t work the first time. When it does work, many people choose to donate their excess embryos for scientific research, although you can also keep your embryos in case you wish to have access to them in the future, or you can offer them up to other couples.

    People who choose to offer their embryos to the scientific community, which results in their destruction, aren’t doing anything substantially different than women who have abortions and offer their embryos to the scientific community—although the latter provokes immense rage in the anti-choice community.

    IVF results in the destruction of literally millions of embryos. If you dislike abortion because you believe every embryo is a person, you should hate IVF.

    But people don’t.

    […]

    Shock, shocking.

    Why, it’s almost as if something else is behind the anti-abortion movement…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  135. 135.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:49 pm

    Well, Michael K. Williams died.

    Travel well, Omar.

  136. 136.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 4:49 pm

    @Immanentize:

    Also science.

  137. 137.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 4:50 pm

    @Baud: Thank god it wasn’t looted!!!

  138. 138.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 4:53 pm

    @MomSense:

    They also don’t understand viability.

  139. 139.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 4:53 pm

    @Kay: ​

    Hope is fine but the reality is they banned abortions in Texas. The attorney general can sue I suppose but there’s no abortion right to protect in Texas. It’s against the law.

    @Kay: ​
     

    I’m not blaming Garland. I just don’t see the point of pretending he can protect abortion rights in Texas when there are no abortion rights in Texas. We’re past the point of “messaging” here. Just tell people the truth. The only shot we have is political blowback to the Texas abortion ban. It doesn’t have to be hysterical or “hopeless”. It just is. The only question is what voters will do about it.

    I think we’re on the same page here: tell the truth, don’t sugarcoat it, don’t pretend we’ve got remedies that we don’t.

    This really does come down to the people, and not just as voters. The importance of discouraging mobs has come up in this thread, but I haven’t heard a word about protests outside the state capitol in Austin, and I’m kinda gobsmacked by that. Where’s the outrage from our side?? Twitter isn’t where it needs to be right now.

  140. 140.

    Woodrow/asim

    September 6, 2021 at 4:53 pm

    A reminder that, if you want to help Texas groups who are on the ground working on this issue, like RAICES, I posted this set of links a few days ago.

    That might be worth putting some energy into.

  141. 141.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 4:55 pm

    OT:  My cousin is getting married in India this December, she is my favorite aunt’s daughter. I am in two minds. What should I do?

  142. 142.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    I should have been more specific in this case. SOME didn’t like my answers.

    Sorry. I’ll try to do better.

  143. 143.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    @lowtechcyclist:

    https://www.fox7austin.com/news/pro-choice-advocates-protest-abortion-law-at-texas-capitol

  144. 144.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    @Immanentize:

    ?

  145. 145.

    Woodrow/asim

    September 6, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    @Immanentize: No doubt.

    He did one of those retrospectives for, I think, Vanity Fair? It was fascinating, his life and how he loved acting, the craft. He was great in that GHOSTBUSTERS remake, even if my Partner was confused why I kept calling him Omar :)

    We were just talking about THE WIRE, last night, as recommended watching. And that goes ten times as much, today.

  146. 146.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    About going?

  147. 147.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 4:56 pm

    @Immanentize:

    Continuing fire department analogy day:

    Seriously, this is like the Fire Department putting out a statement saying they intend to fight fires and are looking into all of the ways fires can be put out.

    Umm, yeah, that’s your actual job. What were you doing BEFORE?

    — The Hoarse Whisperer (@TheRealHoarse) September 6, 2021

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  148. 148.

    Raven

    September 6, 2021 at 4:57 pm

    Oops

  149. 149.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 4:59 pm

    @Another Scott:

    That’s just wrong.  We can’t impose fake jobs on the government in order to be disappointed by them.

  150. 150.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 4:59 pm

    @Woodrow/asim:

    I thought he was great in The Road.

  151. 151.

    Mike E

    September 6, 2021 at 4:59 pm

    Are we fighting over AOC again??

  152. 152.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 5:00 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: There were protests at the Austin capitol the day it took effect (September 1).

    Warning autoplay video – KVUE.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  153. 153.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 5:00 pm

    @Baud: Yes.

  154. 154.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 5:01 pm

    @Another Scott: He has lost his mind about the DO SOMETHING, GARLAND, YOU’RE MY ONLY HOPE!

    He is not a lawyer and his playing one on Twitter is reaching beyond his acting range.

  155. 155.

    Woodrow/asim

    September 6, 2021 at 5:01 pm

    @lowtechcyclist: Where’s the outrage from our side??

    OK — I know what I just said, yet: I posted on this yesterday — there was a Twitter post from a Pro-Choice activist who pointed out that they are, and rightly so, exhausted as fuck. That a lot of them needed to take the weekend to absorb and manage, and figure out direction.

    If the Democratic Leadership is taking the same tack, and letting those folx figure out how to direct? That’s a damned good thing, in my book. There are efforts, like the protest @Baud just posted, yet I’d not expect major work on this for a few days.

    The people who’ve been working this beat, have been doing it for decades in a lot of cases, gang. And this was a shock to, I think, damn near everyone, no matter the side – I and others noted there’s not a lot of chatter on the antiabortion side, either.

    My recommendation? Let’s be of support, not so much judgement, to a lot of people at this time.

  156. 156.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 5:02 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    When do you have to decide by?

  157. 157.

    Immanentize

    September 6, 2021 at 5:03 pm

    @debbie: And was an outspoken fan/supporter of DMX. Both dead, now.

  158. 158.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 5:03 pm

    @Immanentize: Yup, he’s way out over his skis here, I think.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  159. 159.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 5:04 pm

    @Ruckus:

    I don’t recall, was conception explained in the Bible?

    Since you brought up the Bible, let’s talk about a passage in the fifth chapter of Numbers which @SlacktivistFred pointed out the other day.

    TL;DR version: if a married woman gets impregnated by another man, the Lord will force her to miscarry. IOW, God Himself would have been in violation of this Texas law.

    [the priest] shall make the woman drink the bitter water that brings a curse, and this water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering will enter her. 25 The priest is to take from her hands the grain offering for jealousy, wave it before the Lord and bring it to the altar. 26 The priest is then to take a handful of the grain offering as a memorial[e] offering and burn it on the altar; after that, he is to have the woman drink the water. 27 If she has made herself impure and been unfaithful to her husband, this will be the result: When she is made to drink the water that brings a curse and causes bitter suffering, it will enter her, her abdomen will swell and her womb will miscarry, and she will become a curse. 28 If, however, the woman has not made herself impure, but is clean, she will be cleared of guilt and will be able to have children.

    Of course, that probably doesn’t bother the anti-abortion folks because their real point is to deny agency to women.

  160. 160.

    frosty

    September 6, 2021 at 5:04 pm

    @J R in WV: ​I put MontyMongoose in the pie filter a long time ago. What it’s for is inane bullshit like Monty’s spew.

    I’m finally going to do the same.

  161. 161.

    Baud

    September 6, 2021 at 5:05 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Tough.  You have to have a negative test to get back to the US.   Do you think the wedding will be distanced?

  162. 162.

    lowtechcyclist

    September 6, 2021 at 5:07 pm

    @Another Scott: ​
     

    @lowtechcyclist: There were protests at the Austin capitol the day it took effect (September 1).

    Hadn’t heard anything about it, but news coverage is what it is. (The big boys in the business still can’t let go of Afghanistan.) Thanks for filling me in.

  163. 163.

    J R in WV

    September 6, 2021 at 5:09 pm

    @Immanentize:

    Well, Michael K. Williams died.

    Found dead in his Brooklyn penthouse. At least he lived large since becoming a star! A shame… so young.

  164. 164.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 5:09 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Maybe I’ve misread Garland’s statement, but it seems he’s  putting down a marker preventing violence by the Talibangelicals (am I still allowed to say that?) who will wield whatever weapons their furious righteousness demands. As someone said above, they’re forming militias to do god knows what to women traveling to other states.

    I don’t think his statement is nothing, but there’s not much more he can do at this point. I can’t imagine he or the Biden administration is closely watching all of this and will take whatever action they can, when they can.

  165. 165.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 5:12 pm

    @Baud: There are strict limits on the # of guests, I think 50 is the maximum allowed.

    @debbie:I will have to decide soon, tickets to go in December can get pricy.

  166. 166.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 5:13 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: To the extent that one can trust any country’s numbers, and recognizing that country numbers are highly lumpy (look at the variation in the USA), India’s numbers look much better now than they did in April – June. Nobody knows what will happen in December, but it looks like India’s numbers were generally low last winter.

    If you’re able to be careful, and maybe get a booster before you leave, you might be reasonably safe. But it probably depends on the unique circumstances there (indoors/out, vaccination rates there, any new variant spreading, etc.)…

    Good luck with your decision!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  167. 167.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 5:16 pm

    @debbie: Hoarse wants Garland soaking up the airwaves the way Barr did, trying to shape public opinion, and dominating the news reporting.

    He doesn’t seem to understand that that’s not Garland’s job, even if Barr thought it was his.

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  168. 168.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 5:17 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: If you feel you have to decide soon, then I’m afraid you are going to have to make your decision without having good enough information to make an informed decision.

    You could get refundable tickets, and hedge your bets that way.

  169. 169.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 5:21 pm

    @Another Scott: Isn’t he a marketing person and not a lawyer?

  170. 170.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 5:21 pm

    @Another Scott:

    This tit for tat shit has got to end.

  171. 171.

    Mallard Filmore

    September 6, 2021 at 5:22 pm

    @MomSense: 

    I think there is a Misery life begins at conception law on deck so that is something to look forward to. That should put an end to RU-486.

    There are some women with weak hearts. My college room-mate married one. Pregnancy is a death sentence by six months.

    The feared death panels have moved out of hospital administrative offices and into the legislatures.

  172. 172.

    Bart

    September 6, 2021 at 5:24 pm

    Off topic, but there isn’t an open thread: RIP Michael K. Williams. https://deadline.com/2021/09/michael-k-williams-dead-age-54-the-wire-lovecraft-country-dies-at-age-54-1234827926/

  173. 173.

    M31

    September 6, 2021 at 5:26 pm

    @Mallard Filmore: TFG will always be Toad-penised Fart-huffing Goon to me

  174. 174.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 5:30 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes.

    That’s the beauty of Twitter, isn’t it??

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  175. 175.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 5:31 pm

    @MomSense:

    I’d like to see a bill introduced by TX Democrats criminalizing those men who impregnated the women who felt the need to get an abortion.

  176. 176.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 5:32 pm

    In other news, Ohio judge reverses ruling forcing hospital to give Ivermectin to COVID-19 patient.

    (via nycsouthpaw)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  177. 177.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 5:33 pm

    @Another Scott: Indeed where else will you find Nate Silver imparting wisdom to epidemiologists and a marketing person giving advice to the nation’s topmost prosecutor.  What is the opposite of imposter syndrome?

    When you are utterly confident about stuff that you are not an expert at?

  178. 178.

    Ksmiami

    September 6, 2021 at 5:34 pm

    @Immanentize: between this, rising fascism,  Covid and AGW, I put the odds of the US holding together as a functional country at 5-15 percent. The US is over, we just don’t know it yet

  179. 179.

    J R in WV

    September 6, 2021 at 5:35 pm

    @M31:

    TFG will always be Toad-penised Fart-huffing Goon to me

    To quote the great George Takei (not really a quote on this topic, but I love it anyways) “Ohh, Myyyy!” The best implementation of TFG so far!

  180. 180.

    Westyny

    September 6, 2021 at 5:37 pm

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose:

     

    @MontyTheClipArtMongoose: I think the term is Democratic Party.

  181. 181.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    September 6, 2021 at 5:38 pm

    @MomSense:

    @James E Powell:

    @Eunicecycle:

    I need to point out that even if Hillary had won in 2016, the Texas decision still would’ve been 4-3. Scalia’s seat would’ve likely remained vacant given the Senate and historical voting patterns for midterms for the president’e party. Maybe Kennedy would’ve stayed on, maybe not. Then maybe it would’ve been 3-3.

  182. 182.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 5:40 pm

    @debbie:

    It’s not unheard of for married* women, pregnant by their own husbands, to seek abortions for any number of reasons.

    *ETA: Too narrow. I should broaden it to include women in relationships of choice, regardless of marital status.

  183. 183.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 5:41 pm

    @Ksmiami: Some historical perspective is in order, this country survived a Civil War.

  184. 184.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 5:43 pm

    @Ksmiami:

    5-15 percent

    That high?? You surprise me.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  185. 185.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 5:45 pm

    @Ksmiami:

    I don’t think I can handle any more cheerfulness and optimism today.

  186. 186.

    piratedan

    September 6, 2021 at 5:45 pm

    It seems that we have a bunch of folk on the left that want a grand gesture from the DOJ… say like declaring the GOP a domestic terrorist organization and starting to arrest people accordingly. And while that would neatly bypass the SCOTUS, I don’t expect that to be the option taken.

     

    The GOP wants to die on this hill electorially, the rest of us have to make sure that they do.

  187. 187.

    patrick II

    September 6, 2021 at 5:46 pm

    Justice Sotomayor pretty vehemently disagreed with those who think the Supreme Court didn’t have standing.

    Couldn’t agree with Steve Vladek more, as important as a women’s right to choose is, this law is more pernicious than just its attack on abortion rights.

    It’s understandable that folks are fixated on how the Texas law all-but eliminates a pregnant woman’s right to a pre-viability abortion. But the implications here are even bigger—threatening a fundamental restructuring of how our constitutional rights are (and are not) protected.

    And finally, because of voter disenfranchisement, purposeful hyper-partisanship even in accepting death from preventable disease, and a Supreme Court majority filled with confederate brigands, Republicans in Texas feel that this is a play that could help with their re-election, not make them unelectable forever as should be the case. Not a good omen.

  188. 188.

    schrodingers_cat

    September 6, 2021 at 5:48 pm

     

    @SiubhanDuinne: Doom posters make a good buck on Patreon. St Sarah Doomzior is a good example.

  189. 189.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 5:51 pm

    @Westyny:  Democrat vs Democratic – telling, isn’t it?

  190. 190.

    Renie

    September 6, 2021 at 5:53 pm

    I’m not sure I understand this law.  If a women leaves Texas to get an abortion, the Texas law still applies even though the procedure takes place in another state?   or does it apply only to abortions done in Texas?  Did they write this law so they can go after women in other states who aren’t even residents of Texas?  How can a state law be applicable in another state?  What am I missing here?

  191. 191.

    zhena gogolia

    September 6, 2021 at 5:55 pm

    @WaterGirl: I thought it was a spoof.

  192. 192.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 5:59 pm

    @schrodingers_cat:

    Sorry, I must be awfully slow today, but who is St Sarah Doomzior please? I did Google, but to no avail.

  193. 193.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    September 6, 2021 at 6:00 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Sarah Kendzior (sp?)

  194. 194.

    sab

    September 6, 2021 at 6:05 pm

    @Ruckus: It would help if you yourself would stick to one monuker. Last week was SFB.

    Also too, when did Garland work for Trump? That is what confused me. He was a federal judge in DC before Biden appointed him AG. Federal judges don’t work for the Executive branch.

  195. 195.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 6:07 pm

    @Renie: The SB8 law is a garbage fire and clearly unconstitutional.

    They define a bunch of garbage, like pregnancy begins with fertilization, and proceed from there.

    Since anyone in Texas who “aids or abets” an abortion can be sued, whether it happens outside of the state probably doesn’t matter if the law stands.

    Grr…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  196. 196.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 6:07 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Oh, thanks. I think I’ve heard her name, but no idea why.

  197. 197.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    September 6, 2021 at 6:12 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Don’t mention it. IIRC, she’s a journalist who’s written a lot about authoritarianism, specifically about Putin’s Russia. She came to prominence due to Russiagate. Probably why you’ve heard her name before : )

  198. 198.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    September 6, 2021 at 6:16 pm

    @Another Scott:

    Here’s a dark thought, but given how prevalent COVID is atm, what would happen to such a case if the plaintiffs were put on a ventilator or even died from COVID?

  199. 199.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 6:17 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    i just looked her up, and I’m sure that’s why. Probably right here on this very blog :-)

  200. 200.

    pat

    September 6, 2021 at 6:22 pm

    Does anyone know what this “six weeks” refers to? As I understand it, ovulation takes place about 2 weeks after the beginning of the last period, and that would be the time of fertilization. So 6 weeks is two months after the beginning of the last period? So how exactly is this measured?

    Another question… does no one take birth control pills? Are they too expensive?

  201. 201.

    satby

    September 6, 2021 at 6:24 pm

    @Baud: We used to ask ourselves if we’d support a Democratic Trump.

    I think the answer is, that’s exactly what a lot of us want.

    Very obviously. Our authoritarians are trustworthy, theirs are evildoers.

  202. 202.

    Kent

    September 6, 2021 at 6:25 pm

    @Renie:I’m not sure I understand this law.  If a women leaves Texas to get an abortion, the Texas law still applies even though the procedure takes place in another state?   or does it apply only to abortions done in Texas?  Did they write this law so they can go after women in other states who aren’t even residents of Texas?  How can a state law be applicable in another state?  What am I missing here?

    I think they can only apply it to actions that happen within Texas.  So a Texas activist or family member who buys a plane ticket to Denver or someone who drives a family member across the state of Texas to New Mexico.

    But frankly those are fringe cases.  What they are really trying to do is drive abortion out of the state of Texas, and this law, if implemented as intended, will do that.   It is really only the affluent who are going to fly out of state to get abortions.

  203. 203.

    debbie

    September 6, 2021 at 6:26 pm

    Anti-vaccine protesters march outside a hospital in Texas.

    They chant “My body my choice!”

    Texas, the land of women’s “host” bodies.

    pic.twitter.com/8gboBTCQxD
    — Nancy Levine (@nancylevine) September 6, 2021

  204. 204.

    satby

    September 6, 2021 at 6:26 pm

    @pat: This law counts six weeks after the start of the last period.

  205. 205.

    pat

    September 6, 2021 at 6:28 pm

    @satby: ​
     

    That is absolutely nuts.
    The “baby” is nothing but a blastocyst at that time.
    I hate these people.

  206. 206.

    pat

    September 6, 2021 at 6:30 pm

    @pat:

    So when your period is two weeks late, head for the nearest abortion clinic.

    Absolutely nuts.

  207. 207.

    Ksmiami

    September 6, 2021 at 6:32 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I think we should ensure that this happens. But even before that, this is Texas – guns all around

  208. 208.

    Mallard Filmore

    September 6, 2021 at 6:32 pm

    @pat: 

    As I understand it, ovulation takes place about 2 weeks after the beginning of the last period, and that would be the time of fertilization.

    Human females of child bearing age are ALWAYS fertile. Two weeks plus or minus is only a wild guess.

  209. 209.

    Westyny

    September 6, 2021 at 6:32 pm

    @WaterGirl: a reliable giveaway . . .

  210. 210.

    sab

    September 6, 2021 at 6:32 pm

    @Mallard Filmore: I knew someone like that who died a week after her baby was born. Her sister has the same heart defect.

    My heart couldn’t handle birth cintrol pills.

    But the law does have an exception for life of the mother. So she just has to find a doctor willing to decide it’s worth the cost of the lawsuit to sign off on it. As a woman whose life is on the line I would prefer to have a little more input in the decision.

    And as Kay says, the clinics will be gone in any case.

  211. 211.

    Westyny

    September 6, 2021 at 6:34 pm

    @zhena gogolia: could have been a lot clear and still have retained the snark.

  212. 212.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    September 6, 2021 at 6:35 pm

    @pat:

    @satby:

    Correct me if I’m wrong, but the way the law is written, can’t women who have miscarriages also be harassed? Basically, they have to prove a negative. This is fucking horrible

  213. 213.

    satby

    September 6, 2021 at 6:35 pm

    @pat: yes, I know, but the forced birthers have for years made it seem like microscopic fully formed humans is what’s being discussed. There is no “heart” for this “fetal heartbeat” law, it’s just electric cells, a heart hasn’t even formed yet. The people pushing these laws know that, their brainwashed followers don’t. This law is specifically targeted at the potential end run around it of getting RU 486 morning after pills to induce medical abortions. And to prevent the kinds of underground actions we who came of age before abortion was legal remember.

  214. 214.

    Ruckus

    September 6, 2021 at 6:35 pm

    @sab:

    I’ve given up on monikers because I have been informed that I have to define them every time I use them, which seems to lessen the concept of monikers in the end.

    Garland was in a federal judgeship, as you know, so for many people that meant he worked for the last guy. The number of people who have no idea how the government works is obviously much higher than those that do, or will even read up to find the answer..

  215. 215.

    Gin & Tonic

    September 6, 2021 at 6:37 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): She was a specialist on Uzbekistan, and actually quite knowledgeable. Did her dissertation on the Uzbek opposition movement. Her writing on US politics tends toward the alarmist.

  216. 216.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    September 6, 2021 at 6:37 pm

    @Ksmiami:

    Umm. You might want to walk that back dude

  217. 217.

    Steeplejack (phone)

    September 6, 2021 at 6:38 pm

    @zhena gogolia:

    Yes. Monty plays at spoof-trollery but is often so inconherent you can’t tell what he means.

  218. 218.

    satby

    September 6, 2021 at 6:38 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Of course. We all know those pregnant sluts will lie about having a miscarrage. Righteous women are proud to be host bodies for the unborn.

  219. 219.

    sab

    September 6, 2021 at 6:42 pm

    @pat: Not everyone can safely take birth control pills. Back in the day they blew up my blood pressure and endangered my heart. What they do is mimic pregnancy, The more recent versions aren’t as strong, but that also means they sometimes don’t work.

  220. 220.

    A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)

    September 6, 2021 at 6:43 pm

    @Professor Bigfoot: Me too!

  221. 221.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 6:43 pm

    @satby: I predict that sales of pregnancy tests drop to near zero in Texas.  You would have to have family or friends mail them to you.

    No matter who you are there is surely someone who would try to make their 10k off of you.

    As soon as the Rs start suing, I think we have to sue everyone in sight so they experience the horror of this, too.  No more fighting with one hand behind our backs.  Not on this one, anyway.

  222. 222.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 6, 2021 at 6:45 pm

    WaPo had an oped the other day advocating using some anti-KKK law to prosecute the Texas ‘bounty hunters’, by Larry Tribe who’s gone a bit nutty but I thought it was interesting.

    This, by contrast, appears to do nothing

    Edit: I think I did also read a Popehat thread saying that this law declares itself immune to Texas’s anti-SLAPP provision, so combined with the legal fees aspect you could really just sue everybody in the state and jam everything up pretty bad? IANAL

  223. 223.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 6, 2021 at 6:52 pm

    @Ksmiami:

    between this, rising fascism, Covid and AGW, I put the odds of the US holding together as a functional country at 5-15 percent. The US is over, we just don’t know it yet

    Literally only one of those things is specific to the US, so I assume your analysis holds for all nations? Nobody ever talks this way about like france, which sees regular violent riots and a routine second-place fascist finisher for prez

  224. 224.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 6:54 pm

    @Major Major Major Major: That’s one of our new doomsayers.

  225. 225.

    satby

    September 6, 2021 at 7:00 pm

    @WaterGirl: Back when you could get jailed for aiding in an abortion, pre-Roe, there were underground networks of women who helped other women get safe abortions. We’re going back to those days in Texas.

  226. 226.

    Major Major Major Major

    September 6, 2021 at 7:01 pm

    @WaterGirl: oh they’re not new

  227. 227.

    SiubhanDuinne

    September 6, 2021 at 7:26 pm

    I never considered myself part of an underground network, but in a small way I guess I was. When I lived in Florida in the late ‘60s/early ‘70s, I accompanied two different women friends, on two separate occasions, to NYC for their abortions, waited while they had the procedure, and then we spent the night with supportive friends I had known when I lived in Manhattan.

  228. 228.

    Anomalous Cowherd

    September 6, 2021 at 7:28 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: #177:

     

    Dunning-Krueger syndrome.

  229. 229.

    J R in WV

    September 6, 2021 at 7:33 pm

    @pat:

    Does anyone know what this “six weeks” refers to?

    I’m not sure why everyone is talking about “6 weeks” — I’m pretty sure the bill makes termination of a pregnancy after the detection of  “fetal heartbeat”, which is another falsehood right there, at six weeks those are generated by the ultrasound devices to make future mommy happy.

    There is no heart in a 6-week embryo, there are no heart valves to make a heart beat sound.

    A 6-week embryo is the size of a pea!

    This is a stack of lies!

  230. 230.

    WaterGirl

    September 6, 2021 at 7:56 pm

    @J R in WV: Yep.  They started with lies as if they were facts, and then built the law on that.

    Appalling.

  231. 231.

    Geminid

    September 6, 2021 at 8:01 pm

    @schrodingers_cat: Stay. Sometimes you have to love somebody from a distance. You can tell her that, and hopefully she’ll understand.

  232. 232.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 8:28 pm

    @J R in WV: you’ll not see this, but thank you

  233. 233.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 8:30 pm

    @frosty: raising a drink to you

  234. 234.

    MontyTheClipArtMongoose

    September 6, 2021 at 8:32 pm

    @Westyny: big if true

  235. 235.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 8:41 pm

    Universities as superspreaders. Texas A&M does not require masks or vaccinations for students staff & faculty. https://t.co/7Y0QBujYM4 https://t.co/BIziO8CwXF

    — Ruth Ben-Ghiat (@ruthbenghiat) September 6, 2021

    I don’t like how this story ends… :-(

    (sigh)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  236. 236.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 9:03 pm

    Bobby Lee statue in Richmond, VA is (finally!) coming down this Wednesday.

    Good, good.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  237. 237.

    prostratedragon

    September 6, 2021 at 9:24 pm

    Remarks from Wendell Pierce on the death of Michael K. Williams.

    Three Omar and Bunk scenes.
    Bunk and Omar I: Their meeting. “Parrish know how to bring it out of people, don’t he?”
    Bunk and Omar II: “Calling your name, glorifying your ass.”

    Bunk and Omar III: “Man gotta live what he know, right?”

  238. 238.

    Another Scott

    September 6, 2021 at 9:45 pm

    First rule of Legal Twitter – do not argue with BadLegalTakes.

    Lawyer, in suggesting it’s defamatory to say he’s wrong about something, decides to argue with @BadLegalTakes, as a lawyer you’d want to hire would. https://t.co/dzmoYepoy3

    — DemonicEntitiesHat (@Popehat) September 7, 2021

    Second rule – don’t double-down.

    :-/

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  239. 239.

    James E Powell

    September 6, 2021 at 10:32 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    I need to point out that no one has any idea what would have happened if Hillary Clinton had been elected in 2016.

  240. 240.

    James E Powell

    September 6, 2021 at 10:38 pm

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    Sarah Kendzior got her first cable gigs because Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s dictator since the fall of CCCP, died. She was the only person around who had the expertise to talk about it. She was a great cable guest until she started telling the truth about Trump, after which she was promptly banned. Can’t have truth about Republicans on cable shows.

    People disparage her because she is hyperbolic & emphasizes the dangers, but she’s been pretty accurate in describing Trump, his family, his coterie, and his behavior

    ETA – What @Gin & Tonic: said.

  241. 241.

    Chris Johnson

    September 6, 2021 at 10:41 pm

    @frosty:

     

    There is no legitimate reason to EVER say ‘listen, this is what Chapo Trap House has to say about it’. They are the most obvious bad actors I’ve ever seen, barring maybe Jimmy Dore, and it is so excruciatingly obvious that they’re the left-wing shills for Russian trollage that anybody at this stage even bringing them up is either complicit or impossibly stupid.

  242. 242.

    Kay

    September 6, 2021 at 10:44 pm

    I guess the thing to do would be run a very strong Democrat in Texas for governor and really commit to beating them. That’s the fight and it’s not really a matter of my or anyone else’s hopefulness or lack thereof, there’s no brilliant legal strategy where the AG of the United States can fix it. I don’t know anything about Texas but I assume there’s some set of circumstances where a Democrat could win.

    I’m just baffled by the idea that if we all had better attitudes or something that would do it. It’s just not relevant to the specific problem here. I don’t think that’s “doomsaying” I think it’s reality. What are we “hoping” happens? If you said to me “are you hopeful for the Texas governors race?” I can answer that, but am I hopeful some general “will to win” or “if you can dream it you can do it”  will cause something or other to happen and the reverse will doom any effort? Well, no. I don’t really believe in that stuff. To me it starts to be like “affirmations” or something and frankly that’s a little woo woo for my temperament.

  243. 243.

    Groucho48

    September 7, 2021 at 12:15 am

    Wonder if this was the inspiration for the law?

    “Not only will Jews who have left their designated residential area be punished with death, but the same penalty applies to anyone who knowingly provides refuge (a hiding place) to such Jews.”

    #OnThisDay in 1942, German authorities in Warsaw issued this announcement reminding Poles that the penalty for aiding Jews who fled the ghettos was death.

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