Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

Stamping your little feets and demanding that they see how important you are? Not working anymore.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Republicans got rid of McCarthy. Democrats chose not to save him.

The Giant Orange Man Baby is having a bad day.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

People are weird.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

There are more Russians standing up to Putin than Republicans.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

The gop is a fucking disgrace.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. Do not congratulate. This is not business as usual.

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Somebody needs to explain to DeSantis that nobody needs to do anything to make him look bad.

Battle won, war still ongoing.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Last Call (Open Thread)

Last Call (Open Thread)

by | 207 Comments

This post is in: 

David Frum (yes, I know) has a column in The Atlantic comparing the fall of Roe to Prohibition, and it’s actually not offensive as it sounds at first. Frum talks about the parallels between the decades-long struggles that brought the prohibitionists and forced birthers to victory — and how relatively short-lived what seemed like total victory at the time turned out to be. He concludes:

Prohibition and Dobbs were and are projects that seek to impose the values of a cohesive and well-organized cultural minority upon a diverse and less-organized cultural majority. Those projects can work for a time, but only for a time. In a country with a representative voting system—even a system as distorted in favor of the rural and conservative as the American system was in the 1920s and is again today—the cultural majority is bound to prevail sooner or later.

Of course, the situations aren’t exactly analogous. There’s no nationwide ban on abortion (yet), and banning booze in 1919 isn’t the same as removing a right to personal bodily autonomy and in effect relegating half the population to second-class citizen status in 2022. But Prohibition didn’t stop people from drinking booze any more than a ban on abortion will stop women from terminating pregnancies, and there will be horrifying, totally predictable consequences now as there were back then.

Still, I hope Frum is right when he predicts the “diverse and less-organized cultural majority” of our day will prevail. It all depends on the continuation of our representative voting system. To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin and Anne Laurie: a republic, if you can keep it, or a theocracy, if you can enforce it.

Speaking of booze, since tales of (possibly inebriated!) Rudy Giuliani stretching a pair of clown shoes over the Bozo footwear he was already sporting are circulating in the comments, here’s a mash-up of the security tape that shows the “assault” with a voice-over from a self-pitying call-in interview:

He even does the tremulous “calling in sick” voice. Christ, what an asshole.

Open thread!

Reader Interactions

207Comments

  4. 4.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’ve had the almost/perversely optimistic thought that, historically, progress in this country requires shit to get really bad. Could you get FDR without the crash of ’29? Without the utter (and too-little discussed, IMHO) disaster of the second Bush presidency, I doubt you get Obama. Maybe the confluence of Dobbs and whatever the 1/6 committee is cooking up will be enough to shake the Lumpenmittel out of their torpor.

    I just heard on MSNBC that Mike Pence and other RWers think this is the beginning of a new day for them. They’re going to campaign in states for more repressive laws. I think they’re wrong. Michigan has a referendum on the ballot to write Roe-like protections into their state constitution, which I choose to believe will be good for Whitmer and the other state offices on that ballot (AG, and SoS, to start with). I just heard on MSNBC that there’s a move to start one in CA. Maybe the whole “dog who caught the car” theory is true.

  5. 5.

    Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony

    Ugh. I can’t find the timeline of why Roe couldn’t be codified and I have one of those annoying progressive friends who always wants to blame Democrats for everything Republicans have done to the country. I went through the comments in several posts and still couldn’t find it.

  6. 6.

    germy shoemangler

    “All of a sudden, I feel this ‘Bam!’ on my back,” Giuliani said. “I don’t know if they helped me not fall down, but I just about fell down, but I didn’t.

    “I feel this tremendous pain in my back, and I’m thinking, what the — I didn’t even know what it was,” he said. “All of a sudden, I hear this guy say, ‘You’re a f–king scumbag,’ then he moves away so nobody can grab him.

    “And he says, ‘You, you’re one of the people that’s gonna kill women. You’re gonna kill women,’ ” Giuliani said, quoting the suspect, who now faces assault charges. “‘You and your f–king friend are gonna kill women.’ Then he starts yelling out all kinds of, just curses, and every once in a while, he puts in that woman thing.

    https://www.gawker.com/politics/giuliani-staten-island-supermarket-arrest

  9. 9.

    Dangerman

    Rudy, Rudy, Rudy; from National Hero to basically Dog Shit. What a fall … history will not be kind.

  10. 10.

    WV Blondie

    Huh. That was worth an assault charge? I’ve fantasized about giving Ghouliani and the walking mango cellulite a forearm shiver. And I’d cheerfully accept the charges.

  11. 11.

    cain

    The separation of state and religion was put there to protect religion. All these libertarians and even conservatives are going to chafe against the stupid social laws that are going to be coming in these red states. Ultimately, the media is going to be full of stories of Christian women going to jail because of something nothing to do with them.

    Same thing with stupid shit like that asshole who wanted to lead prayer – you want to open up that came of worms? Satanists, all of em – in practice, it will never work – 1st amendment is a double edged sword and if they want to use that.. let’s go because the Gen Zs aren’t Boomers, Xers, or Ys  – I think they are made from a different cloth and my fervent  wish is that this will be the generation that will drive the diversity and inclusion that is desperately needed.

  18. 18.

    Betty Cracker

    @Baud: I wonder if that’s her dog?

    ETA: I can see why she irritates some folks, but she’s not the anti-Dem monster she’s portrayed as in some comments here. I’m not saying she never says anything counter-productive, but there’s a whole lot of cherry-picking going on…

  24. 24.

    Urban Suburbanite

    I don’t know how much I believe in the “Republicans caught the car, NOW they’re in trouble” line. They’re fucking ecstatic about this – because it means they get to punish women and make the country THEIRS again. They’ll be targeting others soon enough.

  26. 26.

    germy shoemangler

    @Betty Cracker:

    If you only knew her from balloon-juice comments, you’d think she spent her time drawing hitler mustaches on Biden portraits and exhorting her followers to write in Jill Stein for every ballot.

  27. 27.

    Matt McIrvin

    @mistermix: The bad corollary is that when the new Democratic President doesn’t fix it immediately, the bad guys come roaring back in in the midterm. Because memories are short and the public is always asking what you’ve done for me lately.

  33. 33.

    mistermix

    @Baud:

    I don’t follow her (orr anybody).  If she says things that would BJ readers would like, then people who like her should link to them.

    You mean the way I did in this morning’s post?   Just have to rub that in since you were so quick to pounce this morning without reading what I posted.

    Anyway, she says a ton of things that B-J readers would like.  In fact, her Instagram is a god damned graduate seminar on how to use social media.  A lot of it is devoted to refuting wishful thinking and explaining how the House actually works.  She takes on haters as well.

    Since you asked, I’ll write a post on it tomorrow or the next day.

    Also, it’s funny to me that you didn’t read the footnotes but put in a dozen or so comments.  Perhaps next time read the whole thing, just saying.

  35. 35.

    CaseyL

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    I downloaded and saved it as a jpeg to always have handy.  Here ’tis:

    1981-2: Reagan was President

    1983-4: Reagan was President

    1985-6: Reagan was President

    1987-8: Reagan was President

    1989-90: HW Bush was President

    1991-2: HW Bush was President

    1995-6: Republican Congress

    1997-8: Republican Congress

    1999-2000: Republican Congress

    2001-2: W Bush was President

    2003-4: W Bush was President

    2005-6: W Bush was President

    2007-8: W Bush was President

    2009-10: Tried but stopped by anti-choice majority in House.

    2011-2: Republican Congress

    2013-4: Republican Congress

    2015-6: Republican Congress

    2017-8: Trump was President

    2019-20: Trump was President

    2021-2: Tried but stopped by opposition from 51 Senators

  36. 36.

    ColoradoGuy

    “Awakened a sleeping giant” seems like the appropriate phrase. The white rurals and the South are attempting a takeover of the rest of the country. This attempt by five sleazy politicians in black robes to turn the entire USA into 1952 Alabama is going to meet with ferocious resistance.

    It’s also removing the mask of dignity and honor the Court has pretended to, and exposing the ugly reality of unlimited lifetime power that cannot be recalled in any useful way. No other country tolerates a partisan court with lifetime appointments.

  37. 37.

    Feathers

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: What I like to point out is that the Voting Rights Act was as codified as codified gets and that didn’t prevent Shelby. The fact that approval was unanimous in the Senate was held as proof that  Senators didn’t take the vote seriously.

    They have this fantasy that equality for all is the natural order of things, so if we don’t have it, betrayal is the only possible reason why. So they blame the Dems.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @mistermix:

    As I said, I didn’t read the footnotes.  And I don’t think I “pounced” on AOC in that thread, or even mentioned her.  I haven’t gone back to check.

    But if she’s doing good stuff, I’m more than happy to see it, rather than have people tell me how awesome she is.

  40. 40.

    Salty Sam

    @Baud:   @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:

    I trust your judgement, but I tend to believe in “if you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

    Even better, simply ask the moron, “Please explain to me exactly how, and in detail, Dems shoulda/coulda/woulda codified abortion rights at the federal level.   Be prepared to wait for an answer.

  41. 41.

    mistermix

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The bad corollary is that when the new Democratic President doesn’t fix it immediately, the bad guys come roaring back in in the midterm. Because memories are short and the public is always asking what you’ve done for me lately.

    Plus Republicans are better at messaging when out of office than in — look at what they did to Biden starting on day 1.  Fox News thrives on R’s being out of office so they can shit on Dems day after day, and the beloved “liberal” media all of a sudden calls out minor things that they totally ignored from the former Republican President.

  42. 42.

    Anyway

    @Betty Cracker:

    Re AOC – One difference between her and other lefties – she actually calls out Rethugs in no uncertain terms whereas many Leftists reserve all their passion and vehemence for criticizing Ds. Their criticism of Rs is so tepid (ha!) whereas AOC pulls no punches in slamming Rs.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Salty Sam:

    That’s easy though.   Whenever Dems control everything, which happens every blue moon, they have a duty to pass the Utopia Act solving all of our problems.  The Dems are a Borg-like collective that only fails to do things when they want to fail to do things.

  45. 45.

    Kay

    I went to the nurse practitioner I use as a primary care provider this AM. She has identical twin sons who went to high school with my children. Her sons were really good baseball players, both of them, which made the sort of local celebrities (“twins! both great! look exactly the same!”) but not jerks about being small town sports celebrities. Nice kids.

    Anyway they are grown now – 22 years old- and the twin who went off to college has informed her he is getting a vasectomy because of Roe. Birth control can fail, he says (true, of course). They had a huge fight over it – she thinks any doc who would agree to do it is a bad doctor- and now he won’t respond to her texts so she’s afraid he’s going thru with it.

  46. 46.

    James E Powell

    Those projects can work for a time, but only for a time. In a country with a representative voting system—even a system as distorted in favor of the rural and conservative as the American system was in the 1920s and is again today—the cultural majority is bound to prevail sooner or later.

    So I guess there’s nothing to worry about. After all, it’s not like Prohibition had any negative consequences.

  47. 47.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mistermix:

    A lot of it is devoted to refuting wishful thinking and explaining how the House actually works.

    wishful thinking like “Biden should open abortion clinics on federal lands?”

  48. 48.

    Baud

    @mistermix:

    and the beloved “liberal” media all of a sudden calls out minor things that they totally ignored from the former Republican President.

     

    One thing that occured to me the other day is how we’ve taken for granted how scandal-free the Biden administration has been. There have been attempts to manufacture scandals, of course, but they really haven’t gotten traction outside the hater ecosystem.

  51. 51.

    Bill Arnold

    @cain:

    Same thing with stupid shit like that asshole who wanted to lead prayer – you want to open up that came of worms?

    I’m imagining a female coach of a female high school sports team with a power megaphone leading a prayer that is an excerpt of the Exaltation of Inanna (Sumerian Goddess):
    The exaltation of Inana (Inana B)

    …
    20-33. At your battle-cry, my lady, the foreign lands bow low. When humanity comes before you in awed silence at the terrifying radiance and tempest, you grasp the most terrible of all the divine powers. Because of you, the threshold of tears is opened, and people walk along the path of the house of great lamentations. In the van of battle, all is struck down before you. With your strength, my lady, teeth can crush flint. You charge forward like a charging storm. You roar with the roaring storm, you continually thunder with Ickur. You spread exhaustion with the stormwinds, while your own feet remain tireless. With the lamenting balaj drum a lament is struck up.
    …

    (That might even be a summoning ritual, if done right. Best if the summoner(s) has(have) a female mind state, though. :-) )

  52. 52.

    Mike in NC

    Front page of USA Today: ‘Court’s legitimacy in question after ruling’. No shit.

  53. 53.

    indycat32

    Got the annual legislative highlights mailer from my state senator.  One of the things he’s proud of is passing a law “stopping coerced abortions.”  I emailed and asked him how he feels about coerced births.  I doubt I’ll get a response.

  54. 54.

    germy shoemangler

    @mistermix:  Fox News thrives on R’s being out of office so they can shit on Dems day after day

    For a while I found myself actually wondering if this was their game plan when Rick Scott started spouting all his new plans and ideas.

     

    Here is Roberts on Fox asking Rick Scott what the hell he was thinking by saying the quiet part out loud in an election year.

    Sunset Medicare and Social, raise taxes on half of America. That’s their plan if they win. 2/3 pic.twitter.com/UhJ4zqtSO6

    — Jay Arnold (@jadedcreative) June 25, 2022

  55. 55.

    Bill Arnold

    @Anyway:

    Their criticism of Rs is so tepid (ha!) whereas AOC pulls no punches in slamming Rs.

    That’s my litmus test too. If they vigorously criticize Republicans, they are on team anti-Fascist, or at least allies.

  58. 58.

    The Lodger

    @rikyrah: I believe they are two different people. Also, there is a Sister Rail Gun of something something or other who we don’t hear from too often.

    I live to clarify.

  61. 61.

    Jinchi

    @Betty Cracker: I’m not saying she never says anything counter-productive, but there’s a whole lot of cherry-picking going on…

    Agreed. There is a lot of left-bashing going on, but they are not the cause of the Democrats’ problems. AOC and the squad are opinionated as hell, but they’ve never threatened the democratic agenda. That fault goes to centrists like Manchin and Sinema who have been happy to scuttle any action on core issues, and in the way that does the greatest damage to the party’s reputation.​

  63. 63.

    Baud

    @Jinchi:

    There is a lot of left-bashing going on,

     
    I think people encounter the left on social media. No one encounters Manchin and Sinema.

  65. 65.

    Ohio Mom

    @Kay: When I consider the types of things young adults do that scare their parents and keep them up all night, I think your NP is getting off easy.

    On the subject of AOC, she, Katie Porter and Elizabeth Warren all win high praise from me for being able to present policy issues in clear, concise and engaging language, meeting their audience where it is.

  70. 70.

    Jinchi

    @schrodingers_cat:

    This doesn’t sound like AOC is dissing voting at all.

    “We have to fill the streets,” Ocasio-Cortez went on to say. “Right now, elections are not enough.”

    The New York Democrat said showing up at the ballot box was the “bare minimum,” adding that people need to “show up everywhere.”

  72. 72.

    SpaceUnit

    That video of Rudy is killing me.  There is something seriously wrong with that dude.

    I want to summon the wraith that pilfered all his human dignity and tip it twenty bucks.

  73. 73.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud:

    Selena Coppock

    @SelenaCoppock

    ·
    3h

    Replying to
    @josecanyousee_
    and
    @riseup4abortion

    I went to a rally put on by Rise Up 2 Abortion without knowing who they were. A speaker encouraged all the listeners to NOT VOTE, saying nothing is done by voting, nobody gets rights from voting. I walked away immediate. What an incorrect, shitty message.

  75. 75.

    CaseyL

    @Ksmiami: I’m trying to come up with something similar, so I can pose as a Faux GOPer and say, “I support the GOP because there are way too many humans on this planet, and the one thing,maybe the only thing,  the GOP is really good at is killing vast numbers of people.”

    Like what I just said, but pithier.

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Dangerman: Wasn’t he pretty much a walking political corpse on 9/10/01? pretty unpopular in NYC and considered too liberal for the national GOP?

  78. 78.

    Ohio Mom

    @rikyrah: I can’t speak for them of course, but I see both the Machine Gun Sister and the Golden Bear Sister comment frequently. I guess we could all have more than one nym to comment under but I find their voices very different,

  80. 80.

    mistermix

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    wishful thinking like “Biden should open abortion clinics on federal lands?”

    What’s so terrible about that?  It’s a proposal that would save lives, and maybe it’s within Biden’s executive power.  Federal women’s health clinics out of the existing HHS budget.  I’m sure there are already some of those around (not on remote federal lands).  There’s nothing wrong with politicians throwing something like this against the wall to see if it sticks.

    But, to answer your question, when I talked about “wishful thinking”,  I’m talking about the post that you must have missed, too, where she explains clearly and concisely why Democrats could not have passed legislation codifying Roe.

  83. 83.

    Jinchi

    @Baud: ​
     I think people encounter the left on social media. No one encounters Manchin and Sinema.

    One group has actual political power.

  86. 86.

    Baud

    @Jinchi:

    First, it’s not either/or. One can hate both groups.

    Second, bad actors on social media have political power.  They helped get Trump elected.

  87. 87.

    Leto

    David N Hackney MD, FACOG@DavidNHackney

    Abortion for *lethal* fetal anomalies is now *illegal* in Ohio

    I’m a high-risk obstetrician here. I diagnose birth defects

    So some point soon I may look someone in the eyes & say that they, against their will, will carry to term, undergo delivery & then have their child die

    5:56 AM · Jun 27, 2022·Twitter for Mac

  88. 88.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @mistermix:

    But, to answer your question, when I talked about “wishful thinking”,  I’m talking about the post that you must have missed, too, where she explains clearly and concisely why Democrats could not have passed legislation codifying Roe.

    I don’t need that explained to me, thanks. I also don’t need anyone to explain that the Hyde Amendment (just for starters) exists, and I’m not even a Member of Congress!

  90. 90.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud:

    @Jinchi: What does elections are not enough mean? The woman she was with wants to over overthrow the US government.

    Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights

    @riseup4abortion

    Abortion rights, civil rights, even the right to vote was not won through voting but through struggle in the streets.

  91. 91.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Baud: Because she agrees with it? People have blinders on where the populist left is concerned. Their actions actively damage our chances at the polls.

    Defund the police slogan was electoral poison and definitely damaged us at the polls.  Sanders has been at it too, criticizing the Ds from the left since the Roe decision.

  92. 92.

    Ohio Mom

    @Kay: There’s no guarantee that the 22 year old is fertile, he could have forgone the vasectomy and still not produce any grandchildren. Or he could one day change his mind and have the vasectomy reversed (not always possible but I would guess urologists are getting better at that).

    The only unarguable point she made is that there are a lot of bad doctors out there (though refusing to perform a vasectomy is probably not a good measure). Probably most nurses of all sorts harbor doubts about doctors as a group.

  94. 94.

    Cameron

    @mistermix: You must be another of the deluded ones. If you were familiar with the Bernstosslegende, you’d know how evil she really is.

  95. 95.

    mistermix

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    I don’t need that explained to me, thanks. I also don’t need anyone to explain that the Hyde Amendment (just for starters) exists, and I’m not even a Member of Congress!

    You asked what I meant by her refuting wishful thinking.  I answered your question with an example.  It was an example, not an indication that you needed that explained.  Try to keep up.

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @schrodingers_cat:

    People here are quoting her as saying voters have a responsibility to vote.  If that’s her message, I agree with it.

    My red line is people who dispute the necessity of voting Dem. I view them with the same contempt as I do antivaxxers (if not worse). Sounds like this group falls into that category.

  97. 97.

    SpaceUnit

    @debbie:

    Ha.  He’s not going to get much by suing a 20 year old grocery clerk.

    He’ll be lucky to get beer money.

  99. 99.

    Betty Cracker

    I’ve never heard of the group “Rise Up 4 Abortion Rights” and have no idea what they stand for, except, presumably, abortion rights. Is “don’t vote” something the group advocates, which would be stupid, or something some rando who attended a rally they organized stupidly said? I have no idea.

  100. 100.

    mistermix

    @HumboldtBlue:  One possibility: open the clinic and do comprehensive women’s care on the federally funded side, and let Planned Parenthood build and run the abortion side with no charge to the feds.  The Republicans find lots of clever ways to go around laws that they don’t like.  We can do it too.

  102. 102.

    ksmiami

    @mistermix:  Nah – My proposal is that Biden should call every red state governor and senator and tell them he’s going to shutter and relocate all US military bases/infrastructure to blue states since our soldiers can no longer access the healthcare they need to stay battle ready and that these locations are too unstable. Wait – does that mean your state falls into more poverty – oh well. BYE – The point is there is a lot the President and Dems in power CAN do if they seize the initiative – JUST DO IT

  104. 104.

    Ruckus

    @WV Blondie:

    A higher judge in the jurisdiction lowered the charging level and I believe removed one of the charges. But the man is not in near as much trouble as he was. I could be wrong but I think this is now a minor misdemeanor.

  107. 107.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Betty Cracker: Their founder is a follower of a fringe Maoist group that has been telling people to boycott voting for 40 years. I remember them doing it back in the 80s.

  108. 108.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    @riseup4abortion

    Abortion rights, civil rights, even the right to vote was not won through voting but through struggle in the streets.

    So the 19th Amendment was never voted on? The Civil Rights Act? The Voting Rights Act? There were no elected officials who voted for or against that legislation? All people did was protest and that legislation magically came into being with no human intervention?

    And these are the people we’re supposed to ally with to win the midterm elections.

  110. 110.

    geg6

    @Betty Cracker:

    Yes, exactly right.  She’s young and says and does stupid things, as one does when one is young.  But she’s also smart and savvy.  She’s fine.  I have no real beefs with her.

  112. 112.

    Butter Emails

    @Ruckus:

    It should have been thrown out and Guiliani should be arrested for filing a false police report and sued for slander.

  113. 113.

    sab

    @Leto: I love Ohio but sometimes..

    Mike DeWine is not stupid, so the only alternative is that he is very evil.

  117. 117.

    ian

    @mistermix: Gotta love Kevin Drum //.  He quotes no historians, modern or otherwise, when claiming ” Modern historians mostly agree that this isn’t what actually happened.”

    Here are some actual modern historians- Kleinerman and Carson- on the FDR court packing

    We argue that Roosevelt, as the initiator of the court-packing plan, obtained what he wanted politically (a shift in policy direction on the Court), while allowing both Congress and the Court to believe they had successfully outmaneuvered him.

    A switch in time saves nine: Institutions, strategic actors, and
    FDR’s court-packing plan

    Maybe Drum should try quoting a historian rather than making sweeping assumptions about what other professions think.

  118. 118.

    J R in WV

    @Kay: ​
     

    I actually admire him for that position — if you don’t want to father a child with the horror show of climate change roaring down on us, good on you.

    Sorry your family health care woman is saddened — I’m sure he will reconnect eventually. Perhaps she could urge him to deposit a sperm deposit somewhere?

    Wife and I have no children by choice. Our fear was of nuclear warfare, but now climate change is at least as bad, although slower.

  119. 119.

    germy shoemangler

    @Mnemosyne:

    Would you have a link?  I visited their home page and it’s a mess, but I didn’t see any “Don’t vote” statements.  Their twitter account is all defenses of people being arrested for protesting the supreme court’s decision.  I’m trying to find a clip or tweet of them saying “don’t vote” but I can’t so far.

  123. 123.

    Mallard Filmore

    @mistermix:

    [from jim, Foolish Literalist:]  wishful thinking like “Biden should open abortion clinics on federal lands?”

    Would the enclosing state be allowed to arrest the facility workers when they left the reservation? Maybe the doctors and nurses can be helicoptered in and out.

  124. 124.

    Geminid

    @Betty Cracker: My understanding is that this group is an arm of a political cult run by a guy named Bob Avakian. I doubt if they actually care much about the issue of reproductive freedom except as a means of hoodwinking recruits. @Dr.CatherinePrendergrast among others has more familiarity with these ratfuckers.

  125. 125.

    Betty Cracker

    @Matt McIrvin: Okay, well fuck that person. But I’m not seeing any evidence that AOC is affiliated with them or endorses that message, other than that she appeared within the same video frame at a rally that looks pretty chaotic.

    I’m old enough to remember when anti-war protests used to get overrun by International ANSWER commies. I was a protester but not a commie.

  127. 127.

    mistermix

    I just took a look at the Rise up 4 Abortion Rights website. What a mishmash.  The front page has an embed of a Nancy Pelosi video talking about the end of Roe.  It also has a link to a statement about their pre-repeal rally, including this:

    Don’t listen to those who tell you that it is more “realistic” to channel our fury into voting for the Democrats in the next election (after Roe has been overturned). No! It is far harder to win back a right once they have ripped it away than to defend it when you still have it. Besides, the Democrats and others have for decades sought “common ground” with those driving the fanatical attack on abortion. What is needed is an uncompromising fight for the lives of women.

    Obviously, makes no sense, Roe was locked and loaded on May 26 when they were getting ready to protest.

    Looks to me like your basic single-issue advocacy organization that doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. Looks like Sunsara Taylor is a serial founder of organizations that protest loudly, while trying for some kind of new Communism:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunsara_Taylor  Good luck with that.

    Why was AOC on the same stage as her?  Because her organization organized the rally in AOC’s district, I assume.  Sometimes office holders appear at protests organized by single issue advocacy groups – my local MoC did that during BLM.  Did he agree with everything that was said at the rally? I can guarantee you the answer was no.  But, I’m sure I’ve just missed AOC’s connection to some global Communist conspiracy.

    There’s a ton of other stuff there:  https://riseup4abortionrights.org/

  128. 128.

    Geminid

    @Baud: I think tbe Congresswoman got suckered, like MSNBC did. These people are plausible at first glance, and they are manipulators. They remind me of Lyndon LaRouche’s outfit.

  131. 131.

    catclub

    @mistermix: It’s a proposal that would save lives, and maybe it’s within Biden’s executive power.

     

    Has the Hyde amendment been removed and I did not hear about it?

  132. 132.

    germy shoemangler

    @Mnemosyne:  So the 19th Amendment was never voted on? The Civil Rights Act? The Voting Rights Act? There were no elected officials who voted for or against that legislation? All people did was protest and that legislation magically came into being with no human intervention?

    ?

    This was all voted on after marches, demonstrations and struggles in the streets.  Suffragettes marched and were harassed by police.  So did MLK. How do you think John Lewis got his skull cracked?

  133. 133.

    Frank Wilhoit

    @sab: DeWine has been derping around long enough to prove, many times over, that he is, in fact, extremely stupid.  But when you say that evil is the only alternative (¿porque no los dos?), what you are saying is that cowardice and fear are ipso facto evil.  That’s a conversation that can be had, but that’s your opener.

  134. 134.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Maybe.  But we often debate whether Dem politician X should have appeared with or spoken to Unsavory Group Y. The criticism seems fair, even if reasonable minds can have different opinions.

     

  135. 135.

    mistermix

    @Mallard Filmore:

    Would the enclosing state be allowed to arrest the facility workers when they left the reservation? Maybe the doctors and nurses can be helicoptered in and out.

    Dunno.  Here in the Dakotas, Kristi Noem thinks she can outlaw Plan C delivery by mail.  I guess the Postal Inspectors in the state report to her.  Today I learned.  The answer is “let’s find out.”

    Also, AOC said that reservations are not where these would be located, because that would be a violation of their tribal autonomy.  She’s right – but it would be interesting if some tribes would host women’s health clinics on their reservations and dare the states to come after them.

  138. 138.

    cain

    @Matt McIrvin: Oh absolutely – they want to open that door?

    It’s just begging to send that to the SCOTUS – in fact, trolling them would be a good exercise. Let’s find out what is states rights and what isn’t.

  139. 139.

    Salty Sam

    @schrodingers_cat:  At best this displays extremely poor judgement for a sitting Congressperson.

    I’m shocked, SHOCKED, that this could be true!  Poor judgement from a Congressperson!?!  What next?!

  142. 142.

    germy shoemangler

    @Baud:

    We can’t leave it to the Republicans.  Didn’t their intellectual leader stand and yell “stop!” to progress?

  143. 143.

    Mallard Filmore

    @mistermix: 

    that would be a violation of their tribal autonomy

    I meant ‘reservation’ a bit more loosely, to include military bases.

    Anyway, the comments above that mention Hyde won’t let this get started.

  145. 145.

    Ealbert

    @Mallard Filmore:

    There is a group of aircraft called the “Janet Fleet” which is run by the military to fly civilian workers in and out of military bases. The one for Area 51 operates out of the secure “Wonderland” gate at the Las Vegas airport. Perhaps they could use them for this.

  146. 146.

    Dan B

    @schrodingers_cat: We have gotten the message that you despise AOC.  I’d appreciate if you give it a rest.  There are many people who have far more flaws and truly evil intent.

  147. 147.

    germy shoemangler

    @Mnemosyne:

    I saw that quote; they seem to be saying “We had to fight in the streets for the right to vote” rather than “So don’t vote”

  148. 148.

    J R in WV

    @SpaceUnit:

    He’s not going to get much by suing a 20 year old grocery clerk.

    He’ll be lucky to get beer money.

    Doesn’t Rudy prefer $350 a bottle scotch on the rocks? He won’t get a single bottle of that from a clerk!!

    Plus that pat on the back was less strong than how I greet someone I haven’t seen in several months. What a whimp, Rudy!!!

  149. 149.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy shoemangler:

    That’s … kind of my point? Let me back it up for a minute:

    That legislation only passed because lawmakers who agreed with it were elected to the bodies where they could write and pass that legislation. As we all should have learned no later than 2003, protesting does jack shit to actually change laws unless you have legislators standing by to write and pass the necessary legislation.

    Russia has had huge protests against the war with Ukraine, but nothing happens because Putin doesn’t give a shit. Protests don’t matter unless you have lawmakers and judges in place who can change the law.

    Is that clear enough? I’m not anti-protesting, but it’s NOT FUCKING SUFFICIENT and the people who claim that we don’t need to back those protests up with votes to get substantive change are fucking morons.

  150. 150.

    Geminid

    @Baud: It’s certainly fair to criticize, and saying someone got suckered is not exactly an excuse. I don’t think Ocasio-Cortez knew the background of the lady with the megaphone who got the Congresswoman to join her chants. But these people are practiced manipulators who probably engineered the encounter.

  152. 152.

    Mnemosyne

    @mistermix:

    And yet Hillary giving the same paid speech to Goldman Sachs that she gave to the American Camping Association was proof of her utter perfidy. So is guilt by association only bad when it’s someone you personally like?

  153. 153.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Fair enough. I think I’ve received enough information about this incident that I’ve lost interest.  Tomorrow is another day.

  154. 154.

    germy shoemangler

    @Mnemosyne:  people who claim that we don’t need to back those protests up with votes to get substantive change are fucking morons.

    I don’t disagree.  And Putin is a good example.  But I still don’t see where they’re coming out and saying “don’t vote”

  156. 156.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Discourse Enjoyer @BidenHarrisBro

    Bernie Sanders: “Truman responded with a simple and straightforward strategy. Unlike today’s Democrats, he took the fight to the Republicans. He didn’t let them hide behind their whining and “do-nothingism.”

    Bernie Sanders take the fight to Republicans by /re-reads tweet/ attacking Democrats

    Remember when Bernie took the fight to Republicans by amplifying their propaganda about Hillary Clinton’s alleged corruption because she got Goldman Sachs to write her a check for telling them to diversify their work force?

    Is it hippie-punching to point out that this old fool is also an asshole? a giant, flaming, hemorrhoidal asshole.

  157. 157.

    J R in WV

    @Steeplejack: ​
     

    And it went on for only [checks notes] 13 years.

    Well, then.

    I’ll only be 84 when this is fixed at the federal level…

    Hurray!!

    Obviously I’m already really old.

    When I was entering child producing age we worried about nuclear warfare, not global climate change like today’s primary concern.

    Hope I live to see the end of the Republican Party!!!

  161. 161.

    SpaceUnit

    @J R in WV:

    I just read that the clerk was actually 39 years old, but I still doubt he has much in the way of scratch.

    He barely touched him.  And yet Rudy doesn’t have enough self-awareness to be embarrassed.  If I were one of Rudy’s kids I’d be trying to get him committed to a psychiatric facility.

  163. 163.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Dan B: FWIW I don’t have anything personal against her. I do think her actions harm us at the polls not every district is like hers. Also, no one is forcing you to read my comments. Scroll along.

  164. 164.

    Birdie

    The AOC hate is weird. It’s not because of something she said (she actually said the right words!), but because of something someone next to her who organized the protest said? I don’t get it, was there some other protest in her district at the same time that she should have been at instead?

    It reads as a huge reach based on motivated reasoning, and veers towards purity politics. Unfortunately, I think Democrats (both politicians and voters) will have to accept being part of a messy, non-uniform coalition if they want to achieve anything constructive.

    Related: What, specifically, is the target outcome that our coalition will be voting for? In general it’s a lot easier to agree on “no, never” than it is on “yes, this”. Is it the Women’s Health Protection Act? If yes, I’d appreciate it if our messaging betters started laying out the specifics in clear, bullet form, so there is something concrete to orient towards and build momentum around.

  167. 167.

    Mnemosyne

    @germy shoemangler:

    I am out of patience with anyone who tries to discourage voting. That’s been a huge problem on the left for over 40 years and I’m fucking sick of it. We wouldn’t be in the position we are today if people on the left weren’t convinced that voting is pointless.

    I don’t hate AOC, but letting this fringe group claim that she supports them and their non-voting stance was a misstep on her part.

  169. 169.

    Mnemosyne

    @Birdie:

    It reads as a huge reach based on motivated reasoning, and veers towards purity politics

    Scroll down a bit and see mistermix’s post complaining about a Democratic slogan from 30 years ago that hasn’t been used at all in at least 10 years. That’s why there’s so much pushback in this post. If he’s going to complain about Democratic missteps that we’re last made in 2012, we’re going to complain about the ones from a few days ago. ‍♀️

  171. 171.

    Carlo Graziani

    I liked the Frum piece, because the political continuities between the prohibition movement and the pro-life movement have been pretty clear for a long time, at least since the Reagan era. But it’s not clear to me that the model that Frum points to is the only one available among the ones that Americans have used to resolve their past political crises, especially constitutional crises.

    Cass Sunstein has pointed out that the US Constitution has actually been subjected to drastic revision — outside the formal amendment process — at least twice: once in the aftermath of the Civil War and once in the New Deal Era. In both of these transformational epochs, major assumptions concerning the balance of power between parts of government (between Federal Government and States in the first instance, between Executive and Congress in the second) were profoundly altered without a single line of formal acknowledgment in any constitutionally-relevant text, “merely” statute, regulation, budget, practice, habit.

    It took major calamities to wreak such changes, of course — not just the Great Depression, but also WWII were involved in the making of the Third Constitution. And I don’t want to claim any kind of continuous line that I can discern from where we are now to one of these kinds of outcomes.

    But. It is nonetheless true that in the past, the US Constitution has changed, relatively suddenly, and in ways that has made US politics unrecognizable to Americans. And the Republic has endured.

    Undeniably, we appear to be staring at some kind of constitutional crisis now. Anyone who claims to be certain of how it will resolve itself after the dust settles is either an idiot or is trying to sell something. It could be very ugly, or anticlimactic. But the Republic does have a history of surviving “very ugly”. That’s worth keeping in mind.

  172. 172.

    BC in Illinois

    @Ruckus: @Butter Emails:

    [Regarding the assault on Rudy Giuliani]

    . . . the man is not in near as much trouble as he was. I could be wrong but I think this is now a minor misdemeanor.

    The charges have been downgraded to “Mom, he touched me!”

  173. 173.

    Dan B

    @Kay: I always think ‘adoption’ when people freak out about not having your “own” biological children.  As a gay man that has until recently been impossible or at least very iffy – Who could I ask to get pregnant with my sperms?  Almost every gay couple we knew until recently adopted their children.

    It seems very reductionist to me to insist that your biological imperative trumps raising children who need a family as much as the bio-babies.

  174. 174.

    James E Powell

    @Baud:

    Truly. We spend too much time going at each other or at our allies. We cannot afford to keep doing this.

    We have to focus on winning elections. The Republicans are taking rights away and they are not going to stop until they lose like four in a row.

  175. 175.

    livewyre

    I’m gonna do what I do and draw a line between identity and action with regard to what we can call the Avakian Incident. The question isn’t whether AOC is against voting (presumably in favor of revolutionary communism), but whether her stance on voting is a question of who she really truly is inside, or whether it’s a question of what she does.

    The text from her I’ve seen has been unambiguously in favor of voting, including pointing out the need for a pro-choice majority in congress in order to codify anything. That kind of argument has enough weight behind it for me to consider it an instance of action. Attending a rally hosted by an anti-voting cult could easily have been a mistake, although one that lessens her credibility and the impact of her major advocacy. Her work will benefit if she doesn’t do it again.

    As for the identity part – was this a sign? Is she going to shed disguise and betray us? Following the temptation of that thought would be its own mistake, in my book.

  176. 176.

    Urban Suburbanite

    @Birdie: I half suspect some Democratic consultants have been producing part (definitely not most) of the material and talking points denouncing her.

  179. 179.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    Democrats have cooties. It’s an ongoing problem, apparently…

  180. 180.

    Mnemosyne

    @livewyre:

    I would downgrade the appearance even further to a mere misstep. She or her people should probably have vetted the group a little better, but it’s not the end of the world.

    The problem is more that she (consciously or not) raised the profile of a fringe group that doesn’t seem to be doing much that’s substantive to help women that need abortions. They’re taking donations and plowing them back into more protests, as far as anyone can tell.

  182. 182.

    Urban Suburbanite

    The other arm of Avakian’s organization is Refuse Fascism. They would get people showing up at rallies and marches while Herr Stumpenfingers was in office, and then kind of went to ground until Alito’s draft came out. There’s a weird division with their events – they’re either young (they’ve had some some high school walkouts here, and those kids were literally chasing off some fake feminists at one event), and the actual members tend to be over 60.

    Do not give them money.

  183. 183.

    James E Powell

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:

    That Sanders Op-Ed is bad and it is the kind of thing that makes him very hard to like. He complains about “the Democrats” but buried way down in the middle he points out that it was just two senators who derailed everything.

    My response to him and all who think like him is this: What are you doing to make it better?

  185. 185.

    The Moar You Know

    Anyway they are grown now – 22 years old- and the twin who went off to college has informed her he is getting a vasectomy because of Roe. Birth control can fail, he says (true, of course). They had a huge fight over it – she thinks any doc who would agree to do it is a bad doctor- and now he won’t respond to her texts so she’s afraid he’s going thru with it.

    @Kay:   No worries for your friend.  Guidelines are minimum age 35 and two kids under the belt.   VERY hard to get one done otherwise.  I tried many times in my younger years and could not even get an appointment booked.

    I frankly think I’d run into trouble with it now even though I’m 55; they REALLY want you to have some kids so that you don’t come back and sue them for not being able to breed.

  186. 186.

    Kay

    @The Moar You Know:

    My experience was the same. They made me watch an lengthy video with a quiz at the end and I was well, well past 22 :)

    I told her she’s a good mother. She imparted to her boy that he has a responsibiity too. I think she was probably more upset with what she perceives as his liberal politics. I don’t know and I would never ask but since this place is 65% GOP there’s good odds she is too.

  187. 187.

    Dan B

    @schrodingers_cat: I believe that they the group sounds like, behaves like, and achieves scamming.  They hit home runs with regularity.  I wish I could remember the Cricket analogy but it’s been too many years.

  189. 189.

    Birdie

    @Mnemosyne: I hear you. I was too late to be annoyed in writing at that post, but yes, it’s irritating and counterproductive whichever direction it goes.

  190. 190.

    Bill Arnold

    @Jinchi:

    One group has actual political power.

    Power to suppress votes for Democrats is power, in close elections.

  191. 191.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Mnemosyne:

    Re non voting calls. Any and every person who tells people not to vote should be regarded as a fascist and treated accordingly.

    The organisations that tell people not to vote can safely be assumed to be funded by Putin. OTOH, encouraging protests and the like is important. Mobilising is necessary, just not sufficient. Stacey Abrams model of organising over years paid big dividends for Dems. Why not look and learn from Georgia?

  192. 192.

    Steeplejack

    @Baud:

    It’s from Sanders’s op-ed in The Guardian on June 16: “Democrats risk a crushing defeat this year. They must change course now.” Talking about Truman in [checks notes] 1948.

    To be clear, Sanders was talking about the whining and “do-nothingism” of the Republicans, not the Democrats.

    Unlike today’s Democrats, he took the fight to the Republicans. He didn’t let them hide behind their whining and “do-nothingism.” He exposed them for what they were—tools of special interests. He made them vote on critical issues. And, time and again, they voted against the interests of working families. Truman showed the very clear difference between the parties—and he won.

  193. 193.

    E.

    @The Moar You Know: What???? I got a vasectomy at Planned Parenthood in my twenties IN IDAHO. All I had to do was make an appointment and look the good lady straight in the eye while I repeated, “yes, I know this may not be reversible.” Never looked back but am helping raise a toddler now.

  197. 197.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    Under the regulations of The Federal Land Policy and Act of 1976:

     § 8365.1-7 State and local laws.

    Except as otherwise provided by Federal law or regulation, State and local laws and ordinances shall apply and be enforced by the appropriate State and local authorities. This includes, but is not limited to, State and local laws and ordinances governing:

    (a) Operation and use of motor vehicles, aircraft and boats;

    (b) Hunting and fishing;

    (c) Use of firearms or other weapons;

    (d) Injury to persons, or destruction or damage to property;

    Building clinics on federal lands would still be subject to state laws unless the House and Senate codified an exception for abortion or an explicit law permitting Bureau of Land Management to regulate reproduction rights on their property.

  200. 200.

    Gvg

    @Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony:  I copied it the 2nd time it was posted and emailed it to myself.

    Fair Economist:

    ******

    There has never been a time in the past 40 years when the Democrats could have codified Roe:

    1981-2: Reagan was President
    1983-4: Reagan was President
    1985-6: Reagan was President
    1987-8: Reagan was President
    1989-90: HW Bush was President
    1991-2: HW Bush was President
    1995-6: Republican Congress
    1997-8: Republican Congress
    1999-2000: Republican Congress
    2001-2: W Bush was President
    2003-4: W Bush was President
    2005-6: W Bush was President
    2007-8: W Bush was President
    2009-10: Tried but stopped by anti-choice majority in House.
    2011-2: Republican Congress
    2013-4: Republican Congress
    2015-6: Republican Congress
    2017-8: Trump was President
    2019-20: Trump was President
    2021-2: Tried but stopped by opposition from 51 Senators.

    So that leaves 1993-4 as the only other time the Democrats MIGHT have been able to codify Roe. But they only had a 3 seat majority in the Senate, and that included the antichoicers Shelby, Nunn, and Nighthorse Campbell. So probably not then either.

    There literally has not been ONE time in the past FORTY years where the Democrats had the power to codify abortion rights. Not ONE.

    And that’s why it didn’t happen.

  202. 202.

    kalakal

    @Matt McIrvin:

     

    that’s the RCP message.

    Does the US RCP have any links to the UK one?

    The bunch of charmless authoritarian trots who disbanded so they could be charmless authoritarian libertarians instead. Now starring as special advisers to flobalob? If so shun the bastards without a seconds thought. And from the posts I’ve read shun them wether there’s a link or not

  204. 204.

    Ramona

    @mistermix: which also happens to be a position that is truly in favor of life unlike the self-labeled “pro-life” misogynistic zealots!

  206. 206.

    Miss Bianca

    @Kay: Late to this thread, but why the freakout on your friend’s part? There are things called sperm banks, after all. Kid can jack off into a test tube, have the sperm stored, and be able to sire countless numbers of babies in the future, if so desired.

    I say, good for him.

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