Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

They are not red states to be hated; they are voter suppression states to be fixed.

I desperately hope that, yet again, i am wrong.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

They were going to turn on one another at some point. It was inevitable.

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

We know you aren’t a Democrat but since you seem confused let me help you.

The “burn-it-down” people are good with that until they become part of the kindling.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

He really is that stupid.

Hey Washington Post, “Democracy Dies in Darkness” was supposed to be a warning, not a mission statement.

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

No one could have predicted…

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

Republicans do not trust women.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

The party of Reagan has become the party of Putin.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Horrorshow Open Thread: What *Broke* These People?

Horrorshow Open Thread: What *Broke* These People?

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I know the cruelty is the point, but how the hell could ‘thoughtfully bitchy’ Libby Emmons be damaged enough to tweet out something this depraved?


Counter-argument thread — ‘Content warning: Child sexual abuse’
(Spoiler: At least the perp went to jail, eventually):

This is not ‘religion’, this is psychopathy…


(Somebody check Josh Hammer’s crawl space / attic / storage unit)

Reader Interactions

101Comments

  3. 3.

    mrmoshpotato

    And Hillary Clinton just called these people “deplorable?”

    Such restraint Sec. Clinton.  I need to find something constructive and fun to do tonight.

  4. 4.

    Formerly disgruntled in Oregon

    Substantially, the author views these views as interchangeable.

    No kidding.

  6. 6.

    Martin

    How the fuck did we end up in a country where Indiana has more progressive abortion laws than Ohio. Presuming the trigger period simply hasn’t kicked in for Indiana?

  8. 8.

    Anne Laurie

    @Yutsano:  Did Anne Laurie just bigfoot herself?

    After an hour, it’s not bigfooting.

    But people who don’t want to cope with a topic as heavy as this post have a place of refuge in the nice, happy sports stories!

    (Our full-service blog in action.)

  9. 9.

    Baud

    I blame all the people who told me not to kill for my decision to become a serial killer.

  10. 10.

    Anne Laurie

    @Martin: How the fuck did we end up in a country where Indiana has more progressive abortion laws than Ohio.

    Midwestern inter-state spite?

    Hell, Indiana doesn’t have a whole lot to offer, tourism-wise… maybe they just see the marketing opportunity!

  11. 11.

    MagdaInBlack

    I don’t even have words for these people. Well, I do have words, but mostly its just a smoke trail of cursing.

  12. 12.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Baud

    I blame all the people who told me not to kill for my decision to become a serial killer.

    Simple cuz and affect!

  13. 13.

    Matt McIrvin

    You know, I struggle a lot with really unhelpful, violent thoughts sparked by bad political news and really motivated only by “these people have to be punished“. Generally I don’t type these out and if I do I don’t hit send. And if I did hit send, I wouldn’t keep doubling down.

  14. 14.

    James E Powell

    @Martin:

    Ohio Republicans need to whip up their faithful in a (formerly, marginally) competitive state. They don’t need to worry about that in Indiana.

  16. 16.

    James E Powell

    @mrmoshpotato:

    And Hillary Clinton just called these people “deplorable?”

    Every time I recall the reaction of the entire spectrum of the press/media to that accurate & somewhat restrained remark, I want to slap a CNN reporter.

  17. 17.

    Honus

    So the people who have been marching in front of the local abortion clinic here for decades, carrying signs and harassing women entering, were forced by the pretty much invisible pro choice movement to implement draconian anti abortion laws.  Got it.

    I know probably at least a dozen women who have had abortions. It was always a painful thing and none of them ever got in anybody’s face about it.

  21. 21.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Josh here needs to be watched closely whenever he’s less than 1,000 feet from an elementary school.

  23. 23.

    Alison Rose

    By the way, we’ve talked a lot here about where to donate money for abortion access and such, but I would also like to give y’all a nudge toward volunteering as a clinic escort if it’ll stay legal where you live, because even in the bluest states, there has always been protests and I’m sure those will get worse now. I was a clinic escort in San Francisco for a few years when I lived there, and it was a very rewarding experience. It’ll depend on your particular clinic’s needs, but you’re probably looking at one or two shifts a month, for a few hours at a time. You wear a big bright smock and act as a welcoming face for patients and a shield from the jackasses. Give your local clinic a call or email to see if they need volunteers! I would do it again where I live now if I were able to, you know, leave my apartment.

  24. 24.

    Villago Delenda Est

    @Alison Rose : Hear, hear.  Nothing could be more obvious about the fundiloony centeredness of the forced birth movement.  Which, once upon a time, didn’t include the Southern Baptists, until they saw a political angle to assist their dreams of resegregation.

  25. 25.

    Sure Lurkalot

    I got routed to the Libby Emmons tweet this morning. I had no idea who she was but she made me hope her 10 year old…

    No, I don’t. Monster won’t make me one.

    I got the “you’re a woman now” at 11 and I had no idea what sex was. My best friend (not my parents) told me about it not much  later and I didn’t believe her. These people are monsters to believe the harm they will do to children of rape is somehow justified by “life” or what libs did.

  26. 26.

    SpaceUnit

    My only comfort is that there will certainly be some trump-voting women who will be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or be persecuted for seeking an abortion.  Because I’m a bad person.

    Leopard / Face

  27. 27.

    Scout211

    Kristi Noem on 10 year old pregnant child abuse victim.

    When asked by CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union” whether children similar to a 10-year-old child abuse victim who traveled from Ohio to Indiana to receive an abortion should be forced to give birth, Noem said, “This tragedy is horrific. I can’t even imagine. I have never had anybody in my family or myself gone through anything like this. … But, in South Dakota, the law today is that the abortions are illegal, except to save the life of the mother.”
    Noem told Bash she would not be in favor of amending the current law – a so-called trigger law that took effect following the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade – to add an exception for similar situations, saying, “I don’t believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy.”

  28. 28.

    Murc

    These assholes sure have a lot of different ways to say “WE don’t have agency; only you Democrats have agency. Look what you made us do.”

  29. 29.

    JanieM

    @Anne Laurie:

    Midwestern inter-state spite?

    Not imaginary. My grandmother lived her entire life in a farming village in Ohio. “She didn’t say “Those Hoosiers…” affectionately, but quite scornfully.

  30. 30.

    Suzanne

    I could point out that forcing a ten-year-old child to have a baby is so supportive of early sexualization that the best word to describe it is grooming, but maybe that isn’t nice.

  31. 31.

    Anne Laurie

    @JanieM:  I was a Michigander for 15 years — quite long enough to understand the interstate dynamics, thank you!

  32. 32.

    Scout211

    @Anne Laurie:

    Speaking of Michigan, I was just about to post this. The Trump-backed candidate for Secretary of State in Michigan has some thoughts about abortion.

    CNN — 
    Before becoming the Trump-backed Republican nominee for Michigan secretary of state, Kristina Karamo said that abortion is “child sacrifice” and a “satanic practice.”

    “Abortion is really nothing new. The child sacrifice is a very satanic practice, and that’s precisely what abortion is. And we need to see it as such,” Karamo, a community college professor, said in an October 2020 episode of her podcast “It’s Solid Food,”which CNN’s KFile reviewed.

    “When people in other cultures, when they engage in child sacrifice, they didn’t just sacrifice the child for the sake of bloodshed,” Karamo said later in the episode. “They sacrificed the child cuz they were hoping to get prosperity and that’s precisely why people have abortion now. ‘Because I’m not ready. I don’t wanna have a baby. I don’t feel like it. I don’t have time. I wanna make more money. I want my freedom.’ So you’re sacrificing that child hoping to get something out of their death, which is your freedom, your happiness, your prosperity.”

    In another comment, Karamo called abortion the “the greatest crime of our nation’s history.”

  33. 33.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Scout211:

    “I don’t believe a tragic situation should be perpetuated by another tragedy.”

    Except it is, by forcing a child rape victim to carry a pregnancy to term, you POS

  39. 39.

    SpaceUnit

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    Exactly.  When questioned these bozos feel compelled by base politics to double down and triple down on the most unpopular policies in modern history.  Good.  Make them own it.  Over and over and over.

    I am increasingly hopeful that November is going to be a GOP holocaust.

  42. 42.

    Anne Laurie

    @Suzanne: I could point out that forcing a ten-year-old child to have a baby is so supportive of early sexualization that the best word to describe it is grooming, but maybe that isn’t nice.

    To be honest… maybe I’m just a cynic, but I’ve known more than a few victims of CSA who ended up in Libby Emmon’s headspace.  Nobody ever helped me, why should I help some other abused kid?

    Which is, unfortunately, at least a considerable portion of the general Repub philosophy, these days.   Those to whom evil is done / do evil in return, as Auden said.

  47. 47.

    citizen dave

    Sitting here on my patio in suburban Indianapolis, as it gets dark at 9:45 at the western edge of the eastern time zone.  Can report local neighbor fireworks are going very strong.  And only the 3d.

    And can assure everyone that Indiana will get to retrograding on abortion soon enough.  The supermajority Rs were going to start a special session later this upcoming week.  But now for some reasons they’ve put it off for about 3 weeks.  It’s all very sad.  And problematic for Indy’s very healthy convention  business and the image it likes to project as at least a reasonable city. Certainly there is a battle between our R Gov and the crazy Rs in the legislature.  Hell, they tried to take his power away to deal with health emergencies.  That got turned back by our court.

    ‘Night from the fireworks warzone.

  48. 48.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne: 

    Oh, they think they can. See Noem’s response I quoted above, from Scout211’s comment at #31. She “doesn’t think a tragedy should compounded by another tragedy.”

  51. 51.

    different-church-lady

    …there would have been enough mercy…

    NARRATOR VOICE: “There wouldn’t have been.”

  54. 54.

    Suzanne

    @different-church-lady: It’s a perfect illustration of how our political opponents don’t believe in anything apart from What Pisses Off Liberals, Updated Daily, and What Results In My Self-Enrichment.

  58. 58.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @Suzanne:

    @different-church-lady:

    Part of me wants to believe that American conservatism wasn’t always this intellectually and morally bankrupt, but who am I kidding, quite a few were for isolationism in the runup to WW2 and supported Hitler over Stalin until Pearl Harbor and the exposure of the Holocaust

  59. 59.

    scav

    @Suzanne: The,GOP support the interests of child rapists because their other valued titles are “Pastor”, “Father” and “Preacher”.

  61. 61.

    Starfish

    When it comes to transporting 10yos across state lines for medical care, their parents have to do it. Anything else can be classified as kidnapping.

    The worst cases in this category involve children that are wards of the state. Foster parents looking to become adoptive parents would be in a tough spot.

  64. 64.

    different-church-lady

    @joel hanes: Hmm… okay, maybe this is a twofer. She’s clearly also laying all agency (in the guise of accountability) upon liberals.

  66. 66.

    JoyceH

    Seriously, what HAPPENED to American Christianity? I grew up in a religious family, heck, my dad was a minister, but I just don’t recognize these people. The Christians I remember from my youth were by and large nice people. They tried to be good, and when they were bad, they felt guilty about it. But now we’ve got literal monsters who not only consider themselves good people, who not only consider themselves better than us, but who consider their very monstrosity to be the reason they’re better than us! Where did that come from?

  68. 68.

    JoyceH

    @schrodingers_cat: well of course, but I’m talking about mid20th century Midwest, and everyone pretty much agreed then that slavery was bad and remembered that our region sided with the Yankees.

  69. 69.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    I blame all the people who told me not to kill for my decision to become a serial killer.

    “Baud!2024 — Vote for him, or he’ll murder you!”

    “Baud!2024 — Winning your vote by killing people you hate!”

     

    OK, I admit they need a little work.

  70. 70.

    Matt McIrvin

    @JoyceH: I think what happened was, in fact, the Confederatization of American Christianity. Opposition to abortion was the hook that white Southern evangelicals used to get past the stigma of being segregationists (whose religion had originally been largely a justification for slavery), and become the vanguard of religion in the United States.

    There really seems to be something about it that pulls people deep into the crazy. I have an extended family member who went full QAnon, and single-issue anti-abortion advocacy was the thing that sucked her into all that. Now she’s all about how the elites are extracting adrenochrome from babies.

  72. 72.

    BellyCat

    Clearly, this raped and abused ten year old should be forced to give birth so that some evangelical Christian couple can not only get a two-fer adoption, they can also instantly become parents AND grandparents. Nifty! Celebrity status in their church is assured…. //

    (My heart aches over this situation and what is to come)

  73. 73.

    SFAW

    @Murc: ​

    These assholes sure have a lot of different ways to say “WE don’t have agency; only you Democrats have agency. Look what you made us do.”

    I think there’s some Law, named after/for someone — no idea who, of course — associated with that.

    [First time I’ve seen you away from “home.” (i.e., LGM).]

  74. 74.

    SFAW

    @BellyCat: ​
     

    so that some evangelical Christian couple can not only get a two-fer adoption, they can also instantly become parents AND grandparents.

    “Forget it, Jake, it’s Christiantown” ?

  75. 75.

    Ruckus

    @JoyceH:

    That came from religious leaders. Those folks who are often far more interested in your bank account than in any way religious. We used to call them fundamentalists or some such. The really, really fancy “church,” the leader of which drove a very expensive car, owned a jet plane and rather nice 20 acre fenced lot with a 20,000 sq ft house on it, who yelled at the people in the seats when they didn’t overflow the collection plate the 8 times it was passed around each day.

  77. 77.

    Kent

    @SpaceUnit: My only comfort is that there will certainly be some trump-voting women who will be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term or be persecuted for seeking an abortion.  Because I’m a bad person.

    No, it will more likely be their daughters or granddaughters.  Who probably already don’t agree with them and are revolted by their politics.    When I taught in Central TX I had a ton of kids who were from fundie Republican families.  More often than not they were the most opposed to those viewpoints.  Abortion never really came up in school.  But LGBT rights and tolerance certainly did.  And most of my students from fundie families were completely revolted by their parents’ and church’s anti-LGBT positions.

  78. 78.

    Ken

    @schrodingers_cat: Didn’t some flavors American Christianity justify slavery?

    You won’t often be wrong if, when asked how a denomination with “Southern” in its name originated, you guessed around 1840 when the pro-slavery faction split off.

  80. 80.

    Kent

    @Matt McIrvin:

    @JoyceH: I think what happened was, in fact, the Confederatization of American Christianity. Opposition to abortion was the hook that white Southern evangelicals used to get past the stigma of being segregationists (whose religion had originally been largely a justification for slavery), and become the vanguard of religion in the United States.

    There really seems to be something about it that pulls people deep into the crazy. I have an extended family member who went full QAnon, and single-issue anti-abortion advocacy was the thing that sucked her into all that. Now she’s all about how the elites are extracting adrenochrome from babies.

    You are only half right.  The racism is still there and abortion is often just code for racism.  There are, of course, fundies like you describe who have gone whole -hog into the crazy.  But for many it is just code for race.

    I lived and worked in TX for 13 years and I knew a TON of men who used abortion as a figleaf to hide their racism.  While Democrats are not the “Black party” in Texas, they are certainly the only diverse party as Republicans are near lily-white.  People have been trained to say “I can only vote Republican because I am “pro-life” when what they REALLY mean is I can only vote Republican because Democrats are the party of N****ers.

    I fucking guarantee you that 90% of the men I met who said they were Republican because pro-life did not give the slightest flying fuck about abortion.  It is just a get out of jail free card to be as racist as you fucking want but have a good Christian excuse for it

    Put another way.  No matter HOW fucked up the GOP is, and no matter HOW egregious and corrupt their policies and politicians are, there are legions who will keep voting for them based on race and racism, but claim it is because they are “pro-life”

  81. 81.

    Kent

    @JoyceH:Seriously, what HAPPENED to American Christianity? I grew up in a religious family, heck, my dad was a minister, but I just don’t recognize these people. The Christians I remember from my youth were by and large nice people. They tried to be good, and when they were bad, they felt guilty about it. But now we’ve got literal monsters who not only consider themselves good people, who not only consider themselves better than us, but who consider their very monstrosity to be the reason they’re better than us! Where did that come from?

    They have always been monsters.  At least in the South.  https://www.history.com/.image/c_limit%2Ccs_srgb%2Cq_auto:good%2Cw_686/MTU3ODc4Njc2MjYwNzkyMDMx/image-placeholder-title.webp

  83. 83.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

    These people were always anti-women, anti-black, anti-semetic, anti-gay (as epitomized by Archie Bunker), but around 1970 those open attitudes we no longer acceptable, so they decided to use religion to shield their hatred.

    None of these people go to services on Sunday when there’s a ballgame on tee vee. If anything, their true religion is betting on the NFL.

  84. 84.

    David ☘The Establishment☘ Koch

     As a President who does not hesitate to invoke the divinity of Jesus and even identify it with his policy in the East-West struggle, Ronald Reagan has come under closer scrutiny lately because he is not a regular Sunday churchgoer.

    They’ve always been frauds

  85. 85.

    Kent

    @Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):

    @Kent:

    Just wanted to say, I always appreciate your insight into fundamentalists

    I guess my upbringing was not wasted then.  I could tell you stories about some of my relatives that you would not actually believe.  Since they are all northerners they mostly hate LGBT people with a white-hot passion, not so much Blacks.  They are just “not comfortable” around Blacks I think.

  86. 86.

    Mai Naem mobile

    Whats the deal with all these RWNJ women having crazy eyes? Kristi Noem – cray cray eyes. Libby Emmons – crazee eyes. Amy Coney Barrett crazy crazy eyes. Ginni Thomas – crazy eyes. Mayra Flores – crazy eyes.  The eyes aren’t as crazy looking as Charles Manson’s but the crazy is in the same vein.

  90. 90.

    Mai Naem mobile

    @Kent: the men seem to have more of an evil eye look. The women have that ‘lights are on but nobody’s home’  cult member look.

  93. 93.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Mai Naem mobile: I can’t read faces (literally, not joking).  So when people talk about “dead eyes”, I don’t really know what y’all mean.  What I do find, is that after instances of execrable behaviour, I associate that perfidy with the person, and then I find the face repulsive.  So even though a number of these leading GrOPer women are conventionally attractive (in that barbie-doll way, I guess), I can’t get past their evil, and have to turn away quickly.

    Now, Cruz is a different story: I’ve listened to enough clips of his greasy, smarmy master-debater schtick, that I just get enraged when I hear him, and that carries over to his visage, too.  The toad.

  94. 94.

    Adam L. Silverman

    Two points:

    1) Roe was the compromise position.

    2)  The quote regarding justice is specifically a commandment from the Torah. It only applies to Jews. And Judaism’s understanding of justice is vastly different than every version of Christianity’s understanding of justice.

  100. 100.

    J R in WV

    @schrodingers_cat: ​
     

    @JoyceH: Didn’t some flavors American Christianity justify slavery?

    Yes, that’s part of why there is the American Baptist church, which split from the Southern Baptist over the sending of slave-owners to Africa as missionaries not long before the Civil War. Still around, still integrated, still full-immersion baptists, but NOT Southern Baptists.

    The Southern Baptists in general still prefer segregation and wouldn’t mind too much if slavery came around again. They do allow Black people to join the church, as long as they do it over there in their own church buildings. etc, etc. Sad!

  101. 101.

    Citizen Alan

    @Mai Naem mobile:

    I just think they don’t have souls. The last 20 years have been like America is trapped in a slow rolling zombie Apocalypse. Except the zombies aren’t dead. They are living people who have no souls and thus no capacity for humanity or empathy.

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