Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This chaos was totally avoidable.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Donald Trump found guilty as fuck – May 30, 2024!

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

People are complicated. Love is not.

“What are Republicans afraid of?” Everything.

We still have time to mess this up!

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

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

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

If you still can’t see these things even now, maybe politics isn’t your forte and you should stop writing about it.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

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

It is possible to do the right thing without the promise of a cookie.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Take the W — or the L (Open Thread)

Take the W — or the L (Open Thread)

by | 171 Comments

This post is in: 

In a Politico op-ed, Jamie Corley, a GOP operative who has served as press secretary in the U.S. House and Senate, delivers some advice to anti-choice activists in her party: Take the W on Dobbs and don’t go after women for medication abortions, for that way lies political peril.

Soon, women in states that have placed restrictions on abortion may find it easy to just order abortion pills by mail. And a Supreme Court ruling a few months ago allowing the abortion drug mifepristone to remain legal and on the market for the foreseeable future means a national ban is unlikely. These developments are a political gift to Republicans. They should take it that way and refrain from pushing for new restrictions on medication abortions…

Coalitions of abortion opponents should stop these legal side shows seeking to pull the pills from the market. The mere production of abortion pills exposes a massive flaw in the anti-abortion playbook. State legislatures should focus instead on the people’s business, like passing education reform and creating competitive tax environments… (LOL! — ed)

Republicans should not open Pandora’s box over abortion pills. The availability of abortion medications is something anti-abortion groups will have to live with, or else they risk the unpalatable option of criminalizing women, and sparking an unsurvivable political backlash.

Forced birther Repubs are likely to add Corley’s sound advice to the round file, alongside the wise counsel to seize the opportunity presented by “Impeachment II: Insurrection Boogaloo” to rid themselves of Trump once and for all. So they’ll reap the whirlwind. Again.

In other Politico news, as flagged by valued commenter Baud in the thread below, the flailing DeSantis campaign laid off a third of its staff:

“Following a top-to-bottom review of our organization, we have taken additional, aggressive steps to streamline operations and put Ron DeSantis in the strongest position to win this primary and defeat Joe Biden,” DeSantis campaign manager Generra Peck said in a statement. “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”

It’s looking like they’re going to “hit the ground” alright, but with a splat.

As mentioned in that thread, I hope the thoroughly vile Christina Pushaw is one of the newly jobless* as she has an “I won’t be ignored” vibe and probably the highest potential to go all bunny-boiler on DeSantis. In the most amusing scenario, she’d make a beeline for Trump’s Jersey dump and volunteer to run his war room, leveraging her extensive network of extremely online Nazis and incels.

Open thread.

*I’m not sure if Pushaw is paid by the campaign or the PAC. The latter has super-deep pockets. The former, not so much! 

Reader Interactions

171Comments

  1. 1.

    Redshift

    “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback…”

    In order for his campaign to lead a comeback, it has to go away! That must be the secret plan! Genius!

  2. 2.

    Hildebrand

    They won’t take the W – because they finally got that W, and this has emboldened them so greatly that they are absolutely drunk on hubris.  They want to go after everything, everywhere, all at once – and they are fools enough to think it could happen.

  3. 3.

    Subsole

    They are doing all of this to appease the goblins infesting their narrow, tidy little minds. If they don’t keep punishing us, how will they be able to remind themselves that they are superior, the elect of their sad, small, hypocritical little god?

    They will not stop. Even unto catastrophe. Because emotion makes a fine throttle, and an exceeding poor brake.

  4. 4.

    Anonymous At Work

    Corley’s advice won’t go in the round file; it’ll go in the porcelain file.  GOP has spent decades telling forced-birthers that their crusade was morally-correct and that any issue with forced-birth was Satanic, evil, mass murder, etc.  Frankenstein created his monster and suffered the consequences of being unable to control it.  What did the cynics of the GOP commentariat expect?

    And frankly, I hope Pushaw stays onboard to go down with the ship in a way that renders her unemployable by Trump and media outlets to the left of OAN.

  5. 5.

    Jerry

    Jamie Corley, a GOP operative who has served as press secretary in the U.S. House and Senate, delivers some advice to anti-choice activists in her party: Take the W on Dobbs and don’t go after women for medication abortions, for that way lies political peril.

    But that is the point, Jamie Corley. The point is complete control of women.

  6. 6.

    Old School

    Not sure if they’ve hit the ground, but they’ve hit themselves.

    NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was involved in a multi-car accident on Tuesday in Tennessee but was uninjured as he traveled in a motorcade to a campaign stop for his 2024 presidential bid.

    The chain reaction crash happened before 8:15 a.m. when traffic slowed on Interstate 75 in Chattanooga, causing four cars in the motorcade to hit one another, police said. All the vehicles involved in the crash were government vehicles taking DeSantis and his team to his scheduled event, police said.

  7. 7.

    dmsilev

    The anti-abortion fanatics 100% will not take any advice along the lines of ‘back off’ or ‘go slow’ or ‘don’t overreach’. And, based on various elections and referendums and so forth over the last year or so, that’s starting to sink in to the population at large.

  8. 8.

    MattF

    I think the many, many years of intense anti-abortion activism on the right wing make it impossible for them to treat abortion as just another political issue that can be finessed. They are stuck, badly.

  9. 9.

    Sure Lurkalot

    While internet surfing, I think it was TPM’S take that the DeSantis couple are enamored by private plane transport which requires big donor fundraising events which require more private plane trips…such that there goes money to pay for staff that in the last 6 months we’re utterly incapable of making Ron look human much less presidential material. Not for lack of trying, I guess, it’s hard to tell.

  10. 10.

    VOR

    @Hildebrand:  They won’t take the W – because they finally got that W, and this has emboldened them so greatly that they are absolutely drunk on hubris.  They want to go after everything, everywhere, all at once – and they are fools enough to think it could happen.

    Agree. They don’t understand that Roe was the compromise.

  11. 11.

    Bill K

    Corley seems to think that the Republican party is still made up of savvy hustlers that just spout the rhetoric to sucker the rubes but don’t actually believe it.  But the GOP is now full of zealots that actually believe that life begins at conception.  If you think you are doing “God’s work” then nothing can be too extreme.

  12. 12.

    Yarrow

    They won’t take the win because it was never about abortion. It was always about controlling women.

  13. 13.

    mrmoshpotato

    Forced birther Repubs are likely to add Corley’s sound advice to the round file

    Are likely or aren’t likely?

  14. 14.

    Redshift

    The availability of abortion medications is something anti-abortion groups will have to live with, or else they risk the unpalatable option of criminalizing women, and sparking an unsurvivable political backlash.

    Telling forced birthers to accept they “won” while the most common abortion method (and the easiest one to keep entirely out of sight) remains legal is basically telling them that their big decades-long goal of overturning Roe v Wade meant nothing. And it’s not just their fanaticism for once, it really would be the worst outcome for them — they still don’t get to control women’s lives, and there’s an endless stream of stories of women suffering from being denied care who are the most sympathetic victims – miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, and none of their mythical sluts getting abortions because they’re immoral or just feeling inconvenienced. It’s backlash either way, so they’re already determined to either get their legally enforced patriarchal hierarchy or not “survive” politically.

  15. 15.

    smith

    @Yarrow:They won’t take the win because it was never about abortion. It was always about controlling women.

    And it’s curious that Corley doesn’t understand that, or didn’t until now. I wonder how many other Republican women are starting to get a clue.

  16. 16.

    Rusty

    The anti-abortion folks won’t be happy until they are standing outside a prison at midnight, banging on a frying pan and waiting for the lights to flicker as they execute a doctor and their slut patient.  As for the other advice, “State legislatures should focus instead on the people’s business, like passing education reform and creating competitive tax environments”, that translates to school vouchers to gut the public schools and fund highly discriminatory religious schools, and more tax cuts targeted at rich people.  These aren’t the “people’s business”, these are the fantasies of the reactionary right.  To hell with them all.

  17. 17.

    KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))

    I do believe that I saw Christina Pushaw was one of the lucky duckies who got her wings clipped. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see her wash up on Big Donnie’s muddy shores in the coming months though. That chick’s been swimming in polluted political waters for so long she doesn’t know anything else. And she’ll have lots of mud to sling; doesn’t matter if it’s true or not.

  18. 18.

    mrmoshpotato

    the flailing DeSantis campaign laid off a third of its staff

    The actions of a well-run campaign that’s going great!

    Too bad!  So sad!  Fuck ’em!

  19. 19.

    Jay

    @Redshift:

    and there’s an endless stream of stories of women suffering from being denied care who are the most sympathetic victims – miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, and none of their mythical sluts getting abortions because they’re immoral or just feeling inconvenienced. It’s backlash either way, so they’re already determined to either get their legally enforced patriarchal hierarchy or not “survive” politically.

    They will never see those stories or believe them unless it’s their wife or daughter.

  20. 20.

    Ryan

    Typical pol speak.  Listen, if you’ve been trained to believe that all abortion is murder, you’re not going to make a distinction between OTC pills and surgical procedures.  That’s something “politicians” do.

     

    As to tiny D, he ought to consider wrecking his brand by rebranding as X.  In his case, it’d probably help.

  21. 21.

    trollhattan

    @Redshift: Right? Immediately pondered “come back from exactly what prior success?” He’s the JEB! of Rick Scotts.

    Republicans should not open Pandora’s box over abortion pills.

    They sledgehammered the box of Pandora with Dobbs, this implies they could glue the thousand pieces together if only they don’t do the other things they’re hellbent on doing.

  22. 22.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bill K:

    But the GOP is now full of zealots that actually believe that life begins at conception.

    A fertilized egg isn’t alive??  I’m pretty sure science has concluded it is.

  24. 24.

    Yutsano

    Pull the other one Corley. It has bells on it.

    Is this guy serious? The forced birthers have slain but one dragon. They’re out for no less than no abortion anywhere for any reason, no legal birth control of any kind, no equal marriage, no miscegnation, and no civil rights for anyone other than straight, white, CIS men. And even then there will be more dragons to slay. So yeah, your advice is going right into the shredder, but thanks for having an opinion I guess?

  25. 25.

    Baud

    I hated the lefty opposition to Obamacare, but I would never have considered telling anyone to live with it forever and never try to improve on it.  Neither would Obama for that matter.

    That’s essentially what this dude is doing with respect to an issue that their base cares deeply about.

  26. 26.

    Ryan

    @nevsky42: Exactly.  The reason people are pessimistic is because one party has a vested interest in portraying circumstances in the worst bullpuckey light.

  27. 27.

    Suzanne

    @Yarrow:

    They won’t take the win because it was never about abortion. It was always about controlling women. 

    Exactly right. Roe has been gone for a year and it hasn’t restored Greater MAGA Paradise. There’s still no one making them a sammich. So they need to press on!

    I would say, “Please proceed, assholes,” but they might actually proceed and that wouldn’t be good.

  29. 29.

    Tony G

    @Jerry: Exactly.  Control and punishment of women is the only objective.  “They risk the unpalatable option of criminalizing women”.   For the forced-birthers, criminalizing women is exactly what they want.  I won’t be surprised to see legislation in some of these states making it a felony for a pregnant woman to travel out of state.

  33. 33.

    different-church-lady

     

    @nevsky42: “We can’t understand why the data about what people think doesn’t conform to the stories we have about what people think.”

  35. 35.

    catclub

    @lowtechcyclist: ​

    A fertilized egg isn’t alive?? I’m pretty sure science has concluded it is.

    Alive, yes. But a live, fully individual human being, is what they think.
    never mind that the Bible says the soul arrives with first breath.
    They also charge interest.  cafeteria fundamentalism.

  37. 37.

    mrmoshpotato

    @MattF:

    I think the many, many years of intense anti-abortion activism on the right wing make it impossible for them to treat abortion as just another political issue that can be finessed. They are stuck, badly. 

    Oh, after decades of screaming that believing in a woman’s right to choose was BABY KILLING!, they have thoroughly fucked themselves.  Especially with Millennials and Gen Z!

    And they damn well deserved to have fucked themselves.  The car* they finally caught is going to run their forced-birth asses over in the coming years.

    *It’s an 18-wheeler loaded to its weigh limit.

  38. 38.

    KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager))

    @lowtechcyclist:

    A fertilized egg isn’t alive??  I’m pretty sure science has concluded it is.

    My philosophy professor in 1971 (at a Catholic university)  made the argument that even an unfertilized egg is alive as the reason why birth control pills are immoral. He argued that the pill created a toxic environment for unfertilized eggs, causing them to die before they could be fertilized (he was a philosophy prof, not a science prof).

  39. 39.

    rikyrah

    In a Politico op-ed, Jamie Corley, a GOP operative who has served as press secretary in the U.S. House and Senate, delivers some advice to anti-choice activists in her party: Take the W on Dobbs and don’t go after women for medication abortions, for that way lies political peril.

     

    They are not only trying to stop that FOR THE ENTIRE COUNTRY..

    They are also coming for Birth control…

    And complete criminalization of women…

    What party does Corley belong to?

    Cause the ‘ suggestions’ are ridiculous.

    look at the GOP STATES.

  40. 40.

    different-church-lady

    @rikyrah: Don’t forget your right to have a relationship with someone whose pigmentation differs from yours.

  41. 41.

    Ryan

    @KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)): Whether or not an unfertilized, or frankly, a fertilized egg is alive is not the substantive debate to have on this topic.  There are numerous religions that sidestep this debate in favor of decisions based on other factors.  If one wants to make all decisions based on life, that’s one thing.  But others often base decisions on other factors.

  43. 43.

    different-church-lady

    “Look, we’ve won the right to have a boot stomping on a human face on Tuesdays. Why be greedy?”

  44. 44.

    Jay

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    historically, the number of medical abortions due to complications has been low,

    no where near the Forced Birther’s panic and lies.

    That said, the criminalization of women’s healthcare will change the situation.

  46. 46.

    rikyrah

    @Redshift:

    . And it’s not just their fanaticism for once, it really would be the worst outcome for them — they still don’t get to control women’s lives, and there’s an endless stream of stories of women suffering from being denied care who are the most sympathetic victims – miscarriages, stillbirths, birth defects, and none of their mythical sluts getting abortions because they’re immoral or just feeling inconvenienced. It’s backlash either way, so they’re already determined to either get their legally enforced patriarchal hierarchy or not “survive” politically.

     

    Which is why it’s up to our side to get as many of those stories out and into the public sphere. Show exactly what they are about. Especially to Gen Z.

  48. 48.

    lowtechcyclist

    @catclub:

    Alive, yes. But a live, fully individual human being, is what they think.

    Yeah, I’m aware.  I guess I’ve just heard hundreds of times too often that the abortion debate is over “when does life begin?” The egg is alive, the sperm is alive, the fertilized egg is alive.

    When the fundies started talking about personhood, at least they had the question right, even if they jumped to the wrong answer.

    @KayInMD (formerly Kay (not the front-pager)):

    My philosophy professor in 1971 (at a Catholic university)  made the argument that even an unfertilized egg is alive as the reason why birth control pills are immoral. He argued that the pill created a toxic environment for unfertilized eggs, causing them to die before they could be fertilized (he was a philosophy prof, not a science prof).

    So if a woman remains a virgin, her eggs will all die before they can be fertilized. Immorality! No more nuns!!

    And of course, sperm cells are alive too! Why should they be any different?  And each male ejaculation produces literally millions of the little swimmers.  So each act of sexual intercourse resulting in the man’s climax results in the deaths of millions of sperm cells, whether or not one of them fertilizes the egg.  So clearly sexual intercourse is immoral under all circumstances. And male masturbation is right out!

  49. 49.

    Kay

    @nevsky42:

    People never actually behaved like the economy was bad :)
    This whole thing was 90 per cent narrative

    when they think the economy is bad they act like it.

  50. 50.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Jay: That last sentence is rather my point.  The more they shut down options for women’s reproductive healthcare, the more women will have problems.

  52. 52.

    Tokyokie

    I hope the DeSantis campaign hits the ground like Wile E. Coyote. Too bad Chuck Jones isn’t around to chronicle it.

  54. 54.

    patrick II

    @lowtechcyclist:

    That is an important reason why, for men, masturbation is a mortal sin — the loss of all of those lives. Seriously. And of course, the other reason is it gives pleasure, which is also a sin.  And I know this because I went to a Catholic grade school and the nuns have properly instructed me.

  58. 58.

    Kay

    I don’t think they can stop and still have an argument.

    medication abortion is just abortion but harder to control. They will definitely ramp up control – they don’t have any way out of this. Murder from conception is a hard line but it’s the line they took.
    It still amazes me how little thought they put into this. It’s the single most insulting thing to women – our health and agency is SO unimportant these people had 50 years to prepare and considered or planned for NOTHING. To not even think thru miscarriages – a VERY common situation. I cannot imagine being that reckless with the health of 30 million people. Hubris, baby.

  63. 63.

    japa21

    @patrick II: And the nuns were wrong.  The Church has admitted that that is not why Onan was punished. At the Loyola Medical facility outside Chicago, which had a very large sexual dysfunction clinic, masturbation(for both male and female) was encouraged.  Loyola is staunchly Catholic.  Disclaimer: I worked as a therapist at the clinic fr several years.

  66. 66.

    sheila in nc

    @lowtechcyclist: ​
     

    A fertilized egg isn’t alive?? I’m pretty sure science has concluded it is.

    Lots of things are alive — but they don’t necessarily have constitutionally protected personhood rights.
    Keep repeating the mantra — if a zygote is a person, then a woman is not. End of story.

  67. 67.

    Bill K

    @lowtechcyclist: An unfertilized egg is also alive.  So is a sperm.  So is plankton.  Drawing a line at fertilization is a religious belief not backed up by science or the Bible.

  73. 73.

    Glidwrith

    @lowtechcyclist: Yes, it’s alive, but so were the sperm and egg before that. There’s no person there before or after conception and won’t be until sometime after. Meanwhile the very much fully realized person within whom the conceptus resides has fewer rights than a corpse.

    ETA: and as usual everyone else got there first.

  75. 75.

    geg6

    @rikyrah:

    This is the one thing I can say MSNBC as a whole has done right.  They focus on this all the time, including all of their hired contributors (even the GOP/ex-GOPers).  They’ve been screaming it from the rooftops but no one else seems to think it’s important.  I find that fascinating but not surprising.

  77. 77.

    zhena gogolia

    @Jay: Nuns teaching in schools have the dirtiest minds. We used to hear the weirdest things from the neighbor kids who went to Catholic school.

  80. 80.

    patrick II

    @japa21:

    Yeah, I’m 75 now and figured out the nuns (and priests) were wrong about a few things.  For instance, french kissing my girlfriend in high school was also a mortal sin punishable by eternal damnation.  It was so strange and did me no good. But I faced damnation and kissed her anyway.

  82. 82.

    Yarrow

    @Glidwrith:

    Meanwhile the very much fully realized person within whom the conceptus resides has fewer rights than a corpse.

    “They want women to have fewer rights than a corpse” seems like a pithy talking point. Easy to explain and true.

  83. 83.

    sdhays

    @Anonymous At Work:

    And frankly, I hope Pushaw stays onboard to go down with the ship in a way that renders her unemployable by Trump and media outlets to the left of OAN.

    It would be nice, but that just doesn’t happen on the Republican side. Not often enough on the Democratic side, either, I’m afraid.

  84. 84.

    Mike in NC

    It would be wonderful if the vile Pushaw was found out to have been involved in a sleazy affair with Meatball Ron. Awkward! Time for another reboot. The third this week?

  85. 85.

    sdhays

    I feel like Jamie Corley has never met an actual Republican. Who does she think will be persuaded by this?

  87. 87.

    Gretchen

    It’s making me crazy that the journalists still aren’t informed enough to talk about this. DeSantis told Chuck Todd that the Democrats are in favor of « post birth abortion » and, rather than saying, what the hell are you talking about? » and just moved on.

    Dana Bash did a little better, asking Mike Pence about abortion in the case of a nonviable pregnancy like anencephaly, and mentioned the women suing in Texas. He said he assumed that would be covered under life of the mother exception (it’s not). She had it right in front of her that one of the Texas women was forced to carry an anencephalitic fetus to term because, no, it’s not covered. But she just let it go by, even though she had a contradictory case right of her!

  88. 88.

    The Golux

    “Gov. DeSantis is going to lead the Great American Comeback and we’re ready to hit the ground running as we head into an important month of the campaign.”

    Hard to hit the ground running when wearing those kinky hinky white boots.

  90. 90.

    Old School

    @Gretchen:

    wait. He’s taking Florida government vehicles to campaign in Tennessee? Is that legal?

    Based on the article, Florida is required by law to provide security for the governor at all times.

  91. 91.

    laura

    @rikyrah: You are bringing the fire today with the curated (what used to be called) tweets, but none more beautiful than this. Thank you!

    Re Rhonda Sand tits, his campaign, his govt vehicle pileups and his broke down shambles of a campaign and wife who sees her majestic future as flotus- Hardee Har Har. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving pair of yuts.

  94. 94.

    Matt McIrvin

    Pushaw is the person responsible for the “groomer” epithet. She can claim she personally, singlehandedly reduced national tolerance for LGBT people by several points, reversing a decades-long trend of improvement. In the world of hate that’s got to count for something.

  95. 95.

    different-church-lady

     

    @rikyrah: It’s our fault: when we told them they couldn’t beat up blacks and gays they had no choice but to find another group to pound on

  97. 97.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Tony G:

    Slight fixie.


    I won’t be surprised to see legislation in some of these states making it a felony for a pregnant woman to travel out of state leave the house. 

  98. 98.

    cain

    If women decided to withhold sex – and truly did – these folks will pass a law saying women must have at least one kid.

  99. 99.

    different-church-lady

    @lowtechcyclist:

    He argued that the pill created a toxic environment for unfertilized eggs, causing them to die before they could be fertilized

    Whatever you do, don’t tell these idiots how chemo works.

  100. 100.

    Yarrow

    @cain:  They’re already talking about restricting voting to parents. Because people without kids “don’t have a stake in the future.”

    Also, working to undue laws about marital rape. Because it’s a man’s right to have sex, whether she wants to or not.

  101. 101.

    sab

    @rikyrah: I voted today. Yay.

    The issue was as bad as I expected. You’d have to get signatures of 5% of electorate in each of all 88 counties. We never get those, especially in the tiny rural counties. So a single rural county could block a proposed amendment from getting on the ballot.. Also, if your petition comes up short on signatures, that is the end of it. Under current law they have a short period to try to get more signatures.

  102. 102.

    rikyrah

    About Ronnie’s layoffs:

     

    Dead Bounce Ron and the High Roller / Private Jet Doom Loop

    snip

    My takeaway from the piece was different: The campaign appears to be trapped in a sort of people-hating, private-jet-taking death loop. We learn from the article that Ron and wife Casey really, really like flying on private jets, which of course cost a ton of money. I confess that I’m not a huge fan of flying. But if I were, a private jet would probably be pretty cool. But it’s also not hard to see their extreme attachment to private jets as part of or at least a symbol of not liking being around regular people. Maybe not liking being around anybody at all. Some people just want the privacy to unwind with a handful of pudding.

    Another digression: The article notes in passing that the DeSantises were apparently used to the highly unregulated Florida campaign finance system in which they could raise all their money from richies and fly private to their hearts’ content with loaner private jets from their billionaire backers. The federal system has come as a shock.

    But back to our story.

    One of the ways the campaign has burned through a ton of money is the travel on private jets. The campaign also remains highly dependent on high-end donors rather than small donors. Unlike with online small donors, you’ve got to attend fundraisers in person to collect those checks. Which means a lot more travel. On private jets. Which means a lot more spending.

     

    https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/dead-bounce-ron-and-the-high-roller-private-jet-doom-loop

  103. 103.

    M31

    @rikyrah: the table in that tweet is wild, so Americans think that 21% of people are trans? that 27% are Muslim? that 27% are Native American and 30% Jewish? (it’s 2% or less for each)

    and 41% black? it’s 12, which is a bit lower than I thought

    edited to add:  I looked it up and Alaska has the highest percentage of Native Americans, 22%, and OK has 16 and NM 12

    who is taking these tests?

  104. 104.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Bill K: ​
     

    An unfertilized egg is also alive. So is a sperm. So is plankton. Drawing a line at fertilization is a religious belief not backed up by science or the Bible.

    Wait, weren’t you the one who said @11:

    the GOP is now full of zealots that actually believe that life begins at conception.

    I was just reminding you that the belief that the fertilized egg is alive isn’t zealotry, everybody agrees on that. Which means what is and isn’t alive isn’t even the issue. But you seem to have come around to that realization on your own, so good on you.

  105. 105.

    Bruce K in ATH-GR

    If Dobbs is a victory for the 21st-century GOP, it’s the sort of victory that Pyrrhus of Epirus spoke about towards the end of his rule. I suspect that the GOP, unlike Pyrrhus, doesn’t understand what their victory has cost them.

  106. 106.

    mrmoshpotato

    @rikyrah:

    chris evans (@notcapnamerica) tweeted at 5:54 AM on Tue, Jul 25, 2023: 

    1.6% of the population is transgender. Why have so many people made hating them their entire personality? Shouldn’t y’all be worried about your rising homeowners insurance? Your children being HS seniors who read on an 8th grade level? Your husband’s second family?

    Do something about your slutty husbands, Trump trash ladies!

  111. 111.

    Chetan Murthy

    @M31: Makes you wonder what Germans in Weimar thought about the percentage of the population that was Jewish.  1/3?  1/4?  When it was 0.75%.

  112. 112.

    Dan B

    @Yarrow:  Ending Roe seems like it’s goal is to punish women  sluts!  Any woman enjoying sex is obviously a jezebel.  They believe that punishment is effective and empathy is cowardly.

  113. 113.

    Yarrow

    First this guy did it and it worked:

    North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum said Wednesday that he’s reached the 40,000 unique donors threshold to qualify for the Republican presidential primary debate stage in August.

    The GOP governor, a wealthy former software executive who’s been self-funding his campaign, has been offering $20 gift cards to 50,000 donors to try and reach the minimum needed to appear on the debate stage.

    Now this guy’s copying him:

    Bidenomics is making the American Dream unaffordable, so I asked, ‘how can I help,’ and you answered.

    I’m offering EVERY AMERICAN a $20 Bidenomics Relief Card when you give just $1 to help me qualify for the debate stage ➡️ https://t.co/eocIYdjVKC pic.twitter.com/miD6dY6XHS
    — Mayor Francis Suarez (@FrancisSuarez) July 25, 2023

    They’re just buying their way onto the debate stage.

  115. 115.

    Jay

    @Dan B:

    goal is to punish women sluts! Any woman enjoying sex is obviously a jezebel. They believe that punishment is effective and empathy is cowardly.

    The goal is to punish and marginalize all women, sex be damned.

    The deliberate erosion of medical care punishes all women, even nuns, lesbians and the asexual.

  116. 116.

    Chetan Murthy

    @Yarrow: I sure won’t do it until somebody else does first, but …. I hear that both Burgum and Suarez (no-hopers, WTF) are doing this.  And it makes me think: is this a way to bleed them dry?  Everybody we know donates a dollar, gets these $20 cards, and uses ’em for our next grocery trip?  Are they that sort of card?  B/c if they’re some shitty card that isn’t usable at my nbhd grocery, sure/sure/SURE, its a scam and no way I’m touchin’ it.  But if it’s a real cash card ……

    Bleed the fuckers dry!  Death by a thousand million $20 cuts!

  117. 117.

    Yarrow

    @Dan B: Yes. But it doesn’t stop at abortion or sex. That’s only part of it. It’s about controlling women. In all ways.

  120. 120.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @smith:

    @Yarrow:They won’t take the win because it was never about abortion. It was always about controlling women.

    And it’s curious that Corley doesn’t understand that, or didn’t until now. I wonder how many other Republican women are starting to get a clue.

    It’s possible that many of the anti-abortion proponents truly think it was in fact all about stopping abortion, period. I’ve come across a lot of women who were raised more-or-less normally (as I see “normal” anyway) except for this one issue. Truly, this one issue. It is very weird (again, to me), but they exist. Totally 21st century, successful women who truly view abortion as murder of babies. They’re sort of vague on when an embryo becomes a baby, because they generally don’t think of the fertilized egg as a baby, but they know it happens before birth.

    They have no clue what this is really all about. Corely may be one of those women.

  121. 121.

    Yarrow

    @Chetan Murthy:  I don’t know about Suarez but the article said Burgum is a billionaire so I think it might be hard to bleed him dry. He’d just stop sending out gift cards if there was an obvious coordinated plan like that.

  122. 122.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Yarrow: ​
     

    They’re just buying their way onto the debate stage.

    They couldn’t buy a stairway to heaven, so they’re having to settle for the GOP clown show.

  124. 124.

    Barry

    @smith: “And it’s curious that Corley doesn’t understand that, or didn’t until now. I wonder how many other Republican women are starting to get a clue.”

     

    or pretends.

  125. 125.

    Betty Cracker

    There’s a Daily Beast story about Greg Gutfield managing to well-actually the Holocaust on Fox News in an attempt to defend Florida’s well-actually on slavery.  (Jews in concentration camps had to be useful to survive!)

    First law of holes, etc.

  128. 128.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Chetan Murthy:

    And it makes me think: is this a way to bleed them dry?

    Alas, no, at least in Burgum’s case: he said only the first 50,000 $1 donors would get a $20 card. So he’s out $950K, max.  And I expect that Suarez copied that part too.

    ETA: I figure these guys are real billionaires, unlike TFG, so they can shell that out and not notice it.

  130. 130.

    Citizen Alan

     

    @Baud: I am convinced that bringing back slavery is a goal. The Ayatollah Mike Huckabee floated the idea of selling convicts to the highest bidder as the 13th Amendment technically allows it

  132. 132.

    Old School

    @Betty Cracker:

    Here’s a non-paywalled version from CNN:

    The comments, made by prime time host Greg Gutfeld, came during a discussion Monday on “The Five” about Florida’s new Black history standards that requires instruction for students include “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

    Jessica Tarlov, a liberal-leaning co-host on “The Five,” expressed disapproval of the new history standards and questioned whether arguments used to defend them would ever be made in regard to the Holocaust.

    “I’m not Black, but I’m Jewish,” Tarlov said. “Would someone say about the Holocaust, for instance, that there were some benefits for Jews? That while they were hanging out in concentration camps, they learned a strong work ethic? That maybe you learned a new skill.”

    Gutfeld replied, asking if Tarlov had read the “Man’s Search for Meaning,” a bestselling book written by psychiatrist Viktor Frankl who was imprisoned during the Holocaust and described the atrocities committed in concentration camps. In his book, Frankl detailed how people can cope with suffering and find meaning in the most horrific of circumstances.

    “Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills. You had to be useful,” Gutfeld told Tarlov. “Utility! Utility kept you alive!”

  133. 133.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lowtechcyclist: Is Suarez a billionaire? I assumed there was some kind of “gift card limited to the first fifteen (15) individuals participating from zip codes ending in 3”

  135. 135.

    louc

    @lowtechcyclist: Medically speaking, a fertilized egg isn’t considered a pregnancy. To doctors and scientists a pregnancy does not begin until the egg implants into the uterus. Not that forced birthers ever pay attention to science.

  139. 139.

    Geminid

    @Bruce K in ATH-GR: Pyrrhus understood, but he just couldn’t quit. Plutarch says he finally met his match in an Argos woman with an upstairs apartment, who conked Pyrrhus on the head with a roof tile. He was stunned, and then her son stabbed him to death.

  141. 141.

    trollhattan

    @Old School:“Utility! Utility kept you alive!”

    Jesus. “I built rockets, for Hitler, and all I got was this lousy t-shirtstriped pajama set.”

  146. 146.

    cain

    @Citizen Alan:

    Huckabee the great american Christian – is ready to for the sake of his God sell people again just like they did in the old testament.

  147. 147.

    Yarrow

    @Dan B: Yes. That’s what their Bible says. Eve ate the apple and got them thrown out of paradise so all bad things are the fault of women and they must be punished.

    I can’t tell whether you’re trying to make a joke or what. I will repeat what I said before. This is not about sex or abortion. Although those are real things and people get hurt by the new decisions and laws, they are being used as tools in service of the goal of controlling women, forcing them back into the homemaker role and making them dependent on men. That is the goal.

  148. 148.

    Yarrow

    No wonder wingnut men want to control women. They’re not going to get any if they don’t.

    Buried in this survey about American dating is this fascinating stat that the GOP can’t afford to ignore (but will):

    52 percent of Americans are less likely to date someone who identifies as a Trump supporter.

    Only 33 percent of Americans are less likely to date a Republican. pic.twitter.com/Rn79RlwZDQ

    — Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) July 24, 2023

  149. 149.

    smith

    @Old School: So the pro-slavery argument is, people learn to cope in atrocious situations, and that somehow makes those situations less atrocious?

  150. 150.

    Edmund dantes

    @VOR: and they whittled Roe down a ton from the compromise and kept lying about what Roe actually was so you often had people arguing “we should just get rid of Roe and replace it with (list of things that Roe was) and get rid of (list of stuff that Roe also got rid of)”. It was a fun parlor game actually (narrator: it was not fun)

  152. 152.

    Dan B

    @Yarrow:  There’s also a desire to restore “real” manliness.  They want John Wayne, who learned his cowboy tricks from a native American from Washington state.  They want to be superheroes.  It’s so much posturing and preening – peacocks.  Creeps and bullies

    Gay men make their lives awful because there’s equal status.  And lesbians deny them sex.

  154. 154.

    Geminid

    @Miss Bianca: The whole thread came up for me. But Twitter, or “X” or whatever the hell you call it works in strange ways.

    It’s a good thread. Magdi Jacobs is an impressive analyst and writer. I sometimes wish that Pro Publica would hire her. I think Jacobs has a “real job” in Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania now, and does her writing on the side.

  156. 156.

    Yarrow

    @Miss Bianca:  If you want to read that thread, in the URL replace twitter.com with nitter.net. It should come up. If you don’t like the dark theme click on the Preferences (looks like a cog) in the upper right corner and select a different one. Click Save Preferences.

  157. 157.

    MrKite

    @lowtechcyclist:I’m pretty sure the ovum was “alive” before it was fertilized. Gurdon, in the mid50s, demonstrated that gut cell nuclei had all the genetic information necessary to support development of an organism when transplanted into an enucleated egg. But that’s not the point here, is it? The question is at what point is a fertilized egg, embryo or fetus actually a viable and distinct independent human being. The original answer seemed to be:  When it successfully takes it’s first breath. The reasonable compromise,  given our increased ability to keep feti alive after premature birth, is to push that time back to 24 or 25 weeks, when the infant can survive independently. But you knew that. It’s just that you believe your religion should impose their particular answer on our society, even if their new answer is not supported by their own religious book, and only really attempts to limit the rights of women to autonomy, and freedom from religious harrassment.

  158. 158.

    Kay

    @Gretchen:

    They need to show me a life of the mother exception they granted. Prove it. Until they show us it’s just liars saying things. They lied to women about that like they lied to women about everything else. They were never, ever going to choose the mother.

    I don’t think pregnant women should go anywhere near them. They’re dangerous to people in a vulnerable state. The gross (and frankly creepy) acquisitiveness regarding the baby, like they now own this pregnancy and this womans body. Just appalling.

  159. 159.

    Kay

    They’ve already robbed a lot of dignity from women with their horrible, intrusive “discussions” about us.

    Why does Mike Pence get to weigh in on someone else’s pregnancy? I don’t want to be the subject of discussion by Right wing men. I find that whole frame offensive and infantilizing.

  160. 160.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Anyway: neo-feudalism — that’s the goal.

    Been telling yinz that for what seems like years now: It’s the bazillionaire oligarchs (including Vova Pootie-Poot as the crappo di tutti crappi) vs the rest of the human race. They crave ownership of everything (including the oxygen in the atmosphere) and the absolute right to do whatever the fuck they want to whomever the fuck they care to, including the power of life and death over the rest of us, who are no more than dirt under their fingernails.

  165. 165.

    Miss Bianca

    @Yarrow: “enter user name”? Does that mean you need your Twitter account name to access nitter?

    ETA: You can tell how often I actually plug into my Twitter account.

  166. 166.

    Gretchen

    @Kay: and they don’t even make health of the mother exceptions. If her kidneys are shutting down, well, you can get dialysis. And a completely doomed pregnancy in a healthy woman probably won’t kill her, so it’s no problem to make her deliver the baby and watch him gasp for air for a few hours before inevitable death. Mike Pence doesn’t want that exception because sometimes miracle babies survive. Of course he opposes healthcare and special needs funding after he forced this gift of life. Infuriating.

  168. 168.

    Yarrow

    @Miss Bianca:  No. You enter the username of the person’s Twitter account you want to see. Like for John Cole’s you’d enter johngcole in the box. That will get you to see their Twitter account. If you want to see a particular post like the magi Jay one above, you can always just change the twitter.com to nitter.net in the URL, leaving the rest of it the same. Here’s the one for the above mentioned thread:

    https://nitter.net/magi_jay/status/1683887490896211977?t=GEhb3hIsgHOXnEDFpVeEVg&s=03

    Edit: Nitter.net allows you to lurk on Twitter without having an account. Or having to log into your account.

  170. 170.

    Tehanu

    @Matt McIrvin: ​

    Pushaw is the person responsible for the “groomer” epithet.

    She is so vile. I thought nobody could be worse than Laura Ingraham or Dana Loesch, silly me. If Ilse Koch was reincarnated, it’s Pushaw.​

  171. 171.

    Paul in KY

    @Old School: I bet all the campaign drones doing the driving were furiously looking at their cellphones for different job opportunities.

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