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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Reaping the ‘Pro-Life’ Whirlwind

Reaping the ‘Pro-Life’ Whirlwind

by Betty Cracker|  September 8, 202310:05 am| 223 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, The War On Women, Women's Rights Are Human Rights

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Because they have no regard for democracy and zero respect for women, Repubs didn’t think through the possible electoral consequences of their decades-long quest to rescind a longstanding constitutional right by overturning Roe. They gave even less thought to the healthcare ramifications — agricultural boards spend more time pondering how grazing land policy affects cattle than your average Repub lawmaker thought about the impact abortion bans have on women’s health.

So, when the Leo Court obliged and effectively made half the population second-class citizens, empowered state-level Repubs to insert themselves into millions of people’s private medical decisions, and forced healthcare providers to change standard care protocols to conform to religious dogma, Repubs were caught flat-footed by public reaction. And now they are belatedly alarmed because the Dobbs decision blowback has been measurable in most elections held since June 2022.

Public responses by individual Repubs are all over the map. House Repubs and Senator Potato Head from AL act as if governing with a mandate to ban abortion nationwide. Chickenshit candidates like Ron DeSantis sign bans in the dead of night and avoid the subject on the trail. But according to NBC News, Senate Repubs held a messaging workshop this week to try to rebrand their way out of this conundrum:

At a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans this week, the head of a super PAC closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., presented poll results that suggested voters are reacting differently to commonly used terms like “pro-life” and “pro-choice” in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, said several senators who were in the room.

The polling, which NBC News has not independently reviewed, was made available to senators Wednesday by former McConnell aide Steven Law and showed that “pro-life” no longer resonated with voters.

“What intrigued me the most about the results was that ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions … at all levels,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview Thursday.

Well, maybe those polled have seen stories about women who seek emergency treatment for miscarriages being advised to quietly bleed out in their homes until the local archbishop and megachurch pastor deem their lives sufficiently endangered to warrant medical intervention. Or maybe they’ve read about Orwellian laws that encourage random busybodies to monetize their neighbors’ deeply private situations.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the polling made it clear to him that more specificity is needed in talking about abortion.

“Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and ‘pro-choice’ now can mean any number of things. So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that they’ve shifted. So if you’re going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific,” Hawley said Thursday.

“You can’t assume that everybody knows what it means,” he added. “They probably don’t.”

Yep, that will surely do the trick because if there’s one thing all American women are demanding with a single voice, it’s additional and more specific mansplaining from Josh Fucking Hawley! (Who represents a state that bans abortions with no exceptions for rape or incest, BTW.)

Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind., summarized Wednesday’s meeting as being focused on “pro-baby policies.”

Asked whether senators were encouraged to use a term other than “pro-life,” Young said his “pro-baby” descriptor “was just a term of my creation to demonstrate my concern for babies.”

These fanatical dingleberries will never land on the actual word that describes their position on reproductive healthcare, which is “anti-woman.” But it seems like many voters have reached that conclusion all by themselves. I don’t think more branding workshops will keep Repubs from reaping the whirlwind they sowed for generations, but this is America, so who knows.

Open thread.

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    223Comments

    1. 1.

      moonbat

      September 8, 2023 at 10:11 am

      Facing the real possibility of putting a convicted felon at the top of their ballot and this big giant anti-choice, anti-women chicken coming home to roost the Repugs are finally catching on that they are headed to electoral Armageddon up and down the ballot.

      In other words, “pro-baby” ain’t gonna cut it, Jack.

      Reply
    2. 2.

      matt

      September 8, 2023 at 10:12 am

      So it’s the ‘pro-life’ people who are now for the nuanced, compromise position on abortion. Funny, I thought that’s what Roe v Wade was, and those are the people who killed it.

      Reply
    3. 3.

      Anonymous At Work

      September 8, 2023 at 10:13 am

      I’ve always used “pro/anti-choice” since that’s the divide.  No one, except Darkseid is “anti-life”.

      Reply
    4. 4.

      bbleh

      September 8, 2023 at 10:13 am

      These fanatical dingleberries will never land on the actual word that describes their position on reproductive healthcare, which is “anti-woman.”

      “Waal, I’m not anti-woman.  Why I love women.  [chuckle chuckle]  I’m just sayin’ they gotta know their place.”

      Reply
    5. 5.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 10:14 am

      You know who doesn’t have exceptions to the right to abortion? Democrats!  Because people don’t have to justify why their exercising a fundamental right.

      Reply
    6. 6.

      MisterDancer

      September 8, 2023 at 10:15 am

      Even having done a wee bit of the research, it’s hard for me to wrap my mind around just how much WORK the Forced Abortion Movement put into making “Pro-Life” happen. Not just coining the phrase, but getting it spread like wildfire into the mass media, making it a norm. It was a lot of money and time and manipulation…and it worked a charm.

      It was like a testbed for everything from the slander of the term “liberal” in the early Reagan years, to the modern shredding of the term “woke”. Getting “Pro Life” bought into showed a lot of these assholes that they could manipulate the media to sell their lies with ease.

      You’re right that I don’t think “pro-baby” works as well. And anything coming top-down tends not to “sell” as well to these people. What does concern me is if the Forced Abortion rank/file do decide to rebrand, and how they’ll inject more toxicity and lies into our body politic to do so.

      Reply
    7. 7.

      Betsy

      September 8, 2023 at 10:15 am

      Betty, this writing is the perfect encapsulation of the sitch.  It ought to be an editorial piece  that is printed in every newspaper!

      Reply
    8. 8.

      bbleh

      September 8, 2023 at 10:16 am

      @moonbat: Specifically, they’re the pro-baby, anti-perinatal-medical-care, lock-children-in-cages party.

      Reply
    9. 9.

      MattF

      September 8, 2023 at 10:17 am

      I agree that the sudden haste of the misogyny party to ‘clarify’ their abortion policy is what’s really clarifying here. I feel pretty sure that no one is fooled— this is rather more than just a little misunderstanding.

      Reply
    10. 10.

      AM in NC

      September 8, 2023 at 10:19 am

      @bbleh:   I remember so.very.clearly. the first time I heard dood say “I love women”.  As if we are one completely undifferentiated mass.

      Uh no dood, you love how a female body can make you feel sometimes, and thus you reduce 1/2 of humanity to servicing that feeling in you.

      Creeps. We are surrounded by creeps.

      Reply
    11. 11.

      hueyplong

      September 8, 2023 at 10:19 am

      “Clarify” always means “Needz moar mendacity and repetition.”

      Reply
    12. 12.

      ...now I try to be amused

      September 8, 2023 at 10:25 am

      Dobbs completely surprised me. They had the perfect cynical con game going: keep the base angry over Roe, fundraise, don’t deliver, repeat. Then the true believers on the SCOTUS delivered and blew up the con. I underestimated how deeply the true believers had infiltrated the apparatus.

      Reply
    13. 13.

      Joe Falco

      September 8, 2023 at 10:25 am

      but this is America, so who knows

      Sadly true. We’d need more data and years of election results before we see whether Dobbs has given the GOP the self-inflicted electoral wound it richly deserves. I wish Dobbs would be as monumental a decision for the fate of the GOP just as the Civil Rights Act was for Democrats (obligatory quote from LBJ and obligatory FU to LBJ).

      Reply
    14. 14.

      Betsy

      September 8, 2023 at 10:26 am

      Remember when the Republicans were trying to take prenatal care OUT of the coverages required of every health insurance policy by the Affordable Care Act?

      Was that “pro-baby”?

      ETA:  At the time, they justified their proposal by saying “it doesn’t benefit everyone, only a special subset of people in a particular situation, therefore prenatal care coverage  should not be required of every health insurance policy”

      I remember thinking, What situation is MORE UNIVERSAL to ALL of humanity than being BORN?

      I mean, if you TRIED to think of another situation that would apply to more people via health coverage, what exactly would that be?!

      Reply
    15. 15.

      Mousebumples

      September 8, 2023 at 10:30 am

      Lol, they’re pro forced birth. Pro women as second class citizens.

      Anti taking care of the kids they force women to deliver. Anti Healthcare. Anti bodily autonomy.

      What’s the anti-abortion equivalent to Death Panels? Ecclesiastical Miscarriage Review Board doesn’t really roll off the tongue.

      Reply
    16. 16.

      Taphozous

      September 8, 2023 at 10:31 am

      I suspect that “pro baby” is serving a dual purpose here. 1) it is an attempt to deal with pushback to Dobbs; 2) it shifts the focus to birth control.

      It is imprtant to remember that the anti-choice folks are also set on taking away access to birth control.

      Reply
    17. 17.

      mali muso

      September 8, 2023 at 10:31 am

      I can’t think about this entire topic without feeling my blood pressure up and getting enraged. Just this week I had a conversation with a friend who recently experienced the miscarriage of a wanted pregnancy and the trauma that came along with the uncertainty around how her medical records might be used against her at some point in the future. Something that should be innocuous, a survey to be completed for the state public health statistics office, in these days reads as sinister and orwellian.  How many pregnancies have you had? Did you visit an OB prior to the miscarriage?  etc.  My rational brain can understand the need to keep population level statistics, but I concurred with her that submitting that information in this day and age would be unadvisable.  This is life as a woman in this country in 2023.

      Reply
    18. 18.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 10:32 am

      “Pro-life” has always been about punishing the sluts for DARING to exercise agency over their own bodies. Babies have never been the focus, only the thin veneer over patriarchal assholes seeking to impose their fucking bronze-age mindset on everyone.

      Reply
    19. 19.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 10:35 am

      @bbleh: Once the kid has left the birth canal, the kid is on their own.

      Reply
    20. 20.

      Betty Cracker

      September 8, 2023 at 10:36 am

      @Betsy: Yep, the “pro-baby” thing is a big fat lie too. IIRC, that anti-baby policy came out of Trump’s failed attempt to overturn the ACA?

      Reply
    21. 21.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 8, 2023 at 10:37 am

      OT but big:

      BREAKING: Fulton County special grand jury recommended indicting three Republican Senators:

      -Lindsey Graham
      -David Perdue
      -Kelly Loeffler

      democracydocket.com/wp-content/u…

      Reply
    22. 22.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 10:37 am

      @Omnes Omnibus: LOCK THEM UP!

      Reply
    23. 23.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 10:38 am

      They want the media to call us anti-baby, I bet.

      Reply
    24. 24.

      moonbat

      September 8, 2023 at 10:38 am

      @Villago Delenda Est: ​
       Hey, no slandering of the Bronze Age! Ancient Egyptian medical texts contain prescriptions for birth control AND what to do in case of a miscarriage. The ancients, or some of them, were a lot more liberal than you’d expect.

      Reply
    25. 25.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 10:38 am

      @Omnes Omnibus: But they weren’t indicted.  Or are these new indictments?

      Reply
    26. 26.

      MattF

      September 8, 2023 at 10:40 am

      @Omnes Omnibus: Very curious to see the specifics about Graham. He’s kept a rather low profile lately.

      Reply
    27. 27.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 10:41 am

      @moonbat: Humankind went downhill once we stopped worshipping cats as gods.

      Reply
    28. 28.

      moonbat

      September 8, 2023 at 10:41 am

      @Baud: Undoubtedly.

      Reply
    29. 29.

      Scout211

      September 8, 2023 at 10:41 am

      @Omnes Omnibus: oooh, even with Graham’s limited testimony, they still have enough evidence to indict? Sweet!

      Reply
    30. 30.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 8, 2023 at 10:42 am

      @Baud: No indictments.  The final report was filed today.

      Reply
    31. 31.

      Betsy

      September 8, 2023 at 10:42 am

      @Betty Cracker: I don’t remember, even though once I went to DC and got tickets to the House gallery to see the Repugs vote for the 78th time to overturn Obamacare.

      Mark Sanford was there, newly refurbished from his weird disappearance  with his mistress  to Argentina, or wherever it was.  I remember when that kind of thing ended a political career.

      Reply
    32. 32.

      Betsy

      September 8, 2023 at 10:42 am

      @Baud: nailed it

      Reply
    33. 33.

      Kelly

      September 8, 2023 at 10:43 am

      @Baud: Wait, What, Everyone else stopped worshiping cats?

      Reply
    34. 34.

      gvg

      September 8, 2023 at 10:43 am

      The do NOT love women. They despise us, even the ones who are women.

      My whole family would not exist if these fools had their way. My grandmothers first child died in the womb about 6 weeks before expected delivery. She did not go into labor and the fetus was (as it turned out) decaying inside her). Her doctor said wait to go into labor. Nothing happened. she was in the hospital getting sicker. He would not operate. Her childhood doctor saw her mother waiting in the hospital and asked why, then took over and saved her.

      My father and his siblings were born AFTER the first child. This is the kind of non scientific unsafe medicine that they want. Pregnancy goes wrong for a lot of natural reasons. It just does. We don’t need blind fools grabbing the wheel and wrecking the process over and over. They make it to scary to even risk trying.

      And a lot of them want to make it impossible for women to have jobs and independence, not just their own wives but other women too.

      Reply
    35. 35.

      cain

      September 8, 2023 at 10:43 am

      @moonbat: That’s a fact jack

      Reply
    36. 36.

      Old Man Shadow

      September 8, 2023 at 10:45 am

      Many states have exceptions written into their abortion bans. The exceptions often require:

      • Victimized women to make immediate decisions as if they weren’t dealing with psychological and physical trauma and chance revictimization at the hands of an often adversarial legal system.
      • Doctors to think whether or not a life-threatening medical condition is life-threatening enough to convince politically motivated D.A.s that an abortion was justified, a hospital legal department that doesn’t want trouble, and whether or not they can convince twelve jurors (who are probably not ob-gyns or doctors at all) of medical necessity.
      • Couples who wanted a child to watch their child needlessly suffer a short, painful life and die or give birth to a brain dead child because it still had a heartbeat.

      So I don’t care how you want to message the issue, the fact is there is no way to have exceptions when your laws are based on a sincere desire to roll back feminism and shove women into the subservient role your fundamentalist bullshit demands they occupy.

      Reply
    37. 37.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 10:46 am

      @Baud: The cats have not forgotten this, either, per Sir Terry.

      Reply
    38. 38.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 10:46 am

      Pro-baby sounds too much like probiotics, anyway.

      Reply
    39. 39.

      zhena gogolia

      September 8, 2023 at 10:47 am

      @Omnes Omnibus: Yay!

      Reply
    40. 40.

      zhena gogolia

      September 8, 2023 at 10:48 am

      @Omnes Omnibus: Oh, shoot, I said “Yay” too soon.

      Reply
    41. 41.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 10:50 am

      @zhena gogolia: Lots of people suffer from premature ejubulation.

      Reply
    42. 42.

      Frankensteinbeck

      September 8, 2023 at 10:50 am

      “You can’t assume that everybody knows what it means,” he added. “They probably don’t.”

      Thanks to Dobbs, the normies finally do.  It means blocking all abortions, with no exceptions, restricted only by what you think you can get away with.  Normies don’t do nuance, which means for once they do get it.

      “pro-baby”

      Oh, dude.  Go for that one.  Please.  “Pro-life” sounded bland and innocuous, perfect for obscuring your intentions.  “Pro-baby” is jarring and attention-getting as Hell, and everyone who disapproves of the Dobbs decision will hear it as ‘pro forcing women to have babies.’

      (This post is repeated/paraphrased from the last thread this story came up in.)

      Reply
    43. 43.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 10:51 am

      @Baud: Tony Stark tried to explain this to Loki and well, shit happened.

      Reply
    44. 44.

      Scout211

      September 8, 2023 at 10:51 am

      BC, thanks for front-paging this NRC meeting with their lying liars spin doctors.  It was discussed a bit last night in an overnight thread  but it deserves a spotlight.

      Why respond to the facts when you can lie about your policies and spin Democrats into monsters who hate babies? They think they are so smart and so clever. They are bragging about it and are just so proud of themselves.

      My response last night to Josh Hawley’s claims that the electorate doesn’t understand what the GOP has done to take away the rights of families and pregnant people:

      Sure Jan Josh, they are all against you now because they just don’t understand what you mean. So they need different words.  Go ahead GOP with your word spinning.  The electorate will never figure out what you are really up to.

      Reply
    45. 45.

      cain

      September 8, 2023 at 10:52 am

      @MattF: It’s hard to say it is a misunderstanding given the bills that are being passed and made into law. Their’s the lying lies coming out of their mouths and then what their actions say when they sign an abortion bill with no exceptions being signed into law.

      Reply
    46. 46.

      Princess

      September 8, 2023 at 10:53 am

      @…now I try to be amused: I think some of them likewise underestimated how much the true believers had infiltrated the apparatus. And those true believers aren’t going to buy what Hawley is selling any more than we will, unless they can be convinced it’s election year phrasing only (which maybe they can be since that’s certainly true. Hawley’s intention is certainly a full bann, no exceptions).

      Reply
    47. 47.

      suzanne

      September 8, 2023 at 10:53 am

      “Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever

      Because that’s what it means, you mendacious, patronizing, contemptuous piece of shit.
      They’re liars. Liars.

      Reply
    48. 48.

      Jeffg166

      September 8, 2023 at 10:54 am

      The GQP will do its usual thing and throw one buzz word after another at the wall until one sticks, then repeating it to infinity.

      Reply
    49. 49.

      Humanity

      September 8, 2023 at 10:56 am

      (Posting under a different nym for anonymity’s sake.)

      My friend and her spouse both had (unknown to them) a recessive gene that would cause anencephaly in 1 out of 4 embryos formed with their genetic material.  They found out when their first pregnancy’s fetus was discovered not to have a developing head.  They were Catholic so they went through with a term pregnancy and the baby died a little while after the birth.

      They tried again.  Tragically the same thing happened with the second pregnancy, and they made the same choice. Carry to term.  Same result.

      My friend was never the same again.

      Her whole family also suffered, particularly her mother. None of them to my knowledge are observant Catholics any more.

      This is what Republicans want to do to everyone who has a pregnancy. Impose their choice on other people.

      Reply
    50. 50.

      Kent E Reames

      September 8, 2023 at 10:56 am

      hey guys … since this is an open thread

      could we stop linking to twitter? like, permanently, forever? the anti-semitism over there is through the fcking roof.

      Highly, highly recommend this piece. It brings the receipts. Holy hell!

      https://substack.com/notes/post/p-136710955

      Reply
    51. 51.

      jonas

      September 8, 2023 at 10:59 am

      @Villago Delenda Est: Babies have never been the focus, only the thin veneer over patriarchal assholes seeking to impose their fucking bronze-age mindset on everyone.

      If only. The Old Testament/Hebrew Bible is quite clear. Life is in breath, and an unborn child, whose death can be compensatable, is still not the equivalent of a born human. (The stuff in Psalms about the Lord “forming me in the womb” Christians are always quoting says nothing about personhood/ensoulment. God “formed” Adam from the earth, too, but he wasn’t a living being until he received the breath of life in him, i.e. started breathing on his own.)

      Some rabbinical opinions in Judaism even suggest that a pregnancy that has become a danger to a mother’s life or health must be terminated.

      Reply
    52. 52.

      kindness

      September 8, 2023 at 10:59 am

      Republican officials are informed women (and many men) don’t like living in a Gilead type land.  Republicans respond by proclaiming Gilead means many, many things.  Not just the userpation of womens rights.

      Yea…. that’ll help them at the polls.

      Reply
    53. 53.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 11:00 am

      @Princess: It’s the only way to punish the sluts for DARING to have sex.

      Reply
    54. 54.

      Frankensteinbeck

      September 8, 2023 at 11:00 am

      @moonbat:

      The ancients, or some of them, were a lot more liberal than you’d expect.

      Even the relatively recent ancients.  One of the odd historical facts I’ve learned is that conservative generations zealously scrub waves of liberalism from recorded histories.  One example I’m reminded of was that while the major British documents of sexual morals insisted virgin marriages were rigidly enforced and 18 was an old maid, a very recent historian went through actual parish birth/marriage records and discovered commoners rarely married before 20 and the women frequently had a couple of kids already.  Turns out, what people on the ground wanted was to be confident a wife would survive childbirth.  Similarly, a whole lot of prostitutes throughout history miraculously managed to have vast amounts of sex without being constantly pregnant.  You could almost suspect that ways of preventing that existed before the 20th century.

      Oh, and the examples of and claims about chastity belts are almost all from people writing about what that other country they hate does.  Super authentic.

      Reply
    55. 55.

      kalakal

      September 8, 2023 at 11:02 am

      What a bunch of fuckwits. The sheer contempt they have for the electorate is mind boggling. They’re anti women, always have been, Dobbs blew the roof off and now they’re desperately  trying to haul a tarp over to once again give a “respectable” cover for their murderous mysogeny. Changing the slogan is going to be as convincing as putting a Ferrari badge on a Trabant

      Reply
    56. 56.

      MisterDancer

      September 8, 2023 at 11:03 am

      @Kent E Reames: I have, in drafts, a Front Page bit about Musk’s antisemitic shit. I’ll try to get it wrapped and posted this weekend, and I’ll include this article with credit back to you, as it comes with receipts.

      That said — I personally dropped Twitter when the sale went thru. I get 1000% why other FPers lean on it, but for me, it was clearly a space I could not sustain using, knowing Musk’s past.

      Reply
    57. 57.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 11:04 am

      @jonas: Yeah, and it’s imprecise, at best, of me to characterize it as “bronze age” because even the Old Testament doesn’t bother to address abortion.  It has much more to do with modern “Christianity’s” hatred of equality and all that implies, to include ZOMG women treating sex as men have always treated it, because men don’t get pregnant.  That’s why birth control is next on the hit parade for these assholes.  As moonbat pointed out, the ancient Egyptians were much more sensible about all this than your average holy roller dickweed.

      Reply
    58. 58.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 8, 2023 at 11:04 am

      @kalakal: Changing the slogan is going to be as convincing as putting a Ferrari badge on a Trabant

      Carbon fiber body panels.  Fiber board body panels.  Same thing really.

      Reply
    59. 59.

      p.a.

      September 8, 2023 at 11:06 am

      Maybe they’re pro-baby in the Jonathan Swift manner?

      Reply
    60. 60.

      NotMax

      September 8, 2023 at 11:07 am

      @Frankensteinbeck

      Quasi-relevant.
      :)

      Reply
    61. 61.

      Ken

      September 8, 2023 at 11:07 am

      I hope Democrats will test the Republicans’ new-found pro-baby stance by proposing suitable legislation. How about mandating three months of paid maternity leave?  Full medical coverage during pregnancy and for three years afterward? Automatic eligibility for SNAP for the first three years, regardless of income?

      Reply
    62. 62.

      cain

      September 8, 2023 at 11:10 am

      @Betsy:

      I remember thinking, What situation is MORE UNIVERSAL to ALL of humanity than being BORN?

      Betsy – birth is a pre-existing condition. It shouldn’t be covered.

      Reply
    63. 63.

      catclub

      September 8, 2023 at 11:11 am

      @Joe Falco: ​
       

      monumental a decision for the fate of the GOP just as the Civil Rights Act was for Democrats

      These things take a LONG time. I don’t think the Democratic majority in the House was gone until the 1990’s …25 years later.

      Reply
    64. 64.

      CaseyL

      September 8, 2023 at 11:12 am

      @Baud: ​

      you know, I often think human civilization hit its peak during the 18th Dynasty of Egypt, and has been variously downhill ever since.

      Reply
    65. 65.

      catclub

      September 8, 2023 at 11:12 am

      @Ken: ​
       

      How about mandating three months of paid maternity leave?

      How about maternity leave and/or subsidized childcare for 3 YEARS?

      Reply
    66. 66.

      Betty Cracker

      September 8, 2023 at 11:13 am

      @MisterDancer: Glad you’re still working on that post! I was thinking about doing one myself earlier (not on the Twitter aspect — Musk’s antisemitism) but saw the title of your draft and didn’t want to step on a work in progress. So I mentioned Musk’s Labor Day weekend antisemitism spree in comments instead.

      In retrospect, I think I should have posted anyway — the subject is worthy of multiple posts, and the MSM has given it way too little attention. Maybe the recent revelation that Musk sabotaged a covert Ukrainian operation against the country that’s waging genocidal war against them will revive it.

      Reply
    67. 67.

      Betty Cracker

      September 8, 2023 at 11:17 am

      @kalakal: As a fan of metaphors and similes, I appreciate your work there!

      Reply
    68. 68.

      ...now I try to be amused

      September 8, 2023 at 11:17 am

      @p.a.:

      Maybe they’re pro-baby in the Jonathan Swift manner?

      “How to Serve Man”

      Reply
    69. 69.

      moonbat

      September 8, 2023 at 11:18 am

      @Frankensteinbeck: ​
        For real. The hypocritical prudery of the American evangelical mindset has a funny way of eliding over the inconvenient history of any era that shows people were not always (or were never) wed to the ways of their Puritan ideal. I guess that’s yet another reason why they want to ban AP history courses, besides erasing the experiences of POC.

      Reply
    70. 70.

      Fake Irishman

      September 8, 2023 at 11:19 am

      @Betsy:

      When John Barrasso (R) Wyoming was bloviating about this in a finance committee meeting considering the ACA in 2009, Debbie Stabenow shut him up with a witty comeback using your logic.

      Barrasso: “look, why should I pay for maternity coverage when I’m not going to need it?”

      Stabenow: “Your mom did.”

      best use of the middle school “your mom” taunt ever,

      (on so many levels.)

      Reply
    71. 71.

      Paul in KY

      September 8, 2023 at 11:19 am

      @MisterDancer: Advertising works.

      Reply
    72. 72.

      cain

      September 8, 2023 at 11:21 am

      @Betty Cracker: I was so incensed. I have started the process of withdrawing my employer from twitter. Fuck that guy.

      Reply
    73. 73.

      MattF

      September 8, 2023 at 11:23 am

      @Betty Cracker: My guess has been that insiders have known about Musk’s antisemitism but have kept that particular detail about him to themselves. It’s not the sort of thing that just suddenly appears out of nowhere.

      Reply
    74. 74.

      kalakal

      September 8, 2023 at 11:25 am

      @Fake Irishman: lol!

      Reply
    75. 75.

      EarthWindFire

      September 8, 2023 at 11:28 am

      @matt: Kinda hard to talk nuanced compromise when you’ve been screaming babykiller for almost a half-century. I think I’ll buy more popcorn futures while the Repubs figure this out. Thoughts and prayers to them.

      Reply
    76. 76.

      Betty Cracker

      September 8, 2023 at 11:29 am

      @MattF: Yep. Josh Marshall wrote about it here. Addressing Musk’s threats to sue the ADL, Marshall’s conclusion was on point, IMO:

      But the key here is not really about lawsuits or the ins and outs of defamation. It’s that the richest man in the world who holds a commanding position in near-earth-orbit space delivery, electronic cars and global communications spent the weekend churning up hate against Jews as the source of his financial losses. Musk is sometimes compared to the innovator Henry Ford, founder of Ford Motor Company. And the comparison seems increasingly apt, if not in the way many have intended.

      Reply
    77. 77.

      sab

      September 8, 2023 at 11:31 am

      @Frankensteinbeck: Peter Laslett. We read his books when I was in college in the 1970s. The only ones who married in their early teens were royalty, and they frequently did die in childbirth.

      Reply
    78. 78.

      Kay

      September 8, 2023 at 11:32 am

      It’s funny because the high dollar fancy anti abortion lobbyists get it – they say in the article that they have to somehow convince women they are pro women, but the male lunkheads in the GOP are stepping on their (lying) message.

      Good!

      Incidentally, the rape and incest and life of the mother “exceptions” are bullshit. No one ever qualifies for the exception.

      They lie to women constantly and this is another example. Don’t wait till you are flat on your back and helpless delivering a baby to find out if the “pro life” movement will happily sacrifice your life for their religion. They will. Oh, and bring a STRONG advocate. You may have to fight to get modern medical intervention if a delivery goes off a cliff.

      My daughter will be delivering in January. She’s a health care professional so chose providers who are not fanatic religious people and “believe” in modernity but during delivery she will be vulnerable so both her husband and I will be there to keep these fucking creepy ghouls away from her. Good luck getting past us.

      Reply
    79. 79.

      EarthWindFire

      September 8, 2023 at 11:34 am

      @…now I try to be amused: I thought what you did too until Amy Coathanger Barrett got appointed.

      Then I knew the jig was up.

      Reply
    80. 80.

      Miss Bianca

      September 8, 2023 at 11:36 am

      @Omnes Omnibus: WHOA, NELLIE!

      Reply
    81. 81.

      syphonblue

      September 8, 2023 at 11:42 am

      Oh so if they’re “pro-baby”, that means they now support paid parental leave, universal day care, free school lunches….

      Reply
    82. 82.

      Bruce K in ATH-GR

      September 8, 2023 at 11:44 am

      @Miss Bianca: Sadly, this isn’t something that just happened, just the release of the grand jury’s final report. Willis’s office decided not to move forward on some of the indictments, and I can’t say I blame them – there was some disagreement on the grand jury about those indictment recommendations, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they just assessed who they had the best slam-dunk cases against.

      Reply
    83. 83.

      Brachiator

      September 8, 2023 at 11:47 am

      These fanatical dingleberries will never land on the actual word that describes their position on reproductive healthcare, which is “anti-woman.”

      The sad thing is that a number of conservative women also are part of this movement to restrict abortion.

      I distrust the supposed GOP hand wringing over reproductive rights. Red states have been passing cruel anti-abortion laws for years. The Supreme Court abolished Roe and used as an excuse the lie that they were returning power to the states.

      The Republicans want to pass the most restrictive federal law possible. This has always been their position. Trying to find some phoney “pro baby” narrative is nothing more than a distraction.

      Again, what is sad is how many women accept this assault on their rights. Some pundits presumed that middle class women would always be able to assert their rights to control their bodies. But if Republicans get their way, only wealthy women able to leave the US might have an unrestricted right to abortion.

      Reply
    84. 84.

      Westyny

      September 8, 2023 at 11:48 am

      Jumped to the end to ask if anyone above has already nominated “fanatical dingleberries.”

      Reply
    85. 85.

      randy khan

      September 8, 2023 at 11:49 am

      Your periodic reminder (not that many people here need it) that whenever Republicans make mouth noises about reasonable positions on abortion, what they mean is that they want a total ban, but will settle for whatever they can get, and that they will write any legislation that looks like it’s not a total ban in a way that makes it nearly impossible to get an abortion. (So health exceptions are unavailable in practice, or the window where abortion is legal is so short that most women won’t even know they’re pregnant before it expires.)  In other words, they’re lying.

      Reply
    86. 86.

      Kay

      September 8, 2023 at 11:50 am

      Also good catch on the mansplaining, Betty. I hope the GOP Senators do that – deliver a big scolding lecture to women about pregnancy and childbirth. I am fully confident they will do this. Looking forward to it.

      Reply
    87. 87.

      Betty Cracker

      September 8, 2023 at 11:50 am

      @Kay:

      Incidentally, the rape and incest and life of the mother “exceptions” are bullshit.

      True, and maybe it’s becoming harder for Repubs to sell these entirely hypothetical exceptions since people are seeing how they’re applied in real life. (There’s not nearly enough coverage in the national mainstream press, but awareness is creeping up, I think.)

      Reply
    88. 88.

      Mike in NC

      September 8, 2023 at 11:53 am

      If the old white men who run the Republican Party have decided that abortion is the hill they’re willing to die on, then die it will. Please proceed GOP.

      Reply
    89. 89.

      Princess

      September 8, 2023 at 11:54 am

      @Frankensteinbeck: Frankly, even the medieval Church was more liberal with abortion. It was okay until “quickening”, or roughly through the first trimester.  And some canonists argued that it was okay in cases of poverty rather than being used to hide the consequences of “illicit” sex.

      Reply
    90. 90.

      West of the Rockies

      September 8, 2023 at 11:54 am

      @Villago Delenda Est:

      I think it’s more that women sometimes enjoy sex, but especially that they can exercise control over sex.  That does not sit well with the God-bothering patriarchy.

      Reply
    91. 91.

      Princess

      September 8, 2023 at 11:55 am

      @Brachiator: There is no wealth in the world that can provide an abortion for a woman who needs one because of an immediate health crisis. Wealthy women aren’t immune from all the consequences of these laws.

      Reply
    92. 92.

      Joey Maloney

      September 8, 2023 at 11:56 am

      @jonas: Some rabbinical opinions in Judaism even suggest that a pregnancy that has become a danger to a mother’s life or health must be terminated.

      This is the basis of one of the lawsuits against one of the state-level abortion bans – in Texas, maybe? I don’t remember for sure – by some Jewish women who are suing under RFRA, claiming the abortion ban is impermissible interference with their religious beliefs and practice. I don’t know how likely that is to work, but I always enjoy seeing the Christianists’ legislative toolkits being wielded against them.

      Reply
    93. 93.

      brantl

      September 8, 2023 at 11:56 am

      @kindness: usurpation. 2 Us.

      Reply
    94. 94.

      Shalimar

      September 8, 2023 at 11:57 am

      @Betsy: They really don’t like babies.  The whole party is like the horrible boyfriend who gets you pregnant, convinces you to have the child, and then ghosts you 2 weeks before the baby is due.

      Reply
    95. 95.

      UncleEbeneezer

      September 8, 2023 at 11:58 am

      “What intrigued me the most about the results was that ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions”

      Ya don’t say…glad to see people finally waking up to this but it’s been pretty obvious for most of my entire life.

      Reply
    96. 96.

      BethanyAnne

      September 8, 2023 at 12:00 pm

      I’m still livid about it. I was angry about the assaults on abortion rights before Dobbs, and Dobbs pissed me right the fuck off. And I’m still there. It surprises me on one level. I’m trans, sterile, and don’t have a uterus. I’d think maybe I’d be a little angry, but it would fade into the background of anger with these fascists. Nope. This is visceral to me. Frequently it angers me more than their direct assaults on my trans self. I don’t know why, but I know it’s true. It just makes me see red. I given even fewer fucks than normal about being polite or rational or civil. That tagline about when someone talks about loving freedom, rest assured they don’t mean yours rings so goddamn true about this. Livid. Just makes me livid.

      Reply
    97. 97.

      Matt McIrvin

      September 8, 2023 at 12:01 pm

      @…now I try to be amused: Dobbs did not surprise me. Pundits for many years had thought of the Republicans as a bloc focused on doing what they needed to do to win elections. But when you’re on the Supreme Court you don’t need to win elections. This was THE big prize for conservatives and in this instance, they did care about policy–in a gross and horrifying way.

      Reply
    98. 98.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 12:03 pm

      Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the polling made it clear to him that more specificity is needed in talking about abortion.

      It ain’t gonna work, Josh.  You could run focus group tested marketing blather as long as banning abortion was just a theoretical position that was always going to be blocked by the courts.  Now that the courts aren’t stopping it, voters are looking at how Republicans legislate instead of what they say about how they’re going to legislate.  This is the Republicans’ worst nightmare.  Their policy preferences are awful and unpopular, so they have to focus attention everywhere else if they want to win.  They can kind of do that when they’re doing something behind the scenes to help out the ultra-rich, but it doesn’t work when their policies hurt people directly.

      Reply
    99. 99.

      Shalimar

      September 8, 2023 at 12:03 pm

      @Baud: Blame the Egyptians.  It was not a bright idea to bury cats alive in burial chambers where all the important bits were in pots on shelves.  Cursed us all forever, they did.

      Reply
    100. 100.

      UncleEbeneezer

      September 8, 2023 at 12:03 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: A valid response/point from Allison Gill:

      It will be interesting to see if there’s any “outrage” from “do something” Twitter over who wasn’t indicted in GA.

      Reply
    101. 101.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 12:03 pm

      @Brachiator: The sad thing is that a number of conservative women also are part of this movement to restrict abortion.

      The Aunt Lydia types.

      Reply
    102. 102.

      Fair Economist

      September 8, 2023 at 12:04 pm

      @cain:Why does the bullshit always travel together? Musk is a South African trust-fund baby courtesy of a blood emerald mine. Of course he’s racist. But he’s heavily antisemitic and misogynist too and those aren’t so obligatory with his background. Is there some sort of “Newton’s Fourth Law” about gravitational bullshit? Any sufficiently large pile of bullshit draws all other bullshit to it until it becomes a pile so heavy no sense can escape it?

      Reply
    103. 103.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 12:05 pm

      If they wanted to be more accurate, they could go with pro-baby mills.

      Reply
    104. 104.

      Dangerman

      September 8, 2023 at 12:06 pm

      I’m all for branding workshops; I think “Baud 20XX” would look good burned in.

      Oh. Not that kind of brand. My bad.

      Carry on.

      Reply
    105. 105.

      Paul in KY

      September 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm

      @syphonblue: They will certainly be game for skewering on that point. Just about all normies, when they think of ‘baby’, think of a post-birth one.

      Could be a ‘hoist by their own petard’ moment, if played right.

      Reply
    106. 106.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm

      @Dangerman:

      Mark of the Beast Best!

      Reply
    107. 107.

      BethanyAnne

      September 8, 2023 at 12:08 pm

      @Fair Economist: Poor recording, but I’m reminded of Chris Rock “That train’s never late“

      Reply
    108. 108.

      Paul in KY

      September 8, 2023 at 12:09 pm

      @Westyny: Add ‘boys’ to that & would be a good bluegrass band name :-)

      Reply
    109. 109.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 12:09 pm

      @West of the Rockies: Which ties in to the next frontier of prudery, going after contraception.

      Reply
    110. 110.

      Argiope

      September 8, 2023 at 12:09 pm

      @Fair Economist: ​
        It’s that racism, homophobia & transphobia, antisemitism and the patriarchy are united by making sure THOSE PEOPLE don’t get too uppity and demand real equality, threatening traditional power structures. So yeah, it’s all of a piece.

      Reply
    111. 111.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 12:10 pm

      @Dangerman: The end of Inglourious Basterds instantly popped into my head.

      Reply
    112. 112.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 12:11 pm

      @Fair Economist:

      Dark Intersectionality.

      Reply
    113. 113.

      Fair Economist

      September 8, 2023 at 12:12 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: We knew Lindsey Graham had attempted to intervene in the vote count and I’m not shocked the grand jury thought him indictable. But Perdue *AND* Loeffler? BOTH Republican Senators from GA? That smells like something big, like chronic and long-standing vote count manipulation that most of the state Republican apparatus was in on.

      I’m not too surprised Willis chose not to prosecute those. That would make it more political, by drawing in a sitting Senator and (implicitly) the GA Republican Party. Get the slam-dunk indictments, and then once those are done, maybe come back for the more controversial cases.

      Reply
    114. 114.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 12:17 pm

      OT via reddit, the real reason the media won’t stop talking about how old Biden is.

      The IRS announced on Friday it is launching an effort to aggressively pursue 1,600 millionaires and 75 large business partnerships that owe hundreds of millions of dollars in past due taxes.
      IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel said that with a boost in federal funding and the help of artificial intelligence tools, the agency has new means of targeting wealthy people who have “cut corners” on their taxes.

      Reply
    115. 115.

      Ruckus

      September 8, 2023 at 12:17 pm

      None of us know how this will work out but just reading this I’m having a hard time thinking that conservatives are not going for broke here. They do seem to get a lot of votes but the harder they push to have their draconian laws in a supposedly free country, in a time where medicine has gotten out of the intellectual era of over a century ago. We are at a time when technology and learning has impacted almost all aspects of human life, except in the concept of conservative life. They want to go backwards so far, to a time when woman and their humanity and lives were as not second class citizens but as 3rd class baby factories. This is pure conservative bullshit. And if the responses to Betty’s post here are any indication, most humans, if they have any concept of humanity, are not in any way up for this bullshit.

      Women and their offspring sometimes die from the entire act of bringing children into this world. And seemingly a lot of men overlook the concept that this really isn’t something they have full participation in. I’m not disregarding that men have a roll here but the price is paid far, far more by women than men. They can die from childbirth. The actual process of growing a human being has risks for the woman and the offspring. It is not, and likely never will be a secure, 100% good outcome process. Medicine has been able to help and make it better, but it will extremely likely always be a process that has enormous risks for the woman and even more for the child. We have a lot of information and science to help make this a less dangerous and more successful process, but the risks and outcome will still not always be in the best interest of living. And there is only one person who is always 100% involved – the woman.

      Conservatives want to go backwards at least 100 but likely over 200 yrs ago, but time and progress doesn’t work that way. I have no idea why they think it was better then – except for one, men were basically 100% in charge. That was wrong, and is by far no longer true. And it’s a far, far better world because it is no longer true. We have a ways to go and being humanity may take too long a time to get there but it will be a better world.

      Reply
    116. 116.

      No One of Consequence

      September 8, 2023 at 12:18 pm

      From your post to Coyote’s ears, Betty. May it be so.
      -NooC

      Reply
    117. 117.

      No One of Consequence

      September 8, 2023 at 12:23 pm

      @Ruckus: ​
        If men were responsible for the continuation of the species via childbirth, us hairless apes would have been so much dust long, long ago. I don’t know many people that dispute this.
      -NOoC

      Reply
    118. 118.

      dm

      September 8, 2023 at 12:23 pm

      What’s the allusion I’m missing behind “Leo Court”?

      Reply
    119. 119.

      EarthWindFire

      September 8, 2023 at 12:24 pm

      @Kay: They should have done a poll on the number of American women want a GOP senator talking to them about pregnancy and childbirth. In their defense, could fit in a thimble is a tough number to report out.

      Reply
    120. 120.

      Cameron

      September 8, 2023 at 12:24 pm

      Unified Bullshit Field Theory……hmm, possibilities….

      Reply
    121. 121.

      Elizabelle

      September 8, 2023 at 12:26 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus:  My question:  how long does a DA have to indict, if she chooses to forego these 3 in the first round?  Is Ms. Willis time-limited?  Can she indict a year or more from now?

      (And apologies if it’s been answered elsewhere in thread.  Just looked in.)

      Reply
    122. 122.

      Bruce K in ATH-GR

      September 8, 2023 at 12:26 pm

      @dm: The right wing members were essentially hand-picked by Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society.

      Reply
    123. 123.

      Old School

      September 8, 2023 at 12:27 pm

      @dm:

      What’s the allusion I’m missing behind “Leo Court”?

      Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society has been a driving force in the Republican-nominated members of the Supreme Court being there.

      Reply
    124. 124.

      Matt McIrvin

      September 8, 2023 at 12:28 pm

      @Fair Economist: South African white racism came with a bunch of other extreme conservative positions. The teaching of evolution was forbidden in schools during the apartheid era. The beloved Boer founder figure, Paul Kruger, was literally a flat-earther and bragged about having read no book other than the Bible.

      Reply
    125. 125.

      Alison Rose

      September 8, 2023 at 12:30 pm

      Sure, they can call themselves “pro-baby” so long as it always includes an asterisk denoting the additional phrase “until birth”. Carlin had ’em pegged a long time ago:

      They’re all in favor of the unborn, they will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t wanna know about you, they don’t wanna hear from you. No nothing: No neo-natal care, no daycare, no Head Start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re pre-born, you’re fine. If you’re preschool, you’re fucked.

      Reply
    126. 126.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 12:34 pm

      @Baud:

      Humankind went downhill once we stopped worshipping cats as gods.

      Does that mean those of us who never stopped worshiping cats are more advanced?

      Reply
    127. 127.

      jonas

      September 8, 2023 at 12:35 pm

      @Old School: I think it was Sheldon Whitehouse who trenchantly observed during a hearing earlier this summer after it came out that Leo was regularly hobnobbing with Thomas and Harlan Crow and other GOP donors on his luxurious, unreported, getaways that “[Leo] doesn’t have business before the court — his business *is* the court!”

      Reply
    128. 128.

      Alison Rose

      September 8, 2023 at 12:35 pm

      Good news! Nancy SMASH! ain’t done yet:

      Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, who was the Democratic Party’s long-serving House leader and the first woman to hold the post, announced on Friday that she would seek re-election in 2024, ending months of speculation about her political future.

      …

      Ms. Pelosi has not shared her plans with anyone, but people close to her said that she ultimately decided to run again because she viewed it as an urgent priority to re-elect President Biden and help Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the minority leader, become the next House speaker.

      “Now more than ever, our city needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery,” Ms. Pelosi said in announcing her plans. “Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for all.”

      I love that she’s reclaiming the right-wing “San Francisco values” attack.

      Reply
    129. 129.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 12:38 pm

      @Alison Rose:

      But what if I don’t want to wear a ball gag?

      Reply
    130. 130.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 12:41 pm

      @Alison Rose: “San Francisco values” = civilization, equality.

      Reply
    131. 131.

      Suzanne

      September 8, 2023 at 12:41 pm

      @Brachiator:

      But if Republicans get their way, only wealthy women able to leave the US might have an unrestricted right to abortion. 

      One quibble with this statement: the GOP is happy to shit on the rights of wealthy white women, too. Will they have means and therefore be more likely to go abroad to get an abortion if needed? Yes. But the crazy women-haters also want to control them, too. They genuinely want to force all women into baby-making and back into the home.

      Reply
    132. 132.

      Betty Cracker

      September 8, 2023 at 12:42 pm

      Florida’s 7-member Supreme Court is hearing arguments today on whether the governor’s abortion ban is legal under the state constitution. In the 1980s, the court said the state constitution protected the right to abortion under its privacy clause, along the lines of the Roe decision, IIRC.

      Five members of the current FL court are antiabortion fanatics appointed by DeSantis, so it’s likely the governor’s 6-week ban will go into effect after they rule on this case. Then Floridians will get to find out what it’s like to be Mississippi with a longer coastline. We’ll see how they like it.

      Reply
    133. 133.

      Dorothy A. Winsor

      September 8, 2023 at 12:42 pm

      @matt: Exactly. Roe was the compromise. It’s still what you get close to if you start trying to get them to be specific.

      Reply
    134. 134.

      Villago Delenda Est

      September 8, 2023 at 12:43 pm

      @Suzanne: Kinder, Küche, Kirche.

      Reply
    135. 135.

      Scout211

      September 8, 2023 at 12:46 pm

      @Alison Rose: Awesome news!

      Reply
    136. 136.

      Alison Rose

      September 8, 2023 at 12:46 pm

      @Baud: YOU WILL WEAR IT AND YOU WILL LIKE IT! We’ll have a special one made for you that says Baud! 20XX on it.

      Reply
    137. 137.

      RaflW

      September 8, 2023 at 12:46 pm

      @Fair Economist: “come back for the more controversial cases”

      Fuck yes. Lindsey Graham is a scourge and a morally bankrupt weathervane, blowing MAGA since the day John McCain died.

      I agree that the Trump & direct accessories trial(s) needs priority. But indict Lindsey and his fellows as soon as that’s over.

      Meanwhile, if we had a press what was worth a shit, they’d hound Lindsey to the ends of the earth for this sword hanging over him. But I expect Chuckles the Todd to keep inviting the squirmy old bat on many more times.

      Reply
    138. 138.

      Baud

      September 8, 2023 at 12:47 pm

      @Betty Cracker:

      While I don’t hope for a bad result, part of me will not be unpleased that some DeSantis supporters will FO after having FA.

      I don’t think FL as yet is as conservative as other Southern states.

      Reply
    139. 139.

      Dickeylee

      September 8, 2023 at 12:48 pm

      @MisterDancer:

      Pro baby might encourage actually feeding and clothing said babies…

      Reply
    140. 140.

      misterpuff

      September 8, 2023 at 12:49 pm

      @Mousebumples: Death Panel works.

      Reply
    141. 141.

      boatboy_srq

      September 8, 2023 at 12:50 pm

      “What intrigued me the most about the results was that ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions … at all levels,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview Thursday.

      Maybe the GQP should stop going after contraceptives as “abortifacients,” then.

      Reply
    142. 142.

      Ruckus

      September 8, 2023 at 12:54 pm

      @No One of Consequence:

      Yep.

      We men have one part of the process of the creation of life. It’s not all that long of a process, it normally feels pretty good, it in my mind has to feel good for the participants because otherwise it likely wouldn’t happen near as often. Woman have an entirely different process that for most lasts a lifetime. Sometimes literally a lifetime. In this day and age we have made the process a tiny bit closer to better outcomes, but it is still not an easy nor anywhere near a guaranteed process. And it likely won’t ever be. And half the world’s  population, currently around 3 1/2 billion humans, will never directly have that risk, or full participation.

      Reply
    143. 143.

      Betty Cracker

      September 8, 2023 at 12:57 pm

      @Baud: Same. There’s been a lot of finding out around here lately. I sure hope it sparks a gigantic backlash but bitter experience prevents me from expecting that.

      Reply
    144. 144.

      Scout211

      September 8, 2023 at 12:57 pm

      Proof that Trump’s “beautiful wall” has done damage to the area.    Link

      The construction of former President Donald Trump’s wall along the U.S.-Mexico border desecrated Indigenous cultural sites, hurt wildlife, destroyed vegetation, dried up key water resources, exacerbated the risk of flooding and triggered erosion that has left mountain slopes “unstable and at risk of collapse,” according to a new report.

      The Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan government watchdog, reviewed federal data and interviewed government officials, Native American tribes and stakeholders over the course of two years. The result is a comprehensive look at the widespread cultural and environmental harm — much of which experts had predicted — that came from Trump’s relentless pursuit of what he called a “big, beautiful wall” along the southern U.S. border.

      But a frustrating ruling by the 5th circuit: Abbotts’s alternative barrier to walls can’t legally be removed yet.

      Federal appeals court allows Texas to leave floating barrier in Rio Grande for now

      A federal appeals court Thursday put on hold a judge’s order from earlier this week requiring Texas Gov. Greg Abbott to remove a floating barrier from the middle of the Rio Grande.

      The 5th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals allowed Abbott, a Republican, to leave in place for now the 1,000-foot barrier the state installed to deter illegal migrant crossings. The order was issued by a three-judge panel of two Democratic appointees and a Republican appointee.

      Reply
    145. 145.

      schrodingers_cat

      September 8, 2023 at 12:58 pm

      @Fair Economist: There is a universal law of gravitation credited to Newton but that is not called the 4th law.

      The 3 laws of motion describe and explain motion and form the basis of classical mechanics.

      Reply
    146. 146.

      Alison Rose

      September 8, 2023 at 12:58 pm

      @boatboy_srq: Of course, they aren’t 100% against contraceptives. They’re perfectly fine with their mistresses using them. And getting abortions, for that matter.

      Reply
    147. 147.

      Gretchen

      September 8, 2023 at 1:00 pm

      @Baud: so are we going to have a special prosecutor to vigorously pursue charges against the tax-cheating millionaires? After all, it was only just that Hunter Biden be prosecuted for late tax payments!

      Reply
    148. 148.

      smith

      September 8, 2023 at 1:00 pm

      @Fair Economist: I’m guessing Willis knew she had a complex enough case to handle without having to flounder around with the speech and debate clause. I am still hoping Jack Smith gets around to taking that on, however. There are just too many indications that some Congress members were intimately involved with the fake electors and J6.

      Reply
    149. 149.

      RaflW

      September 8, 2023 at 1:01 pm

      @moonbat: “Repugs are finally catching on that they are headed to electoral Armageddon up and down the ballot” is exactly why the Wisconsin GOP is planning to try to impeach just-elected (by landslide) pro-choice Justice Protasiewicz.

      Does it matter to these utterly radicalized and desperate aholes that she hasn’t even heard a case yet? That she’s written no decisions, had no ethics charge of any merit even mentioned (what she said on the campaign stump is not an ethics issue — the Wisconsin Judicial Commission dismissed complaints filed against Justice Protasiewicz over the comments she made, finding there is “no evidence of misconduct”)?

      None of that matters.

      What matters to the GOP is holding power, democracy and the will of voters quite directly be damned. They’re backed into a very dark corner and see only massive authoritarianism as the sole answer.

      Reply
    150. 150.

      Dickeylee

      September 8, 2023 at 1:03 pm

      @dm: Lenord Leo, head of the Federalist Society…

      Reply
    151. 151.

      Rocks

      September 8, 2023 at 1:03 pm

      @Joe Falco: I find the obligatory FU to LBJ unwarranted.  He got the Civil Rights acts through a Congress that was dominated by southern white supremacists, an achievement that no one else was capable of.  He also got Medicare passed, for which I thank God every day.  Had it not been for the Vietnam War (much of which should be laid at Eisenhower’s door), LBJ would be remembered as one of the best presidents the United States has ever had.

      Reply
    152. 152.

      KSinMA

      September 8, 2023 at 1:04 pm

      @bbleh: This. Can’t be said enough.

      Reply
    153. 153.

      Spanky

      September 8, 2023 at 1:04 pm

      @Omnes Omnibus: Seems the equally big news is that the DA declined to indict.

      WaPo

      Reply
    154. 154.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 1:06 pm

      @MattF:

      My guess has been that insiders have known about Musk’s antisemitism but have kept that particular detail about him to themselves.

      The bigger thing is that Musk seems to have stopped hiding it.  I’m sure you’re right and he’s always been an antisemite, but until recently he knew he it would hurt him if he paraded it in public.  Now he seems to have decided to let his freak flag fly.  I wonder how much of his interest in buying Twitter was because he wanted to cut loose and thought owning the platform would let him get away with it.

      Reply
    155. 155.

      scav

      September 8, 2023 at 1:07 pm

      They keep lowering the working age the way they’re pushing, those neonates will likely need to be professionally employed.  Gotta pay off those med bills and start stashing away a nest egg for kindergarten.

      Reply
    156. 156.

      Eolirin

      September 8, 2023 at 1:09 pm

      @Betty Cracker: Jacksonville’s mayoral race was a hopeful sign at least.

      Reply
    157. 157.

      ksmiami

      September 8, 2023 at 1:10 pm

      @matt: Ahem. – something like 70,000 daycare centers are at risk of shutting down because Republicans refuse to extend their supplemental funding. GOP policies at every level are anti-woman. The gig is up.

      Reply
    158. 158.

      Yarrow

      September 8, 2023 at 1:10 pm

      @Spanky:  Could mean they flipped.

      Reply
    159. 159.

      Spanky

      September 8, 2023 at 1:14 pm

      @Spanky:

      Seems the equally big news is that the DA declined to indict (Graham).

      So far. There’s always tomorrow.

      Reply
    160. 160.

      Emily B.

      September 8, 2023 at 1:14 pm

      The New York Times article on OB-GYNs leaving Idaho included the staggering (but not really surprising) admission from an Idaho state legislator that he had voted for an abortion ban without paying much attention to the law’s language and implications. “We never looked that close, and what exactly that bill said and how it was written and language that was in it,” he told the Times. “We did that thinking Roe v. Wade was never going to get overturned. And then when it got overturned, we said, ‘OK, now we have to take a really close look at the definitions.’”

      I can’t stop being angry at the utter contempt for women displayed here. Every time I look at that quote I get mad all over again. A law that would profoundly affect people’s lives and bodies and health, and they couldn’t be bothered to think hard about “the language that was in it”?

      Gift link to NYT article here

      Reply
    161. 161.

      Brachiator

      September 8, 2023 at 1:17 pm

      @Suzanne:

      They genuinely want to force all women into baby-making and back into the home.

      And again , the crazy thing is that some women want this for other women as well.

      Reply
    162. 162.

      smith

      September 8, 2023 at 1:17 pm

      @Roger Moore: And he is getting away with it, because people to whom those views are anathema (according to them, anyway) refuse to disengage from Xitter. His antisemitic rampage and pro-Russian interference in Ukraine are not in any way surprising given all the moves he’s made since buying Xitter. Those have been clearly aimed at privileging these sorts of voices and suppressing opposing ones. It is becoming, as Elmo always intended it to be, just a massive version of Truth Social. Why is everybody still there?

      Reply
    163. 163.

      Fair Economist

      September 8, 2023 at 1:17 pm

      @ksmiami: And yet somehow the media can’t talk about actual *news* like millions of families losing childcare and possibly (as a result) their jobs, because they want too talking about incredibly NON-breaking news like “Biden is old”.

      Reply
    164. 164.

      Spanky

      September 8, 2023 at 1:18 pm

      Also, per the WaPo:

      A judge published the report at the request of the special grand jury, who cited a Georgia law that allows its recommendations be made public. The document offered some rare insight into parts of an investigation typically marked by secrecy, not just on those who were indicted but also those who weren’t. But the report, which is not legally binding, does not include the evidence or reasoning behind the jury’s thinking — though testimony transcripts and evidence are likely to emerge as part of the criminal proceedings against those who were ultimately charged in the case.

      “We see you, Lindsey”.

      Reply
    165. 165.

      RaflW

      September 8, 2023 at 1:18 pm

      I know we’ve talked about it before, but it is an ongoing, unfolding mess that OB-GYNs are leaving states like Idaho. Democrats need to be hitting hard on this message in these states, because women & families are at higher risk of problems, complications and loss because of this fundamentalist push to ban and even criminalize medical care choices.

      Reply
    166. 166.

      Elizabelle

      September 8, 2023 at 1:18 pm

      @Rocks:  Thank you.  I tire of the disparagement of LBJ too.  For just those reasons.

      Reply
    167. 167.

      smith

      September 8, 2023 at 1:21 pm

      @Emily B.: A law that would profoundly affect people’s lives and bodies and health, and they couldn’t be bothered to think hard about “the language that was in it”?

      This is because they really don’t want to know the details of how women’s bodies work to produce babies. It’s really, really icky to them — if they had to think about the details of gynecology and obstetrics they’d get female cooties all over them.

      Reply
    168. 168.

      scav

      September 8, 2023 at 1:23 pm

      @Emily B.: More than that, he’s utterly confident enough to freely admit to a national journalist that he didn’t bother with the reading or understanding beforehand — apparently sees neither shame nor personal consequences arising from his actions.

      If he was a short order chef, he’d just grab a bottle and add it. Draino into the milkshakes and dish soap on the hot dogs.

      Reply
    169. 169.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 1:25 pm

      @West of the Rockies:

      I think it’s more that women sometimes enjoy sex, but especially that they can exercise control over sex.

      It’s not just control over sex but control over their whole lives.  A woman who can’t control if and when she gets pregnant has no control over her life.  That lack of control is exactly what misogynists want.

      Reply
    170. 170.

      Elizabelle

      September 8, 2023 at 1:26 pm

      Fabulous news.  Nancy Pelosi has Joe Biden’s, and every Democrat’s, back again.  LA Times:

      Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday she will run for reelection to another term in Congress as Democrats work to win back the majority in 2024.

      Pelosi, 83, made the announcement before labor allies in the San Francisco area district she has represented for more than 35 years.

      “Now more than ever our City needs us to advance San Francisco values and further our recovery,” Pelosi said in a tweet. “Our country needs America to show the world that our flag is still there, with liberty and justice for ALL. That is why I am running for reelection — and respectfully ask for your vote.”

      First elected to Congress in 1987, the Democratic leader made history becoming the first female speaker in 2007, and in 2019 she regained the speaker’s gavel.

      Pelosi led the party through substantial legislative achievements, including passage of the Affordable Care Act, as well as turbulent times with two impeachments of former President Trump.

      The announcement quells any talk of retirement for the long-serving leader, who, with the honorific title of speaker emeritus, remains an influential leader, pivotal party figure and powerful fundraiser for Democrats.

      San Francisco values.  I love it.

      Reply
    171. 171.

      ksmiami

      September 8, 2023 at 1:26 pm

      @Fair Economist: Our media is a national disgrace and leaves people less informed than if they had not watched at all.

      Reply
    172. 172.

      narya

      September 8, 2023 at 1:26 pm

      @Emily B.: Exactly. They didn’t bother to think about it carefully, because it was entirely performative. That’s what’s coming through about all of these laws–they didn’t bother to inform themselves about any actual facts, any actual risks to pregnant people, any real-life circumstances that any woman in their lives could have told them about.

      Reply
    173. 173.

      Omnes Omnibus

      September 8, 2023 at 1:30 pm

      @Rocks: The FU to LBJ is a gesture to a regular commenter here who says it every time LBJ is mentioned.  This commenter got an all expenses paid trip to Southeast Asia courtesy of the US government.  He has reason to say it.

      ETA:  The part about the the VN War is little too “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?”

      Reply
    174. 174.

      patrick II

      September 8, 2023 at 1:32 pm

      @Betsy:
      1“it doesn’t benefit everyone, only a special subset of people in a particular situation,

      That is true of all diseases at least until we encounter at coming universal plague.

      Reply
    175. 175.

      Citizen Alan

      September 8, 2023 at 1:33 pm

      @MisterDancer: As I’ve mentioned, I literally can’t drop Twitter without jumping through a lot of hoops because my account was permanently suspended years ago, and cancelling your Twitter account is one of the things you can’t do while suspended.

      Reply
    176. 176.

      Brachiator

      September 8, 2023 at 1:35 pm

      @Emily B.:

      I can’t stop being angry at the utter contempt for women displayed here. Every time I look at that quote I get mad all over again. A law that would profoundly affect people’s lives and bodies and health, and they couldn’t be bothered to think hard about “the language that was in it”?

      The people who wrote these laws knew what they were doing. They just didn’t care that women might be harmed.

      The worst of them think it acceptable to leave medical outcomes up to God. They don’t accept competent medical judgement.

      Reply
    177. 177.

      Citizen Alan

      September 8, 2023 at 1:40 pm

      @Brachiator:

      The sad thing is that a number of conservative women also are part of this movement to restrict abortion.

      Conservatives are the worst. But Conservative women are the worst of the worst. And I’m convinced it’s because deep down, they bitterly resent the choices they made when they were younger (or that the Patriarchy made for them) and want to ensure that no other woman can ever choose differently in order to validate their own unhappy lives.

      Reply
    178. 178.

      Old School

      September 8, 2023 at 1:41 pm

      @Spanky:

      So far. There’s always tomorrow.

      Was expecting that to be from Rudolph.

      Reply
    179. 179.

      206inKY

      September 8, 2023 at 1:46 pm

      @Betsy: Amazing and spot-on rants like this are why I’ll never stop reading balloon juice.

      Reply
    180. 180.

      Citizen Alan

      September 8, 2023 at 1:46 pm

      @No One of Consequence: I’ve never understood this argument. If “men” were the ones who carried babies to term instead of “women,” then all of the gender baggage that arises from childbirth and the disparity it necessarily imposes on both genders would simply flip. It would be the men relegated to second class status and told to stay home and take care of the kids while the women are out working, and it would be the men who would be marching for reproductive rights (and dismissed as “sluts” by the Matriarchy).

      Reply
    181. 181.

      UncleEbeneezer

      September 8, 2023 at 1:49 pm

      @Elizabelle: I think it’s important to note that Grand Juries vote on whether there is evidence that a crime occurred but not whether enough evidence exists to get a conviction.  Those are two very different questions.  IANAL, so open to correction from the real experts here, but my understanding is that a GJ recommending charges is never a guarantee that Prosecutors will choose to indict, and Prosecutors can have legit reasons to decide not to.

      Reply
    182. 182.

      wjca

      September 8, 2023 at 1:52 pm

      @Matt McIrvin: Pundits for many years had thought of the Republicans as a bloc focused on doing what they needed to do to win elections. But when you’re on the Supreme Court you don’t need to win elections.

      I think the 3 political hacks on the Court would never have gone with Dobbs if they realized what the political blowback would be.  But they were clueless, and so blindsided their entire party.

      Reply
    183. 183.

      Elizabelle

      September 8, 2023 at 1:53 pm

      @UncleEbeneezer:  That makes sense.

      And, nothing to stop anyone from continuing to investigate, and bring further evidence to another grand jury.

      One has to prioritize.  More may come out in the upcoming trials.

      Reply
    184. 184.

      JoyceH

      September 8, 2023 at 1:55 pm

      Originally, the right insisted on the term pro-life because it sounded better than anti-abortion.  Now it just means anti-abortion with all the horrors that brings with it. Anyone else remember when the right spent years calling Obama a socialist? Instead of bringing down Obama’s approval, it increased the approval of socialism.

      Reply
    185. 185.

      smith

      September 8, 2023 at 1:59 pm

      @wjca: I think the political hacks on SCOTUS were fulfilling their side of the quid pro quo that got them seated. It’s the political hacks on the other side of that deal who somehow failed to anticipate how it would blow up in their faces. Remember that even the top actors in GQP world live in the same constructed “reality” that the Goobers who vote for them do.

      Reply
    186. 186.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 2:00 pm

      @Rocks:

      Had it not been for the Vietnam War (much of which should be laid at Eisenhower’s door), LBJ would be remembered as one of the best presidents the United States has ever had.

      If it weren’t for the Great Depression (much of which should be laid at Coolidge’s door), Hoover would be remembered as one of the best presidents the United States has ever had.

      Reply
    187. 187.

      The Lodger

      September 8, 2023 at 2:00 pm

      @Scout211:  This is a federal issue. Why doesn’t the Army Corps of Engineers just tear Abbott’s floating toy out of the Goddamn Rio Grande and leave it on state property?

      Reply
    188. 188.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 2:02 pm

      @smith:

      Why is everybody still there?

      Don’t ask me.  I said I was going to delete my account if he restored the banned Nazis.  He did, and I did.

      Reply
    189. 189.

      KSinMA

      September 8, 2023 at 2:12 pm

      @Elizabelle:

      But she’s OLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

      Reply
    190. 190.

      wjca

      September 8, 2023 at 2:13 pm

      @Roger Moore: If it weren’t for the Great Depression (much of which should be laid at Coolidge’s door), Hoover would be remembered as one of the best presidents the United States has ever had.

      Certainly, at least until Carter, he was by far the best ex-president the United States has ever had.

      Reply
    191. 191.

      Matt McIrvin

      September 8, 2023 at 2:17 pm

      @Roger Moore: It’s not quite the same situation–Herbert Hoover’s greatest accomplishments were not as President. As wjca suggested, Jimmy Carter might be a better comparison for him.

      Whereas LBJ as President actually shepherded an enormous expansion of the social safety net and the passage of civil-rights laws with teeth. The Vietnam War was a gigantic stain on what otherwise would have been an extraordinary legacy.

      Reply
    192. 192.

      RevRick

      September 8, 2023 at 2:24 pm

      What’s the word for when the state can hijack a woman’s body and life, for any reason, stripping her of her personhood, her very standing as a human being?

      Could it be: tyranny ?

      Reply
    193. 193.

      Geminid

      September 8, 2023 at 2:28 pm

      @Matt McIrvin: I think Johnson would have pulled US forces out of Vietnam if Republican Congressional leaders had backed him and stood next to him when he announced it. But they were willing to make political hay out of what they and other American elites knew  by 1966 was a lost cause.

      Reply
    194. 194.

      Mr. Longform

      September 8, 2023 at 2:34 pm

      I’m late to the game here, but I just want to point out that this collection of words

      “because if there’s one thing all American women are demanding with a single voice, it’s additional and more specific mansplaining from Josh Fucking Hawley!”

      is my favorite bit of BJ writing ever.

      Reply
    195. 195.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 2:37 pm

      @wjca:

      Certainly, at least until Carter, he was by far the best ex-president the United States has ever had.

      Supporters of William Howard Taft would undoubtedly dispute that.  Even if you want to rate Hoover higher, I think “by far” is stretching things.

      Reply
    196. 196.

      Elizabelle

      September 8, 2023 at 2:39 pm

      @Matt McIrvin:  And he had beagles!  Little Beagle Johnson.

      Reply
    197. 197.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 2:40 pm

      @Matt McIrvin:

      My point wasn’t really that Hoover would have been a great president if not for the Great Depression, but that Vietnam is just way too large an issue to set aside.

      Reply
    198. 198.

      Frankensteinbeck

      September 8, 2023 at 3:03 pm

      @Alison Rose: ​

      They’re perfectly fine with their mistresses using them. And getting abortions, for that matter.

      Yes, and no. They will happily make it legally impossible for their mistresses to get either, then be confused when their mistresses get pregnant. They don’t know or care about the effects of their policies, and are always surprised when the leopard eats their face.

      @wjca: ​

      I think the 3 political hacks on the Court would never have gone with Dobbs if they realized what the political blowback would be.

      I think they were picked by McConnell specifically to overturn Roe vs Wade. That was their assignment, why they were hired. Trump thought they were being hired to protect him. No. The dumb fuck was just picking from a list pre-curated by the Federalist Society and McConnell. He was McConnell’s patsy. There are probably a few more poison pills baked into their hiring, but Roe was the most explicit.

      McConnell is an evil, evil man. People wildly underestimate his extremism because he lies through his teeth and sounds educated doing it.

      Reply
    199. 199.

      ...now I try to be amused

      September 8, 2023 at 3:06 pm

      @Citizen Alan:

      Conservatives are the worst. But Conservative women are the worst of the worst. And I’m convinced it’s because deep down, they bitterly resent the choices they made when they were younger (or that the Patriarchy made for them) and want to ensure that no other woman can ever choose differently in order to validate their own unhappy lives.

      I think that’s at the root of conservatives’ hostility to personal freedom in general — the freedom to be childless, unmarried, gay, trans, whatever.  What a self-made hell it must be to feel that what you secretly want for yourself is sinful and forbidden, so you live someone else’s life instead of your own

      In another discussion someone remarked that conservative men seem to fear irrelevance more than death. I replied that it makes sense to me. If you live an other-directed life and conclude it wasn’t worth the sacrifices you made, then you have lived for nothing.

      Reply
    200. 200.

      Kay

      September 8, 2023 at 3:06 pm

      @Emily B.:

      The New York Times article on OB-GYNs leaving Idaho included the staggering (but not really surprising) admission from an Idaho state legislator that he had voted for an abortion ban without paying much attention to the law’s language and implications. “We never looked that close, and what exactly that bill said and how it was written and language that was in it,”

      Agree. I hope there are a lot of women like us, Emily.

      GOP lawmakers are one thing but don’t forget that this entire movement put no thought into the repercussions on womens health. The lawmakers aren’t writing these laws- they’re coming entire out of professional anti abortion lobbying groups – well compensated Right wing lawyers are drafting them.
      They just didn’t give a shit. The work is sloppy junk because women don’t matter at all in anti abortion circles.
      There’s this gross idea on the religious Right that the role of women is to sacrifice. You hear it at their rallies. They celebrate women who die in childbirth. What they’re doing is sacrificing OTHER WOMEN for their religion. You’re getting them into heaven when they sacrifice you for “the baby”.
      The women don’t exist in these statutes because “women” are ranked way, way below a fetus on the religious Right. Betty’s right- they put more thought and work into a statute regulating livestock than these abortion laws. They’re garbage.

      Reply
    201. 201.

      Kay

      September 8, 2023 at 3:11 pm

      @Emily B.:

      I cannot imagine the absolute arrogance of these Right wing lawyers.

      “I will decide when the women requires medical intervention!”

      Three years of law school and they’re also MD’s now? My. Ass.

      Who raises these fucking people? GIANT egos. I blame the parents.

      Reply
    202. 202.

      Elizabelle

      September 8, 2023 at 3:16 pm

      @Frankensteinbeck:  Alito is on the ballot this year.  So is Clarence “Corruption by the RVful” Thomas, and the other rightwing hacks.

      But it seems to be Alito that has really sunk their warship.

      Reply
    203. 203.

      Brachiator

      September 8, 2023 at 3:17 pm

      @Kay:

      There’s this gross idea on the religious Right that the role of women is to sacrifice. You hear it at their rallies. They celebrate women who die in childbirth. What they’re doing is sacrificing OTHER WOMEN for their religion. You’re getting them into heaven when they sacrifice you for “the baby”.

      Also, some religious hardliners push the idea that babies are innocent, while women and men are tainted by original sin. So, the baby’s life is worth more than that if the woman, who should be happy to sacrifice her life for her child.

      Reply
    204. 204.

      Roger Moore

      September 8, 2023 at 3:26 pm

      @Frankensteinbeck:

      They will happily make it legally impossible for their mistresses to get either, then be confused when their mistresses get pregnant. They don’t know or care about the effects of their policies, and are always surprised when the leopard eats their face.

      It gets back to Wilhoit’s Law of conservatism.  They think they’re part of the in group who the law protects but does not constrain.  They may even be right about that.  Of course one day they may suddenly discover they’re part of the group the law constrains but does not protect.  This is the basic problem with that approach to the law.  If the law doesn’t apply equally to everyone, you can never be sure you’ll stay in the favored group.  The only way to guarantee you’ll stay a first class citizen is to have only one class of citizen.

      Reply
    205. 205.

      wjca

      September 8, 2023 at 3:26 pm

      @Roger Moore: Supporters of William Howard Taft would undoubtedly dispute that.  Even if you want to rate Hoover higher, I think “by far” is stretching things.

      Fair point.  I was (unconsciously) thinking “out of government.”  Certainly Chief Justice Taft did some good work extending Constitutional protections to state laws.

      And I confess to some reservations about anybody appointed to anything by Harding.**

      ** Until TIFG, the clear leader for “most corrupt President”

      Reply
    206. 206.

      kmax

      September 8, 2023 at 3:26 pm

      Have not read all the comments yet, so my apologies if this has been stated above.

      Pro-baby is such a poor slogan for the Repubs since their policies switch from pro-life to pro-death once the baby is born.

      Reply
    207. 207.

      wjca

      September 8, 2023 at 3:34 pm

      @Frankensteinbeck:

      I think they were picked by McConnell specifically to overturn Roe vs Wade. That was their assignment, why they were hired. . . .  There are probably a few more poison pills baked into their hiring, but Roe was the most explicit.

      McConnell is an evil, evil man. People wildly underestimate his extremism

      I’ve got no brief for McConnell.  But I see him as far motivated by power than by ideology.  So I think he hired them to protect and promote his party, and thus his power.  Ideologocal impacts were a bonus, to be sure.  But not, IMHO, the main driver.

      Reply
    208. 208.

      Chief Oshkosh

      September 8, 2023 at 3:41 pm

      @matt:

      So it’s the ‘pro-life’ people who are now for the nuanced, compromise position on abortion. Funny, I thought that’s what Roe v Wade was, and those are the people who killed it.

      That is exactly right. But the rightwing assholes as so fucking stupid they never understood that.

      Reply
    209. 209.

      Westyny

      September 8, 2023 at 4:00 pm

      @Paul in KY: can’t have a double plural.  So, The Fanatical Dingleberry Boys! Opening for The Aristocrats!

      Reply
    210. 210.

      Odie Hugh Manatee

      September 8, 2023 at 4:55 pm

      Someone needs to convince them to go with “pro-birth” because that describes them quite well. Anything to make that woman have that baby. Because once the baby is here then they revert to “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps!” and offer little to no assistance to new parents. You can’t call yourself pro-life if you agree that that same child can later be put to death for breaking a law.

      Pro-birth says it all.

      Reply
    211. 211.

      hotshoe

      September 8, 2023 at 5:17 pm

      @Kay: ​
       

      Incidentally, the rape and incest and life of the mother “exceptions” are bullshit. No one ever qualifies for the exception.

      And even if some do qualify for exceptions, how does that make the reality of living in Gilead any better?
      How does a 17-year-old incest victim getting an “incest exception” abortion make it any better for the 21-year-old woman — who enjoyed sex with her lawful husband — who already has two kids in diapers and is secretly determined to kill herself if she can’t get an abortion this time? She won’t qualify for “save the life of the mother” exception.
      Of course the Dominionists who made all abortions illegal don’t think that’s unfair; the cruelty is the point. A woman should die, her existing family should be left bereft, life is meant to be miserable unless you are one of god’s elect.
      I understand why Rs are trying to gaslight voters about the horrifying and completely-predictable results of anti-woman legislation. What I don’t understand is why anyone else believes a word those inhumane bastards say.

      Reply
    212. 212.

      Chris T.

      September 8, 2023 at 5:17 pm

      @Betsy:

      I remember thinking, What situation is MORE UNIVERSAL to ALL of humanity than being BORN?

      Unlike humans, Republicans are hatched from eggs, like reptiles.

      More seriously, if they were “pro-baby”, wouldn’t they be for things that directly benefit babies? But they’re not.

      Reply
    213. 213.

      Kent

      September 8, 2023 at 5:52 pm

      @wjca:I’ve got no brief for McConnell.  But I see him as far motivated by power than by ideology.  So I think he hired them to protect and promote his party, and thus his power.  Ideologocal impacts were a bonus, to be sure.  But not, IMHO, the main driver.

      McConnell always struck me as much more about promoting the power and wealth of the business elite and promoting an antiregulatory agenda so they can consolidate more power and wealth.  So a Koch Republican, not a MAGA Christian Nationalist Republican.  Look who his is married to.  An heiress from a Chinese shipping conglomerate.

      He is very much evil in his own way.  But I doubt he gives the slightest shit about abortion.  He wants conservative judges so they can dismantle the regulatory state, kill environmental regulations, enable the fossil fuel industry, etc.  And, of course, perpetuate Republican power through gerrymandering, voter suppression, and all of that.

      Reply
    214. 214.

      Elizabelle

      September 8, 2023 at 6:02 pm

      @Kent:  Yeah.  I suspect McConnell was personally horrified by the Alito leak re Dobbs.  “No you fucker.  You don’t want to actually catch the car!  You just want to threaten it.”

      I think abortion politics was the way he and Leo got these oligarch/plutocrat/corporation-protecting stooges through.

      Reply
    215. 215.

      Kent

      September 8, 2023 at 6:09 pm

      @Elizabelle: Exactly.  I suspect he cares much more about say…diminishing the power of unions and enabling his corporate masters than anything to do with abortion, school prayer, LGBT rights, etc.  He isn’t a culture warrior.

      Reply
    216. 216.

      Ruckus

      September 8, 2023 at 6:12 pm

      @Betsy:

      I mean, if you TRIED to think of another situation that would apply to more people via health coverage, what exactly would that be?!

      Are you trying to bring actual sense into this? I mean really, you want to live in the REAL world? Instead of that make believe place that conservative fucksticks do?

      Reply
    217. 217.

      Ruckus

      September 8, 2023 at 6:27 pm

      @MisterDancer:

      I haven’t closed my twit account – yet. I used to go on several times a day for around 2 hrs total a day. But I no longer post, other to respond to someone I’ve followed for years. And I rarely go on more than a couple times a week for maybe a total of 15 minutes. And every time I do the first thought is “How do I delete my account?” The current owner has turned it into a far deeper cesspool than it was. Such a nice man – NOT.

      Reply
    218. 218.

      wjca

      September 8, 2023 at 6:29 pm

      @Kent: McConnell always struck me as much more about promoting the power and wealth of the business elite and promoting an antiregulatory agenda so they can consolidate more power and wealth.

      I would say that McConnell was (and is) about promoting the power and wealth of McConnell.  Whatever he does for the business elite, or anybody else, is a means to an end.

      Reply
    219. 219.

      Ksmiami

      September 8, 2023 at 6:39 pm

      @Odie Hugh Manatee: “pro- forced birth” is more accurate and devastating.

      Reply
    220. 220.

      Mike G

      September 8, 2023 at 7:33 pm

      If there’s a massive backlash brewing over Dobbs, why didn’t Dems smash the House and Senate elections in 2022?

      Reply
    221. 221.

      Ryan

      September 8, 2023 at 8:55 pm

      @Mike G: But they did.  They lost only a few seats in the House during a redistricting year, and they won a seat in the Senate.  Compare to Obama in 2010.  Lost something like 65 House seats?  Don’t compare us to the almighty, compare us to the alternative.

      Reply
    222. 222.

      Ryan

      September 8, 2023 at 8:58 pm

      I can’t wait to see how they see these anti-Interstate bills, where wimmens can freely travel across state lines without harassment.

      Reply
    223. 223.

      Betsy

      September 8, 2023 at 9:25 pm

      @Ksmiami: Yes, because the moment their agenda includes forcing certain women to have  abortions, they’ll be on that like a hen on a June bug.

      This is about eliminating the right to privacy and self-determination, not about “life”.

      Remember: Dobbs didn’t find that life begins at conception.  It found that the right to control your own pregnancy isn’t protected by the constitution.

      Under that principle, the same government that can prevent you from having an abortion, can also make you have one you don’t want.

      Reply

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