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You are here: Home / Elections 2024 / Open Thread: This Seems Like a BFD

Open Thread: This Seems Like a BFD

by | 153 Comments

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Marilyn Lands, Democrat who ran on reproductive rights, flips Alabama House seat

Democratic candidate Marilyn Lands, who campaigned on ending Alabama’s near-total abortion ban and protecting access to contraception and in vitro fertilization, won a special election Tuesday for a Huntsville-area state House seat.

====

As of 9:22 p.m. Tuesday, Lands had 3,715 votes (62.3%) in unofficial returns. Madison City Councilman Teddy Powell, the Republican nominee, had 2,236 votes (37.5%). The district covers south Huntsville, southern Madison County and parts of the city of Madison.

Lands will succeed former Rep. David Cole, R-Madison, who resigned in August after pleading guilty to voter fraud charges.

Read more here

To recap: In a special election, running on women’s healthcare rights, a Democrat in FREAKIN’ Alabama, flipped a house seat from Republican to Democrat.

Seems like an ominous sign for Republicans…hopefully for a LONG time. But I’ll take November for now.

Open thread

 

Reader Interactions

153Comments

  3. 3.

    OzarkHillbilly

    I read it’s a swingy district (for AL) but the margin of victory says women haven’t forgotten who wants to put them barefoot and pregnant back in the kitchen.

    2024 looks better all the time. Not that we should relax our efforts or anything.

  7. 7.

    smith

    The only thing that tempers my optimism in this is that this is a suburban district that Biden lost by only one point in 2020. It’s not such a huge surprise that a district like that would be greatly swayed by an appeal to reproductive rights.

    On the other hand, there are probably a fair number of similar districts in red states that are ripe for the picking this way, so I hope Dems have identified them and have good candidates ready.

  8. 8.

    Dave T

    I also love that she’s replacing a Republican who committed voter fraud.  *chef’s kiss

  10. 10.

    Miss Bianca

    Y’know, I have a feeling that a *lot* of pundits and conventional wisdom-mongers are due for shock in November…I just have this feeling…

  13. 13.

    SFAW

    It’s clear to all REAL ‘Muricans that she only won due to massive voter fraud in  Mar-a-Loco   Maricopa  her home county.

    Stop The Steal!

    Re: Miss Bianca’s comment re: pundits: let’s hope they predict yet another Red Tsunami.

  14. 14.

    H.E.Wolf

    There may be an abortion-rights issue on the ballot in FL in 2024.

    One way to boost Democratic turnout in FL is to get Dems to sign up for Vote By Mail. Postcards To Voters is writing to FL Democrats all year, in between other campaigns (they wrote 26,361 cards to Dems in Marilyn Lands’ district).

    PTV fits well for me, a slow writer with other obligations. I can write a few cards over a few days and know that I’m making a difference in a small but concrete way.

    Sign-up details here:
    https://balloon-juice.com/postcard-writing-in-early-2024/

  15. 15.

    SFAW

    @H.E.Wolf:

    There may be an abortion-rights issue on the ballot in FL in 2024.

    To be my usual wet blanket: the last time (that I recall, that is) that FL voters overwhelmingly voted to codify various rights — specifically, allowing ex-convicts to vote again — the FL Lege flipped them the bird, and the result was the horror show ex-cons have to deal with now.

    Let’s hope enough FL voters fix that by voting out all the RWMF legislators.

  17. 17.

    cain

    @Miss Bianca: The best part having all Dems will mean that their access journalism is going to go south. It’ll still be heavily favoring Republicans because they say and do shit that enables access journalism.

  18. 18.

    smith

    @TaMara: It was a big swing from the last House election, but the numbers from the presidential election suggest that this is not a rock-ribbed, solid always-vote-R district.  It was already receptive to voting D. Not that it’s at all bad — we need to target and pick up this kind of district — but I don’t think this portends any huge swings in districts that aren’t already somewhat swingy.

  19. 19.

    marcopolo

    @TaMara: That was a comment prior to the final results.  The actual final swing was 25+ points (M,SW corrected this later) from Biden’s -1 in 2020 and even more from Lands -6 from 2022.

    Since no one has noted this in this thread, the district is home to NASA’s complex in Huntsville and has a substantially higher number/percent of college grads than the rest of the state.  Def bodes well for like areas but might not translate everywhere.

  20. 20.

    Sure Lurkalot

    This post is a nice complement to the previous one, both hopeful that 21st century women might not have to live like it’s 1899.

    A pretty good read that centers on the Comstock Act…The Man who Hated Women by Amy Sohn. Lots of good stuff about the pioneering women who opposed Comstock and their ideas about free love, sex and birth control.

  21. 21.

    Clark Ashton Kutchner

    Right now, every woman and young girl who has a working reproductive system is at risk in their health or worse in Alabama.  To paraphrase Samuel Johnson, ‘Depend upon it, folks, when a woman knows she is at risk, it concentrates her mind wonderfully.’

  23. 23.

    Betty Cracker

    @SFAW: & @H.E.Wolf: IIRC, the all-wingnut FL Supreme Court’s decision on the abortion rights and recreational marijuana ballot initiatives is due this week. I think it would goose Democratic turnout to have both on the ballot.

  24. 24.

    sdhays

    @SFAW: As I recall, Florida is gerrymandered at the state constitution level (one representative per county or something), so maybe Democrats have a chance at preventing a supermajority, but that’s about it.

  25. 25.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @smith: It’s districts like these that can give us a huge win in November, not the deep-red, MAGA ones.  Hopefully this is a good sign.

  27. 27.

    Betty Cracker

    @MattF: I’m not surprised Trump is dumb enough to lean into the stolen election lie and rebrand convicted seditionists as “hostages,” but I do wonder if his professional campaign staff has tried to talked him out of that. Seems like a big fat loser for the general election since no one outside the cult believes that bullshit.

  31. 31.

    mrmoshpotato

    To recap: In a special election, running on women’s healthcare rights, a Democrat in FREAKIN’ Alabama, flipped a house seat from Republican to Democrat.

    Hopefully a continuing uppercut to the cocks of men who hate their wives, daughters, stepdaughters, sisters, nieces, cousins, and granddaughters for being born female.

  33. 33.

    TaMara

    @smith:  I give up. You’re comparing apples to oranges and saying, this is why we shouldn’t be enthusiastic about these results. Proceed. I’ll celebrate that standing up for reproductive rights is a winning issue.

  34. 34.

    MattF

    @Betty Cracker: Republicans are often ‘loyal’ in the sense of ‘Trump is the Republican nominee, I’m a Republican— therefore I will vote for Trump’. But Trump wants to replace that kind of loyalty with specific, personal, gangland loyalty to Fuehrer-Trump. And people resist that.

  35. 35.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    My “going foward” take is that if you’re running in a swingy district with a history of swinging red too much, you run on this issue and beat it like a bastard, red-headed step child.  You pivot every question back to this.

    Reporter/Stenographer: “Candidate X, can you comment on the current state of the economy?”

    Candidate X: “Jobs numbers are historic but you know what would put a dent in that? Throttling women’s rights regarding health care which threatens their right to work.  Let me explain how my opponent’s party wants to take all that away.”

    If Candidate X is asked about the where the sun sets and rises, have a pivot back to abortion rights and how your opponent wants to take that away.

  37. 37.

    Citizen Dave

    @smith: One of the weirder political phrases for me has always been “rock-ribbed”  I googled it once but didn’t retain the knowledge,  if any.  Seems left over from the Reagan age.  I’ve lived in Indiana my whole life so have seen way more than my share of “rock-ribbing”.  Whatever it is.

    This year is a great one for Democrats to take freedom into their brand.

  43. 43.

    BlueGuitarist

    @trollhattan:

    turnout in the special election was 15% of registered voters,
    in 2022 it was 36%.
    I don’t think this takes away from the significance of the outcome.
    elections are decided by the people who show up.

    Redstone Arsenal is the center of the district.
    Doug Jones (and only Doug Jones) carried the district previously, Biden came close.
    Lands won by a larger margin than Jones against Roy Moore, and she was running against an ordinary local elected Republican.
    definitely a big deal.

    Biden Harris campaign put out a statement

  46. 46.

    Kay

    I think it’s a very good indicator. The bottom line is people are voting on this issue – it doesn’t mean it’s the only issue or that we can focus exclusively on it, but it’s a very good issue for us, like “healthcare” is a very good issue for us. We own this.

    I much prefer winning elections to winning the pundit polls popularity contest. Elections are real.

  47. 47.

    wjca

    @marcopolo: The actual final swing was 25+ points (M,SW corrected this later) from Biden’s -1 in 2020 and even more from Lands -6 from 2022.

    Note that this particular case was NOT a “candidate quality” matter.  This was the same candidate who lost by 7 points last time winning by over 26 points.  All that changes was the reproductive rights issue.  “Huge” doesn’t begin to cover it.

    If we see anything even vaguely similar elsewhere, November could redefine “blowout.”  Definitely not a reason to slack off.  But equally a reason to ignore the doomsayers.

  48. 48.

    Belafon

    Colin Allred here in Texas is making abortion a central point of his campaign, framing it as government intrusion into women’s lives.

  52. 52.

    RaflW

    @Betty Cracker: The bigger loser for the general election will be that TFG has vacuumed up every dime of RNC cash. GOP House & Senate members will be directly competing with Trump, not working in tandem, to fund their runs.

    And to get the RNC staff to all pass this disloyal-to-the-constitution test, the RNC will be staffed with morally bankrupt idiots.

    Doesn’t mean we can let off the gas pedal for one second for Dems, but the machine behind the curtain is now 100% Mighty Oz, and I am hopeful that this blinkered MAGA-ness, combined with an inability to ‘message’ their way out of the Dobbs bind, means we can win up and down the ballot.

  53. 53.

    Belafon

    @marcopolo: Even special elections that Democrats have lost in much redder areas have seen a five to ten point swing towards the Democrat. We might not win every race, but shift 2020 or 2022 by 7 points in the Democrats direction and that’s a lot of flips.

  58. 58.

    MattF

    @RaflW: I’ve thought that ‘rock-ribbed’ was an allusion to New England landscapes, and then back a step to the New England Republicans who farmed those landscapes. But New England Republicanism is obsolete, so the allusion doesn’t refer to anything any more.

  59. 59.

    wjca

    @Citizen Dave: One of the weirder political phrases for me has always been “rock-ribbed”

    I think it comes down to “unbending”.  Which, indeed, rock does not.

  62. 62.

    gwangung

    @Kay: Absolutely. Use multiple tactics, multiple in-roads, but not too many (so you don’t muddy the waters). But reproductive right MUST be one of them.

  63. 63.

    Eyeroller

    @BlueGuitarist: Is that comparing turnout for a general midterm in 2022 to a special election?  Special elections usually have much lower turnout, which is why they’re suggestive but not prophetic.

  64. 64.

    Geminid

    @Citizen Dave: “Rock-ribbed” goes back further than that. Much of New England used to be called “Rock-ribbed Republican,” back before the political realignment that gathered speed in the 1960s.

  65. 65.

    RaflW

    @BlueGuitarist: Oh, and Digby links to this. Will US-based news orgs also cover the six new polls with improving news for Biden? (Guardian link)

    eta: Nicely thrown shade ~
    “Biden was due to campaign in North Carolina on Tuesday.

    Trailing Biden in fundraising, Trump had no campaign events scheduled.

    The former president did appear in public on Monday, in New York in connection with his criminal trial on 34 charges concerning hush-money payments.”

  66. 66.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @TaMara: I remember his podcast episode when the IRA passed and he was very excited about a bunch of the stuff in it, for long term incentives and green infrastructure.

  67. 67.

    Old School

    A Governor Ron DeSantis-selected special district board the oversees The Walt Disney Co.’s Florida theme park properties has settled its litigation with the company today.

    This deal in the long and bitter battle between the Mouse House and the failed GOP presidential contender comes just days before an increasingly hotly contested shareholder vote for Disney and CEO Bob Iger. The legal actions between Disney and DeSantis over the past year and a half had become quite personal, with Iger at one point chastizing the sunshine state governor for being anti-business

    …
    As part of the settlement, Disney has agreed to set aside a set of development agreements it entered into with the special district in the final weeks before DeSantis’ allies took control. Those agreements, which ensured that the company would maintain considerable autonomy over its properties, will not be null and void. The DeSantis-selected district board had sued the company in state court to challenge their validity.

    Meanwhile, Disney has agreed to defer briefing of its appeal in the federal case as negotiations continue on a new development agreement between the company and the board.

  68. 68.

    Fair Economist

    Turnout was low in this election: 3,715 to 2,234, vs 6,608 to 7,581 in 2022. So this is probably mostly about motivating voters. So, good news for us, but not *that* good. As Belafon points out, we’re usually seeing more like a 7 point swing. That’s pretty good for the House and the Presidency, although the Senate is still a concern.

  69. 69.

    Hoodie

    This seems like it would be a promising result for places like NC and GA.  Huntsville is probably atypical for Alabama, but similar to pretty heavily populated suburban areas near Atlanta and Charlotte.

  70. 70.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Fair Economist: True, but the old conventional wisdom was that Republicans had the advantage in these low-turnout elections, because their voters were more reliable and easier to motivate. That seems to have been stood on its head.

  71. 71.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Hoodie: Huntsville is now the largest city in Alabama and, because of the space center, has some actual smart people in it, which you don’t find all over the state.

    [confidential to Alabama: zing!]

  73. 73.

    Martin

    So, there’s a detail here that may have been missed. It’s been noted above that this district covers Huntsville, which is a bluer component of the state. But Lands had an additional message to bring to voters – the feds had been considering moving Space Command to Huntsville but chose to keep it in Colorado with Alabama’s anti-lgbtq/anti-women legislation hinted to be the direct reason for that decision. It’s easy to think of the military as a bunch of 19 year olds, but command tend to be older, married, and often with kids. Even if you want to think of the military as a bunch of straight men, they’re not, and military policy has no influence on who your kids turn out to be – and those laws are enough to drive experienced staff out of the military for the sake of their kids safety.

    Huntsville has likely internalized more of the economic consequences of these policies than anywhere else in the country. And scale matters here as well. CA and TX are such big states that losing an opportunity like that doesn’t really have a big economic impact. But AL has a small economy. Losing something like Space Command hurts. And that impact is being felt directly in Huntsville.

    It remains to be seen whether other Dems can connect theses policies to economics in the way that Lands was able to. I suspect not, at least to much of a degree – voters pretty reliably seem unable to factor completely predictable economic consequences into their voting behavior. Lands was running in a district where the consequence of putting their hand on the stove is already being felt.

  74. 74.

    West of the Rockies

    I’m confused.  I’ve been hearing some pundits saying that Dobbs is over, people have moved on, and that Trumpmentum is building, baby.

    Weird.  It’s almost like those pundits are idiots.

  75. 75.

    MattF

    @Fair Economist: These numbers are rather weird and I don’t think ‘spreads’ or percentages really convey that weirdness. It looks to me like there is both a disproportionate increase in the D vote and a decrease in the R vote. Republicans are staying home.

  76. 76.

    Martin

    @schrodingers_cat: Yes. Even if you can’t directly tie the two together in this specific case, CA has long determined that you cannot treat abortion as a separate issue from women’s health without producing negative outcomes in women’s health. Internalizing this reality is why CA leads the nation in maternal mortality.

  77. 77.

    Betty Cracker

    @Old School: Maybe this is an example of the risk involved in depending on corporations to defend fundamental rights in court. Disney is acting in its own interests, which is understandable. But DeSantis violated the First Amendment and will apparently get away with it by settling. That sucks!

  78. 78.

    piratedan

    @Fair Economist: understand the desire to temper expectations but I guess it all depends on how you adjust the lens (so to speak), we could look at it that the GOP IVR position is so crappy that it depressed their voters and they refused to show up.

  79. 79.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Baud:

    We can take a page from Republicans and blame the Baltimore bridge collapse on abortion restrictions. 

    And also Rethuglicans sucking Putin’s ass.

  80. 80.

    Soprano2

    So I wonder if James Carville will notice that Democrats won yet another special election based partly on the Dobbs decision, or will he continue complaining that the Democratic Party is “too feminine” and scolding people too much so they can’t win elections? Gee, let me guess……./s/s/s/s

  81. 81.

    Jay C

    @Martin:

    why CA leads the nation in maternal mortality.

    You might want to re-edit (or clarify) this point. I’m guessing you mean that CA has a LOWER rate of maternal mortality than other states? It reads like their rate is higher, which doesn’t make sense.

  82. 82.

    Hoodie

    @Martin: Huntsville also has extensive medical facilities (including the second largest hospital in Alabama) that serve as a main provider for northern Alabama and south central Tennessee.  That’s a big employer.  The IVF shenanigans in the state legislature probably had some effect there.

  84. 84.

    Scout211

    @Martin: CA leads the nation in maternal mortality.

    We all know what you meant.  CA has the lowest maternal mortality rate in the nation.

    ETA: Jay C spotted the mistype first.

  85. 85.

    Geminid

     

     

    @Hoodie: Bearing in mind that this was a special election with low turnout, the result may bode well for the Democrat challenging Rep. Jen Kiggans in the coastal Virginia 2nd CD. That is also a mainly suburban area with a lot of federal workers.

    And one thing the 2028 midterms seemed to show is that suburbs nationwide are more consistent now in terms of political trends. Most of the 40 districts Democrats flipped that year were suburban, and they were geographically diverse: at least 2 in each of New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, 3 in Virginia, 2 in Michigan, 2 in Texas, and at least 4 in California. Sharice Davids flipped a suburban-based district in Kansas, while Lucy McBath did the same in the Atlanta suburbs.

  88. 88.

    wjca

    @Martin: Internalizing this reality is why CA leads the nation in maternal mortality.

    Just to be clear (because I misunderstood it initially).  California has the lowest maternal mortality rate.  While Mississippi “leads the nation”, i.e. has the highest rate.

    EDT:  both JayC and Scout211 got there first.  Well, at least I don’t feel so dumb for misunderstanding….

  89. 89.

    Sister Golden Bear

    As a Californian I’m astounded that the district has less than 48,000 people in it (and only a bit less than 6,000 voted). My district has nearly 10 times as many people. Have to remind myself that CA is an outlier in so many ways compared to the rest of the country.

  90. 90.

    Betty Cracker

    @Soprano2: I saw a profile of Angry Cajun Fetus in either the Times or Post recently. I guess he’s the new “Mudcat” Saunders. Remember that loser?

  91. 91.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Hat-tip to whoever mentioned America For Americans: A History of Xenophobia In The United States by Erika Lee, a few weeks ago.  I’m about 1/3rd of the way through it now and it is SO GOOD!  I just learned that the first official acceptance of Irish-Americans as “white” was during the Anti-Chinese campaigns leading to the Chinese Exclusion Act.  In fact, Irish-Americans were a significant part of that effort to enact the first Federal immigration restrictions in the US.  While Irish and German-Americans absolutely faced discrimination and “othering” in America, they were never lumped in with Black People and Native/Indigenous Americans, the way that the Chinese were.  And the Chinese Exclusion Act and tremendous wave of Anti-Chinese violence and propaganda both happened despite the fact that Chinese immigrants represented less than 1/2 of 1% of all immigrants entering the US.

    America completely freaked out about 140K Chinese but not the 3.19 Million immigrants from Europe.  The book really highlights the fact that it’s almost impossible to separate Racism and Xenophobia in America.

  92. 92.

    BlueGuitarist

    @Eyeroller:

    right, midterms usually have higher turnout than specials.
    in this district the midterm turnout was comparatively low, while the special election turnout might be much closer to typical.

    compared to 52% US turnout in 2022, 36% in AL-HD-10 is low.
    I haven’t found thorough data for special state legislative election turnout, but 15% is close to what I’ve seen recently for other State Leg. Special elections.

  93. 93.

    Hoodie

    @Geminid: I imagine that most of the distaste among potential GOP voters for Trump and extreme GOP pols will be found in such areas.   The turnout numbers may be a reflection of that, i.e., more moderate GOP-inclined voters being put off by GOP extremists and deciding to stay home.  In that sense, it may be more Dobbs adjacent than purely a reaction to Dobbs itself.  This election in Alabama came on the heels of the Alabama Supreme Court making an extreme ruling on IVF.

  94. 94.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @Betty Cracker: When Trump was elected, one reason for his success was that he was channeling the grievances of his supporters. This time around it’s all about his personal grievances about losing the election. While it won’t matter to the cultists, I wonder if that’s be less than inspiring for the more moderate Republicans. I.e. the ones who’ve been self-identifying as “independents” as of late.

  97. 97.

    Kathleen

    @Miss Bianca: They are so emotionally and spiritually stunted and are disconnected from self awareness they will be on to the next anti Biden/Democratic Party slurs, which will multiply exponentially without missing a beat.

  98. 98.

    Geminid

    @Paul in KY: I was surprised to see it, but Huntsville passed Mobile, Birmingham and Montgomery to become Alabama’s largest city. Huntsville was just a little town in the hills until the TVA came along, just in time for the Second World War. Since then, the clout of Alabama’s long-serving Senators has kept the federal money flowing and the city growing.

  100. 100.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @BlueGuitarist:

    Marilyn Lands focused on repealing Alabama’s abortion law, but, the suggested info from postcards to voters also included that she wanted to repeal the state grocery tax and fix the roads.

    Interestingly, Danica Roem, the first trans person to win a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates did so by focusing on local issues, traffic/road issues IIRC, while the Republican incumbent focused on “bathroom bills.” Focusing on issues voters actually care about, who woulda thunk.

  101. 101.

    BlueGuitarist

    Re Huntsville:
    TaMara quoted an article up top that described the district as “Huntsville-area”
    only a couple of precincts in the district are in Huntsville, most of the district Madison city, Redstone Arsenal, and Triana.
    the state house district in Huntsville is solid blue.

  103. 103.

    Baud

    @Geminid:

    Huntsville passed Mobile, Birmingham and Montgomery to become Alabama’s largest city.

     
    Wow. No wonder it’s blue. It’s successful.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @FelonyGovt: I think California’s state Senate districts have more residents than an average U.S. House district, so I expect that state’s house districts are similarly large.

  108. 108.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @West of the Rockies:

    I’m confused.  I’ve been hearing some pundits saying that Dobbs is over, people have moved on, and that Trumpmentum is building, baby.

    Weird.  It’s almost like those pundits are idiots men (and idiots).

    Men who have no clue how enraged women are about Dobbs, as well as Alabama’s ban on IVF.

  109. 109.

    Ksmiami

    @rikyrah: the AMA needs to open up more medical school seats and increase diversity. My daughter works at the forefront of genomics but without a robust delivery system ie drs and nurses, advanced Med tech won’t reach the people.

  110. 110.

    Betty Cracker

    We’re under a severe thunderstorm warning due to a front coming in off the Gulf of Mexico. I can already hear thunder in the distance — it should be hitting our area soon. But the people who run the “swamp airboat tour” outfit on our river just sent a couple of huge metal boats with giant metal propeller cages upriver to rake in every penny from tourists before the storm hits. I get it — it’s business. But one of these days a boatload of tourists is gonna get zapped, and the lawsuits will be catastrophic.

  111. 111.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @UncleEbeneezer: Racism/Xenophobia in America has never been strictly Black and white, especially in the West, especially in California where anti-Chinese and anti-Mexican hatred/discrimination were more perversive in the state’s early history. (Note, I’m not saying racism/discrimination against Blacks didn’t exist, but it wasn’t as top of mind among whites.) That, and the outright extermination of Native Americans. There wasn’t even a pretense of forcing Native Americans, it was straight-up genocide.

    Interesting historical tidbit, one reason for the proliferation of Chinese restaurants in the U.S. was that the Chinese Exclusion Act had an exemption for bringing over Chinese workers for businesses, and  Chinese Americans were able to successfully get restaurants included in that loophole.

  114. 114.

    Gretchen

    Jess Piper at Blue Missouri has been working to recruit a Dem to run in every race. Last time 40% of legislature seats went uncontested. This time it’s down to 18%, and she’s still recruiting! We can’t win where we don’t run! https://bluemissouri.org

  116. 116.

    Renie

    Just a reminder that trump is now selling Bibles so be sure to get one to give out as Easter gifts while supplies last.

  117. 117.

    BlueGuitarist

    @DKinSD:

    interesting.
    Beau says that
    the decision to reverse TFGs plan
    to move space command from Colorado to the Huntsville area
    significantly increased the margin of Marilyn Lands’s victory

  118. 118.

    Gretchen

    @Belafon: I was interested to see that Erin Hawley, yesterday before the Supreme Court, somehow said that she was on the side of less government interference in people’s lives. It was so convoluted that I couldn’t begin to follow her reasoning. Apparently the Justices had the same problem. Also, she flat-out lied that the ACOG recommends ultrasound before prescribing mifepristone to rule out ectopic pregnancy, and that’s why telehealth prescribing is dangerous. They don’t recommend that. Barrett seemed swayed by that lie.

  120. 120.

    rikyrah

    Steve McGuire (@sfmcguire79) posted at 5:10 PM on Tue, Mar 26, 2024:
    NEW: Protestors occupying the chancellor’s office at Vanderbilt try to shame a black police officer:

    “You are black in America, and you’re NOT standing with the marginalized people of the world. What does that make you?!”

     

    Leaundra Ross 💙💚🏈⚾️ (@LeaundraRoss) posted at 11:38 AM on Wed, Mar 27, 2024:
    I’ve seen them say they don’t give a shit about us because we’re not suffering that much.

    They don’t care about us.
    Because people called them out on why they don’t care about shit going on here too.

    That was their excuse.
    It’s worse elsewhere.
    (https://x.com/LeaundraRoss/status/1773026763855081659?t=LAJ_P4zyLUC_n5cpky5QZg&s=03)

  121. 121.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @West of the Rockies:

    I continue to see stories of “people struggling to make ends meet” because of runaway inflation.  It’s like the political media are just going to ignore the facts and go with the bullshit.

  122. 122.

    rikyrah

    Jaime Harrison (@harrisonjaime) posted at 10:39 AM on Wed, Mar 27, 2024:
    Congratulations to the @MoDemParty & grassroots activists for an amazing candidate recruitment effort. I just received the stellar report from Chmn Carnahan & as a result MO Dems will receive one of my candidate recruitment challenge grants.

    Here’s what they accomplished:
    * 100% of Statewide and Congressional seats filled with candidates
    * 88% (15 of 17) of State Senate seats filled with candidates
    * 83% (135 of 163) of State House seats filled with candidates.

    This is a dramatic increase from 2022 when only 90 State House seats filled and it is the best presidential year recruiting number since 2008.

    Candidate recruitment is one of the hardest jobs of a state party… proud of the strides in MO!
    (https://x.com/harrisonjaime/status/1773011942484922493?t=jTasImwNx7JSAwPB4owEDw&s=03)

  124. 124.

    WaterGirl

    @Martin:

    Internalizing this reality is why CA leads the nation in maternal mortality.

    Leads the nation as in best or worst?  That reads like worst.

    edit: I see that I am not the only one.

  130. 130.

    JaySinWA

    @Renie: Trump is not actually selling bibles. He has licensed his name, likeness, etc to a bible selling outfit. Kind of like the “Trump” buildings that he doesn’t actually own.

    From the bible vender webpage:

    IS ANY OF THE MONEY FROM THIS BIBLE GOING TO THE DONALD J. TRUMP CAMPAIGN FOR PRESIDENT?

    No, GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not political and has nothing to do with any political campaign. GodBlessTheUSABible.com is not owned, managed or controlled by Donald J. Trump, The Trump Organization, CIC Ventures LLC or any of their respective principals or affiliates.

    GodBlessTheUSABible.com uses Donald J. Trump’s name, likeness and image under paid license from CIC Ventures LLC, which license may be terminated or revoked according to its terms.

    I’m not sure how to parse this but the revocation clause sounds like a recurring license fee, maybe based on sales. And no, I wouldn’t put that in an Easter basket.

  131. 131.

    smith

    @JaySinWA: Interesting that they feel the need to disavow any political affiliation with Trump. And it’s very fuzzy from that answer how Trump is making money off it, as he surely is.

  134. 134.

    gvg

    @Clark Ashton Kutchner: I would not limit it to women with a working reproductive system. These regressive savages have proven they are not swayed by facts or logic and I do not trust them to write or enforce laws that only impact women who are able to reproduce. For instance I had a hysterectomy due to cancer. Even if I said so and proved it, if they have removed certain drugs or treatments from the state, it would take time to obtain them, and I don’t think they would always allow that or back down. I think these people think admitting they didn’t think of all the scenarios somehow gives the evil women and opening. They think we are liars and that doctors are too. Or something like that. Back at the beginning of this mess, I read they were banning a certain drug that could cause an abortion. It was a cancer drug and was needed by male patients too. they did not back down. Forget which state it was, but that’s what I see now. They are not trustworthy with anyone’s body.

  135. 135.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Sister Golden Bear: Absolutely.  West of Slavery (which I haven’t read yet but have listened to several interviews with the author) makes those same points that Racism in CA, primarily targeted Asian-Americans and Native/Indigenous People.  I also have
    An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 bookmarked for a later read.

    You’re absolutely right that Race has shifted in meaning over the years too.  The fact that Ben Franklin was outraged about the threat of the “German Race” in Colonial times highlights that, but also shows how the concept Race shifted from a focus on National-Origin/Foreignness/Religion to becoming very much about Non-White vs. White as the social construct of Whiteness really took hold.  What America For Americans illustrates is that while Race wasn’t always strictly Black/White, Xenophobia has always about Race.  As the author puts it in the introduction:

    Race is the single most important factor for determining which foreigners are targeted for xenophobic discrimination and which ones are not.  This is because xenophobia is a form of racism.  It defines certain groups as racial and religious others who are inherently inferior or dangerous –or both– and demonizes them as a group based on these presumptions.  Xenophobia has also been an inextricable part of race-making in America; it has shaped how Americans classify people by race and rank them in America’s racial hierarchy.

  137. 137.

    JaySinWA

    @smith: I wonder if they are trying to run the business as a tax exempt company that would be restricted from candidate donations.

  138. 138.

    Betty Cracker

    @Gretchen: The Times did a recent puff piece on Erin Hawley that completely ignored the speciousness of the argument you pointed out, i.e., that removing access for 200M or so women to a safe and effective drug to spare the fee-fees of anti-abortion doctors reduces government intervention in our lives. Erin sounds like a horrible person, but at least she’s suffering for it by being married to a pencil-necked elitist chickenshit who cosplays as a rural patriarch. That cannot be pleasant!

  139. 139.

    gvg

    @Sister Golden Bear: The only Trump 2016 voter I am sure of was dismayed at him within a year, admitted he voted Trump because he was an outsider and he thought Washington needed to be shook up. His disappointment was “I am beginning to think Trump doesn’t know what he is doing” Apparently a bunch of not very political people thought app Washington politicians were alike and other ignorant things. His voters in 2020 were not the same quite.

    I was really astounded the guy didn’t already know Trump was an idiot. I never watched his show and didn’t realize it mattered. I saw the news when I was a kid however and listened to what he said. He was clearly always an idiot.

  140. 140.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @gvg:

    And he thought Washington needed to be shook up.

    This belief is widespread across the political spectrum. I think of it as a childish and usually negative thing.

  142. 142.

    gvg

    @Melancholy Jaques: Its not the same everywhere and people are struggling, especially with housing.

    Kay talks about manufacturing but Florida doesn’t have much and never did. Also, plenty of analysis that says inflation is higher that wage gains. I don’t agree, but it is not outrageous to think so. Retirees only see downside of that anyway.

    There are always going to be those struggling while others are prospering. The news media is only getting bad news about it’s own economy, that probably influences who they believe.

  144. 144.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    When I went to get my mail a little while ago, three old ladies were sitting there talking about how now Trump know just how deep the swamp was and he’ll be on guard. I sighed and walked past. I might as well argue with stones.

  145. 145.

    Gretchen

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s possible. Obit says she died of sepsis after giving birth to a stillborn daughter at 21 weeks. She lived in a Kansas City suburb. Kansas protects reproductive rights but Missouri has a complete ban excepting only life of the mother. So it matters which side of the state line you choose when seeking care. It’s especially tragic in that she was working to prevent maternal deaths among Black women.

  150. 150.

    Gretchen

    @Betty Cracker: that must be it. She’s worried about the rights of old white doctors, not people who need medical care. She already has that look of someone older because hate ages one.

  152. 152.

    wjca

    @Baud: I need to register GodBlessTheUSABaud.com

    Why not go for GodBlessTheUSABaud.us ?

    (Yes, .us is, in fact, a valid name for domains here.)

  153. 153.

    Pittsburgh Mike

    @smith: She improved 2022 performance by 16 percent, moving from losing by 7% to winning by 24% of the vote 18 months later.

    In suburban Huntsville, Alabama.

    I think people are learning what these abortion bans are doing, and they’re not happy about it.

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