Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

There’s always a light at the end of the frog.

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

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

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Let us savor the impending downfall of lawless scoundrels who richly deserve the trouble barreling their way.

We’ll be taking my thoughts and prayers to the ballot box.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

You can’t love your country only when you win.

We’ve had enough carrots to last a lifetime. break out the sticks.

Fight for a just cause, love your fellow man, live a good life.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

I’m more Christian than these people and I’m an atheist.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

I was confident that someone would point it out and thought why not me.

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

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

When the time comes to make an endorsement, the pain of NYT editors will be palpable as they reluctantly whisper “Biden.”

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

Can we lighten up on the doomsday scenarios?

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

Everybody saw this coming.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / There Is No Deal (Open Thread)

There Is No Deal (Open Thread)

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Republicans still don’t get it.  Women are not stupid.  Not most of us, anyway.  Women understand when legislation takes away their inherent right to self-determination.  After Dobbs, women as incubators is more polite, but women as breed mares is probably more accurate.

“We’ll only take away your rights part of the time” does not sound like a good deal.

Let me spell it out for you, Republicans.  There is no deal on abortion that will be okay.  There is no fucking deal.  They think there can be a deal if they get the time limit just right, or if they add just the right exceptions (theoretical ones, of course, that will never be approved),  Or if they say just the right words!

I am so heartened that the Democratic leadership understand this  Republicans are chasing the impossible, and that will be good for us in November.

I love Hakeem Jeffries.

h/t PaulB

Open thread.

Update:  So of course, 2 minutes after I press Publish, I see that someone on twitter said it better than I did.

Reader Interactions

218Comments

  2. 2.

    Spanky

    Totally agree with Jeffries, but we have to realize Trump’s “deal” wasn’t going to include Democrats to begin with.

  4. 4.

    Baud

    That tweet is old news anyway. Trump didn’t even bother attempting a deal this morning.

  5. 5.

    Chief Oshkosh

    What these TFMs* seem incapable of grasping is that Roe v Wade WAS the deal. And they blew it up with no idea what to do next.

     

    *Total Fucking Morons. These are the people who earnestly thought that there was some “better deal” to be had. TFMs are distinct from the true, 100% anti-choice “women are chattel” assholes. They cynically know that there is no “deal,” that they want women to have no choice, including birth control.

  7. 7.

    Lapassionara

    I think the message should be that the deal should be the rights women had under Roe. The term “reproductive freedom” suggests that women want the right to terminate a pregnancy at any stage for any reason, which is not what Roe permitted. We already have to fight the idea that we want the right to “post-birth abortion,” which is ridiculous. We don’t need to add weight to that false argument.

  8. 8.

    Eolirin

    I hope Dobbs really is the tipping point for the electorate to decide they’ve had enough of these lunatics.

    We can’t keep winning marginally like we have been, or just falling short of what we need for durable and real change. The barely being able to muddle through isn’t cutting it anymore.

  9. 9.

    TBone

    Let that guy, He Who Hath No Uterus, shut the fuck up.  The rest of us can take it from here.  We know what to do (keep poking these jagoffs with a sharp stick repeatedly and ceaselessly).

  10. 10.

    Old Man Shadow

    There is no deal on abortion that will be okay.

    Roe was the deal. Cutoff was viability absent any medical problems that arose.

    They killed it.

    Because they’re not fond of women and it gave them a rallying cry of “save the babies” which sounded better than “fuck the <racial slur>” that no longer attracted as many people. Of course that was before Donald Trump so now they’re openly embracing both slogans.

  12. 12.

    kindness

    I grew up in a northeastern Republican clan & Protestant church that thought birth control/abortion should be legal and that it was no one else’s business.  Of course our media seems to prefer the Gilead church and refuses to recognize that not every religion sides with the Evangelical/Catholic notions.

  13. 13.

    Scout211

    @Baud: That tweet is old news anyway. Trump didn’t even bother attempting a deal this morning.

    Yep.  All he said was “let’s go with what we already have right now. States’ Rights! I ended Roe! There’s something for everyone so vote for me!”  Or something similar.

  14. 14.

    Eolirin

    @Lapassionara: Do you think women who choose elective abortions wait to the third trimester to decide they don’t want a kid? Something has to have gone very wrong for a late stage abortion to be happening.

    We don’t need to reestablish onerous burdens for people in terrible situations. There’s no reason for us to go back to Roe either if we have the power to enact a better deal. We should at least be pushing for it.

  15. 15.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @schrodingers_cat:

    There are white women who live in states where their abortion rights are not in jeopardy. There are white women who are anti-abortion. There are white women who do not put their abortion rights ahead of their racism and religious bigotry.

  16. 16.

    Scout211

    Donald Trump’s Abortion Announcement Has Pissed Everyone Off

    Understandably, the announcement enraged abortion rights activists, who argue that Trump’s endorsement of states’ right to outlaw abortion effectively hands red state governments a blank check to pass the most extreme anti-abortion laws in the country, like those already on the books in Texas, Florida, and Idaho. Advocates have rightly argued that the so-called exceptions for rape, incest, or the patient’s health trumpeted by the Republican presidential nominee are effectively toothless window dressing, since the bans have a chilling effect on doctors who fear legal backlash for performing any abortions. As abortion rights activists also pointed out, the video left unsaid whether Trump would sign a national ban if congressional Republicans successfully brought a bill  to his desk.

    I don’t agree that it pissed off everyone.  I think his campaign team loved it, even thought it was brilliant. LOL.

  17. 17.

    trollhattan

    Elmo’s bad year continues. Moving HQ out of California undoubtedly gives him extra leverage to fight this.

    A new proposed class action lawsuit against Tesla accuses the electric vehicle maker of committing a series of wage law violations against workers at its flagship factory in Fremont, California.

    The lawsuit was filed in federal court in California on Thursday by two ex-Tesla employees. They seek more than $5 million in damages on behalf of Tesla employees in the state. More than 20,000 people are employed at Tesla’s Fremont factory.
    The plaintiffs are Shannon Brown, a material handler, and Tami Okada, a production associate. Both worked at warehouses in Fremont for varying times between 2022 and 2023, according to the lawsuit.
    Brown and Okada said they “regularly” worked more than eight hours a day and 40 hours per week and were not provided with meal or rest breaks as required by California state law. The plaintiffs say Tesla did not properly compensate them — and other potential class members — for overtime, sick pay, vacation pay, and meal and rest breaks.
    Tesla is also accused of failing to reimburse employees for work-related expenses and failing to provide written descriptions of quotas that workers must meet.
    A representative for Tesla did not immediately respond a request for comment Friday afternoon.

  18. 18.

    sdhays

    Lots of weak energy coming from Dump’s announcement. The biggest issue in the country (not that it’s fully acknowledged as that, even now), and his position is, “Eh, the status quo regarding abortion is fine. But have you heard about what those mean judges are doing to MEEEEE????”

    This is a fetal crouch of a political position. I’m frankly surprised he released this statement; I thought he would keep his “perfect compromise” sitting out there, waiting to be released in two weeks in perpetuity, just like all of his other “brilliant plans”.

  20. 20.

    Lapassionara

    @Eolirin: I agree, but our opposition will take the way we express our position on the right to choose and use it to make outlandish claims. I’m saying restore Roe is a better way to express our position. Roe permitted late-stage abortions when things went wrong, and I think most people agree that those types of abortions should be available in those circumstances.

    PS. What would be a “better deal” than Roe? Serious question, not snark. I just don’t know enough about fetal development to know what a “better deal” would be.

  21. 21.

    laura

    @Lapassionara: Just No. Roe’s compromise did not adequately address second and third trimester pregnancy complications. Full Reproductive Rights or GTFO. Full and equal autonomy and agency for Women people

    Anyone besides me remember when he said “you have to have some form of punishment for the woman” because I sure do.

  23. 23.

    hueyplong

    Not only did Trump not write that, he wouldn’t understand a single sentence of it if you read it to him.  But this cannot be objectively tested because, once you read the first sentence aloud and its words did not include praise of Trump, his mind would wander.

    So we don’t even reach the substance of that fecal pile of a “statement” if we’re talking about “what Trump thinks.”  As for what he’d do, he’d sign whatever draconian bill Speaker MTG handed him, so long as there was applause as he did it.

  24. 24.

    tokyokie

    tfg seems to be expecting American women to respond in a “Please, my Lord, may I have another?” fashion as he doles out abuse.

  25. 25.

    Scout211

    @hueyplong: Not only did Trump not write that, he wouldn’t understand a single sentence of it if you read it to him.

    This is a good summary of every one of Trump’s policy statements.  If it’s not braggadocio, bluffs, lies, threats, bullying or narcissistic self-praise, he has no clue what he has read on the teleprompter or what someone wrote for him on his social.

    And for all those other things I just mentioned, he forgets he said them a few minutes after they leave his mouth.

    Edited for clarity.

  26. 26.

    matt

    They had a deal where the nation settled on a position on abortion that was more right wing than what most people wanted. It was called Roe v Wade.

  27. 27.

    Jackie

    Last night on MSNBC, Fernand Amandi was discussing Florida’s abortion initiative and seemed pretty confident it will pass the 60+ threshold. But, then he sounded much less confident FL would flip Blue this Nov.

    Question for Floridians: Will Floridians really vote for abortion rights, and simultaneously vote for republicans to keep those opposing abortion rights in office?

    I just don’t see how that happens.🤷🏼‍♀️

  28. 28.

    Clark Ashton Kutchner

    @Lapassionara: A better deal would be women have autonomy of their bodies, period, with no waiting periods or the right of the state to approve or disapprove of it.  We need to go beyond Roe, and assert personal autonomy is non-negotiable, despite what they think their sky-God tells them in the Bible.

  30. 30.

    laura

    @Lapassionara: a “better deal than Roe” is that private matters are nobody’s business but the person impacted and those who provide care or service. Nobody gets to weigh in on my neighbors as yet unscheduled hemeroid surgery or whether he uses medication for erection issues because it’s nobody’s business but theirs. Does the state have a recognizable interest in potential humans- absolutely on the care and service side via regulations in medical care and practice, but I remain unconvinced that the state’s interest in potential human life cannot outweigh the pregnant person’s interest in their own life.

  32. 32.

    Lapassionara

    @Clark Ashton Kutchner: As I recall, Roe didn’t have waiting periods or any of that kind of burden. States passed those rules, and the SC, with different Justices than the Roe court, approved them. I am not arguing that we should have to have waiting periods. All I am saying is that, if we want the broadest possible coalition, we will express our goals in language that appeals to a broad coalition.

  34. 34.

    Shalimar

    @Jackie: I wouldn’t be surprised if half of Fox News’ viewership is in Florida.  A sizeable percentage of the state would kill their neighbor before they would vote for a Democrat.  So yes, it is possible for 15-20% to vote for the Democratic initiative but not any Democrats.

  35. 35.

    Brachiator

    Donald Trump says tonight he will release a statement on abortion “tomorrow morning,”

    So, Trump favors a “tomorrow morning” pill?

  36. 36.

    Jeffro

    Damn right there’s no deal except staying out of every woman’s reproductive decisions!

    The next battle, of course, will be to fight the RWNJs’ lies about “Dems want abortion up until and past the moment of birth”.  But, one day/battle at a time

  38. 38.

    TBone

    Speaking of “No Deal”…

    Perhaps even more troubling, the legal document from Knight Specialty Insurance Company doesn’t actually promise it will pay the money if the former president loses his $464 million bank fraud case on appeal. Instead, it says Trump will pay, negating the whole point of an insurance company guarantee, according to three legal and bond experts who reviewed the contract for The Daily Beast.

    https://www.thedailybeast.com/trumps-dollar175-million-bond-is-even-shadier-than-it-looks

    Popcorn AND goggles today!

  39. 39.

    WaterGirl

    @Lapassionara: States have been limiting abortions rights for the past decade, at least, in spite of Roe.

    What we need is a federal law that recognizes that women have a right to self-determination and that this choice is their own.  I have no problem with how Jeffries phrased it, in fact, I think it’s perfect.

    States can’t take away federal rights, as I understand it.

  40. 40.

    Shalimar

    @Lapassionara: I doubt that waiting periods have significant mass appeal.  Nor do other things like all of the mandatory ultrasounds, tests, etc.  They were popular with state legislatures as ways to prove they were anti-abortion.  It was “doing something” energy, not responding to actual demand.  The goal was always to find ways to eliminate abortion totally.

  44. 44.

    Jeffro

    Geminid, I don’t know if you saw it but I got back to you in the previous thread re: Liz and Doug (and Tiki too…forgot him!) =)

  45. 45.

    TBone

    Just cleaned under all the beds (flipped mattresses off and got ALL the covert cat puke & dust/fur/whatthehellisthat off the floors).  Fitting tribute to our few journalists who still do real journalism.

  47. 47.

    hueyplong

    I kind of thought I was beyond surprise, but, if accurately reported, the terms of that “bond” do surprise me.  There really is no floor.

    It’s time to start seizing stuff.

  52. 52.

    Brachiator

    @schrodingers_cat:

    From a 2022 NBC News story.

    A recent Pew Research Center study found that 74% of Asian Americans support abortion rights, a higher portion than any other ethnic group surveyed. While some researchers point to flaws in the polling (most notably that Pew only surveyed English speakers), they say there’s no doubt that Asians show the highest level of support when it comes to abortion rights.

    Some of the reasons why reflect wisdom and common sense.

    “South Asians view family as so important,” said Amrita Doshi, executive director of the South Asian survivor network SOAR. “People have very personal experiences with their reproductive health choices, and I think they want to fight to protect those. …Reproductive health care is health care, it’s about family planning, it’s also about economic security.”

  53. 53.

    Another Scott

    This talk of Roe and Dobbs and removing and restoring rights got me thinking of Prohibition and what ended it.

    21st Amendment:

    The Twenty-first Amendment (Amendment XXI) to the United States Constitution repealed the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which had mandated nationwide prohibition on alcohol. The Twenty-first Amendment was proposed by the 72nd Congress on February 20, 1933, and was ratified by the requisite number of states on December 5, 1933. It is unique among the 27 amendments of the U.S. Constitution for being the only one to repeal a prior amendment, as well as being the only amendment to have been ratified by state ratifying conventions.

    […]

    As more and more Americans opposed the Eighteenth Amendment, a political movement grew for its repeal. However, repeal was complicated by grassroots politics. Although the U.S. Constitution provides two methods for ratifying constitutional amendments,[3] only one method had been used up until that time: ratification by the state legislatures of three-fourths of the states. However, the wisdom of the day was that the lawmakers of many states were either beholden to or simply fearful of the temperance lobby.[citation needed]

    […]

    (Emphasis added.)

    Interesting. If I ever knew that, I had forgotten it.

    Legislators fearful of a lobby group. Hmm….

    The Amendment was proposed in February 1933 and ratified and took effect in December 1933 – lightning fast.

    There are lots of lessons from history, if we care to learn them.

    We can do a lot of good, and move the country forward, if we just flip a few seats and vote the monsters out in November. Fingers crossed.

    Forward!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  54. 54.

    MattF

    @hueyplong: Daily Beast story (no link) lays out what’s ‘special’ about this ‘insurance’ company.

    ETA: As linked above by TBone.

  55. 55.

    Baud

    Via Reddit

    Opinion
    Francis Wilkinson, Columnist

    Trumpism Is Emptying Churches

    The former president’s embrace of White Christian militantism coincides with a precipitous decline in religious affiliation in the US.

    April 7, 2024 at 8:00 AM EDT

  57. 57.

    Torrey

    @Lapassionara:

    our opposition will take the way we express our position on the right to choose and use it to make outlandish claims. I’m saying restore Roe is a better way to express our position.

     
    They will do that anyway, regardless. I believe the current approach of the Democratic Party is to emphasize the word “freedom” wherever possible. “Freedom” is a positive term; it’s hard to say you object to freedom. “Restore Roe” doesn’t have the same cachet as a catchphrase. It’s important to distinguish between the actual policy and the phrasing that is used to “advertise” that policy.

  58. 58.

    laura

    May I be so bold as to point out that the anti abortion movement writ large is not about abortion, or contraceptives. The actual undergirding of the movement is that there is no right to privacy for women AND men. No penumbra of privacy rights implied in the Constitution, no women’s rights in the Constitution. Alito laid it all out in the Dobbs decision- if a right isn’t explicitly laid out in the text of the Constitution (or explicitly laid out in the reconstruction amendments) they do not exists. That’s originalist and that’s what the Court’s majority is working on. Some may be okay with finding some common ground with those who deem many of us less than. Wouldn’t be me, but some may find comfort and surety in giving up rights- especially of it’s the rights of others.

  59. 59.

    hueyplong

    @MattF: I don’t care for homework assignments, but I might have to read this story to see how it is an insurer thinks that its “contract” with Trump somehow excuses it from performing its duty to the State of New York. It makes total sense for them to tell Trump that he’s on the hook to the insurer for the insurer’s obligation to New York and to the state for the amount (if any) of the judgment over and above the amount of the bond.

  61. 61.

    Tony Jay

    I foresee a company making a mint on T-Shirts emblazoned with something along the lines of –

    ROE?
    BETTER?
    CHOOSE!

  64. 64.

    Kay

    The numbers on abortion referendums are probably more instructive on the issue than the numbers of R v D voters:

    As for vote preference, 60% of women and 53% of men supported the abortion referendum, per the exit poll. Majorities also supported the marijuana referendum, 55% and 58%, respectively.

    The biggest takeaway for me was liberal turnout:

    Striking liberal turnout, a comparative dearth of voters who backed Donald Trump in 2020 and broad support for legal abortion helped make Ohio, on Tuesday, the latest state projected to support abortion rights since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade last year, according to exit polling.
    A separate referendum legalizing marijuana was also projected to pass on Tuesday.
    Liberals accounted for 34% of voters in Ohio exit poll results, up sharply from 20% in the 2022 midterms and 21% in the 2020 presidential election. That’s a record-high turnout among liberals in Ohio exit polls dating back to 1984. They backed both the abortion and marijuana referenda by vast margins, 94-6% for abortion and 85-15% for marijuana.

    That’s a huge turnout jump.

    So if an abortion referendum increases liberal turnout in Florida, that will help Florida Dems.

    We still have a lot of room for growth on the question of R v D and abortion:

    At the same time, it was close on which party Ohio voters said they trust more to handle the issue of abortion. Forty-eight percent picked the Democratic Party and 42% the Republican Party. Among those who picked Democrats, 94% supported the abortion referendum — as did 15% of those who said they trust the GOP more on the issue.

    That’s 100% due to garbage media coverage on the issue – major media hasn’t invested any money in covering this (because their industry is rigidly conventional and dominated by men in management) so Democrats will have to do a huge push to educate voters.

  66. 66.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    as did 15% of those who said they trust the GOP more on the issue

     

    They voted the right way, but those are some dumb mofos.

  67. 67.

    Another Scott

    RollingStone.com (from May 17, 2023):

    […]

    Trump was responding to a question about how the increasingly restrictive abortion bans conservative states keep writing into law could “doom” the GOP with moderates in 2024. It’s a valid question given what happened in 2022, and a fraught one for Trump’s campaign. Rolling Stone reported after the midterms that evangelicals were cooling on the former president because of his “silence on abortion,” as Kristan Hawkins, president of Students For Life of America, put it at the time.

    Rolling Stone reported last month that Trump has since been holding secret meetings with Christian leaders to assuage their concerns. The leaders haven’t been satisfied with the death of Roe, instead pressing him to take a more hardline approach to the issue. Trump has stressed the need to emphasize “exceptions” to abortion bands lest he be labeled an “extremist” by Democrats. Sources close to the former president said he has griped that the party is “getting killed on abortion.”

    Trump doesn’t have to worry about Democrats for a while, though. He’s currently trying to win a GOP primary in which he stands to face off with people like Mike Pence, the evangelical darling who has called for a nationwide abortion ban, and Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who last month signed the kind of restrictive six-week ban Trump was asked about Tuesday night on Newsmax.

    It’s a fair bet that, if Trump advances to the general election, he’ll go back to talking about exceptions and try to recast himself as a centrist when it comes to a woman’s right to choose. But that will be nonsense. As the self-proclaimed champion of the anti-abortion movement, he is — and always will be — the primary architect of the post-Roe world that Americans have been subjected to.

    (Emphasis added.)

    +1

    None of this stuff is unexpected. The “evangelicals” (and the “House Freedom Caucus”) will continue to demand that their every wish be satisfied. (Remember, they beat up on Reagan for not doing enough for them.) It’s what they do. Donnie will continue to lie to everyone because it’s worked for him all his life.

    Rooting for injuries.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  68. 68.

    HinTN

    @Lapassionara: What you just said is the reason to be unequivocal. When there is room to fiddle around the edges then there will be people who, for reasons known only to them, go shopping for a judge who will let them fiddle. It should be nobody’s business but the mother’s. Not the state’s, not some church’s, not some man’s. Her’s.

  69. 69.

    Eyeroller

    @Melancholy Jaques: Another factor, which took me a very long time to understand, is that the electorate changes for each election (hence the pollsters’ “likely voter” models).  If we accept that Rs increased a bit with white women and quite a bit with Hispanic women in 2022 compared to 2020, part of that would likely be due to higher R turnout than D and not to changes in the behavior of individual voters.  (Overall R turnout was a bit higher.)  What that in turn says is that RvW was not a sufficient motivator to fully overcome the large inherent advantages the Rs had in that midterm.  But it, and perhaps some other factors, were enough to prevent the “red wave” from happening, which made it a fairly unusual midterm election.

  70. 70.

    Eolirin

    @Lapassionara: There’s no reason why the government should involve itself in the decision making process for an abortion at all. The better deal is “this is not our business, and women should decide everything about this with their doctors without coercion in any direction”

  72. 72.

    Kay

    I know this shocks people but looking at the Ohio referendum probably the best thing Democrats can do is simply tell voters over and over that Republicans support banning abortion and Democrats support access to abortion.

    This needs remedial advertising, because the media coverage is just terrible.

    I think this is particularly true for young women. I’ll never forget campaigning for Obama and a young volunteer asked me if Nixon was a Republican or Democrat. You really cannot underestimate what voters know -start at “nothing”. Our billion dollar media industry is a massive failure at basic voter education.

  74. 74.

    Snarki, child of Loki

    Well, how about this for a deal:

    for every women prevented from having an abortion, one GOP anti-choice official is given a post-natal abortion, with immediate summary execution.

  75. 75.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    My husband is kind of a booster – he really does want everyone to do well financially- and it drives him crazy. He talks up the Biden economy all the time. It makes him sad that young people think they’ll never make any money. He thinks that’s bullshit and demoralizing for them.

  77. 77.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    He thinks that’s bullshit and demoralizing for them.

    Just as the oligarch propagandists intended. They’ve neutered many young people who would have been a threat to their interests.

  78. 78.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @laura: Thank you, I do not want my daughter to be told that even though her water broke and the 17-18 week fetus is compromised they will not induce labor, even though my daughter could die of sepsis, because the fetus still has a heartbeat. Pregnancy complications can occur at any point in the pregnancy and “Let’s wait and see if the complication is really, really going to kill you” before we do anything is really bad medical care.  Roe was too focused on number of weeks. Also even under Roe there were too many states will few places and sometimes nowhere to obtain an abortion.  And further I could give a crap what anyone’s religious thoughts are about abortion when it comes to the law.  Don’t want an abortion, fine, don’t have one.  Doesn’t give the right to prevent someone else from having one.

  82. 82.

    Jeffro

    OT but did y’all know that Voters Think America is Broken and It’s Joe Biden’s Job to Fix It?

    so ridiculous…but my bad, I forgot that only Dems have agency and/or a responsibility to fix this country’s issues…

    Why do so many people in the United States believe that, as Ms. Newhouse put it in a follow-up essay, “whole parts of American society were breaking down before our eyes”?

    The examples are almost too numerous to list: a disastrous war in Iraq; a ruinous financial crisis followed by a decade of anemic growth when most of the new wealth went to those who were already well off; a shambolic response to the deadliest pandemic in a century; a humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan; rising prices and interest rates; skyrocketing levels of public and private debt; surging rates of homelessness and the spread of tent encampments in American cities; undocumented migrants streaming over the southern border; spiking rates of gun violence, mental illness, depression, addiction, suicide, chronic illness and obesity, coupled with a decline in life expectancy.

    Take a look at that list again.  Which ones are properly laid solely – or even mostly – at the feet of the Democratic Party and/or Democratic administrations?  ZERO

    That’s an awful lot of failure over the past 20-odd years. Yet for the most part, the people who run our institutions have done very little to acknowledge or take responsibility for any of it, let alone undertake reforms that aim to fix what’s broken.

    However much voters appreciate his denunciations of a corrupt and rigged system, as well as his management of the economy over the first three years of his presidency, they have no love for the G.O.P.’s obsession with pairing cuts to entitlement programs and upper-income tax rates with draconian restrictions on abortion — not to mention Mr. Trump’s focus on personal grievances and legal recklessness. That leaves plenty of room for Mr. Biden to make a case for himself as the guy who can enact the sweeping reforms American needs, and without all the unnecessary and dangerous drama a second Trump administration would surely bring.

    Everything is broken — or so it feels to many of our fellow citizens. Denying this reality only empowers populist candidates whose message acquires its potency by pointing to an entrenched political establishment unwilling or unable to learn from (or even admit) its myriad mistakes. That shirking needs to stop. And it should do so with Joe Biden.

    omfg dude just shut up unless you’re going to lay the blame for dysfunctional government at the feet of the party that wants to “drown it in the bathtub”.

  84. 84.

    JaySinWA

    @Another Scott: If you are suggesting state conventions for a pro choice amendment would have a better chance than legislative enactment, you may be right.

    OTOH while there was political violence in the case of the alcohol amendments (certainly in the ban, probably in the repeal) the level of political violence from the anti choice group directed at individuals could make this a heavier lift.

  86. 86.

    rikyrah

    Advocates have rightly argued that the so-called exceptions for rape, incest, or the patient’s health trumpeted by the Republican presidential nominee are effectively toothless window dressing, since the bans have a chilling effect on doctors who fear legal backlash for performing any abortions. As abortion rights activists also pointed out, the video left unsaid whether Trump would sign a national ban if congressional Republicans successfully brought a bill  to his desk.

     

    We need to challenge the MSM

    Find 25 cases of where ‘ rape, incest, life of the mother’ in Red States, ACTUALLY ALLOWED FOR AN ABORTION.

    Jessica Valenti says that THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS.

    I believe her.

    So, in all of these Red States that have abortion bans…

    The MSM should be able to find 25 cases of where the’ exceptions’ were allowed to get abortions.

    If you can’t find the 25, then that means

     

    THERE ARE NO EXCEPTIONS. So, stop allowing the GOP to LIE and say that there are exceptions.

  93. 93.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Jeffro: People really don’t want to admit that our fellow voters are the problem.  Reps, Senators, Assembly/City Council/School Board Members, Mayors, City Managers etc., don’t just magically appear in positions of power and influence like they just jumped out of a goddamn, Star Trek Transporter.  They win elections because voters vote for them and lots of voters don’t bother (or can’t) vote.  Many Americans really just can’t seem to wrap their heads around that reality and are in extreme denial about how shitty our Electorate is and has always been.

  94. 94.

    Eyeroller

    @Jeffro: The author is associated with the Niskanen Center, a “moderate” (cough) think tank (I think the bio said he was also a polisci prof at UPenn, so perhaps not full time).  The Niskanen Center was named for an advisor to Ronnie Reagan and was staffed by a bunch of refugees from the Cato Institute. Its current philosophy seems to be a mishmash of “market solutions” to environmental and social problems.  IOW right-wing solutions to left-wing concerns.

  96. 96.

    Another Scott

    @JaySinWA: I’m not advocating a particular path to getting Roe++ on the books (via statute or amendment).  It’s just that I’ve always heard that a Convention would be a DISASTER and yet we have evidence that it worked very well to get rid of Prohibition.

    Politics is complicated.  Smart politicians look at all the angles to get the job done.

    My personal view is:

    1. There’s almost nothing more personal than a person’s decision to reproduce or not.  It’s not the state’s business to force an outcome one way or the other.
    2.  Abortion has existed for thousands/tens-of-thousands of years in human society.  It is not going to go away.  And it shouldn’t.
    3.  Nobody has a right to impose their religious views on others.  Don’t like abortion?  Don’t have one.  If you’re in a public service or accommodation job, you do the job for all comers – your religion doesn’t trump that.  Disagree?  Get a different job.
    4.  Repeal the Hyde Amendment and keep it off the books.  Abortion is health care.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  100. 100.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: Lots of women are anti-abortion – my mother was. She gave 5% of her estate to one of those “pregnancy care” centers. They sent me a thank you note for the donation. I had to resist the urge to write them back, because after all it wasn’t my money.

  105. 105.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Eolirin: Thank you.  I don’t think people really understand that pregnancy and childbirth are still dangerous and still kill people.

    Examples- My mother nearly bled to death from placenta previa in 1966 – Yay C-section for the win.

    My sister in law had severe pre-eclampsia /HELLP syndrome with both pregnancies and had to be C-sectioned early to prevent her organs shutting down

    My niece had a baby who got stuck (shoulder dystocia)

    My daughter went into premature labor with a footling breech baby and had to have an emergency C-section

    I had one incomplete miscarriage that required a D/C and one miscarriage that dropped my BP to 60/40  –  good OBs and ER docs are the awesome.

  106. 106.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @WaterGirl:

    States have been limiting abortions rights for the past decade, at least, in spite of Roe.

    Exactly. Which is why it makes no sense to “pre-compromise” on this.

    Also Project 2025 makes it clear that their goal is to completely ban abortion, no exceptions.

  109. 109.

    Brachiator

    @Another Scott:

    There’s almost nothing more personal than a person’s decision to reproduce or not.  It’s not the state’s business to force an outcome one way or the other.

    We’ve come a long way.

    The 1965 Supreme Court case, Griswold v Connecticut, ultimately rejected a body of law which held that the state had an interest in making sure that married couples had children.

    And a part of this prior body of law was the Comstock Act, which seemed to assert that people should produce as many kids as possible, but without pleasure. Consider the type of material they wanted to ban.

    “Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication of an indecent character, and every article or thing designed, adapted, or intended for preventing conception or producing abortion, or for any indecent or immoral use…

    And of course in a recent case under consideration, Justices Alito and Thomas tried to resurrect the Comstock laws.

  110. 110.

    Kay

    I read the comments on the eclipse last night and you-all have convinced me. I can easily get to an area with totality so I’m taking offf early from work and doing that.

    I don’t have glasses but I’ll use the pinhole/paper method. I have a welder’s helmet – it’s not “mine” but I have one- but I can’t tell what number the shade is – has to be higher than 12. I was disappointed – I wanted to wear a welder’s helmet and sit on the hood of my car parked by the side of the road :)

  111. 111.

    suzanne

    @laura:

    Anyone besides me remember when he said “you have to have some form of punishment for the woman” because I sure do. 

    Yes, thank you.
    He wasn’t supposed to say it out loud!

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @rikyrah:

    Such an obvious lie. Exactly double Bidens. But this is a game with media and Trump – they’re a team. He lies to them and they pretend he isn’t. It’s a well rehearsed dance.

  114. 114.

    Roberto el oso

    @sdhays: This. 100%. I too am surprised why he even bothered. I was expecting the usual kick-it-down-the-road routine, like he did with Infrastructure Week and his bigly, beautiful health care policy. And instead all he’s done is upset the super-extremists on his side while not moving the needle at all among anyone who might desperately have been hoping for some pretty lies that could be labeled ‘moderate’ or ‘centrist’.

  116. 116.

    Jeffro

    trump’s cynical punt on abortion

    Donald Trump would like you to know that he has decided not to take much of a position at all on abortion restrictions.  And he would also like you to know that he is punting on this issue for transparently political reasons.

    But after a year of Trump hemming and hawing, the video adds little clarity on where he actually stands on abortion rights or restrictions.  If the video contains news at all, it’s that Trump has reverted to saying this is a states’ issue, after flirting with a 15-week federal ban. But Trump does not say how many weeks he’d recommend for state abortion bans; he only outlines support for exceptions in cases of rape, incest and the life of the mother, and says babies should not be killed after birth (they aren’t).

    It’s a remarkable microcosm of just how frightened the GOP is of its newfound ability to restrict abortion rights, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. Just days ago, the national GOP’s preferred Senate candidate in Wisconsin — a swing state — said he supported protecting abortion rights “early on in a pregnancy,” a position once unthinkable in the modern GOP. Now the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee is basically trying to wash his hands of the issue.

    this malicious clown is such an unprincipled disaster…for the GOP

  118. 118.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @TBone: You mean “Coeven?“, lol.

    If you’ve never seen it, this is from the documentary An American Movie which is one of the most hilarious and strange documentaries I’ve ever seen.  At least it was last time I watched it maybe 12 years ago.  I think it still probably holds up.  It’s about the making of an extremely low-budget, indie, horror film.

  119. 119.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    But, one day/battle at a time

    This may be part of the reason that we are here in the first place. And I don’t disagree with you that sometimes, maybe most often it has to be one day one battle at a time. But we’ve been here before, we’ve been through this bullshit. (And yes, no or very few laws are always going to be 100% correct – it’s language – and humans) I believe that if we are ever going to be the country that we think we are, we have to realize that there will always be humans that want to control others – for various reasons, many of them not even realistic. In my lifetime – and that of many/most here now we have people that always want control/decision making about others lives. Now there are always going to be times that we need control over others lives – for criminal behavior. But we have to look at the world not from only one vantage point. If we want equality – and we absolutely should, then we must have control over our own bodies. We have the right to be repeatedly stabbed with needles to create tattoos. Personally I don’t get the point but then I don’t have to do this. If we actually want to be a free country how can we demand that women do what they don’t want to do? How can we make a determination that they HAVE TO GIVE BIRTH? That is distinctly not freedom. I do not know all the answers, hell I don’t even know all the questions, but I do know that if we want actual freedom then woman have to have the same rights as men – to not give birth. I am a male and I can absolutely not grow or give birth to another human. I can help create one, but after that I’m out of the entire process – other than support. I have the right of my own body but a woman doesn’t?

    That really does not make this a “free” country does it?

  120. 120.

    Jeffro

    more:

     

    And as Trump has arrived at his “position,” he has made it pretty clear why he’s doing it.  “You must follow your heart on this issue, but remember: You must also win elections …” Trump says in the video.  In a post previewing the video Sunday night, Trump added that “we must use common sense in realizing that we have an obligation to the salvation of our Nation … TO WIN ELECTIONS, without which we will have nothing other than failure, death, and destruction.”

    During a Fox News town hall earlier this year, Trump responded to a woman urging him not to compromise on abortion rights by saying four times that the GOP needs to “win elections.”  “I love where you are coming from,” Trump told the woman. “But we still have to win elections.”  Translation: I can’t say what you want me to say, because it would be politically unwise.

    taking tips from ol’ Smilin’ Glenn Youngkin, I see

  121. 121.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Jeffro:

    I did not think the withdrawal from Afghanistan was humiliating. I thought it was long overdue. I thought the continued occupation, with the lying and the bombed wedding parties and the lying, was maybe not humiliating, but pretty pathetic, morally indefensible, and politically stupid. I am proud of Biden for withdrawing and I do not believe it was a disaster.

  122. 122.

    Jay C

    @Jeffro:

    Yeah, I read that nonsense in the NYT, and gave up when I reached the bit where the author suggested that President Biden stop being “chipper” about the economy, since (apparently) only doom-and-gloom obsession on the nation’s “problems” is a potential political winner….

  124. 124.

    Baud

    @Jay C:

    They’re afraid Biden will convince people.

    ETA: there’s a big push out there to talk down the economy.

  125. 125.

    trollhattan

    @Steeplejack:

    It was a really convoluted way of saying “Well, we’re obviously not getting him elected but we can burn the landscape to get Trump elected and then yay, we got rid of Biden!!!”

    ETA would not be surprised in the least if RFKJR’s actual goal is being Trump’s HHS secretary.

  126. 126.

    Old School

    From the Trump election interference/hush money case:

    The filings are still not publicly available, but @nytimes is reporting that Trump is indeed seeking a delay of trial through an unusual form of appeal that involves suing the judge directly:https://t.co/cUeJa5OgUW— Lisa Rubin (@lawofruby) April 8, 2024

  127. 127.

    Tenar Arha

    @Lapassionara: Note, reproductive freedom is the term that includes more than abortion, it’s everything. HPV vaccines, birth control, IVF, pre-pregnancy & pre-natal and post-birth care for women and for their children, even sterilization but ONLY if that’s what a woman wants. Healthcare, bodily autonomy, must include reproductive justice for everyone. We should all be supported enough to decide if we want to use birth control or not,  if we want to be mothers or not, bear children or not. stay home with an infant or not, use daycare or not, etc

    I feel like one of the reasons women have had their rights taken away in the first place is that my mother’s generation of white women accepted the compromise that abortion, birth control, and childcare weren’t something worth pursuing the $$ to be included as part of women’s freedoms, and stopped working in alliance for those things. Not being able to decide when or if one could afford to have child isn’t liberty, is it? That too is part of women’s reproductive freedom, and all of this is part of the framework of reproductive justice.

  128. 128.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @rikyrah: No shade against her other albums, but I’m really loving this one.  The songs are more complex in chord structures and there’s more acoustic instruments (guitar and drums), so it’s just more up my personal alley.  And I love hearing such clearly, Black perspectives and lyrics in the context of Country (ish) music.  So good :)

  130. 130.

    Jeffro

    @Old School: Mr. Innocent suuuuuuure does seem to want to put off his COMPLETE and TOTAL vindication for as long as possible, doesn’t he?  Odd, that…

  138. 138.

    Glory b

    @Jackie: As has been said before, lots of people like the things the Democratic party could provide for them. They just don’t want to vote for the party with black people in it. Putting our proposals out as stand alone ballot measures gives them the chance to have that.

  139. 139.

    Sure Lurkalot

    OT Think you’re unlucky? I was just jawing on Friday about getting my free Covid booster and being a novid…tested positive yesterday. Apparently my DH’s runny nose last week was not seasonal allergies. Didn’t even think about it until we both felt sick yesterday.

    Four years was a good run though I (but not DH) wear a mask indoors fairly regularly. We’ve traveled a bit and even attended a few potential superspreader events.

    Besides feeling crappy, I had fun things planned for the week.

  140. 140.

    Bokonon

    @Scout211: Yep.  All he said was “let’s go with what we already have right now. States’ Rights! I ended Roe! There’s something for everyone so vote for me!”  Or something similar.

    The extra scam?  The smirk and the wink?  If a future Trump administration gets into power, they can aggressively use executive orders and the Comstock Act to go after then interstate distribution of drugs and abortion information at a federal level.  Much screaming!  Turmoil and investigations and prosecutions everywhere!  And the GOP can play dumb and say how unfortunate it all is, but you have to enforce the LAW, after all.

    The GOP already pulls this act as a way to bumfuzzle the public about the effects of other extreme policies – with the added benefit that it makes many low-information people cynical and frustrated at government, since they don’t know who to blame when their lives get worse.

  143. 143.

    Soprano2

    @Kay: I agree, keep the message simple. People don’t have a lot of time to absorb a complex message. KISS is the right approach, and it has the benefit of being the truth no matter how much the R’s try to lie about their true intentions.

  144. 144.

    Jeffro

    @Jeffro: Pence: trump’s position is a “slap in the face” to the pro-life movement

    WOW

    (I’ll give him props: Pence knows that the sooner trumpov loses, the sooner the GOP goes back to ‘normal’…and this is one way to help him lose)

  145. 145.

    Baud

    @Jeffro:

    You know, I figured it would have no effect, but even if it has a small effect, that might make a huge difference.

  147. 147.

    Soprano2

    @Jeffro: And at the feet of Republicans in Congress (for the most part, ManciSinema have a part to play in the dysfunction too). Most of the things cited there either need Congress to pass a law, or are things government can’t do that much about. I get frustrated at how so many people think the president has a magic wand he can wave to magically cure all our ills.

  148. 148.

    Jeffro

    OT but has anyone else seen that video of RFK Jr’s New York campaign director, admitting on camera that the goal of his campaign is to deny Biden 270 EVs and throw the election to the (presumably GOP) House?

    Just flat-out admitting it.

  149. 149.

    Kirk

    @Lapassionara: this ma have already been answered but I’ve got to duck out again, so…

    To me the better deal is a person has absolute authority over what is implanted in and/or removed from their body.

  150. 150.

    Soprano2

    @rikyrah: I heard an interview on The Daily Show last week where Colin Allred said something like 26,000 women in Texas have been forced to have their rapist’s baby since the overturn of Roe. You could hear the shock from the audience when he said it. Why isn’t the press talking about this? Kay’s right, they’re terrible on this issue. They assume those “exceptions” work, when they don’t. If this directly affected men you can bet the coverage would be different (and better).

  151. 151.

    Jeffro

    Also new Biden/Harris 2024 ad out w/ “Josh & Amanda” (Amanda is the woman in TX who was unable to access care when she miscarried, which resulted in her nearly dying)

    just horrifying

  152. 152.

    Ruckus

    @hueyplong:

    Sending thoughts and prayers.

    First – why?

    Second – Are your thoughts and prayers that it should go down a hell of a lot more – and faster?

  153. 153.

    Baud

    Biden, Via reddit

    Donald Trump made it clear once again today that he is – more than anyone in America – the person responsible for ending Roe v. Wade. He is – more than anyone in America – responsible for creating the cruelty and the chaos that has enveloped America since the Dobbs decision.

    “Trump once said women must be punished for seeking reproductive health care – and he’s gotten his wish. Women are being turned away from emergency rooms, forced to go to court to seek permission for the medical attention they need, and left to travel hundreds of miles for health care. In states like Florida, abortion will likely soon be illegal before many women know they’re pregnant. Because of Donald Trump, one in three women in America already live under extreme and dangerous bans that put their lives at risk and threaten doctors with prosecution for doing their jobs. And that is only going to get worse. With all his empty words on fertility treatments, Trump doesn’t tell you the MAGA Republicans he controls in Congress have put forward bills that could ban fertility treatments and that the Speaker of the House he empowered is one of the strongest supporters for a national abortion ban in the nation. Let there be no illusion. If Donald Trump is elected and the MAGA Republicans in Congress put a national abortion ban on the Resolute Desk, Trump will sign it into law.

    “Here’s what Donald Trump doesn’t understand: When he ripped away Roe v. Wade, he ripped away a fundamental right for the women of America that the United States Supreme Court had affirmed and reaffirmed for 50 years. As a fundamental right, it didn’t matter where you lived. It was granted to you as an American, not as a resident of any state. Generations of women had come to rely on that right. Now we’re in the extraordinary position where women today have fewer rights than their mothers and grandmothers. That has never happened before in America. And it cannot be allowed to stand. I am determined to restore the federal protections of Roe v. Wade. So it won’t matter where you live in America: The fundamental right to choose for women will once again be the law of the land. If you give me and Vice President Harris a Democratic Congress, that is exactly what we will do.

    “Trump is simply lying. There was no groundswell of support in America for overturning Roe. In fact, support for Roe is higher today in America than it has ever been. The real truth is Trump made a political deal in 2016. He promised to appoint a Court that would get rid of Roe. And he had to make good on that debt. So he did. It was never about public policy or what was right or what Trump believed. It was always about politics.

    “Trump admits as much in his statement today. Having created the chaos of overturning Roe, he’s trying to say, ‘Oh, never mind. Don’t punish me for that. I just want to win.’

    “Trump is scrambling. He’s worried that since he’s the one responsible for overturning Roe the voters will hold him accountable in 2024. Well, I have news for Donald. They will. America was built on personal freedom and liberty. So, there is nothing more un-American than having our personal freedoms taken away. And that is what Donald Trump has done.

    “As I have said many times since the Dobbs decision, Donald Trump and all those responsible for overturning Roe don’t have a clue about the power of women in America. But they are about to find out.”

  156. 156.

    Sure Lurkalot

    @Kay:

    But this is a game with media and Trump – they’re a team. He lies to them and they pretend he isn’t. It’s a well rehearsed dance.

    I think it’s far worse. The media now thinks it’s journalism to comb the marketplace of ideas and stenograph them, because whatever “people are sayin” is “news” fit to print and it’s the reader’s job to discern what to believe.

    “Truth, you decide” should be the FTFNYT’s masthead.

  158. 158.

    terry chay

    @schrodingers_cat:  that statistic compares a presidential year to a midterm without adjusting for turnout. What happened was that white and Hispanic women in states where abortion was protected (notably California and New York) did not turn out to vote compared to presidential years thus skewing h to Pew data. This is well known in cohort analysis, so the deception on data being misrepresented in this way is deliberate to show something that isn’t there.

    what is there is a consistent swing of women voters in all demographics toward democrats since Dobbs. You have to cherry pick bad data like this one (presidential vs. non presidential, early post Dobbs election, where the cohort is polluted by large populations under very Blue state control) to see otherwise. This sea change is actually immense.

  159. 159.

    Ruckus

    @Another Scott:

    #1 An answer. If the birth rate goes up so does the possibility of the level of tax income to the state……

    #2 Yep. A question for centuries that no one wanted to discuss – take a blind eye. That is just a bit more difficult to do in today’s world.

    #3 Just because no one has the right has not dissuaded many from barging into others rights over autonomy of their own bodies for centuries.

  160. 160.

    Soprano2

    @Old School: He is absolutely terrified of a trial, because he knows he’s going to be found guilty. An innocent person would want the trial to be over with.

  161. 161.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Old School: this is a terrible idea roughly 999,999,999 times out of 1,000,000,000.  I’m sure Alina Habba was on board with it.

  163. 163.

    Hoodie

    @Baud: I’d say that’s about the right way to respond.   Trump apparently thinks he can run away from being anti-abortion by hiding behind “let the states decide,” but Dobbs is horrible in its own right because its based on the arbitrary criterion of where you happen to live.   He probably would have been more successful in bamboozling at least some voters if he expressed some vague support for a 15 week ban with vague “exceptions,” as a lot of idiots would have assumed this is a floor instead of the ceiling that proponents of such bans have in mind and would simply assume that the exceptions are actually practical.  The only people who will be bamboozled by this are media types who want to normalize Trump and, perhaps, some of his wealthier donors who know they can send their wives or daughters to a blue state for an abortion and just want to make sure he doesn’t seem too radical to get elected and secure their tax cuts.

  166. 166.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Soprano2: He also has to know that the headlines are going to be filled with damning stuff about him for several weeks during the trial.

  167. 167.

    Soprano2

    So I’ve seen several posts on FB with people trying to find eclipse glasses THIS MORNING! I got mine at Menards about three months ago. I also saw a pic of I-55 south of St Louis, it’s backed up about 20 miles. I hate to think what Highway 60 going east from Springfield looks like right now.

  169. 169.

    JWR

    NBC is running live shots of the eclipse from Mazatlan. That’s about it, images of the Sun covered by the Moon, which is Boooring. And finally they briefly show us the view on the ground. Now that’s what I call wild!

  171. 171.

    wjca

    @pat: I look forward to living long enough to vote for Pete for President!!!

    Watching him, listening to him, puts me in mind of JFK saying: “The torch has been passed to a new generation…”

  172. 172.

    Baud

    After looking at the sun through a mirror, I Googled and found out you’re not supposed to do that either.

  174. 174.

    rikyrah

    @Old School:

    He does not want this case to start. Not only because it’s a simple case for the Prosecution, but, also because IT’S A STATE CASE and the President cannot pardon him out of it.

  176. 176.

    Ruckus

    @Jeffro:

    shitforbrains doesn’t give one tiny fuck about anyone other than shitforbrains. Not the smallest, tiniest, skinniest, worst fuck. In that tiny, worse than useless, disgusting, self-centered, broken mind there is no one else but Dumb Jackoff Trump.

  177. 177.

    Lyrebird

    @laura: the state’s interest in potential human life cannot outweigh the pregnant person’s interest in their own life.

    Bears repeating!

    I don’t have any supporting data, but I wonder if among conservatives, more of the women know and admit that blocking abortion care means promoting infliction of complete infertility and even death on women.

  178. 178.

    Roberto el oso

    @Melancholy Jaques: Agree. And simply in terms of the logistical immensity of the thing, and given the potential for a far higher casualty count, it was an astounding achievement. A major success and a prime example of presidential courage, in my book.

  179. 179.

    sdhays

    @Steve in the ATL: Trump won’t suffer any extra consequences from something like this, though. Typically, you don’t want to upset the judge because they can make things harder for you, but having the judge go easy on him wasn’t ever something that was going to happen with Trump, either because of how awful he already has been to every judge he’s ever been in front of or because of the case against him.

    Trump believes, and I don’t think he’s wrong, that everything comes down to November. If he wins, he can make everything go away, because even the State of New York can’t arrest the President of the United States.

    At least, not once the President is “Dictator on Day One”.

  181. 181.

    rikyrah

    @Soprano2:

    You could hear the shock from the audience when he said it. Why isn’t the press talking about this?

     

    because they CAN’T BOTH SIDES THE ISSUE.

    I don’t think people grasp how deeply wedded the MSM is to being able to BOTH SIDES an issue.

     

    So, it they can’t BOTH SIDES the issue, then they just won’t bring it up. Unless forced to, with the Abortion Rights Referendums. They are a story the day of the Election, and maybe 2 days later, but, a week out? No more stories.

    Prove me wrong. Find stories about the Abortion rights votes that have happened in states since Dobbs. Consistent stories.

  182. 182.

    JWR

    Ha ha! Bill Nye (the science guy), just said that everyone’s got an “electric” phone, before reminding us to put them down and look around.

  184. 184.

    wjca

    @Baud: The market works!

    But slowly.  Very sloooowly.  Otherwise Trump Social would already be a penny stock at best.

  185. 185.

    Citizen Alan

    @trollhattan:

    ETA would not be surprised in the least if RFKJR’s actual goal is being Trump’s HHS secretary.

    Me neither. I am absolutely certain that if Shitgibbon wins, the federal government will ban vaccines of all kinds nationwide. There is a reason I call the GOP a death cult. Because they will kill us all just to own the libs.

  186. 186.

    sdhays

    @Roberto el oso: I think the use of “humiliating” is more revealing than intended. Whoever is writing that felt sad when the US withdrew from Afghanistan and it didn’t got that smoothly (although no one was saying anything while most of the troops were being withdrawn during the Dump Administration), but they really don’t have a coherent opinion on what the “correct” policy should have been.

    They just don’t like feeling humiliated before going to brunch. Such a drag!

  187. 187.

    Sister Golden Bear

    @JWR: Agreed. The moments just before/after total eclipse — with the Bailey’s Beads — are dramatic, but equally dramatic are the changes on the ground.

    Though experiencing in person vs. watching it on television is like the difference between lightning and a lightning bug

    ETA: PBS News Hour on YouTube is doing a split-screen of both the eclipse and the ground right now.

  188. 188.

    Steeplejack

    I was looking for some video background for my computer surfing and was surprised to see how many channels are going all in on eclipse coverage. MSNBC has languid news princess Katy Tur at the helm, which is a deal-breaker. Maybe the Weather Channel might be okay.

    CBS wins for the most unintentionally funny/​sinister title: Total Eclipse of the Heartland. Save those chyrons for Trump/​MAGA coverage later.

    ETA: CBS now showing 4+ minutes of totality in Kerrville, TX. Pretty impressive.

  189. 189.

    sdhays

    @rikyrah: I think they’re pretty happy to report on issues that they think are problematic for Democrats without finding something to also criticize the “other side” about.

    I wonder why…🤔

  190. 190.

    wjca

    @Another Scott: It’s just that I’ve always heard that a Convention would be a DISASTER and yet we have evidence that it worked very well to get rid of Prohibition.

    That’s a national convention to amend the Constitution.  These were state conventions to ratify an amendment passed by Congress.

  194. 194.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @trollhattan: to put this in context. Tesla has such a shitty reputation in Silicon Valley as a company to work for their recruiter are still begging me to interview there after two years.  Everyone I have meet who worked there said they would never do it again.

  195. 195.

    JWR

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    equally dramatic are the changes on the ground.

    Oy, so I’ve heard. :( I’ve sadly never been under a complete eclipse, maybe halfway once, and all I noticed was that the  noonday sun felt a bit like afternoon. But I’ve been switching between CBS and NBC, and the CBS on-the-ground team is really blowing it, walking around the crowd with their “make sure our anchor is fully lit” lighting. If I were there I’d give ’em what for!

  196. 196.

    schrodingers_cat

    @terry chay: White women haven’t voted for Democrats for a long time as a demographic with an exception or two during the Clinton years. If Dobbs has changed that, it is good news.

    This 2022 Pew data doesn’t reflect that so far as I can see.

  197. 197.

    zhena gogolia

    Student just tried to give me a pair of glasses and get me to go outside. Why is it that I just don’t care?

  199. 199.

    Ruckus

    @Citizen Alan:

    Rethuglicans want control. They do not want to be controlled but they do want control. They want the world to be exactly how they see it should be and everyone else taking a knee to them.

    Explain to me how I’m wrong – if you can.

    In reality it makes no sense to control but not be controlled.

    But then if one views their concept of government to be about controlling everyone but the controllers it all does make sense.

    Ignorant, useless, non sensical sense but still……..

    Maybe it is my age and having been a political observer for a majority of said life, but rethuglicans have always wanted control over others, to attempt to make a world that in one way or another makes sense to them. It doesn’t to most non conservatives but then they don’t seem to give a rat’s ass about anyone’s freedoms, ideals and rights but their own. This world has changed a lot in my lifetime, things like we are doing right this minute didn’t exist not all that long ago. Most of us will never meet but we can discuss life, liberty and all that. The world is considerably different than when I was born. Travel, communications, ideals, politics are different in many ways. But the reality is that we are all still humans, part of the wonders and dangers of life. We’ve made both more obvious and useable, even if not always better.

  200. 200.

    Nelle

    Des Moines, Iowa.  A few minutes before our maximum.  Still sunny but much dimmer in the shade.  The children at the school less than half a block away must all be on the playground.  So much excited yelling.  My neighbor gave me glasses a few hours ago and there is a little crescent sun.  I was at a total eclipse in 2017, so I’m good with this and remembering that I could see the moon shadow moving toward us, covering us, and departing.  That was good enough for a lifetime.

  202. 202.

    2liberal

    @Jackie:

    Question for Floridians: Will Floridians really vote for abortion rights, and simultaneously vote for republicans to keep those opposing abortion rights in office?

    I just don’t see how that happens

     

    check silverman’s history for “florida man”  posts

  203. 203.

    Steeplejack

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    I saw that movie in the theater when it first came out. It was indeed hilarious and strange. I remember the scene where (I think) they were discussing the need for a female scream for the soundtrack and the sidekick guy spontaneously let out an extended, bone-chilling scream that sounded entirely authentic.

  206. 206.

    Indycat32

    Is it ok to look at the white moon glow now that it’s total? Because you can’t see anything with the glasses.

  210. 210.

    Misterpuff

    The GOP and Alito stepped in it and now Dems and women will get what the GOPers and the Religous Right always claimed We wanted : Abortion On Demand and No Restrictions.

    Of course they were wrong, the Public and the Dems would have been fine with the Roe decision (even as it was being sliced and diced by the Right.)

    But they had to try to grab the brass ring, and now everyone knows what the endgame is.

     

    So , No Compromises . We want what they are trying to take from us and more.

     

    And shit-can the F’ing Hyde Amendment. Abortion is Women’s Healthcare and our taxes should pay for it.

    No Compromise, No Restrictions!

     

    At least that’s my take on it.

     

    ETA to fix dumb spelling errors.

  212. 212.

    frosty

    @Kay: Hope it worked out for you. It clouded up near Cleveland but the sun (and eclipse) cut through the high haze. Just awesome in the real sense of the word.

  214. 214.

    Another Scott

    @wjca: Yeahbut, it was still the first and only time it’s been done that way.

    But, yeah, there’s a difference.

    Thanks.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  215. 215.

    emjayay

    Buttigieg forgot to mention the other reason for a late term abortion: discovery of gross defects of the fetus that will prevent it from living once born. The other choice is bearing the child and watching it die – suffering all the time and/or starving to death, or for some spending millions of dollars a year of other people’s money (or for as long as the baby lives which could be days, weeks or months) on keeping a perhaps brainless or unconscious being alive.

    Religious right wingers think everything God makes is perfect or at least good enough. Sometimes it’s far from that. Old time doctors and midwives who delivered a lot of babies probably assisted in ending a newborn’s life more than once because of this, often without telling anyone including the mother.

  216. 216.

    emjayay

    @Soprano2:

    Why isn’t the press talking about this? Kay’s right, they’re terrible on this issue.

    Captain Obvious here, but they are generally terrible on every issue, even ignoring Fox News and the mini-Foxes totally cherry picked slanted coverage of everything.

    How many articles has anyone seen about polls on the Presidential race six or eight months before the election, or opinionating about how something is Bad For Biden? Or about what stupid thing Donald said or tweeted today? A million of ’em.

    Meanwhile actual issues and pertinent important events are largely ignored.

  217. 217.

    Kay

    @frosty:

    It was fun but not complete. I screwed it up a little- I needed to be 20 miles west. I was so thankful for the glasses though- I could really see. I love the light as it happens, how it shimmers. Just amazing.

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