Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

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

The lights are all blinking red.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Everybody saw this coming.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

We are builders in a constant struggle with destroyers. keep building.

Decision time: keep arguing about the last election, or try to win the next one?

Giving in to doom is how we fail to fight for ourselves & one another.

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Giving in to doom is how authoritarians win.

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

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

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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

You are either for trump or for democracy. Pick one.

Beware of advice from anyone for whom Democrats are “they” and not “we.”

You are here: Home / Healthcare / TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: GOP Out of Our Uteri!

TGIFriday Morning Open Thread: GOP Out of Our Uteri!

by | 217 Comments

This post is in: , , , , ,

Putting it in terms that the low-info voter can understand…

Senate Democratic campaigns are launching a month-long blitz on reproductive rights, pressing Republicans on abortion as the second anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade approaches, Axios has learned.

Why it matters: Republicans have suffered at the ballot box since the Supreme Court overturned the landmark abortion rights case, and Democrats will elevate it as a top election issue this year.

– Campaigns in all battleground states will partake, a Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee aide told Axios.

– The blitz will include paid advertising from the DSCC, events hosted by campaigns and local organizations, and social media activity.

The big picture: Senate Democrats will also spend this month voting on reproductive rights bills, marking an all-encompassing barrage from the party on abortion rights.

– The bills have no chance of being considered in the Republican-controlled House, but aim to put Republicans in the tough position of voting against federal protections for contraception…

Remember: Sharing is caring!

It’s all about controlling women — the go-to resort for angry, weak, insecure men.

Reader Interactions

217Comments

  1. 1.

    Baud

    When people ask “how did we get here?” the answer is “too many of us were blasé about real threats.”

  2. 2.

    Suzanne

    who says birth control “screws up female brains”

    Even I seriously underestimated just how many men were crammed full of ressentiment at their mediocrity.

  4. 4.

    SFAW

    I’m still waiting for a non-bullshit explanation from RWMFs as to why they’re against women having access to contraception methods.

    No, not really. The only reason they want this is to keep women “in their place.” Any other “explanation” will be a lie, designed to fool the rubes into thinking they have a valid reason for doing this.

    They’re coming for Griswold; the only question is whether they go after it (at ISCOTUS) before they go after Lawrence and/or Obergefell.

  5. 5.

    Suzanne

    @Baud: Many things seem patently obvious to sane people — such as “people being able to choose birth control for themselves” and “LGBT people should be able to marry whoever they want” and “mind your own fucken business” — and they don’t really grok how recently those sentiments became obvious, and how tenuous that is.

    Part of it, I think, is that we’re sort of socially trained to avoid the three contentious topics (politics, religion, sex) and thus it’s easy to underestimate how many people are fucken reprehensible.

  6. 6.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Baud:

    When people ask “how did we get here?” the answer is “too many of us were blasé about real threats.”

    Or “Too many were deaf to the entreaties from others about real threats”.  This has been one long “We Told You So” moment that in this case, I wish we’d been wrong about.

    One thing good going forward from an operational sense is how Dems with an audience are no longer afraid to tap dance around the question of abortion rights.  We’re tackling it straight on with straight on language and not pulling any punches.

    As I said yesterday, VP Harris is *the* perfect person in this role.

  7. 7.

    SFAW

    @Suzanne:

    crammed full of ressentiment

    I was this many years old when I learned a new word — thanks!

    I disagree re: ascribing it to their “mediocrity,” however. I ascribe it to their (current) inability to control anything/everything that women do.

  8. 8.

    Kay

    In the clip Kirk says birth control causes women to vote for Democrats – the medication acting on their brains.

  10. 10.

    SFAW

    @Kay: ​
     
    Their entire Partei is like a combination of Goebbels and Dunning-Kruger. If I were smarter, I’d figure out a pithy phrase to encapsulate that for Dem messaging.

  11. 11.

    Bupalos

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Without disagreeing that too many of us are blind to the threats coming at us, I’d emphasize a flip-side. Too many of us are confused about what solidarity means, and how we maintain and strengthen and expand it. This confusion continues to be evidenced by the way we talk about these threats and over particularize our resistance and couch it in terms of particular identity.

    Abortion law is not a threat specific to people with female reproductive gear. It’s a general threat to American freedom. Voting access is not a threat specific to black people or poor people. It’s a threat to American freedom and democracy. Muslim travel bans or mass deportation initiatives are not threats specific to people of middle eastern extraction or to hispanics. They are threats to American freedom and democracy.

    We’re having a terrible time defending against really outrageous attacks that offend the basic sensibilities of what it means to be an American largely because we aren’t able to find the language and mentality of expanding solidarity across identities and tend to collapse into a kind of mindset that subtly works against it. We collapse into making a moral appeal to the nation that essentially sounds like everyone needs to adopt a charitable stance towards particular distinct groups, when we need to be making an argument in terms of a broader understanding of common self interest.

  14. 14.

    SFAW

    @Bupalos:

    Abortion law is not a threat specific to people with female reproductive gear. It’s a general threat to American freedom. Voting access is not a threat specific to black people or poor people. It’s a threat to American freedom and democracy. Muslim travel bans or mass deportation initiatives are not threats specific to people of middle eastern extraction or to hispanics. They are threats to American freedom and democracy.

    This needs to be repeated, loudly, every day by the Demon-crap Party. Maybe the “my vote is too pure” and the “Trump or Biden, where’s the diff?” crowds will take it to heart.

  15. 15.

    Kay

    I don’t think most people know about the threat to birth control yet, so “Republicans won’t vote for it” is like an intro, which is good. Keep it simple at this stage.

    I would also suggest that we don’t have to connect this to abortion or womens rights. I think sometimes Democrats adopt a “teacher” role that is off-putting, somewhat patronizing and elicits resistance in people. Just say “Republicans oppose birth control” and let people make connections themselves – let them go where they want with it and put it in their own context.

  16. 16.

    AndyG

    Say it again and again:

    Republicans want to ban abortion, contraception and IVF.

    say it every hour and every day until the election.

  18. 18.

    TBone

    @Bupalos: do you ever get laid do NOT attempt to erase lady parts havers using intellectual arguments.  We outnumber AND outsmart that shyte.

    Other than that. Carry on.

  19. 19.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I think sometimes Democrats adopt a “teacher” role that is off-putting, somewhat patronizing and elicits resistance in people.

     

    I agree. People want to know where we stand. They don’t want us to teach them how they should stand.

  20. 20.

    Sally

    I have always preferred to refer to contraception as hormone therapy. It is quite commonly used as such, so it is both true and tactical. Some women may use it as both, but they are  necessary medications for women with various medical issues.  Medical issues that are none of anyone else’s business.  As with banning terminations, banning hormone therapy will have significant detrimental effects on women’s health care. All women, Republican and Democrat.

  21. 21.

    Trivia Man

    @Suzanne: Im planning on joining the next World Naked Bike Ride and i am disappointed to find what an awkward subject it is, even with people i know. Small concern i might be identified by my work and potentially face repercussions but otherwise DGAF. I work remotely so office and coworkers are on the other side of the state so small risk.

    Note: Newd is not the same as lewd and i want to help normalize that lesson.

  26. 26.

    Kay

    @Baud:

    I think of it as “Rachel Maddowing” :)

    If you answer peoples questions before they ask them the listener has no role and it’s not really a conversation. They really don’t have to think of this exactly like I do. They can have their own context and connections.

  27. 27.

    Trivia Man

    @Sally: unfortunately “hormone therapy” is now shorthand for transgender medical intervention. IMHO that makes it more difficult even though ot is a huge part of the actual medical function.

  29. 29.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Sally: As with banning terminations, banning hormone therapy will have significant detrimental effects on women’s health care. All women, Republican and Democrat.

    Oh no, Republican women will be immune to these laws, it’s only those DEMonrat sluts who will be denied them.

  30. 30.

    Almost Retired

    I am stunned at how politically stupid this assault on contraceptives is.  I have a strong sense that too many low and medium-information voters think that the Supreme Court abortion decision was overreach, but we’re fixing it at the ballet box.  So now we can go back to only sort of paying attention.

    But this (and everything else going on) should show even the ostrich who dug the deepest head hole that this modern Republican party is never going to be satisfied taking away just this one right (“we just want to take back the Rhineland like before.  That’s it”).

    The evil energizer elephant — they keep going and going and going.

  31. 31.

    Nelle

    Within the next few weeks, the Iowa Supreme Court will rule on the 6 week ban on abortion that Kim Reynold’s legislature voted in last summer ( she campaigned against incumbent R’s who didn’t vote her way on her big issues – school vouchers, anyi-abortion, child labor) in order to get “her” legislature.  And, in a similar vein, it is “her” supreme court, so I don’t have good expectations.

    Last night’s local Dem meeting featured a PA who talked about the impact of pregnancy on multiple body systems and the specialists involved when things go wrong.  Also, if you lose the gynecologists in your state due to out migration of docs  who will be treating other gynecologist issues, who will be there to discover uterine cancer, to refer you to the oncologist in time for treatment? Fewer docs, linger wait times, more opportunity for metastasis.

    But nine years of medical training has no weight for politicians who heard something from their preacher.

  32. 32.

    Trivia Man

    @Baud: its ok to be naked in front if people you aren’t sexually attracted to. Or see naked people with no sexual interest. I have met tens if thousands of people in my life and only a very small % of them had a sexual interaction with me. And thats ok.

  33. 33.

    Shalimar

    @Kay: Charlie Kirk is a community college dropout.  His uneducated opinions don’t generally make much sense.

  34. 34.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    I think of it as “Rachel Maddowing”

    Haha. Too funny.

    I think groups on our side does have a tendency of wanting to convert people into the group, instead of creating alliances among people of different mindsets against a common foe.

  35. 35.

    Kay

    @Almost Retired:

    It’s amusing to me because the assault on contraceptives isn’t in the GOP Senate. They’re not that stupid. The assault on contraception is centered in the huge grift-orama that surrounds Right wing politics and GOP Senators are being dragged along into stupid moves like voting against birth control.

  36. 36.

    Bupalos

    @TBone: Well that escalated quickly. See though, here’s the expanding solidarity problem. In your framing, I also just erased hispanics, blacks, and middle-easterners, yet you neglected to call me out on their behalf with “do you ever even eat tabbouleh, dude?”

    The reality of the Niemoller piece about the authoritarians coming for one group and then the other is that it is an accurate depiction of how this all works when we fail to zoom out from particular identity to common solidarity at the start and every point along the way. It’s not a moral appeal to charity for others, repaid by the benevolent universe in a kind of karmic exchange. it’s a practical appeal to the self interest of solidarity, and an attempt to “erase identity” in your framing. Absolutely solidarity benefits from deemphasizing identity, it’s practically the definition. And absolutely I expect that consideration to provoke strong reactions, because I think we’re just generally mired in a kind of identity particularist mindset that is enabling the enemies of freedom to murder us by a thousand cuts.

  38. 38.

    Trivia Man

    @Trivia Man: My immediate thought on anyone bashing 🏳️‍⚧️ people, or aggressively speculating on 🏳️‍⚧️ or not 🏳️‍⚧️???? Is “are you actively trying to make a sexual relationship with them and physically consummate it?” That is the one not situation where i think it’s relevant.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @Nelle: We’re also going to get EMTALA this month, which will be a 6-3 decision reaffirming that the state owns women.

  40. 40.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @SFAW: I’m still waiting for a non-bullshit explanation from RWMFs as to why they’re against women having access to contraception methods.

    You obviously don’t understand the  Religious Right then, there is nothing but bullshit over there.  We are talking about people who claim the earth is flat, magnets work by magic, Jesus road a dinosaur and the flooding on Mars proves Noah’s Flood in the Bible.

    People talk about MAGA being a cult, well Trump got that cult by hijacking the Religious Right. The point of things like advocating denying a mother medical treatment for miscarriage is to make these Evangelicals so offensive to normal society that they are trapped in their churches.

  41. 41.

    Soprano2

    @Baud: Too many people didn’t take TCFG seriously, and didn’t believe he would do what he said he would. Too many people are still doing that today, even after everything that happened while he was president. It’s like that tweet on the overnight thread, as far as the press is concerned Biden is running for real president and TCFG is running for clown president, and those are the standards they’re being held to.

  42. 42.

    TBone

    @Bupalos: solidarity is a wonderful thing. Carry on!  I took grumpy exception because of the theme of this Front Page.  Allyship must prevail and that part of your comment (almost the entirety) is spot on.

  43. 43.

    Jeffro

    Mrs. Fro on our morning walk today, after asking me for a news update: “They blocked WHAT?!??”

    I know the economy is doing well and trump is deteriorating by the day, but sometimes I think that Democrats should campaign on literally nothing but reproductive rights.

    I know we can ‘walk and chew gum at the same time’ as a party.  The question is, can low-info voters?

    (I guess the other question is, is there anything that will motivate our base + independent voters as well as reproductive rights?  Probably not.)

  44. 44.

    Betty Cracker

    Justice Rapey McKegstand is writing a “legal memoir.” The court’s FedSoc hacks would be well advised to STFU for a while — they’ve cost the institution enough with their corruption and boundless arrogance. But nope!

  47. 47.

    Kay

    @Nelle:

    GOP Senators actually tried to make the hearing sort of scientifical – its how you know that criticism lands with them. But their physician, while she is a physician, is a religious extremist lunatic who cites bad studies and can’t come up with a scenario where pregnancy puts womens health or lives at risk. Patty Murray took her apart – nice job – not shouty- just methodically discrediting her with questions.

  48. 48.

    Peale

    One of the interesting facts

    “One thing that’s helpful to know is just how common it is. About 2% of births in the US results from IVF. Over 8 million babies have been born using this technology.”

    I’m pretty sure there has to be some undecided voters who were planning, trying, or currently using that method, and they should all be adults. And just call it the war on fertility treatment.

    I know, I know, its difficult to know how kids turn out and lots of parents regret having them, but I’m pretty sure a high percentage of the families of the 8 million kids were pleased with the results.  You’ve really got to go big into the idea of “pulling up the ladder” to vote to ban it for other people.

  49. 49.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Baud:

    When people ask “how did we get here?” the answer is “too many of us were blasé about real threats.”

    And “many were distracted by shiny objects.”

  50. 50.

    Baud

    @Betty Cracker:

     

     

    House Dems Introduce Ethics Bill for US Supreme Court After Alito Controversy
    By Crystal Hill

    June 5, 2024

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of House Democrats is pushing a legislative proposal that would establish an investigative body within the U.S. Supreme Court to probe potential ethical improprieties in the wake of another Court-related controversy.

    On Tuesday, New York Democratic Reps. Dan Goldman and Jerry Nadler and other lawmakers introduced the “Supreme Court Ethics and Investigations Act,” which among other things would create an investigative body that reports to Congress and establish an ethics counsel to advise justices on ethics rules, including recusal and disclosure requirements.

  52. 52.

    Bupalos

    @Soprano2:

    Too many people didn’t take TCFG seriously, and didn’t believe he would do what he said he would.

    Well, that could be because he didn’t really do what he said he’d do. Build The Wall and make Mexico pay for it? Lock Her Up? Make everyone tired of winning so much?

    Trump absolutely puts democratic decline and division on steroids. But I’m not so sure it makes much sense to think people should just naturally thinks the things he says he’ll do he’ll do. They’re generally ridiculous and unbelievable and only a kind of marker.

  54. 54.

    Soprano2

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Many of them think most normal types of hormonal birth control cause abortions. It’s bullshit, but that’s what they’ll tell you when you ask. They’ve been saying this crap for 30 years, yet too many people still don’t take it seriously. I think that’s how they’ll try to ban it, by saying “abortion is illegal in this state, contraception types a, b, & c cause abortions, thus we can make them illegal”.

  56. 56.

    SFAW

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: ​
     

    You obviously don’t understand the Religious Right then, there is nothing but bullshit over there.

    You obviously missed the “No, not really” at the start of my next paragraph.
    I don’t claim to understand all the nuances [sic] of Religious Right “thought,” but I think I have a pretty good idea of what they’re about. I have been saying, for years, that they wish for Gilead. That’s not the entirety of their wish/focus, but it’s a pretty big part of it.

  57. 57.

    Peale

    I wouldn’t mind seeing an add from a lawyer letting parents know that she’s starting a practice for couples who have had miscarriages to help manage the inquest process for them. At some point it needs to sink in that if you have a miscarriage, you’ll need a lawyer. “Here at the law offices of Snyder and Caufield, we understand that the last thing you want is a police detective showing up at your door to ask you questions. When this happens to you, call us and we’ll represent you. We don’t get paid if you go to jail.”

  59. 59.

    Kay

    During the Ohio referendum I talked to a lot of women about abortion and what seemed really important to me was how many made the connection between these laws and their own agency and others control of them. I think that’s why the idea of conservatives “tracking” them resonates so much. It’s hard for me to express but the closest I can come is if you have ever felt someone is “crowding” you – too close, too intrusive, they want them to back off. So whatever campaign plugs into that feeling will grab them, because they’re already there- they already made that connection.

  60. 60.

    hueyplong

    One of the single most incomprehensible things to me in the entirety of the circus in which we live is the idea that a single person of any stripe might find Charlie Kirk persuasive on literally any topic.  Even MTG and Boebert have something objectively on point for RWNJs (female packing a firearm regardless of what she’s saying or what she looks like, the 2A being the holiest of holies).

    Charlie Kirk ought to make even stereotypical early 1970s males cringe a little and pretend not to hear.  It’s not just contraceptives that make people Democrats (which we kind of hope to be true, just not in the way Kirk means), but it’s also Charlie Kirk himself.  Surely, this must be so.

  61. 61.

    TBone

    I watched a video on xit yesterday where they zoomed in on Dotard literally foaming at the mouth.  Is We the People of NYC gonna do a drug test???

    Palate cleanser Kimmel (B.C. brought up in earlier thread and wow)

    m.youtube.com/watch?v=5JpepqoyxSA

  62. 62.

    Kay

    And for women, “crowding” is more than “uncomfortable” – it sets our “danger” sense off. Hence why they seem more than annoyed at being “crowded” – they’re alarmed. Tap into THAT.

  63. 63.

    SFAW

    @Soprano2: ​
     

    I think that’s how they’ll try to ban it, by saying “abortion is illegal in this state, contraception types a, b, & c cause abortions, thus we can make them illegal”.

    They’ve already started. I think at least one state has a law pending (or in process? Or already passed? Can’t recall, too lazy to look right now) calling BC pills “abortifacients.” I think they’ll also try — if they haven’t already started — to get the Alito Court to declare that life begins the instant a sperm enters an egg, thus anything that affects a “pregnancy” after that will be an “abortion,” etc.

  64. 64.

    Anyway

    @Baud:

    I think groups on our side does have a tendency of wanting to convert people into the group, instead of creating alliances among people of different mindsets against a common foe.

    Oh puhleese, c’mon – Ds are the biggest coalition party ever

    ETA – realizing how awful Rs are on EVERY ISSUE is what made me a D

  65. 65.

    Bupalos

    @TBone: Good on you. BTW my wife is an utter smoke show of milfy perfection and is generally foolish enough to offer affirmative consent to the inner demons of sin and depravity she cruelly summons up in my helpless self.

  67. 67.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Jeffro:

    I know the economy is doing well and trump is deteriorating by the day, but sometimes I think that Democrats should campaign on literally nothing but reproductive rights.

    I know we can ‘walk and chew gum at the same time’ as a party. The question is, can low-info voters?

    I wonder what “campaign experts” (wtf that means exactly) do to sift thru campaign issues that “matter most”?  I always think they look at polling along those lines and focus on the Top X.

    But, let’s say “The Economy” is the #1 Issue On Voters Minds (now I’m thinking like a corporate media headline writer), how does that translate to getting someone to actually vote?  I’m not saying this well but I get the sense that Abortion Rights (or the broader Reproductive Rights or Women’s Health Rights) lights a far hotter flame when it comes to voting motivation than other subjects that might be higher on such a list.

    In which case we’re back to Dems making reproductive rights a loud, louder and loudest campaign message.

  68. 68.

    Baud

    @Anyway: Yes, but the interaction among the groups is often fraught because of this tendency, and Ds also have to deal with people who are not Ds, where this problem also shows up.

  69. 69.

    different-church-lady

    The big problem with dems/liberals is that too many of them (us?) believe there’s only one correct way to be right.

  70. 70.

    AM in NC

    @Bupalos:  100% this.  Very well stated, and messaging by everyone from lowly commenters at news websites to local democratic officials to the POTUS need to be hammering this theme.

    Actually want Liberty and justice for all?  That’s what Democrats offer.

  72. 72.

    Baud

    @Kay: Just as a numbers game, the number of women that would need to be tracked >>> the number of women that will need or want an abortion.

  73. 73.

    TBone

    @TBone: further comment from elsewhere:

    the whole swastika-formerly-known-as-Conservatives movement is goose-stepping into a field of rakes.

    We should encourage them in this endeavor.

  75. 75.

    Belafon

    @OzarkHillbilly:

    Oh no, Republican women will be immune to these laws, it’s only those DEMonrat sluts who will be denied them.

    To a degree. Middle class and poor Republicans won’t be able to get their health insurance to pay for those procedures, and therefore will be as screwed as everyone else. The rich will be able to access it, which is true about everything.

  77. 77.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Kay:

    So whatever campaign plugs into that feeling will grab them, because they’re already there- they already made that connection.

    Curious why enough of them didn’t make the connection between Republicans and “crowding” to prevent the election of JD Vance. Not being snarky. I’d really like to know how that message failed to get through.

    There wasn’t that much difference in the total votes for each. Vance/Ryan was just over four million, Issue 1 just under. And pretty close together in time.

  78. 78.

    TBone

    Digby weighed in yesterday:

    Those of us who’ve been writing about the right wing assault on women’s autonomy and reproductive rights for years have always said that contraception was on the menu. How can it not be? We know these people don’t actually care about babies or they wouldn’t be against helping poor mothers care for their children. They wouldn’t be trying to destroy public education and they wouldn’t insist on denying health care to kids and their families. No, their objections to abortion are all about misogyny and patriarchy. Allowing women to manage their own reproduction, whether through abortion or birth control, makes them more than gestation vessels and that makes them much more important than these people can allow.

    digbysblog.net/2024/06/06/yes-virginia-theyre-coming-for-birth-control/

  79. 79.

    Betty Cracker

    @hueyplong: I don’t understand Kirk’s appeal either, even among extremely stupid ideological fellow travelers. It’s inexplicable to me in the same way that Ben Shapiro’s success as a wingnut podcaster is baffling. He has the voice of a helium-huffing squirrel! How can millions listen to that voluntarily?

  81. 81.

    TBone

    @hueyplong: as long as they keep volunteering for repeated smashes in the forehead, they can make up any Fancy nickname they like!  Even low info voters notice Loser Stench and some clearly love to root for further injury.  Pile on is where they excel 😆

  82. 82.

    Belafon

    @Baud:

    I think groups on our side does have a tendency of wanting to convert people into the group, instead of creating alliances among people of different mindsets against a common foe.

    The groups in the Democratic party tend to want their concern heard and understood by the party so that it can be addressed. Not without good reason, mind you, because it tends to be the loudest groups that get their problems solved. But it can also cause people to think that others don’t care about them. But that switches the focus from “How do we keep Republicans from destroying us?” to “Why aren’t Democrats fixing my problem?”

  83. 83.

    BellyCat

    @Suzanne: who says birth control “screws up female brains”

    Never heard this one, but heard an unusual variation just last week. A 23 yr old white guy told me that sex was better with women not on birth control.

    I strongly disagreed and told him to get back to me after 35 years of additional “field testing”. Better sex through higher risk is appealing only to amateurs and gamblers.

  85. 85.

    TBone

    @Belafon: the “economically anxious” males responsible for the blastocysts will step up with cash in those cases.  You can set your watch to it.

  87. 87.

    Kay

    @Melancholy Jaques:

    I was talking to them about a referendum, so there was no discussion about Vance or any other pol (other than with women who are already Democratic voters). I think Ohio is just solidly red now so it probably wouldn’t have made a difference but it should be noted that Tim Ryan (Vance’s opponent) was (famously) anti choice until 2015, when he switched. Not the absolute best messenger on that issue.

    I don’t think this issue will carry Ohio or make it blue. I do think it helps in swing states.

  88. 88.

    cmorenc

    @Shalimar:

    @Kay: Charlie Kirk is a community college dropout.  His uneducated opinions don’t generally make much sense.

    Kirk is fond of making short, selectively edited videos with some meathead liberal uttering a RW caricature of some progressive trope, setting up Kirk to verbally demolish the fool before him with some RW talking points in perfet refutation.  We can scornfully dismiss Kirk’s bullshit propaganda clips as bullshit, but notice that the RW is “flooding the Youtube short videos Zone” with similarly pejorative clips by other RW propagandists, intermixed with the clips of magicians doing majic tricks and guitarists performing a tune or skiers desxending dangerously steep runs etc..

  90. 90.

    Soprano2

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: It’s also an issue where laws actually make a difference.  It’s true that laws can also affect “the economy”, but mostly prices are controlled by the market and supply and demand and things like that. There isn’t much politicians can do about that. They can definitely do things about access to abortion and contraception, though.

  92. 92.

    Anyway

    @AM in NC:

    Actually want Liberty and justice for all?  That’s what Democrats offer.

    How about muh gun and muh gas stove? – Srsly the gas stove ban is so entrenched in R circles i can’t even figure out what’s  reality and what’ their AM radio is feeding them.

  93. 93.

    Kay

    @cmorenc:

    There’s tons of anti birth control content on Instagram, which I get even though I prune my IG to only gardens and making candy. It’s not just the Right. It’s the whole “health” woo woo people – the same people who align with Righties on anti vaxx. I think it’s hugely profitable – so many of them seem to be monetizing.

  94. 94.

    Soprano2

    So I was looking on Twitter and I kept encountering claims from right wingers that Biden shit his pants on the stage yesterday at the D-Day ceremony. I was like “Huh? What the hell are you talking about?” because obviously if that had really happened it would be in the news. Eventually I saw where one of them posted a video where Biden was clearly stretching his lower back – I recognize it because I’ve had to do that myself after sitting for awhile. They are interpreting this differently. I think the claims about TCFG wearing diapers has gotten under their skin. LOL

  95. 95.

    BR

    @Kay: ​
    Very interesting. What was it you would say to them that made them connect the dots to them being “tracked”? Or did you just come out and say that without free reproductive rights, they would have to track every pregnancy?

    Put another way, what should the framing be that reaches folks the way you’re saying?

  96. 96.

    Baud

    @Belafon:

    Not without good reason, mind you, because it tends to be the loudest groups that get their problems solved.

    I’m not 100% sure that’s true. Obviously, you can’t stay completely silent and get your problems solved. But I’m less certain that loudness correlates linearly with problem-solving capability as the graph approaches infinity.

    The whole thing is probably more of an art than a science.

  97. 97.

    Gin & Tonic

    @BellyCat: ​

    A 23 yr old white guy told me that sex was better with women not on birth control.

    Not directly responsive, and forgive me if it’s TMI, but my sex life with my dear wife was improved considerably after I got my vasectomy. So yes, 23 year old guy needs more field testing and practical experience.

  100. 100.

    DougL

    @Bupalos:

    “We’re having a terrible time defending against really outrageous attacks that offend the basic sensibilities of what it means to be an American largely because we aren’t able to find the language and mentality of expanding solidarity across identities and tend to collapse into a kind of mindset that subtly works against it. We collapse into making a moral appeal to the nation that essentially sounds like everyone needs to adopt a charitable stance towards particular distinct groups, when we need to be making an argument in terms of a broader understanding of common self interest.”

    This is one of the most insightful comments on the “liberal” predicament I’ve ever read. We too often frame our positions as moral ones when the far better frame is enlightened self interest . Thanks for articulating that point so clearly

  101. 101.

    Omnes Omnibus

    The conservatives in my Con Law class back in the ’90s were talking about how bad a decision Griswold was what with Douglas and “penumbras and emanations.”  They’ve been at this long time.  It was fed to them by the Federalist Society (actual federalists would have been embarrassed by being associated with these fucks).

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @Betty:

    Unfortunately a lot of them have memoirs. I’d prefer they spend less time talking about themselves, but we created this monster by telling them over and over how brilliant they are – I mostly blame ass kissing lawyers for that.

    They’re smart lawyers. There are a lot of smart lawyers. No one should have gone overboard. My husband (also a lawyer) joked during the John Robert’s confirmation that John Roberts might be the smartest lawyer EVER, so what would we say at the next confirmation? Can’t get any better than smartest.

  103. 103.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Betty: It’s a bribe enabling mechanism.  “Want to ingratiate yourself with me on that upcoming case? By a thousand of my books.”

  106. 106.

    different-church-lady

    @Kay: ​I bet if you were one of nine people who could totally fuck up the country you’d be pretty full of yourself too.

  108. 108.

    BellyCat

    @Gin & Tonic:

    Young Guy: “That’s why I keep my stuff wrapped up tight!”

    Older Guy: “If you like gum with the wrapper on, just wait until you can enjoy it without the wrapper.”

    ETA: I did add that this requires a consensual longterm relationship without fear of reproduction.

  109. 109.

    Baud

    @Omnes Omnibus: Even if true, there are lots of bad decisions, most of which go against us. If the libs ever take control of the court again, they should go hog wild fixing the law.

  110. 110.

    schrodingers_cat

    Its not just men, there is a large number of women, majority of women in many of the states (that are passing these draconian anti-woman laws) who are completely onboard with this agenda. We cannot solve this problem if we refuse to acknowledge that fact

    For example, in Alabama, more white women voted for Trump than white men according to the NYT exit poll data in 2020.

  111. 111.

    topclimber

    @DougL: Sadly, enlightened self interest has not moved many white folk, who would rather give up shared opportunities than acknowledge the equality of minorities. See War, Civil, US and 150 years on either side of it.

  112. 112.

    Kay

    @BR:

    I always escalated in the convos, so yes, “tracked” is my word. That’s also controlling in a way but it helps me to understand where they are – how far they’ll go. They grabbed it though, in the way that people do when they like a word, when it describes what they’re feeling. When my daughter was in high school she said about the GOP House (who were then holding hearings with a panel of male clerics) “why do they keep talking about us?” It’s the same idea. She feels talked about, intruded upon.

  113. 113.

    Kay

    @BR:

    If you listen to the Kirk clip he’s addressing other people – not the women who are taking birth control but the people around those women. Thats what my daughter was reacting to – it’s the oddest feeling – you think “is he talking about ME?” Yes. About you.

  114. 114.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: I don’t know if I agree with this. I think even women who supported TCFG might not be onboard with outlawing common methods of contraception. I’ll be interested to see what happens in MO with the constitutional amendment to make abortion legal here again.

    I wish you would say “married white women”, because I’m pretty sure single white women vote mostly for Democrats.

  115. 115.

    ArchTeryx

    @SFAW: Nothing of value will survive a generation of a fascist Republican majority SCOTUS. Nothing. And I hope the Democrats get that before it is too late.

  117. 117.

    topclimber

    @schrodingers_cat: OT: The other day you noted how badly the MSM covered the Indian election. What do you think of AP? I saw 4-5 articles this week that seem pretty good. AP feeds hundreds of newspapers, TV and radio stations, but I am not sure how many use their India coverage.

  118. 118.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Soprano2: We can split hairs about this and carve out exceptions. But it is a reality that it is not just white men that are the problem.

    I hope the women who voted Republican in 2020, if they are not in favor of the draconian right turn on contraception and abortion and women’s health in general change their vote this election.

  120. 120.

    DougL

    @topclimber: LBJ (never agreed with the fuck him sentiment) had it pegged when he described how white supremacy worked to control the white lower classes (it actually works on every level of white society just in different ways). Once you see it (aka once you are “woke”) you can’t help but see how racism ( and as always, misogyny) undergirds almost everything on America.

  121. 121.

    TBone

    @DougL: that was supposed to be the point of my argument about not focusing solely on highways the other day.  I wish I’d thought to use your astute reference!

  122. 122.

    Bupalos

    @DougL: It’s a thought that primarily comes to me from sustained exposure to the political philosopher Vlad Vexler. I can’t recommend his themed chats he puts out on youtube highly enough.

  124. 124.

    gene108

    @SFAW:

    I’m still waiting for a non-bullshit explanation from RWMFs as to why they’re against women having access to contraception methods.

    Christian conservatives view most or some forms of birth control as abortifacients, such as Plan B.

  128. 128.

    ArchTeryx

    @gene108: They view them ALL that way. The Evangelicals, who once considered Catholics the spawn of the Devil, now have totally absorbed their anti-all-birth-control sentiments, something that whole lot of actual Catholics ignore.

  129. 129.

    Gin & Tonic

    @Soprano2: ​
    I’m having a hard time teasing out the data by both race and marital status, but in the (easily) available exit polling data, in 2020 married women were around +4-5 Trump, unmarried women were around +26 Biden.​

  131. 131.

    rikyrah

    @Bupalos:

     

    Abortion law is not a threat specific to people with female reproductive gear. It’s a general threat to American freedom. Voting access is not a threat specific to black people or poor people. It’s a threat to American freedom and democracy. Muslim travel bans or mass deportation initiatives are not threats specific to people of middle eastern extraction or to hispanics. They are threats to American freedom and democracy.

     

    CLAP CLAP CLAP

  132. 132.

    Chris

    @Suzanne:

    Part of it, I think, is that we’re sort of socially trained to avoid the three contentious topics (politics, religion, sex) and thus it’s easy to underestimate how many people are fucken reprehensible.

    Social media really kicked over a rock in terms of showing how ugly so many people were on the inside.

    Thirty years ago, it was easy to tell yourself that your wingnut relatives had a few crazy opinions and listened to some bad influences but were basically good people who’d do the right thing in a pinch – especially if you only saw them for a few days a year at family reunions where by definition people are going to spend most of their time talking about more interesting things than politics.

    When you’re permanently connected to them via Facebook or Twitter and every week has them word-vomiting incredibly sociopathic shit about some new group of people or other, it becomes a lot harder to deny that yeah, we had some fun times at the beach over the years, but those are some truly malignant fuckers and you should not respect them any more than you do Timothy McVeigh or Anders Breivik.

    (Not that people won’t still try, of course.  Or worse, conclude that the problem is “social media” rather than what you’re learning on it, and that the solution is to stop interacting on social media because “it does something to them” and you’d rather go back to the illusion).

  133. 133.

    rikyrah

    @AndyG:

    Say it again and again:

    Republicans want to ban abortion, contraception and IVF.

    say it every hour and every day until the election.

     

    This is what I believe too

  135. 135.

    Geminid

    @Omnes Omnibus: I learned today that the founder and current head of the Federalist Society is not a lawyer. Eugene Meyer earned an undergraduate degree in History, then got a Masters degree at the London School of Economics.

    Meyer is an International Chess Master though, and I think it shows.

  137. 137.

    Captain C

    @SFAW:

     to get the Alito Court to declare that life begins the instant a sperm enters an egg a man ejaculates (even on his own time)

    FTFY

  138. 138.

    Peale

    @Kay: I think COVID finally broke most of the left wing health woo types. So if you were into chakras and tuning forks and essences solving COVID, all that proved to be rather worthless. They started to align with the right on Anti-vax, but COVID made them go whole hog into conspiracies that lead them to the Democrats are More Dangerous than the Republican territories.

  139. 139.

    rikyrah

    @Kay:

    GOP Senators actually tried to make the hearing sort of scientifical – its how you know that criticism lands with them. But their physician, while she is a physician, is a religious extremist lunatic who cites bad studies and can’t come up with a scenario where pregnancy puts womens health or lives at risk

     

    BUT, they invited her Kay. I knew from following Jessica Valenti, what their so-called expert was about. And, you’re telling me that the GOP Senators didn’t know?

    I don’t buy it.

  140. 140.

    rikyrah

    Reecie @BlackWomenViews (@ReecieColbert) posted at 11:26 PM on Thu, Jun 06, 2024:
    Like I said…it’s no coincidence that the *Jim Crow wasn’t that bad for Black people* revisionist history propaganda is happening while Republican judges/electeds are successfully attacking fundamental rights won during the Civil rights movement.

     

    Coach Julio (@FitnessFoundry) posted at 4:29 PM on Thu, Jun 06, 2024:
    📣 The so-called “conservatives” and allies want to repeal the 19th Amendment, which gave women the right to vote, also support banning DEI initiatives, whitewashing slavery, imposing book bans, suppressing voters, criminalizing women’s healthcare, normalizing hate speech, and…
    (x.com/FitnessFoundry/status/1798829671561216062?t=dUYa_vTDI8QII79v31030A&s=03)

  141. 141.

    lowtechcyclist

    @Trivia Man:

    Im planning on joining the next World Naked Bike Ride

    I love cycling (you’d never guess that, I know ;-) and I am partial to being naked outdoors when temperatures and circumstances permit.

    But nuts to combining the two, afaiac. No way I’m gonna have my naughty bits flopping around on the front end of a bicycle seat.

  143. 143.

    rikyrah

    @Chris:

    Social media really kicked over a rock in terms of showing how ugly so many people were on the inside.

    Thirty years ago, it was easy to tell yourself that your wingnut relatives had a few crazy opinions and listened to some bad influences but were basically good people who’d do the right thing in a pinch – especially if you only saw them for a few days a year at family reunions where by definition people are going to spend most of their time talking about more interesting things than politics.

     

    It’s all related.

    We bring up the whining of the ‘ loneliness epidemic’ of young men.

    They are lonely because they refuse to step up and improve themselves to become appealing partners.

    Then, you have the right-wing whiners who talk about how being a Trump supporter is a turnoff to women.

    It has always been true, but never more obvious that

    POLITICS IS VALUES

    You tell me your politics, and that will reveal your values.

    You’re a right-wing Orange Menace supporter.

    As a woman , that means that you’re ok with the loss of my body autonomy. Plain and simple. So, if you don’t respect me having body autonomy, and that actually means something to me..then no, we have no basis for a relationship. Because body autonomy is related to so many other issues with women, and scratch the surface, and you will find out. So, no, women don’t have to give a chance to men who want them as second class citizens with fewer rights.

  144. 144.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: It’s not an “exception”. According to the data G&T found, single white women voted +26 Biden. They are not TCFG voters, so it’s not “white women” as a total group. I know this is a sore spot for you, and I understand it, but you should be specific about where the problem lies. It’s all white men and married white women.

  145. 145.

    Bupalos

    @gene108: I think to a larger extent than they could possibly conceive (or in fact that we want to grant,) a lot of people from a lot of different walks of life are simply increasingly attracted to a fantasy idea of going back to a fictionalized past. And they don’t really have rational action plans to make that happen, because of course there can not be such a plan. It’s just a anxiety-born sub-rational notion that if things were more religious or if things were more white or if things were more sexually repressed like they were in the past, then somehow all our modern problems would stop existing. It may not even be that connected to reality….it may be more like “by affirming I want particular things more like the past that never existed, I’m announcing my opposition to the present that I know can’t really change.”

    This kind of framing strikes me as more realistic than conceiving of all these folks actually desiring to own slaves and keep women idle and indoors cranking out babies.

    Though I don’t discount such nutball actually do exist.

  146. 146.

    Jeffro

    @Soprano2:I kept encountering claims from right wingers that Biden shit his pants on the stage yesterday at the D-Day ceremony…I think the claims about TCFG wearing diapers has gotten under their skin.

    Why, next thing you know, they’ll be claiming that

    Biden’s working for Russia and China
    there’s a “Biden crime family” breaking laws and collecting payoffs all the time
    Biden has, is, and will use DOJ against his political opponents
    Biden’s always taking time off from the job
    Biden should be impeached!  Twice!!

    Oh wait…

    It’s all projection, all the time.  “trump craps himself, so therefore…we’ll just say Biden does too!”

    The one thing that the RWNJs (and trump himself) haven’t done in this vein is to go after Biden’s faith.  And they really can’t, because the contrast is just too stark – trump is such an obviously fake religious supporter to all but the very hardest core of his evangelical base, while Biden attends church every week and talks about his faith quite frequently.

    I hope Biden brings it up at the first debate, too.  “So Donnie…tell me more about those Two Corinithians, anyway”

  148. 148.

    Captain C

    @BellyCat:

    Never heard this one, but heard an unusual variation just last week. A 23 yr old white guy told me that sex was better with women not on birth control.

    I strongly disagreed and told him to get back to me after 35 years of additional “field testing”. Better sex through higher risk is appealing only to amateurs and gamblers.

    “It’s more fun when I can take risks!  Especially risks that other people have to pay the price for if they go wrong!”

  149. 149.

    Geminid

    The Labor Department just delivered a good jobs report for May: ~275,000 jobs added, which was above expectations.

  151. 151.

    jonas

    The fact that a bunch of *senators* — not Congresspeople in safely gerrymandered districts — voted against protecting access to *contraception* — not abortion, mind you, contraception — shows one of two things: Their internal polling suggests that most voters just tune this shit out, thinking its some kind of political stunt, so there’s no price to pay for throwing a bone to the radical activists in their base right now, particularly if they’re not up for re-election this year. Or two: in red states, the population really has been so radicalized against reproductive freedom that that’s where they’re at right now and the senators are going along. I suspect it’s number one, though, which means that the only way to counter this is to get people to wake the fuck up and smell the (anti-contraceptive) coffee.

    I think one of the most corrosive and damaging long-term effects of Trumpism (and the media’s pernicious bothsidesing of it) has been to make people so disgusted with politics generally that they just throw their hands up, say a pox on both their houses, and just tune out. That’s of course *precisely* what authoritarians love because then they can just have their way with things. It’s what Putin has done to Russia. He’s not popular there. People just stopped giving a shit about their country or anything a long time ago. Historians have a term for this: “sleepwalking into history”. Often when you wake up and realize what’s been going on, it’s too late.

  152. 152.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @Nelle: Yeah. Ask people in Idaho how driving all the OB GYN and Maternal Fetal Medicine docs away is going how many hospitals no longer do deliveries because all their OBs left the state   FAFO time

  153. 153.

    Chris

    @rikyrah:

    POLITICS IS VALUES

    The thing that’s always infuriated me about this is that nobody actually disagrees with this.  Not as a matter of first principles.  If I joined a Salafi mosque or a Maoist student group, I’m not saying everybody I know would stop talking to me, but their opinion of me would certainly take a big drop at the very least.  And everybody acknowledges that this is normal.

    (As late as ten years ago I would’ve added “or a neo-Nazi group,” probably even started with that, but now even that’s a “very fine people on both sides” issue).

    So it’s not like we as a society don’t understand and approve of the concept of “it is perfectly acceptable to judge people, to think less of people, and at times, to cut people out of your life, because of their politics.”  It’s just considered beyond the pale to do this to Republicans.

  154. 154.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @jonas: ​

    The fact that a bunch of *senators* — not Congresspeople in safely gerrymandered districts —

    A senator from MS or ID, for example, is going to pay no more of a price for this vote than MTG or any other creature of gerrymandering in the House. IOW, I question your premise.​​

  156. 156.

    ArchTeryx

    @Omnes Omnibus: That’s because most of these small, rural states are American rotten boroughs, and they’re only going to get that much worse as time goes on. Hell, Texas Republicans are trying very hard to use rotten boroughs to lock in Republican statewide rule forever.

  157. 157.

    schrodingers_cat

    @Soprano2: His data is for all unmarried women not just white unmarried women

    NBC exit poll 63 umarried women voted for D while 36 voted R

    I have a meeting now. I won’t be checking this thread for a while

    ETA: Do married women not need birth control pills, contraception or abortions? IDK what exactly we are arguing about.

  158. 158.

    Renie

    @Bupalos: In his first term trump didn’t do those ridiculous ideas due to the people around him and in various agencies.

    We must believe all his craziness this time because a lot of the RW nuts are going to be in his administration and in agencies that can allow these undemocratic ideas to take hold.

    Think of it as the first term was practice for them but this time they are ready.  And when they try for a trumpish guy to be president in the future, it will be worse.

  159. 159.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @jonas:

    Their internal polling suggests that most voters just tune this shit out, thinking its some kind of political stunt, so there’s no price to pay for throwing a bone to the radical activists in their base right now, particularly if they’re not up for re-election this year. Or two: in red states, the population really has been so radicalized against reproductive freedom that that’s where they’re at right now and the senators are going along. I suspect it’s number one, though, which means that the only way to counter this is to get people to wake the fuck up and smell the (anti-contraceptive) coffee.

    I think it’s both operating in tandem, particularly in red states.  The radicalization of the general electorate means senators can say this shit *and* depend on the rest to be somewhat passive.

    Which comes back to Dems screaming about this (in whatever framing works best politically given the nature of the conversation here this morning along those lines) nonstop in every state, blue or red.

  162. 162.

    BellyCat

    @Captain C: “It’s more fun when I can take risks!  Especially risks that other people have to pay the price for if they go wrong!”

    Yup…. Wait until The Male Yungz start realizing birth control and abortions are not possible but DNA testing is required if sought and mandatory child support lasts at least 18 years.

  163. 163.

    Geminid

    @Anyway: Nothing happened to Leonard Leo. He’s Co-Chairman of the Federalist Society’s Board. Eugene Meyer has been President for 40 years, and is described as the CEO. His name came up in this morning’s Politico Playbook because he is reported to have started looking for a successor. Meyer is 71 years old.

    I may be wrong about Meyer founding the Fedealist Society though. His short biography says he built the organization from a small group of law of law students.

  164. 164.

    lowtechcyclist

    @different-church-lady:

    ​I bet if you were one of nine people who could totally fuck up the country you’d be pretty full of yourself too.

    As my wife would say, “they’re full of something, alright.”

  165. 165.

    Cacti

    I can’t help but wonder why it took the end of Roe v. Wade for the Dems to finally go on offense about reproductive rights.

    Pro-choice was always the majority position, but for some reason Dem politicians had this reflexive tendency to equivocate and act apologetic for supporting a popular policy.  I don’t know if it was post-Reagan malaise or what, but it was maddening.

  166. 166.

    rikyrah

    @Soprano2:

    They are interpreting this differently. I think the claims about TCFG wearing diapers has gotten under their skin. LOL

     

    Didn’t they start wearing shirts with:

    REAL MEN WEAR DIAPERS

     

    BWA HA AH HA HA AH AH HA

  167. 167.

    hueyplong

    @Cacti: Normies didn’t believe they’d do it (overturn Roe).  It wasn’t stupidity on their part.  SCOTUS candidates declared under oath that they would not vote to overturn Roe v Wade.

    What normies didn’t know, and what they would not have credited had the Dems shouted it more loudly, was that the Alitos were lying and would reverse Roe v Wade once they had solid votes to do it.

    Dems have outperformed polls since then.  It’s pretty speculative to say they’d have done so before the actual overturning had they only gone on the offensive.

  170. 170.

    hueyplong

    @rikyrah:  “Didn’t they start wearing shirts with:  REAL MEN WEAR DIAPERS”

    That one seems not to have successfully made it into a second news cycle.  So we finally find a limit to the stupid shit they’ll put on tshirts to excuse Trump’s latest atrocity.  Query whether anything shy of audibly shitting yourself in public lands in that category, but the fact that they’ve given up on that particular “real men” meme is proven by yesterday’s attempt to say Biden did it, too.

  171. 171.

    rikyrah

    The MSM has a sad:

     

    Heather Long

    @byHeatherLong

    JUST IN: Another big jobs report. The US economy added 272,000 jobs in May, blowing past expectations of ~190k. People keep getting jobs, esp. in healthcare., gov’t and hospitality. **Unemployment rate: 4% —> This is the first time at 4% or above since Nov. 2021** Wage gains: 4.1% over past year (vs. 3.4% inflation)

    x.com/byHeatherLong/status/1799057758035251620?

  172. 172.

    hueyplong

    @Baud: “Yeah. Google Mark Udall.”

    Just did.  I assume one of the first hits being “Udall talks about life after politics” might be a part of the point.

  173. 173.

    SFAW

    @gene108: ​
     
    Understood, but I qualified my statement as “non-bullshit explanation.” Them calling it/them “abortifacient(s)” is bullshit, plain and simple.

  174. 174.

    SFAW

    @ArchTeryx: ​
     

    Nothing of value will survive a generation of a fascist Republican majority SCOTUS. Nothing.

    Cannot be repeated enough.

  175. 175.

    Chris

    @Cacti:

    I’m not sure this is on Democratic politicians, or if it is, it’s in a chicken-and-egg way.  Democratic politicians were reluctant to go on the offensive on Roe v. Wade because public support of it was squishy and way too many people, both in the middle and among way too many Democrats, considered it a settled issue and were annoyed when you brought it up.  Like way too many Democratic issues, support for it was broad and shallow.

  176. 176.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    The conservatives in my Con Law class back in the ’90s were talking about how bad a decision Griswold was what with Douglas and “penumbras and emanations.”

    Same with mine. They disparaged nearly every supreme court decision since the New Deal, but they had a special passion for Griswold and Justice Douglas.

  179. 179.

    Captain C

    @BellyCat:

    Wait until The Male Yungz start realizing birth control and abortions are not possible but DNA testing is required if sought and mandatory child support lasts at least 18 years.

    I would not be entirely surprised if this meant they started seriously trying to abolish child support (except for whichever group of Those People they particularly hate).

  180. 180.

    jonas

    @rikyrah: Of course the Republican senators and their staffers knew exactly who she was and what she represents. They’re just counting on the media not to do their homework and generate compliant ledes about “Physician testifies about dangers of birth control”. It’s always about gaming the press and it usually works, which is why they do it. 

  181. 181.

    Jeffg166

    The Democrats are very mean to highlight an unpopular policy imposed by the GQP. Where’s the civility?

  183. 183.

    jonas

    @rikyrah: “Economy May Be Adding Jobs at Historic Pace, But for the Men at this Ohio Diner, Price of Eggs Still Stings…”

  185. 185.

    Melancholy Jaques

    @Kay:

    I don’t know if it will help Biden/Harris or any Democratic senate or congressional candidates, but I’m sure it won’t hurt.

    One of the persistent frustrations in my political discussions of the last 30 years or so, and maybe it’s more common to lawyers, is the disregard voters have for the supreme court and which party appoints the justices. Since 2000, at the latest, it has been clear that a Republican will appoint only anti-choice justices and Democrats will appoint only pro-choice justices. Anyone who was surprised by Dobbs was just willfully denying that.

  186. 186.

    sab

    @Melancholy Jaques: Ryan was so busy trying to sell himself to moderate Republicans and independents that he forgot that nobody outside of his district knew much about him. He spent his first ten years in Congress being anti-choice and pro-gun. I believe his was a sincere convert to our side on those issues, but a lot of people not in his district didn’t believe him.

  187. 187.

    rikyrah

    Somehow I landed on cricket TikTok.

    did you know that the USA beat Pakistan in the World Cup of Cricket?

    It’s huge.

    I would bet anything, that our entire team is made  up of immigrants or first -generation kids.

  188. 188.

    Anyway

    @rikyrah:

    did you know that the USA beat Pakistan in the World Cup of Cricket?

    Yes, it  was on an evening thread yesterday. A jackal attended the game!

  189. 189.

    jonas

    @Jeffg166:  The Democrats are very mean to highlight an unpopular policy imposed by the GQP.

    Indeed. It’s called “politicizing the issue”, like when you say that a mass school shooting maybe ought to cause us to rethink our gun control policies. Very rude.

  190. 190.

    Soprano2

    @schrodingers_cat: Yeah, I noticed that later. What we’re discussing is that you are lumping two groups together that vote quite differently and blaming all of them for helping TCFG get elected. It’s the same thing as lumping all Latin voters together and thinking they’re all the same. This is a thing that’s specific to married white women. I’m not sure about married women of other races, but I suspect they probably also vote for Republicans in higher numbers than their unmarried counterparts. I think for women it’s about being married, not being a woman, and if you drilled down even more I suspect you’d find it’s about being married and having children. Those women seem to be more conservative as a group.

  191. 191.

    Steve in the ATL

    @Melancholy Jaques: ​
     

    One of the persistent frustrations in my political discussions of the last 30 years or so, and maybe it’s more common to lawyers, is the disregard voters have for the supreme court and which party appoints the justices. Since 2000, at the latest, it has been clear that a Republican will appoint only anti-choice justices and Democrats will appoint only pro-choice justices.

    My hatred of right wing SCOTUS justices goes far beyond this one issue. They have no respect for the law and screw over everyone who’s not a large corporation or conservative crusader.

    I have mentioned this before, but I struggled with Con Law in law school because the legal rationales for their rulings made no sense. Eventually I caught on that the rulings were pre-decided for political reasons and the “rationales” were made up to justify the holdings and not an actual analysis of law or fact. Class was much easier after that, and it was probably the beginning of my political awakening.

  192. 192.

    Soprano2

    @Cacti: It was that especially the male Democrats felt that abortion was an “icky women’s issue” so they didn’t want to talk about it. The perception was that abortion wasn’t “popular” so they didn’t want to campaign on it. Unfortunately, it took losing that right for them to finally see that it was indeed “popular”, and involved a lot more than the right-wing stereotype of young female sluts using it as birth control multiple times so they could have a much sex as they wanted.

  195. 195.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Baud: as Sir Terry Pratchett said, “the way of the truthful in this world is as the way of a bicycle race in sandpaper underpants”

  196. 196.

    wjca

    @DougL: Once you see it (aka once you are “woke”) you can’t help but see how racism ( and as always, misogyny) undergirds almost everything on America.

    The next step is to wake up enough to see that “racism undergirds everything in America” is a losing message.

    Doesn’t matter how strongly you believe it, no matter how true it might be.  Most of the country will reject it, and you and whomever you are trying to elect.  Far better to focus on a specific case (“racism is why this bad thing”) and fix that.  Not to forget the other problems.  Just don’t demand a global fix — which is how “undergirds everything” comes across.

  200. 200.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @Steve in the ATL: yes, there is no rational or logical explanation other than politics for many of the Supreme Court decisions. And I don’t see any logic in most of the Federal Circuit decisions either except that whatever the status of patent law is, the Federal Circuit will mess it up still more.

  203. 203.

    Citizen Alan

    @Soprano2: I always thought it was because we let the Jesus nazis caricature all women who have abortions as sluts who have dozens of abortions a year because they’re too lazy to get on the Pill.

  205. 205.

    different-church-lady

    @Baud: 

    When people ask “how did we get here?” the answer is “too many of us were blasé about real threats people wanted to be here.”

  208. 208.

    different-church-lady

    @jonas: 

    ​“Economy May Be Adding Jobs at Historic Pace, But for the Men at this Ohio Diner Ford Dealership Specializing in F150s, Price of Eggs Still Stings…”

  210. 210.

    Misterpuff

    @Bupalos: Yes, but he did try to “lock her up”. Its just that his pet AG couldn’t get the goods on her and so Jefferson Davis Sessions got shittcanned and TCFG lowered the Barr.

    He tried to do all the things he promised but too many of them were Un-American in nature and even his acolytes couldn’t go there. This will be rectified in POTUS Round 2.

  212. 212.

    Bupalos

    @jonas:

    I think one of the most corrosive and damaging long-term effects of Trumpism (and the media’s pernicious bothsidesing of it) has been to make people so disgusted with politics generally that they just throw their hands up, say a pox on both their houses, and just tune out. That’s of course *precisely* what authoritarians love because then they can just have their way with things. It’s what Putin has done to Russia. He’s not popular there. People just stopped giving a shit about their country or anything a long time ago. Historians have a term for this: “sleepwalking into history”. Often when you wake up and realize what’s been going on, it’s too late.

    This is dead on. Trump doesn’t have to instantiate any of the horrors he promises in order to depoliticize Americans and set the stage for full on authoritarianism. Very real challenges and emergencies are coming, the don’t have to be manufactured by Republican actions. All the pre-authoritarian has to do is render the government unmanageable, opaque, and ridiculous. That way lies  the complete disabling of democracy and an open field for a real authoritarian.

  213. 213.

    Bupalos

    @Misterpuff: I don’t think it will be rectified in round two. I mean they may TRY to deliver on more of whatever can be cobbled together as an agenda here, but the bottom line is that no one actually expects or cares if they do or not.

    “Build That Wall” was a thing to chant, not a thing anyone actually cared about getting done, first and foremost because it wouldn’t do a fucking thing. No one cared about “Lock Her Up” either. Trump didn’t really want to bother because there was no payoff for him really. He ended Roe basically by mistake, by being maneuvered into it by that faction. He couldn’t care less about abortion beyond not wanting to suffer politically for it.

    “Send Them Back” can’t really happen and I’m sure Trump knows that. Just another thing to chant. Now replacing the civil service with cronies is small bore and hidden away enough that some of that may happen, and there may be a bunch of disruption and kerfuffle over it until he suspects that is hurting his popularity too. But the reality of this “movement” is that by and large it doesn’t actually know what it wants besides some nameless revenge on modernity and liberalism. It’s composed of a bunch of factions and headed by an empty shell of incompetent narcissism. If these guys could learn from their mistakes, they wouldn’t be who they are.

    This is my version of optimism.  Because I do think they’re overall more likely to win the presidency and the senate.

  214. 214.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Bupalos: such a useful good point

    Abortion law is not a threat specific to people with female reproductive gear. It’s a general threat to American freedom. Voting access is not a threat specific to black people or poor people. It’s a threat to American freedom and democracy. Muslim travel bans or mass deportation initiatives are not threats specific to people of middle eastern extraction or to hispanics. They are threats to American freedom and democracy.

    To paraphrase you “a broader approach to all our self interest, is needed. “

    Just agreeing.

  215. 215.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Soprano2:

    …involved a lot more than the right-wing stereotype of young female sluts using it as birth control multiple times so they could have as much sex as they wanted.

    meanwhile, slightly OT, is there a word yet, for men who have as much sex as they want? Someone needs to create a word for this.

    meanwhile, even further OT, what is wrong with wanting sex, as much as you want?  It seems hard wired in. If someone’s into a puritan view of god, why aren’t they criticizing god for making us have sex drives?

    Going further, but still connected, for me: when dance and music videos are so sexualized, so seductive, does no one think about how selling via sex, and overt sexiness in media and in public, connects to actual sex, and thus connects to pregnancies, sometimes unwanted, or wanted but with complications? Or, it involves women, who dress the way it’s expected for their sport/ entertainment /competitions, but some of the ladies get a female issue, hormones, missed periods, weird bleeding, but they can’t get health care without excessive delay and fear and oppression, bcs they’re in Texas, or Alabama, etc.

    when I watch ballroom competitions on YouTube, the ladies wear dresses on the verge of lingerie. What is all this sexiness for, if we’re not supposed to have private activities, with all their possible complications and consequences? I mean, what is the point of all this sexiness, if sex isn’t safe, in the long run?

    It distracts me, when I watch, from enjoying the skilled beautiful dancing, the amazing footwork…I just think, what if they get pregnant..

    I’m getting all wordy on my soap box.

  216. 216.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    @TBone: And there’s another one coming,I think its TLC or some other stupid network that is giving Alex Baldwin and his wife “Hilaria” and their seven kids a series. Guess Alex needed money for his legal bills.

  217. 217.

    LanceThruster

    Author Joseph Heller once observed, “Catch-22 means people have the right to do to you anything that you cannot prevent them from doing to you.”

    That’s some catch.

Comments are closed.