Every time voters have weighed in on reproductive healthcare rights since the Dobbs decision came down almost a year and a half ago, forced birthers have lost. Even in red states. Every. Single. Time.
Tonight there’s another debate between the 2024 Not-Trump GOP primary candidates, and it will be meaningless in terms of its ostensible purpose since Trump will be the nominee unless he drops dead. But it could be interesting as a window into how the party is grappling with the string of post-Dobbs defeats.
Off the debate stage, Trump is playing both sides of the fence, warning that the GOP is “getting killed” on the choice issue out of one side of his mouth while touting his credentials as “THE MOST Pro-Life President in history” from the other.
On the debate stage, DeSantis can’t credibly moderate on reproductive health since he signed a deeply unpopular six-week ban that is currently being reviewed by the wingnut Florida Supreme Court. (The majority of the justices are religious fanatics appointed by DeSantis, so it will become law soon.)
Haley is making a play for the “moderate” lane by advocating what the NYT inaccurately described as a “new path.” But in reality, all of Haley’s talk about reaching national consensus is just vibey horseshit. WaPo columnist Monica Hesse accurately identifies what Haley is doing:
Achieving “consensus” is not itself an endgame, not in a republic trying to govern its people. Laws are the endgame. And, in this case, there’s no reason to think that Haley wouldn’t support the kinds of laws she did when she voted, as a member of South Carolina’s House, to end abortion coverage for state employees who were rape victims. Or when, as governor, she signed into law what the Associated Press described as “the most conservative abortion bill South Carolina Republicans were able to pass through both chambers at the time.” Or when, in July, she said she “absolutely would sign” a 15-week abortion ban as president, but that she didn’t think it was realistic that a ban would currently acquire the necessary 60 Senate votes.
In other words, look at what she does instead of listening to what she says. It’s not just Haley. All Republicans lie about abortion policy. The national 15-week ban proposal is a lie dressed up as a compromise — its true purpose is to erode reproductive healthcare rights in blue states while leaving draconian bans in place in red areas. Some compromise!
Voters know this, which is why Glenn Youngkin’s pitch for a “reasonable” 15-week ban went down in flames yesterday. Just a few days ago, Youngkin was telling George Stephanopoulos a 15-week ban with exceptions was “a place we can come together.”
“I think this is one where Virginians come together around reasonableness. And it then allows us to move onto really important topics,” Youngkin said…
You know what’s a “really important” topic, Youngkin, you fleece-encased fascist prick? Half the population being recognized as full-grown goddamn adults who can make their own healthcare decisions and access medical treatment up to modern standards without clearing it with religious fanatics.
Because access to reproductive healthcare truly is a “really important” topic for half the population, I think the Dobbs dominoes will keep falling. Last night should be a clue-by-four upside the noggins of any Repubs who were still in denial. I look forward to watching them squirm on this “really important” topic. Forever.
Open thread.
rikyrah
The MSM really thought that the Dobbs decision would ‘ blow over’ by now. They can’t ‘both sides’ it. They were rooting for one of these anti-abortion elections to go the Republican’s way. They wanted Governor Sweater Vest’s 15 week ‘ compromise’ to take, so that they can ‘ both sides’ it. But, it didn’t. The same way it didn’t in Ohio.
Dobbs isn’t blowing over, and they don’t have a ‘ BOTH SIDES’ response.
rikyrah
58% in Ohio yesterday.
GO OHIO!
So, now, women from Red States have another place where they can come in the Midwest for healthcare.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Everything about the Republican primary is weird since in order to get votes they have to swear that Trump is their lord and savior and they are not personally worthy to compete against him.
But I’ve suspected that the reason most of those candidates are there is precisely to position themselves as the replacement wackadoodle, betting that he will in fact drop dead or have a stroke before 2024 primary season is over.
Anoniminous
The real problem The Grand Old White People’s Party are trying to solve.
MattF
Yeah. The number of weeks, the possible exceptions… are all diversionary tactics. The critical question, really the only question, is whether women want religious fanatics to make their health-care decisions. And the answer that voters deliver, every single time, is a big fat NOPE.
Old School
I assume the topic will not be a debate question this evening. (Not that I’ll be watching.)
JPL
Amazing that when given a choice, females want to listen to their doctor not the state when it comes to healthcare. What is happening in some states is barbaric.
Betty Cracker
@Old School: NBC News is moderating, so I assume it will come up, though I probably won’t watch either.
UncleEbeneezer
Chef’s kiss, Betty.
Congrats to everyone. This is a very good morning.
CaseyL
I’m pretty sure we don’t want religious fanatics determining any policy, but in Dobbs they have pissed off a large enough percentage of the population to make a meaningful electoral impact.
There are a few women whose alliance with Christian White Nationalism trumps (*cough*) every other consideration, but not enough to swing an election outside the Deep South.
There are also well-off women probably wouldn’t have cared if just abortion per se was illegal in their state, since they have the resources to seek one elsewhere – but the idea that even a wanted pregnancy, if it goes bad, could kill them because the medical resources to treat them simply aren’t allowable or available probably gives them some pause for thought.
Anoniminous
The old white men who run the news rooms won’t ever be in a hospital parking lot screaming in pain while they bleed to death after being refused proper medical care so WTF do they care?
Alison Rose
Their mendacity is aggravating. One of the things that galls me the most is that they will take the most extreme cases (a very late abortion due to incompatibility with life for either the pregnant person or the fetus) and act like that’s the most common, when in fact it is the *least* extreme cases that are the most common.
Also too, keep your fucking nose out of other people’s fucking uteruses.
eclare
En fuego, Ms. Cracker.
sab
Ohio state legislators have already announced that they are working on ways to undercut both Issue 1 (choice) and Issue 2 (marijuana) results.
Alison Rose
@Betty Cracker: Oh God, I just looked it up, and
Kill me now.
Betty Cracker
The Florida Supreme Court heard arguments about the state’s abortion ban in September, so their ruling could come at any time. Like I said in the OP, the majority of the justices are DeSantis-appointed fanatics, so the six-week ban WILL become law. I think the fact that 20M+ additional people will then be living under a complete abortion ban may reverberate beyond Florida.
Gin & Tonic
@Alison Rose: Don’t watch.
Josie
“You know what’s a “really important” topic, Youngkin, you fleece-encased fascist prick? Half the population being recognized as full-grown goddamn adults who can make their own healthcare decisions and access medical treatment up to modern standards without clearing it with religious fanatics.”
Just had to see this one more time.
Old School
Ivanka trial update:
Suzanne
You know what just makes me laugh…. the totally dishonest argument made by the evangelical right was that abortion should be left to the states. And it seems like every state is now being asked if they want to bad abortion, and the answer — EVERY TIME — is HELL NO.
Hey, as long as it’s legal.
eclare
@rikyrah:
Exactly. I assume women near me in western TN who need healthcare are going to southern Illinois.
bbleh
I for one commend Governor Youngkin on his successful effort to help Virginians come together! And not only Virginians, but arguably also voters in Ohio and likely Kentucky and Pennsylvania as well! A real bringer-together he is! A catalyst for clear voter mandates!
Let’s see, along with Kansas (!) and Wisconsin and … wasn’t there another one recently? Republicans are really on a roll bringing voters together! Keep it up I say!
C Stars
@MattF: And I don’t think we should underestimate voters’ ability to see it as all of a piece with the anti-LGBTQ stuff and the book censorship. They’re out of touch religious extremists who are imposing their minority views on normal Americans.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker: The odious Kristen Welker will be moderating and I heard a commercial that said Hugh Hewitt will be there too. WHY?
Brit in Chicago
@Alison Rose: Rather than killing you—which we’d be sorry to do, would miss you—how about we give you permission not to watch it? That’s what I’ll be doing, with millions of others, so join us!
eclare
@Alison Rose:
Oh god is right. If there were a way I could negative watch I would do it. Not enough sedatives of any type.
Also, there is a Salem radio network? Does it toss women into rivers to see if they float?
bbleh
@Yarrow: well obviously to bring some much-needed whiteness.
Yarrow
@bbleh: None more white than Hugh Hewitt.
Kent
Voters are not fooled I don’t think.
They know that if they want abortion rights they need to vote Dem. Just like they know if they want full-blown racism they need to vote GOP and not some centrist Dem who makes kissy faces to the “white working class”.
Who gets fooled by this nonsense is the dipshit establishment groups who fetishize “bipartisanship” and so pour “pro-choice” money and support into candidates like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski despite the fact that they both rubber-stamped the Supreme Court that repealed Dobbs.
Captain C
@rikyrah: The MSM people who push this and other Both Sides shit (and some of whom definitely prefer Republican tax policies) apparently think the leopard won’t eat their faces, even though the leopard has specifically said that their faces are among the first up on the table.
Yarrow
@Brit in Chicago: I won’t be watching it. Who will be watching it? Who’s their audience? People without the ability to change the channel?
RevRick
@rikyrah: From what I saw of demographic analysis of the vote, the most supportive of 1 were black men, then black women, white women with a college education, white men with a college education, and at 52%, white women without a college education. The only group opposed was white men without a college education by 17%
Alison Rose
@Gin & Tonic: I have zero plans to.
No One of Consequence
@betty:
I, for one, would appreciate it if you stopped beating around the bush, and let us know how you really feel.
(sheepish grin)
You go Miss, right behind you. For a host of reasons, I am glad that Women are proving how wrong that decision is.
-NOoC
cmorenc
@rikyrah:
And buy some nice weed to take home with them too, while they are at it.
bbleh
@Yarrow: he shoulda been one of those winter-ski-paratroop guys. He’d be invisible.
MattF
OT. The usually excellent Molly White is excellent as usual in a NYT essay (gift link) that explains why the big numbers tossed around in crypto valuations are entirely nonsensical.
eclare
@Betty Cracker:
And people in FL are going to have to travel far to get to a state that provides healthcare. Where I live, it’s about four hours to southern Illinois. Four hours doesn’t get a lot of people out of Florida, and Georgia is huge to get through.
rikyrah
Not only has the MSM missed the point of the Dobbs decision…
They are choosing to ignore the ramifications of the draconian forced-birth state laws.
They are ignoring that birthing centers in hospitals are closing in forced-birth states.
That OB-GYN’s are leaving forced-birth states.
That Medical Students are NOT choosing residencies in hospitals in forced-birth states.
That the maternal mortality and infant mortality is rising in forced-birth states.
Geminid
@eclare: And eastern Tennessee women seeking abortions will likely go to Bristol, Virginia, assuming the clinic there remains open.
Bupalos
Abortion as a political issue is only moderately more important to women as a subset than to the population at large, and the voting results reflect this. Men/women crosstabs in Ohio looked like they were separated by single digits.
It’s directly in everyone’s interest that we don’t abandon the most fundamentally American founding principles I can think of- expansion of liberty and freedom from godbothering busybody shitheels forcing their weird superstitious claptrap on everyone.
BethanyAnne
In more important news (than my fussing at the guy in the other thread – not than the elections, lol) , I made huevos rancheros for the first time today, and they came out great. Been over an hour since breakfast, and I’m still being happy about them.
kindness
I just read that Ohio voters also approved legalizing recreational cannabis for adults yesterday as well. Apparently medical marijuana had been legal since 2016. Crooks & Liars also said Republicans in Ohio are lining up to kneecap this new voter initiative. Republicans…..can someone please teach them to be able to read the room?
Another Scott
Yup, Dobbs isn’t going away.
The press continues to want to treat voters’ legitimate concerns, and legitimate anger, as something to be “compromised” away… JC got it right in 2009:
Cheers,
Scott.
eclare
@Geminid:
Yep. Within I think a few miles, it’s legal here in VA, not legal there in TN.
Sure Lurkalot
@CaseyL:
It shouldn’t take a genius to discern the difference between an elective procedure (e.g. my birth control failed and I don’t want a(nother) child) and an emergency procedure (e.g. without prompt or immediate treatment, my likelihood of dying or suffering irreparable harm has gone up exponentially).
And without such emergency procedures, a woman may be rendered unable to have children or leave their children motherless. These are real consequences total/6 week/15 week bans give women.
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: I currently don’t plan to watch, but my curiosity of how much energy the wannabes will muster up after their party’s resounding defeat in last night’s election results may make me peek in for a minute lol
eclare
@BethanyAnne:
Congratulations! It is a day to savor victories of all kinds.
BethanyAnne
@eclare: ty :D
Betty Cracker
@eclare: You’re right about distance being a factor. The 15-week ban Repubs imposed in FL last year is in place now while the 6-week ban is under review. The vast majority of abortions take place within the first 15 weeks, so along with Floridians, women from AL, GA, MS are also accessing reproductive healthcare in FL. That all stops as soon as the FL court issues its ruling.
The Thin Black Duke
Dobbs is the stake in the dark heart of the GOP.
Irishweaver
@Josie: Agreed; it is a perfect comment. Especially the “fleece encased fascist prick” part!
cmorenc
Not to trivialize the abortion rights win in Ohio by connecting it to the marijuana legalization win, but there is in fact a very important connection between the two with respect to how they demonstrate that a crucial meme the GOP has undeservedly thrived upon the last two or three decades is beginning to unravel – that they are the practical libertarian party whose main thrust if freeing people from intrusively meddlesome government control, whereas democrats are the party of intrusively meddlesome, burdensome control freaks.
Steeplejack
Also, in the justly reviled interview with Kristen Welker, Trump said he was the one who could fix the abortion issue, because he would get both sides in a room and come up with a “deal.”
Trump and the art of the deal. Complete idiot.
Barbara
@The Thin Black Duke: It’s not just Dobbs, it’s what states have done when untethered from the restrictive yoke of Roe v. Wade. They have used that freedom to terrorize and torture women as well as providers. That’s GD scary.
Bupalos
This is questionable. One of the infuriating exit poll results for Ohio was that voters preferred abortion be legal (on exactly the terms of issue 1) by a much higher percentage than issue 1 actually scored, and that which party they trusted to handle the issue was pretty close to a dead heat.
Voters just aren’t terribly rational. Which needs to be a takeaway as well for doing the whole “haw haw I told you the Biden poll was bogus” thing.
Soprano2
@Anoniminous: Yep, in a nutshell that’s what they’re so panicked about. I think if they could make it so that white women were unable to get abortions but all the non-white women could, they would do that.
cmorenc
@Steeplejack:
A recurring frequent characteristic of Trump’s “deals” is that someone ends up getting screwed – why would any hypothetical Trump “abortion” deal prove any different?
Geminid
@Jackie: After watching that debate for a minute or two you’ll be like Dave Wasserman: “I’ve seen enough!”
hueyplong
@Steeplejack: haha, the kind of “deal” he brokered zero times on any topic during the four years he was actually in the office.
This talk is ok only for the tiny percentage of the 27% that actually wants “compromise” on this non-negotiable topic. And, of course, journimalists.
John S.
@Bupalos:
Exit polls are even more useless these days than regular polls.
Ken
@rikyrah: And despite all that, the abortion rate has held steady, or possibly gone up slightly, since Dobbs.
Redshift
@Bupalos:
I was talking to my member of the VA House of Delegates, and she said that the striking things from door-knocking during this campaign and asking people their concerns were both that people brought up abortion as an issue that was important to them, and that it wasn’t just women who wanted to talk about it.
The whole “the Supreme Court has never had a ruling taking away an established right” is yet another way Dobbs is poison for Republicans.
rikyrah
Both the leaders of the Virginia Legislature, will be African-Americans.
Love this for Governor Sweater Vest.
TriassicSands
That would be great, but I expect the Ohio legislature to try to pass laws that make the right as difficult to exercise as possible. I haven’t read the text of the ballot issue, so I don’t know how easy or hard it will be for the legislature to do that. I hope impossible, but that wouldn’t stop them from trying.
Chetan Murthy
@Alison Rose: Maybe you’re like me, and it would raise your blood pressure? I’m on pills twice-daily, so no way I’m up for that. But OTOH, hanging out in blog comment sections where they snark about the missteps and gaffes of these GrOPer jamokes … that can be kinda fun! Just a thought. I never actually watch any of these debates or speeches and such. Just read other people’s comments on them and hey, if there’s a really good clip or five, it’ll show up iin comments and I can watch it there.
sab
@kindness: Their slogan is “regulate marijuana like alcohol.”
Redshift
If you think about it, Youngkin’s “compromise” is even more ludicrous on its face. Here in the real world (unlike the conservative bubble), abortions after 15 weeks for any reason other than the usual proposed “exceptions” are incredibly rare. So the “compromise” amounts to “how about we agree to outlaw something that doesn’t happen, just to make people who want to ban abortion happy?”
Barbara
@Ken: @Redshift: Because it hasn’t come up yet in this thread, the idea that there is some reasonable compromise is further belied by the efforts of RWNJ zealots to make medical abortion illegal everywhere by going after the manufacturing and approval process for the drug. Such abortions occur within the first trimester and now account for the majority of abortions in the first trimester, which themselves account for the vast majority of all abortions — somewhere between 80 and 90%.
They ran to Texas and got Wingnut Judge Reed O’Connor to try to eliminate the availability of the drug everywhere. The PI was reversed. I haven’t heard anything recently but it’s just further proof that they lie about everything all the time but they especially lie about their intentions when it comes to the reproductive choices of women.
Jeffro
Complete idiot is right. Biden/Harris 2024 is already, today, running ads of His Orangeness bragging about how he “killed Roe v Wade”.
rikyrah
BWA HA AH AH AHA HA HAH
Kenny BooYah!![]()
(@KwikWarren) posted at 7:02 AM on Wed, Nov 08, 2023:![]()
Not sure whose reaction to @SymoneDSanders body slamming @TimRyan on live TV was best: @MichaelSteele who was laughing his ass off or @TimRyan who sitting there looking like he’d seen a ghost.
(https://x.com/KwikWarren/status/1722238265246597430?t=RgErihf6k6AVhIhDjzG2eg&s=03)
Ruckus
@C Stars:
They’re out of touch religious extremists who are imposing their SHITTY minority views on normal Americans.
Fixed it for you
Also, swearing seems appropriate here, considering the issue, considering the side of humanity that continues to suffer while the perpetrators of this bullshit don’t seem to give a damn about half of humanity. This medical issue should be the decision of ONE person, the person that needs or wants this medical procedure and would like it done by a professional medical person, not some quack in a back alley. I’m going on 3/4 of a century old and I can remember the concept of medicine from before I was old enough to vote and it was better than nothing, but not by much. We have the concepts of better medicine, of better healthcare, of MAKING LIFE BETTER and some are trying to push half of the population back to suffering a lifetime of suffering and regret. This choice is absolutely none of their damn business. 100000% – NONE OF THEIR DAMN BUSINESS.
smith
@TriassicSands: The Speaker of the OH House has already said that’s exactly what they will try to do. This is a fight that will never end until the GQP is so utterly vanquished it ceases to exist as a political party.
Chetan Murthy
@TriassicSands: Just so you can, y’know, bask in the warmth, here’s the text. The drafters of this thing knew what they were doing, boy howdy.
19thnews.org/2023/10/ohio-issue-1-what-to-know-abortion-amendment-november/
I mean, look at part D! Part D! They made sure it didn’t take any laws from the Ohio lege to make the amendment effective!
TriassicSands
@Redshift:
I’m ecstatic about the Ohio result, but I can’t help but wish it was 68%* for instead of 58%. I say that because the higher the percentage is in state after state, the harder it will be for Republicans to do anything about it.
Years ago, before so many elections got so close, 55% was considered a “landslide” victory. So, anything above that is still great.
*98% would be even better, but c’mon, if it were that high or just higher than, say 68% Republicans probably wouldn’t win many elections at all.
Jeffro
I love the thought that Mr. Genius Deal-Makin’ Man is going to somehow get vast majorities of Americans to agree on this issue.
“I’ve got it! 17 1/2 weeks, right? That is where we draw the line! 17 1/2 weeks! BOOM CASE CLOSED!!”
He’s such a fucking idiot. What’s he going to do, get the fundies to pinky-swear that they’ll just let the new 17 1/2 week
baner excuse me limit stand, forever and ever?Frankensteinbeck
@TriassicSands:
It was written specifically to make it impossible for the legislature to do that, with definitions that close off the normal conservative deceptions, like saying that if the doctor thinks the patient is in danger that’s it, that’s the definition of the patient being in danger. I was impressed.
So, they will have to come up with something new to fuck with it, and I’m sure they will do their damnedest.
Jeffro
@rikyrah: that’s awesome!
This should put a crimp in any plans that the current Lt Gov and AG had for higher office as well. They are looooooons.
Chetan Murthy
@Barbara: Everything you say is right! And the “reasonable compromise” was Roe. But the gestation slavers had to fuck that up.
TriassicSands
@smith:
I’m in the hospital, so I’m not following everything as closely as I would if I were at home, so thanks for the information (unsurprising as it is.)
Kelly
@rikyrah:
This is already a problem in a few places where birthing services were barely financially viable. The inertia of moving a medical practice out of state will slow the exodus of providers. Most retirements will leave a gap that will not be filled.
patrick II
So for Republican politicians the cutoff is 15 weeks instead of 22. I usually hear from pro-lifers that the zygote has the civil rights of a full person right from conception, when life begins, or when the soul enters the body. Now that event doesn’t happen until 15 weeks? Why 15? Why are they killing all of those 14-week-old babies?
hrprogressive
There is zero-point-zero chance of anyone “coming together” on this.
The left of center position should be “Full access, no questions, no exceptions”.
The Fascist Position is “No Abortions, Ever, because We Said So” although of course their wealthy voters will find ways around it.
You cannot compromise on that. I have no desire to compromise on this, and I don’t even possess a uterus.
Citizen Alan
@Anoniminous: My immediate thought looking at those statistics is to wonder whether the offspring of interracial couplings are considered “white” or fit into one of the other groups. Are fundies upset at the decline in white births or the fact that the “truly white” numbers are being reduced by “miscegenation.”
C Stars
@Sure Lurkalot: I think that this issue–along with the many, many men out there whose partners had ended unwanted pregnancies so that they could both get on with their lives–is huge, because it’s just sadly not all that uncommon, especially with the dismal state of maternal care in this country and red states in particular. Three women in my life had abortions when the alternative was death (and there are likely more who I don’t know about). It was literally a lifesaving procedure for them–one of these people was in the hospital for over a month and it really wasn’t clear whether she was going to make it or not (without an emergency abortion, she would not have). It’s not like I work in women’s healthcare or anything–this particular person was a coworker.
I noticed right after Dobbs these stories started to make the front pages, and while it’s absolutely vile that this is happening to women, it’s probably good that everyone is reminded of it when it does.
Raoul Paste
I saw a picture of Steve Bannon, on Raw Story, reacting to election results . He looked…..groomed and clean.
I hope you’re sitting down
Jackie
@Geminid: LOL! Most likely!🥱
TriassicSands
@Frankensteinbeck:
Thanks for that information. (See my reply to Smith.) Obviously, we agree. This is going to go on and on. Republicans will never voluntarily stop trying to screw people.
Everyone’s hope that if only Trump would die, the GOP would be able to free itself from the cult and change. The party has become so Trumpified that his death won’t make any difference, except that the world won’t have to see or here that bloated POS alive. But his “presence” and influence will still dominate among millions of Americans.
Ken
@Jeffro: I could also see Trump blurting out “All the abortions I’ve paid for over the years were in the first eight weeks.”
C Stars
Well, rare, and also usually performed under emergent circumstances, when the pregnant person’s life is in danger. So kick ’em when they’re down, I guess.
ETA whoops, I misunderstood your comment. Yes, the idea that abortions of choice after 15 weeks is statistically significant is ridiculous
Ruckus
@kindness:
Republicans…..can someone please teach them to be able to read the room?
I believe that ship sailed long ago. Like when ships had sails. They refuse to read the room because that shows them how shitty their “ideals” are.
Remember, in my lifetime my home state of CA was a republican state. Gave all of us ronnie raygun. It hasn’t been rethuglican for some time and it’s a far better state for it.
Ronno2018
I like the energy in this post! good job!
C Stars
@TriassicSands: I hope you are comfortable and get to go home soon!
Frankensteinbeck
@patrick II:
Because this proposal restricts some currently available abortions without allowing any new ones. It is an ‘Only if your laws are not already more restrictive.’ So pro-lifers see and use it as a step in their direction.
If they claim they’ll be satisfied with that, they’re lying. It is a conscious strategy. The term for it is ‘pious fraud’. They are the good guys saving babies from evil people who have no legitimate right to make decisions. Therefor, any lie, any cheating, is not merely justified but heroism.
This is fundamental to how both evangelicalism and white supremacy work.
Geminid
@Redshift: Republicans in the House of Delegates were afraid to hold a floor vote on the 15 week abortion ban. They claimed the reason was that the Senate would reject it, but that did not stop Republican Delegates from passing all kinds of other stupid bills. They knew the issue would hurt them at the polls, and were hoping to avoid last night’s result.
UncleEbeneezer
@Ruckus: Republicans seem largely incapable of reading any room that isn’t their own minds. They truly live in a fantasy land where they think everyone wants what they want. We have this problem with some people on our side too, but it’s like a damn prerequisite for being a Republican.
C Stars
@Ken: YES!! And his cult would still think he was the second coming of Jesus.
smith
OK, here’s what we need for the future of the GQP: The state party in MI, which in recent months has been involved in actual fistfights among themselves, is now reported to be $500,000 in debt and is squabbling over removing the state party chair.
Frankensteinbeck
@TriassicSands:
The party was already this extreme on abortion issues. On most issues. Trump was a step in a spiral that was already well on its way, and his biggest effects were A) to get people to say out loud what they already were doing, B) by doing so to get the hardest core neo-Nazi voters to vote, and C) to give democracy overturning efforts a little bump. Not even a big bump, since the trend has been that they support him doing it, but nobody else is brave enough to do more than keep doubling down on voter suppression.
EDIT – I give him no credit for Dobbs. That was McConnell’s achievement, and Trump was his patsy with a rubber stamp.
Damien
Sometimes I think some Dems should run on the platform of “corporate regulation, individual freedom”
Omnes Omnibus
@TriassicSands: The saying “Wish in one hand, shit in the other, see which one gets full the fastest” comes to mind.
Geminid
@smith:
“Come on, you Wolverines!”
Alison Rose
Bit of a LOLSOB:
Maybe TN will follow suit soon!
smith
And just in time to ratify your opinion, Rick Santorum (Remember him? You can google him if you don’t!) said in reaction to yesterdays’s results, “Pure democracies are not a way to run a country.”
C Stars
@Ruckus: Yeah, right? They picked the one issue that will reliably make life harder for everyone and truly endanger one half of the population. Also the conservative supremes made it very clear that this was just the first step down the path of outlawing birth control, no fault divorce, etc.
Ruckus
@TriassicSands:
I believe that the rethuglican party has always been about control, not realistic governing, not creating laws that bring life into the current century, but creating laws that impose their narrow, asinine “ideals” upon others.
Mike in NC
Remember when the neo-Nazis rioted in Charlottesville, VA? Fat Bastard immediately went into his pander mode and claimed there were “many good people on many sides”.
eclare
@Alison Rose:
Yep. Already saw that (I follow him) and sent it out. Trae and Dolly, two Tennesseans I am proud of.
Frankensteinbeck
@smith:
Remember that conservative op-ed when Obama was elected suggesting the military pull a coup to save the country? They don’t believe in democracy. Haven’t for decades. Few of them are willing to go balls-to-the-wall brazen about it like Trump, but shit like North Carolina has regularly pulled definitely makes the point clear. They think they are the heroes, we are the villains, and our votes are an obstacle to overcome by any means necessary, not a legitimate side in a decision making process.
smith
Here we go — Empty Greene says the GQP’s problem is that they aren’t extreme enough in their opposition to abortion.
Alison Rose
@eclare: Honestly, the fact that Tennessee gave us Dolly Parton is worth a lot of other bullshit.
Captain C
@UncleEbeneezer:
Or in some cases, everyone who counts wants what they want, and everyone else doesn’t count, and therefore it’s OK to steamroll them or worse.
cain
@Betty Cracker:
He must know that if this buddies make it law that he’s fucked as a presidential candidate. Just looking at places like Ohio – women are going to come out and make sure he isn’t going to win.
There is no way he’s going to be able to paper over the fact that it is law in Florida.
Ruckus
@UncleEbeneezer:
Absolutely and yes it always has been. They want to conserve life as they think it was when King Edward IV was in charge.
The Kropenhagen Interpretation
@Frankensteinbeck: I believe Santorum was talking about directly voting on laws here, specifically the OH ballot referenda.
It was just sour grapes, but I’m inclined to agree with the broader point. We can’t do this for everything.
But when the legislature is out of step with the broader electorate, this needs to be preserved as an option.
Brit in Chicago
@eclare: “Georgia is huge to get through”
I seem to recall hearing that General Sherman managed it pretty well.
Elizabelle
Three pandas are airborne over West Virginia, on their way to Alaska and China.
Mai Naem mobile
@smith: bbbbbut the GOP is good with managing money and the economy.
Captain C
@smith: Not that I would judge someone for this, but MTG gives the vibe of someone who has had multiple abortions, simply because she didn’t want to be inconvenienced (and can’t be bothered to use birth control).
Peale
@Frankensteinbeck: My guess is they’ll go back to placing onerous restrictions on abortion clinics.
kindness
@Ruckus: The only good thing I like to bring up about Ronnie Reagan when he was governor of our Great People’s Republic of California was that it was Ronnie who made open carry of guns illegal here. Yup. All it took was the Black Panthers walking around ‘on patrol’ with rifles to scare the pants/panties off John/Joan Q Whiteperson to want to make openly carrying a gun illegal. For that (and only that) I thank you Ronnie.
Baud
@Captain C:
Or because the fetus begged for it, considering the alternative.
eclare
@Brit in Chicago:
Hahaha…good point!
trollhattan
@Old School: So, Ivanka is now Term 2 Ronnie Reagan in a bespoke court-wearin’ dress?
Ruckus
@kindness:
He did that because he knew who the first victim would be…..
Never give them credit for doing the right thing, they don’t deserve it, unless it was completely, totally, absolutely self serving. Like ronnie thinking he might be the reason for them carrying the guns in the first place. They call themselves the right because they think it justifies their bullshit.
Elizabelle
Pandas over Pennsylvania.
Gonna get back to my day. Still smiling over Virginia results. Gorgeous week here, weatherwise.
Kent
Of course he is. Trump has no core values (other than greed and egoism).
He says whatever he thinks will benefit him at the moment.
eclare
@trollhattan:
youtu.be/q9L0wo34G8o?si=FBLlT5V7u2VOEysm
So funny
Ken
Every now and then I read a sentence and think that it has never before been said, and quite probably never will be again.
trollhattan
@kindness: He really put the jerk into kneejerk with that one. Accidentally doing the right thing and it remains law half a century on. SAD.
Redshift
@hrprogressive:
Same here. We don’t need laws about abortion because there’s nothing happening that shouldn’t be. The idea that women are getting abortions for convenience or as a means of birth control (i.e., being too irresponsible to use birth control) are right-wing myths and always have been.
The only argument for laws restricting anything are that bad things are happening, or we have really solid evidence they would unless it’s illegal. Neither is true for abortion, and “we can fantasize really bad things people might do that we have to stop” isn’t enough.
Jeffro
@smith:
Yup. She’s nuts. The quote I saw was in Rolling Stone – it’s also included in the article you linked to:
The voices screeching inside her head must really be something.
Mai Naem mobile
@Anoniminous: you’re right but math is not the GOP’s strength. It’s not like doctors are going to say let me abort brown fetuses and force white wimmens to give birth.
lowtechcyclist
@Geminid:
I don’t miss Bristol, but I hope it will continue to be a refuge for those in Tennessee and other nearby states (Asheville’s just a hop over the mountains, and the Georgia line is only ~210 miles away by interstate) that are less hospitable to women.
Frankensteinbeck
@cain:
I’m never sure what DeSantis knows. Word from his pre-political life is that he’s a true believer of the racist bullshit he pushes as governor. He is a sadist who both enjoys and has embraced as his best political strategy torturing minorities. He is utterly dishonest and at least trying to be strategically power hungry. He does not understand humans in general. Put it all together, and I wouldn’t bet in any direction what he will hold back from doing for political reasons.
Redshift
@Frankensteinbeck:
I give him no credit for it, but I’m happy to have him take credit for it!
Geminid
I saw a couple good ones on Rachel Bitecofer’s morning Twitter feed. One:
A Political Science professor-turned campaign consultant, Bitecofer also had a messaging pointer on another issue:
Elizabelle
@Ken: Yup. When pandas fly …
The zoo has been talking up its one-eyed rescue possum, Basil.
They have baby meerkats. And red pandas. Lots of cool animals, who will be sticking around.
Brachiator
The GOP candidates should be challenged about this during the debate. Make them lie again and use it against them.
Make Trump lie about it, too. Let him spout his grifter BS.
Gretchen
@rikyrah: I had to rewatch that clip of Sanders flicking her fingers at people who said Joe Biden needed to drop out several times. Too funny.
matt
Maybe we shouldn’t come together with the 1/3 that’s trying to force its views on the 2/3.
wjca
Well, except for the cost of attending the state-run universities. Those are a long way from what they cost when we were young. Somehow that keeps not getting fixed.
Ohio Mom
@kindness: Another Black Panther story: In the spring of 1977, a group of people with disabilities — mostly wheel-chair users — staged a sit-in protest in San Francisco in a federal office building to urge enactment of a federal law to require accessibility and accommodations for the disabled (eventually their demands were met through the passage of the 504 law).
The sit-in lasted 28 days and the Black Panthers brought everyone lunch.
Redshift
@Jeffro: Other than the graphic images, it’s pretty much the path conservatives follow on every issue (tax cuts, for example) — “our policy/position didn’t fail, the only problem is we didn’t do it hard enough! The compromises to get it passed are what doomed it, the perfect pure idea that can never become reality definitely would have worked!”
trollhattan
@Ken: Plus they buried the lede: “In an aircraft fashioned of delicious bamboo.”
HumboldtBlue
I want every motherfucker who told us to be glad for Liz Cheney because she at least stood up for principles to watch this. That fucking old cow has no fucking principles.
cain
@Frankensteinbeck: He definitely has no patience for anything ‘woke’ and if he believes ‘abortion’ is a woke concept – yeah, he’s going to end up shooting himself in the foot. But still, it’s all numbers – he must have people advising him.. wait.. never mind. He’s a silly person.
Bupalos
@John S.: Not when they’re showing this kind of internal disconnect. It’s a very confusing thing that it’s pointing towards, but it’s absolutely meaningful when the same people say “we’re overwhelmingly for what issue one would accomplish,” “we’re mildly in favor of issue 1,” and “one of the parties agrees with us on issues 1, the other diametrically does not, and we’re indifferent between those parties on that issue.”
Now what is that meaning? Really just what I said. The electorate is generally way less rationally predictable and simply consistent than we often insist on thinking. It’s perfectly capable of returning results like “I like what Joe Biden has done, and I refuse to vote for him because of what he has done. He is too old to have done what he did, and that’s why what he both did and didn’t do caused inflation. And he’s so old he wouldn’t be able to do that in the future, which will cause even more inflation.”
cain
@Jeffro: whoa – this woman has never had a child and by extension has not had experiences with any kind of problem with child birth. She has no idea what the fuck she’s talking about.
What a bunch of malarkey.
I’m curious to know if she will produce something herself and bring it to a congressional hearing. I mean, she’s already brought pictures of penises.
Brachiator
@Frankensteinbeck:
Trump got to put his nominees on the Supreme Court. That’s more than a mere rubber stamp.
McConnell is fading and even though Trump is getting his butt kicked in court, the GOP continues to prop him up and his base is hopelessly devoted to him.
Trumpism is the best thing to happen to the GOP extremists. There are no moderates left anymore and the worst Republicans are trying to outdo Trump for evil. Even as a charlatan and a figurehead, Trump is doing it for the Deplorables.
cain
@Captain C: Those alleged aborted fetus should thank that they hopefully we be reborn into some other womb. Truly having MTG as a mother would be living in hell.
Betty Cracker
@Geminid:
Exactly right!
Dorothy A. Winsor
Being able to “read the room” is immaterial to Rs because they don’t care what the other people in the room think. They base their abortion bans on what they believe to be moral grounds. You can’t compromise with that. It’s a bad way to make laws. If you have god on your side, you can justify anything.
Alison Rose
@Jeffro: I love how they think that making people look at the physical results of an abortion will turn them against it. Bitch, ANY medical procedure would look disgusting to anyone outside of the medical profession. Hell, when I had my wisdom teeth pulled, the oral surgeon stuck them in my face and asked if I wanted them, and I was like GAHHHHH because they were creepy as fuck. They look like something you’d find at an archaeological dig.
“This thing from inside your bloody meatsack is gross looking, so therefore we should leave it in there permanently” is such a childish fucking notion.
MisterDancer
Pretty much the same with weed. Both these (and other!) issues are ones that need compassion and thoughtful engagement, but have had literal decades of well-funded rhetoric impacting the American psyche.
wjca
Except that “his nominees” were a rubber stamp of whoever the Heritage Foundation recommended.
MagdaInBlack
@cain: She has 3 children.
Spanky
@smith: Why the fuck would anyone have bothered to go seek out Santorum’s opinion on anything?
Alison Rose
@cain: You might be thinking of someone else. Sadly for the world, MTG has three kids.
sab
@Brachiator: I had the misfortune of standing next to a closet trumper while distributing sample ballots yesterday. Some fool gave her a board of education candidate’s leaflets to distribute. I feel sorry for the candidate having her name associated with the MAGA lady.
MAGA lady was a complete idiot. Absolutely delusional. I am still in stressed out shock after being forced to spend a couple of hours with her. Also too she lied (or had confused herself) about her candidate’s party affiliation.
fancycwabs
As a pro-choice candidate for congress in Tennessee who ran against a vehemently forced-birth candidate in 2022, I take issue with your “every single time” contention, but its nice to see swing states swinging back to some semblance of normalcy.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Ken: There’s been a shortage of commercial airline pilots, so some airlines are reducing the flight hour requirements for pandas. I doubt any of them have over 1000 hours.
Soprano2
@Frankensteinbeck: I’ve seen it said that what Trump did was answer the right-wing’s casting call. He was just what they were already looking for.
geg6
@bbleh:
Montana
sab
@MisterDancer: My husband likes to watch old cop shows. They are full of scenes of rampaging kids high on marijuana.
Bupalos
Yes. Exactly. It’s also how he plans to solve the Russo-Ukrainian war. Just pretend to believe utterly incredible things.
bbleh
@geg6: SC decision no? Or did they then also amend the constitution? TIFG has us on the run so badly from all his WINNING!! that I lose track.
lowtechcyclist
@Chetan Murthy:
IANAL, but it sure looks to me like a legal work of art. Including, like you say, the “this section is self-executing” part. No need to wait around for the legislature to pass anything, it’s the law NOW!
Soprano2
@smith: I hope they all listen to her. Then we can counter with a picture of what the fetus looks like when the average abortion is done. The R’s have this fantasy that the majority of abortions are done on almost full-term fetuses, so they look like a baby.
Citizen Alan
@HumboldtBlue: Her “principles” are white supremacist fascism, just like every other Republican. Her sole real objection to Trump was that he threatened to seize power on behalf of a wing of the GOP that she didn’t belong to. If Kerry had won in 2004 and then Bush responded with a military coup, Liz Cheney would not have had the slightest objection.
Bupalos
@MisterDancer: I’d be ok with a law outlawing smoking stinky weed in public places. Ohio isn’t even recreational legal yet and I’m already tired of smelling that skunky dog shit. I actually paused a several seconds before ticking yes on 2.
Soprano2
@UncleEbeneezer: No, I think they know most of us don’t want what they want. They have set themselves up as the “morality police” who know better than everyone else what we all should have, and they’re willing to use the law to make it that way. It’s the same thing behind the school book bannings – it’s not enough that they can restrict their child from seeing certain books, they think no one’s child should be able to see them because they know better than everyone else how to do everything.
Alison Rose
@sab: As a teenager, I smoked enough weed to fill an Olympic swimming pool, and the only rampaging I ever did was through a bag of barbecue tater chips.
VeniceRiley
@Alison Rose: Same for that huge mass Dr. Slutsky removed from my finger.
In addition to abortion double downs, I think many were all hands for Dems because of the triple quadruple downs of outright racist, ANTI-LGBT, M4L quadruple downs, etc. and wanted to give the the religious extremist right wing an LaRouche QAnons a hard brushback pitch.
I know it’s not fashion to cover the west coast, but did I read spokane also kicked their M4L?
That’s a big Joe Biden Deal.
Citizen Alan
@Betty Cracker:
The people pushing for this want taxpayers to pay for fundamentalist Christian madrassa schools.
Geminid
@Soprano2: It was the late M.D. Russ who said:
M.D. Russ was a retired Army Colonel who wrote some for the Virginia conservative journal Bearing Drift. The quote is the conclusion of Russ’s excellent June, 2020 article, “Trump is the Republican President.” Colonel Russ passed away last year.
sab
@Alison Rose: Yes. All the weed users I know just sit around and eat, and laugh at each other’s stupid jokes.
eclare
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Yeah, I don’t think Mike Johnson cares about reading the room.
Citizen Alan
@sab: Not me. The few times I’ve tried getting high since moving to CA have left me miserable. I can’t smoke it because of respiratory issues. And I don’t feel anything from edibles for the first four hours … at which point I suddenly feel like I’ve been hit by a tranquilizer dart.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: It’s been really tough for those pandas to get a pilots license. The cockpits are kinda small, and not too many pilots want to help them get their flight hours. Plus, they have to meet American and Chinese flight requirements.
TriassicSands
@Frankensteinbeck:
i agree. I think the biggest difference Trump has made is in giving people the right to go public with their bigotry, threats, and violence. There are fewer euphemisms now and more overt language and behavior. Another thing he has done is allow Americans to see a political party bowing and scraping before a wannabe tyrant. That doesn’t change the minds of enough Republican voters to make enough difference, but it at least makes their cowardice fully visible.
January 6 is also a place where Trump stands out. Look at the difference in election results denials that occur now compared with before he appeared. Even Nixon didn’t in 1960.
And, yes, the key to Dobbs was McConnell.
Historical note: Richard Nixon, Crook (CA), lost in a close election to JFK and did not challenge the outcome. If he were alive today, there is a good chance he would challenge the same outcome.
The spirit of Trumpism has been growing in the Republican Party for decades. They just needed a Trump to appear to allow them to reach their full potential. If it hadn’t been Trump, it would have been someone else.
Soprano2
@Bupalos: You should listen to Jon Favreau talk about the voter focus groups he did in swing states (he talked to people who voted for Obama and then voted for TFG). There was one guy who liked AOC and Marjorie Taylor Greene, because he saw both of them as standing up to the establishment! You have to remember, these people don’t pay attention to politics the way those of us on this blog do. They can have wildly inconsistent positions without a second thought.
sab
@Citizen Alan: So you never felt the urge to rampage?
p.a.
Let’s take a moment and imagine the taste of bile in the throats of Scalito, Campground Clarence, Fauntleroy Roberts et al as these election results add up.
Betty Cracker
@HumboldtBlue: Two things can be true at once: 1) Cheney is a hard-right Republican with horrifying views, and 2) Cheney took a principled stand against her party’s attempts to steal the 2020 election, at the cost of her political career.
There are examples throughout history of politicians who did horrible, unforgiveable shit in one situation while rising to the occasion splendidly in others. Winston Churchill, LBJ, etc.
Brit in Chicago
@Frankensteinbeck: Anybody really think we have pure democracy? I think we’re a very long way from it. The House can be (and in many states) gerrymandered; the Senate gives the same number of senators to each state, regardless of size; the President is elected by the EC, not by a vote of the people. Perhaps it’s because I was not brought up in this country, but I think the USA is pretty far down the democracy scale. That’s not to say it couldn’t slip further….
sab
What if Frank LaRose refuses to certify our election results?
eclare
@sab:
In high school some of us refused to ride in a car Chuck drove unless he was high. Otherwise he was an aggressive and scary driver.
mrmoshpotato
@Old School: So Porn Whisper Trash is going all Alberto Gonzalez on everyone?
Soprano2
@lowtechcyclist: That was a problem with the Medicaid expansion the people voted for in MO – the state legislature had to authorize the money for it. They tried not to, but the courts said they had to do it. We’re kind of lucky here, since we have the Missouri Plan for the courts it’s harder for the R’s to stack the court with right wing idealogues.
Baud
@sab:
He’ll probably get sued.
Brachiator
@wjca:
And so? We know that Trump is lazy and stupid. But he loves getting the glory and attention. And even if he is given a list, he still was the one who made the final decision on the nominees. From an old NPR story, let’s look at how Trump has shaped the federal courts.
But here is the bottom line.
Trump understands how to play to his base. That’s how he insures loyalty. He and the GOP mutually benefit from Trump’s stupidity. The Republican leadership needs him just as much as he needs them.
Biden has been able to undo some of the damage. There is more that needs to be done.
cain
@MagdaInBlack:
@Alison Rose:
Oh shit – those poor souls.
mrmoshpotato
@Betty Cracker: Sounds like good news for John McCain.
Soprano2
@Geminid: Good to know that’s where it came from. Boy is it ever true!
MagdaInBlack
@cain: LOL, that was my thought too.
coin operated
@Alison Rose:
My plans for this evening have been exposed…
Dorothy A. Winsor
@p.a.: I’m not sure those justices care. They’re beyond anything we can do to them. And they think that’s the way it should be.
NorthLeft
I don’t recall which network said it, but I saw a video clip where Youngkin’s presidential campaign was declared to be over before it even started based on the results from Virginia.
Oh, those sweet Republican tears of failure and anger.
Soprano2
@Citizen Alan: Since it’s legal in MO, I’m going to ask hubby’s doctor at his next appointment if he thinks it would be OK to try to use edibles to help my husband’s appetite. He orders food, then looks at it and says “I don’t know why I ordered that, I’m not really that hungry”. I think it’s something that can happen with people who develop dementia. He’s lost over 20 lbs in the past year!
Alison Rose
@eclare: Yeah, I was actually a better driver when I was stoned, because I was terrified of getting pulled over. So I stuck to the speed limit, or even a couple miles below it, always used my signals, no California stops, etc. People will say it’s dangerous to drive stoned because they lump it in with alcohol as being “under the influence”. But when you’re baked, you’re still basically in control of yourself and your faculties. You might laugh a little more easily and say dumb shit, but you’re not incapable of making rational decisions. There’s the argument that your reflexes are slower, which might be true, but you have to be pretty fucking stoned for that to be at a dangerous level. It’s been over a decade since I’ve smoked weed, but I remember those good old days, LOL.
lowtechcyclist
@Elizabelle:
I love the red pandas. They are so playful! My wife loves the giant pandas, and is really bummed to see them go. But the red pandas aren’t going anywhere, so I’m good. When we were at the zoo a few weeks ago, we also got to see the orangutans swinging along the overhead cables, which was pretty exciting to watch. So I agree, there’s still plenty of reasons to go to the National Zoo, even with the pandas gone.
Alison Rose
@coin operated: LOLZ :)
Soprano2
@Brachiator: Not just the Heritage Foundation, it was the Federalist Society who provided him with the list.
Geminid
@TriassicSands: You could appreciate M.D. Russel’s Bearing Drift article, “Trump is the Republican President” (June 2020). Russ analyses the devolution of the Republican party from Newt Gingrich’s Contract for America up to 2016 to explain how Trump was the inevitable nominee that year.
Russ was a retired Army Colonel and self-described independent conservative.
MagdaInBlack
@Alison Rose: I suppose the fact that the right combo of caffeine and cannabis will cause me to put on music and clean the house, might be considered a rampage?
louc
@Chetan Murthy:
I stay Facebook friends with various rightwing lunatic relatives just to see what they’re saying on various topics. It’s truly Bizzaro world. They interpreted this provision of the Ohio amendment as doctors will be ripping babies from wombs two days before birth!
One’s comment after the route last night: “The devil was out campaigning and won.” That’s what they believe.
Alison Rose
@MagdaInBlack: And cleanliness is next to Godliness!
sab
@MagdaInBlack: Maybe when it finally hits the market in Ohio I should try that.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@Brachiator: I heard Biden hit 150 in # of judges confirmed the other day. He’s doing his best to undo the damage.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: IIRC 100 of those are women.
Ruckus
@Jeffro:
The voices screeching inside her head must really be something.
That screeching overrides everything else inside that waste of space.
WhatsMyNym
@cmorenc:
NO. Never take pot across a state border, and never fly on a commercial airline with it, even within your state. Probably don’t take it with you to a National Park, or anything the Feds run.
Eyeroller
@louc: When a doctor removes a baby from its mother’s womb that’s called “delivery.” I hate this rhetoric so much. There is no state that permits killing of a viable fetus. The biggest issue is what is “viable.” The Roe limit of 22 weeks is still, after 50+ years, regarded as the lower bound of survival and it’s far from assured for a fetus of that age. (That is the earliest at which the lungs can be functional.)
MagdaInBlack
@sab: Consult your local budtender. Ask for something that goes well with motown and cleaning 😉
Omnes Omnibus
@matt: Who is arguing that we should?
Baud
@Omnes Omnibus:
I have been pushing for an abortion compromise where the restrictions would only apply to men.
trollhattan
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Now if we can only get Clarence and Sam in a hamberder-eatin’ contest with Trump….
sab
@Baud: Outlaw vasectomies.
Just Some Fuckhead
Haley’s “consensus” looks a lot like DC bipartisanship: doing whatever Republicans want to do.
cain
@Kelly:
It’s going to get worse, because if you’re going to go to a birthing place or hospital for a birth in another state – that travel is going to be scrutinized. Then if the child ends getting stillbirth – they’ll come back and be scrutinized again.
If you point this out – they’ll hand wave it and then pass some more laws.
Scout211
To change the subject somewhat, this was an interesting announcement by the DOJ:
. . .
I wonder who will be caught in this net and when the leaks will start leaking.
trollhattan
Five years ago today was the Camp Fire in ironically named Paradise, CA. Windy as hell in our metroplex that morning and the black cloud hugging the northern horizon on an otherwise clear fall day looked ominous. Once at work I looked up the incident on CalFire and was horrified at how fast it blew up from a couple dozen acres to tens of thousands.
Recovery and rebuilding creep along. I expect Lahina will be similarly challenged to return to whatever their new normal may become.
Trump visited and of course managed to launch a thousand raking the forest jokes.
Geminid
@Soprano2: That was an excellent article. I thought it benefited from Russ’s perspective as a self-described “independent conservative.”
The article is easy to find by looking up MD Russ and Bearing Drift. That’s an internet magazine run by what could be called Eisenhower Republicans. Or, since it’s Virginia, “John Warner Republicans.” They do a lot of good reporting on Virginia, and especially the Republican party here.
Ruckus
@wjca:
What doesn’t cost more since we were young?
The answer to that is everydamnthing. If everything cost the same this country wouldn’t have grown, there would be far more people living on the street than there is now, CA would be unlivable because of the smog, and on and on and on and…..
IOW this is the story of humanity since the first two of us existed. You don’t live in a cave and wear the skin of an animal you killed with a rock do you? As much as life could improve from where we are, it has improved an amazing amount since I crapped in my diapers. Life happens and people do things, have ideas that improve it. OK some do this, others think it was better 50 or 100 or 200 yrs ago. They are absolutely, 1000%, fucking, wrong. Is it perfect? Hell no and it never will be, there are still rethuglicans about. And even if they were gone, there are still people who are complete fuckups and who still hate people that don’t look or sound like them, just because. We will never be rid of selfish, small, no brained people, humanity doesn’t work like that.
trollhattan
@Scout211: ‘At’s-a lot-a Lees. Wonder what the key Leed was that broke the case open?
catclub
Women ‘near you’ in southern Louisiana are going to Illinois for healthcare.
catclub
Long distance phone calls.
lowtechcyclist
@TriassicSands:
He had people doing that for him behind the scenes. Nothing came of it, obviously, but he gave it a try.
trollhattan
@Ruckus: Televisions. I’m going with televisions. And computers if you compare an IBM roomful of gear to a phone or laptop or desktop.
That’s my list. Who’d have predicted a seven-buck coffee?
Eolirin
@cain: With any luck it’ll blow up Rick Scott’s reelection chances too. We could use a pickup.
trollhattan
@lowtechcyclist: Obvious RINO, that Nixon.
laura
@MagdaInBlack: Soul Sister, you are mine😘 Mid-shelf indica housewife’s special, a cuppa, and some music from back in the day and my house shines. My mother’s home training- Saturday morning after cartoons, we’d turn up the Soul Train and vacuuming, dusting and scrubbing commenced
It’s been a joy-filled morning combing the interwebs via nitter for all the election results goodness.
TriassicSands
@C Stars:
Thank you.
Comfortable? Off and on. Home soon? Unknown, but the hill is now a mountain. Being home will mean I’m not in the hospital (being waited on hand and foot by excellent doctors and great nurses). I’ve asked, but they won’t come home with me. But it’s a beautiful day here in Seattle (through the window) and some great election results, so…a good day.
catclub
Ask them: “So you believe the devil is in control of this and not God?”
Steeplejack
Test comment from iPad.
MagdaInBlack
@laura: 🙂🙂🙂😉
rikyrah
@TriassicSands:
get better. :)
C Stars
@Citizen Alan: I am not a fan of cannabis either, though I did enjoy it in my 20s and some of my 30s. It gives me a headache and makes my heart beat too fast.
However, I have been microdosing psilocybin for the last month or so, and it is really nice. Just subtly makes everything feel better, without any other physical effects. I’m not interested in hallucinating, and its pretty easy to figure out the right dose so that that doesn’t happen (especially with these chocolate bars and candy they are making these days).
eclare
@lowtechcyclist:
Orangutans are awesome. Their three point connection as they swing and climb is amazing. Very smart animals.
Brachiator
@Soprano2:
Be careful. I live in California and happily voted for cannabis legalization. Later even included discussion about cannabis in tax classes I taught.
Edibles are popular at many cannabis shops. But cannabis research is still stifled because of federal law, especially research involving seniors.
Hopefully your doctor will be a good source of advice. But I suggest caution with respect to amount of edibles offered, and pay attention to timing, i.e., when it is consumed and when you expect to eat.
Also, ask about interaction with other drugs and whether cannabis might intensify memory issues.
I ran across this on the Internet.
I’ve had more medical issues over the past couple of years, and I have been asked about whether I smoke or drink, but never about cannabis consumption. I once asked a nurse outright if questions about cannabis use have ever been added to patient questionnaires at Kaiser hospitals and clinics and got the simple answer, No.
But this is going to be an ongoing issue, especially for seniors.
I also ran across this little nugget.
Party on!
TriassicSands
@lowtechcyclist:
Yeah, but nothing like Trump and it never became a public issue, which is where the real damage has been done.
Nixon was a crook, so all in all given his history, I look at 1960 as OK or about the best you could expect from Nixon.
Actually, I guess you could really say that about Trump — everything he does is best we can expect and he will do worse in the future — guaranteed. There is no bottom to the Trump barrel
And I should add, there were two states about which questions existed. The main character in Illinois, everybody’s idea of a great guy, was Mayor Daly. In Texas, the question apparently involved “Landslide Lyndon.” From everything I have read about the Texas election that gave LBJ that nickname, it was pretty iffy and on the side against Johnson’s winning. I don’t know if more recent research has shed any more light on the issue. The 2020 election was different, but there really are no good modern day analogs in AZ, WI, PA, or GA to Daly and LBJ in those days. In other words, there is no doubt who won the election. No fraud. And don’t forget who JFK’s father was.
I’ve always thought that Johnson and Nixon were two of the more fascinating presidents. They were very different, but there was a lot going on with both of them. Nixon, paranoid, devious, a crook, but who did some things that were really remarkable by today’s GOP standards. In the end, his dishonesty got him. No time left, but LBJ was complex and also remarkable in ways both good and bad.
C Stars
@TriassicSands: Yes indeed, it was great to open my eyes this morning as the memories of last night slowly dawned on me.
Good to hear that you have an excellent medical team as sherpas on the mountain.
rikyrah
@Brachiator:
The Judiciary is the most important reason why we needed to keep the Senate.
Biden has already matched the 150 judge mark.
Get as many judges as possible approved before the November 2024 Election.
Ruckus
@catclub:
OK that’s 5 points for you.
The Lodger
@trollhattan: If they have a military clientele and they operate in Virginia, I wonder of any of the Lees is a General.
Alison Rose
Man, Kim Adams, one of our donees in VA, is the only race there still uncalled. Currently NYT shows her with 49.7% and 95% in.
cain
@laura: I hate you people – cannabis does nothing for me other than a slight buzz. Meh. Then again, neither does mushrooms. I need some high performance enhancers yo!
cain
@Steeplejack:
It didn’t work. Joe Biden is still old.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
In the context of percentage of income, sure TVs are cheaper. My folks first TV was a 9 inch B&W when I was I believe 2 or 3 yrs old. It had more ghosts than a haunted mansion, fewer channels than my imagination and the oak cabinet it was in was far nicer than the electronics or the output. Also, I don’t drink coffee. Tried it once, I think I was 10 or 11. Tried it again when in the navy. So that’s 2 mistakes I’ve made……
Doc Sardonic
@Soprano2: You could also ask his Doc about Dronabinol (Marinol). It is a prescription appetite stimulant that is a synthetic cannabis derivative. Worked really well with my late mother before she read the paperwork I forgot to throw out and discovered it was associated with marijuana, and refused to continue it.
TriassicSands
@rikyrah:
Is that an order?
If so, I’ll tell my doctors to order up a miracle cure.
But, thank you for the thought. Things are getting somewhat better. In many ways though, my future depends on the “system” and what it allows, not what doctors want to do. So far, the “system” had been no friend.
Brachiator
@Ruckus:
You had diapers when you were a baby? Lucky kid! ;)
I joke. But even diapers got cheaper. And parents can use disposables instead of taking time to wash and dry a batch of diapers or use a diaper service.
Eolirin
@Ruckus: Lots of consumer goods and some services are cheaper, in some cases much cheaper, when adjusted for inflation.
What’s gone down is the degree of quality as companies focus on profits above consumer value to a much greater extent than in the post war pre Reagan era.
Unfortunately some key categories like healthcare, childcare, housing and education have gone up wildly, and those have an outsized effect on household finances.
Jeffro
@VeniceRiley: M4L got their asses handed to them all over the place. I’ve seen some light coverage of how the GOP’s culture wars are unappealing and fizzling out – I’d sure love it if some enterprising young reporter took a few minutes to focus on M4L getting specifically destroyed.
(I’d also love for someone to put a mic in front of Chris Rufo and ask why his oh-so-sharp plans have FAY-ULL-ED)
C Stars
@cain: I just got an email from the dispensary where I buy psilocybin that they are now selling DMT. I don’t even know what that that is! But you could give it a try…
Frankensteinbeck
@Brachiator:
The point of the conversation was that in terms of who actually accomplished something, McConnell overturned Dobbs. McConnell waged the war that got those Supreme Court Justices put in place. McConnell handed Trump a short list of judges who all suited McConnell’s desires, and Trump got to pick the one that he – incorrectly – believed would be personally loyal to him.
Lower level judges were handled the same way.
What Trump will claim is not relevant to this sub-topic. It is relevant to politics in general, but not a discussion of how Trump moved politics. McConnell did that, and Trump was his rubber stamp, at best given choices that were meaningless and would all have the same result.
@sab:
I’m pretty sure the vast majority of Republican men cannot grasp why any man would ever want or even allow such a thing to be done to him.
@Scout211:
Yay. Criminalization of sex work. Punishing women for making their own decisions about sex is not worth the embarrassment it will probably cause some Republicans.
Ruckus
@Brachiator:
I believe that a lot of over 65 folks used pot long ago, they just wouldn’t admit it. One of my neighbors, long, long ago was a pot and coke dealer, and I don’t mean the soda kind. He wasn’t alone in his line of business. Now of course there weren’t shops selling it but still it was widely available in CA, and I imagine in many other locations.
catclub
@Jeffro: oh, ‘Moms for Liberty’. I was trying to get marijuana in that abbreviation, somehow.
MagdaInBlack
@Ruckus: That is my thought as well. “We”, as in, my age group, always used it. Just now we can admit it and buy it.
Scout211
The sex workers are not being charged, at least at this time. Hopefully, more details will emerge, but it looks like the three people who are being charged are accused of coercing and enticing the sex workers and then transporting them. So we will see how it plays out and we’ll see whether the sex workers actually made their own decisions. Or maybe this will get buried somewhere . . .
trollhattan
Classic teevee design–gotta have the furniture!
RCA rolled out the first color set and boy they wring that thing for everything it was worth.
The first RCA colour TV set, the CT-100, was produced in early 1954. It had a 12-inch screen and cost $1,000, as compared with current 21-inch black-and-white sets selling for $300. It was not until the 1960s that colour television became profitable
ETA, as a comparison.
In 1954, a new Chevrolet Bel Air 2-door sedan cost the consumer $1,830.
No One of Consequence
We need a new thread like Texas could use some OHSA oversight at their chemical plants…
-NOoC
Ruckus
@Eolirin:
In the case of electronics it has gotten very significantly better. And that significantly is doing a hell of a lot of work. Cars are far, far better. And yes many things have gotten better. I remember when minimum wage was $1.25/hr. I remember working 50-60 hrs per week. What we are doing at this moment didn’t/couldn’t exist 60 yrs ago.
You know what hasn’t gotten better? Rethuglican politics.
Sure Lurkalot
@MagdaInBlack: @laura:
Please add me to the list of peeps who think that marijuana and tunes make housecleaning enjoyable. I find this especially true on a cold winter day when I can laze on the couch with a book afterwards.
MisterForkbeard
@Jeffro: Showing a thing that does not happen is the truth americans need to see, I guess
catclub
I just read George Will’s WAPO article letting us know that yesterday’s win was just sabotaging the Democrats by making Biden more popular.
In case you have the sense to not read it, Will is certain that Biden is way too old, Kamala Harris is a liability, and Biden will probably be beaten by the non-Trump GOP candidate.
No mention of the Dobbs decision.
mrmoshpotato
@No One of Consequence: Woah.
trollhattan
@catclub:
Well Will, the one-day only transition to “Republicans are at fault for falling for Vlad’s terrorism in Ukraine” has left the room. Straighten bowtie and resume telling those lib Dems what’s what.
Did he work in Mickie Mantle staying in the game too long?
mrmoshpotato
@catclub:
Oh George… Shut the fuck up at least 20 years ago.
Geminid
@mrmoshpotato: Did you see that Russet Perry won her Virginia Senate race yesterday?
lowtechcyclist
@C Stars:
I remember those initials from back in the day, but I didn’t have any idea what it was even then.
LBJ took the IRT down to Fourth Street, USA…
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid: 🎉🥔
Ramona
@catclub: at least as late as the early aughts, George Will was staunchly forced birth. He probably still is.
UncleEbeneezer
@C Stars: If you don’t mind my asking: What is your dose? Thinking about doing this for my birthday this year.
Jay
@Frankensteinbeck:
The pimps were arrested, not the sex workers.
In many places, prostitution is legal, pandering, pimping and solicitation is illegal.
The pimps probably attracted attention due to the massive amounts of information they were collecting on their clients and the status of their clients.
It sounds more like an “influence” operation than an escort service.
Bill Arnold
@trollhattan:
The Trump Files: Watch The Trumps Not Be Able To Multiply 17 By 6 – Donald Trump, Ivanka Trump, and Donald Trump, Jr., fail a pop quiz during a 2006 appearance on the Howard Stern Show.
This is always breathtaking; D.J. Trump attempts to distort his listeners’ realities, and succeeds for several seconds, until one of the off-camera staff does the mental arithmetic a couple of different ways and is bold enough to speak up.
Two of his airheaded adult children (Ivanka and DTjr) just flail amusingly.
Leto
@mrmoshpotato: even though Dems were winning up and down the board yesterday, MSNBC morning coverage decided to have on all the Republicans that they could where the message was the same. Biden too old, stop talking about Biden-nomics, Dems need something other than abortion… I just swapped to a Twitch stream and let my blood-pressure drop several points.
StringOnAStick
@trollhattan: We drove past Lahaina last week on our way to go snorkeling to the north. All access is controlled by National Guard troops, and the pre-existing highway bypass has been keeping direct traffic out of the city of Lahaina for many years, but you couldn’t help but see the horrible results of the fire.
We met a young Nat Guard soldier having his day off at the beach. He said word is 10 years to rebuild because of the need to redo everything associated with drainage and water supply.
I did learn that Lahaina means cruel or merciless sun, “la” being “sun”. It is probably the hottest and driest part of the island.
sab
@Leto: Why on earth do they need to have John Kasich on. Even Ohio Republicans can’t stand him.
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Those were the days!. That color TV didn’t get a lot of buyers as most everything was transmitted in B+W. Films were mostly in B+W. And a home cost was nothing like it is today in SoCal. Where I live now was mostly empty lots and a lot of orange groves. We had a dairy next to the elementary school playground I first attended, about 5 miles from where I live now and we got to watch the cows be milked and do all the things that cows do. And of course smell those cows and one of the things they do. People that see LA now but not then would have no idea what it looked like 70+ yrs ago.
BethanyAnne
@C Stars: I’m sure you’ll find actual useful sources of info about DMT. But, in the meanwhile, my experience was watching someone else use it. They were sitting on a lawn chair, and it kicked in. They shrieked at the top of their lungs, and it looked like they had had a stroke. Woke up a few minutes later, confused, thinking it had been several hours, and they had been blissed out for all those hours. This was at Burning Man, so no clue what else they had taken that day. Made me a bit leery, but that was 15 years ago – understanding has got to have come a long way since then.
No One of Consequence
@mrmoshpotato:
Well, FFS, this is like the third or more in recent memory that have gone up in Texas. CLEARLY safety measures must be insufficient? Or the enforcement mechanisms insufficient? Or the Inspectors insufficient, or perhaps ALL OF THEM, KATIE?!
Workers are residents shouldn’t have this happen once. This is becoming the regular in the Lone Star State.
Peace,
-NOoC
Miss Bianca
@lowtechcyclist: why *are* the giant pandas going? This is the first I have heard of it.
UncleEbeneezer
You love to see it…
Baud
@UncleEbeneezer:
👍
unctuous
@Frankensteinbeck:
I have heard evangelicals themselves refer to it as ‘lying for the Lord’.
It’s bad faith arguments, always. Christian fundamentalists are fundamentally dishonest people.
Scout211
Link.
smith
I think the “coercion” part of the charge suggests the women were not making their own decisions about sex. I don’t want to get into a general discussion about sex work, but I think it’s a mistake to automatically assume that a sex worker is always making her (or his) own decisions about sex.
Peale
@Scout211: Yep. China is displeased about something, so they’ve not been renewing the leases.
Bill Arnold
@C Stars:
DMT, as a vape that would be freebase DMT (very short acting, several minutes), is, at a higher/high dose, a hard core experience. (search phrase: “machine elves”. Also “ego death”) IIRC, high levels of B(?) vitamins might reduce (or greatly reduce) the effect for some people; been a while since I looked at the research and user literature. Also, seriously illegal in the USA at the Federal level (though not locally, apparently, where you are located. (DC?) )
Lower doses (threshold; where effects are minimal but obvious) or much lower doses (microdosing) would have similar effects to e.g. microdosing psilocybin/psilocin, or LSD. (All are neural plasticizers, basically; faster rates of brain change, for good and/or bad.) Ketamine, unrelated, has similar plasticizer effects. All (well, not sure about LSD) are of active research interest as novel treatments for treatment-resistant depression.
Interesting substances. Serious meditation is a lot safer, though. (And legal everywhere.)
unctuous
@Captain C: yes it’s this.
unctuous
@Citizen Alan: And they can discriminate in these schools.
Butter Emails!
I feel bad about missing this thread on Trump’s stamina and mental sharpness. If 53 percent of individuals polled believe Trump has the stamina and sharpness to be President vs 25 percent for Biden, it’s says a lot more about those polled and our crappy media than it does about Biden.
Still, the fact this view is held by so many is a cause for concern. I would suggest that the Biden campaign suggest a charity bike race between Trump and Biden.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@Ruckus: you mean 1483 and before?
Ruckus
Rethuglican candidates are screaming for the reversal of time. The reason they are called conservatives is that they want to conserve a life style that only accepts humanity one way. And that one way is about pale people that know their place, work for shit wages, and never complain about how shitty they make the lives of all but themselves. They are trying to conserve a lifestyle that actually never existed, it’s like playing with Barbie dolls and not recognizing that they aren’t real humans, that we are different, weird, nice, shitty, and even white people are not actually white.
Ruckus
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan):
Yes.
And yes I know….
Ksmiami
@sab: torches, pitchforks, armed fucking robot drones.
C Stars
@UncleEbeneezer: I DO love to see it. I also love Erin in the Morning.
As for your question about dosing psilocybin, I take about 100 to 150 mg at a time, and supplement that with smaller amounts as needed throughout the day. First time I did it I started with 50mg. There is not really a noticeable high at that dosage (FWIW I weigh about 130).
Once I took 200 mg and sat in the backyard and for about an hour everything in the world seemed incredibly, marvelously, soulfully beautiful, and a hummingbird came up and danced around in front of me for a long time (this really happened. maybe because I was sitting so still?) That’s about as close as I’ve come to a trip I guess. It was pretty dang nice, but I was glad the kids were away for the day because they probably would’ve noticed me being distracted and weird. No hangover whatsoever afterward, the feeling just goes away gradually.
A friend of mine took 600 mg at Burning Man and said he was basically in another world for a couple of hours (he very much enjoyed it). I am not interested in hallucinating at all so I will probably never take that much at a time, but if you are looking to travel the universe, 500/600 might be what you would want to aim for.
Bulk product (i.e. the dried mushroom tops) is apparently cheaper but I buy the Mycrochip chocolate bars–with scores like a Hershey bar–and they are an easy and accurate way to measure doses.
I have read, and have found in my own experience, that it’s best to take it one day on and one day off, or two days on and one or two days off. When I’ve tried taking it multiple days in a row, by the third day I simply didn’t notice any effect other than feeling a little dizzy.
I started taking it for anxiety relief, basically to wean myself off Klonopin, which my doctor prescribes me, and in my experience it really works. I am far less worried and prone to panic when I take it, and it also helps me to sleep, without making me feel stupid like the Klonopin does. Win/win.
C Stars
@BethanyAnne:
@Bill Arnold:
Yeah, the dispensary (in Oakland) is selling DMT vapes. From a brief online search it did not seem like my cup of tea at all and what you’ve both said here reinforces that.
I’ll take an ACTUAL cup of tea (herbal, please) maybe a small dose of psilocybin, a comfy couch and a Murderbot novel. That’s my bliss at the moment.
Ramona
@C Stars: Love, love, love the Murderbot audiobooks!
wjca
I realize that this is a dead thread, but I’m responding anyway.
Yes, thanks to inflation everything not computer-related costs more. But step away from the raw numbers for a moment. In the case of education, when we were young, it was possible to work your way thru college working half time at not much above minimum wage jobs. (I washed dishes and did some typing and filing.) Came away with degrees and zero debt. Can’t come close to that today. And that’s a change that could be reversed if there was the political inclination.
C Stars
@Ramona: Me too! Three people in our house are reading them right now; this morning at 5AM one of the Stars Spawns snuck into our bedroom to steal book four from their dad’s bedside table! I am on to book five…
Ramona
@C Stars: I listen to them over again every few months and thoroughly enjoy them…
Pittsburgh Mike
Exactly. This isn’t going to go away until Roe is reestablished as law in the entire country. Telling half the people in the country that they no longer have a right to the best medical care their condition requires is going to go badly, and will get worse as more and more people learn about what these bans really mean.