Thank you Jessica and Grace. Great advocacy on MSNBC with Alex Wagner. It is telling about Ireland. It makes me sad that it seems with so many human rights issues a person has to die for things to change. The landscape is changing but at what cost 😢💔
Then today (Dec. 19) there's this from The Washington Post AND KFF Health News. Just another sickening example of how these assholes don't care about actual children:
"Just nine states are responsible for roughly 60 percent of the decline in children’s enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program between March and September, according to new data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"In letters sent Monday to the governors of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra urged the states to adopt federal flexibilities aimed at simplifying the Medicaid eligibility-checking process, which will remain available through 2024.
"Becerra said state health officials should also focus their efforts on making CHIP transfer easier, reducing call center wait times and, if they haven’t already, expanding eligibility for Medicaid."
Unfortunately, many don't. Catholic hospital systems like the wildly misnamed "Mercy" have been hoovering up hospitals. A story that doesn't get much press, is the consolidation of hospitals across the country into big Hospital Systems that threaten to become monopolies. The catholic church is a major player in this big business takeover of healthcare. We may soon find ourselves with little choice between hospitals run by clerics and those run by profit driven private equity capitalists.
The treatment of Brittany Watts is barbaric. Trauma compounding trauma. It reminds me of stories out of El Salvador, where women who had stillbirths were sent to prison. Those stories always seemed like a step too far, even for our crazy country. Yet here we are. I hope she’s getting as much support as possible.
As to why the messaging is all just anti-Republican instead of being proactive, I suspect perhaps Democrats don't believe there is really anything they can do about abortion rights anytime soon, because it would take the presidency and both houses of congress, particularly 50 in the senate and changing the filibuster. That would require a much bigger election win next year than seems possible right now. If they don't believe they can achieve that they should probably be replaced with people who do.
I agree, but the reality is their lens needs to adopt the attitude that every step closer we can get in elections for pro-choice candidates is positive. 1. Pro-choice Dems need to run in EVERY election, for EVERY office. Nationally, the organizational complex to promote that has made strides, but still is behind & must improve, from high school age on up. 2. MUCH MUCH more attention needs to be paid to attorney general elections. DAGA should be much better about promotion, fundraising, advertising. We should all be increasing our support and discussion of atty gen races, which get very little publicity or mention, relative to other state wide races. These races essentially get grouped in with Gov & Lt Gov. Yet, these electors wield an enormous amount of power, as we are seeing, and if we can peel off some of those races due to that it will help.
Ultimately we need to convince pro-choice voters who vote Republican for other reasons to defect in at least some partisan races, not just to vote our way in referendums. To your point, every office helps. I'm not sure if we can do this in a vacuum though; that is, only with abortion. The Democratic party needs to win larger shares of the vote everywhere, because of the structure of our system of government, and it's probably worth examining if not our positions at least our rhetoric on other issues. I don't know what we would need to do to get our share of the national vote up to 54 or 55 percent, but we need to figure it out. Unless we're going to replace our constitution or something, which might be what ultimately happens if the Republicans install a dictatorship in 2025 and we have to dislodge it.
Plus, there is a lot of material these rogue R atty generals have provided to use in D elections. The electorate needs better educated on atty general government roles and how many of them are making life worse, not better, for families.
I think Tennessee may prove to be the nation's bellwether. The obviously blatantly racist and undemocratic means the Tennessee House resorted to last year to quell dissent against Gloria Johnson (now running for A US Senate seat), Justin Jones and Justin Pearson seem to have woken many people from a quiescent approach to politics and pushed them to activism. To paraphrase the old Geritol commercial - my democracy; I think I'll keep her. (Here's Betty White shilling for the stuff in 1954: https://youtu.be/G6MlXc-Bao4.)
A really good article would be a list of these R super majority state legislatures & include those with more than 50% but less than a supermajority across the country who have behaved and voted for things that are anti democratic. TN got a lot of National publicity because they expelled those two young members, who were fairly quickly re-elected. Many independent journalists have written or posted about singular events and “willfully ignorant” comments on legislative floors, however, no journalist group to my knowledge (maybe I missed it?) has pulled together the actions (similarities especially) into one piece from a national lens. This piece could actually be done in 5 parts starting with election integrity, to LGBTQ/book banning/attacks on libraries, to school vouchers, to voting rights, to women’s maternal healthcare rights and keeping such off the ballot, (while they preach states rights), and ending with election integrity /denial / lies and being unwilling to accept defeat. The electorate needs to be able to see the pattern front and center. “If you elect Rs, this is where your state will be headed” because *fact* the R Legislative organization has been pushing these policies for each of the states where they have control.
Not an article for Jessica/Grace obviously. Their work for this newsletter was remarkable, but for a different group, because all the above mentioned is literally their playbook. Legislatively it’s not about babies, or kids, or what is best for families. It’s about control, across the board from a Christian Nationalist perspective even though so many R voters don’t subscribe to that. All R & independent voters need to be made to feel - if they vote R, this is what they are signing up for - across the board, in any state.
This really goes to show the popularity of abortion rights—and how fucked Republicans are. They’re losing on abortion with conservative evangelicals in Tennessee!!
Thank you Jessica and Grace. Great advocacy on MSNBC with Alex Wagner. It is telling about Ireland. It makes me sad that it seems with so many human rights issues a person has to die for things to change. The landscape is changing but at what cost 😢💔
Then today (Dec. 19) there's this from The Washington Post AND KFF Health News. Just another sickening example of how these assholes don't care about actual children:
"Just nine states are responsible for roughly 60 percent of the decline in children’s enrollment in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program between March and September, according to new data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
"In letters sent Monday to the governors of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Montana, New Hampshire, Ohio, South Dakota and Texas, HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra urged the states to adopt federal flexibilities aimed at simplifying the Medicaid eligibility-checking process, which will remain available through 2024.
"Becerra said state health officials should also focus their efforts on making CHIP transfer easier, reducing call center wait times and, if they haven’t already, expanding eligibility for Medicaid."
No pregnant person should get within a mile of a Catholic hospital if they have any option.
Unfortunately, many don't. Catholic hospital systems like the wildly misnamed "Mercy" have been hoovering up hospitals. A story that doesn't get much press, is the consolidation of hospitals across the country into big Hospital Systems that threaten to become monopolies. The catholic church is a major player in this big business takeover of healthcare. We may soon find ourselves with little choice between hospitals run by clerics and those run by profit driven private equity capitalists.
Another great article for msm, which should include a real life story of denied care attached to it.
The treatment of Brittany Watts is barbaric. Trauma compounding trauma. It reminds me of stories out of El Salvador, where women who had stillbirths were sent to prison. Those stories always seemed like a step too far, even for our crazy country. Yet here we are. I hope she’s getting as much support as possible.
As to why the messaging is all just anti-Republican instead of being proactive, I suspect perhaps Democrats don't believe there is really anything they can do about abortion rights anytime soon, because it would take the presidency and both houses of congress, particularly 50 in the senate and changing the filibuster. That would require a much bigger election win next year than seems possible right now. If they don't believe they can achieve that they should probably be replaced with people who do.
I agree, but the reality is their lens needs to adopt the attitude that every step closer we can get in elections for pro-choice candidates is positive. 1. Pro-choice Dems need to run in EVERY election, for EVERY office. Nationally, the organizational complex to promote that has made strides, but still is behind & must improve, from high school age on up. 2. MUCH MUCH more attention needs to be paid to attorney general elections. DAGA should be much better about promotion, fundraising, advertising. We should all be increasing our support and discussion of atty gen races, which get very little publicity or mention, relative to other state wide races. These races essentially get grouped in with Gov & Lt Gov. Yet, these electors wield an enormous amount of power, as we are seeing, and if we can peel off some of those races due to that it will help.
Ultimately we need to convince pro-choice voters who vote Republican for other reasons to defect in at least some partisan races, not just to vote our way in referendums. To your point, every office helps. I'm not sure if we can do this in a vacuum though; that is, only with abortion. The Democratic party needs to win larger shares of the vote everywhere, because of the structure of our system of government, and it's probably worth examining if not our positions at least our rhetoric on other issues. I don't know what we would need to do to get our share of the national vote up to 54 or 55 percent, but we need to figure it out. Unless we're going to replace our constitution or something, which might be what ultimately happens if the Republicans install a dictatorship in 2025 and we have to dislodge it.
Plus, there is a lot of material these rogue R atty generals have provided to use in D elections. The electorate needs better educated on atty general government roles and how many of them are making life worse, not better, for families.
“A group in Florida asks people to alert them when they see canvassers so that their anti-choice activists can rush down to the location“
So, uh, we ARE flooding the alerts with bogus locations to run them around and waste THEIR time, yes? If not, why not?
👏👏👏❤️
I think Tennessee may prove to be the nation's bellwether. The obviously blatantly racist and undemocratic means the Tennessee House resorted to last year to quell dissent against Gloria Johnson (now running for A US Senate seat), Justin Jones and Justin Pearson seem to have woken many people from a quiescent approach to politics and pushed them to activism. To paraphrase the old Geritol commercial - my democracy; I think I'll keep her. (Here's Betty White shilling for the stuff in 1954: https://youtu.be/G6MlXc-Bao4.)
A really good article would be a list of these R super majority state legislatures & include those with more than 50% but less than a supermajority across the country who have behaved and voted for things that are anti democratic. TN got a lot of National publicity because they expelled those two young members, who were fairly quickly re-elected. Many independent journalists have written or posted about singular events and “willfully ignorant” comments on legislative floors, however, no journalist group to my knowledge (maybe I missed it?) has pulled together the actions (similarities especially) into one piece from a national lens. This piece could actually be done in 5 parts starting with election integrity, to LGBTQ/book banning/attacks on libraries, to school vouchers, to voting rights, to women’s maternal healthcare rights and keeping such off the ballot, (while they preach states rights), and ending with election integrity /denial / lies and being unwilling to accept defeat. The electorate needs to be able to see the pattern front and center. “If you elect Rs, this is where your state will be headed” because *fact* the R Legislative organization has been pushing these policies for each of the states where they have control.
Not an article for Jessica/Grace obviously. Their work for this newsletter was remarkable, but for a different group, because all the above mentioned is literally their playbook. Legislatively it’s not about babies, or kids, or what is best for families. It’s about control, across the board from a Christian Nationalist perspective even though so many R voters don’t subscribe to that. All R & independent voters need to be made to feel - if they vote R, this is what they are signing up for - across the board, in any state.
Betty's a 💎. Tired blood was a hoot too.
Iron-poor tired blood!
When these women were just plain old tired from raising a bunch of kiddos.
See what happened to Brittany on this crowdsourced map.
https://www.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=a1b87a4177df457fbd90153576675dcb¢er=-9019186.8521%2C5042774.5887%2C102100&level=9
Nationwide map of Republican abortion outrages: https://arcg.is/DbKbq0
The goal of this crowdsourced map is to create the big picture of the harm caused by Republican abortion policies. See how you can volunteer to add info to the map when you read of outrages like what happened to Brittany: https://thedemlabs.org/2023/12/17/abortion-ban-casualty-crowdsourced-map-republican-war-on-women/
I loved reading this
This really goes to show the popularity of abortion rights—and how fucked Republicans are. They’re losing on abortion with conservative evangelicals in Tennessee!!
The Brittany Watts story just fills me with rage at the sheer cruelty of what is being done to her.
If anyone is moved to donate, the gofundme for Brittany has reached 133,000 as of tonight: https://www.gofundme.com/f/justice-for-brittany-watts
Thank you for posting that link. Even 1$ and a message of support will make a difference.
Unfortunately, that nurse is exactly who they want in the Catholic Hospitals, they probably praised her for that cruelty.