It is not enough to call out Republicans as a threat to reproductive rights, you must also be able to show that Democrats are interested in advancing these rights and there is no evidence that they are making any effort in this area. Here in California, there has been absolutely no resistance from Democrats against many kinds of laws that enshrine gestational personhood. Here in California, if you are liable to the death or injury of a pregnant woman, you are also liable for the death or injury of her pregnancy as a person.
There is also the political insistence on grafting sexual diversity politics onto the issue of reproductive rights, even though it is a strictly heterosexual issue. There are many aspects of the sexual diversity front that suggest it is more a right wing conspiracy than a left wing one. The casting of Margaret Sanger as a eugenicist by Planned Parenthood was especially ominous. There is also the miscasting of birth control as being strictly contraceptive. There is a lot to worry about in the Democrats. Enough to make the Trump/MAGA tin horn parade look less threatening.
Ending with that quote from James Taylor, the policy director of American Family Association, was so telling. The people behind the anti-abortion movement are so twisted that they think "Parents need to talk to their kids about avoiding unsafe situations." as a tactic to reduce rape. Of course he has a victim blaming mentality. Perhaps we should teach boys/men not to rape people!!! Crazy concept! Ugh makes my blood boil.
That got under my skin too because he followed it up with we should make it easier for women to report rape, as if boys are not also raped, often by men. Yet, I agree what he was really saying was we should warn “our girls” versus teaching our boys to be better, which leads to men feeling they can get away with what they want … because at the same time people like Taylor want to put it on women, that group believes women should be submissive in marriage, which also translates to be submissive in relationships even though in reality they completely miss that connection. It is so twisted.
Some of you may have seen this already. The Split is a horrifying satirical look at what the USA could become. It presents a glimpse of 1 side of the USA that spilt away from the main part. Ruled by Christo fascists who have outlawed abortion and made carrying a gun a federal law.
I will jump on JV's one good thing... No immunity for the criminal defendant! I must say if the media had done its job from day 1, trump and the GOP horse he rode on would have been squashed long ago. Instead, everything starting with Mueller became waiting for legal outcome with TV lawyers everywhere, that gave an out to the lazy and corrupt media to just sit there twiddling their thumb and sometimes resting the thumb on the scale saying 'oh let's wait for the report, the decision, the x or the y' letting trump and his enablers off the hook. People should have been made to feel shame (or at least question and self-reflect) during his presidency and certainly after Jan 6 for their support and that was the media's role -- civil society relies on shame happening as a deterrent when you show people up for doing the wrong thing and yes, there is a right and a wrong here.
" letting trump and his enablers off the hook. " yep, the first offensive response (because it is the right thing to do) against all the bad stuff trump did, should have been from the media. A well functioning democracy needs a robust press/media for this very reason that there are outcries when the act/event happens in real-time preventing/deterring such actions to grow bigger; waiting for indictments and such legal remedies which take time will only foster that like you say especially with trump like character who does not fear the legal system.
And I get this sense that the American idea and the constitution is a bit too sophisticated for a certain section of people in this country. It implicitly assumes perhaps based on honor code that people who are given the power will make the right decisions by the people and the country. We avoided the pit falls we see today before until of course the advent of the social media where these people are made to feel they have an opinion, mostly wrong, based on disinformation and then came trump to specifically take advantage of these gullible people. I mean we have a fraud running circles around the constitution and the legal system today - he is losing but he should never have been where he is.
Trump is a first rate conman though he is not very smart but he has an army of smart but evil men to help him. If Hillary said vast right wing conspiracy then, the fuckers who went after BC seem tame compared to this Republican version on steroids. This is an attack from within from them, against everything that America has achieved, the progress made democratically - abortion rights are just one facet of their attack. And, they are following orders and desires from the fucking dictator out there in bringing this country down. Why are we not talking about this:
Simon Rosenberg
@SimonWDC
Can we now start talking about the most consequential invasion of America today - Putin's invasion of MAGA and the GOP?
Biden better step it up. He’s not strong enough on this and if there’s a messaging problem the Dems ought to bolster Harris because she gets a bad rap. ( I like her.) They need an army of surrogates out there educating the public. Biden is down in the polls today. Approval too low. TFG -- he does not give one horse hair about democracy. Doesn’t even understand it. He couldn’t give a sh-- about We the People. It’s all a silly game to him. He will do what’s expedient for him. He wants a Trump family dynasty. It’s him , then Don Jr, ( skip Eric) then Ivanka.... These voters are deluded.
Every one of us who care about freedom and democracy have to hammer that theme repeatedly. We are voting to live in a democracy or a Christo-fascist state in November. Everything else is noise. I’m not saying people’s hot button issues don’t matter, but if we lose, we lose on those issues anyway.
Hair on fire!! The analogy the lawmaker makes to going out of state is false!!!! If you knowingly aid and abet someone to rob a bank, you’re guilty, cause it’s a crime to rob the bank. But if we say aiding and abetting to get an abortion in a state where abortion is legal, that’s not a crime!! Gambling is illegal in Utah. If I live there with my son and pay for my son to gamble in Las Vegas, that’s legal. Am I nuts or is that the correct analogy??
Sounds right to me. And even this supreme court might have trouble rejecting that argument. But what's madness to me is that something can be a protected constitutional right, health care, a good thing, in one state, and be considered murder, the worst crime, in another. I can't think of a way to make that tenable, any more than having free states and slave states was tenable in the 19th century. It's the same thing; it's the exact same thing.
It's interesting that each side of the abortion argument thinks it's analogous to anti-slavery. Fascism everywhere would be one way to end the disconnect between the states. We are at a tipping point, the whole world really. We can't tell where dawn is because we don't know when we've reached the darkest hour. The American people will tolerate a thing, right up until they won't tolerate it anymore.
The failure to tie Trump to abortion is one problem and, in states like Wisconsin another is the belief that the state will protect abortion. Since anti-abortion groups are actively planning which executive acts Trump could use to effectively ban abortion nationwide, the ads should write themselves. Get with it, Dem support groups!
WTF 😳- And John Mize, chief executive officer of Americans United for Life, says, “Their flawed research presumes that all women who are victims of rape desire to seek abortion.”
Give me a break. Flawed ignoramus thinking. Geez 🙄
'what is Texas doing to reduce the incidence of rape?' Well, rape culture and "pro-life" culture are the same thing. The EXACT same thing. This turd and his ilk will never understand it, but maybe we can educate the rest of America?
This may seem like a tangent but reading those last two sentences, I can't help but think of one of the episodes from the majesty that was the original Twilight Zone. It's from the first season and called 'A Nice Place to Visit'. A criminal finds himself in an afterlife in which he gets anything and everything he wants. Enjoying it at first, by the end it's driving him mad and he tells the angel he doesn't belong in heaven and wants to go to the 'other place'. The response:
"Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven? This IS the other place!"
Best show!! My daughter is at Ithaca College now studying film. Serling taught there. They have a little shrine to him in the library. I like the one ne where the guy finally gets to be alone in the universe with his books but then breaks his glasses.
The quality is astonishing, and they haven't lost any of their relevance over the years. We've got the box blu-ray set; almost all the episodes were originally recorded on film. I don't think any of the reboots or copycats, or very many other programs, have ever managed to be so incisive regarding human nature.
This has weighed on my mind. I have tried to come up with a way to create a “safe list.” I just don’t know how to make one and keep people safe. The other option is to make a “not safe list” of which the 2 mentioned in this article would be on. The best idea I have seen so far is to get dropped off a block from or a nearby business.
Agreed. The problem of course is that many in need of abortion care may not know all the hoops they need to jump through to get it and safely, or how to jump through them. Which of course is exactly the way the oppressors want it.
I said this on another thread but bears repeating for the voters in the article - trump or some other R in the WH is a nightmare not just for abortion rights but for everything else too. He/she will replace Alito and Thomas (if need be, boot them out unceremoniously like trump did with Kennedy) with younger and more corrupt individuals to reign for decades on the SCOTUS. Well, if it is trump the dictator, he does not need SCOTUS for anything. I am so mad about these ignorant voters.
Here is a great article if you have NYT by Mary Ziegler on what exactly Trump could do and we should really be afraid.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/01/29/opinion/biden-trump-abortion-election.html?unlocked_article_code=1.RU0.rL1E.UDbdoWeZ4SDB&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
It is not enough to call out Republicans as a threat to reproductive rights, you must also be able to show that Democrats are interested in advancing these rights and there is no evidence that they are making any effort in this area. Here in California, there has been absolutely no resistance from Democrats against many kinds of laws that enshrine gestational personhood. Here in California, if you are liable to the death or injury of a pregnant woman, you are also liable for the death or injury of her pregnancy as a person.
There is also the political insistence on grafting sexual diversity politics onto the issue of reproductive rights, even though it is a strictly heterosexual issue. There are many aspects of the sexual diversity front that suggest it is more a right wing conspiracy than a left wing one. The casting of Margaret Sanger as a eugenicist by Planned Parenthood was especially ominous. There is also the miscasting of birth control as being strictly contraceptive. There is a lot to worry about in the Democrats. Enough to make the Trump/MAGA tin horn parade look less threatening.
Agreed 👍
Ending with that quote from James Taylor, the policy director of American Family Association, was so telling. The people behind the anti-abortion movement are so twisted that they think "Parents need to talk to their kids about avoiding unsafe situations." as a tactic to reduce rape. Of course he has a victim blaming mentality. Perhaps we should teach boys/men not to rape people!!! Crazy concept! Ugh makes my blood boil.
That got under my skin too because he followed it up with we should make it easier for women to report rape, as if boys are not also raped, often by men. Yet, I agree what he was really saying was we should warn “our girls” versus teaching our boys to be better, which leads to men feeling they can get away with what they want … because at the same time people like Taylor want to put it on women, that group believes women should be submissive in marriage, which also translates to be submissive in relationships even though in reality they completely miss that connection. It is so twisted.
Some of you may have seen this already. The Split is a horrifying satirical look at what the USA could become. It presents a glimpse of 1 side of the USA that spilt away from the main part. Ruled by Christo fascists who have outlawed abortion and made carrying a gun a federal law.
https://thesplit.substack.com/p/the-split-part-one-chapter-one
I will jump on JV's one good thing... No immunity for the criminal defendant! I must say if the media had done its job from day 1, trump and the GOP horse he rode on would have been squashed long ago. Instead, everything starting with Mueller became waiting for legal outcome with TV lawyers everywhere, that gave an out to the lazy and corrupt media to just sit there twiddling their thumb and sometimes resting the thumb on the scale saying 'oh let's wait for the report, the decision, the x or the y' letting trump and his enablers off the hook. People should have been made to feel shame (or at least question and self-reflect) during his presidency and certainly after Jan 6 for their support and that was the media's role -- civil society relies on shame happening as a deterrent when you show people up for doing the wrong thing and yes, there is a right and a wrong here.
And the opposite too. When bad behavior is ignored, unpunished or rewarded, it encourages more of it. I think that's where we are.
" letting trump and his enablers off the hook. " yep, the first offensive response (because it is the right thing to do) against all the bad stuff trump did, should have been from the media. A well functioning democracy needs a robust press/media for this very reason that there are outcries when the act/event happens in real-time preventing/deterring such actions to grow bigger; waiting for indictments and such legal remedies which take time will only foster that like you say especially with trump like character who does not fear the legal system.
There is simply no accounting for foolish people
And I get this sense that the American idea and the constitution is a bit too sophisticated for a certain section of people in this country. It implicitly assumes perhaps based on honor code that people who are given the power will make the right decisions by the people and the country. We avoided the pit falls we see today before until of course the advent of the social media where these people are made to feel they have an opinion, mostly wrong, based on disinformation and then came trump to specifically take advantage of these gullible people. I mean we have a fraud running circles around the constitution and the legal system today - he is losing but he should never have been where he is.
Trump is a first rate conman though he is not very smart but he has an army of smart but evil men to help him. If Hillary said vast right wing conspiracy then, the fuckers who went after BC seem tame compared to this Republican version on steroids. This is an attack from within from them, against everything that America has achieved, the progress made democratically - abortion rights are just one facet of their attack. And, they are following orders and desires from the fucking dictator out there in bringing this country down. Why are we not talking about this:
Simon Rosenberg
@SimonWDC
Can we now start talking about the most consequential invasion of America today - Putin's invasion of MAGA and the GOP?
https://twitter.com/SimonWDC/status/1754682331741245792
And Mike Johnson, major Subjugator himself, goes right along with it.
Biden better step it up. He’s not strong enough on this and if there’s a messaging problem the Dems ought to bolster Harris because she gets a bad rap. ( I like her.) They need an army of surrogates out there educating the public. Biden is down in the polls today. Approval too low. TFG -- he does not give one horse hair about democracy. Doesn’t even understand it. He couldn’t give a sh-- about We the People. It’s all a silly game to him. He will do what’s expedient for him. He wants a Trump family dynasty. It’s him , then Don Jr, ( skip Eric) then Ivanka.... These voters are deluded.
Every one of us who care about freedom and democracy have to hammer that theme repeatedly. We are voting to live in a democracy or a Christo-fascist state in November. Everything else is noise. I’m not saying people’s hot button issues don’t matter, but if we lose, we lose on those issues anyway.
Hair on fire!! The analogy the lawmaker makes to going out of state is false!!!! If you knowingly aid and abet someone to rob a bank, you’re guilty, cause it’s a crime to rob the bank. But if we say aiding and abetting to get an abortion in a state where abortion is legal, that’s not a crime!! Gambling is illegal in Utah. If I live there with my son and pay for my son to gamble in Las Vegas, that’s legal. Am I nuts or is that the correct analogy??
Sounds right to me. And even this supreme court might have trouble rejecting that argument. But what's madness to me is that something can be a protected constitutional right, health care, a good thing, in one state, and be considered murder, the worst crime, in another. I can't think of a way to make that tenable, any more than having free states and slave states was tenable in the 19th century. It's the same thing; it's the exact same thing.
Yes it is. Yes. Only this time in history the citizenry might just vote to reinstate slavery. We are going backward. Downfall of a nation.
It's interesting that each side of the abortion argument thinks it's analogous to anti-slavery. Fascism everywhere would be one way to end the disconnect between the states. We are at a tipping point, the whole world really. We can't tell where dawn is because we don't know when we've reached the darkest hour. The American people will tolerate a thing, right up until they won't tolerate it anymore.
I'll give the plonkers a hint, bodily autonomy is freedom, if you take that away from people, You are the enslaver.
Yeah what they don't understand is that you can't take bodily autonomy away from a fetus because it doesn't have any, that's why it's a fetus.
Their crazy sky daddy interpreter tells them it is, and they don't think for themselves enough to realize it is bullshit.
Just every law that these people want to pass are so cruel and nonsensical. Infuriating.
The failure to tie Trump to abortion is one problem and, in states like Wisconsin another is the belief that the state will protect abortion. Since anti-abortion groups are actively planning which executive acts Trump could use to effectively ban abortion nationwide, the ads should write themselves. Get with it, Dem support groups!
WTF 😳- And John Mize, chief executive officer of Americans United for Life, says, “Their flawed research presumes that all women who are victims of rape desire to seek abortion.”
Give me a break. Flawed ignoramus thinking. Geez 🙄
He sounds like what a rape apologist would say.
'what is Texas doing to reduce the incidence of rape?' Well, rape culture and "pro-life" culture are the same thing. The EXACT same thing. This turd and his ilk will never understand it, but maybe we can educate the rest of America?
I repeat: “Greg Abbott and TX Republicans do not believe in rape. Sex is a man’s right. Providing it is a woman’s responsibility.”
This may seem like a tangent but reading those last two sentences, I can't help but think of one of the episodes from the majesty that was the original Twilight Zone. It's from the first season and called 'A Nice Place to Visit'. A criminal finds himself in an afterlife in which he gets anything and everything he wants. Enjoying it at first, by the end it's driving him mad and he tells the angel he doesn't belong in heaven and wants to go to the 'other place'. The response:
"Heaven? Whatever gave you the idea you were in Heaven? This IS the other place!"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Nice_Place_to_Visit
Best show!! My daughter is at Ithaca College now studying film. Serling taught there. They have a little shrine to him in the library. I like the one ne where the guy finally gets to be alone in the universe with his books but then breaks his glasses.
The quality is astonishing, and they haven't lost any of their relevance over the years. We've got the box blu-ray set; almost all the episodes were originally recorded on film. I don't think any of the reboots or copycats, or very many other programs, have ever managed to be so incisive regarding human nature.
The Uber stories need to go viral. Idk if they can be shamed but we need to try.
Every clinic should tell their client not to take an Uber there.
This has weighed on my mind. I have tried to come up with a way to create a “safe list.” I just don’t know how to make one and keep people safe. The other option is to make a “not safe list” of which the 2 mentioned in this article would be on. The best idea I have seen so far is to get dropped off a block from or a nearby business.
Agreed. The problem of course is that many in need of abortion care may not know all the hoops they need to jump through to get it and safely, or how to jump through them. Which of course is exactly the way the oppressors want it.
That’s what I thought use social media. Shame them and use Lyft.
Or even cabs. My bet is that they are better regulated.
There are so few cabs left in many areas though.
You’re right.
I said this on another thread but bears repeating for the voters in the article - trump or some other R in the WH is a nightmare not just for abortion rights but for everything else too. He/she will replace Alito and Thomas (if need be, boot them out unceremoniously like trump did with Kennedy) with younger and more corrupt individuals to reign for decades on the SCOTUS. Well, if it is trump the dictator, he does not need SCOTUS for anything. I am so mad about these ignorant voters.
This should be what Biden & Harris talk about. It’s a safe lane for him. Might even sway some people, even if they don’t admit it.
I’m writing about this every weekday at my Substack How Project 2025 Will F*ck YOUR Life.