Some days it feels like the 2024 elections have already been decided. Maga politicians and officials are behaving as if they have a mandate to be horrendous.
Let this serve as a reminder that, whether or not President Biden is okay with your way of thinking, not voting for him will hurt a lot of people.
Let’s look at some examples, starting with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who responded to a judicial ruling allowing Kate Cox, a Dallas-area mother of two who is about 20 weeks pregnant, to obtain an abortion.
Her developing fetus has trisomy 18, a rare chromosomal disorder causing stillbirth or death of the baby shortly after it’s born. Continuing the pregnancy places Cox at high risk of a uterine rupture and would imperil her ability to carry another child in the future
Texas law prohibits almost all abortions with limited exceptions. Lawyers with the Center for Reproductive Rights successfully filed a request for a temporary restraining order blocking the state’s abortion ban in this case, enabling her to terminate the pregnancy.
Now, Texas Attorney General Paxton has sent a threatening letter to the hospital where Kate Cox’s OBGYN works, writing that the emergency order “will not insulate hospitals, doctors, or anyone else, from civil and criminal liability for violating Texas’ abortion laws.”
So if they go ahead with the abortion, everybody involved from the hospital to the OBGYN to the patient herself will be prosecuted. And I expect Paxton will double down on being awful by having one of his crank media buddies say something to discredit this woman.
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This week, Ohio’s Issue One technically went into effect, amending the state constitution to include the right to "make and carry out one’s own reproductive decisions, including but not limited to" decisions about abortion, contraception, fertility treatment, miscarriage care, and continuing pregnancy.
However, anti-abortionists haven’t given up trying to undo the will of the 57% of voters who favored the amendment. There is ongoing litigation that needs to be resolved, including a case where anti-abortionists have made arguments that Issue One is unconstitutional because it overrules the State Legislature via mob rule.
Here’s Jessica Valenti:
The groups—which include several anti-abortion organizations and Phyllis Schlafly’s son—claim that “the will of the voters” is “a myth” when it comes to ballot measures. They’re also urging the state Supreme Court to invalidate Issue 1 because it “interfere[s] with representative government.”
Essentially, the groups argue that the only reason that the amendment passed was because the pro-choice side spent the most money, and that the state Supreme Court is obligated to protect the state from “mob rule.” That’s right, mob rule.
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While we’re on the subject of mob rule, it’s important to recognize that some right wing opinionistas are saying the quiet part out loud.
Matt Walsh, columnist for the conservative (ok-to-read-in-public) Daily Wire and podcast host was triggered recently as Rep. Ayanna Pressley talked up extending the right to vote to 16 and 17 year olds.
Walsh thinks we ought to be looking in the other direction, maybe limiting voting to those 25 and over because “the prefrontal cortex of the brain is not fully developed” until that age.
So, expanding voting rights in this way is obviously not what you do if you actually care about the future of our country or if you wanna preserve our democracy. I mean, you could say that the most effective way to undermine our democracy is to let people -- is to let too many people participate in it. So, you undermine the democracy by letting too many people into it.
Sadly, in the run up to 2024, this stuff is acceptable to the MAGA-ites who think elections are still necessary.
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Ohio Senator J.D, Vance isn’t waiting for Trump to flip the Justice Department. On Wednesday, he sent a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken asking that Washington Post Editor Robert Kagan be investigated and potentially jailed.
Kagan had the nerve to write an extended op ed piece arguing that Donald Trump is on a "clear path" to establishing a dictatorship in this country and, because the Republican Party plus formerly "conservative" establishments are backing him from every side, there would be little possibility of stopping him should he win reelection.
The piece was significant in that it gave voice on a mass media platform to what lots of experienced observers were saying. Wapo’s Greg Sargent even wrote an article saying this fear was being overblown, leading to even more awareness of the topic.
Senator Vance suggested Kagan’s op ed could be "an invitation to 'insurrection,' a manifestation of criminal 'conspiracy,' or an attempt to bring about civil war."
Obviously, this request is going nowhere other than Vance’s personal collection of evidence about how “manly” he is. What makes it especially ironic, given his denunciation of the Jan 6 congressional committee investigating people who actually engaged in a criminal ‘conspiracy’ or were hoping to ‘bring about a civil war.’
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Now that we’ve covered pointless positioning in Washington DC, it’s only proper to bring up Carl DeMaio’s campaign for the Assembly seat held by termed-out Republican Marie Waldron.
Years of pointless grifting and yelling about the sky falling have apparently earned the former City Councilman a warm, fuzzy place at Politico, which made a big deal about “San Diego’s most bombastic Republican political antagonist” entering the race.
The district includes portions of San Diego and the cities of Santee and Poway. DeMaio will face off in the March 5 primary against the state GOP’s preferred candidate: Andrew Hayes, district director to state Sen. Brian Jones and a member of the Lakeside school board. Jack Fernandes, a biotech startup founder and real estate broker is also in the field.
“I think the voters in this district know that I’m a fighter, and that while other Republicans will put their tail between their legs and cower or give up, I’m not going to go anywhere. I’m going to continue to fight till we take back the state,” DeMaio said.
Although he has not won in multiple mayoral and congressional campaigns since he was a City Councilman a decade ago, DeMaio’s got the most name recognition in this contest. He could maybe even win, as long as nobody reminds voters about how much his union busting has cost San Diego.
The GOP establishment will be conflicted about DeMaio’s entrance in the race. While it gives them something to do besides squirming when asked about their allegiance to Dear Leader, the phrase ‘makes my skin crawl’ is often heard when discussing DeMaio.
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Speaking of GOP establishments, Florida’s Republican Party has been adamant about calling for Chair Christian Ziegler’s resignation, who is under investigation for rape.
Ziegler actually made a video of his assault on a woman who’d backed out of an agreement to participate in a three way sex session along with his wife, who just happens to be a cofounder of Moms for Liberty.
This news (the three-way, not the rape) hasn’t set well with homophobic book banners. The GOP just wants the whole thing to go away. Unfortunately Mr. Ziegler is playing the Orange Jesus get-out-of-jail-free card:
Via The Messenger:
In private conversations, Ziegler has pointed to Trump’s silence as an indicator of tacit support, those who have spoken to him tell The Messenger. They say he accused Republicans who want to boot him from office of hypocrisy because they’re not denouncing Trump -- even though he was recently held liable for sexually abusing a woman in 1996. Trump was also criminally charged recently in a case involving hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, whom he had sex with while his wife was pregnant.
Ziegler’s denials, counter-accusations and intransigence also reflect the Trump’s admit-no-wrong and fight-all-comers style of politics. It’s a Trump legacy that gives a measure of discomfort to some Republicans, including those who support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the presidential primary and fear that Trump’s baggage makes him a weak general election candidate.
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Finally, I’ll end with evidence discounting the myth of criminal gangs plundering retail stores. Rising prices, calls for tougher penalties, and even store closures have been blamed on rising inventory shrink, with right wingers confidently sowing fear in the suburbs.
Now that the narrative is going strong, I doubt that the law and order types are worried about a key claim being retracted. They know retractions never get the press their alarming claims do.
Via Reuters:
The main lobbying group for U.S. retailers retracted its claim that "organized retail crime" accounted for nearly half of all inventory losses in 2021 after finding that incorrect data was used for its analysis.
A spokesperson for the National Retail Federation said Tuesday that the organization had removed the sentence from its report on organized retail crime published in April. It produced the report in collaboration with private security firm K2 Integrity.
Data from the National Retail Federation’s annual security survey indicates that the percentage of shrink attributed to external theft, including organized retail crime, has largely remained around 36% since 2015. The majority of losses in this area are accounting/inventory mistakes and internal theft, so the gangs plundering retail are most likely accountants and underpaid cashiers.
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Headlines for Friday
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All the while, the approaching election and Trump indictments have already proved a combustible cocktail on Trump’s social media platform, Truth Social, with Trump himself posting scores of rants, ranging from the vengeful to the dangerous.
On June 29, the former president posted what he said was Obama’s home address on the platform. Trump’s message was re-posted that same day on Truth Social by 37-year-old Taylor Taranto, who then posted a comment on Telegram saying “See you in hell, Podesta’s and Obama’s” before driving to the area and live-streaming himself on YouTube walking around Obama’s DC neighborhood. Taranto – who sometimes bragged to his listeners that he stormed the Capitol on January 6 – was arrested by Secret Service agents after a brief pursuit on foot in a wooded area near the neighborhood. They seized from his van two handguns, hundreds of rounds of ammunition and a machete.
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More than 1,000 climate scientists urge public to become activists Via The Guardian
Ahead of Cop28, the UN Environment Programme issued a stark warning that national carbon-cutting policies are so inadequate that 3C (5.4F) of heating above preindustrial levels would be reached this century – double the 1.5C (2.7F) limit that the Paris climate accords agreed would stave off the most catastrophic effects of climate breakdown.
“No country is taking action in line with a 1.5C pathway,” the Scientist Rebellion letter says. “Continuing on this path will mean untold suffering. Large parts of our planet will become uninhabitable, creating hundreds of millions of refugees, unprecedented famines, and severe political conflicts.”
But “we do not have to surrender to this future”, it insists. “The solutions are available” but their implementation relies on a “large-scale mobilisation of society” to overcome vested interests that profit from the status quo.
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Putin’s Pals Think the GOP Just Won Them the War in Ukraine Via The Daily Beast
Republicans voted to block a $110.5 billion emergency spending bill to aid Ukraine and Israel Wednesday night, sparking celebrations in Moscow where they believe the U.S. will withdraw support for Kyiv allowing them to win the war.
A classified briefing with administration officials reportedly devolved into a meltdown on Tuesday afternoon, making it clear that the measure would fail. “We are about to abandon Ukraine,” Senator Christopher S. Murphy told the press as he left the briefing. “When Vladimir Putin marches into a NATO country, they will rue the day they decided to play politics with the future of Ukraine’s security.”
These developments prompted jubilation in Moscow. During Wednesday’s broadcast of a state TV program 60 Minutes, Evgeny Popov said Ukraine was now in “agony” and it was “difficult to imagine a bigger humiliation.”