The Republican War On Women: Racing To Nullify Roe

Encouraged by a presumed decision by the fascist Catholic majority on the Supreme Court, Republican states are racing to nullify Roe v Wade:

Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida on Thursday signed into law a ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, severely restricting access to the procedure in a state that has long been a refuge for women from across the South.

The new law, which takes effect on July 1, is modeled after a similar abortion ban in Mississippi that the U.S. Supreme Court appears poised to uphold. It contains exceptions only in cases where an abortion is necessary to save the life of the mother or prevent serious injury or if the fetus has a fatal abnormality.

The new Florida law is the latest in a cascade of restrictive abortion legislation proposed in Republican-led states. On Wednesday, lawmakers in Kentucky overturned the governor’s veto of a measure restricting abortions after 15 weeks and prohibiting providers from offering abortions until they can meet certain requirements.

And on Tuesday, Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma signed legislation making it a felony, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, to perform an abortion in the state.

The bill’s enactment came after Oklahoma became a haven for Texans seeking abortions after Texas enacted a ban on most procedures last fall, the most far-reaching abortion restrictions to go into effect since the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

A number of other states, all controlled by Republicans (read: right- wing white men), are also in the process of passing similar laws that would effectively end a woman's right to a safe and (until now) legal abortion.  Until recently, one could argue that the energy on the issue has been with the anti- abortion crowd.  But polling is revealing that it's now an issue that motivates Democrats more than Republicans.  From FiveThirtyEight:

Abortion has long motivated Republicans as a political issue. But following the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in early September not to block Texas’s new law banning most abortions once an ultrasound can detect cardiac activity, usually about six weeks into a pregnancy, many have argued that Democrats may become more motivated by reproductive rights. As one Republican pollster recently told the Associated Press, “It is going to be a very motivating issue for women who haven’t typically been single-issue pro-choice voters.”

Tracking data from The Economist/YouGov seems to support this viewpoint. In each weekly survey since February, respondents were asked about the importance of abortion, and as we see in the chart below, the issue has become increasingly more important to Democrats and less important to Republicans ever since.

There's a simple reason for this: when people lose a significant right, they're more likely to take notice and take action.  There's hardly a right more significant than a woman's control of her reproductive freedom.

Now it's up to Democrats not to wait until the Republican SCOTUS issues its decision in the Mississippi case, but to start mobilizing newly energized voters to fight back and get to the polls in November and beyond.

(Photo: The Republican paradise/ Jim LoScalzo/EPA/AAP)

Court Revives Abortion Bounty Hunter Law For Now

 

As many anticipated, the right-wing dominated U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals suspended the U.S. District Court's blocking of Texas' reactionary misogynist anti-choice "bounty hunter" law. The three judge panel ruled just five hours after getting Texas' appeal that the Texas law could be enforced pending further arguments. The ruling gave the Justice Department only until next Tuesday to make its arguments against the anti-choice law.

The devious law removes the state government from enforcement of the ban on abortions after six weeks, with no exceptions for rape or incest, putting enforcement in the hands of literal bounty hunters who can sue women getting abortions and anyone involved with assisting her. The state's argument to the Court of Appeals was that Texas could not be held responsible since the law's enforced by private citizens, an approach which the Supreme Court said raises serious Constitutional questions when it nonetheless declined to block the law.

 

Poll: Texas' Vigilante Abortion Law Is Political Poison

 

 

According to a new Monmouth University poll, by 62 to 31 percent Americans favor leaving Roe v Wade intact, a similar outcome when people are asked if abortion should be legal in most cases.

But, when asked about the specifics of the heinous Republican anti- abortion law recently passed in Texas by a passel of far- right mostly white men, the American public recoils almost in unison:

One of the most contentious aspects of the law, beyond the six-week time frame, is in how it allows regular citizens to enforce it — by filing complaints about those who obtain abortions after a fetal heartbeat can be detected. Asked what they think about “having private citizens use lawsuits to enforce this law instead of having government prosecutors handle these cases,” Americans disapprove of the idea 70 percent to 22 percent.

The pollster then noted that the law provides for compensation of $10,000 for private citizens who win such cases — what has been labeled a “bounty.” In this case, opposition was even higher: 81 percent to 14 percent. Even Republicans oppose this idea 67 percent to 24 percent.

That’s about as consensus an issue as you’ll find in modern politics. And it’s a consensus against a central part of the Texas law.

The "bounty hunter" provision in the Texas law was designed (with the acquiescence of the Republican Supreme Court) to enable it to skirt its plain unconstitutionality by making it more difficult for federal courts to get involved.  

If Republicans are determined to fight this particular culture war against women (as they appear they want to do), Democrats should be making it (and at least for now, are) a war fought on our terms, with the vast majority of the American public on our side.  Bring it on!

(Photo: Marjorie Kamys Cotera/Texas Tribune)

Did Radical Republican Dogs Finally Catch The Car?

 

Here's a sampling of opinion this morning on the Texas law effectively ending abortion rights in that state:

 

"The court’s order is stunning. Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.

"Last night, the court silently acquiesced in a state’s enactment of a law that flouts nearly 50 years of federal precedents. Today, the court belatedly explains that it declined to grant relief because of procedural complexities of the state’s own invention. Because the court’s failure to act rewards tactics designed to avoid judicial review and inflicts significant harm on the applicants and on women seeking abortions in Texas, I dissent." -- Justice Sonia Sotomayor, in her dissent to the SCOTUS acquiescence in letting the Texas law stand.

 __________

"...It’s not just that the majority of the Supreme Court functionally ended abortion rights for most women in Texas last night merely because they could. And it’s not just that they did so because—as is so often the case with impressionistic, frayed shadow docket reasoning—their personal feelings about the constitutional right to abortion are quite robust. It’s almost impossible to not go one further and declare that the court opted to end virtually all abortion rights in Texas, in the full knowledge that they were blessing an unconstitutional and brutal piece of lawless vigilantism, because it’s only about women." -- Dahlia Lithwick, Slate.

__________

"Today, accountability has suddenly arrived. Texas Republicans have just elevated abortion rights to perhaps the state’s supreme ballot issue in 2022. Perhaps they have calculated correctly. Perhaps a Texas voting majority really wants to see the reproductive lives of Texas women restrained by random passersby. If that’s the case, that’s an important political fact, and one that will reshape the politics of the country in 2024.

"But it’s also possible that Texas Republicans have miscalculated. Instead of narrowly failing again and again, feeding the rage of their supporters against shadowy and far-away cultural enemies, abortion restricters have finally, actually, and radically got their way. They have all but outlawed abortion in the nation’s second-largest state, and voted to subject women to an intrusive and intimate regime of supervision and control not imposed on men. At last, a Republican legislative majority has enacted its declared beliefs in almost their fullest form—and won permission from the courts to impose its will on the women of its state." -- conservative David Frum, The Atlantic.

__________

"Joshua Wilson, a political science professor at the University of Denver, said Republicans have had a “safe space” for years, because their vow to outlaw abortion was seen as an empty promise by both the left and the right as a result of the support for legal abortion during the previous Supreme Court regime.

"Now, that safe space is gone.

“'Under Trump, the Supreme Court context changed dramatically. So suddenly you’re in this context where the court might roll back abortion rights,'” Wilson said. “'That makes the politics more dangerous for Republicans.'” -- Alex Seitz-Wald and Sahil Kapur, NBC News.

__________

"This is not the end of the legal road, even in the federal courts. The underlying legal dispute can proceed through the lower courts and back up to the justices. There is litigation in state courts in Texas as well, state courts that are also bound to respect the Constitution.

"In the interim, though, the impact is clear. In Texas, women’s constitutional rights are being violated every day — as those sworn to uphold and enforce the Constitution stand by, approving." -- Ruth Marcus, Washington Post.

__________

Can't shake the sense that the GOP is about to become the dog that caught the car.

— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) September 2, 2021

 

Let's all make sure that this war on women, which will now be waged in every Republican- controlled state in the Union, will end in the annihilation of Trumpist, Christo-fascist Republicanism.  Rise up and stay risen!

Texas To Virtually Ban Abortions Under New Law

With a 6 - 3 right-wing majority on the Supreme Court that shows hostility to women's reproductive rights, Republican pols and their reactionary and misogynist Christofascist base are pushing hard to render Roe v. Wade null and void. Last Monday, the SCOTUS decided to take up Mississippi's restrictive abortion law case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, in their next session in October, sending the clear signal that Roe was on the table.

Yesterday, Texas' extremist Trumpist Gov. Greg "Abbadabba" Abbott, who botched his response to the disastrous failure of Texas' electric grid this winter, signed a bill that would prohibit abortions past the 6th week of pregnancy, even in cases of rape and incest. The vast majority of women don't realize their pregnant at that stage, so it's effectively a ban on all abortions. It's been pointed out that the bill is a nightmarish attack on victims of sexual assault, who would have virtually no time to react to terminate a pregnancy in that situation.

While Texas' so-called "heartbeat law" doesn't take effect until September, and is being challenged vigorously by pro-choice organizations, it's a serious threat to reproductive rights that will undoubtedly be the template for other right-wing Republican-led states, emboldened by the current Supreme Court makeup. 

(photo: Abbott -- All hat, no cattle, and no concern for women's rights. Kevin Jairaj / USA Today Sports)

The Absurd And Unintended Consequences Of Alabama's Abortion Ban

Law professor Carliss Chatman follows the "logic" of the recently enacted Alabama law virtually ending abortion rights to its "logical" conclusions:

Alabama has joined the growing number of states determined to overturn Roe v. Wade by banning abortion from conception forward. The Alabama Human Life Protection Act, as the new statute is called, subjects a doctor who performs an abortion to as many as 99 years in prison. The law, enacted Wednesday, has no exceptions for rape or incest. It redefines an “unborn child, child or person” as “a human being, specifically including an unborn child in utero at any stage of development, regardless of viability.”

We ought to take our laws seriously. Under the laws, people have all sorts of rights and protections. When a state grants full personhood to a fetus, should they not apply equally?

Child support starting at conception? Sure!

Claim a fetus on your taxes? Makes sense!

Deporting a pregnant immigrant with an American citizen/fetus in her womb?  Better not!

How about detaining that pregnant immigrant's American citizen/fetus without arraignment or trial? Unconstitutional!

How about counting that American citizen/ fetus in the census?  Now you're talking!

It's an interesting read showing the absurdities of the Alabama law beyond, for example, the brutality of having no exceptions for rape or incest and criminalizing a medical procedure.  The application of the 14th Amendment's definitions of personhood and citizenship is the foundation for what would become an issue for the courts:

... States have been allowed to define the personhood of unnatural creatures — such as corporations — since very early in our nation’s history. In exchange for this freedom, states are not permitted to go back on their deal. In other words, once personhood rights are granted, a state may not deny life, liberty or property without due process, nor may a state deny equal protection under the law. States have never had the right to define the personhood of people. This was a subject — influenced either by place of birth or by complying with immigration and naturalization requirements — for the Constitution and federal law. State grants of natural personhood challenge this norm.

Since different states have laws that protect women's reproductive rights (eg., New York), applying the "logic" in the Alabama law in a post- Roe world would lead to the unintended consequence of what Chatman calls a bonkers system of "two- tiered fetal citizenship" across the country.  It's a timely and thought- provoking article.  Go read!  (h/t FOB P.E.C.)

BONUS:  Steve M. at No More Mister Nice Blog has more on Chatman's op/ed.

"Consensual Rape" And The Rethug Mentality

Obscure Missouri state Rep. Barry Hovis stands in a long line of backward, misogynist Rethuglican pols and their enablers in believing that raped women were just "asking for it." In the debate over the state's new anti-choice law, Hovis, a former police officer, launched into a largely fact-free discourse on rape, unleashing this foul crap:

“Let’s just say someone goes out and they’re raped or they’re sexually assaulted one night after a college party — because most of my rapes were not the gentleman jumping out of the bushes that nobody had ever met,” Hovis said. “That was one or two times out of a hundred. Most of them were date rapes or consensual rapes, which were all terrible."

Imagine being a woman and having this twisted clown be the cop that arrives after you report being raped. Imagine voters in Missouri electing this cretin and you have the answer to why we can't have nice things in America. We imagine Hovis earned his Master of Rapes degree at the Todd Akin School for Understandin' Wimmen, where professor Todd Akin, once a candidate for U.S. Senate against Sen. Claire McCaskill in 2012, propounded his theory that a woman could "shut down" a pregnancy in the case of "legitimate rape."  Also... "the gentleman."

The enduring union of the "corporate conservative" movement and the theocratic far-right has produced this dangerous nonsense. Their beliefs that women are not equal citizens with equal rights -- importantly the right to decide what happens in their own bodies -- permeate every corner of their policies, from rejection of equal pay and employment opportunities for women, to their new attacks on Roe v. Wade. As it has before, their overreach will boomerang against them at the polls, as women and men understand their end game: taking women back to a patriarchal, 19th century world. Not going to happen.

"Charting Awful New Frontiers" In The Republican War On Women

Michelle Goldberg has a must- read on why a post- Roe world would be even worse than the conditions that existed before Roe.  Here are a few of her top line arguments (our emphasis):

While doctors were prosecuted for abortions before Roe, patients rarely were. Today, in states that have legislated fetal personhood, women are already arrested on suspicion of harming or endangering their fetuses, including by using drugs, attempting suicide or, in a case in Utah, delaying a cesarean section. There’s no reason to believe that, in states where abortion is considered homicide, prosecutors will be less punitive when investigating it.

Further, the abortion bans in the new wave are harsher than most of those that existed before Roe. At that time, most states prohibited abortion in most circumstances, but according to historian Leslie Reagan, the author of the book “When Abortion Was a Crime,” there was little legal conception of fetal personhood.

Overturning or weakening Roe also shifts the Overton window:

Republican politicians in other states are clearly interested in locking women up; last month Texas legislators held a hearing on a bill that would allow women who have abortions to be charged with homicide and potentially subject to the death penalty. In a post-Roe future, the political fight, at least in red states, could shift from whether women can have abortions to whether they can be imprisoned for them.

Should there be any more talk of a Republican "fever" breaking upon the election of a Democratic president in 2020, the troglodyte extremism exhibited by these State and local (largely white male) Republicans demonstrates this isn't a bug of that rotted out party -- it's a feature. 

As we watch Donald Trump remake this country in ways that once seemed unimaginable, it’s tempting to reach for historical analogies to grapple with what’s happening. It’s why, as people struggle to understand how his abuses of power might be constrained, there’s been renewed interest in Watergate. Yet, as in the comparison between Richard Nixon and Trump, the past can prove inadequate to understanding the depredations of the present. Rather than moving backward, we’re charting awful new frontiers.

These are not people with whom you can have a civil dialogue, much less reason with.  They are yahoos who will use their power to impose their dangerous, antediluvian views on everyone else.  At every level in American politics, as we keep saying, they need to be voted out of office once and for all.  The vast majority of Americans disagree with these absolutist crackpots and have ever since Roe;  they need to act on that at the polls from now on.

Missouri Rethugs Pass Abortion Ban

Another right-wing Republican, white male-dominated state legislature, this time in Missouri, has passed a draconian anti-choice bill that would ban abortions after eight weeks. As with the similar law just passed in Alabama, the bill contains no exceptions for rape or incest. Doctors would face up to 15 years for performing an abortion in Missouri. Missouri's Rethug Governor Mike Parson is expected to sign the bill into law.

Emboldened by demagogue and sociopath Donald "Not Exonerated" Trump picking two anti-choice zealots, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh, for the Supreme Court, reactionary state legislators have taken their 19th century misogyny to the next level, hoping to challenge the existence of Roe v. Wade in the courts. Democratic State Senator Jill Schupp experessed the feelings of outnumbered Dems who tried to block the legislation:

"Outnumbered Missouri Senate Democrats launched into an attack on the bill before Republican supporters had a chance to bring it up for debate on the Senate floor.

'So much of this bill is just shaming women into some kind of complacency that says we are vessels of pregnancy rather than understanding that women’s lives all hold different stories,' St. Louis-area Democratic Sen. Jill Schupp said." (our emphasis)

Elections matter. Not just Presidential elections or elections for the Senate and House of Representatives. State legislatures are the petri dish for policies that can bubble up to the national level with disastrous potential consequences. The Rethuglans' fanatic push to strike down a settled law, despite over 79% of the public saying abortion should be safe and legal under any or certain circumstances, shows they're willing to buck the voter and we have to make them pay for it with their jobs.

Republican Men Decide What's Good For Women

Stephen Colbert looks at the radical anti- choice laws springing up and the nitwit Republican men behind them. 

Abortion Bans And Fraud Scams

It's how the rotted out Republican Party rolls, part infinity.

Last week:

Georgia's Republican Gov. Brian Kemp signed legislation on Tuesday banning abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. That can be as early as six weeks, before many women know they're pregnant.

Kemp said he was signing the bill "to ensure that all Georgians have the opportunity to live, grow, learn and prosper in our great state."  (our emphasis)

So, the goobers passed a law essentially forcing pregnancy on women.  The law's language would also allow prosecution of doctors who perform a procedure widely recognized as a medically acceptable standard of care, in a state with the highest maternal mortality rate in the country. 

Of course, the broader point of this law, and the even more restrictive law about to be signed into law in the theocratic state of Alabammy, is to force the issue through the courts to the Supreme Court.  There, these bible- banging zealots expect the Trump court to overturn or completely neuter Roe v. Wade.  (Let's never forget, if it weren't for evil turtle/ hobgoblin hybrid Mitch "Missy" McConnell blocking the Merrick Garland nomination, there would be a 5-4 moderate/ liberal majority on the Court right now.)

But, don't you know those same bible- banging Georgia Republicans are some fine moral people:

Georgia Insurance Commissioner Jim Beck was accused Tuesday by a federal grand jury of stealing more than $2 million from his former employer.

The 38-count indictment charges Beck, an ex-insurance lobbyist and long-time leader of the Georgia Christian Coalition, with fraud and money laundering in an elaborate scheme to defraud the Georgia Underwriting Association. With the stolen cash, the Republican allegedly paid his credit card bills and taxes — and even funded the 2018 campaign that landed him in office. (our emphasis)

Who says Trump isn't the purest manifestation of Republicanism that ever was?

The Republican Plan To Woo The Ladies

Fantasy

As the crack political team at the White (Supremacist) House scratches Dina Powell's name off the list of potential Ambassadors to the UN, this gives us an insight into how desperate and unmoored from reality they are (paywall at main article):

Powell’s withdrawal reportedly came as Trump’s aides frantically search for a woman to replace Haley in a bid to boost the president’s approval ratings with women voters ahead of midterm elections. “The political shop thinks it’s very important to announce a woman before Election Day because of the president’s approval rating and the Kavanaugh stuff,” one White House source was quoted as saying by Politico. (our emphasis)

Reality I

There's a 30- point gender gap (63% of women favor Democrats vs. 33% favoring Republicans):

New CNN/SSRS poll -- generic ballot:
Democrat: 54%
Republican: 41%https://t.co/qwfcl1k8w8 pic.twitter.com/lwDzAMoS36

— David Wright (@DavidWright_CNN) October 9, 2018

But, of course, announcing a token Trumpette to take the UN job (Ivanka, are you still in the running? Maybe!) will most definitely swing women voters to the side of the groper- in- chief! As the great Charles Pierce would say, "And I am the Tsar of all the Russias."

Reality II

Thinking not likely to boost Republican chances with women either:

In a private email exchange with his top aide, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly blasted Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) following a phone call with her to discuss the administration’s travel ban. [snip] 

In the message to Kevin Carroll dated Feb. 8, 2017, he called the chat with Sen. Warren “absolutely most insulting conversation I have ever had with anyone.” 

“What an impolite arrogant woman,” Kelly continued on.  “She immediately began insulting our people accusing them of not following the court order, insulting and abusive behavior towards those covered by the pause, blah blah blah.”

Kelly also clashed with Dina Powell when she was at the White (Supremacist) House, considering her a "sharp- elbowed operator."  (If she had been Dan Powell, Kelly would have considered him a tough, worthy opponent, no doubt.)

They can't help it. That's how these misogynist fossils think (who can forget Republican turtle/ human hybrid Sen. Mitch "Missy" McConnell's jab at Sen. Warren's temerity, "Nevertheless, she persisted"?). We saw it most recently in the performance of the geriatric Republican men on the Senate Judiciary Committee desperate to ram Brett "KavaNut" Kavanaugh through the confirmation process.

What a collection of frightened little men the rotted out Republican party has become.

NC Republican: Career Not "Healthiest Pursuit" For Women

Yikes, another jackass of Biblical proportions (is that uncivil?):

Republican congressional candidate Mark Harris, a former Baptist pastor, once delivered a sermon questioning whether a career was the "healthiest pursuit" for women. 

The 2013 sermon was discovered by a Democratic-linked Super PAC, American Bridge, and first reported Thursday by ABC News. 

In the sermon, Harris, then pastor of Charlotte's First Baptist Church, spoke about "God's plan for biblical womanhood" and barriers to it. 

"The first one . . . is that we’ve had in our own culture a new supreme pursuit," he said. "There is a new supreme pursuit from the traditional pursuit of being a wife or a mother . . . . [snip] 

Harris is running in the 9th District, which stretches from Charlotte to Bladen County. He defeated incumbent Robert Pittenger in May's Republican primary and now faces Democrat Dan McCready.

Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt has the right idea:

So the choice in this one is pretty clear. A USMC Captain, combat veteran, a man of genuine faith and job creating businessman vs. a theocratic looney tunes. McCready  is  clearly the better choice.  His opponent is nuts. Helping @McCreadyForNC is good for America.  Thanks Fred https://t.co/NnS2Ne96Mu

— Steve Schmidt (@SteveSchmidtSES) July 7, 2018

This is an open seat, since the Biblical jackass defeated the somewhat less looney incumbent in the Republican primary. You can check out McCready's web site at the link in Schmidt's tweet.

Reactionary Sabotage Round-up

The nihilists, thugs and sociopaths of the Trump regime and Republican Party are busy making sure you can't have nice things ... because Obama. Here's a brief, and not inclusive, summary (our emphasis throughout).

War On Women:

The Trump administration loosened Obama-era birth control requirements Friday, saying most providers of health insurance could refuse to pay for an employee’s birth control if the provider shows “sincerely held” religious or moral objections. [snip] 

“By taking away women’s access to no-cost birth control coverage, the rules give employers a license to discriminate against women,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Center. 

“This will leave countless women without the critical birth control coverage they need to protect their health and economic security. We will take immediate legal steps to block these unfair and discriminatory rules.

Obamacare Sabotage:

For months, officials in Republican-controlled Iowa had sought federal permission to revitalize their ailing health-insurance marketplace. Then President Trump read about the request in a newspaper story and called the federal director weighing the application. 

Trump’s message in late August was clear, according to individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations: Tell Iowa no. [snip] 

And with the fifth enrollment season set to begin Nov. 1, advocates say the Health and Human Services Department has done more to suppress the number of people signing up than to boost it. HHS has slashed grants to groups that help consumers get insurance coverage, for example. It also has cut the enrollment period in half, reduced the advertising budget by 90 percent and announced an outage schedule that would make the HealthCare.gov website less available than last year. 

The White House also has yet to commit to funding the cost-sharing reductions that help about 7 million lower-income Americans afford out-of-pocket expenses on their ACA health plans. Trump has regularly threatened to block them and, according to an administration official who was not authorized to speak publicly, officials are considering action to end the payments in November. 

The uncertainty has driven premium prices much higher for 2018. A possible move by the Treasury Department to ease the requirement that most Americans obtain coverage could further erode a core element of the law.

Tax Cuts For Me, Medicare and Medicaid Cuts For Thee:

The House on Thursday passed a $4.1 trillion budget plan that promises deep cuts to social programs while paving the way for Republicans to rewrite the tax code later this year. 

The 2018 House GOP budget reprises a controversial plan to turn Medicare into a voucher-like program for future retirees as well as the party's efforts to repeal the "Obamacare" health law. Republicans controlling Congress have no plans to actually implement those cuts while they pursue their tax overhaul. [snip] 

The House measure, passed by a near party-line vote of 219-206, calls for more than $5 trillion in spending cuts over the coming decade, promising to slash Medicaid by about $1 trillion over the next 10 years, cutting other health care costs, and forcing huge cuts to domestic programs funded in future years by Congress. 

Stripping Away LGBT Protections:

In an order that undercuts protections for LGBT people, Attorney General Jeff Sessions issued a sweeping directive to agencies Friday to do as much as possible to accommodate those who say their religious freedoms are being violated. 

The guidance, an attempt to deliver on President Donald Trump’s pledge to his evangelical and other religious supporters, effectively lifts a burden from religious objectors to prove that their beliefs about marriage or other topics are sincerely held. 

Under the new policy, a claim of a violation of religious freedom would be enough to override concerns for the civil rights of LGBT people and anti-discrimination protections for women and others. The guidelines are so sweeping that experts on religious liberty are calling them a legal powder-keg that could prompt wide-ranging lawsuits against the government. 

Decertifying the Iran Nuclear Deal:

President Trump is expected to announce next week that he will “decertify” the international nuclear deal with Iran, saying it is not in the national interest of the United States and kicking the issue to a reluctant Congress, people briefed on the White House strategy said Thursday. 

The move would mark the first step in a process that could eventually result in the resumption of U.S. sanctions against Iran, potentially derailing a deal limiting Iran’s nuclear activities reached in 2015 with the United States and five other nations. 

Moral: When you put dangerous, ugly people in power, you get dangerous, ugly results.

The Republican War On Women, Cont.

Just a little while ago, the Senate voted on a Republican sponsored bill that would strip away Title X protections governing whether States provide family planning funds to clinics and providers (notably Planned Parenthood).  With noted non- feminist and very white "man" Vice President Mike "Dense" Pence gleefully casting the tie- breaking vote, Republicans gutted the regulation providing those protections. As soon as it's signed by another noted non- feminist shitgibbon, it'll be Federal law that States (some of whom were already challenging the rule and pushing the envelope) have the right to deny Title X family planning funding for reasons that could be totally unrelated to quality of service of those providers =cough= abortion =cough=.

The National Women's Law Center describes the impact this mean- spirited bill will have (see also P.E.C.'s addendum in Comments):

Do not be mistaken—these attacks, including this vote, would likely result in individuals losing access to critical family planning and preventive care provided by Title X sites, including: 

-- Breast exams—which were provided to over 1 million women nationally at Title X sites in 2015; 

-- Other important confidential preventive care, including screenings for sexually transmitted infections (STIs)/HIV, and health education; and 

-- Contraceptive care and counseling that helped women avoid 904,000 unintended pregnancies, which would have resulted in 439,000 unplanned births in 2014.

Every Republican Senator except Sens. Collins and Murkowski voted for this bill. There weren't enough Democrats in the House or Senate to stop this, nor is there anyone in the White House to veto it. But we all know that nothing was worse than Hillary's emails, right?

The Republican War On Women (And Families), Cont.

While most of us have been focusing on the evil doings in neo- fascist birdbrain Donald "Rump" Trump's Washington (and we mean no disrespect to birds), there've been the usual shenanigans by his legion of Republican Party shitsticks out in "real America" (our emphasis throughout):

South Dakota

Republican State Rep. Wayne "Wayne" Steinhauer speaks for his party when he says there's no need to accommodate women in the workplace for, say, pregnancy!  He was objecting to this:

HB 1120, brought to us by Democratic Representative Dan Ahlers and co-sponsored by seven Democrats and four Republicans, would have required firms with 50 or more employees to offer moms and moms-to-be “reasonable accommodations” ...

"Reasonable accomodations?!" Why, in Wayne's world, if you don't like what the boss is doing,

“It’s not prison. You can quit,” Steinhauer, a business owner, said during a Monday hearing of the House Commerce and Energy Committee on the bill, HB 1120.

To no one's surprise, his sociopathic Republogic prevailed, and the bill was defeated in committee.

Here's a picture of ol' Wayne himself.  Speaking of reasonable accommodations, he's the owner of the Best Western Motel in Murdo, SD (pop. 488), so if you're ever unfortunate enough to be caught in that hellhole, be sure to say howdy.



Tennessee

Republican State Rep. Terry Lynn Weaver (who only plays a doctor/ medical ethicist in her own mind) is on a mission, fueled by her righteous ignorance:

A bill filed by a Tennessee Republican aims to make children born through artificial insemination illegitimate. 

WMC reported that state House Representative Terry Lynn Weaver is sponsoring HB 1406 to repeal Tennessee current statute, TCA 68-3-306, which declares that children born through artificial insemination are the “legitimate” child of the mother’s husband.  

Weaver is also a "blues singer" in her own mind and definitely NOT A RACIST as this picture of her with "Aunt Jemima" clearly demonstrates:



But let's end on a happy note.

Minnesota

Counterprotesters outnumbered protesters 10 to 1 at a St. Paul rally Saturday morning calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood. 

Sarah Stoesz, president of Planned Parenthood Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, called the counterprotest an unprecedented event. A St. Paul police commander on scene estimated the original protesters numbered about 500 while the counterprotesters numbered about 5,000 to 5,500. 

“We’ve never seen anything like this at Planned Parenthood here in Minnesota,” Stoesz said. “Here in Minnesota we have 64,000 patients and about 24,000 of them would lose access to their health care if Congress is allowed to so-called defund Planned Parenthood. So it’s a very serious matter and you can see people are taking it very, very seriously.”

That's Minnesota Nice.

Republican War on Women, Cont'd.

(click on image to enlarge)

After his epic takedown by Fux's Megyn Kelly a couple of days ago, right-wing culture warrior Newt "Poot" Gingrich -- who may be one of the most despised characters in politics -- has had to comfort himself with off-hand praise from his political master, neo-fascist bigot Donald "Rump" Trump. At the opening of his soon-to-go-bankrupt white elephant hotel in Washington, D.C., Rump laughably congratulated Poot on the "amazing interview" with Kelly (which left Poot sputtering in finger-wagging rage).

Michelle Goldberg has an interesting piece in Slate that looks at a burgeoning gender war within the Rethuglican / New Confederate / Stupid / Shooters Party that's been fueled by the nomination of misogynist groper and sexual assault braggart Rump. Goldberg notes that Kelly's confrontation of Poot was,

"...an important moment in one of the more interesting subplots in this election—the dawning realization by at least some conservative women that many of the men in their movement are not on their side."

Poot, who's been married three times and who had affairs during his first two marriages, is the face of the Rethuglican and Trumpist movement's attitude toward women: reactionary, dismissive and predatory. It's dawning of some Rethug women that, to paraphrase Pogo, we have met the enemy and they are our men.

(cartoon: Mike Luckovich, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, via Gocomics.com)

Priebus to Women: We Don't Care

Today's appearance on the Fux Channel by human-weasel hybrid and emptiest suit in America, Republican National Committee chairstain Reince "Prepuce" Priebus, where they discussed the disturbing article in the New York Times about Donald "Rump" Trump's treatment of women, produced this exchange with Chris Wallace:

Prepuce: "All these stories that come out — and they come out every couple weeks — people just don’t care. I think people look at Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton and say, ‘Who’s going to bring an earthquake to D.C.?’

Wallace: “The question is whether or not he mistreated women, made unwanted advances, whether he humiliated women in the workplace — I don’t know why you say people don’t care about that."(emphasis added)

That's true, if by "people," Prepuce was referring to the angry know-nothings that populate Rump's fan base. Or if by "people," Prepuce means Rump-supporting misogynist, sociopathic men. As Rump pointed out, they wouldn't care if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York City.

Unfortunately for Prepuce, the 70% of women who find Rump objectionable do care, because they've likely run into someone like Rump in their lives and know what unwanted advances are like. He'll see how much they care when they come out and vote in November.

The Republican War On Women - House Of Cards Edition

Yesterday, a festering sore known as the House Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives (a.k.a., the Planned Parenthood witch hunt) held a meeting, chaired by Republican War on Women cat's paw Rep. Marsha "How Many Holes In" Blackburn (R-  The panel is intent on resuscitating the debunked smear that Planned Parenthood is engaged in "making a profit selling baby parts" for research.  Twelve Republican- led states conducted similar witch hunts and concluded that Planned Parenthood did not illegally sell fetal tissue (in fact, a Texas grand jury indicted the perpetrators of the doctored video that ignited the current activity for felony tampering with a government record).  The way it started, it appears the Panel might outdo Rep. Trey "Howdy" Gowdy's (R- Cradle of Secession) Benghazi! witch hunt for sheer laughable, transparent partisan futility.

Impartiality?  What a card!

On the eve of her panel’s Wednesday’s hearing, Blackburn went over to Georgetown University to participate in a protest against Planned Parenthood, the very entity she is supposed to be investigating. According to the Right to Life organization, she gave a speech at a gathering called “Life-Affirming Alternatives to Planned Parenthood,” part of a series of events in opposition to Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards’s speech at Georgetown on Wednesday. 

A factual, evidence- based approach? Surely you jest!

... Blackburn gave an opening statement mentioning the buying and selling of “baby body parts” no fewer than seven times.

And the evidence that abortion clinics profit from the sale of these body parts? That would be in “Exhibit G,” handed out by Blackburn’s staff. “The AC [abortion clinic] has no costs so the payments from the PB [procurement business] to the AC are pure profit,” it said.

But this incendiary “exhibit” — asserting that any abortion clinic that receives any payment for fetal tissue is breaking the law — turned out to be not evidence but an undocumented claim by the Republican staff.

Keep in mind, this Panel has subpoenaed the names of fetal tissue researchers and workers at women's health clinics in a blatant attempt at intimidation that could also lead to their being the targets of an anti- abortion loon like the one who shot up the clinic in Colorado.  Keep in mind, also, that the end desired by these repugnant right- wing yokels is to ultimately shut down a vital source of health care for women.  Fortunately for all of us, Planned Parenthood isn't going to let them get away with it, and neither should we.

Today's Video - Roasted Rump

The cold open on Saturday Night Live last night had "Kate Bolduan" (Kate McKinnon) interviewing a "female defender" of misogynist neo- fascist Donald "Rump" Trump, "Scottie Nell Hughes" (Cecily Strong), in a skit that didn't take very many liberties with reality: