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US Politics: A Post-Roe Country


DMC

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Sorry didn't put much thought into the title, just wanted to respond to Kal.  Open to suggestions.

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And yes, McConnell in 2017 where he is trying to make Trump behave like a normal republican because he is worried about political ramifications is not predictive of how McConnell will behave in 2025 with a vindictive Trump empowered by an illiberal government and a court that does not care about the law. McConnell is adaptable and stands for nothing but power - why wouldn't his behavior change?

Because (a) as I said in the original post I'm skeptical Trump will care that much about pushing for a federal abortion ban himself and (b) if McConnell is Majority Leader in 2025 that necessarily means he successfully survived Trump's attempt to oust him, thus there's no reason to think his behavior would change from how he behaved in 2017.  

I suppose you could posit a scenario where Trump finally gets McConnell under his thumb in exchange for staying on as leader, but I think it's clear the relationship has long passed the point of no return for both men.  Either Trump sacks McConnell, or Trump tries to sack McConnell (as he currently is) and fails.

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As to the courts allowing Trump to stay in power - please don't say something shouldn't be worried about when it was mitigated successfully.

Huh?  I was referring to your continued concerns even after the election when the courts were striking down the dozens of challenges.  Before the election pretty sure most everybody was concerned this court could give Trump the election.

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How abortion became a mobilizing issue among the religious right, which began only after the Feminist Movement achieved some media coverage and success.  Thus again, it is absolutely clear that this so-called issue, which wasn't an issue even among evangelicals, in the 1970's became thoroughly identified with the evils of feminism, which took women out of their god-decreed role as mothers, first, second and third, and even more first, subject to men in everything.

This is a transcript of the All Things Considered interview with "Kristin Kobes Du Mez. She's been thinking about, researching and writing about these issues for years in her work as a professor of history and gender studies at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Mich. She also identifies as an evangelical Christian. She says that it wasn't until the late 1970s that abortion became a mobilizing force for the religious right. Before that, she told us there was actually a diversity of opinion about abortion in evangelical spaces"

Kristin Kobes Du Mez also explains that evangelical thinking has no problem with non-access to health care or opportunity, because everyone needs to be self-sufficient, and if you are going without food, it's your fault, your problem.

There is also an audio version available at the link.

https://www.npr.org/2022/05/08/1097514184/how-abortion-became-a-mobilizing-issue-among-the-religious-right

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.... KRISTIN KOBES DU MEZ: In the late 1960s, we have this remarkable issue of Christianity Today, the flagship magazine of American evangelicalism, discussing this question of abortion. And the conclusion is that it's a very complicated moral issue. So there are theologians discussing precisely when ensoulment happens - when does the fetus become an actual life? - and weighing the complicated issues not just in terms of rape and incest, but also the health and well-being of the mother and the family. And, yes, the Southern Baptist Convention comes out in favor of opening up access to abortion in many cases in 1971, and then they reaffirmed that in 1974 and in 1976, so after Roe v. Wade.

But what happens in the 1970s is, first of all, with the passing of Roe v. Wade, you see a spike in the number of abortions. And that causes many Americans, not just evangelicals, to kind of rethink is this what we wanted? But I think more importantly, you have the rise of second-wave feminism and, in conservative, white, evangelical spaces, a real backlash against feminism. And over the course of that decade, abortion becomes linked to feminism. And so you see the sentiment start to shift so that in 1979, when political activist Paul Weyrich identifies abortion as a potential to really mobilize conservative evangelicals politically, to help build the Moral Majority, then it is a very effective mechanism for doing so. And from 1979 on, that's when you see a real kind of shrinking of space within conservative evangelicalism to have any view on abortion that isn't strictly and staunchly pro-life, life begins at conception.

MARTIN: I'm still so interested in why - why this over other issues? In this country, the lack of access to routine health care, particularly compared to that of peer nations - that's been a fact of life for years, and that has resulted in some terrible outcomes. I don't think that's a secret. I mean, there have been prominent evangelical leaders, like - I'm thinking about the Reverend Harry Jackson Jr., for example, who wrote about being nearly bankrupted by his battle with cancer or people whose lack of access to prenatal care has led to shocking maternal mortality rates in this country, particularly among Black and brown women and Indigenous women. And I was just wondering why these issues have never surfaced to the same degree. I mean, one would think that if you adopt a perspective that values and reveres the sanctity of life, that it would be across the life spectrum. And that's not even addressing issues like the death penalty. I mean, that's a separate issue. But just the question of keeping women alive during and after childbirth - that would seem to be something that would have equal weight, but it doesn't. And I was just wondering if you have a theory about why that is.

DU MEZ: You're right. It does not. Now, there is a minority of evangelicals, of white evangelicals who do embrace this holistic life commitment, including the death penalty and pro-gun legislation and pro-health care, universal health care. But that is a definite minority. Among many white evangelicals, their moral system is one that really embraces an individualistic ethos or ethic, really. And so we are all to kind of fend for ourselves. And it is one that pushes back against systemic issues or a systemic way of understanding inequality, understanding things like racism or, you know, access to health care.

And so abortion is an issue that fits well with this individualistic framework in the way that they approach it. And so they will say this is - you know, this is a life of a human being, and it's just a clear-cut case, and it is an innocent life. And so in cases like the death penalty or even in - sometimes this is extended to discussions of health care. Well, if you had been more responsible, if you had a higher income, if you - you know, there are things you could have done here, whereas abortion, it seems very simple or even simplistic.

But I should also add that abortion - we need to understand how abortion is also situated in terms of evangelical gender ideals. And for evangelicals, conservative evangelicals, gender difference is really foundational to their understanding of the social order. And they believe that God created men and women to be very different, even opposites. And the women's primary calling is that of wife and mother. And so abortion also really severs that kind of biological or social relationship or threatens to do so. And for that reason, also, abortion is such a priority for evangelicals because it kind of strikes at the heart of their understanding of women and men and their understanding of how God has ordered society. ....

 

 

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More and more we see people here in the USA saying that this Alito leak, with people also saying, what can we do to change this, while seeing that there is nothing we can do -- this is the week xtian white nationalist fascism has taken over the USA.

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1 hour ago, Zorral said:

More and more we see people here in the USA saying that this Alito leak, with people also saying, what can we do to change this, while seeing that there is nothing we can do -- this is the week xtian white nationalist fascism has taken over the USA.

I am seeing a rapidly growing backlash to the leaked SC opinion and subsequent plans for other restrictions in the comments of various posts and pics, including rabidly pro-conservative sites - enough to the point where I am wondering if the R's might actually botch their midterm takeover of congress.  Right now, I don't deem this likely, but is at least looking possible.

 

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US immigration agency operates vast surveillance dragnet, study finds
When cities and states passed ‘sanctuary’ laws to block police from aiding deportations, Ice found new ways to access private intel

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/may/10/us-immigration-agency-ice-domestic-surveillance-study

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The scale of Ice surveillance shocked even the report’s authors.

“I was alarmed to discover just how easily federal immigration agents can pull detailed records from the most intimate corners of all our lives,” Nina Wang, a policy associate at the Center on Privacy & Technology and a report author, told the Guardian.

She added: “In its attempts to target an ever-growing number of people for detention and deportation, Ice has reached into the private homes and lives of almost every person in America.”

Wang said the immigration agency now had an unfettered ability to “trace the movement of your vehicle on the roads, look up your address from your water or electricity bills, and conduct face recognition searches on your ID photos, all without needing a search warrant.

 

 

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 Naïveté, thine name is legion . . . .

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It's here, is it ever here, the white male xtian theocratic nationalist authoritarian fash takeover.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/10/school-library-database-book-ban/

The next book ban: States aim to limit titles students can search for
Republican legislation in several states would restrict school library databases

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Republicans splinter on how to handle a post-Roe world:

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Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told USA Today last week that a national ban was “possible” but said on Monday he would “never support smashing the legislative filibuster on this issue or any other.” With that in mind, many Republicans want to put talk of abortion legislation way on the back burner, seeking instead to recapture majorities on the Hill. [...]

Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.) said that while he personally supports abortion restrictions, the debate was “hypothetical” and there is no unified position in the GOP.

Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who is close to McConnell, sounded a similar note. He said that if Roe is struck down, he doesn’t see the need for federal legislation despite supporting a 20-week abortion ban in the past: “I don’t think it’s really an appropriate topic for Congress.”

 

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They LIE.  Like their SCOTUS nominees blithely lied and lied and lied to Dems faces. While the Dems had to know they lied, like Pilate, deliberately, washed their hands, chose faux naïveté.

Biden, fer pete's sake, can't hardly even utter the word, 'abortion.'  He is a good Catholic and the Church is not happy with him -- at least the US branch of it -- on this, because for them he's not publicly anti enough.

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https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/abortion-protest-kavanaugh-alito-collins-court-roe-moral-panic.html

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Last night police descended on the home of Senator Susan Collins in response to what Collins apparently regards as a threat. The threat was a message written on the sidewalk in front of her house asking her to support a pro-choice bill in the Senate.

“The message was not overtly threatening,” allows a police spokesman, as though there was some clear, Vito Corleone–esque undertone of menace. The message in fact read, “Susie, please, Mainers want WHPA —> vote yes, clean up your mess.” I would submit that a message delivered via water-soluble chalk, and including the word “please,” is neither overtly nor covertly threatening.

Collins thanked “the Bangor police officers and the city public-works employee who responded to the defacement of public property in front of our home,” who, working in conjunction, were apparently able to erase the message, without needing to call in an FBI tactical anti-chalk squad.

The fact this episode even made it into a news story (albeit a local one) and that the story was not about elderly snowflakes is a testament to the hyperventilated response to pro-choice protests. Yesterday, rumors that Justice Samuel Alito was forced to flee his home — the source of which turned out to be a right-wing law professor repeating something he thought he saw on Twitter somewhere — was repeated in numerous national news stories. Congress rushed to pass a bill enhancing personal security for the justices. ....

.... ut the hysterical levels of media attention to a handful of protests, and the spread of false rumors surrounding them, requires some broader explanation. I see three factors at work.

First is a desire by conservatives to make the focus of the Roe v. Wade story something other than the policy implications of the Court’s forthcoming decision. Republicans leaders have spelled out their fear that an unpopular ruling to overturn Roe will shake up an otherwise favorable midterm election. The protests are simply serving the same function that the leak served last week — giving Republicans something to talk about other than banning abortion.

Second is a desire by conservatives to give the Supreme Court a special sanctity. Having gained generational control over the courts, the right’s objective now is to ensure that its legitimacy is not questioned. The idea that Brett Kavanaugh does not deserve the kind of treatment Pelosi has to endure is a knock-on effect of this belief system.

Third, and most important, the episode reveals once again the asymmetrical commitment between the two parties to upholding institutions and norms. Republicans have welcomed violent extremists into their coalition, their candidates for office frequently brandish firearms in their ads, and the party no longer treats the peaceful transfer of power as a baseline requirement. It is impossible to imagine Republicans giving anything close to the display of unanimous support Democrats supplied in response to the protests against the Court. ....

 

 

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11 minutes ago, Zorral said:

They LIE.  Like their SCOTUS nominees blithely lied and lied and lied to Dems faces. While the Dems had to know they lied, like Pilate, deliberately, washed their hands, chose faux naïveté.

Of course they lie, they're politicians.  And Dems weren't being naive, faux or otherwise, on the Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or Barrett nominations - unless you count Joe Manchin (who really wasn't being "naive" either).  

The point is the GOP response since the leak makes it pretty clear the party as a whole, and certainly the Senate leadership, is not interested in going on the offense with federal anti-abortion legislation for the campaign this cycle.  Could they in 2024?  Possibly, but considering all the pickup opportunities the Senate GOP will have that cycle in purple states where Roe is very popular that'd be quite counterproductive.  And McConnell knows that.

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Yet, THEY ARE LYING.  Every woman for whom this vitally matters, from whichever direction, KNOWS THEY ARE LYING.

The lies at this moment are to divert attention from what They are doing due to the upcoming elections -- let's talk the important stuff: inflation, Biden's laptop and emails -- all Biden and Dems fault -- not this or Covid.

 

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Yeah.  Zorral's correct on this one. Right now, they have to make that argument in case MAGA doesn't overrun everything by 2024...unfortunately, that's likely the only way control of everything goes to Republicans going forward...

If the Republicans are back in control of everything come 2024, it's naive to think Mitch McConnell will actually be running anything.  If they win control of everything by 2024, it'll be because of the hardcore MAGA base and McConnell and his ilk will either fall into line to get them what they want, or they'll see that there is someone there that will.  And since Mitch likes power, and has shown to not be above kissing the ring, let's hope he doesn't get whiplash switching his position so quickly.

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10 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

If the Republicans are back in control of everything come 2024, it's naive to think Mitch McConnell will actually be running anything.

Trump may successfully oust McConnell, sure, but it's naive to think that's inevitable.

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3 minutes ago, DMC said:

Trump may successfully oust McConnell, sure, but it's naive to think that's inevitable.

You really do think the brakes within the system are still going to prevent the full on authoritarianism from coming to pass, don't you?

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1 minute ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

You really do think the brakes within the system are still going to prevent the full on authoritarianism from coming to pass, don't you?

I don't really know what the hell that means.  I know McConnell right now is the leader of the Republican Conference and it's not inevitable that Trump's efforts to oust him from that position will be successful.  They certainly haven't gained much traction thus far.

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14 minutes ago, Zorral said:

It's not as though Moscow Mitch has done anything to stop Them or even wants to. So what if he is or isn't in charge.

Because, as I stated yesterday, if McConnell does survive as leader in 2025 there's no reason to think he won't behave as such in a similar fashion to how he did the last time Trump was president.  That's certainly not to say McConnell is some type of savior or anything - he is far, far more responsible for this decision than Trump is.

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well...last time the R's had full control, they proved to be so incompetent and corrupt they were unable to accomplish much of their agenda beyond the tax cut. Good chance it'll be more of the same should they win another round. 

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Susan Collins Calls Cops Over Chalk Message On Abortion Rights
The Maine Republican previously voted against a bill that would codify Roe v. Wade, which the Supreme Court is poised to overturn this summer.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/susan-collins-calls-cops-abortion-rights_n_627a9111e4b046ad0d82470e

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Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) called the police on Saturday over a chalk drawing on a public sidewalk by her home that politely asked the Maine Republican to protect abortion rights by codifying Roe v. Wade.

Police in Bangor, Maine, responded Saturday night to investigate the water-soluble message that asked Collins to support the Women’s Health Protection Act, which effectively keeps abortion rights legal at the federal level in the event that the Supreme Court overturns the 1973 ruling guaranteeing abortion access.

“Susie, please... Mainers want WHPA —> vote yes, clean up your mess,” the message read, according to the police report.

 

 

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