Doghouse Reilly has a most perceptive suggestion:
Amanda Marcotte notes the latest funny business with Ladytown now moving through the World’s Third-Worst State Legislature™, because reproductive rights are the one bit of madness they can’t bring themselves to put a cork in, you should pardon the metaphor. And because it’s the one Christianist thingy they know Mike “Missing” Pence can’t veto, or shelve for next year.
And we’d be remiss here if we didn’t add that last week Karen Celestino-Horseman (via Doug Masson) noted that the Double Ultrasound bill was sponsored by Senator Travis Holdman, who also sponsored SB 0373, which, and I quote, “Makes it unlawful recording of [sic] agricultural or industrial operations,” with “intent to harass, defame, annoy, or harm”.
Don’t take my legal advice, but it was these same jokers who, a couple decades back (okay, not the identical jokers) who decided to rid the state of adult bookstores and wound up, instead, making them all change their names to “Museum of Adult Literature”. So look into getting your lady parts declared an agricultural or industrial operation, just in case.…
SB-0373 is an “ag gag” bill, intended to keep anyone from surreptitiously recording incidents of animal / worker abuse at factory ‘farm’ facilities on the grounds that such incidents might be legally protected trade secrets. (Not kidding; read the link.) The porn-store “museum” exemption, as you probably know, rests on the concept that feelthy peectures are made available for educational purposes only.
Seems like some reproductive service provider should be able to propose, tongue severely in cheek, a similarly labored legal argument to require that a woman’s private medical choices should be, y’know, private? Maybe we can claim that what’s going on Up There are also trade secrets, since the Talibangelicals have demonstrated they don’t have a real good grasp of the science?
Luthe
I am in favor of women filing paperwork to declare themselves corporations, because then interfering with lady-business would be interfering in trade. Hell, if they have to cross state lines for that abortion, it would be interfering with interstate commerce.
Felinious Wench
Oh thank God, I thought it was Texas again.
I haz trade secrets all up in my uterus. No pics.
tybee
i have, upon occasion, labored mightily in the fields for the sounds of agricultural operations…
SiubhanDuinne
Puszies are corporations, my friend!
Spaghetti Lee
Maybe we can claim that what’s going on Up There are also trade secrets, since the Talibangelicals have demonstrated they don’t have a real good grasp of the science?
So do you gals have a secret sauce you use or what?
srv
We should get John and Amanda back together again. I think he was afraid of her intellectual heft.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Maybe someone needs to do a porno of being ultrasounded. The moment Republicans find out women could orgasm from the probe, they’ll repeal it (Yeah, I know someone will probably proclaim that this proves that they are not that bad).
It does bring up some interesting ideas:
Vibrating vaginal probe
Ribbed
sb
@srv: Oh, was that she has? I always thought it was an “ability” to overwrite… well, anything.
Ruckus
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
They will then just want to arrest your Dr. for being a prostitute. You know getting paid for getting you off.
A bit on the eeewwwwww side, I’m waiting for the report of the first rethug politician in an ER with a vaginal probe stuck up his ass. Any takers on who it might be?
General Stuck
I keep reading around the net about how republicans are just in a temporary tail spin funk, and history will return them to power, like it has all the other times. But it is shit like this that is different than before. They can’t seem to keep a lid on the id.
The wingnuts once had some tact for getting what they wanted, and some sense of limits to those things that enhance the bottom line of corps they fend for. But now it is brazen laws gagging people in a country renowned for free speech, and somehow them thinking no one will notice. Not to mention the truly bizarre obsession for peeking into female body parts without the owner giving consent.
Every time they go this far off the rez with mindless and often offensive over reach, they drive another nail in their electoral coffins. That is added on to the irrepressible march of demographics that is whittling away at their white voting base. Though it could well be those demographics that is behind the over reach.
And I don’t see anyone with enough controlled charisma in their stable of new leader types, that can overpower the compulsion to realize their sick fantasies about sex, reproduction, and a rightful place of the female population as an equal partner in governing this country, as well as their own sex organs.
I keep thinking, okay, now this is so fucking stupid it will finally dawn on the nutters to tone it down. But they are on an altruistic train to nowhere that exists in the here and now.
So I think there are some fundamentally different realities with the republicans and what seems like a daily slide in loss of self control and the required guile to get themselves elected. It is not a cycle to be endured by temporary loss of favor from the voters, seems to me.
It is more like a catharsis of long suppressed pathology, that is blind to the necessary nuances to do successful politics in a democracy. That once let loose, cannot be put back into the bottle.
Culture of Truth
11 herbs and spices
Mark S.
I thought Pence was a religious nut himself. Has he been vetoing the bible-thumpers?
Yutsano
OT: Can we send Frum the fuck back to Canada now?
Suffern ACE
@Yutsano: we were never a nation of laws. We are a nation of symbolic gestures and magical messages.
srv
@sb: John had womyn issues:
https://balloon-juice.com/2005/08/08/dumbest-persyn-on-the-intertrons/
hells littlest angel
They’d have a hard time denying a woman the right to declare herself a baby factory.
SatanicPanic
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): I’m sure it exists already, Rule 34 being what it is. My family is still up so I’ll leave it to someone else to Google it.
srv
@General Stuck: That man in the White House has broken them. They are in a feedback loop spinning towards the wingularity and the shrieking will continue to escalate the older they get.
The party has to keep this up, can’t have Hillary of Joe in 2016. Need a candidate that will drive them off the deep end, or really get them to move to Costa Rica.
Is there a Senate seat Michelle could run for in 2014?
Hill Dweller
@General Stuck: The media is desperate to absolve Republicans of any blame for anything.
President Obama’s nominee for the 10th circuit, Robert Bacharach, was confirmed unanimously by the Senate(93-0) today after waiting 263 days. Bacharach was supported by both Oklahoma senators(Coburn and Inhofe) and had near unanimous support in the Judiciary Committee. However, he was filibustered(a first for a nominee with bipartisan support in committee) last year. Why?
This is just one example of the Republicans preventing basic governance. They’ve slowed everything with obstruction, and should pat a dear price for it, but you don’t hear a peep about it in the press.
Jay C
@srv:
Hillary Clinton running in 2016 wouldn’t drive them off the deep end enough?
General Stuck
@Hill Dweller:
The press can be sidestepped if the crazy goes on long enough unabated. I think people are paying more attention to what is happening than they have in the past, for any number reasons.
And the wingnuts are paying a price in the polls. Not as big as it should be, but the longer they stay leaderless and rudderless, the bigger the price will be next elections. They are doing their damndest to solidify a longer term majority for democrats, mostly via the women’s vote and minorities.
Hill Dweller
Stewart is doing a great job blaming both sides for the sequester. He even equated Congress’ ten day recess with Obama playing golf for two days.
This gets back to the thread from earlier today. Stewart was doing his all too frequent reaching to blame both sides equally, and the bit suffered for it.
the Conster
@General Stuck:
Yeah, it’s been fun to watch. It doesn’t seem that long ago that Republicans were sober grey suit wearing bean counters who not only advocated personal and fiscal responsibility but lived it, and the arguments weren’t about whether there should be government in people’s lives, but its proper role – they were uptight and were into hippie punching, but sane. Now they’re all a bunch of booger flinging children screaming “no, you’re not the boss of me!” while the rest of the non-old non-white non-gun nut country hopes that the smart adult half black half white guy gives them a time out so we can get back to what this country used to do- build stuff, educate our citizens and innovate.
MikeJ
@the Conster:
[1] In geologic terms. They called Ike a commie.
Mark S.
@srv:
I’ve got to admit, if I were Cole I’d probably delete all that shit I wrote prior to 2007. Sorry guys, it all got deleted in the latest rebuild.
I especially liked the two links to Goldstein. Go read the whole thing. Indeed.
? Martin
@Jay C:
Hillary Clinton winning almost certainly would.
But I think Stuck is right. I think they’re broken. I think whatever feedback loops they used to rely on are shot. Black president wasn’t supposed to happen. Losing elections but winning the white vote wasn’t supposed to happen. They’ve fallen down the rabbit hole and they don’t even trust the feedback given them by polling. They just know in their bones that Latinos should love them because Latinos are all Catholic, and blacks should love them, because blacks hate teh gheys, and women should love them because women love being told what to do. And yet that isn’t happening. It’s like some kind of bad political acid trip they’re on.
? Martin
Just read this bit in the New Yorker. There’s a bit a self-awareness (only a bit), but it’s coming from jokes like S.E. Cupp – and these folks aren’t even in charge of jack shit, let alone campaigns.
PsiFighter37
Looks like two current GOP House members (Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Richard Hanna, who is from what I’ve read is basically a Rockefeller Republican) signed on to an amicus brief supporting gay marriage. Shocked that current House GOP members would come out in favor of gay marriage, and still overall stunned at how fast the tide has turned since 2004.
I feel like we could get the next real meaningful piece of social justice coming through SCOTUS this year, even though it is under a nominally conservative majority at this time. It’s good to see, and it’s a stark contrast to the crazy shit that comes out of Orange Julius’ caucus.
MikeJ
@? Martin: The NY Times is not the New Yorker.
? Martin
@PsiFighter37: DOMA and Prop 8 will be overturned. There’s just no legal defense for them – Olson and Boies just eviscerated Prop 8. Roberts isn’t about to stand in front of this.
? Martin
@MikeJ: Whoops. Guy I got the link from in Twitter had a New Yorker link just below that one. Brain went all smooth there.
danielx
@Mark S.:
He hasn’t had a chance yet – he’s still coming to grips with the fact that after eight years of Mitch “Napoleon” Daniels, the state is in shitty financial shape and his campaign stand of a 10% income tax cut isn’t flying even with the Republicans in the legislature.
Yeah, one would think after watching Richard Mourdock go down in flames that they’d kind of back away from all the ladyparts invasions, but one would be wrong. State legislative districts are even more gerrymandered than congressional districts, so there’s no real penalty for sponsoring legislation like this even if it doesn’t pass. After all, it’s not like the legislature has anything important to do, like coming up with the money to finish Their Man Mitch’s keynote boondoggle project, extending I-69 from Evansville to Indianapolis – to save 20 minutes in the trip, you see. They figured out they’d run out of money to go more than halfway about three months before Mitch moved to greener pastures at Purdue. Construction is now stopped at Bloomington…
Anne Laurie
@srv: Boy, I’m glad that was Before My Time here. As the C-Plus Augustus would’ve put it, when Cole was young & irresponsible he was young & irresponsible!
danielx
The money quote so far on the double ultrasound bill:
Well, there you go. I can’t understand why anyone could possibly object…unless they viewed it as being forced to undergo a medically unnecessary procedure (twice!) at the behest of a bunch of fucking godbotherers.
Indiana Republican motto: We loves us some small government, except when we loves us some big government. And we see no conflict here either.
sb
@srv: Oh holy shit. I did not know that, being relatively new to these parts.
That said, Marcotte would never type 1000 words when 3000 would do.
YellowJournalism
Clinton will never become President because the Republicans will find a way to require a transvaginal ultrasound before she can be nominated.
I can’t be the only person who thinks her life would be threatened twice as much as Obama’s is once she ever got into office. And this comes from someone who is really freaked out at the back of my mind that some crazy fucker is going to make an attempt and thanks FSM for the Secret Service.
Narcissus
Transmagical Ultrasound
the Conster
@MikeJ:
But they were marginalized, and didn’t have their own media outlets. The puke funnel, as Atrios calls the right wing noise machine.
YellowJournalism
@Narcissus: Different wand, and the technician pulls out a series of silk hankies with a bouquet of flowers attached at the end.
Narcissus
@YellowJournalism: You’re gonna confuse some republican lawmakers with talk like that
Roger Moore
@hells littlest angel:
Yeah, but then they’d expect some babies, so having an abortion would be right out.
Roger Moore
@? Martin:
Yeah, the country has been taking brown acid, and they only like the lily white stuff.
Roger Moore
@danielx:
They’re just trying to shrink government until it’s small enough to perform double penetration.
hells littlest angel
@Roger Moore:
Just change “abortions” to “layoffs” and everything’s cool. My baby factory had to shut down production thanks to Obama’s job-killing policies.
Punchy
@? Martin: And yet at least 3….likely 4…justices will nonetheless vote to uphold DOMA on account of Cleek’s Law.
Redshift
@? Martin:
The level of self-delusion even from the people who style themselves as realists and reformers is pretty impressive.
If your answer for dealing with the teabaggers is to continue to pretend that they’re all about limited government and low taxes, you’re doomed.
Good luck with that.
Probably the only smart thing from any of these would be saviors of the GOP is this:
And of course, that only defines part of the problem, it doesn’t suggest a solution. But recognizing the problem, rather than just telling themselves that better messaging or copying Democratic technology will save them, is better than most of these guys can manage.
wmd
Bear in mind that Kinsey did his research on human sexuality in Indiana. I can’t help but think that is one reason for the exemption.
Mike E
Olbermann on Craig Ferguson!
? Martin
@Punchy: Well sure. Asshole gotta hole, ya know. Or however you verbify that.
Yutsano
@Roger Moore:
What has been accomplished has been witnessed.
Dr. Squid
The Third Worst State Legislature? When did it move up?
danielx
@Roger Moore:
The horror…the horror…
Thanks you EVER so much, I could have happily spent the rest of my life without having to contemplate that particular concept and image. I may have to seek counseling or invest in some really expensive mood enhancers to get rid of this idea (Calling Dr. Macallan, stat!)
Speaking of counseling, if you have thoughts like this often you might want to look into it yourself. Just a thought, mind you…
Alison
Why has this place been turning into such a ghost town at night lately? Comment and post wise.
*poke poke*
Jewish Steel
@Alison:
Okay, here’s a joke I heard today.
Cop: Sir, do you know how fast you were going?
Prof Heisenberg: No, but I know exactly where I am.
Sorry, ‘sall I got.
Yutsano
@Jewish Steel: Don’t quit your day job kid.
Alison
@Jewish Steel: I appreciate the effort :)
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Mark S.: I think it’s actually to Cole’s credit that he doesn’t sweep that under the rug.
Patricia Kayden
@General Stuck: I don’t know if I agree with you. There are voters supporting these jerks in certain states and that’s why they feel that they can overreach. If people felt they were overreaching, wouldn’t they vote them out? Doesn’t seem to be happening.
Capri
@Mark S.:
Pence is worse than the R’s in the senate and house in Indiana. Currently, he’s disappointed that the Republican majority house has put forth a budget that 1) does not cut taxes 10% like he asked and 2) does restore the cuts to education and infrastructure that were taken out under the last administration.
Indiana has had Republican majorities for a while, but there’s a reason why all this crazy is hitting the news now, I think. I’m guessing Daniels kept all the really nuts-o stuff from seeing the light of day in order to preserve his national ambitions. Pence is encouraging it.
The new “protect farming bill” is also a “protect hunting bill”. For example, the bill states that hunting will become the prime way to manage wildlife.
jon
@Felinious Wench: Texas is the state where dildos aren’t dildos. They’re anatomical models and instructional devices. Srsly.
g
Charge the fetus with trespassing. My property rights are sacred!
Denounce the state for its attempt to impose eminent domain on my uterus, which is my property.
g
@danielx:
Being required to purchase health insurance? An assault on freedom.
Being required to pay for two medically unnecessary invasive penetrations of your own body? I don’t see why anyone would object.
Bulworth
The moralists have no clothes. Who will tell the “moralists” that they in fact have no clothes?