Discuss.
Between my sister peddling propaganda yesterday and the “screw you if you’re in Texas mentality”, this is what I’ve come to.
Next thing you know, Cole will put up a gentle post, or an organizing or fundraising post, and then we’ll know it’s truly the end times.
Update: *And by “we”, I mean at Balloon Juice. And sane people who want a functioning democracy.
Yarrow
No we’re not. Anyone in a red state must suffer to satisfy the needs of their superior blue state betters. That’s been made plenty clear.
Spanky
A substantial portion of this country would answer, no, we’re not all in this together. Substantial enough that I fear they have forced the issue.
ExpatDanBKK
From the outside looking in? The USA has *completely* lost the plot and it is scary.
Spanky
Then again, it depends on who you mean by “we”, Kemosabe.
Ksmiami
Ask Manchin who seems to want the infrastructure bills to go down in flames along with the Democratic Party. I left him a very very mean voicemail
WaterGirl
@Spanky: I added an update: The “We” I am referring to is Balloon Juice. And the sane people who want a functioning democracy.
That’s about as far as “we” can have an impact on.
Let’s leave “burn it all down” to the party that actually wants to burn it all down.
BCHS Class of 1980
We all know Cole is due for a sappy Lily or Steve post.
Villago Delenda Est
The “burn it all down” dipshits are itching to give it a go.
Anon
Vote with your feet
Jeffro
Wait…I can’t tell Texans “screw you, Texans” any more?
Well that’s it then, I’m out of here. ;)
(I’ll just think it, not say it!)
Jeffro
@ExpatDanBKK: looks that way from the inside looking around, too.
Baud
@Anon:
Poll workers really hate it when you use body parts other than your hands.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My smile of the day was my 20 year old niece at Sam Houston University texting me her screen shots of all the horrible things she tweeted to Governor abbott. Followed by Twitter temporarily suspending her account.
Ken
@BCHS Class of 1980: Or maybe a new “Find Mr. Frog’, now that he has his own backyard pond.
hells littlest angel
Effective immediately, I will not do business with any person or entity in Texas. I know this isn’t fair to lots of Texans. I’m not enjoying do it — I feel bad about it — but that’s the way it goes sometimes. If Covid or a power grid failure kills a lot of Texans over the next year, I will not celebrate, but I will recognize that the greater good may be served.
It’s pretty fucked up.
FelonyGovt
I have some dear friends in Texas who are as upset by “Governor Asshat” (as one of them calls him) and this latest travesty as any of us. We can’t give up on our people.
HOWEVER, I don’t plan to set foot in Texas (or Florida, or… the list is growing) for the foreseeable.
Shakti
I guess I better learn to code or get in the mail order bride catfishing business. I mean, if I’m going to be collateral damage between Republicans wanting me dead and the Democrats shrugging because I’m in Florida/*insufficiently liberal state, how will I live, lol?
Chetan Murthy
@Yarrow: That’s not fair. Lots of us wish good things for our decent fellow Americans who have the misfortune to suffer under the rulers of Howdy Arabia. Last cycle I spent nearly as much $$ on political contributions in TX, as I did on rent that year.
But: I grew up there. I *suffered* my childhood there. And for decades afterward, from the scars of having grown up in that racist shithole. You have no idea the *hatred* I have for the people I grew up with: If I learned that a bomb had taken out the entire town of Weatherford, TX, I wouldn’t shed a *single* tear, not feel a *moment* of sadness. They can all DIAF as far as I’m concerned.
I know you feel like you deserve our help and sympathy. And you do. But please understand, a lot of us are sick and tired of being locked-up with in here with Howdy Arabia and the other moral imbecile states.
[A Watchmen reference]
scav
We could also just let people we know have a good ol therapeutic scream rant and bravura counter-tenor aria of revenge before settling down to survive this in more mundane fashions.
Yarrow
@Jeffro: Oh, no. You’re supposed to do that. Saying things like “Fuck Texas” and telling anyone in a red state to get a U-Haul and leave is part of the culture here and has been for ages. And while you’re at it, make sure you tell them to suffer. As Martin said:
Suffer more, red states! Superior blue state residents need to see some suffering so the blue state nirvana can arrive! Get to suffering!
NotMax
Do appreciate the differentiation of “And sane people” versus “And other sane people.”
;)
Scout211
We have some good news from the people’s republic of California.
https://www.abc10.com/article/news/politics/newsom-recall-blog-september-2-2021/103-c21b5d6d-b504-4809-8859-db1fb0d8b404
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: I’m not suggesting that at all.
But I want to win in November, so I think we need to fight this stuff in the real world, not just vent and fight with each other.
*Not that there’s anything wrong with venting. It’s easy to say fuck them because they live in Texas, but there are women who are threatened today in a visceral away – who were not threatened in that way on Monday – so I think we need to pull together to try to fight this rather than fighting with each other.
WaterGirl
@ExpatDanBKK: It’s scary as hell, even from the inside.
Chetan Murthy
@Yarrow:
Lots of us aren’t superior: we’re scarred. Do you think these last 24 hours have been a ride in the park? It’s not just women who are triggered and scared: it’s brought up all the bad memories of my childhood, all the fear and lack of security and need to hide and fit in for fear of being marked-out and attacked. I can’t push that fear aside, it’s sitting right there, in front of my eyes, and I don’t know how to move past it.
So, y’know, maybe think again.
Lots of us aren’t superior: we’re fucking refugees.
WaterGirl
@Scout211:
Any democrat voting against Newsom in this recall cannot be considered a democrat.
WaterGirl
@NotMax: There may or may not be an intersection between parts of those two groups. :-)
Peale
@Ksmiami: at what point do we just call it quits on these stupid institions. I’m so done with bicameral legislatures. Im so tired of legistative bodies that can’t get anything done. I’d rather be thrown off social security every 2 years with flip floppy congresses than have a senate.
Martin
@Villago Delenda Est: Why do you think it’s not already burning down? What options do you think we’re going to have after democratic institutions have been torn down?
You think we’re going to organize and vote our way out of this?
Chetan Murthy
@WaterGirl:
Amen.
Ten Bears
Is wrong to troll your mother? She’s actually a pretty good blogger for 87, when she stays away from the Faux News talking points. Is it wrong when she does her trumper thing to point out the hurricanes are “acts of god” and not something President Joe can be held responsible for; so too the fires out west: “acts of god” exacerbated by climate change, acts of man” but none-the-less not something President Joe can be held responsible for. That “race” like religion and the boundaries of nation/states are the acts of man and not something President Joe can be held responsible for?
She really gets wound when I tell she has turned away from god and worship a false prophet,
Raoul Paste
@WaterGirl: I know a highly educated chemistry professor who is supremely logical and reasonable, and yet he is so stewed in decades of right-wing media that he literally told me “burn it all down”
WaterGirl
@WaterGirl: Actually men are feeling threatened by this also, as they should. The Supreme Court ruling means we are officially in crazy town, banana republic style.
I think we have to find a way to channel the anger, the rage, the fear, and the outrage to FIGHT this.
debbie
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Good for your niece! I like the cut of her jib, or whatever the expression is.
Does anyone know if there’s an American oil company that is NOT based in Texas? I want to do my bit to boycott all things Texan, but I don’t know if all of their American operations are based in Texas.
WaterGirl
@Raoul Paste: Sigh.
Ksmiami
@Peale: it’s total institutional rot reminiscent of late stage Rome. Scrap it and start over
Baud
@Martin:
We’re not going to give up on those things based on predictions.
Emma from Miami
So what’s the best way to allocate a few monthly bucks in Texas? What would get us the biggest bang?
debbie
@Scout211:
I want to see Elder crash and burn. In an asbestos tank, of course.
Scout211
@WaterGirl:
Ha ha. I laughed at that added line in the story. I think the reporter needed a little bit of both-siderism to spice up the drama in the article. No one yet knows what is inside any of the ballots so we can only expect Democrats to vote no and Republicans to vote yes. That statement was thrown in by the reporter based on nothing but pure speculation.
Ksmiami
@Martin: no – my goal is to wreak utter destruction on Republicans and grind them into powder but this is considered impolite by the denizens of our compromised media…
Jeffro
@Yarrow: I think you’re acknowledging that I was kidding, but just in case…I was kidding. I don’t want red states to suffer, I want GQP voters in every state to personally feel the impact of the things they’re more than willing to inflict on others.
(I do hate the Dallas Cowboys and Big Oil, though. No kidding about that.)
@WaterGirl: I hear you and (per the above) will limit it to “Fuck the Dallas Cowboys and Big Oil”.
And GQP voters who are more than willing to inflict misery on others, them too.
But other than that, I’m good. ;)
Ksmiami
@Emma from Miami: support at the federal level and the soon to be created abortion Underground Railroad
grumbles
I feel for the people of Texas, but it is ultimately their responsibility to fix the damn place.
I won’t be visiting Texas, not that anyone cares, any more than I’m going to visit Afghanistan or other authoritarian shitholes that attack their own citizens, and if they can’t fix it, I encourage anyone who can to leave, or do what they can to monkey-wrench what passes for the rule of law there.
I think we should pass a law banning Christians from getting law degrees, and empower “any citizen” to sue anyone who helps them do so. The SCROTUS members doing this shit want it all on the down-low. Make them make it loud.
Ksmiami
@debbie: British Petroleum
Ksmiami
@grumbles: write to Southwest air and American- by domiciling their operations in the state, it makes it perilous for women traveling.
debbie
@Ksmiami:
Yeah, sadly, they’ve got plenty of their own baggage.
Martin
@Yarrow: I don’t reserve it for red states, by the way. As much progress as CA has made toward reducing carbon emissions, we clearly haven’t burned enough towns down to actually put our shoulder into this. And we’re running out of time.
VOR
The “burn it all down” crowd were Trump 2016 voters. I clearly recall a conversation with a guy about a week before that election where he expressed his preference for Trump. He saw Hillary as the candidate of the status quo and felt Trump was a vote for upsetting the status quo. He thought Trump would destroy all our institutions. I specifically asked him, jokingly, “So you want to burn it all down?” and he said “yes”.
I see a lot of Nihilism in TFG and GQP supporters. They don’t care about governing, don’t care about things working, they just want to posture and Own The Libs.
The Dark Avenger
My father’s family is from Texas, and I’ve been there several times. Philip Sheridan was too kind to the place.
topclimber
@WaterGirl: Well, just as long as you aren’t asking some folks here to include Bernie supporters in Texas et. al. in the common cause.
Meanwhile, I thought about your sister problem last night. You will likely never get sister #1 to see the light, but here’s a suggestion for sister #2. How about you go over the back and forth with #1 over the past few years and tally how many times she has spread falsehoods or otherwise been demonstrably wrong. If she has ever been right (e.g. Trump did not start any new land wars in Asia or was on board for autographing $2000 stimulus checks) give her credit for that.
I suspect a fair-minded person (behind door #2) would get the point pretty quickly that the true believer (behind door #1) is a chronic LOSER when it comes to the contest between truth and lie.
I am thinking a simple score card, maybe a pie chart, that folks who aren’t swayed by textual argument might better grasp.
lollipopguild
@WaterGirl: I am waiting for Texas to outlaw all forms of birth control because they “cause” abortions, also Texas will outlaw masturbation because sperm are “people”.
debbie
@VOR:
I heard a TFG supporter the other day complaining she might not vote for him in 2024 because “he hadn’t hurt the people I wanted him to hurt badly enough.” WTF did anyone ever do to her that she would actively wish for that?
Betty Cracker
I’m gonna repost my comment from downstairs because it fits here.
Also, reposting a comment from Woodrow/asim from that thread because it’s true:
To reiterate, it HAS to be a joint effort because the danger doesn’t end at red state borders — we’re all at risk no matter where we live. We’re part of the same country. Fantasies about walling off red states is pure wankery, not least because the framework for our conflict is a rural-urban divide in damn near every state rather than a state-level divisions.
OzarkHillbilly
If you have to ask, the answer is no.
ExpatDanBKK
@Chetan Murthy: My Thai ex-wife and I moved to Lewisville TX in the late 90s as I had a 6mos consulting gig there. Wife got accosted by and the police called on her – while I was at work and she was unpacking our stuff alone – by a big-haired “Karen” real estate agent who failed to note that the property was leased. Karen thought the brown person who didn’t speak much English was squatting. Wife called, I raced home, and I ripped Karen a new a$$hole! Hated Texas ever since. Couldn’t wait until that contract was over!
WaterGirl
redacted.
Citizen Alan
@Yarrow: Actually, I think it’s mainly more like “we need to do for our red state brothers and sisters what we just did for 100k or so Afghan refugees.” Because honest to God, I really do think that the next time we get a GOP president, House, and Senate, they’re just gonna flat-out start killing us.
Yarrow
@Betty Cracker:
Ha. Good luck with that. On Balloon Juice empathy is for losers. Suffer more, Betty!
Old Dan and Little Ann
@debbie: Yes! She just texted me again saying there was a pastor on campus preaching about the greatness of the new law so she mooned him. The kids are alright.
Cameron
@Ksmiami: “Tell us, Ksmiami, what is best in life?” “To crush your enemies, to drive them before you, to hear the lamentations of their women…”
Eunicecycle
@WaterGirl: I read about women who jammed abortion clinics Tuesday night, trying to get their abortion before that terrible law went into effect. There wasn’t enough time for all of them.
Citizen Alan
@lollipopguild: Texas is NOT going to ban masturbation … for males, at least. Vibrators and the like? That are for use by women and the occasional man who wants to experiment? Probably. But not masturbation for men. They really are that hypocritical.
Cermet
@Yarrow: You are a complete piece of work besides being a troll. No one here says that or implied it. Total BS
NotMax
@WaterGirl
Trivia: The English word “cowboy” first appeared in print* in a work by Jonathan Swift.
*originally “cow-boy”
Betty Cracker
@Yarrow: Well, I don’t think that’s the prevailing mindset. And honestly, I do understand the frustration and often feel it myself about my own state, so I get it. Mostly, people are venting. I just wanted to make the point that it’s dangerous to adopt that mindset for real.
Ksmiami
@Cameron: yes. That works. No quarter, start mixing the ammonia and bleach…
WaterGirl
@topclimber: Yeah, about my sister. After I looked at the “sources” she shared with me and wrote back to say that I had looked at 12 or so of the articles, and there was nothing in any of those articles about Americans, etc….
She wrote this morning to say that she didn’t really say that Americans were being killed or being beheaded. I thought that was bullshit. So I wrote back to say if she really wasn’t saying that Americans weren’t being beheaded and killed, that the violence is terrible even if not Americans. I wrote back and said, well if that’s the case, why did you say you were praying for Americans after our “rapid withdrawal”, why aren’t you praying for everyone if the people who were being murdered and beheaded weren’t Americans?
She wrote back to say “why are you so angry” and “why are you attacking me?” and “why can’t we just agree to disagree?”
I wrote back to say she appears to be sharing propaganda, not based in fact, and I am not going to let that stand. It’s not a “let’s agree to disagree situation”, it’s falsehoods, and I am furious about that.
I hope I’m not burning bridges with my sister here, but I am not willing to let shit like that stand any more.
Chetan Murthy
@ExpatDanBKK: [have told this story before here] An elderly relative has lived in the D/FW area since 1975. Count ’em: most of her adult life. She got stopped by a sheriff’s deputy before TFG’s Reign of Error, asked for her proof of citizenship. She’s an ex-IRS and DCAA agent, so she knew the ropes: offered to get her attorney on the phone right quick; the sheriff disappears lickety-split.
Just over 2yr ago, she needed a bit of minor (outpatient) surgery. I went to be there for it. We were in a preop ward filled with people of color: her doctor was trained in Bangalore (where I was born, heh); there were Black & Filipina nurses, probably other ethnicities. This piece-of-shit redneck nurse who’s prepping my relative asks where she’s from, and receives the answer “from around here”. She persists with “No, where are you really from?” and does so several times when receiving unresponsive answers. I froze in place, b/c “don’t open your mouth if you don’t know the shot”.
The *rage* I felt, sitting there: *jesus* fuck I wanted to beat the bastard down.
Others in the ward could tell it wasn’t a good scene: the Filipina nurse came over and in a very light, humorous way, started talking about “going home over Christmas” (it was implied, to the Phillippines) and other chit-chat. She did great at defusing the situation.
UGH. One thing about SF: that would never happen here. Too many PoC, been here too long.
Ksmiami
@Betty Cracker: we don’t just have to punish red states, we just need to recognize that 30 percent of the country is a mortal enemy of Democracy and well of us and we need to destroy them by any means. We did not start this war but just like in 1865, we will finish it. And this time No welcome mat post war.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly: Oh, Ozark. I can’t tell if that is intended as humor, or serious.
Cameron
@Citizen Alan: It’s in writing, right there in the Toobin Act….
MomSense
I think we are all stressed out, exhausted, and many of us are dealing with PTSD either brought on by what we have been living through or exacerbated by it. I know that I am also grieving deeply for the destruction of climate change and worrying for the younger generations.
I’ll risk riffing off Pres Obama, but we’ve never been red states and blue states. More people vote for Democrats in Harris County TX than vote in Maine.
I figured that the people lashing out at Texas really meant the GOP and the forced birth crusaders in Texas. I read the comments that way but then I don’t live there so it didn’t hit me personally.
It’s hard to hold it together, to stay thoughtful and communicate rationally when we are so troubled by legitimate stress, trauma, grief, worry, and exhaustion. Add to this the weight of living with injustice and it explains a lot of the conflict and lashing out we are experiencing here at balloon-juice and everywhere else.
Even still I say rant away. We can try to take a breath first, but part of why we can get so assholish here is because we all need a place to let out the dark stuff we feel. Think about family and friend dynamics in our meat space lives. Was there a person in your life that loved you even though you showed them your worst? A parent or grandparent maybe? Most of us comment here because there aren’t a lot of people as obsessive repulsive about politics. And we are engaged in politics because we care. This may be the community that accepts us even when we are foul tempered.
It’s an especially hard day for a lot of us. Some days are like that.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: I was wishing you would front-page your comments, so I am glad you brought them over to this conversation.
That is not too much to ask on Balloon Juice.
I am thinking/hoping that J.R. just got out over his skis a bit when he said that and that he will walk that back, as he sometimes does.
Martin
@VOR: Yep. We’ve spent months talking about how democracy is literally at peril. If a state like Texas protects GOP rule by seizing the electoral process, there is nothing left but violence.
I don’t want to burn anything down. I want to preserve these institutions and actually remedy them to function properly. But this requires the electorate value those institutions, and they don’t.
Nora Lenderbee
Enough with the butthurt already. When people say they hate Texas and wish it bad things, they are expressing their anger about the state, the government, the gerrymandering, the politics, etc., etc. They are not wishing harm to the people, and they are not shitting on the Dems in Texas working hard to change it. They’re mad and frustrated. I have said “Let ’em all secede again, fuck ’em”a few times. I also have a sister I love very much in Texas.
Catherine D.
@Citizen Alan: Wasn’t/isn’t there a weird Texas law about sex toys?
NotMax
@WaterGirl
A musical cue if ever I’ve heard one.
;)
eclare
@FelonyGovt: Best I’ve seen is Gov Abbottoir. A good friend lives in Plano, he is just as pissed as we are. Votes D every time. We cannot turn our backs on them.
WaterGirl
@Eunicecycle: When I was in grad school, I administered an abortion loan fund for women who had made the decision but couldn’t afford the abortion.
It was most definitely a loan, but we made the terms go out as long as necessary in order to find a workable payment. Not one woman, EVER, failed to completely pay back their loan.
I was thinking last night that we may have to do something like that again, or possibly even a money-laundering thing so that women who need abortions in TX won’t have to leave a money trail of taking out their own money and paying it to an organization for a procedure.
narya
@OzarkHillbilly: I want to personally thank you–months and months ago, you pointed out that there are blue folks in red states, and that simple truth has stuck with me and forced me to temper how I think and talk about the red states. I am still incandescent with rage about TX, but, as Ben Franklin noted, we have to hang together or we will hang separately. And this here spot in blogistan often turns to concrete, direct, helpful action, and I appreciate that approach.
So yes, we ARE all in this together, even if we are angry and sad and frustrated today.
Scout211
Speaking of “all in this together,” do we need a check-in for the jackals who may be in the flood zones from Ida?
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/09/02/deadly-flooding-new-york-new-jersey-hurricane-ida-louisiana/5692877001/
VeniceRiley
I keep throwing my wallet at it but they refuse to stay down.
As a lesbian, I have never lived in a 50 state America. There is always huge unsafe no-go zones. I only feel safe in cities. I’ve only had the right to marry for a handful of years. 60 years of fighting for a future takes its toll. But I guess that’s a what life really is. Fighting for the right to pursue happiness.
Anonymous At Work
@Ksmiami: It’s like Manchin doesn’t think his next GOP opponent won’t call him a “Tax-and-spend Pelosi/AOC Democrat” to thunderous applause in a Koch-funded 6-figure ad-buy.
Woodrow/asim
Yeah, good luck with that one. I’m sure you’ll gather a whole mess of people with tanks and such to strike up another Civil War, that way.
In the meantime, there are a lot of groups and orgs that need actual help, like right fuckin’ now. I know it’s not cool or hip or whatever the kids say these days to just, you know, work with the local community teams, who know (in this case) Texas and it’s people, to enact change — but in point of fact, that’s actually how change starts.
Y’all who are so eager to post brutal screed after screed about “Revenge! Final Fight for Democracy!” can keep on keepin’ on. I know where I’m spending my limited mental and emotional energy, and it ain’t coddlin’ y’all.
Rest of you, I’ll see you ’round the bend. :)
Eunicecycle
@MomSense: Very wise words, thank you! I know I feel traumatized by the Texas law, because I grew up before Roe and remember what it was like. You couldn’t even get birth control pills unless you were married. I thought those fights were over, and it largely was for decades. But the religious people who want to control our lives never give up, because they are fighting for Jesus! They won’t go to heaven unless they at least try to convert us all and in the meantime we all have to conform to their religious views. I’m tired.
Yarrow
@Nora Lenderbee:
Bullshit. Go read Martin’s comment that I quoted from above. He says the people of Texas and Florida need more suffering.
ExpatDanBKK
@Chetan Murthy: UGH, awful.
I am still furious at the Karen over that – the bloody lawn sign had a leased placard on it! A fine “welcome to America” for the wife, who had previously lived in Tokyo and Osaka Japan, Hong Kong, and Kuala Lumpur Malaysia for my work (and her Master’s degree from Tokyo Women’s University!)
That said, Dallas had a Thai Buddhist temple, and a couple of Thai cops who did presentations there about police procedures (& gave out their cell phone numbers in case there was a problem). That was good.
Like SFO, this Karen would not have existed in Detroit. And we never had any issues in (supposedly very xenophobic) Japan. But we’re both fluent in the language.
WaterGirl
@Woodrow/asim: I actually took his/her comment as a virtual war, the war to beat back the Republicans and to win elections. To take back control of the country.
I agree with you about some comments, but I didn’t take this one literally. I have no idea whether you are right in your interpretation, or whether I am right in mine. So I’ll ask.
[Never mind, I went back to find the reply button so I could reply and ask, but i see that perhaps you were right after all.]
brendancalling
@WaterGirl: what you said, in spades. I know GREAT people in Texas. The state is purple. This is all about keeping it red—those fuckers need to be voted OUT.
My problem isn’t Texas, it’s their evil and corrupt government.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I just passed FOX news on the TV in the cafe and they were talking about our “hostages” in Afghanistan. I hate everybody
topclimber
@Woodrow/asim: On the proverbial other hand, and with all due caveats about now ain’t then, Union soldiers went off to die in the first two years to defend the Union itself, not to emancipate slaves.
My point is: Do we still think the Union is worth it? If so, we won’t write off states where unreconstructed white folks have a temporary and artificial electoral edge.
Catherine D.
@WaterGirl: Time to revive the Clergy Consultation Service circa 1969 Chicago. Rev. E. Spencer Parsons was one of my professors in college, and he and his colleagues did brave work, especially standing up to Chicago cops looking for records.
Martin
@WaterGirl: In CA, abortion pills can be prescribed by a pharmacist. It’s not suitable for all situations, but women in TX can access chemical abortions from online pharmacies based in CA.
TX restricts telemedicine for abortion prescriptions, but I think a VPN probably provides all the plausible deniability a CA pharmacy would need and TX can’t fuck with the USPS.
So, I’d think this could be fairly easy for most women, hopefully making it easier to marshal resources for those that need a surgical abortion.
I wonder if we could set up an abortion provider in the tariff free zone of an international airport in TX?
ExpatDanBKK
@WaterGirl: Sounds like something like the Hawala system would be great for this… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
debbie
I have heard reporting that civil rights organizations are preparing lawsuits citing the law as a violation of a woman’s Constitutional rights. This is good. But I also heard it just reported on NPR that the sound that those jackoffs “hear” at six weeks isn’t even a heartbeat. It isn’t even electrical activity as some opponents have contended. It’s the sound of the transducer (wand, as we say here) sending signals into the body. Why doesn’t this fact — that there is no heart beat or any sort of activity that anyone could possibly hear at six weeks — suffice to overturn the TX bill?
NutmegAgain
@Yarrow: Guess it’s not your life or uterus on the line, eh?
banditqueen
@Cameron: What is good in life: “to crush the republicans; to see them driven before us; and to hear the lamentations of their donors.” The democrats in the red states can stand at the front of the vanguard.
NutmegAgain
@Catherine D.: Is that like the Jane Collective?
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker:
I am amazed at how many people here do not get this. It’s disheartening.
Omnes suggested giving to TX Planned Parenthood. I’m going to do that.
DropDminus
Some of this f-texas noise is absolutely a defense mechanism for us in the blue states. It shifts the blame from we to they. How could “they” in that “other” place do this? It’s absolves “we” as Americans from having to answer the question of how we got
here. The failure of the SC to enjoin the statute is simply horrifying and brings the insanity closer to all of us. I’m truly of two minds right now though. On one hand, I suspect that Texas is going to see a massive economic backlash from large companies and this is going to open up a giant fracture between the money and the true believers in the Republican Party. Maybe that opens the door for Beto or the Castro brothers. On the other hand, the crazies have the momentum and you have to remember their real goal was never the repeal of Roe. It’s actually Griswold and the right to privacy. Of course once you get there, why not Loving v. Virginia? Or Brown v board of Ed?
Ksmiami
@Woodrow/asim: the old passivity isn’t working and can’t work in an era when states can nullify the constitution. I live in Texas there will be real bloodshed over this.
sab
@Eunicecycle: My mother remembered when her friends from college living married in Connecticut had to go into NY to get birth control.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
This is what is most scary about the moment we find ourselves in
WaterGirl
@Yarrow: I read Martin’s comment as saying that he believes they won’t change until/unless they experience more pain.
I did not read it as Martin wishing pain on them, or as rolling over and giving up.
For what it’s worth.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
Are you still zooming with Four Directions tonight? I’d bet they would have some very constructive suggestions for next steps.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
By the way, saw in the Plain Dealer about the recall. The article mentioned in passing something about a “multi-billion dollar unemployment agency scandal”. Can any CA Dems enlighten me about this?
mrmoshpotato
@Baud: That’s why you’ve been banished from your local polling place and have to vote by mail.
WaterGirl
@Martin: I think there have to be ways for good people to help facilitate getting remote consultations set up and getting the word out. But people will fewer resources are highly unlikely to have a computer set up with VPN. That is totally a guess on my part, but every hurdle makes it that much harder.
Chetan Murthy
@VeniceRiley:
Brown guy, same drill. Won’t set foot in the UGTR, haven’t done so willingly in well over a decade, more like two.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@DropDminus:
Wouldn’t that create even more backlash? Perhaps even violent backlash?
Ksmiami
@Chetan Murthy: what’s UGTR?
Catherine D.
@Martin: I just worry about women who need after-care post medical abortions. Rare, but possible, and waltzing across Texas while bleeding out is not good.
WaterGirl
@DropDminus: Yeah, if we didn’t already know the call was coming from inside the house, it’s pretty damn undeniable now, after this from the Supreme Court.
Starfish
@hells littlest angel: You will screw over a bunch of people who have been gerrymandered out of power to show them that you hate the politicians that they also hate. Got it.
brendancalling
Also, too, if it’s not been said before a new Underground Railroad is necessary.
Chetan Murthy
@DropDminus:
It’s why we’re all so triggered, today.
WaterGirl
@debbie: There’s no zoom set up with Four Directions. But yeah, I am totally up for taking our cue from those who will organize something around this, and I am totally up for trying to support something with time and/or funding.
Catherine D.
@NutmegAgain: I think they worked together.
Ksmiami
@DropDminus: or and bear with me. We just nullify the Supreme Court and reduce its jurisdiction- Congress should defund them. Turn the machines of our oppression off.
Yarrow
@WaterGirl: Go read his comment and the replies in the other thread. Omnes and Woodrow/asim pushed back but he seems to think it’s just fine for red state residents to suffer to achieve goals, whatever they are. Woodrow/asim is done because he’s incandescent with rage, as am I.
@NutmegAgain: It certainly isn’t Martin’s.
Chetan Murthy
@Ksmiami: UnGovernable Tribal Regions. Y’know, like
East IncestWeatherford Fucking Texas.Starfish
@Shakti: The alligators and Florida Man are more organized than Democrats.
zhena gogolia
@Ksmiami:
I’ll bear with you but you are out of your mind.
Let’s stay within the bounds of reality.
Martin
@Yarrow: I’m saying the electorate won’t change without more suffering. I don’t want them to suffer. That’s their conditions, not mine. They aren’t going to change until the pain comes to them personally, or until the suffering of others is too much for them to defend. That’s how this works in the US. That’s how it’s always worked. Nobody fucking cared about black people until they were on TV being attacked by dogs and beaten into unconsciousness. And even then they didn’t really care – they just couldn’t afford to defend the optics.
Dems knew this was happening all along. FDR wouldn’t back anti-lynching legislation. We might have gotten it sooner if NBC could have covered a lynching in the ’20s live on air. Even Dems are okay with the suffering so long as they don’t need to answer for it.
How do you force them to answer for it?
Ksmiami
@Chetan Murthy: where overpriced oversized pickup trucks are the biggest asset… as I said, defund them
WaterGirl
@Yarrow:
That is a true statement. But having seen Martin here over years or decades, I am well aware that he has been an ally to women – countless times and in countless ways – in his position at the University. Most of us would have benefited greatly from having a Martin in a key position at our universities.
So Martin is one of the last males I would accuse of anything in the neighborhood of “you don’t care about this because you’re not a woman”.
Ksmiami
@zhena gogolia: it’s actually a real in case of fire remedy. The judiciary is a branch of government not the government.
DropDminus
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes. This is where the old money and the crazy people diverge. The money wants to return to Lochner and unfettered freedom of contract because it’s about capital vs labor. The crazies are a mash up of fundamentalist misogynists and racists who want irrational things driven by hate and fear. As long as the Reagan formula works for the money people (manipulate the rubes etc) they’ll tolerate the awfulness because they’re insulated from it. When the insulation fails, we will see a schism. Although it’s fair to question how much power the money holds in the aftermath of TFG.
Chetan Murthy
@Ksmiami: @zhena gogolia: Uh, I would think that zhena’s point is rather that, if we could do these things (nullify SCOTUS, defund them, etc) then we could actually defeat this law: just pass a law affirming the full legality of abortion and all reproductive care for women, no fucking around with penumbras and stare decisis, no more, dammit.
Eunicecycle
@WaterGirl: it’s a good idea to keep in mind. I have heard of funds to help women who have to travel and stay because of “waiting periods” but don’t have the means.
Scout211
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
AFAIK, unemployment fraud exploded in most states during the pandemic. But as I have mentioned before, Newsom is blamed for every single bad thing that has happened in California by those who oppose him.
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-unemployment-insurance-fraud-exploded-during-the-pandemic
FelonyGovt
@debbie: You barely know you’re pregnant at six weeks. Two weeks after the first missed period.
Ksmiami
@Chetan Murthy: something something how many divisions does the Supreme Court command?
Ksmiami
@Chetan Murthy: I actually know ppl from there ( dallas neighbor). Spoiler alert a bunch of their relatives got Covid and died if that makes you feel a little better.
Starfish
@Betty Cracker: Can you take the governor to visit an alligator petting zoo, or are you concerned that the alligators may get indigestion?
zhena gogolia
@Ksmiami: I would love to see Thomas and Kavanaugh impeached and Gorsuch’s and Barrett’s stolen seats returned to us. But it is not going to happen.
ETA: I just wish people had thought for a few seconds about what the consequences of not voting for Hillary Clinton were.
Chetan Murthy
@Ksmiami: Actually, it *does*. On a day like today, I can’t say it makes my day, but it helps a little. Yeah, my hatred runs really goddamn deep. Easily thirty years of suffering, from having grown up there, and there’s still more pus in that wound today.
Kelly
Gonna walk down to the river for a swim.
Keep Making that Lemonade!
https://photos.app.goo.gl/zSVqvHHLok8zUWi29
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: I will say again what I said below. Making thing worse only makes things worse. I won’t sign on to that. Especially not when I would be making things worse for others and could sit on the sidelines due to my privilege and simply deplore the necessity of such suffering.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I live in a seniors apt complex, have to be over 55 yrs old. I qualify. A lady I am friends with does not have internet, possibly could on her phone, but doesn’t have a computer. She is my age, has polio and has since a small child, lives in a wheelchair. She’s been trying to get a new chair but has been having problems, her last call the guy she talked to said, the hell with the wheelchair, let’s get you an electric. Her life will be rather massively improved with that.
She’s trying to get info about her dad who served in WWII and has no idea how to go about this so I’m trying to help her. Without a computer these days it is damn near impossible to get much done. I’ve been on the phone for 3 days with the VA trying to work out an appointment issue and just now found the key to making it possible. On line after the last guy, whose moniker that I made up you don’t like, having destroyed a lot of the inner workings of the federal government, which is the reason that the moneybags on the right paid for him to be elected, it is going to take a while to fix the possibly fixable and a long time to fix the broken. I think that is Martin’s point, we all have to fight to fix the broken, and it’s an individual’s fight to fix their state if that is broken. For example I voted no on the CA recall. Of the 40-500 people running to replace him, none have the chops of Newsom, even if he isn’t the best as governors go, he is, by a million miles, better than them. Some of them 2 million miles. As an aside I bet that a post about the recall, who, what, when, why, where and how wouldn’t be a bad idea. Unless it’s already been done and I missed it.
Timill
@Anonymous At Work: It’s like Manchin doesn’t recognize that he can get all the votes he wants, the WV govt is going to select the Republican as the winner.
JPL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Why?
Starfish
@VeniceRiley: I know lesbians who live in those huge unsafe no-go zones.
burnspbesq
@BCHS Class of 1980:
Bethlehem Central? Bergen Catholic?
Chetan Murthy
@Ksmiami: That is a different thing, and requires that the Blue States are ready to openly defy SCOTUS. I think that time has come, and it’s feasible, where “convince Cinemansion that it’s time to break the filibuster” is …. pure fancy.
Omnes Omnibus
@Omnes Omnibus: It is reminiscent of the British view on Ireland in 1847. “The suffering is terrible to see, but it’s the best thing for them in the long run. The numbers don’t lie.” Or Scrooge and decreasing the surplus population.
brantl
@debbie: Nothing, she’s an asshole! Plain and simple.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus:
Say more about what you mean by that?
There is this post – linked in the sidebar –for discussion of how folks are voting or think people should vote in the recall.
Vote NO in the California Recall
Does that give you what you are looking for?
Subsole
@Jeffro: Oklahoma, is that you?
Subsole
@Baud: Wait, that 4th letter isn’t an “e”?
Um..
Shit.
I, uh, may need my pants back, Mr. Shadow-President.
NotMax
Moving along to other matters,
frosty
Sorry everyone, but I’m going to Florida this winter like the last seven years. Then heading west through Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas, then thru the Southwest to California.
I’ll do what I can to change the politics but I’ll stick with my Road Trip plans. Besides, if I have to avoid red states I have to leave my neighborhood, my County and most of PA. And Maryland.
kindness
BJ commentary has been positively civil if you compare it to elsewhere. I have a digital WaPo subscription and lately it seems as if the (Russians) Trolls have come back out of the woodwork and are taking dumps in every single article. There are blogs I no longer read the comments on because, well, why bother getting myself more upset than I already am?
Peace people. Karma does happen. Just not quick enough some times
@frosty: Coming from California I have always been told to never drive my car across Texas unless I wanted to be pulled over by cops in every county & city I cross. I don’t know that it’s true but I’ve heard it lots.
piratedan
and while we’re all flinging poo at each other regarding who said what, who meant what and watching our collective outrage meter get pegged with each other over perceived betrayal and personal privilege…
just stop… take a deep breath and look at each other and calmly repeat to yourself…. nobody in this here blog is responsible for the heinous legislation emanating out of Austin…. nor is anyone here responsible for the folks in the black robes that just turned women into property if they are of child bearing age in the eyes of the State of Texas…
nobody here is responsible for that… quit denying agency to the motherfuckers who did the deed, wrote the laws and codified them.
just stop… no need to flounce, no need to defend, no need to explain…. and after we’ve vented our collective outrage in this “safe place” on the web, we get back to work to undo the shit that has been done and we get people elected who will write better laws that we can abide by.
Chetan Murthy
@kindness:
Lot of us aren’t content to wait: we don’t want to suffer, don’t want our loved ones to suffer.
Kay
Really feeling emboldened! Not even trying to gloss it over anymore! Unchained.
zhena gogolia
Meanwhile,
burnspbesq
@debbie:
Chevron, fka Standard Oil of California
zhena gogolia
@piratedan:
Amen.
Starfish
@piratedan:
Flinging poo at each other is a natural consequence of taking Ivermectin to cure COVID /s
Kirk Spencer
I’m torn. I want out of here. But I’m carrying security baggage from the seven year unemployment experience, losing savings and house in the process. At over 60 the Chances to recover from another fail are painfully slim.
Give me a good chance and my wife and are Yankees again. In the meantime I’ll suffer, and fight in what ways I can .
Oh. And hope there are enough of you willing to help us fight amongst those thinking we’re all lovers of abbot and goehmert down here.
Chetan Murthy
@kindness:
In 1975, on our drive down from
HeavenDelaware to Mineral Wells, TX (30mi west of Weatherford, 30mi closer to Hell), we were pulled-over in Weatherford by the po-po. I’m quite sure my father wasn’t speeding or anything: in a Volvo wagon with a wife and 3 kids and a bunch of possessions.Yeah: you can pretty much assume that a lot of these jurisdictions make their money on ticketing passers-thru.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Possibly next up in tomorrow’s press conference:
The Doocy spawn asks Jen Psaki if she has ever had an abortion. Or would that be too over the top for him?
WaterGirl
@Kirk Spencer: I’ll stand with you.
Sister Golden Bear
@VeniceRiley & @Chetan Murthy: Queer trans woman here. Same drill. There’s definitely states (and countries) that are no-go zones for my personal safety.
Martin
@WaterGirl: Thank you.
But I welcome the criticism. Look, I’m in a privileged position. I don’t get a free pass on any of this.
One of the things you learn as a supervisor is that the hardest thing to bring to people is motivation. If they’re motivated, you can probably solve all of their other problems in the office, but if they aren’t, there’s just about nothing you can do.
It’s hard to get people to care. Some never will, but most simply don’t want to do the hard work of caring, of empathizing. Easy to pretend its not happening, pretend it can’t be fixed, pretend they deserved it. A lot harder when it can’t be hidden, when the stories of innocent people are told. I wish that wasn’t necessary, but apparently it is.
One of the reasons I’m optimistic about the future is the progress on transgender rights. It’s a constituency with no political value. No candidate loses office because of transgender turnout. They have nothing of value to trade. You care about transgender rights because you care, not because there’s something to be gained. So at least some of the electorate can care unselflessly. But that’s not the part running the show in FL and TX. They aren’t able to do that.
Almost Retired
The most hopeful thing I’ve read today was a comment in an earlier thread by Omnes Omnibus reminding us that California was the fertile womb of right wing nonsense 30 years ago (I’m paraphrasing OO, so forgive me). And, the recall notwithstanding, look where we are here now. The combination of conservative overreach and demographic change flipped the state in a relatively short period of time. Texas (and Florida, Georgia and North Carolina, etc.) may well follow our lead in the near term.
As to the other red states……My Mom moved to Kansas 20 years ago. She’s quite liberal and active in local Democratic politics. She refuses to stop pressing back against the insanity of that state’s politics. And there have been bright spots. Kansas elected Sharice Davids to Congress – to the benefit of all of us – even if Kansas will continue spew it’s electoral votes in the direction of the Republican candidate. So I don’t want her abandoning Kansas and relocating to California (for many reasons, but that’s another story…)
Omnes Omnibus
I have typed and deleted as intemperate several comments already. We are in this together and we owe it to one another to try to make things better for everyone. I can and will not accept the idea that we have to just let some group suffer for their own ultimate benefit.
/rare sincerity
Citizen Alan
@Catherine D.: Alabama, I think.
Starfish
Everyone should gather together and look at the stupid Economist cover and be cheered up by the people mocking it.
jimmiraybob
@lollipopguild:
Never. Not as long as a Texas Republican male draws breath and has a 2nd Amendment. It will always be the woman’s fault. It’s in their Bible.
the pollyanna from hell
There were many reasons why American slavery had to end with a war, but there is nothing about slavery that means it always ends that way, nor anything about America that means other atrocities must end by violence. Heighten the contradictions is an abdication of faith to our comrades.
Tim C
@Omnes Omnibus:
DAMN STRAIGHT!
burnspbesq
There are more back roads out of Texas than there are vigilantes to man checkpoints.
We’ll get a little Underground Railroad going, if that’s what it takes.
And we’ll get our assets out of the country, so good luck collecting your fucking $10,000.
Any number can play this fucking game.
CarolPW
@Almost Retired: I was born in California in 1950 and by the time I was 10 I knew the Birchers in southern California were bug-fucking crazy. So twice as long as you thought.
Cameron
@Kay: Not only is that fucked up, it’s got a really creepy sci-fi sound to it.
Ruviana
In the spirit of putting a bunch of ideas on the table this was at Kevin Drum’s place. No fancy links because I’m on my phone.
https://jabberwocking.com/what-do-we-do-if-roe-is-overturned/
Martin
@Omnes Omnibus: I get that. But people are already suffering and getting nothing. And they’re going to keep getting nothing until the electorate shifts, and that can go on indefinitely.
Subsole
@Chetan Murthy:
That sucks hard, man. I hear what you are saying. I do. Hope you landed somewhere good.
One thing that pisses me off no end about the beltway media’s absurd fetishization of “good old small-towns and their humble, authentic, down-home sense of community” is that there is no hell on this earth quite like one of those small, old-fashioned towns that has decided you do not fit in.
It’s funny.
I have lived here close to half a century now. From DFW to the Permian Basin, from the Valley to the Panhandle. And if I haven’t lived there, I have been there for work or family.
Been a Democrat since I was 19, because fuck Dubya and his merry little band of pirates.
And always, always, al-fucking-ways, I got the same question. Over and over. The same question you get from some out-of-staters.
Why don’t you just leave? Pack up your shit, hit the bricks, you don’t belong here, get the fuck out.
Why. Don’t. You. Just. Leave?
Because I live here.
This is my home.
I belong here. I have a right to be here. I am as American as anyone and I am damn well allowed to make my home the best place I think it can be.
You don’t have to like us. You don’t have to visit. Or appreciate us, or whatever. We can be pretty hard to like, sometimes.
Just don’t forget us. That’s all.
Subsole
@Ten Bears: I blew my evangelical friends’ minds when I told them Trump and Putin are Gog and Magog…
Geminid
@Ksmiami: And Royal Dutch Shell, I think.
burnspbesq
@Starfish:
I love The Economist, but I’ve never had any illusions about its politics. It’s the Telegraph by other means.
gene108
@Betty Cracker:
One reason Republicans and the conservative movement have been able to take their time and move the goalposts inch by inch is they are very well funded, and well represented in the media.
Before Fox News and right-wing talk radio took off, I remember reading articles in the 1980’s about how inner-cities were failing because of a lack of personal responsibility, absent fathers, etc., when people who studied what’s wrong kept trying to point out the problem is most of the lower middle class jobs – light industrial, warehousing, etc. – moved out of those cities, and no new businesses replaced them, which led to the deterioration of those cities.
The take on personal responsibility and such was right-wing wanker-y trying to gloss over systemic problems, so Reagan and Co. did not have to be responsible for rising crime. But it dominated the media narrative throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s.
The right-wing media reach has just gotten bigger.
The ability of billionaires to buy the Republican Party has just gotten easier.
I’m always shocked that the Democratic party can win elections considering the resources lined up against Democrats. It’s just mind boggling to me that so many billions have been spent by conservatives over the last 45+ years, but they still do not have a stranglehold on this country.
It’s probably something that’s really pissing off a lot of their activists.
Citizen Alan
@zhena gogolia: The Stein freaks are thrilled. They see this as proof positive that it was all our fault for not going with St. Bernie in 2016. And they’re delighted with all the suffering they irrationally blame on us.
Subsole
@Jeffro: The ‘Boys are okay. They may come to the barbecue.
Their owner is most emphatically not invited.
trollhattan
@zhena gogolia:
Who was that masked douchenozzle?
The judges would also have accepted “Per the Constitution the United States does not and will not establish a state religion.”
Eunicecycle
@Subsole: I blew some evangelicals’ minds when I said Jesus was Jewish.
Kay
@Kirk Spencer:
I’ll help. I think Texas is fascinating, politically, as a problem (if we could solve it).
And such a big, big prize :)
Democrats should do better with working and middle class Latinos. No one wants to admit it (or, Ohio Democrats won’t admit it, I should say) but we should stop whatever we’re doing and redo the whole thing. It’s bad. Don’t even fix it- just dump it and start over.
Omnes Omnibus
@Martin: Our opinions obviously differ. I do not think we need to continue to belabor the point. I can sleep well with my take; I am not sure I could with yours.
NoraLenderbee
@Yarrow: One person said he wants to heighten the contradictions. One.
Fair Economist
@Chetan Murthy: How exactly could the Blue States act to defy the Texas law? Cali can’t send sheriffs to TX hospitals, and if somebody travels from TX to CA for an abortion and back, there’s nothing CA can do to stop a civil lawsuit.
Subsole
@VOR:
Someone I follow on twitter made an interesting observation.
A lof of the burn it down/protofash/revolution now crews are so zealous because they live such comfortable, insulated lives that anything less than blood waist-deep in the storm drains just would not register on their day-to-day at all.
Never trust a revolutionary who talks like they’re going to be one of the survivors.
Subsole
@lollipopguild:
“Nofaptober is now year-round. Here’s Pastor Onan to explain the finer points…”
misterpuff
@Scout211: I voted yesterday.
I voted NO!
But Fuck you Cali Democratic Party, I voted for the nominal Democrat in Part B. If for some reason like the GOPers find a way to cheat and just make it to the finish line for the YES vote. I don’t some GOP asshat taking the reins with, oh what, 18% of the vote.
If all the Dems vote en bloc all the GOPers would be smoked 49% to whatever piddlely number each separate candidate would roll up.
Just because they think its too hard to vote strategically. (Which may be true but not for me).
Last night the Vote No on the recall ads switched from Senator Professor to Wilmer hisownself. Lets go all you Sanders Fans, get those ballots in.
Miss Bianca
@Chetan Murthy:
OK, I probably shouldn’t be finding this as funny as I do. I am sure that says bad things about me.
Spanky
ATTENTION FRONT PAGERS
I get a 404 error when trying to go to the next post.
Okthxba
Eta – Now fixted. Thx!
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
See, I missed it!
Thanks, I’ll now read and comment as necessary.
Baud
@Spanky:
It was probably pulled because Adam put up his post at the same time.
Fair Economist
@Subsole: Besides the fact that there are many reasons somebody can’t move because of job, family, child custody, or just liking where they live, there’s no option for most blue voters in red states to move, because there’s no place to move that many people. It would take decades to build them. It’s basic reality that overall most blue voters have to stay where they are.
On top of that, if blue voters leave red-controlled purple states like TX, FL, GA, and OH in any numbers, the bad guys will get indefinite control over the federal government. Why would anybody sane recommend that?
topclimber
@WaterGirl: The thing about bridges is that they can be rebuilt if people really want to get back to reaching the other side.
But pretending the bridge isn’t rotting from corrosive mendacity (TM) is just postponing the day of collapse.
So says the guy who cut off one-third of the sibs in 2016 and has allowed them to sneak back into a modus vivendi by not rubbing it in their faces how wrong they were. Scorecard at the moment: one brother who seems to have been sobered by 1/6 and one sister who is militantly sure that fully human life begins at conception; too bad if you don’t believe it too and/or don’t agree to be a walking womb per her specs; and every other political consideration is irrelevant. Pro-fetus at best, then; pro-life not so much.
Chetan Murthy
@Fair Economist: Let’s assume that we all agree that SCOTUS is lawless, and that they’ll find a way to strike down any “within bounds” law we try to pass at the Federal level. Then it’s up to the Blue States, and those States need to be ready to openly defy SCOTUS. For example
1. Blue States can act to block *any* such Stasi Judgments in banks/brokerages/etc operating in their boundaries, and make it an actionable …. tort(?) on the part of the bank, if it complies, no matter in which state. So people who are sued and lose in Texas, and have their money seized, can just file suit in CA or NY or wherever, get the $$ back.
2. I don’t know what to do about real estate. It would seem that having a number of layers of shell corps should suffice, but hell, it might not.
3. Deny every {plaintiff’s lawyer, every judge who rules for the plaintiff} in one of these Stasi Judgments, every lawmaker who voted for this Stasi Judgment law, access to our Blue States. Make it a felony to have done these things. Arrest upon setting foot on our territory. And demand that airlines flying to/from our territory provide passenger lists before flights land.
Again: we can do this if we just ignore SCOTUS. I’m sure there’s more we could think of, to snarl up Howdy Arabia and their Gulf Emirates.
Omnes Omnibus
@Subsole: This is a good point.
Ruckus
@piratedan:
Well said.
Thank you.
Starfish
@Ruviana: His whole idea is a bunch of Silicon Valley gazillionaires whose wives were so tired of their nonsense that they divorced them will fund abortion? Good one.
I am also holding my breath for all the privacy advocates for crypto-currency set up their Bitcoin abortion fund.
Subsole
@NotMax:
And it didn’t used to be a compliment, neither…
Chetan Murthy
@misterpuff: I (obviously, I’m not a ghoul) voted No, and I also selected Paffrath on the back side, b/c I’d read that he was the least awful choice. I -do- think that the Dems’ strategy is a good one: you, like me, have two neurons to rub together, and so we can, y’know, hold two thoughts in our head simultaneously. Most people can’t, sadly. And for them, just “gotta block the recall” is about all they can manage.
And the last go-around, the polling showed (so I have read) that having the Lt. Gov. on the recall ballot (Keep Davis, and vote for Bustamante) was just confusing and actually depressed Davis’ vote. Don’t know if it’s true, and like you, I voted for “harm reduction”.
Martin
@misterpuff: I think the moment that Elder was identified as the likely victor after a recall, the polling flipped back to keep. You put someone to the left of Newsom on the ballot, you’ll get a bunch of people vote recall just on the hope we get someone more liberal.
Giving Dems no options keeps everyone in ‘keep’. It’s like Nancy Smash is running this thing.
TS (the original)
@ExpatDanBKK:
Yep – TFG appears to have broken the union and we outside have trouble seeing how it will be rebuilt with a RW religious inspired SCOTUS, controls on voting that the KKK would be proud of and a media inciting people to vote against their own self interest – things don’t look good.
jimmiraybob
@Eunicecycle:
But he was later perfected and made an honorary Christian and white dude. Abra Cadabra.
I just watched a clip of Ann Coulter esplainin’ to a Jewish Danny Deutsch how a Jew can become a good Jew by becoming a Christian Jew …. oh yeah, and a Republican. She was truly stunned to find out he expressed offense. They really are that blindingly certain and subsequently obtuse.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: I want to re-emphasize that this doesn’t get around “SCOTUS can strike it down”. I think we should *assume* they will, and prepare for open defiance. What are they gonna do? We’re the ones who make all the money for the country: if they send in tanks, that’s *over*. The owners will not permit such nutbaggery.
Subsole
@WaterGirl: Ozark is vast. He contains multitudes.
Baud
@jimmiraybob:
It’s Deutsch’s fault for talking to her in the first place.
Yarrow
@WaterGirl: So long as they’re in proper blue states, I guess. Red state women, who are already suffering, are going to have to suffer more to get things to change.
@Martin: Your language is so othering. They, them, their. People in red states are clearly not part of whatever group you see yourself in. Not part of your country, I guess. Change happens in a lot of ways. It’s not only through or as a result of pain and suffering.
@NoraLenderbee: The thread I pulled that quote from has plenty of other examples.
WaterGirl
@Subsole: That he does!
Yarrow
@Omnes Omnibus:
@Omnes Omnibus:
Thank you for saying this.
Subsole
@Woodrow/asim: Peace.
WaterGirl
@Martin: You might think about adding that comment to the CA Recall thread that’s linked in the sidebar. I don’t know that people are still commenting, but I think they are still reading to see how others are approaching the recall, re: question #2.
Jeffro
I had a convo with one of my former college roommates back then – the sanest of the three – and he kind of blew off the possibility of trumpov winning. “Eh, he’ll get in there and shake things up.” Shake. Things. Up. Um, what? The guy is owned by Russia, has been a lifelong clown and grifter, and you’re ok because he might “shake things up”???
Talk about privilege.
Ruckus
@Kirk Spencer:
It can be done, that recovery. Sometimes it takes a helping hand, it always takes hard work, but it can be done. I know. I’ve been down to the bottom of the well myself. Better off than some I was able to find a friend who put me up so that I didn’t have to sleep on the street. That’s a year of my life I’ll never get back, all from a GWB recession, the likes of which had only been seen once before and that was the depression and even then rethuglicans tried to make it worse, proving they have no idea how to realistically make money, they have to do that in ways that screw everyone else.
Right now the seemingly entire right wing is seemingly trying to get high huffing each others farts and crying that the air is bad, the food worse and no one is paying them to breathe. I don’t think it’s going to work out for them as well as they’d like. But that’s what happens when you tether you hopes/dreams and desires on fairy dust and stale cheetos.
VeniceRiley
It’s MRSA infection as politics. Can the limb be saved, or do we have to cut it off? Or even can we? Some of us armchair doctors think we can save the whole patient. I continue to try, because it’s the only path and the bacteria is relentless and we cannot separate it without horrid consequences including all our lives and the doom of the planet. Hope we win. Not counting on it.
Jeffro
@WaterGirl: eww…just, eww. I’d probably catch fewer cooties from the football team. But eff ’em all, metaphorically speaking.
Citizen Alan
@the pollyanna from hell:
It’s actually very easy to imagine a world where cooler heads prevailed in the South and the Confederacy negotiated some type of agreement with the North that would preserve both the Union and slavery. A lot of things had to happen before the Emancipation Proclamation, one of which was, you know, the South being dumb enough to quickly declare war despite totally lacking a manufacturing base and also having to balance prosecuting a war against preventing a slave uprising.
trollhattan
@Miss Bianca: Come sit by me. :-)
Citizen Alan
@Subsole:
Reminds me of back in 2004 when I had a whole spiel based on the Left Behind series that proved Dubya was the Antichrist because his massive embassy in Iraq near the archeological sight of old Babylon fulfilled prophecies.
WaterGirl
@Jeffro: You make a good point.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan:
@Miss Bianca: Mind if I join you two?
Jeffro
That’d be an excellent line in an upcoming Biden speech. “I disagree, the American people disagree, and we’re not going to let a highly biased and ideological 5-4 – one judge! – court decision make unConstitutional decisions like this for millions of women in Texas and all the states that will try, sadly, to follow suit. Therefore, I am taking the following executive actions even as the Legislative Branch is introducing legislation to…”
jimmiraybob
@Baud:
I’m glad for the graphic evidence.
Omnes Omnibus
@Yarrow: I am a liberal for a reason and that sort of comes closest to expressing that reason. My liberalism isn’t a set of policies although I am pretty on board with most of the left of center goals and methods. But support for those policies comes from the fundamental underlying idea.
NotMax
@Citizen Alan
And the entirety of the internet is a plaything of Satan.
W is the 23rd letter of the alphabet.
2 times 3 is 6.
www = 666
.
Subsole
@Ksmiami: At least one in AZ and one in WV.
I am frustrated as all hell at this – not least because it feels like we are being made to suffer because some folks have decided that protecting our democracy would be ruuuude.
But real talk – if those two ain’t dropping the filibuster, they ain’t packing the court. That’s the fact on the ground. Sucks, but we gotta work with what’s in front of us.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
A couple of things:
Subsole
@Kay: Pride goeth before a fall.
Here’s hoping we can give ’em a little well-deserved push.
the pollyanna from hell
@Citizen Alan: “It’s actually very easy to imagine a world where cooler heads prevailed in the South”
I won’t argue, I just took the worst case for simplicity.
Geminid
@kindness: I drove across Texas Texas and back twice a couple years ago, and I had no problems. I am an older white guy, but my late friend Chris, a Black man, was a furniture mover and truck driver and he drove a semi truck across Texas scores of times. Chris would rather take a load to across Texas to “Cali” than drive one to Boston. He and other truckers called driving past the Hudson “going up on the dirty side.” Part of this aversion had to do with the congested and crumbly roads, but I think part had to do with the cops, maybe the people also.
I think a younger Black man or woman with out of state plates might have problems driving across Texas. A friend’s daughter was driving from Florida to Virginia, got profiled as drug runner in South Carolina and and was busted for a small amount of weed This could easily have happened in Texas. But my friend Chris’ son Josh moved to Texas and drove trucks for a while. Josh learned self confidence and people skills from his father, and has gone on to make a good living for himself and his family doing marketing in the Dallas area. I don’t think Josh would live anywhere else now.
Subsole
@zhena gogolia:
She warms my heart.
She really does.
gene108
@Kay:
I assume you mean how Democrats approach campaigns and not what the Party stands for.
I’m personally waiting for this mythical youth vote and demographic change saving us from conservatives, I’ve heard so much about for years and years.
I’m not seeing it manifest.
Subsole
@Chetan Murthy:
They damn sure haven’t left themselves any other way to do it…
Taxes are low, though. *Lolsob
Martin
@Starfish: Yeah.
I’m much more optimistic that we’ll get some regulatory scheme that breaks TXs ability to do this.
One of the unsettled matters on telemedicine is whether it’s regulated by the doctors’s state or the patient’s state. It moves medicine into an interstate commerce category. If women in TX can get a prescription from a CA doctor over telemedicine, and get the prescription in the mail, that breaks a LOT of the ability for states to regulate abortion.
There are a number of startups here in CA now to do exactly this. Doesn’t solve the whole problem but makes it quite a bit harder for these states. In most cases makes it cheaper for people that don’t have insurance, as well.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
It’s [checks watch] IPA 0’clock, so sure!
Urban Suburbanite
@Citizen Alan
This was the setup for Underground Airlines – Lincoln is shot in Ohio (or Indiana, I forget which), and a Grand Bargain is made that preserves slavery in a couple states. It’s worth a read.
MisterForkbeard
@gene108: I do think the party’s emphasis on Dreamers hasn’t always helped us with the latino vote at large. I have some latino relatives who treat any discussion of dreamers as “I’m here legally, why can’t they be?” and get pissed if you mention it as one of the things that Dems are doing.
So that’s good. But what else can we emphasize? “Immigration” is a good thing, but to people already here it’s not nearly as important or as much of a driving factor.
Subsole
@Eunicecycle: Lol, I bet!
Subsole
@Citizen Alan:
Love it.
WaterGirl
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: What’s your favorite dessert image in the pie filter?
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I forgot about that the post was in the right column and that I had commented on it. Old fart brainitus strikes again!!
Subsole
@MisterForkbeard:
Honestly? Make filing taxes easier for contractors. A lot of these folks are small, independent contractors. They do not care about immigration, or social issues. In fact, they tend to be pretty socially conservative.
But if you can make it easier for their business? You may have a shot.
Put it this way: the GOP does ok w/latinos here. Their billboards all say 3 things: Trabajo. Negocio. Opportunidad.
Work. Business. Opportunity.
We can run that game. And unlike those flipsticks in the GOP, we actually have the record to back it up and the smarts to pull it off.
Chetan Murthy
@Subsole:
Only for the rich. Kevin Drum explained the deets (found by ITEP): https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2019/11/taxes-are-surprisingly-similar-in-texas-and-california/
Bottom 60% pay a higher rate (in *all* taxes) in TX; fourth quintile barely differs, but less in TX. It’s the top quintile, where people pay a lot less in TX.
Built on the backs of the poor and middle class, Texas is.
debbie
@burnspbesq:
Thanks.
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: Gee, it’s not like there’s anything going on that would be distracting for any of us…
Omnes Omnibus
Also, this.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus:
Martin
@Yarrow:
I’m screwed either way on that one. If I don’t set myself apart I’m told to check my privilege. If I do set myself apart I’m othering.
I moved to CA when it was a red state. My mom is from a red state. The window for political change through conventional means is closing fast in states like TX and GA because the GOP is in the active process of burning democratic institutions to the ground. I’ve long tried the conventional means.
I spent a lot of years trying to get people in front of climate change. And I’ve gotten some of them. But the thing that gets them to actually start to act is watching a town burn, a city drown. It’s terrible. It doesn’t take a massive act of imagination to understand the town will burn, but they need to see it. They need to imagine it’s their home. They need to imagine them on the news being interviewed after their house has burned down, or been washed away.
But we’re running out of time. At some point the electorate will flip and get behind this, but every year we wait the more expensive and painful it will be for people with low income. Doing nothing now means more pain and suffering later.
This fight over democracy is like that. If we lose democratic institutions, it’s going to be a fight to get them back. Not a door knocking fight, but a real fight. A Jan 6 fight. And it’s going to be a lot of pain and suffering. And there’s not a lot of time to avoid that.
There’s no getting out of this without pain and suffering. People like me can probably avoid it, or we can volunteer to act now. But there is no avenue to avoid the suffering, because it’s already happening.
UncleEbeneezer
Fully agree with WG, Betty etc. It’s Texas REPUBLICANS who are the problem, not the millions of great people who just happen to live there and suffer oppression as a result.
Speaking of Texas fuckery…
https://www.click2houston.com/news/investigates/2021/08/05/texas-to-be-first-state-to-make-buying-sex-a-felony/
Urban Suburbanite
To some degree, I think there’s a natural reaction to the years upon years of craven dipshits yammering about the scarrrrry Democrat-run cities and the perils of diversity. And that includes the bloviating from the former White House occupant. That bell can’t be unrung.
Omnes Omnibus
As long as we are doing this sort of thing, I am trying my best not to be gleeful or even grimly amused by the anti-vaxers and covid deniers who end up getting the virus. I don’t want to be that kind of person – although the impulse is there. As Katherine Hepbern said, “Nature, Mr. Allnut, is what we are put in this world to rise above.” I’ll let you know how it goes.
The Truffle
@Omnes Omnibus: I just wonder if the demise of their base will be what finally costs the GOP. They are killing off die hard GOP voters with their mishandling of COVID.
Omnes Omnibus
@The Truffle: ::this is me being good::
RaflW
I spent the last three years of high school in suburban Houston, college at a relatively conservative college in Ft Worth (which clarified a lot for me and was ultimately a good growth experience for me, but utterly unsafe to come out in, so I didn’t, even to me), and then a shorter spell in Houston to regroup before decamping to the only good urban area I could think of (though maybe I thought too narrowly after Hou and FtW): Austin.
Even Austin couldn’t hold me after six fun but dissolute years (and GWB getting elected, dammit).
I have long-ago friends still in Austin who are good peeps. They’re not enjoying WTF is happening there, but even as they vote (and one friend was a veritable free Uber for absentee voters for weeks and weeks before Nov 2020) and protest and donate and organize, the state has not reached a tipping point.
It’s sooo frustrating. But I can’t afford to be demoralized. I do not feel safe as a gay person. That really crept back into my consciousness after Nov 2016. But Biden winning has not been nearly sufficient to regain a sense of safety.
Its one of the reasons I’m incendiarily angry at Joe Manchin, though I understand that defeating Republicans is way, way more important. I can still be pissed that Democrats can’t get him to fathom that he may sink this goddam ship, and a lot of us could be collateral damage. (Hyperbole, and of course it would need more than W.Va.s ‘finest’ to really get the plug pulled. But he isn’t helping. He really isnt.)
The Truffle
@RaflW: Why is Manchin doing this? Attention?
The Truffle
@Almost Retired: Excellent point. Colorado was another red state in the 1990s. Anti-gay laws and everything. Today it is purple.
Who is Texas’ answer to Stacey Abrams?
WaterGirl
@The Truffle:
Beto O’Rourke
Please note that Stacey Abrams started organizing Georgia in 2010!
Beto started in, what, 2018? So of course TX isn’t nearly as far along as GA.
Quiltingfool
@Woodrow/asim: Thank you. I’m not sure I can express myself well, but all your comments today hit my heart. So many people worked hard, suffered losses, but kept putting one foot in front of the other to make things better for future generations. It seems like people want that “one weird trick” to fix all the madness, to make it all better right now. You have told us here that we must do the work, accept the losses, but keep on going. Some don’t want to hear that, because it requires strength and perseverance, and that isn’t easy. Nothing worthwhile is easy, is it?
Well, I’ve not added much, your words were eloquent and truthful. Again, I thank you.
Ksmiami
@RaflW: If we lose everything, Manchin needs to look over his shoulder for the rest of his miserable goddamn life.
FlyingToaster
@Yarrow: Wrong.
I grew up in KCMO. About half of my neighbors wanted me dead (the phrase “uppity kike bitch” is familiar to me, along with getting the shit kicked out of me for being “not white”). I left at 18 and now live in the
People’s RepublicCommonwealth of Massachusetts.My niece (the pediatric nurse) still lives there. But I won’t go back to visit because, as she tells it, Idiocracy was a documentary. The only thing I can do as a blue-stater is to give my money to worthy political causes, and withhold my tourist dollars, and my contributions to their sales tax.
And I hope DeathSantis realizes all of those Yankees who come visit Grandma for Thanksgiving/Christmas/PresidentsDayWeek/PatriotsDayWeek aren’t coming AGAIN this year.
We’re not saviors. We’re survivors, and we’re not going to support any more bullshit.
RaflW
To turn around what @Quiltingfool and Woodrow/asim say, there’s also not just one person who is weirdly singularly to blame. The crisis of American democracy has been mounting for decades. Manchin may strike a match (or not(, but the mountain of flammable tinder has so many sources.
Marcelo
I know I’ve been gone after my posts in the last thread but I tell you I’ve read every comment here. I just wanna say to the blue-staters who are lashing out at Texas because they feel threatened, they feel attacked, they’re angry, they’re shocked and scared, one of y’all called yourselves “refugees,” I feel that. I really do. Especially for those of you who fought hard for these rights in previous decades.
All we’re asking is that you take a second and imagine how those of us ACTUALLY IN THE STATE feel. Because whatever you’re feeling, whatever trauma you’re going through, I think it might be a smidge worse from inside the state. And I’m a white dude, so I know that whatever fear and horror I feel is NOTHING compared to what the women around me feel, what the women of color around me feel. And if I can sit with that and hold space for those people who are really being targeted instead of me, maybe, I dunno, you can sit with us and hold space for all of us to feel awful together instead of lashing out.
Geminid
@WaterGirl: O’Rourke started organizing on a statewide basis when he began his Senate run in 2017. But he and some other El Paso activists started organizing locally in 2003, after El Paso’s reform mayor lost his reelection bid. Veronica Escobar was the mayor’s communications chief. According to Escobar’s Wikipedia biography, she and fellow El Paso citizens Suzie Bird, Steve Gomez, and Beto O’Rourke banded together to focus on economic development and political organizing. All four went on to win public office. Escobar was the powerful El Paso County Judge before succeeding O’Rourke as El Paso’s Congressional Representative in 2019. Locally, the four were known as “The Progressives.”
Chris Johnson
@Marcelo:
This, plus… everybody who is joining the ‘burn it all down’ brigade but from the opposite direction needs to shut the fuck up and have a little think about what being progressive, what being left-wing REALLY means.
It’s not a team jersey for doing the same thing as the chuds. Lefties BUILD things which is what is so upsetting to the righties who smash wicked eeeevil things and leave the building things to God. I think in some ways the Black Panthers feeding their neighborhoods was more threatening than them arming up…
I am very, very suspicious of anyone crying out to burn it all down and supposedly start over, particularly in these times where Russians are paid to see to it that everybody from every side of the political spectrum are all burning it down from every direction, all throwing up their hands in coordinated disgust. You KNOW we are manipulated, don’t trust it. It’s not hard to understand the motivations there, or how it’d work to hurt us.
Ksmiami at 36 and 41 and especially 67, you need to fucking check yourself. You cannot allow yourself to get stampeded into full on terrorist mode. I’ve seen times when talk like that didn’t fly on this blog (specifically, #67).
It’s not just because that is tactically, or morally, wrong. To go full terrorist is to give up on our side and the only way we successfully build anything, and to join the mob wrecking shit because you’ve decided that if wrecking everything is the order of the day, you want to wreck shit in a blue jersey for the satisfaction of doing it. And that’s the kindest interpretation, because you’re echoing the messaging of Russian trolls ‘cos they were able to work you up into a rage.
I would add that half the time the Republicans are doing things like that because they desperately need to show their followers a plausible image of a ‘violent looter thug left-wing commie terrorist’ in order to justify their OWN people becoming violent. They NEED you to do that so their own people don’t weaken. Don’t give them what they need, give us what WE need.
Rage is fine but you HAVE TO build, and heal, and provide refuge. Let the rage give you purpose and unkillable determination, which will be needed. Carrying on like you sometimes do is being a chainsaw surgeon. You don’t get to be a chainsaw surgeon because there IS NO SUCH THING as a chainsaw surgeon, no matter what you’re being told, no matter how emotionally appealing it might be…
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
@WaterGirl: I love all the cartoon animal cupcakes.
WaterGirl
@Geminid: Really good history that I was not aware of, thanks.
WaterGirl
@Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony: Me, too. My ultimate favorite, though, is CatCake. With PupCake a close second.
I found CatCake in all my searching for the site rebuild. But Avalune created PupCake and the other cartoon animal cupcakes whenever I asked for one.
She is really talented!
Uncle Cosmo
I agree it would be good if Democrats could…but should? I have my doubts.
Consider the socio-cultural landscape there. “Latinos” are very much a pastiche of subgroups, depending on nation of origin (e.g., Cuban-Americans) and degree of whiteness (Spanish-descended looking down on mestizos looking down on Indians and mixed African descent). The subcultures tend to be family- and faith-oriented, and most who abandon Catholicism gravitate toward fundamental/evangelical sects.
IMO the Bushes (W and Jed) were not at all crazy to pursue a compromise on immigration that would allow in more Latinos (to take the lower-wage jobs so profitable for the business class). They were fully aware that Hispanics, just like Italian-Americans after WW2, would be delighted to be “godfathered” into whiteness after their immigrant ancestors were denigrated as swarthy dirty halfbreeds, criminals and anarchists. And just like Italian-Americans, newly-“whitened” Hispanics would immediately start yanking the ladder up from above as soon as they’d climbed it, even (especially!) on their darker &/or less assimilated s”fellow Latinos.”
It was a clever notion, and it might have solidified GOP political dominance for decades, had the non-Hispanic RWNJs not gone apeshit over the attempt. And it still might, if the Far Wrong can get just a leetle bit past that. Again, consider the italoamericani.
I suspect Democrats won’t manage much better than +10 from Latino voters, no matter how much work is put in – their societies and cultures work against it. And I’d love to be proven wrong.