Trump's war on women

America Firsters first things:

"Women Will Die Because of This": Planned Parenthood on Trump Signing Anti-Abortion Global Gag Rule

I'll save a buck from my PP donation to pay Russian whores to piss on this gang:

The horrible thing, besides the action itself, is that there is absolutely no NEED to do it. It's likely slapping a lost baby bird.

As has been noted in the press, what a bunch of all male, pompous assed sleazeballs falling all over themselves to see who can get their noses the furthest up the rear end of a money donating minority group of one issue weirdos.

>3 RickHarsch: Of course, he did run as a Republican. Slapping these lost baby birds is a longstanding Republican tradition, ever since Reagan.

ETA: This shit, on the other hand, is rather novel (though off-topic):
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/trump-issues-epa-media-blackout-suspends-age...

>1 LolaWalser: Reinstating the "gag rule" falls right in line with the attempts to defund PP of Federal funds because they provide abortions, even tho federal funds are not allowed to be used for them, but come from elsewhere.

Not a biggie compared to other stuff he's done, and is doing at the moment (financial regs), but...
(Don't women wear pink hats with ears? :-)

Donald Trump's directive that female staff should ‘dress like women’ causes another social media backlash
https://www.yahoo.com/news/donald-trumps-directive-female-staff-131145521.html

"Freedom Caucus", the Trumpista white male shits who gathered to debate the future of American women's health care:



They actually managed to be even less diverse than the Vatican's synod on the family (see picture below) 'cos the Vatican is not THAT racist. Regarding women, however... screw you, ladies. And, uh, no pill, no condoms, no abortions, no maternity leave, no mammograms, none of that, down with that sort of thing!

>7 margd: “President Trump doesn't view life through the lens that most people do... he sees himself as The Producer, conducting The Trump Show, on and off stage.”

That pretty much says it all. Welcome to America, aka "the Trump Show"

>8 LolaWalser: Reminds me of the Saudi Qassim Girls Council at which Prince Faisal said women make up half of society;

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-39264349

>10 Taphophile13:

Yes, it's all the same thing.

Only appropriate to quote in response this reaction of Saudi women:

Saudi Arabian video on women's rights goes viral

It features women in full Islamic dress taking part in various activities, singing lyrics that include: 'If only God would rid us of men'.

Yeah--if only!

Resist, people, resist.

>8 LolaWalser: It's surprising, given Trump's background in television, that this administration has absolutely no clue about optics and why they matter.

>12 RidgewayGirl:

I get the feeling they simply don't care.

>13 LolaWalser: I don't think it occurs to them. After all, women aren't really people, after all. Notice no one suggested that prostate exams and treatment of testicular cancer should be omitted from coverage because half of the population isn't affected.

Trumps media experience is all about how to get people to watch, and has nothing to do with influencing people, so not as helpfully politically as one might think.

>12 RidgewayGirl: It's surprising, given Trump's background in television, that this administration has absolutely no clue about optics and why they matter.

I think he has a clue about optics, but he's only interested in one target audience.

>14 RidgewayGirl:, >16 southernbooklady:

No American woman should forget for a second that white men have come out massively more in support of Trump than any other demographic, including the Trump-voting majority of white women. Ten point, minimum, difference.

That's how much more men hate women than even women can hate themselves.

>17 LolaWalser:
Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.
Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch, 1970

>17 LolaWalser: 53% of white women voted for Trump. It's embarrassing, but true.

>19 RidgewayGirl:

Yes, I know. And white men, minimum 63%. Even higher percentage for richer ones, and yet higher than that for rich and older. Horrifying (I doubt they are prone to embarrassment) but true.

>18 Taphophile13:

Yes. And it's not like the pigs are hiding their feelings either! What does it take? How many more photo ops like the above? What other sort of disgusting, inhumane legislation? How much more neglect, humiliation, abuse, how many more rapes and massacres? How many hundreds of millions of missing women does it take for women to get angry?

Or... to SHOW we are angry. People wonder why girls cut, starve and kill themselves, why women suffer more depression, anxiety, lower self-esteem... Maybe it's a form of psychological indigestion, eh? Rage on your toast, rage in your coffee, rage-stuffed pillows, rage deformed deforming.

Pence Won't Eat With Women, But He Can Sure Break A Tie Defunding Their Health
Janet Burns, March 30, 2017

...Pence provided the deciding vote on Senate legislation today, making it his second time this year, and allowing the body to pass a bill reversing an Obama-era rule. The law, which kept conservative states from blocking federal funding to health and family planning facilities that offer abortion, was targeted in "one of a string of showdowns to reverse Obama-era regulations, and unfolded with all the drama of numerous past conflicts over abortion funding...

...Pence is unwilling to dine alone with women other than his wife, or to attend events that serve alcohol without her alongside...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetwburns/2017/03/30/pence-wont-eat-with-women-bu...

____________________________________________________

What Is The Billy Graham Rule? Mike Pence Follows This Evangelical Practice
Mehreen Kasana | March 30, 2017

...The idea of not eating or drinking with a woman other than your wife entered political consciousness when the evangelical pastor Billy Graham factored it into the "Modesto Manifesto." In 1948, Graham carried out a bunch of evangelistic meetings in Modesto, California, flanked by his ministry team to discuss ministry life and the various problems it faced...

https://www.bustle.com/p/what-is-the-billy-graham-rule-mike-pence-follows-this-e...
____________________________________________________

How Pence's Dudely Dinners Hurt Women
The vice president—and other powerful men—regularly avoid one-on-one meetings with women in the name of protecting their families. In the end, what suffers is women’s progress.
Olga Khazan Mar 30, 2017

...An anonymous survey of female Capitol Hill staffers conducted by National Journal in 2015 found that “several female aides reported that they have been barred from staffing their male bosses at evening events, driving alone with their congressman or senator, or even sitting down one-on-one in his office for fear that others would get the wrong impression.” ...

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/pences-gender-segregated-din...

There's a widespread problem with men isolating women in the workplace, blocking them from all manner of vital communication and connections.

Until we change the sexist and gender-essentialist circumstances in which we bring up children, there won't be a real improvement.

Two things, first, Pence is fine working closely with a man who is an admitted sexual predator, and yet is too frightened to be alone with a woman? I call shennanigans. Were it really about giving the wrong impression, he wouldn't be so eager to associate himself with someone like Trump. It's only women who are a problem for him.

Secondly, there's a fundamental societal illness in this attitude. It reduces women to either objects of lust or objects of innocence who can easily be irredeemably soiled (evangelical modesty culture compares girls to chewing gum or scotch tape - that once "used" are never anything but trash). It certainly doesn't have space for women who have careers, let alone women in leadership positions. I suspect it wasn't just Trump who had issues with Angela Merkel.

I can't imagine how I would have done my job if conservative Christian male colleagues observed Modesto Manifesto--we traveled a lot. The one time it even came up however briefly was when I was helping a colleague, a conservative Christian I think, prepare to testify. Upon arriving, he asked if I wanted door to my hotel room closed. Either way, I replied, and he closed it. Mind you, we had known each other a long time by then, and our relationship was firmly work-based.

I never realized that Modesto Manifesto was a thing before--I thought it was an idiosyncracy of a few acquaintances. :-(

Men who practice Modesto Manifesto should NOT be in public service, IMHO--can you imagine inserting race or age or any other classification than woman in the Manifesto?? I'm afraid we'll see more of such things in short term, though, all in name of "religious liberty".

Trump refusing to shake Merkel's hand reminded me strongly of those reports about some Muslim men refusing to shake hands with women. Makes you wonder what it is exactly these people find so objectionable about Islam. Maybe it's the similarity rather than any "difference" they find so alarming. Competition!

Remember Saudis declared Queen Elizabeth officially a man so they could welcome her in formal state visit?
I wonder if Her Majesty was amused or not? Mind you, she's probably seen EVERYTHING!

Ha, no. Had to check the date--was alive then but decades away from an interest in current affairs...

Geez, the whoring the West did for oil...

>25 LolaWalser: Maybe they're mad that they didn't think of burkas and isolation for women first?

>20 LolaWalser:

And it's not like the pigs are hiding their feelings either!

A perfect example:

https://youtu.be/Cw0Y6GC-ftU

Ms. Ryan has a much greater degree of composure than I do. I would have said, "Dude, if you tell me what to do one more motherfucking time, I'm gonna come up there and kick your ass!" >:(

26,27 Saudis declare Queen Elizabeth a man

1979... Old, I am! But in checking date myself, I found this anecdote from 1998, so I'm feeling much better! :-)

Queen Elizabeth Once Took King Abdullah For A Drive, Proved She’s A Badass

...The queen is rumored to have “terrorized” then-Crown Prince Abdullah with her driving skills, learned during World War II when she was but a princess and trained as a mechanic and military truck driver for the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service of the British Army.

The story was excerpted in The Sunday Times from a memoir by British diplomat Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, who was appointed Ambassador to Saudi Arabia in 2003. It begins with Abdullah — then the crown prince and de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia — visiting Balmoral, the Queen’s estate in Scotland.

“After lunch, the Queen had asked her royal guest whether he would like a tour of the estate,” wrote Cowper-Coles, who is said to have heard the tale from both Elizabeth and Abdullah themselves. “Prompted by his foreign minister the urbane Prince Saud, an initially hesitant Abdullah had agreed. The royal Land Rovers were drawn up in front of the castle. As instructed, the Crown Prince climbed into the front seat of the front Land Rover, his interpreter in the seat behind.”

Little did Abdullah know, however, that his driver for the day would be none other than Elizabeth herself.

“To his surprise, the Queen climbed into the driving seat, turned the ignition and drove off,” Cowper-Coles wrote. “Women are not — yet — allowed to drive in Saudi Arabia, and Abdullah was not used to being driven by a woman, let alone a queen.”

Not to mention a queen who can drive like the wind. According to Cowper-Coles, Elizabeth didn’t just drive the SUV, but rapidly whizzed along the estate’s roads as she chatted, prompting Abdullah to become increasingly anxious.

“Through his interpreter, the Crown Prince implored the Queen to slow down and concentrate on the road ahead,” the diplomat said...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/23/queen-elizabeth-king-abdullah-driving-s...

Honestly, I have to keep checking the calendar to remind myself what century we're living in.

04/05/2017 01:16 pm ET
Donald Trump Kicks Off Sexual Assault Awareness Month By Defending Bill O’Reilly
The president said the Fox News host “shouldn’t have settled” in lawsuits accusing O’Reilly of sexual harassment.
By Paige Lavender

...In an interview with The New York Times on Wednesday, Trump defended O’Reilly after the Times reported that O’Reilly or Fox News paid five women a total of about $13 million to settle claims of sexual harassment or inappropriate behavior over the years.

“I think he’s a person I know well — he is a good person,” Trump said on Wednesday.

“I think he shouldn’t have settled; personally, I think he shouldn’t have settled,” Trump added. “Because you should have taken it all the way. I don’t think Bill did anything wrong.”

...Last week, Trump declared April National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month....

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/donald-trump-bill-oreilly-harassment_us_58e5...

>32 margd: Last week, Trump declared April National Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

Reddi-wip has just pulled its ads from the B.O. show.

How ironic.

White House Adviser Who Opposes Paid Leave, Equal Pay Now Working On Women’s Issues
Stephen Miller once wrote that “the pay gap has virtually nothing to do with gender discrimination.”
By Emily Peck | 04/14/2017

Stephen Miller, a senior adviser to President Donald Trump, is now working on women’s issues in the White House despite having once forcefully argued against paid maternity leave and equal pay legislation, according to unnamed White House officials cited in a Politico report Thursday night.

Miller, 31, will work with Ivanka Trump, the president’s daughter and senior adviser, on women’s issues including family leave and child care, according to Politico’s report.

...Stephen Miller, a well-documented misogynist, heading up the White House’s ‘women’s issues’ department would be laughable if it wasn’t so horrifying,” Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List, said in a statement...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/stephen-miller-womens-issues_us_58f0d523e4b0...

>35 margd:

:O

The pigs celebrating Trump"care":

> 37

The Pigs rule Animal Farm when all the non-piggy animals acquiesce to their rule.

Leaving the world of metaphor, here's the real world problem: 53 per cent of voters are women. Thus even the least mathematically-inclined among us can see that it would be easy to have the President, all members of both houses of Congress, all Supreme Court Justices, all state governors, and all state legislatures be made up entirely of women.

But the Pigs rule. Why is that?

Is it because women are not legally allowed to vote? Of course not.

Is it because women are prevented from voting or forced to vote for the Pigs by their piggish husbands or boyfriends. Of course not.

Is it because women are stupid - even more stupid than a Pig? Of course not.

Is it because women are brainwashed? Of course not.

Is it because women are in the thrall of men and thus do their bidding, like zombies, or like the young, pale and slender women in diaphanous nightgowns who wander about the gloomy castle under the evil spell of the creepy Count Dracula? Of course not.

Then, for the love of Jebus, WHAT?

If you have the power - but you don't use it - you only wish to complain and play the victim - then what the living god damn hell is that?

But back to metaphor - if you, e.g., want apples, you don't just go stand outside and look up, hoping apples will fall out of the sky. If you want apples you do what's needed - you either buy them at the grocery, or you plant an apple tree in fertile soil, weed it and fertilize it and then you will get your desired apples.

So - do you want a god damn apple - or do you want to complain from now on about not having any god damn apples?

What happens when the white guys are back in charge
Jill Filipovic | May 5, 2017

...It turns out that the people who will see their health coverage change for the worse -- women, the poor, the old and the non-white -- weren't really seen in the photo (although lots of the men in the picture are older, they cancel out that vulnerability by being mainly rich). In one version of the picture, there appear to be two women hidden behind men in the image; in another larger group shot, there are several women at the edges of a densely packed man group of dozens.

...Elizabeth Warren has famously said that if you're not at the table, you're probably on the menu...

http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/05/opinions/health-care-photo-white-men-filipovic/ind...

Pigs.

So mysterious that while C-sections and domestic violence are pre-existing conditions, erectile dysfunction is not.

FWIW my own congressman (NY-23) is taking a lot of heat for his vote:

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/house-republicans-face-voters-home-districts-angr...

Apologies for the WTF Viagra ad that leads into the story. I have to say Elmira/Corning in some ways is a fucked up place. Lots of poor people--some are even white males. Lots of conservatives. Want a job? There's two NYS prisons (one in nearby Pine City)--three fully functioning hospitals--there's Corning Glass (which is very picky) and there's flipping burgers, shelving or cash register work at Wal-Mart/Target/whatever. And Tom Reed--our congressman is pretty much a piece of shit and this district of ours is gerrymandered all the time so that a republican will always be the congressperson. I do like to see people yelling at him. That part makes me smile.

The Pigs' Progress:

February:



May:

Every sci-fi horror ever about infernally multiplying alien deathbringers right up there.

The Health Care Bill’s Insults to Women

...The bill now goes to the Senate, where the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, initially convened a health care working group composed of 13 men and no women. Following widespread criticism, the group invited Senator Shelley Moore Capito, Republican of West Virginia, to a meeting, but it is unclear whether she will become a regular member. ...

If that's what "widespread criticism" does, perhaps busting balls directly is in order. The pigs are shitting copiously on whatever "right" you have left.

...Republican Susan Collins of Maine was left out of the working group, which is a real head-scratcher. Collins authored a health care bill reform bill with Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana that they introduced in January. She is a moderate who has objected to efforts by conservatives to cut off funding for Planned Parenthood.

Oh, wait, maybe that’s why McConnell and the boys don’t want her...

http://chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/thirteen-men-deciding-womens-health-care-hap...

_______________________________________

U.S. Has The Worst Rate Of Maternal Deaths In The Developed World
Nina Martin | May 12, 2017

The story of Lauren Bloomstein illustrates a disparity in our nation's health care system, where primary focus is given to newborn babies, but often ignores the mothers. (Photo)

NPR and ProPublica teamed up for a six-month long investigation on maternal mortality in the U.S. Among our key findings:

More American women are dying of pregnancy-related complications than any other developed country. Only in the U.S. has the rate of women who die been rising.

There's a hodgepodge of hospital protocols for dealing with potentially fatal complications, allowing for treatable complications to become lethal.

Hospitals — including those with intensive care units for newborns — can be woefully unprepared for a maternal emergency.

Federal and state funding show only 6 percent of block grants for "maternal and child health" actually go to the health of mothers.

In the U.S, some doctors entering the growing specialty of maternal-fetal medicine were able to complete that training without ever spending time in a labor-delivery unit.

(See graph, listen to audio--CRY--at) http://www.npr.org/2017/05/12/528098789/u-s-has-the-worst-rate-of-maternal-death...

Pattern here?

Amy Siskind‏Verified account @Amy_Siskind 16h16 hours ago

Karen was expelled
Kamala wasn't courteous
Elizabeth persisted
Sally informed
Maxine "shoved"
April rolled her eyes
Susan did her job
RESIST

People keep interrupting Sen. Kamala Harris

Fucking McCain. After that jaw-dropping performance of last stage senility at the Comey hearing, why is he even still around?

>48 LolaWalser: I take that to be a literally legitimate question. That interrogation, or attempted interrogation, of Comey is proof enough of a level of incompetence that should not be allowed in a governing official.

> 49

As long as the majority of voters in Arizona remain dickheads McCain will continue to be sent to the Senate - barring his unfortunate early demise as a living organism, of course.

That is the horrible truth.

We live in interesting times. The ancient Chinese have cursed us, apparently. Sumbitches.

As for why Trump is backing off of Trump--his wife Cindy just got a plum job with the State Dept.

As a kind of summary of multiple news items in the last year (and longer...)--nobody does it better than Samantha Bee (not many do it at all, especially if they are male gender-disabled):

Child Brides | June 14, 2017 Part 2 | Full Frontal on TBS|

"Children as young as 12 have been married with the consent of their parents. It is usually a way for them to circumvent the statutory rape {law}..."

For "children" read "girls" and these girls are TYPICALLY married to (much) older adult men.

Look who voted in the state senate AGAINST the ban on child marriage in New Jersey:



And look who vetoed the bill that would have passed the ban:

#52---I had no idea. That is really sick.

I saw on the news today that Christy has a 15 per cent approval rating now, the lowest since such things were measured.

Wow. That's getting very near the approval rating of Congress- isn't it something like nine or ten per cent?

>53 lriley:

Shocking, isn't it. Beyond a foggy notion that teenage marriage existed in the US--and as Bee says, there's a general association to middle school sweethearts in boondocks who got preggers and otherwise have nothing better to do with their lives--I didn't realise the gory details until some articles this and last year, regarding the US, and a debate that followed changes to legislation in Germany last year because of the huge spike of married early-teens girls in the refugee and immigrant influx.

These two links may open with a video--a "social experiment" conducted in NYC and Lebanon to see how the public reacts to the sight of an older man and his child bride taking wedding photographs.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/how-people-reacted-to-the-sight...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/video-of-child-bride-in-lebanon-shines-spotlig...

#55---It's not shocking that we have a lot of weirdos in the United States with warped religious and/or sociological viewpoints. What's shocking is states and their legislatures protecting them. I really haven't seen anything like it around where I live (which isn't the same as saying it doesn't happen around here). I don't see a lot of younger people getting married at all and partly it's because most of them can't afford to--as I live in a very economically depressed area.

Yo, New Jersey! Even Texas is banning child marriage.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/06/16/texas_the_state_with_the_country...

The white male dickhead face of the GOP health care bill:



Not Even Pigs. Pig shit.

#58--the thing they won't ever do is hurt the health insurance industry or Big Pharma's profits but no problem taking away the health insurance of 23 million people and going after medicare/medicaid and hurting the elderly.

Because DJT (his dad/the president) is his role model, what kind of husband &
father will Barron Trump be in the future???

Also,
Muslim grandmas and grandmas in nursing homes are in the GOP's
legislative gun sights at the present time!!!

And good old Kellyanne says Trumps sexist tweets/comments shouldn't be reported on because reporting on them hurts women. Instead the media should be reporting on all those great things Trump is doing, even when he hasn't actually done anything about them yet.

http://www.rawstory.com/2017/06/kellyanne-conway-media-hurts-women-by-reporting-...

Trump actually nails women twice: 1st the women he insults ~ then the
women in his administration who must go out and defend his actions!!!

Responses to Trump's latest sexist tweets:

Few were as impassioned as Nicolle Wallace, a former communications director for President George W. Bush. On her MSNBC show Thursday afternoon, Wallace delivered a scorched-earth monologue.

“As someone who once proudly called myself a Republican, the party will be permanently associated with misogyny if leaders don’t stand up and demand a retraction,” Wallace said, challenging women in the Trump administration to publicly denounce their boss’s words and “work behind the scenes to educate him about just how offensive they are.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/06/30/flat-out-gross-and...

>63 sturlington:

Kudos to a Republican using the m-word.

You'd have thought Trump's insanity would have been beyond partisanship long before this, for instance around the time he was nominated, but, no. The world must burn to a crisp first.

And now we're learning that Trump used his connections at the National Enquirer to attempt to blackmail Brzezinski and Scarborough:

http://money.cnn.com/2017/06/30/media/national-enquirer-donald-trump-joe-scarbor...

How anybody can see this dog turd as other than the fucking thug that he is is beyond me.

>65 artturnerjr:

There's a (probably sizeable) section that wanted exactly a thug.

I don't know that any of Trump's supporters are bothered that he hurts people as long as they don't think it's them he's hurting. It was already there in his campaign, the drivel about Mexicans and Muslims, the neglect of blacks and overt racism toward Obama, and as for women, it was ancient knowledge. And yet who cared? Not his fans, and certainly not Killarians.

Tha damage is already done. More damage is being done. It's nice to hear opposing voices, but what is it really worth, I don't know...

Since it looks like his brain, such as it was, is truly melting fast, it looks a cert Pence will step in... and it will still be an utterly shitty situation. The sheer relief of Trump leaving will make it easier to push the Republican agenda.

#65--it's just more proof that he's not fit for the office. It's just petty shit that has nothing to do with the state of nation whether economic or domestic or foreign or any kind of policy whatsoever. It's just his massive and selfish ego that needs to hit back at any critique from any quarter and a real issue doesn't even have to be involved. He's every bit as narcissistic as that guy from North Korea.

With less reason.

>66 LolaWalser:

Since it looks like his brain, such as it was, is truly melting fast, it looks a cert Pence will step in

Heh.



The caption reads: '“Just keep tweeting, Donald. Keep tweeting.”'

:D

I just got caught up by the Missouri SB 5 bill allegedly permitting employers and landlords to discriminate against women not only for having abortions but also for using birth control.

This was so outrageous, it actually turns out to be false and to conceal the 'lesser' aim to allow landlords to prevent leasing any land or premises that might be used for abortion clinics.

One theory suggests (and I believe this) that the outrageous claim above - reproduced by Huffington et al - was actually originated by conservatives as a deliberate tactic to mask and minimise what they really intended.

So, if you plan to rob somebody, let people know your actual intent is murder so the robbery goes unnoticed.

>70 Tid: Trump's War on Women

The title of this thread is doing similar work. Trump is personally misogynist to a truly frightening degree. But the 'war on women' has been waged since women entered politics by insisting on becoming voters. That war will probably never end. Roe v. Wade, I believed in my own naive youth, put an end to one front on which the war was fought. But now I am sure that front will never be definitively won. Trump's war on women is the continued war on women, which over the last couple decades has become frighteningly shifting.

The basic principle that would make society itself an acceptable human construct are violate at root in the quotidian thought of US citizens. Every battle for what in our contemporary world would pass for decency--represented by Planned Parenthood, but also extending to universal health care, a simply clean and healthy physical environment around the globe--is necessary because they violate over-riding root US principles that exclude sharing and promulgate base selfishness.

Vox: It’s Alive! Trump’s horror at living, bleeding women

https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/7/1/15905632/trump-tweet-mika-brzezinski-m...

From the article:

To start, anyone who rolls up to a members-only club with a bleeding face deserves the loudest of kudos for being the most punk of all people. But while Mika Brzezinski’s “little hands” clapback was punk in itself, it’s really none of our business if she chose to get plastic surgery. Nor is it the business of the president.

***

To actively hate and be repelled by women’s bodies is the source of toxic masculinity that fuels sexism, assault, and even worse. But because Trump’s in power, his disgust at the mere existence of women extends to policy.

I believe the most recent proposed health care bill — the Republicans’ ironically named Better Care Reconciliation Act — is a direct assault on women. Unsurprisingly, 13 men helped pen the bill that plans to overhaul and cut funding to Medicaid, which pays for half of all US births and provides insurance for millions of American women. It also promises to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization that provides breast exams, pap tests, HIV tests, STI treatments, birth control, and abortions.

But that isn’t everything: Should the bill go through, it will become increasingly difficult for women to undergo abortions entirely by banning them from using tax credits that cover the procedure. Add to this the fact that pregnancy and maternity leave could be considered non-essential under this coverage, and American women seem to be quickly backed into a corner by an administration high on their misogyny, fueled by disgust at the mere existence of a particular gender. Being a woman would be a preexisting condition.

So when Trump tweeted about Brzezinski’s alleged facelift, it was to perpetuate his disgust and to shame her into silence. Trump wanted his followers to see Mika Brzezinski as a desperate woman, grotesque in appearance, who was a dispensable source. What he didn’t consider was that not everybody thinks that way. It’s not Gilead … yet.

>72 artturnerjr:

Because it is impossible to pile on enough insults to the injury that is the Rump!

But, really...

The outrageous ones are his supporters and his enablers, not him so much by half. His fans and the Killarian Berniebro assholes who were not bothered at all and found it perfectly okay to let a demented pig shit on women. Didn't bother any principles they had, didn't bother their righteousness, didn't bother their delusions of leftism. Women aren't people to the pseudoleftist scum any more than they are to Trumpists.

Well now this crapulous clown is shitting on all of you, grinning all the way, using this habit of shitting on women for a sideshow and smokescreen to shaft everyone. Once you buy a smelly dog, the stench is just the inevitable extra to whatever he is doing.

>73 LolaWalser: Were there really 'Killarian Berniebro assholes'? I thought that was largely an invention.

This thread was started by someone who lives in Finland and has demonstrated an inability to write a sentence without droppoing the F bomb. And by "F" I don't mean Finland.

>75 barney67: The thread was started by someone living in Toronto, I'm pretty sure, but you're pretty fucking close.

What, by the way, does droppoing mean?

#76--it means he needs spell check.

>77 lriley: I think you're being naive. I think it means something very important in a secret world in which he swims. I think several LTers have been notified of something.

#78--some code or heiroglyph?

Some covfefe.

"covfefe" in Lizard People language means "combover".

We've got to get that in Wikipedia NOW!

On October 7, 2016, WaPo broke the Access Hollywood Tape story - we all remember that one, no description necessary - and the citizenry was outraged to the point of ignoring what should have been the top story that day: the Joint Statement from the Department of Homeland Security and Office of the Director of National Intelligence on Election Security.

On June 29, 2017, an early onset, misogynistic twitter storm from the vulgarian again outrages the country. And what else is in the news that day? A WSJ article: GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection To Flynn.

The Access Hollywood incident wasn't the first time the tactic was used, and the Morning Joe brouhaha won't be the last. His orangeness and his advisors know exactly which buttons to push that will immediately divert us from what they don't want seen, and they use the tactic fairly often. We should all be accustomed by now to his 'Lookee here! Hey, presto!' attempts at sidetracking news reports. It's not as if he and his administration didn't know the stories were going to break - a journalist always checks the source - and the answer is invariably... the campaign/transition team/WH declined to comment.

Next time he early morning poop tweets something unprincipled, or objectionable, or immoral, we should all take a closer look at what else is going on. Deny/distort/deflect/distract is a favorite strategy of this administration.

"Nasty woman", contd.

San Juan Mayor Fires Back With Fashion After Trump Called Her a ‘Nasty Mayor’, Says His Visit was ‘Insulting”
Alexia Fernandez | October 5, 2017

...Univision’s Jorge Ramos for Al Punto...asked (Mayor Carmen Yulín Cruz of San Juan, Puerto Rico) to explain why she was wearing a “Nasty” T-shirt, to which she responded, “One of the expressions that the president used to describe me… I was a ‘nasty mayor.'”

...“What really is nasty is showing your back to the Puerto Rican people,” she added.

Being a “nasty woman” became a battle cry for women who oppose Trump after he branded presidential opponent Hilary Clinton a “nasty woman” during the election...

http://people.com/politics/san-juan-mayor-after-trump-called-her-nasty-mayor/

Being a “nasty woman” became a battle cry for women who oppose Trump after he branded presidential opponent Hilary Clinton a “nasty woman” during the election...

Didn't work, did it?

That may not actually be the point, sir.

by Ronan Farrow

Beyond Hollywood, he has exercised his influence as a prolific fund-raiser for Democratic Party candidates, including Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Weinstein combined a keen eye for promising scripts, directors, and actors with a bullying, even threatening, style of doing business

For more than twenty years, Weinstein has also been trailed by rumors of sexual harassment and assault. This has been an open secret to many in Hollywood and beyond, but previous attempts by many publications, including The New Yorker, to investigate and publish the story over the years fell short of the demands of journalistic evidence.

Too few people were willing to speak, much less allow a reporter to use their names, and Weinstein and his associates used nondisclosure agreements, monetary payoffs, and legal threats to suppress these myriad stories. Asia Argento, an Italian film actress and director, told me that she did not speak out until now—Weinstein, she told me, forcibly performed oral sex on her—because she feared that Weinstein would “crush” her. “I know he has crushed a lot of people before,” Argento said. “That’s why this story—in my case, it’s twenty years old; some of them are older—has never come out.”

In the course of a ten-month investigation, I was told by thirteen women that, between the nineteen-nineties and 2015, Weinstein sexually harassed or assaulted them, allegations that corroborate and overlap with the Times’ revelations, and also include far more serious claims.

Three women—among them Argento and a former aspiring actress named Lucia Evans—told me that Weinstein raped them... Four of the women I interviewed cited encounters in which Weinstein exposed himself or masturbated in front of them.

Sixteen former and current executives and assistants at Weinstein’s companies told me that they witnessed or had knowledge of unwanted sexual advances and touching at events associated with Weinstein’s films and in the workplace.

Sixteen

They and others describe a pattern of professional meetings that were little more than thin pretexts for sexual advances on young actresses and models.

Virtually all of the people I spoke with told me that they were frightened of retaliation.

“This was ongoing predatory behavior towards women—whether they consented or not.”

One email posted by CBS News editor Will Rahn shows Powell telling Democratic donor Jeffrey Leeds that he hopes to avoid having to vote for Hillary Clinton for president, pointing to the New York Post's coverage of her husband's alleged affairs.

"I would rather not have to vote for her, although she is a friend I respect," Powell writes in the email dated July 26, 2014. "A 70-year-old person with a long track record, unbridled ambition, greedy, not transformational, with a husband still dicking bimbos at home

Everything HRC touches she kind of screws up with hubris,” he wrote in one email.

"Hillary Clinton’s self-image as a feminist champion has always been at odds with her political partnership with a serial womanizer whose electoral career has depended on discrediting and smearing the women with whom he’s had dalliances. "

JEFF ZELENY, CNN: It was an open secret in all these circles his behavior. The reality is, California is the biggest and most flush ATM for Democratic Politics in this country. He stood at the center of that. Nancy Pelosi put out a very short statement on this. But the reality is, most of the leaders of the Democratic party are beholden to him, have been beholden to him, and she still is the leader of the House Democrats here. Why not give an interview, give a press conference? They have personal relationships with Harvey Weinstein. This is hypocrisy this week, this is not a secret.

How NBC ‘Killed’ Ronan Farrow’s Weinstein Exposé

Lloyd Grove

Freelance NBC News correspondent Ronan Farrow, whose months-long investigation into reports of Harvey Weinstein’s sexual misconduct was spiked by the network but morphed into a journalistic blockbuster at The New Yorker, initiated a scuffle with the Peacock Network on Tuesday night.

Appearing on MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show—which, like NBC, is a property of NBC Universal and its parent company Comcast—Farrow disputed what sources said was NBC News President Noah Oppenheim’s judgment this past summer that Farrow’s reporting on the movie mogul and the women he allegedly harassed and assaulted wasn’t ready for prime-time.

Addressing a controversy that has been percolating for the past several days in the media ecosystem since The New York Times published its own Weinstein exposé—including questions about whether NBC executives caved to the well-connected Weinstein and his formidable lawyers, Charles Harder, Lisa Bloom, and David Boies—Maddow brought it to a boiling point by telling Farrow: “NBC says that the story wasn’t publishable, that it wasn’t ready to go at the time that you brought it to them.”

Farrow fired back: “I walked into the door at The New Yorker with an explosively reportable piece that should have been public earlier. And immediately, obviously, The New Yorker recognized that. And it is not accurate to say that it was not reportable. In fact, there were multiple determinations that it was reportable at NBC.”

Farrow’s blunt claim highlighted an uncomfortable debate among NBC News insiders, and beyond, concerning the quality and status of his investigative reporting and the reasons why a respected television network would kill a sensational scoop about a famous, influential, politically wired, and undeniably newsworthy figure like Harvey Weinstein.

trump is an extreme malignant narcissist who is psychologically four years old.

HRC is a run-of-the-mill narcissist who is utterly greedy and is an ungodly filthy liar.

I hate both their guts, as any person who has any ethical values must who knows their respective histories.

So, let's move on.

HRC should be easy to move on from; Trump not so much.

So, 45 has taken another step to set up his Saudi-style theocracy with women in second, or even third-class roles. But hey, why should I complain, I'm still allowed to drive my car.

The wages of mysogyny, resurrection of the ERA?

One More To Go: Illinois Ratifies Equal Rights Amendment
Bill Chappell | May 31, 2018

...36 years after the original deadline for ratification set by Congress...The Illinois House approved the ERA...The Illinois Senate voted to ratify the ERA in April.

...In the 1970s, the ERA failed to become part of the Constitution, falling just three states short of ratification — a result that stood despite extending the original 1979 deadline to 1982.

...Despite the lapse in deadline for ratification, the ERA's supporters say Congress can revive the amendment.

...Until last year, no U.S. state had voted to ratify the amendment in 40 years. But that changed when Nevada ratified the ERA in March 2017.

The approval by Illinois sets up the possibility that one of the 13 remaining states that have not ratified the ERA can now claim to have cast the decisive vote. Most Southern states have not ratified the amendment; neither have Utah or Arizona.

...amendment failed anew in Virginia's legislature earlier this year, to chants of "Shame!" from backers who had come to the state Capitol in Richmond to push for ratification....

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/05/31/615832255/one-more-to-go-illi...

I participated in that ERA rally in Chicago in 1980. Glad to see it finally worked.

‘Horseface,’ ‘Lowlife,’ ‘Fat, Ugly’: How the President Demeans Women
Michael D. Shear and Eileen Sullivan | Oct. 16, 2018

Women’s faces...Stephanie Clifford (Stormy Daniels)...Carly Fiorina...Rosie O'Donnell...Heidi Cruz...Katarina Witt...

Women as animals...Omarosa Manigault Newman...Gail Collins...

Female bodily functions...Hilary Clinton...Megyn Kelly...Mika Brzezinski...Elizabeth Warren...

Weight and shape of female bodies...Jessica Leeds...Natasha Stoynoff...Cher...Arianna Huffington...Heidi Klum...Bette Midler...Kim Novak...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/16/us/politics/trump-women-insults.html

ETA____________________________________________________

Don Lemon Blasts Trump’s ‘Horseface’ Comment: ‘Does He Own A Mirror?’
David Barden | Oct 17, 2018

...CNN’s Don Lemon slammed President Donald Trump on Tuesday night for referring to Stormy Daniels as “Horseface.”

“I don’t usually like to talk about people’s looks,” he told Chris Cuomo. “Does he own a mirror? He keeps talking about people gaining weight and how people look, does he own a mirror that doesn’t have Vaseline over it or a cloth?”

...the “CNN Tonight” host offered (Trump) some advice: “Donald Trump is no prize and if I were him, not that I’m one either, I would keep my thoughts about other people’s looks to myself.”

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/don-lemon-cnn-horseface-trump-mirror-stormy...

Exit polls show more women breaking with Republicans
11/14/2018

...59 percent of women voted for Democrats in the Nov. 6 elections, up from 54 percent who cast ballots for the party in 2016.

In 2016...52 percent of white women voted for Trump while only 43 percent backed Clinton in 2016. Two years later, white women split between the two parties with 49 percent voting for Republicans and 49 percent voting for Democrats.

"Part of the reason is definitely the president's toxic rhetoric is very anti-women and women are not ignoring that...There were a whole host of factors that were involved with the 2016 election, starting with two historically unpopular candidates," (" Pia Nargundkar, a pollster with the Democratic firm ALG Research) said, adding that many people in her focus groups seemed to believe that Trump would refrain from controversial behavior once he was elected. "In 2018, he's president, and he hasn't changed...And so when they're voting in 2018, I think his rhetoric is opening up these suburban women to look at Democrats for the first time."

In...2016...health care was not among the four issues voters cited as most important to them. In 2018, 41 percent of respondents said health care was the top issue facing the country. Democrats earned 75 percent of the votes of this group.

...Multiple Republican candidates, and Trump, emphasized their support for protecting pre-existing conditions in the weeks leading up to the midterm election, while backing policies which allowed insurers to exclude expensive treatments from coverage offered to unhealthy customers.

https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking/416791-women-are-increasingly-...

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hits out at 'disgusting' media publishing fake nude image
Ed Pilkington | Jan 10, 2019

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jan/10/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-hits-ou...

The Handmaid's Tale in the Trump administration: scary to think what some Trump appointees would do to American women's freedom...

Scott Lloyd’s Anti-Abortion Ideology Is Harming the People His Agency Is Supposed to Protect
Brigitte Amiri, Deputy Director, ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project | March 1, 2018

In March 2017, President Trump appointed Scott Lloyd to run a federal agency called the Office of Refugee Resettlement. Lloyd has almost no background in helping refugees. Instead, his main qualification for the job is that he spent his legal career furthering his anti-abortion ideology based on his religious beliefs.

So it should have been no surprise that when Lloyd took office he began imposing his religious views about abortion on the marginalized population that he is supposed help. That population includes unaccompanied immigrant minors. These are young people who come to the United States without their parents, often fleeing unspeakable abuse or torture in their home countries. Many experience sexual assault as they make the journey.

...Lloyd also forces minors, or the government-contracted shelter where the minor resides, to tell her parents in her home country about the pregnancy and her abortion decision, even where the minor objects and even where doing so would be dangerous for her or other family members.

...In another particularly egregious situation, Lloyd attempted to intervene after a woman began the process of getting a medication abortion. After she took the first of two pills, demanded that she be taken to an emergency room to assess whether the pregnancy could be continued, including forcing her to have an unnecessary ultrasound. ORR even considered trying to “reverse” the medication abortion through an untested medical protocol against the young woman’s wishes...

https://www.aclu.org/blog/reproductive-freedom/abortion/scott-lloyds-anti-aborti...

>100 margd: When I read about this I was sick to my stomach. On Rachel Maddow's show she showed the spreadsheet where he keeps track of all underage women's menstrual cycle (and spelled menstrual wrong, to boot). *skin crawling*

There's some prohibition against spending federal dollars on abortion, so I can appreciate the dilemma when feds hold unaccompanied immigrant minors. It sounds like he was holding these girls primarily to continue the pregnancies, though. Also, like you say, the minute level of record-keeping by a government that couldn't keep track of parents and children they separated! My skin crawled also, and I couldn't help but recall The Handmaid's Tale--and worry about influence of VP Pence and his ilk..

Georgia governor signs bill to ban abortion after six weeks

In the first few months of 2019, six-week abortion bans have been signed into law in four states: Mississippi, Kentucky, Ohio and now Georgia.

Tennessee, Missouri, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Louisiana and West Virginia are considering similar proposals.

The Georgia bill is particularly onerous because it imposes criminal punishments on women who seek abortions, provides for homicide investigation of miscarriages, and also imposes criminal charges on women who travel out of state to obtain an abortion or anyone who helps them do so.

Alabama is also one of the states considering similar proposals, again with criminal penalties.

Suggested reading or rereading: The Handmaid's Tale, When She Woke, Red Clocks

I also read a chilling short story by M. Rickert imagining a future where women are retroactively executed for having an abortion by firing squad on football fields in front of vast crowds. Doesn't seem so far-fetched in the current climate.

Beware Biden and O'Rourke. Everything possible should be done to derail their candidacies.

>104 sturlington:

Well, remember that dickhead shit The Atlantic was happy to employ despite the fact that he wanted to see women who abort hanged? So, yeah. Not a dystopia. Routine daily news feed.

Besides, women are already being prosecuted and imprisoned in the US for things like suspected abortion when they have miscarriages (I remember posting years ago a NYT op-ed on it), or as in this case--a woman refused C-section to deliver one of her twin babies and was charged with murder because the baby died was born stillborn. Jessica Valenti's thread:

https://twitter.com/JessicaValenti/status/1126589060116635648

>104 sturlington:

The particularly chilling fact is that The Handmaid's Tale was written in the 80s. None of us had ANY idea then that the near future would see any danger of it coming to pass. Though Gilead would never come about under Trump of course - however a Christian Right GOP president is another matter, and the Trump backlash can't rule out that possibility.

This is the GOPer's long-planned-for war on women. Trump is the life-long con they chose to help them carry it out.

..."the GOPer's long-planned-for war on women." ...

(this is an example of what Orwell referred to as "political language.")

There must be even more idiotic, stupider, more socially-destructive and needless utter bullshit than this much-repeated "meme," so dear to brain-dead feminists, but I am having a hard time just now coming up with an example of it.


There's no "war on women" outside the fevered delusions of certain feminists. But, repeat this idiocy enough, over a long enough time, in the presence of enough young, impressionable women, and one can help bring about one of most absurd and harmful of self-fulfilling idiocies; simply by convincing them that there is "something to" this assertion, young women (and some men, of course) may start to act as though there was indeed a war on women.

Now, a few things stand to reason:

For example, if there were a "GOPers" "war on women," how would the women in the Republican party figure in it?

Think!:

in the "war on women," supposedly being led by the (U.S.)
Republican party, women are apparently part of the party's war on their own gender. Please explain what they are doing for "the cause."

Also, please note, women: there are obviously a great many of "you"—your own gender—intimately mixed in with the "enemy"-men members of the GOP. Why aren't you busy recruiting any number of these well-placed women into your counter-effort to defeat the "enemy" forces (male and female) in this war? You ought, indeed, to have had offers from some of your own, ready to act as double-agents inside the inner-workings of the enemy's war-effort, right?

So, care to share some of the less-sensitive aspects of the information gained from these agents? Surely they'd have conveyed something which is translatable into the popular press' organs. So, whaddya got on that?

___________________

Now, this next is addressed to others of you— women: the best and the brightest among you:

Where is your "push-back" against this insane nonsense?! It really looks very, very, very bad when we do not find a single woman ready to speak up here as a woman and declare, words to the effect of

"Hey, 'Sisters' of mine: I'm a woman and I find this idiocy extremely offensive and embarrassing to our gender. Those of you pushing this 'war-on-women' stuff are insulting those women who are members of the GOP. They cannot all be morons. Stop this participating in this nonsense. Imagine a social cause—any social cause you deem desirable, no matter what it is, beyond the confines of a single family. Now, imagine that cause stripped of its male-component. How would you like that? Is there anything you advocate which should not be potentially harmed, possibly seriously harmed, if this nonsense were to really catch on? We're allowing our own gender-malcontents to spread a potentially deeply destructive meme in our midst and there is no good reason or excuse for this."

If there are women speaking out to that effect, where are they on this forum!?

You know there are women who are quite intelligent enough to understand all the just-mentioned. So where are they?

I can think of only one strong reason why virtually no woman has "stepped up" and joined in countering this idiocy and that reason is not flattering.

Are you all a bunch of cowards?!

You ought to be ashamed of your gender that not a single one of you reading this has enough nerve to stand up and join in objecting. Why aren't you speaking up if you aren't a coward?

Not even one of you has the guts to combine with the good sense to help oppose rank idiocy?

"I am woman, hear me roar!" LMFAO!

THIS is also the face of "the enemy"!?!? :


( Sarah Huckabee Sanders, 29th White House Press Secretary
Incumbent
_________________________________

... "Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind." ... —George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NclJj1h_MW4

(Michelle Wolf)

>109 proximity1:

If we don't have control over the bodies in which we live, we are prisoners in a war zone.

No use feeding the trolls, people.

>111 Molly3028:

I pity you (and any minor children who may come under your authority and guidance).

"If we don't have control over the bodies in which we live, we are prisoners in a war zone."*

Tell that to your oncologist.


(http://canceraidsocietyindia.org/common-cancer/cancer-sites/)

And be sure to read up on the Geneva Conventions relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Geneva July 27, 1929. You have numerous rights if captured by the enemy. You need not supply any information other than your name, rank and (military) serial-number to your captors and you have numerous other rights as a prisoner-of-war. The United States are a signatory nation.

_________________________________


Images from real war-zones:


(Verdun)


(Guadalcanal)


(Dresden)


(Vietnam)


(Aleppo, Syria)


(Gaza)

The fight for Roe just got red hot because of white males in the Bama Legislature.

>114 Molly3028:

Really? So, tell us: who are State Rep. Terri Collins (R-Decatur) and Connie Rowe (R-Jasper)* ?

Alabama's Governor Kay Ivey is a woman. The act needs her signature or, failing that, it has to be passed over her veto.

No Alabama House members except 2 men opposed HB314 on final passage. Thus, all the House's women members who voted supported the bill.

Who you gonna call? "Ghostbusters"?
_____________________________

*

... "In the legislature, Rowe – in addition to continuing her service as GOP caucus vice chair – is the vice chair of both the powerful House Rules Committee and the House Military and Veterans Affairs Committee." ...

Could abortion become illegal in America? All signs point to yes

Chances that the US could break up in the 21st century getting better by the hour. I picture white Taliban dickheads in the South cultivating poppies and the fine arts of cocksucking and goat-buggering as women flee to civilization.

An idyll of sorts.

For women in Alabama and Georgia, these laws are the equivalent of the antebellum Dred Scott v. Sandford decision and the Fugitive Slave Act.

>117 theoria:

Yes. People have to stop thinking of women as biological accessories to men and consider this is happening to people.

This piece of shamefulness needs to be remembered forever too:

UN waters down rape resolution to appease US's hardline abortion stance

As at the start of the thread, so continuosly: Trump's administration and supporters are relentless oppressors and killers of women. This will not stand.

>116 LolaWalser:, >117 theoria:

This has become frightening. I don't think 'the US could break up in the 21st century' is an exaggeration at all.

And the comparison in#117 is apt.

These 25 Republicans – all white men – just voted to ban abortion in Alabama

The gallery of turds:

Motherhood in Alabama, by the Numbers

In Alabama, a state that just passed a total ban on abortion, more than a quarter of children live in poverty; 30 percent of those children are under the age of five.

Only half of Alabama’s 67 counties have an obstetrician. (...)

Child care costs for families with two children—an infant and a four year old—cost 28 percent more than the average rent in the state.

About 88 percent of Alabama’s rural hospitals are operating “in the red.”

Alabama has the second highest infant mortality rate in the country. (...)

More children are living in poverty in Alabama now than they were almost 20 years ago, and the state has the fifth highest child poverty rate in the country.

Alabama’s child food insecurity rate is 22.5 percent. The national average is 17.5 percent.

There are no maternity leave or family leave laws in the state of Alabama.

Alabama is the sixth poorest state in the country, its most impoverished regions are predominantly black.

Needless to say, regarding all the southern states passing or contemplating these laws, it's the poor--also meaning proportionally more black than white--who will be hit the hardest by this inhuman shit. Just another stab and twist by the racist knife.

What a country. What a shithole.

This is on you too, Killarian scum. This is on you:

'​You just said to my daughter, you don't matter ' – senator reacts to Alabama abortion ban – video

>118 LolaWalser:

"Yes. People have to stop thinking of women as biological accessories to men and consider this is happening to people."

LOL !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Personally, I just don't see this happening. My own parents, for example, got together for a frank discussion on how we, their children, would be raised, what we'd be taught to hold dear, etc.

First on their list, "If we have boys, they're to be raised to think of women as biological accessories"--my mother, especially, insisted on this. At first, my father hesitated. He wasn't fully on board with that. But she told him straight out, "Well, then, that's a 'deal-breaker,' dear. Our boys, if we have them, are going to keep women on a key-chain from the time they're old enough to drive."

So Dad relented. "If you insist," he said, at last. In our house, Mother, not Father knew best. In any case, as my mother was also quick to point out, "What have you got to do with it, anyway? You're going to be at work. I'm the one who'll be raising our babies. I decide these matters. It's simple practicality."

Now, the Alabama State Senate vote concerning House Bill 314,

the vote on the Motion to Read a Third Time and Pass, went this way,

Those voting "No", that is, voting to oppose adoption of this bill which made nearly all abortions a Class "C" felony, were as follows

(D) : Democrats (R): Republicans

Sen. Greg Albritton, (R)
Sen. Gerald Allen, (R)
Sen. Will Barfoot, (R)
Sen. William "Billy" M. Beasley, (D) N
Sen. David "Coach" Burkette, (D) N
Sen. Tom Butler, (D) ..................................Y
Sen. Clyde Chambliss Jr., (R)
Sen. Donnie Chesteen, (R)
Sen. Linda Coleman-Madison, (D) N
Sen. Priscilla Dunn, (D) ................................ABSENT
Sen. Chris Elliott, Chris (R)
Sen. Vivian Davis Figures, (D) ..........................N
Sen. Sam Givhan, (R)
Sen. Garlan Gudger, (R)
Sen. Jimmy W. Holley, (R) ..................... ABSENT
Sen. Andrew Jones, (R)
Sen. Steve Livingston, (R)
Sen. Del Marsh, (R)
Sen. Jim McClendon, (R)
Sen.Tim Melson, (R)
Sen. Arthur Orr, (R)
Sen. Randy Price, (R)
Sen. Greg Reed, (R)
Sen. Dan Roberts, (R)
Sen. Malika Sanders-Fortier, (D) ............... ABSTAINED
Sen. Clay Scofield, (R)
Sen. David Sessions, David (R)
Sen. Shay Shelnutt, (R)
Sen. Booby Singleton, (D)
Sen. Rodger M. Smitherman, (D)
Sen. Larry Stutts, Larry (R)
Sen. J. T. “Jabo” Waggoner, (R)
Sen. Robert Cameron Ward, (R) ................ ABSENT
Sen. Thomas M. Whatley, (R)
Sen. Williams, Phillip "Phillip" W. (R)

All Republicans, unless otherwise noted, voted "Y" (in favor of the bill's adoption.)

All Democrats who voted, with one exception (Tom BUTLER), voted "N" (against the bill's adoption)

Among Democratic Party women Senators,
Sen. Priscilla Dunn, (D) was ABSENT
and
Sen. Malika Sanders-Fortier, (D) ABSTAINED.

IN the HOUSE VOTE on final adoption,

___________________________________________

Alabama State House of Reps. House Bill 314
Motion to Read a Third Time and Pass :

(Women House Members' names are shown in boldface)

Rep. Alexander, Louise (D) ABSENT
Rep. Allen, Wes (R)
Rep. Baker, Alan (R)
Rep. Ball, Mike (R)
Rep. Blackshear, Chris (R)
Rep. Boyd, Barbara Bigsby (D) ABSENT
Rep. Bracy Jr., Napoleon (D) ABSENT
Rep. Brown, Chip (R)
Rep. Brown, K.L. "Koven" (R)
Rep. Carns, Jim (R)
Rep. Chestnut, Prince (D) ABSENT
Rep. Clarke, Adline Cecline (D) ABSENT
Rep. Clouse, Steve (R)
Rep. Coleman-Evans, Merika (D) ABSENT
Rep. Collins, Terri (R) the Bill’s Sponsor
Rep. Crawford, Danny (R)
Rep. Daniels, Anthony (D) ABSENT
Rep. Dismukes, Will (R)
Rep. Drake, Dickie (R)
Rep. Drummond, Barbara (D) ABSENT
Rep. Easterbrook, Brett (R)
Rep. Ellis, Corley (R)
Rep. England, Christopher John (D) ABSENT
Rep. Estes, Tracy (R)
Rep. Farley, Allen (R)
Rep. Faulkner, David (R)
Rep. Faust Sr., Joe (R)
Rep. Fincher, Bob (R)
Rep. Forte, Berry (D) ABSENT
Rep. Fridy, Matt (R)
Rep. Garrett, Danny (R)
Rep. Gaston, Victor (R)
Rep. Givan, Juandalynn "Lee Lee" (D) ABSENT
Rep. Gray, Jeremy "Mr Eyg" (D) ABSENT
Rep. Greer, Lynn (R)
Rep. Grimsley, Dexter (D) ABSENT
Rep. Hall, Laura (D) ABSENT
Rep. Hanes Jr., James "Tommy" T. (R)
Rep. Harbison, Corey (R)
Rep. Hatcher, Kirk (D) ABSENT
Rep. Hill, Jim (R)
Rep. Hollis, Rolanda (D) ABSENT
Rep. Holmes, Mike (R)
Rep. Howard, Ralph A. (D) ABSENT
Rep. Hurst, Stephen "Steven" W. (R)
Rep. Ingram, Reed (R)
Rep. Isbell, Gil F. (R)
Rep. Jackson, Thomas "Action" E. (D) ABSENT
Rep. Johnson, Ronald G. (R)
Rep. Jones Jr., Mike (R)
Rep. Jones, Sam (D) ABSENT
Rep. Kiel, Jamie (R)
Rep. Kitchens, Wes (R)
Rep. Lawrence, Kelvin J. (D) ABSENT
Rep. Ledbetter, Nathaniel (R)
Rep. Lee, Paul (R)
Rep. Lipscomb, Craig (R)
Rep. Lovvorn, Joe (R)
Rep. Marques, Rhett (R)
Rep. Martin, James "Jimmy" M. (R) ABSENT
Rep. McCampbell, Artis "A J" (D) ABSENT
Rep. McClammy, Thad (D) ABSENT
Rep. McCutcheon, Mac (R)
Rep. McMillan, Steve (R)
Rep. Mooney, Arnold (R)
Rep. Moore, Mary (D) VOTED “N”
Rep. Moore, Parker Duncan (R)
Rep. Morris, TaShina (D) ABSENT
Rep. Nordgren, Becky (R)
Rep. Oliver, Ed (R)
Rep. Pettus, Phillip (R)
Rep. Poole, William "Bill" (R)
Rep. Pringle, Chris (R)
Rep. Rafferty, Neil (D) ABSENT
Rep. Reynolds, Rex (R)
Rep. Rich, Kerry (R)
Rep. Robertson, Proncey (R)
Rep. Rogers Jr., John W. (D) VOTED “N”
Rep. Rowe, Connie Cooner (R)
Rep. Sanderford, Howard (R)
Rep. Scott, Roderick "Rod" (D) VOTED “N”
Rep. Sells, Chris (R) ABSENT
Rep. Shaver, Ginny (R) VOTED “Y”
Rep. Shedd, Randall (R)
Rep. Shiver, Harry (R)
Rep. Simpson, Matt (R)
Rep. Sorrell, Andrew (R)
Rep. Sorrells, Jeff (R)
Rep. South, Kyle (R)
Rep. Stadthagen, Scott (R)
Rep. Standridge, David (R)
Rep. Stringer, Shane (R)
Rep. Sullivan, Rodney (R)
Rep. Treadaway, Allen (R)
Rep. Wadsworth, Timothy R. (R)
Rep. Warren, Pebblin W. (D) ABSENT
Rep. Weaver, April (R) VOTED “Y”
Rep. Wheeler, David (R)
Rep. Whitt, Andy (R)
Rep. Whorton, Ritchie (R)
Rep. Wilcox, Margie (R) VOTED “Y”
Rep. Wingo, Rich (R)
Rep. Wood, Debbie Hamby (R) VOTED “Y”
Rep. Wood, Randy (R)

________________________________

So, with rare exceptions, the Democrats in the Alabama House and Senate chose to adopt as a protest the legislative equivalent of "pouting" by either abstaining from casting a vote or by not even showing up for the vote.

Only one female House member cast a vote of "No" :
Rep. Moore, Mary (D) VOTED “N”

All other Democratic Party House members who bothered to vote "NO" were men:

Rep. Scott, Roderick "Rod" (D) VOTED “N”
Rep. Rogers Jr., John W. (D) VOTED “N”

One Democratic Party member in the Senate voted in favor of the bill : Sen. Butler, Tom D.

In the House, all Republicans who were present and voting, voted in favor of the bill.

>117 theoria: "For women in Alabama and Georgia, these laws are the equivalent of the antebellum Dred Scott v. Sandford decision and the Fugitive Slave Act."

Really?

Well, that's very odd since, unlike the effect of Dred Scott v. Sandford, no woman who desires to leave Alabama--for whatever purpose (legal outside the state of Alabama)--shall be officially or informally barred from leaving the state. Moreover, on "escaping" from Alabama, she shall not be "sent back" there if she should seek to have an abortion which she's unable to obtain in Alabama. (Amended) Still, the Act has not yet been signed into law and it is not certain to survive a court challenge if and when it is signed into law.

But, even if it does survive a court challenge, there is no abortion-law equivalent of the Fugitive Slave Act, contrary to your assertion that Alabama's women shall consider the Act just passed there to be tantamount to that.

Someone is sure to inform them that they are free to seek an abortion beyond the state of Alabama's borders--provided, of course, that this is a financially-feasible option, and granting that for a good many, it shall not be.

... "As today’s bill itself recognizes, that longstanding abortion law has been rendered “unenforceable as a result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.”

"No matter one’s personal view on abortion, we can all recognize that, at least for the short term, this bill may similarly be unenforceable. As citizens of this great country, we must always respect the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court even when we disagree with their decisions. " ...

Sure wish this kind of energy could be directed to eliminating CO2 emissions:
in the end, it might help preserve more people and more of the R's cherished way of life.

Driving through some secondary highways of Alabama a few years ago, I was depressed to think that further in, people no doubt had even less.
Later, when Hurricane Michael blew through after strengthening in the warmed waters of the Gulf, authorities were hard pressed to reach these folks.

#123--what you call 'pouting' might just be these people not wanting their names associated with such a despicable piece of legislation in any way. Bearing in mind that the Alabama House is something like 77 republicans to 28 democrats one might look at voting at all on this as rubber stamping a fait accompli.

Personally maybe there should be legislation in the US Congress to take away Alabama's statehood--let them float around for a while on their own. We could replace them with Puerto Rico.

>125 margd:

The Repugnants don't give a crap about the environment, never did, never will. That whole side has long passed the point of any rationalizable politics into time-and-space warping absurdity. A gaggle of pathetic white dicks desperately clinging to power because without it, without wreaking destruction on others, the scum can't tell themselves they exist.

And it's so pointless! What haven't black people in the US endured, or women anywhere? These despicable monster clowns are only cementing the hideous reputations they'll leave behind in history and nothing, not a thing, else. The more extreme and sadistic their politics, the more obvious their utter moral bankruptcy and the inevitability of their defeat.

Anyway it's the republican version of Sharia law for Alabama.

There's no war on women. This thread is fanatical, delusional, and extremely offensive. Creepy, too. People can disagree without resorting to this nonsense. Non-sense. See what I did there? All you have to do is look at a sonogram. There's your answer.

I have spoken to the moderators about some of the participants here over the years, such as the ones who can't write a sentence without dropping the F bomb, but I'm afraid the moderators are just as prone to the disease of abstraction as the fanatics. Perhaps that comes from reading too many books. And who knows? If the fanatics here weren't drooling on this web site every day to vent their frustration, they might be the next shooters.

>129 barney67: f bomb...fractious? flatulent? fucking fool? farcical fandango? fingent? fictile? formicant? festering fucking friedbrain old fart?

>130 RickHarsch: I believe >129 barney67: himself was given a timeout from librarything in the past year for dropping F bombs. He knows what he's talking about.

I know. Felicitous

>120 LolaWalser:

HB 314 sponsor,



State House Rep. Terri Collins, (R)

in addition to which, these women, members of the Alabama State House of Representatives,



Rep. Ginny Shaver, (R) VOTED “Y”



Rep. April Weaver, (R) VOTED “Y”




Rep. Margie Wilcox (R) VOTED “Y”



Rep. Debbie Hamby Wood (R) VOTED “Y”

Indeed, every one of the Republican women who are members of the Alabama legislature present and voting voted in favor of the bill.

As for the state's senators, only four of the 35 senators are women and all four are Deomocrats--

SENATOR Linda COLEMAN-MADISON, voted "No."

Sen. Priscilla DUNN, ........................ was ABSENT.

Sen. Vivian Davis FIGURES ............... voted "No."

Sen. Malika Sanders-Fortier ............. ABSTAINED.


So much for women in public office.

Meet The Alabama Doctor Who Could Face 99 Years In Prison For Providing Abortions Under New Law

"You face more time in prison than a rapist."

From the transcript:

we we know that legislation like this affect women of

color and those women from lower socioeconomic status the most

we know

that those that have means will always have access to the care that they need

and so the patients that I serve

those are going to be the ones that are most affected by this decision

and then to see that the representatives that voted in favor of this

none of them look like us none of them represented us

it was all men

none of whom will ever know what it's like to carry a pregnancy

or to have to make a hard decision to end a pregnancy

none of them were people of color that even know some of the things that we go through

coming from a background where you don't always have the finances that you need

for just basic things in life and how that can really play a part in you

having to make the decision not to have another baby

and it it just looking at

the picture of those that voted for this bill was enough to cause outrage

for women and especially women of color

A travel advisory for American women
Ann Telnaes Editorial cartoonist | May 14, 2019

(Travel Advisory for Women: Georgia, Mississippi, Ohio, Kentucky, Alabama)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/05/14/travel-advisory-american-wome...

More War News :

"U.S. President Donald Trump, currently waging a war on women, to meet British head of state, Queen Elizabeth, for a state visit in early June."

Shall Her Majesty be safe!? Shall they discuss the war?, consider avenues of a cessation of hostilities? Ought Trump be taken and held as a prisoner-of-war? Or is Britain itself an ally in this conflict? How could that possibly be?!, Her majesty being "Ma'am," and all!?

Bring back the fuckin' Rowan and Martin "Laugh-In"!

It's still more than a year until the election and the leprous orange turd has launched the main piece of his strategy--targeting women, women of colour in particular--because MISOGYNY and RACISM were and ARE his main weapons.

The thing is, he's not counting only on his knuckledraggers, he's not, alas, dependent only on them for victory.

Is the asshole bro self-styled "left" going to let him win again? Or is there perhaps, after three years of the greatest shitshow on earth and this latest barrage of attacks on four women of colour, finally some readiness to acknowledge that discrimination against women and black people is a fundamental problem in society, not just a structural injustice but actually a political tool, a weapon that the American fascist regime is using (again) to consolidate its hold on power?

The responses in the media from the asshole bro self-styled "left" are abysmal. It's STILL the case that everyone but "white males" plays at something called "identity politics", and whatever those are, they are always only a lowly concern of the marginals, never a real issue like the "big" problems of the white men, those abstract beings who are the very definition of "human".

Maybe there's an increased chance among young new voters. Other than that, I don't know what else may serve optimism.

The Republican party and Trump know where their base is and they know that black people and brown people are not going to vote for them. They want to keep the same old power dynamic of a white patriarchy. There are too many people comfortable with the same old same old. The thing that they know even if it's shit. The thing is 'the squad' as they're now referred represent a fundamental and positive change to that dynamic and they're being demonized continually and it scares a lot of people. To me it's not just Trump that has to be swept away but the Biden's too because if they're not then we are going to have the climate disasters that the scientists have been promising us and we are going to continue to have the most fucked up health care system in the western world--amongst other things all negative. On too many important things there is no middle way and certainly climate is one of them. What we fail to do is going to fall on those who follow us.

If I were to guess it's going to be either Warren or Harris that will be the democratic nominee in 2020--I would prefer Warren but I could live with either.....and as for 'the squad' I expect they'll all be back too and hopefully there will be more like them.

I think Sanders and Warren are most believable as progressives, but it's tragic how feeble is whatever passes for "the left" in the US, how quick the Dem voters are to bend to the lunatic imperative to appeal to the enemy.

I don't think the candidate will be a woman. There's already tons of concern trolling among the Dems that takes Trump's attacks as proof that women can't win-a self-fulfilling prophecy. Disgusting as it is, I think the choice will fall (has already fallen) on Biden.

#140--FWIW the Senate and the House are two different animals--a lot of Senators look at each other as fellow club members. It's more of an old boy's thing not all that unlike Britain's House of Lords. The House is a lot more raucous. I don't care for Pelosi but she's got a tough job--she's not going hard enough to left but she's right to fear that the Dems will lose a lot of swing districts with such a fickle electorate but that's what keeps a lot of conservative democrats in place.....and the Republican controlled Senate refuses to do its job by bringing the House democrats legislation to a vote anyway--all the risk is on her. It's going to be an entirely wasted 4 years and the best that can be hoped for is to kill whatever it is they can that Trump and McConnell want to push through the House and to keep on investigating and keep on attacking and really Ocasio-Cortez and Omar and Warren have been doing a better job at that than anyone else.

For the Democrats the top 5 right now and the ones bringing in the money are Biden, Warren, Harris, Sanders, Buttigieg. They all have warts but Biden has by far the most skeletons in the closet. Kamala Harris is the most natural politician of them all. She is savvy. She could be really really good or she could be more like an Obama who was a bit too nice for his and our own good. When it comes to policy proposals Warren has been outstanding. Sanders is really an FDR style democrat--which is now I guess what is called a Democratic Socialist--he's consistently banged away at the same message for 35-40 years. Warren is the most like him but seems to have more real momentum. Biden doesn't really know where he stands on anything from one day to the next--he's the 'vote for me' candidate--a lazy choice. Buttigieg raises tons of money but doesn't have broad appeal and he's pretty short on substance. I think Biden falls eventually because of his skeletons and lack of real substance.....and he says stupid shit quite often. It's going to catch up with him.

>141 lriley:

Here's just one of the reasons I don't like Harris:

https://mondoweiss.net/2019/06/messages-mentions-gabbard/?fbclid=IwAR1cWzeaAjHgA...

That's an establishment candidate.

>141 lriley:

Sanders would be my choice precisely because he HAS been consistent on (relatively) progressive policies for so long.

I don't know much about Harris but the comparisons to Obama are not a positive in my view. People keep mixing two different things--the great victory of Obama's presidency was the symbolic defeat of racism, but not his policies. One can be happy to have seen a black person as the POTUS, appreciate that for what it was, as I was, without simultaneously loving their platform. And that victory was no small thing (obviously, as you are now paying for that excursion into "utopia" with the monstrosity of Trumpism). The US HAD to face its history honestly sooner or later, stop blinding itself with the propaganda and chauvinistic mythology. Obama's presidency was a start.

But Obama didn't change the basic problems with neoliberalism and American warmongering. If Harris is of the same bend, there's little real improvement to be expected. Some cosmetics to ease the pain here and there, like ACA...

Warren seems very determined and to me she appears trustworthy, but again, I think women would only be sacrificial lambs again. It would take a tremendous sea change among Dem voters to counter trumpist misogyny and I don't see it happening. If only there were some signs to indicate it might happen, but the sheer support for Biden is actually evidence of the opposite.

More on Democrat cannibalism:

https://theintercept.com/2019/07/16/morgan-harper-congressional-black-caucus-pri...

#142--not disagreeing.

#143--I don't like Harris a whole lot but she is a player and she is savvy. I do know in her own state of California---which is maybe as left a state as there is--at least in the top 3--there are plenty of people who don't like her because of her time as attorney general. As I said she has warts too. Donald Trump's treasury secretary Steve Mnuchin might be in prison if she had chosen to prosecute him for bank fraud. A lot of people lost their homes and savings because of Mnuchin...and a lot of people think she let him off the hook and it was the politics of letting the powerful be.

As for Obama he was disappointing I agree. Back in 2008/09 there were choices he could have made--I was expecting he was getting us out of the wars--he didn't and he pushed the droning of targets. And then he bailed out Wall St and left Main St. hanging.--prosecuted hardly anyone He had a chance to get behind the Occupy movement and instead helped to crush it. Even at the end he took the side of gas companies over Native Americans with the DAPL thing. The most positive thing I can say about his administration is it was relatively scandal free.

The vote is splitting right now on the lefter side of things between Warren and Sanders--on the center and right side of things between Biden, Harris and Buttigieg. Buttigieg appealing to the subsection of upper mobility young white college graduates. What I suspect as of now is that Warren is going to win out over Sanders and Harris over Biden and that Buttigieg will just never break out at all.

This is what Sanders has going for him--he can raise tons of money from smaller donors. He also has an army of young activists signed up and ready to go door to door. I don't think anyone approaches him on that. That said--for months his campaign has seemed to lack energy and maybe he's just biding his time because it's so early but the polling has not been great--though I don't trust polling altogether which seems to be more of a landline (older people) than a cell phone (younger people) thing. He is continually being attacked by the mainstream media--former republican congressman Joe Scarborough on MSNBC on his high horse all the times about the perils of socialism but he's hardly the only one. He's also not the favored son of the democratic party apparatus.

Too bad about the electorate's hankering for at least one Y chromosome--
one can't contemplate two women on the ticket
though Harris and Warren might be the strongest candidates when all is said and done.

Relieved to more and more hear the sentiment "vote blue no matter who".

#144--for those who don't know these are the Justice Democrats currently serving in Congress.

Alexandria Ocasio Cortez--who primaried and defeated Joe Crowley ( a member of the Democratic leadership). AOC is more representative of her left leaning mixed race district than Crowley ever was.
Ayannna Pressley--who primaried a ten term Mike Caputo in Mass.

Those two sent shock waves through the system but they also ushered in the year of the woman--very much about things were going to and had to change.

Ro Khanna--a 2nd term California congressman of Indian descent.
Rashida Tlaib--a first term Palestinian/Muslim American.
Ilhan Omar--a Somali born Minnesotan who moved into Keith Ellison's seat. Ellison Congress's first ever Muslim ran for Attorney General of his state.
Raul Grijalva--a New Mexican democrat who has been around for a while.
Pramilla Jayapal--a 2nd term representing a downtown Seattle district also of Indian descent.

So Justice democrats are diverse--women--minorities--they are the faces of the nation and the faces of the future.

There's also Our Revolution--an organization run by Nina Turner that also supported several of the above but also Jamie Raskin--a very good Maryland democrat and the somewhat controversial Hawaiian congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Chuy Garcia an Illinois congressman, Deb Haaland a New Mexican Native American congresswoman and Veronica Escobar a freshman congresswoman from Texas.

So primary challenges to democratic house members coming in 2020 so far (and the democratic party is doing it's utmost to stop primary challenges):

Jessica Cisneros is going after Henry Cuellar's seat in Texas. Cuellar is infamous for lending his support to Will Hurd a Texas republican who narrowly defeated his democratic opponent in 2018 and is one of the most conservative democrats in the House.

Marie Newman is going after Dan Lipinski's seat in Illinois--another notoriously conservative democrat.

Jamaal Bowman is going after Eliot Engel's seat in New York State. Engel another very conservative democrat is also the chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee. Bowman's district is similar to Ocasio-Cortez's in 2018 and he is more representative of his district than Engel.

McKayla Willkes is taking on Steny Hoyer--the No. 2 in the democratic party leadership after Nancy Pelosi. This is a Maryland district. All I can say is I hate Steny Hoyer. He is another very conservative democrat in my estimation.

......and your Morgan Harper vs. Joyce Beatty in Ohio.

Congressional seats do not and should not permanently belong to anyone.

So another subject is reparations--it's been talked about some--the only major candidate that's supporting it outright right now is Elizabeth Warren.

The idea behind it should be to change outcomes. The problem is the lack of equity and inherited wealth that is passed down from generation to generation in black families and it's a legacy that goes back to Slavery. Just cutting a check to every black person in the United States is not a good way to go about it--though it's fine if at the same time we make financial commitments to invest in black communities which would not only be great for those communities but should also be a boost to our economy. To continue as we have is going to leave black people and their communities impoverished--is going to mean further generations being left behind with a disproportionate lack of means and wealth. Poverty is a root cause of crime and black people are disproportionately imprisoned in this country of ours which has the highest incarceration rate on the planet. As well educational opportunities lag way behind in impoverished areas. These things are all fixable.

On how to pay for things. Tax corporations, tax the rich--particularly the most wealthy. Read David Vine's Base Nation and find out how much wealth we are throwing the military and the military industrial complex's way that could be better redistributed elsewhere. Choices--rather have generations of impoverished no hopers or a thriving less war happy society? We could easily cut military spending in half and still be well ahead of everyone else as far as military strength. And as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan all that military strength isn't enough to subjugate people who refuse to be subjugated. So who benefits from it?

>148 lriley: In the current climate investing in black communities means tearing down affordable housing and gentrifying the neighborhood.

It's difficult to provide large settlements without attracting vultures.

One exception might be free tuition to accredited, public colleges and universities--institutions like those eligible for 529 savings programs, not the for-profit ones ripping off returning soldiers.

No one can steal a diploma from you. In book The Millionaire Next Door, school expenses were regarded as the only problem-free gifts to the next generation.

#150--I know but I had more in mind investing in people--setting up small businesses--getting people to work in at least living wage jobs--helping kids through college--stuff like that. Targeting ordinary people with ideas and not allowing large corporations or already wealth people to use the program. The way to build an equitable society is from the bottom up--not from the top down and some things will fail but not everything. You have to spread the wealth around and the trickle down ideas of neo-liberal/conservatives fail society as a whole--there is no really good reason for a billionaire---that doesn't mean you have to tear the entire economic system apart but it definitely needs to be re-worked.

>151 margd: For low-income students free tuition isn't enough. You at least have to provide for fees, books, and supplies as well as living expenses. You'd probably also want a support system that includes tutoring to make up for their likely poor elementary and high school education.

>152 lriley: Agreed.

How very interesting.

...Trump ... is not a racist” and that the president had spoken out of “frustration.”

It's how abusers of women are not misogynist, they are just frustrated and lash out when "provoked".

Garbage one and all.

#155--the Republican caucus is almost entirely white men--I'd rough guess that there are maybe 15-20 women. Maybe a half dozen Hispanics. So it's not super surprising they voted as they did. Not sure they have any black congresspeople--they use to have Mia Love from Utah but she lost her seat in the last election....after which Donald Hitler threw her under the bus. They have Tim Scott--South Carolina senator and that might be it for their black people......and that's pretty stark especially when they go on about being the party of Lincoln. They represent one constituency. That's it.

Atrocious.

Trump rally crowd chants 'send her back' after president attacks Ilhan Omar

As Joseph Welch, chief counsel for the United States Army while it was under investigation for Communist activities by Senator Joseph McCarthy's Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations said to Senator McCarthy during the Army-McCarthy Hearings in Washington, D.C. (9 June 1954):

...Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty, or your recklessness." (defends young lawyer)

...Little did I dream you could be so reckless and so cruel as to do an injury to that lad...I fear he shall always bear a scar needlessly inflicted by you. If it were in my power to forgive you for your reckless cruelty, I would do so. I like to think I'm a gentle man, but your forgiveness will have to come from someone other than me.

...Let us not assassinate this lad further, Senator.

...You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/welch-mccarthy.html

This thread is hysterical nonsense. How many people in America believe any of this crap? Seven?

It's not racist to say if you don't like the country, leave it. The race card has been played so often that now people don't even know what racism is. They simply say it because they are angry and they have nothing else. Sad and pathetic.

#160--Trump loves his country so much that he refused to fight for it when called on--getting multiple deferments for phony medical issues during the Vietnam War. Now he plays the super patriot game typical of other chicken hawks which by the way is also a term for adults who prey sexually on children--see friendship with and mention in Jeffrey Epstein's black book.

So his love it or leave it is just bullshit and the people who suck it up are frankly just idiots.

>161 lriley: Do you think Barney knows that Puerto Ricans are US citizens?

#162--he probably doesn't know they are.

But if we look at what went on last night we have a POTUS trying to incite at least some of his followers to violent acts.

Yet another attack on millions of primarily low-income women.

Planned Parenthood abandons Title X funds over Trump 'gag rule'

More than 200 members of Congress urge US supreme court to reconsider Roe v Wade

Appeal in an amicus brief in a Louisiana case was signed by 205 Republicans and two Democrats

#165--Virginia very recently ratified the Equal Rights amendment. That was significant because for an amendment to become constitutional it needs 38 states to ratify and Virginia was No. 38. This is what those 207 are trying to stop---and it's basically the will of the people because statewide even if not congressional district wide these are the decisions that the voters have made and the 207 voting to stop Roe vs. Wade are opposing the will of the people of the United States. State wide decisions always should always take preference over district wide. Nation wide over state. These 207 are on the wrong side of both counts. The two democrats in particular should be ashamed of themselves.

#165--looking at the link the two Democrats are Daniel Lipinski who is being primaried by a Justice Democrat (as in the group who sponsored AOC, Omar and Tlaib) Marie Newman and the other is Collin Peterson. They are both notorious for being on the right side of the party. The DCCC has taken measures to stop democrats from primarying other democrats. It's obvious we'd be better off without either of them but it will be interesting to see if the DCCC defends Lipinski against Newman. If they do defend Lipinski it will just show how fucked up the democratic party is and why the center and the center right of the party are the real problem. It's a litmus test but one the DCCC should pass.....not fail. We shall see. Get rid of Lipinski.

How does filing a brief in an abortion case affect the adoption of the ERA? I don't see the connection

Trump will be 'first president in history' to attend anti-abortion march

Coming next, Trumpo individually sucking off each and every evangelical turd and twat for that sweet, necessary vote in November.

And while he's at it: Trump Moves to Block Visas for Pregnant Women on 'Birth Tourism'

Oh, yeah, birth tourism to the US, I'm sure that's all the rage, particularly among the indigent--come and have a baby in the only "developed" country in the world that hates children so much it doesn't even offer paid maternal leave (to say nothing of paternal). Where they routinely kick you out of the hospital the day after giving birth and a single medical bill can bankrupt you.

Nah, it's not about "birth tourism"--just some assholing on the cheap for this cheap Ugly American asshole.

Actually, "birth tourism" is quite an industry; and Trump has profited from it in the past.

From 2017:

Russians Flock to Trump Properties to Give Birth to U.S. Citizens

There were a lot of international families visiting Disney last week. Betcha a few of those ladies were pregnant--surely Disney and such tourist spots will have an opinion on latest Trumpian campaign. Except that such tourists must be relatively well-heeled and not really the target?

>172 margd:

That's the thing, Trumpo and his repugnant minions paint this as a giant scam by the "Mexican rapists" and the unwashed poor whereas--my point--it's something far more likely to be done by the well-off.

Illegal immigrants having babies in the US isn't "birth tourism", it's just existing where you work--at horrible jobs for small pay and with zero security.

Shit coming out of both Trumpo's ends, the rapist swine lashes out at women, who's surprised?

This is the filthy baboon's ass magats can't kiss enough.

From pandering to Putin to abusing allies and ignoring his own advisers, Trump's phone calls alarm US officials

Attacking key ally leaders -- especially women

But his most vicious attacks, said the sources, were aimed at women heads of state. In conversations with both May and Merkel, the President demeaned and denigrated them in diatribes described as "near-sadistic" by one of the sources and confirmed by others. "Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her 'stupid,' and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians ... He's toughest {in the phone calls} with those he looks at as weaklings and weakest with the ones he ought to be tough with."
The calls "are so unusual," confirmed a German official, that special measures were taken in Berlin to ensure that their contents remained secret. The official described Trump's behavior with Merkel in the calls as "very aggressive" and said that the circle of German officials involved in monitoring Merkel's calls with Trump has shrunk: "It's just a small circle of people who are involved and the reason, the main reason, is that they are indeed problematic."

Trump's conversations with May, the UK Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019, were described as "humiliating and bullying," with Trump attacking her as "a fool" and spineless in her approach to Brexit, NATO and immigration matters.
"He'd get agitated about something with Theresa May, then he'd get nasty with her on the phone call," One source said. "It's the same interaction in every setting -- coronavirus or Brexit -- with just no filter applied."

Ahahahaha!: "Merkel remained calm and outwardly unruffled in the face of Trump's attacks —"like water off a duck's back," in the words of one source -- and she regularly countered his bluster with recitations of fact."

Pathetic stinking bully raving at women while servicing Putin and Erdogan like a two-bit whore at the train station, lol. Yeah, what a leader.

https://www.dailywire.com/news/thyself-is-thy-master-the-satanic-temple-claims-r...

Well, the Satanic Temple cares about women at least. I think this is a brilliant organization. They want to help good people decide that religious freedom is outdated. This is a good step towards gaining some recognition. While all of the abortion lovers can largely ignore this article, the Satanic Temple can work a few bugs out before the big push against religious freedom comes to the forefront.

I know John likes all religion, being equal as they are.

Endgame for American fascists' rape of women's rights:

Who is Amy Coney Barrett? Trump's anti-abortion supreme court nominee

Every sperm is sacred and every foetus a human being--but grown women? Reproductive furniture.

#176--Coney Barrett is basically a throwback to the 19th century. Given her worldview one wonders why she even decided to have a professional life. This People of Praise outfit she belongs to is pretty bizarre in a relicky way. And it figures that Trump who doesn't have a religious bone in his body would nominate her. This country has pretty much hit rock bottom.

If they get her through and the democrats win back the Senate and don't move to expand the Supreme Court it will just show once again how weak they are. Sooner or later you got to fight back. Talk is cheap.

Amy Coney Barrett will most likely be an icon for women who
prefer a 1950's America over a 2020's America. She is a Michele
Bachmann clone and the last person who should be in a Supreme seat.

#178--agreed.

>178 Molly3028: Fortunately, she won't be the last person in a Supreme Court seat. Thomas and Alito are both getting up there. If there's a god and god is good, both of them will drop dead on January 21. If there isn't a god, it's still reasonable odds that at least one of them will be replaced in the next term.

watch this space