If you watch one thing today, please make it this from
@Lawrence. I implore you. Absolute fire.🔥🔥🔥
In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned, here’s some resources:
1. AbortionFinder.org
2. Planned Parenthood’s Find a Health Center
3. ABC News’ state-by-state legality list
4. Politico’s state-by-state legality list
Abortion-friendly (one asterisk indicates potential change and two asterisks indicate some limitations) U.S. states include:
Alaska
Arizona*
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
D.C.
Florida**
Georgia*
Hawaii
Illinois
Indiana**
Iowa**
Kansas**
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan*
Minnesota
Montana
Nebraska**
Nevada**
New Jersey
New Hampshire**
New Mexico
New York**
North Carolina*
Ohio*
Oregon
Pennsylvania**
Rhode Island
South Carolina*
Vermont
Virginia**
Washington
5. Finally, an important reminder: Research Shows Access to Legal Abortion Improves Women’s Lives
The mainstream media has historically tried to balance left and right in its political coverage, and present what it views as a reasonable center.
That may sound good in theory. But the old politics no longer exists and the former labels “left” versus “right” are outdated.
Today it’s democracy versus authoritarianism, voting rights versus white supremacy. There’s no reasonable center between these positions, no justifiable compromise. Equating them is misleading and dangerous.
You hear the mainstream media say, for example, that certain “Republican and Democratic lawmakers are emerging as troublemakers within their parties.” These reports equate Republican lawmakers who are actively promoting Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, with Democratic lawmakers who are fighting to extend health care and other programs to help people.
These are not equivalent. Trump’s big lie is a direct challenge to American democracy. Even if you disagree with providing Americans better access to health care, it won’t destroy our system of government.
You also hear that both sides are gripped by equally dangerous extremism. Labeling them “radical left” and “radical right” suggests that the responsible position is somehow between these so-called extremes.
Can we get real? One side is trying to protect and preserve voting rights. The other side is trying to suppress votes under the guise of “election integrity.”
But there isn’t and never was a problem of “election integrity.” The whole issue of “election integrity” in the 2020 election was manufactured by Donald Trump and his big lie about voter fraud, and was bought and propagated by the Republican Party.
Today’s Republican Party is behind what historians regard as the biggest attack on voting rights since Jim Crow, but the media frames this as a right-versus-left battle that’s just politics as usual. Equating the two sides is false and dangerous.
Or compare the coverage of Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, on one hand, with the coverage of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar on the other. You’d think they were all equally out of the mainstream, some on the extreme right, some on the extreme left. That’s bunk.
Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert, in addition to spreading dangerous conspiracy theories, harassing colleagues, and promoting bigotry, don’t actually legislate or do anything for their constituents. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar both organize to help everyday people, deliver for their constituents, and have pushed legislation to provide universal school meals, expand affordable housing, and combat the climate crisis.
Equating all these lawmakers suggests that the responsible position is halfway between hateful, delusional conspiracy theories on the one hand, and efforts to fight white supremacy, save the planet, and empower working people on the other.
It’s similar to what the media did following Donald Trump’s infamous condemnation of “both sides” after the deadly violence sparked by neo-Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. In the ensuing weeks, America’s six top mainstream newspapers used just as much space condemning anti-Nazi counter-protesters as they did actual neo-Nazis.
But research shows white supremacists pose a significantly graver threat than those trying to stop them. White supremacists are animated by racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry, violence and hate.
Battling white supremacy is not the same as advocating it. Passing laws to prevent voter suppression is not the same as passing laws to suppress votes. Fighting for our democracy is not the same as seeking to destroy it.
The media equating both sides, one “left” and one “right,” suggests there’s a moderate middle between hate and inclusion, between democracy and proto-fascism.
This is misleading, dangerous, and morally wrong. Don’t fall for it.
They warned me your childhood would whizz by in a flash
They warned me and I laughed,
because then,
each day felt like a lifetime.
Each sleepless night was a year, each hour of the day was an age.
All my energy was consumed, with keeping you alive, happy, thriving.
Your smiles became my goal, your laughter my reward, your tears my every waking concern.
And here we are my love, you have grown.
I remember all the firsts, but I have no idea when the ‘lasts’ happened...
Where was I?
The last time you snuggled into my lap to read.
The last time I lifted your warm little body to mould into mine, that fit, just right.
The last time you crawled into my safe space, in the dark of the night.
They warned me your childhood would whizz by in a flash,
And I laughed.
But it did, my love,
It did.
And now I watch you grow evermore strong and I vow to drink in every tiny detail,
lest that go by in an instant also.
I may not remember all the ‘lasts’ my little one,
But I am watching for every ‘new’.
Yes,
I am watching.
Donna Ashworth
Image by KM Bergerren
They warned me your childhood would whizz by in a flash
They warned me and I laughed,
because then,
each day felt like a lifetime.
Each sleepless night was a year, each hour of the day was an age.
All my energy was consumed, with keeping you alive, happy, thriving.
Your smiles became my goal, your laughter my reward, your tears my every waking concern.
And here we are my love, you have grown.
I remember all the firsts, but I have no idea when the ‘lasts’ happened...
Where was I?
The last time you snuggled into my lap to read.
The last time I lifted your warm little body to mould into mine, that fit, just right.
The last time you crawled into my safe space, in the dark of the night.
They warned me your childhood would whizz by in a flash,
And I laughed.
But it did, my love,
It did.
And now I watch you grow evermore strong and I vow to drink in every tiny detail,
lest that go by in an instant also.
I may not remember all the ‘lasts’ my little one,
But I am watching for every ‘new’.
Yes,
I am watching.
- Donna Ashworth
Image by KM Bergerren
refseek.com
www.worldcat.org/
link.springer.com
http://bioline.org.br/
repec.org
science.gov
pdfdrive.com
Just wow…
“People might be confused about how a Republican Party that once worried about government overreach now seeks to control medical care for transgender children and retaliate against a corporation for objecting to a bill targeting LGBTQ students. And why is it that the most ambitious Republicans are spending more time battling nonexistent critical race theory in schools than on health care or inflation? To explain this, one must acknowledge that the GOP is not a political party anymore. It is a movement dedicated to imposing White Christian nationalism. The media blandly describes the GOP’s obsessions as “culture wars,” but that suggests there is another side seeking to impose its views on others. In reality, only one side is repudiating pluralistic democracy — White, Christian and mainly rural Americans who are becoming a minority group and want to maintain their political power.”
— The GOP is no longer a party. It’s a movement to impose White Christian nationalism.
“Donald Trump threatens the entire existence of the American republic. He is able to do this because the Supreme Court he created is assisting him in doing so. It is a corrupt Court – on which more later. It overturned a central right for half of our population. It routinely mixes and matches rationales, jurisprudences, logics to arrive at the end point of transforming America into their extremist vision. We’ve heard that yesterday’s decision was a terrible decision, an extremist decision, that it changes the American experiment fundamentally. No disagreement with any of those points. Most importantly, in my mind, it’s a fake decision. Yes, it will now be controlling within the federal courts. But it doesn’t change the constitution any more than a foreign army occupying New England would make Massachusetts no longer part of the United States. That may seem like a jarring analogy. But it’s the only kind that allows us to properly view and react to this Supreme Court.”
—
The rationale for the decision yesterday has literally no basis whatsoever in the US constitution.
Josh Marshall is correct, but I don’t think it matters. This corrupt, activist, fascist SCOTUS does not care. The majority has decided that the Constitution, 250 years of precedent, popular opinion, and the foundational ideas that have made America what it is since 1787 are what they say they are.
I live in a country of three hundred and forty million people.
In this country, six unelected christian nationalists, five of whom were placed on the court by presidents who lost the popular vote, who are opposed by SEVENTY PERCENT of the population, are making up laws out of whole cloth because their power is unchecked and can impose their regressive authoritarianism on that entire population is not a free country.
America has not been attacked like this since 9/11. Six unelected people forcing their christian nationalist agenda on a population of three hundred and forty million is not a Democracy. It is tyranny.
Everyone is missing the central message of yesterday’s ruling: SCOTUS is going to install Trump as dictator for life, by any means necessary. Somehow, after he loses the popular vote again, and after he’s even lost the Electoral College again, these six Fascists will invent a reason to overturn the will of the electorate, again. Every single one of their rulings this term have been part of their coup. Now, just line them all up and connect the dots.
We are four months away from the likely end of what passes for freedom in America, and once it’s gone, it’s not coming back in my lifetime.