Why is everyone so mean?? US Politics: September 2022

https://harpers.org/archive/2022/10/the-right-to-not-be-pregnant-asserting-an-essential-right/

In the face of the right’s unremitting fascistic efforts, the Democratic Party has faltered continually, moving between denial, evasion, and concession—weakened by their own trace natalist beliefs, cowardice, and the delusion that their opposition would somehow be appeased. Tragically, reproductive-rights advocacy groups, operating within the same political machine, have mirrored their supposed allies’ suppliant stance, and members of the general public who support abortion rights have been abandoned to the unforgivably self-defeating slogan of “safe, legal, and rare” and the polite-company taboo—accommodated by “my body, my choice”—against even uttering the word “abortion.” In the same spirit of concession, ostensibly pro-choice leaders have long maintained that abortion isn’t, or shouldn’t be, birth control, drawing a hard line between the two as agents of greater and lesser harm, attempting to shore up the definite morality of the latter. Implicitly playing along with the contention that abortion—sometimes, in some cases—is murder has helped pave the way for the conservative movement to force victims of rape and incest, including children, to carry pregnancies to term. There could be no other conclusion: very few would argue that a violated person is allowed to “take an innocent life.”

As Republicans make known their conviction that women, by definition, should be pregnant, and therefore can be forced to be, Democrats and the broader liberal apparatus respond that women want to be pregnant, insisting that people have abortions because they aren’t able to be pregnant right now: they intend to conceive in the future, after they’ve finished college, or escaped a violent relationship, or found a higher paying job; or their pregnancy isn’t viable but they’re determined to try again; or they’ve been pregnant before and are already raising children. Women who have abortions are no longer expected to be broken by grief, and there’s now more room to admit relief, but that’s often coupled with the reassurance that their childbearing duty will be, or has been, fulfilled. Those who have multiple abortions uninterrupted by giving birth, who are child-free regardless of resources, and who refuse to justify or explain their terminations, remain insufficiently sympathetic to warrant inclusion in the liberal narrative, which implies that the principle at stake—bodily autonomy for everyone, an inherent and internationally recognized human right—is negotiable and conditional. Likewise, stories of unwanted but necessary abortions—harrowing and heartbreaking as they are—are degraded as chips in the liberal bargain.

The right to not be pregnant is a concept of autonomy that goes beyond the reactive and reparative. It lays claim to a state of being, not an action, and in doing so obviates arguments about what abortion is or is not (health care, violence) and who or what is entitled to influence a pregnancy’s course (the fetus, the government, the doctor, the family, the provisioner of sperm). Critically, the right to not be pregnant rebukes the notion of non-pregnancy as a luxury or a sin, a widespread, inherently misogynistic idea tacitly conceded by the liberal mainstream.

There is no anti-abortion legislation, not even the third-trimester abortion restrictions masquerading as the reasonable person’s limit, that is compatible with the full personhood of pregnant people. Democrats concerned with public opinion nervously note that late-term abortions are rare and almost exclusively performed because of unexpected medical complications. This is true but beside the point. If any circumstance of a pregnancy forfeits a pregnant person’s autonomy, their pregnancy has reduced them to an object, an instrument, less than human, and they will be used this way by the state.

To designate good and bad, earned and undeserved, permitted and forbidden abortions is a foul and foolish tactic that ends in denying people their rights to themselves. The pro-choice narrative comes at an extraordinarily high price—confirming that people capable of pregnancy exist to create more people—for no reward. Liberal haggling has achieved only self-sabotage. And it has prevented abortion advocates from matching the intensity and focus of our foes. It is time to meet absolutism with absolutism: Every person has the right to not be pregnant.

well worth reading in full

A friend of mine, an environmental lobbyist in Washington DC, wrote on Facebook that a popular debate between “Republican environmentalists” is about major changes or even an appeal of the Antiquities Act.

After reading her post, I looked online and I guess it’s been an on-going issue since Trump ordered the Interior Department to do a review of the “size and scope of national monuments larger than 100,000 acres created since 1996.”

This is insane to me.

Admittedly, the number of issues that conservatives and I agree about are limited but in some Aaron Sorkin-like fantasy I believed that everyone agreed that monuments and parks were good.

I went down to the border to learn more about the migrant crisis.

It's clear the only way we can remain free is if we STOP MASS. IMMIGRATION*!

*full policy in video pic.twitter.com/QUIvYMpWUy

— Jeremy Kauffman 🦔 (@jeremykauffman) September 17, 2022

this is batshit

xpost Parks are nice but I mean they just sit there and do nothing like a stoner on the couch. It's time for them to earn their own way, we can't coddle them forever.

Lots of private companies want to get a whack at all those Truffula trees

this is batshit

War is Gaypic.twitter.com/Fgi2AGJHsz

— Jeremy Kauffman 🦔 (@jeremykauffman) August 20, 2022

Libertarian, huh?

From his website:

As he has created independence for data users, allowing them to create and share information without federal control, so will he give you and your family your independence to create and shape your lives as you choose – and not as busy-bodies, bullies, and bureaucrats would impose on you.

I haven't researched his background, but I'll bet he made his money in some hustle like crypto.

And you would be right:

Jeremy discovered the ideas of voluntarism gradually, but would credit Friedman and Huemer as making the strongest cases. Jeremy is the founder and CEO of LBRY.io, a New Hampshire-based blockchain company that produces and maintains a decentralized content sharing and publishing protocol. He moved to New Hampshire in 2015 with his partner Rachel Goldsmith, who is Executive Director of the FSP. They live with their son in East Manchester.

He's part of the Free State Project. Definitely destined for great things.

More on that study of Hispanic voters:

Equis recently released the results of a survey of 2,400 Latino adults, in which researchers looked at the prevalence of a set of false narratives that have taken root in both right-wing and left-leaning communities, and asked Latinos how and where they get their news and political knowledge.

It found plenty of Latinos have heard of the most common false narratives that spread in the last two years, and were likely to not believe them. It also uncovered a large persuadable middle who don’t know what to think about this information and are simply uncertain about its accuracy and whether to believe it.

The most widespread, well-known narratives (“President Trump won the 2020 election and Democrats stole it for Joe Biden,” “The Covid-19 vaccine is more dangerous than the Covid-19 virus itself,” and “Donald Trump worked with the Russians to steal the presidency in 2016”) were the most likely to be rejected by people when asked if they were true. Some of the claims that got the most mainstream attention, like the “Biden is a socialist” line that caused the most panic in Florida, had reached only about a quarter of Latinos and was only believed by about 7 percent of all those polled — about the same as those who believed the Earth was flat. That so many people rejected the most popular lines of misinformation suggests some solutions, including the effectiveness of aggressive fact-checking and public challenges.

But the people who were most likely to believe this kind of misinformation were also the most politically engaged respondents — not only were they the most educated, but they were also more likely to have a personal ideology, and be amenable to narratives that aligned with it. That explains why some liberal respondents in the survey were willing to believe false narratives from the left side of the political spectrum: More people were certain that Trump colluded with Russians to steal the 2016 election than the right-wing claim that Trump won the 2020 election, and more people believed that Trump faked his Covid infection than the Biden-socialism claim. Though some conservatives have pointed out some of these examples of “left-wing misinformation,” they tend to criticize media coverage as biased toward liberals, and attempts by social media companies to regulate speech as censorship, rather than associate it with the bigger phenomenon of modern misinformation.

Dunno about "colluded," but didn't Mueller conclude that Trump did benefit from Russian targeting of suppressible voters---and refer further studies to Congress, because DOJ precedent didn't allow for indictment of Trump? Not an example of xpost false narratives from the left-wing spectrum.
Anyway, it's time to lighten up!

Originally devised to expand Fox News coverage for die-hards, Fox Nation has in recent months expanded into lifestyle programming and has enlisted celebrities including Kevin Costner, Sharon Osbourne, Piers Morgan and Kelsey Grammer for various projects.

Fox Nation said the new special will “feature Ms. Barr’s signature comedic take on a variety of topics, with no subject off limits.”

the left-wing spectrum Mueller, of course, an olde-school, by the book, Casio-wearing Republican, with such cred, was said. He would brook no fules, pull no punches.

school boards, city councils, public safety

It strikes me that lots of reasonably competent and sane people won't run for these positions because doing those jobs conscientiously would cut sharply into their other duties and responsibilities, like doing their jobs and parenting their children. But the crazies are so focused on their political obsessions that a careful weighing of consequences and a desire to be conscientious and responsible never enters into their decision to run. I'm not sure this can be fixed.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless),

I’m pretty Mueller found nothing actionable in regards to collusion with Russia, but did find criminal obstruction of justice with his investigation, which he pawned off on Congress to deal with.

Did come across evidence that the Russians did stuff on their own, or somebody established that---just saying Russian effect in itself more than political urban legend.

And leave us not forget:

On May 16, 2018, Christopher Wylie, who is considered the “whistleblower” on Cambridge Analytica and also served as Cambridge Analytica's Director of Research in 2013 and 2014,[95] also testified to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.[96] He was considered a witness to both British and American authorities...Christopher Wylie also testified about Russian contact with Cambridge Analytica and the campaign, voter disengagement, and his thoughts on Facebook's response.[98]

In 2019, Trump directed us to go and take immigrants from the border and, quote, bus and dump them into democratic cities but he was more specific. He wanted us to identify the murderers, the rapists, and the criminals, and in particular, make sure we did not incarcerate them. pic.twitter.com/e6WEPtBip7

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 21, 2022

i'm not sure i've ever seen this kind of fascism before, but maybe it has. the exploitation/scapegoating of immigrants for fascist aims, sure. "they're coming to take your jobs" kind of shit, they're evil, they want to hurt the real patriots, "they", "us", etc, that's an old one. but has anyone ever tried to identify people who really are violent and then insert them into the cities of their political opponents so as to "prove" the racist point?

the guy speaking was the Chief of Staff of DHS at the time, by the way. being loyal civil servants, they went ahead and did their due diligence about whether it was legal for them to pick up people at the border and drop them off in cities in different states, and it turned out it was illegal.

oh wait, that's the "anonymous" guy too, which means anyone reading this is going to dismiss it all as an opportunistic attempt for him to sell his book, which it absolutely is, in addition to being an incredibly creepy account of a president that really is trying to murder you

xp

That “both sides” bullshit equivocating well-established theories of Russian election meddling and Trump’s big lie is ridiculous. And just to keep beating this dead horse, aside from being intentionally duplicitous, Russian disinformation is specifically tasked with this exact goal:

It also uncovered a large persuadable middle who don’t know what to think about this information and are simply uncertain about its accuracy and whether to believe it.

A highly targeted campaign of manipulating public opinion, from the experts in the field, with plausible deniability cooked in. To push the idiot fringe to action and encourage everyone else to sit on their hands. The main goal being encouraging social division, and creating a crisis of doubt in the vestiges of our democratic institutions. Yep pointing this out is literally the leftish version of “Let’s go Brandon”, I tells you.

New from @prioritiesUSA Ad Hawk: Republicans pivoting away from economic messaging in core battlegrounds. After Democrats economic successes, they no longer want the fight and are trying to fear-monger about crime instead. pic.twitter.com/A0aBxUy3il

— Nick Ahamed (@nickahamed) September 20, 2022

Gotta play the hits

Was talking to my quite liberal aunt who live in Connecticut, I wanted to come up with a respectful way to ask if most of the black folks in her state live in the SW corner of CT so I started by asking her if most of the diversity was in that region…which she took as her cue to launch into a tirade about “out-of-control” crime. Some divisive issues don’t need to be targeted too well, apparently any middle-/upper-class wypipo make good soft targets for this crap.

Don't forget the old shibboleth "border security," which is a variant of the "crime" trope.

This guy has a great future in the party:

Ohio GOP House Candidate Has Misrepresented Military Service

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2022-09-21/ohio-gop-house-candidate-has-misrepresented-military-service

Majewski... dabbled in politics as a pro-Trump hip-hop performer and promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Sound intriguing, but this might be what Mitch McConnell was talking about: a dearth of 'quality candidates'

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

huh

all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that congressional candidates spit half-assed bars

Groom the Jewels

lol

Representative Mary Peltola, a Democrat who defeated the Republican Sarah Palin in a special House election to become the first Alaska Native in Congress, is on track to do it again in November. A new poll by the Anchorage-based pollster Dittman Research puts Peltola at 50 percent, Palin at 27 percent and the Republican Nick Begich III at 20 percent in the first round of rank-choice voting.

Is Palin an independent now?

still GOP. i wish her all the best

no one gives a fuck (or more charitably, no one can do anything about it) but desantis tried to do the exact same thing to another group of migrants in TX, earlier this week. the same exact people ("Perla" is the operative) were involved. they were going to fly the migrants to Delaware, this time. they called it off, at the last minute. Desantis' team is just lying about it. there are no consequences

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/perla-behind-another-flight-and-stranded-migrants
https://www.delawareonline.com/story/news/2022/09/20/georgetown-delaware-airport-airplane-migrants-texas-florida-new-jersey/69505612007/

one of the key people involved is a tall blonde person who gives out business cards that don't include her last name. Just "Perla"

doesn't seem like it would be that hard to track down a person that is trafficking hundreds of migrants at the behest of an evil fuck governor from florida, but what do i know

If you can break the paywall, the Miami Herald's original story has the lurid details:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/immigration/article266089771.html

thank you! (i was able to use the "open link in new incognito tab" trick)

i'm rereading inferno. trying to figure out which circle of hell belongs to people who traffic migrants for political gain

i'm thinking 8th circle, pouch #5 for Desantis, minimum

Which one has the damned souls upside down in shit?

Dante and Virgil are on the rim of the third pit, ditch, or trench of Circle VIII for those guilty of Simony. These sinners used their positions in the church for personal monetary gain. The Simonists are upside-down in round holes the size of baptismal fonts.

From each of these holes protrude the feet and legs of a spirit, with the rest of the body upside down in the hole. The soles of their feet are on fire, and Dante sees one shade who is apparently suffering more torment than others, moving and shaking violently; his feet are burning more fiercely than the others.

Ah, here it is: the Eighth Circle (Fraud)--Second Pouch--Flatterers are immersed in human excrement (Canto 18).

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

xp alfred

Senator Cruz voted against this. https://t.co/mht1OgtvwL

— The White House (@WhiteHouse) September 21, 2022

Fact-checkin' Cruz

I like the dude on the left's hair but the eyebrows need waxing

The Zodiac killer has a cyst

Also "the exact same playbook" used by law enforcement the world over to go after outlaws and crooks, but sure.

These radical Dems have zero qualms about weaponizing their public office to go after their political enemies. The same exact playbook used by Communists and Fascists throughout world history!!! https://t.co/G3selPMUkr

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 22, 2022

well there is the kernal of a valid criticism there -- we try to address political problems (half the country loves trump) with legal solutions (send him to jail).

civil lawsuits don't usually end up with someone in jail, unless the defendant punches the judge or something

xp

there's also the law breaking, but yeah...