Originally published at: Another Blue State Effort to Crack Down on Crisis Pregnancy Centers Heads for Likely Demise
Crisis pregnancy centers, including the one at the heart of the case the Supreme Court heard Tuesday, operate on deception. They use abortion rights keywords and images — the center in this case is called First Choice — to lure in pregnant women, the better to dissuade them from getting abortions. You have to scroll to…
So, Hegseth left his post. Said he had other meetings to attend and didn’t stay to see the second strike. The pussy is a pogue and a geardo, and a liar and a punk while I’m at it.
12 Likes
The crisis pregnancy centers will only help a pregnant women for up to 12 months. After that she’s one her own. And now we have cuts to SNAP and other programs which are suppose to help kids and lower income parents.
I haven’t heard if these centers push adoption, but even that has probably had cuts made this year.
13 Likes
“We’ve only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they’ve been poisoning the American people.”
These people… I can’t begin to imagine the anger… the resentment… the absolute rage they must harbor…
Not just alcoholic Pete. But Kristi Noem, having to live her life in such a raunchy, disappointing country… Miller… all just boiling, roiling cauldrons of hate and anger and frustration.
We need a government program to help them ; - )
11 Likes
We need to start daily, organized, protests in front of these centers. We have free speech too.
8 Likes
“ Poisoning the American people “…. It’s just to hard to know where to start with that. Just the environmental poisoning alone is beyond belief, the carcinogens in our air/water/soil/food. The American people have been getting poisoned for decades with few ever being held to account. Anyone thinking that sinking a few small craft thousands of miles from our shores is to prevent people from getting poisoned is totally delusional
16 Likes
I just remembered I have a one sentence response to Josh’s interesting muses on federalism and the electoral college in the blog post today:
All of the problems with the electoral college and with the disparity in representation can be solved by increasing the size of the House of Representatives.
12 Likes
I agree that increasing the House of Representatives and thereby giving more electoral votes to more populated states is a far better choice then making the election purely a majority choice.
Two points, the first is the money that would be required if instead of writing off states like California candidates would need to campaign everywhere. We already spend way to much money on politics and making the presidential election a purely popular choice would make money even more important then it is now.
Secondly, before 1930 no state ever lost electoral votes or seats in congress. The number of congressional seats were computed by taking the population of all states and dividing it by the population of the least popular state. For example, if the state with the lowest population had 250,000 people it would receive 3 electoral votes and on congressman, a state with 1,000,000 people would have 4 congressmen and 6 electoral votes and so on. But as America changed from an agricultural nation to an industrial nation and rural states saw their power would be diminished refused to agree to reapportionment. As a result, with the 1932 election coming, President Hoover cut a deal that created the current system.
There is not reason the apportionment rules cannot be changed again when Democrats control the Government.
12 Likes
Increasing the size of the House of Representatives will give California a significant incentive to apportion some of their electoral votes proportionally to the popular vote in the state. The reason to do that would be to have more power and influence on presidential elections. If Texas followed suit, every other state would fall in line.
Edit: The more I think about it, the more I see it your way.
2 Likes
Triple Sec. of Warcrimes Pete Kegsbreath appears to be leaving Adm. Bradley marooned following the so-called “double tap” on unidentified boaters in the Caribbean.
I find it curious that the Death in the Afternoon(*) fan would cite “the fog of war” to describe the wanton murder of shipwrecked survivors when the two men – that’s right, they were able to identify both the number and sex of the victims despite the “fog” – that he “didn’t see.”
I suspect he’s probably taken aback by the brouhaha outside the bubble of the White(s Only) House; the double tap on his Kegerator was never an issue. How is this so different?
*Death in the Afternoon, also called the Hemingway or the Hemingway Champagne, made up of absinthe and Champagne, was invented by man’s man Ernest Hemingway.
6 Likes
I know of one: CECOT.
7 Likes
Fog of war is reserved for those in the fog. Not those in an air conditioned office with a make-up studio down the hall.
Pete bragged he saw everything and knew everybody’s name until that wasn’t going to get him out of the hot seat. Now, he’s not sure what he saw or who those people were. He just knows they were on their way to the US in a cigarette boat filled with coke. Or something, for sure. Who knows.
6 Likes
As an avid drinker who knows the risks and takes them anyway, the very idea of an alcoholic ranting about narcotics dealers poisoning the American people is risible. I had a neighbor in grad school who himself was in medical school who despised Reagan’s “War on Drugs” because everyone knew the most deleterious was alcohol. And not even so much for the body as for the destructive behaviors it entailed, from spousal abuse, to gun violence, to drunk driving.
This is an absurdist rant coming from a drunk.
9 Likes
The States United poll is certainly a good start in recognizing that what is happening is not good governance. But it’s just a start. The far-right may be good at many things, including looting and commandeering power to purposes such as self-enrichment and ethnic cleansing, but no evidence shows that they can govern well. The longest-running European fascist government, Salazar’s Estado Novo in Portugal, existed rom the 1930s until 1974, has left deep economic scars from the passivation of the populace (not to mention bringing us Devin Nunes). Torture and torment are not good governance. While I do not think that authoritarian rule in the US will last four decades, a less-digitally-battered people would already be pushing back harder.
Whether we call it hypercapitalism by algorithm or technofeudalism, every day a new gimmick, a new distraction. Yesterday was the “Trump Savings Account” for children to teach youth the joy of deferred consumption in a country that does its darndest to turn young adults into debtors as fast as possible. Forbes was quick to observe about Michael Dell and wife’s $6bn donation:
The Dells deserve praise: they chose children, insisted on universal eligibility within an age group, and framed their effort as a pilot that should be evaluated and improved.
But the mechanism they’re relying on—the Trump account structure—bears a familiar hallmark of U.S. tax policy: a benefit that sounds progressive but is built on a framework that ultimately favors those who are already wealthy.
Performative piety.
Different countries have long handled this issue, and better. For starters, under systems with universal health care, the burden of children’s health insurance, which currently $300-400 a month per child in the US depending on the deductible, can be turned into a an enhanced children’s medical services including such things as home visits (as in Norway) with the unused portion of payments invested and returned to the child upon their 18th birthday. This kills two birds with one stone; parents are covered in the case of unanticipated healthcare costs, and the unspent parts of the premia are returned if the child gets to adulthood in a healthy condition.
3 Likes
On a wider note, the BBB multi-trillion budget hole is not liked by the rest of the world. Japan, which holds over $1.1 trillion in US bonds, has started to dump US debt. According to the IMF, the US government-debt-to-GDP ratio is currently 126% of GDP and expected to rise to 140% in 2030, limiting the Fed’s ability to pursue accommodative policy or give room for stimulus.
At the same time, Trump’s shale guys are unhappy about the global oil glut. Push too hard, and you depress demand or accelerate the shift to non-carbon alternatives. War on Venezuela, the initial proponent of OPEC in 1949, would be a quick fix, but hardly the answer for longer-term oil price stability.
4 Likes
The “fog of war” comment from Hegseth is of course bullshit. IIRC, the WaPo report said the group watching the live video noticed the two survivors after the smoke cleared from the first strike. It would not have taken more than a minute or so for the smoke to dissipate. Even less if there was some wind.
So Hegseth is either lying, or he ran out of the room just seconds after the first strike without verifying whether it was successful. “Leaving his post” is good framing in that case, but he’s probably lying. And it sounds like there were a lot of witnesses in that room.
6 Likes
Opinion | Trump, Hegseth and a sickening moral slum of an administration - The Washington Post
Regarding Venezuela, Ukraine and much more, Trump and his acolytes are worse than simply incompetent.
5 Likes