Happy (Forced) Mother’s Day!
[NB: check the byline, thanks. /~Rayne]
Hope all of the mothers in our community are having a restful Sunday, whether mothers in fact or mothers of invention.
Not wishing a happy day to this senator, however.
Remember this GOP senator’s freakish fundie-speak rebuttal to President Biden’s State of the Union? She’s back with an attempt to move this country ever closer to Gilead of The Handmaid’s Tale.
She and 13 co-sponsors — Sen. Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Cramer (R-ND), Sen. Daines (R-MT), Sen. Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Hyde-Smith (R-MS), Sen. Marshall (R-KS), Sen. Moran (R-KS), Sen. Ricketts (R-NE), Sen. Rounds (R-SD), Sen. Schmitt (R-MO), Sen. Tillis (R-NC), Sen. Wicker (R-MS), and Sen. Lankford (R-OK) — submitted S.4296, the “More Opportunities for Moms to Succeed Act,” a.k.a. the “MOMS Act” this past week.
As Salon and the Guardian reported, the bill creates a database which allows the federal government to track persons who use a government-developed and hosted website, “pregnancy.gov,” while seeking information and resources related to pregnancy.
The bill may initially look innocuous to those who aren’t familiar with how websites work, but one doesn’t have to read very deeply to see this is horrifying:
11 “(a) WEBSITE. — Not later than 1 year after the date
12 of enactment of this section, the Secretary shall publish
13 a public website entitled ‘pregnancy.gov’. The Secretary
14 may not delegate implementation or administration of the
15 website below the level of the Office of the Secretary. The
16 website shall include the following:
17 “(1) A clearinghouse of relevant resources
18 available for pregnant and postpartum women, and
19 women parenting young children.[page] 3
1 “(2) A series of questions through which a user
2 is able to generate a list of relevant resources of in-
3 terest within the user’s zip code.
4 “(3) A means to direct the user to identify
5 whether to list the relevant resources of interest that
6 are available online or within 1, 5, 10, 50, and 100
7 miles of the user.
8 “(4) A mechanism for users to take an assess-
9 ment through the website and provide consent to use
10 the user’s contact information, which the Secretary
11 may use to conduct outreach via phone or email to
12 follow up with users on additional resources that
13 would be helpful for the users to review.
The server on which the website is hosted would capture the user’s IP address. That’s normal for all web servers. Because we don’t have a national standard curriculum for computers and networks, the average American will not understand they shed this information whenever they visit any website.
If the prospective user then seeks any resource near them, they may not only validate their physical location but pregnancy or postpartum status.
Someone from Health and Human Services could follow up with them — *shudder* — although the bill gives a weak nod to consent.
If they speak other than English — think asylum seekers here — their ethnic/national identity might be deduced by this bit on page 5 of the bill:
3 “(d) SERVICES IN DIFFERENT LANGUAGES.— The
4 Secretary shall ensure that the website provides the widest
5 possible access to services for families who speak lan-
6 guages other than English.
Worse, all this data will be reported to Congress:
7 “(e) REPORTING REQUIREMENTS.—
8 “(1) IN GENERAL.— Not later than 180 days
9 after the date on which the website is established
10 under this section, the Secretary shall submit to
11 Congress a report on—
12 “(A) the traffic of the website;
13 “(B) user feedback on the accessibility and
14 helpfulness of the website in tailoring to the
15 user’s needs;
16 “(C) insights on gaps in relevant resources
17 with respect to services for pregnant and
18 postpartum women, or women parenting young
19 children;
20 “(D) suggestions on how to improve user
21 experience and accessibility based on user feed-
22 back and missing resources that would be help-
23 ful to include in future updates; and[page] 6
1 “(E) certification that no prohibited enti-
2 ties are listed as a relevant resource or are in
3 receipt of a grant under subsection (b)(3).
4 “(2) CONFIDENTIALITY.— The report under
5 paragraph (1) shall not include any personal identi-
6 fying information regarding individuals who have
7 used the website.
The confidentiality requirement is a fucking joke. Once this data is released to Congress, it’d be far too easy to hunt down the users. It’s yet another opportunity to breach users’ privacy, just like every other website and application for any purpose.
There’s nothing helpful about this at all. It’s a means to allow the federal government directly into women’s uteruses across the country, not exactly small government.
This also blows away the idea of states’ rights when it comes to regulating reproductive rights, though the states are supposed to provide the contact information of approved Gilead resources to be offered through this national website. If states want to offer pregnancy or postpartum resources they can do that through state health departments. They don’t need the feds harvesting this data in a central repository.
The really aggravating part about this bill? The creation of yet more federal and state government bureaucracy intended to get deep into mothers’ and prospective mothers’ crotches, while a non-governmental solution has existed for years with federal support through block grants, eventually suppressed by far-right anti-reproductive rights lawmakers and the orange hellbeast.
Maybe you’ve even heard of it before — it’s a national nonprofit called Planned Parenthood.
~ ~ ~
Comment Operations Note
You may have noticed a change in the comments system this week. After many complaints about comments being unreadable after fourth or fifth reply to a reply to a comment especially on mobile devices, the maximum width of threaded nested comments has been set to four.
In other words, this is what will be permitted as seen on a desktop:
A fifth reply to the fourth comment in this thread will not see a Reply button.
If you wish to leave a reply to that fourth comment, preface the comment with the user’s name and date/time of the comment to which you wish to reply. You can also pick up the link to that comment by right-clicking on the date/time and then pasting into the preface of your reply. Example:
Rayne (edit)
Reply to Legonaut, May 3, 2024 at 6:11 pm
Nice or Noise?
Not an actual reply in that thread, just an example of how to leave a fifth-wide comment and what it will look like.
Will it slow your comments down? Sorry, yes, it may, but if you really feel compelled to share a comment this is a trade-off for readability. What good is your comment if it can’t be read by a substantial portion of the EW community?
I should also add here that wordy comments lacking concision have also helped force this change. You know who you are; think more about your audience here because even at four wide, some comments will still be challenging on mobile devices. Under the previous setting, those overlong comments acted like a Denial of Service to other readers.
There will be more changes to comments in the near future, though a couple tweaks to the righthand sidebar will happen first. Watch for them.
~ ~ ~
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Thank you.
Happy Mother’s Day Rayne.
Tribute to famously inventive Mothers… https://youtu.be/M8XL9I1kzXA
Ugg.
So, right now it’s Katie plus her 13 co-sponsors:
Marco, Kevin, Steve, Chuck, Cindy, Roger, Jerry, Pete, Mike, Eric, Thomas, Roger and James.
Of course the two senators from Kansas are co-sponsors, but I’m kind of surprised not to see Josh Hawley on that list.
He’s up for re-election, and until it’s decided if the abortion referendum in his state will be on the November general election (versus August primary) ballot, I suspect he will keep his powder dry. I preduct he will co-sponsor the day after his senate race is called, if not out of the woods before then.
https://missouriindependent.com/2024/05/03/missourians-signatures-abortion-amendment-viability/
But, I have yet to hear messaging, IN ANY STATE, that a pro-legalized-abortion-amendment voter should ALSO vote out the anti-abortion legislators — state and federal — who support banning abortion. Without this message push, I don’t know if he really has much to worry about.
My plea to all interested in this topic — please inform your friends and neighbors that referendum voting alone will not curb the threat to women’s rights’ further being curbed. The threat of 50 Republican US Senators getting rid of the filibuster to ban abortion nationally is REAL!
Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Rick Scott, Marsha Blackburn, etc., could all be defeated in US Senate races if amendment voters knew the stakes. We must educate!
Hear, hear! and Hazah!
Happy Mothers Day, including all fathers that express mothering qualities.
Good comments change. I note that there is a substantial indent when moving from a comment to its first reply — about 12 characters? I assume you have tried various levels, tho. Anyhow, Happy Mother’s Day to you, Rayne, and thank you for hosting.
Happy Mother’s Day to those who choose to celebrate it!
Happy Mother’s Day Rayne. Thank you for the post allowing expression about this daft bill.
Screams volumes from Britt and 13 co-sponsor Republicans who want a bill to “control women” from the “my way or the highway” party.
Aren’t Republicans against National Registries? They want to track pregnant women, however oppose a federal database for gun owners. Are pregnant women a bigger danger to America than guns? Are the “rights” of gun owners more important than the “rights” of women?
How about a National Registry for Vasectomies? A “vasectomy.gov” website for information and resources to control men’s bodies. That would be equality for all.
Ludicrous measures using the federal government to take women back 100 years – barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen.
Nothing in the Constitution about a well regulated uterus being necessary to the security of a free State, but by the gods we’re going to register and regulate them.
and yes Rayne, the Manny state needs to be heeled back and let Planned Parenthood carry on their valuable and capable mission.
Thanks for calling that up for us.
Not much emphasis on maternal and infant health and safety, and nothing about what kind of life the forced-birth child would have after it leaves the womb. Just policing pregnancies through a national website whose security would be a joke.
And members of Congress getting access to data about the uterus-havers in their state, down to their IP address and possibly even telephone.
Can’t imagine what that’s worth to campaigns.
Oh you so are very, very getting to the heart of the matter here.
Thank you for your incisive comment.
And sure, lets build equality with vasectomy.gov and maybe coming soon, manpill.gov. and myguns.gov. Lotsa people need a lotta adulting help in those areas.
Reminds me of a song by my favorite Irish band, the Frames.
god bless mom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWFn7OzVAD0
‘you see how hard it can be to keep your side of the deal,
you see how hard it can be to keep one foot in the real’
a rejoinder the R s need to answer to the depth of their souls before they lose them. Their dishonesty and subterfugling has no future in this world. They have so much more to live into, as we all do.
and one for the rest of us caught up in who we are and what momma tried for: the Frames-headlong https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXkqO4vDJLQ
recording team included my fav dead guy of the week, S Albini.
Although I’m not proposing it as a proper role for the federal government, especially the control part, a voluntary national vasectomy registry could be useful for when your prospective sex partner claims to have had one.
What a ghastly bill!
It’s obvious the Republican Party will support this bill whilst, at the same time, supporting Trump’s recently proposed high and middle income tax cuts, especially the tax cuts targeting small (less than 20 employees) middle income family businesses.
The Democrat Party needs to create a multifaceted campaign capable of countering both of these Republican Party campaign issues simultaneously, including but not limited to, deeper tax cuts for the middle and lower income small family businesses.
How about a “like” button
I personally don’t favor this because we draw too many trolls already. Imagine all the Nazis on the dead bird app which harass Marcy showing up here to mess with likes or in the alternate, up votes.
It’s also one more piece of data which must be collected, stored, and potentially used against community members.
What “you” favor is dumb ass shit only you approve of. Because you are extremely petty. bYou will never learn the real lesson of long arm/short arm syndrome;.
[Moderator’s note: you’ve been warned repeatedly your comments trashing moderation and site operations here will be deleted. This is your third such comment today and I’m only leaving it up because you clearly need a reminder after three strikes. /~Rayne]
Well I certainly wish I had a BLOCK button!
Please don’t encourage the behavior with comments like this.
For other commenters thinking of piling on anyhow: don’t.
No up or down votes. It’s annoying enough with bmaz’s petty public comments against whatever he has against moderators these days.
I agree that per-comment liking or upvoting is undesirable. However over (almost exactly) 20 years of working with WordPress for personal and work-related blogs, I’ve found that providing a simple “like” at the post level actually reduces the number of content-free comments. From Usenet in the 80s to today’s social media jungle, many people feel the need to engage with content that they like, even if they have nothing to say. Clicking a Like widget and seeing a counter increment satisfies that need for many.
NO.
It’s opaque. The community only knows a commentator from what they write. Say what you “like” or don’t like.
There’s that. And then there’s the lurker who’s never commented and doesn’t want to expose themselves but suddenly uses “like” whose IP address would be documented on the server not just as a casual visitor but an interactive one as well — and we can’t be absolutely certain at what point that interactive traffic could be sniffed no matter how hard we try to prevent it.
I expect a red state to propose legislation that would require ID (scanned) to purchase a pregnancy test.
I think their preferred legislation would be to require that any pregnancy test sold in their state must include an automatic reporting feature, that would send the results to a state database.
I’d put Texas at the top of the list for trying something like this, with Alabama a close second.
This is just so unbelievable, that it is true makes it so much worse. How the hell did the US get to this state?
That is a terrifying thought.
Happy Mother’s Day, to Rayne and All of the Mothers out there! <3
Thanks for whatever you did to the comment formatting. I can now read thru an entire comment section on my phone. Couldn’t do that before.
Yes. I noticed it a bit ago when I couldn’t get to my Mac and had to be satisfied with my Android and was suddenly surprised and pleased: by George I can now read the comments on my phones. Hurrah to moderators!
Rayne,
Pretend for a moment that you want to pass a bill that would create a website to direct (expecting) mothers to resources around them. You do not want to direct them to anyone that provides abortions, and you want this to be done by the federal government (emphasis on the pretending). How do you go about doing this? Is there any way to do this that would not involve some privacy risk?
It’s called community block grants to NGOs that already provide this information without providing its users’ data to the government, and which already comply with the Hyde Amendment.
Like Planned Parenthood.
Thank you for covering this, Rayne, I would have missed it. It does appear to be legislation to use the power of the federal gov’t to enforce (and foot part of the bill for) state-level abortion bans.
I had a little guy back when vacuous Republican trad-mom Rep. Michelle Bachmann (MN) was going after Michelle Obama over her advocacy for breastfeeding, calling it a policy of the “nanny state”. It was part of her positioning in her run for president in 2012.
Last week, when researching (what the heck happened to the young) Stephen Miller, I was surprised to see that he had worked for both Bachmann and Jeff Sessions (AL) on his path to being chief child abuser under Trump. I didn’t know that Bachmann would have had to go to CA for far-right staffers, when there are plenty here in MN.
Now that Noem has flamed out, is this an effort to push Britt for Trump’s VP? Is Miller part of that effort?
It had occurred to me this was a plug for Britt as VP — and if so, somebody’s also thinking of Trump’s mortality.
Now imagine President Britt.
Fucking pisses me off that Trump is anywhere north of 40% in polling just thinking about this realistic threat to democracy.
I suspect all of Trump’s VP candidates are hoping the McBurgers soon get the better of him. Being his VP would be a cross between boredom and constantly being thrown under the bus.
But a President Britt would be among the worst possible picks. Her patronizing insincerity is breathtaking. Her judgmentalism would make a Puritan witch hunt feel like a ACLU songfest around the campfire.
My impression is that she’s easily manipulated by men.
That is precisely how I perceive JD Vance (who’s attending Trump’s trial today). Vance has won exactly one election but sees himself as President-in-Waiting if he can just get on the 2024 Republican ticket. A young man in a hurry.
Personally, I can’t imagine that Trump will choose a woman for vp given how he views them and given how it has been mostly women that have caused him the most damage. My bet is on someone like Vance, who is a made man by Trump, white and will do exactly as told.
I’m almost nostalgic for the days when a potential VP Palin gave me nightmares.
Thumbs up on the comment nesting change. As a more than occasional contributor to threads going sideways (literally) glad to be the poster child for this.
Calling utter BS on this data base legislation: it’s an outrage. Spoken on the day madame punaise got a wonderful Mother’s Day present: news that punaisette and hubby are expecting – by choice! (shhh: it not official yet).
Great news on a future Democrat. Any ideas for a name
Thanks! We’re giving them space on the name(s) – no pressure. Unlikely to include “pun” – she suffered too many dad jokes growing up.
Expect the baby to be puny at first, but as they begin to talk they will play with words in creative ways.
My 8 year old granddaughter yesterday said she had learned about the schwa, and gave a typically lucid account of what it is. She seemed unstressed at the idea of hearing a New Zealander say “pin, pan, pen, pun”.
good for her – I never got past diphthongs (the flipflops you where when going into the pool)
Her name is Louisa, so perhaps I should have described her description as lulucid.
Outstanding punaise ! I’m going to Nashville on Monday to meet my Grand Daughter. We have to get this country straightened out for them. The anxiety regarding November is a tremendous motivator.
Yay! There are strong cases to be made in support of not reproducing, but how else can we hope to keep the deplorables in check in the long run…
‘Preciate the new comment policy. Had been very frustrating.
I just read the words “in 2011“ TWICE within the last 20 minutes…
and thought I’d share those paragraphs.
1] Right Makes Might Long before Trump came on the scene, key congressional Republicans had been sidling up to nativist and authoritarian leaders across the globe. https://newrepublic.com/article/153276/republicans-congress-courted-nativist-authoritarian-leaders Sarah Posner/March 25, 2019
2] From today‘s NYT live blogging of COHEN’s testimony:
Thank you for the new comment policy. I saw the change earlier, but the explanation makes much more sense. Now I can read comments on the small screen without the dance of turning the phone and firing my spot again.
And thank you for the update on the Britt bill. At least it’s in the Senate so it will just remain a talking point. For now. God help us all (irony intended) if the fascists take all three branches of government in November.
I’m not as optimistic as boatgeek that this bill will remain just a talking point.
This website’s central focus isn’t reproductive rights, but Jessica Valenti’s substack “Abortion Every Day” does an admirable job of tracking the right’s efforts to destroy the self-determination of people who can become pregnant. Valenti’s crystal ball is unerring.
Chuck Schumer certainly isn’t going to bring it to the floor, so it’s dead as a proposal at the federal level. Who knows what states will do with it. I suppose it might come up in the House, but I suspect that Mike Johnson wouldn’t want to have his members on record supporting it before the election.
Of course, that all changes on Jan 20 2025 if the fascists take the House, Senate, and presidency. So we as voters and activists have to stop that from happening.
1.1 million covid dead but no fetuses were harmed. Praise Trump! MAGA!
Except the ones in the wombs of the women who succumbed to Covid. Ask if trump or the (r)epuglicons care.
MAGA pro-life anti-vaxers: “Liberty over safety! High survival rate! Personal choice!”
Now: “Migrant invasion! Laken Riley! We’re in danger!”
768 cops died of covid in 2020-2022. Not a peep from Fox. But when one NY cop Jonathan Diller was killed on a traffic stop it was non-stop MAGA outrage.
MAGAs are fake pro lifers.
There were fetuses and neonates harmed and killed by COVID. We just don’t know how many because the cause of death was often masked by comorbidities and COVID mortality reporting was frequently suppressed.
You can praise the Trump family, specifically Jared Kushner, and MAGA once it becomes clear years from now how much long-term disability and death they caused with their genocide-by-neglect policy toward COVID.
Any fetuses not aborted by Planned Parenthood don’t count in MAGA statistics.
“MAGA” = “Make America Gilead Again”
“Noice” = “Nice” (as said by Eric Idle winking and nudging)
I had assumed Curly – The best stooge ever
I saw the Natasha Richardson/Robert Duvall film of “The Handmaid’s Tale” when it first came out (1990). I was so intrigued by it (and hadn’t previously heard of Margarete Atwood) that I ran out and bought the novel, and couldn’t put it down until I finished. More recently, when “Testament” came out, since I couldn’t locate my original copy of HT I bought a new one, and read them both cover to cover. They are by far the most plausible to me dystopian story I have read. All the more so in view of recent events.
When I first read HT I was somewhat under the sway of American Exceptionalism, and thought there is no way the American constitutional republic could actually be dismantled in a matter of weeks as she describes. I have since become much less sanguine.
The message of Orwell’s 1984, as I see it, is that once a totalitarian government takes hold it will be with us forever. History suggests otherwise, even if it lasts a few centuries. It does contain many useful examples of how propaganda works, a favorite topic of Orwell. Huxley’s “Brave New World” edges closer to plausibility by suggesting it is far easier to control a population with entertainment and consumer goods than by force (progress to a Brave New World society came to a probably very temporary halt with the embryonic personhood ruling).
Atwood suggests total control can only last so long, even in the first novel. In its epilogue, a conference of history professors is discussing the long ago fallen Republic of Gilead, doing what professors are wont to do: touting their work and making puns. It seems to suggest, by my reading, the former Gilead territories are now part of Canada.
Atwood said in an interview that all that she had written about in Handmaid had already happened somewhere; this in 1985.
Huh! Look at this:
https://bsky.app/profile/lolgop.bsky.social/post/3ksfbhyzfol2f
May 13, 2024 at 2:14 PM
Links to YouTube:
Ball of Threads — Introduction to the introduction
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxEhorzAAI8
Marcy introduces this in a new post:
The Cultivation of Don Jr: A Framework to Think of the Russian Attack https://www.emptywheel.net/2024/05/13/the-cultivation-of-don-jr-a-framework-to-think-of-the-russian-attack/
This 2022 article in The Atlantic is a powerful example of the premise:
“Pregnancy is NOT a HEALTH-NEUTRAL condition!”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/08/pregnancy-birth-complication-abortion-life-of-mother/671006/
Author Annie Lowery brings to front-of-mind the terrible irony that, in some rare cases, less rare for women of color, pregnancy kills the body of its host. If pregnancy doesn’t kill, it can injure or maim, as the ‘lucky’ author Lowery testifies.
And, despite what the AL supreme court has to say on the subject, a petri-dish embryo, or one attached to the uterine wall of a female, MUST HAVE A LIVE UTERINE-BEARING HOST (aka, a ‘healthy pregnant girl or woman’) for the baby to be born alive and at an age mature enough to survive after birth. Killing the mother before birth is the DUMBEST CHOICE any state legislature can make, and absolutely inconsistent with a “pro-life” state posture.
Maternal death caused by biology is one rare, yet ABSOLUTELY REAL, consequence of state abortion bans.
And then there is the increased risk of bodily injury and death perpetrated not by biology, but by humanity, or more specifically, perpetrated by the very real, male, human, IPV abuser who uses reproductive coercion to maintain power and control over his female victim.* Intimate Partner Violence abusers get a big assist in their coercion and control efforts from state legislatures in abortion-ban states.
Specifically, after accomplishing stage 1 — pregnancy coercion (impregnating their female companion against her will through occult or open ‘birth control sabotage’ or prohibition, non-consensual sex, or other means of manipulation, coercion, control, entrapment, or false imprisonment), state legislatures carry out Stage 2 — controlling pregnancy outcome — on the IPV perpetrator’s behalf. All the sperm ejector has to do in these states is to coercively prevent his abuse victim from travelling out of state for a few weeks. Worse yet, with each passing week of pregnancy, her risk of being violently assaulted or killed by the coercive impregnator increases with each millimeter of increased belly-bulge.
This famous Texas case teaches us how much power state legislatures have given men to coercively control and entrap their female victims — not only through its abortion ban, but through its ‘vigilante justice or ‘right-to-sue-abortion-enablers’ law.
https://www.texastribune.org/2023/05/02/texas-abortion-wrongful-death-lawsuit/
docket https://trellis.law/case/48167/23-cv-0375/marcus-silva-vs-jackie-noyola-et-al
——————
* American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG ) statement on intimate partners who use reproductive coercion to to exert power and control to influence their partner’s reproductive health outcome, how to detect during patient encounters, harm reduction techniques, and suggested patient counseling. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23344307/
Pregnancy coercion, intimate partner violence, and unintended pregnancy https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2896047/
Review of Intimate Partner Violence During Pregnancy and Its Adverse Effects on Maternal and Fetal Health
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10278872/
Fvcking House Majority Leader and Insurrectionist Enabler
Mike JOHNSON, is AT the TRUMP Trial today.
JOHNSON is NOT in the courtroom, but is scheduled to speak outside.
Vivek RAMASWAMY is live-tweeting from INSIDE the courtroom.
Maggie:
[Though I think I read that VANCE was tweeting from the courtroom yesterday.]
I read yesterday evening that Vance spent the whole time looking at his phone. SO probably not paying attention to the trial; it’s a show-up-for-the-boss deal.
Yes, he’s not supposed to have a phone in court, much less use it to live tweet.
Preacher Johnson outside the courthouse today: “This is the fifth week that President Trump has been in court for this sham of a trial. They are doing this intentionally to keep him here and to keep him off the campaign trail. And I think everyone in the country can see that.”
Speak for yourself Johnson. Enabler Republican public servants fighting his fights and rewarding abusive behavior. And this from the party of family values.
Trump is on trial charged with 34 felony counts for falsifying business records. A cover-up story finally unearthed. As Howard Baker said, “It is almost always the cover-up rather than the event that causes trouble.”
Related [a few minutes ago] by two different reporters:
Killing Dogs. Taunting the Homeless. Praising Al Capone. This Is Trump’s Party.
Michelle Goldberg May 13, 2024, 9:14 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/opinion/kristi-noem-vice-signaling-maga.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20240514011855/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/13/opinion/kristi-noem-vice-signaling-maga.html
That link is to:
What’s attracting young men to Patrick Bateman? by Robert Schmad at Washington Examiner July 8, 2021 7:56 pm
That first paragraph…
McEntee is a despicable person…though that’s not surprising.
This reminds me that the story of George Floyd’s death by cops
began with a counterfeit $20 bill.
McEntee is despicable because he chooses to support Trump and invents dirty tricks that harm the innocent. Like so many on the right, his cruelty is the point, as is his arrogance that he’ll never be caught and held accountable.
McEntee seems to be pulling back, though, from bragging about, in effect, swatting the poor and homeless by distributing counterfeit notes to them as donations. A frat buddy might have reminded him that 18 USC 480 is a felony that carries up to 20 years in prison. He’s now playing the Stone-Trump card, saying it was a joke. I bet. Evidence of crime might be hard to find, but an investigation seems warranted.
They seem to go to “it was a joke” or “it was sarcasm” when they get called on stuff like that. (I have yet to see any evidence of humor or sarcasm from any R.)
No, m’am, we at the GOP have no sense of humor we’re aware of.
Yeah, their comedic B-team starts (and ends) with Rob Schneider. The rest are C-list & below.
Naturally, Donald Trump thinks John McEntee is Greaaaaat!
https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/john-mcentee-poised-role-trump-administration-1235021174/
From Robert Schmad’s July 8, 2021 Washington Examiner column:
What’s attracting young men to Patrick Bateman? https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/2277489/whats-attracting-young-men-to-patrick-bateman/
Just so deeply toxic.
“Hollywood has failed to provide an entire generation of young men with masculine role models.”
What a crock of shit. This moron has a problem with this generation’s masculine role models like Keanu Reeves, Dwayne Johnson, Oscar Isaac, Bradley Cooper, Ryan Gosling, and so many more who have wider emotional range than Eastwood. I won’t trash talk Connery but Christ, man’s been dead four years now, gave up the ghost at age 90. Try looking at actors who aren’t old enough to collect Social Security.
One other point this douchebag Schmad doesn’t write but you know he’s thinking it: a big swath of the actors younger than 93-year-old Eastwood are mixed race or non-white. Can’t have those people being role models to young men, ya’ know.
As for the character Bateman: he’s like Gordon Gecko’s character in Wall Street, a social parasite. Greed is NOT good just as serial killing to fill an emotional void isn’t, but morons like Schmad have taken away the wrong message from American Psycho and rationalize glorifying a fictional character rather than smacking anybody for using Bret Easton Ellis’ fiction as a model for life.
Thanks for winding me up, harpie, shook off my afternoon doldrums.
LOL! I aim to please! :-)
The other day Heather Cox Richardson wrote about
TRUMP and the Marlborough Man Myth:
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/may-12-2024
In reply to harpie (good morning!)
May 16, 2024 9:13 am
The mythos was partially accurate — these guys who constituted the majority of cowboys in Texas before the Civil War, and they certainly wanted to be left alone. Inconvenient, though, hence the war.
https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/concepts-african-american-history/black-cowboys-in-the-19th-century-west-1850-1900/
Don’t get me started on the Hawaiian paniolo.
Good Morning, Rayne!
[May 16, 2024 at 9:27 am]
Thanks for that perspective.
Goldberg: [Kristi Noem has been trying “for years” [] “to fit into Trump’s circle”]
JUNIOR Don, at least, is totally steeped in the toxic grievance wanna-be he-man culture we’re talking about, and Marcy’s post today just emphasizes that.
RIP, jazz saxophonist, David Sanborn.
https://crooksandliars.com/2024/05/david-sanborn-rip
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Sanborn
It’s one of those days. RIP, writer and Canada’s Chekhov, Alice Munro.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/article/2024/may/14/alice-munro-nobel-winner-and-titan-of-the-short-story-dies-aged-92
Sad to hear that she’s now passed on… :(
First Presidential DEBATE scheduled for June 27, 2024 in Atlanta on/by CNN.
Biden and Trump agree to a debate on June 27 https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/us/politics/biden-trump-debates.html
The devil will be in the details, including requirements for Covid testing that Trump flouted last time. The moderators need to enforce them ruthlessly – and to curtail or cancel the debate if Trump flouts them. Screw the media clamoring to fill their airwaves with free content.
Debates are not press conferences, where a candidate can do as he pleases. The organizers would do well to prepare for Trump’s predictable complaints and bullying – it’s what he does – and the obvious rage treats that would follow neutral firm enforcement of the rules.
The second DEBATE will be on September 10 on ABC.
The debate will be organized ad hoc, purportedly through cooperating news media.
I hope the second debate is subject to Trump’s good behavior at the first debate. He shouldn’t get a do over. If he screws up in June, as seems probable, then he should have no opportunity to do it again in September.
The problems you’ve mentioned were some of those the Biden Campaign detailed to the previous debate organizers as to why he would not participate in more of their debates this year.
Hopefully on video from jail cell.
Why are Democrats agreeing to this BS debate ?
Not Democrats, I should think. Why did Joe Biden propose two debates with a guy who screams, but doesn’t debate or play by the rules that define a debate?
I can picture Trump calling on his supporters to kill Biden every time he opens his mouth in the debate. He’ll hold up pictures of himself holding a bat to Biden’s, Schiff’s, Raskin’s, etc. heads, like the one he had with Bragg.
In SLOVKIA: The prime minister was shot multiple times while visiting supporters, his Facebook page said. Slovakia’s populist prime minister, Robert Fico, was shot and seriously wounded on Wednesday in what the government called an assassination attempt. […] https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/05/15/world/slovakia-prime-minister-fico-shooting/slovakia-prime-minister-fico
Caught my eye in another update:
More background from the Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/15/who-is-robert-fico
Thanks!
He sounds more Orban than Merkel. He started a leftist party, but is staunchly pro-Putin. Must be an avid reader of nakedcapitalism.
That’s a really good summary article.
This assassination attempt feels like a very big deal,
that could have worldwide repurcussions.
^ ^ ^ Maybe a tad overwrought…maybe.
What do you mean by nakedcapitalism?
Your web browser will lead you to the site, and to the definition of horseshoe leftist.
The following is a detailed summary of the situation in Slovakia, which was recommended by Cheryl Rofer on her BlueSky page:
A gunman shot Slovakia’s prime minister. Here’s what you need to know. The attempted assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico happened in a deeply divided political context. https://goodauthority.org/news/slovakia-prime-minister-fico-shot/ MICHAL ONDERCO – MAY 15, 2024
It’s most certainly disheartening. One article pointed out that this is the first serious political assassination attempt in Europe in the past 20 years… I think that assassination in the Netherlands back in 2002 possibly?
Reply to earlofhuntingdon
May 15, 2024 at 2:15 pm, here and there I read nakedcapitalism and I find it thoughtful. What is horseshoe leftist and what about it is that?
Follow the shape of a horseshoe. A HS leftist is so far left, they’ve gone right. That describes nakedcapitalism’s political position. It has a few favorite “experts” on Russia, for example, that I think are suspect, but which are above criticism, as are Saints Greenwald, Taibbi, and Mate, who comprise the site’s holy trinity of journalism.
I have a nit with the supposition nakedcapitalism and the “saints” are horseshoe leftists.
They’re really useful idiots inside an influence operation. There’s a pattern ops like this follow: launch and target a liberal audience; develop trust and enlarge a liberal audience; gradually change content to anarcho-/crypto-fascism. You can surely think of a couple other outfits which did the same thing.
Fair enough. My irritation is that it’s virtually impossible to criticize one of the frequent comments by those three without being inundated with retorts. Ditto with Scott Ritter and John Helmer.
The latter I find particularly suspect, as he claims to be an investigative journalist, who has lived in Moscow for over a decade, and hasn’t been arrested or deported, which suggests Putin is reasonably happy with his output.
The Republicans can’t stop lying, speaker Johnson today declared that prosecutor in MAL case moved boxes, etc. and that’s why Cannon did what she did. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yG8rCNuaecs
VOTING
Law professor Joshua Douglas wrote soon to be published “The Court v. The Voters.”
Paul Rosenberg published an interview with Douglas on 5/11/24:
Can we end the Supreme Court’s assault on voting rights? This legal scholar says there’s hope Law professor Joshua Douglas on “The Court v. The Voters,” and a bipartisan solution that might actually work https://www.salon.com/2024/05/11/can-we-end-the-on-voting-rights-this-legal-scholar-says-theres-hope/
Bolts Magazine published a Q and A with Douglas yesterday:
How the Supreme Court Is Undermining Voting Rights: Your Questions Answered An election law expert responds to questions from Bolts readers on how the court is affecting democracy and what comes next—from threats to the VRA to his hopes for repair. https://boltsmag.org/how-the-supreme-court-is-undermining-voting-rights-your-questions-answered/
In Louisiana:
1] US Supreme Court Allows Louisiana to Use Congressional Map With Two Majority-Black Districts https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/us-supreme-court-allows-louisiana-to-use-congressional-map-with-two-majority-black-districts/ Crystal Hill May 15, 2024
2] Wednesday’s civil rights “victory” at SCOTUS comes with caveats A Louisiana congressional map with two majority-Black districts will be used in 2024. The SCOTUS conservatives, however, used reasoning urged by the state’s GOP leaders. https://www.lawdork.com/p/scotus-louisiana-redistricting-congress-vra-epc
Chris Geidner 5/16/24
In relation to this VOTING train of thought, but with much wider ramifications:
Minority Rule Is Threatening American Democracy Like Never Before The Founding Fathers planted a bomb in the Constitution. Donald Trump lit the fuse. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/04/minority-rule-is-threatening-american-democracy-like-never-before/ Ari Berman May+June 2024
[This story is adapted from Ari Berman’s new book, Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It, which will be published April 23.]
Excerpt from the Berman article:
In reply to harpie
May 16, 2024, 11:10 am
Recall the longest-serving House rep wanted the Senate abolished and elections publicly funded.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/john-dingell-how-restore-faith-government/577222/