I'm not sure what you missed in my post. What I'm saying is that as much as you support the overturning of Roe vs wade, it also had many consequences that hurt and harm children by forcing children who have been raped and victims of rape and incest to be punished for the very crimes committed against them. Many having to travel hundreds of miles to get this resolved. I know you disagree with that but it's a part of what everyone knew would happen if Roe vs wade was overturned. All I'm looking for is you to be honest enough to admit that what you voted for has negative consequences as well. Neither extreme is the right call. But you insist on claiming your side is right no matter the suffering that it inflicts on women and even children. You have stated you don't agree with it, but yet your vote helped it happen. That's all.
NO what I am saying is that I don't want abortions unless it's medically nessasary. Did it have consequences I don't like. Sure it did, as I have said and always say, there are buttholes on both sides. it's time for you to admit that you support killing babies in the womb. You can keep saying your not for that but as long as you keep supporting those are for that then your on their side. I am perfectly fine with admitting I am on the side of unborne babies. Lets hear you admit what you keep standing up for. Your for murdering babies in the womb. You keep saying your not but ever post you make in here says you are.
so since conservatives want to have say so over the bodies of women, can i have say so over who has to accept my challenge in a gunfight?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
So you want me to admit to something you have made up in your own mind? Yeah, right. I've made my beliefs clear. It's like gay marriage. If you don't like or believe in gay marriage, don't get gay married. If you don't like abortion, don't get one. Oh that's right, you don't even have a uterus. You just think you have the right to control everyone elses uterus. I on the other hand don't.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
as I have said and always say, there are buttholes on both sides
Only the buttholes on your side in Ohio voted to ban ALL abortions even in the case of incest and rape. You knew that going in. Ohio, a red state would ban all abortions if the extreme court overturned Rowe. That’s what you voted for with trump. You got your stacked extreme court. You got exactly what you voted for. Good job.
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." Thomas Jefferson.
FBI delivers subpoenas to several Pa. Republican lawmakers: sources say
Federal investigators delivered subpoenas or paid visits to several House and Senate Republican offices in the Pennsylvania Capitol on Tuesday and Wednesday, according to multiple sources.
At least some of the individuals receiving subpoenas were told they were not targets of an investigation, according to at least six sources reached by PennLive, but that they may have information of interest to the FBI. All of the sources had been briefed on the investigative moves in some way, but demanded anonymity in order to discuss them.
The information being requested centered around U.S. Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., and the effort to seek alternate electors as part of former President Donald Trump’s efforts to remain in office after the 2020 election, several sources said.
The Washington Post on Wednesday, citing a source familiar with the probe, also reported that Perry’s cellphone was seized Tuesday as part of the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into the use of fake electors to try to overturn President Biden’s victory. The Post’s source also spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Spokepersons for the Pennsylvania’s House and Senate Republican leaders did not confirm whether any of their caucus members received a subpoena.
“I am unaware of any FBI presence in the Capitol or Leader Benninghoff’s office yesterday. To the extent House members or staff may have been contacted by the FBI, we would not comment on a potential or ongoing investigation,” said Jason Gottesman, a spokesman for House Majority Leader Kerry Benninghoff, R-Centre County, and the chamber’s Republican caucus.
A spokesman for House Speaker Bryan Cutler, R-Lancaster County, said on Wednesday morning that office did not receive a visit and said they were unaware of the FBI having a presence in the Capitol on Tuesday.
A spokeswoman for Senate Majority Leader Kim Ward, R-Westmoreland County, referred questions to the office of Senate President Pro Tempore Jake Corman, R-Centre County.
Jason Thompson, a spokesman for Corman, issued a statement, saying, “Federal subpoenas typically request confidentiality from the witnesses being subpoenaed in order to avoid impediment to the ongoing investigation, so it would be inappropriate to comment on whether members have received subpoenas or not. If subpoenaed as witnesses, our members will certainly comply with requests for documents or information not covered by an applicable privilege.”
He added: “We have no indication that any of our members are targets of any FBI investigation.”
Perry, in a post to his re-election campaign’s Facebook page Tuesday evening, called the seizure of his phone while he was traveling with his family “banana republic tactics...”
“I’m outraged — though not surprised — that the FBI under the direction of Merrick Garland’s DOJ, would seize the phone of a sitting member of Congress,” he said.
If the telephone was seized under the cover of a search warrant, however, it would have had to have been approved by a federal magistrate judge.
PennLive’s efforts to reach Perry, his attorney on Jan. 6 matters, and his congressional staff were all unsuccessful Wednesday.
The subpoenas issued this week in Harrisburg are essentially official requests for information or documents from federal prosecutors who believe that the information they seek will be helpful to an ongoing grand jury investigation, said David Freed, the former U.S. Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
It is different from a warrant in the sense that there is no requirement to show probable cause of a crime that’s been independently reviewed by a judge, but - absent a legal challenge that results in the subpoena being quashed - it does require the recipient’s compliance, Freed noted.
Perry, a York County Republican in his 5th term in the House, has come under as much scrutiny as any Pennsylvania office-holder over his involvement in Trump’s efforts to stay in power after his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.
The primary focus on Perry from multiple congressional investigations that have played publicly has been his connection to former Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Clark, one of the few Department of Justice officials who appeared to be sympathetic to Trump’s false claims that the vote in several swing states had been rigged against him.
Democratic staff on the U.S. Senate Judiciary committee reported in October that it was Perry who had introduced Clark to Trump shortly before Christmas 2020. And the House Select Committee investigating the circumstances surrounding the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol has turned up other evidence of Perry communicating with Trump’s White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows about Clark.
Clark quickly captured Trump’s fancy as a potential replacement for Acting Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. Clark, according to findings of both Congressional committees, urged a plan to send letters asking legislatures in six states — including Pennsylvania -— asking them to call special sessions to review election fraud allegations and consider appointing alternate slates of electors that would award votes to Trump instead of Biden.
Trump ultimately backed off a plan to replace Rosen with Clark in the face of warnings that such an action would result in mass resignations throughout the Department of Justice, the committees have stated.
Federal agents conducted a search of Clark’s home earlier this summer.
Perry’s name has surfaced in several other ways regarding Trump’s efforts to stay in power. They include:
- Meadows’ former aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified to the House Select Committee that Perry was among a small group of people who talked with Meadows about a potential appearance by Trump at the Capitol following his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, 2021. Since this was discussion about a scheduled movement, Hutchinson explained, it meant the takes would have been in advance of Jan. 6.
Perry’s spokesman Jay Ostrich said the congressman denied being part of any such discussion.
- Perry was present during a Dec. 21 meeting between members of the House’s arch-conservative Freedom Caucus and Trump to strategize about what Congress could do to block final certification of Biden’s election.
- Acting Deputy Attorney General Richard Donoghue told Senate Judiciary Committee staff Perry called him at Trump’s behest on Dec. 27 to discuss what turned out to be an errant analysis circulating among Trump backers at the time that Pennsylvania’s certified vote count was higher than the number of voters who had actually cast ballots.
The report, first promoted by a group of Republican state lawmakers, was based on a premature reading of input on individual voter histories into the state’s registry of registered voters.
- Hutchinson, in her House Select Committee testimony, also listed Perry among a number of congressmen who inquired about the possibility of receiving a pre-emptive presidential pardon from Trump before he left office. Perry angrily denounced that assertion - first voiced by U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyoming — as a “soulless lie.”
To date, the House Select Committee has not provided any documentation of Hutchinson’s claim about the pardon request.
Perry has given limited comment on most of these allegations, but in comments to a Philadelphia talk radio station earlier this summer he said he feels he and other Trump supporters are being persecuted for legitimate questions that they had about the conduct and result of the 2020 election - some of which he alleged were never seriously investigated.
But he also insisted he’s ready for the fights ahead.
“I’m in the fight to serve our Republic, and if it means stepping out and having the light shown on me, I’m going to do it,” Perry said. “This is the price to be paid for service, and if you’re not willing to pay the price, quite honestly, you shouldn’t serve.”
As for the fake elector scheme, Pennsylvania was one of the several states where pro-Trump slates of electoral college voters were formed.
In Pennsylvania, the group met Dec. 14, 2020, in a conference room at the Harrisburg offices of Quantum Communications, the public relations and advocacy firm run by Charlie Gerow. Gerow is a top leader in the American Conservative Union and was an unsuccessful candidate in this year’s Republican primary for governor.
The Pennsylvania Republican State Committee said at the time that they met to cast “a conditional vote for Donald Trump and Mike Pence.”
“We took this procedural vote to preserve any legal claims that may be presented going forward” said Bernie Comfort, Pennsylvania Chair of the Trump campaign. “This was in no way an effort to usurp or contest the will of the Pennsylvania voters.”
They said the slate of electors was appointed only to act in the event that the results of the election were lawfully overturned.
“As far as I’m concerned, everything that was done that day by the alternate electors was done properly set forth as an alternate slate if the federal court or other courts found the Biden slate was not to be recognized,” said Gerow. “We did everything right and from what I heard and saw, they wanted to do everything in a proper way.”
The Trump slate included a number of well-known GOP luminaries, including former congressman Lou Barletta, Allegheny County Republican Committee Chairman Sam DeMarco III, Comfort, the current vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Republican State Committee, and Andy Reilly, one of Pennsylvania’s members on the Republican National Committee.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro said in January that his investigators had looked over the Republican elector slate and felt that - while the action was “intentionally misleading and purposefully damaging to our democracy,” they did not believe it met the legal standards for criminal prosecution under state law.
No sitting Pennsylvania legislators were a part of the pro-Trump elector slate, though The New York Times reported last month that at least some in the Trump’s campaign leadership considered Doug Mastriano, the Republican candidate for governor, as the “point person” to help organize electors in Pennsylvania.
That report referred to Dec. 12, 2020 emails between Trump campaign attorneys that Mastriano had been fielding concerns that the plan was illegal, and that he should be reached out to by the campaign.
Mastriano’s attorney, Timothy Parlatore, declined to comment Wednesday on allegations that Mastriano was involved in the Trump elector scheme, and the Mastriano campaign did not respond to requests for comment.
But he also predicted there will be no criminal charges that will flow from that leg of the Trump probes. Formation of those slates, he said, has been done before and “it is the appropriate action to take when there’s the potential that the original slate may be invalidated through litigation or investigation,” Parlatore said.
Less than 1% of abortions are late term. Using that rhetoric doesn't work as well as you think it does for anyone who comprehends that fact.
Funny you keep going on and on about rape/incest when those make up less that 1/2 of one percent of all abortions. But at least we can agree that their should be a exception for rape/incest.
Percentage Reason <0.5% Victim of rape 3% Fetal health problems 4% Physical health problems 4% Would interfere with education or career 7% Not mature enough to raise a child 8% Don't want to be a single mother 19% Done having children 23% Can't afford a baby 25% Not ready for a child 6% Other
Less than 1% of abortions are late term. Using that rhetoric doesn't work as well as you think it does for anyone who comprehends that fact.
Funny you keep going on and on about rape/incest when those make up less that 1/2 of one percent of all abortions. But at least we can agree that their should be a exception for rape/incest.
Percentage Reason <0.5% Victim of rape 3% Fetal health problems 4% Physical health problems 4% Would interfere with education or career 7% Not mature enough to raise a child 8% Don't want to be a single mother 19% Done having children 23% Can't afford a baby 25% Not ready for a child 6% Other
More recent studies (which better discuss how multiple issues (rather than one) tend to make a better capture of decisions - as most women abort for more than one reason. Additionally, the second link they show is what women choose to report to the Government of florida, which is then held as a government record -- and which might decrease the number of women reporting rape or incest as a primary reason (especially when elective abortion is legal).
However, I agree that the majority of abortions in the United States are not due to rape/incest/fetal health problems.
But what stands out to me from your statistics is --- if conservatives really wanted to prevent abortion in the United States (instead of punish women's choices) --- then maybe they should advocate for maternal leave, free daycare, and child tax credits.
For example, in this study, which compares abortion access in the United States against a number of other countries (most directly Sweden, where parents receive 18 months of parental leave, daycare is free from age 1, and parents receive ~$100/month per kid) -- the percentage of people who report that they can't afford a baby, or are not ready for a baby drops significantly:
Well now if you and Portland want to play that game then lets go. Who's fault is it that the Dems never Codify Roe When They Had the Chance. Hmmmm It must be your and Portland fault. I mean hell you get what you voted for right? Why didn't you vote for people who would have done that??? Gee you made your bed now you have to lay in it. See how stupid that is?
The return of thalidomide (type) babies is all part of God’s plan…forced on everyone by the pro-birthers. This is what they voted for…. birth defects, pain, suffering…. because every cell clump is precious. Own it pro birthers.
And I promise, these pro birthers will be against any type of assistance for the families that find themselves in a financial bind because of this....
Some will and some won't. As for me I will vote for assistance.
But what stands out to me from your statistics is --- if conservatives really wanted to prevent abortion in the United States (instead of punish women's choices) --- then maybe they should advocate for maternal leave, free daycare, and child tax credits.
I agree 110 percent bro. Your preaching to the choir. While I lean right on abortion, I lean left of social programs.
The return of thalidomide (type) babies is all part of God’s plan…forced on everyone by the pro-birthers. This is what they voted for…. birth defects, pain, suffering…. because every cell clump is precious. Own it pro birthers.
And I promise, these pro birthers will be against any type of assistance for the families that find themselves in a financial bind because of this....
Some will and some won't. As for me I will vote for assistance.
I answered another one of your posts about why the Dems didn’t codify abortion. Apparently my response was removed. I’ll recap… it shouldn’t have to have been but for your ilk butting in to other peoples private lives. You all could have just left it alone and STAYED OUT OF OTHER’S BUSINESS!
So if you’re going to suddenly act like a human and vote for assistance you’ll have to vote for those that want abortion back as your side doesn’t want abortion OR assistance. So I guess like so many of your other words… hallow.
I’m done responding to you. It made my skin crawl to have to post this to you. I have nothing but contempt and disdain for you.
When I first made the decision to give away my anonymity at this address, I did so with a certain amount of trepidation. I'd written some op-eds about the Browns in PF, skimmed 'The Tailgate Lot' for pop trivia-related posts, and dropped the occasional comment. I stayed miles away from the politicly-charged threads (back in '06- 09, there was just too much rancor- you know? ). Once I decided to weigh in on social issues and politics, I instinctively knew that for me to proffer an opinion that would hold any weight, I'd have to bring prior 'life receipts.' So I began telling life stories to lend background to my views, ideas and positions. Good-bye, anonymity.
Age. Profession. Defining moments, both personal and professional. Childhood stories of growing up in the Black Baptist Christian tradition. Stories of my first paying job at the age of 7 ("3 Aces Moving." Gramps was Ace #1, Pops was Ace #2, and I was "Little Ace" -3 generations of hustlin'ass Black American patriots whose work ethic was forged by Jim Crow, The Great Depression, and the promise of something better). ...and so much more.
It seemed like the right way to go, because folks who got to know me would at least understand the why behind my words, even if they disagreed with the comments themselves. That decision has served me well in my tenure at Dawgtalkers. Folks who see politics from other vantage points have been pretty respectful of me, even in disagreement. I have beef with only about 1.-2.% of the community, and accept my share of responsibility for that. The level of acceptance I've received has kept me coming back all these years, because I feel as though I've truly earned a place in a very real community.
I've gained insight from others telling their stories here, as well. When I've found myself at ideological odds with those posters, my knowledge of their stories has actually at times directed the tone and tenor of my responses. I've fallen far short of batting 1.000, but there is no doubt in my mind that even when I've been an azzhat, I've never lost sight of the fact that I'm interacting with a real-life person. A person I might one day meet at a tailgate party outside Cleveland Browns Stadium (it will never be FirstEnergy in my house-).
People telling their stories. It's not just how we get to know each other, it's also how we come to understand each other. And with understanding, meaningful, substantive dialogue can be found.
So, without any background, without any set-up, I'm just going to leave this here. As a self-described storyteller who tries to be at once engaging, entertaining, and thought-provoking, I encourage My Dawgs to listen to this. It just might take a current conversation down a slightly-altered path. I promise you- you'll laugh, you'll (maybe) drop a tear...but you will also be forced to think. And maybe talk.
Another person's story has the potential to change the way we see things. As I've said before, perspective is essential.
your fellow poundmate, clem.
p.s. You'll be looking at a live performance. Do yourselves a favor: open the video fullscreen.
“woman, whose water broke after 15 weeks of pregnancy—far before the point of viability where the fetus could survive outside the womb but long after the six-week cutoff to receive an emergency abortion.
Because the fetus had a heartbeat, lawyers advised the woman’s doctors that they could not perform an abortion to remove it, even though that is the standard and absolutely necessary medical procedure. The only options were to discharge her or to admit her to the hospital and wait for the heartbeat to stop on its own—something the doctor told him could take anywhere from seconds to happen to days. That’s a completely unnecessary, physically and emotionally harrowing experience, not to mention likely financially draining seeing as this woman lives in a country where healthcare is prohibitively expensive.
The doctors sent the woman home. Collins explained what she was left to go through: “First, she’s going to pass this fetus in the toilet. She’s going to have to deal with that on her own.” Then, he says he was told, “There’s a greater than 50 percent chance that she’s going to lose her uterus; there’s a 10 percent chance that she will develop sepsis and herself die.””
“The woman, by the way, returned to the hospital two weeks after being sent home so that the doctors could remove the “non-beating” fetus. That she had to live in that ordeal for two weeks is unconscionable.”
All you anti abortionists can live with this and the thousands of more stories like this to come. This. Is. On. You. Own it.
whoa whoa whoa!!! i thought conservatives wanted government to stay out of the decisions of private businesses?
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
Abortion access crumbles: 4 more states enact new restrictions this week
The erosion of abortion access in the United States accelerated this week with four more state trigger laws taking effect — in Idaho, North Dakota, Tennessee and Texas.
While three of those states had significant restrictions on the procedure already in place, the new laws carry narrower exemptions and harsher criminal penalties, all but eliminating abortion in broad swaths of the U.S.
As of Thursday, abortion is prohibited starting at conception, with limited exceptions, in a dozen states, and two more states forbid the procedure after the detection of fetal cardiac activity, around six weeks of pregnancy.
The newly effective laws make good on conservative promises to swiftly prohibit abortion in as many states as possible following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in June and will leave much of the South and Plains states with virtually no access to the procedure. The laws could also make it harder for people to access non-abortion care, including for a miscarriage and family planning.
In Texas, which has banned all abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy for nearly a year, abortion providers now risk a life sentence for performing an abortion at any time during pregnancy, unless the pregnant person’s life is in danger.
Traveling outside of Texas for an abortion “was hard enough as it is, but now we have large blocks of the country that are abortion deserts with no provider at all,” said Abigail Aiken, an associate professor and researcher focusing on abortion at the University of Texas at Austin. “All these trigger bans going into effect at once are changing the picture.”
While many people do not know they are pregnant six weeks after conception, Aiken cited her own research and data from the Texas Health Department to argue that a total ban — even with exemptions — is an order of magnitude more restrictive than a law barring abortion after fetal cardiac activity is detected. In the first month after Texas’ law took effect, for example, abortions in the state declined by about half compared to the previous year.
“What we saw in Texas was online requests for abortion pills tripled and more people traveled out of state,” Aiken said. “But there were still abortions being provided below that six-week gestational limit. We saw that people became more aware that they had to recognize and address a pregnancy quickly because of the new time pressure.”
The same thing could happen in Tennessee, where abortion is now prohibited except if necessary to save the pregnant person’s life — taking the state’s law prohibiting abortions after the detection of fetal cardiac activity one step further.
Gov. Bill Lee, earlier this week, suggested to local media that the new law provides adequate protection for physicians who perform an emergency abortion, even though the statute does not specify exactly what would fall under the exemption for protecting the life of the mother.
Some Republican lawmakers have suggested they’d like to fine-tune the bill, though Lee told reporters he thinks the law already “provides for treatment of dangerous maternal health issues.”
In Idaho, the state is banning all abortions with exemptions for rape, incest and threats to the life of the mother — and is currently fighting the Biden administration in federal court over whether patients who are at risk for serious but not life-threatening impairments have the right to the procedure.
And in North Dakota, the state’s only abortion clinic has already moved across the border to Minnesota, though it is still in court challenging the state’s abortion law — which takes effect Friday.
Abortion access will likely diminish further in the coming months in other GOP-controlled states. In Indiana, a new law that will prohibit abortion except in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal anomaly and life endangerment is scheduled to take effect on Sept. 15.
South Carolina lawmakers, who are set to meet next week, are debating a bill that would ban abortion starting at conception with no exceptions for rape and incest. The state ban on abortions taking place after cardiac activity is detected has been blocked by the state Supreme Court. And in West Virginia, legislators are at an impasse on a bill to clarify the state’s pre-Roe abortion law.
Even if those bills pass, red state lawmakers say they may put forward other abortion-related proposals in the future — especially to counteract measures to strengthen abortion access in blue states.
“This won’t be the end of it,” said West Virginia Senate Majority Leader Tom Takubo. “One adverse thing happens in California, it’ll be a heated discussion here in West Virginia.”
And courts are temporarily blocking enforcement of sweeping restrictions in five other states — Arizona, Iowa, Michigan, Utah and Wyoming — as litigation against them proceeds.
Court battles currently playing out in both Idaho and Texas that could reach the Supreme Court will also determine what rights both pregnant patients and abortion providers have in emergency situations.
“Who is going to decide what care patients receive when they experience a dire medical emergency while pregnant?” said Jeff Dubner, an attorney with Democracy Forward, representing medical groups in both cases. “Is it going to be the physician in the room with them, making calls based on their decades of study, or is it going to be legislators with no medical expertise?”
Further evidence that the GOP doesn't want to hear what the popple have to say, they just want to impose their will on others
Michigan election board rejects abortion rights initiative
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan elections board on Wednesday rejected an abortion rights initiative after its two Republican board members voted against putting the proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
The two Democrats on the Board of State Canvassers voted in favor, but getting the measure on the ballot required at least three votes of the four-member board. The Reproductive Freedom for All campaign, which gathered signatures to get the measure on the ballot, is expected to appeal to the Democratic-leaning Michigan Supreme Court in the coming days and expressed confidence it would prevail.
Abortion rights have become a powerful motivator for voters since Roe was overturned. In conservative Kansas, voters overwhelmingly defeated a ballot measure that would have allowed the Republican-controlled Legislature to tighten restrictions or ban the procedure outright, and the issue has swayed votes in special elections for Congress, including in a battleground district in upstate New York. Nationally, Democrats have seen an increase in fundraising since the Supreme Court decision.
The proposed constitutional amendment aims to negate a 91-year-old state law that would ban abortion in all instances except to save the life of the mother. The meeting drew hundreds of people, who packed the hearing room and overflow rooms for a chance to comment. Abortion opponents also protested outside.
Michigan's 1931 law — which abortion opponents had hoped would be triggered by a conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe vs. Wade in June — remains blocked after months of court battles. A state judge ruled Aug. 19 that Republican county prosecutors couldn’t enforce the ban, saying it was “in the public’s best interest to let the people of the great state of Michigan decide this matter at the ballot box."
Darci McConnell, a spokeswoman for Reproductive Freedom for All, the group backing the measure, said she remains confident.
"We had more than 730,000 people who read, signed and understood what they signed. The board was supposed to do one thing today and affirm that we had the signatures, their own bureau said we did. So we’re still optimistic that we’ll be on the ballot in November,” McConnell said.
Supporters of another initiative that didn’t make the ballot Wednesday — a measure to expand voting, including adding ballot drop boxes — also are expected to appeal to the Supreme Court. Groups have seven business days to appeal and the ballot must be finalized by Sept. 9.
Having abortion rights on the ballot in November would almost certainly be a boon for Democrats in Michigan, a swing state where voters will also be deciding whether Democrats keep control of statewide offices, including governor and secretary of state. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and other Democrats have put abortion rights front and center in their campaigns, and after Republicans chose businesswoman Tudor Dixon as the GOP nominee for governor, Democrats released an ad blasting her strong opposition to abortion, including in cases of rape and incest.
Abortion opponents protested noisily outside as the meeting got underway Wednesday. Their muffled yells could be heard inside the hearing room, and the Republican board chairman at one point asked security to tell them to stop banging on the windows.
During the public comment period, Dr. Jessica Frost, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Lansing, told the board “we must restore the reproductive protections lost when Roe was overturned.”
Opponents said the ballot language was confusing. Several called abortion immoral and warned board members against approval.
“I can’t imagine a more important decision that you have to ever make in your life, because I know that you and I will kneel before Christ someday and answer for the decision you make today,” Billy Putman said.
The Bureau of Elections verified last Thursday that the abortion ballot initiative petition contained enough valid signatures for the amendment to qualify for the ballot and recommended that the state Board of Canvassers approve the measure.
On Wednesday, Mary Ellen Gurewitz, a Democratic canvasser, said the board had “no authority to reject this petition due to challenges to the content of the petition.” But Tony Daunt, a Republican canvasser, said errors in some petition language were “egregious.”
The Michigan Board of Canvassers, comprising two Republicans and two Democrats, has become increasingly partisan in recent years.
The board made national headlines following the 2020 presidential election when one member, who has since resigned, abstained from voting to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the state. The other GOP board member, who voted to certify, wasn’t nominated again by the state GOP party and was replaced by Tony Daunt, the board chairman.
Earlier this year, two leading candidates for the GOP nomination for governor were dropped from the primary ballot after the board deadlocked along partisan lines on whether too many fraudulent signatures on their nomination papers made them ineligible. A tie vote meant the candidates lost.
The board also voted Wednesday not to place another initiative, to expand voting in the state, on the fall ballot, though the committee backing the measure is expected to appeal the decision to the Michigan Supreme Court.
The measure would expand voter rights by allowing nine days of in-person early voting, state-funded absentee ballot postage and drop boxes in every community. The four-member board split 2-2, with Democrats voting to certify the initiative for the ballot and Republicans opposing certification, saying some of its language is unclear.
A Teacher Told Students How to Access Banned Books. A State Official Wants Her License Revoked.
Last month, a 10th grade English teacher in Oklahoma committed a cardinal sin for the modern American right: encouraging students to read banned books. Now, state Education Secretary Ryan Walters is calling for the revocation of her teaching license.
The saga began on the first day of school, when 34-year-old teacher Summer Boismier covered her classroom library in red paper and labeled the collection, “Books the state doesn’t want you to read.” Boismier included a QR code directing students to the Brooklyn Library’s Books Unbanned initiative, which allows teens around the country to access e-books that might have been removed from the shelves of their school libraries. Boismier said that she hid her book collection because her school district had asked teachers to[
A parent complained. Boismier resigned. And that was the end of the story—until the Oklahoma education secretary, who is running to become the state’s superintendent of public schools, decided to bring the attack on teachers’ liberties to a whole new level.
In a letter released Wednesday, Walters accused Boismier of “providing access to banned and pornographic material to students.” He also inaccurately described her as having been fired; she resigned voluntarily. Most outrageously, he requested that the state Board of Education revoke Boismier’s teaching certificate—a punishment typically reserved for teachers who have committed crimes.
There’s no word from the current head of the state Board of Education on whether he’ll heed Walters’ call. Still, the announcement is a chilling reminder of the ongoing attacks against our nation’s already overworked, underpaid, and desperately needed teachers.
this ever happened to my daughters, im suing the dog crap out of that school district.
“To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public.”
This is sickening. I don't have a problem with parents making that decision to, what I consider to be the indoctrination of their own children. But no school has the right to do something like this.
Intoducing for The Cleveland Browns, Quarterback Deshawn "The Predator" Watson. He will also be the one to choose your next head coach.
Let's face it, Republicans are chicken to put abortion on the ballot.... They are terrified by the prospect that all the preaching and scheming will be for nothing. They don't want citizens to vote on it. They won't let you exercise your right to govern your own body
Republicans are making a major error here.. They are under estimating the power of the female vote. Kansas did that,,, of course, Anti Abortion lost that vote so they decided it was FRAUD....
Last edited by Damanshot; 09/04/2206:59 PM.
#GMSTRONG
“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” Daniel Patrick Moynahan
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I am sure a lot of you haven't heard of Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County, Indiana v. Talevski. It could turn all of the federally funded state administered programs back to the state legislatures to decide what they want to do with the program/how to administer.
It affects mostly poor people programs like WIC and Snap, but the big enchilada is Medicaid. I would not want to leave it to red state legislatures to have to make law concerning Medicaid. This is a really big deal, especially for those that live in red states.
The Most Alarming Case On The Supreme Court’s Docket You Haven’t Heard Of Kate Riga - Friday 565 Comments |
There’s a sleeper case on the Supreme Court’s docket that could blow a gaping hole in the social safety net and give states leeway to neglect or end care for tens of millions of the most vulnerable Americans.
“This case is to Medicaid what Dobbs was to abortion,” Sara Rosenbaum, professor of health law and policy at George Washington University’s school of public health, told TPM.
And it’s not just Medicaid, though the program enrolling nearly 90 million Americans is the biggest one at risk. This case could leave all of those who depend on federally funded, state-administered programs — think SNAP (formerly known as food stamps) or WIC, which helps low-income pregnant women and mothers with young children buy food — without any recourse, should states stop providing the benefits they’re required to give.
The echoes of Dobbs are eerie.
Here too, the Court’s decision to take up the case surprised and alarmed experts in equal measure. There was no circuit court split, no raging lower court controversy to settle. It was a fairly run-of-the-mill case, not unlike hundreds that had come before. A county in a red state, eyeing the right-wing composition of the Court, calculated that the time was ripe to lodge a bigger ask, to use a pedestrian vehicle to do away with a broader right it opposes. And the justices quietly took it up — dragging behind them a paper trail peppered with their inclination to overturn 50 years of precedent.
The Case The case comes from a nursing home run by a municipal corporation owned by Marion County, Indiana. That’s key, since many nursing homes are privately owned.
The family of a patient who was suffering from dementia alleges that he was given a slew of unnecessary medications and improperly transferred to different facilities hours away. So they sued, arguing that his treatment violated the Federal Nursing Home Reform Act, which establishes the rights of residents of nursing homes that receive Medicaid and Medicare funding.
But the case, Health and Hospital Corp. of Marion County, Indiana v. Talevski, quickly became much bigger than the allegedly poor treatment of the late Gorgi Talevski.
The county-run corporation, sensing an opportunity, tacked on a bigger ask than the initial dispute over nursing home protections. It asked the Supreme Court to reexamine and nix altogether the pathway that people participating in these federal spending programs can use to sue when their rights are violated.
If the Supreme Court’s conservative majority bites, experts warn, it could have implications far beyond nursing homes.
If a state decided to, say, keep pocketing Medicaid funding but to abruptly stop providing coverage without any due process, those neglected beneficiaries would have recourse. They could sue in federal court under Section 1983, part of a civil rights statute passed in 1871. At the time, it was enacted as a federal remedy against officials who terrorized newly freed slaves under the color of state law. It remains a critical pathway for enforcing constitutional rights, and is frequently used in cases of police brutality.
A century after its passage, Section 1983 protections were interpreted to apply to rights under laws too — not just constitutional ones. In the next two decades, a body of court cases squarely applied it to Medicaid.
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“For 50 years now, the Supreme Court has recognized that people can sue under 1983 if their rights are violated under federal law, including spending clause statutes like Medicaid or food stamps,” Tim Jost, professor of law, emeritus, at the Washington and Lee University School of Law, told TPM. “This goes back even beyond Roe.”
Its Potential Ramifications “The way the state is arguing Talevski is that 1983 rights of action should not be available in any spending program … well, that’s our social safety net!” Nicole Huberfeld, professor of health law, ethics and human rights at Boston University’s school of public health, told TPM.
Suing under Section 1983 to check state violations is critical. The federal government has extremely limited tools in its arsenal to force states into compliance with requirements that come attached to these programs, and the beneficiaries of them, even fewer.
“There’d be very little anyone could do if a red state decided to just stop following the Medicaid statute, and certainly nothing that beneficiaries could do,” Jost said of a world without 1983 actions.
“This case will essentially determine whether Medicaid continues to exist as an enforceable legal entitlement,” added Rosenbaum.
These aren’t hypotheticals. In just one example of very many, in 2004, the Supreme Court forced Texas to provide basic health care services to Medicaid-eligible children after a protracted court battle where their parents sought relief under Section 1983.
“Children as a class sued and won on the grounds that they have entitlement to dental care under Medicaid, and the state couldn’t just take it away because it didn’t feel like spending money on poor children anymore,” Rosenbaum said.
That’s the kind of protection Section 1983 offers. It also raises flags to Health and Human Services (HHS) about the most egregious violators of these rights, so the department can better police who isn’t delivering on what they agreed to provide.
If the Court rips back that protection, as Huberfeld puts it, it “closes the courthouse doors” to low-income people who states are failing to fulfill their duty to, and makes it much easier for states to ignore the requirements that come with federal money. As it is, a bunch of states joined Indiana’s cause as amici, seeking to be rid of the guardrails that let them be dragged to court if they refuse to care for their constituents.
The Court As was the case with Dobbs, the conservative justices on the Court have littered their previous writing with proof that they’re hungry to shut down this avenue to state accountability.
A 2015 case in particular, Armstrong v. Exceptional Child Center, Inc., gave justices the chance to take a big step towards the precipice they’re standing on now.
“Scalia sent warning shots across the bow that he’s not putting up with this 1983 stuff anymore,” Rosenbaum said. “The only reason he didn’t prevail and we didn’t face armageddon then was because Breyer wouldn’t go along with that part of the decision.”
John Roberts, in his earlier life as deputy solicitor general, once wrote an amicus brief expressing doubt that individual interests that stem from federal funding are enforceable as rights. Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have been similarly hostile to private rights of action to enforce spending clause legislation.
The case also fits with broader themes of this Court, including a reluctance to give agencies any leeway when it comes to broad interpretations of their congressional-delegated authority — part of the right-wing legal world’s greater battle against the administrative state.
“There are members of this Court — Alito stands out in my mind, but also Gorsuch and Kavanaugh and Roberts — who believe that Congress’ spending power needs to be shrunk,” Huberfeld said. She added that Indiana and the other red states are likely clocking that this Court in particular is “not necessarily concerned about the practical implications of its decisions.”
With this case, the conservative majority has the opportunity to do enormous damage to people who are already often the most vulnerable in our society. The Court could hand down a narrower ruling about nursing home rights in particular — and indeed, the Department of Justice seems to be nudging the majority towards that less catastrophic offramp with its filing — but experts are skeptical.
With Dobbs, the justices theoretically could have greenlit Mississippi’s 15 week gestational ban and left Roe hobbled, but standing. But every court watcher knew that this very conservative court’s decision to take up a garden variety abortion ban case likely signaled something much more ominous.
“This is right up there with Dobbs and the EPA case and the gun case, where the Supreme Court is threatening to take a 180-degree turn and deny people rights that they’ve had for generations,” Jost warned.
This is the first step to getting rid of Social Security, SSI, Medicare, and Medicaid. First, they take the power away from the federal government to enforce, then they strip the programs on the state level until they have power on the fed level to eliminate it.
I heard one of the dumbasses say that we pay vets too much too. Smdh. So Vet retirement and disability will be a target too, just don't see how with the rapid backlash that got on the recent bills for vets. They are determined to shove their agenda up our asses rather we fight them or not. I'm telling you, we are a GOPER (MAGA) POTUS away from being the real-life handmaid's tale country, New Gilead. Hopefully, people will vote heavily for dems in the next two cycles, then maybe Republicans will drop this MAGA crap and return to sanity, freedom, liberty, justice, and all other recognizable American values.
This is such a complex issue there is no way that a headline can convey intent.
On the surface it could be the beginning of a compromise, if the appropriate caveats are included, or it could be a limitation on states that have a 20 week limit currently in place.
You won’t keep until you read the proposed legislation…
The Supreme Court’s Conservative Majority Wants to Gut the Voting Rights Act—Again
“Violations of the [Voting Rights Act] should not be made too easy to prove,” a young John Roberts wrote when he worked in the Reagan administration in 1982, “since they provide a basis for the most intrusive interference imaginable by federal courts into state and local processes.”
Forty years later, the court’s conservative majority seems set to complete Roberts’ crusade against the country’s most important civil rights law, severely weakening it from every angle.
In 2013, the Roberts Court ruled that states with a long history of discrimination no longer needed to have changes to their voting laws and electoral boundaries approved by the federal government, which opened the floodgates to a wave of new voter suppression efforts. Eight years later, the court made it far more difficult to strike down laws that disadvantage minority voters.
On Tuesday, the court heard a new challenge to the federal Voting Rights Act from Alabama—where civil rights protests in the 1960s inspired passage of the law—that could lead to a huge rollback in representation for communities of color.
Alabama has a Black population of 27 percent, but just one of the state’s seven congressional districts are reasonably likely to elect a candidate favored by Black voters. Civil rights groups sued during the most recent redistricting cycle and said the failure of the state to draw a second majority-Black district violated the VRA. A three-judge panel that included two appointees of Donald Trump agreed, writing that “Black voters have less opportunity than other Alabamians to elect candidates of their choice to Congress.”
But in a 5-4 shadow docket opinion last February, the Supreme Court reinstated Alabama’s original redistricting plan for the midterms.
Now, in Merrill v. Mulligan, the justices appear poised to go further. The court has already refused to strike down partisan gerrymandering; it could soon super-charge racial gerrymandering.
Alabama argued before the Court Tuesday that any consideration of race when drawing new districts was itself discriminatory, which would turn the Voting Rights Act on its head. If the Court’s conservative majority adopts this “race-blind” reasoning, it would reverse the very purpose of the law—to eradicate decades of discrimination against Black Americans and other historically disenfranchised minority groups—and stunt representation for communities of color as the US heads toward a majority-minority future.
“The benchmark you proposed has never been recognized by this court,” Justice Elena Kagan told Alabama Solicitor General Edmund LaCour. She said that the case made by civil rights groups was “kind of a slam dunk” under prior Supreme Court precedents. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, in her first week of oral arguments on the court, noted that it was profoundly ahistorical to read the Constitution and the country’s civil rights laws without taking race into account. “The entire point of the [14th] amendment was to secure rights for the freed former slaves,” she said.
Justice Samuel Alito—one of the court’s most conservative members—called some of Alabama’s arguments “quite far-reaching” but tried to narrow the case to essentially help the state win. “Your least far-reaching argument,” Alito suggested, is that the VRA “requires the showing that there can be a reasonably configured majority-minority district. It’s not just any old majority-minority district, it has to be reasonably configured. And reasonably configured means something more than just compact, it means a district that is the type of district that would be drawn by an unbiased mapmaker.”
As UCLA law professor Rick Hasen tweeted, the goal of Alito and some of the other conservative justices, including Brett Kavanaugh, seems to be to reshape the VRA to make it harder for minority voters to win racial gerrymandering cases—without making it seem like they are rewriting law.
The case has ramifications far beyond Alabama. As a result of the 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision, the 2021 redistricting cycle was the first in 50 years where states with a history of discrimination no longer needed to have federal officials sign off on their redistricting maps. That led to a dramatic reversal in past advances for minority voters in states across the South, with Republican-controlled states either failing to draw new majority-minority districts to keep pace with demographic changes or even dismantling existing ones, which had long thought to be illegal under the VRA. As a consequence, the number of majority-Black congressional districts could fall from 22 today to as few as nine after the 2022 midterms.
During its last term, the Supreme Court said that issues like abortion should be decided by “the people’s elected representatives” in the states. But by systematically undercutting efforts to make American democracy fairer and more just, the Supreme Court has made the divide between the people and their elected representatives ever greater.
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). Once I decided to weigh in on social issues and politics, I instinctively knew that for me to proffer an opinion that would hold any weight, I'd have to bring prior 'life receipts.' So I began telling life stories to lend background to my views, ideas and positions. Good-bye, anonymity.
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