Pissed Off....For A Change

SCOTUS, which is acting more and more like SCROTUM, is hearing 2 challenges to the ridiculously unconstitutional Texas abortion law. The Washington Post distills the hearing this way:

The challengers say the court must intervene to stop an unconstitutional law designed to avoid judicial scrutiny. The Texas law is enforced by private citizens, who are empowered to sue anyone who helps a woman get an abortion. 

The law has effectively halted access to abortion in the second largest state and sent Texas patients across state lines to terminate their pregnancies. 

The cases on Monday center on legal procedural questions. Next month, the justices will review a separate Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks. In that case, abortion opponents are seeking to overturn Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which reaffirmed the right to abortion in 1992. 

A dozen states have passed laws similar to the six-week ban in Texas, which prohibits the procedure after cardiac activity is detected in the embryo. Federal judges preemptively blocked state officials from enforcing the other laws.

There is a level of absurdity in these laws. They are supposed to STOP abortion, something they will never do. All they are going to do in send women back to illicit practitioners, coat hangers, and homemade poisons. This is not about protecting women, it is about killing them. 

Yes, I said killing women. 

Before Roe v. Wade, women died in back-alley abortions every day. They killed themselves with coat hangers and homemade supposed abortifacients. Others carried dead babies to term, or babies with such severe deformities that they could not live much past birth. Pre-teen victims of rape and incest were forced to carry those babies to term. Yes, and some women terminated pregnancies as a desperate move to not have a baby. 

These new attempts to control women are nothing more than attempts to turn back the clock to a time when women were chattel. And men controlled women. And our uteruses were not our own, but belonged to a husband. I used to think we were beyond this. We are not. 

The day I see those same righteous folks picked to control men's penises is the day I begin to think this is about saving children. When I see the same folks rallying for a safety net for mothers and children after birth, I'll begin to think they are pro-life. When I see those same righteous folk out there rallying for boys and men to keep their dicks in their pants, I'll consider the possibility that they are serious about preventing unwanted pregnancy.  And the day they put restrictions of Viagra as a recreational drug, I might believe they are serious about sex for procreation only.

Would that it really was all about uterus control. But wait...it's not.

On October 8th, Bill Maher described what is happening in our country as a slow-moving coup. How is it our crack journalists haven't been talking about this as directly as Maher was that night? Do yourself a favor: watch this all the way through. Even if you saw it the first time, watch it again. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cR4fXcsu9w)

I happen to think he is pretty close to spot on. The right-wing of the GOP is already is motion if you can judge the emails going out. 

Thankfully, not everyone is rolling over. After Maher's show,  Liz Cheney, daughter of the Dark Lord Dick, tweeted:

Millions of Americans have been sold a fraud that the election was stolen. Republicans have a duty to tell the American people that this is not true. Perpetuating the Big Lie is an attack on the core of our constitutional republic.

This is not news to me...nor should it be to you if you're a regular reader of this blog. I've been saying it for a long time. 

But here's the thing. The abortion hearings are a test case for setting up SCOTUS to allow the overturn of an election. If the conservative majority can revoke women's rights in the nominative form of access to health care, they can continue with permitting the restriction of voter rights, support of gerrymandering, and repeal of civil rights for the LGBTQ community. Don't say I'm being alarmist here; we know the cases are moving through the courts for those issues. And once the court begins to act on those cases, the election is not far off. As Bill Maher said in that monologue,

Here are the easiest 3 predictions in the world:

• Trump will run in 2024 

• He will get the Republican nomination 

•  And whatever happens on election night, the next day he will announce he won.

It almost worked the first time. There were flaws in the plan. His team is working to fix those flaws as I type. If you need a reminder....click here: The Eastman Memorandums.

It's time to pay attention to the men behind the curtain.

Meanwhile...

Tomorrow is election day. Here in our little village, the only voting taking place is for the school board and the education referendum extension. And if you think that's a no brainer, guess again. Several of the candidates are anti-COVID protection measures of any kind, one sends his kids to private school and has no contact with our public schools, and one has put up Reese's Peanut Butter Cup look-a-like signs because his name is Reese. Judging by the debate, he has the intellect of a peanut butter cup. There are, however, enough sane candidates for which to vote and I will be voting for them and the extension.  

Educating our kids has to be a priority. I can only hope our school board believes our kids are worth educating in a way that teaches them the value of living in a democracy with justice for all. Yeah, I know. It's a stretch.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week

Vote. 

Whatever election you have going at the polls on Tuesday,

Vote.

It's your town, your state, your country. 

Vote.