Want proof that women's rights are at risk? Anybody notice pence mentioning Hobby Lobby?

He did exactly that. They ARE connected. Regardless how anybody wants to spin it. They are DIRECTLY and INTIMATELY connected.

That's why we have to start attaching that issue to the LGBT issue.

We're gonna have to coattail it. Because the effect is the same. The impact is the same. Those who would use their religion to trump the rights of the gay community would ABSOLUTELY use those same presumptions against women's access to health care and birth control.

We're gonna have to coattail it, cali. NOBODY WILL CONNECT THE DOTS UNLESS WE DO IT FIRST.

WE have to help them see. Because they're CLEARLY not making the connection on their own. But the fact remains - women's rights face the SAME vulnerability as gay rights do.

You BETTER BELIEVE they'd try to use it against women and other groups, too. As many other groups

as they're able to not like.

You BETTER BELIEVE IT. It's gonna be used against women wanting to go to the pharmacy to fill a prescription for contraceptives. If the pharmacist is extremist, he or she can whine - "but... but... but... it's against my religion that women should have access to birth control! They shouldn't be able to control their own bodies. I can't stand for it. Can't support it. Their bodies are under MY jurisdiction.

Want proof? pence mentioned Hobby Lobby DIRECTLY several times during his news conference this morning. HE himself is making my point.

BANK ON IT. You understand human nature as well as I do, LynneSin. You totally get that ANY weasel in Indiana who thinks his/her religion trumps a woman's right to choose will look for ANY reason, ANY excuse, ANY loophole, ANY law to hide behind, ANY religious ANYTHING to hide behind - to thwart a woman's efforts to get a birth control prescription filled.

SAME THING for mixed-race marriage. SAME THING for anything the religionistas think they don't like. Give 'em an inch, they'll take a lightyear. After all, they think they have God on THEIR side. So they'll go to any lengths they have to.

BELIEVE IT.

So will I, MineralMan.

I'm sorry. A lot of our fellow DU brothers and sisters don't like the sound of this and don't all embrace the idea but it's still true, dammit:

The WORST Democrat is STILL - EXPONENTIALLY preferable to the "best" republi-CON.

Frankly there's no such thing as a "best" republic-CON anymore. Even Jon Huntsman. He's STILL an "r". So he'd STILL be bringing CONS in with him - some of them guaranteed to be turn-your-stomach bad for America. Some of them would STILL be bringing turn-your-stomach ideas into power to be implemented - with him. And he'd be far more likely to side with his own over-arching team than to give fair hearing to the "D" side. I don't care HOW "moderate" he seems to be.

I just don't trust ANYBODY who places himself or herself with the "r" team. There's a reason they do that. And their reasons DO NOT square with benefiting the greater good. No matter how they slice it, no matter how they spin it, no matter how they sugar-coat it, no matter how they downplay it. IT'S STILL THERE. And it's STILL GONNA BE THERE.

A combination of both of those. With one hand, they'd be hellbent on tearing down everything

we've tried to build up, while with the other hand they'd be trying to build as-permanent-as-possible impediments to our ever being able to do something progressive again.

We have to keep the GOP OUT OF POWER, OUT OF THE WHITE HOUSE - for as long as possible. At least as long as it takes to revamp the Supreme Court, replace the aging scalias and thomases on there with left-leaning justices AND replace Ruth Bader Ginsberg with another left-leaning justice similar to her. WE HAVE TO - HAVE TO - make sure the Supreme Court doesn't go farther down the drain. Unrecoverably down the drain.

I hate this, but we have NO choice. WHATEVER IT TAKES. If it means holding your nose and voting for Hillary, THAT is what it takes. The alternative is a jeb bush or some other CON in there, and that is an alternative NONE of us, nor our children (who'd be the ones sent off to the GOP's next rounds of wars) can afford.

Not Far Enough.

"pence backs down"??? HOW? All he did was basically play with himself at the podium today. It's NOT the law that's bad. It's YOUR misperception. YOUR mischaracterization. YOU are the ones at fault because YOU'RE just reading it wrong. We're sorry we have to go through this because YOU are misreading it and misinterpreting.

Yeah, well, YOU too, pence. But I forgot one word. Please kindly add a "FUCK" in front of the "YOU" in this case. K?

I'm with you, MineralMan. I'll be 62 this year. If the GOP snatches the White House and holds enough

ground in Congress and the statehouses, WE. ARE. SCREWED. We won't see ANYTHING that furthers the greater good. FOR DECADES to come.

The idea that people here and elsewhere will insist that NOT voting if you don't get the EXACT PERFECT CHOICE YOU WANT - just fucking terrifies me, MineralMan. You think you'll get anywhere near what you want by doing THAT??????? That THIS will be somehow a better wiser and/or more noble move?????????????????????????????????

There's that DAMNED "false equivalence" thing again.

Well, what it makes clear is that we have to go back to those 19 other states that have

"MY religion trumps your rights" laws (MRTYR - HAH!!!! OMG look at THAT!!!! "Martyr"!!!!!!!! ROFL!!!!!!!) and GET RID of them, too.

And reverse the Hobby Lobby blunder.

And that one that pence keeps trying to point out that President Clinton signed ("but... but... but... CLINTON did it too!!! CLINTON did it TOO!!!!!!&quot - THAT one has to be revisited as well.

Or Angie's List. I still can't believe that one.