June 15, 2022

Herschel Walker Says He's a Model Dad. He Has a Secret Son.

Source: The Daily Beast

For years, former football star turned Republican senatorial candidate Herschel Walker has expressed an enormous pride and love for his adult son, while taking a principled stand against fatherless households and deadbeat dads—specifically in the Black community.

*snip

What Walker hasn’t publicly acknowledged is that he has a second son, who has apparently been estranged from his biological father since his birth a decade ago.

The son, whose name The Daily Beast is withholding out of privacy concerns, has grown up more than 1,500 miles from Walker’s Texas home. And the mother, whose name we are also withholding for privacy reasons, had to take Walker to court a year after giving birth in order to secure a declaration of paternity and child support.

The Daily Beast confirmed these events through public posts, a court document where Walker is declared to be the child’s father, and a person close to the boy’s family with direct knowledge of the events.

Read more: https://www.thedailybeast.com/herschel-walker-says-hes-a-model-dad-he-has-a-secret-son

June 14, 2022

I urge everyone to read all of this.

I was a bit put off by the first item on the list, but I was curious enough to click on the link and see what else was there. I'm glad I did, because I ended up agreeing with a lot of it, and the parts I didn't agree with gave me some worthwhile things to thing about.

There was one item in particular that really hit home for me.

This REALLY jumped out at me, because I am one of those women for whom it was not a difficult choice at all. As soon as I thought I might be pregnant, I knew exactly what I was going to do about it, if so.

I didn't have any qualms about whether it was a a moral or ethical choice, because it literally never occurred to me that it might not be. I was never taught to believe anything in particular about it, one way or another. I was in my teens before I ever even heard the word "abortion," and when I first encountered it in a magazine article, I had to ask my mother what it meant. (Her reply was completely straightforward and factual, bececause she had never received any indoctrination, either.)

When second wave feminism came along and made legalizing abortion one of the linchpins of what was then popularly known as "women's liberation," I embraced the movement, including that aspect of it, with no qualms whatsoever.

I was a college student and had been a self-identified feminist for several years when I was faced with an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy, and the decision to seek an abortion was automatic for me. And here I am, 50 years later, uneasy about admitting that, even in a place like DU, where I know that accepting and supporting a woman's right to choose is the norm.

The situation itself was a major pita, and someday, I am going to write the full story and put it someplace where people can read it. For now, suffice it to say that it was 1972, so abortion was still illegal in most of the U.S., and even THAT was only the tip of the iceberg. NOTHING about the situation was simple, even confirming that I was pregnant. (There was no such thing as a home pregnancy test, and there was still a significant enough stigma attached to being an "unwed mother" that going to a doctor to get tested was a very unappealing prospect.)

So yeah, the situation was complicated and fraught, but the decision, for me, was anything but. And yet, I am always hesitant to admit the latter, because of the generally accepted assumption that abortion is ALWAYS an agonizing decision. (The implication of which is that anyone who does not find it to be so must be some kind of amoral freak.)

I know that it IS a difficult decision for some, and I respect that. I just wish people would realize that every pregnant person is an individual, and every individual is just that: a unique individual with their own individual set of circumstances, challenges, beliefs, etc., all of which influence their approach to every decision in life, including the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

Sorry this is so darned long. I swear, I really did try to whittle it down!

June 12, 2022

Yeah, he telegraphed his evil intentions all over the place.

It always made me uneasy when he did that, when he "joked" about staying in office for longer than the normal (and legal!) two terms. I couldn't imagine how he could pull off such a thing, but I could tell that he really wasn't joking at all. It gave me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach,

As his presidency wore on, he proceeded to do one thing after another that I would never have imagined in a million years. I soon realized the folly of making any assumptions at all as to what he was capable of, but even so, his refusal to concede the election and everything that happened afterward hit me in the face like a bag of wet cenent.

Looking at those video clips now, in the full knowledge of what he showed himself to be capable of after losing that election, is creepy af. It's like, omg, I was dead right, he was SOO not joking.😱

Being proven right about something is usually a satisfying experience. This is one time I wouldn't have minded being wrong. 😒

May 30, 2022

Why Trump danced.

Much has been made of Trump doing his stupid little "dance" after reading off the names of the Uvalde victims. He's een getting a lot of ichly deserved flak about how tacky and tasteless it was, and some have commented that he seemed to be celebrating the deaths. I know it looked that way, but I don't think that's what he was doing.

To celebrate something, you have to care about it, and he doesn't care about those kids one teeny, tiny bit. He's not particularly happy that they died, any more than he's sad about it. He. Simply. Does. NOT. CARE.

To someone that severely narcissistic, everything that ever happens is all about him, always. Other people, even those closest to him, barely exist for him, except as props to be used (if possible), diparaged (if they get in his way) or ignored, in the great, magnificent spectacle that is the life of The! Incredible! Donald! J! Trump!

I'm sure that reading all the names of those slain kids was meaningless to him. It was probably somebody else's idea anyway, and he went along with it, because why not.

So he did it. And afterwards, he was so pleased with himself that he started doing the little "dance" routine that he does at all of his rallies.

People who thought he was celebrating were right about one thing; he WAS celebrating. But he wasn't celebrating the deaths. He was celebrating himself, because to him, that’s what getting in front of a crowd of people is FOR. He was also bringing the attention of the audience back around him lest they forget who the REAL star of the show was.

I don't understand how anyone can NOT see what a truly vile, despicable, uncaring, narcissistic freak he is. I just don't get it.

May 27, 2022

Exclusive: McConnell says he has directed Cornyn to engage with Democrats on a 'bipartisan solution'

Source: CNN

Washington(CNN)Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell told CNN on Thursday he met earlier in the day with Texas Sen. John Cornyn and encouraged the senior Republican senator to begin discussions with Democrats, including Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, to see if they can find a middle ground on legislation to respond to the tragic Texas elementary school shooting.

Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are facing enormous pressure to take action in the wake of the horrific shooting, but members on both sides acknowledge the uphill battle to find common ground given the highly polarized political climate around gun legislation and widespread GOP opposition to stricter gun control.

It is significant, though, that McConnell has decided to weigh in and is giving a greenlight to a bipartisan effort on a potential legislative response to the shooting. But it still remains to be seen what, if anything, talks will amount to given that countless mass shootings in recent years have failed to break the partisan stalemate over the issue of gun policy in Congress.

McConnell would not say specifically what the contours of that legislation should be, instead signaling he wants Cornyn to be the one to negotiate.

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/26/politics/mcconnell-cornyn-democrats-bipartisan-effort-gun-violence/index.html

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Not sure what this means, but it's...interesting? Personally, I will watching closely to see what transpires.

May 26, 2022

Gotta agree with this.

While I can understand and relate to the emotions behind an OP like this, I don't share the feeling of defeat, not now. I can't seem to help being a cockeyed optimist these days; I see the good stuff along with the bad. And there IS good stuff, like Beto O'Rourke confronting the craven Greg Abbott at that press conference, which was one of the most inspiring things I've seen in this country in a while.

It hasn't always been easy to stay positive, especially during the Chump years. 2 years ago, I was an absolute nervous wreck, scared to death that he would somehow finagle another electoral win and we would be stuck with him for another agonizing, interminable 4 years. When Biden actually won, it seemed like a miracle. I was afraid to believe Chump could lose, to ANYONE. After all, in 2016, I was absolutely positive that Hillary was going to win, and the universe said, "Ha ha, guess again."

But in 2020, Joe Biden WON. I was astounded, profoundly relieved, and SO happy. His win seemed so miraculous that it restored my ability to believe that good things actually CAN happen, at least sometimes, and I have managed to keep on believing that though January 6 and everything else that's happened since. And I do believe, not that everything WILL turn out for the best, but that it CAN. That's enough to keep me going, and fighting, and hoping.

I wish it could work that way for everyone, because I also believe that giving up is the last thing any of us needs right now. Look where we are: Joe Biden got elected president, and he STAYED elected president, despite all the efforts of Chump, his ragtag followers, and his cohort of crooked Republican enablers. Biden got inaugurated, he's STILL president now, and that STILL feels like a miracle to me. It really, really does.

And if that miracle happened, others could happen as well. Like flipping some Senate seats from red to blue. Like Beto becoming governor of Texas and Stacey Abrams becoming governor of .Georgia. Maybe all those things won't happen, but they could, and I am going to allow myself to hope. If I am disappointed, I'll deal with it. I can survive disappointment, but I can't live without hope. That's just how it is for me.

May 24, 2022

About 10 posts have been removed, too.

What that tells me is that there are individuals here at DU who have a transphobia problem, but there are lots of other people who object to it strenuously enough that they are willing to alert on objectionable posts and vote that DU rules have been broken when called to serve on a jury.

It absolutely sucks, imo, that ANYONE at DU is capable of being enough of an asshole to post transphobic garbage here. But it encourages me to see that there are so many people here who are willing to do the necessary work to make sure that kind of trash gets taken out. To me it says that the transphobic assholes are definitely not in the majority at DU.

To vercetti 2021: I don't know what was in those posts, because they were removed before I ever saw the thread, but I can tell from the responses that they must have been pretty horrible. I'm SO sorry they were ever posted here, and even more sorry for the pain they obviously caused you. But I really hope you won't let those assholes ruin DU for you. I wish I could promise you that nothing like this will ever happen here again, but you and I both know I can't. What I can promise is to always be on the lookout for his kind of garbage and alert on it as soon as I see it, every single time.

I also promise to stand with trans folks and others in the LGBTQ community, here at DU and elsewhere, support all of you in any way I can, do my best to educate the hateful and ignorant whenever the need arises.

In closing, I leave you with this: https://www.lovewhatmatters.com/6-positive-affirmations-for-every-trans-gender-non-conforming-individual-lgbtqia-mental-health-self-care-love-kindness-ally/

May 18, 2022

January 6 Committee report to be published in September!

I was messing around at Amazon, and you know how they show suggestions of other books and stuff that you might be interested in? Well, this just happened to popped up:

https://smile.amazon.com/dp/1250877520?ie=UTF8&n=133140011

It looks like they are planning this so the report comes out hot on the heels of the hearings (and before the election), which makes a lot of sense to me.

I know some people will probably post to say none of this means anything, nothing is going to come of any of this, and all the other negative stuff people say in response to any post about January 6, the Committee, the investigation, etc. Whatever, you do you. I'm posting this for those who are interested.

I am really looking forward to the hearings myself, and I, pretty sure I'm not the only one.

May 12, 2022

After 30 Years of Turning Abortion Clinics Into War Zones, Now You Want "Civility"?

May 12, 2022

After 30 Years of Turning Abortion Clinics Into War Zones, Now You Want "Civility"?