June 25, 2022

Obama didn't push to codify Roe "to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue"

At a news conference marking his first 100 days in office, President Barack Obama answered a question about the Freedom of Choice Act, a law that affirms abortion rights.

"As a candidate, you vowed that one of the very first things you wanted to do was sign the Freedom of Choice Act," the reporter said. "Do you still hope that Congress quickly sends you the Freedom of Choice Act so you can sign it?"

Obama reiterated his support of abortion rights as well as his sympathy for those who oppose it.

"Now, the Freedom of Choice Act is not my highest legislative priority," Obama concluded. "I believe that women should have the right to choose, but I think that the most important thing we can do to tamp down some of the anger surrounding this issue is to focus on those areas that we can agree on. And that's where I'm going to focus."...


https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/obameter/promise/501/sign-the-freedom-of-choice-act/

I've seen this brought up and did a little googling for the history. I love you Barack, but damn.

June 25, 2022

Utah GOP Rep. Karianne Lisonbee Says Women Can Control 'Intake of Semen'

...State Representative Karianne Lisonbee made the remarks on Friday as state legislators celebrated the Court's majority opinion that reversed its holdings in 1973's Roe v. Wade and 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

"I got a text message today saying I should seek to control men's ejaculations and not women's pregnancies," Lisonbee told reporters during a news conference, adding that the message suggested: "that I clearly don't trust women enough to make choices to control their own body."

"And my response is I do trust women enough to control when they allow a man to ejaculate inside of them and to control that intake of semen," she said...

https://www.newsweek.com/utah-gop-rep-karianne-lisonbee-women-control-intake-semen-outlaw-abortion-roe-v-wade-1719152

June 25, 2022

Three Toes to Brit reporter (guns): "Go back to your own country" with "mass stabbings"

.. "Well, I understand we don't have guns in the UK, that is true, but we don't have mass shootings either. Children aren't scared to go to school," said the British reporter, who has not been identified.

Greene shot back, claiming that the UK has "mass stabbings" and "all kinds of murder."

"Nothing like the same rates here," the reporter said in response.

"Well, you can go back to your country and worry about your no guns," Greene said. "We like ours here."...

https://www.businessinsider.com/marjorie-taylor-greene-british-reporter-go-back-own-country-2022-6

June 25, 2022

Marge thinks AOC launched an insurrection by attending a pro-choice protest

https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1540435047785824257

June 25, 2022

Mandatory masks to save lives is a violation of your rights

But you should be forced through a pregnancy and delivery to save a fetus

(paraphrasing Ana Kasparian)

June 24, 2022

Thomas: SCOTUS should reconsider right to contraception, same-sex sexual activity, gay marriage

...Then, he took aim at three other landmark cases that relied on that same legal reasoning: Griswold v. Connecticut, a 1965 decision that declared married couples had a right to contraception; Lawrence v. Texas, a 2003 case invalidating sodomy laws and making same-sex sexual activity legal across the country; and Obergefell v. Hodges, the 2015 case establishing the right of gay couples to marry.

Justice Thomas wrote that the court “should reconsider” all three decisions, saying it had a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents. Then, he said, after “overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions” protected the rights they established.

This kind of language is just what advocates for reproductive rights and for L.G.B.T.Q. rights have been fearing. Defenders of the right to abortion have repeatedly warned that if Roe fell, the right to contraception and same-sex marriage would be next...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/clarence-thomas-roe-griswold-lawrence-obergefell.html

June 24, 2022

If we accept Heller, effective gun control will be nearly impossible

I'm told the ship has sailed on this - I disagree. The right didn't accept Roe and worked endlessly to overturn it with changes to SCOTUS. Heller was a 5-4 decision.

It may be a while, but a new SCOTUS striking down Heller someday is essential.

June 24, 2022

With China and India buying Russian oil, Moscow is earning more than before the war

...China and India, the world’s most populous countries, have swooped in to buy roughly the same volume of Russian oil that would have gone to the West. Oil prices are so high that Russia is making even more money now from sales than it did before the war began four months ago. And its once-flailing currency has surged in value against the dollar.

Russian officials are smirking over what they are calling a spectacular failure to cow Mr. Putin. And the economic pain the oil boycott was meant to inflict is reverberating not so much in Moscow but in the West, especially the United States, where skyrocketing oil prices pose a potent threat to President Biden less than halfway into his term...

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/21/world/europe/ukraine-russian-oil-embargo.html

June 23, 2022

DeSantis edges past Trump in New Hampshire poll

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) edges past former President Trump in a poll of likely New Hampshire Republican primary voters over their first choice for president in the upcoming 2024 election.

The new University of New Hampshire Granite State Poll released on Wednesday found DeSantis receiving 39 percent support from likely Republican primary voters in the state compared to 37 percent for Trump...

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/3533074-desantis-edges-trump-in-new-hampshire-poll/

June 23, 2022

President Biden - "There's going to be another pandemic"

Q Mr. President, are you accounting — I know you’re looking for more money from Congress for this vaccine campaign and for COVID funding going into the fall. How much of the supply of vaccines for these small children is there? And how many of the nation’s kids will you be able to get vaccinated before you need more money from Congress?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we’ll get through at least this year. We do need more money. But we don’t just need more money for vaccines for children, eventually; we need more money to plan for the second pandemic.

There’s going to be another pandemic. We have to think ahead. And that’s not something the last outfit did very well. That’s something we’ve been doing fairly well. That’s why we need the money.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2022/06/21/remarks-by-president-biden-on-covid-19-vaccines-for-children-under-five/

This popped out for me. Do they feel another Covid pandemic is inevitable? Or is he talking about another virus? He said it with such certainty.