Every Traitor from or involved in Trump's administration who knew better and betrayed this country so they could later get a book deal, those are the books that should be banned, burned, banished from every bookshelf, library and bookstore and shame, absolute shame on the publisher's who bought into this betrayal of our country and provided any of these betrayers an advance and/or book deal! How dare they know what they knew and just takes notes in anticipation of a book deal while all that could have been different is left in the ashes. How dare they serve for one second after they knew better, let alone months or years, knowing better. All in anticipation of, "just wait till they hear this". We needed to hear that then! For so many to have done this speaks to the absolute moral absence in the upper reaches of our institutions. That these people. who rose through the ranks to have positions at those levels thought it more lucrative, than prudent? Just why are they given a voice now when they had the voice then and they chose to sacrifice a million lives and the integrity of our Country as they watched it burn? How dare they? How dare they?
I’m sorry but the exceptions for rape and incest have never made sense to me, even as emotionally difficult it would be for a woman to give birth to a child after things like that. If the principle is that a fetus is a human being from conception then any exception is allowance for murder. Sometimes compassion can lead someone astray because we don’t want people to suffer. Unfortunately, eradicating suffering is not only impossible but can easily lead to evil.
RE: all the abortion programming this week. I wish you guys would bring up two things when you talk about the opinion polling: 1) every one of us knows and loves someone who had an abortion. The conversations I'm hearing on the Bulwark are still relfectove of those "other people" whi are making these choices. That's not true. Conservative, Christian, rural women and girls seek abortions as well. For some of these women and girls, the choice they made was because of an unexpected event - possibly coercion from a partner who wouldn't use a condom (I've seen A LOT of these instances), possibly a failure in birth control, possibly from an assault - we don't know. But many of these women are able to live out their lives because they didn't have to carry a pregnancy to term. Low income women often cannot just remain pregnant because they don't get paid time off for appointments, labor and delivery, and recovery. So, these women will not only be asked to continue an unwanted pregnancy, but also to risk their already precarious livelihood.
2) Why do women and girls seek abortions into the 2nd and 3rd trimesters? Some women may not know they're pregnant until the 3rd month or possibly later. Or, more tragically, she has a very planned, anticipated pregnancy that goes wrong. Many women - especially younger women - don't get diagnostic ultrasounds until 16 or 20 weeks. That's past everyone's red line. How is it kind or prolife ro require a woman to carry an non-viable pregnancy until she delivers?
Can we at least he honest about the whos and whys when we talk about taking away a 49 year old precedent?
The Tracinski carton is cute, albeit simplistic. Perhaps it should be drawn as a scale depicting the fact nearly the entire GOP base has run to the right, while only a handful of loony Democrats have run to the left.
One reason for cancelling student loans would be to give 21st century students the same benefits that previous generations got. In 1970 I left the Navy to go to UC Berkeley to study Chemistry. Between the GI bill and the pay for being Teaching Asst / Research Asst, graduate school was essentially free. Today college tuitions are affordable only to the rich. Others have to take on these huge loans. Our generation took advantage of all this but passed nothing on to today's students. We should be ashamed.
Ok, Charlie. Would you please interview an obstetrician so that you stop this simplistic rhetoric about third trimester abortions? Yes, they are rare. By the time that happens there are very good medical reasons for the procedure. Including the fetus dying a slow painful death within hours of being born. I am sure that most Americans would agree that these decisions should be made by a woman and her doctor. They are not done on demand because someone suddenly decides “Oh. Hey, I really don’t want to have a baby after all.”
Charlie should comment on Ross Douthat's latest grossness where he's very, very upset that women are in the workplace and really don't like it when the hubby has a mistress on the side, and is otherwise saying that the plight of men is the real issue. What kind of hollow, self-centered twit whines like this at a time like this.. RD: "Worth noting that in the 50 yrs since Roe, men have become less likely to find a spouse, less likely father kids or live with the kids they father, and less likely to participate in the workforce." How much of a tool do you have to be to post this?
Re abortions - I saw a good comment on Facebook. If banning abortions is really about the children, then why isn't childbirth free? and prenatal care? and any medical expenses for complications of pregnancy? And why don't we have 12 months of maternity/paternity leave if it's about the children?
Re college loans - no, the people who took out loans weren't suckers. What forgiving the loans will tell them is they were playing a rigged game, and it sucked, but we shouldn't keep the game rigged because people got stuck with large loans in the past. And we need to get the game to be more fair moving forward.
"President Ronald Reagan detested abortion but..."
OMG, might we please, please dispense with Raegan. It was all 32 and more years ago. He's dead. He's gone. He's not coming back. And his beloved party is now a reeking despotic cesspool. And it's not going to be anything else. Ever.
Here's the thing: if only the Left has moved, then the American Right has *always* been a hotbed of anti-democraric, dictator-embracing, pro-Russian fascist, pro white supremacist, pro conspiracy Jewish-Space-Laser JFK-Junior-reincarnation nutbars, yeah? I mean... is that really the argument?
I dunno, man. It's probably comforting to think that the Left are the only ones who are crazy, but if that's the argument, it seems to contain an enormous and damning admission.
I seem to recall a recent Morning Shots where Charlie had a lot to say about the Left crying wolf, doing things like calling anyone who disagrees with them a racist. Lots of people said he was being ridiculous. And today, lots of those same people are proving his point.
Regarding the exceptions to abortion bans: no one who truly believes that a zygote or fetus is a baby--a small human person-- could propose such an exception. After all, we don't eliminate toddlers due to their parentage or their level of inconvenience. Zygotes and fetuses are human, but they are not human persons shy of viability, which is well beyond the Roe standard.
I feel like pro-lifers who are for exceptions for rape and incest are telling on themselves. If the fetus has a right to life, why should it matter how it was conceived? The least charitable interpretation is that it's really about making sure a woman faces the consequences of her action. For the rape victim it's "oh you poor thing, you didn't want that sex of course you may have an abortion" but for everyone else, "you opened your legs willingly, so you're gonna carry that baby to term goddammit!". The extremists are at least being consistent.
A more charitable reading (and the one that is most likely) is that pro-lifers know it's unspeakably cruel to make a woman give birth to a child that was forcibly conceived. But how do you implement these exceptions? Do you need a conviction before you can get an abortion? It takes forever to get a trial. Does a woman just need to point the finger at someone? Talk about incentivising false rape accusations. If she just needs to say she's been raped than you've created an easily exploitable loophole. What is the point of the restriction then? If it's cruel to make a rape victim carry a baby to term then it's cruel to make anyone carry a baby to term.
If I remember correctly, Donald Trump got in trouble during the 2016 election for saying that women who have abortions should be prosecuted. A lot of conservatives flipped out, but it is the logical conclusion of the idea that abortion is murder. A woman is not a victim of an abortion, she is a willingly participant. If it's murder then everyone involved should be prosecuted. If it's not murder, if it's just morally icky, then why shouldn't the woman have the right to decide. It is her body after all.
Every Traitor from or involved in Trump's administration who knew better and betrayed this country so they could later get a book deal, those are the books that should be banned, burned, banished from every bookshelf, library and bookstore and shame, absolute shame on the publisher's who bought into this betrayal of our country and provided any of these betrayers an advance and/or book deal! How dare they know what they knew and just takes notes in anticipation of a book deal while all that could have been different is left in the ashes. How dare they serve for one second after they knew better, let alone months or years, knowing better. All in anticipation of, "just wait till they hear this". We needed to hear that then! For so many to have done this speaks to the absolute moral absence in the upper reaches of our institutions. That these people. who rose through the ranks to have positions at those levels thought it more lucrative, than prudent? Just why are they given a voice now when they had the voice then and they chose to sacrifice a million lives and the integrity of our Country as they watched it burn? How dare they? How dare they?
I’m sorry but the exceptions for rape and incest have never made sense to me, even as emotionally difficult it would be for a woman to give birth to a child after things like that. If the principle is that a fetus is a human being from conception then any exception is allowance for murder. Sometimes compassion can lead someone astray because we don’t want people to suffer. Unfortunately, eradicating suffering is not only impossible but can easily lead to evil.
RE: all the abortion programming this week. I wish you guys would bring up two things when you talk about the opinion polling: 1) every one of us knows and loves someone who had an abortion. The conversations I'm hearing on the Bulwark are still relfectove of those "other people" whi are making these choices. That's not true. Conservative, Christian, rural women and girls seek abortions as well. For some of these women and girls, the choice they made was because of an unexpected event - possibly coercion from a partner who wouldn't use a condom (I've seen A LOT of these instances), possibly a failure in birth control, possibly from an assault - we don't know. But many of these women are able to live out their lives because they didn't have to carry a pregnancy to term. Low income women often cannot just remain pregnant because they don't get paid time off for appointments, labor and delivery, and recovery. So, these women will not only be asked to continue an unwanted pregnancy, but also to risk their already precarious livelihood.
2) Why do women and girls seek abortions into the 2nd and 3rd trimesters? Some women may not know they're pregnant until the 3rd month or possibly later. Or, more tragically, she has a very planned, anticipated pregnancy that goes wrong. Many women - especially younger women - don't get diagnostic ultrasounds until 16 or 20 weeks. That's past everyone's red line. How is it kind or prolife ro require a woman to carry an non-viable pregnancy until she delivers?
Can we at least he honest about the whos and whys when we talk about taking away a 49 year old precedent?
The Tracinski carton is cute, albeit simplistic. Perhaps it should be drawn as a scale depicting the fact nearly the entire GOP base has run to the right, while only a handful of loony Democrats have run to the left.
Thoroughly enjoyed and should be required reading. Now beginning my weekend feeling very well informed and somewhat entertained thanks to you and Tim!
One reason for cancelling student loans would be to give 21st century students the same benefits that previous generations got. In 1970 I left the Navy to go to UC Berkeley to study Chemistry. Between the GI bill and the pay for being Teaching Asst / Research Asst, graduate school was essentially free. Today college tuitions are affordable only to the rich. Others have to take on these huge loans. Our generation took advantage of all this but passed nothing on to today's students. We should be ashamed.
Ok, Charlie. Would you please interview an obstetrician so that you stop this simplistic rhetoric about third trimester abortions? Yes, they are rare. By the time that happens there are very good medical reasons for the procedure. Including the fetus dying a slow painful death within hours of being born. I am sure that most Americans would agree that these decisions should be made by a woman and her doctor. They are not done on demand because someone suddenly decides “Oh. Hey, I really don’t want to have a baby after all.”
Charlie should comment on Ross Douthat's latest grossness where he's very, very upset that women are in the workplace and really don't like it when the hubby has a mistress on the side, and is otherwise saying that the plight of men is the real issue. What kind of hollow, self-centered twit whines like this at a time like this.. RD: "Worth noting that in the 50 yrs since Roe, men have become less likely to find a spouse, less likely father kids or live with the kids they father, and less likely to participate in the workforce." How much of a tool do you have to be to post this?
Re abortions - I saw a good comment on Facebook. If banning abortions is really about the children, then why isn't childbirth free? and prenatal care? and any medical expenses for complications of pregnancy? And why don't we have 12 months of maternity/paternity leave if it's about the children?
Re college loans - no, the people who took out loans weren't suckers. What forgiving the loans will tell them is they were playing a rigged game, and it sucked, but we shouldn't keep the game rigged because people got stuck with large loans in the past. And we need to get the game to be more fair moving forward.
"President Ronald Reagan detested abortion but..."
OMG, might we please, please dispense with Raegan. It was all 32 and more years ago. He's dead. He's gone. He's not coming back. And his beloved party is now a reeking despotic cesspool. And it's not going to be anything else. Ever.
JHC, desist!
Here's the thing: if only the Left has moved, then the American Right has *always* been a hotbed of anti-democraric, dictator-embracing, pro-Russian fascist, pro white supremacist, pro conspiracy Jewish-Space-Laser JFK-Junior-reincarnation nutbars, yeah? I mean... is that really the argument?
I dunno, man. It's probably comforting to think that the Left are the only ones who are crazy, but if that's the argument, it seems to contain an enormous and damning admission.
Well, it looks like another commenting forum gone to hell, Something about size, it was fun while it lasted. Ya know an ignore button would help,
I seem to recall a recent Morning Shots where Charlie had a lot to say about the Left crying wolf, doing things like calling anyone who disagrees with them a racist. Lots of people said he was being ridiculous. And today, lots of those same people are proving his point.
Regarding the exceptions to abortion bans: no one who truly believes that a zygote or fetus is a baby--a small human person-- could propose such an exception. After all, we don't eliminate toddlers due to their parentage or their level of inconvenience. Zygotes and fetuses are human, but they are not human persons shy of viability, which is well beyond the Roe standard.
I feel like pro-lifers who are for exceptions for rape and incest are telling on themselves. If the fetus has a right to life, why should it matter how it was conceived? The least charitable interpretation is that it's really about making sure a woman faces the consequences of her action. For the rape victim it's "oh you poor thing, you didn't want that sex of course you may have an abortion" but for everyone else, "you opened your legs willingly, so you're gonna carry that baby to term goddammit!". The extremists are at least being consistent.
A more charitable reading (and the one that is most likely) is that pro-lifers know it's unspeakably cruel to make a woman give birth to a child that was forcibly conceived. But how do you implement these exceptions? Do you need a conviction before you can get an abortion? It takes forever to get a trial. Does a woman just need to point the finger at someone? Talk about incentivising false rape accusations. If she just needs to say she's been raped than you've created an easily exploitable loophole. What is the point of the restriction then? If it's cruel to make a rape victim carry a baby to term then it's cruel to make anyone carry a baby to term.
If I remember correctly, Donald Trump got in trouble during the 2016 election for saying that women who have abortions should be prosecuted. A lot of conservatives flipped out, but it is the logical conclusion of the idea that abortion is murder. A woman is not a victim of an abortion, she is a willingly participant. If it's murder then everyone involved should be prosecuted. If it's not murder, if it's just morally icky, then why shouldn't the woman have the right to decide. It is her body after all.