I say YES. YOU say NO....Numero Tre! Enjoy!

Trishyla

Just saw a poll today, exbrnxgirl. Looks like the recall will fail, possibly spectacularly. His approval rating is at about 57%. As long as people vote, he has nothing to worry about. My fear is that voters figure he's got it in the bag and they don't need to send their ballots in. I have nightmares about that.

I'm with you on Cascadia, Elderberry. We in California have far more in common with progressive Canada than we do with our conservative countrymen.

exbrnxgrl

Voter apathy whether via ignoring ones mail in ballot or not going to the polls is exactly what makes me nervous

IllinoisLady

Never allow anyone to rain on your parade and thus cast a pall of gloom and defeat on the entire day. Remember that no talent, no self-denial, no brains, no character, are required to set up in the fault-finding business. Nothing external can have any power over you unless you permit it. Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealously, and envy. -Og Mandino

IllinoisLady

Fingers heavily crossed that Newsom holds onto his 57 %. Lived in the Santa Barbara to Ventura area for 25 yrs. and though it no longer suited me I do care a lot about what happens there.

Count me mortified about Texas. The Reps. ( using Roe v Wade for yrs. ) will have to find something else -- at least in Tx. and the other conservative states. I do think women will have to fight all over again. Here again is another great reason to expand the SC properly and my annoyance level is boundless with this 'saving' of the filibuster. The EC should also go the way of not needed items. Still, I realize that Pres. Biden had big things to get done VERY soon after taking office and still does. I hope Merrick Garland ( though quiet ) is doing things that will help the Democrats get where we need to be. Here we are facing people like Cawthorne and the Proud Boys/Oath Keepers setting up for another 1/6 possibly. Disgusting as well as scary. We can't be just sitting back waiting, and there are likely many things that can't be discussed in the open right now, but the waiting is nerve-wracking.

IllinoisLady

We all know they don't care one whit, but just use abortion because it so easily stirs people up. Truth telling, how many of these goody-two-shoes Reps. used the services themselves.

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

Then again, there were 74 million that wanted a mentally deficient, lying con man who kept sucking away at their money. Go figure.

Elderberry

Maybe Texas should change its state motto from "Friendship" to "Under His Eye"

I am ashamed the founder of the Proud Boys came from Canada. I am proud Canada declared the Proud Boys a domestic terrorist organization.

I worry about the young women of the USA who have only known Roe v Wade. If SCOTUS overturns it, there could be fifty years ahead of fight

ENOUGH ALREADY

IllinoisLady

Opinion: Media's Crime of Omission on Afghanistan Exit is Reprehensible

The mainstream media are just as guilty of omitting the facts about the end of the Afghan war as Trump is guilty of surrendering to the Taliban and setting up a no-win situation.

Read more »

Omission is a good enough way to sell your news outlet. It is really tiresome that we all get treated to somewhat tainted news, even if it is only things that could be said but aren't. These are not newspeople -- they are salesmen.

IllinoisLady

Beyond Abortion, Texas GOP Quietly Rolled Back Other Rights on September 1

Sharon Zhang, Truthout

The abortion ban went into effect along with a number of extremist far right bills put in place by Republicans.
Read the Article →

IllinoisLady

Not meaning to specifically pick on Texas, but it sure seems like this is how it is right now.

IllinoisLady

For a bit of a breather -- Facebook hasn't removed this although it obviously has some things or dates that aren't true. It sure seems like it could be though when bearing in mind the names that are mentioned.

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

So I just got done finding these memes. I am so frustrated over the past couple of days. Not only the media cherry picking so they can get better reader/listenership, but overall. I am happy that Sotomayor did write a dissent for SC not stepping in ( as they should have ) and allowing Texas to essentially ban abortions. I hope some waking up ( on our side ) can take place because TX is not the only state that will do this.

Betrayal

Love the memes, think Tx should secede since it has little to offer as a positive place to live for women, and just love Jen Psaki. She lit into a reporter today who dared to ask why Biden was antiabortion and decked him with her response mentioning that he had never been pregnant and never had to make such a hard decision. Go Jen!

BlueGirlRedState

Texas - for a state that screams about freedom, it is now asking residents to spy and tell on each other. Sounds very much like the horror stories out of Stalin's Russia. How the Fuck can they prove someone was thinking about an abortion or thinking about helping someone. Unbelievable that the Supreme Ct essentially dozed through this.

DivineMrsM

Elderberry’s suggestion Texas change its motto to “Under his eye” is chillingly accurate.

JKL2017

BlueGirl, I respectfully disagree with your choice of words above. It would have been benign (although negligent) if the USSC HAD dozed through the Texas case. They weren't sleeping - they were awake and willfully taking advantage of the opportunity to force their personal religious views on the women of America. With this appalling ruling, the majority actually ignored their responsibility to stare decisis in order to force their personal anti-choice views down the throat of the country. It is disgusting that McConnell and Trump so manipulated the Supreme Court nomination process to burden us with the current court. Especially when you consider that many Republican politicians will undoubtedly (if hypocritically) find a way to provide those they love with choice, if they find themselves facing unwanted pregnancies in the future. This new law will not affect those with money and the desire to control their own reproductive choices. Once again, the very people who have the least will suffer the most. And the fact that the Texas law sends its citizens out to actively spy on each other and puts innocent people (an Uber driver? Seriously?) at risk for prosecution is further proof that the inmates are running the asylum in Texas. If there is any justice, this law will be found unconstitutional but that's certainly not the message the 5-person majority is sending with their decision.

Texas Republicans only believe in freedom to force their personal beliefs on the rest of society!

DivineMrsM

(Red marker was put in this post by its author.)

IllinoisLady

Divine, you and Mr. Wilburn have it quite right. Men continue so often to be the cause of female suffering in more ways then one. All must be submissive to them. Sad to go back 50 yrs. with the irresponsible and insane Reps. who only thirst for greed, power/submissiveness.

IllinoisLady

Another take on the Wilburn meme:

IllinoisLady

Does my heart proud:

IllinoisLady

IllinoisLady

In TX asap.

IllinoisLady

Betrayal

Love the memes and JKL2017's explanation. They have managed to cut funding to Planned Parenthood which means poor women have less access to birth control, sex education, etc. but you can bet your bottom dollar they will still fund that little blue pill for ED. Hobby Lobby will not fund birth control but I think they fund viagra. Sad commentary on the rights of women vs. the rights of men. I am all in favor of the male responsible for the pregnancy going to prison. Many women will not report rape because of the resistance they meet in the law enforcement community and chances are by the time they do finally have it recognized, they would be too late to have an abortion in TX. Do you think a raped 12 year old would be able to know if they were pregnant? Sad commentary on how our government has crimped women's reproductive rights. We are going backwards here.

IllinoisLady

The Easy, Selective Morality of the Pro-Life Movement

SEPTEMBER 3, 2021 / JOHN PAVLOVITZ

Sometimes truly seeing people is a real bummer.

15.3M

6.1K

Woman Gets Overwhelmed By Man Who Buys Her Groceries

I recently found out through a series of unhinged social media posts, that an old and dear friend of mine from my former church is a rabid anti-vaxxer and anti-masker who is stridently and almost violently refusing to take pandemic precautions in the name of "religious liberty and trust in Jesus."

If I hadn't seen her name just above her confrontational, incendiary words, I'd never have imagined she'd composed them. For years, she's worn her "PRO LIFE" stance on her sleeve and her bumper, passionately advocating for the survival of the unborn. And yet somehow, she's now fine with utter disregard (and even open hostility) for the already born and currently dying. I'd have been knocked to the floor by the disconnect had I not become so used to seeing it.

It's difficult for people outside of organized Christianity to fathom how so many believers reconcile this prevalent inconsistency or justify such fierce loyalty to a politician or party with such contempt for so many iterations of humanity—all in the name of protecting human life. The abortion issue has been named by millions of self-identified Conservative religious people as their moral deal breaker, their hard line in the sand, their singular hill to die on—but their lack of a consistent pro-life ethic regarding diverse sentient human beings who have already exited the birth canal is something that a generation of faithful, once-faithful, and faithless people alike cannot make sense of or peace with. They rightly cannot reconcile how so many followers of Jesus are seemingly able to place the word "abortion" on one side of a massive moral scale—and have it far outweigh the lives of caged children, mass shooting victims, murdered Black men; or the prevalent threats of generational poverty, systemic racism, and a litany of human rights atrocities that barely seem to register or matter.

There are a number of explanations for this highly selective zealotry by religious people, but ultimately I think it comes down to laziness and self-preservation. Embryos are relatively easy to advocate for. They don't encroach upon people's privilege or confront their politics or challenge their theology or require much from them in the way of lifestyle change. It is a easy and clean form of activism, certainly far less messy and uncomfortable than having to defend people you don't like or that you've declared the enemy, or people you are afraid of because you've been conditioned to be by your parents, pastors, news channels, and seminary professors.

By opposing abortion, religious people can feel the intoxicating, easy high of self-righteousness and moral virtue—without having to actually love or help people: strange, disparate, uncomfortable-for- you-to-be-around people. That's because embryos can be idealized into something pleasant and palatable, devoid of any of the messy characteristics they find undesirable in actual walking-around human beings. They aren't yet gay or Muslim or liberal or Black or poor or atheist (or whatever other qualifiers trouble you), and so affinity with them is uncomplicated, solidarity with them does not cross the lines of their tribalism.

Anti-abortion believers get to feel like noble advocates for Life, while still holding onto their prejudices and hang-ups and hatred. They can dispense all kinds of cruelty and expose human beings to staggering forms of bigotry—and still say they're defending the living. Once these embryos are no longer embryos, these supposed life-lovers often don't treat them as though they're even human. Unless these lives conform to the narrowest and most stringent of criteria, they're more often considered threats to be neutralized, enemies to be overtaken, and adversaries to be destroyed. When embryos become LGBTQ teenagers, terrified migrants, young black men, people dying of COVID, sick middle-aged adults with astronomical bills, the working poor, Muslims—suddenly, these lives seem far less sacred to them.

Most ironically of all, embryos that grow into women who desire autonomy over their own bodies will find their lives and wills are now of little concern. They will be legislatively subjugated by those who'd have once declared them precious.

I would love to see anti-abortion (forced birth) activists adopting a consistent pro-life ethic regarding health care or poverty or the environment or gun violence or the death penalty—but I don't expect it. That would mean sitting with the hypocrisy of their current conduct toward vulnerable communities. To live with any continuity toward human life would require an empathy that may prove too high a price to pay; it would demand an equity that encroaches on their comfort, and it would mean facing the reality of their privilege. Truly coming to a fervent and full defense of life would mean confronting our phobias and fears and biases, and none of us are ever in a hurry to do such things—least of all people who have become single-issue crusaders.

To be truly "pro-life" should mean to be "for humanity." I don't see that in this movement.

I so wish these people would show a fraction of passion for the world that they do for the womb.

Life would be saved by that.

IllinoisLady

Perhaps losing integrity with yourself is the greatest stress of all, far more hurtful to us than competition, time pressure, or lack of respect. Our vitality is rooted in our integrity. When we do not live in one piece, our life force becomes divided. Becoming separated from our authentic values may weaken us.

Rachel Naomi Remen