Surprise, surprise, Republicans getting everything they want out of the end of Roe v. Wade “complicate(s)” their efforts to take back Congress in the midterms. As I’ve said, people hate it when politicians take away the things they rely on, and legal abortion is one of those, more so, I think, than the Affordable Care Act was in 2017 and 2018, and when Republicans threatened that they lost the House. And if Republicans are worried now, just wait until inflation comes down! There’s a lot in this article worth commenting on, but I’ll just cite abortion clinics all closing in Wisconsin after Ron Johnson said things wouldn’t change that much. That’s a winning campaign ad if there ever was one – and, you know, if Democrats just have the guts to run it.
Uh oh: a right-wing evangelical gets caught on tape claiming that she prays with sitting Supreme Court Justices – who just so happened to have cited her organization’s amicus brief in their ruling overturning Roe v. Wade. I’m going to guess that this isn’t against the law per se, but only because we don’t hold Supreme Court Justices to the same ethical standards we hold all other federal judges. In any case, it sure looks like an obvious conflict of interest, and if your currency is objectivity, you would reasonably avoid even the appearance of such a conflict. Unless, of course, you don’t care because you’re just going to take everyone’s freedoms away ha ha.
Speaking of which, Maurizio Valsania at The Conversation reminds us that Justice Alito’s ruling in Dobbs “cherry-picks” American history in claiming that abortion rights aren’t “deeply-rooted” in American culture. I’m old enough to recall a time when “Blackstone condoned abortion” (let alone Ben Franklin’s abortion recipe!) would end all arguments on the matter, but fact is women had more autonomy over their bodies in the 18th century than they did in the 19th, and last I checked, America did exist during the 18th century. So add “originalism” and “textualism” to the pile of words so tortured by their utterers that they tell them exactly what they want to hear.
Martha Crawford writes about the uncertainty wrought by our Supreme Court’s ruling overturning Roe v. Wade – and her own experiences navigating sexuality even with the support of Roe. “Roe meant my body could never be ultimately controlled by such men” as the funny uncle who looked up her skirt at the shoe store, yet her Ms.-reading mother still called her a slut after finding out she was on the pill, and her Christian teen group-running father told her she was “a spirited filly that needs to be broken,” preferably by “a man with a good set of spurs.” And if our Supreme Court gets the last word, women won’t even have the modicum of bodily control Dr. Crawford did.
Finally, Donovan Schaefer at The Conversation explains why folks like conspiracy theories. Long story short: “confronting conspiracy theories requires understanding the feelings that make them so appealing,” namely that conspiracy theories “let() you feel like you’re smarter than everyone” and allows you to see yourself as a “critical thinker.” There’s no small joy to knowing an “obscure” source, I’ll admit, and knowing something “no one else knows,” though you should also, you know, become an adult and put away childish things. And Q-holes’ ability to make any datum fit their conclusion should raise red flags for actual critical thinkers.
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