Big Bird may be innocent but who can vouch for Elmo?

[lionheart]

thehill.com/homenews/senate/580426-ted-cruz-labels-big-birds-tweet-about-vaccination-propaganda

www.salon.com/2021/11/07/sesame-streets-big-bird-for-promoting-vaccine-brainwashing-children_partner/

Old thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/4305074-To-filibuster-or-not-to-filibuster-Biden-needs-to-get-a-move-on-before-Doofus-Duck-waddles-back-into-the-swamp-Biden-Trump-Thread-128

Shit! Unverified but shit!!

www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473

That is very worrying

I wonder if this is the case Across?

Angry Staffer
@Angry_Staffer
FWIW, there’s not much the GOP wants less than Roe to actually be overturned. If the Politico scoop is correct, the GOP is now the dog who caught the car.

Roe was always a shiny thing to campaign on (much like repealing Obamacare) but never something they actually wanted to do.

I heard this on the radio, terrifying news

Hi, everyone, I came back here to quote that very post. It is, indeed, terrifyingly shit. It makes me wonder what the hell all our campaigning in the Seventies and early Eighties was about. In the Nineties, I remember working with a woman who was about 10 years younger than I, who surprised me by saying that she had no use for "Feminism" or "Women's Rights", as all was good in her world, she was on a par with men in her domain and unaffected by the need to think about women's equality. I think, a couple of decades and marriage and children later, she may well think differently. I must remember to ask her!
And yes, @Roussette, let's hope the Angry Staffer is correct.

This is somehow even more horrifying.
www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/02/abortion-ban-roe-supreme-court-mississippi/

@Jconnais1chansonquivavsenerver

The forces of anti-choice have been working towards this since RvW was upheld in 1973. It's just that after Doofus' wrecking of the Country and his cherry-picking of SCOTUS justices, the atmosphere is now ripe and the court is 'stacked' for undoing all the good works of the '70s, and beyond.

I fully expect to see further erosion in the rights of women, LGBTQ+, and the communities of POC. We are headed down a dark, dark road and unfortunately right now the Democratic Party cannot seem to get its shit together to DO something about it. We still seem to be the party of 'politics as usual' whilst the GOP is the party of 'dirty tricks and rhetoric'. I hate to use such a bellicose expression, but the Dems are armed with a sword in a gunfight and the GOP has AR15s.

A visibly shaken and angry Senator Elizabeth Warren just spoke in-front of Scotus

twitter.com/willy_lowry/status/1521517935155679237?t=iYVVulhLhYR7gxYeWdZCOg&s=19

I've been away from the thread (which seems to have been somewhat slow anyway), but I'm also following with shock the leak from the Supreme Court.
It's not that surprising, though. They've been preparing for it.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/republicans-roe-v-wade-supreme-court_n_62717566e4b0bc48f580af72

“They spent decades trying to repeal Roe and now they won’t even own up to it …Their spin masters are telling them to avoid the subject and they did,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday. “They’re like the dog that caught the bus ... They know they’ll pay consequences in the 2022 elections.”

I love the way that they (presumably the conservative Supreme Court) are trying to transfer the use of the word egregious to the fact that it was leaked, rather than the draft decision's egregious attempt to define the original Roe v Wade decision as "egregious"

I'm hoping that this will galvanise the Democrats and the more sensible Republicans for the mid-terms.

Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are apparently horrified that ACB went back on her word to them accepting Roe v Wade as "settled law" Well, hell mend you - what did you expect from a Trump nominee that he got installed with indecent haste

Brian Tyler Cohen
WOW: Robert Regan, the Michigan Republican who said he would tell his daughters "if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it" just lost his seat (in a district Trump carried by 16 POINTS) to Democrat @caglanville. Big pickup in Michigan's HD-74.
If you were wondering how putting women's reproductive rights on the ballot would fare for Democrats, this is your answer.
twitter.com/briantylercohen/status/1521679577906511872?t=KYCcLYubqmGlu9YQpUvd-g&s=19

I listened to a discussion programme today about Roe v Wade here in UK. People ringing in with their views.
100% categorically every single person who rang in saying they supported the abolishment of it... was male. For the most spurious of reasons

And `100% categorically every single person who rang in saying that abolishing Roe v Wade was very very wrong.... was female.
What does that tell us?

Some of the women who had had abortions told some very sad stories... (rape, incest, assault, mental health trauma etc)

Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins are apparently horrified that ACB went back on her word to them accepting Roe v Wade as "settled law" Well, hell mend you - what did you expect from a Trump nominee that he got installed with indecent haste

'Horrified' my Great Aunt Fanny!!!! They knew EXACTLY what we were in for with ACB. These two are champs at running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. These are the same two who would squeal and denounce GOP-led legislation and Doofus' bullshit shenanigans and say they were voting with the Dems, then 'suddenly' announce they were following the party line after all because 'they were reassured that all would be well'. I trust those two's 'prinicples' as far as I can spit upwind in a hurricane.

Robert Regan, the Michigan Republican who said he would tell his daughters "if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it" just lost his seat (in a district Trump carried by 16 POINTS) to Democrat @caglanville. Big pickup in Michigan's HD-74.

I hope we can capture more State House seats this year in 'red' states. If we can't stop SCOTUS from tearing abortion rights to shreds, we're going to need Dem majority state legislatures to block individual states from banning abortion and/or to overturn such legislation already on the books or due to 'trigger' if RvW is overturned.

To my UK/other country friends in case of any confusion: In the US there is no one 'national set of laws'. Each state has the right to make its own laws as long as they do not violate the US Constitution. This is why RvW has been so important. It has kept 'red' states from outright banning abortions, although recently they've 'danced around it' by imposing various restrictions, stupid and contradictory regulations governing clinic operations, and the infamous Texas 'squealer's law' now being adopted by various states. If RvW is struck down, there will no longer be ANY federal protection and states will be free to do total outright abortion bans.

My state (CA) as well as a few others, have state laws mandating the right to reproductive freedom. If we do see RvW overturned, I predict these states are going to see high levels of 'termination tourism' from other states. Of course, this is not something that every woman will be able to take advantage of, either due to lack of funds or an inability to 'quietly sneak away'.

This is all quite terrifying to me and I'm post-menopausal! I think it's because for the first time in my entire life I am potentially seeing a critical right being taken away. I've seen little things like raising the drinking age to 21 (or forfeit federal highway funds) or when they lowered the speed limit to 55 (during the '70s gas shortage) but those were 'little things' (and the speed limit thing went away eventually). This is more along the lines of Prohibition, and frankly much more important. It just smacks of Niemöller's "First they came after....." and I fear where it will end for women, immigrants, and POC.

Dh showed me a very sad and shocking tweet yesterday from someone in the States advising readers that if they or their dds had a menstrual cycling app on their phone, to delete it immediately, as that, combined with the GPS on Smart phones would mean that they would be vulnerable to being tracked and, worst case scenario, prosecuted

I saw it mentioned in some of the other threads on the subject but didn't really look into it. Terrifying if true

I'm seeing mentions of Roe v Wade being "codified into law". Could someone kindly explain to me what that means? Does it go state by state or does it happen in Congress?

From twitter

'Technically' each state makes its own laws. However federal law supersedes any state law as long as that federal law is constitutional.

So in this case the federal government could theoretically pass a law codifying abortion rights for all females, just as it has codified Civil Rights. No state can pass a law that violates the federal Civil Rights statute. Federal civil rights laws supersede any state laws, that's how they got rid of Jim Crow and established equal rights for women, minorities, and other groups. States still try to get around it, witness the recent spate of 'voting laws' that are trying to curtail absentee voting. But they can't outright make a law that says "POC cannot vote".

Codifying abortion rights will end up the same way, I'm sure. States will not be allowed to outright ban abortion, but they'll still find ways to make it harder for a woman to obtain one, just as they are doing now.

Meant to add...Any such law would easily pass the House, however it is doubtful (unfortunately) that it would pass the Senate. With a 50/50 split you'd need every Dem vote + Kamala as a tiebreaker. With Joe Manchin being such a turncoat, I don't think it'd pass.

Thank you for the explanation, @AcrossthePond55. Being a believer of the old paraphrased adage: "When America sneezes, the UK/Europe catches cold", I am watching the events unfolding in your country with horror and dismay.

Thanks to the likes of Trump and his ways being unprecedented in the US Constitution, there is apparently no way to get rid of corrupt Supreme Court Justices who have clearly lied in order to be given their lifelong appointments. Yesterday, I saw someone blaming Ruth Bader Ginsberg for not having relinquished her position earlier so that Obama could have changed the balance and put in a Democrat appointee. I was flummoxed, how could she be blamed for not having foreseen a world which would allow Trump and his followers to get away with so much, including an insurrection? I despair.

This Twitter thread, originally written by Dr. Eliz Markowitz, about Texas anti-abortion legislation in May, 2021, and which has resurfaced over the last couple of days, is very striking, I think.
twitter.com/ElizMarkowitz/status/1395840749745364999?s=20&t=0_8pOlRKoQq2UIKbooO3oA

Just keeping up, horrified.

Can it get any worse?

'Conservative Supreme Court Justice Barrett, wrote a brief about abortion. She noted the USA needed a “domestic supply of infants” to meet needs of parents seeking infants to adopt. She argued that mothers must birth their baby & give it up for adoption to meet market demands.'

Yes that's what has been said. A domestic supply of infants
Welcome to Gilead

And Marsha Blackburn