Category: Assorted Politics

I hate politics yet I wind up discussing it now then!

This One Is Ours

July 4, 2026

In February, I watched our US women’s hockey team win gold over Canada in the Winter Olympics in Milan. (I might have had this post open on my phone for good luck.) We were down 1-0 for most of the game and then got a late score to tie and send it into sudden death overtime, where we scored again and won it all. Yay!

Three days later, our usually-useless men’s team did the exact same thing, also against Canada, also down 1-0 most of the game before tying it near the end, and scoring in sudden death overtime for the gold.

There was so much fanfare, so much celebration and gushing about history being made, about it having been 46 years since we last won hockey gold, despite the fact that it had actually been three days. But I digress.

They raised our flag and played The Star Spangled Banner. Because these victories, and those of Alysa Liu and our other amazing gold medalists, were for us as Americans. Representing us. Emboldening us. Making us proud.

And currently we’re co-hosting the World Cup. People are visiting our country for the event and getting excited about ranch dressing. Those are our own cities (and Canada’s and Mexico’s, of course) holding these wild matches. Certainly a more special celebration of our 250th than whatever sparsely attended nonsense the Orange Thing is planning. I guess this event passing through two of the three co-host nations’ national days was a coincidence, but, hey, it works out. We’ve invited everyone over for this big ass weeks-long party!

(In a time of being extra hostile to visitors, though the case may be.)

Getting the real measure of a country requires seeing others. That’s not a competition. Every country is special and has their own uniqueness and quirks and all that Mr. Rogers jazz. The best thing about watching the World Cup is seeing the fans in the stands, with the over the top (and often stereotypical) symbols of their respective countries, whether the Australians with the giant inflatable yellow kangaroo or our own US fans dressing up as Uncle Sam, the Statue of Liberty, or a bald eagle. But we’re all much more complicated than that. One of the simplest joys in the far too few times I’ve traveled outside the country has been just noticing the little things that are different, the different products available at a convenience store, what the road signs look like, the manners of speaking that might be confusing at first, etc. And in doing this, you find things about your own country that are unique that you maybe never thought much about before.

All countries have gorgeous landscapes, but Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon and the Appalachian Trail are our gorgeous landscapes!

All countries have their favorite creatures, and ours is this majestic friend.

All countries have their many delicious foods. And so do we, with even more differences as you move around the states.

All countries have their long complicated histories, and we have ours in so many disparate stories.

There’s no hard and fast context-free definition of an American (or a national of any other country for that matter) that would satisfy everyone. Certainly people try. We just came dangerously close to simply being born here not being enough anymore, from a judicial standpoint anyway. We have a toxic administration still that, God willing, we can take some of the venom out after the midterms. But all that has nothing to do with it.

Our national teams aren’t competing for the Orange Thing. They’re competing for us. They’re competing, well, to make bank off endorsements, sure. But they give us something to get excited about connected to our national identity, however trivial that may ultimately be.

Whatever that national identity might entail, if anything more specific than simply thinking of the United States of America as home.

Maybe descended from people who were here at the time of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Maybe descended from those enslaved by them. Maybe descended from those displaced by them. Maybe descended from those in areas that weren’t within our borders at the time but are now. Maybe descended from or are those who arrived much later. Maybe a 250th anniversary means everything and nothing all at once. It’s a history that cannot be changed and a future that is still being created, with a present that is somehow both and neither, that at any given time is all that is real.

Maybe we just want to feel some pride and joy, and not everyone is going to get it from the same sources. We want to revel in our national teams’ successes as if they were our own, underneath the deep corruption of not only the governments but of FIFA and the IOC as well. We’re looking for simplicity in a universe that refuses it, and perhaps deny ourselves that joy and pride because of it.

I set out to write about our 250th based on some hockey and soccer joy this year, and here I am sitting with that complexity. Perhaps the most American thing I’ll do today.

Signs of Resistance – Spring 2026

March 30, 2026

I spent the past six weeks out and about a lot. Exploring the region. Watching the snowy freezing winter thaw and blossom into spring.

Also, the world is still going to hell.

So for a couple of excursions (the getting out and going somewhere kind, not the bombing a girls’ school and closing the Strait of Hormuz kind), I checked out events where people were demanding change to all this.

Stand Up for Science

First was on March 7, when down on the National Mall was the Stand Up for Science rally. It was an overcast but mild day. I hopped on the Metro and made my way there.

To see this.

Rep. Jamie Raskin was on stage speaking when I arrived, followed by other speakers decrying the massive cuts the Orange Thing’s administration have made toward scientific research over this past year.

I checked out the few tents around, grabbed some stickers and flyers that will sit in that tote bag untouched for like three years. One tent had a stack of plain poster board and an assortment of markers. Nice. So those who didn’t have time to make a sign could just make one right here. I took the opportunity to touch up my own.
Continue reading “Signs of Resistance – Spring 2026”

ICE and Them

January 26, 2026

A month ago, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were two anonymous names of living breathing people. Whose names now we all know as they are no longer living and breathing because some ICE dipshits executed them in broad daylight, in cold blood, caught on multiple videos.

They’re both white US citizens. Their crime was being in the general vicinity as said ICE dipshits hassled those who are neither.

A crime that apparently carries the death penalty, according to the Orange Thing as well as to the dog-killing piece of shit running DHS and to the bald Nazi ghoul that is deputy chief of staff and to the couch fucker, among others.

In response, we all know the names Renee Good and Alex Pretti, saying their names and affirming their humanity in protest all over the country.

Because fuck everything about this shit.

There’s detention camps in our country, in 2026. Those not sent there go to ones abroad where they’ll never be seen again.

There’s a secret police force whisking people away to these places without trial or anything resembling due process, and murdering people in the streets for trying to keep their neighbors from being abducted, for trying to record what’s happening to make sure the world knows.

And Congress? The legislative branch who’s supposed to counter nonsense like this as part of that whole checks and balances thing?

The House voted to keep funding DHS… this past fucking week!

They saw the snuff film that was Renee Good’s murder and thought “awesome, let’s have more of that”. And more of that they got, in the form of federal agents proudly counting Alex Pretti’s bullet wounds.

Support for all this among the general population is in the tank. But some approval for ICE’s bullshit remains, even now. Why? Is it they believe the lies that these two were attacking the ICE thugs? Do they get all their information from those spouting these lies and that those saying otherwise are just brainwashed woke liberals or whatever? Do they have some stake in these operations? Are they afraid of what will happen if they don’t support them?

I think it’s all of that to some degree. I think also it speaks a little bit to how we got here.

For anyone to support ICE’s brutal tactics, they must be completely utterly convinced that simply being present in the country without proper authorization is in itself a mortal sin, deserving of the harshest retribution. Something you would only give the slightest shit about, let alone express this rabid hatred, because someone wanted you to because it was convenient for them. As I said before, immigrants are not the problem; the ones trying so hard to convince you of this are the actual problem.

It goes beyond immigration. We’ve been fed decades and decades of local news breathlessly peddling fear of crime, particularly that committed by non-white youth, skillfully tapping into the general public’s contempt for teenagers and for people of color. All for the ratings. All convincing the public that, despite all data indicating crime is way down in recent decades, we’re under siege and need beefed up law enforcement to protect us, to be tough on crime.

They’re basically this line from Mr. Burns in Season 3 “Bart the Murderer”.

So anything remotely resembling law enforcement gets more and more funding, with elected officials petrified of doing otherwise and getting pegged “soft on crime”. Such that our cities have militarized police forces rather than better funding for schools and vital social services so to more easily kill innocent unarmed black people and pretend they’re heroic for it.

But it’s okay. They’re just targeting… them.

A lot of support for beefed up police and border enforcement comes from the idea that, even if they just use the Constitution as a napkin, at least those on the receiving end are “those” people, not “us”. These goons are on “our” side.

Until they aren’t.

That’s the simple fact about bullies. They are never your allies. They might convince you of that, so you look the other way when they torment others, that those they torment deserve it and should have acted better. But sooner or later, you’re in their sights. And you’re the one who should have acted better. Because all along, you were their victim just as anyone else, only you were also a useful idiot.

A useful idiot who disastrously undermined our vital national document enshrining our rights just because a couple of Spanish-speaking 20-year-olds outside the grocery store made you uncomfortable.

The saying “land of the free because of the brave” is usually referring to the military, but it applies too to those with the courage to swallow any irrational prejudices and understand that our rights and freedoms apply to everyone, even those you’ve been conditioned to distrust and exclude. Because no one is free unless we are all free.

A courage displayed by the great people of Minneapolis these days.

A courage sorely needed in our legislative and judicial branches, as we’re sure as shit not seeing it in the executive.

A courage required for anyone entertaining any ideas about running for or staying in office this year. Because if you’re just going to spout mealy-mouthed concerns about ICE “needing better training” or even praise them, even after all goddamn this, no one needs you, get the fuck out.

Who Are We?

July 4, 2025

Don’t cede American identity to MAGA.

In the past few months of this administration, we’ve watched our institutions compromised and dismantled, our fellow residents abducted for being on the “wrong” side of an imaginary line, the programs relied on as the difference between life and death at home and abroad torn apart. They want the United States of America broken down and remade in their image, where those who don’t fit that image do not belong.

Don’t let them.

I’m American. The United States of America is where I am from, where I was born, where I live and work. Where I intend to stay. Sure, it’s an Evil Empire, built on white supremacy and slavery and indigenous genocide, etc. But it’s my home. To me and 360 million others.

The Orange Thing and his MAGA ilk don’t get to decide who does and does not count as “American”. Their racism, xenophobia, and all-around sadistic cruelty does not define us.

I said this already seven years ago, when I declared that “this is not who we are”. And I stand by it. But, yikes, given the current situation, it’s rather bittersweet now.

That was during the first term, attained through some electoral college fuckery despite popular vote loss. The will of the people prevailed in 2020 and the Orange Thing was out. Then he came back, with the popular vote win this time.

If this is not who we are, so many sure did choose it. We protest what’s happening as a defense of democracy, but, let’s be real here, a free and fair election got us here. It was less informed voters who carried him right back into the White House, probably going on name recognition and having gotten stuck listening to Fox News while in a waiting room. People we’ve been encouraging to cast their ballot, to make their voice heard, only for them to see what their vote has wrought. So why should they bother? How can democracy survive that, when our fellow voters are either actively choosing fascism or don’t even know what that word means and just wanted cheaper eggs or, God help us, believed his claims of being anti-war?

Maybe there’s some hope in a widespread “oh shit, we fucked up” among the electorate, that subsequent elections this year have shown a sharp turn away from the Orange Thing and his right wing goons. If it holds. If established officials don’t kneecap it with “opposition” candidates who don’t actually inspire anyone or promise any real positive change or correction to course while inhibiting those who do. Zohran Mamdani just demolished Andrew Cuomo in the New York City mayoral primary, so that’s delicious and promising. But even many elected officials in his same party who should be getting behind him have instead hesitated or outright blasted him with the exact racist and Islamophobic garbage you get from the Orange Thing and his MAGA dipshits. So maybe that’s who they are.

Maybe this is the true test of who we are. The Orange Thing has the Republican Party wrapped around his finger, and, it seems, plenty of Democrats haven’t shown to be much better or at all potent at countering it other than measly words wedged in a donation request text message. So regardless of how informed the voters may be, how informative the mainstream news, sometimes these are just the choices we’re stuck with: a Republican candidate whose mouth spends the better part of the day somewhere below the Orange Thing’s waist, or a Democrat who raises their fist in defiance while breathlessly assuring voters of agreement with the Republican candidate’s bigotries. Democrats like that got the nomination in the first place after dumping a truckload of money into the primary to wipe out any challengers, presenting themselves as the only sensible candidate as others are frozen out from getting their messages out there. This failed spectacularly for Andrew Cuomo. It must fail for all others like him. That is our test.

Our test before came in the 2018 midterms, which saw a major change in the balance of power but disappointing failures to do so in other areas, where voters should have known better given what was happening. It may be similar next year.

So who are we, that we elected these current leaders and all those before who set the stage for where we are now? They put ridiculous idiots on the Supreme Court, who then overturn Roe v Wade among a load of other bullshit decisions, all of which is shown to be wildly unpopular. Yet those who made it happen keep winning elections.

I guess I don’t have an answer for that, nothing beyond again pointing out we’re a big diverse country beyond the Orange Thing’s favored white conservatives. The people too many think of when they think of a “typical” American, erasing all the rest of us.

Maybe I just have more of what we aren’t. Our national identity is not defined by the White House occupant, whoever it is at any given time. Hell, maybe, for all the words spilled above, we aren’t our election results. We’re a few hundred million people who call these states and territories home. Who want to be seen and counted as part of this place.

United by the Constitution.

Emboldened by the Declaration of Independence.

We enter the 250th year under the greatest threat ever from within, with the desperate hope that this nation of the people, by the people, for the people, won’t soon perish from the earth.

Where Are You Getting Your Information?

December 28, 2024

See there? Floating facedown in the swimming pool?

Yup. That’s my country.

You’re probably wondering how we got to this point.

So am I.

Let’s back up a bit.

In early 2020, I started writing a post that never got finished or published about the Democratic primary going on at the time. There were many decent candidates with ambitious and popular ideas. But we were lowkey shamed for supporting any of that, that in order to oust the Orange Thing we had to play it safe and go boring and steady, and that was Joe Biden and not Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.

It seemed to me a losing strategy, so typical of the party. After all, the Orange Thing had an excited base that got him elected. So did Barack Obama. Hillary Clinton did not have one as much, and that plus a lot of baggage she has led to her upset loss in 2016. And Joe Biden? Not very interesting or exciting at all. Plus, with Covid showing up by this point, couldn’t host big rallies anyway.

So because he was so deemed “electable”, Biden got the nomination, so that was the choice.

Lo and behold, after lots of counting the following November, Biden narrowly won Pennsylvania the Saturday after Election Day and was declared the winner, freeing us from the Orange Thing at long last, prompting dancing in the streets in cities around the nation. He was boring as can be, but it was an unusual time and situation where that was the winning trait against the shitshow that was his tangerine-hued opponent.

Perhaps then 2016 was just a mistake, a miscalculation, an anomaly. The Orange Thing was so actively repulsive there was no way he could win, and Clinton seemed so clearly more qualified, that she was a lock. Then, well, you know…

When he was out after the 2020 election, as we know, the Orange Thing denied the loss, declared fraud, and sent his rabid followers to attack the Capitol, leading to his second impeachment just a little over a year after the first. This failed, so he wasn’t blocked from running for president again.

Which he did. He sailed through the primaries, well on his way to pulling a Grover Cleveland given Biden’s abysmal approval ratings, with little opposition from Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley who promptly turned around and kissed his ass and thanked him for his disparaging nicknames for them.

Biden was seeming, well, old, but still doing his job. Then the June debate happened, and he was seeming really old. Nancy Pelosi, who’s even older but in Congress so it doesn’t matter, ran some behind the scenes maneuvering urging him out of reelection. And in July, the switch happened, and now the candidate was the younger, sharper, popular Kamala Harris. A campaign that felt irredeemably dead on its feet sprang to life, as hope came through that we had a capable, exciting candidate, to move past the Biden shortcomings and bring us something new. The Orange Thing didn’t stand a chance.

She walloped him in the debate. The convention was vibrant. Her campaign tore through the battleground states, making her case, knocking on doors, running shit tons of ads about how she’ll improve the economy and take on greed. She was likable. Her rallies packed arenas. She appeared on SNL.

Unlike Clinton’s and Biden’s runs, she hit all the right notes. A candidate the voters were enthusiastic about, who could energize the base and swing voters alike. She was a break from the mold, from the old guard. A breath of fresh air.

The Orange Thing, meanwhile, was rambling incoherently about pet-eating Haitians and Arnold Palmer’s penis at his poorly-attended rallies, with his get-out-the-vote efforts amounting to Elon Musk’s legally-questionable scheme of offering large sums of money to people who claim to support (his own interpretations of) the first and second amendments. And he is, after all, only three years younger than the too-old-to-be-president Joe Biden.

The polls inexplicably showed them tied, with her having a slight but statistically insignificant lead. And one renowned-for-accuracy one even had her winning Iowa? Incredible!

So it seems all the pieces are more or less together for this one to go well…

And then it didn’t. At all.
Continue reading “Where Are You Getting Your Information?”

Joe the President

July 21, 2024

What’s this? A little Sunday afternoon tweet from the White House occupant. Let’s see…

My Fellow Americans,

Over the past three and a half years, we have made great progress as a Nation.

Yeah, it is nice the virus is mostly under control and we don’t have to wear masks as much anymore. That’s what you’re talking about, right?

Today, America has the strongest economy in the world.

Contrary to very popular belief, per basically every poll.

We’ve made historic investments in rebuilding our Nation, in lowering prescription drug costs for seniors, and in expanding affordable health care to a record number of Americans.

Is this message just to lay out admin accomplishments to get votes? Hopefully people will see that not drowning in medical debt is more important than the spurious concerns about “illegal” immigrants the other side won’t shut up about.

We’ve provided critically needed care to a million veterans exposed to toxic substances.

Sit your asses down, Marjorie and Lauren.

Passed the first gun safety law in 30 years.

Not sure whether to be more shocked at it being 30 years or that one passed at all.

Appointed the first African American woman to the Supreme Court.

She gets to join Elena and Sonia in concurring dissents that amount to glaring incredulously at the other six.

And passed the most significant climate legislation in the history of the world.

If we want the world to have even more history, better keep it coming.

America has never been better positioned to lead than we are today.

“I think there’s still room for improvement.” -Gaza

I know none of this could have been done without you, the American people. Together, we overcame a once in a century pandemic and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. We’ve protected and preserved Democracy.

And a depressingly large chunk of these American people intend to vote for a guy promising to undo all this in a few months.

And we’ve revitalized and strengthened our alliances around the world.

“Hello?” -Gaza

It has been the greatest honor of my life to serve as your President.

Sure?

And while it has been my intention to seek reelection,

Ummm….

I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and to focus solely on fulfilling my duties as President for the remainder of my term.

Hoooooooly shit!

I will speak to the Nation later this week in more detail about my decision.

A disturbing degree of ageism and ableism from all corners? I know.

For now, let me express my deepest gratitude to all those who have worked so hard to see me reelected.

Namely the flimsy attempts to hypnotize us all into forgetting about that debate.

I want to thank Vice President Kamala Harris for being an extraordinary partner in all this work.

“All yours now, coconut tree lady.”

And let me express my heartfelt appreciation to the American people for the faith and trust you have placed in me.

American people: *exchange glances*

I believe today what I always have: that there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together.

“Except maybe you can’t quit giving them bombs?” -Gaza

We just have to remember we are the United States of America.

That’s what our Dustin Hoffman-voiced substitute teacher wrote for us!

Well. Here goes…

These Truths the Self-Evident

July 4, 2024

On this night, our country sparkles.

On this day, 248 years ago…

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

Typical. Can’t just quit and be done with it. Got to write out a whole long thing first.

We hold these truths to be self-evident

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…” -Bart Simpson, tapping his head

that all men are created equal

#NotAllMen

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights

Even the “creator” who kicked them out of a garden and drowned them in a flood? Or… a different one? Do the modern day so-called “originalists” know that?

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“This is totally a thing we believe in.” -the slaveowners who wrote and signed this thing

That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men

Well, there’s your problem right there.

deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,

Were you saying something? I was just thinking about that debate the other night and about how our “consent” amounts to choosing between them this November.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

PSA: Your favorite orange racist loudmouth fairly losing his reelection bid does not amount to “destructive of these ends”. Quite the contrary, in fact.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The devil you know…

But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

You go girl!

Continue reading “These Truths the Self-Evident”

When White Supremacy Feels Like Home

June 19, 2022

I hereby decree…

White supremacist families create white supremacists.

When a young person is racist, and especially when they act on that racism with a gun that no one should legally be able to have, you get all this reaching for what to blame for it, like “oh noes, social media is radicalizing them!” or it’s whatever show they watch or music they listen to, yadda yadda yadda.

It’s none of that. It’s their families.

You say “maybe he watched too many racist YouTube videos!” while ignoring that he grew up with a father who used the N-word fifty times a day and a mother who always grumbled when someone spoke Spanish at the grocery store.

Was it that white supremacist reddit that got him into “replacement theory”? Or was it listening to his grandma wax nostalgic about how nice the neighborhood was before *those* people moved in?

Did he get interested in white supremacy because of a Twitter thread? Or was it because he’d been listening to his grandpa rant about how the Civil War was a noble cause about states’ rights since before he could walk?

Did these families ever explicitly say “here, go commit some horrible racist atrocity”? Of course not. As such, they’d swear up and down they never taught him to be racist.

But they did. They planted the seed early and often.

They made white supremacy feel like home.

This doesn’t absolve him of anything. It’s still his responsibility to recognize and unlearn the racism. It’s a hard process. Many give up or don’t bother. And right wing media certainly doesn’t help.

But the process is needed in the first place because of the family.

In fact, right wing media thrives on families making white supremacy feel like home. It dissuades you from unlearning the racism and shields you from confronting white privilege by inviting you to lean into it.

Thanksgiving is easier when you agree with your racist uncle.

When white supremacy feels like home because family instilled it in you at a young age, then leaning into it means continued familial connection. Whereas unlearning it, and recognizing the toxicity and harm of all these messages you’ve been hearing your whole life, means familial disconnection and tension. Yet another reason many don’t bother to unlearn.

It’s another reason the right wing touts itself as being about family. They want to further dissuade you from unlearning the racism and thus causing this familial disconnect and tension. They profit when you don’t realize that Grandma was full of shit.

All that said, there’s no easy solution to this. But let’s at least recognize it. Don’t let these families act all shocked like “We never taught him this. Must be the video games!” and proceed to blame video games. It was them. It’s always them.

Yeah, these racist families never explicitly said “yeah, go commit some horrible racist atrocity!” but they low key taught him all his life their whiteness is under attack, that there was this problem they’d be pleased to see solved. And then act all shocked when he goes out and does so.

Originally tweeted here.

Alito the Egregiously Wrong

May 29, 2022

It got leaked that the Supreme Court is about to overrule Roe v Wade. Not that surprising given the Court’s current makeup: three liberals plus moderate Bush appointee, less moderate Bush appointee, Not Merrick Garland, sexual abuser who likes beer, sexual abuser who votes against youth at every possible opportunity, and woman who probably asks her husband’s permission before every ruling.

Anyway, the leaked opinion by Less Moderate Bush Appointee contains some choice passages worthy of an “is this dude serious?” glare, so let’s have a look…

We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision….

Okay, but does the constitution say anything about a dog playing basketball?

Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.

I know, right?! It allowed people with uteruses to *gasp!* make decisions about their own bodies and lives!

And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.

Translation: “We refuse to accept the issue is settled, so we’re enflaming and dividing. LOOK WHAT YOU MADE US DO!”

It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.

Or, you know, to the people considering having abortions. Not sure anyone else has a stake.

In the years prior to [Roe v. Wade], about a third of the States had liberalized their laws, but Roe abruptly ended that political process.

Ended that political process by… settling it? Like the Court is supposed to?

It imposed the same highly restrictive regime on the entire Nation, and it effectively struck down the abortion laws of every single State.

Imposed a highly restrictive regime by… lifting restrictions? Seriously, does this guy speak English?

It represented the ‘exercise of raw judicial power’… and it sparked a national controversy that has embittered our political culture for a half-century.

Did this guy just suggest repealing Roe would end controversy and bitter political culture? Dude… look out the window!

The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.

Sure it is. It’s been settled law for half a century.

An unbroken tradition of prohibiting abortion on pain of criminal punishment persisted from the earliest days of the common law until 1973.

Yeah, well, up until certain dates, no one other than land-owning white males could vote- Oh, wait, nevermind. You’re opposed to that change, too.

Voters may believe that the abortion right should be more even more [sic] extensive… Voters in other States may wish to impose tight restrictions based on their belief that abortion destroys an ‘unborn human being.’

Oh, were you saying something? I was just thinking about that time you ruled to gut the Voting Rights Act.

Our nation’s historical understanding of ordered liberty does not prevent the people’s elected representatives from deciding how abortion should be regulated.

How about, and hear me out, those who are pregnant deciding whether or not to get an abortion!

On many other occasions, this Court has overruled important constitutional decisions. … Without these decisions, American constitutional law as we know it would be unrecognizable, and this would be a different country.

Want to get started on overruling Citizens United then?

Casey described itself as calling both sides of the national controversy to resolve their debate, but in doing so, Casey necessarily declared a winning side.

Do you think your rulings don’t declare “winning sides”?

The Court short-circuited the democratic process by closing it to the large number of Americans who dissented in any respect from Roe. … Roe and Casey cannot be allowed to stand.

Most Americans want them to stand. Or does that “large number of Americans” not count?

Roe certainly did not succeed in ending division on the issue of abortion.

It wasn’t meant to. It was to allow people to get abortions if they want.

Roe ‘inflamed’ a national issue that has remained bitterly divisive for the past half-century.

No, more like the Court made a decision, and ever since the GOP, Catholics, and midwest pastors alike have been stirring their bases into a frenzy about it to get more votes, more asses in pews, and more born children to molest.

This Court cannot bring about the permanent resolution of a rancorous national controversy simply by dictating a settlement and telling the people to move on.

Could be describing literally any Supreme Court decision here.

Whatever influence the Court may have on public attitudes must stem from the strength of our opinions, not an attempt to exercise ‘raw judicial power.’

LOL

Just… LOL

We do not pretend to know how our political system or society will respond to today’s decision overruling Roe and Casey.

Seriously?

And even if we could foresee what will happen, we would have no authority to let that knowledge influence our decision.

Despite all the ink you spilled bemoaning Roe and Casey “enflaming debate” and “deepening division”. Funny how that suddenly doesn’t matter anymore.

We can only do our job, which is to interpret the law, apply longstanding principles of stare decisis, and decide this case accordingly.

Applying stare decisis would mean leaving Roe alone because it’s already correctly settled.

We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.

Translation: “Because I’ve already got Clarence, Amy, Brett, and Neil on board, so I can do what I want. Hell, I could have just recited The Cat In The Hat here for all that it matters.”

Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.

Yes, to the people. The people who are actually pregnant. Kind of need to leave Roe and Casey in place for that.

Originally tweeted here on May 4, 2022.

Still With This 2021

December 31, 2021

*looks at recent posts* Ugh.

Well, at least I’m still doing this, for whatever that’s worth. So what happened this year? Well…

January: A Capitol Sixth

– Georgia senatorial runoff election
– Did both Democrats actually win?! Sweet!
– Oh, look, angry Orange Thing fans at the Capitol.
– And breaking into the Capitol.
– Oh dear.
– Look who’s getting impeached again!
– Though he’s done anyway, but it’s the principle of the thing.
– Here comes President Biden and Vice President Harris!

February: The F Word

– Impeachment managers make case, citing event all senators saw first hand.
– Defense yelled a lot and complained Democrats said the word “fight” at any point.
– “Good enough,” said 43 Republican senators
– Second impeachment fails

March: Ever Given

– There’s a big boat wedged in the Suez Canal. LOL
– I want a Covid vaccine. I’m eligible. Give me.

April: Phase 1C

– Damn it, get me a vaccine appointment I don’t have to drive two hours for!
– Covid Easter number two
– Finally!
– First dose!

May: Stolen Base

– I just keep getting older, I guess.
– Second dose!
– LOL Davey Martinez
– What do you mean lifting mask requirements?!
– I’m fully vaxxed now but seems too soon.

June: The Noisiest Tree

– Where are the cicadas?
– Ah, there they are!
– Hello, little golden wings!
– And… they’re gone again.

July: The Twisties

– Time for 2020 Olympics in 2021
– Needs more robots.
– Good for you, Simone Biles. Good for you.
– Where did all the Nats go?

August: Millhaven

– What do you mean Canada beat us at soccer?!
– Damn it, Canada, leave your bullshit in the winter games.
– Bronze it is, then.
– Still managed to overtake China in medal count on the last day. Yay!
– Oh, that poor condo. Goddamn lightning.
– Awesome Con!

September: Tax the Rich

– Twenty years since the bad thing happened.
– Baking show

October: Bounce It

– What do you mean 99% story completion?! What did I miss?
– Fine, I’ll do New Game Plus.
– Somewhat normal Halloween again. Despite… things.

November: Focaccia

– Oh FFS Virginia
– Not doing turkey in a bag again
– Oh, Jurgen and Crystelle!
– Covid booster!

December: Quiet Room

– Where to record this video?
– Cookies. Lots of cookies.
– Virtual festivities again.
– Christmas Eve mini pies
– No Christmas Day roast beast due to shit going on.
– So doing roast beast right now for New Year’s Eve!
– Delicious.
– And watching Encanto.

I guess I should post more. Inspiration and motivation comes and goes. I’ve still been tweeting, though. Anyway, there’s 2022 waiting up there in Times Square. While this damn virus is still not gone. Why won’t it be gone? Well, all that’s gone now is 2021. Here comes the next.