In a Desperate Bid to Boost his Approval Ratings

I don't think the guy with the guns at the Whitehouse Correspondents Dinner was staged, but I do think Trump's party is going to play it for all its worth. Hey, it got his approval ratings up last time, yeah?

That's not what I wanted to write about here.

Here, I want to talk about a different attempt to boost his ratings: an attempt to keep birth control out of the hands of Americans.

This is never going to happen, I was promised by endless people when Roe v Wade was overturned. Birth control is too popular! Yeah, well, so is abortion. Most people want it to be available; one in three women have had an abortion. I had one after my miscarriage, though when I say that people start shrieking that that is not "really" an abortion.

Yes, it fucking is. I needed it, too, because otherwise the fetal remains might have stayed in my uterus, causing sepsis, and damaging my future fertility.

How did the "conservatives" convince people abortion was evil?

(Except for their abortions, which like mine are not "really" abortions. I know people who are absolutely opposed to abortion until their sixteen year old needs one, and then it's "different," or until someone they know needs an abortion for medical reasons, and then that's not "really" an abortion.)

They pushed propaganda in their "conservative" Christian schools and their churches and their publications. They did this for 40 years. Even then, most people still want abortions to be legal.

Over the past two decades, these Christians have been spreading the lie that birth control is an abortifacient, that it "kills babies," and that a fertilized zygote is a baby. Facebook and TikTok and Instagram are filled with "health" advocates explaining how birth control damages women's health. 

Now Trump wants "to curb contraception."

His DHHS has released new guidelines, "prioritizing childbirth over contraception," and trying to convince people to use "natural family planning," instead of contraception. ('Natural family planning' is how we spell parenthood, by the way.)

Why? You know why.

The unwieldy political coalition that sent Trump back to the White House in 2024 is clamoring for action. For different reasons, an alliance of MAHA adherents, social conservatives and pronatalists are eager to go after birth control. With Trump sinking in the polls and his coalition fracturing, he may want to deliver for his core supporters. 

I'd say this was a terrible idea, but the past decade has proved to me that today's Trump supporters will literally do anything their ugly tin god tells them to do, and believe anything he tells them to believe. If it contradicts the reality, well, why should they believe in reality? That's what liberals do.

 

Trump's New War

Apparently claiming to end (fictional) wars wasn't getting him enough attention.

I guess he thinks the American people will support him if he kills enough brown people. That's the plan. That's the only item on his agenda.

What a disgrace.

You Knew I was a Scorpion

How are all y'all?

I'm just sitting here watching people piously call for "civility" after Trump has -- for months -- mocked those taking this pandemic seriously; after he deliberately downplayed the pandemic, leading to the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans; after he went to a rally knowing he had Covid-19; and while he is doing everything he can to strip away the civil rights and health care from those we love.

Oh, we have to be NICE, see, because if we say mean things about Trump while he's sick, why, we're no better than they are!

What's that you say? They brag about running over protesters, and shooting protesters? They celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse, who gunned down protesters? They danced in the streets when RBG died and gloated about how fast they could replace her? They're still doing that last?

But we have to be nice. Otherwise we're no better than they are.

Oh, Trump is getting excellent medical care at Walter Reed, while most of us cannot afford to seek medical care when we get sick, because of the for-profit thievery that is the US healthcare system?

What's that? Trump is doing his best to destroy ACA, leaving most of us even more helpless in the grip of the insurance companies and for-profit healthcare providers? 

He's doing everything he can to strip rights away from women, trans people, minorities, and immigrants, leaving us all vulnerable when we need medical care, and in the workplace?

But we shouldn't complain! We should be civil. Otherwise we're NO BETTER THAN THEY ARE.

Listen, we need to get rid of Trump and kick every single member of the GOP out of office -- for good. If we could do that being "civil" I would. 

And I don't think any of us are "celebrating" Trump's illness. What we're feeling is more like hope, mixed with tentative relief. Our rights and the rights of those we love have been under assault since he took office. We have felt threatened and at risk since he took office. More than a few of us have died because he's playing politics with American lives.

Wanting that to stop is not "celebrating." It's desperation. We're not happy he's sick. We're feeling hope for the first time since November 2016. 

When we go high, they stab us in the back. When we play fair, they lie and cheat.

I think Biden & his campaign managers should read the tale of the scorpion & the frog, and reconsider their generous but misplaced gallantry. https://t.co/5FmwpQrKOd

— Athena Andreadis, PhD (@AthenaHelivoy) October 3, 2020

This is a complicated question, since I have long been a supporter of Plato's notion that we can't make the world better by doing harm to people. If we harm someone, Plato explains, we make him worse. Since he is part of our world, then by making him worse, we are making the world worse. We must act to make him better -- we must treat him well.

Plato also said he was a citizen of the world. So everyone was his neighbor, a member of his world, and he must be seeking to do good for all.

On the other hand, Plato clearly approved of war. (See the Republic.) In war, not only do we harm people, we desire to kill them, and to kill their culture. We do this, clearly, in order to preserve our own culture, and what is good in that culture.

So it would seem that on some occasions, it is not only desirable but necessary to do harm to select groups of people. Who might those people be? Clearly, people who are dangerous to what is good in our culture.

Bad ethics drive out good. I'd love to have a decent world. But a world in which we act with civility is a world where Donald Trump and his ilk destroy everything that is good in our country in order to fill their own pockets and feed their own egos.

That's not a compromise I'm willing to make.

See also this:

ETA: Yes, this:

Day Thirteen

Last night my temperature was 99.8, but it's been normal so far all day today.

I still feel a bit wobbly, but my other symptoms have cleared off. I'm making a concerted effort to eat more -- difficult with no appetite, not to mention the terrible state of the country.

I've banned myself from both FB and Twitter for a few days, anxiety and depression making nothing any better.

Been able to work a few hours each morning. That's helping some.

Mass Shooters

Who radicalized him?



Original link here:

Using the El Paso terrorist's manifesto, I connected the dots for folks still having trouble doing that.

This is just the first page. pic.twitter.com/mQcW3doGNF

— Brandon Friedman (@BFriedmanDC) August 4, 2019