Senator Susan Collins has been the Democrats’ Lucy with the football since forever. She indicates her willingness to buck her party but she always ALWAYS folds when the final vote comes. Oh, Trump promised her something on the healthcare bill that he reneged on and disappointed Collins? Tsk, tsk. How could she be so naive? Oh, please, Collins knew there were no guarantees. It’s just what she does. Apparently, Maine has just enough crunchy granola types to keep things interesting but not enough to make her actually, you know, fear anything from them.
Anyway, there’s a very good reason why you should just cross Collins off your list for support when it comes to the next supreme. Court justice and here it is:
See that green patch where Maine is in the upper right corner? That green indicates that Maine is one of only 8 states in the union that explicitly protects abortion. It’s probably a state constitution thing. I’m only speculating. If anything, Maine could become a tourist destination. Stephen King has been working diligently to make Maine the scariest state in the country but you never know. A Supreme Court decision might turn all that around.
So, Collins doesn’t really need to defend Roe v Wade on a national level. What does she care as long as her own personal constituents aren’t affected? They’ve got theirs, go get you’re own. And while PA women can go to Maryland and Arizona women could take a few days to visit San Diego, you’re kind of screwed if you live in Colorado or Illinois where abortion law is vague and there’s no clinic for hundreds and hundreds of miles.
But why should Collins worry about that? Is someone from North Dakota going to vote for her? Heck no. So she’ll be a yes vote for whoever Trump nominates unless there’s a more compelling reason to not vote for him or her. There is one extremely good reason why no Republican Senator with a thinking brain should appoint anyone Trump nominates.
But is ain’t abortion.
And let’s face it. The battle lines on abortion have been drawn for decades now. Very few people on either side are persuadable. And you now know why you can’t count on Collins, if you ever could.
So, if I was the loyal opposition, I’d stop getting hysterical over abortion. There’s not a damn thing you can do about it unless you control the senate, which we don’t.
What you have to do is persuade each senator that opposing Trump for a different reason is in their best interests. And if I were the Democrats putting the pieces together on how far the Trump scandal has infiltrated the GOP, I’d think about when it would be strategically advantageous to torch that powder they’ve been sitting on.
Filed under: General |
The Confluence 
India, 1987. I had an abortion. I was 24 and in my first year of marriage, unintended/miscalculated pregnancy and would throw a wrench in my aspirations to do something different for myself as a woman career-wise. My mom went along with it and my sister provided the emotional support. My husband was away on work but he was notified of my choice and he had said even before all this that it is my body and my decision (my dad had told (warned?) him I was very career-minded when we first got engaged). My sister and I went to a famous OBGYN first and she said yep to my most feared condition (we didn’t have pregnancy tests I could administer myself – the night before I had spent in a frenzy hoping it was a false situation) and the doc said she wouldn’t do it, period — there was no conversation. We went to a second doctor (who had incidentally delivered my sister’s baby and a badass) and she was very supportive — she said women have babies all the time and it is time to go after your other dreams. I got excellent care from her without complications (I was very early too). Supportive family/husband, excellent doctor and career-wise, I didn’t become a Nobel laureate or anything like that (duh) but I have the satisfaction of starting my life as I saw fit. No regrets from either me or my husband. It all sounds like designer abortion but we were not a rich family by any means and this option/care was available to most middle class families.
That was very brave of you to tell us that. I’m glad to know that there are parts of India that aren’t as retro as Louisiana. And doubly happy that your family was supportive. It was a good thing for you and your family.
🤗
He will appoint a woman to SCOTUS and she will overturn R v. W. Watch me.
These bozos are singing Queen.
Freddie is definitely not cheering them on.
*sigh* Speaking of eccentric British musicians, I learned last night at Wonkette that Morrissey has gone over to the Dark Side. 😦
Happy Birthday to Tsumugi “Mugi” Kotobuki of K-On!
Yep, go for the vulnerable and go for the jugular to make the population fearful. Fear makes you irrational and the more irrational you become easier it is to con and control.
“And if I were the Democrats putting the pieces together on how far
the Trump scandalRussia has infiltrated the GOP…”FIFY. 😡
Back in the day, if I could say nothing else good about the Republicans and the “independent” conservatives, at least I could be sure they were patriots, if sometimes misguided ones.
No more; “At least the Russians are white.” 😡
The late, great R. Crumb:
Noticing a hashtag #walkaway from what looks like bots, trumpees, suggesting to walk away from the Democrats. Push back. This is a voter suppression strategy for the midterms from trump and his minions. . Stay strong and together, vote Dems all the way.
Susan Collins is Exhibit A for why no rational person should ever think that there are any moderate Republicans in office. They all vote the same way. Collins is essentially no better than Cruz. Yes, she voted to not overturn ACA, but then she voted for the tax cuts which cut out a key part of ACA. Frankly, from what I’ve seen of her over the decades, she is an unintelligent person who somehow has convinced Maine voters that she is a moderate, even though she votes for every Right-wing Justice, every Republican bill. Olympia Snowe at least was brighter and had more dignity. But if people in Blue states ever realize that any Republican, no matter how he/she might talk during campaigning, is simply another cog in the Right Wing machine. and thus vote against them, our country would be a lot better off. There have not been moderate Republicans for at least 35 years.
This is one of those miserable situations, hopefully one of the last of them, where the Democrats cannot win. All they can do is act like they are fighting, and hopefully not antagonize the base which very much wants them to fight. The next Justice will assuredly be a Federalist devotee, someone who will never, ever vote against their agenda of destroying the middle class, taking away all government benefits, allowing pollution of all of our resources, making sure that a cabal of the super wealthy can control all branches of government and all elections.. Any legal words in their opinions will simply be a camouflage for the evil that will be at the heart of it. This could have been thwarted years ago, but Democrats did not see it clearly enough, and the media as always hectored them to vote for right-wing nominees like Thomas and Roberts. And then of course, I say once again that Obama failed miserably in not getting Garland on the Court, and in not telling the populace that the Russians were engaged in subversion of the election. So now we are going to get a series of Far Right Justices like clockwork. The only possible hope is to somehow win big majorities in the Congress by 2001, plus the Presidency, and then add more seats to the Court. And screw the media and their inevitable clucking, and grave shaking of heads.
One other point: even if the Democrats somehow manage to forestall the confirmation until the primaries, all that will happen is that the voters in North Dakota, Indiana, West Virginia, all states where Trump won by vast majorities, will make sure that their current Democratic Senators will be defeated, thus giving the Republicans 54 seats or so, and an easy confirmation of the worst person possible for the Court, a fanatic who will delight in turning the country back to 1870, or 1840, if you want to include slavery.. So the task for Democrats is to look like they are fighting, but try to play it so that they do not lose precious seats in the upcoming elections, and can have more strength next term. As we have sadly learned over and over, all the legitimate argument and rationality in the world has no effect when confronted with a Congressional majority which only wants to win, figures that any negative publicity can simply be countered by utter lies. Might makes Right for them, that is all they know.
. As much as I care about all of this, as much as I know and have studied about Constitutional Law, I will try hard to not watch one minute of the worthless and dispiriting confirmation hearings. I’ve seen it too many times before It is of no value at all, just a dreary ritual, ever since the Republicans figured out a way to guarantee nominees who would vote on every case exactly the way they were programmed to do. In older days, Justices might well evolve on the Court, that is how Republican nominees like Warren, Brennan, Blackman, Souter, became great Justices who supported liberal positions. Those days are over; every Republican nominee is a true believer in Far Right ideology, and will never deviate. Thus the Supreme Court has become a rubber stamp for the executive branch, a branch which Republicans have managed to control via vote suppression, a bad Electoral College system, and of course, in Bush v. Gore, the very Court that they had stacked to set up such a result. Russia has a court like that, one of the things that Putin has tried to teach Trump. Garland would have likely been a good Justice, but the Obama’s idea of picking the most moderate person possible, was almost laughable, given the way that Republicans play it. It is like being in a poker game where players are cheating in various ways, but you can’t leave the game; and then finally you get a hand which can’t be beaten, but you only bet a little money, so as not to seem too greedy or to antagonize the other players.
From The Daily Banter:
White Republican Voters Are the Bad Guys and They Know It
https://thedailybanter.com/issues/2018/07/02/bad-guys/
oh yeah, woodcuck, we are bad boys. Your womenfolk come to us when they tire of effeminate snark delivered by lisping bum drillers, and need a real man to tell them how it is.
Lol! And you voted for the soft pudgy ugly dude who’s too afraid to talk to Mueller. He has to take someone’s kids away to make him feel like a tough guy but we know that the sexiest thing in his pants is his wallet.
You guys would be grateful if we slaked our wanton lusts on your fleshy goodness. From what I’ve read, conservative women are too pure to f*ck. Oh well, you go with whatcha got, amirite? Rosie, you’re all right, you wear my ring…
Blizzy speaks like a true incel. 😛
Off topic:
Private Japanese space rocket crashes on launch
https://www.space.com/41056-japan-private-rocket-launch-explosion.html?utm_source=notification
The chief designer and engineer, an American, was fired, and suffered a bird-hunting mishap shortly thereafter.
FART Act… yes, yes, it is a thing this WH put out.
https://twitter.com/MollyJongFast/status/1013929289186709505
Really, the Republicans are true motherfuckers.
RBG said that thing about a generation making a big difference between her mother and herself (see my comment in the previous post). Here, we have two generations of Republicans, mother and son and not a whit of difference it makes. Really sad.
Follow-up to earlier Daily Banter column:
“Trump’s Rage Junkies” Are Why the GOP Has to Be Utterly Destroyed
https://thedailybanter.com/issues/2018/07/02/rage-junkies/
I have a bit of hope for the 1st time in years for the future of politics here in North America, given that Andres Lopez won the Mexico Presidency on Sunday, & Alexandria Ocasio House Rep nomination last Tuesday.
Social democrats that are seemingly genuinely for the 90-99% actually defeated right-wing neoliberal oligarch puppets, after the 2016 D Pres primary rigging event.
Murican Exceptionalists: how does it feel that Mexico has a more enlightened, pro-democracy, pro-people humanistic Presidents than any Murican ones since at least the 1981-now Reaganomics era.
How epic will it be if another extra response to the neoliberal “we can’t afford” may in certain cases in the future be, “oh so you are saying we are not as advanced as Mexico, who already has that program” or is currently implementing. Not all/most other rich countries like Canada but “emerging”-classified Mexico. Ha! I read Lopez advocates Medicare For All & free public univ tuition.
Bravo for Lopez and Ocasio.
But as for you–Joffrey, is that you?
Democratic Socialist is a real winner. Isn’t that how Hugo Chavez styled himself? And abolish (not reform) ICE? That’s right out of Putin’s playbook, too. It would be so nice if we Democrats did not snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.
I like the idea of democratic socialism (though I prefer the inverted term for it, “social democracy”)–but unlike the Pure White Left, I understand we won’t get there until Mediocre White Folks are no longer majorities in more than a handful of states.