If you don’t speak, they have changed you

Bits of news

Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona is not going to run again. He made a big speech saying he doesn’t like what the GOP and the nasty guy are doing (but did/will he vote against any of it and will he lead any kind of resistance once out of the Senate?). The GOP, said Flake, needs to stand up to the nasty guy.

Senator Lindsay Graham was asked about that: “I’ll stand up when I need to but I’m trying to get taxes cut...”

David Nir of Daily Kos translates:

Sure, there’s a narcissistic sociopath who undermines democracy daily sitting in the White House, but hey, I’ve got to reduce the tax burden on rich people.

What is scary is that Graham said that in public. Nir continues:

Really, though, please take your time, Republicans, and enjoy shredding the social safety net to enrich the plutocrats. I’m sure there will be plenty of democracy left to defend after Trump has his way with things.

Patrick Tomlinson wrote a series of tweets explaining what he says when talking to “forced birthers” (a term that better describes the pro-life crowd). I’ll summarize:

You’re in a fertility clinic (why isn’t important). The fire alarm goes off. As you run for the exit you hear a child scream. You see the child and a container labeled “1000 Viable Human Embryos.” You have time to save the child or the container. If you try for both you’ll succumb to smoke inhalation and save neither. What do you do?

Says Tomlinson, the people answering this question always try to fudge it, trying to save both. They refuse to admit they know a human child is worth more than a thousand embryos. That refusal means their arguments are really about controlling women.



Steven Andrew of Daily Kos notes that abortion rates are down. Why isn’t the “forced birther” crowd celebrating? Why are they restricting birth control? First, fewer unplanned pregnancies means less slut shaming. Second, …

less abortions means fewer pissed of religious-right fundamentalists who are essential in enabling tax cuts and deregulation. So you know what that means to the usual suspects: kill birth control!
…
See, the more abortions there are, the better it is politically for the right. It makes it easier to rile up rank-and-file evangelicals and cast those of us who defend reproductive choice as murderous, sex-crazed monsters. So file this under “to hell with the embryos, we can’t let a good wedge issue die” in the Very Big Book of conservative duplicity. Hypocritical!

Melissa McEwan of Shakesville is discussing what she is calling the Russia Reversal. All that stuff about the nasty guy colluding with the Russians … the GOP is now blaming it on Democrats and Hillary Clinton. Their tiny thread of evidence is some oppo research Hillary’s campaign funded that revealed the connection. Never mind there is a lot more evidence than is in this little dossier. The GOP is also reviving an investigation into the uranium incident (was that the one involving Valerie Plame?) under President Bill Clinton (because, of course, Bengazi never went anywhere). McEwan fears this will end in a show trial and the fulfillment of all those “Lock her up!” chants.

In another post McEwan wrote:

Hillary Clinton warned us what would happen if Donald Trump were elected. She was right. And today, the political press is chasing bullshit stories about...Hillary Clinton.
…
I keep coming back to the thing my dear friend Maud [Mary Quinn] once wrote: “There are times when you must speak, not because you are going to change the other person, but because if you don't speak, they have changed you.”

After all that I need a bit of fun: McEwan occasionally asks for favorite photos that readers have taken. I had a good laugh at the fifth one in this post. It is an eclipse doll, a moon face with a fuzzy corona. Alas, I couldn’t find one online because every mention of “eclipse doll” brought up the characters of the Twilight movies.