Gov't shutdown, not over runaway spending, but abortion

Kerry Eleveld of Daily Kos reported that Republicans are seeing two in three counties with major universities are trending much more Democratic. And they’re getting worried. They wonder how to quash college voters. The big example is in Wisconsin. Dane County, home of Madison and the University of Wisconsin, cast more ballots in the recent state Supreme Court election than the most populous Milwaukee County. And 82% of Dane County’s votes went to the pro-choice Judge Janet Protasiewicz. She won by 11 points in a 50-50 state. Yeah, the problem is these younger voters – not the policies that are ticking them off. See... Joan McCarter of Kos reported that while Republicans can’t get a national abortion ban through Congress and past Biden right now, they are forcing anti-abortion (and anti-trans) poison pills into every must-pass legislation. The big agriculture bill has an amendment that would force the FDA to stop allowing abortion pills be sent by mail (as they prevent the FDA from regulating nicotine in cigarettes). Bills to fund bank regulators, the IRS, and other government departments have amendments to deny coverage of abortion service and gender-affirming care to federal employees and their families. And that’s just the start. The method is to overwhelm the Senate. If the majority Senate doesn’t go along, Republicans are fine with forcing a government shutdown. This maximizes disruption (which they want) and maybe some of their efforts succeed. There’s a convoluted reasoning that any federal support of abortion is an attack on states’ rights – even where abortion is legal. But since their goal is a federal ban on abortion to supersede states rights no need to try to wrap your head around their reasoning.

All of these poison pill amendments are a means of softening the ground for what comes next from Congress. If Republicans keep the House and get the Senate, then get the trifecta by winning the White House, that national ban will be job one. That is where Republicans are playing with electoral fire. By injecting abortion into every single funding bill, they’re going to make the shutdown fight about our reproductive rights and their push for a de facto national abortion ban. Republicans won’t be able to put the gloss of the deficit or “out-of-control spending” on a shutdown. It will be all about abortion. Government shutdowns are never popular, but when the issue threatens a fundamental right, it will be disastrous for Republicans.

The new movie Barbie set a record for the largest opening weekend of female-directed movie. Which means, as Laura Clawson of Kos reported, all the conservative angst trying to get people to boycott the movie didn’t work. There were complaints of “disappointingly low T from Ken.” Meaning he wasn’t macho enough. Another called it a “man-hating Woke propaganda fest.” Since “doctor Barbie” is played by a trans woman there is a complaint the movie was taken over by the trans mafia.

It’s important not to lose sight of what this is about: It’s part of an effort to enforce gender roles according to right-wing preferences, a backlash against the movie’s undermining of the ways Barbie has represented femininity for generations now. Although interestingly, they’re really upset about the representation of Ken, as if Ken had ever been some major figure in American visions of masculinity. ... One reason for the frenzied rage over the movie’s message about gender as a whole is the sense that masculinity and femininity as universal, unchanging truths are being undermined. The idea that Ryan Gosling as Ken is not a rippling specimen of dominant manhood links to anti-trans bigotry. The anger about both is rooted in the belief that a rigid gender binary is sacred and in the fear that it’s slipping away from them as the kids these days move away from strong adherence to said binary.

That strong adherence to the gender binary is because of their belief that men are supposed to be superior to women. A guy who isn’t sufficiently dominant or a person who defies their gender role gets their swift condemnation. In the comments of a pundit roundup for Kos is a cartoon by Michael Franklin showing Lisa Simpson in front of a screen that says, “If felons can’t vote... then felons should not be allowed to run for president.” We’re familiar with the big guys of renewable energy, wind and solar. Mark Sumner of Kos discussed a little brother – geothermal. There may be a breakthrough to expanding what it can deliver. Geothermal can work even when the wind blows and at night and doesn’t need the storage. The way it works is simple: pump cold water into the ground, hot water comes out. That gain in energy can drive a turbine. To make that happen the heat source has to be within a reasonable drilling distance and the rocks have to be permeable to allow water to be pumped through them. The breakthrough is in the case where the rocks are hot but are too dense and impermeable. Fervo Energy has a demonstration system that showed that problem can be fixed through ... fracking. This should – in theory – have much less environmental impact than the fracking used to extract natural gas. There are fewer wells and since they are much deeper there should be less threat to polluting or depleting ground water. Even so there is still the risk of small earthquakes. This has exciting possibilities to our energy hungry world. We need that alternate energy source because... Pakalolo of the Kos community reported that the Antarctic ice has melted to an all time low. One might think with the heat dome over Phoenix this might be expected. But Antarctica is in winter – and a very cold winter this year. How cold? Today’s reading was -82.9C (about -117F). Yeah, that cold. Yet the sea ice is melting due to the warmth of the surrounding oceans. A chart of sea ice extent over the last few decades shows 2023 way lower than other years. In the comments of another pundit roundup is a cartoon by Peter Kuper. It shows two men sitting on a park bench. Both wear masks because of the swirling smoke. One tells the other, “...But it’s a dry smoke.” Just a bit further down is one by Matt Golding. A parent and child look at a blazing hillside. The parent says, “One day, all this will be yours...cough!...to deal with.” Charles Jay of the Kos community had, as part of a previous gig, did a few interviews with Tony Bennett, who died recently. In amongst the stories is this, first Jay, then Bennett:

“I Left My Heart in San Francisco” was released as the B-side on a single, but it would earn Bennett his first two Grammys, including Record of the Year, and become his theme song. But Bennett said the song impacted him in another way:

“The greatest thing that ever happened to me as an entertainer was hearing how the soldiers waiting to come home from Vietnam were sitting around the fire and singing ‘I Left My Heart in San Francisco’ because when they came home they’d first have to come through San Francisco. Even today because of the Iraqi war, every time I sing … ‘When I come home to you San Francisco,’ I think of the boys coming home.”