U.S. And International Politics

[Rick Plant]

Biden Signs Bipartisan Safer Communities Act Into Law | NBC News

[Rick Plant]

Republicans want to force women to give birth even if it kills them. That's how radical and extreme they are. They claim to be "pro life" but when the mother's life is at stake, they refuse to save her life. These people are not "pro life" they are sadistic and many women will die because of them.

Texas is suing the Biden Administration and their argument is that a mother's life should not be saved during a medical emergency to her pregnancy. Let that sink in. Republicans just want the mother to die and you can't save her. Many women will die for no reason at all and this insanity can't be allowed to take place in America. If Republicans ever gain control of Congress they will make this a federal law in all 50 states.

How would you feel if a woman in your family had severe complications to her pregnancy and there would be nothing you could do to save her life? You just had to sit there and watch her go through excruciating pain as she is dying. This is what Republicans want for women in America and the husbands who love them.

So as a result of Republicans, the mother dies. the child is never born, the husband becomes a widower, and the family loses the woman. This is absolutely barbaric and insane when Republicans will force women to die all because of their radical extreme religion. Republicans do not care about separation of church and state, they want to force their church on you with their extreme laws. This is not America, this is fascism. If Republicans ever gain control of Congress they will be forcing more of their extreme religious laws on you as they take away more of your freedoms.   

Texas sues Biden administration over federal rules that require abortions be provided in medical emergencies to save life of mother
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/07/14/texas-sues-biden-emergency-abortion/

[Rick Plant]

This is today's Republican party.

NEW: The powerful Indiana attorney Jim Bopp told POLITICO the 10-year-old Ohio girl who crossed state lines to receive an abortion here should have carried her pregnancy to term and would have been required to do so under his law. W/ @meganmesserly

https://twitter.com/adamwren/status/1547626776486039552
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https://www.politico.com/news/2022/07/14/anti-abotion-10-year-old-ohio-00045843

[Joe Elliott]

The Roe backlash is real. And, as they say, it is spectacular

People are enraged about the Supreme Court unceremoniously overturning Roe. Now we’re seeing just how angry they are.

Organizers behind Michigan’s Reproductive Freedom for All proposal report that they’ve already collected over 800,000 signatures, nearly double the 425,059 needed by July 15 to get the measure on the ballot – a Michigan record for a ballot initiative.

If approved, this proposal would amend that state’s Constitution to sup1931 law that banned abortion until Roe came along.

And more importantly, it would send a message to the enemies of reproductive rights everywhere – be afraid. Right now, you’re looking upon your works. You should despair.

A ten-year-old rape victim forced to flee her home. Doctors fearing prison if they decide to save a patient from an ectopic pregnancy. Red state politicians salivating at being able to hunt anyone seeking an abortion by preventing them from crossing state lines.

For now, you’re getting exactly what you wanted.

But voters won’t rest until the rights Roe guaranteed are restored.

The popularity of this measure also confirms something that should be obvious to anyone who pays attention to politics – Michigan is the model for resisting autocracy.

You may say that I’m a little too proud of my adopted home state. You might also say I’m overcompensating for the shame of my state of having helped elect Donald Trump in 2016.

You would be right. But so am I.

Like Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, Michigan responded to the realization that they’d put a Putinist in the White House by electing Democrats to key statewide offices, including governor, in 2018.

But the Mitten took the extra step of passing two ballot measures that helped undo some of the damage done to voting rights.

Proposal 2 gave the state one of the best approaches to ending gerrymandering in the nation. Proposal 3 expanded ballot access dramatically by, among many other things, giving every Michigander the option to vote by mail.

Both proposals passed with more than 61 percent support. Both were more popular than the measure legalizing weed, which also passed.

Making it easier to vote helped Michigan reject Trump in 2020 by 146,000 votes, more than 10-times his margin of victory in 2016.

Thanks to our new fair maps, Democrats have a chance to win back the state Senate for the first time since 1984 along with the state House, which has been in GOP hands most of the last decade.

This would not only give Governor Gretchen Whitmer a chance to actually govern in 2023, it would prevent what is shaping up as the GOP’s plan to steal key swing states in 2024 by using gerrymandered legislatures to overrule voters.

Increased voting rights and fair maps are the simplest way to fight back at the attrition of democracy that made Trump possible. And to be fair, I have to note that Michigan has a huge advantage in achieving these goals over many states, including our fellow bricks in the Blue Wall – Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Pennsylvanians need the state legislature to approve a measure before it can go on their ballot. And the GOP-controlled, gerrymandered-for-their-pleasure state House in the Keystone State will never do anything like that to risk their power or ability to help elect Trump or a Trump impersonator.

In Wisconsin, you need the measure to pass two consecutive legislatures to pass a ballot measure that would modify the state Constitution. Something that will never happen because the state is, at this point, barely a democracy.

But Michigan’s unique ability to fight for democracy makes it more important to the rest of the nation, not less.

If Michigan’s Reproductive Freedom for All passes in the nation’s third most important swing state with nearly two-thirds of voters supporting it, as I imagine it will, this will send a message to the rest of the nation.

That message will be loud and it will resonate much in the same way that Mallory McMorrow’s righteous speech calling out Republican BS did. And hopefully it will embolden weak-kneed Democrats to stand up on an issue where voters overwhelmingly and clearly oppose Republican BS.

It will say, we’re sick of your garbage and we’re not going to take it anymore. Yes, this isn’t enough, given the depths and depravity of the threats to our rights and democracy we face.

But it’s definitely a start.

https://www.alternet.org/2022/07/roe-backlash-real-and-spectacular/

Come on you Wolverines! Beat those rebels in November.

[Joe Elliott]

Each of these Republicans gave tax cuts to the ultra wealthy resulting in record deficits. The GOP tax scams exploded the debt and put us into an economic crisis in 2008 under Bush and 2020 with Trump. Now, the GOP wants to get back into power to give more tax cuts to the ultra wealthy as they are talking about eliminating Social Security and Medicare.   

Each Democrat decreased Republican deficit and fixed Republican economic disasters.   

The Bush Tax Cuts Are the Disaster that Keeps on Giving
6/7/11
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-bush-tax-cuts-are-the-disaster-that-keeps-on-giving/

How Trump’s tax cuts and tariffs will make coronavirus recession worse
5/19/20
https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2020-05-19/trumps-tax-cuts-trade-wars-economy-coronavirus-recession

This is a great graph.

[Joe Elliott]

High-profile conservatives debunk Trump's 2020 election claims: there was 'no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct'

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/high-profile-conservatives-debunk-trump-s-2020-election-claims-there-was-no-fraud-that-changed-the-outcome-in-even-a-single-precinct/ar-AAZAbXo?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=da76d2456081418892292f9bb1d53fe5

A lengthy report written by well-known conservatives debunks Trump's false election claims.
Former federal judge Michael Luttig, a Jan. 6 hearing witness, contributes to the report.
Trump's claims that the 2020 election was fraudulent are "wrong and bad for our country," the report says.
A 72-page report released on Thursday by a group of eight prominent conservatives challenged a slew of election fraud claims former President Donald Trump has made about the 2020 election results.

"Donald Trump and his supporters have failed to present evidence of fraud or inaccurate results significant enough to invalidate the results of the 2020 Presidential Election," the report says. "We do not claim that election administration is perfect. Election fraud is a real thing; there are prosecutions in almost every election year, and no doubt some election fraud goes undetected."

The report continues, "But there is absolutely no evidence of fraud in the 2020 Presidential Election on the magnitude necessary to shift the result in any state, let alone the nation as a whole. In fact, there was no fraud that changed the outcome in even a single precinct."

The report, titled "LOST, NOT STOLEN: The Conservative Case that Trump Lost and Biden Won the 2020 Election," includes the voices of lawyers, retired federal judges, and former senators who analyze the over 60 court cases Trump and his allies filed in the six battleground states he lost, costing him the election. The report was first reported on by CNN.
"It is wrong, and bad for our country, for people to propagate baseless claims that President Biden's election was not legitimate," the report says.

Among the conservatives who contributed to the report is Michael Luttig, a retired federal judge who testified before the House Select Committee investigating the Capitol attack on January 6 during its third public hearing. Luttig, along with several of the other authors of the report, expressed criticism of the former president on many occasions.

Other well-known contributors include former Sen. John Danforth of Missouri, lawyer Benjamin Ginsburg, Thomas Griffith, former federal judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, David Hoppe, chief of staff for former Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Michael W. McConnell, former judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit, former US solicitor general Theodore B. Olson, and former Sen. Gordon H. Smith of Oregon.

The report is broken down by state and analyzes cases in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. Each case analysis includes an addendum showing the case filed, the claim that was made, and the ending result. Many of the cases listed in the report were dismissed on merit or dropped voluntarily by plaintiffs, Trump and his supporters, or by state judges. The writers of the report also looked at how missing mail-in ballot situations were handled by each county election office.

"Fraud, irregularities, and procedural deficiencies formed the basis for challenging the results in five of the six highly contested Electoral College battleground states," the report says. "Trump verbally attacked the elections as fraudulent, but his lawyers never filed such charges in court … We conclude that Donald Trump and his supporters had their day in court and failed to produce substantive evidence to make their case."

The report included a plea to other conservative Republicans to reconsider their priorities and change their tune on the election.

"We urge our fellow conservatives to cease obsessing over the results of the 2020 election, and to focus instead on presenting candidates and ideas that offer a positive vision for overcoming our current difficulties and bringing greater peace, prosperity, and liberty to our nation," the report says.

Read the original article on Insider

The effect of conservative Republican's refuting Trump's stolen election claims? None. Trump supporters don't want to hear it. Period.

[Rick Plant]

This is a great graph.

Yes it shows all the debt racked up by Republicans since Bush senior.

When these debt increasing Republicans left office, it was Democrats that brought down and decreased their debt.

I remember back in 2012, right wingers accused Obama of "doubling the debt". That was their huge talking point and the right wing media played it up big even though Obama turned around Bush's economic disaster. But as we know, they were lying because Obama did not "double the debt". That debt was George W. Bush's debt that he did not pay off. Two failed wars, his two big tax breaks for the ultra wealthy, and his bogus prescription drug program that did nothing but increase the price of medicine for seniors. So, in order to pay off Bush's debt, Obama had to put that debt on the books so he could start paying it down. So, when the debt increased because it was put on the books to get paid off, right wingers accused Obama of "doubling the debt". That's what a bunch of liars they are. But as the chart shows, Obama brought it down.

Republicans are already talking about eliminating Social Security and Medicare so they can give more tax cuts to their billionaire donors and corporations that fund their election campaigns. If they ever get the power they will do it. People need to vote all of these Republicans out to save Social Security and Medicare. Otherwise, seniors will be starving and without medication when they have no more Social Security income.