Category: BlueSky / Social Media
Florida To Become Next Hot Spot In Abortion Battle
The Washington Post reports:
In Florida, where residents in a half-dozen relatively liberal urban counties are continually locked in political duels with the conservatives who dominate much of the rest of the state, the debate over abortion rights is just getting started. IHow accessible abortion will remain in Florida could hinge on how DeSantis plays his competing political ambitions and the winds of the November election.
Some Florida antiabortion activists say they expect DeSantis, who is widely mentioned as a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024, to push for additional restrictions or an outright ban on the procedure — a nod to his core base here and primary voters nationwide. But he could still face a competitive reelection for governor this fall in a state where he also needs to appeal to more moderate voices. DeSantis describes himself as an abortion opponent, but he rarely talks about the issue publicly.
Florida Politics reports:
Calling Friday’s Supreme Court ruling ending 50 years of law under Roe v. Wade an attack on women and freedom, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist said Friday that abortion rights are on the line in the gubernatorial election.
The leading Democratic candidate in the 2022 contest restated his vow to support abortion rights and said that will be a pivotal issue in the 2022 election against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis.
“Without these protections, Governors like Ron DeSantis will try to outlaw abortion completely,” Crist said of Friday’s Supreme Court decision handed down in the landmark abortion case.
Last night Bill Maher and Homocon Andrew Sullivan were both praising DeSantis. I felt the urge to vomit.
bearLvrFL What, me worry? • 21 hours ago • edited
The obnoxious things that get the most emphasis from Maher and generates the most energy from the audience (woke-ism is bad, AOC is bad) outweigh anything helpful (let’s take a good, hard, honest look at how that intensely blue district in Texas flipped, and let’s figure out how we can get Latin/Hispanic communities back). And the unhelpful shit is right out of Republican talking points…which exposes Maher’s conceit that Maher is a neutral guy “just looking at both sides.”
Bullshit.
And, I suppose, to be fair, the obnoxious stuff gets easier laugh than the heavy stuff. It’s *hard* to get laughs out of serious political stuff. I guess, in that regard, Maher exposes the limits to Maher’s talents. Maher is no John Stewart, George Carlin, Trevor Noah. Maher’s “wisdom” is phony.
marsmsu bearLvrFL • 16 hours ago
He’s taken a lot of Coulter’s schtick and tried to play it on his liberal/libertarian base. At this point, he’s lost the left he once was a part of.
echomanDTLA Elagabalus • 21 hours ago
Why did you watch? You know he’s going to pull this same old shit. It’s all he’s got left. Sad Rich White Man Syndrome. Fuck him.
Dark Qiviut Elagabalus • a day ago
Maher continues to out himself as what he always was: a conservative scumbag.
Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️ Dark Qiviut • 21 hours ago
Actually a scumbag Libertarian… But that’s a split hair from the same follicle.
Max-1 🔫+cult(R)=☠️ Elagabalus • 21 hours ago
The game at play works not just with cookies…
Try the economy of Rights, also.
RI Cop Arrested For Assault At Abortion Rights Rally
NBC News reports:
An off-duty Rhode Island police officer who was running for state Senate was arrested on an assault charge after allegedly attacking his female opponent during an abortion rights protest Friday night.
Providence police patrolman Jeann Lugo, 35, was arrested on charges of simple assault and disorderly conduct, state police said Saturday night. Lugo turned himself in, was arraigned and released, it said.
Jennifer Rourke, who is running for the state’s 29th District, said she had finished speaking at a rally outside the state house in Providence on Friday when she was attacked by Lugo.
Read the full article.
Yesterday it was reported that Providence police have placed Lugo on paid leave. Lugo last night deleted his social media accounts.
I laugh at the use of the term “alleged” when there’s video of the crime. We know he did it. The only question is whether or not there’s any accountability for violent right wingers.
He felt so enabled he attacked her on camera and thought he could walk away
He might have been right if this were a southern state
And he would have been right if the cameras were off
Doug105 Todd20036 • 2 hours ago
Look how many were on camera attacking the capital and only got a slap on the wrist.
supposedly he said “i’ve never done that .. in public” …leading many FB commenters to wonder how often he did so in private.
GOP Rep Who Once Praised Hitler Thanks Trump For Roe Ruling: A “History Victory For White Life” [VIDEO]
The Insider reports:
Rep. Mary Miller during a Saturday rally praised former President Donald Trump for his three conservative Supreme Court appointments and remarked that he paved the way for “the historic victory for white life” after the high court overturned Roe v. Wade.
While speaking to the pro-Trump audience, the Illinois Republican lauded the former president, who is backing her in the 15th congressional district GOP primary over fellow Rep. Rodney Davis. “Thank you so much, President Trump. I am so honored to have your endorsement,” Miller said.
She continued: “President Trump, on behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America, I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday.”
The Chicago Tribune reports:
Just days after taking office in January 2021, Miller was facing calls for her resignation after she cited Adolf Hitler in a speech to a conservative women’s group in referring to the political indoctrination of youths.
“Each generation has the responsibility to teach and train the next generation. You know, if we win a few elections, we’re still going to be losing unless we win the hearts and minds of our children. This is the battle. Hitler was right on one thing. He said, whoever has the youth has the future,” she said.
Miller eventually apologized and said she regretted using the reference to the mastermind of the Nazi Holocaust while she also blamed others for “intentionally trying to twist my words.”
Elagabalus • 4 hours ago • edited
The lasting legacy of Trumpism is the permission Trump gave his followers to say all the quiet parts out loud and never ever experience shame in doing so.
SilentMike Elagabalus • 4 hours ago
Say, campaign on and legislate the previously “quiet parts”.
S_E_P • 4 hours ago • edited
And there you have it folks. They’re so afraid of whites becoming a racial minority they want to force white women to pump out babies.
That in turn they will groom to be good nazis. These people are sick as fuck in the head.
Yves R. Mektin S_E_P • 4 hours ago • edited
But in order for that scheme to work, they will necessarily also have to bring back the anti-miscegenation laws, because lots of white women nowadays are having mixed-race babies with non-white partners. So it looks like Loving v. Virginia might be next on the chopping block after all. Oops, sorry, Clarence and Ginni.
They either remain fixed in the belief that civil rights is a zero sum game, that if someone else were to become a majority in future then it must be a case that as the new minority they must be oppressed.
Or, recognising just what white people have done over the past few hundred years, the racists of today imagine a reckoning is coming.
Theyre racists and believe in white domination. They want to remain on top of the heap. Period.
zero sum is their standard M.O. And I do believe they are fearful of being treated as they have treated others – hence the double-down
Freudian slip or not, she and most Republicans today clearly believe only white people are entitled to full rights as ubermenschen.
No, it wasn’t a Freudian slip. Was there any reaction from those in attendance? Or did they just shrug off the White Supremacy jargon?
Rich white women will find a way to have abortions. Overturning Roe disproportionately affects women of color. She is so consumed by raw bigotry that she doesn’t realize the Supreme Court’s decision will probably result in more children of color, not more white babies. She is a hateful racist, fool and typical Trump supporter.
RepubliCON | Christopher Titus | Armageddon Update
Marjorie Taylor Greene BRAGS in the middle of a pro-choice protest, INSTANTLY regrets it
Utah GOP State Rep On Roe Overturn: I Trust Women Enough To Control Their “Intake Of Semen”
The Salt Lake Tribune reports:
Republican lawmakers and Utah politicos celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade on Friday, with one legislator saying she trusted Utah women “to control [their] intake of semen.” Rep. Karianne Lisonbee described a text message she said she received urging her to hold men accountable for unwanted pregnancies.
“I got a text message today saying I should seek to control men’s ejaculations and not women’s pregnancies. I do trust women enough to control when they allow a man to ejaculate inside of them and to control that intake of semen,” the Clearfield Republican told reporters at a news conference at the Utah Capitol on Friday.
Read the full article.
Todd20036 Boreal • 9 hours ago
Assuming she survives the pregnancy
You will also have to babysit a lot .
Bye, bye retirement travel plans.
U know what’s fucked up? Before yesterday, they had a choice to not get an abortion. Just as they’ve had for fucking years.
My body, my choice… I’ve heard that recently. Oh yes, from the anti Vax crowd.
Sorry, I’m just really fucking wound up about this and not sure where to direct my ire.
On the road David L. Caster • 9 hours ago
Excellent remark.
The issue now is that we have true minority rule and changing that will be a generation in the making.
mikeiver On the road • 8 hours ago • edited
What I think you fail to understand is that they now control the means of electing those that would follow our wishes. The integrity of the upcoming elections, really for the first time in our history, will be in question. They now have the means in law to disregard the votes of those they don’t want and suppress the others to prevent them voting. This will feed false gains offices and further law making it far easier to control and add more GQP members to the seats of power and further surpress the voter will being done. As there have pointed out, historians will point to this time as the beginning of the end of our democracy.
There’s some kind of semen intake valve?
Who knew??
Ščŏŧŧ Ċ – 🇺🇦 🕊 Ragnar_Lothbrok • 9 hours ago
Yes, it’s what kicks in when there’s a legitimate rape. You know, as opposed to those imitation rapes we’ve heard so much about.
clay • 9 hours ago • edited
“Sexual assault in Utah is common, though often goes unreported,” Sonya Martinez-Ortiz, executive director of Utah’s Rape Recovery Center, told the The Salt Lake Tribune.
A 2016 study conducted by Utah State University found that one in six Utah women have reported having been raped, higher than the national average.
Looks like Utahn women are having trouble controlling their intake of semen, and that those raped aren’t necessarily going to have the documentation her law requires for them to access abortion services.
SCOTUS Conservatives Are Just Getting Started
Senator in 2010 deposition: 13-year-olds can consent to sex
FILE – Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., speaks during a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee hearing May 19, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington. Before Lankford became a leading voice for conservative causes on Capitol Hill, he spent more than a decade as the director of youth programming at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, a sprawling campground about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City that attracts more than 50,000 campers in grades six through 12 each year. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib, File)
Before he became a leading voice for conservative causes on Capitol Hill, U.S. Senator James Lankford spent more than a decade as the director of youth programming at the Falls Creek Baptist Conference Center, a sprawling campground about 80 miles south of Oklahoma City that attracts more than 50,000 campers in grades six through 12 each year.
The Republican lawmaker’s tenure at the camp is a prominent feature of his political profile, noted in the first paragraph of his official Senate biography. That experience is also coming under renewed scrutiny as the Southern Baptist Convention, which is affiliated with the group that owns the camp, faces a reckoning over its handling of sexual abuse cases.
In 2009, while Lankford worked at the camp, the family of a 13-year-old girl sued a 15-year-old boy who was alleged to have had sex with her at the camp. Lankford, who was not in Congress at the time, is not alleged to have had any direct knowledge of the alleged assault, has not been accused of any wrongdoing and was not a defendant in the lawsuit, which was settled for an undisclosed amount before it was scheduled to go to trial.
But in a 2010 deposition in the case, given a week after he was elected to his first term in the U.S. House, Lankford testified that he believed a 13-year-old could consent to sex.
“Yes, I think they can,” Lankford told Kenyatta Bethea, a lawyer for the girl’s family, according a 155-page transcript of the deposition obtained by The Associated Press.
The age of consent in Oklahoma is 16, and although there is an exception in the law for minors between the ages of 14 and 17 who have sexual contact, there is no provision under which a 13-year-old could consent to sex. When Bethea pressed if his answer was still the same “if I ask you that question in terms of your position as a father,” Lankford maintained his stance.
“Yes, they can,” he said.
Under additional questioning about whether he would allow his two daughters to consent to sex at the age of 13, Lankford gave a more expansive answer.
“No, I would not encourage that at all,” he said. “Could she make that choice? I hope she would not, but I would not encourage that in any way with my own daughter.”
It’s unclear whether Lankford, who has no formal legal training, was aware of the legal age of consent at the time of his deposition. It’s also uncertain whether any criminal charges were filed against the 15-year-old boy. Telephone messages left with Murray County District Attorney Craig Ladd were not returned.
The testimony is surfacing before Tuesday’s primary for the GOP Senate nomination that would allow Lankford to seek another term. After early concerns that he could be vulnerable to a challenge from the right, he enters the election in a strong position. The primary winner will head into the fall general election as the overwhelming favorite in this deeply Republican state.
Aly Beley, a spokeswoman for Lankford’s reelection campaign, declined to comment for this story.
The revelation of Lankford’s testimony comes at a difficult moment for the Southern Baptist Convention.
A scathing investigative report, conducted by an independent firm, found that top SBC leaders stonewalled and denigrated survivors of clergy sex abuse while seeking to protect their own reputations. In response, the SBC voted overwhelmingly earlier this month to create a way to track pastors and other church workers credibly accused of sex abuse and launch a task force to oversee further reforms in the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
This is not the first case of alleged sexual assault at Falls Creek, a 400-acre campground nestled in the Arbuckle Mountains. The camp is owned by the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma, which is now called Oklahoma Baptists and is part of the SBC.
Benjamin Lawrence Petty pleaded guilty in 2018 to raping a 13-year-old Texas girl at the camp. Petty, who was a cook at the camp, tied a rope around the girl’s wrists, raped her and threatened to hurt her if she told anyone, according to investigators. Petty was ultimately sentenced to probation in the case, and a civil case filed by the girl’s family against the Baptist General Convention of Oklahoma was settled. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.
Lankford no longer worked at the camp when the attack occurred.
Court records show that Rev. Lori Walke, an attorney and senior minister at Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, served as a guardian ad litem for the Texas girl during the civil case. Walke declined to talk about details of the case, but said she attended Falls Creek as a young girl and has serious concerns about how the camp operates.
“Even as a kid, you recognize some things that feel off,” Walke said. “This real obsession with the purity culture is overwhelming. The rules around clothing, particularly for girls, were just obsessed over.”
“And then, the real lack of oversight, generally speaking, in all other matters,” she added. “It was absolutely due to the fact that there’s just not enough adults around.”
Oklahoma Baptists did not respond to questions about how many cases involving sexual misconduct at Falls Creek have been settled. In a statement, Executive Director-Treasurer Todd Fisher said the recent vote to approve recommendations from the SBC’s task force will bring about needed national reforms.
“I am thankful Oklahoma Baptists already made significant steps toward preventing abuse in Oklahoma, implementing a number of best practices in all areas of our ministries, including at our encampments,” Fisher said.
Oklahoma Baptists spokesman Brian Hobbs said some of those best practices for Falls Creek include mandatory background checks for anyone 18 and older, increased security, professionally developed safety training for all camp staff and church leaders bringing groups to the camp and protocols for reporting abuse or suspected abuse.
During his deposition, Lankford said he had no problem sending his daughters to the camp, including in instances when he was not present, though he acknowledged that supervision wasn’t perfect.
“I know that our adults are watching out for our kids, but the process of that, obviously I can’t guess for every adult how they’re going to handle it,” Lankford said.
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