The Detroit Free Press reports:
Michigan state and local Republican leaders are condemning comments made by a GOP state House candidate who recently suggested rape victims “lie back and enjoy it,” after he spent months parroting pandemic conspiracy theories and sharing anti-Semitic rhetoric.
However, Michigan Republican Party Chairman Ron Weiser and others affiliated with the party are not calling on Robert “RJ” Regan to withdraw from a special state House election, a race where he’s a heavy favorite.
“Having three daughters, and I tell my daughters, ‘well if rape is inevitable, you should just lie back and enjoy it so.’ That’s not how we roll, that’s not how I won this election. We go right at it,” Regan said, according to a video of the panel posted on Rumble.
Media Matters reports:
Regan, the GOP-backed nominee for a Michigan state House seat, used the right-wing video site Rumble to endorse the killings of President Joe Biden, Prime Ministers Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand and Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, among others.
Regan has also frequently shared right-wing media-fueled conspiracy theories on social media, including advising people to “study” and “apply” QAnon to their lives like they do with the Bible, and falsely claiming that Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman “staged” his famous face down with insurrectionists inside the Capitol.
Regan is a 2020 election conspiracy theorist and has claimed that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a “fake war just like the fake pandemic.”
Category: Health / Healthcare / Illness / Vaccines
Missouri lawmaker seeks to stop residents from obtaining abortions out of state
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/08/missouri-abortion-ban-texas-supreme-court/
Notie they not only want to block abortion in their own state, but want to prevent the people in their state from using a legal medical service in another state. Think of it. This is the party of Personal responsibility and small government. I guess they want to shrink government small enough to fit in your underwear.
The measure could signal a new strategy by the antiabortion movement to extend its influence beyond the GOP-led states poised to enact tighter restrictions if the Supreme Court weakens its landmark precedent upholding abortion rights.
An unusual new provision, introduced by state Rep. Mary Elizabeth Coleman (R), would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion out of state, using the novel legal strategy behind the restrictive law in Texas that since September has banned abortions in that state after six weeks of pregnancy.
Coleman has attached the measure as an amendment to several abortion-related bills that have made it through committee and are waiting to be heard on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Abortion rights advocates say the measure is unconstitutional because it would effectively allow states to enact laws beyond their jurisdictions, but the Republican-led Missouri legislature has been supportive of creative approaches to antiabortion legislation in the past. The measure could signal a new strategy by the antiabortion movement to extend its influence beyond the conservative states poised to tighten restrictions if the Supreme Court moves this summer to overturn its landmark precedent protecting abortion rights.
“If your neighboring state doesn’t have pro-life protections, it minimizes the ability to protect the unborn in your state,” said Coleman, who said she’s been trying to figure out how to crack down on out-of-state abortions since Planned Parenthood opened an abortion clinic on the Illinois-Missouri border in 2019.
A Supreme Court decision that undercuts Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court ruling legalizing abortion across the United States, probably would create a national landscape that encourages patients to cross state lines for abortions, with Democrat-led states moving to protect abortion rights as Republican-led states further limit them.
The trend has been apparent in Texas, where the majority of people seeking abortions since the state’s six-week abortion ban took effect in September have been able to obtain the procedure at clinics in neighboring states, or by ordering abortion pills in the mail, according to a report from the Texas Policy Evaluation Project. Demand for abortions has skyrocketed in Oklahoma, Louisiana, New Mexico and other nearby states. Planned Parenthood clinics in states that border Texas reported that patient traffic increased by nearly 800 percent, and independent providers reported comparable increases.
Since Planned Parenthood opened its clinic on the Missouri-Illinois border in October 2019, 10,644 Missouri residents have received abortion care at the clinic, according to Planned Parenthood. By early 2021, the last remaining clinic in Missouri was typically providing between 10 and 20 abortions per month, according to preliminary data from the Missouri Department of Health.
Coleman said she hopes her amendment will thwart efforts by Missourians to cross state lines for abortions. The measure would target anyone even tangentially involved in an abortion performed on a Missouri resident, including the hotline staffers who make the appointments, the marketing representatives who advertise out-of-state clinics, and the Illinois and Kansas-based doctors who handle the procedure. Her amendment also would make it illegal to manufacture, transport, possess or distribute abortion pills in Missouri.
Olivia Cappello, the press officer for state media campaigns at Planned Parenthood, called the idea “wild” and “bonkers.” She called the proposal “the most extraordinary provision we have ever seen.”
If enacted, the measure almost certainly would face a swift legal challenge.
Elizabeth Myers, an attorney for Texas abortion rights groups in a court challenge to the six-week abortion ban, said states cannot regulate activities beyond their borders. She drew a parallel to marijuana laws, which also vary from state to state: While Texas lawmakers can outlaw marijuana, and punish anyone who uses the drug within Texas borders, she said, they have no jurisdiction over a Texas resident who uses marijuana in a state where its use is legal.
“A state’s power is over its own citizens and its own geographical boundaries,” Myers said. “These are limits imposed by the federal constitution and federal law.”
Coleman’s proposal still may succeed in deterring out-of-state abortions, said Myers. Like the Texas law, the proposal itself could have a chilling effect, where doctors in surrounding states stop performing abortions before courts have an opportunity to intervene, worried that they may face a flurry of lawsuits if they violate the law.
Coleman rejects arguments that her law is unconstitutional.
“That’s what they said about the Texas law, and every bill passed to protect the unborn for the last 49 years,” she said.
Coleman prayed outside the clinic on the Illinois-Missouri border on the day it opened, she said. Since then, she said, she’s been talking to “anyone who would listen” about legal strategies for decreasing the number of Missouri women who seek abortions in other states.
While Coleman says she has been happy to see the sharp decline in abortions in Missouri, she says she can’t fully celebrate the success when so many women are obtaining the same procedure a few miles away.
“It’s just tragic,” she said of the number of Missouri residents who get abortions in Illinois. “It feels very sad and heavy.”
Abortion clinics in states that support abortion rights are preparing for a surge of new patients if Roe is overturned. They are opening new locations and advocating for legislation that would allow them to accommodate more people. Lawmakers in several states have proposed bills this session that would allow nurse practitioners and nurse midwives to perform abortions, in addition to physicians, while others are planning to create statewide databases that will allow out-of-state patients to more easily plan their abortion care.
“We’ve got already half of states that have passed some kind of law to restrict or eliminate abortion access,” said California state Sen. Nancy Skinner (D), who has introduced legislation to help make California a “sanctuary state” for people seeking abortion access. “We definitely are and intend to be a national beacon for reproductive freedom and reproductive justice.”
Government Watchdog Report Finds Homeland Security Held Off on Sharing Information About Known Pre-Jan. 6 Threats
In the waning days of Donald Trump‘s presidency, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) identified specific threats ahead of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol but didn’t share that intelligence until days after the violent siege, according to a government watchdog report.
The DHS Office of Inspector General released its report Tuesday more than a year after it launched its investigation into the “role and activity” of the department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A) “in preparing for and responding to the events at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.”
On that day, hundreds of Trump supporters overran the police and violently broke into the Capitol building in an effort to stop Congress from certifying Joe Biden‘s win in the 2020 presidential election.
Homeland Security, according to the OIG report, had specific intelligence relating to what would eventually come to pass on Jan. 6 but didn’t share that information until two days afterwards.
“I&A identified specific threat information related to the events on January 6, 2021, but did not issue any intelligence products about these threats until January 8, 2021,” the OIG report says.
According to the report’s findings:
Open source collectors in I&A’s Current and Emerging Threats Center collected open source threat information but did not produce any actionable information. Collectors also described hesitancy following scrutiny of I&A’s reporting in response to civil unrest in the summer of 2020. Although an open source collector submitted one product for review on January 5, 2021, I&A did not distribute the product until 2 days after the events at the U.S. Capitol. Additionally, I&A’s Counterterrorism Mission Center (CTMC) identified indicators that the January 6, 2021 events might turn violent but did not issue an intelligence product outside I&A, even though it had done so for other events. Instead, CTMC identified these threat indicators for an internal I&A leadership briefing, only. Finally, the Field Operations Division (FOD) considered issuing intelligence products on at least three occasions prior to January 6, 2021, but FOD did not disseminate any such products ultimately. It is unclear why FOD failed to disseminate these products.
According to the report, even when threat information was sent to “local partners” via email, that information was “not as widely disseminated as I&A’s typical intelligence products,” resulting in I&A being “unable to provide its many state, local, and Federal partners with timely, actionable, and predictive intelligence.”
In a partially-redacted segment of the report, the OIG details the difference in leadership at I&A in the summer of 2020 and in January 2021. In connection with unrest in Portland related to ongoing protests and demonstrations over racial injustice sparked by the since-proven murder of George Floyd by former police officer Derek Chauvin, I&A “faced criticism for compiling intelligence on American journalists reporting on the unrest as well as on non-violent protesters.”
The result, according to the OIG report, was a change in policy at the department, setting a much higher bar for sharing intelligence information.
When we asked the Acting Deputy Under Secretary about the change in CETC’s approach to reporting, she noted that there was different leadership for the summer of 2020 compared to January 6, 2021. She said the prior leadership pushed collectors to report on anything related to violence, including potential threats or tactics and techniques used by individuals that may be associated with violence. In contrast, the new leadership encouraged collectors to issue intelligence reports on threats only when they were confident the threats were real. The Acting Deputy Under Secretary said this change in direction went too far and caused collectors to institute a very high threshold for reporting information.
In one instance, an investigator had collected information “about an individual arriving in the Washington, D.C. area and searching for a location for armed individuals to park their cars,” the report said. “The individual previously posted online that he would arrive in the area and he was Washington, D.C.”
However, a peer reviewer said that collector’s report didn’t meet the department’s reporting thresholds. The investigator apparently sought to disseminate the information by going up the chain of command, but by the time they had permission to do so — on Jan. 8 — it was too late.
In another example, analysis about “seven observed or partially observed indicators of potential violence associated specifically with the protests planned for Jan. 6” was used in an internal briefing only, and not shared with other departments.
In one illustrative chart, the OIG report compares indicators of possible protest-related violence from the summer of 2020 in Portland, Oregon, to indicators ahead of Jan. 6. Although investigators identified seven indicators ahead of the violence in Washington—compared to five indicators related to Portland—the Jan. 6 analysis wasn’t disseminated.
As a result of the report, the OIG recommend enhanced training and other processes to improve timeliness
Read the OIG report here.
‘We Cannot Sanitize War When It Comes To Targeting Civilians’ Says NYT Photojournalist
Ex-Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko: We’ve seen Russia kill civilians with our own eyes
Daily cartoon / meme roundup: Bit coin is said to be helping the Russians have currency. Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
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Scottie’s world today
Sorry that this is short. I have to get going to dump the computers and install the new router. Have a great day everyone.
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When you are wrong and you know you are wrong, but you keep lying and the people know you are lying, you call yourself a Republican.
Paul Manafort, who was an advisor to the Pro-Russia/Pro-Putin former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, was Trump’s campaign Chairman. He worked for free. Manafort picked Pence for VP.
Manafort never stopped working and talking with Russia throughout the 2016 election.
Trump bragged about love letters from North Korea. He was Putin’s puppet. Truly vile.
Republicans are soft. Soft-headed. Soft on our enemies. Soft of racism. Soft on sexism.
Having no principles or morals is disqualifying.
No wonder Trump called Putin a genius.
Republicans rely on Russia for everything.
Ben Shapiro, cancel your accounts.
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Misleading right wing media cartoons / memes
And then the right can blame President Biden for the price of oil being too high. We could put our military in Ukraine and hope Putin doesn’t retaliate with nukes. Even if Putin doesn’t the right will be upset when a soldier gets a paper cut.
Despite the attempts to smear Biden, the Democrats have proposed and are trying to enact boycotts and restrictions on Russian oil. Strangely the Republicans have not supported this effort even as the right wing media is demanding it. It is a double edged sword, if Biden does sanction the Russian oil even though the US part of it has already shrunk to very low levels if the price of oil increases the right can blame Biden. If Biden doesn’t act to sanction the Russian oil then the right can accuse Biden of not supporting Ukraine. The right wing loves this as it lets then do what they do best, talk out both sides of their mouth because for them it is not the policy that counts but how to attack Democrats. They are kids wanting to hurt the other. They don’t care about policy or what is best for people. They want the emotional childish game. So let us see how many of the Republicans in congress support sanctions on Russian oil.
This is done by a right wing media cartoonist to try to force the US into a war because of the fact most people care about the hurt of other people. But it is not that simple. Yes Ukrainians are dying. How many more will die if madman Putin who is repeatedly demonstrated he doesn’t care about human life feels backed into a corner and does launch nuclear weapons? How many more will die then. How long will the destruction last then? There are ways to handle this war that are not flashy and does not beat the breast of the wannabe macho men, but it keeps the death toll down.
The right has deliberately poisoned the well on CRT. ‘Critical race theory’ is the perfect villain,” Rufo wrote. He takes critical-race theory as a concept, strips it of all meaning, and repurposes it as a catchall for white grievances. “The goal,” he tweeted, “is to have the public read something crazy in the newspaper and immediately think ‘critical race theory.’ We have decodified the term and will recodify it to annex the entire range of cultural constructions that are unpopular with Americans.” As you can see this is a manufactured crisis for political gain by the right and a person very arguably a white supremacist. CRT has become a code for the racist history of the US and some white people don’t want it taught accurately and if taught it must be watered down to seem a beneficial action by white people toward blacks. Not sure why so many white people identify with the slavers rather than the abolitionists. CRT is only a legal theory taught in law schools or advanced degree programs. It is not taught in high schools, and it is not taught in grade schools. That idea is another right wing media misinformation campaign. And Rufo admits it.
The “Biden weak” trope wore out, so let’s try “Harris incompetent.” Biden’s day off, attack Harris. Ho, hum. Perhaps the alleged cartoonist should be worried about the Trump Principle: the ability to spectacularly fail upwards while destroying everything around you. It’s well practiced by most Republicans. She has undertaken several difficult tasks and done — not perfectly: This is politics — but pretty well. However, like the big lie(s) about Hillary promulgated by the reich wingers, I suspect their big lies about Harris will prevail in the end, if only by 55% to 45%.
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And now some for fun
Aging Senators’ Zoom With Zelenskyy Went About As Well as You’d Expect
Thanks to Randy for sending me this story.
Viewers watch the speech of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at an event in the Czech Republic on March 4, 2022.Photo/Miroslav Chaloupka (CTK via AP Images)
Fight disinformation. Get a daily recap of the facts that matter. Sign up for the free Mother Jones newsletter.Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with members of the US Congress Saturday morning to plead for more military help—he asked for either a no-fly zone over his country to protect it from Russian air attacks, or shipments of planes. While Congressional leadership praised the meeting, it seems to have had all of the hiccups you might expect from a Zoom call involving dozens of aging, tech-inept, publicity-hungry American politicians.
The event was, of course, an opportunity for members of Congress to brag about their involvement in the crisis: Members of both parties posted pictures of themselves participating in the call and even sending side-messages to Zelenskyy, who appeared unshaven and wearing an army green t-shirt as he spoke about the need for military assistance.
But GOP senators Marco Rubio, of Florida, and Steve Daines, of Montana, were blasted by some of their colleagues for doing their bragging in a real-time—something that members of Congress were specifically asked not to do to ensure Zelenskyy’s safety.
Let’s talk about why Lindsey Graham is on Russian TV….
Let’s talk about No-fly zones and other options….
Rick Scott Torches “Careerist” McConnell In WSJ Op-Ed On His Plan To Wreck Social Security And Medicare
Sen. Rick Scott writes for the Wall Street Journal:
I have committed heresy in Washington. I’ve been in the Senate for only three years, and I have released an 11-point plan with 128 ideas on what Republicans should do after we win the coming elections and take control of the Senate and House. In the real world beyond the Beltway, Republicans and independents demand bold action and a plan to save our nation.
They see no point in taking control of Congress if we are simply going to return to business as usual. So, I went out and made a statement that got me in trouble. I said that all Americans need to have some skin in the game. Even if it is just a few bucks, everyone needs to know what it is like to pay some taxes. It hit a nerve.
Part of the deception is achieved by disconnecting so many Americans from taxation. It’s a genius political move. And it is bankrupting us. There will be many more attacks on me and this plan from careerists in Washington, who personally profit while ruining this country. Bring it on.
Read the full op-ed.
Rick Scott Launches Ad Blitz For Racist, Anti-LGBT Plan
Florida Politics reports:
Sen. Rick Scott released a television ad promoting an 11-point Republican agenda for the midterms. The chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, he’s pushed the plan on the Rescue America website. “Our borders are being invaded, inflation is raging and our shelves are empty,” Scott says in narration.
“Crime is rampant. Police are being killed, and God-fearing people are being silenced.” The plan stokes culture wars on abortion and anti-LGBTQ stances, quoting the Bible and making a case for a heartbeat bill.
The ad can be watched online now and will begin airing on television airways nationwide on Friday. Paid for by Scott’s own PAC, Scott for Florida, he said the ad is backed by a seven-figure national TV and digital buy.
Read the full article.
Trump Pressures Rick Scott To Run For Senate Leader
Playbook reports:
In a private meeting at Mar-a-Lago a few days ago, Donald Trump made a personal pitch to Senate Republican campaign chief Rick Scott. “You should run for Senate majority leader,” he told the NRSC chair. It wasn’t the first time, either: Trump has repeatedly told Scott he’d be great at the job and should challenge Mitch McConnell.
The Florida governor-turned-senator is navigating some treacherous terrain — and we’re not talking about the Senate landscape.
He’s trying to balance working with the GOP’s two most powerful figures in McConnell and Trump, who also happen to despise each other. Scott, 69, made waves — and infuriated some McConnell allies — when he bucked the GOP leader’s decision not to lay out a policy agenda for 2022 and instead released his own.
Read the full article.
Sen. Rick Scott: GOP Will Exploit CRT To Win Midterms
Florida Politics reports:
Sen. Rick Scott continues to project optimism about the electoral climate for Republicans, forecasting an “unbelievable” shift in school boards in 2022. During an interview Wednesday morning on Fox News Radio’s Brian Kilmeade Show, the Senator said there would be an “unbelievable number of school board changes this next year.”
Scott expects cultural backlash to prevail. “Because parents are fed up with these school boards telling them that your kid’s oppressed or your kid’s an oppressor. That is so crazy,” Scott added.
Scott, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, closed out 2021 trumpeting much of the same message he has all year, an expectation that critical race theory can be used to mobilize November voters.
Read the full article.
Scottie's Playtime 