Give money to swing district Democrat candidates THIS YEAR.
That’s it.
Everything else you’re thinking of doing about it is irrelevant. State level solutions will be blown out of the water by a nationwide personhood law that will reach straight into blue states, if these new-style ‘Republicans’ take over our federal congress. Mark my words.
Please share widely!
Do-nothing Democrats already have enough of my money.
While the republic is burning, Democrats are talking about an executive order to “protect LGBTQ equality”.
Meanwhile, multiple sources report today that Joe Biden is using cue-cards to tell him when and where to sit down. That says clearly that his staff and handlers believe him to be impaired — it is time for him to step aside.
I share your dismay at the unfolding insurrection.
Giving money to swing-state Democrats is spitting in the ocean and a complete waste of money.
It would be more effective to burn piles of cash in public spaces.
Why oh why does your mood sour so quickly? This is the time to suit up, not give up. I expect that swipe at Biden to come from Fox News – let’s keep it that way.
This “swipe” is hard news reported in multiple sources. The images and video are easily available. This is NOT another Fox News lie.
How can you be aware of current events of the last two days and still ask why my mood sours so quickly?
I remember when George H. W. Bush was correctly excoriated because he was so out of touch with everyday Americans that he didn’t know what a grocery store barcode scanner was.
When “Democrats” like you start telling lifelong Democratic voters like me to “shut up”, then you KNOW we’re in trouble.
How DARE you!
I didn’t say SHUT up; I said SUIT up (and just double-checked that I did not make a typo above). In other words, now is precisely not the time to shut up but to keep pushing and keep shouting.
FWIW, I believe the barcode scanner episode has a bit of a folklore element as well. This is the only place I’ve seen what you say about Biden and I have a pretty active newsfeed.
I can certainly understand being upset about Court news this week, on both abortion and guns. I am as well. I just don’t find your attitude helpful.
I apologize for mis-reading your comment — my mistake.
Understood. The fact remains that it was simple, direct, and devastating to his campaign.
If a bit of folklore played such an important role in derailing Mr. Bush’s re-election in 1992, what do you think is the impact of an actual episode that actually happened with Joe Biden?
Do you remember the scorn that the media heaped on Dan Quayle? How about Gerald Ford’s famous inability to “walk and chew gum at the same time” (attributed to LBJ)?
It’s been all over my Google news feed. Here’s a representative example chosen because it is not behind a paywall —
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/joe-biden-accidentally-reveals-awkward-cheat-sheet-reminding-him-take-your-seat-two-minute-responses/ar-AAYO0aI
Do you think LBJ, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama were handled this way by their staff?
I am now convinced that if we can’t do better than Joe Biden in 2024, we will lose. Democrats are getting absolutely CREAMED in the media.
This is MUCH worse than Lucy. Our party appears to lack direction, focus, and a sense of urgency because we have no direction, focus, or sense of urgency.
My attitude basically comes down to Jesse Jackson’s common phrase, “Keep hope alive”, though maybe Deval Patrick’s “Hope for the best and work for it,” is more appropriate.
Biden is really not the war time consigliere we need right now. It’s unfortunate, but neither is Harris. I hope we can get a fighter to become president.
Neither side has, or likely will soon have, the votes to codify their preferences at the federal level on this matter.
You are really not paying attention.
Multiple states already have laws that force Massachusetts to, for example, extradite abortion providers for prosecution.
Clarence Thomas has been writing for DECADES that he wants to reverse decisions like Griswold vs. Connecticut — establishing a right to artificial contraception — because those decisions are based on the right of privacy that Roe established.
The immediate consequence of this decision will be a raft of state-by-state prosecutions. As those cases bubble up to the Supreme Court, the misogyny will rapidly spread.
If by “soon” you mean “between now and January 2023”, then I agree with you.
After January of 2023, all bets are off.
Wait at least until January 2025 before saying all bets are off since Biden will surely veto any abortion bans. The extradition laws from states are completely unenforceable. States can only enforce their own laws within their own borders and there are no travel restrictions except if a judge orders a specific person for a specific reason not to leave the jurisdiction. I live close to NH. If I cross the state line and commit murder despite being a MA resident MA can’t prosecute me for it nor can they call me back from NH. It is NH’s job to prosecute and if anything extradition works the other way. If I return to MA then MA should extradite me to NH upon their request because NH is the state in which the crime was actually committed. States have no jurisdiction whatsoever over what happens outside their states. Only the feds have jurisdiction over cross-border crimes. Only Congress could enact a law forbidding women from seeking an abortion in a state other than the one in which they reside.
Which I expect Congress to do the next time the Republicans have a trifecta. These are dark days, Tom is right to be scared and disappointed in the Democratic ineptitude that led us to this point. I won’t give up or stop donating, it’s time to fight back.
Who do you give to, James?
Now that she’s been in office a few terms, do you think we gained or lost when we replaced Mike Capuano with Ayanna Pressley?
I hear a lot of noise about candidates and elected officials who “fight”.
I see lots and lots of “fighting” (meaning lots of scowling and head-shaking on MSNBC headshots and standups in front of the Capitol) and precious little progress.
The participation of Ms. Pressley in derailing Joe Biden’s agenda exemplifies why I oppose her.
I will eagerly support any reasonable Democrat who chooses to run against her in a primary.
I’m with you on this Tom. I’m receiving a lot of emails from Democrats in congress today asking me for $upport to help them fight against today’s decision…..I’m going to want to know how much they helped Biden.
The mistake there is giving to blue state Democrats. Or giving to high profile challenges to safe Republicans like Marjorie Taylor Green or Mitch McConnell. Check out the Welcome Party and their list of candidates. They identified challengers who have a good shot at taking Republican seats this cycle.
https://www.thewelcomeparty.org/get-involved
Yeah I’ve come to regret that vote at times, although I no longer live in the district. I am not sure a primary challenger would be successful unless they found a way to run to her left. It’s probably the second or third most liberal district in the country. It’s too bad Sonia Chang Diaz ran for Governor and missed her chance to run for Congress or a different office. She’s a lot more pragmatic than her campaign advertised.
Also John Fetterman has a good shot at being Oz, Tim Ryan has a decent shot at beating Vance, Cheri Beasley has a good shot in North Carolina at beating Budd, and WI and MI can always go either way and their state parties could use our help. Also rewarding Warnock, Kelly, and Cortez Mastos for being pro choice in purple states. If we can get 52 senators we can nuke the filibuster. If we can do that while keeping the house it’s a good chance we can restore Roe and pass Build Back Better. This is the hard truth message that has to be made.
I assume in your first sentence above you meant that Fetterman has a good shot at BEATING Oz rather than BEING Oz! 🙂
Ah yes indeed. Hopefully his health can stay strong for a grueling campaign, that’s my only concern, but this early polling lead is cause for some optimism. Johnson is underwater against all his Democratic opponents in Wisconsin and Ryan and Beasley are still within the margin of error in OH and NC. Warnock is neck and neck with Walker (who seems like a dead beat dad and a washed out football player with no relevant experience to speak or), Kelly and Cortez Masto have healthy leads. This is all before Dobbs came down which hopefully can shift these races and others into the Democratic column.
Yes, now is the time to fight back. Marching in Washington D.C. and holding signs or standing on your village green holding signs are the typical “fight back” strategy of the left in these matters.
It’s a colossal waste of time, money, and resources.
When Trump was elected, there was that massive march D.C., the “Women’s March”…and Trump went on to appoint three judges to the court.
If all we do is march again, with bigger signs, when Biden loses in 2024, the next Republican will add two or four judges on the grounds that “Democrats talked of doing it, so we will do it too”…and who will stop them?
The fight today is in swing districts in swing states in a push to hold the house and senate. Anything else is a waste of time, money, and resources.
Comes down to Obama’s charge – “Don’t boo – VOTE!”
I have a little more faith that politics will prevent that from becoming reality even with the theoretical trifecta.
“This fall, we must elect more senators and representatives who will codify a woman’s right to choose into federal law. We need to elect more state leaders to protect this right at the local level. We need to restore the protection of Roe as the law of the land.” President Biden
Where’s this faith coming from? We already thought Trump would never happen and here we are. We thought Jan 6 would never happen and here we are. We thought overturning Roe would never happen and here we are. I am deeply concerned that a trifecta spells the end of most social progress from the last century. They want to roll back the clock to the 50’s and they will do so if they have the votes.
No joke my relatives from KY are probably moving in with me before the new year. And I welcome this since it’ll be cost sharing, child care sharing, and more dogs, and they are great people, but it’s a shame we are going to Balkanize over this issue.
I think Christopher and others are really underestimating the threat to participatory democracy this decision poses or the threat to our union. It may be that the blue states with their larger economies and populations have to consider extreme options to prevent an out of control far right minority from imposing its will upon the rest of us.
This is a real stress test. Just as Dred Scott gave the slave power the upper hand over free states culminating in the election of Lincoln which the South refused to certify we will likely see the next Democrat elected either not be seated or be stymied from getting anything accomplished as Democratic governors in red states have been. This could cause a nullification crisis when the blue states rightly reject a federal abortion ban or federal fugitive woman act to compel women to give birth in their states. This is only the beginning of a long dark road that only a sustained coalition of the majority can overturn.
I think anybody who has to seek re-election will be mindful of political consequences for doing something unpopular, plus you will have a handful skittish on the merits.
Today — 29-Jun-2022 — I received a mailing from my state Representative regarding H.4930, just passed today.
Please note the following from her email (emphasis mine):
Your apparent faith in existing extradition laws is misguided.
Similarly, please see the following (emphasis original):
In your rush to criticize me for being too “negative”, I fear you greatly underestimate the risks that this unraveling of basic human rights presents to every American — including every Massachusetts resident.
I still think that all has things exactly backwards. I’m fine with MA helping facilitate those who travel here to seek abortion services, but one state absolutely CANNOT prosecute a crime that does not occur within its own borders. Again since the extreme view is that abortion is the moral equivalent of murder I deliberately used that for comparison. If I commit murder in NH the only thing MA can do is extradite me to NH to stand trial assuming I return home after committing said murder. Even in this instance where every jurisdiction agrees that murder is a felony, MA cannot prosecute me for it because it did not happen here. State jurisdiction stops at its borders; cross-border crimes are federal jurisdiction. I frankly think some on our side, including those who should know better, have gone absolutely hysterical in their slippery slope dystopian fantasies about what comes next. I understand that some have the fears laid out in the messages quoted above, but they betray a misunderstanding of our system and I still say not well-founded. The Constitution grants an explicit right to people to be tried in the state and district in which the crime was committed. The Constitution also requires each state to grant full faith and credit to the acts and records of another state, so if your neighboring state says something is OK your own state cannot question it. I’m pretty sure it’s even an international principle that laws apply to territorial jurisdictions rather than the citizenship or resident status of the alleged perpetrator.
I have not seen the view you express offered by any attorneys.
Your argument is not responsive to the issues that are addressed in the House legislation just passed.
In so doing you assume away the issues.
I’m weary of your use of vocabulary like “hysterical” and “dystopian fantasies”.
The “dystopian fantasy” about abortion is REALITY right NOW — whether or not you admit it.
That is factually false. If the GOP even has a bare majority in the Senate or house and the White House it will federalize an abortion ban. Mike Pence just said it’s the next step in the fight to save unborn babies, and he’s supposedly the normal good Republican who stopped Trump when it counted.
I agree with you.
There is nothing “normal” or “good” about Mike Pence.
ANY “normal” and “good” American — regardless of political affiliation — would have jumped at the chance to appear before the January 6 committee and testify to the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about what transpired before, during, and after the January 6 attack.
He STILL refuses to do that. He is an unprincipled partisan sleaze who uses his “praying face” and religion act to advance whatever his personal agenda happens to be at the moment.
Which part is false? I think they might try. I do not think they will succeed, at least not long term. I believe even McConnell has said this would not be a priority.
If the GOP even has a bare majority in the Senate or house and the White House it will federalize an abortion ban. It will also add four judges to the US Supreme Court, dissolve the Department of Energy, Department of Education, and on and on and on……it will see to it that short of a citizen’s uprising on a scale of the French Revolution, the wealthy class rules the USA.
PUKES and their party have become a toxic waste dump.
We should remain focused on the insurrection and the criminal co-conspirators who CONTINUE to advance it.
This decision, like the gun control decision of last week, is a political play by the seditionists to distract American voters from the reality of who today’s GOP actually IS. It is no accident that this bought-and-paid-for Court takes these steps in conjunction with the ongoing and feverish gaslighting of the similarly bought-and-paid-for Seditionist propaganda organ (Fox News).
Like it or not, tens of millions of millions of American voters support the misogynist position of this decision. Like it or not, that is NOT going to change in the next 6 months or the next 30 months.
Support for criminal behavior of elected GOP officials is somewhere in the 5-10% range of the general public.
THAT is an issue where Democrats have an overwhelming political advantage. THAT is why the GOP works so feverishly to pivot the narrative to “Choice” and “Guns” right now.
We should NOT succumb to the temptation.
Today’s GOP is actively conspiring to end representative democracy in America. They are actively working to advance the violent overthrow of legitimate American government.
THAT is what we should be hammering on right now.
So much of what I have read suggests Republicans are at least privately nervous as all heck about these decisions, particularly on abortion, even as they publicly celebrate. I think Christmas may have come early for the Dems politically courtesy of the Supreme Court.
I would not call it Christmas for the women in these states who will be forced to carry their fetuses to term, including many victims of rape or incest. My sister in law is fleeing KY and will likely move in with us because she does not feel safe in a state that treats her like birthing chattel and a second class citizen. Too many Democrats thought Trump getting nominated in 2016 was Christmas for Hillary too.
We shouldn’t count our chickens I agree, but I did say Christmas for Dems rather than for women – a political assessment rather than a moral one.
In certain states like Texas, this decision may well prove to help Beto O’Rourke. I think that is the exception rather than the rule.
Increasing the margin of support in states like MA, NY and CA is meaningless.
This decision will turn out misogynists in the red states just as much as it will turn out pro-choice voters.
The main — and unspoken — reason driving yesterday’s “emergency” hearing of the Jan 6 committee was surely to put the insurrection back on the front pages of the mainstream media.
I stand by my contention that protecting democracy is more likely to win voters in battleground states than any position we might take on abortion or guns.
Bull. We have to stop thinking about all or nothing. Yes, go and support swing district candidates…and make sure that we are electing strong candidates to our state house this fall! Volunteer with the Fair Share coalition and phone bank for Fetterman in Pennsylvania. Donate money to where you can’t volunteer and time where you can.