Says the fatuous gasbag :ok:

Says the bootlicker for power.

It must be so mentally taxing to continually need to defend and make excuses for people who want - and are being successful at - making your life intolerable.

Your America-envy is showing, dude, despite all that bile. :victory:

Yeah that must be it. Keep going with these substantive posts, they're really so good.

Well yes the only thing Christians despise more than themselves are people who do not despise themselves. — Streetlight

No, I've never met a Christian who would actually despise himself or herself. On the contrary, they are enormously self-confident, self-assured, consider themselves superior to everyone else.

Blaming an unenthusiastic electorate or democratic voters, for the ongoing societal breakdown is fallacious and counterproductive, beyond the consideration that Evangelical Christians are achieving their political goals despite never having achieved a political majority. In my lifetime only one Republican presidential nominee secured more votes than his Democratic opponent. The United States' political apparatus is structured against majority ruling, and the political establishment is broadly unwilling to produce legislation that runs counter to Capitalist interests. It's like criticizing Sisyphus for being unable to reach the top of the hill. How can we point fingers at unenthusiastic non-voters when establishment democrats routinely throw their weight behind conservative democrats when threatened by progressive alternatives (the latter lost by fewer than 300 votes). The democratic party is run by a milquetoast gerontocracy, one that would make the Soviet Politburo blush, and who refuse to relinquish political power.

Someone suggested how pivotal the 2014 and 2016 election were which betrays a myopic view of the conservative's legal movement to achieve political objectives; a 50 year old mobilization the very concept of which is so alien and anathema to how the modern democratic party functions it seems as a definitional contradiction. Regardless of how 2014 and 2016 turned out (had Hillary won in 2016 who knows how she would have fared in 2020), the conservative legal movement would be waiting by the wings.

Turns out not many people care all that much. If you want an abortion, hop on a bus. It's not that hard.

No, I've never met a Christian who would actually despise himself or herself. — baker

Oh well that settles it then never mind the very basic structure of Christianity as a religion nor the political self-loathing that is everywhere evident to anyone with a heartbeat. Guess we'll just go with your feels on this one.

The United States' political apparatus is structured against majority ruling, and the political establishment is broadly unwilling to produce legislation that runs counter to Capitalist interests. — Maw

People like @180 Proof will pretend, like the good milquetoast liberal he is, to use the language of comradeship, while shitting down the throats of 'people' while defending power everywhere even as it enables and supports fascism right in front of their eyes.

People like 180 Proof will pretend, like the good milquetoast liberal he is, to use the language of comradeship, while shitting down the throats of 'people' while defending power everywhere even as it enables and supports fascism right in front of their eyes. — Streetlight

Coming from a vacuously bookish, bile-spitting, wannabe revolutionary WITH NO FUCKING SKIN IN THE AMERICAN GAME like you, Comrade Street, the ad homs & denunciations are a badge of honor! G'day, mate. :lol: :up:

Ohhh now you're using caps and emojis, I must have really hit a nerve.

Anyway, when the planet wilts on the back of the coming American-led global ecocide, I'll think fondly back to the time when some ignorant yank on the internet told me I had no skin in the game (because he liked this phrase he read in a book once, and lacks the vocabulary to use any other), and it will be a nice bit of ironic humor.

Blaming an unenthusiastic electorate or democratic voters, for the ongoing societal breakdown is fallacious and counterproductive, beyond the consideration that Evangelical Christians are achieving their political goals despite never having achieved a political[/u[ majority. — Maw

Agreed. We the Sheeple is only the symptom and not the problem. However, Dem voters aren't pushing-back as hard as GOP voters in the last four+ decades because Dem voters are "unethusiastic" despite not having that luxury.

In my lifetime only one Republican presidential nominee secured more votes than his Democratic opponent. The United States' political apparatus is structured against majority ruling ...

True, though there have been 46 US Presidents and only 5 have lost the popular vote – the last two in 2016 and 2000. Before that was 1876. With 89% of US Presidents elected with the majority of votes I think your statement in this instance is hyperbolic, Maw. However, I agree with your broader point. So what has changed? Organization and mobilization of a fifth to a quarter of the electorate in the last half century in a concerted – plutocrat-funded – backlash against The New Deal, The Great Society and Civil Rights for minorities, women, gays. E.g. "the conservative legal movement". :brow:

... and the political establishment is broadly unwilling to produce legislation that runs counter to Capitalist interests.

Nothing new in this ... Read, for instance, Charles Beard, WEB DuBois, Eric Foner, John Hope Franklin & Howard Zinn.

The democratic party is run by a milquetoast gerontocracy, one that would make the Soviet Politburo blush, and who refuse to relinquish political power.

Agreed. Don't you think, however, the fact that the under-30 vote is consistently less than half the over-50 vote is a significant factor in the Dems being "a milquetoast gerontocracy"? No one willingly "relinquishes political power", they must be out-organized and out-mobilized to have it taken from them, and under-30 "youth vote" is consistently the least organized and most demobilized. Tell me how to reliably elect political parties with under-50 year old leaderships without significantly more and persistent under-30 participation. Also, is it just an accident that developed nations with historically higher voter participation in elections at all levels of government than the US have governing platforms & policies which tend to be much more responsive to their populations, produce more secular, better educated polities, and sustain higher standards of living than the US? :chin:

Such a mystery that a party whose only consituents are rich old property owners and their corporate buddies don't attract young people. This is clearly the young people's fault. If only they would mobilize more for a party that has never represented their interests, ever actively works against their interests, with great success. They're such sheeple.

-

After untermensch, "sheeple" is probably the most reactionary word in the reactionary dictionary, used only by toffs who think they know the interests of people better than said people.

Btw, Dems will retain control of Congress this fall and the White House in 2024. — 180 Proof

What makes you say this? Because of a potential reaction to Dobbs?

The Republicans have done a fine job making the country ungovernable —and here I mean especially moderate Republicans (viz., Democrats). Seems unlikely that anyone shows up in support.

True, though there have been 46 US Presidents and only 5 have lost the popular vote – the last two in 2016 and 2000. Before that was 1876. With 89% of US Presidents elected with the majority of votes Ivthink your statement in this instance is hyperbolic — 180 Proof

In 1876 women couldn't vote, so I don't think it's hyperbolic to suggest majority ruling has faced enormous hurdles in this country, to which my comment was as much about legislative (there are over 3.3M 18-29 YOs in NY. There are over 186K 60+ YOs living in West Virginia. They both get two senators.) and judicial branches (the latter being non-democratic of course), as it was about the executive branch. To further my point vis-a-vis the executive branch, if we are discussing modern political discontent and the onus of responsibility and blame between a political system and voters within that system, then it seems highly relevant that two out of five presidents who have lost the popular vote (i.e. 40%) occurred within the last 22 years of the county's history (within less than <9% of the country's history).

Agreed. We the Sheeple is only the symptom and not the problem. However, Dem voters aren't pushback as hard as GOP voters in the last four+ decades because Dem voters are "unenthusiastic" despite not having that luxury. — 180 Proof

I do not believe that democratic voters, particularly young democratic voters, are any more or less "unenthusiastic" than GOP voters; the issue is that the GOP don't actively marginalize and alienate their more radical voters in a way that the democratic establishment overtly and repeatedly do. In fact the GOP tends to court them. Nevertheless, this brings me to my final point.

Don't you think, however, the fact that the under-30 vote is consistently less than half the over-50 vote is a significant factor in the Dems being "a milquetoast gerontocracy"? No one willingly "relinquishes political power", they must be out-organized and out-mobilized to have it taken from them, and under-30 "youth vote" is consistently the least organized and most demobilized. Tell me how to reliably elect political parties with under-50 year old leaderships without significantly more and persistent under-30 participation. — 180 Proof

The 18-29 turnout for Obama in 2008 was the second highest in modern American history, second only to turnout in 1972 when Boomers were first able to vote. This was driven by Obama's youth-focused campaign and organizational team, which after having helped him win and defeat Hillary in the primary, was showered with praise by Obama as "the best political organization in America, and probably the best political organization that we’ve seen in the last 30 to 40 years". Shortly before Obama's inauguration, this momentum was transformed into a grassroots organization, Organizing for America, which would have "13 million email addresses, three million donors, and two million active members of MyBO, including 70,000 people with their own fund-raising pages." What happened to this organized, mobilized, grassroots machine with a progressive agenda in mind? It was sidelined by Obama within a year after his historic win and after he stacked his administration with democratic party operatives, and subsequently folded the organization within the DNC and effectively deactivated it. The result? When fight for Affordable Healthcare Act reached it's apex, "OFA was able to drum up only 300,000 phone calls to Congress."

According to Marshell Ganz who famously provided the organizational model and training for Obama's grassroots campaign, "Seeking reform from inside a system structured to resist change, Obama turned aside some of the most well-organized reform coalitions ever assembled — on the environment, workers’ rights, immigration and healthcare...Finally, the president demobilized the widest, deepest and most effective grass-roots organization ever built to support a Democratic president. With the help of new media and a core of some 3,000 well-trained and highly motivated organizers, 13.5 million volunteers set the Obama campaign apart. They were not the “usual suspects” — party loyalists, union staff and paid canvassers — but a broad array of first-time citizen activists. Nor were they merely an e-mail list. At least 1.5 million people, according to the campaign’s calculations, played active roles in local leadership teams across the nation. But the Obama team put the whole thing to sleep, except for a late-breaking attempt to rally support for healthcare reform. Volunteers were exiled to the confines of the Democratic National Committee."

Skipping 2016 and fast forwarding to 2020 (for the sake of brevity, I think my point is made regardless), we see similar grassroots momentum with the Bernie Sanders campaign with nearly 1.4M unique donors (the second highest was Warren with 892K...Biden at 451K), a 2020 election cycle total of $95M raised from individual donors (the second highest was Buttigieg at $76M with Biden at $60M), a rally in NYC with an astounding crowd of 26,000 people ("the largest number any Democratic presidential candidate has drawn" in 2019t) and an unsurpassed on-the-ground volunteer base. Of course Biden, the final entrant into the primary was the nuclear option for the Democratic establishment, having entered the primary two months after Sanders, who had been the leading nominee in polls by a wide margin. Long story short, the Sanders campaign sputtered in large part thanks to a hostile Obama, the Democratic party itself being more or less unified in their opposition to Bernie Sanders, the Clyburn endorsement for Biden prior to Super Tuesday helped to club Sanders' campaign (Bill Clinton thanked Clyburn for "ending the inter-family fight" with the "stroke of his hand"), and a sudden drop out of several other candidates who endorsed Biden .

My point is that youth voter organization and mobilization has existed during my entire adult life. But when preferred candidates gain power or come close to power, the Democratic party, the only viable political party in this country that isn't exclusively run by Hell's demons, disbands or works against it (not to mention a hostile media apparatus).

Someone suggested how pivotal the 2014 and 2016 election were which betrays a myopic view of the conservative's legal movement to achieve political objectives; […] Regardless of how 2014 and 2016 turned out (had Hillary won in 2016 who knows how she would have fared in 2020), the conservative legal movement would be waiting by the wings. — Maw

We can go back farther than 50 years, in fact.

My point about ‘14 and ‘16 was specific to this slate of rulings. Had the Senate not been taken by the republicans in ‘14, Trump wouldn’t have gotten 3 anti-abortion appointments. I mention these years especially because many have argued that there was no point in voting since “both parties are the same.” But they’re not the same. The differences are minor, but they’re important, and Dobbs (and today’s EPA ruling) shows that very much indeed.

Here's why I'm betting on Dems to keep both houses of Congress this fall due the cumulative effect of the following:

(A) Independents are breaking for Dems lead by "suburban soccer moms" and professional women and some young Republican women according various polls.

(B) I suspect turnout will be very high – comparable to the 2018 midterms, especially for Dems

(C) Dozens of indictable co-conspiratorial (pardon-seeking) GOP senators & congress persons who will be named by the J6 Committee by September. NB GOP silence is deafening about the J6 Cmte's findings so far (which is bound to get worse).

(D) I also suspect gas prices will come down during the summer and be felt by consumers / voters in the fall which makes them less eager punish encumbant Dems (though supply chain + Russian War-driven inflation will drag the G7 economies into recession by late summer)

(E) The wild card is, of course, any Federal indictments or NY State suits/indictments or Fulton County, GA indictments of Trump & co and how those developments may depress GOP turnout on the margins (at least)

I've more or less been posting these factors separately across several threads and dozens of posts since Biden and the Dems started dropping the ball early last fall. I think these constraints on the GOP taking back the Congress are growing more stringent by the month. Sure, Dems are quite capable of snatching defeat out of the jaws of victory ... :roll: :vomit:

I don't know if I should take Streetlight's hyperbole and caricatures seriously or not.

10-year-old girl denied abortion in Ohio

A) Independents are breaking for Dems lead by "suburban soccer moms" and professional women and some young Republican women according various polls.

(B) I suspect turnout will be very high – comparable to the 2018 midterms, especially for Dems

(C) Dozens of indictable co-conspiratorial (pardon-seeking) GOP senators & congress persons who will be named by the J6 Committee by September. NB GOP silence is deafening about the J6 Cmte's findings so far (which is bound to get worse yet).

(D) I also suspect gas prices will come down during the summer and be felt by consumers / voters in the fall which makes them less eager punish encumbant Dems (though supply chain + Russian War-driven inflation will drag the G7 economies into recession by late summer)

Independents are not breaking for Democrats, so far as I see. Happy to be shown differently.

B and D are based on your suspicions. We have no idea if there will be high turnout or lower gas prices, but MY suspicion goes the opposite way — based on historical midterm trends and the Ukraine war, respectively.

As for C, I don’t think these hearings will have the slightest impact on Republican voters. They will continue voting for their Red team, because Blue team has been demonized to the point of little Anti-Christs.

Appreciate the response, just not very convincing in my view. But I hope I’m proven wrong.

10-year-old girl denied abortion in Ohio — Michael

How did a 10 year old get pregnant? That's just creepy and weird

:/

A 10-Year-Old Girl in Ohio Was Forced to Travel to Indiana for an Abortion (Jul 2, 2022)

So that's what's going on, eh.

Those articles are really downplaying the fact that a ten year old was raped, eh? I wonder, did they catch the piece of shit that did it, or have they even got a suspect?

In the wake of SCOTUS – for the first time in American history – taking away the fundamental right of reproductive freedom (re: forced pregnancy = forced labor), the words of Frederick Douglass are even more poignant today. :fire:

The suspect was 12.

The quashed Roe vs. Wade ruling doesn't prohibit contraception. So, oddly, I can stop a person's mom and dad from having sex (fertilization of the ovum by the sperm) but I can't abort this person as a fetus? I call this The Terminator Riddle: Kill Sarah Connor before she meets Kyle Reese so that John Connor isn't born!

Anyway, something doesn't make sense here: Women can prevent pregnancies by using contraceptives of which there's a wide variety, but yet they get pregnant and then wanna tread the fine line between murder and freedom by seeking abortions. If it were possible to avoid giving people the impression that one is a murderer (by having an abortion), why would you ever put yourself in the situation where you would, for certain, be conflated as one?

Women can prevent pregnancies by using contraceptives of which there's a wide variety, but yet they get pregnant and then wanna tread the fine line between murder and freedom by seeking abortions. If it were possible to avoid giving people the impression that one is a murderer (by having an abortion), why would you ever put yourself in the situation where you would, for certain, be conflated as one? — Agent Smith

Contraceptives fail. Rape happens.

Also, there is no fine line between abortion and murder.

The quashed Roe vs. Wade ruling doesn't prohibit contraception. — Agent Smith

True, but Thomas' opinion questions the legitimacy of the Griswold case which ruled that the use of contraceptives is a constitutional right. It's possible that the Supreme Court could later overturn Griswold, allowing States to outlaw contraception.

I was simply amazed at why women would not care about being thought of as murderers (even if that were to be false) when they could easily nip the problem in the bud by taking pills/asking their partners to use condoms/etc.?

An example: Attending one of Trump's rallies could mean people come to the conclusion that you're a racist. So, I don't go to the rally. Why go and then later havta explain that you're not a racist to every person who now doubts you are?

Why create problems for yourself?