More Proof Rethugs ‘Caught The Car’ On Reproductive Rights. Virtually nobody is opposed to in-vitro fertilization. Including, among others, America’s Most Pious Politician, Mike Pence. And yet…:
Kellyanne Conway, a former top aide to Mr. Trump, in December circulated polling conducted by her firm to lawmakers for a conservative women’s organization that showed vast majorities of Americans support I.V.F. According to a memo summarizing her findings, 85 percent of all respondents supported increasing access to I.V.F. Seventy-eight percent of self-identified “pro-life” voters and 83 percent of evangelicals held that position as well.
Mike Pence, the former vice president and one of the anti-abortion movement’s strongest allies, and his wife, Karen, have publicly discussed their use of I.V.F. treatments. “I fully support fertility treatments and I think they deserve the protection of the law,” he told CBS in 2022 after Roe was overturned.
Overturning Roe v. Wade opened the door to judges like this:
Alabama Chief Justice Tom Parker, who wrote the concurring opinion in last week’s explosive Alabama Supreme Court ruling that frozen embryos have the same rights as living children, recently appeared on a show hosted by self-anointed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist.
Parker was the featured guest on “Someone You Should Know,” hosted by Johnny Enlow, a Christian nationalist influencer and devoted supporter of former President Donald Trump. Over the course of an 11-minute interview, Parker articulated a theocratic worldview at odds with a functioning, pluralistic society.
“God created government,” he told Enlow, adding that it’s “heartbreaking” that “we have let it go into the possession of others.”
That a state’s chief Supreme Court justice would associate himself with Enlow is a cause for alarm. Enlow is a prolific conspiracy theorist, often weaving QAnon apocrypha with prophecies he claims to receive directly from God.
As reported by Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that Trump “is on assignment” from God to work with the angels Michael and Gabriel to take down George Soros and Bill Gates, among others; he has claimed that Russian President Vladamir Putin is fighting “Luciferian pedophiles” in Ukraine, in a battle to stop them from deploying vaccines and 5G that would turn people into transhumanist semi-robots; and he has claimed that the majority of other world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices.”
Congrats, Rethugs. You broke it, you own it.
Speaking of Christian Nationalism, how does America’s Least Pious Former President feel about that?:
An influential think tank close to Donald Trump is developing plans to infuse Christian nationalist ideas in his administration should the former president return to power, according to documents obtained by POLITICO.
Spearheading the effort is Russell Vought, who served as Trump’s director of the Office of Management and Budget during his first term and has remained close to him. Vought, who is frequently cited as a potential chief of staff in a second Trump White House, is president of The Center for Renewing America think tank, a leading group in a conservative consortium preparing for a second Trump term.
Trump is not a devout man of faith. But Christian Nationalists have been among his most reliable campaign activists and voting blocs. Trump formed a political alliance with evangelicals during his first run for office, delivered them a six to three conservative majority on the Supreme Court and is now espousing the Christian right’s long-running argument that Christians are so severely persecuted that it necessitates a federal response.
“Trump is not a devout man of faith.” Could they perhaps understate it a bit more?
Florida’s Latest Plague: Measles. Exacerbated by Florida’s Surgeon General, a measles denier(?):
Instead of following what he acknowledged was the “normal” recommendation that parents keep unvaccinated children home for up to 21 days — the incubation period for measles — Ladapo said the state health department“is deferring to parents or guardians to make decisions about school attendance.”
Experts say the outbreaks are linked to the growing number of parents seeking exemptions from childhood vaccinations in recent years following political backlash to coronavirus pandemic mandates and rampant misinformation about the safety of vaccines.
“The reason why there is a measles outbreak in Florida schools is because too many parents have not had their children protected by the safe and effective measles vaccine,” said John P. Moore, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College. “And why is that? It’s because anti-vaccine sentiment in Florida comes from the top of the public health food-chain: Joseph Ladapo.”
I can’t even…
Biden Forgives Student Loan Debt For 150K Student Loan Borrowers.
On Wednesday, the federal Education Department zeroed out loan balances for nearly 153,000 borrowers. They are people who borrowed $12,000 or less, have been paying their student loans for at least 10 years, and enrolled in the Biden administration’s new repayment plan called SAVE launched last summer.
“We’re providing debt relief to people who need it the most,” said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Wednesday in an interview on NPR’s Morning Edition. “We’re also addressing the root cause of the issue, which is, the cost of college is out of control,” Cardona said.
Unless my memory fails me, the only acts of kindness that Trump committed during his term were for people who could help him, or for people who could bring him down.
What do you want to talk about?