That's MSNBC reporting on the town hall Oprah was going to be doing.
Here's the townhall itself.
It's an incredible town hall. Oprah does a great job. Kamala Harris will be our next president of the United States if we work hard. "The rah-rah moment is going to end and then we need to work, we need to get busy," Oprah noted.
Marcia's "mark robinson exposed" had a parlor game in it. Marcia tried to name as many people who have endorsed Kamala as she could off the top of her head. In "mark robinson exposed," Rebecca went for fifty -- Marica had many more. I'm going to pull a Rebecca and only go for a certain number. Since she went for 50, I'll go for 60.
1) Oprah Winfrey
2) Tracee Ellis Ross
3) Chris Rock
4) Ben Stiller
5) Julia Roberts
6) Meryl Streep
7) Bryan Cranston
8) Michelle Obama
9) Barack Obama
10) Hillary Clinton
11) Bill Clinton
12) Jimmy Carter
13) Adam Kinzinger
14) Liz Cheney
15) Stevie Wonder
16) Patti LaBelle
17) Pink
18) Maren Morris
19) Carole King
20) Beyonce
21) Taylor Swift
22) Billie Eilish
23) Barbra Streisand
24) Lynda Carter
25) Tammy Baldwin
26) Patty Murray
27) Barbara Boxer
28) Angela Davis
29) Bernie Sanders
30) Elizabeth Warren
31) Sally Field
32) Jane Fonda
33) Kerry Washington
34) Robert Garcia
35) Martha Stewart
36) Hope Giselle
37) Jennifer Lopez
38) Retta
39) Jennifer Aniston
40) Jeff Bridges
41) Demi Moore
42) Michelle Pfeiffer
43) Octavia Spencer
44) Viola Davis
45) Larenz Tate
46) Marisa Tomei
47) Keegan-Michael Key
48) Sigourney Weaver
49) Tony Goldwyn
50) Billy Eichner
51) Vera Wang
52) Spike Lee
53) Lee Daniels
54) Colton Underwood
55) Questlove
56) Sheila E
57) Stevie Nicks
58) Usher
59) Cher
60) Steve Harvey
61) Linda Ronstadt
62) Demi Lovato
63) Selena Gomez
64) David Letterman
65) Megan Thee Stallion
66) Joan Baez
67) Emanuel Xavier
68) Stephen Curry
69) Carl Lewis
70) Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
71) Shawn Fain
72) Rodney Butler
73) Bernice King
74) Martin Luther King III
75) Al Sharpton
76) LaTosha Brown
77) Myrlie Evers-Williams
78) Carol Jenkins
79) Jesse Jackson
80) Jim Obergefell
81) Terry Tempest Williams
82) Stephen King
83) Colman Domingo
84) Jamie Lee Curtis
85) Trae Crowder
86) George Lopez
87) Shonda Rhimes
88) Cecily Strong
89) Judy Shepard
90) Rosie O'Donnell
91) Cardi B
92) George Clinton
93) Lady GaGa
94) Brittney Griner
Okay, I went past 60. But I could do those off the top of my head. If I mispelled somebody's name, my apologies. I just typed from memory. That's why Julia's not on there. THE NEW ADVENTURES OF OLD CHRISTINE's Julia. I always have to look up her name to know how to spell it. I know her birthday -- January 13th because it's the same as my father's. But there's a dash and anyway. That's the only reason she didn't make my list above.
Thursday, September 19, 2024. Donald Trump gets his money's worth
when he pays political whore Jill Stein, that includes purchasing Jill
and her supporters' silence when it comes to the deaths of Candi Miller
and Amber Thurman, Robert Kennedy Junior makes the case for stricter and
continued rules regarding who can have ballot access, and the only
grown up in the room, Kamala Harris, addresses the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus.
There are 46 days until the US presidential election. Again, THE WASHINGTON POST has published an important tool
that you can utilize to make sure you are still registered to vote.
Very important this year with a record number of people being purged
from the rolls. If that happened to you, you may or may not know.
A federal judge rejected Wednesday a request from
former independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to intervene in the
printing of Michigan's ballots and have his name removed as the
presidential nominee of the Natural Law Party.
In
an 18-page order, Judge Denise Page Hood of Michigan's Eastern District
dealt the latest blow to Kennedy's bid to have his name taken off the
ballot in the battleground state. Kennedy suspended his campaign and endorsed Republican Donald Trump on Aug. 23.
Hood wrote that Kennedy was "asking the court to interrupt the election process because he no longer wants to participate."
"Reprinting
ballots at this late hour would undoubtedly halt the voting process in
Michigan and cause a burden to election officials," Hood wrote, three
days before ballots must be available to send to military and overseas
voters.
To interrupt the election process because he no longer wants to participate?
Exactly.
This is nonsense on so many levels.
But
the next time someone wants to run for president from something other
than the parties with true ballot access -- that would be the Democratic
Party, the Republican Party and the Libertarian Party -- and they whine
about how difficult it is to follow the agreed upon rules, grasp that
it's idiots like Junior that make these rules necessary.
He wants on the ballot, he wants off the ballot. He's running for president, he's not running for president.
I
get what's happening. He wants to give his votes to Donald Trump. I
also get that he's not -- and never was -- a real candidate.
He
whined, he stamped his feet, he broke FEC rules and laws, he acted like
the little bitch that he is and now he wants off the ballot.
It's
not enough that he drops out of the race, no, Junior demands that his
name be removed from the ballots. And some states are stupid enough to
indulge him -- setting a precedent so that other candidates can demand
similar treatment in future elections.
Junior's latest temper tantrum is going to impact future elections a great deal.
Now let's turn to another grifter: Jill Stein.
Vlad's pal Jill is running yet again for president yet again on the Green Party ticket.
Let's help her the way we helped Junior when we explained here his latest FEC violation.
Ann's
been a Green. We all knew she wasn't voting for Jill Stein because she
was opposed to a third run by the same candidate yet again. In "How disgusting is Jill Stein?," last night, she revealed she's not even sure she's ever going to vote for a Green again:
New reporting from CBS News
reveals that third-party spoiler candidate Jill Stein’s legal efforts
in Nevada and Wisconsin are being aided separately by Jay Sekulow, an
attorney who represented Trump during his impeachment trials, and
Michael Dean, an attorney involved in lawsuits attempting to overturn
the 2020 election results.
Stein’s campaign has admitted it welcomes the support. On Monday, her campaign manager, Jason Call, acknowledged
Trump’s team has ulterior motives for propping up Stein’s spoiler
candidacy and showed no qualms about being used in their political
games.
No.
I was raised a
Green. I voted for Jill in 2012 and 2016. And, no, the Green Party
does not believe in taking dirty money. The fact that she's doing so
now goes to how she is destroying the Green Party.
I am
voting for Kamala Harris for a number of reasons but each day, it seems,
Jill Stein gives me even more reasons to vote for Kamala.
Ann's correct, that is dirty money. And the Green
Party itself is supposed to be against that so don't me the crap about
they have no other choice. But more importantly?
Margaret
Kimberley has overseen the destruction of BLACK AGENDA REPORT. Maybe
she takes comfort in the failed attempts to build the Green Party? She
spoke at their convention because she is a Green. And what has she
offered in the last 3 days?
21 Tweets and reTweets
attacking Kamala Harris -- she's especially enraged that Angela Y Davis
has endorsed Kamala. It must be very frustrating for Margaret -- and
her raggedy ass hair -- that someone who has made history endorsed
Kamala. It just reminds Margaret of how useless she herself has become.
So she offers 21 Tweets attacking Kamala. How many attacking Donald Trump?
Zero.
Now I've got no problem holding my own accountable. This is not -- and has never been -- a site to blow kisses at Democrats.
But Margaret's not a Democrat. We get that, right?
She's a Green.
She's
not holding the Green Party accountable. She's not, for example,
noting the dirty money that Jill's campaign's surviving on. She's not
holding Jill accountable.
But she is trashing the Democrats.
AOC
did not attack Jill Stein. This is Feminism 101 and it's been telling
-- very telling -- to see how that played out in the press. AOC did a
Tik-Tok video. That's not where it started.
Jill and her running mate had been trashing Kamala Harris and attacking the Democratic Party.
As this continued, AOC commented.
The
press largely ran with 'cat fight!' because they love to reduce any
disagreement between women to a cat fight. But, that's not what it was.
The primer on this for feminism is that when you're hit with a
two-by-four and you respond to that, you are not starting the fight.
Jill and her crazed goons had been attacking over and over. AOC responded. She did not initiate it.
But political parties are always in conflict!!!!
They
should be. But look at Margaret Kimberley's Twitter feed. Even giving
her all the space that she so desperately needs to attack Kamala, also
allowing for her desire to promote Holocaust deniers and to promote a
convicted pedophile (a registered sex offender), that still leaves
plenty of room to call out Donald Trump. But she doesn't do that.
Nor does the Green Party as a whole.
That's
why the dirty money that Jill Stein's taking matters -- and the pro
bono legal work that insurrectionist lawyers are doing for her campaign
matter.
They give her free legal, they give money to her campaign and she attacks Democrats.
She's being paid to do so. Grasp that.
She's not an independent candidate, she's someone whose campaign materially benefits from Donald Trump.
She
takes the money, she takes the pro bono legal assistance, she takes
them gathering signatures for her to be on ballots (an FEC issue) and in
exchange she stays silent and does not attack Donald Trump.
You
want to pretend that's politics to emulate? She's a paid whore.
That's all she is. She's not going to bite the hand that feeds her.
People need to be watching Margaret Kimberley and Holocaust denier and 9/11 Truther Ajuma Baraka
She's
reTweeting Jill's running mate and Jill's previous running mate as well
-- the latter being the 9/11 conspiracy freak Ajama Baraka and all the
other crazies. You'll see these party members doing the same thing --
just by chance, pure chance, you understand -- that Jill Stein does:
slam Kamala, slam the Democrats and give Trump a pass.
Why?
Because their paid agents of the GOP -- that's the reality.
Now Margaret loves to pretend to care about Black people. But where is old crusty lips when anyone needs her?
If
there's one topic she should be noting -- and we'll get to that topic
in greater detail in a moment -- it's the deaths of two Black women in
Georgia because of Donald Trump and the Supreme Court. They died. But
to note their deaths would require calling out Donald Trump.
And Donald Trump is apparently the only thing keeping the Green Party afloat and alive currently.
Candi
Miller and Amber Thurman. They have to be disappeared by Margaret.
Apparently, she wants to make clear to the country that BLACK AGENDA
REPORT has an agenda but it's not about helping Black people (which does
explain what Betty's long noted -- Glen Ford's death resulted in Margaret turning BAR over to non-Black Danny Haiphong).
Candi
Miller and Amber Thurman are dead but Margaret Kimberley -- the
executive editor of the so-called BLACK AGENDA REPORT -- has ignored
them while posting and re-posting over a hundred Tweets since Ann -- a
working mother with two young kids -- noted Amber's death in "Thanks to the Crooked Supreme Court, a woman is dead."
So
let's all understand what's going on: Donald Trump's pouring money into
the Green Party and pro bono work into the Green Party and his
purchasing power buys him their silence.
Margaret needs to stop calling others "Uncle Tom." (And she needs to fix that ratty hair.)
AMYGOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We look now at reproductive rights in the United States, which are a
key issue in this presidential election, now less than 50 days away. On
Tuesday, Republican senators once again blocked legislation to protect
access to IVF, in vitro fertilization, and require health insurers to cover the fertility treatment, after Democrats forced a vote.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris slammed Donald Trump, her
Republican rival, for his role in abolishing national abortion rights
after he appointed three of the Supreme Court justices who issued the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade.
In an interview yesterday with the National Association of Black
Journalists in Philadelphia, Vice President Harris cited the case, reported
by ProPublica, of Amber Thurman, a 28-year-old Black woman in Georgia
who died from a fatal infection after doctors refused to treat a rare
complication from a medication abortion.
VICEPRESIDENTKAMALAHARRIS:
I don’t know if anyone here has heard most recently the stories out of
Georgia, tragic story, about a young woman who died because, it appears,
the people who should have given her healthcare were afraid they’d be
criminalized, after the Dobbs decision came down, laws that
make no exception even for rape or incest, which means that you’re
telling a survivor of a crime of a violation to their body that they
have no right to make a decision about what happens to their body next,
which is immoral, an approach that doesn’t take into account that — most
people, I think, agree you don’t have to abandon your faith or deeply
held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to
do with her body.
AMYGOODMAN:
Georgia’s Maternal Mortality Review Committee found Amber Thurman’s
death was preventable and largely due to delays in care. This comes as
Project 2025 staffer, former Trump White House personnel chief John
McEntee doubted the danger of abortion bans in a TikTok post last
Thursday.
JOHN McENTEE: Can someone track down the women Kamala Harris says are bleeding out in parking lots because Roe v. Wade was overturned? Don’t hold your breath.
AMYGOODMAN: McEntee was widely ridiculed as women posted responses about their experiences being denied care.
Well, today, ProPublica published a new report
on a second woman in Georgia who died from medical abortion
complications. Candi Miller’s family said she didn’t visit a doctor,
quote, “due to the current legislation on pregnancies and abortions,”
unquote. Overall, deaths due to complications from abortion pills are
extremely rare.
For more, we’re joined by two guests. Monica Simpson is with us.
She’s executive director of SisterSong, the national women of color
reproductive justice collective based in Georgia. And Ziva Branstetter
is also joining us, from Walnut Creek, California, senior editor at
ProPublica, who helped edit two new reports by Kavitha Surana.
We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! I want to begin
with Ziva. Actually, Vice President Harris cited your investigation in
her answers to questions from the National Association of Black
Journalists yesterday. Can you lay out the stories of [Amber] Thurman
and also today you’ve just broke a new story on a second death?
ZIVABRANSTETTER: Correct. Well, thank you, first of all, Democracy Now!,
for having me on to talk about reporting by ProPublica and reporter
Kavitha Surana. We have reported two stories. Both deaths of these women
occurred in the months following the overturn of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court. Both were in Georgia. Both were African American women.
The first case, Amber Thurman, 28-year-old single mother with a
3-year-old son, she died after doctors did not provide care over about a
20-hour period in the emergency room. She had taken abortion medication
to end her pregnancy, and fetal tissue remained, which is a rare — a
very rare complication of taking abortion medication, very simply solved
with a procedure called a D&C, that doctors did not provide over 20
hours in the emergency room. That procedure, in almost all cases in
Georgia now and in other abortion ban states, is a felony. Doctors could
face criminal prosecution for performing it. We don’t know what was
going through their minds, but they did not operate over 20 hours. And
she died in August of 2022.
The story that we just published
today on ProPublica’s website is about Candi Miller, a 41-year-old
woman, also from Georgia, a mother of three, who also self-managed her
abortion at home, which is becoming far more regular under abortion
bans. She took abortion medication. Again, rare complication. Instead of
going to the hospital, she was afraid to seek care, and did not and
died at home with a mixture of drugs that her family believes was trying
to manage the pain. And she died, as well, in November of 2022. That
death has been ruled by the state preventable and, not only that,
directly related to the state’s abortion ban, which is the first time
we’ve seen this reported.
AMYGOODMAN: And explain the abortion ban in Georgia.
ZIVABRANSTETTER:
Correct. It’s a six-week ban. You know, we classify that almost the
same as a complete ban, because many people can become pregnant and
don’t know at that point that they are even pregnant. And experts say a
six-week ban is tantamount to a complete ban. And there are no health
exceptions in Georgia’s ban. Well, Candi Miller had lupus. She had
hypertension. She had diabetes. She’s 41 years old. She already has
three children. She found herself pregnant. Doctors had told her, “You
can’t. Your body cannot survive another pregnancy. It will kill you.”
So, she had, literally, no good options under Georgia’s abortion ban.
AMYGOODMAN: Now, can you talk about how rare medication abortion complications are, Ziva?
ZIVABRANSTETTER: About 6 million people, since the FDA
approved abortion medication, have used it, and there have been 31
deaths of any kind, only 11 of those from sepsis. It is 0.0005% of cases
that are fatal, which is a lower complication rate than penicillin and
Viagra. And so, it’s extremely safe. All medications have risk. There is
a simple solution to a complication with abortion medication, and that
is a D&C. And abortion ban states, for the vast majority of cases,
criminalize that procedure.
AMYGOODMAN:
I want to turn to Monica Simpson. You’re executive director of the
Georgia organization SisterSong. Can you talk about the levels of Black
maternal mortality in Georgia?
MONICASIMPSON: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me this morning.
We are devastated to hear this news and to see that Black women are
still not being treated in the ways that they need to by our healthcare
system in Georgia. What is real in the state of Georgia is that we are
in a maternal healthcare crisis in our state. We are a state that has
yet to expand Medicaid, which means that thousands upon thousands of
people are already falling under the radar and not getting access to the
care that they need. And on top of that, we are dealing with the fact
that we are in this country seeing Black women die at a rate three to
four times higher than white women in childbirth, right?
So, we look at that, and coupled with the fact that Georgia has a desert of OB-GYN
availability in our state. There are over half of our states that do
not — excuse me, half of our counties that do not have access to an OB-GYN,
so people are having to travel miles upon miles just to get care. So,
when you bring all of that together in this context of a state that is
also dealing with a six-week abortion ban — SisterSong is the lead
plaintiff in that case against our state; we have been fighting that for
many years now, trying to get this ban removed — we are seeing a really
dire picture for Black women and for people in general in the state of
Georgia.
AMYGOODMAN:
In this case that ProPublica talked about today, the story of Candi
Miller, Monica, Candi Miller’s health was so fragile — I’m reading the
first sentences. “Candi Miller’s health was so fragile, doctors warned
having another baby could kill her.” So she was already at high risk.
Her previous pregnancy was high-risk. But she was terrified to go to the
doctor. Talk about that, what this means. And the number of women who
may be suffering or have died that we don’t know, it’s because of their
fear of going to the doctor, that they would be criminalized.
MONICASIMPSON:
Absolutely. We hear this story far too often, that we know too many
Black women, in particular — right? — are saying that they do not feel
safe when they go to their doctor. They don’t feel as if they’re
listened to. They don’t feel as if they’re trusted. We have seen this
show up in the lives of people who are celebrities, like Serena
Williams, right? So, if we have people who have the amount of privilege
and resources that a Serena Williams has and they are still not listened
to and trusted by healthcare providers, imagine what that looks like on
the ground for everyday people who are trying to get access to care. In
our membership, we get these stories all the time, that we don’t feel
like we’re trusted, we don’t feel like we’re going to get access to the
information that we want. And so it silences people. And we know that
that silence then drives people inward, and it does not allow them to be
able to move towards the solutions that they need for themselves and
their families.
So, this is a really sad day in the state of Georgia. Our elected
officials need to be on top of this more than ever. And we have to take
this very seriously, because we knew and we have been saying, since the Dobbs
decision and even before then, that when you remove access, restrict
access, ban access to lifesaving care, healthcare that people need, then
those who have historically been pushed to the margins will be the ones
most affected. And we are seeing that in the state of Georgia, where
these Black women have lost their lives to a preventable — preventable
— issue that could have been taken care of in real time.
AMYGOODMAN:
At the Democratic convention, a ceremonial roll call to nominate Kamala
Harris as president included Kate Cox speaking for Texas. She had
spoken out after she was forced to flee Texas to get abortion care after
learning her pregnancy was not viable. She was introduced by former
Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards, who had an op-ed in The New York Times
this weekend headlined “Harris Is Good on Abortion Rights. Now She
Needs to Take It to 11.” Other featured speakers included three other
women impacted by abortion bans: Hadley Duvall of Kentucky, Amanda
Zurawski of Texas, Kaitlyn Joshua of Louisiana. This is Kaitlyn Joshua.
KAITLYNJOSHUA:
Two years ago, my husband and I were expecting our second child. Our
daughter Lauryn couldn’t wait to be a big sister. I was getting ready
for her fourth birthday party when something didn’t feel right. Two
emergency rooms sent me away. Because of Louisiana’s abortion ban, no
one would confirm that I was miscarrying. I was in pain, bleeding so
much, my husband feared for my life. No woman should experience what I
endured, but too many have. They write to me saying, “What happened to
you happened to me.” Sometimes they’re miscarrying, scared to tell
anyone, even their doctors. Our daughters deserve better. America
deserves better.
AMYGOODMAN: Kaitlyn Joshua is an African American woman. Ziva, you mention her case in both your ProPublica articles.
ZIVABRANSTETTER:
Yes. Well, obviously, as has been noted by your other guest, the burden
of this issue falls heaviest on Black women, on women of color. I think
it’s very interesting to note that there have been literally dozens of
cases like hers across the country, where women have had to rush across
state lines, have been denied care. There are now two confirmed deaths
in an abortion ban state that have been ruled preventable by an official
committee including 10 doctors. Both are Black women. I don’t think
it’s an accident that we’re seeing this pattern. I think there are more
cases out there. ProPublica is certainly interested in hearing from
people whose loved ones may have died, who have questions about how they
died. And we are going to keep looking into them.
AMYGOODMAN: I wanted to give Monica Simpson the last word. Cecile Richards had spoken at the DNC. She actually is suffering from brain cancer right now. And in this op-ed piece she just wrote for the Times, her headline, “Harris Is Good on Abortion Rights. Now She Needs to Take It to 11.” Do you agree with this?
MONICASIMPSON:
I do think that we are in a time where we have to not just look at
where we are. We have to think about where we want to go, right? And
what we have been saying for many, many years is that we know that a
federal right to abortion is necessary, but access is even more
imperative. And so, when we think about the state of where we are in
this country, knowing that we don’t have the federal right, and we were
already suffering from lack of access to abortion care, we have to think
about this at the next level. How do we make sure that we’re not only
creating the opportunities for legislation that creates a federal right
to be achieved, but that we are expanding access in all the ways
[inaudible] —
AMYGOODMAN:
We have to leave it there. Monica Simpson, executive director of
SisterSong, and Ziva Branstetter, editor at ProPublica. We’ll link to
both your pieces. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.
Candi
Miller and Amber Thurman are dead. But watch the Jill Steiners work
over time to ignore that reality and to render those two women
invisible.
And then they wonder, these nut jobs, why we
won't join them in a death-pact by wasting our vote on The Paid and
Bossed Jill Stein.
Again, Donald Trump is getting from Jill Stein and her supporters exactly what he's paying for. Alison Durkee (FORBES) notes:
Key Facts
Jill Stein: Jay Sekulow, working for conservative-leaning legal group American Center for Law and Justice, is listed
as the counsel of record in the Nevada Green Party’s Supreme Court
challenge against a recent court decision, which ruled Stein and other
Green Party candidates should be kept off the state’s ballot due to a
paperwork error.
Sekulow’s legal group called
the Nevada Democratic Party’s lawsuit challenging the party’s
candidates “a blatant attempt to clear the field for Kamala Harris’
campaign,” claiming, “If the legal system can be weaponized against any
party or candidate” like the Nevada Green Party, then “it can be used
against your preferred candidate.”
Sekulow, who has not yet responded to a request for comment, has
long aligned himself with former President Donald Trump and worked as
his personal lawyer when he was in the White House, including representing the then-president during his 2020 impeachment trial and in the Mueller investigation into Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Stein has also reportedly accepted legal help in Wisconsin from attorney Michael Dean, who previously represented Trump in the state when the ex-president was trying to challenge the 2020 election results.
In addition to legal support, Republican operative Jefferson Thomas
and his firm helped gather signatures for Stein in New Hampshire, the
Associated Press reported.
The whores are giving Donald Trump exactly what he's paying them for. Jill Stein has destroyed the Green Party.
Kamala
Harris isn't trying to destroy the Democratic Party. She's not
ignoring Candi Miller and Amber Thurman or rendering them invisible.
She's using her voice to call for all to be uplifted and all Americans
to be welcome in their own country. This seems to enrage Jill Stein and
her cronies. But that's what Kamala's doing -- demonstrating
leadership and fighting for all.
Yesterday, in DC she appeared before the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
Vice President Kamala Harris: So, thank you both for your leadership and for hosting me this afternoon.
And to all the incredible leaders here, it is an honor to be with you again.
And to everyone, happy Hispanic Heritage Month — (applause) — which,
in my book, is every month of the year. (Laughs.) (Applause.)
So, this is a room of long-standing friends. And many of you know my
background. My mother arrived in the United States when she was 19
years old by herself. And I spoke about it recently, actually. You
know, my mother — I was the eldest child. And as the eldest child,
those of us who are, you know you see a lot of things in terms of what
your parents go through.
And I would often see how my mother was treated. She was a
five-foot-tall brown woman with an accent. And I would see how the
world would sometimes treat her.
I’m going to tell you something, and this where I come from. My
mother never lost her cool. She never defined her sense of dignity
based on how others treated her. She was a proud woman. She was a
hardworking woman. She had two goals in her life: to raise her two
daughters — my sister Maya and me — and to end breast cancer. She was a
breast cancer researcher.
And growing up, our mother taught us certain fundamental values: the
importance of hard work; the power of community; and the responsibility
that we have to not complain about anything, much less injustice.
Right? Because “why are you complaining about it,” she would say. “Do
something about it.” And that’s how I was raised: Do something about
it.
And those values have guided me my entire career, from, as you heard,
being a young courtroom prosecutor in Oakland, California —
(applause).
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Bay Area!
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Wh- — Bay Area. (Laughter.) 106.1 KMEL.
(Laughs.) (Applause.) That was our local radio station for hip-hop.
(Laughter.)
But doing that work — you know, part of the background on why I
became a prosecutor was actually when I was in high school, I learned
that my best friend was being abused — being molested by her
stepfather. And when I learned about it, I told her she had to come and
live with us. And I called my mother, and my mother said, “Of course
she does.” And she did.
And so, I decided I wanted to start a career and do the work of — in
part, just doing the work of making sure that we protect the most
vulnerable.
And so, I started my career as a courtroom prosecutor and took on those who would be predators against the most vulnerable.
As attorney general of California, I took on the big banks and
delivered $20 billion for homeowners who were middle-class families who
faced foreclosure because of predatory lending practices. I stood up
for veterans and students who were being scammed by the big for-profit
colleges, knowing the — and many of whom were — had an immigrant
background and were just simply
trying to — to do the best they could to invest in themselves and
their family for their future and — and the subject of — of awful scams.
I have stood up, in my career, for workers who were being cheated
out of the wages they were due and for seniors who have faced elder
abuse.
And I say all that to say: When I stand here before you today, this
is not just something that I decided to do but really is about a
lifelong career that has been about fighting for the people — for the
people.
And for years, I have been proud to fight alongside the members and
the leaders of this incredible caucus — (applause) — in almost all of
that work. And the work we have done together has been about so much I
just talked about. It has been about defending workers’ rights. It has
been about expanding health care for more Americans, including
DREAMers. (Applause.) It has been about forgiving billions of dollars
in student loan debt, including for many of the folks that we know —
friends, relatives — who, again, have been burdened by that heavy debt
and just needed to be seen — teachers, firefighters, nurses.
The work we have done together has been to create the National
Museum of the American Latino and — (applause) — and, of course, last
year, I was proud to be with a lot of the leaders here in Houston for
the CHC On the Road tour. (Applause.)
So, I say that to say that, CHC, our work together has always been
guided by shared values and by a shared vision. However, at this
moment, at this moment, we are confronting two different — very — very
different — visions for our nation: one focused on the past; the other,
ours, focused on the future.
We fight for a future for affordable health care, affordable
childcare, and paid leave. We fight for a future where we build what I
call an “opportunity economy,” understanding that the people of our
country, the people we know, have extraordinary ambition and aspirations
and dreams of what they can be, what they can do, are prepared to do
the hard work and put that hard work in, but don’t necessarily always
have access to the opportunities to achieve and realize those goals.
So, I see an America where everyone has an opportunity to own a home, to build wealth, to start a business.
I believe in a future — we, together, believe in a future where we
lower the cost of living for America’s families so that people have an
opportunity not just to get by but to get ahead.
And so, with the work we have done together and going forward, we
will continue to lower the cost of groceries, for example, by taking on
something that I think is very important to deal with, which is price
gouging on behalf of big corporations. (Applause.)
You know, I’ve — I’ve seen that happen before. Many of you who —
who have — and are coming from states where y- — we’ve seen extreme
weather conditions — in California, wildfires, and other parts of the
country — or even in the pandemic, where people are desperate because of
these kinds of emergencies, desperate for support. And then some, you
know, corporation — and it’s very few of them that do this — but then
jack up prices to make it more difficult for desperate people to just
get by. We need to take that on.
We need to lower the cost of housing. We don’t have enough housing
in our country. The supply is too low, and it’s too expensive both for
renters and for folks who want to buy a home. So, we will build
together millions of new homes and give first-time homebuyers $25,000 in
down payment assistance. (Applause.)
Because, look, people just want to get their foot in the door. I —
my mother worked hard. She saved up. It wasn’t until I was a teenager
that she was able to buy our first home.
And the American dream is elusive for far too many people
increasingly. And that’s why it is part of my perspective that’s let’s
just do the work of giving first-time homebuyers a $25,000 down payment
assistance. (Applause.) Let them get their foot in the door.
We need to lower the cost of health care and continue to take on Big
Pharma and cast the — cap the cost of prescription medications, yes, for
our seniors, which we have done together, but for all Americans.
Because when we look at drugs like insulin, everyone here knows — first
of all, Latinos are 70 percent more likely to be diagnosed with
diabetes. And with the support of the CHC, we were able to cap the cost
of insulin at $35 a month for our seniors. (Applause.)
In fact, recently, I was in Nevada. I’m — I’m in these streets. Let
me tell — I’m everywhere. (Laughter.) But I was recently in Nevada,
and a woman came up to me with tears in her eyes, and she showed me the
receipts for her mother’s insulin. And it used — she show- — and I was —
she showed me many papers, and I said, “Tell me what these are.” And
she said, “Well, these are the receipts, and I want you to see where it
used to cost us hundreds if not a thousand dollars a month, but no
more.”
The work we are doing together, the very purpose of CHC and all of
the leaders here includes have a real impact on real people. And I have
the blessing of being able to travel our country and see it every day.
It’s extraordinary work that is happening because of the leaders here.
We, because of our work together, have finally given Medicare the power to negotiate lower drug prices with Big Pharma.
And understand, if my opponent, Donald Trump, wins, his allies in
Congress intend to end Medicare and end Medicare’s negotiating power.
As they remind us again this week, they are essentially saying — check
this out, because if — because, you know, you have to ask why, right?
So, why would you want to end Medicare’s negotiating power against Big
Pharma? And essentially, they’re saying that it’s not fair to Big
Pharma. (Laughs.) That’s essentially what they’re saying.
But I’ll tell you what’s not fair. What’s not fair is that our
seniors for too long have had to cut pills in half because they cannot
afford their full medication. (Applause.) That’s not fair. It’s not
fair that our seniors have had to choose between filling their
prescriptions and putting food in their refrigerator or paying their
rent. That’s not fair.
And that’s why we will continue to do our work together, including
fight Project 2025, an agenda that would cut Medicare and increase the
cost of health care in our country. (Applause.) Because we stand with
the people and on the side of the people.
We will cut taxes for working families, including restoring and
expanding the Child Tax Credit. (Applause.) Because we know this is
the kind of work that must happen if we are to be true to our values and
be true to understanding that — that parents, in particular young
parents, need that support. We — when we — when we extended the Child
Tax Credit, cut child poverty by 50 percent — by half. Think about what
that meant for so many families.
The vast majority of parents have a desire to raise their children
well. They love their children but don’t necessarily have the resources
to do everything their child needs. I grew up understanding the
children of the community are the children of the community, and we
should all have a vested interest in ensuring that children can go —
grow up with the resources that they need to achieve their God-given
potential.
So, I know where I come from. And we have to always put — and I
know CHC agrees with this, and this is part of our collective life’s
work — we have to put the middle class first; we have to put working
families first, understanding their dreams and their desires and their
ambitions deserve to be invested in and it will benefit everyone.
(Applause.)
And together, CHC, we must also reform our broken immigration system —
(applause) — and protect our DREAMers and understand we can do both —
create an earned pathway to citizenship and ensure our border is
secure. We can do both and we must do both. (Applause.)
And while we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future,
Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us
backward. We all remember what they did to tear apart families. And
now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation — a mass
deportation — in American history.
Imagine what that would look like and what that would be. How is
that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What
are they talking about?
They also will give billions of dollars of tax cuts to billionaires
and corporations — massive tax cuts; pardon January 6th perpetrators who
attacked our Capitol, not far from here. They would cut Social
Security and Medicare. They intend to end the Affordable Care Act and
threaten the health care of more than 5 million Latinos in our country.
All based on — I’m sure many of you saw the debate — (applause) — so,
on that point about the Affordable Care Act — all based on “concepts of a
plan.” (Laughter and applause.) “Concepts.” “Concepts.”
Their Project 2025 agenda would pull our nation backward. But we
are not going back. We are not going back. (Applause.) We are not
going back.
Instead, together, we will chart a new way forward because ours is a
fight for the future. And it is a fight for freedom — the freedom to
vote, the freedom to be safe from gun violence, the freedom to live
without fear of bigotry and hate, the freedom to love who you love
openly and with pride, and the freedom of a woman to make decisions
about her own body — (applause) — and not have her government telling
her what to do. (Applause.)
And understand, on that last point, how we got here. Everyone here
knows. Donald Trump hand-selected three members of the United States
Supreme Court with the intention that they would do just what they did,
which is to overturn the protections of Roe v. Wade. And now, in more
than 20 states, we have a Trump abortion ban, which criminalized health
care providers — in one state, providing prison for life.
You
guys may have heard the story — many here — about the stories about —
the horrendous most recent story is about what happened in Georgia.
Many of these Trump abortions bans that make no exception for rape or incest, it’s immoral. It’s immoral.
And today, 40 percent of Latinas in America live in a state with a Trump abortion ban.
So, imagine if she is a working woman — understand that the majority
of women who seek abortion care are mothers — understand what that
means for her. So, she’s got to now travel to another state. God help
her that she has some extra money to pay for that plane ticket. She’s
got to figure out what to do with her kids. God help her if she has
affordable childcare. Imagine what that means.
She has to leave
her home to go to a airport, stand in a TSA line — like, think about
this. You know, everybody here is — is — you’re policy leaders. I
always say to my team, especially the young people I mentor, on any
public policy, you have to ask, “How is this going to affect a real
person?” Ask how it would affect a real people. Go through the
details.
So, she’s got to stand in a TSA line to get on a plane,
sitting next to a perfect stranger, going to a city where she’s never
been, to go and receive a medical procedure. She’s going to have to get
right back to the airport, because she — got to get back to those
kids. And it’s not like her best friend can go with her, because the
best friend is probably taking care of the kids. All because these
people have decided they’re in a better position to tell her what’s in
her best interest than she is to know.
It’s just simply wrong.
And
I think we all know one does not have to abandon their faith or deeply
held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling a woman what
to do. If she chooses — (applause) — if she chooses, she will talk with
her priest, her pastor, her rabbi, her imam, but not the government
telling her what to do.
And I pledge to you, when CHC helps pass
a law to restore reproductive freedoms, as president of the United
States, I will proudly sign it into law. (Applause.) Proudly.
Proudly.
So, friends, we have some work to do — in fact, a lot of hard work
ahead of us. But we like hard work. Hard work is good work. Hard work
is joyful work, I say. And I truly believe that America is ready to
turn the page on the politics of division and hate.
And to do it, our nation is counting on the leaders here, your power,
your activism. And so, I thank you in advance for your work to
register people to vote and get people to the polls. Each of us has a
job to do.
As we celebrate this month, we know we stand on broad
shoulders of people before us who have passed us now the baton — those
heroes who fought for freedom who have now passed the baton onto us.
And the bottom line is: We know what we stand for, so we know what to fight for. And when we fight —
AUDIENCE: We win.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: — we win.
God bless you. And God bless the United States of America. Thank you. (Applause.)
Last spring, Justice Samuel Alito had drafted an opinion dropping
federal charges against many of the January 6 insurrectionists who
violently stormed the Capitol. The ruling in Fischer v. United States had not yet been released. Then the New York Times
published a startling story: Alito himself had flown the flag of
insurrection at his home. (He briefly blamed it on his wife: “She is
fond of flying flags.”) Days later, it was reported that he had flown
such flags at his vacation home as well.
Awkward! Grounds for
recusal? Time to rethink the ruling? Nah. Instead, Chief Justice John
Roberts quietly took Alito’s embarrassing name off the opinion and
slipped his own name onto it instead.
That is just one of the gobsmacking revelations from a story by Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak that appeared in the New York Times
last weekend. The lurid news of the day quickly overwhelmed it — the
gunman arrested outside Donald Trump’s golf course, the continued smear
campaign by former President Trump and Sen. JD Vance against the Haitian
immigrant community in a small city in Ohio, and more.
But we
must not let these revelations fade from view. They paint a damning and
indelible picture of how John Roberts, for all his vaunted
“institutionalism” and piety about calling “balls and strikes,” steered
the Court to shield Trump from accountability for his misdeeds.
Call
me naïve. At the beginning of this year, I thought I had few illusions
about the Court. I had just published a harshly critical book, The Supermajority.
But I felt confident in asserting that the Court was a conservative
Court, a Federalist Society Court, even a Republican Court — but not a
MAGA Court. It had not yet shown an appetite for excusing Trump from the
reach of the law.
So I, along with most legal observers, assumed
that the justices would let Trump’s trial proceed. I thought there was a
good chance it would be unanimous, that Roberts would work behind the
scenes to ensure that the Court spoke with one voice on major issues of
presidential power and constitutional law. That’s what other chief
justices did, most notably Warren Burger in United States v. Nixon, the Watergate tapes case and the closest analogue to the Trump trial ruling.
After all, we all thought, Trump v. United States was
legally easy. Indeed, the possibility of criminal charges was the
stated reason why Republican senators did not vote to convict him of the
January 6 charges in Trump’s second impeachment trial.
Many of
us, too, sensed there was a deal afoot — a unanimous ruling that Trump
could not be thrown off the ballot by one state under the 14th Amendment
and a principled ruling on the criminal trial.
Behind the velvet
curtain of the Court, though, there was no deal. Roberts wrote a memo in
February — before the Court had even announced that it would hear
Trump’s appeal — declaring that the Court would give the former
president a huge win. “I think it likely that we will view the
separation of powers analysis differently” from the appeals court, he
wrote. As Kantor and Liptak summarized, “In other words: grant Mr. Trump
greater protection from prosecution.”
They detailed myriad other
ways that Roberts steered rulings Trump’s way. He froze out Justices
Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Ketanji Brown Jackson. The ruling was
sloppy and immunized vast areas of potential presidential wrongdoing.
The Times noted that NYU Law professor Trevor Morrison had
discovered that Roberts selectively edited a quote from a key earlier
ruling to help Trump.
The resulting ruling tells future presidents
that they can break the law, plainly and flagrantly. As long as they
conspire with other government officials, it will be effectively
immunized. (Order your White House counsel to pay hush money, as Richard
Nixon did, not your campaign manager, and you’ll be off the hook.)
The
opinion has widely and correctly been scorned as one of the worst in
American history — a rip in the constitutional fabric. The Times’s
tick-tock makes clear that this was not a baffling anomaly. Rather, it
is the biggest, most visible, and perhaps most consequential in a series
of actions taken by a corrupted Court. It follows Citizens United, Shelby County, and other rulings that systematically undid key democratic protections.
Throughout American history, overreach by the Supreme Court has provoked a response. Dred Scott did in the 1850s — it helped lead to a civil war. Reactionary rulings such as Lochner did in the early 20th century. Trump v. United States should join with the Dobbs abortion rights ruling to spur a similar backlash today.
We’ve
argued for an 18-year term limit for Supreme Court justices, because
nobody should have too much public power for too long. And we’ve urged a
binding code of ethics, which would have forced Justices Alito and
Clarence Thomas to step out of these key cases. These reforms are widely
popular. Most recently, a Fox News poll this summer found that 78
percent support term limits.
The Court is a broken institution. It’s time to fix it. The latest revelations remind us that otherwise, the fix is in.
The Court has to be fixed. When Kamala Harris becomes president, this is one of the first issues she's going to have to address.
A top science magazine has waded into the political sphere after making a presidential endorsement, only the second in its 179-year history.
“Vote for Kamala Harris to Support Science, Health and the Environment,” read the headline in Scientific American on Monday, announcing the publication’s official support for the Democratic presidential candidate.
Harris is Scientific American’s second presidential endorsement in its history, after the magazine backed President Joe Biden during the 2020 election.
“The
US faces two futures,” the editors wrote, pushing one candidate who
“offers the country better prospects, relying on science, solid evidence
and the willingness to learn from experience.”
They
continued: “In the other future, the new president endangers public
health and safety and rejects evidence, preferring instead nonsensical
conspiracy fantasies.”
Scientific American,
which has a global readership of six million, cited Harris’s record as
vice president, senator and presidential candidate as reasons for
endorsing her.
It's
about the future of the country and the future of the planet. You can
not have a plan to dismantle the checks and balances and also address
climate change. It kills the MAGA crowd that it's not the pre-Civil
Rights Movement era. They want the country to join them in embracing
racism and sexism and homphobia and ignorance because that's what you
have to be -- ignorant -- in order to buy into the death-pact that
Donald Trump and JD Vance are offering.
They
pretend it's a future but it's just a death pact. They want to take us
all down with them. Fortunately, the country has an alternative in
Kamala Harris.
Yesterday, Democratic Party presidential candidate Kamala Harris spoke with the National Association of Black Journalists.
Harris was also asked about the false and racist
tropes that Donald Trump and JD Vance have espoused about Haitian
immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, which has resulted in bomb threats and lockdowns in the city.
“It’s
a crying shame. I mean, my heart breaks for this community,” Harris
said. “There were children, elementary school children, [for whom] it
was school photo day. Do you remember what that’s like, going to school
on picture day? Dressed up in their best, got all ready, knew what they
were going to wear the night before. And had to be evacuated. Children.
Children.”
Harris
described “a whole community put in fear”, and harkened back to her
career as a prosecutor, during which she said she learned the importance
of power.
“When you have these positions,
when you have that kind of microphone in front of you, you really ought
to learn how much your words have meaning,” she said. “I learned at a
very young stage in my career that the meaning of my words could impact
whether someone was free or in prison … When you are bestowed with a
microphone that is that big, there is a profound responsibility that
comes with that.”
Harris said elected officials, particularly the president, have been bestowed with public trust.
“I
know that people are deeply troubled by what is happening to that
community in Springfield, Ohio, and it’s gotta stop,” she said. “We’ve
gotta say that you cannot be entrusted with standing behind the seal of
the president of the United States of America engaging in that hateful
rhetoric that, as usual, is designed to divide us as a country.”
Harris’ meeting with Black journalists at the Center City offices of WHYY was a sharp contrast to the craziness that happened when Donald Trump met with the group in Chicago six weeks earlier.
During Harris’ interview, no one’s racial identity was questioned.
There was no huge headline-making moment, and I didn’t see anyone in
attendance nudge the person next to them as if to say, “Did you hear
that?” It was just another interview. And I found that totally
refreshing. I’m ready for a return to normalcy.
I’m tired of Donald Trump and his antics, including his ridiculous claim last week that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are kidnapping and eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs. It’s always something with him. It never seems to stop.
[. . .]
There’s
a quiet dignity about Harris that’s reassuring, not to mention
comforting. I can picture her answering a 3 a.m. call to the White House
about trouble brewing somewhere in the world and calmly knowing the
right thing to do. Harris is a decent human being. She’s steady, not
erratic.
During her interview
Tuesday in Philadelphia, she didn’t mock anyone the way that Trump did
when he met with NABJ and accused Harris, who is both Black and of
Indian heritage, of changing her racial identity.
Nor
did she insult working journalists, the way that Trump did when he
accused ABC’s Rachel Scott, one of the moderators at the event in July,
of working for a “fake news network.” In contrast, Harris treated the
journalists who interviewed her with respect and referred to them as
“esteemed journalists.”
We don't need
Donald's drama and we don't need to go backwards. But backwards is all
Donald and MAGA have to offer. Corruption and more corruption. Read
Betty's "John Roberts is just as crooked as Clarence and Alito" and Ann's "Thanks to the Crooked Supreme Court, a woman is dead" and Rebecca's "a crooked court sold us out to a global cabal"
and grasp just how dangerous the Supreme Court has become. Americans
were right to lose faith in that institution. Donald helped corrupt it,
he was not alone on that. And he will further destroy it. He's
destroyed healthcare for women and continues to work destroy it. It's
not just abortion, it's also birth control, it's also IVF. Of Kamala's
conversation with journalists yesterday, Theo Burman (NEWSWEEK) notes:
Abortion has been the Democrats' strongest motivator for their core vote since the abolition of Roe vs. Wade, and it has been central to the Harris campaign's political ads this cycle.
At the NABJ talk, Harris tripled down on her commitment to restoring the protections of Roe vs. Wade, drawing yet another line between her and the Trump-JD Vance ticket.
When
asked about what her administration would do to restore abortion rights
across the U.S., Harris said: "We need to put back in place the
protections of Roe vs. Wade and let an individual in
consultation with her doctor make the decision based on what she can
determine, 'cause she's smart enough to know what's in her best
interest, instead of having her government tell her what to do."
On
women's health, let's note that JD and others voted against IVF
yesterday. Here's Senator Patty Murray on the floor of the Senate.
Senator
Patty Murray has long fought on behalf of healthcare including IVF.
We attended Senate Veterans Affairs Committee hearing after hearing
where Patty -- as member or chair of the Committee -- repeatedly
addressed the need for IVF.
At random, I'm picking February of 2020 for this:
Senator Patty Murray: It is really critical that after these veterans have
sacrificed so much in their service they are fully supported. Fertility
challenges are difficult enough without having to fight a bureaucracy to
access care that they have earned and that they are entitled to, and as
we all know delays in this means sometimes they can't access care and
have kids. So I
don't want to hear about this anymore, and I want to know what VA is
doing to address those barriers to make sure veterans get the care when
they need it.
Yesterday, the senator's office issued the following:
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray
(D-WA), a senior member and former chair of the Senate Committee on
Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP), objected on the Senate
floor to Senator Cruz’s attempt to pass through unanimous consent a Republican bill that
would “require, as a condition of receiving federal Medicaid funding,
that states not prohibit in vitro fertilization (IVF) services.” Senator
Murray outlined how this woefully inadequate legislation explicitly
allows states to restrict IVF by enacting burdensome and unnecessary
requirements that could create the kind of legal uncertainty and risk we
saw in Alabama that forced clinics to close their doors.
Murray also pointed out how the bill defines IVF in an intentionally
incomplete way to sidestep the matter of what happens to frozen embryos
and appease Republicans’ extreme anti-abortion allies who vehemently
oppose IVF. Senator Murray made clear that Republicans cannot have it
both ways, claiming to support IVF while at the same time supporting
fetal personhood—an extremist ideology that says an embryo should have
the exact same rights as a living, breathing human being and is fundamentallyincompatible with IVF.
“I have been perfectly clear about the glaring issue with this
Republican bill,” said Senator Murray on the Senate floor. “The cold
hard reality is that this Republican bill does nothing
to meaningfully protect IVF from the biggest threats from lawmakers and
anti-abortion extremists all over this country. It would still allow
states to regulate IVF out of existence!”
“And this bill is silent on fetal personhood, which is the biggest threat to IVF,” emphasized Senator Murray on the floor of the Senate. “It
is silent on whether states can demand that an embryo be treated the
same as a living breathing person, or whether parents should be allowed
to have clinics dispose of unused embryos—something that is a common,
necessary part of the IVF process. Talk
to the experts who provide this care—talk to the families who are
seeking it—and that question looms large in their minds. ‘What are we
supposed to do if our state says these embryos are living breathing
people? Do we have to do this process in another state? What is our
legal risk here?’”
“The last time Republicans offered this hollow gesture of a
bill, I asked the junior Senator from Texas point blank: do you support
letting parents have unused embryos disposed of?” noted Senator Murray
in reference to the last effort by Senator Cruz to pass the same bill
back in June.
“And a funny thing actually happened—he said on the floor he would
answer that question, but he never did. He spoke about what the laws in
some of our states are—but he never actually said what he supported, he
never said what he believes should be federal law, he never mentioned
that he once pledged to support a constitutional amendment to establish fetal personhood as the law of the land.”
“And so, I ask all my Republican colleagues once again—as a matter of national policy, should parents be allowed to dispose of unused embryos?” asked Senator Murray in closing.
“If so—why is that key provision missing from your bill? Well, we all
know why. And if not—how can you look the American people in the eye,
and say you support IVF? It doesn’t compute.”
In a statement following Senator Cruz’s speech, Senator Murray
said, “Unfortunately, once again, Senator Ted Cruz, refused to answer my
very basic question.”
ICYMI, here’s what Barbara Collura, President and CEO of RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association said back in May about the Republican IVF Bill: “The
bill allows for states to push for regulations that could severely
reduce the standard of care for IVF treatment, such as restrictions on
how many embryos are created and what individuals can do with these
embryos — decisions that should only be made between patients and their
doctors, based on science and clinical guidelines. The solution is
federal legislation that enshrines access to IVF for all.”
Senator Murray leads the Right to IVF Act with
Senators Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Cory Booker (D-NJ), which would
establish a nationwide right to IVF and other assisted reproductive
technology, expand insurance coverage of IVF services to lower the cost
of IVF treatment for families, and expand access to IVF and other
fertility services for our nation’s veterans and servicemembers.
In June, Senators Murray and Duckworth released a new FACT SHEET on how Republican attacks on IVF are serious, real, and on the rise across America. The
fact sheet explains how fetal personhood is a full-frontal attack on
reproductive freedom and could put an end to IVF care and other assisted
reproductive technology, and outlines personhood measures and other
state proposals that would negatively impact access to IVF that
Republicans are actively pushing in state legislatures and at the
federal level.
IVF is overwhelmingly popular with Americans—recent polling found that 85 percent of Americans support increasing access to fertility-related procedures and services. A survey from
Pew Research Center last September found that 42 percent of adults say
they have used fertility treatments or personally know someone who
had—up from 33 percent five years ago.
###
They don't just attack women's rights, Donald and JD lie about attacking women's rights while they attack our rights.
They
will dismantle everyone's rights. Their dream is an America that
doesn't include the majority of Americans and that doesn't include the
right to self-determination. They embrace lies and they traffic in
deceit. Alice Herman (GUARDIAN) reports:
JD Vance defended his comments about Haitian
immigrants eating pets during a Tuesday rally, saying that “the media
has a responsibility to fact-check” stories – not him.
The rally in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, came two days after the Ohio senator told CNN host Dana Bash
it was OK “to create stories” to draw attention to issues his
constituents care about, regarding inflammatory and unfounded claims
that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, had eaten residents’ pets.
The comments, in which he appeared to say that politicians can brazenly lie, drew immediate rebuke.
They lie and then they lie again and then they lie about lying (see Elaine's "Marjorie Taylor Greene lies even when admitting she lies").
Miss Sassy doesn't believe "the media has a responsibility to
fact-check stories." No, he calls it an assault, an attack when he or
his running mate are held accountable and fact checked.
Gaslighting is all those two men have to offer. That's it, nothing more.
Lots of topics but let's stay with The Little Weirdo himself, Miss Sassy JD Vance. Paul Rudnick notes:
Kyle addresses the topic in the video below.
In
her racist attack on Kamala Harris, Laura Loomer made comments that
should have brought a response from JD Vance. He hates his
mother-in-law -- remember, he feels that instead of helping with the
newborn, she should have sent money -- but people wrongly think he cares
about his wife and their children. He doesn't.
That's
why he didn't defend them from Laura Loomer's racist attacks and why he
refuses to call out Loomer or even say that she was wrong.
His children do not matter to him and his wife does not matter to him.
If
you were paying attention, Trina covered all of this at the start of
the month. Ava and I had planned to build around it with a piece right
before Miss Sassy took the debate stage with Tim Walz but since JD's
making it clear right now, let's point out how right Trina was when she
wrote "JD Vance is living in sin with bastard children (plus Vegan Tacos)."
JD Vance does not care about his family. He postures and preens but he doesn't care.
You don't convert to another faith without your wife and your children.
The
marriage itself is not recognized in JD's religion because it did not
take place in a Catholic Church. That's reality. Trina's not trying to
damn any child with the post she wrote. Like myself, she doesn't
believe that children are illegitimate. But JD became a Catholic in
August of 2019 with no regard or concern for his family. In the eyes of
the religion he chose to convert to five years ago, his marriage is not
recognized which makes, in the eyes of the Church, his children
illegitimate. What kind of a creep does that? What kind of weirdo?
You
have to wonder what exactly -- if anything -- JD understands about
Catholicism? He had an uncle who was Catholic, for example. An uncle
"by marriage." Sounds a lot like the uncle was in the same spot JD is
in.
So what JD tells the world is that women
need to do what they're told. But he can't tell Usha, "You're
converting?" He's the supposed head of his household but doesn't love
his kids enough to see that they have an afterlife?
Being
Catholic is not being Presbyterian. There are codes and edicts and all
this other stuff that is not in most other Christian faiths. JD, as a
married adult, as a father, elected to become Catholic (again, five
years ago) but he didn't care enough about his supposed loved ones to
bring them on the spiritual journey?
Again, he
presents as this tough guy who is so manly -- and what doesn't say manly
like a 50-something conservative man who cakes on eyeliner? -- and
whose example must be followed, must be imposed. But the reality, he's
not running s**t in his own household. He's a fake in every way.
Probably
even in his faith. I can't image a parent deciding to take up a faith
or to change faiths and not taking their own young children into the
faith with them.
People are aware, right, of
the huge gulf between what Catholicism believes regarding an afterlife
and what the Hindu religion believes, right?
And
to be clear, this is not to say that one is better or one is right.
This is to say that an adult male, already a father and husband, elected
to switch religions and chose one in conflict with that of his wife and
children and it doesn't appear to have bothered him in the least that
the salvation his new religion preaches does not recognize what his
children are being raised in.
It goes to how fake and false he is. Let's quote Trina:
He's not a
Catholic. I get that he says he is one. And I know many Catholics who
would argue that you're a cradle Catholic or you're not a Catholic.
(Meaning you were christened as an infant.) That's not my point. My
point is that he converted to a religion he does not understand. Does
not understand? He is arguing that childless women are destroying our society and that
they should not be allowed to vote or this or that. Most nuns? They
are childless. You do have a few who leave the order to have a secular
life and come back later and while they were gone they became a mother.
And you have those who join an order late in life. But the norm is a
nun who does not give birth to a child. So if he were truly Catholic, he
would understand that.
In
addition, his statements make clear that the Pope is not the head of
his church. That's fine. However, the Pope is the head of the Catholic
Church and, as a Catholic, I don't understand why you convert to
Catholicism and refuse to follow the Pope? Seems to me, it's not the
religion for you.
You could
call him a lapsed Catholic, I suppose. But I'd still argue that's
something he didn't earn. I would prefer it if Miss Sassy would stop
trying to pretend he's part of my Church when he so clearly is not.
AP
does call out his weird ideas and the fringe movement he belongs to;
however, to be clear, Miss Sassy is not a Catholic. He was not born
into the religion and he's never truly accepted it as evidenced by his
refusal to see the Pope as the head of the Church. He can go back to
southern Baptism or whatever he was raised in before he became an
atheist but, no, he's not Catholic.
Need
more proof? He's living in sin and he has bastard children. In fact,
that's going to be the title of this post. A marriage between two
Catholics is only recognized if it takes place in the Church. Usha's
not Catholic. She's Hindu. So they didn't get married in the Catholic
Church. In 2014, they had an interfaith marriage and Vance wasn't even
Catholic then. He starts pretending he's Catholic in 2019. And the
first two children were born before that. So by Church teachings, JD's
failure to marry Usha in a Catholic Church and her failure to convert
means they're living in sin and, again, Church teachings, their children
aren't Catholic and they are the bastard children of their parents.
Did he get a dispensation from the Church? No, he did not.
But
he stands on stage pretending to be something he's not -- and never
will be -- and selling a lie to those who come to hear him.
So
he didn't care enough about his wife and children to get them the
salvation he wants for himself and we're now supposed to be surprised
that he won't defend them from racist attacks?
He's
a weirdo. And so is the US media. How many people have interviewed
him and everyone wants to play THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES ON. No one,
apparently, is ever going to ask him about the eyeliner.
This
is man who attacks the LGBTQ+ community and attacks drag queens but he
can't show up in public without having put on his eyeliner.
