Last Call For The Road To Gilead, Con't

Americans are overwhelmingly in support of Roe v Wade as settled legal precedent and access to abortion as a Constitutional right, but that of course doesn't matter in the slightest, only the opinions of nine SCOTUS justices do.

Americans say by a roughly 2-to-1 margin that the Supreme Court should uphold its landmark abortion decision in Roe v. Wade, and by a similar margin the public opposes a Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The lopsided support for maintaining abortion rights protections comes as the court considers cases challenging its long-term precedents, including Dec. 1 arguments over a Mississippi law banning abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The Post-ABC poll finds 27 percent of Americans say the court should overturn Roe, while 60 percent say it should be upheld, attitudes that are consistent in polls dating to 2005. More broadly, three-quarters of Americans say abortion access should be left to women and their doctors, while 20 percent say they should be regulated by law.

While Americans have long supported limiting access to abortion after the first trimester of pregnancy, the poll suggests Americans widely oppose recent efforts in conservative-leaning states to enforce more severe restrictions.

Asked about a Texas law that authorizes private citizens anywhere in the country to sue anyone who performs or aids someone in obtaining an abortion in Texas after about six weeks of pregnancy, the Post-ABC poll finds 65 percent say the court should reject the law, while 29 percent say it should be upheld. The Supreme Court is considering the role federal courts can play in evaluating the Texas law, which was intended to avoid federal court review. A separate question finds 36 percent support state laws that make it more difficult for abortion clinics to operate, while 58 percent oppose such restrictions, including 45 percent who oppose them “strongly.”

 

Americans are overwhelmingly for a lot of things that Republicans in Congress and conservatives in the courts are against, but it sure doesn't seem to matter when it comes to voting the GOP out of office. Republicans keep blocking gun safety legislation, voting rights legislation, civil rights legislation,  women's rights legislation, and LGBTQ+ equality legislation, all popular with a broad spectrum of American voters including Republicans, but they keep electing the people against it.

Then they complain about why the Democrats can't pass anything if they control Congress, and go back to watching Ben Shapiro videos on Facebook, and decide that voting is for suckers anyway because both sides screw the little guy, so why bother?

And down the road to Gilead we go.

Insurrection Investigation, Con't

Republicans are threatening retaliation for the indictment of Trump regime chancre Steve Bannon, as if somehow the first this House Republicans would do if they took over in 2023 wasn't retaliation.

 

Republicans are rallying around former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon after his indictment on charges of contempt of Congress on Friday, warning that Democrats’ efforts to force Bannon to comply with what they say is an unfair subpoena paves the way for them to do the same if they take back the House in 2022.

Bannon, like former president Donald Trump, has refused to comply with an order from the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection to turn over records and testify about his actions leading up to the attack, when a pro-Trump mob stormed the U.S. Capitol trying to stop the certification of President Biden’s electoral college win.

Bannon is expected to turn himself in to law enforcement Monday ahead of a court appearance that afternoon. Democrats and a handful of anti-Trump Republicans argue that the indictment was necessary to enforce subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6 committee to Trump associates who are resisting cooperation and to witnesses summoned by other congressional panels.

Many GOP leaders, however, are seizing on Bannon’s indictment to contend that Democrats are “weaponizing” the Justice Department, warning Democrats that they will go after Biden’s aides for unspecified reasons if they take back the House majority in next year’s midterm elections, as most political analysts expect.

“For years, Democrats baselessly accused President Trump of ‘weaponizing’ the DOJ. In reality, it is the Left that has been weaponizing the DOJ the ENTIRE TIME — from the false Russia Hoax to the Soviet-style prosecution of political opponents,” Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), the third-ranking House Republican, tweeted Saturday.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) suggested that Republicans would seek payback if the GOP regained control of the House, signaling that in challenging the doctrine of executive privilege, Democrats were making it easier for Republicans to force Biden’s top advisers to testify before a future GOP Congress.

“Joe Biden has evicerated Executive Privilege,” Jordan wrote on Twitter. “There are a lot of Republicans eager to hear testimony from Ron Klain and Jake Sullivan when we take back the House.” Sullivan is Biden’s national security adviser and Klain is the White House Chief of Staff.

 

First of all, Bannon's indictment for refusing to testify on a seditious conspiracy and the threatened indictment of Biden advisers is not exactly apples and apples, folks. Second, when Republicans help Lois Lerner and Erick Holder in contempt, both of them were cooperating, and Republicans still sent them up for prosecution, which not even the Trump DOJ would do.

Second, Boebert and her goon friends are promising politically-motivated indictments of Democrats for crimes to be created later. Does anyone care that Republicans are openly threatening to abuse power to harm opponents? Isn't that the real story here?

Third, why is this being reported as "but both sides disagree" by the broken media here? Boy, they really want the GOP back in power to sell clicks, papers, and access, don't they?

It's all ridiculous.

Retribution Execution, Con't

Donald Trump is about to claim another head of a Republican who didn't bow to him, because the only thing that matters to Republicans is loyalty to Dear Leader.

Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, revealed on Sunday that he has not yet decided if he will run for reelection in 2022.

Asked by co-host Jake Tapper on CNN’s “State of the Union” if he is committed to running for another term next year, Upton said he is unsure because redistricting is still underway in Michigan.

“Well, we don't know what our districts look like yet,” Upton said.

“We're in the midst of looking at maps. Michigan loses a seat. We will evaluate everything probably before the end of the year in terms of making our own decision. We have never made a decision more than a year out,” he added.

If Upton ultimately decides not to run for reelection next year, he will be the third GOP lawmaker who voted for Trump’s second impeachment to announce their retirement this year.

Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Ohio) declared in September that he would not seek a third term in Congress, and Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) revealed last month that he will not run for reelection when his term expires.

Gonzalez in a statement said it is “clear that the best path for our family is not to seek re-election next fall,” but added that the “current state of our politics, especially many of the toxic dynamics inside our own party, is a significant factor in my decision.”

Kinzinger, in a video announcing his retirement, recalled a moment from his first campaign when he told himself, “If I ever thought it was time to move on from Congress, I would,” adding, “That time is now.”

The Illinois Republican also cited deep political divides in Washington.

“In this day, to prevail or survive, you must belong to a tribe. Our political parties only survive by appealing to the most motivated and the most extreme elements within it. And the price tag to power has skyrocketed, and fear and distrust has served as an effective strategy to meet that cost,” Kinzinger said.

“Dehumanizing each other has become the norm. We’ve taken it from social media to the streets. We’ve allowed leaders to reach power selling the false premise that strength comes from degrading others and dehumanizing those that look, act or think differently than we do. As a country, we’ve fallen for those lies, and now we face a poisoned country filled with outrage blinding our ability to reach real strength,” he added.

 

There's a reason why I say there's no good Republicans left, because not only are the ones who oppose Trump like Upton being eliminated, but the ones on the way out like Kinzinger still blame both sides, as if Democrats are somehow as awful as the GOP right now. 

"Just enough bravery to stick your head up to get it chopped off" isn't a virtue, folks. 

And speaking of getting their heads chopped off, GOP Rep. Liz Cheney needs to check her neck.

The Wyoming Republican Party will no longer recognize Liz Cheney as a member of the GOP in its second formal rebuke for her criticism of former President Donald Trump.

The 31-29 vote Saturday in Buffalo, Wyoming, by the state party central committee followed votes by local GOP officials in about one-third of Wyoming’s 23 counties to no longer recognize Cheney as a Republican.

In February, the Wyoming GOP central committee voted overwhelmingly to censure Cheney, Wyoming’s lone U.S. representative, for voting to impeach Trump for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol.

Cheney has described her vote to impeach Trump as an act of conscience in defense of the Constitution. Trump “incited the mob” and “lit the flame” of that day’s events, Cheney said after the attack.

It’s “laughable” for anybody to suggest Cheney isn’t a “conservative Republican,” Cheney spokesman Jeremy Adler said by text message Monday.

“She is bound by her oath to the Constitution. Sadly a portion of the Wyoming GOP leadership has abandoned that fundamental principle and instead allowed themselves to be held hostage to the lies of a dangerous and irrational man,” Adler added.

Cheney is now facing at least four Republican opponents in the 2022 primary including Cheyenne attorney Harriet Hageman, whom Trump has endorsed. Hageman in a statement called the latest state GOP central committee vote “fitting,” the Casper Star-Tribune reported.

“Liz Cheney stopped recognizing what Wyomingites care about a long time ago. When she launched her war against President Trump, she completely broke with where we are as a state,” Hageman said.

 

The vote was symbolic, and I don't think Kevin McCarthy would reject her from the GOP Caucus, but I don't see how Cheney survives the primary. She could always pull a Lisa Murkowski and run as an independent, but I don't know enough about Wyoming politics to know if that would open the door for a Democrat.

It's going to be messy either way.