We are living in an antediluvian hellscape. I can hardly believe this is America. Well, actually, I do believe it and it’s profoundly distressing: More than 64,500 pregnancies have resulted from rape in the 14 states that banned abortion since Roe v. Wade was overturned, with the vast majority occurring in states that don’t make exceptions for rape, researchers estimated today in a leading medical journal. The big picture: The projection in JAMA Internal Medicine aims to shed light on the frequency of these pregnancies at a time when exceptions for rape loom large in abortion debates. Researchers, led by the medical director at Planned Parenthood of Montana, say even states with bans that have exceptions for rape impose other requirements that make it difficult to access the procedure. Rape victims have few options other than self-managed abortions, including by illegal methods or via pills obtained through the mail, or traveling out of state to where abortion is legal. As a result, many have to carry a pregnancy to term, the researchers wrote.
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They were all high I had heard that the White House doctor Ronny Jackson was a Dr. Feelgood and this seems to confirm it: White House pharmacists reportedly distributed uppers and downers like candy to Trump administration officials during his time in office, according to a new report from the Department of Defense Inspector General. The 80-page document, which was released on Jan. 8, found that “all phases of the White House Medical Unit’s pharmacy operations had severe and systemic problems due to the unit’s reliance on ineffective internal controls to ensure compliance with pharmacy safety standards.” The investigation, which began in 2018 after the Office of Inspector General (DoD OIG) received complaints about improper medical practices within the White House Medical Unit, found a slew of compliance issues and improper safety standards. The medical unit’s operations fall under the jurisdiction of the White House Military Office.
They make people bend to their reality But the cult is increasingly isolated: Something’s happening to the Trump cult. The hard core true believers are on board with him more than ever and they will follow him to the ends of the earth. But there is a growing faction that’s breaking away. They may not be ready to back Joe Biden. But they are starting to see the light and recognize that they can’t vote for Trump. Baby steps….
The White Nationalist group Patriot Front was confused by the turnstiles at NYC’s World Trade Center PATH station. It reminded me of this classic turnstile scene with Slim Pickens in Blazing Saddles. But seriously folks, who is the Patriot Front and how can they be defeated once they figure out how to use turnstiles? In June I talked to Matt Binder on the Doomed podcast about Patriot Front, the Neo-Nazis group seen in this clip. They wear the same hats, khakis and gatherers on their faces when they go to Pride events, Juneteenth parades and other events. The Patriot Front may appear dumb here, but they are very clever at avoiding being prosecuted for their use of threats online and in person. One organization that figured out how to fight them is the called Task Force Butler Institute. Their tag line: Veterans Fighting Fascism From the Task Force Butler website under What We Do Hold Extremists Accountable For far too long neo-nazi, white supremacist, and fascist organizations have been able to terrorize vulnerable Americans and erode our democracy without paying a price.
It never occurs to them that there might be nothing there Trump: where’s my Biden impeachment? House Republicans are increasingly disenchanted with Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., saying his leadership of the Biden impeachment inquiry has become a “clueless investigation” at best and — at worst — “a disaster.” Less than 10 months away from the 2024 election, his impeachment investigation is barreling toward its conclusion, with no smoking gun to bring the president to his knees. Only one thing is clear: Comer, the chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has lost the trust of some in his own party. “One would be hard pressed to find the best moment for James Comer in the Oversight Committee,” one House Republican lawmaker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain internal relationships, told The Messenger. “It’s been a parade of embarrassments.” The GOP House member is among over a dozen Republicans — lawmakers, senior aides and strategists — interviewed for this story. Republican sources have a problem with what the investigation has not accomplished.
Mitch McConnell believes in nothing. Not one thing. A quandary? Trump is going to push his party, his country and the world over the abyss and Mitch doesn’t want to do anything to undermine him. This is the GOP at its core. They are a death cult.
Trump’s act has worn thin Simon Rosenberg is right: All that is sinking in with the voting public, and will as the year progresses. Trump has a political history he did not have in 2016 or 2020. Greg Sargent considers it a sign how crazed Rep. Elise Stefanik’s (R-N.Y.) deflection is over a jury of Trump’s peers finding that he sexually assaulted E. Jean Carroll. The truth may not set MAGA cultists free, but it is injecting doubt (New Republic): What’s changed now is that Trump’s legal challenges are unfolding in courtrooms—in public-facing venues—before juries of the ex-president’s peers. It’s becoming impossible to fabricate conspiracy theories around the ordinary Americans whose judgment Trump faces, and the gravity of the proceedings is suddenly getting a lot more real. Like a battered boxer, Trump is cut over the eye. So work the eye, Democrats, Sargent insists. But with Trump now being prosecuted for numerous crimes, both the details of these charges and the role of ordinary Americans in serving up grand jury indictments constitute new fact sets of a much more serious nature.
South Carolina … It’s true, by the way: South Carolina Republican lawmakers are considering a bill that would make a person who has an abortion eligible for the death penalty. The bill, titled the South Carolina Prenatal Equal Protection Act of 2023, would change the state’s criminal code and redefine “person” to include a fertilized egg at the point of conception. According to the bill, the change would “ensure that an unborn child who is a victim of homicide is afforded equal protection under the homicide laws of the state.” Under South Carolina law, that includes the death penalty. The bill provides exceptions for pregnant people who had an abortion if they were “compelled to do so by the threat of imminent death or great bodily injury” and also provides an exception if the abortion was done to save the life of the mother. There are no exceptions for rape or incest. Big of them to allow an exception to save the life of the mother. Anyone else should be killed. This is what they believe. These throwbacks are just saying it out loud. Kill women. That’s what we’re talking about.
It’s coming from inside the house (and the Senate) That’s a US Senator passing on Fox News lies on twitter. It happens every day on every issue. In fairness, Blackburn may not know any better. She’s very dim. Maybe you have already seen this, but I hadn’t until yesterday. It’s Taylor Swift telling her father that she’s going to speak out against Blackburn. Did I mention that Blackburn is dim?
It’s a good one It may just be that a meaningful faction of Republicans have permanently soured on Trump: Donald Trump has a problem no matter what happens in New Hampshire on Tuesday night: There’s a whole swath of the Republican electorate and a good chunk of independents who appear firmly committed to not voting for him in November if he becomes the nominee. It’s an issue that became starkly apparent in polling ahead of the Iowa caucuses, when an NBC News/Des Moines Register/Mediacom poll of voters in that state found that fully 43 percent of Nikki Haley supporters said they would back President Joe Biden over Trump. And it’s a dynamic that has been on vivid display as the campaign shifted this week to New Hampshire. “I can’t vote for Trump. He’s a crook. He’s too corrupt,” said Scott Simeone, 64, an independent voter from Amherst, who backed Trump in 2016 and 2020. “I voted for him, and I didn’t realize he’s as corrupt as he is.” Primary elections can create intra-party divisions that, in the moment, seem impossible to heal.