onfocus

"But for much of the arguments, Justice Barrett did seem ready to reverse Roe. For instance, she repeatedly suggested that pregnant people had no need for abortion because they could simply put their children up for adoption."

The supreme court is taking away health rights and personal autonomy and framing it as neutrality. This stolen majority is doing the job it was put there to do. Where are Democrats?

Update: oh, here they are. Tweeting.

"After a nearly monthlong civil trial, the jury in U.S. District Court deadlocked on two key claims but found the white nationalists liable on four other counts in the lawsuit filed by nine people who suffered physical or emotional injuries during the two days of demonstrations."

Four years later. The wheels of justice are slow, but hopefully this means less incentive for violence in the future.

"But, he was the guy who was there. And he didn’t irrevocably screw it up. He didn’t get in the way. He didn’t turn the whole process into some kind of political Rorschach test."

Yep, so true. We have many things to be thankful for. Also true that we need more progress.

Meanwhile, these same political journalists are also handicapping the 2022 and 2024 elections as if things were normal — as if it were still just a choice between two equally legitimate political parties, rather than a referendum on whether the government should be allowed to function, whether the people should be allowed to pick their leaders in the future, and whether white Christian nationalism formally replaces pluralism as the country’s organizing principle.

It seems like journalists everywhere aren’t allowed to accurately describe how the Republican Party is behaving. This article demonstrates what a more accurate description looks like.

"Since July, the reduction in family poverty has been mostly sustained by monthly payments worth as much as $300 per child. The payments have lifted between 3 and 4 million children above the poverty line each month. “The sheer magnitude of just that number is not what we normally see on a regular basis, especially from a single policy,” Megan Curran, director of policy at Columbia’s Center on Poverty, said in an interview."

[this is good] (But the sub-headline should be the big part and the headline should be the small part.)

The $1 trillion infrastructure plan that President Joe Biden signed into law Monday has money for roads, bridges, ports, rail transit, safe water, the power grid, broadband internet and more.

[this is good]

"Herschel Walker, the former professional football player running for Senate in Georgia, is accused of repeatedly threatening his ex-wife’s life, but won Mr. Trump’s endorsement and appears to be consolidating party support behind his candidacy."

When there are no legal or professional consequences for domestic violence, violent people get promoted to powerful positions. Republicans admire a history of violence in their candidates.

"Specifically, they have refused to work with Democrats to pass legislation limiting state legislatures’ ability to overturn the results of future elections, to ensure that the federal government continues to have some say when states try to limit voting rights, to provide federal protection to state and local election workers who face threats, and in general to make clear to the nation that a bipartisan majority in the Senate opposes the subversion of the popular will. Why?"

I’m guessing personal ambition, fear of a violent base, or loss of lucrative post-politics career options are why constitution-minded Republicans are silent. We will continue to be in a constitutional crisis until we address the failed coup attempt and ensure consequences for the participants.

"Win or lose, their claim to be the sole authentic inheritors of the American tradition means they are the only ones who can legitimately govern and are therefore justified in seizing power by any means."

This is all out in the open. There should be political, legal, or professional consequences for the people who tried to subvert the election, but nope.

"One in four hospitals now reports more than 95 percent of I.C.U. beds occupied — up from one in five last month. Experts say it can become difficult to maintain standards of care for the sickest patients in hospitals where all or nearly all I.C.U. beds are occupied."

This was preventable.

"A one-year expansion of the U.S. child tax credit, a policy championed by President Joe Biden and his fellow Democrats over Republican opposition, has disproportionately benefited states that voted for former President Donald Trump in 2020, a Reuters review of Treasury Department data has found."

Not one Republican voted for it.

"Republican legislators in more than half of U.S. states, spurred on by voters angry about lockdowns and mask mandates, are taking away the powers that state and local officials use to protect the public against infectious diseases."

Republicans want people to die. If they didn't want to maximize deaths from the pandemic, how would their actions be different? The Republican party sure looks like a death cult from the outside.