Republicans Have Created a Pro-Life Dystopia https://t.co/rwGqdtKFL0 pic.twitter.com/sPJanu18QB

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) July 20, 2022

The shape of the post-Roe United States is swimming into view, and most of the worst predictions of pro-choice activists are coming true. Not only have tens of millions of women lost the right to choose whether or not to be pregnant, and not only are pregnant pre-teen rape victims being forced to travel to different states to get abortions, much medical care for people of all kinds is also under grave threat. The increasing pile of stories of care being denied, thanks in large part to lawyerly hesitation, are grisly and wholly predictable.

It’s increasingly clear that the anti-abortion right had no idea what they were about to inflict on the American people. But if the last few weeks are any judge, contact with reality will not cause them to moderate their views. On the contrary, they are already retreating into denial or even more deranged zealotry.

The political background here is wide public misunderstanding. As Alex Pareene once wrote, “the few who ardently oppose abortion have been able to skillfully exploit a certain squeamishness most Americans feel about the procedure that leads them to tell pollsters that abortion should only be legal ‘in certain circumstances.’” In particular, the anti-abortion’s hysterical rhetoric and policies around late-term abortions, and associated policies, created an impression that a significant portion of abortions come from women days who are from giving birth and abruptly decide they’d rather not, basically throwing a live infant in the garbage.

This is, of course, not remotely the case. The vast majority of abortions happen very early in the pregnancy, and the vast majority that happen later are because the fetus has irreparable medical problems or the health of the mother is threatened.

But now, with abortion banned with almost no exceptions in several states and de facto banned in many more, conservatives have crashed headlong into their own numerous—and this time very real—moral quandaries.

The most prominent story of late has been that of the 10-year-old rape victim in Ohio who had to flee to Indiana to end her pregnancy. The conservative reaction was instructive. When the story was originally published, conservatives from National Review to Fox News scoffed. Jesse Watters suggested it was probably a “hoax” and Tucker Carlson stated flatly it was “not true.” (They were helped along by Glenn Kessler at The Washington Post, who rarely misses a chance to beclown himself while trying to discredit the left.)

When it turned out that the child rape pregnancy really had happened, conservatives pivoted to attack. Watters—following the lead of his former boss Bill O’Reilly, who repeatedly accused Dr. George Tiller of being a “baby killer” until a right-wing terrorist assassinated him—claimed that the doctor who performed the abortion had failed to report both the rape and the abortion as required by state law, and had the Indiana attorney general on to announce that he was going to open a criminal investigation. (It later turned out that the doctor actually had done everything required by law. She is considering legal action.) The other attack was to emphasize the immigration status of the rapist, which has nothing to do with the ability of the child victim to obtain an abortion.

All this fits exactly with long habits of the conservative movement. For many years it has learned that it can always indulge its worst, most depraved instincts (like nominating Donald Trump for president), and almost never have to pay a price for them. The conservative bias of American institutions and the fecklessness and cowardice of their liberal opponents has reliably bailed them out. When faced with some disaster of their own creation, conservatives virtually always double down, deflect blame, attack their critics, and most of all claim victimhood for being criticized.

The womb of every person capable of pregnancy is a potential crime scene, and any food, drink, drug, sport, or hobby that might cause a miscarriage is a potential homicide weapon.

So it would be wrong to expect that conservatives will do anything to rectify the broader medical disaster that is taking shape across the country. While child rape pregnancies are not that uncommon in terms of raw numbers, as Lindsey Tanner reports for the Associated Press, the end of Roe is wreaking much broader havoc with all kinds of other medical care. In Ohio, at least two women reported that doctors would not treat them for ectopic pregnancies. In Texas, a woman suffering a miscarriage had to sit and wait, bleeding profusely, until she was judged close enough to death to get care. In Virginia, a woman with lupus was denied her methotrexate medication because it can also be used for abortions.

And as Sam Karlin reports at The Advocate, a Louisiana woman whose water recently broke at 16 weeks pregnant was denied an abortion-style extraction of the nonviable fetus, and instead had to suffer through an excruciating labor, after which she hemorrhaged a liter of blood.

This is simply the kind of thing that happens when one treats abortion as murder. The womb of every person capable of pregnancy is a potential crime scene, and any food, drink, drug, sport, or hobby that might cause a miscarriage is a potential homicide weapon. Women and girls become de facto second-class citizens.

Now, some of these problems are happening because these abortion bans are so vaguely written and lawyers are afraid to violate them. But from Texas to Louisiana, conservatives are fighting against any effort to clarify them. Instead, the groundwork is being laid to legally prevent women from traveling to liberal states to get abortions. A goal of a national ban has already been announced, consequences be damned. If history is any guide, the certain grotesque consequences from such a policy will be carefully downplayed and ignored in the right-wing media, and the victims subjected to harassment if not violence.

If that future is to be avoided, the fanatical anti-abortion minority that has seized control of the Republican Party and the Supreme Court must be defeated.

Great guy

Nothing like a couple of rich fucks setting around smoking cigars and criticizing people at their rock bottom.
And that last line? "Maybe you should just go S**T the homeless people" pic.twitter.com/eCp1HSkJj4

— 🥀_Imposter_🕸️ (@Imposter_Edits) July 16, 2022

Tom Segura: When you see stuff like that on the streets, at least in Los Angeles or California, that’s protected property. Like by law. That’s that’s person’s property by law.

Joe Rogan: Oh, a homeless person’s property is protected?

Segura: Absolutely. If you were to try to move that or take that—

Rogan: You’d get arrested. Hilarious. But they wouldn’t arrest you if you shot somebody. Maybe you should just go shoot the homeless people.

Segura: I like your ideas.

Rogan: And if nobody claims it. I mean nobody does anything about violent crime in LA anymore.

Some clilmate scientists try to be optimistic but the overwhelming weight of the evidence is that it‘s too late. The Most Powerful Nation In The History Of The World, overall, did less than nothing. @courierjournal #ClimateEmergency pic.twitter.com/bbNjk2MLpB

— Marc Murphy (@MurphyCartoons) July 19, 2022

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/07/20/big-pharma-has-raised-drug-prices-1186-times-year-analysis-shows

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry exercised its virtually unlimited pricing power to hike costs for patients again this month as Senate Democrats made progress toward a limited deal to regulate out-of-control prescription drug prices, which are forcing millions of people to ration their medication or go without it entirely.

A new analysis released Wednesday by Patients for Affordable Drugs estimates that pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. have raised drug prices 1,186 times so far this year, further padding their bottom lines while intensifying the already overwhelming cost burden for patients.

“Big Pharma continues to raise drug prices with no regard for the health and financial well-being of Americans.”

Patients for Affordable Drugs found that between June 24 and July 5, pharmaceutical companies increased prices for 133 products. Pfizer, for instance, hiked the cost of its leukemia medication Besponsa again this month, bringing its per-vial price tag to $21,056.

“This is Pfizer’s fourth hike on the cancer drug during the Covid-19 pandemic—even as the company enjoys record-shattering profits from its vaccine,” the analysis notes.

The patient group also spotlighted Amgen’s price hikes for its autoimmune disease drug Enbrel. The California-based firm’s price increases for the medication have exceeded even the record-high U.S. inflation rate.

Amgen’s two price hikes for Enbrel this year alone are particularly brazen given that the company has faced recent congressional scrutiny over its business practices.

“Americans are struggling with record inflation and the continued challenges of a pandemic,” David Mitchell, the founder of Patients for Affordable Drugs, said in a statement. “Yet Big Pharma continues to raise drug prices with no regard for the health and financial well-being of Americans.”

Russ Feingold

Of course, Durbin has said blue slips are staying.

Democratic senators have an urgent mission between now and the end of the year: confirm as many nominees to the administration and to the federal courts as possible.

Political forecasters currently give Republicans the edge to retake control of the Senate in the midterms. There is a good chance, if that happens, that few if any of President Joe Biden’s nominees will be confirmed after December. This could leave our federal courts with hundreds of vacancies for at least the next two years and leave the administration with dozens of people in “acting” roles. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell has given every indication that this would be his goal should he become majority leader, and he should be trusted to deliver given his record of doing just that during the Obama administration.

It’s time for Democrats to play procedural hardball, just as Republicans have done to put their stamp on the judiciary. As it becomes harder and harder to move legislation through the Senate, executive action and the courts will prove crucial to Biden’s legacy and to protecting fundamental civil rights in this country.

Here’s what the Senate (and White House) should do to prioritize moving nominees while they can: Cancel the August recess; immediately put forward judicial nominees to fill every vacancy in states with two Democratic senators; and be prepared to eliminate “blue slips” if Republican senators obstruct the confirmation process.

U.S. employers are charged with violating federal law in over 40% of all union election campaigns.

Read that back. 40%!

The PRO Act would strengthen protections for union organizers and put power in the hands of working people. Congress urgently needs to pass it.

— Robert Reich (@RBReich) July 19, 2022

"Inflation" is just another word for "record corporate profits." https://t.co/ZmLysbNUsy

— Randi Mayem Singer (@rmayemsinger) July 19, 2022

It appears to have worked. Ivey is beating Edwards 51-35 with 2/3 of the vote in.

https://www.democracynow.org/2022/7/18/headlines/aipac_pours_nearly_6m_into_maryland_primary_in_effort_to_defeat_donna_edwards

Today is the final full day of campaigning before Tuesday’s primary election in Maryland. In one closely watched race, former Congressmember Donna Edwards is seeking to win back her old seat in Maryland’s 4th Congressional District, outside of Washington, D.C. She is facing the corporate attorney Glenn Ivey, who has raised seven times as much money. The New York Times reports a new super PAC run by AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has spent nearly $6 million on the primary race in an attempt to defeat Edwards. Another group with ties to AIPAC, Democratic Majority for Israel, has spent over $425,000 to back Edwards’s opponent. The two groups also poured money into efforts to defeat other progressive Democrats, including Nina Turner in Ohio and Jessica Cisneros in Texas.

or not, seems Durbin is le tired https://t.co/zfmQ7AZg1I

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) July 20, 2022

real underrated legacy of the Russiagate story is it proved to the world that American institutions can be easily bought wholesale, and that's increasingly true of the Democrats too https://t.co/mm5dPSDBFt

— ryan cooper (@ryanlcooper) July 20, 2022