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Posted
Just now, bolverk said:

Apologies to you and the rest of the board for flying off the handle last night.

No apology necessary.  Say whatever you want to/about me.  All good.  Just thought it was weird to mention daughters.  I gotta bad feeling we're all gonna look back on this time as a relatively sane period in Texas/Surly history.  Shit gonna get a lot stranger before it gets remotely better.  

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Posted
1 hour ago, Aqua Buddha said:

This.  Look at the last few years.  The voters have seen through the nonsense about whatever the outrage of the day is (trans, "woke," etc.)  The Republicans have lost everything since Dobbs despite the media's redirection and we all know why.  Stories like this just make it more front and center and they'll keep happening.

Even Frank Luntz (normally a good pollster) got hoodwinked.  Turns out people were more mad about 10 year olds being forced to have a baby than they were $3/gallon gas.  Who would have thought?

If/when Texas flips or comes extremely close to it, it won't be because the Democrats pulled perfect candidates out of their asses, it'll be because Republicans can't stop taking victory laps after banning abortion.  And Paxton and Co. and counties like Lubbock and Goliad are more than happy to keep abortion front and center heading into election season. 

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Posted

^

this.  The tone of the double-down does not surprise me, but the timing does.  This won't effect Cruz or virtually any House race, nor the Statewide folks who aren't up until 2026 and have ample war chests.  It won't win Texas for Biden, but it will put a very marked dent in Texas as reliable EC stronghold for 2028 and be a fundraising narrative for literally 3+ years.  But what it really does is throw the MAGA stranglehold on the State Capitol into total disarray.  It's already susceptible.  There's been one shitty Abbott/MAGA/Patrick idea shot down one after another.  Not that the Democrats are going to take it back by any means, but the margins will be shredded, particularly among the far right lunatics.  This latest divisive issue plus an emboldened moderate like Phelan, Abbott thinks he was knee-capped this session?  He's gonna look like a buffoon moreso in 2025/26.  Unless they're all just doubling down on getting jobs in some shadow 2025/26 federal government in exile.  But again, these guys are assholes but they're not abject morons (except Patrick).  They can count.  They have to realize at some point, nobody is gonna swoop into Texas from the Trump administration and literally take all of them back to DC to be cabinet members and judicial appointees.  That's not how coaliitions are built.  

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Posted
Just now, BevoAbyss said:

The Texas Tribune is an intellectual fraud, pretending to be some high-brow journalistic endeavor. Like all the TV stations and newspapers in Texas (and 99% of America), the Texas Tribune has long been normalizing fascism and theocracy, bit by bit, under the cowardly position of being "objective" and fair to "both sides." Hell, I'll go further. They are enabling fascism/theocracy in their sheer intellectual bankruptcy and cowardice.

Wait, what?  Is this a bit?  Or royiv bagging on me via surrogate?  Texas Tribune is enabling fascism?  Seriously?  I've heard some shit in my day about Thornton and Evan, but never this beyond the pale.  They do extend themselves on some issues, against the evidence, to curry favor with corporate and wealthy donors.  But I've never heard even their most ardent critic label them with anything resembling their post.  But you are quite likely more privy to better intel about them than I.  I was proud to be one of their first 100 donors and have been a consistent supporter of theirs,  but to go any further would just get royivs cunt all up in arms again,  but please post if you've some inside baseball on their inner workings.  I guess now that I think about it, they have been unusually agnostic the last year or so on some serious shit.  But maybe that's just us projecting.  

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Posted
Just now, chainsaw said:

Not like he would know

glad somebody picked up on the joke.  Though i felt the paxton one was even better but that's why we elves workshop our material this time of year.  

Posted

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/12/13/abortion-drug-supreme-court-mifepristone-fda/?itid=hp-top-table-main_p001_f004

Quote

The Supreme Court will decide this term whether to limit access to a key abortion drug, returning the polarizing issue of reproductive rights to the high court for the first time since the conservative majority overturned Roe v. Wade last year.

The Biden administration and the manufacturer of mifepristone have asked the justices to overturn a lower-court ruling that would make it more difficult to obtain the medication, which is part of a two-drug regimen used in more than half of all abortions in the United States. Oral arguments will likely be scheduled for the spring, with a decision by the end of June, further elevating the issue of abortion, which has proven galvanizing for Democrats, during the 2024 campaign season.

The justices will review a decision from the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit that said the Food and Drug Administration did not follow proper procedures when it began loosening regulations for obtaining the mifepristone, which was first approved more than 20 years ago. The changes made over the last few years included allowing the drug to be taken later in pregnancy, to be mailed directly to patients and to be prescribed by a medical professional other than a doctor.

 

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Posted
57 minutes ago, mchookem said:
Quote

Even though Texas has a near-total ban, the proposed travel ordinances are the next fight for access. The so-called travel ban would outlaw the use of Amarillo’s roads to transport a pregnant person for an abortion in another state, opening the door for lawsuits from private Texans against anyone who “aids and abet” the procedure. The lawsuits are the only enforcement mechanism for the ordinance.

It’s the enforcement that these residents can’t look past. Amarillo civic leaders take pride in having a friendly, neighborly atmosphere in the community. Neighbors turning each other in to collect reward money seemingly goes against that, and some council members said in the first meeting they did not like that element of the ordinance.

Quote

“I’d say most people, even here in the heart of Trump Country, are against restrictive statutes,” said Ryan Brown, an Amarillo attorney. “As written, this ordinance further divides the citizens of Amarillo and will put citizens against each other.”

Quote

Mark Lee Dickson, director of Right to Life of East Texas and the anti-abortion activist behind the ordinance, previously told the Tribune that he believes it would hold up in court. "The abortion trafficking ordinances do not interfere with the right to travel," he wrote in a statement to The Texas Tribune. "The ordinances only impose penalties on those who are using roads within the county to traffic pregnant mothers across state lines for the purpose of an abortion."

In the days following the first meeting, Dickson shared on social media that Amarillo would be his primary base of operations for the time being.

Quote

So far, four counties — Lubbock, Cochran, Mitchell and Goliad — have passed the travel bans. Odessa, with a population of nearly 117,000, and Little-River Academy, a small town of 2,200, have also passed similar policies. Amarillo, with more than 200,000 residents, would be the most populous city in Texas to put a ban in place if it is approved.

It's only a matter of time before "private" citizens are monitoring who is going to New Mexico and maybe even where, and then filing lawsuits.

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Posted
16 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

It's only a matter of time before "private" citizens are monitoring who is going to New Mexico and maybe even where, and then filing lawsuits.

They'll be doing worse than that.

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Posted
3 minutes ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

 

I suggest everyone punch a Texas Republican in the cunt.

Reminds me of the old joke, "Why do they call it a cunt?"  

 

Because that's the sound makes when you kick it.  

Not to make light of the horrendous punishment Texas Republican Men are visiting upon Texas Women.  But I mean, this is Fonzi jumping the shark territory here with women blatantly and openly doing this shit to other women by voting this way.  It's one thing to vote for more God in schools or lower property taxes or whatever the fuck...but they are just being cruel to one another at this point.  Again, men are to blame but women are running a real fucking strong, close second at this point.  

royiv can chime in and neg rep me again because his yardsign campaign is going so well, and this will read as very sexist.  But here's what I don't get in this post-2015 ecosystem.  Why in the ever living fuck are Texas women doing this to one another?  Are Paxton and Patrick and Abbott these super sexy alpha males that control a broad in the bedroom and a bitch in the boardroom?  They're just lining up to donate and vote for these fucking assclowns who want to destroy young women's lives, literally.  Again, not blaming them exclusively...it's on men.  So go ahead and misquote me.  But what in the ever living fuck?  I mean, yeah we all shame people who do what we did years ago as young people and maybe have regrets about...but we're talking about millions of Texas women volunteering to fuck over millions of other Texas women.  And for fucking what?  What's the fucking end-game?  Please share with the rest of the class.  Because when the men you love and the men you vote for march you off to re-education camps..........what fucking difference will it make that you told yourself it was for Jesus or your daughters or for society?  

 

Mark my fucking words, you are the first people they will come for.  The collaborators are always the first to go because they're already inside the camps.  And I won't shed a fucking tear.  I will hold my daughters' hands as they strip you naked and enslave you.  And I will remind them that these are not strong women.  Women as a whole are stronger than your father.  But these were the weakest people and that's why they were used, that's they chose how they did, and that's why they're being taken away.  And I will fucking laugh my ass off into old age.  How men can do this to women?  Read a fucking book.  How women can do this to other women?  That's the fucked up part.  Vote for demise?  Don't come crying to me when it's at your doorstep asking for your papers you cunts.

Posted

The same reason poor Republicans vote against their own interests. They think they're sticking it to the "bad ones" and that nothing unfortunate will happen to them, so they need to go along to keep their place in their social structure.

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Posted
11 minutes ago, safe sex said:

The same reason poor Republicans vote against their own interests. They think they're sticking it to the "bad ones" and that nothing unfortunate will happen to them, so they need to go along to keep their place in their social structure.

Leopards eating faces.

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Posted
6 minutes ago, safe sex said:

The same reason poor Republicans vote against their own interests. They think they're sticking it to the "bad ones" and that nothing unfortunate will happen to them, so they need to go along to keep their place in their social structure.

I suppose the best explanation is often the simplest one.  As usual, you're right and as usual, my prize mistake is my lack of imagination.  I've known too many cruel man for a hundred lifetimes and I've been fortunate to know many strong women for a thousand lifetimes.  But I fail every fucking time to see the shitty ones coming because, like Henry Hill tells us, they come with a smile.  They come as your friends.  And that's why you help them put the revolver to your own temple.  

Will readily admit I was never terribly pro-choice, but was never that adamant about pro-life movements either.  Kinda just stayed out of it because I'm apparently not a physician and apparently do not have a uterus.  Just a guy who walks around in wonder of his wife and her strength.  Did I forecast men doing this to women?  Abso-fucking-lutely!  Did I suspect women doing this to one another voluntarily, and not just some Margaret Atwood epilogue?  Kinda.  But did I see them walking down the dark path with a smile and a hug?  Nope.  But that's how it happens.  They don't pick you up in a van with pinked out windows.  They pick you up as your friend, to comfort you in the name of Jesus, smaller government, and the betterment of your children's schools.  Because books give you ideas.  Reproductive and contraceptive rights give you free will.  Because equality means you're a human.  And you're not, your property.  And they will make it so.  And nothing I can do can change that.  My wife doesn't see it yet, but she's starting to.  My girls deserve a different fate than this Texas.  So I'm gonna stay and I'm gonna wreck some shit.  Glad to be on the right side of history, painful as it is...

Posted
It's only a matter of time before "private" citizens are monitoring who is going to New Mexico and maybe even where, and then filing lawsuits.

I wonder how it would work to just organize regular trips through Little River-Academy trying to bait people into reporting/suing people.

Maybe just shoe polish the car windows to say “New Mexico Abortion or Bust!”?
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Posted
On 12/12/2023 at 6:35 PM, YGIFS said:

Wait, what?  Is this a bit?  Or royiv bagging on me via surrogate?  Texas Tribune is enabling fascism?  Seriously?  I've heard some shit in my day about Thornton and Evan, but never this beyond the pale.  They do extend themselves on some issues, against the evidence, to curry favor with corporate and wealthy donors.  But I've never heard even their most ardent critic label them with anything resembling their post.  But you are quite likely more privy to better intel about them than I.  I was proud to be one of their first 100 donors and have been a consistent supporter of theirs,  but to go any further would just get royivs cunt all up in arms again,  but please post if you've some inside baseball on their inner workings.  I guess now that I think about it, they have been unusually agnostic the last year or so on some serious shit.  But maybe that's just us projecting.  

image.jpeg.a47d8e66f736e8e2a0a66d2941f0e108.jpeg

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Posted
23 minutes ago, scottsins said:


I wonder how it would work to just organize regular trips through Little River-Academy trying to bait people into reporting/suing people.

Maybe just shoe polish the car windows to say “New Mexico Abortion or Bust!”?

Or, “Ru4-86?”

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Posted
7 minutes ago, elfenix said:

stayed in my car to finish that one.  tough listen.  the daily has had a lot of tough listens lately.

True. 
 

Abortion, 10/7, subsequent Gaza war, and Sleepy Joe trailing Trump had really made my The Daily consumption a fun commute listen

Posted
1 hour ago, scottsins said:

I wonder how it would work to just organize regular trips through Little River-Academy trying to bait people into reporting/suing people.

Maybe just shoe polish the car windows to say “New Mexico Abortion or Bust!”?

"As far as you know, we're not going to New Mexico for an abortion!"

But yeah, if Lubbock County, if Amarillo, etc. are going to create these laws to entice Texans to sue one another, they need to be trolled.

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Posted
5 hours ago, safe sex said:

The same reason poor Republicans vote against their own interests. They think they're sticking it to the "bad ones" and that nothing unfortunate will happen to them, so they need to go along to keep their place in their social structure.

it's actually a later step in the autocratic process: establish the other. castigate and oppress the other. appeal to a moral authority by finding "good ones" of the other and give them soap and eggs and other items through a forced scarcity. then use the "good ones" to do the really bad shit to the others so you don't have to get your hands dirty. has the side benefit of making the good others kill the bad others and clean up the mess, thus establishing to the good others that they are still an other underclass subject to such treatment themselves if they aren't good little snitches and bullies of others in their condition. 

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, cactusflinthead said:

 

I won’t say I wish someone would shoot him in the head. But, a bullet, or better yet, a tire iron through one of his car windows, to change his smug sense of safety….

Is that asking too much?

Edited by Willfully Horn
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Posted

https://www.msn.com/en-US/news/us/black-ohio-woman-criminally-charged-after-miscarriage-underscores-the-perils-of-pregnancy-postroe/ar-AA1lAZEk?ocid=sapphireappshare

Quote

Whether abortion-seekers should face criminal charges is a matter of debate within the anti-abortion community, but, post-Dobbs, pregnant women like Watts, who was not even trying to get an abortion, have increasingly found themselves charged with “crimes against their own pregnancies,” said Grace Howard, assistant justice studies professor at San José State University.

 

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Posted
On 12/15/2023 at 6:43 AM, wildcat09 said:

Anyone who is wasting serious time and energy blaming the Texas Tribune for normalizing fascism has a few screws loose.

I don’t know if they are the worst perpetrators, but it seems like a solid observation in general. You of all people know this. This shit has been normalized since the press couldn’t call dotard a liar in 2017 when he said his inauguration was the largest ever. “Alternative facts” out front should have told you. 

Posted
7 hours ago, tx 3 putt said:

All fetuses are not created equal …..


 

 

It's not about babies or fetuses. It never has been. 

It's about putting women in their place and exerting power over them. 

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Posted

Texas Companies Say Republicans Are Ruining Their Business

A coalition of Texas businesses have said ambiguity over abortion bans in the Lone Star State is making recruitment harder, following the near all-out ban enacted by Republicans.

An amicus brief originally filed by law firm Reed Smith and signed by 40 Texas companies was filed in support of 22 women who are suing the state of Texas over its abortion laws. Numerous businesses have endorsed the letter. These include dating platforms such as Bumble and Match Group (owner of Match.com and Tinder); prominent advertising agencies Preacher and GSD&M; event organizers SXSW; and the United States Women's Chamber of Commerce, along with various Texas real-estate companies, law firms, and restaurant groups.

The companies say that Texas abortion laws render the state less appealing for families considering relocating to a place where they can comfortably start a family. The Texas Legislature, dominated by Republican representatives, passed a trigger law on abortion in 2021. It is currently illegal to have an abortion after a fetus has a heartbeat, which typically occurs around six weeks, often before the woman knows she is pregnant, unless there is a significant threat to the mother's life. The overturning of Roe vs. Wade by the Supreme Court in 2022 gave states the power to limit abortion access.

Those in Texas seeking abortion services at any point in pregnancy will now need to travel outside the state, explore options beyond U.S., resort to illegal means, or to carry the unwanted pregnancy to term. Birth control and emergency contraceptives, such as Plan B, are distinct from the medications used for inducing abortion and continue to be legally accessible.

Abortion access has been popular among voters in the wake of Roe vs. Wade ending. Numerous polls have found majority support for abortion rights in most states, red or blue, and every state-level election concerning the matter in the last year has seen voters come out strongly in support of protecting access to abortion. In the November 2022 midterms, for example, voters rejected anti-abortion ballot measures in Kentucky and Montana.

The plaintiffs in the Zurawski vs. Texas case are former patients who say that they were denied medically necessary abortions due to physicians being scared of potential legal ramifications. The amicus brief filed in support says the ban "has impacted, and will continue to impact, companies doing business in Texas, companies thinking about doing business in Texas, employees living in or traveling to Texas, and individuals considering relocating to Texas."

The brief adds: "Because of those undeniable realities, businesses are now forced to confront this issue head on—not for moral or legal reasons—but to keep the lights on and people working, making money."

"As a multinational, publicly traded tech company led by many women, we feel it's our duty not just to provide our workforce with access to reproductive health care, but to speak out – and speak loudly – against the retrogression of women's rights," said Whitney Wolfe Herd, founder, executive chair, and former CEO of Bumble. "Texas's confusing medical exceptions increase business costs, drive away talent, and threaten workforce diversity and well-being. We must unequivocally support equal rights for our employees and customers to make their own reproductive choices."

Bumble's filing cites research indicating that almost half of young women in nine battleground states are either contemplating or actively planning a move to a state offering "comprehensive protections" for reproductive health care. The filing highlights that nearly two-thirds of college-educated workers across the nation would not contemplate employment in a state with abortion restrictions.

In 2022, research conducted by nonprofit The Institute for Women's Policy Research found that across America "currently employed women aged 15 to 44 would gain $101.8 billion in higher earnings annually" if state level restrictions on abortion didn't exist.

On December 7, Texas Governor Greg Abbott lauded Texas' "continuing economic momentum" as the Bureau of Economic Analysis revealed the Texas economy expanded "faster than the nation as a whole for the fourth quarter in a row."

"Opportunity knows no bounds in Texas, thanks to the hardworking men and women of this great state," Gov. Abbott said. "Texas' continuing economic expansion, well ahead of the United States as a whole for the fourth quarter in a row, is further proof that when given the freedom to aspire, businesses invest and people prosper. Together, we continue to build a bigger, bolder Texas of tomorrow."

Posted (edited)
39 minutes ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

Fucking finally. The cowardly silence of corporations has been deafening in the last few years. At least this is something.

 

giphy more-kylo-ren.gif

Edited by TeeDubya
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Posted
1 hour ago, ChuckNorrisActionJeans said:

Fucking finally. The cowardly silence of corporations has been deafening in the last few years. At least this is something.

Just had to wait until it became unprofitable to treat women like chattel for the slightest of objections to be heard

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Posted

I've commented upon this before but once again--the taxpayers of this state subsidized my childrens' education and they have decided that opportunities and a healthier future lie outside of its confines. Despite being recruited to work and reside here, they said, "yeah, no" and are working and living elsewhere. Once we retire, we will likely go somewhere within easy travel to wherever they are but it's not likely to be here. Investment in people yields dividends that are difficult but not impossible to be enumerated with a dollar value but I'd say that Abbott's (and the GOP's) short term thinking will ultimately end up with a state where the uppermost classes may have the usual gripes but for everyone else, life will be a struggle for resources. Not that unusual, but exacerbated by shrinking access to adequate health care, education, and wages among other things. The punitive measures that follow desperation will, of course, be blamed upon the very victims that these situations engender. IOW, the usual ethos of having laws that bind some and protect others. Lather, rinse, repeat. Why would any female or those that care about females in their family/friend group with the means to escape wish to remain? It's not like the drive to remove the ability for women to have agency is going to improve....

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Posted
On 12/19/2023 at 7:56 PM, Mrs Whiggins said:

I've commented upon this before but once again--the taxpayers of this state subsidized my childrens' education and they have decided that opportunities and a healthier future lie outside of its confines. Despite being recruited to work and reside here, they said, "yeah, no" and are working and living elsewhere. Once we retire, we will likely go somewhere within easy travel to wherever they are but it's not likely to be here. Investment in people yields dividends that are difficult but not impossible to be enumerated with a dollar value but I'd say that Abbott's (and the GOP's) short term thinking will ultimately end up with a state where the uppermost classes may have the usual gripes but for everyone else, life will be a struggle for resources. Not that unusual, but exacerbated by shrinking access to adequate health care, education, and wages among other things. The punitive measures that follow desperation will, of course, be blamed upon the very victims that these situations engender. IOW, the usual ethos of having laws that bind some and protect others. Lather, rinse, repeat. Why would any female or those that care about females in their family/friend group with the means to escape wish to remain? It's not like the drive to remove the ability for women to have agency is going to improve....


my career is heavily tied to the coast, from corpus to new orleans or else id be out of here 



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