Contraception is next

Two weeks, right?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's coming (BACK) if you keep electing Republicans

In Justice Clarence Thomas' concurring opinion on the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overturned Roe, he opined that the Supreme Court should revisit precedents that codified same-sex marriage, same-sex relationships and the right to contraception.

[...]

In 1965, 26 states prohibited birth control for unmarried women. Griswold vs. Connecticut paved the way for legal contraception in the 1970s; overturning it could have an impact on access to birth control nationwide.

[...]

Earlier this month, U.S. legislators had a chance to codify access to birth control by passing the Right to Contraception Act. Specifically, it would have guaranteed the right of an individual "to obtain contraceptives and to voluntarily engage in contraception."

The legislation also would have protected the right of licensed health care providers to provide contraceptives, services and information related to contraception." It also would have prohibited any laws that impede access to birth control. All but two Senate Republicans voted against it.

  MSN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Are they TRYING to lose votes?

Like abortion was, right?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 10:07 pm:

January 1, 2024

The Taliban may have just saved contraception in the US

We know Clarence Thomas (at least) would like to ban contraception in the US. Maybe that just became impossible. At least until people forget this:

Taliban fighters have stopped the sale of contraceptives in two of Afghanistan’s main cities, claiming their use by women is a western conspiracy to control the Muslim population.

The Guardian has learned that the Taliban has been going door to door, threatening midwives and ordering pharmacies to clear their shelves of all birth control medicines and devices.

[...]

It is the latest attack on women’s rights by the Taliban who, since coming to power in August 2021, have ended higher education for girls, closed universities to young women, forced women out of their jobs and restricted their ability to leave their homes. Restricting contraceptives will be a significant blow in a country with an already fragile healthcare system.

  Guardian

MAGA must be so jealous.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Be careful when ordering "abortion pills" online

Online pharmacies that sell abortion pills are sharing sensitive data with Google and other third parties, which may allow law enforcement to prosecute those who use the medications to end their pregnancies, a ProPublica analysis has found.

[...]

ProPublica found web trackers on the sites of at least nine online pharmacies that provide pills by mail: Abortion Ease, BestAbortionPill.com, PrivacyPillRX, PillsOnlineRX, Secure Abortion Pills, AbortionRx, Generic Abortion Pills, Abortion Privacy and Online Abortion Pill Rx.

These third-party trackers, including a Google Analytics tool and advertising technologies, collect a host of details about users and feed them to tech behemoth Google, its parent company, Alphabet, and other third parties, such as the online chat provider LiveChat. Those details include the web addresses the users visited, what they clicked on, the search terms they used to find a website, the previous site they visited, their general location and information about the devices they used, such as whether they were on a computer or phone.

[...]

[T]he nine sites are also sending data to Google that can potentially identify users, ProPublica’s analysis found, including a random number that is unique to a user’s browser, which can then be linked to other collected data.

  ProPublica

I'd say at the least, do your searching and ordering using non-tracking and privatizing browsers.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

No surprise here

One week after the federal government made it easier to get abortion pills, Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall said Tuesday that women in Alabama who use those pills to end pregnancies could be prosecuted.

That’s despite wording in Alabama’s new Human Life Protection Act that criminalizes abortion providers and prevents its use against the people receiving abortions. Instead, the attorney general’s office said Alabama could rely on an older law, one initially designed to protect children from meth lab fumes.

“The Human Life Protection Act targets abortion providers, exempting women ‘upon whom an abortion is performed or attempted to be performed’ from liability under the law,” Marshall said in an emailed statement. “It does not provide an across-the-board exemption from all criminal laws, including the chemical-endangerment law—which the Alabama Supreme Court has affirmed and reaffirmed protects unborn children.”

[...]

Lawmakers passed the chemical endangerment law in 2006 to protect small children from fumes and chemicals from home-based meth labs. District attorneys soon began applying the law to protect the fetuses of women who used various drugs during pregnancy. Justices on the Alabama Supreme Court upheld and affirmed prosecutions of pregnant people in 2013 and 2014.

Since then, the law has been used against more than a thousand Alabama women who used drugs during pregnancy.

  AL.com

Unfuckingbelievable.

And they're not "abortion pills".  They're pregnancy prevention pills.  They're contraception.  This may well go to the Supreme Court, where it will be used to chip away at contraception rights.  

UPDATE:

This is silly, but it's also indicative of how loose our laws and regulations can be.  The HOV lanes are meant as a measure to cut down on carbon emissions from automobiles on the highway.  The only way it does that is if the two or more people in the vehicle have driver's licenses and therefore could otherwise be driving a separate vehicle.  But any two people apparently give cover to drive in the HOV lane.  I guess it would be too hard to enforce if they had to know whether the other people were licensed drivers.  But we can be damned sure the other "person" in a pregnant woman's car isn't.

Mobile vasectomy clinic now touring Missouri

Better get yours while contraception is still legal.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

American fascists at work

Condoms should only be provided to students to prevent sexually transmitted infections, not as birth control, according to a memo sent by the University of Idaho to staff last week.

The memo, first obtained by the Idaho Press and issued to all employees on Friday, laid out the university’s reproductive policies following the enactment of Idaho’s abortion law, which bans the procedure in nearly all cases.

  Guardian

They also can't prevent pregnancy? Jesus Tapdancing Christ. 

 But wait...

The memo further warned employees that they could not speak in support of abortion ...

They can't even talk about supporting abortion. What the ever-loving fuck. Is this America or Stalinist Russia?

... and should “proceed cautiously at any time that a discussion moves in the direction of reproductive health."

Let's not discuss reproductive health at all. We might accidentally mention abortion. FFS.

The advice on birth control was included because of the law’s lack of clarity on “prevention of conception”, the university said, according to the Idaho Capital Sun.

[...]

It warned that any staff recommending abortion to students risked a felony conviction and could be banned from any future state employment.

MAGA. Unbelievable. Staff - and students - should find another university.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Not a good sign

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

#PoliceLivesMatter

Don't forget Eric Reid.

The Santa Clara police union has sent a letter to the San Francisco 49ers, warning that police might stop working the team's home games due to Colin Kaepernick's statements on police brutality and his wearing of socks during a practice that showed cartoon pigs dressed as police officers.

The letter, obtained by NBC Bay Area, states that if the 49ers do not discipline Kaepernick, "it could result in police officers choosing not to work at your facilities."

The letter also states that "the Santa Clara Police Officers' Association has a duty to protect its members and work to make all of their working environments free of harassing behavior."

[...]

The team reiterated Friday night that it stands behind Kaepernick and respects his right not to participate in celebrating the national anthem.

  ESPN

No police officer has been "harassed" by Colin Kaepernick.

Here's my take on the Santa Clara Police Union: officers working 49ers events are getting paid above their regular salaries as police officers.  Some other off-duty or retired officers will happily step in and pick up any slack left by Santa Clara officers who don't want to work the games.

Police officers work protest events, for Pete's sake, and without extra pay. If there's a Black Lives Matter march in Santa Clara county, there are police officers in the regular course of their duties guarding them.

In fact, regular boozed-up fan brawls are actually the dangerous part of any pro sports policing job. Is somebody needing a hug? #PoliceLivesMatter.

I don't know what these guys make today, but in 2013, it was $55/hour. Here's a job listing in the San Jose Mercury News when the stadium opened:

SANTA CLARA -- Looking for some overtime? Have a gun and a badge? Want to get paid for soaking in the atmosphere of a San Francisco 49ers game?

You're in luck: With Levi's Stadium set to open next summer, Santa Clara officials are looking to hire 120 police officers for stadium duty.

[...]

In addition to preventing and breaking up fights, the Levi's Stadium officers will direct traffic, make sure vehicles are not parked illegally, look out for DUIs and haul unruly fans to a jail being built below the stands.

[...]

The pay for the part-time gig is $55 an hour.

  Mercury News

Yes, being a police officer is a highly dangerous, underpaid and often thankless job.  But nobody makes anybody else be a police officer.  You choose to become a police officer for whatever reasons you have.  You know what the job entails.  Police officers don't get to pick and choose which citizens they'll protect (at least not theoretically).  Policing the 49ers games is a nicely paid "gig" funded from stadium revenue.

If there are Santa Clara police officers who are assigned to the stadium in the course of their normal duties, I take some of this rant back in their case.  But the crux remains the same: you're a police officer.  Your job is policing.  I bet you don't threaten to withdraw from KKK or Nazi Party events.  And if you feel like police officers themselves are threatened in any situation, I'm damned sure you don't withdraw.  You double down.

Officers as American citizens have a right to protest, but so do football players, and officers are not going to quit working the 49ers games because of Colin Kaepernick.  The Santa Clara union is showboating.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Full disclosure: I have two sons - one a former police officer and the other a current police officer.

2nd Amendment Rights

Micah Johnson, the man who shot Dallas police officers served in the US Army Reserve in Afghanistan and was a member of - or "liked", depending on what you read - the New Black Panthers.






...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Blacks and the Clintons

Hillary is looking to gain momentum on the campaign trail as the primaries move out of Iowa and New Hampshire and into states like South Carolina, where large pockets of black voters can be found. According to some polls, she leads Bernie Sanders by as much as 60 percent among African Americans. It seems that we—black people—are her winning card, one that Hillary is eager to play.

And it seems we’re eager to get played. Again.

[...]

The love affair between black folks and the Clintons has been going on for a long time. It began back in 1992, when Bill Clinton was running for president. [...] When Toni Morrison dubbed him our first black president, we nodded our heads.

[...]

 It’s true that we eventually lined up behind Barack Obama in 2008, but it’s a measure of the Clinton allure that Hillary led Obama among black voters until he started winning caucuses and primaries. [...]  This time she’s facing a democratic socialist who promises a political revolution that will bring universal healthcare, a living wage, an end to rampant Wall Street greed, and the dismantling of the vast prison state—many of the same goals that Martin Luther King Jr. championed at the end of his life. Even so, black folks are sticking with the Clinton brand.

 What have the Clintons done to earn such devotion?

[...]

 On the campaign trail, Bill Clinton made the economy his top priority and argued persuasively that conservatives were using race to divide the nation and divert attention from the failed economy. In practice, however, he capitulated entirely to the right-wing backlash against the civil-rights movement and embraced former president Ronald Reagan’s agenda on race, crime, welfare, and taxes—ultimately doing more harm to black communities than Reagan ever did.

[...]

Hillary wasn’t picking out china while she was first lady. She [...] wielded power and significant influence once he was elected, lobbying for legislation and other measures. That record, and her statements from that era, should be scrutinized. In her support for the 1994 crime bill, for example, she used racially coded rhetoric to cast black children as animals. “They are not just gangs of kids anymore,” she said. “They are often the kinds of kids that are called ‘super-predators.’ No conscience, no empathy. We can talk about why they ended up that way, but first we have to bring them to heel.”

Both Clintons now express regret over the crime bill, and Hillary says she supports criminal-justice reforms to undo some of the damage that was done by her husband’s administration. But on the campaign trail, she continues to invoke the economy and country that Bill Clinton left behind as a legacy she would continue.

[...]

[G]overnment statistics like poverty and unemployment rates do not include incarcerated people. As Harvard sociologist Bruce Western explains: “Much of the optimism about declines in racial inequality and the power of the US model of economic growth is misplaced once we account for the invisible poor, behind the walls of America’s prisons and jails.” When Clinton left office in 2001, the true jobless rate for young, non-college-educated black men (including those behind bars) was 42 percent. This figure was never reported.

[...]

To make matters worse, the federal safety net for poor families was torn to shreds by the Clinton administration in its effort to “end welfare as we know it.” In his 1996 State of the Union address, given during his re-election campaign, Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and immediately sought to prove it by dismantling the federal welfare system known as Aid to Families With Dependent Children (AFDC).

[...]

 Experts and pundits disagree about the true impact of welfare reform, but one thing seems clear: Extreme poverty doubled to 1.5 million in the decade and a half after the law was passed.

[...]

 Billions of dollars were slashed from public-housing and child-welfare budgets and transferred to the mass-incarceration machine. By 1996, the penal budget was twice the amount that had been allocated to food stamps. During Clinton’s tenure, funding for public housing was slashed by $17 billion (a reduction of 61 percent) [...]  according to sociologist Loïc Wacquant “effectively making the construction of prisons the nation’s main housing program for the urban poor.”

[...]

The Clinton administration eliminated Pell grants for prisoners seeking higher education to prepare for their release, supported laws denying federal financial aid to students with drug convictions, and signed legislation imposing a lifetime ban on welfare and food stamps for anyone convicted of a felony drug offense.

[...]

It is difficult to overstate the damage that’s been done. Generations have been lost to the prison system; countless families have been torn apart or rendered homeless; and a school-to-prison pipeline has been born that shuttles young people from their decrepit, underfunded schools to brand-new high-tech prisons.

[...]

If you listen closely here, you’ll notice that Hillary Clinton is still singing the same old tune in a slightly different key. She is arguing that we ought not be seduced by Bernie’s rhetoric because we must be “pragmatic,” “face political realities,” and not get tempted to believe that we can fight for economic justice and win.

[...]

[R]ecognizing that Bernie, like Hillary, has blurred vision when it comes to race is not the same thing as saying their views are equally problematic. Sanders opposed the 1996 welfare-reform law. He also opposed bank deregulation and the Iraq War, both of which Hillary supported, and both of which have proved disastrous. In short, there is such a thing as a lesser evil, and Hillary is not it.

  Michelle Alexander

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Again?

The president made one compromise before he was re-elected, even though he didn't have to, and then he got re-elected with a whopping gender gap because he stood up for the right of ladies to manage their own ladyparts free from Bible-banging interference. Now, with absolutely nothing to lose, we have another compromise, this one open to all sorts of new mischief no matter how often we are told that the new deal merely "simplifies" the problem and brings the act into more complete compliance with IRS guidelines.

  Charlie Pierce

So, tell me, Charlie, how many “unnecessary compromises” does Obama have to make before you realize he's not actually compromising, but getting what he wants?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Women, Wages & War

Asked about the “war on women,” [Barack Obama] politely declined the opportunity to declare himself and the Democratic Party to be on the side of the women: “Women are going to make up their own mind in this election about who is advancing the issues that they care most deeply about.”

He went on:

there are millions of strong women around the country who are going to make their own determination about a whole range of issues. It’s not going to be narrowly focused just on contraception. It’s not going to be driven by one statement by one radio announcer. It is going to be driven by their view of what’s most likely to make sure they can help support their families, make their mortgage payments; who’s got a plan to ensure that middle-class families are secure over the long term; what’s most likely to result in their kids being able to get the education they need to compete. ... So I’m not somebody who believes that women are going to be single-issue voters.

Notice how quickly he moved to non-gender-specific issues like mortgages and education. He’s just not comfortable with the notion that women might vote based on their interests as women. He’d rather talk to them about mortgages and “a whole range of issues” than reassure them about their reproductive autonomy.

  WIIIAI

What I noticed was that in going to the issue of mortgages he blithely slipped through “help support their families” as though it is just as natural as the day is long that women have to work outside the home to bring in enough income to support a family.

All these “single issue” topics may not be so single. With this latest hot topic of women's right to contraceptives and all the muddy waters around it, including the Tea Party mentality that supports presidential candidates who most loudly rail against women in modern society forsaking the commandments of God, I don't see anyone relating the cost of war to the incidence of women in the work force. Surely it's there? I realize this position would be as fraught with confusing statistics and ideals as any, but I wonder if there aren't data to support the theory that family women are forced into the marketplace to support the country's “defense” industry during its costly wars.

It wasn't always this way. In our past, women have had the ability to choose whether to stay at home and raise their children or go to work to earn a wage. Young people may not know that. Politicians would like us to forget it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Doonesbury

Starting Monday, amid heated debate about pre-termination ultrasound and sonogram bills in Virginia and Texas, [Doonesbury creator Garry] Trudeau, whose comic strip has about 1,400 clients, will tackle the politically sensitive issue of abortion head-on.

“To ignore it,” Trudeau told The Washington Post, “would have been comedy malpractice.”

[...]

”Texas’s HB-15 [bill] isn’t hard to explain: The bill says that in order for a woman to obtain a perfectly legal medical procedure, she is first compelled by law to endure a vaginal probe with a hard, plastic 10-inch wand [Doonesbury's “shaming wand”]. The World Health Organization defines rape as “physically forced or otherwise coerced penetration — even if slight — of the vulva or anus, using a penis, other body parts or an object.” You tell me the difference.

[...]

”Roe v. Wade was decided while I was still in school. Planned Parenthood was embraced by both parties. Contraception was on its way to being used by 99 percent of American women. I thought reproductive rights was a settled issue.”

  WaPo

Not as long as there's a Christian right breath to be taken and a political or media whore to encourage it.