Audio of Supreme Court oral arguments will be broadcast live starting at 10 am Eastern on 12/1

You can listen to it here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/live.aspx

I'm worried, y'all. Even if Roe is struck down, abortion will still be legal in some states, including mine, but a lot of this country will be screwed. Ugh.

I will always remember 2016 as a nightmare year.

I was one of those who rolled my eyes when TFG announced his run for the presidency in 2015. I thought he was a ridiculous buffoon and couldn't imagine him getting very far. I did not take him at all seriously, and once the debates started, my opinion of him kept dropping lower and lower as he said and did one ridiculous and horrifying thing after another.

As time went on, things got weirder and weirder. And then....he actually nailed the nomination.

I knew I couldn't keep dismissing him outright once it became clear that his name was going to be on the ballot in the general election. Still, I didn't see how he could possibly get elected. But we all know what happened, and I was absolutely gutted (and totally baffled) by the 2016 election results. Of course, we now know that he had loads of help from Putin and his bot farm minions, but at the time it just seemed inexplicable.

The rest, as they say, is history. His entire presidency was like a trip down a rabbit hole to a place that was a cross between Dante's Inferno and a carnival sideshow. So yeah, 2016 was when it felt like everything changed, for me. There were certainly earlier signs that things were headed in a bad direction, but 2016 was when it felt REAL to me that something crucial was, for lack of a better word, broken.

I hadn't realized what today's date was until I saw this post.

Then I looked at the calendar and went, "OH."

I was in 13 and in 8th grade. When the news came through that the president had been shot, they started playing the news over the p.a. system. I remember sitting in study hall after lunch, listening to the news, and wondering whether he was going to die or not. (Of course, he was already dead, but it was a while before they announced that he had passed.)

After study hall, I went to my home ec class, where we girls worked on our sewing projects while continuing to listen to the radio. (The boys were in shop class at that time.) That's where I was when they finally announced that he was dead, and I remember what a huge shock it was. My memories are hazy after that, but I know they must have canceled school for the rest of the day, and sent us home. I also know we didn't have school for a few days after that, probably for the rest of that week.

I don't remember any of the kids in my class saying anything mean, but I remember my sister (age 8/3rd grade) crying because of a smart remark one of her friends made.

The next thing I remember clearly is watching the funeral procession on TV a few days later. I was absolutely spellbound watching that solemn procession with the riderless horse and little John John saluting. The main thing I remember is feeling so sorry for those two poor little kids who had lost their daddy.

The Kennedy assassination and the Cuban Missile Crisis the year before are two of my most vivid memories from junior high, both deeply etched in my memory, even though a lot of the details have faded over the years.

No.

Like many other things in life, this is a matter where the right answer is not the same for every individual.

I've never owned a gun, and I don't ever want to own one. It's never been my thing, and it's not going to suddenly become my thing after 70+ years on this planet. Anyone who wants to "arm up" is welcome to do so, but please count me out.

I am not opposed to responsible gun ownership, it's just not for me. It's one thing if you're used to handling firearms and being around them. I'm not, and at this point in my life, I have no interest in getting used to it. Being able to defend oneself sounds good in theory, but I know it wouldn't work that way for me. I'm enough of a klutz that I'd be as likely to shoot off my own foot or take out an innocent bystander as I would be to stop some crazed MAGAt in his tracks.

Not going to do it, sorry. If one of those assholes is sick and crazy enough to shoot a harmles, unarmed, little old lady, then I guess I'm just SOL.

Comedy Wildlife Photo Awards 2021 winners and finalists.

Doonesbury, Sunday, November 7, 2021

Search isn't working for me right now, but this hasn't been posted, as far as I can tell.

About that new antiviraldrug for covid...

Has anyone heard how the antivax crowd is reacting to the news about the new antiviral drug for covid? I'm just wondering if they're going to be willing to take it if they get covid. Seeing as how it was developed by the company (Pfizer) that makes one of the vaccines they don't trust any farther than they can throw a grand piano, will they mistrust the antiviral, too?

The way I see it, if they accept that drug, they will no longer have any excuse to refuse the vaccine, and we can all point and laugh at them.

I'll be interested to see how this shakes out.

Oh, okay.

So it sounds like you're saying we should all just give up, because it's already over, we've already lost everything, nothing good can possibly happen, ever again, etc.

If that's NOT what you intended to convey, then please feel free to clarify. That's exa ctlyvwhzt it sounded like to me.

And if that IS what you meant to convey or not, I refuse to accept it, because that way lies nothing but gloom, doom, and defeat. If I believed that, I wouldn't even be posting here. I would literally be researching painless methods of suicide and buying a bunch of life insurance so that my husband could have something to live on comfortably when I'm gone. Because I would really not see much point in sticking around any longer than I have to.

Don't worry, folks, I am NOT suicidal. I promise! The point I'm trying to make is that if I let myself start thinking as negatively as some of the posts here sound, I probably WOULD be suicidal before long -- and I am too damned ornery and scrappy to go there.

How extremist Christian theology is driving the right-wing assault on democracy (and repro rights)

I just posed this link in a comment, and it dawned me that it really deserves its own OP.

How extremist Christian theology is driving the right-wing assault on democracy
The Texas abortion law is one step toward the true goal of Christian dominionism: Destroying democratic government

Progressive policies and positions are supposed to be rooted in reality and hard evidence. But that's not always the case when it comes to the culture wars that have such an enormous impact on our politics — especially not since the unexpected evangelical embrace of Donald Trump in 2016, culminating in the "pro-life" death cult of anti-vaccine, COVID-denying religious leaders. If this development perplexed many on the left, it was less surprising to a small group of researchers who have been studying the hardcore anti-democratic theology known as dominionism that lies behind the contemporary Christian right, and its far-reaching influence over the last several decades.

One leading figure within that small group, Rachel Tabachnick, was featured in a recent webinar hosted by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (see video, below) archived on YouTube as part of its Religion and Repro Learning Series program (https://rcrc.org/learning-center/ ), overseen by the Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson. Tabachnick's writing on dominionism can be found at Talk2Action and Political Research Associates, and she's been interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Her presentation sheds important light on at least three things: First of all, the vigilante element of the Texas anti-abortion law SB 8. Second, the larger pattern of disrupting or undermining governance, including the "constitutional sheriffs" movement, the installation of overtly partisan election officials and the red-state revolt against national COVID public health policies. While Donald Trump has exploited that pattern ruthlessly, he did not create it. And third, the seemingly baffling fact that an anti-democratic minority feels entitled to accuse its opponents — including democratically elected officials — of "tyranny."

Some dominionist ideas — such as the biblical penalty of death by stoning — are so extreme they can easily be dismissed as fringe, others have been foundational to the modern religious right, and still more have become increasingly influential in recent years. Those latter two categories are what we need to understand most, say both Tabachnick and Jackson.

How extremist Christian theology is driving the right-wing assault on democracy

I just posed this link in a comment, and it dawned me that it really deserves its own OP.

How extremist Christian theology is driving the right-wing assault on democracy
The Texas abortion law is one step toward the true goal of Christian dominionism: Destroying democratic government

Progressive policies and positions are supposed to be rooted in reality and hard evidence. But that's not always the case when it comes to the culture wars that have such an enormous impact on our politics — especially not since the unexpected evangelical embrace of Donald Trump in 2016, culminating in the "pro-life" death cult of anti-vaccine, COVID-denying religious leaders. If this development perplexed many on the left, it was less surprising to a small group of researchers who have been studying the hardcore anti-democratic theology known as dominionism that lies behind the contemporary Christian right, and its far-reaching influence over the last several decades.

One leading figure within that small group, Rachel Tabachnick, was featured in a recent webinar hosted by the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (see video, below) archived on YouTube as part of its Religion and Repro Learning Series program (https://rcrc.org/learning-center/ ), overseen by the Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson. Tabachnick's writing on dominionism can be found at Talk2Action and Political Research Associates, and she's been interviewed by Terry Gross on Fresh Air.

Her presentation sheds important light on at least three things: First of all, the vigilante element of the Texas anti-abortion law SB 8. Second, the larger pattern of disrupting or undermining governance, including the "constitutional sheriffs" movement, the installation of overtly partisan election officials and the red-state revolt against national COVID public health policies. While Donald Trump has exploited that pattern ruthlessly, he did not create it. And third, the seemingly baffling fact that an anti-democratic minority feels entitled to accuse its opponents — including democratically elected officials — of "tyranny."

Some dominionist ideas — such as the biblical penalty of death by stoning — are so extreme they can easily be dismissed as fringe, others have been foundational to the modern religious right, and still more have become increasingly influential in recent years. Those latter two categories are what we need to understand most, say both Tabachnick and Jackson.