House Republicans spent the last three weeks debasing themselves to find a new Speaker. They've chosen an election-denying anti-abortion extremist.
In his remarks, not only does Johnson claim Roe “gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children,” but he rails against the imagined economic detriments of abortion, pushing his caucus’ outlandish claim that by depleting a hypothetical workforce, abortion has defunded social security: “Think about the implications of that on the economy. We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest,” Johnson says. “If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this... Roe was a terrible corruption.” Mind you, social security and health care have been gutted in the last several years by Republican lawmakers, not people who choose to end a pregnancy.
I love how they don't realize these unaborted kids are likely going to be unwanted, unloved, impoverished, lack education...and instead of turning into "able bodies workers" they will turn into the criminals Republicans think lurk around every corner ready to shoot them
Oh they are fully aware. More criminals means more prisoners, which means more money for the prison industrial complex and super cheap (basically slave) labor.
I don't think they're unaware of that at all. Until those kids become criminals, most of them will have to survive somehow. Given their presumed lack of education and prospects, that means meat to throw in the "entry level" grinder.
And also because the Republicans can project their views on those groups.
"If the 'unborn baby' or dead soldier could talk, they'd say that we should absolutely overturn this election result and name Trump President again. After all, he will protect the unborn (unless they happen to reside in his mistress) and what did those soldiers die for if not President For Life Trump?!!!"
Well, if you think about it, in order to take over in a democracy, you have to break the democracy first. This is simply a necessary first step towards accomplishing the given goal. There would be no other method that might work here, since military coups are particularly difficult when we make our whole army swear an oath to defend a specific piece of paper from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
This was the take I was going to comment. If Republicans are so into running the government like a business, the per unit net income of each additional human would have to be positive for this argument to work. And if that were the case the programs he seems so worried about wouldn't have a problem to begin with. It's not like there are flat costs that, through volume alone, will make the program profitable.
This guy isn't planning past his own lifetime. Those kids will be someone eases problem. He just wants to make sure that he gets every penny he is due and that means they need more wage slaves.
Immigrants are usually pretty conservative. If they could drop the xenophobia they’d have a pretty reliable and growing voter base. We’re lucky racists are dumb.
In his remarks, (...) he rails against the imagined economic detriments of abortion, pushing his caucus’ outlandish claim that by depleting a hypothetical workforce, abortion has defunded social security: (...)
If abortion truly defunded social security, shouldn't small-government Republicans support it?
Newsflash: people aren't having kids because the cost of living is too expensive and the elite are strangling poor families, not because of abortion rights.
Sometimes I look at US politics and question how a country can be terminally stupid enough to elect Republicans...
If he really cared about funding for social security, maybe he should just have a closer look at tax evasion and creative accounting by the rich and the larger companies. Or at the numerous pork barrels on his parties list.
Russia approved is why they voted for him, unless you think all those mysterious "campaign contributions" from a law firm run by three Russian nationals the night before the vote are just a coincidence.
Also pretty sure I saw a headline that Russia is pleased with the new speaker (think it was from a 'news' source there). Though Russia is the number one shit disturber so who knows, they'd say whatever causes more chaos in the nations they're against. The new speaker seems like their kinda guy though.
Trump was going to be the last one you could laugh at. Now he's only paid lipservice, the void will be filled. From now on forward things are going to get serious.
For all of Trump's fascism and corruption he was at least so amazingly incompetent at it. His actions brought to light a lot of shortcomings and vulnerabilities in the system we can now more effectively watch for as his slightly smarter cohorts try and exploit them.
Too bad half the time "watch in horror" is about all we end up doing.
I mean, I feel like he's being overt about the motivations the GOP has held for decades. It's just that this is a time where their despicable desires about how our society should evolve are showcased.
That's them saying the quiet bit out loud. They see population growth stagnating to dangerous levels and they need more poor people to feed thier capitalism machine, while not acknowledging that low population growth is occurring because they've starved people of the necessary resources to keep a child alive and enjoy / be able to afford parenting. The choice was provide adequate resources or force people to have babies without resources.
There are really only two ways to fix demographic decline:
Increase fertility rate
Replace dying people with people from elsewhere (i.e. immigration)
The first requires social spending at levels that the Republican Party absolutely refuses to consider. Subsidies for childcare! Bigger tax breaks for poor and middle-class parents! Free preschool education! Mandatory paid parental leave! Higher wages for family breadwinners! Oh, the horror!
The second requires admitting brown people into the country! Oh, the other horror!
Sounds to be more a case that the parasite class is worried that the "surplus labor" (ie, impoverished people) might not be all that surplus for much longer.
Judging by what happens in Japan and Europe, I think you actually need to bribe women to have kids. Which I'm all for.
I think the first two kids should include all expenses paid Disneyland vacations annually, free diaper service, free childcare, schools etc. Min 2 years aid maternity leave.
Third kid? Congrats, you're a hero, you get a free house and a million bucks.
However, applicants must hold a college degree. I'd rather not have a bunch of idiots continue to reproduce.
Don't forget about loneliness. If people don't engage with one another in the first place, then abortion isn't even needed, let alone any parental care or accomodations.
Which is the only rational explanation for Republicans excuse of their shitty policies. Keep people poor to maintain the supply of infants. They do it for selfish reasons however.
Plenty of them think this though unfortunately. A few years ago, I talked to a bank teller who was a middle aged white woman who said the same thing about abortion being the reason why Medicare and Social Security are underfunded.
The reason Social Security faces solvency problems is that wages (on the low end, at least) have been kept flat for close to 30 years. Wages are the basis for Social Security funding!
Its solvency challenges aren't because the Boomers are retiring, the actuaries were able to see that coming when the Boomers were kids. The thing they didn't see coming was that suppressing wages would become a bipartisan affair.
When Johnson says he's going to fund social security, he's not going to fund social security- he's going to dangle that as bait to get stupid people to support a national ban on abortion in hopes it will soften the backlash against the GOP for its unpopular anti-abortion politics.
What if, in between now and the election, something comes out about the Democrats that shows that they're not absolutely perfect angels?
For example, what if one of them used a private e-mail server?
And for the sake of "balance" the media spends the same amount of time on this as the 10,000 felonies of Donald Trump.
Doesn't that mean they're both the same, and I don't have to think or vote or bother, and therefore it doesn't matter if the totalitarian fascists get into government, "suspend" the constitution, and topple representative government?
Very bold move considering how much voters are furious about Roe.
There's articles every now and again about how some Republican or PAC is going to fix the issue for Republicans by going moderate, and this is exactly why it won't work. Unless you have utter chaos like in the House or are a radical, the #1 rule is to not criticize your fellow Republicans.
How's a Republican moderate going to do that while also advocating for a moderate policy? They'd have to say the Speaker and their other colleagues are wrong, and they don't want to do that. But if they don't say it, then they can't advocate for a moderate policy, people are seeing right through it. The true believers are making it impossible for the party to stop hemorrhaging.
Republicans wanted to overturn Roe, so let them reap the consequences.
Considering the number of "Single Issue Voters" who only vote republican because they sincerely believed Planned Parenthood was cutting up live babies, repealing Roe was the dumbest fucking thing they could have done.
Should probably make it so people can afford to do that and subsidize gay reproduction.
Also, funny how he blames that and not 50+ years where tax cuts were considered sacred and proposing raising taxes was a profane abomination. Well we’re right back where we were before those taxes were raised.
The two most reliable voting blocks for the GOP are the stupid and the rich. Anyone who would listen to this guy falls squarely in the former category, so of course encouraging them to reproduce is an excellent strategy.
I don't think he's encouraging Republicans to reproduce so much as he's trying to justify forcing all the other women to give birth against their will. All of those children of rape and incest, those kids whose parents aren't emotionally or financially equipped to raise them, those kids whose high-risk births might cause their moms to die in labor, those kids who have congenital heart defects, or who will be DOA when they're born. Moms aren't allowed to speak for those fetuses, or have a say over their own health and safety. Because every baby that Republicans can force to be born is another new taxpayer to fill our coffers. Obviously.
Why are Republicans still banging this drum? They packed a court shitty enough to strike down Roe and people across the country fucking hated it. All the states ran by functioning governments immediately put protections in place to allow abortions, and all the shitholes run by Republicans immediately enacted extremist bans that nearly half their constituency disagrees with. Is the next goal to try working towards a national ban? Are they stupid enough to not realize that would be political suicide?
Is the next goal to try working towards a national ban?
Yes.
Are they stupid enough to not realize that would be political suicide?
Yes.
Some have expressed an interest in targeting contraception next. Keep in mind, many believe in replacement theory and want to restrict immigration (of people of color), which is the only thing currently keeping our replacement rate positive. So the fulfillment of their dream to eliminate immigration without also tanking our future economy is basically by forcing people to have babies. Ideally white babies, but they're probably not too picky on who is picking crops, flipping burgers, and building cars, because they can also keep gerrymandering the shit out of states to keep minorities from gaining proportional voting power.
I just see this as one more revolution. Not the good kind, just the "neutral" kind that the great George Carlin talked about, as we continue to circle the drain as a species...
You, along with all your slimy fellows that voted for you, are doing the EXACT opposite of struggling. You are struggling with the will of the American people and the direction of this country, but that’s about the only thing you are struggling with.
Yeah the shift on McCarthy was when he interrogated a soldier and an army lawyer called him the fuck out “at long last have you no sense of decency?”
Nixon was a bipartisan boot as well.
That said yeah this is revenge for them. Not from republicans but from their right flank. The contingent that wanted McCarthy to be able to torment anyone to stop communists and homosexuals. The contingent that swore to never let something like watergate result in a presidential resignation. The contingent that looked at Goldwater and thought that he wasn’t quite bigoted enough. They had a kid with the moral majority and are hell bent on making everyone’s life hell
A lot. The past decade has been a “get in line or get out of the way” primarying purge. Add in the effects of project redmap and gerrymandering and yeah it’s bad
Scarier still when you realize that Colbert's impersonation was so good he actually kept getting invited to Republican Dinners and Events because they didn't know it was satire.
He claims to this day he still gets people asking him to bring back the Colbert show because of a "Lack of conservative figures on liberal media."