Good morning! Here are some of the stories I have my eye on for the coming week. Medical Abortion. The fate of mifepristone, the FDA approved medical abortion drug used in over half of abortions nationwide, leads the stories in the week ahead. Dueling district court opinions, and an ill-conceived 5th Circuit opinion enjoining the FDA in part, emerged last week—only to be
RE: DeSantis and Florida. A big opportunity for high school and college students to protest his overreach en masse is happening this Friday, 4/21. They're calling it a "Walk Out to Learn action" is being staged statewide against DeSantis's authoritarian takeover of FL's public education system. At last, momentum is beginning to build against his regime. You can learn more at https://www.walkout2learn.org/. Share with your favorite student(s)!
The GOP players are not only going down with the ship, they are lashing themselves to the masthead....at some point, the absurdity and naked grift will overload even the permissive bigotry and stewardship of supremacist tenets...plus, we need to recall that We The People are the majority, and need to continue to advance our visibility and voice...
I feel like altho Right Wing extremists push on, something is turning. You can hear the click click click of the clock winding forward a bit. And the clips & news stories out of the NRA Convention may only help the case for more gun legislation. If you live in a red state, keep your eye on local papers ‘Letters To The Editor’ section. Texas papers (mainly Dallas, Houston & San Antonio) are chock full of declared Republicans stating ‘Enough is enough’ over not only guns, but abortion, school vouchers and a general feeling that conservative judges & governors are overstepping the will of The People. Even a couple of smaller rural papers I checked (Amarillo & Lubbock areas) weren’t lacking for support on the issue of gun safety, in particular. Seems like that may be the issue that galvanizes all sides now. Another mass shooting or two, particularly if children are victims, might just swing the pendulum at last. It’s just a matter of time. It’s possible that 2024 might actually usher in a bigger win for centrists and liberals as it seems like even center-right Repubs are getting fed up all this meaningless legislation that doesn’t help their own day to day lives. I’m gonna keep an eye on those papers.
It was brought up, on TikTok of course, that banning the platform is a wall to grass roots communications. The example presented was: search "France" on Twitter and you get pastoral scenes of rolling hills or a wide view of Paris at sunset. Search "France" on TikTok and you get scene after scene of the protests throughout the country. I doubt that the Tennessee Three would have even made the news were it not for TikTok. Banning social media benefits politicians, not the public, and they are scared that they are no longer operating in private.
I like this quote filled with hope, “We have the opportunity to use their extremism to fuel a nationwide, resounding rejection of the GOP in 2024.” Looking forward to your articles this week.
Jay, appreciating your summary and overview of where the GOP is headed - it is frightening to watch the party transform from a conservative one that supported the rule of law most of the time, to one that openly embraces autocracy. I did not realize the significance of Nixon's corrupt actions and the Watergate scandal, but do remember how disturbed I was by Reagan's and GW Bush's actions against the safety net programs that we have had since the Roosevelt era. Newt Gingrich was also quite frightening, along with Rush Limbaugh - the GOP has been building an empire of hatred of "others" for a long time, and I appreciate your reminders to us that there are way more of us who believe in policies such as access to abortion, transparent and accessible voting systems, the rights of LGBTQ people, trans young people in particular to get the services they need to make transitions of gender safely, and maintaining free public libraries for everyone. Only one point among a few comments here, regarding relying on Gen Z voters to save us. May I say, we all need to turn out, across all generations, to preserve our democracy? Every one of us is essential to voter turnout, now more than ever.
Thank you for this uplifting piece today, Jay. I really needed it. I think I just took a deep breath for the first time in days and I didn't even realize how tight my chest was until now.
Sometimes I wonder if saying “Republican Extremists” is like saying The Department of Redundancy Department. Yes, yes, I know that people often say that there are moderate or reasonable republicans, but their silence ends up being approval. As was the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s. After the war, many Germans were horrified about the holocaust, something that with their fervor was hidden in plain sight. The fervor of guns in the republicans is like this -- they keep repeating how “just” it is to be personally armed in the face of children being killed in classrooms. Gassing Jews to death, or shredding children’s bodies with high velocity bullets, if one does not shout that this is horrible, are they anything less than an extremist?
Can we agree to use "reproductive rights" for women rather that abortion rights? We really are looking into the abyss of reproductive liberty when a single judge tries to ban medication abortion.
A next logical step could be banning the Pill or other types of contraception. The anti-women fight is much deeper and wider than abortion itself, imho.
As always, I appreciate your calm rational explanation of the absolute chaos that is the gop. I live in very blue Southern California, but am trying my best to sound the alarm here as well. People around here have gotten very complacent and the extremists are quietly infiltrating our local school boards & other “non-partisan” positions. Orange County is in the process of trying to recall three very extreme right wing school board members and Temecula is dealing with serious threats. We must all be diligent in choosing each and every candidate carefully and ensure that friends, family, and neighbors have the ability to safely cast their vote in every single election. We are the majority, but we MUST vote! Have a great Sunday everyone!
Hi, Jay. Can you please address the possibility of a third party candidate from the No Labels group? WaPo had a frightening analysis recently. Thanks for your work.
Gads. There is so much. A colleague and I are thinking of extending a project we started six years ago to bring the platforms of Victoria Woodhull (1828-1927), a radical thinker for our time, forget the Gilded Age. With Subtack's changes, it might be possible. Under the premise of "the more things change, the more things say the same," precisely because of the insanity within society at the moment. Oddly, in Woodhulls era, the Republicans were the radicals, the Democrats were the stuck in the mud extremists who founded the KKK. All of which comes to that depressing man, Anthony Comstock.
This statement is why we are thinking of doing this:
"The radical and often deadly stance of the GOP has it locked in a death spiral as its policies, positions and rhetoric pull the party farther than ever from the mainstream. Support for moderate, popular positions—e.g. abortion rights, common sense gun safety laws, equality and dignity for LGBTQs, and a rejection of election denialism—will be a decisive factor in the 2024 election, particularly as women, Gen Z and equality voters mobilize in the key battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada."
THIS is where there has been significant change. The GOP, being so out of touch, look to the past, the "glory days," if you will. What is coming, I think, scares the bejesus out of them.
With respect...the story about the GOP mega donor "yanking" funding reads more like they are holding it FOR NOW to see who get the nomination - Trump or DeSantis - and then, per a quote near the end of the article, it says once the donor knows who the nominee is, funding goes to them. So, while it is withholding funding, not sure that could be referred to as yanking it, but rather suspending it....which, to be fair, may also be considered semantics. :-) Either way, there will be still more unseemly piles of money backing one of the horrendous choices.
RE: DeSantis and Florida. A big opportunity for high school and college students to protest his overreach en masse is happening this Friday, 4/21. They're calling it a "Walk Out to Learn action" is being staged statewide against DeSantis's authoritarian takeover of FL's public education system. At last, momentum is beginning to build against his regime. You can learn more at https://www.walkout2learn.org/. Share with your favorite student(s)!
The GOP players are not only going down with the ship, they are lashing themselves to the masthead....at some point, the absurdity and naked grift will overload even the permissive bigotry and stewardship of supremacist tenets...plus, we need to recall that We The People are the majority, and need to continue to advance our visibility and voice...
Happy Sunday!
This 💯. I have three Gen Z adult children who are of voting age and they and their friends are fed up. Gen Z will save us.
I feel like altho Right Wing extremists push on, something is turning. You can hear the click click click of the clock winding forward a bit. And the clips & news stories out of the NRA Convention may only help the case for more gun legislation. If you live in a red state, keep your eye on local papers ‘Letters To The Editor’ section. Texas papers (mainly Dallas, Houston & San Antonio) are chock full of declared Republicans stating ‘Enough is enough’ over not only guns, but abortion, school vouchers and a general feeling that conservative judges & governors are overstepping the will of The People. Even a couple of smaller rural papers I checked (Amarillo & Lubbock areas) weren’t lacking for support on the issue of gun safety, in particular. Seems like that may be the issue that galvanizes all sides now. Another mass shooting or two, particularly if children are victims, might just swing the pendulum at last. It’s just a matter of time. It’s possible that 2024 might actually usher in a bigger win for centrists and liberals as it seems like even center-right Repubs are getting fed up all this meaningless legislation that doesn’t help their own day to day lives. I’m gonna keep an eye on those papers.
It was brought up, on TikTok of course, that banning the platform is a wall to grass roots communications. The example presented was: search "France" on Twitter and you get pastoral scenes of rolling hills or a wide view of Paris at sunset. Search "France" on TikTok and you get scene after scene of the protests throughout the country. I doubt that the Tennessee Three would have even made the news were it not for TikTok. Banning social media benefits politicians, not the public, and they are scared that they are no longer operating in private.
I like this quote filled with hope, “We have the opportunity to use their extremism to fuel a nationwide, resounding rejection of the GOP in 2024.” Looking forward to your articles this week.
Jay, appreciating your summary and overview of where the GOP is headed - it is frightening to watch the party transform from a conservative one that supported the rule of law most of the time, to one that openly embraces autocracy. I did not realize the significance of Nixon's corrupt actions and the Watergate scandal, but do remember how disturbed I was by Reagan's and GW Bush's actions against the safety net programs that we have had since the Roosevelt era. Newt Gingrich was also quite frightening, along with Rush Limbaugh - the GOP has been building an empire of hatred of "others" for a long time, and I appreciate your reminders to us that there are way more of us who believe in policies such as access to abortion, transparent and accessible voting systems, the rights of LGBTQ people, trans young people in particular to get the services they need to make transitions of gender safely, and maintaining free public libraries for everyone. Only one point among a few comments here, regarding relying on Gen Z voters to save us. May I say, we all need to turn out, across all generations, to preserve our democracy? Every one of us is essential to voter turnout, now more than ever.
Thank you for this uplifting piece today, Jay. I really needed it. I think I just took a deep breath for the first time in days and I didn't even realize how tight my chest was until now.
Sometimes I wonder if saying “Republican Extremists” is like saying The Department of Redundancy Department. Yes, yes, I know that people often say that there are moderate or reasonable republicans, but their silence ends up being approval. As was the rise of fascism in Europe in the 1930s. After the war, many Germans were horrified about the holocaust, something that with their fervor was hidden in plain sight. The fervor of guns in the republicans is like this -- they keep repeating how “just” it is to be personally armed in the face of children being killed in classrooms. Gassing Jews to death, or shredding children’s bodies with high velocity bullets, if one does not shout that this is horrible, are they anything less than an extremist?
Can we agree to use "reproductive rights" for women rather that abortion rights? We really are looking into the abyss of reproductive liberty when a single judge tries to ban medication abortion.
A next logical step could be banning the Pill or other types of contraception. The anti-women fight is much deeper and wider than abortion itself, imho.
As always, I appreciate your calm rational explanation of the absolute chaos that is the gop. I live in very blue Southern California, but am trying my best to sound the alarm here as well. People around here have gotten very complacent and the extremists are quietly infiltrating our local school boards & other “non-partisan” positions. Orange County is in the process of trying to recall three very extreme right wing school board members and Temecula is dealing with serious threats. We must all be diligent in choosing each and every candidate carefully and ensure that friends, family, and neighbors have the ability to safely cast their vote in every single election. We are the majority, but we MUST vote! Have a great Sunday everyone!
Hi, Jay. Can you please address the possibility of a third party candidate from the No Labels group? WaPo had a frightening analysis recently. Thanks for your work.
I very much hope this destroys FOX and leaves Tucker Carlson and his like without jobs and without prospects.
Gads. There is so much. A colleague and I are thinking of extending a project we started six years ago to bring the platforms of Victoria Woodhull (1828-1927), a radical thinker for our time, forget the Gilded Age. With Subtack's changes, it might be possible. Under the premise of "the more things change, the more things say the same," precisely because of the insanity within society at the moment. Oddly, in Woodhulls era, the Republicans were the radicals, the Democrats were the stuck in the mud extremists who founded the KKK. All of which comes to that depressing man, Anthony Comstock.
This statement is why we are thinking of doing this:
"The radical and often deadly stance of the GOP has it locked in a death spiral as its policies, positions and rhetoric pull the party farther than ever from the mainstream. Support for moderate, popular positions—e.g. abortion rights, common sense gun safety laws, equality and dignity for LGBTQs, and a rejection of election denialism—will be a decisive factor in the 2024 election, particularly as women, Gen Z and equality voters mobilize in the key battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia and Nevada."
THIS is where there has been significant change. The GOP, being so out of touch, look to the past, the "glory days," if you will. What is coming, I think, scares the bejesus out of them.
Protect the fetus and the gun,
Shoot the child and save the gun,
Shoot the beaches, shoot the schools:
The GOP are bloody fools.
- Eve
With respect...the story about the GOP mega donor "yanking" funding reads more like they are holding it FOR NOW to see who get the nomination - Trump or DeSantis - and then, per a quote near the end of the article, it says once the donor knows who the nominee is, funding goes to them. So, while it is withholding funding, not sure that could be referred to as yanking it, but rather suspending it....which, to be fair, may also be considered semantics. :-) Either way, there will be still more unseemly piles of money backing one of the horrendous choices.