“Earlier this month, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced a bill to regulate so-called “dark money.” The definition of this term is often slippery. A New Yorker reporter wrote a famous book blaming the Koch brothers for dark money, even though it’s not a secret that the well-known libertarian billionaires have spent well-documented money openly promoting issues such as free markets, same-sex marriage, and criminal justice reform.
Is it “dark” if you can see the details?
A tighter definition would be money given with the agendas and donors behind it so well concealed that even the elite media is confused. Consider the case of Fix the Court and its left-leaning puppet-master, Arabella Advisors. As “dark money” goes, this arrangement is a black hole.
Fix the Court is rarely identified as what it is: a promoter of a leftward tilt on the federal courts. The day after media reported on Whitehouse’s dark money bill, Bloomberg interviewed the director of Fix the Court about President Trump’s sister, a former federal judge, and referred to Fix the Court as a “judicial watchdog group” — a reference commonly used by other media, including The New Republic. FTC is also often called a judicial “transparency” group (Washington Post, USA Today), and sometimes very generously a “grassroots” organization (US News & World Report, ABC News, Fortune).
Yet, after Brett Kavanaugh became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Fix the Court admitted it had purchased “BrettKavanaugh.com” and similar web domain names and populated the sites with information for sexual assault survivors. Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth justified this behavior on the basis of his belief in an unsubstantiated rape allegation made against Kavanaugh. Reporting on what Fix the Court did with the Kavanaugh websites, CNN characterized the group as “a nonpartisan judicial reform organization whose main goal is to fight for honesty and transparency on the US Supreme Court.”
Roth is a former vice president at SKDKnickerbocker, a political consulting firm that services left-leaning and Democratic clients. Imagine a former conservative consultant filling “BillandHillaryClinton.com” with information about a President who paid $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit that got him impeached — and then disbarred — because he lied under oath regarding the case. One suspects CNN would not dismiss this as the work of a “nonpartisan Presidential reform organization seeking honesty and transparency in the White House.”
Media confusion is understandable, given the convoluted connection between Fix the Court and Arabella Advisors recently exposed in a dark money report from the Capital Research Center.
Fix the Court isn’t even an independent organization, let alone “grassroots.” It is a wholly-owned project of the New Venture Fund — a left-wing nonprofit that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars each year from a wide variety of left-leaning donors, foundations, and yes, also undisclosed donors. Some of this money is used to run Fix the Court and other Arabella-run projects, such as the Health Care for America Now Education Fund (a pro-ObamaCare operation purpose-built by left-wing activists to criticize Republican health care proposals), and the pro-abortion front All Above All.”
“The disparity between the news and reality has become so great that it is news in itself. You only have to turn on the TV or pick up whatever you use for a newspaper to find out that America is in a crisis, and you only have to turn the TV off or put the newspaper down to bring that crisis to an end. American journalists and Democrats — but I repeat myself — are now engaged in creating a fantasy world in hopes it will supplant the reality they can no longer bear.
I suppose this transformation of journalism into imaginative fiction was bound to happen sooner or later. All the elements were in place. One party — the Democrats — controls both the news industry and the entertainment industry. The same party is convinced that human nature, moral truth and reality itself can be transformed by transforming the stories we tell about them. And for eight years, that party and its media tried to prove that point by telling us a story about Barack Obama. He wasn’t a Chicago machine hack who knew jack-all about how foreign policy and the economy work. No, he was, in fact, the “next messiah,” a “light-worker,” “above the country, above the world… sort of God,” in the words of various journos.
But now, reality, as is it’s wont, is reasserting itself. And in reality, we find that even mean, nasty, very bad Orange Man Donald Trump can do a better job of being president than Obama ever could.
What’s more, it is slowly coming to light that Obama, who abused the IRS to silence his opponents and the State Department to cover up his mistakes, may have also turned the Justice Department into a political weapon. Which means the “next messiah” was even meaner, nastier, very-badder and more unconstitutional than Orange Man Trump has even thought to be.
Well, what can the Democrats do under the circumstances but put on a show and hope their news and entertainment media can sell it to the public?
The result is the bizarre make-believe crisis the Democrats are acting out in Congress and the even more bizarre reporting of that make-believe crisis as if it were somehow real life.”
” Nearly three decades ago, when Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ wife was 20 weeks pregnant with their first child, a doctor discovered their daughter had spina bifida and encouraged an abortion. The Edwardses refused.
Now, daughter Samantha is married and working as a school counselor, and Edwards finds himself an outlier in polarized abortion politics.
“My position hasn’t changed. In eight years in the Legislature, I was a pro-life legislator,” he said. When he ran for governor, his view was the same. “I’m as consistent as I can be on that point.”
Edwards, who has repeatedly bucked national party leaders on abortion rights, is about to do it again. He’s ready to sign legislation that would ban the procedure as early as six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, when the bill reaches his desk.
Louisiana’s proposal , awaiting one final vote in the state House, would prohibit abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, similar to laws passed in Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia and Ohio that aim to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Alabama has gone even further, enacting a law that makes performing abortions a felony at any stage of pregnancy with almost no exceptions.”
“Christopher Steele told a State Department official a former Russian spy chief and a top Kremlin adviser were involved in an operation to collect compromising information on Donald Trump.
The State Department official’s notes also indicate Steele claimed the Russians, Vyacheslav Trubnikov and Vladislav Surkov, were “sources” for the dossier.
There is no evidence the compromising material mentioned in the dossier actually exists, raising questions about whether Steele was given disinformation.
Trubnikov, the former head of the SVR, also has links to Stefan Halper, an FBI informant who had contact with the Trump campaign.”
“Ocasio-Cortez Laments ‘GOP’s Attempts to Turn the United States Into a Far-Right Christian Theocracy’”
“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Friday argued Republicans were motivated to enact pro-life legislation by their racism and Christian bigotry.
The Democratic socialist asserted Republicans must not be sincere in their desire to protect children because they do not support her Green New Deal and therefore want to create “hell on Earth.” She questioned the motives of legislators who support abortion bans, such as the one just passed in Alabama.
“To the GOP extremists trying to invoke ‘the unborn’ to jail people for abortion: Where are you on climate change? OH right, you want to burn fossil fuels til there’s hell on Earth,” she tweeted. “If they were truthful about their motives, they’d be consistent in their principles. They’re not.”
She added that she wouldn’t be angry about the GOP’s desire to destroy the world if they were just honest about it.
“What angers me about the GOP’s attempts to turn the United States into a far-right Christian theocracy is how dishonest they are about it,” she said. “At least be forthright about your desire to subvert and dismantle our democracy into a creepy theological order led by a mad king.”
Ultimately her point was that Republicans cannot claim to care about nonwhite children unless they supported a suite of progressive policies championed by Ocasio-Cortez herself.”
We certainly had about 10 who stood up for life when the vote for late-term abortions came in New Mexico. Usually, the Democrats get whatever they want, as they have the majority. Reading their comments makes on thankful that there are good people still out there who are being elected to public office.
Here’s a piece about something we should keep in mind about most women seeking abortions. Just this last week I saw a pro-lifer comment that women who have abortions are cold-hearted. That made me wince, as I know that kind of thing plays into the stereotype that many pro-choicers have about us.
“Most Abortion-Minded Women Aren’t Calculating Killers. They’re Afraid.”
“I’ve volunteered in my community’s pregnancy resource center for a few years, and while I frequently feel nervous, sad, confused, and at a loss for solutions, there’s one concrete thing I’ve learned: Most women seeking abortions aren’t uber-political. They aren’t members of the aggressively pro-abortion, Twitter-argument-waging, shout-your-abortion crowd. They aren’t calculating murderers. They’re afraid.
Abortion is a great evil. It’s left an ugly, gaping hole in the world where millions of image-bearing children should be. While the church has largely excelled at calling this despicable spade a spade, she often fails to see this picture: a young, often impoverished, terrified woman—who knows her baby is a human!—but considers abortion anyway. Fear is incredibly potent. . . .
As ambassadors of Christ, we must remember first that women considering an abortion are often in a state of total panic. And acknowledging that has the power to greatly alter our behavior.”
It will be interesting to see how the calculated passage of very restrictive laws in the south will play out, but it’s certainly stirred the hornet’s nest on the pro-choice side.
I always think it’s best when our laws are generally supported by the people, to some degree or another, and are not something super-imposed from the top down with harshness. Unfortunately, abortion has been legal in this country for about a generation now (40+ years?) and perhaps partly because of that I sense there’s a *general* acceptance of it — but with limitations on circumstances such as late-term and abortion for “any” reason (including sex selection).
The laws being passed in the south, I realize, are calculated to drive the matter back to the Supreme Court and thus go as far as possible; but I don’t think they have much overall support among the people. I also don’t think even some the conservative members of the Supreme Court have signaled they’d be ready to overturn Roe v. Wade.
I’m thinking here in terms of political reality. A theocracy would be different, but that’s not the world we inhabit in the democratic west.
Anyway, just some thoughts. We’ll see how it all plays out going forward, whether it’s a help to the pro-life cause or a hindrance in the long run.
DJ – My concern – and I’ve seen a couple others with the same – is that these new laws may backfire on the pro-life movement. We were already winning “the battle for hearts and minds,” with rates of abortion declining through the years.
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the battle over Roe v Wade itself has been over with for some time now (and will remain so for at least for the foreseeable future).
Again, this is politically speaking as an observer.
You have what I think are probably relatively small, devoted groups on both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the argument. But most Americans — again, based on polls that have been taken through the years — appear to fall somewhere in the vast middle section of this debate. They generally say abortion should remain a legal option, but that restrictions also should be in place as to how and when it can be used.
Kizzie, I’m afraid this is one of those long battles that won’t easily be solved with overturning a law or passing new laws that most consider too stringent. People need to come to understand that abortion is, in fact, taking a life and that we as a society are poorer for saying such a thing is “ok.” But I think that conviction has to come from the bottom up in this case, given the history of the passage (and now longstanding existence) of Roe v Wade.
Always befuddled by people who say gun regulations/bans don’t work but somehow abortion regulations or bans do work.
As you can imagine, the left and my female friends blew up their social media. One thing constantly raised was a questioning of pro life’s actually commitment to children. On almost any measurement of health and education, the US ranks near the bottom of the OECD. What’s the point of a pro life stance when you have an infant mortality rate of 5.8 per 1000 when Sweden is at 2.2. Canada is at 4.8.
And given this is the US, the cost of abortion vs birth is raised. If you want to eliminate abortion, have the state pay from pre-natal to post natal care.
The pro life movement won the moral argument but they risk losing it if they become the pro fetus only party. Pro choice groups will continue to win the philosophical argument as long as the state disengages itself from the child as soon as it is born. You’re pro life if you cut food stamps, health care, education etc.
Abortion is completely unregulated and free in Canada yet it has a lower abortion rate. Abortion everywhere has declined and is at 40-50 year lows. With the right information (birth control, fetal growth, etc), women are having less abortions. Maybe state legislatures should stop relying on coercion and treat women as adults who will make the right decisions.
Hwesseli, the “pro-fetus only” argument doesn’t hold water. People on this blog alone have fostered, adopted, taken in pregnant daughters, and much more. The idea that one isn’t pro-life if not in favor of excessive government intervention isn’t helpful, either. Married-family households are much better places for children in many, many ways–and the more government steps in and takes the place of fathers, the worse off families are.
I have no idea whether gun regulations “work.” But comparisons about whether or not a specific regulation works isn’t the best argument. Do laws against murder “work”? laws against spousal abuse? theft? See, we have laws against harming another person not because those laws do or do not work, but because they are proper laws. It also isn’t either/or: either you have laws against spousal abuse OR you work with victims of it and work to encourage spouses to treat each other well. You can (and should) do both. Laws against abortion are good laws because it is wrong to kill babies. But laws are ineffective if law is all you have. It is also necessary to give women better options–and the pro-life movement does BOTH.
We have just been discussing this issue today. Why do we have shootings, when in times past, there was greater access to guns by younger people. I personally think it is because life is not valued or respected. People don’t respect others and do not consider them of value. I see this as a part of the immigration debate. This can also carry over a bit to the abortion debate, however, I think most of the time it is desperation that drives women to have an abortion. Personally knowing several women who have had abortions, the fear of family and other expectations caused them to do the unthinkable. The truest bumper sticker I have ever seen concerning abortion said “Abortion: 1 dead, 1 wounded”.
Many women or girls are threatened with loss of support of parents or boyfriend/husband if they do not abort.
When Nightingale lived with X in an apartment, she one night heard the couple next door arguing. She heard the woman’s anguished voice telling the man that he had promised to stay with her if she aborted their baby, which she had done. Apparently, the guy was leaving. She was obviously better off without him, but had aborted a baby she may have wanted. So sad.
HRW – To add to what Cheryl said, did you see the thing AJ shared a couple or so days ago about the woman’s tweet asking pro-lifers what they had personally done to help a single mom? She added the snarky, “I’ll wait”.
She ended up being inundated with hundreds of replies of the various things pro-lifers are doing to help mothers and babies in their own lives.
Also, although pro-lifers tend to be conservative, that doesn’t mean that they are all against state help for those in need. I think the article I shared above mentioned something about that.
“Many women or girls are threatened with loss of support of parents or boyfriend/husband if they do not abort.”
It’s called court. You go there, they make the boyfriend/husband support the child, as he’s obligated to by law. From what I hear, they’re quite strict about it too, fanatical even.
I don’t think she was talking about monetary support. Courts do not force your parents to un-disown you. That is a very real fear for some women. It may be irrational to some, but it holds so much weight with others.
Here are some responses for your female and leftist friends. All they needed to do was ask what we do to help, plenty of people will help educate their ignorant, self-righteous, high horse riding butts.
This is the Tweet stream Kizzie mentioned. Just pick some.
“She asked what pro-lifers have done to help low-income single mothers, and she got answers”
——————-
Now I and others answered you and your friends, how about you answer some.
Why is the “right” (it’s not) to kill your offspring so important to the left? What good comes from ending a life that you all will fight so feverishly for it? Your side is apoplectic and shrill at the mere mention of even the smallest limits. Why? What do you or anyone else gain from the death of an innocent? I hope you have a reasonable answer, but I suspect it all comes down to convenience. Either way, just be honest.
Right, except she included the boyfriend/husband. So I addressed that.
The parents part I get, but from personal experience, it’s usually empty threats in the heat of the moment. Most grandparents come around after the initial shock.
Yes, with both the parents and the boyfriend/husband, I was talking about more than monetary support. Boyfriends or husbands may threaten to leave the woman.
I am wondering if these strong pro life decisions in the south are in response to the horrific decision made in New York state. I think that decision is what stirred things up.
Eileen Macken, who was born in the Bethany Home in Dublin, has been reunited with her mother after 60 years of searching for her pic.twitter.com/Gc3X7WRr02
“An 81-year-old Irish woman has said she still has not come out of the clouds after meeting her estranged mother for the first time after 60 years of searching.
Eileen Macken grew up in a Bethany Home orphanage and had never met her birth mother.
Last year, having started searching when she was 19, Ms Macken contacted RTÉ’s Liveline and made an appeal to track her mother down.
Earlier this year Ms Macken said that with the help of a genealogist she had managed to find her mother who was 103 years old and was living in Scotland.
When she found out that her mother was still alive, Ms Macken told RTÉ News that “just to touch her, it would mean so much”.”
“Democrats Upped the Abortion Ante When They Defended Murdering a Baby Born Alive
It’s difficult to take seriously the claims and labels of “extremism” in reference to heart-beat laws when the side making those allegations stood silently as one of their own advocates for killing a baby born alive.”
“Yesterday, Alabama blew up the internet by passing and then signing into law a heartbeat law, making it possible to prosecute abortion providers who perform abortions after a baby’s heartbeat is detected. Despite the minuscule number of abortions performed in the case of rape or incest (which make up an estimated 1.5% of all abortions — and that’s a high estimate), Alabama’s bill made no such concessions, leaving one exception only — the life of the mother.
As Mary blogged, by design, the law is meant to provoke a legal challenge and just might save a few innocent lives in the meantime.
The media and the Democrats only have themselves to blame.
In January, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (Democrat) defended murdering a baby who was born alive, but who might have “severe deformities.”
“The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desire, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.””
“Democrats Accelerate Efforts to Purge Pro-Lifers From the Party in 2020
A growing number of pro-choice Democrats are telling their pro-life colleagues that their days in office are numbered. But will their strategy work?”
“In the aftermath of the fetal heartbeat bills that were recently signed into law in Georgia and Alabama (Missouri will likely be next), enraged Democratic party politicians and pro-abortion groups are making one thing increasingly clear: Pro-life Democrats who hold elected office should be purged from the party.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), a 2020 candidate for president, told the Washington Post on Wednesday that being pro-abortion should be a “non-negotiable” position in the Democratic party:
“As a party, we should be 100 percent pro-choice, and it should be nonnegotiable,” Gillibrand said in our interview. “We should not settle for less, and if our party cannot support women’s basic human rights, their fundamental freedoms to make decisions about their bodies and their futures, then we are not the party of women. … I will not compromise on women’s reproductive freedom.”
The senator attributes the more strident tone to the fact that more women are participating in politics, and they are more passionate about protecting their rights than the men who used to call the shots in the party. “I think women’s voices are being heard now more than ever,” said Gillibrand. “Women are feeling self-empowered. I don’t think they’re going to take excuses anymore, and I don’t think they’re going to support candidates that don’t believe they should get to make those fundamentally personal decisions.”
One target of this “you’re with us or you’re the enemy” strategy is Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL-3), a pro-life Democrat who is facing a primary challenge from Marie Newman, the same woman who tried to primary him in 2018.
Gillibrand endorsed Newman’s primary campaign in 2018 and endorsed her again last month:
“She’s got a tough race in front of her, but I promise you, Marie will represent her district better, and she will represent all of us better,” Gillibrand said. Moments earlier, Newman had endorsed Gillibrand’s presidential campaign.
Lipinski, one of just three House Democrats who regularly co-sponsors antiabortion legislation, has faced primary challenges in three of his eight elections.”
“Missouri’s Republican-led House on Friday passed sweeping legislation designed to survive court challenges, which would ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy.
If enacted, the ban would be among the most restrictive in the U.S. It includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Doctors would face five to 15 years in prison for violating the eight-week cutoff. Women who receive abortions wouldn’t be prosecuted.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson pledged to sign the bill , but it’s unclear when he’ll take action. When pressed on the lack of exceptions, he told reporters that “all life has value.””
Jo, yes, the extremist “late” term abortion laws play into this as well. Democrats passed these laws as a reaction to the changing makeup on the Supreme Court, to make sure “their” states are as abortion-friendly as possible going forward.
Meanwhile, the pro-life laws we now see being passed are seen as a way to press the issue so it goes back before the newly more conservative Supreme Court (but which, so far anyway, has not indicated a willingness to overturn Roe v Wade).
Politically, most Americans seem to fall somewhere in between these two positions.
As a Canadian, I thought NY/Va made a mistake. Just remove all rules on abortion and fully embrace the “its a doctor patient decision”. Abortion rates wouldn’t change and may even lower. And about 98% of abortions occur before 24 weeks.
I have no doubt most pro life people do amazing things on individual levels, however, this is not systemic and thus many children are missed. If pro life will employ the state to protect the fetus why not employ the state to protect and grow the child. The US is 32 out of 35 OECD countries in infant mortality (above Turkey, Chile and Mexico). By state, Alabama is 49th (Mississippi) at 8.7 per 1000. This is lower than Ukraine, Lebanon and Sri Lanka yet there is no aggressive state campaign to bring down this stat. For all the individual efforts of pro lifers, this stat is appalling. Canada’s rate is 4.8 which is 28th…still bad but using this as a goal, Alabama could save approx 270 children a year from death. These are unnecessary deaths. If they reached Swedish levels they could reach 400 lives saved per year.
The governors stating you can’t put a price on human life are wrong. In capitalism, everything is a commodity. An hour of a person’s life has been found to be worth $7.25 at a minimum by the US govt. Insurance companies and the courts do this all the time when assess policies, litigation and awards.
And as long as abortions are cheaper than child birth, life has a price. You want to lower abortion rates, try universal health care.
Both pro life and pro choice have become trapped by their rhetoric. Once you state life begins at conception, you can’t make exceptions. Once you declare bodily autonomy, you can’t make exceptions. To make exceptions in either position is to admit the issue isn’t black and white and your foundational belief isn’t completely true.
The vast majority of people recognize the difficulty and have an ambiguous position of limited rights…ie 24 weeks, etc.
Personally, as a child I was brought up pro life but abortion only in case of physical and immediate danger. I’ve moved over the years as I recognize the difficulty some women face…emotional, physical, social, financial…I’ve recognized this is a personal decision. I also saw that most pro life people also opposed govt intervention and aid elsewhere. The contradiction can be and is viewed that a govt composed mostly of old men want to control young women’s bodies.
The complexity of the issue is illustrated by my daughter’s peer group. All are vehemently pro choice but when one friend became pregnant she did not get an abortion. Her position was I’m pro choice and I choose to stay pregnant. In her mind its possible to be both pro life and pro choice. Now she also had zero incentive for an abortion. Health care is free, one year paid maternity leave, child tax benefits give low income women money every month, and her boyfriend, peers and parents were supportive.
That’s some seriously delusional faith you have there Senator.
Ours is just fine, you’re the clueless one, as usual. Not to mention you’re illiterate when it comes to the term “separation of church and state” and what that even means.
“On Thursday, 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) claimed that pro-life legislation is “against Christian faith.””
“Gillibrand, who is seriously lagging in the polls, made the controversial comments at the Georgia State House, surrounded by pro-abortion legislators and activists. Earlier this month, Georgia passed a law banning abortion after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detected (typically around six weeks’ gestation).
“If you are a person of the Christian faith, one of the tenets of our faith is free will,” the Democrat said.
“One of the tenets of our democracy is that we have a separation of church and state, and under no circumstances are we supposed to be imposing our faith on other people. And I think this is an example of that effort,” she added.
According to CBS News, Gillibrand laid out a three-step pro-abortion plan that she would adopt as policy if she were to be voted into the White House: “Codify abortion across the country, end the Hyde amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion, and guarantee reproductive healthcare in every state.”
The Democrat also said she would only tap judges who support the decision in Roe v. Wade to sit on the Supreme Court. Gillibrand was a vocal critic of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the bench in October, generally over concerns about abortion.
“Any Democrat who expects to win the presidency must answer definitively where they stand on this issue,” she said, before landing a predictable shot at President Donald Trump.”
I was curious….what does a 6 week zygote/fetus look like. Its only a quarter of an inch. Less than a centimeter. Shaped like a pea. There’s no circulatory system or heart just an electronic type pulse. Yes, the organs are starting to form but its not a heart beat yet esp given its size. And it takes to.the 11th week for red blood cells to start moving.
Very early in my wife’s pregnancy, there were signs that we might lose our son or that he might not still be alive. Sonograms were relatively new and crude compared to the modern equipment, but the doctor took a sonogram and even though my son was only an inch long we could see his beating heart on the monitor and were encouraged.
Wandering Views 
Selling Dark Money as Grassroots Transparency
https://www.realclearpolicy.com/articles/2019/05/16/selling_dark_money_as_grassroots_transparency_111195.html
“Earlier this month, U.S. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) introduced a bill to regulate so-called “dark money.” The definition of this term is often slippery. A New Yorker reporter wrote a famous book blaming the Koch brothers for dark money, even though it’s not a secret that the well-known libertarian billionaires have spent well-documented money openly promoting issues such as free markets, same-sex marriage, and criminal justice reform.
Is it “dark” if you can see the details?
A tighter definition would be money given with the agendas and donors behind it so well concealed that even the elite media is confused. Consider the case of Fix the Court and its left-leaning puppet-master, Arabella Advisors. As “dark money” goes, this arrangement is a black hole.
Fix the Court is rarely identified as what it is: a promoter of a leftward tilt on the federal courts. The day after media reported on Whitehouse’s dark money bill, Bloomberg interviewed the director of Fix the Court about President Trump’s sister, a former federal judge, and referred to Fix the Court as a “judicial watchdog group” — a reference commonly used by other media, including The New Republic. FTC is also often called a judicial “transparency” group (Washington Post, USA Today), and sometimes very generously a “grassroots” organization (US News & World Report, ABC News, Fortune).
Yet, after Brett Kavanaugh became a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Fix the Court admitted it had purchased “BrettKavanaugh.com” and similar web domain names and populated the sites with information for sexual assault survivors. Fix the Court executive director Gabe Roth justified this behavior on the basis of his belief in an unsubstantiated rape allegation made against Kavanaugh. Reporting on what Fix the Court did with the Kavanaugh websites, CNN characterized the group as “a nonpartisan judicial reform organization whose main goal is to fight for honesty and transparency on the US Supreme Court.”
Roth is a former vice president at SKDKnickerbocker, a political consulting firm that services left-leaning and Democratic clients. Imagine a former conservative consultant filling “BillandHillaryClinton.com” with information about a President who paid $850,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit that got him impeached — and then disbarred — because he lied under oath regarding the case. One suspects CNN would not dismiss this as the work of a “nonpartisan Presidential reform organization seeking honesty and transparency in the White House.”
Media confusion is understandable, given the convoluted connection between Fix the Court and Arabella Advisors recently exposed in a dark money report from the Capital Research Center.
Fix the Court isn’t even an independent organization, let alone “grassroots.” It is a wholly-owned project of the New Venture Fund — a left-wing nonprofit that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars each year from a wide variety of left-leaning donors, foundations, and yes, also undisclosed donors. Some of this money is used to run Fix the Court and other Arabella-run projects, such as the Health Care for America Now Education Fund (a pro-ObamaCare operation purpose-built by left-wing activists to criticize Republican health care proposals), and the pro-abortion front All Above All.”
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Everything’s fine, just keep pushing the narrative.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/47031/klavan-narrative-descends-crisis-america-does-fine-andrew-klavan
“The disparity between the news and reality has become so great that it is news in itself. You only have to turn on the TV or pick up whatever you use for a newspaper to find out that America is in a crisis, and you only have to turn the TV off or put the newspaper down to bring that crisis to an end. American journalists and Democrats — but I repeat myself — are now engaged in creating a fantasy world in hopes it will supplant the reality they can no longer bear.
I suppose this transformation of journalism into imaginative fiction was bound to happen sooner or later. All the elements were in place. One party — the Democrats — controls both the news industry and the entertainment industry. The same party is convinced that human nature, moral truth and reality itself can be transformed by transforming the stories we tell about them. And for eight years, that party and its media tried to prove that point by telling us a story about Barack Obama. He wasn’t a Chicago machine hack who knew jack-all about how foreign policy and the economy work. No, he was, in fact, the “next messiah,” a “light-worker,” “above the country, above the world… sort of God,” in the words of various journos.
But now, reality, as is it’s wont, is reasserting itself. And in reality, we find that even mean, nasty, very bad Orange Man Donald Trump can do a better job of being president than Obama ever could.
What’s more, it is slowly coming to light that Obama, who abused the IRS to silence his opponents and the State Department to cover up his mistakes, may have also turned the Justice Department into a political weapon. Which means the “next messiah” was even meaner, nastier, very-badder and more unconstitutional than Orange Man Trump has even thought to be.
Well, what can the Democrats do under the circumstances but put on a show and hope their news and entertainment media can sell it to the public?
The result is the bizarre make-believe crisis the Democrats are acting out in Congress and the even more bizarre reporting of that make-believe crisis as if it were somehow real life.”
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Well look at that. I’ve discovered a unicorn. 🙂
A mythical pro-life Dem has been discovered in the deep south.
https://www.apnews.com/ec2a8082c8ea429cbfa66cf21682cedf
” Nearly three decades ago, when Democratic Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards’ wife was 20 weeks pregnant with their first child, a doctor discovered their daughter had spina bifida and encouraged an abortion. The Edwardses refused.
Now, daughter Samantha is married and working as a school counselor, and Edwards finds himself an outlier in polarized abortion politics.
“My position hasn’t changed. In eight years in the Legislature, I was a pro-life legislator,” he said. When he ran for governor, his view was the same. “I’m as consistent as I can be on that point.”
Edwards, who has repeatedly bucked national party leaders on abortion rights, is about to do it again. He’s ready to sign legislation that would ban the procedure as early as six weeks of pregnancy, before many women know they are pregnant, when the bill reaches his desk.
Louisiana’s proposal , awaiting one final vote in the state House, would prohibit abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, similar to laws passed in Kentucky, Mississippi, Georgia and Ohio that aim to challenge the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. Alabama has gone even further, enacting a law that makes performing abortions a felony at any stage of pregnancy with almost no exceptions.”
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Suckers. The Dems fell for it, and in doing so, actually colluded with the intelligence agents of Russia. They did exactly what they accuse Trump of.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/05/16/steele-dossier-sources-state-department/
“Christopher Steele told a State Department official a former Russian spy chief and a top Kremlin adviser were involved in an operation to collect compromising information on Donald Trump.
The State Department official’s notes also indicate Steele claimed the Russians, Vyacheslav Trubnikov and Vladislav Surkov, were “sources” for the dossier.
There is no evidence the compromising material mentioned in the dossier actually exists, raising questions about whether Steele was given disinformation.
Trubnikov, the former head of the SVR, also has links to Stefan Halper, an FBI informant who had contact with the Trump campaign.”
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The drama queen is shilling for the baby killers again.
https://freebeacon.com/politics/ocasio-cortez-laments-gops-attempts-to-turn-the-united-states-into-a-far-right-christian-theocracy/
“Ocasio-Cortez Laments ‘GOP’s Attempts to Turn the United States Into a Far-Right Christian Theocracy’”
“Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Friday argued Republicans were motivated to enact pro-life legislation by their racism and Christian bigotry.
The Democratic socialist asserted Republicans must not be sincere in their desire to protect children because they do not support her Green New Deal and therefore want to create “hell on Earth.” She questioned the motives of legislators who support abortion bans, such as the one just passed in Alabama.
“To the GOP extremists trying to invoke ‘the unborn’ to jail people for abortion: Where are you on climate change? OH right, you want to burn fossil fuels til there’s hell on Earth,” she tweeted. “If they were truthful about their motives, they’d be consistent in their principles. They’re not.”
She added that she wouldn’t be angry about the GOP’s desire to destroy the world if they were just honest about it.
“What angers me about the GOP’s attempts to turn the United States into a far-right Christian theocracy is how dishonest they are about it,” she said. “At least be forthright about your desire to subvert and dismantle our democracy into a creepy theological order led by a mad king.”
Ultimately her point was that Republicans cannot claim to care about nonwhite children unless they supported a suite of progressive policies championed by Ocasio-Cortez herself.”
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I suspect there are many ‘unicorns’ out there. God bless them
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Amen.
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We certainly had about 10 who stood up for life when the vote for late-term abortions came in New Mexico. Usually, the Democrats get whatever they want, as they have the majority. Reading their comments makes on thankful that there are good people still out there who are being elected to public office.
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Here’s a piece about something we should keep in mind about most women seeking abortions. Just this last week I saw a pro-lifer comment that women who have abortions are cold-hearted. That made me wince, as I know that kind of thing plays into the stereotype that many pro-choicers have about us.
“Most Abortion-Minded Women Aren’t Calculating Killers. They’re Afraid.”
“I’ve volunteered in my community’s pregnancy resource center for a few years, and while I frequently feel nervous, sad, confused, and at a loss for solutions, there’s one concrete thing I’ve learned: Most women seeking abortions aren’t uber-political. They aren’t members of the aggressively pro-abortion, Twitter-argument-waging, shout-your-abortion crowd. They aren’t calculating murderers. They’re afraid.
Abortion is a great evil. It’s left an ugly, gaping hole in the world where millions of image-bearing children should be. While the church has largely excelled at calling this despicable spade a spade, she often fails to see this picture: a young, often impoverished, terrified woman—who knows her baby is a human!—but considers abortion anyway. Fear is incredibly potent. . . .
As ambassadors of Christ, we must remember first that women considering an abortion are often in a state of total panic. And acknowledging that has the power to greatly alter our behavior.”
https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/women-abortions-devious-murderers/
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It will be interesting to see how the calculated passage of very restrictive laws in the south will play out, but it’s certainly stirred the hornet’s nest on the pro-choice side.
I always think it’s best when our laws are generally supported by the people, to some degree or another, and are not something super-imposed from the top down with harshness. Unfortunately, abortion has been legal in this country for about a generation now (40+ years?) and perhaps partly because of that I sense there’s a *general* acceptance of it — but with limitations on circumstances such as late-term and abortion for “any” reason (including sex selection).
The laws being passed in the south, I realize, are calculated to drive the matter back to the Supreme Court and thus go as far as possible; but I don’t think they have much overall support among the people. I also don’t think even some the conservative members of the Supreme Court have signaled they’d be ready to overturn Roe v. Wade.
I’m thinking here in terms of political reality. A theocracy would be different, but that’s not the world we inhabit in the democratic west.
Anyway, just some thoughts. We’ll see how it all plays out going forward, whether it’s a help to the pro-life cause or a hindrance in the long run.
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DJ – My concern – and I’ve seen a couple others with the same – is that these new laws may backfire on the pro-life movement. We were already winning “the battle for hearts and minds,” with rates of abortion declining through the years.
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I may be wrong, but it seems to me that the battle over Roe v Wade itself has been over with for some time now (and will remain so for at least for the foreseeable future).
Again, this is politically speaking as an observer.
You have what I think are probably relatively small, devoted groups on both the pro-life and pro-choice sides of the argument. But most Americans — again, based on polls that have been taken through the years — appear to fall somewhere in the vast middle section of this debate. They generally say abortion should remain a legal option, but that restrictions also should be in place as to how and when it can be used.
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Kizzie, I’m afraid this is one of those long battles that won’t easily be solved with overturning a law or passing new laws that most consider too stringent. People need to come to understand that abortion is, in fact, taking a life and that we as a society are poorer for saying such a thing is “ok.” But I think that conviction has to come from the bottom up in this case, given the history of the passage (and now longstanding existence) of Roe v Wade.
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Eight-year-old girl does video in which she portrays AOC: https://www.redstate.com/alexparker/2019/04/21/ava-martinez-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-impression-viral-video/
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Always befuddled by people who say gun regulations/bans don’t work but somehow abortion regulations or bans do work.
As you can imagine, the left and my female friends blew up their social media. One thing constantly raised was a questioning of pro life’s actually commitment to children. On almost any measurement of health and education, the US ranks near the bottom of the OECD. What’s the point of a pro life stance when you have an infant mortality rate of 5.8 per 1000 when Sweden is at 2.2. Canada is at 4.8.
And given this is the US, the cost of abortion vs birth is raised. If you want to eliminate abortion, have the state pay from pre-natal to post natal care.
The pro life movement won the moral argument but they risk losing it if they become the pro fetus only party. Pro choice groups will continue to win the philosophical argument as long as the state disengages itself from the child as soon as it is born. You’re pro life if you cut food stamps, health care, education etc.
Abortion is completely unregulated and free in Canada yet it has a lower abortion rate. Abortion everywhere has declined and is at 40-50 year lows. With the right information (birth control, fetal growth, etc), women are having less abortions. Maybe state legislatures should stop relying on coercion and treat women as adults who will make the right decisions.
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Hwesseli, the “pro-fetus only” argument doesn’t hold water. People on this blog alone have fostered, adopted, taken in pregnant daughters, and much more. The idea that one isn’t pro-life if not in favor of excessive government intervention isn’t helpful, either. Married-family households are much better places for children in many, many ways–and the more government steps in and takes the place of fathers, the worse off families are.
I have no idea whether gun regulations “work.” But comparisons about whether or not a specific regulation works isn’t the best argument. Do laws against murder “work”? laws against spousal abuse? theft? See, we have laws against harming another person not because those laws do or do not work, but because they are proper laws. It also isn’t either/or: either you have laws against spousal abuse OR you work with victims of it and work to encourage spouses to treat each other well. You can (and should) do both. Laws against abortion are good laws because it is wrong to kill babies. But laws are ineffective if law is all you have. It is also necessary to give women better options–and the pro-life movement does BOTH.
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We have just been discussing this issue today. Why do we have shootings, when in times past, there was greater access to guns by younger people. I personally think it is because life is not valued or respected. People don’t respect others and do not consider them of value. I see this as a part of the immigration debate. This can also carry over a bit to the abortion debate, however, I think most of the time it is desperation that drives women to have an abortion. Personally knowing several women who have had abortions, the fear of family and other expectations caused them to do the unthinkable. The truest bumper sticker I have ever seen concerning abortion said “Abortion: 1 dead, 1 wounded”.
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Many women or girls are threatened with loss of support of parents or boyfriend/husband if they do not abort.
When Nightingale lived with X in an apartment, she one night heard the couple next door arguing. She heard the woman’s anguished voice telling the man that he had promised to stay with her if she aborted their baby, which she had done. Apparently, the guy was leaving. She was obviously better off without him, but had aborted a baby she may have wanted. So sad.
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HRW – To add to what Cheryl said, did you see the thing AJ shared a couple or so days ago about the woman’s tweet asking pro-lifers what they had personally done to help a single mom? She added the snarky, “I’ll wait”.
She ended up being inundated with hundreds of replies of the various things pro-lifers are doing to help mothers and babies in their own lives.
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Also, although pro-lifers tend to be conservative, that doesn’t mean that they are all against state help for those in need. I think the article I shared above mentioned something about that.
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Good posts ladies.
Kizzie,
I have to take exception to this one though.
“Many women or girls are threatened with loss of support of parents or boyfriend/husband if they do not abort.”
It’s called court. You go there, they make the boyfriend/husband support the child, as he’s obligated to by law. From what I hear, they’re quite strict about it too, fanatical even.
So that’s a really weak argument.
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I don’t think she was talking about monetary support. Courts do not force your parents to un-disown you. That is a very real fear for some women. It may be irrational to some, but it holds so much weight with others.
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HRW,
Here are some responses for your female and leftist friends. All they needed to do was ask what we do to help, plenty of people will help educate their ignorant, self-righteous, high horse riding butts.
This is the Tweet stream Kizzie mentioned. Just pick some.
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2019/05/15/she-asked-what-pro-lifers-have-done-to-help-low-income-single-mothers-and-she-got-answers/
“She asked what pro-lifers have done to help low-income single mothers, and she got answers”
——————-
Now I and others answered you and your friends, how about you answer some.
Why is the “right” (it’s not) to kill your offspring so important to the left? What good comes from ending a life that you all will fight so feverishly for it? Your side is apoplectic and shrill at the mere mention of even the smallest limits. Why? What do you or anyone else gain from the death of an innocent? I hope you have a reasonable answer, but I suspect it all comes down to convenience. Either way, just be honest.
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Right, except she included the boyfriend/husband. So I addressed that.
The parents part I get, but from personal experience, it’s usually empty threats in the heat of the moment. Most grandparents come around after the initial shock.
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But it’s in the heat of the moment, in crisis and under pressure from multiple parties, when such decisions sadly get made.
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Yes, with both the parents and the boyfriend/husband, I was talking about more than monetary support. Boyfriends or husbands may threaten to leave the woman.
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I am wondering if these strong pro life decisions in the south are in response to the horrific decision made in New York state. I think that decision is what stirred things up.
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Adoption is the better option.
—————-
https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2019/0509/1048468-eileen-macken/
“An 81-year-old Irish woman has said she still has not come out of the clouds after meeting her estranged mother for the first time after 60 years of searching.
Eileen Macken grew up in a Bethany Home orphanage and had never met her birth mother.
Last year, having started searching when she was 19, Ms Macken contacted RTÉ’s Liveline and made an appeal to track her mother down.
Earlier this year Ms Macken said that with the help of a genealogist she had managed to find her mother who was 103 years old and was living in Scotland.
When she found out that her mother was still alive, Ms Macken told RTÉ News that “just to touch her, it would mean so much”.”
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Jo at 5:55,
You are correct. NY and Virginia.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/05/democrats-upped-the-abortion-ante-when-they-defended-murdering-a-baby-born-alive/
“Democrats Upped the Abortion Ante When They Defended Murdering a Baby Born Alive
It’s difficult to take seriously the claims and labels of “extremism” in reference to heart-beat laws when the side making those allegations stood silently as one of their own advocates for killing a baby born alive.”
“Yesterday, Alabama blew up the internet by passing and then signing into law a heartbeat law, making it possible to prosecute abortion providers who perform abortions after a baby’s heartbeat is detected. Despite the minuscule number of abortions performed in the case of rape or incest (which make up an estimated 1.5% of all abortions — and that’s a high estimate), Alabama’s bill made no such concessions, leaving one exception only — the life of the mother.
As Mary blogged, by design, the law is meant to provoke a legal challenge and just might save a few innocent lives in the meantime.
The media and the Democrats only have themselves to blame.
In January, Virginia Governor Ralph Northam (Democrat) defended murdering a baby who was born alive, but who might have “severe deformities.”
“The infant would be delivered; the infant would be kept comfortable; the infant would be resuscitated if that’s what the mother and the family desire, and then a discussion would ensue between the physicians and the mother.””
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An extremely rare creature, and if Democrat leadership has anything to say about, one that’s about to be extinct.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/05/democrats-accelerate-efforts-to-purge-pro-lifers-from-the-party-in-2020/
“Democrats Accelerate Efforts to Purge Pro-Lifers From the Party in 2020
A growing number of pro-choice Democrats are telling their pro-life colleagues that their days in office are numbered. But will their strategy work?”
“In the aftermath of the fetal heartbeat bills that were recently signed into law in Georgia and Alabama (Missouri will likely be next), enraged Democratic party politicians and pro-abortion groups are making one thing increasingly clear: Pro-life Democrats who hold elected office should be purged from the party.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), a 2020 candidate for president, told the Washington Post on Wednesday that being pro-abortion should be a “non-negotiable” position in the Democratic party:
“As a party, we should be 100 percent pro-choice, and it should be nonnegotiable,” Gillibrand said in our interview. “We should not settle for less, and if our party cannot support women’s basic human rights, their fundamental freedoms to make decisions about their bodies and their futures, then we are not the party of women. … I will not compromise on women’s reproductive freedom.”
The senator attributes the more strident tone to the fact that more women are participating in politics, and they are more passionate about protecting their rights than the men who used to call the shots in the party. “I think women’s voices are being heard now more than ever,” said Gillibrand. “Women are feeling self-empowered. I don’t think they’re going to take excuses anymore, and I don’t think they’re going to support candidates that don’t believe they should get to make those fundamentally personal decisions.”
One target of this “you’re with us or you’re the enemy” strategy is Rep. Dan Lipinski (D-IL-3), a pro-life Democrat who is facing a primary challenge from Marie Newman, the same woman who tried to primary him in 2018.
Gillibrand endorsed Newman’s primary campaign in 2018 and endorsed her again last month:
“She’s got a tough race in front of her, but I promise you, Marie will represent her district better, and she will represent all of us better,” Gillibrand said. Moments earlier, Newman had endorsed Gillibrand’s presidential campaign.
Lipinski, one of just three House Democrats who regularly co-sponsors antiabortion legislation, has faced primary challenges in three of his eight elections.”
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Next up, Missouri.
https://apnews.com/c176d21d9a8946b9a8c126c179f8560d
“Missouri’s GOP-led Legislature passes 8-week abortion ban”
“Missouri’s Republican-led House on Friday passed sweeping legislation designed to survive court challenges, which would ban abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy.
If enacted, the ban would be among the most restrictive in the U.S. It includes exceptions for medical emergencies, but not for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. Doctors would face five to 15 years in prison for violating the eight-week cutoff. Women who receive abortions wouldn’t be prosecuted.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson pledged to sign the bill , but it’s unclear when he’ll take action. When pressed on the lack of exceptions, he told reporters that “all life has value.””
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Jo, yes, the extremist “late” term abortion laws play into this as well. Democrats passed these laws as a reaction to the changing makeup on the Supreme Court, to make sure “their” states are as abortion-friendly as possible going forward.
Meanwhile, the pro-life laws we now see being passed are seen as a way to press the issue so it goes back before the newly more conservative Supreme Court (but which, so far anyway, has not indicated a willingness to overturn Roe v Wade).
Politically, most Americans seem to fall somewhere in between these two positions.
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As a Canadian, I thought NY/Va made a mistake. Just remove all rules on abortion and fully embrace the “its a doctor patient decision”. Abortion rates wouldn’t change and may even lower. And about 98% of abortions occur before 24 weeks.
I have no doubt most pro life people do amazing things on individual levels, however, this is not systemic and thus many children are missed. If pro life will employ the state to protect the fetus why not employ the state to protect and grow the child. The US is 32 out of 35 OECD countries in infant mortality (above Turkey, Chile and Mexico). By state, Alabama is 49th (Mississippi) at 8.7 per 1000. This is lower than Ukraine, Lebanon and Sri Lanka yet there is no aggressive state campaign to bring down this stat. For all the individual efforts of pro lifers, this stat is appalling. Canada’s rate is 4.8 which is 28th…still bad but using this as a goal, Alabama could save approx 270 children a year from death. These are unnecessary deaths. If they reached Swedish levels they could reach 400 lives saved per year.
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The governors stating you can’t put a price on human life are wrong. In capitalism, everything is a commodity. An hour of a person’s life has been found to be worth $7.25 at a minimum by the US govt. Insurance companies and the courts do this all the time when assess policies, litigation and awards.
And as long as abortions are cheaper than child birth, life has a price. You want to lower abortion rates, try universal health care.
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Both pro life and pro choice have become trapped by their rhetoric. Once you state life begins at conception, you can’t make exceptions. Once you declare bodily autonomy, you can’t make exceptions. To make exceptions in either position is to admit the issue isn’t black and white and your foundational belief isn’t completely true.
The vast majority of people recognize the difficulty and have an ambiguous position of limited rights…ie 24 weeks, etc.
Personally, as a child I was brought up pro life but abortion only in case of physical and immediate danger. I’ve moved over the years as I recognize the difficulty some women face…emotional, physical, social, financial…I’ve recognized this is a personal decision. I also saw that most pro life people also opposed govt intervention and aid elsewhere. The contradiction can be and is viewed that a govt composed mostly of old men want to control young women’s bodies.
The complexity of the issue is illustrated by my daughter’s peer group. All are vehemently pro choice but when one friend became pregnant she did not get an abortion. Her position was I’m pro choice and I choose to stay pregnant. In her mind its possible to be both pro life and pro choice. Now she also had zero incentive for an abortion. Health care is free, one year paid maternity leave, child tax benefits give low income women money every month, and her boyfriend, peers and parents were supportive.
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The Purge has begun.
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That’s some seriously delusional faith you have there Senator.
Ours is just fine, you’re the clueless one, as usual. Not to mention you’re illiterate when it comes to the term “separation of church and state” and what that even means.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/47354/democrat-sen-gillibrand-abortion-bills-are-against-amanda-prestigiacomo
“On Thursday, 2020 presidential hopeful Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) claimed that pro-life legislation is “against Christian faith.””
“Gillibrand, who is seriously lagging in the polls, made the controversial comments at the Georgia State House, surrounded by pro-abortion legislators and activists. Earlier this month, Georgia passed a law banning abortion after an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detected (typically around six weeks’ gestation).
“If you are a person of the Christian faith, one of the tenets of our faith is free will,” the Democrat said.
“One of the tenets of our democracy is that we have a separation of church and state, and under no circumstances are we supposed to be imposing our faith on other people. And I think this is an example of that effort,” she added.
According to CBS News, Gillibrand laid out a three-step pro-abortion plan that she would adopt as policy if she were to be voted into the White House: “Codify abortion across the country, end the Hyde amendment, which bans federal funding for abortion, and guarantee reproductive healthcare in every state.”
The Democrat also said she would only tap judges who support the decision in Roe v. Wade to sit on the Supreme Court. Gillibrand was a vocal critic of now-Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who was confirmed to the bench in October, generally over concerns about abortion.
“Any Democrat who expects to win the presidency must answer definitively where they stand on this issue,” she said, before landing a predictable shot at President Donald Trump.”
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I was curious….what does a 6 week zygote/fetus look like. Its only a quarter of an inch. Less than a centimeter. Shaped like a pea. There’s no circulatory system or heart just an electronic type pulse. Yes, the organs are starting to form but its not a heart beat yet esp given its size. And it takes to.the 11th week for red blood cells to start moving.
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And it’s a baby human being, a new and unique life.
It’s not a clump of cells. (anymore than we all are) It’s not a carrot, dog, lawn chair, hippo, fish, or insect. It’s a human life.
Playing semantics doesn’t change that fact.
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Very early in my wife’s pregnancy, there were signs that we might lose our son or that he might not still be alive. Sonograms were relatively new and crude compared to the modern equipment, but the doctor took a sonogram and even though my son was only an inch long we could see his beating heart on the monitor and were encouraged.
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Hi Ricky!
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We do sonograms all the time at 6 weeks that show a heartbeat.
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