If you are a woman, or girl in a Republican-controlled state with the usual abortion ban that party advocates, and you are raped and become pregnant, you will probably be one of the over 65,000 women or girls who this year had to bear the child of that rape and have your life changed forever. It amazes me that a woman in a Red state still chooses to vote for Republicans, but millions do.
Pro-choice supporters rally for reproductive rights at the Texas Capitol on May 14, 2022, in Austin, Texas. Credit: Montinique Monroe Getty
Nearly 65,000 rape-related pregnancies occurred in states with total or near-total abortion bans post-Dobbs v. Jackson, new research finds, while those same states saw only a handful of legal abortions performed on average per month.
According to research published online in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) on Wednesday, there were an estimated 64,565 pregnancies related to rape during the periods when abortion bans were active across the 14 states with total or near total bans between July 2022 and the beginning of this year.
Researchers estimate that 5,586 of these pregnancies occurred in states whose bans technically — though often not in practice — have exceptions for rape, while 58,979 happened in states without exceptions. In Texas alone, where there are no exceptions except for medical emergencies — which, again, are often not granted in practice — there were 26,313 rape-related pregnancies in this period.
Meanwhile, the study found that these same states saw 10 or fewer […]
The attempt of the MAGAt christofascists to take over the United States is not a singleton event, it is part of an international trend. Around the world, this is happening, and Europe is part of the trend, as this article describes. Because of fear, manipulated by misinformation, the future of humanity is beginning to look much darker, and climate change is going to dramatically affect this change.
Former President criminal Trump welcomes Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban to the White House in Washington. Credit: Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP
It would be funny if it weren’t so potentially tragic — and consequential. No, I’m not thinking about Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign but a related development: the latest decisions from the European Union (EU) about Ukraine.
As 2023 ended, European nations failed to agree on a $54-billion package of assistance for Ukraine at a time when that country was desperately trying to stay afloat and continue its fight against Russian occupation forces. Bizarrely, the failure of that proposal coincided with a surprising EU decision to open membership talks with that beleaguered country.
In other words, no military aid for Ukraine in the short term but a possible offer of a golden ticket to join the EU at some unspecified future moment. Ukrainians might well ask themselves whether, at that point, they’ll still have a country.
One person, right-wing Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, is largely responsible for that contradictory combo. He
Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley - Common Dreams
Stephan:
I have noticed the same thing Robert Reich has. Corporate media is grossly misreporting what is happened in the Iowa and New Hampshire primaries. I read it as Reich does, although I see it as even worse. Trump is winning but nothing in the numbers suggests he is having any kind of landside dominance. His opponents collectively took nearly half the Iowa vote, and Haley did better than the Trumpers predicted. What is even more disturbing is they are not properly reporting his growing mental deterioration. Jonathan Capehart at the Post noted it, but the paper generally did not. And the electronic corporate media has hardly touched it. I got an email today from a reader who went to a Trump rally, and she reported that not only was the crowd smaller than she anticipated, the meeting was more a racist hatefest than a political rally, but what really stood out for her was that Trump as alarmingly incoherent despite having a teleprompter. She said he repeated himself over and over, sometimes almost word for word and some sentences made no sense at all. She told me, “I voted for Trump twice but never again. The man is mentally disordered. I don’t understand why the media isn’t covering this. It was my main takeaway.”
Criminal Trump rants at rally. Credit: MSNBC
The mainstream media is flabbergasted at Trump’s success in sweeping the Iowa caucuses, dominating the polls, and destroying all his rivals but Nikki Haley before today’s New Hampshire primary.
CNN is gobsmacked, calling Trump’s “landslide victory in Iowa” a “stunning show of strength.”
Time magazine marvels at his “commanding position” to secure the Republican nomination and how “nothing has slowed him down.”
The Washington Post’s Dan Balz writes that “the end of any real competition could come very soon.”
Headline after headline offers the same breathless, spellbound story: “Trump is dominating.” “Disciplined, ruthless.” “Hugely effective.” “Remarkable.” “Powerful.”
Earth to the MSM: This is dangerous nonsense.
Why should Trump’s dominance be surprising? He’s dominated the Republican Party since 2016. He dominates by ridiculing opponents, blasting anyone who stands in his way, bullying, browbeating, and bellowing. The media eats it up. […]
Nicholas Confessore, Reporter - RSN / The New York Times
Stephan:
This is an excellent article explaining how the anti-DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) movement came into existence and grew to thrive. Particularly in Republican-controlled states, this movement is dismantling fact-based education from K to 12 as well as in colleges and universities. It is a well-funded by billionaires attempt to indoctrinate children from the beginning of education to the end in White supremacy, male dominance, and christofascism. A non-democratic society owned and controlled by oligarchs.
Why has DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — become controversial? Credit: Getty
In late 2022, a group of conservative activists and academics set out to abolish the diversity, equity and inclusion programs at Texas’ public universities.
They linked up with a former aide to the state’s powerful lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who made banning D.E.I. initiatives one of his top priorities. Setting their sights on well-known schools like Texas A&M, they researched which offices and employees should be expunged. A well-connected alumnus conveyed their findings to the A&M chancellor; the former Patrick aide cited them before a State Senate committee. The campaign quickly yielded results: In May, Texas approved legislation banishing all such programs from public institutions of higher learning.
Long before Claudine Gay resigned Harvard’s presidency this month under intense criticism of her academic record, her congressional testimony about campus antisemitism and her efforts to promote racial justice, conservative academics and politicians had begun making the case that the decades-long drive to increase racial diversity in America’s universities had […]
SARAH FIORONI and ANDREA MALEK ASH, Researchers - The Gallup Organization
Stephan:
MAGAt world is condemning millions of boys and girls to live their lives in impersonal institutions rather than having caring parents who love them. It is part of the anti-DEI movement and I thinking is disgusting and evil.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender are significantly more likely than non-LGBT adults to express an interest in fostering children and to consider adopting from the foster care system. Thirty-seven percent of LGBT adults have seriously considered fostering a child, and 32% have seriously considered adoption, compared with 23% and 15% of non-LGBT adults, respectively.
Younger Americans are more likely than older adults to be interested in fostering or adopting — those younger than 40 are seven percentage points more likely to be interested in fostering and 14 points more likely to consider adopting than those 40 and older — and younger people are more likely to identify as LGBT. That said, the data show that interest in fostering is higher among LGBT than non-LGBT adults, regardless of age.
These findings come from the Americans’ Views of U.S. Foster Care study conducted by Gallup and Kidsave in March and April 2023. This study is part of Kidsave’s EMBRACE Project — which stands for Expanding Meaningful Black Relationships and Creating Equity — aimed at […]
