Since it’s July 4th/Independence Day, it seems a good time to take stock of what we see going on in the United States 246 years after our independence from Great Britain was formally proclaimed and announced in Philadelphia.
Thanks to the United States Supreme Court’s recent rulings on the issues of guns and reproductive freedom, many Americans aren’t exactly in a celebratory mood this July 4, if only because it seems like we’re moving in reverse, having to fight for rights we thought had already been won nearly a half-century ago.
One person who seems to be channeling that angst is Claudia Conway, the 17-year-old daughter of former Trump administration official Kellyanne Conway, who weighed in on the high court and where we’re at in the United States.
Oh, how I Love this. You go girl! Bring on the fireworks!❤️🇺🇸🎆
— leftrightleftrightleft (@leftrightleftr4) July 4, 2022
This picture should end up on the front of time magazine If the press could get their head out of all the hedge funds asses and do real reporting Anyone?
My thoughts exactly 🙂 It's awesome that she managed to "break free" It would be great if one of the trump children would be smart enough to do the same
Vincent James is the host of the Red Elephant podcast and was a speaker at the November 2020 “Million Maga March,” and he’s letting the world know that the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is just the beginning of what right-wing extremists have planned for women now that abortion has been made illegal in at least a dozen states.
Right Wing Watch came across remarks James made on his podcast this week in which he proudly proclaims:
“This is the era of Christian nationalism. Christian nationalism is on the rise and people are thirsty for it, hungry for this! And we are the Christian Taliban and we will not stop until The Handmaid’s Tale is a reality, and even worse than that to be honest.”
James then added:
“There was this article from The Atlantic that was like [Justice Sam] Alito is on a mission to roll back the rights of women and roll back the past hundred years of rights that were given to women. Yes, that is what we’re doing and it’s only going to get worse for you from here.”
If there was any doubt about the far-right's agenda, white nationalist Vincent James makes it explicitly clear: "We are the Christian Taliban and we will not stop until The Handmaid's Tale is a reality, and even worse than that." pic.twitter.com/2w3rNdX7V4
Make no mistake. This is exactly what the extreme right-wing has in mind for American women. They want to impose their religion on others and make it an American Taliban that is intolerant of anyone who isn’t white, Christian, and male.
These people have to be stopped. And more importantly, their supporters in the Republican Party have to be voted out of office at every level. If we don’t stop them now, the United States will become little more than a western version of Afghanistan.
The majority of Americans think a woman should have the legal right to end a pregnancy if she chooses to, and the numbers are pretty overwhelming.
NPR recently reported that fully three-quarters of those surveyed wanted to keep Roe v. Wade in place, and yet the Supreme Court overturned the precedent which had been set by the high court almost five decades ago in 1973:
A total of 77% say the Supreme Court should uphold Roe, but within that there’s a lot of nuance — 26% say they would like to see it remain in place, but with more restrictions added; 21% want to see Roe expanded to establish the right to abortion under any circumstance; 16% want to keep it the way it is; and 14% want to see some of the restrictions allowed under Roe reduced. Just 13% overall say it should be overturned.
Be sure and read that last line carefully: Only 13% said Roe should be overturned. 77% percent wanted it upheld. That’s about as overwhelming as it gets when it comes to public opinion polls in a nation as divided as the United States.
Who else thought abortion was just fine? Based on what a former friend is saying, Ivanka Trump had no problem with abortion when she became pregnant in high school, according to a startling report from News.com:
A former friend of Ivanka Trump has taken to social media to claim that she supported her in getting an abortion when she was younger.
In the since-deleted tweet, Lauren Santo Domingo, a high school friend of Ivanka’s, claimed to have taken Ivanka, first daughter of former President Donald Trump and former senior White House Adviser, to get the alleged abortion.
The 46-year-old businesswoman and socialite also called out Ivanka for staying silent on abortion rights.
“Ivanka Trump you are noticeably quiet today,” Domingo’s tweet read.
“The high school friends who took you to get an abortion are not.”
It’s perfectly fine that Ivanka saw herself in need of an abortion and was able to do so legally and safely. What’s galling is the hypocrisy of her and others in the Trump family who try to act holier-than-thou even though more than a few of them (i.e. her father and her oldest brother, Don Jr.) have cheated on their wives and probably paid for dozens of abortions over the years.
The hypocrisy is what ticked off most people who commented on the revelation about Ivanka.
Ivanka isn’t being shamed for having an abortion, she’s being outed as a hypocrite. Plus, she’s an asshole. Stop wasting empathy on your enemies.
— Clive Daddy Rosfield (@Asymetricalhomo) June 25, 2022
Does ANYBODY believe for a single second that Melania, Ivanka, or Tiffany has NEVER had an abortion, or that Donald, DonJr, or Eric has NEVER impregnated someone who then aborted that pregnancy?
Anybody?
— RockPaper_Sista ☕️🌿🍄📜🚭🥦 (@RockPaper_Sista) June 25, 2022
Ivanka Trump had at least one abortion. And that’s fine. Except her dad took away that right from literally everyone else. So that’s extremely fucked up.
My tweet isn’t about shaming Ivanka it’s about illustrating the depth of abortion reaches. Pregnancy from men can happen to every single woman, and every single woman deserves the right to make decisions about it. Thanks Lauren Santo Domingo for sharing. #AbortionIsHealthcarehttps://t.co/gsoSLatjn5
Actor Samuel L. Jackson has had quite enough of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, and he’s making it clear that Thomas has jeopardized his own interracial marriage with his ruling to overturn Roe v. Wade.
HuffPost reports that Jackson vented his feelings on Twitter:
The same rationale the conservative court employed to reverse the 1973 decision on abortion rights could now be used to eliminate the right to same-sex marriage, contraception and interracial marriage, which was protected in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia ruling, lawmakers and scholars fear.
Jackson bashed Thomas as “Uncle Clarence” in a Friday night tweet, referring to the excessively servile Black character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s pre-Civil War novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
“How’s Uncle Clarence feeling about Overturning Loving v Virginia??!!”
How’s Uncle Clarence feeling about Overturning Loving v Virginia??!!
Loving v. Virginia was also based on the right of privacy, but conservatives on the high court have now decided that none of us have any privacy since that right isn’t specifically laid out in regard to abortion, contraception, same-sex marriage, or even interracial marriage:
In a solo concurring opinion Friday, Thomas suggested that the court should “correct the error” by withdrawing granted rights now protected under the “substantive due process clause” of the 14th Amendment.
Thomas, however, didn’t bother to mention marriage between adults of different races, probably because he’s married to a white woman and overturning Loving would make his marriage null and void, as many others pointed out as they discussed the blatant hypocrisy in what Thomas wrote in his opinion to overturn Roe, which has stood for nearly 50 years:
Jim Obergefell, the plaintiff behind the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling on same-sex marriage, said Friday that Thomas omitted Loving v. Virginia on his list of top court decisions to “reconsider” because it “affects him personally.”
That “affects him personally, but he doesn’t care about the LGBTQ+ community,” Obergefell said on MSNBC’s “The Reid Out.”
Jackson got plenty of support from others on Twitter, too:
During a “Save America Rally” in Mendon, Illinois on Saturday, Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL) said the quiet part out loud as she praised failed, one-term former president Donald Trump for appointing three right-wing activist justices to the U.S. Supreme Court who voted Friday to overturn Roe v. Wade, making abortion illegal in eleven states, with more expected to follow suit.
According to Mediaite, Miller was introduced by Trump, who declared the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to be a “victory for the constitution,” “victory for the rule of law,” and “victory for life.”
When Miller stepped to the microphone, that’s when the controversy began:
“Thank you so much President Trump,” began Miller. “I am so honored to have your endorsement.”
The Congresswoman proceeded to thank Trump specifically on “behalf of all the MAGA patriots in America” for the Supreme Court decision, but then she said something that has the whole internet and political world in shock.
It sounds like she thanks him for the “historic victory for white life,” and that’s how people are sharing the quote.
Miller: President Trump… I want to thank you for the historic victory for white life in the Supreme Court yesterday pic.twitter.com/RqxmbT8jx5
That was all it took for video of Miller’s comments to go full viral on social media, where many commenters noted that the congresswoman had revealed the real agenda of the so-called “pro-life” crowd: To have more white babies born so that Caucasians don’t become a minority in the United States.
"The historic victory for white life." A Freudian slip, or saying the quiet part out loud? We know it's exactly what they are thinking. https://t.co/pLEiLoEzsT
for those of you who will claim this is a slip of the tongue, miller famously said "hitler was right about one thing, whoever has the youth has the future" on the morning of january 6 – which got lost in the chaos. https://t.co/ufSNvkJKVDhttps://t.co/SoBV9oYUPW
