It’s a good thing for the entire world to decouple from the United States, we aren’t a reliable ally, nor are we stable even within our own borders. The President is at war with half the nation, and it’s going to get worse.
Can't trust a country run by a regime that is openly fascist in its ambitions. The 'advisor' closest to the president's (miraculously regenerated) ear makes wildly Hitleresque speeches about how the world's "iron laws of strength, force, and power" entitle the regime to do whatever it wants. Really, they couldn't project more obvious and cartoonish evil if they tried.
Trump may only have hastened a process that was already underway--a slow global drift away from the post-war alliances that had kept the world peaceful (relatively) and prosperous (relatively) for eighty years: the rise of Limbaughism and Murdochism, the first election of Trump--these were clear signs of breakdown even before the madness that has ensued since the 2024 election.
But he hastened it at light speed, at the same time hastening the decline of the US itself as a reliable partner.
Post-Trump we will, yes, still be powerful, still relatively affluent, still heavily armed with deadly weapons: but we will not be, in the eyes of the world, a reliable ally on any front--economic, diplomatic, military, democratic.
We will be a nation chock-a-block with guns and rage, one in which a majority of voting citizens looked at a corrupt, thuggish, staggeringly ignorant old crook--one who had attempted a coup d'etat and who ruled through tantrum and division--and returned him to power; cheering all the way; cheering all the more noisily and enthusiastically as he attacked and menaced old friends and allies and smashed up US democracy; as did the wealthy movers and shakers who bankroll the Republican Party.
Even if through some miracle, at some future point, we elect responsible, serious adults to the presidency and the Congressional majority, in the eyes of the rest of the world we will always be a nation that is perpetually one step away from Trumping the global order again. You don't build trade partnerships or military alliances on that.
Will there be a Kalshi on how many decades it takes for the CIA to request more funding for foreign asset development with the pitch: "Look how well it worked for Russia!"
Don't forget about energy technology. We're putting our emphasis on oil and even coal; the rest of the world will move ever faster to solar and wind. (Heck, I'll bet even the Middle East does that -- there's plenty of solar and wind in the Arabian Desert.)
And it's just a matter of time before those clever immigrants who settled in the Silicon Valley to create our modern information state will stop coming and stay in their home countries and -- hopefully -- create technologies that aren't the Big Brother our own moguls desire so strongly.
Paul Krugman this morning related that in Norway, a country whose wealth is in large part due to fossil fuels, 11,000 new cars were registered last month. Only 150 of them had pistons. As Trump plays nose-tackle for Fossil Fuel in its goal line stand, the rest of the world is over it.
I recommend Krugman's post from this morning. It makes clear that Trump is unintentionally pushing the rest of the world toward the renewable energy he so despises. Well, accelerating the push of the rest of the world toward renewables. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-losing-a-second-war
Americans need larger ranges for our cars, but young people may not need cars at all until they have children, and you can buy an e-bike for $5k these days.
China also enjoys a green energy advantage. China manufactures most of the world's solar panels, is moving up in the global EV market (domestically more than 50% of its vehicles are EVs), and while still using coal is aggressively expanding its renewable energy capacity including solar and wind, with a carbon-neutral target of 2060.
And I'm sick of the NY Times covering people like Lauren Bezos and the Kardashians as if their lives are "news". Our nation is burning down and they are covering rich vapid idiots.
Sadly, there's always a market for covering rich vapid idiots. We have the Kardashians; previous generations had Porfirio Rubirosa, the "jet set," and some guy named Donald Trump. Wonder what ever happened to that last one. (Former entertainment editor here.)
And here I was about to do a fashion commentary. But I don't know who the celebrities are. I just look at the outfits. It's like watching Downton Abbey. I hate all the characters, throw the tea in the harbor, those aristos are corrupt and stupid, but boy do they wear gorgeous gowns.
When I look at those outfits, there's a part of me that roots for an earthquake or other calamity to be able to watch them run for their lives in them.
Some of the gowns were lovely, but for the most part they looked the same in gold, white, or black with lace. And their faces looked like they’d been produced on a production line, created by AI. I don’t know who those people are. And Mrs. Bezos II is stunningly vapid in interviews. All quite dull and disappointing.
Hmmm, Germany gets the benefit of Ukraine's drone knowledge and manufacturing, and the US gets Don Jr and Eric's drone manufacturing company. I strongly suspect Putin would prefer it to be the other way around.
The Trump administration's abandonment of Ukraine was another of their very evil very bad moves. How does anyone possibly think that Trump isn't an active Putin asset?
Trump is a Petro-president and Petro is no more nation-bound than acid rain or pollution. The Koch(s), Joe Manchin, and Putin* all play for the same team.
*And other miscellaneous fossil fuel interests in Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Nebraska....
I always ask myself: "What would Trump be doing differently if he was a Russian asset?" and the answer, so far as I can tell, is not much. He's pretty much doing all of the things we would expect a Russian sycophant, bribery target, or blackmail target to do.
In the Manchurian Candidate, the assassin had the excuse that he had been captured and brain-washed. DJT does it for money--and maybe to avoid prison or having the world see him cavorting with Russian prostitutes.
I keep hearing 'I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it." This is "I can be a Russian asset and get away with it". This is Kushner "I can be Trump's peace negotiator, fail at it, and still negotiate billion dollar side hustles with the same people at the same time and get away with it." This is Kristi Noem "I can call white citizens terrorists after my goons shoot them dead and get away with it." I could go on.
There is something really wrong that we Americans keep letting them get away with it. It's like it's so brazen and out of bounds we can't believe it.
Bibi has files as well, and a lot of his are probably not in the Epstein files. Ehud Barak was not just head of Mossad, he was also involved in sampling Epstein's wares and is thought to have provided a lot of Epstein's video capabilities.
The Ukrainians may not have held or even hold that many cards, and they never pretended they did. But they’ve played the cards they have very well, and in the process demonstrated what war will look like going forward. The Ukrainians military industrial base they have built during this war is one worth having, and the partnerships developed from it will be at the forefront of military technologies going forward. Supporting Ukraine is the best way for the EU to revive their own military position in the world, and the Ukrainian military technology allied with the EU would be a strong bulwark against an aggressive Russia. It could have been ours, but the Orange Narcissist was mored about his business opportunities in Russia, or at best rare earth mineral deals with the Ukrainians. Little did he see the real value in what Ukrainian human capital and technology was developing. Sigh, but when has he ever seen the real value in anything.
He's always made the bet that Ukraine is a lost cause, and his hero Putin would crush them. I'm very happy Ukraine and Europe are proving him very wrong.
Ron Filipkowski posted that that means you're LOSING UNO after Trump posted the photo of himself with a handful of UNO cards. Ron's post on Twitter got 217,000 likes and 3.7 million views in less than 24 hours. 😀
Trump never understood Ukraine or people who are smart and resourceful. Half of my family are from the Russian Empire (mother's side). The immigrant generation of men became machinists. The next generation became engineers. One woman became a chemist.
The Ukrainians are an educated people and they are clearly using tech to their advantage. And they despise Russia. Sadly they may end up hating us too.
And their president holds at least some really good cards.
Ukraine created its own cards. Like magic out of almost nothing. Arthur C Clarke said a sufficiently advanced technology would look like magic. Slava Ukraini!
Dave - the beauty part of him posting that pic is that he obviously doesn't know Uno. Can you picture him ever playing a card game with his kids or grands? 'Having all the cards' is like "yay I win at golf cuz I got the highest score!" 🤣
Thanks Ben and Cathy for your important updates and analyses on the war in Ukraine. Zelensky is the perfect example of an ordinary human being who is thrust into a crisis and then rises to the occasion to become a great wartime leader (something no doubt that the Mad King imagines himself to be).
Kurt - one of Zelenskyy’s gifts is that he embodies the strength & determination of his fellow Ukrainians. He doesn’t posture as an “only I can do it” authority. Rising to an ungodly occasion together - Ukrainians demonstrate, daily, that this is their shared culture
I agree completely. I am awed by the courage, resilience, and adaptability of the Ukrainian people. It reminds of the courage and fierce determination of the Polish people during WWII. They continued to fight against the Germans even after their country was occupied, fighting everywhere they possibly could - in Great Britain, Italy, Normandy, Holland and within their own country.
I collect the postal history and postage stamps of Poland, from the beginning through the 1980s. The efforts of the people to resist foreign occupiers was well documented also on their stamps.
If you can, check out the video in today's NYT. Old Ukrainian guy tries to enlist but is told he's too old. Instead, he buys an old sky-diving plane, obtains somehow a US military gattling-style machine gun, and with his mates scrambles to shoot down drones as they approach his city.
He seems to have put a lot of stock into the survey that ranked him as consequential. I;m convinced that he's calling operational shots regarding Iran, just as he designs buildings and files charges, etc.
Women have been aborting pregnancies for centuries, long before they could get Mifepristone in the mail. Where there's a will, there's a way. What the pro-life movement really wants is for women who abort pregnancies to get sick and die.
One thing that would be more honest would be to stop calling the movement that opposes reproductive autonomy and family planning what it really is, which is “anti reproductive rights/ choice and anti-abortion”
To lump everyone in the misnomer “pro life “is a serious, misleading and politically incorrect error. The vast majority of these people do not care about the lives that are created when women are not given the autonomy to choose when to have a child, starting from lack of access and affordability of contraception. The same people do not support the lives of babies and young children. They do not support access to good medical and educational care and they certainly don’t support allowing a woman help with childcare so that she can enter the workforce. Many of them don’t even care that women are still paid less for the same jobs that men are doing Until you can prove to me that these so-called “pro life “people are truly pro-life once the child is born then you can’t call them that.
Everyone wants fewer abortions because no one wants to have an unplanned pregnancy!!!. Then give us universal access to birth control and healthcare and while you’re at it, invent a perfect form of contraception and mandate that men take responsibility for impregnating women. And stop judging women who need to make difficult and personal decisions about their bodies and their lives. And while you’re at it, make sure that you don’t harm perfectly healthy pregnant women that need access to abortion and the medications that are used for this in order not to die from a dangerous pregnancy or from a miscarriage that is not going well. As a gynecologist, I have seen too much to tolerate discussions by people who are unaware of what is really involved
It has always struck me as odd that the Catholic Church, one of the pillars of the anti-abortion movement, does not object to it on the grounds that human life begins at birth, at least not primarily. Their problem is that God expects fetuses to become persons, live lives, then come to heaven* to sit at His right hand and glorify Him.** It's a matter of intefering with God's will, not of any human right.
* Unless they go to Hell.
** I don't get why a being embodying all perfections needs to be glorified.
To be fair, speaking as a cradle catholic who has now gone free range these days, I think the Catholic teaching in this regard are intellectually consistent, even if I don't fully agree with it myself. I think pro-life Catholics following the church's pro-life teaching personally in their own lives is fine, as their own personal choice. The issue is when anyone tries to force others to submit to a personal dogma with the force of secular law or interferes with the religious or non-religious choices of others because of their own personally held views.
Essentially, in the full Catholic pro-life view, all human life belongs to God. Full stop. We cannot interfere with that. Full stop. It does in fact extend beyond conception, as you said. The church's is also in opposition to birth control because that it interferes in God's life creating domain of sexual intercourse, the church's is in opposition to pre-marital sex, non-procreative sex, and masturbation because that those are abusing God's life creating domain for non-life-creation purposes, the church is opposed to IVF because of the creation of fertilized embryos which are not used and eventually destroyed, and so on.
To their credit, the most devout pro-life Catholics I know are generally *also* opposed to lethal self-defense, war, and capital punishment, etc., etc. But to be fair also, not all Catholics are intellectually consistent by virtue of going to church. Plenty of Catholics are simultaneously using birth control or having non-procreative sex, and really only hold anti-abortion views, not consistently pro-life views.
I really don't care if someone isn't masturbating or using condoms because they see sperm as sacred, good on ya. But don't try to stop the schools from teaching kids how to use a condom or stopping stores from providing them for sale.
I am a lifelong Catholic, and while I value my faith highly, there have always been a few nagging questions I’ve never felt comfortable asking anyone—and you mentioned one of them. What sort of being demands to be worshipped? How can that be his first commandment? It is the reason, I think, that I am much more Jesus-and-the-saints-focused.
Crazy talk? I'll give you a pass b/c you're ailing.
People have fewer abortions when having children doesn't equate to financial devastation. Trump just said making childcare more affordable is not the government's responsibility. Did anyone from the pro-life movement speak out against that? Trump famously told Chris Matthews in the 2016 campaign that women who abort pregnancies should be punished in some way. Did the pro-life movement speak out against that claim? The movement is laser-focused on banning safe and effective medications to make abortions riskier for the woman.
Also, banning mifepristone without banning misoprostol is just going to make medication abortions more painful. Women will still undergo the pain and discomfort, b/c as I said before, where there's a will, there's a way. But making the experience more painful is punishment pure and simple.
when I attempted to explain this to a male relative, they refuse to even take it in, a 15-17 strong minded girl, if pregnant by a despicable person will not want the child, will maybe not want to give the child away, she will do many things to end the situation, she will break bones to end it. Men , ( some, many ) cannot compute this.
It really boils down to this: Should the government have the power to force a woman (or girl) to carry a pregnancy to term? I, for one, would never support that level of totalitarianism.
it is what we have, presently. and did in '72, four state lines, the other gal had an rh issue, counseling up the ying yang, changed nothing, the partners were not suitable, thusly, unwanted, period.
There is a movement that wants fewer abortions. But I think it is now a separate entity from organizations like the ones complaining about Trump. It is a difficult thing, but we must sort out pro-life from anti-abortion groups.
Pro-life groups work with pregnant women and their significant others to find housing and day care and support. My Catholic church has rent assistance, for example.
Anti-abortion groups whine that Trump isn't hard enough and maybe we should have the death penalties for abortion. They hold up signs and march, but the one thing they never do is talk to pregnant women in distress. No support of infants and their families is available.
If we don't understand the difference, we will be stuck in this semantic trap forever.
The distinction you describe exists but you are (forgive me) applying it without much care. SBA Pro-Life America, the group I mention in the piece, doesn't fit your rubric at all. It actively opposes criminal penalties for women who obtain abortions and supports organizations that offer material support to vulnerable mothers to make family formation more viable.
I don't doubt there are many good-hearted people in the anti-abortion movement, but the trouble is that they are wholly focused on outlawing abortions and offering (very limited) private help to women who want to carry their pregnancies to term. They show little interest in supporting policies that help prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, including easy, affordable access to contraception. They don't seem terribly interested in the welfare of women at all, apart from their service as biological mothers. The focus is on "saving babies" and not on enabling people to make the right reproductive decisions for themselves and their families. And this approach is not even working to reduce the rate of abortions, which has apparently gone up, not down, since Dobbs. If we want to save babies and support families, we need to start with universal healthcare, not with threatening to put doctors in prison.
Yeah, if any of the groups actually cared that abortions have increased since they got their way, I'd feel differently. But they don't seem to notice or care.
You're so polite, Andrew! I will read more about them. I was going on your words here today, actually, which, as tends to be standard in these groups, cares a whole lot about Trump's opinions and doesn't even mention the effect of policies on families or communities.
But I'm very sensitive on this subject. I watched the Catholic Church move from my mother's advocacy - talking directly to vulnerable pregnant women - to priests bragging about going to marches with signs and talking to important politicians and getting press.
Wow, how radical of the SBA Pro-Life America, since none of the laws do that (criminalize women for having abortions; it's the only carve out). They are just okay if they die from miscarriages as a result because they can't get what is now called an abortion. What a radical stance! Sorry, but this is such a ridiculous stance. (Oh, I guess also it supports crisis pregnancy centers, sorry).
Katie, the Susan B. Anthony Group is a huge lobbying organization that lobbies for the worst abortion laws in the country. They and the Heritage Foundation are responsible for not only Dobbs being the rule of the land, but all of the ridiculous laws we have now setting the time for abortions so early that no one could possibly have an abortion. This has led to multiple horror stories because women cannot get care for miscarriages, they cannot get care after the fetus is dead, and so on. The Susan B. Anthony Group's position has been the laws are clear and the doctors are to blame. They are ambiguous by design. They are designed to make it very, very hard to have an abortion and for doctors and hospitals to be afraid of being criminally sentenced for providing women care. The lines are intentionally ambiguous. Please don't listen to people like Andrew that the SBA is reasonable. They are what gave us multiple horror stories. They are lobbyists.
I feel hopelessly out of my depth on the abortion topic but I really resonate with the distinction you're drawing. I often feel like the debate is stuck in a semantic trap.
I've almost given up trying to make sense of the various pro and anti labels that groups use to describe their positions, as far as choice/abortion/life - they convey some meaningful political info I guess. I try to look at what policies each group stands for/opposes instead to try and discern what are their actual values and revealed preferences.
The reality of pregnancy is that it inextricably links the lives of both mom and child - the labels of pro this or anti that are all somewhat artificial to the extent they presume it's possible to draw a line via policy or medical intervention that could cleanly distinguish the life of one person from the other.
From what I can tell, almost everyone except for a fringe element on either side of the debate is pro-life of both mom and child, in the sense of wanting to reduce the number of abortions. (One way to see this is to ask the opposite question of who would be in favor of allowing infanticide - the answer is almost nobody).
The question is how to protect both the life of the mom and unborn child the best, simultaneously, given the uncompromising reality that the life of the unborn child is fully dependent on the health and well-being of the mom (at least up until the point the child could survive outside the womb via societal support), and that the life of the mom becomes more vulnerable during pregnancy. Each side of the political aisle has extreme wings that place some values slightly higher in priority than others, which leads to a huge political divergence in how they answer this question.
For the sake of trying to get beyond the semantics, I'm putting my views out there on what possibly drives this divergence (no one has to agree with this, I recognize I'm still growing in my understanding on this topic, please be kind if you disagree).
One side of the political aisle I feel gives pre-eminence to legally enforceable solutions. In particular, they would reduce the mom's right to bodily autonomy and grant external authorities within the wider society some level of governance over the mom's womb, like a veto power over the mom's will, to be able to protect the unborn child's right to life. They would still want to support the mom's health and well-being too I believe, but if push comes to shove where the two lives are in conflict, they would err on the side of protecting the unborn child's life and risking the mom's. At least that seems to be the revealed preference in terms of favoring some policies and interventions over others.
The other side of the aisle I feel gives pre-eminence to holistic but harder to enforce solutions. In particular they focus on empowering the mom and improving her material well-being and health, so she would be less likely to face the tough decision of whether to have an abortion in the first place. Once the baby is born they would also want to ensure the mom has the societal and material support she needs to raise the child. They would still want to ensure society could intervene when possible to protect the unborn child's life, in cases where the mom feels inclined to choose an abortion. But if push comes to shove, they would err on the side of protecting the mom's life and risking the unborn child's. At least that seems to be the revealed preference in terms of favoring some policies and interventions over others.
I think most people favor a policy that is some combination of the two extremes, to try and balance the good parts of each side and minimize the bad parts. Somehow, the political reality seems to amplify just the extreme voices on either side though, which makes it hard to ever hear policies proposed that would explicitly tie both sides together - i e. both protect the unborn child while also still empowering the mom and providing her the support she needs.
The pro-life movement ought to want many things that would be pro-life, like reducing maternal mortality, better sex education, better suicide prevention, an end to capital punishment, better drug rehabilitation, better gun safety laws, reduced prison recidivism, improved social programs for kids, opposition to war, etc.
That they focus so much of their effort on imposing their religious dogma on women's bodies to me shows the real game at play here, which is controlling women. They're only pro-life in so far as they can impose a Christian sharia view of pregnancy and bodily autonomy on believers and non-believers alike.
It always has been, is now, always will be a private, ultra personal, choice. What the "pro-life" movement "really wants" is their choice to make, for themselves. Maybe if they feel so strongly about intruding into my freedoms, they should begin inventing an abortifacient detector to screen international mail. If SCOTUS goes all the way on this, women will turn to international sources; there will surely be some. I'm hoping that Canada holds freedom of choice in enough regard to provide a path for American women whose freedoms will have been interrupted - temporarily.
Andrew Egger wants fewer abortions because he strikes me as a man who takes the teachings of Jesus seriously. Pro life movement as a whole? Is the jury still out?
I think Jesus's teachings about protecting the "least among us" are signficant. Human life is sacred, and that includes the infirm, people with disabilities, and yes, life pre birth. Do I trust government to butt in? Not really. It's way too complicated for a government of fallible people to legislate and enforce. Would I support a cultural change towards making abortions fewer in number? absolutely, I think 99% of the public would see less abortions as a positive outcome.
It was really not that long ago that the Southern Baptists and other Protestant sects supported a woman's right to choose before abortion was used as propaganda by conservative politicians to get win over the religious voting block.
Yes. Read about the Jane Collective and what they did and you'll see clearly that many women who need or want abortions will not be stopped. (I don't mean "you", specifically, just the generalized "you". 😊)
Well, Andrew, if that's the case, I expect you and other like minded people here to write some articles about how these laws ARE having women get sick and die. Because they are. And second, maybe write some articles about how actually apparently do want more abortions, since they are going after birth control next. I'll wait. And while you are at it, maybe dial up your hyperbole detector, and appreciate where those comments about death and sickness are coming from. Actual death and sickness. It makes you look clueless or unsympathetic.
I've been reading and watching some things about old Rome and got to wondering how with all the goings on, women weren't having babies of unclear paternity all the time. A little searching revealed a variety of abortifacients, including Silphium, a plant so popular it was used to extinction. Early Americans used a variety of plants, including pennyroyal and tansy. The anti abortion movement is a 20th century invention.
"This morning, at his regular Pentagon press conference, Hegseth tried to nail two new planks into this rickety argument. The first was that the 'ceasefire' remains in place—despite the fact that U.S. and Iranian forces spent yesterday shooting at each other in the Strait of Hormuz. And the second is that what is happening now, in any event, is no longer the same conflict at all: Hegseth insisted that 'Project Freedom,' the new effort to unplug the strait by force, is 'separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.'"
Why did he even bother? It's more *1984* every day.
He’s not wrong in the sense that Operation Epic Fury had no real strategic aim and the straight was still open at that time. Opening the straight is a very specific aim though the result of our actions. Hegseth might want to peruse the definition of sequela..
Ben: "From Donald Trump and JD Vance on down, almost every member of the Trump administration has talked about Ukraine as a sort of geopolitical beggar, always taking, never giving, and certainly unworthy of generosity or support. That view has always been not only morally idiotic but strategically short-sighted. Ukraine is now a valuable partner and ally for a host of countries that are willing to be good partners and allies in return. Unfortunately, the United States decided it didn’t want to be one of them."
The Trump Administration wants Russia to win the war. Or, perhaps more precisely, Donald Trump wants Russia to win the war.
Am reading “The March of Folly” by Barbara Tuchman. One myth, three actual wars, showing the arrogance of conceit and a blindness of those in charge. One takeaway from the chapter on Vietnam is the tenacity of Ho Chi Man and his followers to wrest their country, first from the French, and last from the Americans. The parallels with Ukraine are there. Subjugation is short lived historically. People transfer their hopes and willingness to fight on to the next generation, and they transfer the same passion to the next. Coupled with an educated workforce, the Ukrainian people will prevail because they want this independence more than they want to live under the Russians. They tried it, they don’t want it ever again. Slava Ukraini!
Ben - in time, Russian culture may absorb some of the characteristics of their neighbor? That’s part of why Putin fears Ukraine so much and wants so badly to crush them
Maybe! It's a possibility. But that will be made more difficult by the relentless campaign to call the Ukrainians a fake people with an artificial country, confused, Nazified Russians gone astray, merely the cat's paw of the West, etc., etc.
J AZ, I think that's got to be a big part of it. I feel like the last 10 years has definitely solidified Churchill's? comment that Democracy is the last bad of all the forms of government out there. I know China is always held up as an exception to this rule because of their great advancement over the last 50 years, but after a century of imperialization, civil war, world war, and Mao, China had nowhere to go but up. China, with an aging population will probably start to see some of the same stagnation that killed off the Soviet Union in the 1970's....
Ben - Father Time does indeed come a'callin. China also has challenges of scale. I believe this contributes to our problems in USA too. Geography, the size & complexity of the economy, population issues such as growth needed to generate the funds for social & physical infrastructure... but how to keep that population working and not outstripping the aforementioned infrastructure?
Isn't there a Chinese saying (possibly apocryphal) about living in interesting times? 😉
Benjamin - agree there appears to be some schizy thinking behind Putin's views, as best I can glean by kremlin watching. He makes out that Ukrainians are a breakaway (fallen away?) branch of Mother Russia's family tree - is that because they succumbed to the siren song of the European West, or were already so inferior that Russia didn't care when they began drifting away? But Ukraine is also 'undeniably' part of Russia so we must absorb them back into the hive... by force, for their own good, or to rescue the loyalists being oppressed by the nazis... also, welcome them back as prodigals? There are as many conflicting/competing rationales as Trump has for attacking Iran.
Putin also throws in the grand history of the old empire, coupled with religious input from Patriarch Kirill (tho much less of that seen in news here since the 1st couple years of the 2022 invasion).
How Russian authoritarianism sees the West - I spoze my vision is colored by being a Boomer and watching this play out during the 1960s on thru to the end of USSR. We like to imagine that blue jeans & the Beatles hastened the collapse, just like us singing Blowin in the Wind ushered in civil rights, and Give Peace a Chance ended the Vietnam war. Please don't call us solipsistic, just a bit overconfident about the inevitability of our allure 😊
Catherine the Great seized the Ukraine in her attempt to get a warm water port. The people of Ukraine never accepted this non Russian ruler (she was born in Germany, and not of the royal Russian family) and never accepted Russia or USSR as their sovereigns. Putin is delusional to think Ukraine belongs to Russia.
No serious knowledge here but I recall early after the 2022 invasion I learned (maybe Timothy Snyder's videos) of Kiev as a capital & center of culture significantly predating what we now call Russia. Centuries before Cathy G butted in! Today's Ukraine seems to have been a region & peoples that were kicked around among various interlopers and boundary makers for most of their existence. If I ever need a lesson in indomitability I know where to look! 💪
it was for that woman ( boy she had some lovers, ego stuff ) odessa, and then put phony history to it, to cement the port, from what I've read. she was a real piece of work, bribery too
It’s a great book and demonstrates how humans cannot seem to truly learn from other’s past mistakes. Reading Shelby Foote’s three volumes on the American civil war shows how much the war was decided on mistakes, accidents, leadership, and FUBARs in the fog of war.
I read those 3 volumes. I read something about the Siege of Vicksburg, I don't know if it was in those books or a different book by him but he wrote how at the end of the day the officers of both armies would go back to "Officer's Country' and left the soldiers on the line up to their own devices. He said that one side had plenty of coffee and the other had plenty of food, biscuits and other soldiers' fare. The soldiers got together in No Man's Land and shared, talked, play cards, etc. The only rule was that no politics would be discussed because it may cause a fight. There are times when the soldiers are much smarter than their officers and politicians who conduct the war.
I did not read Shelby Foote’s books, but did see Ken Burns’ TV show where Mr Foote was a commentator. The Teaching Company has a wonderful lecture on the Civil War. I would listen to the CD’s when I drove to work. Incredible.
I've read A Distant Mirror by her and now I'm looking for this book. It sounds fantastic. A Distant Mirror was great, although I had to skim it. She did so much research.
The March of Folly is basically the same in detail, but she talks about our revolution and then the war in Vietnam which brings things a little bit closer than something in the 14th century in France. A great read.
Justice Kavanagh ought to remember that he is on the court because you can’t do things to close to an election. Justice Barret could then explain that only republicans know what’s too close to an election.
'In a Truth Social post, he ticked off a laundry list of construction features, including “Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations,” and on and on. Without all this, “no future president,” he insisted, “can ever be Safe and Secure at Events, Future Inaugurations, or Global Summits.”'
So $1 billion for features like a cutting edge hospital that will never get used (probably run by Ronny Jackson, who will see a huge pay raise), and for a building that a Democratic president will face enormous pressure to just demolish. Oh, and for a building that was never supposed to cost tax payers a dime, while inflation and gas prices continue to rise directly because of policies this president has enacted, all of which were illegal (war, tariffs) because they all required Congressional approval.
How is this man's approval above 30%? This is why we are among the stupidest nations in the world.
Because MAGA members have chosen Felon Trump as the hill to die upon. They are wedded to all his lies because he represents all the ideas they hate and hate is all they have left. Maybe it was all they ever had but couldn’t say it out loud.
The more educated Trump apologists can't really believe that he is virtuous, honorable, intelligent and wise, so it has to be shared hatred that draws them to him.
Which they don’t really do. They talk about needs; getting rid of criminals, except they cheer when non white faces get arrested in truly criminal ways and then secretly shipped to foreign nations to rot. Tell them that most of those arrested have no criminal record, the default goes back to the arrested person being here illegally. No body will admit that what is being done in this country is what they WANT. Normal people call that hate, and MAGA is full of hate.
I would like to say that this is the first time in a very long time that the Bullwark has even addressed reproductive rights in any kind of quasi comprehensive way. It doesn’t matter what side of the issue you’re on, this site needs to talk about what reproductive rights means for this country and how essential it is for the political and social health of this country. The use of this medication is not only for abortions… Which is sound medical care… It is also used for management of miscarriages and saves lives.
What about talking about the politics of what has happened after the reversal of Roe. What about acknowledging that abortions have not decreased despite these draconian measures in many states. In fact, the only abortions that have decreased are those that are indicated to save the life of a woman and women have died because of this.
Jonathan Cohn is a wonderful reporter, but why has he not dealt with this issue and addressed about women’s health issues at all?
Abortion has always been seen as a woman's thing, not for men and politics to spend much time on. Besides it is icky and filled with moralizing that many don't want to deal with...because it's a woman's thing. A lot of men could not care less about it as a policy, but do care on a personal level if it involves their family members.
That’s really sad and actually not entirely true. Perhaps if we held men more accountable for the lives they produce—supporting the children, educating them, and providing them healthcare—suddenly men would be interested in the importance of family planning.
It is well known that a societies’ political and sociological health can be measured by the access to family planning and the ability of women to control the size of their families. This is directly related to the ability of women to enter society and the workforce.
yeah , that sperm, get collected by women, and placed inside women, ( seven seconds in a backseat with underwear ON ) they handle all the sperm, control it, deal with it. yeah right.
The antiabortion groups have reached the "knife in the back" stage of the Trump supporters carousel. Some of them must realize by now that the only causes Trump supports are the ones that will result in millions of dollars for him and / or his family. Look at what's happening with the Big Beautiful Ballroom Bunker; Republicans in Congress now want to fund it with a billion tax payer dollars. What happens to the "donations" (read: bribes) paid to fund it? Right to Trump's bank account.
Oh, and we must not forget that those DOGE mooks are still inside our government compromising our data and the country's security.
The makers of mifepristone should send Trump a couple hundred dollars of stock. He'd never do anything that would hurt his own bottom line, no matter how minor (or how many people are effected or pissed off).
Alternatively they could buy a couple hundred of dollars' worth of Trump crypto and make a "commitment" to spend billions to build a mifepristone factory in Florida.
It's an objectively good thing for Ukraine to decouple from the United States; we are not a reliable ally.
A necessity for them; a blunder and a tragedy for us.
It’s a good thing for the entire world to decouple from the United States, we aren’t a reliable ally, nor are we stable even within our own borders. The President is at war with half the nation, and it’s going to get worse.
or about 63 % of the nation
Let’s hope that’s the number
And risiing.
Can't trust a country run by a regime that is openly fascist in its ambitions. The 'advisor' closest to the president's (miraculously regenerated) ear makes wildly Hitleresque speeches about how the world's "iron laws of strength, force, and power" entitle the regime to do whatever it wants. Really, they couldn't project more obvious and cartoonish evil if they tried.
His most trusted advisor is in the Kremlin
Trump may only have hastened a process that was already underway--a slow global drift away from the post-war alliances that had kept the world peaceful (relatively) and prosperous (relatively) for eighty years: the rise of Limbaughism and Murdochism, the first election of Trump--these were clear signs of breakdown even before the madness that has ensued since the 2024 election.
But he hastened it at light speed, at the same time hastening the decline of the US itself as a reliable partner.
Post-Trump we will, yes, still be powerful, still relatively affluent, still heavily armed with deadly weapons: but we will not be, in the eyes of the world, a reliable ally on any front--economic, diplomatic, military, democratic.
We will be a nation chock-a-block with guns and rage, one in which a majority of voting citizens looked at a corrupt, thuggish, staggeringly ignorant old crook--one who had attempted a coup d'etat and who ruled through tantrum and division--and returned him to power; cheering all the way; cheering all the more noisily and enthusiastically as he attacked and menaced old friends and allies and smashed up US democracy; as did the wealthy movers and shakers who bankroll the Republican Party.
Even if through some miracle, at some future point, we elect responsible, serious adults to the presidency and the Congressional majority, in the eyes of the rest of the world we will always be a nation that is perpetually one step away from Trumping the global order again. You don't build trade partnerships or military alliances on that.
I’m afraid we will be less affluent as other countries drift away from the dollar as reserve currency while we continue to hike our national debt.
We will also be less powerful as allies drift away from us as strategic and military partners and source their arms elsewhere.
Putin may be flailing in his hot war against Ukraine, but his long investment in anti-West cyberwar and Trumpism has succeeded beyond expectations.
Will there be a Kalshi on how many decades it takes for the CIA to request more funding for foreign asset development with the pitch: "Look how well it worked for Russia!"
Don't forget about energy technology. We're putting our emphasis on oil and even coal; the rest of the world will move ever faster to solar and wind. (Heck, I'll bet even the Middle East does that -- there's plenty of solar and wind in the Arabian Desert.)
And it's just a matter of time before those clever immigrants who settled in the Silicon Valley to create our modern information state will stop coming and stay in their home countries and -- hopefully -- create technologies that aren't the Big Brother our own moguls desire so strongly.
Paul Krugman this morning related that in Norway, a country whose wealth is in large part due to fossil fuels, 11,000 new cars were registered last month. Only 150 of them had pistons. As Trump plays nose-tackle for Fossil Fuel in its goal line stand, the rest of the world is over it.
I recommend Krugman's post from this morning. It makes clear that Trump is unintentionally pushing the rest of the world toward the renewable energy he so despises. Well, accelerating the push of the rest of the world toward renewables. https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-losing-a-second-war
Maybe the God of Francis and Leo *has* chosen his instrument, Donald, wisely.
Americans need larger ranges for our cars, but young people may not need cars at all until they have children, and you can buy an e-bike for $5k these days.
China also enjoys a green energy advantage. China manufactures most of the world's solar panels, is moving up in the global EV market (domestically more than 50% of its vehicles are EVs), and while still using coal is aggressively expanding its renewable energy capacity including solar and wind, with a carbon-neutral target of 2060.
Poland is watching very, very closely. I'll bet the Trump Admin forgot all about Poland.
Up to 10 million Polish Americans these days. The public hasn't forgotten.
Slava Ukraini
10 million Polish Americans helped to vote Trump in.
not right now, and say it, we are on the putin team, our administration is, say it.
"The Met Gala was last night—and if you’re hoping for commentary on that, we’re afraid you’ve come to the wrong place."
Thank God! I'm so sick of news sources acting like celebrities eating cake is News!
And I'm sick of the NY Times covering people like Lauren Bezos and the Kardashians as if their lives are "news". Our nation is burning down and they are covering rich vapid idiots.
Sadly, there's always a market for covering rich vapid idiots. We have the Kardashians; previous generations had Porfirio Rubirosa, the "jet set," and some guy named Donald Trump. Wonder what ever happened to that last one. (Former entertainment editor here.)
You must have his spokesman John Baron's phone number...
The LA Times makes far more sense than the NY Times. At least the LA paper knows to keep the Hollywood stuff more or less under control.
It is not as if that's all they cover. Try living without the Times for a few weeks.
EXACTLY!!! Me too!
Well it was news for the French, and they didn’t react happily.
And here I was about to do a fashion commentary. But I don't know who the celebrities are. I just look at the outfits. It's like watching Downton Abbey. I hate all the characters, throw the tea in the harbor, those aristos are corrupt and stupid, but boy do they wear gorgeous gowns.
When I look at those outfits, there's a part of me that roots for an earthquake or other calamity to be able to watch them run for their lives in them.
Some of the gowns were lovely, but for the most part they looked the same in gold, white, or black with lace. And their faces looked like they’d been produced on a production line, created by AI. I don’t know who those people are. And Mrs. Bezos II is stunningly vapid in interviews. All quite dull and disappointing.
spouse of bezos, awful, chinese torture to her body, awful, so degrading to all females, awful,
Ann Telnaes - https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/lead-sponsors-and-honorary-chairs
Helena bonham carter, Brit, looked so cool. the only one I liked, sick of
Kar dash, and jenners, sick greedy women, all of them.
And God forbid you clicked on a article about it, my news feed is now 90% Met Gala coverage! Nightmare
lots of $ in fashion
My sympathies!
!00% agreed!
sure, but the last gilded age turned into progressive legislation partly because of how bald it was, the law breaking arrogance while people starved.
so these pictures and stories need to sit there, indigestible, until we've had enough ...
Hmmm, Germany gets the benefit of Ukraine's drone knowledge and manufacturing, and the US gets Don Jr and Eric's drone manufacturing company. I strongly suspect Putin would prefer it to be the other way around.
The Trump administration's abandonment of Ukraine was another of their very evil very bad moves. How does anyone possibly think that Trump isn't an active Putin asset?
Trump sees himself as Putin's buddy and equal. Putin sees Trump as a useful stooge who can be manipulated with a shiny trophy and a pat on the back.
Assets cost money. Stooges can be influenced with "flattery and favors". And nobody knows that better than an ex-KGB agent.
Trump is a Petro-president and Petro is no more nation-bound than acid rain or pollution. The Koch(s), Joe Manchin, and Putin* all play for the same team.
*And other miscellaneous fossil fuel interests in Texas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Nebraska....
I always ask myself: "What would Trump be doing differently if he was a Russian asset?" and the answer, so far as I can tell, is not much. He's pretty much doing all of the things we would expect a Russian sycophant, bribery target, or blackmail target to do.
In the Manchurian Candidate, the assassin had the excuse that he had been captured and brain-washed. DJT does it for money--and maybe to avoid prison or having the world see him cavorting with Russian prostitutes.
I feel like an actual Russian asset would be less obvious about it. Maybe that's too many rewatchings of the Americans (and Rocky and Bullwinkle).
I keep hearing 'I could shoot someone on 5th Avenue and get away with it." This is "I can be a Russian asset and get away with it". This is Kushner "I can be Trump's peace negotiator, fail at it, and still negotiate billion dollar side hustles with the same people at the same time and get away with it." This is Kristi Noem "I can call white citizens terrorists after my goons shoot them dead and get away with it." I could go on.
There is something really wrong that we Americans keep letting them get away with it. It's like it's so brazen and out of bounds we can't believe it.
At least with drones you get...maybe...drones. With Trump crypto ventures, we get nothing.
To quote the Honorable Judge Elihu Smails...
https://youtu.be/FuNJq_wI1ns?si=idLRj-69Oyo6wnzf
My brother was the caddy. I was a busboy in the dining room. There really could be a whole separate movie.
Especially because Putin has the Epstein files.
Bibi has files as well, and a lot of his are probably not in the Epstein files. Ehud Barak was not just head of Mossad, he was also involved in sampling Epstein's wares and is thought to have provided a lot of Epstein's video capabilities.
The US has a president compromised by his criminal activities. I can remember when Americans were appalled by criminals, now we make them president.
The Ukrainians may not have held or even hold that many cards, and they never pretended they did. But they’ve played the cards they have very well, and in the process demonstrated what war will look like going forward. The Ukrainians military industrial base they have built during this war is one worth having, and the partnerships developed from it will be at the forefront of military technologies going forward. Supporting Ukraine is the best way for the EU to revive their own military position in the world, and the Ukrainian military technology allied with the EU would be a strong bulwark against an aggressive Russia. It could have been ours, but the Orange Narcissist was mored about his business opportunities in Russia, or at best rare earth mineral deals with the Ukrainians. Little did he see the real value in what Ukrainian human capital and technology was developing. Sigh, but when has he ever seen the real value in anything.
He's always made the bet that Ukraine is a lost cause, and his hero Putin would crush them. I'm very happy Ukraine and Europe are proving him very wrong.
Slava Ukraini!
Also, a lot of Americans, including me, have given money to vetted and legitimate charities that support the Ukrainian people. F---DJT.
Me too!
But not to DJT.
All the while DJT holds Uno cards!
All of them! Bkz that's how you win at UNO, right?
If Trump were playing Uno he would intentionally collect all the cards and then say no one could play with him and so he won by default.
That's probably what happened to him his entire life, and why he thinks that's how you win that game.
He would certainly horde and constantly play wild cards.
Ron Filipkowski posted that that means you're LOSING UNO after Trump posted the photo of himself with a handful of UNO cards. Ron's post on Twitter got 217,000 likes and 3.7 million views in less than 24 hours. 😀
Just saw the last Kimmel monologue where he states: you do know the object is where the winner holds no cards?
Priceless...
Trump never understood Ukraine or people who are smart and resourceful. Half of my family are from the Russian Empire (mother's side). The immigrant generation of men became machinists. The next generation became engineers. One woman became a chemist.
The Ukrainians are an educated people and they are clearly using tech to their advantage. And they despise Russia. Sadly they may end up hating us too.
And their president holds at least some really good cards.
Ukraine created its own cards. Like magic out of almost nothing. Arthur C Clarke said a sufficiently advanced technology would look like magic. Slava Ukraini!
Oh but DJT holds the Uno cards!
Dave - the beauty part of him posting that pic is that he obviously doesn't know Uno. Can you picture him ever playing a card game with his kids or grands? 'Having all the cards' is like "yay I win at golf cuz I got the highest score!" 🤣
But the high score still wins when you’re the only one playin’ !
my high schoolers got a big kick out of that one. Obviously video games have taken over, but Uno is the one card game that all the kids know.
I think I played it once. But forgot how!
The idea is to *get rid* of all your cards. So, this is pretty on-brand for Trumpo.
Right there with the upside-down Bible.
It's one-dimension warfare... .On every turn you're trying to either get ahead or screw someone else. Great fun, especially the shouting of 'UNO!"
Thanks Ben and Cathy for your important updates and analyses on the war in Ukraine. Zelensky is the perfect example of an ordinary human being who is thrust into a crisis and then rises to the occasion to become a great wartime leader (something no doubt that the Mad King imagines himself to be).
Kurt - one of Zelenskyy’s gifts is that he embodies the strength & determination of his fellow Ukrainians. He doesn’t posture as an “only I can do it” authority. Rising to an ungodly occasion together - Ukrainians demonstrate, daily, that this is their shared culture
I agree completely. I am awed by the courage, resilience, and adaptability of the Ukrainian people. It reminds of the courage and fierce determination of the Polish people during WWII. They continued to fight against the Germans even after their country was occupied, fighting everywhere they possibly could - in Great Britain, Italy, Normandy, Holland and within their own country.
I collect the postal history and postage stamps of Poland, from the beginning through the 1980s. The efforts of the people to resist foreign occupiers was well documented also on their stamps.
If you can, check out the video in today's NYT. Old Ukrainian guy tries to enlist but is told he's too old. Instead, he buys an old sky-diving plane, obtains somehow a US military gattling-style machine gun, and with his mates scrambles to shoot down drones as they approach his city.
Thanks Tom, will try to get it later. As an old guy myself I admire that spirit!
Oh, it's even worse. He thinks he is one of the Great Men of History. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/04/donald-trump-legacy-history/686817/
Yes, I read that great article. Like The Bulwark and Democracy Docket, The Atlantic is part of my daily intake of sane news and commentary.
He seems to have put a lot of stock into the survey that ranked him as consequential. I;m convinced that he's calling operational shots regarding Iran, just as he designs buildings and files charges, etc.
Can we start calling it Trump’s Bawl Room? 😂
Or no Balls Room?
Or Bowl (as in toilet) Room? He's flushing our nation down the toilet, after all.
Golden Bowl Room would be very fitting!
👍 All the puns that will fit on a poster are fair game!
Women have been aborting pregnancies for centuries, long before they could get Mifepristone in the mail. Where there's a will, there's a way. What the pro-life movement really wants is for women who abort pregnancies to get sick and die.
I'm sorry but this is crazy talk. What the pro-life movement "really wants" is for fewer abortions to happen in America.
One thing that would be more honest would be to stop calling the movement that opposes reproductive autonomy and family planning what it really is, which is “anti reproductive rights/ choice and anti-abortion”
To lump everyone in the misnomer “pro life “is a serious, misleading and politically incorrect error. The vast majority of these people do not care about the lives that are created when women are not given the autonomy to choose when to have a child, starting from lack of access and affordability of contraception. The same people do not support the lives of babies and young children. They do not support access to good medical and educational care and they certainly don’t support allowing a woman help with childcare so that she can enter the workforce. Many of them don’t even care that women are still paid less for the same jobs that men are doing Until you can prove to me that these so-called “pro life “people are truly pro-life once the child is born then you can’t call them that.
Everyone wants fewer abortions because no one wants to have an unplanned pregnancy!!!. Then give us universal access to birth control and healthcare and while you’re at it, invent a perfect form of contraception and mandate that men take responsibility for impregnating women. And stop judging women who need to make difficult and personal decisions about their bodies and their lives. And while you’re at it, make sure that you don’t harm perfectly healthy pregnant women that need access to abortion and the medications that are used for this in order not to die from a dangerous pregnancy or from a miscarriage that is not going well. As a gynecologist, I have seen too much to tolerate discussions by people who are unaware of what is really involved
It has always struck me as odd that the Catholic Church, one of the pillars of the anti-abortion movement, does not object to it on the grounds that human life begins at birth, at least not primarily. Their problem is that God expects fetuses to become persons, live lives, then come to heaven* to sit at His right hand and glorify Him.** It's a matter of intefering with God's will, not of any human right.
* Unless they go to Hell.
** I don't get why a being embodying all perfections needs to be glorified.
To be fair, speaking as a cradle catholic who has now gone free range these days, I think the Catholic teaching in this regard are intellectually consistent, even if I don't fully agree with it myself. I think pro-life Catholics following the church's pro-life teaching personally in their own lives is fine, as their own personal choice. The issue is when anyone tries to force others to submit to a personal dogma with the force of secular law or interferes with the religious or non-religious choices of others because of their own personally held views.
Essentially, in the full Catholic pro-life view, all human life belongs to God. Full stop. We cannot interfere with that. Full stop. It does in fact extend beyond conception, as you said. The church's is also in opposition to birth control because that it interferes in God's life creating domain of sexual intercourse, the church's is in opposition to pre-marital sex, non-procreative sex, and masturbation because that those are abusing God's life creating domain for non-life-creation purposes, the church is opposed to IVF because of the creation of fertilized embryos which are not used and eventually destroyed, and so on.
To their credit, the most devout pro-life Catholics I know are generally *also* opposed to lethal self-defense, war, and capital punishment, etc., etc. But to be fair also, not all Catholics are intellectually consistent by virtue of going to church. Plenty of Catholics are simultaneously using birth control or having non-procreative sex, and really only hold anti-abortion views, not consistently pro-life views.
I really don't care if someone isn't masturbating or using condoms because they see sperm as sacred, good on ya. But don't try to stop the schools from teaching kids how to use a condom or stopping stores from providing them for sale.
Yes. Their objection to abortion is the same as their objection to birth control--and "casting...seed upon the ground."
Don't forget the Catholic Church also want those babies to grow up so they can put money into that collection basket!
Business 101.
$$ and gold and property and take, take take
I am a lifelong Catholic, and while I value my faith highly, there have always been a few nagging questions I’ve never felt comfortable asking anyone—and you mentioned one of them. What sort of being demands to be worshipped? How can that be his first commandment? It is the reason, I think, that I am much more Jesus-and-the-saints-focused.
Crazy talk? I'll give you a pass b/c you're ailing.
People have fewer abortions when having children doesn't equate to financial devastation. Trump just said making childcare more affordable is not the government's responsibility. Did anyone from the pro-life movement speak out against that? Trump famously told Chris Matthews in the 2016 campaign that women who abort pregnancies should be punished in some way. Did the pro-life movement speak out against that claim? The movement is laser-focused on banning safe and effective medications to make abortions riskier for the woman.
Also, banning mifepristone without banning misoprostol is just going to make medication abortions more painful. Women will still undergo the pain and discomfort, b/c as I said before, where there's a will, there's a way. But making the experience more painful is punishment pure and simple.
when I attempted to explain this to a male relative, they refuse to even take it in, a 15-17 strong minded girl, if pregnant by a despicable person will not want the child, will maybe not want to give the child away, she will do many things to end the situation, she will break bones to end it. Men , ( some, many ) cannot compute this.
It really boils down to this: Should the government have the power to force a woman (or girl) to carry a pregnancy to term? I, for one, would never support that level of totalitarianism.
it is what we have, presently. and did in '72, four state lines, the other gal had an rh issue, counseling up the ying yang, changed nothing, the partners were not suitable, thusly, unwanted, period.
There is a movement that wants fewer abortions. But I think it is now a separate entity from organizations like the ones complaining about Trump. It is a difficult thing, but we must sort out pro-life from anti-abortion groups.
Pro-life groups work with pregnant women and their significant others to find housing and day care and support. My Catholic church has rent assistance, for example.
Anti-abortion groups whine that Trump isn't hard enough and maybe we should have the death penalties for abortion. They hold up signs and march, but the one thing they never do is talk to pregnant women in distress. No support of infants and their families is available.
If we don't understand the difference, we will be stuck in this semantic trap forever.
The distinction you describe exists but you are (forgive me) applying it without much care. SBA Pro-Life America, the group I mention in the piece, doesn't fit your rubric at all. It actively opposes criminal penalties for women who obtain abortions and supports organizations that offer material support to vulnerable mothers to make family formation more viable.
I don't doubt there are many good-hearted people in the anti-abortion movement, but the trouble is that they are wholly focused on outlawing abortions and offering (very limited) private help to women who want to carry their pregnancies to term. They show little interest in supporting policies that help prevent unwanted pregnancies in the first place, including easy, affordable access to contraception. They don't seem terribly interested in the welfare of women at all, apart from their service as biological mothers. The focus is on "saving babies" and not on enabling people to make the right reproductive decisions for themselves and their families. And this approach is not even working to reduce the rate of abortions, which has apparently gone up, not down, since Dobbs. If we want to save babies and support families, we need to start with universal healthcare, not with threatening to put doctors in prison.
Yeah, if any of the groups actually cared that abortions have increased since they got their way, I'd feel differently. But they don't seem to notice or care.
Of course they care! Them caring is the entire genesis of the mifepristone dispute.
You're so polite, Andrew! I will read more about them. I was going on your words here today, actually, which, as tends to be standard in these groups, cares a whole lot about Trump's opinions and doesn't even mention the effect of policies on families or communities.
But I'm very sensitive on this subject. I watched the Catholic Church move from my mother's advocacy - talking directly to vulnerable pregnant women - to priests bragging about going to marches with signs and talking to important politicians and getting press.
And that is useful and good. Sadly, many groups are strictly pro-birth, and the mother gets little or no support after the baby is born.
Wow, how radical of the SBA Pro-Life America, since none of the laws do that (criminalize women for having abortions; it's the only carve out). They are just okay if they die from miscarriages as a result because they can't get what is now called an abortion. What a radical stance! Sorry, but this is such a ridiculous stance. (Oh, I guess also it supports crisis pregnancy centers, sorry).
Katie, the Susan B. Anthony Group is a huge lobbying organization that lobbies for the worst abortion laws in the country. They and the Heritage Foundation are responsible for not only Dobbs being the rule of the land, but all of the ridiculous laws we have now setting the time for abortions so early that no one could possibly have an abortion. This has led to multiple horror stories because women cannot get care for miscarriages, they cannot get care after the fetus is dead, and so on. The Susan B. Anthony Group's position has been the laws are clear and the doctors are to blame. They are ambiguous by design. They are designed to make it very, very hard to have an abortion and for doctors and hospitals to be afraid of being criminally sentenced for providing women care. The lines are intentionally ambiguous. Please don't listen to people like Andrew that the SBA is reasonable. They are what gave us multiple horror stories. They are lobbyists.
I feel hopelessly out of my depth on the abortion topic but I really resonate with the distinction you're drawing. I often feel like the debate is stuck in a semantic trap.
I've almost given up trying to make sense of the various pro and anti labels that groups use to describe their positions, as far as choice/abortion/life - they convey some meaningful political info I guess. I try to look at what policies each group stands for/opposes instead to try and discern what are their actual values and revealed preferences.
The reality of pregnancy is that it inextricably links the lives of both mom and child - the labels of pro this or anti that are all somewhat artificial to the extent they presume it's possible to draw a line via policy or medical intervention that could cleanly distinguish the life of one person from the other.
From what I can tell, almost everyone except for a fringe element on either side of the debate is pro-life of both mom and child, in the sense of wanting to reduce the number of abortions. (One way to see this is to ask the opposite question of who would be in favor of allowing infanticide - the answer is almost nobody).
The question is how to protect both the life of the mom and unborn child the best, simultaneously, given the uncompromising reality that the life of the unborn child is fully dependent on the health and well-being of the mom (at least up until the point the child could survive outside the womb via societal support), and that the life of the mom becomes more vulnerable during pregnancy. Each side of the political aisle has extreme wings that place some values slightly higher in priority than others, which leads to a huge political divergence in how they answer this question.
For the sake of trying to get beyond the semantics, I'm putting my views out there on what possibly drives this divergence (no one has to agree with this, I recognize I'm still growing in my understanding on this topic, please be kind if you disagree).
One side of the political aisle I feel gives pre-eminence to legally enforceable solutions. In particular, they would reduce the mom's right to bodily autonomy and grant external authorities within the wider society some level of governance over the mom's womb, like a veto power over the mom's will, to be able to protect the unborn child's right to life. They would still want to support the mom's health and well-being too I believe, but if push comes to shove where the two lives are in conflict, they would err on the side of protecting the unborn child's life and risking the mom's. At least that seems to be the revealed preference in terms of favoring some policies and interventions over others.
The other side of the aisle I feel gives pre-eminence to holistic but harder to enforce solutions. In particular they focus on empowering the mom and improving her material well-being and health, so she would be less likely to face the tough decision of whether to have an abortion in the first place. Once the baby is born they would also want to ensure the mom has the societal and material support she needs to raise the child. They would still want to ensure society could intervene when possible to protect the unborn child's life, in cases where the mom feels inclined to choose an abortion. But if push comes to shove, they would err on the side of protecting the mom's life and risking the unborn child's. At least that seems to be the revealed preference in terms of favoring some policies and interventions over others.
I think most people favor a policy that is some combination of the two extremes, to try and balance the good parts of each side and minimize the bad parts. Somehow, the political reality seems to amplify just the extreme voices on either side though, which makes it hard to ever hear policies proposed that would explicitly tie both sides together - i e. both protect the unborn child while also still empowering the mom and providing her the support she needs.
Thanks for this. It's very well reasoned and I agree.
The pro-life movement ought to want many things that would be pro-life, like reducing maternal mortality, better sex education, better suicide prevention, an end to capital punishment, better drug rehabilitation, better gun safety laws, reduced prison recidivism, improved social programs for kids, opposition to war, etc.
That they focus so much of their effort on imposing their religious dogma on women's bodies to me shows the real game at play here, which is controlling women. They're only pro-life in so far as they can impose a Christian sharia view of pregnancy and bodily autonomy on believers and non-believers alike.
It always has been, is now, always will be a private, ultra personal, choice. What the "pro-life" movement "really wants" is their choice to make, for themselves. Maybe if they feel so strongly about intruding into my freedoms, they should begin inventing an abortifacient detector to screen international mail. If SCOTUS goes all the way on this, women will turn to international sources; there will surely be some. I'm hoping that Canada holds freedom of choice in enough regard to provide a path for American women whose freedoms will have been interrupted - temporarily.
The "pro-life" movement has proven that they're anything but "pro-life".
Andrew Egger wants fewer abortions because he strikes me as a man who takes the teachings of Jesus seriously. Pro life movement as a whole? Is the jury still out?
Where did Jesus comment on abortions?
Yes! Inquiring minds want to know.
I think Jesus's teachings about protecting the "least among us" are signficant. Human life is sacred, and that includes the infirm, people with disabilities, and yes, life pre birth. Do I trust government to butt in? Not really. It's way too complicated for a government of fallible people to legislate and enforce. Would I support a cultural change towards making abortions fewer in number? absolutely, I think 99% of the public would see less abortions as a positive outcome.
It was really not that long ago that the Southern Baptists and other Protestant sects supported a woman's right to choose before abortion was used as propaganda by conservative politicians to get win over the religious voting block.
As someone said up thread, everyone wants fewer abortions. Everyone. No matter what label one applies.
It’s a fool’s errand. They will not stop abortions; they will just drive them underground and make them less safe. Hardly progress.
Yes. Read about the Jane Collective and what they did and you'll see clearly that many women who need or want abortions will not be stopped. (I don't mean "you", specifically, just the generalized "you". 😊)
it will not succeed in any manner that count, yes, underground, everywhere.
how do pregnancies occur? all alone ?
Well, Andrew, if that's the case, I expect you and other like minded people here to write some articles about how these laws ARE having women get sick and die. Because they are. And second, maybe write some articles about how actually apparently do want more abortions, since they are going after birth control next. I'll wait. And while you are at it, maybe dial up your hyperbole detector, and appreciate where those comments about death and sickness are coming from. Actual death and sickness. It makes you look clueless or unsympathetic.
my body, my choice
I've been reading and watching some things about old Rome and got to wondering how with all the goings on, women weren't having babies of unclear paternity all the time. A little searching revealed a variety of abortifacients, including Silphium, a plant so popular it was used to extinction. Early Americans used a variety of plants, including pennyroyal and tansy. The anti abortion movement is a 20th century invention.
Millenia really.
"This morning, at his regular Pentagon press conference, Hegseth tried to nail two new planks into this rickety argument. The first was that the 'ceasefire' remains in place—despite the fact that U.S. and Iranian forces spent yesterday shooting at each other in the Strait of Hormuz. And the second is that what is happening now, in any event, is no longer the same conflict at all: Hegseth insisted that 'Project Freedom,' the new effort to unplug the strait by force, is 'separate and distinct from Operation Epic Fury.'"
Why did he even bother? It's more *1984* every day.
"Operation Epic F*ck Up" is now "Project F*ck Up". See the difference?
Operation WTAF
Ahhh yes, NOW I get it! 🤪
We went from a SNAFU to a FUBAR in record time!
Yes and according to Kegsbreath, Secdrunk, they're two different wars.
He’s not wrong in the sense that Operation Epic Fury had no real strategic aim and the straight was still open at that time. Opening the straight is a very specific aim though the result of our actions. Hegseth might want to peruse the definition of sequela..
Orwell thinks Hegseth has gone too far...
Endless War is now to be known as Infinite Wars--war punctuated by cease-fires, even phony ones.
Ben: "From Donald Trump and JD Vance on down, almost every member of the Trump administration has talked about Ukraine as a sort of geopolitical beggar, always taking, never giving, and certainly unworthy of generosity or support. That view has always been not only morally idiotic but strategically short-sighted. Ukraine is now a valuable partner and ally for a host of countries that are willing to be good partners and allies in return. Unfortunately, the United States decided it didn’t want to be one of them."
The Trump Administration wants Russia to win the war. Or, perhaps more precisely, Donald Trump wants Russia to win the war.
Well, they're an ally.
You mean Russia? If so, yes.
Am reading “The March of Folly” by Barbara Tuchman. One myth, three actual wars, showing the arrogance of conceit and a blindness of those in charge. One takeaway from the chapter on Vietnam is the tenacity of Ho Chi Man and his followers to wrest their country, first from the French, and last from the Americans. The parallels with Ukraine are there. Subjugation is short lived historically. People transfer their hopes and willingness to fight on to the next generation, and they transfer the same passion to the next. Coupled with an educated workforce, the Ukrainian people will prevail because they want this independence more than they want to live under the Russians. They tried it, they don’t want it ever again. Slava Ukraini!
heck, I don't think the Russians want to live under Russian rule right now.
Ben - in time, Russian culture may absorb some of the characteristics of their neighbor? That’s part of why Putin fears Ukraine so much and wants so badly to crush them
Maybe! It's a possibility. But that will be made more difficult by the relentless campaign to call the Ukrainians a fake people with an artificial country, confused, Nazified Russians gone astray, merely the cat's paw of the West, etc., etc.
J AZ, I think that's got to be a big part of it. I feel like the last 10 years has definitely solidified Churchill's? comment that Democracy is the last bad of all the forms of government out there. I know China is always held up as an exception to this rule because of their great advancement over the last 50 years, but after a century of imperialization, civil war, world war, and Mao, China had nowhere to go but up. China, with an aging population will probably start to see some of the same stagnation that killed off the Soviet Union in the 1970's....
Ben - Father Time does indeed come a'callin. China also has challenges of scale. I believe this contributes to our problems in USA too. Geography, the size & complexity of the economy, population issues such as growth needed to generate the funds for social & physical infrastructure... but how to keep that population working and not outstripping the aforementioned infrastructure?
Isn't there a Chinese saying (possibly apocryphal) about living in interesting times? 😉
Benjamin - agree there appears to be some schizy thinking behind Putin's views, as best I can glean by kremlin watching. He makes out that Ukrainians are a breakaway (fallen away?) branch of Mother Russia's family tree - is that because they succumbed to the siren song of the European West, or were already so inferior that Russia didn't care when they began drifting away? But Ukraine is also 'undeniably' part of Russia so we must absorb them back into the hive... by force, for their own good, or to rescue the loyalists being oppressed by the nazis... also, welcome them back as prodigals? There are as many conflicting/competing rationales as Trump has for attacking Iran.
Putin also throws in the grand history of the old empire, coupled with religious input from Patriarch Kirill (tho much less of that seen in news here since the 1st couple years of the 2022 invasion).
How Russian authoritarianism sees the West - I spoze my vision is colored by being a Boomer and watching this play out during the 1960s on thru to the end of USSR. We like to imagine that blue jeans & the Beatles hastened the collapse, just like us singing Blowin in the Wind ushered in civil rights, and Give Peace a Chance ended the Vietnam war. Please don't call us solipsistic, just a bit overconfident about the inevitability of our allure 😊
Catherine the Great seized the Ukraine in her attempt to get a warm water port. The people of Ukraine never accepted this non Russian ruler (she was born in Germany, and not of the royal Russian family) and never accepted Russia or USSR as their sovereigns. Putin is delusional to think Ukraine belongs to Russia.
No serious knowledge here but I recall early after the 2022 invasion I learned (maybe Timothy Snyder's videos) of Kiev as a capital & center of culture significantly predating what we now call Russia. Centuries before Cathy G butted in! Today's Ukraine seems to have been a region & peoples that were kicked around among various interlopers and boundary makers for most of their existence. If I ever need a lesson in indomitability I know where to look! 💪
it was for that woman ( boy she had some lovers, ego stuff ) odessa, and then put phony history to it, to cement the port, from what I've read. she was a real piece of work, bribery too
It’s a great book and demonstrates how humans cannot seem to truly learn from other’s past mistakes. Reading Shelby Foote’s three volumes on the American civil war shows how much the war was decided on mistakes, accidents, leadership, and FUBARs in the fog of war.
I read those 3 volumes. I read something about the Siege of Vicksburg, I don't know if it was in those books or a different book by him but he wrote how at the end of the day the officers of both armies would go back to "Officer's Country' and left the soldiers on the line up to their own devices. He said that one side had plenty of coffee and the other had plenty of food, biscuits and other soldiers' fare. The soldiers got together in No Man's Land and shared, talked, play cards, etc. The only rule was that no politics would be discussed because it may cause a fight. There are times when the soldiers are much smarter than their officers and politicians who conduct the war.
I did not read Shelby Foote’s books, but did see Ken Burns’ TV show where Mr Foote was a commentator. The Teaching Company has a wonderful lecture on the Civil War. I would listen to the CD’s when I drove to work. Incredible.
I've read A Distant Mirror by her and now I'm looking for this book. It sounds fantastic. A Distant Mirror was great, although I had to skim it. She did so much research.
I loved that book. The way the Euros made The Plague exponentially worse on themselves is comically horrid.
The March of Folly is basically the same in detail, but she talks about our revolution and then the war in Vietnam which brings things a little bit closer than something in the 14th century in France. A great read.
Sounds incredibly interesting! I'll have to read it. Thanks for the tip!
Great book.
Justice Kavanagh ought to remember that he is on the court because you can’t do things to close to an election. Justice Barret could then explain that only republicans know what’s too close to an election.
'In a Truth Social post, he ticked off a laundry list of construction features, including “Bomb Shelters, a State of the Art Hospital and Medical Facilities, Protective Partitioning, Top Secret Military Installations,” and on and on. Without all this, “no future president,” he insisted, “can ever be Safe and Secure at Events, Future Inaugurations, or Global Summits.”'
So $1 billion for features like a cutting edge hospital that will never get used (probably run by Ronny Jackson, who will see a huge pay raise), and for a building that a Democratic president will face enormous pressure to just demolish. Oh, and for a building that was never supposed to cost tax payers a dime, while inflation and gas prices continue to rise directly because of policies this president has enacted, all of which were illegal (war, tariffs) because they all required Congressional approval.
How is this man's approval above 30%? This is why we are among the stupidest nations in the world.
Because MAGA members have chosen Felon Trump as the hill to die upon. They are wedded to all his lies because he represents all the ideas they hate and hate is all they have left. Maybe it was all they ever had but couldn’t say it out loud.
The more educated Trump apologists can't really believe that he is virtuous, honorable, intelligent and wise, so it has to be shared hatred that draws them to him.
If MAGAs couldn't talk about what they hated, they would literally have nothing to talk about.
Which they don’t really do. They talk about needs; getting rid of criminals, except they cheer when non white faces get arrested in truly criminal ways and then secretly shipped to foreign nations to rot. Tell them that most of those arrested have no criminal record, the default goes back to the arrested person being here illegally. No body will admit that what is being done in this country is what they WANT. Normal people call that hate, and MAGA is full of hate.
The hospital will be used. Cutting edge privacy.
His paranoia is at Putin levels, isn’t it? Let’s fund a bunker for the two of them.
And bury it in concrete!
I would like to say that this is the first time in a very long time that the Bullwark has even addressed reproductive rights in any kind of quasi comprehensive way. It doesn’t matter what side of the issue you’re on, this site needs to talk about what reproductive rights means for this country and how essential it is for the political and social health of this country. The use of this medication is not only for abortions… Which is sound medical care… It is also used for management of miscarriages and saves lives.
What about talking about the politics of what has happened after the reversal of Roe. What about acknowledging that abortions have not decreased despite these draconian measures in many states. In fact, the only abortions that have decreased are those that are indicated to save the life of a woman and women have died because of this.
Jonathan Cohn is a wonderful reporter, but why has he not dealt with this issue and addressed about women’s health issues at all?
The issue has been dormant for a while, but when Roe v Wade was newly overturned TB was covering it big.
Abortion has always been seen as a woman's thing, not for men and politics to spend much time on. Besides it is icky and filled with moralizing that many don't want to deal with...because it's a woman's thing. A lot of men could not care less about it as a policy, but do care on a personal level if it involves their family members.
That’s really sad and actually not entirely true. Perhaps if we held men more accountable for the lives they produce—supporting the children, educating them, and providing them healthcare—suddenly men would be interested in the importance of family planning.
It is well known that a societies’ political and sociological health can be measured by the access to family planning and the ability of women to control the size of their families. This is directly related to the ability of women to enter society and the workforce.
There have been many comic takes on "if men got pregnant." My favorite is that you could get an abortion at an ATM.
I'm talking about visceral reactions and behavior, not societal thinking. Those can yield vastly different results.
I mean, pregnancy famously takes two.
Of course it does. Conception and then the man's job is done. I'm mostly being snarky here. but there are men who appear to live by that.
Sadly I know some of them.
many run, run into the service, run out of state , not forever , but they run, cowards this has been going on a long time
yeah , that sperm, get collected by women, and placed inside women, ( seven seconds in a backseat with underwear ON ) they handle all the sperm, control it, deal with it. yeah right.
Emily - can’t add a word to your well written Comment but for this: thank you
The antiabortion groups have reached the "knife in the back" stage of the Trump supporters carousel. Some of them must realize by now that the only causes Trump supports are the ones that will result in millions of dollars for him and / or his family. Look at what's happening with the Big Beautiful Ballroom Bunker; Republicans in Congress now want to fund it with a billion tax payer dollars. What happens to the "donations" (read: bribes) paid to fund it? Right to Trump's bank account.
Oh, and we must not forget that those DOGE mooks are still inside our government compromising our data and the country's security.
The makers of mifepristone should send Trump a couple hundred dollars of stock. He'd never do anything that would hurt his own bottom line, no matter how minor (or how many people are effected or pissed off).
Would that be the insider deal that finally takes him down?
Alternatively they could buy a couple hundred of dollars' worth of Trump crypto and make a "commitment" to spend billions to build a mifepristone factory in Florida.
Brilliant!
I am very, VERY disappointed; I lay awake all night wondering what wondrous commentary you guys would deliver on the MET Gala.
Well, there is always the possibility that JVL will say something. :crosses fingers:
All of my Met Gala takes are too scorching to allow them to escape containment; they would cost The Bulwark thousands of subscribers each.
DM me
Mr. Parker has entered the chat! Yes!
Yes, there are a lot of people out there who CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!
;)
I think we need to see Tim Miller on the red carpet next year.
I’m holding out for video takes from Tim or Will Sommer
That would be awesome except I never watch the podcasts here because my internet is shit.