I try not to comment on issues that are, in my view (and I know some don't share it), decisions for women. However, my other half is furious, describing the SC as "a bunch of reactionary tossers who have set women's rights back a generation and probably want us to return to the kitchen". I always agree with her, of course, but I reckon she's nailed it. It's not complicated.
Your wife seems to be missing the "deep philosophical dilemma" of when life begins, Al.
I do hope you're not casting aspersions on her intellect! There's no dilemma - it's her body, and she can decide that. There's obviously a legitimate debate to be had about how late abortions should be allowable in normal circumstances, but it strikes me that most countries in which abortion is legal have got this more or less right. Outside that debate, it's her inalienable right to do as she pleases.
I think this was in reference to an argument yesterday, rather than casting aspersons on Mrs Al.
2010 Conservatives formed a ConDem coalition Government with Lib Dems
2017 Conservatives did a £1bn Bung Parliament deal for DUP votes
2019 Conservatives benefited from Farage’s Brexit Party withdrawing in all Tory seats
Remind me again which party relies on pacts and deals?
The former two were after an election and the verdict of the electorate. The last one is inaccurate, the BXP stood aside in some seats, there was also a pact between LDs, Greens and PC and mutual stand downs
The last one didn't help the Tories win a majority. To do that, BXP would have had to stand aside in Tory target seats.
True. If they'd stood aside in Sunderland all 3 seats would likely have been Conservative for example. Hartlepool would have been blue pre by election and so on
If Brexit Party voters had all voted Conservative, they would also have won five more seats in Wales - Gower, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen and both seats in Newport.
And if my auntie had balls, she would be awaiting gender reassignment surgery.
A judge in Maryland threw out Democratic map: "A Maryland judge has thrown out the state’s congressional map, calling it an “extreme partisan gerrymander” in what is a victory for Republicans who said Democrats in the state General Assembly sought to silence their votes. . . . Maryland’s congressional map — passed on an overwhelming party-line vote in December — created seven safe Democratic seats and put the state’s sole Republican incumbent in Congress, Rep. Andy Harris, in jeopardy by making the 1st district competitive." source ($): https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/25/maryland-congressional-map-thrown-out-gerrymandering/
Need an example of what it was like when Democrats did almost all of the gerrymandering? Try 1992, when the Democrats won 258 House seats out of 435, with 50.1 percent of the popular vote.
By the way, the attempts by Democrats to create "majority-minority" districts often concentrate Democrats, thus helping Republicans, net.
(Incidentally, when Americans say House seats, without qualification, we almost always mean national House seats not state house seats.)
Re redistricting following 1990 census:
NYT ($) Dec 30, 1991 - REPUBLICANS GAIN AS STATES BATTLE OVER REDISTRICTING
Perhaps the best-known comment on the Supreme Court and elections came more than a century ago: "At least the court’s tortured reasoning was understandable when it decided that the United States could tax people in territories captured in the Spanish American War, vindicating the position of winning Republicans in the 1900 presidential election.
That decision prompted humorist Finley Peter Dunne to coin the line suggesting the Supreme Court really wasn’t an impartial bastion beyond politics but reflected the nation’s political mood.
Dunne wrote his Chicago newspaper pieces in the brogue of an imaginary Irish-American called Mr. Dooley. ``No matter whether th’ Constitution follows th’ flag or not, ‘th Supreme Coort follows th’ iliction returns,″ he commented on a 1901 decision." source: https://apnews.com/article/15e6aa984543681dbd5c482ea3f23ce8
So, poll results do matter to the Court, though they shouldn't.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Culture wars, mate.
It’s not really a matter for the govt. it’s a matter for respective sporting bodies.
How are you Taz?
I’m good thank you, how are you ? I see you got a good knock at the crease the other day. Your cricket seems to go from strength to strength.
I did, 44 from 36.
Just needed to get my confidence back in after being out of practice.
2010 Conservatives formed a ConDem coalition Government with Lib Dems
2017 Conservatives did a £1bn Bung Parliament deal for DUP votes
2019 Conservatives benefited from Farage’s Brexit Party withdrawing in all Tory seats
Remind me again which party relies on pacts and deals?
The former two were after an election and the verdict of the electorate. The last one is inaccurate, the BXP stood aside in some seats, there was also a pact between LDs, Greens and PC and mutual stand downs
The last one didn't help the Tories win a majority. To do that, BXP would have had to stand aside in Tory target seats.
True. If they'd stood aside in Sunderland all 3 seats would likely have been Conservative for example. Hartlepool would have been blue pre by election and so on
If Brexit Party voters had all voted Conservative, they would also have won five more seats in Wales - Gower, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen and both seats in Newport.
And if my auntie had balls, she would be awaiting gender reassignment surgery.
They wouldn’t all have voted Tory anyway
As for your auntie I hope HE is comfortable
As it happens, I only have an uncle now, and I don't think he'd be interested in gender reassignment surgery!
Need to drop him an email to say hello, actually, thank you for the reminder.
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Andy Burnham is fucking useless, what bandwagon will he not jump on?
He's been saying this for some time to be fair.
I suspect it is a mistake to get Labour dragged onto this territory, as it will be used as yet another culture war wedge by Tories in 2024 GE. Maybe it wont matter as by then the country will have made one of Callaghan's sea changes and nothing will save Johnson, but its a risk.
He's been saying it since the polls said it was popular.
Odd now he never brought it up in any of his campaigns.
2010 Conservatives formed a ConDem coalition Government with Lib Dems
2017 Conservatives did a £1bn Bung Parliament deal for DUP votes
2019 Conservatives benefited from Farage’s Brexit Party withdrawing in all Tory seats
Remind me again which party relies on pacts and deals?
The former two were after an election and the verdict of the electorate. The last one is inaccurate, the BXP stood aside in some seats, there was also a pact between LDs, Greens and PC and mutual stand downs
The last one didn't help the Tories win a majority. To do that, BXP would have had to stand aside in Tory target seats.
True. If they'd stood aside in Sunderland all 3 seats would likely have been Conservative for example. Hartlepool would have been blue pre by election and so on
If Brexit Party voters had all voted Conservative, they would also have won five more seats in Wales - Gower, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen and both seats in Newport.
And if my auntie had balls, she would be awaiting gender reassignment surgery.
They wouldn’t all have voted Tory anyway
As for your auntie I hope HE is comfortable
As it happens, I only have an uncle now, and I don't think he'd be interested in gender reassignment surgery!
Need to drop him an email to say hello, actually, thank you for the reminder.
2010 Conservatives formed a ConDem coalition Government with Lib Dems
2017 Conservatives did a £1bn Bung Parliament deal for DUP votes
2019 Conservatives benefited from Farage’s Brexit Party withdrawing in all Tory seats
Remind me again which party relies on pacts and deals?
The former two were after an election and the verdict of the electorate. The last one is inaccurate, the BXP stood aside in some seats, there was also a pact between LDs, Greens and PC and mutual stand downs
The last one didn't help the Tories win a majority. To do that, BXP would have had to stand aside in Tory target seats.
True. If they'd stood aside in Sunderland all 3 seats would likely have been Conservative for example. Hartlepool would have been blue pre by election and so on
If Brexit Party voters had all voted Conservative, they would also have won five more seats in Wales - Gower, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen and both seats in Newport.
And if my auntie had balls, she would be awaiting gender reassignment surgery.
They wouldn’t all have voted Tory anyway
As for your auntie I hope HE is comfortable
As it happens, I only have an uncle now, and I don't think he'd be interested in gender reassignment surgery!
Need to drop him an email to say hello, actually, thank you for the reminder.
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The issue is bedeviled by people finding false complexity in the debate and going down blind allies.
And just in time here is a front page blind alley from a usual suspect:
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
"We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum"
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
You can say whatever you want during a campaign, as Boris Johnson Experience demonstrates.
After you get elected, you need to have the VOTES to make your pledges reality, at least in terms of legislation & top appointments requiring confirmation.
Which is generally NOT a problem for Prime Ministers under Westminster system(s).
But quite often IS a problem for POTUS.
Even ones like FDR, reelected by huge lands that included strong coattails that elected historic majorities for his party in US Senate & House. AND who could NOT get his SCOTUS reform aka "court packing" through the very same Congress.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
So the government shouldn’t do anything except address CoL, no policy development in any other area?
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Not wrong at all. I have been doing a lot of it myself elsewhere. If they can't bloody well use the word "woman" then they're going to have a hard time trying to defend or advance their rights.
A judge in Maryland threw out Democratic map: "A Maryland judge has thrown out the state’s congressional map, calling it an “extreme partisan gerrymander” in what is a victory for Republicans who said Democrats in the state General Assembly sought to silence their votes. . . . Maryland’s congressional map — passed on an overwhelming party-line vote in December — created seven safe Democratic seats and put the state’s sole Republican incumbent in Congress, Rep. Andy Harris, in jeopardy by making the 1st district competitive." source ($): https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/03/25/maryland-congressional-map-thrown-out-gerrymandering/
Need an example of what it was like when Democrats did almost all of the gerrymandering? Try 1992, when the Democrats won 258 House seats out of 435, with 50.1 percent of the popular vote.
By the way, the attempts by Democrats to create "majority-minority" districts often concentrate Democrats, thus helping Republicans, net.
(Incidentally, when Americans say House seats, without qualification, we almost always mean national House seats not state house seats.)
Neither can be trusted to set their own boundaries. Temptation is too much.
2010 Conservatives formed a ConDem coalition Government with Lib Dems
2017 Conservatives did a £1bn Bung Parliament deal for DUP votes
2019 Conservatives benefited from Farage’s Brexit Party withdrawing in all Tory seats
Remind me again which party relies on pacts and deals?
The former two were after an election and the verdict of the electorate. The last one is inaccurate, the BXP stood aside in some seats, there was also a pact between LDs, Greens and PC and mutual stand downs
The last one didn't help the Tories win a majority. To do that, BXP would have had to stand aside in Tory target seats.
True. If they'd stood aside in Sunderland all 3 seats would likely have been Conservative for example. Hartlepool would have been blue pre by election and so on
If Brexit Party voters had all voted Conservative, they would also have won five more seats in Wales - Gower, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen and both seats in Newport.
And if my auntie had balls, she would be awaiting gender reassignment surgery.
Alyn and Deeside certainly given it was a hyper marginal wuth less than 1% in it. But BXP votes in the others were quite small (not enough at all in Gower) compared to 25% in Hartlepool and 10 to 15% in the Sunderland seats against majorities of 8 to 10%. I dont think its remotely controversial to suggest those seats could and probably would have fallen with no bxp presence. At best for labour they'd have been very tight marginals. Wales is a false comparison, nowhere near the bxp vote of the brexity bits of the NE and Midlands red wall.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
They have done things on CoL. Did you miss it? You can argue it’s not enough, and they should do more/different. Fine. But it’s not right to say they haven’t done anything.
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
Could I suggest that politicians over-promising and under-delivering isn't uniquely a problem experienced by women?
Sometimes, the politician is outright lying about what they will do. Sometimes, it becomes clear in office that what they want to do is impossible for legal and/or political reasons. Sometimes, they reason they'd have a better chance of achieving it next year than this (in the interests of those who want the thing) but they are wrong and run out of road. Sometimes, things get compromised away - "look, Mr President" the senior Senator will say, "you can have A or B... not both".
I'm not defending a particular Obama decision. He has a good reputation in the UK overall and several fine qualities... but he's a politician, he has several significant flaws, and long run won't be placed in the very top rank of US Presidents. I'm just saying this is a reality that faces both sexes, and there are reasons with which it is possible to have levels of sympathy varying from none to a fair bit.
Roe-v-Wade was not a good decision from a legal perspective.
It was seeking to apply a document which clearly didn't address the problem because it simply wasn't a problem in 1778. The document had nothing really to say on the matter but they pretended it did because they wanted to give everyone a federal right to an abortion. Which was really a state matter. So the Court was right to say that there was no basis for the decision. But wrong to say that a Constitution which was designed within the state of the knowledge at the time to give people some basic rights, added to by the Bill of Rights, would not have included such a right had the authors been aware of it.
The real question that any properly instructed court should have asked is do we as a society have the right to interfere with the body of a woman who has a foetus within it for the sake of the foetus. That's a complicated question on which there are a number of legitimate answers. None of which are in the document from 1778.
I think you're taking a very originalist approach to the constitution. Lots of lawyers, myself included, would say that is very much NOT a sensible legal approach. Indeed, even the most extreme originalists, shall we say, back away from its full implications.
In theory, the originalist approach says you must interpret based on the understanding of the text at the time it was adopted. The Constitution did not, at the time it was adopted, intend to confer the same rights on Clarence Thomas and Amy Coney Barrett (two justices in the majority overturning Roe v Wade) as it did on John Roberts and Stephen Breyer (two in the minority - Roberts was an oddity in that he sided with the majority but NOT based on repudiating Roe v Wade). Not, I'm afraid by a long, long way.
Now it's true to say that there have been amendments since. But all the stuff at that is still in there from the original constitution as enacted, and there is a lot, was very clearly neither understood nor intended to apply equally to black people or women.
Given that you HAVE to back away from originalism, and accept the constitution is to some extent a living document where the text needs to be understood as if it isn't 1788, a fairly sensible approach is to understand and interpret it as if it is 2022, with science, morality and language as it exists in 2022. Because it is 2022.
The problem for Thomas and Coney Barrett (for instance) is that they won't accept it being 2022, and can't quite pretend it's 1788. So where does that leave us? It looks to me like a sort of fantasy where you pretend the Constitution exists at some kind of undefined point of perfection, divorced from time and space, and existing precisely where it is most convenient given your personal faith and politics. I'm not saying liberal justices are untainted by that too... but I'd rather have their explicitly pragmatic and grounded approach than the pseudo-intellectualism and utterly bogus and self-serving pretence of purity of the court's originalists.
This, I'm afraid, isn't just the death of a 50 year old legal judgment - it's the continued death of the pragmatism on which the entire era of American dominance has been based.
Good post explaining the fantasy position pretence rather than just admitting the pragmatic reality.
There are also six Catholics and one Jew on the court, folks who the Founding Fathers generally.... tolerated... but certainly didn't love.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
They have done things on CoL. Did you miss it? You can argue it’s not enough, and they should do more/different. Fine. But it’s not right to say they haven’t done anything.
Trans in sport is a big issue in sport at present and attempts to dismiss it are going to fail as women in particular make it an issue
Roe-v-Wade was not a good decision from a legal perspective.
It was seeking to apply a document which clearly didn't address the problem because it simply wasn't a problem in 1778. The document had nothing really to say on the matter but they pretended it did because they wanted to give everyone a federal right to an abortion. Which was really a state matter. So the Court was right to say that there was no basis for the decision. But wrong to say that a Constitution which was designed within the state of the knowledge at the time to give people some basic rights, added to by the Bill of Rights, would not have included such a right had the authors been aware of it.
The real question that any properly instructed court should have asked is do we as a society have the right to interfere with the body of a woman who has a foetus within it for the sake of the foetus. That's a complicated question on which there are a number of legitimate answers. None of which are in the document from 1778.
I don't agree that the right of a pregnant woman to choose whether she has the baby is primarily a matter for the individual states or voters. The controls and prohibitions, yes, but not the basic right. That has to be enshrined in some way. Just as for example 'no racial segregation' is. That underpins racial equality. This underpins gender equality. Both are fundamental and deserving of protection. That's pretty clear to me. If posed as a question there aren't imo 'a number of legitimate answers' to it. The genuinely difficult question is what the controls and prohibitions (around the basic right) should be. Here there are a number of legitimate answers, and one of them isn't "well the SC says there isn't a basic right anymore so we're banning the lot!" Which is what they've opened the door to with this 'all politics no law no brain no humanity' decision.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
So the government shouldn’t do anything except address CoL, no policy development in any other area?
They can only do one thing at a time as they have proved over and over
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
Horse it doesnt really matter what conditions you impose, it is an issue that exercises some and they are going to discuss it and demand this or that over it. That will have some effect at the margins. Like, for example, if Wes was leader. The vast majority wont care he is gay. A few will, and that might be enough to sway some seats perhaps. Anything that exercises more than a couple percent can influence outcomes. Trans issues are not a majority concern but many more than a couple % are exercised by the issue.
What a parasite, he’s just like his younger brother.
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
Politico.com - Are You Married to Kellyanne Conway? A Real Therapist Has Some Advice. The challenge for America’s most toxic political marriage — and some others.
arlier this month, as Kellyanne Conway held a party for her largely pro-Trump book, Here’s the Deal, at a Washington, D.C. restaurant, her husband George — a never-Trump Republican and co-founder of the Lincoln Project — was trashing the former president on MSNBC and CNN. Many in Washington noted George’s absence, POLITICO Playbook observed, particularly because Café Milano, the book party venue, features two large TV screens that usually play cable news, all but ensuring his counterprogramming would be seen by partygoers.
The Conways have been famously divided since Trump took office, and Kellyanne’s book airs some of her marital frustration in the open: “I was looking at the possibility,” she writes, “that the man who always had my back might one day stab me in it.” (She also revealed last month that while the Conways are still married, they are not living together.)
But in an age of hyper-partisan politics and toxic social media, the Conways’ battles don’t feel so far from many Americans’ everyday lives. George and Kellyanne might have been split apart by the polarization within the Republican Party, but that same force is probably even stronger for couples in opposing political parties. Was George’s attack on his wife’s professional accomplishment a new low for scorched-Earth intrafamily politics, or just another day in a divided nation?
Jeanne Safer is a psychoanalyst and the author of the 2019 book I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics: How to Protect Your Intimate Relationships in a Poisonous, Partisan World. She is also a therapist who has been in private practice for over 45 years.
She frequently speaks about her own mixed political marriage, as a liberal wed to Richard Brookhiser, a senior editor of The National Review and a protégé of William F. Buckley Jr. Partnerships like theirs are increasingly rare: In a 2017 survey of 1,000 people conducted by the University of California, Santa Barbara, only 88 reported being married to someone who hadn’t voted for the same presidential candidate. We talked about the advantages of a mixed political household, the challenge of accepting what can’t be changed and the reason Trump has made it hard for her to take her own advice. . . .
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
So the government shouldn’t do anything except address CoL, no policy development in any other area?
They can only do one thing at a time as they have proved over and over
Na, not with that many ministers and civil servants. Some might say it does too much.
What a parasite, he’s just like his younger brother.
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
So the government shouldn’t do anything except address CoL, no policy development in any other area?
They can only do one thing at a time as they have proved over and over
The only way Starmer is being got rid of is if he gets a FPN.
I know the Tories here would love to have a Labour falls apart story to distract from there feckless leader but I am not going to comment on the inner workings of the Tory Party because I don't know. But they feel the right to talk about Labour despite knowing nothing about it.
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Not wrong at all. I have been doing a lot of it myself elsewhere. If they can't bloody well use the word "woman" then they're going to have a hard time trying to defend or advance their rights.
I saw a quote yesterday from someone who works for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She referred, obviously, to "pregnant people"...
I am of course well aware that there are plenty of women who are against abortion.
It is a difficult moral issue for many which is why most take the view that it is up to the woman to decide.
But women are fed up with male politicians making them promises and then sidelining women's issues for more important things, "important" usually being defined as what is important to men. It happens in so many areas.
So pregnancy, childbirth and care of the newborn were just not seen as important enough. But, hey, never mind, it's only women and babies who died.
I expect a lot of bristling from some on here. But too bad.
I have just come from giving out the prizes at the school where I am a trustee. A girl's school. And each girl got her moment in the sun, was made to feel important and valuable, was given her voice - to speak and sing and show off. It was lovely to see. I hope that what they are taught, the self-confidence and resilience and chutzpah will serve them well in a world where - still - far too often women are sidelined and demeaned and ignored and patronised. Or told that their concerns need to wait until more important matters are seen to.
How's that going by the way? Because we've been waiting a long time now.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
Well, certainly a big one over his pending FPN
Who is saying this BTW? Would help to have it in context.
Nobody is asking questions about it, he will almost certainly be cleared but if not, he will resign and a new leader will be elected.
But this idea people are sitting around plotting to remove him is nonsense. He's as safe as houses until the FPN comes out. He just won a by-election and his ratings are at +0.
And you are becoming a cunt. Oh no, you already were.
Come on CHB. That is uncalled for. You are genuinely better than that. There are some people who probably deserve to be sworn at on here and they generally give as good as they take. But Big G is not one of them and you let yourself down by behaving like that towards him.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
And you are becoming a cunt. Oh no, you already were.
Come on CHB. That is uncalled for. You are genuinely better than that. There are some people who probably deserve to be sworn at on here and they generally give as good as they take. But Big G is not one of them and you let yourself down by behaving like that towards him.
And you are becoming a cunt. Oh no, you already were.
Come on CHB. That is uncalled for. You are genuinely better than that. There are some people who probably deserve to be sworn at on here and they generally give as good as they take. But Big G is not one of them and you let yourself down by behaving like that towards him.
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Not wrong at all. I have been doing a lot of it myself elsewhere. If they can't bloody well use the word "woman" then they're going to have a hard time trying to defend or advance their rights.
Oh indeed. How are you supposed to talk about women’s rights, without talking about women.
There’s an American comedian, Bridget Phetasy, who picks up on all these silly omissions of the “W-word” in an amusing way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WtfUWS9lBnU
What a parasite, he’s just like his younger brother.
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
I try not to comment on issues that are, in my view (and I know some don't share it), decisions for women. However, my other half is furious, describing the SC as "a bunch of reactionary tossers who have set women's rights back a generation and probably want us to return to the kitchen". I always agree with her, of course, but I reckon she's nailed it. It's not complicated.
Your wife seems to be missing the "deep philosophical dilemma" of when life begins, Al.
I do hope you're not casting aspersions on her intellect! There's no dilemma - it's her body, and she can decide that. There's obviously a legitimate debate to be had about how late abortions should be allowable in normal circumstances, but it strikes me that most countries in which abortion is legal have got this more or less right. Outside that debate, it's her inalienable right to do as she pleases.
I think this was in reference to an argument yesterday, rather than casting aspersons on Mrs Al.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
Horse it doesnt really matter what conditions you impose, it is an issue that exercises some and they are going to discuss it and demand this or that over it. That will have some effect at the margins. Like, for example, if Wes was leader. The vast majority wont care he is gay. A few will, and that might be enough to sway some seats perhaps. Anything that exercises more than a couple percent can influence outcomes. Trans issues are not a majority concern but many more than a couple % are exercised by the issue.
In the end sport will resolve the issue, because they have to. And they will do it themselves because various activists have pre-written ideological boilerplates that will not sufficiently match the needs of the particular context.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Not wrong at all. I have been doing a lot of it myself elsewhere. If they can't bloody well use the word "woman" then they're going to have a hard time trying to defend or advance their rights.
I saw a quote yesterday from someone who works for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She referred, obviously, to "pregnant people"...
Yep because they have have cover pregnant 12 year old girls who aren’t yet women.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
I don't know what twhat wedge issue means.
Thing he doesn't want talked about because it makes Labour look silly.
2010 Conservatives formed a ConDem coalition Government with Lib Dems
2017 Conservatives did a £1bn Bung Parliament deal for DUP votes
2019 Conservatives benefited from Farage’s Brexit Party withdrawing in all Tory seats
Remind me again which party relies on pacts and deals?
The former two were after an election and the verdict of the electorate. The last one is inaccurate, the BXP stood aside in some seats, there was also a pact between LDs, Greens and PC and mutual stand downs
The last one didn't help the Tories win a majority. To do that, BXP would have had to stand aside in Tory target seats.
True. If they'd stood aside in Sunderland all 3 seats would likely have been Conservative for example. Hartlepool would have been blue pre by election and so on
If Brexit Party voters had all voted Conservative, they would also have won five more seats in Wales - Gower, Alyn and Deeside, Torfaen and both seats in Newport.
And if my auntie had balls, she would be awaiting gender reassignment surgery.
They wouldn’t all have voted Tory anyway
As for your auntie I hope HE is comfortable
As it happens, I only have an uncle now, and I don't think he'd be interested in gender reassignment surgery!
Need to drop him an email to say hello, actually, thank you for the reminder.
Johnson needs to say he now feels like a woman.
For the shits and giggles.
Also it is probably true quite a lot of the time.
Would be more accurate to say 'likes feeling every woman.'
With the possible exception of his incumbent wife, of course.
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Not wrong at all. I have been doing a lot of it myself elsewhere. If they can't bloody well use the word "woman" then they're going to have a hard time trying to defend or advance their rights.
I saw a quote yesterday from someone who works for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She referred, obviously, to "pregnant people"...
Yep because they have have cover pregnant 12 year old girls who aren’t yet women.
"Pregnant females" works.
So does "pregnant women and girls".
Do you think she was unfamiliar with the words "females" and "girls" and that's why she used "people" instead?
It'll be interesting to see if this new-approach England team can chase a total of 350 or so, compared to 299 at Trent Bridge. If of course New Zealand can get themselves ahead by that much.
I think people are going to be more bothered about $6 (If only) gas than SCOTUS. Dems are going to get a kicking still, sorry.
The Dems’ prime-time stage-managed “Jan 6 Enquiry” last week, lasted one day before half of their own favoured TV news networks broke off to say ‘GAS IS $5 A GALLON!!”
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
I don't know what twhat wedge issue means.
Thing he doesn't want talked about because it makes Labour look silly.
No, it's just that I think the economy is more important right now. I think people becoming homeless is more important right now.
I care a lot about the environment too - but I think for now people are more important.
From a Tory fanboy like yourself, I will wear this with a mark of pride
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Not wrong at all. I have been doing a lot of it myself elsewhere. If they can't bloody well use the word "woman" then they're going to have a hard time trying to defend or advance their rights.
Oh indeed. How are you supposed to talk about women’s rights, without talking about women.
There’s an American comedian, Bridget Phetasy, who picks up on all these silly omissions of the “W-word” in an amusing way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WtfUWS9lBnU
Comedian? Then should be at least somewhat humorous. (Something I demand also of leftwinger who purport to be comics.)
Your example is a rightwing polemnicist. And about as funny as a rubber crutch.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
Roe-v-Wade was not a good decision from a legal perspective.
It was seeking to apply a document which clearly didn't address the problem because it simply wasn't a problem in 1778. The document had nothing really to say on the matter but they pretended it did because they wanted to give everyone a federal right to an abortion. Which was really a state matter. So the Court was right to say that there was no basis for the decision. But wrong to say that a Constitution which was designed within the state of the knowledge at the time to give people some basic rights, added to by the Bill of Rights, would not have included such a right had the authors been aware of it.
The real question that any properly instructed court should have asked is do we as a society have the right to interfere with the body of a woman who has a foetus within it for the sake of the foetus. That's a complicated question on which there are a number of legitimate answers. None of which are in the document from 1778.
I don't agree that the right of a pregnant woman to choose whether she has the baby is primarily a matter for the individual states or voters. The controls and prohibitions, yes, but not the basic right. That has to be enshrined in some way. Just as for example 'no racial segregation' is. That underpins racial equality. This underpins gender equality. Both are fundamental and deserving of protection. That's pretty clear to me. If posed as a question there aren't imo 'a number of legitimate answers' to it. The genuinely difficult question is what the controls and prohibitions (around the basic right) should be. Here there are a number of legitimate answers, and one of them isn't "well the SC says there isn't a basic right anymore so we're banning the lot!" Which is what they've opened the door to with this 'all politics no law no brain no humanity' decision.
Sadly it's never as simple. There isn't even agreement as to how many rights are in issue. USA constitutions and courts are no help in this or other relevant questions.
Here's just one alternative to yours. Consider any woman who is pregnant in the way we all like - a wanted baby with two committed and loving parents. Ask her (she is law minded) what sorts of protection this foetus should have, and in general the answer will be that its protections should be as absolute and unqualified as possible because of the interests of and value of the unborn.
From that perspective it is rational to suggest that the starting point is that abortion is always banned, subject to particular exceptions.
Whereas you position is that it is always allowed, subject to particular exceptions.
You think it is a basic right. Others think it isn't but sometimes there are exceptions.
English law is with the 'ban with exceptions' view. Though this is rarely noticed. There is no general right whatsoever.
I think this is right. And that social policy should be expensively directed towards there being fewer rather than more.
Rowe vs Wade was a massive overstretch by the courts. It redefined the right to privacy to a ridiculous degree. That sort of judicial activism is utterly wrong in a democratic society.
Personally I wish that abortion was viewed as an ethical issue rather than a political brickbat. Permitted but controlled - its fundamentally a trade off between the rights of the woman and the rights of the unborn child. When one takes precedence over the other is an ethical question (with medical aspects). I think the UK is broadly right, although I’d prefer it was at 20-22 weeks rather than 24 to reflect advances in medicine since 1990.
What a parasite, he’s just like his younger brother.
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
1 - It is a Times scoop - is it true? This week I found on old one about claiming that Arthur Scargill bought his Barbican flat at a discount and made a million selling it on in the Times, which appears to be a simple fabrication. Afaics he never bought it.
And we all know that the Times / Sunday Times stable has come up with some fairy stories in the last 2 years.
2 - Does evidence exist of impropriety? TSE seems to be assuming some element of personal benefit for Prince Charles.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
I don't agree to be honest, I think Nandy is an utter lightweight and have said so since she ran last time - and I put her as number two.
I was a big fan of Wes but his Tweeting sprees make him look like a prat.
Andy Burnham would be exactly where Keir is now.
I'm happy enough with how Keir is doing for him to have my support.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
That's unfair. He has a big interest in polling for whatever party.
It's just he doesn't get politics, per se.
He seems to have been rather quiet recently, I hope he's OK. Infuriating though he can be I actually have a sneaking regard for him.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
Horse it doesnt really matter what conditions you impose, it is an issue that exercises some and they are going to discuss it and demand this or that over it. That will have some effect at the margins. Like, for example, if Wes was leader. The vast majority wont care he is gay. A few will, and that might be enough to sway some seats perhaps. Anything that exercises more than a couple percent can influence outcomes. Trans issues are not a majority concern but many more than a couple % are exercised by the issue.
In the end sport will resolve the issue, because they have to. And they will do it themselves because various activists have pre-written ideological boilerplates that will not sufficiently match the needs of the particular context.
And it will continue to evolve.
Imo.
They will, yes, but its an output of the wider questions and issues over trans rights, womens rights etc etc.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
That's unfair. He has a big interest in polling for whatever party.
It's just he doesn't get politics, per se.
He seems to have been rather quiet recently, I hope he's OK. Infuriating though he can be I actually have a sneaking regard for him.
Probably because he gets abused and bulled by a few posters who then enjoy playing the victim when it suits them.
What a parasite, he’s just like his younger brother.
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
1 - It is a Times scoop - is it true? This week I found on old one about claiming that Arthur Scargill bought his Barbican flat at a discount and made a million selling it on in the Times, which appears to be a simple fabrication. Afaics he never bought it.
And we all know that the Times / Sunday Times stable has come up with some fairy stories in the last 2 years.
2 - Does evidence exist of impropriety?
As to 2, dealing in that amount of cash is in itself pretty much conclusive. most of us do that sort of shit via the bank, and he prolly has a whole Dept at Coutts to do his bidding. Silly man.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
Horse it doesnt really matter what conditions you impose, it is an issue that exercises some and they are going to discuss it and demand this or that over it. That will have some effect at the margins. Like, for example, if Wes was leader. The vast majority wont care he is gay. A few will, and that might be enough to sway some seats perhaps. Anything that exercises more than a couple percent can influence outcomes. Trans issues are not a majority concern but many more than a couple % are exercised by the issue.
In the end sport will resolve the issue, because they have to. And they will do it themselves because various activists have pre-written ideological boilerplates that will not sufficiently match the needs of the particular context.
And it will continue to evolve.
Imo.
They will, yes, but its an output of the wider questions and issues over trans rights, womens rights etc etc.
Agreed.
But the arena of decision will sports' governing bodies, rather than declarations by activists.
What a parasite, he’s just like his younger brother.
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
1 - It is a Times scoop - is it true? This week I found on old one about claiming that Arthur Scargill bought his Barbican flat at a discount and made a million selling it on in the Times, which appears to be a simple fabrication. Afaics he never bought it.
And we all know that the Times / Sunday Times stable has come up with some fairy stories in the last 2 years.
2 - Does evidence exist of impropriety? TSE seems to be assuming some element of personal benefit for Prince Charles.
I am not suggesting the allegations are wrong but how much does a suitcase weigh with a million euros inside ?
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
There are "Tories" who pretend not to be Tories and that their vote is up for grabs but go back to Johnson again when he polls a bit better. Who pretend they could vote Labour except not a Labour that actually exists. And who love to tell us what is happening inside a party they are not a member of - and how Keir will actually quit tomorrow.
I have actual inside knowledge that I've posted many times - these people do not.
As you may have noticed, I have never said Keir is safe because I don't know. He doesn't know, nor do his team.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
That's unfair. He has a big interest in polling for whatever party.
It's just he doesn't get politics, per se.
He seems to have been rather quiet recently, I hope he's OK. Infuriating though he can be I actually have a sneaking regard for him.
Probably because he gets abused and bulled by a few posters who then enjoy playing the victim when it suits them.
HYUFD is one of the best posters here.
He isn't necessarily the latter, although he is valuable for his insights into polling which are extraordinary. And to be honest all the 'bullying' I see is of people getting mad at him for continuing to persist with totally wrong statements.
But having met him in person many years before either of us were on PB, he's not as bad as he sometimes comes across and he must be very downbeat after Thursday.
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
I don't know what twhat wedge issue means.
Thing he doesn't want talked about because it makes Labour look silly.
No, it's just that I think the economy is more important right now. I think people becoming homeless is more important right now.
I care a lot about the environment too - but I think for now people are more important.
From a Tory fanboy like yourself, I will wear this with a mark of pride
Um, WTF are you dribbling on about in that last sentence? Are you dumber than a bag of rocks, or just an outright troll?
Absolutely. Such issues (I am pro abortion) are for voters and legislators. As they are in the UK. All the SC has done is give USA voters the same rights we enjoy. They have neither banned nor compelled anything at all.
What inherent right can enshrine the pro abortion principle so that it is beyond the reach of the voters? The debate itself, however dire, shows that the issues are not easy or obvious.
This whole issue is bedeviled by all the people on all sides who think only one answer is possible or rational.
Mr Smithson is right: this issue will stir voters to do their job. Good. Perhaps they will demolish Trumpism at the same time too.
The question is, why did Obama and co not legislate for this - and why is Biden not either?
Obama had a Freedom of Choice Bill and he said in 2007 that it would be the first thing he would do as President. Once elected of course he said that it was "not my highest legislative priority".
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
This is already starting to happen in sport.
You just wonder why the Government would want to make this a big deal, is it because they have nothing to say on anything of actual interest?
Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
Is it wrong to laugh at the far-left Democrats in the States, who are vociferously objecting to the Supreme Court decision, while taking about ‘pregnant people’ because they can’t use the “W-word”?
Not wrong at all. I have been doing a lot of it myself elsewhere. If they can't bloody well use the word "woman" then they're going to have a hard time trying to defend or advance their rights.
I saw a quote yesterday from someone who works for the National Advocates for Pregnant Women. She referred, obviously, to "pregnant people"...
Yep because they have have cover pregnant 12 year old girls who aren’t yet women.
"Pregnant females" works.
So does "pregnant women and girls".
Do you think she was unfamiliar with the words "females" and "girls" and that's why she used "people" instead?
Believe it is to all the pronoun bases.
So this usage designed to avoid possibly offending them ipso facto offends folks who are offended to by early-21st-century pronounery.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
I don't agree to be honest, I think Nandy is an utter lightweight and have said so since she ran last time - and I put her as number two.
I was a big fan of Wes but his Tweeting sprees make him look like a prat.
Andy Burnham would be exactly where Keir is now.
I'm happy enough with how Keir is doing for him to have my support.
The one person who could galvanise Labour is Bridget Phillipson who is very impressive and is a northern lass
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
I don't know what twhat wedge issue means.
Thing he doesn't want talked about because it makes Labour look silly.
No, it's just that I think the economy is more important right now. I think people becoming homeless is more important right now.
I care a lot about the environment too - but I think for now people are more important.
From a Tory fanboy like yourself, I will wear this with a mark of pride
Um, WTF are you dribbling on about in that last sentence? Are you dumber than a bag of rocks, or just an outright troll?
Yes I am an outright troll.
You are a Tory fanboy, just too dishonest to say so.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
I don't agree to be honest, I think Nandy is an utter lightweight and have said so since she ran last time - and I put her as number two.
I was a big fan of Wes but his Tweeting sprees make him look like a prat.
Andy Burnham would be exactly where Keir is now.
I'm happy enough with how Keir is doing for him to have my support.
The one person who could galvanise Labour is Bridget Phillipson who is very impressive and is a northern lass
My God you don't have a fucking clue, embarrassing.
What a parasite, he’s just like his younger brother.
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
1 - It is a Times scoop - is it true? This week I found on old one about claiming that Arthur Scargill bought his Barbican flat at a discount and made a million selling it on in the Times, which appears to be a simple fabrication. Afaics he never bought it.
And we all know that the Times / Sunday Times stable has come up with some fairy stories in the last 2 years.
2 - Does evidence exist of impropriety? TSE seems to be assuming some element of personal benefit for Prince Charles.
1. Think I remember seeing stories a few months ago, that make this one appear potentially credible, as fitting into similar pattern?
2. Suitcase of cash itself would be primae facie evidence IF documented?
"Glastonbury: more middle-class than a Waitrose olive counter"
I caught up with the wolf Alice, Sam fender sets this afternoon, both very good. And the Billie Eilish, who was a touch Disney time with bad language. 😒
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
That's unfair. He has a big interest in polling for whatever party.
It's just he doesn't get politics, per se.
He seems to have been rather quiet recently, I hope he's OK. Infuriating though he can be I actually have a sneaking regard for him.
Probably because he gets abused and bulled by a few posters who then enjoy playing the victim when it suits them.
HYUFD is one of the best posters here.
He isn't necessarily the latter, although he is valuable for his insights into polling which are extraordinary. And to be honest all the 'bullying' I see is of people getting mad at him for continuing to persist with totally wrong statements.
But having met him in person many years before either of us were on PB, he's not as bad as he sometimes comes across and he must be very downbeat after Thursday.
He gets bullied and targeted constantly. Including two users who joyfully tried to get him to leave the other day. I hope he did not listen.
He's a fine chap and very polite. And actually nice unlike some of the other Tory cretins here
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
That's unfair. He has a big interest in polling for whatever party.
It's just he doesn't get politics, per se.
He seems to have been rather quiet recently, I hope he's OK. Infuriating though he can be I actually have a sneaking regard for him.
Probably because he gets abused and bulled by a few posters who then enjoy playing the victim when it suits them.
NADINE DORRIES: Ban transgender athletes from competing against women, exclusive interview with The Mail on Sunday @NadineDorries mailplus.co.uk/edition/news/p… via @mailplus
Oh goody, more of this.
On this I am with her. Development through puberty as a man, followed by drug treatment to lower testosterone, does confer advantages in sport. I have sympathy for trans athletes, but I also have sympathy for women athletes. I think the swimmers have got it right in their recent decision.
This issue is so down in the list of important things right now
Not to women athletes. And to be honest government can do more than one thing/task at a time.
This lot can't.
Generous of you to imply they are capable of doing *one* thing at a time
The Mail can't wait for Keir Starmer to be found guilty. They've spent time and money proving the forces do issue retrospective fines.
I am sure they will be doing the same for Johnson and Cummings.
Well they did for Johnson. You can argue that every fine ever issued is retrospective, as they are issued after the event. I hope Starmer doesn’t get a fine, although I would be happy with a bit of criticism, as frankly I don’t think they were following all the guidance that night, and Starmer constantly pressed for more restrictions. But right now I’d like the option to vote for him - seems a better human than the current pm, or indeed most of the party of government.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
That's unfair. He has a big interest in polling for whatever party.
It's just he doesn't get politics, per se.
He seems to have been rather quiet recently, I hope he's OK. Infuriating though he can be I actually have a sneaking regard for him.
Probably because he gets abused and bulled by a few posters who then enjoy playing the victim when it suits them.
HYUFD is one of the best posters here.
There's no accounting for taste.
My taste is horrendous - perhaps that is what you meant
Very happy to have a chat about trans people in sport when the Government start doing something on CoL or the economy, until then it's just a wedge issue
I don't know what twhat wedge issue means.
Thing he doesn't want talked about because it makes Labour look silly.
No, it's just that I think the economy is more important right now. I think people becoming homeless is more important right now.
I care a lot about the environment too - but I think for now people are more important.
From a Tory fanboy like yourself, I will wear this with a mark of pride
Um, WTF are you dribbling on about in that last sentence? Are you dumber than a bag of rocks, or just an outright troll?
Yes I am an outright troll.
You are a Tory fanboy, just too dishonest to say so.
Bullshit.
You're someone who is so tribal that everyone who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Labourite is a Tory, and therefore to you an object of hatred.
You haven't yet grasped that it is not in Labour’s interest to repel floating voters.
Questions about Starmer, is this the latest CCHQ line?
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
I thought Why are you so boring and underperforming so badly? was a bit of a live issue. Bloody should be. Compare Blair at the equiv stage of the Major govt.
The question is, would somebody else be doing better? And the answer is no, hence why no moves.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There aren't "Tories here" except HYUFD and he doesn't count because he has no interest in politics in general only in Tory politics and has only the vaguest awareness who SKS is
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
I don't agree to be honest, I think Nandy is an utter lightweight and have said so since she ran last time - and I put her as number two.
I was a big fan of Wes but his Tweeting sprees make him look like a prat.
Andy Burnham would be exactly where Keir is now.
I'm happy enough with how Keir is doing for him to have my support.
The one person who could galvanise Labour is Bridget Phillipson who is very impressive and is a northern lass
My God you don't have a fucking clue, embarrassing.
Really and is that the best response you can provide to an honest statement
Comments
As for your auntie I hope HE is comfortable
NYT ($) Dec 30, 1991 - REPUBLICANS GAIN AS STATES BATTLE OVER REDISTRICTING
https://www.nytimes.com/1991/12/30/us/republicans-gain-as-states-battle-over-redistricting.html
That decision prompted humorist Finley Peter Dunne to coin the line suggesting the Supreme Court really wasn’t an impartial bastion beyond politics but reflected the nation’s political mood.
Dunne wrote his Chicago newspaper pieces in the brogue of an imaginary Irish-American called Mr. Dooley. ``No matter whether th’ Constitution follows th’ flag or not, ‘th Supreme Coort follows th’ iliction returns,″ he commented on a 1901 decision."
source: https://apnews.com/article/15e6aa984543681dbd5c482ea3f23ce8
So, poll results do matter to the Court, though they shouldn't.
Just needed to get my confidence back in after being out of practice.
I am surviving, thanks
Didn't see that one coming.
Need to drop him an email to say hello, actually, thank you for the reminder.
No, of course it wasn't. You did just enough to get what you wanted from women and then ignored them. There's a word for men who do that. And women are utterly sick of this. We see some of this attitude on here - women's issues are seen as a tiresome addendum not central to what governments should be about. Well we bloody well should be.
Also if Utah wants women to limit their intake of those pesky little sperm well there's an easy answer: reversible vasectomies for all boys at puberty, only to be reversed when they have grown up and are ready to settle down and start a family with a named woman.
What an interference with men's bodies, you say. Yes, well, tough. Because sportswomen are - rightly - making one hell of a stink about having women's sport ruined by the inclusion of men.
This matters to women - who happen to be a majority - and it's about time our interests and rights and demands were taken a hell of a lot more seriously than they are.
So tough. Governments get involved in the sale of privately owned football clubs. So they can bloody well get involved in making sure that sport is conducted fairly.
He could easily find a Trumpist woman, quite possibly a female minority Trumpist.
The Republican Party has a number of both of those.
Odd now he never brought it up in any of his campaigns.
For the shits and giggles.
Also it is probably true quite a lot of the time.
Someone like Nicky Haley would be WAY smarter pick for him.
Though NOT necessarily for her? Real gamble for South Carolina's favorite daughter.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2022/jun/25/bbc-amol-rajan-phrase-pro-life-roe-v-wade-interview
Care to give examples?
After you get elected, you need to have the VOTES to make your pledges reality, at least in terms of legislation & top appointments requiring confirmation.
Which is generally NOT a problem for Prime Ministers under Westminster system(s).
But quite often IS a problem for POTUS.
Even ones like FDR, reelected by huge lands that included strong coattails that elected historic majorities for his party in US Senate & House. AND who could NOT get his SCOTUS reform aka "court packing" through the very same Congress.
I dont think its remotely controversial to suggest those seats could and probably would have fallen with no bxp presence. At best for labour they'd have been very tight marginals.
Wales is a false comparison, nowhere near the bxp vote of the brexity bits of the NE and Midlands red wall.
So many posts on here supporting PR maybe he has a point
And he would at least be an improvement on the present leader of the opposition
Sometimes, the politician is outright lying about what they will do. Sometimes, it becomes clear in office that what they want to do is impossible for legal and/or political reasons. Sometimes, they reason they'd have a better chance of achieving it next year than this (in the interests of those who want the thing) but they are wrong and run out of road. Sometimes, things get compromised away - "look, Mr President" the senior Senator will say, "you can have A or B... not both".
I'm not defending a particular Obama decision. He has a good reputation in the UK overall and several fine qualities... but he's a politician, he has several significant flaws, and long run won't be placed in the very top rank of US Presidents. I'm just saying this is a reality that faces both sexes, and there are reasons with which it is possible to have levels of sympathy varying from none to a fair bit.
He didn't cut the mustard then. Is he really so much better now?
And at least he is very popular in the North and is not a member of the London metropolitan elite
The Prince of Wales accepted a suitcase containing €1 million in cash from a controversial Qatari politician, The Sunday Times can reveal.
It was one of three lots of cash, totalling €3 million, which Prince Charles personally received from Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar who is nicknamed “HBJ”, between 2011 and 2015.
On one occasion, Al Thani, 62, presented the prince with €1 million, which was reportedly stuffed into carrier bags from Fortnum & Mason, the luxury department store that has a royal charter to provide the prince’s groceries and tea.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/charles-accepted-1m-cash-in-suitcase-from-sheikh-j2pgnfsgx
There are no questions about Starmer in Labour. Zero.
The challenge for America’s most toxic political marriage — and some others.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/24/jeanne-safer-politics-marriage-advice-conways-00040379
arlier this month, as Kellyanne Conway held a party for her largely pro-Trump book, Here’s the Deal, at a Washington, D.C. restaurant, her husband George — a never-Trump Republican and co-founder of the Lincoln Project — was trashing the former president on MSNBC and CNN. Many in Washington noted George’s absence, POLITICO Playbook observed, particularly because Café Milano, the book party venue, features two large TV screens that usually play cable news, all but ensuring his counterprogramming would be seen by partygoers.
The Conways have been famously divided since Trump took office, and Kellyanne’s book airs some of her marital frustration in the open: “I was looking at the possibility,” she writes, “that the man who always had my back might one day stab me in it.” (She also revealed last month that while the Conways are still married, they are not living together.)
But in an age of hyper-partisan politics and toxic social media, the Conways’ battles don’t feel so far from many Americans’ everyday lives. George and Kellyanne might have been split apart by the polarization within the Republican Party, but that same force is probably even stronger for couples in opposing political parties. Was George’s attack on his wife’s professional accomplishment a new low for scorched-Earth intrafamily politics, or just another day in a divided nation?
Jeanne Safer is a psychoanalyst and the author of the 2019 book I Love You, But I Hate Your Politics: How to Protect Your Intimate Relationships in a Poisonous, Partisan World. She is also a therapist who has been in private practice for over 45 years.
She frequently speaks about her own mixed political marriage, as a liberal wed to Richard Brookhiser, a senior editor of The National Review and a protégé of William F. Buckley Jr. Partnerships like theirs are increasingly rare: In a 2017 survey of 1,000 people conducted by the University of California, Santa Barbara, only 88 reported being married to someone who hadn’t voted for the same presidential candidate. We talked about the advantages of a mixed political household, the challenge of accepting what can’t be changed and the reason Trump has made it hard for her to take her own advice. . . .
SSI - this is a truly fascinating piece.
Who is saying this BTW? Would help to have it in context.
I know the Tories here would love to have a Labour falls apart story to distract from there feckless leader but I am not going to comment on the inner workings of the Tory Party because I don't know. But they feel the right to talk about Labour despite knowing nothing about it.
It is a difficult moral issue for many which is why most take the view that it is up to the woman to decide.
But women are fed up with male politicians making them promises and then sidelining women's issues for more important things, "important" usually being defined as what is important to men. It happens in so many areas.
To give one example. After I wrote this header - https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/03/19/not-again/ - Foxy explained BTL that maternity was not given targets and so missed out on funding, one reason for the problems in maternity care.
So pregnancy, childbirth and care of the newborn were just not seen as important enough. But, hey, never mind, it's only women and babies who died.
I expect a lot of bristling from some on here. But too bad.
I have just come from giving out the prizes at the school where I am a trustee. A girl's school. And each girl got her moment in the sun, was made to feel important and valuable, was given her voice - to speak and sing and show off. It was lovely to see. I hope that what they are taught, the self-confidence and resilience and chutzpah will serve them well in a world where - still - far too often women are sidelined and demeaned and ignored and patronised. Or told that their concerns need to wait until more important matters are seen to.
How's that going by the way? Because we've been waiting a long time now.
But this idea people are sitting around plotting to remove him is nonsense. He's as safe as houses until the FPN comes out. He just won a by-election and his ratings are at +0.
There is no question about "his future", however much Tories here would love there to be.
There’s an American comedian, Bridget Phetasy, who picks up on all these silly omissions of the “W-word” in an amusing way. https://youtube.com/watch?v=WtfUWS9lBnU
And it will continue to evolve.
Imo.
(For context, government ministers now claim that Brexit was the start of a journey, rather than the final destination)
https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1540623255991721987
Got Brexit done? Not even Johnson believes it anymore.
They can't even do the one thing they were elected specifically to do. Get rid.
With the possible exception of his incumbent wife, of course.
So does "pregnant women and girls".
Do you think she was unfamiliar with the words "females" and "girls" and that's why she used "people" instead?
It'll be interesting to see if this new-approach England team can chase a total of 350 or so, compared to 299 at Trent Bridge. If of course New Zealand can get themselves ahead by that much.
I care a lot about the environment too - but I think for now people are more important.
From a Tory fanboy like yourself, I will wear this with a mark of pride
Your example is a rightwing polemnicist. And about as funny as a rubber crutch.
But to each his (or her or their or its) own.
Yes, one of those wimmin or the one who sounds black but isn't who tweets too much.
Here's just one alternative to yours. Consider any woman who is pregnant in the way we all like - a wanted baby with two committed and loving parents. Ask her (she is law minded) what sorts of protection this foetus should have, and in general the answer will be that its protections should be as absolute and unqualified as possible because of the interests of and value of the unborn.
From that perspective it is rational to suggest that the starting point is that abortion is always banned, subject to particular exceptions.
Whereas you position is that it is always allowed, subject to particular exceptions.
You think it is a basic right. Others think it isn't but sometimes there are exceptions.
English law is with the 'ban with exceptions' view. Though this is rarely noticed. There is no general right whatsoever.
I think this is right. And that social policy should be expensively directed towards there being fewer rather than more.
Rowe vs Wade was a massive overstretch by the courts. It redefined the right to privacy to a ridiculous degree. That sort of judicial activism is utterly wrong in a democratic society.
Personally I wish that abortion was viewed as an ethical issue rather than a political brickbat. Permitted but controlled - its fundamentally a trade off between the rights of the woman and the rights of the unborn child. When one takes precedence over the other is an ethical question (with medical aspects). I think the UK is broadly right, although I’d prefer it was at 20-22 weeks rather than 24 to reflect advances in medicine since 1990.
1 - It is a Times scoop - is it true? This week I found on old one about claiming that Arthur Scargill bought his Barbican flat at a discount and made a million selling it on in the Times, which appears to be a simple fabrication. Afaics he never bought it.
And we all know that the Times / Sunday Times stable has come up with some fairy stories in the last 2 years.
2 - Does evidence exist of impropriety? TSE seems to be assuming some element of personal benefit for Prince Charles.
I was a big fan of Wes but his Tweeting sprees make him look like a prat.
Andy Burnham would be exactly where Keir is now.
I'm happy enough with how Keir is doing for him to have my support.
It's just he doesn't get politics, per se.
He seems to have been rather quiet recently, I hope he's OK. Infuriating though he can be I actually have a sneaking regard for him.
HYUFD is one of the best posters here.
But the arena of decision will sports' governing bodies, rather than declarations by activists.
I have actual inside knowledge that I've posted many times - these people do not.
As you may have noticed, I have never said Keir is safe because I don't know. He doesn't know, nor do his team.
But having met him in person many years before either of us were on PB, he's not as bad as he sometimes comes across and he must be very downbeat after Thursday.
So this usage designed to avoid possibly offending them ipso facto offends folks who are offended to by early-21st-century pronounery.
The Mail can't wait for Keir Starmer to be found guilty. They've spent time and money proving the forces do issue retrospective fines.
I am sure they will be doing the same for Johnson and Cummings.
You are a Tory fanboy, just too dishonest to say so.
2. Suitcase of cash itself would be primae facie evidence IF documented?
Well, certainly politically edgier!
He's a fine chap and very polite. And actually nice unlike some of the other Tory cretins here
But right now I’d like the option to vote for him - seems a better human than the current pm, or indeed most of the party of government.
You're someone who is so tribal that everyone who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool Labourite is a Tory, and therefore to you an object of hatred.
You haven't yet grasped that it is not in Labour’s interest to repel floating voters.