General Political Fúckery Thread: Elon Musk blows up stopgap spending bill, Government Shutdown looming on 12/21/24

[ADevilYouKhow]

Federal judge rules proxy votes can’t count toward House quorum

A federal judge in Texas ruled Tuesday that proxy votes made in the House during the COVID-19 pandemic should not have counted toward the body’s quorum, calling into question the validity of votes …

thehill.com

 

[bnew]

Republican senator blocks bill to protect IVF

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked the bill brought by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who used IVF to have her daughters.

www.nbcnews.com

Republican senator blocks bill to protect IVF​

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked the bill brought by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who used IVF to have her daughters.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., in Washington in 2022.Michael Brochstein / Sipa USA via AP file


Feb. 29, 2024, 12:29 AM EST

By Amanda Terkel and Brennan Leach

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi blocked passage of legislation Wednesday that would protect access to in vitro fertilization.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and brought to the floor for consideration under unanimous consent — meaning one senator could block it from passage — would provide federal protections for IVF.

GOP senator blocks federal bill to protect IVF
FEB. 29, 2024 05:57

The Alabama state Supreme Court recent ly rul ed that embryos created through IVF are considered children.

Many doctors and families worry that IVF will become less available, because people theoretically could be sued for destroying embryos. During the IVF process, embryos are often discarded if they have genetic abnormalities or after patients decide they will not need to use them.

Since the court's decision, politicians in both parties have expressed support for protecting IVF.

Duckworth, who used IVF to have her two daughters, said the Alabama ruling “paints women like me and our doctors as criminals” and “throws IVF access into chaos as countless women and doctors try to figure out whether they might be criminalized for simply trying to create a family.”

She further called it a "nightmarish blend of hypocrisy and misogyny."

“The very people who claim to be defending family values are the ones trying to enact dystopian policies that would prevent Americans from starting their own families," she added.

In her objection, Hyde-Smith said the Alabama decision "did not ban IVF, nor has any state banned IVF."

"The bill before us today is a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far, far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF," she said.

Alabama families face uncertainty after Supreme Court IVF ruling
FEB. 28, 2024 03:35

A number of Republican politicians who say they believe life begins at conception or believe that an embryo or fetus deserves the full rights of a person have had to come out and explain their views on IVF — a type of fertility treatment that has not been a partisan issue.

In Alabama, legislators have been scramblingto come up with a fix to protect IVF practices in light of the high court's ruling there.

Democrats have leaned in on the issue politically; they've used it to hammer Republicans on abortion — an issue that has hurt the GOP in previous elections since conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

"This has always been about conservative politicians controlling women's bodies," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Wednesday. "This has been Donald Trump and the Republicans’ plan all along, and the opposition to Sen. Duckworth’s proposal today shows that Republicans are doubling down against reproductive freedom. They are coming for medication abortion, they are coming for birth control, and they are even coming for prenatal care. Make no mistake."


Amanda Terkel

 

[bnew]

https://archive.is/yj0Qk

 

[bnew]

Spoiler: thread continued

Spoiler: full text

1/2
Rep. Swalwell leaves it all on the field against Hunter Biden.

2/2
Here’s what I see:

He’s racked up over 600 million dollars in civil judgments.

Not a single felony charge against him has been dropped or dismissed.

He hasn’t won a single court case yet.

He won a delay.

If that’s enough to convince some that it’s all over, they were never…

Spoiler: larger images

https://archive.is/VBqUI

 

[bnew]

Spoiler: thread continued

Spoiler: full text

1/1
NEW YORK (AP) — New Jersey businessman who gave Mercedes-Benz to Sen. Bob Menendez' wife pleads guilty to bribery, agrees to testify.

Spoiler: thread continued

Spoiler: full text

1/5
Breaking news: New Jersey businessman Jose Uribe has pleaded guilty to attempting to bribe Senator Robert Menendez with a Mercedes-Benz.

2/5
Jose Uribe, a former New Jersey insurance broker involved in a bribery scheme with Senator Robert Menendez, pleaded guilty on Friday in Manhattan.

3/5
He was accused of providing Nadine Menendez, the senator's wife, with a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for Mr. Menendez's intervention in an insurance fraud investigation.

4/5
Uribe pleaded guilty to seven counts, including conspiracy to commit bribery, honest services wire fraud, obstruction of justice, and tax evasion.

Sentencing is scheduled for June 14, potentially overlapping with Mr. Menendez's trial, set to begin on May 6.

5/5
Cite

Spoiler: larger images

 

[Jesus H. Christ]

Republican senator blocks bill to protect IVF

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked the bill brought by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who used IVF to have her daughters.

www.nbcnews.com

Republican senator blocks bill to protect IVF​

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., blocked the bill brought by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., who used IVF to have her daughters.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, R-Miss., in Washington in 2022.Michael Brochstein / Sipa USA via AP file


Feb. 29, 2024, 12:29 AM EST

By Amanda Terkel and Brennan Leach

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi blocked passage of legislation Wednesday that would protect access to in vitro fertilization.

The measure, sponsored by Sen. Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and brought to the floor for consideration under unanimous consent — meaning one senator could block it from passage — would provide federal protections for IVF.

GOP senator blocks federal bill to protect IVF
FEB. 29, 2024 05:57

The Alabama state Supreme Court recent ly rul ed that embryos created through IVF are considered children.

Many doctors and families worry that IVF will become less available, because people theoretically could be sued for destroying embryos. During the IVF process, embryos are often discarded if they have genetic abnormalities or after patients decide they will not need to use them.

Since the court's decision, politicians in both parties have expressed support for protecting IVF.

Duckworth, who used IVF to have her two daughters, said the Alabama ruling “paints women like me and our doctors as criminals” and “throws IVF access into chaos as countless women and doctors try to figure out whether they might be criminalized for simply trying to create a family.”

She further called it a "nightmarish blend of hypocrisy and misogyny."

“The very people who claim to be defending family values are the ones trying to enact dystopian policies that would prevent Americans from starting their own families," she added.

In her objection, Hyde-Smith said the Alabama decision "did not ban IVF, nor has any state banned IVF."

"The bill before us today is a vast overreach that is full of poison pills that go way too far, far beyond ensuring legal access to IVF," she said.

Alabama families face uncertainty after Supreme Court IVF ruling
FEB. 28, 2024 03:35

A number of Republican politicians who say they believe life begins at conception or believe that an embryo or fetus deserves the full rights of a person have had to come out and explain their views on IVF — a type of fertility treatment that has not been a partisan issue.

In Alabama, legislators have been scramblingto come up with a fix to protect IVF practices in light of the high court's ruling there.

Democrats have leaned in on the issue politically; they've used it to hammer Republicans on abortion — an issue that has hurt the GOP in previous elections since conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022.

"This has always been about conservative politicians controlling women's bodies," Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said Wednesday. "This has been Donald Trump and the Republicans’ plan all along, and the opposition to Sen. Duckworth’s proposal today shows that Republicans are doubling down against reproductive freedom. They are coming for medication abortion, they are coming for birth control, and they are even coming for prenatal care. Make no mistake."


Amanda Terkel

How can the GOP botch this? This should be an obvious alley oop for MAGA.

 

[bnew]

 

[the next guy]

 

[bnew]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/09/journalist-accuses-katie-britt-child-sex-abuse-story\

Journalist says Katie Britt’s story about child sex abuse ‘out-and-out lie’​

Jonathan Katz accuses Britt of being ‘dishonest’ in State of the Union rebuttal with story about Karla Jacinto Romero​

Robert Tait in Washington

Sat 9 Mar 2024 17.33 EST

Doubts have been cast on the accuracy of a story about horrific child sex abuse told by the Republican senator Katie Britt in her widely ridiculed speech delivered in rebuttal to President Joe Biden’s State of the Union address.

The journalist and author Jonathan Katz has accused Britt of being “fundamentally dishonest” for invoking the case of a woman who had been sex-trafficked at age 12 and raped multiple times to illustrate the supposed failure of the Biden administration’s border control policies.

Republicans baffled by Katie Britt’s State of the Union response: ‘One of our biggest disasters’


Republicans baffled by Katie Britt’s State of the Union response: ‘One of our biggest disasters’
Read more

The controversy further intensifies the spotlight on Britt – a rising Republican star – after she came under fire from members of her own party for delivering a rejoinder to Biden on Thursday from the setting of a kitchen.

In that speech, Britt described travelling to the Del Rio sector of the US-Mexico border and cited the case of an unidentified woman, whom Britt said confided harrowing experiences. The senator implied these were a direct result of the ongoing crisis at the border, which Republicans have sought to exploit as a campaign issue.

“I spoke to a woman who shared her story with me,” Britt said. “She had been sex-trafficked by the cartels starting at age 12. She told me not just that she was raped every day, but how many times a day she was raped.”

The senator did not say where or when the events occurred, but in outraged tones she implied that they had happened in the US on Biden’s watch: “We wouldn’t be OK with this happening in a third-world country. This is the United States of America. And it’s past time we start acting like it. President Biden’s border crisis is a disgrace. It’s despicable and it’s almost entirely preventable.”

However, in a seven-minute video posted on TikTok, Katz – a former AP reporter who has written on drug wars in Mexico – cited details that appeared to show the story Britt was describing had happened not just outside the US, but many years before Biden became president.

He concluded that Britt had deliberately misrepresented the tale of Karla Jacinto Romero, an activist who has publicly recounted her experiences on numerous occasions at the hands of sex traffickers in her native Mexico.

Now 31, Romero testified to a US Congressional subcommittee in May 2015 describing her experiences at the hands of a trafficker who held her captive between the ages of 12 and 16, before she was eventually rescued. She has also spoken before the Mexican house of representatives and the Vatican.

Britt met Jacinto Romero on a visit to the border with two other Republican senators, Marsha Blackburn and Cindy-Hyde Smith, in January 2023.

The visit was described on Blackburn’s senatorial webpage, which included photos of the three senators sharing a platform with Romero at a news conference.

In his video, Katz dissected what he said was Britt’s attempt to conflate Romero’s story with the US-Mexico border imbroglio, where the build-up of asylum seekers promises to become a central issue in the 2024 presidential election, before lambasting her for “dishonesty”.

Katz said that Britt, by not giving a location or a timeframe for the story, had deliberately tried to create a “beyond misleading” impression that the events had taken place recently and on US soil.

“All I had to do was key in Karla Jacinto Romero’s name … and it took me to [her] testimony to Congress from 2015 about her experiences in Mexico,” he said.

“It took place between 2004 and 2008. I don’t know what they put in the textbooks of Alabama these days, but Joe Biden was not the president of the United States in 2004 or 2008. In 2004 and 2008, the president of the United States was George W Bush, a Republican. [But] none of this really matters because none of these events took place in the United States – or even near the border.”

Katz added: “It seems very clear to me that she is trying to create an association in people’s minds between Joe Biden, the border, Mexicans, you know, Latins – people of Latin descent – and sexual violence. That’s what she’s going for and she is doing it on the basis of something that you can only say is an out-and-out lie.

“It must have been obvious to her, at the very least, that she was not talking to somebody who had recently been 12 years old.”

Katz said he had sought a comment from Britt’s spokesperson but had received no reply. “For now, it just looks as if she got up on national television and lied about something really horrific and important – and for her own personal and her party’s political gain,” he said.

In a statement to media outlets, Britt’s spokesperson Sean Ross sidestepped commenting on whether the senator had been alluding to Romero in Thursday’s speech but insisted her account was “100% correct”.

“The Biden administration’s policies – the policies in this country that the president falsely claims are humane – have empowered the cartels and acted as a magnet to a historic level of migrants making the dangerous journey to our border,” he said. “Along that journey, children, women and men are being subjected to gut-wrenching, heartbreaking horrors in our own backyard.”

Following Britt’s speech, the gun control advocate Shannon Watts noted that the senator had used stories of sexual abuse in an effort to elect Donald Trump, who has been accused of rape in an allegation a judge called “substantially true”, and of assault or misconduct by more than 20 other women. “Senator Katie Britt says sexual assault is the worst thing that can happen to a woman while encouraging Americans to vote for a convicted sexual predator,” Watts said.

 

[bnew]

 

[bnew]

 

[3rdLetter]

 

[BigMoneyGrip]

Mike Johnson bout to get bushed like McCarthy

 

[Pressure]

This whole hearing is fukkery

 

[FAH1223]