283 Comments
author

credit where credit is due: it was Ms. Spouse who coined "Forced-Birth Barbie"

Expand full comment

thank her for us...I'll be using THAT one regularly!

Expand full comment

I love that term! Perfect for these brainless morons.

Expand full comment
founding

Hats off.

Expand full comment

If the shoe fits?

In your mouth?

Expand full comment

Whose?

Expand full comment

Pretty good team, for and us.

Thank you

Expand full comment

You are the perfect pair! Because that should go viral.

Expand full comment

Good one again from Ms. Spouse

Expand full comment

I've got a girl crush on Mrs. Spouse <3

Expand full comment
author

hey, happy Mother's Day to all you mothers out there

Expand full comment

Jeff, your mama deserves credit. Probably an awful lot. We thank her for her service!

Expand full comment

Democrats: Happy Mother's Day!

Republicans: Get pregnant and die providing heirs to the patriarchy!

Expand full comment

The GOP has been the party of massive lies since the 1950’s (the F*cking McCarthy hearings and Nixon with his cronies, too much to list). Everything they do is to gain power and control over others rights. It has been a devolution in front of our eyes for the last 75 years and this is what it has come to. We’re in a fight for our lives. The degenerate ‘republicans’ just want to rule, they’ve no interest in democracy.

Expand full comment

I hate EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. OF. THEM. My father taught me not to hate anyone, but this shit is just going way beyond my level of tolerance.

Thank you Jeff for what you give us and Happy Mother’s Day to all the Moms and Dads, cat Moms and Dad’s and pupper Moms and Dads. 🐕🐕‍🦺🐈🐈‍⬛

Expand full comment

Or governance aside from making people obey arbitrary rules from a made-up deity. Wheee.

Expand full comment

Yes, they pull those ideas straight from their posterior!

Expand full comment

There's the GOP the party of the selfish. And there is the Democratic party where we see service and often selfless service or at minimum the party that supports the selfless in service.

And it is impossible to talk to some folk I know. One that was liberal all her life and moved to a red state and got dumped after 10 years by a republican that got super Trumpy. If I try to have a conversation about Trump, like this week..."oh, that is nothing new". Apparently, no interest. Sheesh.

Expand full comment

Thank you!

Expand full comment

I was born under Ike and always remember his statement about his being ashamed to be of German ancestry in relation to what the Nazis did during the war. I’m equally sure he was ashamed of his Republican affiliation after leaving office and seeing what they were devolving into !

Expand full comment

Thanks Jeff! We all had the right to survive having our children. Vote blue for all the new and prospective moms!💙💙

Expand full comment

Oh I’m a “mutha” alright! lol

Expand full comment

And to Ms. Spouse from all of us <3

Expand full comment
founding

Thank you 😉

Expand full comment
author

I also want to credit the April 27th episode of Dahlia Lithwick's "Amicus" podcast for educating me about the barbaric requirement that women be actually in the process of dying before receiving healthcare. I had no idea, and I'll bet most people have no idea. link: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bonus-the-zombie-abortion-law-apocalypse-is-here/id928790786?i=1000652292576

Expand full comment

I bet most people have no idea, because who in their right mind would think it's true?! I hear that from people all the time about all the project 2025 shit I share with them..."that can't be real"..."you must have read it wrong"..."they don't really mean it"...particularly love that last one...we have been "they don't really mean it-ing" for decades and we keep getting shit on. One last thing, their cute little names for cruel bat-shit-crazy bills just makes my head explode! Fuck them all the hell off...HARD! And Happy Mothers' Day!!

Expand full comment

How to boil a frog: "Oh, I'm wet. Gee there is no shore, just metal walls. The wall is round and high. Speaking of high, is the water getting warmer? Oh, I'm just imagining things. It's the stress I feel not being able to find a lily pad. Are we having a heatwave. Must be, I think I'm fainting..."

WHY do people explain away what is in front of them? Clarence Thomas taking millions in gifts from people who have cases in front of the Supreme Court and not reporting the gifts. Why would those three things be true? Could it be, BRIBERY? Nah. White billionaires from former slave states always wanted an African American friend. And Trump has a university degree he'd like to sell you.

Expand full comment

They bought their “Uncle Tom”. I suppose he’s chosen to believe they really like him as he and that wife of his roll off in their fancy camper van.

Expand full comment

Criminal penalties for doctors, staff and the corporation that owns any hospital that does this. Now. Let’s go litigators. They don’t fear women unless they’re lawyers going after their asses.

Expand full comment

Good luck getting doctors in the newly Handmaiden Tales of red states, especially a GYN.

Expand full comment

Ive known litigators. A family filled with them (children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren of immigrants btw)w

I’ve worked for litigators. The women are fiercer than the men.

Get one smart and mad enough, with a great paralegal and a team = toasted.

Expand full comment

FYI, we are both women and from immigrants from Sylvania. My grandparents created the interests of education that all of us embraced.

Expand full comment

The story of immigrants: those people dissatisfied with the status quo, who took a chance with their lives, who sought a larger, broader and freer life, with opportunity.

Spirit and heart and willingness to work hard to give their children a chance to explore and learn. Their contribution to our country is immense.

Expand full comment

I am Fine Arts, Chemistry college/ Grad student.My 2nd cousin has the chops you swpeak of.

Journalism, Masters Constitutional Law & Law School.

After becoming a lawyer, was a Federal Prosecutor and later, an Magistrateral Federal Judge.

To say I was proud is an understatement. But there was another Federal Prosecutor in NM...

I wish I had the ability but I worked in biotechnology and lab science.

Expand full comment

We need to speak with one voice. More than anything we have to say NO WAY. We’ll find our champions to take the fight to court. Democracy Docket and the ACLU to name a few.

Expand full comment

Absolutely on Democracy Docket , Alias's group fight hard.We could clone them about 10 times to reach overwhelming victory!

Expand full comment

It's already extremely difficult to find a pain management doc since the Trump administration. They've all been thrown in jail, or lost their licenses or have just stopped treating pain with pharmaceuticals. If you want to see what will happen to OB/GYN docs, look at what has already happened to pain docs.

Expand full comment

This is true. It doesn't take much to scare the MDs or the insurance companies that cover ther malpractice needs. It was bad enough being GYN. much less Pain Docs. Of course, the usual "we don't see it, therefore it doesn't ( pain) exists. Or, we have no a swers, therefore no interest.

Expand full comment

I'm just letting my imagination run wild, Jeff, but even if you fought a lot with your mom, we know where you got your fighting gene from.

Expand full comment

I am old enough to remember - that’s what happened pre-Roe and ended up in a Catholic hospital.

Expand full comment

The Catholic hospitals don't do ectopic surgery, or tubal ligations. In short they will not give standard of care, which should be illegal.

Expand full comment

You might want to check out Jessica Valenti's "Abortion Every Day" substack, she summarizes the basic info in the first paragraph so you don't have to read it all if you don't have the time. She keeps you informed on ALL the republican fuckery. (But it can be enraging.)

Expand full comment

Thanks for the info

Expand full comment

Unfortunately, that's the case in Texas now. Although one of the assholes who pushed the abortion ban through the lege is now all like, "but we didn't really intend for pregnant women to die like that!" (I kind of doubt any one of the aforementioned assholes actually HAD one informed thought between them, when they passed it.)

Expand full comment

I worked at Planned Parenthood in KS when our AG illegally took medical records to start the beta version of this new & improved federal database. Kline is now disbarred, but conservatives seem blind to consequences & reality when it comes to abortion rights.

In ‘22 I canvassed next door in MO for pro-choice candidates and the women in this red state WANT TO CONTROL THEIR OWN BODIES THANK YOU. A new campaign to get a pro-choice measure on the ballot just got almost 3x the needed signatures DESPITE super majority fuckery in Jeff City.

I told anyone who would listen then & I’ll say it again. Women are taking their anger with them to vote. #RememberRoevember

Expand full comment

I keep saying this. This is the issue. Republican women are getting screwed. (I know, all women are.) If you live in a red state, this is not esoteric.

Expand full comment

How does this not violate HIPPA laws?!

Expand full comment

Beyond horrible. It's no one's business just like anyone's health history. Zealots like Britt and all of her GOP Christo-fascist asshole colleagues need to stop pushing their medieval bullshit agenda and let women's reproductive issues be a choice and not a damn mandate that they want to control. In the meantime, what about all of those poor kids out there that have been brought into this world that the GOP no longer gives a shit about?

Expand full comment

They want them to clean the slaughter houses. That's why they were bred.

Expand full comment

That's the infuriating thing:; the hypocrisy of the 'pro-lifers' who only care about fetuses. Once you're outside the womb, you're on your own and can watch while all the laws and services that make it possible to live a full life are taken away.

Expand full comment

That would be ALL of them. They only see children as slaves and property, i.e. something to starve, and treat badly.

Expand full comment

Yes, I.F. Stone said politicians who oppose abortion (or maybe he said Republicans, I forget) only care about children until their head comes out of the womb.

Expand full comment

That’s a great question and I started to look but just reading about this asshole pisses me off.

Here’s his failed appeal a few years ago. https://www.courthousenews.com/10th-circuit-wont-reinstate-disbarred-kansas-ag/

The asshole is probably pleasuring himself to the idea of another Trump admin so he float around the swamp with all the other MAGA jetsam. I hope neither of them get to inflict more pain among women.

Expand full comment

They don’t care about HIPPA - because Project 2025 defines life as beginning at conception and gives constitutional rights to fertilized eggs. Alabama already passed that law. It’s why IVF is no longer available.

Expand full comment
founding

Serious question.is HIPPA going to be wiped out too?

Expand full comment

I am concerned about that. HIPAA is just one of a network of laws protecting personal health information, but because it's far broader (it deals with electronic record-handling, etc) it's also become emblematic of the right to privacy where health information is concerned. Dobbs has already put a real crimp in the rights Roe confirmed, and if HIPAA is tossed, the whole concept of a right to privacy (health AND otherwise) is trashed.

One problem is that there's no specific right to privacy stated in the Constitution; instead, the right to privacy was first named in a law journal article around 1890, which posited the existence of a right to privacy for individuals and business based on the Constitution. (One of the two authors of that article was Louis Brandeis, who ended up on the Supreme Court and did a lot of good work there.) The right to privacy, period, has been on the hit list for the right for some time -- at least where us plebes are concerned.

If the right manages to gain enough control to destroy any concept of a right to privacy in the US, we're cooked. I'd get out of having to take training yearly on subjects like HIPAA but then again, my agency would probably be eliminated or transfomed into an arm of the state Gestapo.

Expand full comment

It may, but you'd have to take it to court and get all of the appellate courts up the line to agree with that -- and the court beyond which there is no appeal is, of course, in favor of not just banning abortion, but also maintaining control over women.

Expand full comment

You're AWESOME ! 👏💖

Expand full comment

Bravo!! Applaud your hard work. Have followed MSNBC coverage of deep red KANSAS getting three times the #of sigs to get abortion rights on the ballot!

Expand full comment

Republicans are not blind to consequences or realty. They just don't give a fuck. Women are property, just like livestock. We have to be punished for having sex and enjoying it.

Expand full comment

No, more for just allowing sex to happen to us. Pleasure does not enter into their calculations. At least not female pleasure.

Expand full comment

HIPAA violation. We need to go after these violators and prosecute.

Expand full comment

❤️❤️❤️❤️For you, and the important work you are doing. I'm a former Clinic escort myself, the health workers there inspired me to become a Surgical Assistant, because the work they do is so important!

Expand full comment

Great piece today Jeff! Any woman who votes Republican should be taken to Russia to live out the rest of their lives. Us REAL women/mothers in US can take care of our own bodies thank you very much. What the hell is wrong with these people? It makes me sick. Anyway…HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY TO ALL THE WONDERFUL MOTHERS OUT THERE!

Expand full comment

I fucking hate these people. When I heard that Ascension healthcare was hacked, my mind went directly to republicans wanting to steal reproductive care info. VOTE!

Expand full comment

Unfortunately too many businesses cheap out, when it comes to cyber-security and use old software. Usually because the people running it are often clueless.

Expand full comment

I agree, but the timing and the fact that they are huge had me suspicious.

Expand full comment

"all this establishes Katie Britt as just another bad-faith Republican unashamed to lie out of both sides of her mouth."

OR it demonstrates that Katy Britt is a snot-nosed idiot who couldn't talk if someone didn't write her lines for her and wouldn't know reality if it bit her in the butt AND kept chewing for a half hour.

**Never overestimate the intelligence of a MAGAT.**

Expand full comment

100%

Expand full comment

She shoulda just remained silent and be thought a fool. But, noooo she had to open her Handmaiden of the Right mouth again.

Expand full comment

Kathleen is right, Britt is just a ventriloquists dummy.

Expand full comment

I just heard Fareed Zakaria on CNN talking about Trump vs Biden polls. Trump leads in swing states which are all that matter, I guess. Are Americans really that stupid? Do the pro Palestinian protestors really believe Trump would give two shits about Gaza? Do the pro choicers really believe that Trump wouldn’t executive order a national abortion ban or this sick database? Do voters not realize that Trump is willing to implement any worst nightmare scenarios?

We have an appalling lack of imagination.

Expand full comment

Fuck CNN—it’s run by a RWNJ and has been for awhile. All television media is garbage! Keep reading Jeff and check out Jay Kuo’s and Heather Cox Richardson’s Substacks too!

Expand full comment

And Rosenbergs Hopium, its up and positive and this man knows what’s happening

Expand full comment

I will check that out! Jess Craven is wonderful too!!

Expand full comment

If you watch MSNBC you’ll recognize Rosenberg

Expand full comment

I have in the past but not lately, I do recognize the name for sure.

Expand full comment

I’m a subscriber to both! I used to watch Fareed for his take but I haven’t agreed with it in weeks.

Expand full comment

👍👍

Expand full comment

Don't worry. These polls are wrong. Probably made up.

Expand full comment

Let’s hope Americans are smarter than all that

Expand full comment

"Would you vote for trump or a dead dog?" "Uh trump, I guess..."

Expand full comment

Even a dead dog is better than Trump.

Expand full comment

I was going to specify that even a dead dog is smarter and prettier than Trump, but that probably goes without saying.

Expand full comment

Don’t believe any polls! We are 5 months away from the election and the questions asked on those are always skewed. Women, no matter Dem or Repub, will bring the fight.

Expand full comment

Yeah, it's stupid to me. All (some?) of the protesters saying Biden's "lost" them. Well, then go ahead dipshit stay home - you're gonna love having DJT baaaack. Biden ain't perfect but he's the only alternative to the Insult to Democracy.

Expand full comment

We have an appalling amount of ignorance and stupidity.

Expand full comment

These polls showing Trump ahead in swing states are deceptive and have mostly been superseded by others showing Biden ahead. The only thing you can conclude from these polls is that the the race is close. Now that the pollsters are drilling down to concentrate on registered voters in stead of 'likely' voters we might see a surge in the right direction. At least I hope so.

Expand full comment

The MSM keeps on giving tangeranus the benefit of the doubt, instead of telling the truth, so many people will be clueless. They need to be called out, especially the fucking times who is the worst offender, and is right up there with the tabloids when it comes to trying to smear Biden. (he wears a rolex! he has a Peleton! He wears shoes the are comfortable and support his feet to walk better.)

Expand full comment

... which is probably why he tends to be better at walking down ramps on his own... :D

Expand full comment

There are only two rules for sex 1. Consenting 2. Adult.

There is only one rule for an abortion if you don't want/need one, don't get one.

I believe the bible says life comes with the first breath. These forced birthers don't give a flying rat about the baby or they would get them mom all the prenatal care she needs/wants, be sure when the baby breathes, it has a home to go home to, with enough supplies and food and medical/dental, all the education s/he wants, and not have to worry about some asshat coming to school/church/movie/etc with an assault weapon. What a sick country we've become. Land of the Free White Males and Home of Brave others who are literally become slaves.

Expand full comment

There's a " recipe " for an abortifacient in the Bible in NUMBERS.

Expand full comment

Because in Genesis - God Breathed Life into Adam. In the Bible - Life is defined as beginning when We Take A Breath. No Breath - No Life!

The Bible was written for an agrarian culture. A person or an animal had to be born and breathe on its own to be alive. Before that it was part of the female and only potential life.

Today’s livestock breeding contracts are STILL written like that! A “live birth” is one in which the offspring is born, and is breathing (and frequently stands and nurses). Just having a heartbeat in the mother is nice but doesn’t mean much because it’s still part of the mother.

Expand full comment

You can count on the Christofascists to ignore or misread the book they pretend to revere so much. Their god is the god of the tribe, and the present-day descendants of that tribe still say live begins at first breath.

Expand full comment

Electrical impulses.

Expand full comment

👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👏👍

Expand full comment

The Party of small government---what a fucking joke that is. These assholes want to replace the Constitution with the Bible and shove it down our throats. I’m 73 but I’ll take to the streets before I see this country become another Taliban. Fuck them all, esp Katie Britt!

Expand full comment

Tell it, sister! I'm 79 and will be right there linking arms with you. Let's do it!!!!!!!!!

Expand full comment

I’m 84 and will be out there in my wheelchair with the rest of you.

Expand full comment

They want it small enough to fit in every uterus!

Expand full comment

The more these Christofascists keep up their regressive and oppressive drumbeat, the more people will be motivated to accelerate the existing trend toward leaving the churches and religion.

Expand full comment

The Repugnants are the party of small-minded government.

Expand full comment
May 12·edited May 12

Great piece, Jeff, and thank you for the Mother’s Day wishes. Greatest joy of my life is being the mother of 2 grown sons and grandmother of 2 young boys. As much as I loved being pregnant, it felt like invasion of the body snatchers, and no one should be forced to go through that. I also had 3 1st-trimester losses, and a national registry would mean such common (at least 1/3 of all pregnancies) and sad occurrences could (would?) be investigated. It would also mean that pregnant people would avoid prenatal care to avoid registering (or worse, being registered by the medical facility where they went for treatment). Lack of prenatal care produces more babies born with avoidable problems and likely more maternal mortality. I think the loudness of the Christofascists has led us to focus on the horror stories (young girls raped, women with sepsis) and forget that every pregnant person and their baby would be at risk. And on that unhappy note, happy Mother’s Day to all who are celebrating.

Expand full comment

My mom lost two of her six pregnancies. Right in line with the statistics you cite.

Expand full comment

If we buy this crap we ALL have brain worms. And speaking of brain ailments, whatever became of the lovely theory that tfg has syphilis and its attendent spirochetes?

Expand full comment

I'd love to see the autopsy report on his brain...

Expand full comment

The sooner the better, amirite?

Expand full comment

Minuscule—difficult to find it.

Expand full comment

Thanks Jeff. I think.

Usually I laugh when I read your column, even though the news is bad . Today not so much. Of course I am reading it from a hotel room in enemy country. I have been in Texas for a week. East, Central, and West. All red, though the people I closely interact with have been mostly blue.

I am currently hunkered down waiting out a thunderstorm in Snyder, TX, which is vaguely somewhere between Abilene and Lubbock. It is creepy. Reminds me of my first visit to Germany circa 1985. I sat in a beer hall in Munich, eyeing men and women who were “of an age” to have been alive 45 years before. I wondered what role they had played in the war. Did they shoot at my uncle? What memories did they have? And what feelings did they harbor towards their country’s former enemies? Same thing when I visited Japan on business in 1992. Didn’t interact with very many 70 year olds, but still wondered if the ones I did pulled the lever that brought down my uncle’s plane, bombed my other uncle’s ship, or fired at my dad. The first did not survive, the other two did.

On a positive note, during my travels over the last 5 weeks, I have had the opportunity to interact with dozens of young people, teens to twenties. In ways subtle and not, it has come up that all, every single one are voting and voting blue. It was wonderful to speak with them, very uplifting. Since I have no kids of my own and live in a town with, shall we say, mature demographics, it was a window onto another world. Note to self: Seek out young people. Take them out for a meal. Have an intelligent conversation. Listen more talk less. Come away with a smile and a sense of optimism.

Happy Mother’s Day to all those women that do the heavy lifting to continue the species.

Expand full comment

Need encouragement from a young person? Check out Adam Mockler on YouTube. Brilliant.

Expand full comment

Thanks. I did. And then I subscribed. Though I admit to not being particularly facile with ongoing YouTube subscriptions. Learning opportunity!

Expand full comment

Fighting Cancer was a walk in the park compared to the infection I had from my port. I’ve had Sepsis and it’s no fucking joke. I’m still climbing my way back from it since October 2023. I was close to death when I was taken by ambulance to the ER. Allowing anyone to reach that critical stage is downright disgusting before that pregnancy can be terminated.

Expand full comment

Hang in there and all the best. We can always use more folks like you hanging around.

Expand full comment

Sepsis took me to the brink of death. I wished I was dead. It's no joke.

Expand full comment

Best healing thoughts your way, thank you for being an ally.

Expand full comment

Every christofascist with dreams of controlling and eliminating all the rights they dislike, needs to fuck off. Then, because they’re good at slinking around and pretending they would never take away your rights, the need to fuck ALL THE WAY OFF and then just keep right on fucking off until they’re too old and tired to fuck off any more. Then fuck off and die.

Too much?

Expand full comment

And by the way… we had a war to decide all this stuff and it didn’t end well for the fascists, or for the 20-30 million people whose lives got destroyed along the way.

The GQP must be stopped before all that shit happens again, because unless they ARE stopped, it will happen again.

Expand full comment

Nope! Fuck em all!

Expand full comment

not enough

Expand full comment

Perfect, a little gentle and understated though.

Expand full comment

No, it’s just about right.

Expand full comment

That’s way too much f*cking going on

Expand full comment
May 12·edited May 12

One of the more memorable lines, and I add BS, from Reagan: "The most terrifying words in the English language are: I'm from the government and here to help." BS because all are aware of public services from national highways to disaster relief. But today with the forced birth fascists I find myself in odd agreement Reagan's notorious quote. So happy Mother's Day. Choice is pro-mother.

Expand full comment

David: except for the fact that it was those words that started the antipathy towards the government which under lies these morons distorted thinking. Ronnie and Newt get all the credit for the genesis of this horrible division.

Expand full comment

I fully agree with you. Reagan screwed up public education in CA with his tax cuts. Extended the Iran hostage crisis for political gain. And, was the guy-in-charge for Iran-Contra. He was the perfect "flesh puppet"--a derogatory term for actors--for the GOP. Good orator, and fully compliant to the Party. As for the "Cold War," it was the Soviet economic collapse--ask Gorbachev.

Expand full comment