And don't try to make the case that China is some kind of outlier. Governments have gone round-n-round on this for 40,000 years, and you don't have to go far to find authoritarian assholes who just want power. They look to control women as a way to fragment the population, which makes it harder for people to band together so they can stand up against the Daddy State.
This is, and always has been, a question of an individual's right to autonomy.
And, as always, it's about where we draw the line.
The Thomas Court (Roberts is "Chief Justice" in name only) is all but locked in on gutting Roe v Wade.
I imagine they'll try to sell it as something short of a full overturning - prob'ly because the wingnuts will bitch about how SCOTUS didn't go far enough no matter what happens - but it promises to be just like SCOTUS killing the Voting Rights Act simply by shit-canning the part that made the states play nice. Which of course triggered all of the shitty things states are doing now to squelch the vote.
So a coupla dozen states will probably spring into action and pass laws either restricting or outlawing abortion almost immediately if the Court guts Roe v Wade, while certain others say they're ready to go the other way.
Democratic state lawmakers want to ensure abortion access remains legal in Colorado even if the U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
On the day the Supreme Court heard arguments over a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a group of state legislators signed a proclamation to uphold Coloradans’ rights to abortion. They plan to introduce a bill next year codifying abortion rights into state law.
“Coloradans have affirmed over and over again that politics has no place in private medical decisions that belong between a pregnant person, their family and their provider,” Rep. Meg Froelich, a Democrat from Englewood, said in a news release. “Four times we have rejected political attempts to ban abortion on the ballot. It’s time to stop playing defense and move Colorado beyond the bans.”
- snip -
While Colorado has no state laws restricting access to abortion, it also doesn’t have laws protecting that access, said Laura Chapin, spokesperson for Colorado abortion rights and advocacy group Cobalt.
Colorado was the first state to liberalize abortion in 1967. Previously, advocates resisted passing legislation to affirm the right to abortion in the state, worrying doing so could become an organizing tool for those on the right. But now they say Colorado must act.
“We’re looking at a proactive bill to protect abortion access here in Colorado because, clearly, the courts are not going to protect us anymore,” Chapin said in an interview.
With a Democratic-controlled state legislature and governor’s office, bills to restrict or ban abortion in Colorado — such as the “Protect Life at Human Conception” bill — have not been able to move forward.
The first U.S. case of the omicron variant has been identified in California in a traveler who returned from South Africa on Nov. 22, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Wednesday.
The patient had mild symptoms that were improving and was in isolation, officials said.
Much remains unknown about the highly mutated variant, which scientists fear could be more transmissible and more resistant to vaccines. The new variant has been identified in more than 20 countries since it was first identified in southern Africa last week.
World health officials criticized blanket travel bans on those coming from southern African nations, saying they will be ineffective against the spread of the omicron variant.
President Donald Trump tested positive for the coronavirus days before he shared the debate stage with then-nominee Joe Biden in September 2020, according to his former chief of staff.
The new Omicron variant has been detected in a vaccinated Minnesota resident with recent travel history to New York City, the Minnesota Department of Health said in a statement.
Driving the news:
The confirmed case involved a patient who developed mild symptoms on Nov. 22 and got a COVID-19 test on Nov. 24, per MDH. He is no longer experiencing symptoms.
Authorities are investigating what caused a student to allegedly turn a pistol on his classmates at a Michigan high school, leaving three people dead and eight others injured Tuesday as a small town is left to grapple with what has become a routine American tragedy.
The suspected gunman, who has not been named by authorities, is a 15-year-old sophomore at Oxford High School who attended class before he began shooting, officials said. It remains unclear how he obtained the gun allegedly used to fire 15 to 20 shots.
Officials said a motive also remains unknown for what appears to be the deadliest episode of on-campus violence in more than 18 months, while instruction shifted online during the coronavirus pandemic and school shootings largely dropped out of headlines.
The gun taken from the suspect, a 9mm pistol with 15-round magazines, was purchased by the suspect’s father last week, four days before the shooting, according to Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard.
The suspect, who was booked into jail as a juvenile but could be tried as an adult, did not resist when he was arrested, and is not cooperating with the investigation, authorities said. About 300 law enforcement and emergency management personnel from two dozen agencies, including the FBI, responded to the scene, the sheriff’s office said.
It is illegal under Michigan laws for someone younger than 18 to possess a gun in public in the state. In schools, it is illegal to carry a concealed gun, and some school districts in the state also ban open carry.
The three people killed were all students at the school, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said, identifying them as 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana, 17-year-old Madisyn Baldwin and 16-year-old Tate Myre, who died in a patrol car while sheriff deputies were taking him to a hospital.
Seven of the injured were students between the ages of 14 and 17. Of those students, three were in critical condition at a hospital, the sheriff’s office said. A teacher, 47, was shot in the shoulder and discharged from a hospital.
A spokesperson for St. Joseph Mercy Oakland, where the sheriff’s office said a 17-year-old female in critical condition was taken in the aftermath of the shooting, told The Washington Post early Wednesday that the hospital is treating one patient, and that the patient is in stable condition, but it would not release identifying information about the patient due to privacy concerns.
Oakland County Undersheriff Mike McCabe would not say whether the suspect had made threats leading up to the shooting, but he said the possibility is part of the police investigation.
According to Giffords Law Center, a gun violence-prevention group that publishes information about gun laws, Michigan ranks 20th in the nation for states with the strongest gun laws.
“Michigan laws are certainly not the weakest in the country, but they could be a lot stronger,” Allison Anderman, the center’s senior counsel, said in an interview Tuesday night.
Anderman noted that school shootings are still exceptionally rare compared with other types of shootings. Yet in most school shootings, the weapon is a firearm left unsecured in the home.
Since 2018, when 17 people were killed during a shooting at a Parkland, Fla., high school, many states have passed legislation making it more difficult for children to access firearms.
Eleven states have laws concerning firearm-locking devices, including Michigan, in an attempt to reduce the risk of guns falling into the hands of children or criminals, according to Giffords Law Center. Michigan does not require firearm owners to lock their weapons.
Many of Oxford High School’s 1,800 students are now grappling with “what ifs” in the aftermath of the shooting in this quiet town that is home to 22,000 people. When a bullet pierced the door of an AP statistics class, senior Kristina Myers said she and her classmates began piling desks in front of the door and passing out calculators to potentially throw at the gunman should he enter the room.
“If my teacher didn’t close the door when she did, our class would have been dead. I know that for a fact,” she said.
Omicron prompts U.S. to prepare tighter travel restrictions
The United States is preparing to require all inbound international travelers to be tested for the coronavirus one day before departure, regardless of vaccination status, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said late Tuesday.
The Biden administration is also considering a requirement for a second test within three to five days of arrival, and possibly requiring travelers to quarantine for seven days — precautions that have been enacted in other countries but would be a first in the United States at the federal level.
The World Health Organization warned Tuesday that in light of the omicron variant, people who are not fully vaccinated or have not recovered from covid-19, as well as people age 60 or older and those at high risk of severe illness from covid-19, should postpone travel to places where the virus is spreading. Those places now include much of the world, as countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia battle surges in cases.
Here’s what to know
A group of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration advised the agency to authorize a coronavirus pill to prevent high-risk people from developing severe illness. The pill, molnupiravir by pharmaceutical giant Merck, could provide a simple, easy-to-administer tool to reduce the strain on hospitals.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has significantly expanded its recommendations for booster shots, saying that all adults 18 and older should get them.
The GOP is ruled by people who hate this country's ideals of democratic self-government.
Their project is to tear it all down and replace it with an authoritarian plutocracy.
And that sign behind Bannon is a perfect example of the Orwellian Newspeak sleight-of-hand bullshit they're peddling in order to make the rubes think it sounds plausible.
Marjorie Taylor Greene said, “this government deserves to go out of business.” pic.twitter.com/sCfl2AG4AE
"They" have been talking about it for a while, but we're there now - we don't have to wait - it's all but a dead solid certainty that we'll see some deep fake shit going mainstream very soon.
