It’s Friday, May 13th, 2022…but before we begin, in an editorial at FOX News you should read in its entirety, as is sets the table for the deceptive distractors at the end, one Rachel O’Leary Carmona assures us, all the facts to the contrary notwithstanding…

The end of Roe v Wade hurts you, too, even if you don’t plan to march

For most of us, abortion is many things and not all of them fit neatly into boxes

“…Here’s the problem: What’s about to happen in this country isn’t just an assault on the vocal minority of women who’ve been taking to the streets, to state capitals, to the Capitol to demand that our voices are heard, that our rights aren’t trampled on, that our bodies stay ours. 

It’s an assault on the silent majority of this country, too. On the women — and men — who haven’t chanted, marched, or protested. Who haven’t taken to the streets or shown up to halls of power. Who still, nonetheless, want abortion to be safe, accessible, and legal. (Within definite limits Ms. O’Leary Carmona and other abortion-on-demand zealots don’t share!)

It’s a whopping 80% of all Americans, a supermajority. Some of us identify as pro-choice; others don’t. Some of us are Democrats; some are Republicans; and others still are apolitical. Some of us get lifesaving health care from Planned Parenthood; others have protested outside its doors. Some of us believe abortion is fundamental, an extension of our right to privacy and bodily autonomy. 

Others have deeply-held religious and moral objections to it. For some of us, abortion is a decision we made and have never regretted. For others, abortion was the backup plan to a backup plan to a backup plan we never wanted to use. For some of us, abortion is the defining political issue of our times. For others, it’s deeply, deeply personal. 

For most of us, it’s not so simple. It’s not just good or bad. It’s not just right or wrong. For most of us, abortion is many things, and not all of them fit neatly into boxes. And yet, nearly one in four women in this country will have an abortion in her life. You probably love someone who’s had an abortion, or will have one someday. You definitely know her. 

It makes sense, then, that while eighty percent of this country agrees on almost nothing — even and especially regarding abortion — there is one big exception: When the time comes to make this deeply personal choice, 80% of this country believes that you and your doctor should have the right to make it together, without the government holding you back. (Unlike the WuFlu vaccine!)

That is what’s at risk if and when this horrific Alito decision takes effect — and what makes the decision so horrific in the first place. Because this ruling doesn’t just go after Democrats, or the pro-choice movement, or the feminists the far right has always looked down upon, or the activists they’ve never cared for. 

It goes after everyone. It has the potential to criminalize everyone. Not just the vocal minority in the streets in deep blue states and cities, but the silent majority sitting around their kitchen tables in small conservative towns like the one I call home in Texas, grateful for the abortion their wife was able to access during a pregnancy that put her health at risk, or afraid of the one their granddaughter might no longer be able to access if she were raped…”

You know, ’cause Republicans are hellbent on banning abortion even in cases of rape and incest, or when the health of the mother is at risk.  We also like the grossly exaggerated “statistics” O’Leary Carmona pulled out of her ass.  The entire editorial is composed of fact-free assumptions, generalizations and misrepresentations.  You know, like a Biden speech or Psaki press conference.

Now, here’s The Gouge!

Since we’re on the subject of lying pieces of sh*t, watch as Bret Baier takes Senator Chris Murphy, one of the bigger bits of human excrement currently soiling the halls of the Capitol, to task for completely mischaracterizing Florida’s Parental Rights in Education bill:

We should also note the high rate of suicide among transgenders is owing to the fact they’re suffering from a mental illness for which prevailing Progressive policies offer only reinforcement rather than treatment.

Turning back for a moment to abortion, writing at Substack‘s The Transom, co-founder of The Federalist Ben Domenech clearly and succinctly explains what’s behind…

The Chardonnay Antifa Abortion Freakout

The pro-abortion left is worried you’re about to learn the truth

This weekend saw pro-abortion protesters harassing Supreme Court justices, and their neighbors, with protests that ventured into the neighborhoods around Washington, D.C. Justice Samuel Alito and his family were reportedly moved to an undisclosed location for their protection, and Governors Glenn Youngkin and Larry Hogan have stepped into the gap left by the feds in providing security support.

Thankfully, the crowds dispersed when police showed up. But across the country, churches saw the increased presence of protests and harassment — and it’s not like there’s enough manpower to protect every hall of worship. As for targeting activists, in Wisconsin the Madison pro-life headquarters was hit by a Molotov cocktail. This has all the signs of the early stages of a violent turn for Chardonnay Antifa.

Douglas Blair @DouglasKBlair

The scene in front of Chief Justice John Roberts’ house

May 7th 2022

5,288 Retweets14,639 Likes

It’s not hard to understand why these protesters feel so fearful. For fifty years since the decision that short-circuited the democratic process by imposing a national standard, the media narrative was that overturning Roe meant chaos and theocracy. ABC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, NPR, everything produced by Hollywood and every major media entity spouted essentially the same line: that Roe was a line in the sand, and to cross it meant Handmaids and medievalism and deaths in back alleys. Until just five seconds ago, CBS had their abortion coverage led by someone who just took a job as news director for Planned Parenthood. Yesterday she told Brian Stelter why this was fine:

Nicholas Fondacaro @NickFondacaro

CBS News “journalist” who just so happened to become a Planned Parenthood “news content director” claims the U.S. is going to turn into El Salvador and arrest/imprison women for miscarriages if Roe gets overturned. Of course, no pushback from Brian Stelter.

May 8th 2022

132 Retweets436 Likes

The truth, of course, is that these people were all lying all along. The post-Roe environment is not a theocratic hellscape, unless that’s what you believe America was until 1972. Instead, it will be a scenario where the moderate views on the abortion question are far more likely to receive a hearing. The polling on this subject over the years has been particularly skewed by the framing of questions (Hence, Ms. O’Leary Carmona’s “80% agreement” claim) — but it’s clear that the definition of “mostly illegal/mostly legal” is in need of adjudication, and that will happen via the state legislatures and constitutional processes all across the country.

Perhaps it’s unreasonable, but there are signs Americans ought to be hopeful about what’s coming next. Certain factors make post-Roe state compromises on abortion easier than you might expect, in part because the status quo — established by decades of monolithic media massaging that warped the terms of debate and deliberately created a false overarching narrative — is, to put it lightly, bullshit.

Take just one example: In the real world, when people say “I’m pro-choice,” they mean they are definitely for abortion for the worst cases, and probably for some defined stretch of early pregnancy. But in Washington, D.C., the same term defines the most radical absolutist position in American politics: abortion on demand at any stage for any reason and funded by taxpayer dollars. They don’t even have the equivalent of a “shouting fire in a crowded theater” exception. No one outside of the extremist abortion left holds that position in good faith and with a settled conscience.

When the time comes, if Roe is truly eradicated, you’ll see California and New York and several other states pass defiant radical laws — if there’s even room to go more radical — and boost abortion in their states. That will be easy. And on the other side, Mississippi and Oklahoma and a few other pro-life states will do their thing just as easily.

For the vast majority of states who will seek a policy somewhere in the middle, the parameters of debate are already set. Questions include how far along abortion will be allowed, what reasons it ought to be restricted (such as sex-selection), whether it should be paired with some open handed pro-life gestures to family support or adoption, and/or some hard-fisted approaches on clinic regulation. Understand this, and you see the framework of the legislative deal-making that will follow.

Consider the fact that today, we have more trifectas — states where the Governor, Senate, and House are all possessed by the same political party — than have existed in America in thirty years. With a total of 37 trifectas across the country, this will largely be an internal party debate about how far Democrats and Republicans in the states want to push the issue. In divided governments, one perfectly legitimate way of seeing where this ends up is to offer multiple versions of the same amendment. Do you limit abortions to 24 weeks? 23? 22? 21? You keep going until you start losing too many votes.

When the pro-abortion left says this will be chaos, what they mean is people like them — out of touch cultural elites for whom this issue is far, far more important than inflation and prices at the pump — will be really, really angry. (These people are all on Twitter.) But most pro-life Republican legislators will happily agree to exceptions for rape and incest, set a limitation bar around the end of the first trimester, and try to work backwards from there.

The left knows this, at least the smarter ones do, which is a big part of why the White House and others immediately shifted to crazy slippery slope arguments about banning condoms, the pill, and interracial marriage. The pro-abortion left and the media (but I repeat myself) obfuscated their position and Roe’s reality, seeding a narrative in which “post-Roe” equals theocratic extremism. Pro-lifers couldn’t prove the lie of the theocracy claim while Roe was in force. Once Roe is gone, it will be all the more clear which side is open handed, and which is activated by extremist rage based on lies.

For 49 years the left only had to defend the national Roe regime to five elite lawyers, all in their own cultural tribe. Now, for the first time, they have to defend abortion maximalism to ordinary Americans and their elected representatives. Have fun storming THAT castle.

Though Progressives can certainly depend upon their shills in the MSM for all the support…and disinformation…they can muster.

Speaking of disinformation, here’s an example we’re certain Mary Poppins and her Guidance Board will jump right on, as Jim Geraghty explores another common MSM practice which only applies to Republican politicians:

Little-Known Also-Ran Candidate Issues Statement; Film at 11

Someone once observed that you shouldn’t get too excited about any headline that says, “GOP lawmaker says [blah blah blah]” or “Democratic lawmaker says [blah blah blah].” If the statement came from, say, Marco Rubio, the headline would declare “Rubio says [blah blah blah].” If the headline is using the term “[party identifier] lawmaker says,” it means the person who said it is almost certainly someone you’ve never heard of, and in a country with 7,383 state legislators and even more local officials, you can find any old schmo saying just about anything. It’s not necessarily news. National news articles that amount to “obscure local or state official says crazy thing” are high-profile journalistic nutpicking — picking the most extreme members of a group and pretending they represent the group as a whole in order to discredit them. And if the headline is ‘GOP candidate says,’ well . . . all you need to do to become a candidate for office in most jurisdictions is stand outside a grocery store and get people to sign a petition that will put you on the ballot. If you’re a journalist, you can probably find candidates saying the moon is made of green cheese, or whatever bizarre belief you wish to spotlight.

The headline of the top article on Memeorandum this morning is, “Senate GOP candidates say national abortion ban is ‘possible,’” and it links to KASW out of Phoenix.

The key paragraphs from article:

The former state lawmaker and current Corporation Commissioner, Justin Olsen, sent a text message saying he supports a federal ban. “I look forward to introducing the Heartbeat Bill in the U.S. Senate. We must protect all innocent life,” he said in the text message. The Heartbeat bill bans abortions after six weeks before most women know they are pregnant.

The other candidates in the GOP Senate primary, Mark Brnovich, Jim Lamon, and Blake Masters, were mum on the issue for now. However, during an interview in September, Masters did suggest Congress might need to get involved.

The latest Arizona GOP Senate primary poll, from Trafalgar: Jim Lamon 25 percent, Mark Brnovich 24 percent, Blake Masters 19 percent, Michael McGuire 8 percent, Justin Olsen 3 percent, and undecided 20 percent.

So, the only guy who makes a statement on this issue is sitting at 3 percent in the most recent poll of the race, yet he somehow is supposed to speak for ‘Senate GOP candidates’ as a whole.

Then again, why quote the last horse in a state primary when the Senate Minority Leader recently mentioned the same possibility.

And just when you thought the credibility of U.S. public health establishment couldn’t sink any lower, the New York Post tells us the…

NIH director confirms agency hid early COVID genes at request of Chinese scientists

“National Institutes of Health acting director Lawrence Tabak confirmed to lawmakers Wednesday that US health officials concealed early genomic sequences of COVID-19 at the request of Chinese scientists — but insisted the data remains on file.

Tabak told a House Appropriations subcommittee that the NIH “eliminated from public view” the data from the pandemic epicenter in Wuhan, China, before adding that researchers can still access it via an archaic “tape drive.”

Vanity Fair recently reported that the information was hidden in response to a request from Chinese scientists, despite potentially resolving whether the virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology or passed naturally from animals to humans.

Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-Wash.) asked Tabek to explain why US officials would comply with such a request. “There’s no question that the communication that we had about the sequence archive — Sequence Read Archive — could have been improved. I freely admit that,” Tabek said. “If I may, the archive never deleted the sequence, it just did not make it available for interrogation.”…”

What’s lower?  (A): Biden’s approval rating; (B): The credibility of the NIH, CDC, FBI, DOJ and the rest of the federal alphabet soup bureaucracy; (C): Whale sh*t; or, (D): (A) & (B), but in no event (C).

Moving on, here’s a sextet of specially-selected items certain to pique the interest of inquiring Conservative minds:

(1). The Journal‘s Kim Strassel suggests regardless of the evidentiary exclusions by the Obama-appointed judge, John Durham’s already won, as his…

“narrow prosecution of the little-known Mr. Sussmann has allowed for a focus on the bigger story. Stay tuned for a flood of more information coming out of a trial that on its face is about one lawyer, but in reality is the continuing tale of one of the dirtiest tricks in modern U.S. history.”

Engineered by some of the dirtiest people in modern U.S. history.

(2). If you ever needed proof Jen Psaki lies like a rug, a report from Townhall.com‘s Spencer Brown’s detailing the fact crack pipes are indeed included in 46*’s Safe Smoking Kits after her repeated denials should convince you.

(3). In a related item, writing at Best of the Web, Jim Freeman reports Merrick Garland at worst lied, and was at best deliberately misleading when he testified to Congress his DOJ was not investigating angry parents as domestic terrorists. 

(4). Since we’re recounting the countless lies uttered by the 46* clown car, the WaPo has repeated its “Three, Nearly Four Pinocchios” assessment of Biden’s April tweet claiming Republicans want to raise taxes on middle class families.  The demented old deviant’s disinformation was tenuously tied to another classic unforced error by The Gang That May Never Shoot Straight, in this case Senator Rick Scott’s plan to have every American pay some amount of income tax, no matter how small, “to have skin in the game”.  Atta boy, Rick.

(5). Forget about sending $40B to Ukraine, why on earth is the federal government providing baby formula to illegal aliens criminally crossing our southern border when American mothers can’t find any at their local grocery store?!?

(6). Chucky’s ignorance of 18 U.S.C. § 1507 the law notwithstanding…

Q: “Are you comfortable with the protests that we saw outside the homes of Supreme Court justices over the weekend?”@SenSchumer: “If protests are peaceful; yes. My house, there’s protests 3-4 times a week outside my house.” pic.twitter.com/Mlu5dbHDbr

— CSPAN (@cspan) May 10, 2022

Uh,…Chuck: Despite your over-inflated opinion of yourself and your importance, the law applies to judges, NOT senators.

Which brings us, appropriately enough, to The Lighter Side:

Then there’s these from James Patrick…

…and Balls Cotton:

Finally, we’ll call it a week with yet another titillating tale torn from the pages of The Crime Blotter, and this just in from the hopelessly misnamed City of Brotherly Love:

Legally-armed Philadelphia man taking smoke break ‘turned the tables’ on armed would-be robber

“A Philadelphia man taking a smoke break outside his home “turned the tables” on an armed would-be robber when he pulled out his own legal gun and fatally shot him, according to police. 

…The incident unfolded just before 11:30 Wednesday evening in South Philadelphia near Moyamensing Avenue. A 24-year-old man smoking outside his home told police that a would-be robber approached him while riding a bike and soon pulled out a gun and “announced a robbery,” according to police.

The resident pulled out his own licensed to carry gun and opened fire on the would-be robber, police said. The alleged robber was shot in the head, but was able to fire off a round or two, the 24-year-old South Philly man told police. 

…Police responded to the scene and found the 30-year-old Asian male laying on the sidewalk with a gunshot to the head…”

Two thoughts immediately came to mind as we read this story: First, chalk one up for the good guys; And second, any chance the report would have identified the race of the would-be robber had he been Black rather than Asian?!?

Just sayin’.

Magoo

Video of the Day

Ben Shapiro calls transgenderism what it is: A form of mental illness.

Tales of The Darkside

Wow…WOW!!!

On the Dimmer Side

Joe Biden on Roe v. Wade way back in 1986. Even before dementia set in he was, like Spider in Goodfellas, a mumblin’, stutterin’ little pr*ck!