Gilead
Abortion
Something like this was probably just about as predictable as, well, Texas:
[Brandy Bottone] says she doesn’t believe the state [Texas] should have it both ways. If a fetus is considered a life before birth, then why doesn’t that count as a second passenger [for car pool lane purposes]?[1]
The white supremacist gangsters weren’t buying it and an anti-abortion spokesperson explains that the transportation law requires passengers be “outside the body.”[2] I haven’t looked but I’m really not buying that that language is really in that statute.
Gillian McGoldrick, “Pa. Senate GOP committee advances late-night amendment to restrict abortion, require voter ID,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 8, 2022, https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2022/07/08/pennsylvania-senate-republicans-advance-constitutional-amendment-to-restrict-abortion-and-call-for-voter-ids-roe-v-wade/stories/202207080073
Dave Lieber, “Pregnant woman says her fetus should count as a passenger in HOV lanes. She got a ticket,” Dallas Morning News, July 8, 2022, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2022/07/08/pregnant-woman-says-her-fetus-should-count-as-a-passenger-in-hov-lanes-she-got-a-ticket/
Michael D. Shear and Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Under Pressure, Biden Issues Executive Order on Abortion,” New York Times, July 8, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/08/us/politics/biden-abortion-executive-order.html
Rodrigo Torrejón, “What the Pa. constitutional amendment package could mean for abortion and elections,” Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 2022, https://www.inquirer.com/politics/pennsylvania/pa-senate-constitutional-amendments-abortion-elections-voting-20220708.html
Matt Viser, “Biden to outline new steps aimed at bolstering abortion rights,” Washington Post, July 8, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/08/biden-outline-new-steps-aimed-bolstering-abortion-rights/
(dis)United Kingdom
Prime minister
I did finally reach a finishing point with my search for archived articles on Theresa May. I’ve produced PDFs and removed the private copies of these articles from the Irregular Bullshit. There are probably still some straggling posts on Brexit.
A couple observations: May’s time twisting in the wind, precipitated by Brexit, was probably longer and more torturous than Boris Johnson’s, including the especially delicious failure of Parliament to agree on what they wanted Brexit to look like.[3] Of course, it was May’s fault, of course, that they couldn’t agree; that’s why she had to go and they had to bring in Johnson, who prorogued Parliament less than two months after he got in.[4]
Probably the most important observation: Members of Parliament are clowns and Parliament is a clown show. If you’re looking for a defense of representative systems of government, this ain’t it.
The problem of Northern Ireland appeared with the beginning of Johnson’s premiership; it’s still not resolved, by the way. Johnson has always been a lying sack of shit, this was known as he became prime minister,[5] but he did deliver Brexit, that is, if you don’t count that pesky Northern Ireland problem. So nobody should be surprised or particularly outraged by the whole drama that has led to his forthcoming departure and it is a little, only a little, unfair to be mad at Johnson about it now—this really was the devil’s bargain they all made.
But one commonality appears with both Johnson’s and May’s departures: Giving up power is a very hard thing to do. This is, of course, is the price of taking it in the first place. But it’s striking nonetheless.
- [1]Dave Lieber, “Pregnant woman says her fetus should count as a passenger in HOV lanes. She got a ticket,” Dallas Morning News, July 8, 2022, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2022/07/08/pregnant-woman-says-her-fetus-should-count-as-a-passenger-in-hov-lanes-she-got-a-ticket/↩
- [2]Dave Lieber, “Pregnant woman says her fetus should count as a passenger in HOV lanes. She got a ticket,” Dallas Morning News, July 8, 2022, https://www.dallasnews.com/news/watchdog/2022/07/08/pregnant-woman-says-her-fetus-should-count-as-a-passenger-in-hov-lanes-she-got-a-ticket/↩
- [3]Heather Stewart, Jessica Elgot, and Rowena Mason, “Brexit: May calls for cabinet showdown as MPs reject all options,” Guardian, April 2, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/01/brexit-deadlock-continues-as-mps-fail-to-find-compromise↩
- [4]Australian Broadcasting Corporation, “Boris Johnson sends British MPs home until October 14 after confirming Parliament prorogue,” September 10, 2019, https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-09/boris-johnson-suspends-parliament-until-october-14/11494108; Griff Witte and Karla Adam, “A chaotic final night for Parliament leaves Johnson with bleak choices on the path to Brexit,” Washington Post, September 10, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/a-chaotic-final-night-for-parliament-leaves-johnson-with-bleak-choices-on-the-path-to-brexit/2019/09/10/443a835a-d33a-11e9-8924-1db7dac797fb_story.html↩
- [5]Robert Hutton and Tim Ross, “His Critics Say He Lies, But Tories Want to Trust Boris Johnson,” Bloomberg, June 15, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-06-14/his-critics-say-he-lies-but-tories-want-to-trust-boris-johnson; Tom McTague, “Boris Johnson Meets His Destiny,” Atlantic, July 22, 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/07/boris-johnson-profile/594379/↩