2024 Presidential Election Thread - Let's keep the party going.

[linux 1787]

1 hour ago, Js1 said:

I mean, I think polling is pretty broken when 2 polls release within days and one says Trump +13 in FL and one says Trump +4 in FL

Like that shouldn’t happen. +4 and +6, yeah. But a 9 point difference says something is fundamentally wrong with the industry. 

I said it before but it bears repeating state polling is fucking crazy, that is why I pay attention to national polls that have way less variance but are fucked by the stupid EC.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

These hurricanes are really big deals.  I bet there are millions spread between FL, GA, and NC -- all important states in this election -- that simply won't vote because they are too busy getting their lives back together.  We talk about whatever Muslim group in MI or whatever.  These two weather events will outpace them all.

[Js1 87186]

2 minutes ago, linux said:

I said it before but it bears repeating state polling is fucking crazy, that is why I pay attention to national polls that have way less variance but are fucked by the stupid EC.

District polls and national polls are telling a very diff story from state level polling - unless Harris is going to hit 2016 levels of WWC support and shed 10% of non-white voters and pick up zero additional suburb/college voter support.

[Bateshorn 9991]

10 minutes ago, Js1 said:

District polls and national polls are telling a very diff story from state level polling - unless Harris is going to hit 2016 levels of WWC support and shed 10% of non-white voters and pick up zero additional suburb/college voter support.

It's just wild that the national's show she is popular, liked, and people are feeling better about the economy, while Trump remains as divisive and generally unliked as ever.....and the states show undecideds almost uniformly breakng to Trump.  Like one or the other is totally wrong in judging the mood of the electorate. 

[Js1 87186]

3 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

It's just wild that the national's show she is popular, liked, and people are feeling better about the economy, while Trump remains as divisive and generally unliked as ever.....and the states show undecideds almost uniformly breakng to Trump.  Like one or the other is totally wrong in judging the mood of the electorate. 

Yeah I don’t get it either. I don’t want to say they are intentionally over sampling Trump voters but the NYT did admit they were adding in extra Trump voter demographics (if Trump voters were red M&Ms, they are intentionally adding extra red ones to the bowl) and that’s all I can come up with

National polls show a 3-5 point Harris race, district polls show her doing better in the suburbs than Biden and when you have state polls saying he’s going to sweep a majority of the swing states.  

[TexEx15 17953]

 

[Tuco 5093]

1 hour ago, miguelito said:

Didn't Putin come out and corroborate Woodward's story?

I am waiting for the other shoe to drop on this.  I doubt Trump snuck into a warehouse, stole some machines, and Fedex'ed it to Putin.  There has to be a paper trail on it.  Maybe it's covered by executive privilege which would prevent getting it through FOIA.  But Biden has access to it and can release it.  If it is exists.  It's possible the story is wrong.  It is also possible that they are waiting for Trump to deny it directly. It's also possible they have it and won't release it, due to some deference for executive privilege. 

18 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

This data (and the results from 2022) tells me that focusing on transphobia is a very dumb strategy. Maybe the ads tested well with focus groups.

 

I don't think we are reading the polling the same way.  

• Banning government insurance from covering the costs of gender-affirming surgeries and therapies (+9)

So, most Americans don't believe government insurance should cover it.  I imagine that number goes up when you add "....for prisoners."

Still, I don't think this is something that would push independents to the polls. Who knows.  We are a stupid people. 

[Aqua Buddha 14807]

22 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

These hurricanes are really big deals.  I bet there are millions spread between FL, GA, and NC -- all important states in this election -- that simply won't vote because they are too busy getting their lives back together.  We talk about whatever Muslim group in MI or whatever.  These two weather events will outpace them all.

The R's seem to be worried as hell about NC.  Sure, Asheville is a liberal outpost but if you know anything about Western NC, you know it's hard red.  David Axelrod took heat for saying it but he pointed out the Asheville crowd is wealthier and more educated and as a result, they'll still likely vote.  The rest?  Maybe, maybe not.

Now you throw in conservative parts of Florida and who knows?

I find it ironic that the Republicans have spent the last four years making it harder to vote are now going to get fucked by it.

[Chuckie Finster 23081]

10 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

It's just wild that the national's show she is popular, liked, and people are feeling better about the economy, while Trump remains as divisive and generally unliked as ever.....and the states show undecideds almost uniformly breakng to Trump.  Like one or the other is totally wrong in judging the mood of the electorate. 

And I have yet to see anyone mention that damn near every single key election country-wide since 2021 has had actual results to the left of the polls.  I get that this is an election year, but to completely ignore that reality is wild.

[chainsaw 10295]

4 minutes ago, Tuco said:

I am waiting for the other shoe to drop on this.  I doubt Trump snuck into a warehouse, stole some machines, and Fedex'ed it to Putin.  There has to be a paper trail on it.  Maybe it's covered by executive privilege which would prevent getting it through FOIA.  But Biden has access to it and can release it.  If it is exists.  It's possible the story is wrong.  It is also possible that they are waiting for Trump to deny it directly. It's also possible they have it and won't release it, due to some deference for executive privilege. 

 

I don't think we are reading the polling the same way.  

• Banning government insurance from covering the costs of gender-affirming surgeries and therapies (+9)

So, most Americans don't believe government insurance should cover it.  I imagine that number goes up when you add "....for prisoners."

Still, I don't think this is something that would push independents to the polls. Who knows.  We are a stupid people. 

I have no doubt people are against using tax dollars for gender reassignment surgery (honestly I expected it to do much worse than -9) but trans issues are definitely not something that cracks the top ten most important issues for anyone except trans Americans or people with loved ones who are transgender, so the heavy focus on transphobia is a real head-scratcher.

Like, I get the xenophobic stuff because immigration is a top-five issue (and close to #1 for Trump's base) and Democrats have been talking about the border, too. They could be talking about the economy instead of fearmongering about women's sports. I think it's a losing strategy and I hope they keep it up.

[Bozo_Casanova 26851]

9 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

It's just wild that the national's show she is popular, liked, and people are feeling better about the economy, while Trump remains as divisive and generally unliked as ever.....and the states show undecideds almost uniformly breakng to Trump.  Like one or the other is totally wrong in judging the mood of the electorate. 

They can both be true, because of who the undecideds are and where they live, but there aren’t many. The opinion cake is baked, and this election really comes down to

1) how much of an electoral advantage the Republicans still have as more states have urbanized and 

2) GOTV

[Js1 87186]

3 minutes ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

They can both be true, because of who the undecideds are and where they live, but there aren’t many. The opinion cake is baked, and this election really comes down to

1) how much of an electoral advantage the Republicans still have as more states have urbanized and 

2) GOTV

Good thing the GOP has zero ground game. Republicans have been screaming that they don’t see any canvassers and the “field offices” are empty storefronts in strip malls 

[Bateshorn 9991]

21 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Yeah I don’t get it either. I don’t want to say they are intentionally over sampling Trump voters but the NYT did admit they were adding in extra Trump voter demographics (if Trump voters were red M&Ms, they are intentionally adding extra red ones to the bowl) and that’s all I can come up with

National polls show a 3-5 point Harris race, district polls show her doing better in the suburbs than Biden and when you have state polls saying he’s going to sweep a majority of the swing states.  

 

9 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

And I have yet to see anyone mention that damn near every single key election country-wide since 2021 has had actual results to the left of the polls.  I get that this is an election year, but to completely ignore that reality is wild.

These are the two things I’m struggling with. Even chucking extra M&M’s in, she remains much more favorable than him. Plus some of the extra M&M’s they are adding (black men, young white men, and Hispanics) are notoriously unreliable likely voters. But I guess this is modern polling when 80% of people will only answer a call from their mom/dad/kid. 
 

The fact that Gallego is winning bigly, abortion is on the ballot, and Harris is losing is one of those “Magnetism is magic and you can’t convince me otherwise” Wtf.

Edited October 10 by Bateshorn

[Red Five 41739]

 

How would he know? Has he seen all of the unedited footage?

Assuming he’s referring to some crackpot theory someone showed him.

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5662]

1 hour ago, Gap03 said:

 

MyPillow guy is apparently negotiable on the 14 words part, but he's all-fucking-in on the "Heil Hitler (Trump)" / 88 part.

uuuuuh you're not supposed to be proud of the boot camp scenes in Full Metal Jacket, that shit drove a man to murder-suicide. Of fucking course Trump misses the entire point of that half of the movie.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13732]

8 minutes ago, chainsaw said:

I have no doubt people are against using tax dollars for gender reassignment surgery (honestly I expected it to do much worse than -9) but trans issues are definitely not something that cracks the top ten most important issues for anyone except trans Americans or people with loved ones who are transgender, so the heavy focus on transphobia is a real head-scratcher.

 

Agreeing to gender affirmation surgery for prisoners or govt-issued insured recipients, is a loser issue for Dems. Most Americans struggle with this issue and believe it's not a life saving treatment especially for prisoners. Dems should be clear that tax dollars won't go to federal prisoners for these treatments.

[Js1 87186]

PA firewall jumped 31k to 162k. 40% of the way to 390,000 

I do think Dems could surpass it

[Bozo_Casanova 26851]

8 minutes ago, Js1 said:

PA firewall jumped 31k to 162k. 40% of the way to 390,000 

I do think Dems could surpass it

Can someone explain the firewall? I keep hearing this and I don’t understand it 

[Foosters 18282]

12 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Agreeing to gender affirmation surgery for prisoners or govt-issued insured recipients, is a loser issue for Dems. Most Americans struggle with this issue and believe it's not a life saving treatment especially for prisoners. Dems should be clear that tax dollars won't go to federal prisoners for these treatments.

Just defy the courts?

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/federal-court-orders-first-gender-affirming-surgery-trans-prisoner-rcna25377

[Js1 87186]

1 minute ago, Bozo_Casanova said:

Can someone explain the firewall? I keep hearing this and I don’t understand it 

Joshua Smithley is PA's version of Jon Ralston.  His estimate is Dems need a 390,000 vote firewall (solely Dem returns - Rep returns, not including indies) to feel good heading into Election Day on the presidential side and 350,000 to feel good on the Senate side.  Obviously if the indies break 55-45 for Harris, it builds the firewall a little more, but you don't want to project independents like that. 

 

 

[SydneyCarton 49505]

1 hour ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

See but that just proves the point. Trump has to use other people's popularity to pass along his message because he really doesn't have much outside of his core base of weirdos. People didn't follow him to truth social, because he has "low ratings."

This is a flawed concept. Before Trump got permanently suspended from Twitter, he had like 100 million followers. He still has over 91 million followers on Twitter, but they de-platformed him. Just becuase he's a narcissist and only posts on Truth Social, doesn't mean that his message isn't attractive to vast amounts of people, or that or that his message isn't getting to massive amounts of people. It just means Truth Social is small. 

If he had "low ratings" he wouldn't be a lock for 46% of the electorate. 

[Pato del Muerto 53509]

11 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Agreeing to gender affirmation surgery for prisoners or govt-issued insured recipients, is a loser issue for Dems. Most Americans struggle with this issue and believe it's not a life saving treatment especially for prisoners. Dems should be clear that tax dollars won't go to federal prisoners for these treatments.

I struggle with, I guess, standard of care issues with the prison population when the question comes up for whatever reason. Stuff like should they have eligible for organ transplants. Is there a level of medical care that is forfeited by virtue of being incarcerated?  Is it sentence dependent?  Age dependent?  
 

Even food quality is a conversation- is bare minimum low quality food ok?  Is it cruel?  Is the cheapest allowed food the only financially responsible thing to do?

but unlike food, I’d guess that organ transplants and gender affirmation surgery is rare and therefore not a large number on the expense line.  And then unlike organ replacement, a gender affirmation surgery isn’t taking opportunity away from another person. 
 

So I guess in summation, gender affirmation surgery for the incarcerated doesn’t seem like something worth being concerned about in the financial sense.  Within the context of how inmates treat each other, maybe that’s a problem.  I don’t know, I only see depictions on tv and movies. 

[Gil Bang 26241]

1 minute ago, Pato del Muerto said:

I struggle with, I guess, standard of care issues with the prison population when the question comes up for whatever reason. Stuff like should they have eligible for organ transplants. Is there a level of medical care that is forfeited by virtue of being incarcerated?  Is it sentence dependent?  Age dependent?  
 

Even food quality is a conversation- is bare minimum low quality food ok?  Is it cruel?  Is the cheapest allowed food the only financially responsible thing to do?

but unlike food, I’d guess that organ transplants and gender affirmation surgery is rare and therefore not a large number on the expense line.  And then unlike organ replacement, a gender affirmation surgery isn’t taking opportunity away from another person. 
 

So I guess in summation, gender affirmation surgery for the incarcerated doesn’t seem like something worth being concerned about in the financial sense.  Within the context of how inmates treat each other, maybe that’s a problem.  I don’t know, I only see depictions on tv and movies. 

If your side "lost" in prison practice, you get burnt toast and cold runny eggs. 

[Pancho 46320]

21 minutes ago, Js1 said:

PA firewall jumped 31k to 162k. 40% of the way to 390,000 

I do think Dems could surpass it

 

[DigglerontheHoof 21552]

1 hour ago, 6th Street said:

When is the Trump N word tape coming out?

I swear if this did happen, his percentage of black voters would probably triple.  Because nothing about that fat piece of shit makes sense. 

[wildcat09 29579]

This could go in the abortion thread but I'm putting it here: She Voted for Trump. Then She Had Two Terrifying Miscarriages in Texas:

Quote

My sister Victoria was wrangling Elias, her then-2-year-old, into his costume on Halloween when the spots of blood in her underwear became worrisome. It was almost exactly two years ago, in 2022, and Elias had woken up from a nap excited about trick-or-treating. She’d gotten him into a shiny black firefighter hat, a yellow jacket with neon reflectors, kelly-green shoes, and a bright red hatchet — the color of the blood she could no longer ignore.

“I could feel it. That’s when I started to panic,” she told me last week. It was the first time we had spoken at length since 2018. “I was trying to hide it because it was Halloween, so the only thing I was thinking about was just making sure that I wasn’t spoiling the holiday for Elias.”

Our relationship was non-existent then, strained both by a traumatic childhood and the fractured ways we’d each coped. She was a busy toddler mom. I’d just been nominated for an Emmy. We were doing the best we could, but we butted heads. Meanwhile, people across the country were on edge, wondering what a midterm election would bring in the months after Roe v. Wade was overturned.

Now, with weeks to go before another Halloween — and another presidential election — she was explaining the terror-filled night she’d spent without me, when she faced the consequences of our state’s conservative agenda to outlaw abortion.

“I didn’t want Elias to notice anything was going on,” Victoria remembered. She put on Blippi songs in the car, trying to hide her fear as she drove down the North Central Expressway. She dropped Elias off at our mom’s before going to the hospital.

“It felt like the longest drive I’ve ever taken.” 

I still remember the day Victoria was born. I sat patiently on a woven metal bench with thick plastic coating in a cold waiting room at Dallas’ Parkland Hospital. My fingers were tiny enough to poke through the holes as I counted each one, waiting to meet my soon-to-be built-in best friend, my first hermanita. I had practiced holding her like I had done with all my baby dolls. I had big plans to help my mom pick out our matching outfits. At the direction of my dad, her namesake, I prepared to be her protector. I was proud to have such an important role, but it proved heavier than I imagined. 

In retrospect, it must’ve been hard to be my younger sister. I was an over-achiever who coped with complex post-traumatic stress disorder by always doing the most and staying busy. I was a good student who sat at the front of the class. I followed the rules. I went to college, graduated, and got my dream job as a TV reporter. I won awards and stacked accolades. Growing up as the eldest daughter in an immigrant household, I was the man on the El Mundo lotería card holding up the world. I couldn’t mess up. Maybe not in so many words, but my parents constantly told my sister to be more like me. 

Despite that, Victoria was different. She was the rebellious one, dancing and singing at the dinner table, always making up her own rules. She skipped school and snuck out. Despite desperate attempts by my very conservative (step)dad to tame her, she couldn’t be held down. I silently looked up to her in many ways. She was fearless of consequences, excellent at making friends, unapologetically sexy, and had a seductive personality that challenged authority. We couldn’t have been more different, from foods we liked (cheese pizza only for her; hawaiian and jalapeño for me), to music (she loved country; I loved hip hop and Reggaeton), to world views.

In 2016, I had a panic attack minutes before going on live TV at a campaign rally for then-presidential candidate Donald Trump. He and his supporters repeated more and more racist comments about immigrants and Mexicans. They decried “anchor babies” and said they’d build a wall so high that anyone who dared to climb it would fall to their death, landing in pieces. As the crowd cheered, I thought of my immigrant parents, and the sinking feeling that these verbal attacks were being normalized in mainstream politics only became heavier. Afterwards, I embarked on a healing journey, but it wasn’t perfect or simple.

Meanwhile, Victoria was ready to change things up. She quit her waitressing job, packed all her things, and moved to the mountains of Arkansas. She took a job selling cell phones and started hiking. Living life in a more rogue way. And right around the time I was feeling — in my bones — the danger of Trump’s racism, my sister found herself attracted to the brash New Yorker running for president. She could almost see herself in him — a little rough around the edges, rebellious, unapologetic. 

“This guy is not a politician! He’s very blunt and upfront about what he’s speaking and what he’s believing in, like maybe that is what we need,” Victoria recalled thinking at the time. 

That year, on Election Day, she voted for Trump. 

Six years later — after Trump appointed three Supreme Court justices who each voted to overturn Roe v. Wade — my sister sat hemorrhaging for hours in the emergency waiting room in the conservative small town of Waxahachie. 

“I remember just being in there and seeing these ambulances,” Victoria said. Our mother offered to stay at the ER with my sister. But Victoria wanted her to take her son trick-or-treating. “The only thing I cared about was just making sure Elias got his candy.”

She was nearly nine weeks pregnant. The life that was supposed to be growing inside her felt like it was flowing out in streams of blood. It was filling the thick pads she was wearing, and she feared any moment it would seep onto the glossy plastic blue chairs at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center.

“I’m bleeding uncontrollably, I can’t stop it, and no one can help me because everyone’s afraid of what will happen.” At least, that’s how it felt during those hours in the waiting room.

Just two months earlier, Texas’ trigger law had gone into effect, making abortion a felony punishable by life in prison. Experts warned the law would be a minefield. And it is.

In 2023, 20 women filed a lawsuit asking the state to clarify the state’s definition of its “medical emergency” exceptions. But this past May, the Center for Reproductive Rights reported that the Texas Supreme Court refused to clarify, denying the women’s claims. In other states, like in Georgia, women have died “preventable deaths” because doctors’ fears of prosecution have been pitted against the needs of their patients.

As the clock ticked, and Victoria bled, she and her partner Bryan desperately clung to each other’s hands, in shock. She was in desperate need of life-saving care — care that she started to believe she’d voted away her rights to. Time collapsed and expanded. After a few hours, she and her partner were finally called into a back room to check her vitals. Then they were escorted to an emergency room bed. 

A doctor came into the room. She was a young woman. Cold. She asked them questions that felt like an interrogation. Then she performed an ultrasound before passing her off to a tech, who asked her to remove her boxer shorts for another, this time transvaginal, ultrasound.

“I took them off, and the amount of blood that was on my legs, rushing down… I remember standing there, and I just started crying again,” Victoria said. Her email records from the hospital show both ultrasounds and describe her test results from the Oct. 31, 2022 visit as an “evolving failed pregnancy with heterogeneous blood products again seen in the lower uterine segment. The previously characterized gestational sac in the lower uterine segment is no longer identified. No intrauterine pregnancy identified.”

“It felt very morbid,” she said, tears rolling down her cheek. The delay in care, and then the tenor of the questions while sitting exposed in a cloth gown, made her feel numb. “It felt like it was the last stop, and this is where it all ends. There’s no turning around, and there’s no going to a recovery room afterwards.” 

Nearly eight hours after they arrived, doctors finally determined that she needed medical care to save her life. She’s one of the lucky ones. Texas’ near-total abortion ban has a narrow exception for the life of the pregnant person. And what constitutes life-threatening remains murky. A study by health care consulting firm Manatt Health published this week found almost a third of OB-GYNs in Texas don’t have a clear understanding of the law, and 60% fear legal repercussions. Data released by the Gender Equity Policy Institute showed that since the abortion ban in 2021, the state’s rate of maternal mortality cases rose by 56%. 

“After that, they cleaned (me) up, they brought me the pill, and they let me stay there for a while,” Victoria said. The pill, mifepristone, is used for abortion and miscarriage care. It helps by softening the cervix and breaking down the lining of the uterus. (Texas tried to ban that medication as well, but this past June, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the state’s challenges.) 

“Eventually they brought in the discharge papers, and everything was done.” 

The child would’ve been her second. They had settled on naming the baby Leonardo if it was a boy — Mila if it was a girl. The two held a small ceremony in Bryan’s backyard and buried her sonogram, along with a rattle his mother had made for them. 

After her miscarriage that fall, Victoria and her partner spent winter in grief. But soon, spring brought the promise of new life. She was pregnant again.

“You can schedule blood work to find out the gender, and I had made that appointment, and I was very excited,” Victoria recalled. 

This time, she said, her intuition made her sure it was a girl.

“I was throwing up a lot, I had a really sensitive stomach to everything, I was really sensitive to smells, and all the nurses were saying, ‘Oh, that typically means you’re having a girl!’” Victoria remembered. “There was something in me that said, ‘This one’s a girl.’” 

She was cautious but excited. Once again, she and her partner had picked out a name for their child: This one would be Lilah Rose. They liked the way the name sounded, but that spring soon turned to summer. 

She never made it to that appointment.

“I dropped (Elias) off at daycare. I was supposed to work that day, and I called in, and at this point I’m starting to bleed, and it’s a lot,” Victoria said. She kept this miscarriage a secret from our family. She’d always been the rebellious one, and with my parents already caring for her first son, she said she didn’t want to burden anyone. 

It was August 2023. She called hospital after hospital, letting them know she was shy of 11 weeks pregnant and hemorrhaging. One Dallas-area hospital told her there was nothing they could do. Another told her they couldn’t help her. A third told her they needed to talk to her OB-GYN first. 

No one would take the chance to help my sister. Like the dozens of women who sued the state that year after being denied healthcare due to the state’s anti-abortion laws.

“I was calling private hospitals,” Victoria said, fighting back tears. “I didn’t care how much it cost or how much money I didn’t have. I’m literally sitting in a vehicle riding around looking for someone to help me while there is life — that I was very excited about — coming out of me.” 

She felt like she had let her partner down again. She said her bleeding got so bad that she drove herself to CVS and bought diapers. She went home and put them on and tried to wait it out overnight, but the scarlet blood kept coming. After more than 24 hours of hemorrhaging, and three drenched diapers, she finally made the decision to call Parkland Hospital the next morning, the place where I’d sat patiently 30 years ago on that woven bench. They said they would help her.  

“We got in that little room, and all I remember is I didn’t want to look at anybody,” Victoria said. “I didn’t want to hear anything anymore. I just wanted them to help me, and I just wanted to leave.” 

She remembered another long list of questions, another interrogation as if she were a criminal. As if she had done something wrong. But she hadn’t. She was just a mother having to grieve another wanted pregnancy, and the state was punishing her for it. 

By now, she’d googled enough to know she needed a D&C. 

A D&C, or dilation and curettage, is a procedure to remove tissue from inside a patient’s uterus. It is standard care for people experiencing pregnancy loss to remove tissue that can cause complications like sepsis. It’s also the same procedure used in some abortions.

Texas’ near-total ban on abortions has sown confusion in cases like Victoria’s, where medical professionals are hesitant to provide care that could be deemed abortive. Early research and news reports have shown that exceptions for the life of the pregnant person don’t account for the wide range of adverse health effects, including death, that can result from delays in receiving such care. 

Two years after the ban was instituted, doctors are more confused than ever. Houston-based OB-GYN, Dr. Damala Karsan, said on Tuesday during a press conference that she and other colleagues fear arrests are inevitable for at least some doctors providing life-saving procedures to women experiencing miscarriages. “That’s probably how we’re going to figure out how sick you have to be,” said Dr. Karsan. Since the Texas Supreme Court refused to clarify “medical emergencies” for abortion exceptions, doctors will, as Dr. Karsan put it, continue “being pushed to walk that line.” That will eventually mean the death of mothers, as has happened in Georgia, or the arrest of the provider. She added: “Where is that line? Nobody knows. And so I think eventually some of us will probably have to go through the courts, through the jails, to figure that out.”

“Every woman who has come forward with a painful story of being denied care has lived in a state that claims to make allowances for women’s health,” Jessica Valenti wrote, in her new book, “Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win.” 

“But when push comes to shove, they’re unable to get care,” said Valenti. “They’re not sick enough, or not close enough to death. Doctors around the country find themselves in the position of weighing their medical license and their freedom — against whether or not they should provide an abortion at that moment, or wait until their patient is just a little bit sicker.”

My sister’s story isn’t unique.

“I had a miscarriage post-Roe while visiting family in Texas in 2022,” one woman posted on X this week, in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision on Monday to let Texas hospitals deny life-saving abortion care. “I almost died — after 7-8 hours of begging, I got an emergency D&C and transfusion. They don’t mind letting women die.”

Last August, for a second time, Victoria was lucky — doctors determined she met the exception. 

A doctor finally came in and did the ultrasounds. 

“When there’s a baby’s heartbeat you can hear it, but I mean, obviously I knew that wasn’t going to happen,” Victoria said. Again, tears welled up in her eyes. “I just wanted to close my eyes and I can just— there’s a part of me that kept thinking, like, ‘Well, maybe there is going to be a heartbeat,’ and this is just all, like, a fluke or something. But it’s like that little noise the ultrasound wand makes. And then finally, after that, they took me back into the room that I was in, and they started the procedure.” 

She was in pain. She put her feet in the stirrups. They administered medicine for anesthesia. 

“They let Bryan come in, and the only thing I told him was, ‘Just don’t tell my parents what’s going on.’ And he didn’t.” 

On April 19, 2024, Victoria gave birth to Elias’s brother Leonardo. They’ve spent the summer in a mess of postpartum bliss and exhaustion. Certainly not thinking about Trump.

Then, three months after his birth, she was dealing with a colicky baby, working as a single mom, and trying to navigate work. One late night, in between feedings and getting Leonardo to sleep, she was scrolling on social media when she saw a video of presidential nominee Kamala Harris at the debate against Trump. She was talking about reproductive rights.

And suddenly it clicked.

“That is the sole reason that I’m voting for her,” Victoria said. “I’m 30 years old going through this.” To not be able to choose for herself, to have to run “around all over the city” for help, seemed ridiculous, and unimaginable for a teenager with less experience and resources. And clearly, considering Trump takes credit for the overturn of Roe v. Wade, this is his fault. She said, “This isn’t 1864.”

In 2016, Victoria said, “I don’t feel like I actually did any research.” 

“I know you’re not supposed to have regrets, but I do,” she continued. “It was my fault because I also helped put Trump in the office, and now look what’s happened.” 

Now, in a change that shocked even our mother, Victoria is asking family, friends, and coworkers if they’re registered to vote. 

At a rally on Sept. 23, Trump told women: “You will be protected, and I will be your protector.” But that rings hollow to previous supporters like my sister now. And she might not be alone. In August, the Center for Reproductive Rights asked formerly anti-abortion folks what changed their minds. The more than 500 responses were harrowing and eerily familiar, and nearly all of them pointed to personal experiences: “Almost dying as I was bleeding and having a miscarriage at 16 weeks,” one woman wrote. “I was a married woman who had a very wanted pregnancy, and I still needed an abortion,” said another. “I’m a neonatal ICU nurse, and I’ve seen things that are worse than death,” wrote a third.

Earlier this week, when Vice President Harris appeared on the incredibly popular “Call Her Daddy” podcast, she criticized Trump for creating the exact problem my sister faced. 

He “hand-selected three members of the United States Supreme Court with the intention that they would undo the protections of Roe v. Wade — and they did just as he intended, and there are now 20 states with Trump abortion bans, including bans that make no exceptions for rape or incest,” Harris said. “This is the same guy that said women should be punished for having abortions.”

“This guy is full of lies,” Harris continued. “I mean, I just have to be very candid with you.” 

A few weeks after the debate, I reconnected with my sister. Call it fate. We were supposed to surprise my mom for her retirement dinner. I got stuck in traffic driving from Austin and was running late, so I asked Victoria if I could get ready at her place. She texted, “here, family is always welcome.” It felt really nice. That day, I got to hold her son and meet the 30-year-old Victoria, the mother of two. My sister.

She told me about the miscarriages. About Mila and Lilah Rose. About seeing the video of the vice president. And then she asked me about my life and my job. I’ve spent twelve years in the journalism industry, and she’d never really shown interest in what I do for a living. But here she was, sharing her story with me, and — now, after some thought — with you. 

“A lot of the times,” she said, “women just accept what happens to them because that’s the way the world works. And that’s not how it should be like. Why can’t we fight for ourselves? Like, let me speak up.” 

And ultimately, those traumatic experiences were so awful that they inspired her to do more research: “Why is Texas Republican all the time? Who are these people and what are they actually supporting? Are they actually doing us good, or are they doing us harm? They’re part of the problem, and how do I get them out?” 

The Supreme Court’s decision this week means that, when it comes to reproductive healthcare, Texas does not have to abide by a long-standing law that requires most hospitals to provide stabilizing treatment to anyone who walks through their doors. If that sounds troubling, that’s because it is. 

Any woman miscarrying in Texas can still be denied care because their doctor is afraid to be prosecuted. Still be forced to wear a diaper at home to absorb their blood in the middle of a physical and psychological trauma. Still get interrogated about their miscarriage. 

On Wednesday, I heard Leonardo through the phone. He let out a whiney yelp and then a piercing cry. My sister’s time chatting was up, but not before she looked at him and kissed his forehead. “He’s the one that made it. He made it when the other ones didn’t,” Victoria said. “And maybe he’s here because I needed to learn to be the bigger person.” 

Leonardo means lion-hearted or “brave as a lion.” He’s just a little guy, shy of 6 months, who brought my sister the bravery to decide for herself. And to help make sure others do the same. 

“I feel like we’ve awoken a sleeping giant,” she said Wednesday. 

“Who?” I asked.

“Women.” 

Victoria was a Trump voter, but this isn't a "I can't believe the leopard I voted for is eating my face!" story. She wasn't politically active and didn't know shit about Trump or his policies. She saw a soundbite or two and made a snap decision that she liked his whole "outsider" thing and didn't put any more thought into than that.

There are millions if not tens of millions of American voters like her. They're why Trump won in 2016. Who here seriously thinks they're all going to break for him again?

[chainsaw 10295]

1 minute ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I swear if this did happen, his percentage of black voters would probably triple.  Because nothing about that fat piece of shit makes sense. 

[Red Five 41739]

I swear if this did happen, his percentage of black voters would probably triple.  Because nothing about that fat piece of shit makes sense. 

NY Times/CNN: “Raw, powerful, refreshing language from the Republican nominee. Will Harris be able to respond before Election Day?”

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5662]

13 minutes ago, Js1 said:

Joshua Smithley is PA's version of Jon Ralston.  His estimate is Dems need a 390,000 vote firewall (solely Dem returns - Rep returns, not including indies) to feel good heading into Election Day on the presidential side and 350,000 to feel good on the Senate side.  Obviously if the indies break 55-45 for Harris, it builds the firewall a little more, but you don't want to project independents like that. 

 

 

I'm a little sleep deprived, am I reading this right or did the firewall just grow? The tweet says "raw new drop" But it looks to me like their firewall grew? Explain it to me like I'm 5.

[Horndog 2300]

12 hours ago, Brandywine said:

His mental decline is so obvious. He really should be on suicide watch. 

I'd watch. 

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5662]

10 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

This is a flawed concept. Before Trump got permanently suspended from Twitter, he had like 100 million followers. He still has over 91 million followers on Twitter, but they de-platformed him. Just becuase he's a narcissist and only posts on Truth Social, doesn't mean that his message isn't attractive to vast amounts of people, or that or that his message isn't getting to massive amounts of people. It just means Truth Social is small. 

If he had "low ratings" he wouldn't be a lock for 46% of the electorate. 

Twitter, the place overrun with bots, is a poor metric for popularity these days. That he had 100 million followers and nobody followed him to truth social is precisely my point, he doesn't have an audience, he has a crowd already gathered that he was speaking to.

[hookem2010 2700]

3 minutes ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

I'm a little sleep deprived, am I reading this right or did the firewall just grow? The tweet says "raw new drop" But it looks to me like their firewall grew? Explain it to me like I'm 5.

I believe it shows how many ballots are returned by each group D/R/I. And Ds outnumbered Rs by 30k

Edited October 10 by hookem2010

[Js1 87186]

1 minute ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

I'm a little sleep deprived, am I reading this right or did the firewall just grow? The tweet says "raw new drop" But it looks to me like their firewall grew? Explain it to me like I'm 5.

It grew about 30k votes from yesterday. It was def a huge dump of votes. Like he said, it may not be sustainable but we’ve been seeing a good 10-15k net per day before this. 

[DigglerontheHoof 21552]

1 minute ago, Horndog said:

I'd watch. 

I'd love to play the part of Dr. Kevorkian.

[hookem2010 2700]

The last couple of months have been fun, but I'm getting tired of the uncertainty. Either way, I'm ready to find out if democracy is temporarily saved or if it's time to throw in the towel. This shit is exhausting. 

[SydneyCarton 49505]

3 minutes ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

I'm a little sleep deprived, am I reading this right or did the firewall just grow? The tweet says "raw new drop" But it looks to me like their firewall grew? Explain it to me like I'm 5.

Yes, it grew a lot. 

2 minutes ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

Twitter, the place overrun with bots, is a poor metric for popularity these days. That he had 100 million followers and nobody followed him to truth social is precisely my point, he doesn't have an audience, he has a crowd already gathered that he was speaking to.

Oh for fuck's sake, man. He hasn't posted in over 4 years there or so and he's still a top 5 or top 10 follow, irrespective of fucking bots or not. He has almost as many follows as Taylor swift. I can't believe you're saying a guy who is going to get 70+ million votes has no appeal and no audience. I fucking wish that were the case. 

No one followed him to Truth Social beause Truth social has NO ONE ELSE THERE. No other personalities, celebritires, experts, news agencies, etc. You can rave all you want about a specific burger, at a specific restaurant, but if that chef moves 2 hours away and offers only that one burger as the dish in his new location, people aren't going to make the effort to fucking follow that preson in massive numbers. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13732]

20 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Just defy the courts?

https://www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/federal-court-orders-first-gender-affirming-surgery-trans-prisoner-rcna25377

The dem party or candidates only have to state that they disagree with the court findings and are open to future laws to address it. Disagreeing with a court order and enforcing that order are not at odds with one another.

I'm not arguing the issue itself but rather the political reality of needing to win elections.

[chainsaw 10295]

4 minutes ago, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

I'm a little sleep deprived, am I reading this right or did the firewall just grow? The tweet says "raw new drop" But it looks to me like their firewall grew? Explain it to me like I'm 5.

"raw net" is the thing that "dropped" (meaning, the information was published, "taylor swift album just dropped" and not meaning that it decreased). It's stupid slang. But the "raw net" actually increased ("jumped") for Dems.

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5662]

8 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

This could go in the abortion thread but I'm putting it here: She Voted for Trump. Then She Had Two Terrifying Miscarriages in Texas:

Victoria was a Trump voter, but this isn't a "I can't believe the leopard I voted for is eating my face!" story. She wasn't politically active and didn't know shit about Trump or his policies. She saw a soundbite or two and made a snap decision that she liked his whole "outsider" thing and didn't put any more thought into than that.

There are millions if not tens of millions of American voters like her. They're why Trump won in 2016. Who here seriously thinks they're all going to break for him again?

I'm so sorry for this woman, but honestly this line:

“That is the sole reason that I’m voting for her,” Victoria said. “I’m 30 years old going through this.”

Honestly? Kinda fuck her for that. That's the ONLY reason you found to not vote for trump, because it personally affected you? Well my brown ass has been catching racist splatter from trump's rifle since 2016. Sorry you had to lose a baby before you realized the orange dipshit was hurting people, but perhaps you should take from this that shit that sucks doesn't just suck for you. There are so, so many reasons to not vote for trump if you give just even a tiny shit about anybody else who isn't you.

[Celery Man 21098]

 

1 hour ago, MissingInAction said:

I feel targeted.

It says elf not goblin 

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5662]

8 minutes ago, hookem2010 said:

I believe it shows how many ballots are returned by each group D/R/I. And Ds outnumbered Rs by 30k

 

7 minutes ago, Js1 said:

It grew about 30k votes from yesterday. It was def a huge dump of votes. Like he said, it may not be sustainable but we’ve been seeing a good 10-15k net per day before this. 

appreciate it, that's what I thought but the wording kinda threw me off, cause drop can mean "incoming" or also "going down."

[Js1 87186]

Just now, WelfareBuysMyWeed said:

 

appreciate it, that's what I thought but the wording kinda threw me off, cause drop can mean "incoming" or also "going down."

It was a drop of new ballots. I believe it only updates once a day so he reports on it in the morning 

[Aqua Buddha 14807]

57 minutes ago, Chuckie Finster said:

And I have yet to see anyone mention that damn near every single key election country-wide since 2021 has had actual results to the left of the polls.  I get that this is an election year, but to completely ignore that reality is wild.

Ever since Dobbs.  It's like it mattered or something.

What pisses me off is that every single pollster knows this yet people like Frank Luntz are back again telling us how this is 50/50 despite Harris leading and then factoring in the hidden Dobbs vote.  Abortion doesn't show up in polling because people are lying about it.  There's no other explanation.

[WelfareBuysMyWeed 5662]

7 minutes ago, SydneyCarton said:

No one followed him to Truth Social beause Truth social has NO ONE ELSE THERE

THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT. THE ENTIRE POINT OF TRUTH SOCIAL WAS DONALD TRUMP SAYING "FUCK IT, I'LL BUILD MY OWN AND EVERYONE WILL FOLLOW" AND NOBODY FOLLOWED. DONALD TRUMP DOESN'T BRING IN THE RATINGS.

Edited October 10 by WelfareBuysMyWeed

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11669]

when i 'drop' a deuce, it grows

[Gil Bang 26241]

12 minutes ago, Horndog said:

I'd watch. 

Me too.   I hope you don't mind that I'll be jacking off while I watch.

[chainsaw 10295]

The worst part is even when someone is personally negatively affected by republican policies, most of the time they don't change how they vote. Hell, I barely trust that Victoria will vote Harris. For every Victoria there's probably three others who are still going to vote republican. Case in point: Uvalde.

[Js1 87186]

4 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

Ever since Dobbs.  It's like it mattered or something.

What pisses me off is that every single pollster knows this yet people like Frank Luntz are back again telling us how this is 50/50 despite Harris leading and then factoring in the hidden Dobbs vote.  Abortion doesn't show up in polling because people are lying about it.  There's no other explanation.

Republicans and their media and polling mouthpieces have been telling us for 2 years that abortion doesn’t matter and then an election happens and they go all shocked pikachu face 

[Aqua Buddha 14807]

1 minute ago, Js1 said:

Republicans and their media and polling mouthpieces have been telling us for 2 years that abortion doesn’t matter and then an election happens and they go all shocked pikachu face 

What's infuriating about Frank Luntz is he's a good pollster and knows better.  He was wrong in 22, admitted he was wrong, and admitted why.  Now here he is again with the 50/50 narrative.  Gotta stay on TV, bills to pay, etc.....

[Pato del Muerto 53509]

28 minutes ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

I swear if this did happen, his percentage of black voters would probably triple.  Because nothing about that fat piece of shit makes sense.