Greg Sargent/WaPo:
An upset win over the ‘enjoy rape’ MAGA candidate speaks volumes
[Winning Democrat Carol] Glanville adopted an approach to politics similar to that of [MI State Sen. Mallory] McMorrow. [Losing GOP candidate] Regan’s right-wing extremism went far beyond those rape comments and even included suggestions that the coronavirus pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (and of course Trump’s 2020 loss) were all hoaxes.
Glanville took all that on frontally. That’s hardly surprising by itself, but she also tried to weave it into a larger story about right-wing extremism and why it’s at odds with the values of most Michiganders.
“We showed that Republican extremism has no home in Michigan,” Glanville told me in an interview.
NY Times:
Abortion Pills Stand to Become the Next Battleground in a Post-Roe America
Medication abortion allows patients to terminate early pregnancies at home. Some states are moving to limit it, while others are working to expand access.
“Given that most abortions are early and medication abortion is harder to trace and already kind of becoming the majority or preferred method, it’s going to be a big deal,” Mary Ziegler, a visiting law professor at Harvard, said. “It’s going to generate a lot of forthcoming legal conflicts because it’s just going to be a way that state borders are going to become less relevant.”
Robert P. Jones/substack:
Alito and Public Opinion Reveal the Link Between Roe and a Broader White Christian Nationalist Agenda
Attitudes on abortion are strongly correlated with a worldview that denies systemic racism and pines for a 1950s America.
In PRRI’s most recent data from March, just released today (CLICK HERE for full analysis), nearly two thirds of Americans say abortion should be legal in all (28%) or most (36%) cases, compared to just over one third who say abortion should be illegal in all (9%) or most (26%) cases. Notably, while most Americans are in the support-leaning middle, at the poles, three times as many Americans say abortion should be legal in all cases than say it should be illegal in all cases…
In PRRI’s latest March 2022 polling, you can clearly see the links between attitudes on abortion and a range of cultural issues among white evangelical Protestants:
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69% believe abortion should be illegal in all or most cases;
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59% oppose same-sex marriage;
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70% disagree that past discrimination impacts outcomes among African Americans today;
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68% believe being a Christian is important for being “truly American;”
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69% believe American culture and way of life have changed for the worse since the 1950s.
Margaret Sullivan/waPo:
The media fell for ‘pro-life’ rhetoric — and helped create this mess
A conversation with the journalist son of the doctor who endured Buffalo’s abortion wars (and delivered my firstborn).
“One of the great successes of the antiabortion movement was to stigmatize a very common medical procedure,” he told me this week, “and to put people who defend abortion rights on the defensive.”
And part of that, he thinks, lies in the power of language — and a failure of media.
An award-winning journalist and author, Eyal Press knows a thing or two about how words can be deployed, or weaponized. When journalists agreed to accept terms such as “pro-life” to describe those who oppose abortion, they implicitly agreed to help stigmatize those who support it. After all, what’s the rhetorical opposite of “pro-life”?
Laura Bassett/Jezebel:
In Leaked Abortion Decision, Justice Alito Relies on Jurist Who Supported Marital Rape, Executed 'Witches'
The draft Supreme Court opinion striking down Roe v. Wade heavily references Sir Matthew Hale, a 17th century Brit who dehumanized women
How interesting that Alito would cite Pleas of the Crown! That’s the text, published in 1736, 60 years after Hale’s death, that defended and laid the foundation for the marital rape exemption across the world. Let’s go straight to the text:
“For the husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife for by their mutual matrimonial consent and contract the wife hath given up herself in this kind unto her husband which she cannot retract,” Hale wrote.
Oh? ~20%? It’s a divided country! Well, taking a sliver of pie divides a pie, I suppose.
The War Zone:
Russia Just Lost Its Most Advanced Operational Tank In Ukraine
The first confirmed loss of Russia’s most advanced operational tank is another blow to the Russian Army’s eroded image.
The war in Ukraine has had its fair share of embarrassments for the Kremlin. From the sinking of the Slava class cruiser Moskva in April to the infamous 40-mile-long Russian military convoy holdup near Kyiv seen earlier in the conflict, Moscow has had little to cheer about in terms of projecting competent military strength. The latest hit comes via visual evidence that a Russian T-90M Proryv-3 (Breakthrough-3) — a modern and rare main battle tank — has been destroyed on the battlefield by Ukrainian forces.
Shared on Twitter by The Kyiv Independent’s defense reporter Illia Ponomarenko, the image, dated May 4, shows what appears to be the remnants of a T-90M tank, still smoldering after a direct hit somewhere within Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv Oblast. Andriy Tsaplienko is seen reporting in the foreground.
News of what appears to be the first T-90M tank destroyed in Ukraine should lift the spirits of the Ukrainian forces, given its status as the most technologically advanced and capable tank within Russia’s frontline military arsenal.
Two twitter threads on whether Putin will declare victory or total war on Monday, May 9:
Dmitri Alperovitch/twitter:
I am going to go out on a limb here and make a prediction that Putin will not do a full mobilization call on May 9th or anytime in the near future
I could be wrong and I don’t have as much confidence in this call as I did in my invasion prediction back in December 👇 but… 🧵
Kamil Galeev/Twitter (and long but informative):
May 9, the Victory Day is a crucial symbolic date. We should expect the Victory Parade and Putin's speech to the nation on that day. What is he gonna say? Many are pondering whether he will:
1. Declare war on Ukraine
2. Declare mass mobilisation in Russia
Let's discuss both🧵
...
The major (and underrated) ofc factor of the 1917 revolution in Russia, or rather a chain of successful coups were the people with guns. More specifically, the garrison of St Petersburg (Petrograd) and the Baltic Navy based in Kronstadt, which is very close to the capital
"The people" would have no chance to overthrow the Tsar unless the Tsar:
1. mobilised them
2. brought to the capital
3. trained and gave them guns
4. made sure they have an immediate self-interest in his overthrow, because otherwise they would be sent to WWI and massacred there
1917 scenario was predictable. By November 1916 Nicholas II possibly have suspected his minister of interior Protopopov of scheming against him and was already looking for other candidatures.