In Case You Missed It (v98)

Here's your recap of last week's posts, in case you missed anything. 

The week kicked off with Part Two of our Future Tale, with our storyteller making her way down the alley she entered at the end of Part One. Here's a bit of what happened there.

I slowly picked my way forward, letting my eyes adjust to the uncharacteristic mid-day darkness, trying not to slide on the slippery cobbles under my feet. I walked for what felt like several minutes, dodging the spindly sumacs and scrub maples that popped up randomly, as if testing my mettle. “Does she have what it takes? Can she handle the truth?” I felt the questions, and I resolved to stick it out.

Eventually, I could see faint spots of light up ahead, not way high on the buildings, but at a more human level. I stopped, and after my eyes adjusted, I recognized that I was seeing deeply shaded lights above doorways or recesses in the alley, and I understood that I was nearing what I had been called here, by someone, somehow, to see. 

Tentatively, I walked up to the first light. In the recess, there was a chair, with a dingy hand-lettered sign resting on it: safe abortions performed inside. I paused, startled by the seeming contradiction between the sign's messiness and its promise... 

 There was a lot more confusion to come. 

The Sunday School classroom spotlight turned to Face the Nation this week; Robert Costa hosted Vice President Kamala Harris via a taped interview. I was a little frustrated with her interview; we don't see all that much of her and I had hoped she'd take advantage of the opportunity. 

Here's some of their chat, touching on abortion and what some people, including prominent Dems, think has been a failure by their party. He noted anger in the party about the SCOTUS decision, 

and he played a clip of Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) asking

Where is the Democratic Party? Where's the party? Why aren't we calling this out? This is a concerted, coordinated effort. And, yes, they're winning.

He asked Harris if Newsom is right, and again we got half an answer. She said "all of us share a deep sense of outrage" about the Supreme Court taking a recognized right away from women. And, she said,

You don't have to agree that you want to or would advocate that you or a loved one would have an abortion to agree that the government should not be making that decision for any individual woman.

Costa followed up, asking "Did Democrats fail, past Democratic presidents, congressional leaders, to not codify Roe v. Wade over the past five decades?"

See how she answered this one, and Costa's other questions. Did she meet your expectations?

Speaking of expectations, for your Extra Credit we had more from the Face the Nation classroom. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin - a rising star in the GOP - sat with Costa for a lengthy set of "Ignore What I'm Asking and Just Say What You Want."  Here's a bit of the interview.

• Asked if he'd codify same-sex marriage in Virginia, he said the Dobbs decision protecting the rights of lawmakers to legislate is "consistent with what we know the Constitution stands for." When pressed, he said "we actually do protect same-sex marriage... that's the law in Virginia." However, it's only protected if Obergefell stands; the state struck down a ban on same-sex marriage in 2020, but did not codify a right to have one. 

• He had "really great fun" visiting Nebraska, which had literally nothing to do with what he was asked: whether Donald Trump should stop saying the 2020 election was stolen. Nor did his "this is not a 'or' moment but an 'and' moment..." ramble. Nor did his "this is the Republicans who - that can win." Nor did his talk about 5,000 volunteers at elections. I'm sighing bigly, here, I am.

When it was time for Wondering on Wednesday, I was more than ready with thoughts on the January 6th Committee hearing on Tuesday. I missed some of the details (multi-tasking) but I got caught up. And, 

After watching replays today, I can't help wondering how much worse things would have been on January 6th if there hadn't have been any adults in the room on December 18th. 

Another thing I can't stop wondering about is if the Committee's going to do anything about the comments from Rep. Debbie Lasko (R- I Didn't Mean to Say I'd Kill My Grandkids). I don't think it was fully explained how the Committee got hold of the tape, but here's what Lasko said "on the eve of January 6th." 

I also asked leadership to come up with a safety plan for members. I'm actually very concerned about this because we have who knows how many hundreds of thousands of people coming here. We have Antifa. We also have, quite honestly, Trump supporters who actually believe that we are going to overturn the election. And when that doesn't happen, most likely will not happen, they are going to go nuts.

There was more wondering, of course. There always is.

As I've been watching political ads here in New York, where we have a second primary coming up next month, I got to thinking about an old post I had done on the collision between soundbites and facts. I nosed around in the blog's history and found what I was looking for, which became a Throwback Thursday post. 

The post compared what the pols are saying with the reported facts, which they are ignoring, in furtherance of their (fear) campaigns. The post highlighted my retiring congressman attacking my resigned-in-disgrace Sonofa Gov on crime in New York. 

The difference between then and now? Other than the passing of time and the names of the politicians, not a whole lot. The issue, and the distance between the soundbites and the facts,- are the same. And we all suffer for it.

Turning to your TGIF good week/bad week list-making, I'm now sitting quietly by while men in the GOP make fools of themselves, and do their best to criminalize people who provide reproductive health care, and scare women and children from getting it. 

I mentioned a few in my Wondering on Wednesday post, including Rep. Jim Jordan, the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, and Ohio AG David Yost. 

In the post, I added an anti-abortion advocate (seriously, this guy's beyond the pale), the state of Texas, and the Indiana AG. On the good week side of this issue? A couple of lawyers and the Biden administration. Also earning mentions, on other issues? Members of the Secret Service, Congress (specifically House Dems), and Sen. Joe Manchin. 

Yep, you read that right; I put Dems on the bad week side of the ledger, too. Regular readers will not be surprised by that - they know I'm an equal opportunity list-maker.

Coming up? Part Three of our Future Tale; Sunday School, and more.