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DeSantis vs Newsom

Published by digby on December 1, 2023

One had fun, the other one not so much. Guess which was which.

Even big GOP influencer “Catturd” notices. (I’m no joking , he’s the leader of MAGA twitter.)

When Florida Gov. Ron Desantis agreed to debate California Gov. Gavin Newsom it’s unlikely he knew his presidential campaign would be flailing to the extent it is. But he still should have thought twice. Whatever his political skills might be, he is terrible on the debate stage. He managed to barely hold his own in the sad Trumpless GOP primary debates that have been dominated by his rival former S. Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. He did himself no favors on Thursday night when he finally met with Newsom on Sean Hannity’s Fox News show.

Any Trump fan, which would include virtually all Fox viewers, were primed to watch him be humiliated. Trump spokesman Steve Cheung either taking dictation from the boss or channeling him perfectly, put out this humdinger of a statement in advance of the event:

“Ron DeSanctimonious is acting more like a thirsty, third-rate OnlyFans wannabe model than an actual presidential candidate. Instead of actually campaigning and trying to turn around his dismal poll numbers, DeSanctus is now so desperate for attention that he’s debating a Grade A loser like Gavin Newsom.

At the debate, Ron will flail his arms and bobble his head wildly, looking more like a San Francisco crackhead than the governor of Florida. This isn’t a prediction. It’s a spoiler.

“Hopefully for Ron, it’s a seated debate so he won’t have to mash his foot into his high-heels to look taller. But if not, he’ll definitely be on a 12 inch step stool so he can peek right above the podium.”

Ouch. That’s harsh, even by Trump standards. Trump didn’t personally weigh in but he did post this on his social media site Trump Social:

Hannity was much kinder to DeSantis than that but it didn’t help much and DeSantis certainly didn’t help himself.

Hannity’s questions were all loaded with statistics in favor of DeSantis designed to put Newsom on the defensive. I don’t think there was even one data point he presented that put Florida in a more negative light. So it was up to Newsom to provide context and correct the record which he did quite effectively.

For instance, DeSantis was programmed to insist that Californians are moving to Florida “in droves” which he did approximately a dozen times, and maybe those Fox viewers were convinced. But it’s just not true. (As Newsom pointed out repeatedly, per capita more Floridians have actually moved to California than the other way around. )

Hannity threw one question after another right over the plate to DeSantis, but he was the one who ended up on the defensive as Newsom not only stood up for his state but made a great case for Joe Biden on Fox News, (which was the whole point of the exercise.)

They sparred about their COVID response with DeSantis making repeated fatuous comments about Newsom going to the French Laundry restaurant during the lockdowns. But Newsom got the better of the argument by pointing out that DeSantis wants to have it both ways by portraying himself as a defiant contrarian on the mitigation measures when in fact he called for all of them early and then decided that it would be in his best interest to prematurely repeal all of them resulting in many unnecessary deaths. DeSantis claimed it wasn’t true but it certainly is.

According to an LA Times analysis of the Johns Hopkins University data on COVID deaths:

-California: 2,560 COVID deaths for every 1 million residents
-Florida: 4,044 COVID deaths for every 1 million residents

“In other words, Florida’s raw death tally — 86,850 in early March — came close to California’s total, 101,159, despite California having roughly 18 million more residents,”

It is true that Florida has a large senior population but that should have argued for DeSantis to be more cautious not less. His legacy on COVID is shameful and the fact that he actually brags about it is mind-boggling.

They also argued about crime statistics with DeSantis accusing Newsom of presiding over a crime wave while Newsom pointed out that it had actually decline precipitously over the past couple of decades. One set of statistics (which Hannity showed, naturally) has California having more violent crimes than Florida but Newsom responded, correctly, that Florida actually has a higher murder rate than California.

I wondered when (or if) Hannity would discuss abortion, seeing as it is a serious problem for DeSantis due to the draconian laws he signed, first for a 15 week ban and then a 6 week ban a few months later. Hannity tried to nail Newsom with the right’s tiresome question about whether he would outlaw all abortions after a certain period of time, but he didn’t get very far. Newsom said that these instances are exceedingly rare and are almost always because of a tragic fetal anomaly, which is correct. (If I were a politician, I would always use the example of a real person in that situation and then ask whether or not politicians and judges are competent to make such complicated medical decisions. Most people would agree that they are not.)

DeSantis pretty much just stood there like a potted plant obviously wanting to get past the subject as soon as possible. Just yesterday, a poll was released showing that 62% of Floridians want to vote the right to abortion up to 24 weeks into the state constitution and that includes 52% of Republicans. He made a huge mistake in judgement on that one.

One of the most jarring aspects of the debate was that throughout, DeSantis kept bizarrely talking about feces. That’s right, feces. This is actually an old right wing obsession going back to the civil rights marches, the Vietnam war protests and most recently Occupy Wall Street. There are always tales of rampant public defecation and they can’t stop talking about it. DeSantis seems to have a particular fetish about this feces problem as illustrated in this bizarre moment:

Politifact, which fact checked much of the debate if you’re interested, explains what that’s all about if you really want to know.

Apparently, DeSantis’ hapless campaign thought it would be a good idea to showcase him on the friendly network because it would give him a chance to talk about how great Florida is. The problem is that there isn’t a Republican primary voter on the planet who hasn’t heard him drone on endlessly about what a fantastic job he’s done in Florida and frankly, they’re sick of it. But that’s what they got last night along with a laundry list of culture war talking points that merely show DeSantis watches the same shows they do. It’s possible that a few people came away thinking they should give him a second look but I doubt it was more than a handful. He’s just so odd:

Newsom probably made a few new fans among the Democrats who tuned in to watch the cage match. He was loose and confident and why wouldn’t he be? He’s not running for anything, a point he made clear when he archly declared that the one thing everyone can agree on is that neither of the two of them were going to be president in 2025.

The debate was best summed up by Never Trumper Stuart Stevens who quipped:

Salon

Yes, it is a bad decision

Published by Tom Sullivan on December 1, 2023

ICYMI. (You did not, of course.)

Medhi Hasan’s take-downs are what people watch MSNBC for.

Chris Hayes (MSNBC primetime host):

The nature of this business is that people who are supremely talented sometimes have shows cancelled. It’s rough every time, but it comes with the territory (lord knows I’ve been close myself!) But I just want to say that @mehdirhasan is one of the most talented broadcast journalists I’ve ever seen or worked with and probably the single best interviewer in American TV. Grateful to have him as a colleague.

Taylor Lorenz (Washington Post technology and online culture columnist):

Mehdi is literally one of the only people in cable TV with a moral compass still intact. What a huge loss

Washington Post:

Although Hasan was not among MSNBC’s top-rated stars, his segments often went viral on social media, where users celebrated his takedowns of conservatives such as former Trump adviser John Bolton and Israeli government adviser Mark Regev. During a Nov. 16 interview on his show for NBC’s Peacock streaming service, Hasan pressed Regev on the children killed in Gaza by Israeli strikes. When Regev said that Hasan had seen photos of dead children “because they’re the pictures Hamas wants you to see,” the host responded, “and also because they’re dead, Mark. They’re also people your government has killed.”

The segment, as shared by Hasan, was viewed nearly 6 million times on X, formerly known as Twitter.

The British-born Hasan, who formerly worked for Al Jazeera English and the Intercept, began hosting his Peacock show in 2020 and joined MSNBC’s lineup the following year

Hasan doesn’t pull his punches. That makes him a threat for CW types.

Down the algorithmic rabbit hole

Published by Tom Sullivan on December 1, 2023

Are you curating your feed or is something else?

A medical professional at a friend’s party recently asked if I’d had any contact with a mutual acquaintance. No, not since before the pandemic. But I’d been horrified a year or so earlier when I glanced at her Facebook page and found a stream of anti-vax and “do your research” style postings. He knew. It’s why he asked. He’d run into her at the gym. She told him she’d not received the Covid shots and had lost friends over it. And she’d been a medical professional as well.

What happened? Perhaps the isolation during the pandemic. Perhaps too much time exposed to an algorithmically generated diet of such stuff. David French this morning cautions about the dangers of creating our own curated bubble realities.

Conspiracy theories have been with us forever. Rachel Maddow’s “Prequel” recounts tales of Depression-era Americans convinced that Jews and communists had taken over the government. They stockpiled canned good and weapons for when the Jews came marching down the street to make slaves of them. They planned an insurrection to put in place a strongman who’d bring fascist order.

If the parallels to today are eerie, Maddow means them to be. What’s different today, French suggests, is the sheer ubiquity of such alternate realities. They are no longer the hobby interests of a few cranks, but redefine their world views (New York Times, gifted):

There is a fundamental difference between, on the one hand, someone who lives in the real world but also has questions about the moon landing, and on the other, a person who believes the Covid vaccine is responsible for a vast number of American deaths and Jan. 6 was an inside job and the American elite is trying to replace the electorate with new immigrant voters and the 2020 election was rigged and Donald Trump is God’s divine choice to save America.

Such individuals don’t simply believe in a conspiracy theory, or theories. They live in a “bespoke reality.” That brilliant term comes from my friend Renée DiResta, the technical research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory, and it refers to the effects of what DiResta calls a “Cambrian explosion of bubble realities,” communities “that operate with their own norms, media, trusted authorities and frameworks of facts.”

Online algorithms are more than happy to customize our rabbit holes:

Combine vast choice with algorithmic sorting, and we now possess a remarkable ability to become arguably the most comprehensively, voluntarily and cooperatively misinformed generation of people ever to walk the earth. The terms “voluntarily” and “cooperatively” are key. We don’t live in North Korea, Russia or the People’s Republic of China. We’re drunk on freedom by comparison. We’re misinformed not because the government is systematically lying or suppressing the truth. We’re misinformed because we like the misinformation we receive and are eager for more.

DiResta’s “bespoke realities” customize a “choose-your-own-adventure epistemology” for us. Whatever you’d like to believe, “some news outlet somewhere has written the story you want to believe, some influencer is touting the diet you want to live by or demonizing the group you also hate.”

“If you don’t buy into a conspiracy theory, that means you’re part of the conspiracy,” one former Twitter user posted Thursday. “And lack of evidence for the conspiracy is proof that the conspiracy is WORKING,” replied Lindsay Beyerstein. And I note regularly, what conspiracists lack in quality evidence they make up for with quantity.

The internet will furnish all the quantity any budding conspiracist could want.

What’s important, says French, is to remain self-aware and not get too far down any one rabbit hole, especially for those of us steeped in political news.

Understanding this dynamic helps us better understand one of the most interesting and troubling studies of our modern political moment. In June 2019, the group More in Common released a study demonstrating that Americans are wrong about their political opponents in a particularly destructive way: They believe them to be more extreme than they really are. Moreover, those who consume political media were more wrong about their political opponents than those who consumed no media at all. Those who follow the news “most of the time” were roughly three times as wrong about their opponents as those who follow the news “hardly at all.”

None of us are immune, including him, French admits. Read more from credible people with whom you disagree, French advises. “That means reading the best and smartest people I can find who disagree with me. These practices help both challenge me and humanize my opponents.” (I’m reading David French. Does that count?)

Because right now, dehumanization is all the rage.

The Saucer That Cools The Tea Is Cracked

Published by digby on November 30, 2023

It looks like the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee have decided to reprise their dignified behavior in the Kavanaugh hearings. Whenever something threatens the big bubble they’ve created around their precious Supreme Court majority they turn into shrieking harpies:

Tempers exploded at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting Thursday before Democrats voted to subpoena a major conservative donor and a prominent conservative activist linked to the Supreme Court’s ethics scandals. 

The Republican members of the committee stormed out of the hearing room in the Hart Building shortly before Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) called a vote on authorizing the subpoenas. 

The motion passed with 11 Democratic votes. Not a single Republican was left in the room by the time the roll call ended.  

Durbin went ahead with the vote shortly before noon to prevent Republicans from delaying it until next week by invoking a rule to limit committee meetings to two hours.  

The meeting came after weeks of partisan fighting among members of the Judiciary Committee over plans to subpoena conservative donor Harlan Crow and activist Leonard Leo, the co-chairman of the Federalist Society, in response to reporting by ProPublica that revealed the two men played roles in taking conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito on luxury vacations. 

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Durbin and federal courts subcommittee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) advanced the subpoenas after Crow and Leo refused to cooperate with their investigation into Supreme Court ethics. 

Durbin argued that his committee staff had worked for “months” to try to get information from Crow and Leo about gifts and personal hospitality extended to Thomas and Alito.  

Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) argued after the meeting that the subpoenas are “invalid” because they were issued in violation of Senate and committee rules. 

Cruz pointed out that the vote to authorize the subpoenas didn’t conclude until a few minutes after noon, violating the two-hour rule that requires committees to wrap up all business within two hours unless waived.  

“Under the rules, the subpoena is not valid,” Cruz declared. “The two-hour rule says you have to be concluded with your business, that nothing that happens after two hours is valid. And when they actually issued the subpoena, it was 12:02.” 

Cruz and Lee further argued that the Durbin approved the subpoenas without a quorum being present because Republicans walked out of the hearing room.  

“Under the rules, they have to have a quorum. We denied them a quorum. Republicans left the room and so when they voted on the subpoenas, there were only Democrats in the room,” Cruz said.  

The approval of the subpoenas are largely symbolic because it would require 60 votes on the Senate floor to enforce them and not a single GOP senator has indicated that he or she would vote for such an action. 

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) set the tone of the meeting, calling the authorization of subpoenas “garbage” and Democratic efforts to address the court’s ethics a “complete joke” and “crap.” 

“I don’t know who you’re trying to please. I don’t know what group is going to feel better because we’re doing this on your side but you’re pleasing like none of us,” Graham fumed. “This is about an ongoing effort to destroy this court, to destroy [conservative Justice] Clarence Thomas’s reputation.”  

Senate Republicans filed 177 amendments in an effort to slow down the subpoenas.  

Republican senators then accused Durbin at the outset of the meeting of “destroying” the panel’s collegial relations by refusing to recognize them to speak against two judicial nominees who had come before the committee previously but had to be voted on again Thursday because of a procedural technicality.  

Collegial relations? Yeah, they were very collegial during those Supreme Court hearings,

“You want us to shut up, is that what you’re saying?” demanded Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.).  

“We want to tell you again why these nominees are awful,” Graham chimed in.  

“Mr. Chairman, you just destroyed one of the most important committees in the United States Senate,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said. “Congratulations on destroying the United States Senate Judiciary Committee.” 

Republicans accused Durbin of violating the committee’s Rule IV, which requires the committee to hold a roll call vote before ending debate on a matter and bringing that matter to a vote. 

But Durbin explained the two nominees — Mustafa Taher Kasubhai, to be U.S. district judge for the District of Oregon, and Eumi Lee, to be U.S. district judge for the Northern District of California — had already been debated at length and voted on by the committee.  

He said that the nominees needed another vote on technical grounds because two Democratic senators had previously voted for them by proxy and then later asked unanimous consent to be recorded as present and voting. Republicans on the panel, however, raised an objection with the Senate parliamentarian, wiping out those earlier votes on Kasubhai and Lee.  

Durbin defended his decision to call new votes on the nominees without a third round of debate by invoking what he said were precedents set by then-Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) by forcing a vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and by then-Chair Graham in 2019 by forcing a vote on immigration legislation.  

The panel approved the nominations of Kasubhai and Lee on party-line votes, with each receiving 11 “yes” votes. 

Waah, waah, waah. All Republicans ever do these days is whine.

If they don’t want any oversight of their corrupt Supreme Court pals maybe they should tell their Supreme Court pals to stop being so corrupt.

Is Mike Johnson’s Honeymoon Over?

Published by digby on November 30, 2023

It’s getting close

It looks like the new speaker’s “running room” is running out:

Speaker Mike Johnson is edging closer to the same sort of clash with conservatives that helped bring down his predecessor Kevin McCarthy.

The brewing storm, crystallized by Johnson’s comments during a Wednesday meeting with GOP senators, is threatening to end what is left of the Louisiana Republican’s honeymoon running the House. On his right flank, some members are already asking behind closed doors whether Johnson might meet the same fate as the deposed McCarthy — though other GOP lawmakers see that speculation as bluster.

Johnson has antagonized conservatives most acutely by engaging in policy talks with fellow leaders, rather than pushing exclusively for base-pleasing wins that won’t survive in the Senate. That traditional approach won’t hurt Johnson with most of the House GOP — but as McCarthy’s ouster made clear, it only takes a handful of fed-up members to make a speaker’s life difficult.

The new speaker showcased his willingness to stand up to conservatives, as well as its limits, during his visit to the Senate. Inside the room, he delivered two messages: that he would call up an extension of government funding through the end of the fiscal year if lawmakers can’t reach a deal, and that he wants to see much of the House’s conservative border bill as part of any potential Senate agreement to aid Ukraine.

Johnson’s stance on government funding isn’t quite new — House Republican leaders have indicated that they wouldn’t pursue more patches and have no interest in a shutdown at the start of an election year. And his hard line on border talks amounts to a major setback for the Senate’s bipartisan work. Still, the GOP frustration with him goes beyond the Freedom Caucus.

“He continues to play games,” a livid Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) said in an interview. “We are talking about a man [who] 30 days ago said that he was an anti-CR guy. We are talking about a man 30 days ago that was anti-Ukraine funding. … It shows me he was never really morally convicted in his positions to begin with.

“He just did a 180 on everything he believed in,” Miller added, “and that to me is disgusting.”

Miller, an ally of McCarthy and former President Donald Trump, called Johnson a “joke,” describing the speaker’s decision to attach IRS cuts to Israel aid as “a slap in the face to every Jew” and a “fucking dumb” choice that set a precedent of tying domestic policy to foreign aid. He made clear that his complaints stemmed from the speaker’s decision to not take up funding bills this week, as a shutdown deadline looms.

Other conservatives characterized their frustration with Johnson in gentler but clearer terms.

“People are dealing with a little bit of disapprobation,” said Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), among the eight Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy. “I don’t know what people are gonna do.”

The former chief of the conservative Freedom Caucus said that while he sees improvement in Johnson compared to McCarthy, he wouldn’t give Johnson a “great grade right now myself.” Biggs likened Johnson’s grade so far to the grammar school categories of “needing improvement” and “unsatisfactory results.”

Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) put it more succinctly, describing Johnson’s performance rating as “plummeting.”

I would guess this is why Johnson keeps saying that he “has reservations” about expelling George Santos. He needs every vote he can get.

I wrote right after his ascension to the Speakership that there was a good chance his honeymoon would be over before Christmas. He might hang on for a bit, and maybe he can out maneuver the Crazy 8 and the Freedom Caucus. Maybe he can finesse all these former McCarthy allies who are still pissed and aren’t happy about Johnson’s cozying up to McCarthy’s enemies. But it’s a minefield and there’s no evidence yet that this guy has the savvy to negotiate it.

Trump Gagged Again

Published by digby on November 30, 2023

It must be a big relief for his targets

The minute the appeals court stayed the gag order in Trump’s NY fraud trail he went after the judge’s clerk again, naming her in his Truth Social feed. There is evidence submitted in this case and in the DC January 6th case that his attacks on her and others have led to hundreds of threats and grotesque insults from Donald trump fans, which apparently thrills him to no end since he won’t stop inciting it.

The court reinstated the order today:

Donald Trump is once again prohibited from attacking the law clerk at his ongoing bank fraud trial in New York, now that a four-judge appellate panel has reinstated a gag order that was briefly lifted this month.

The two-page appeals court decision on Thursday wiped out Trump’s lone victory—albeit a minor one—during the trial that threatens to destroy the business tycoon’s real estate empire.

While suffering through a trial against New York Attorney General Letitia James, Trump has relentlessly complained about the presiding judge’s right hand adviser, law clerk and attorney Allison Greenfield. From the very start of the three-month trial, Justice Arthur F. Engoron slapped a gag order on the former president—one that Trump has repeatedly violated anyway. That fight keeps boiling over, with the judge at one point forcing Trump to make a surprise appearance on the witness stand, then threatening him with jail time. (He decided to issue a $15,000 fine instead.)

Trump’s attacks have flooded the trial court with MAGA death threats aimed at Engoron and Greenfield, according to sworn documents submitted by court security staff.

On Nov. 16, Trump’s defense lawyers managed to pause that gag order by turning to a single judge in New York’s First Department appellate court with an emergency hearing.

However, that decision was overturned on Thursday when a full panel finally weighed in. Justices Sallie Manzanet-Daniels, Ellen Gesmer, Saliann Scarpulla, and Llinét M. Rosado issued an opinion saying that “the interim relief… is hereby vacated.”

He’s a disgusting pig and there is no one beneath his notice.

But not to worry. He’s still free to share his “thoughts” without constraint:

Former President Trump spent 24 hours on Truth Social unleashing a torrent of grievances, vengeful promises and links to online conspiracy theories about his political rivals.

Below is a sampling of Trump’s online rhetoric in one 25 hour period:

Even Florida Supports Abortion Rights

Published by digby on November 30, 2023

New polling shows that, if given the chance, Floridians will vote for a constitutional amendment supporting abortion

A majority of Florida voters say they would vote yes on a constitutional amendment ensuring abortion access until fetal viability around 24 weeks, according to a new poll.

“If this amendment does make it on the ballot, initiatives like this one need a supermajority of 60% in order to pass, and it looks like the proposed abortion amendment is right at that threshold among these respondents,” said University of North Florida pollster Dr. Michael Binder. “Even among registered Republicans, 53% would vote to protect abortion rights in Florida, with just 39% voting no.”

The University of North Florida polled Florida voters and found 62% support the amendment and 29% are opposed to it, with a 4.37% margin of error.

In April, Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a six-week abortion ban, which has not taken effect as a previous 15-week ban awaits the outcome of a legal challenge. A constitutional amendment would supersede either law.

The deadline for the constitutional amendment ballot initiative to receive enough signatures is February, with a required 900,000 signatures to appear on the ballot. At present, organizers say they have 500,000 certified signatures.

This sounds very promising. Oh wait:

If enough signatures are obtained, the Florida Supreme Court would then review the amendment and determine if it can be put on the ballot.

It doesn’t sound like this will make it to the ballot by next November, unfortunately. But at least it shows that DeSantis’ 6 week and 15 week abortion bans are potent issues that may just help some of the Local Dems.

Did MyKev swear at Dear Leader?

Published by digby on November 30, 2023

He denies it but yeah, he probably did.

They reportedly went at it on January 6th, you’ll recall when MyKev supposedly said, “who do you think you’re talking to?” So they have that kind of relationship. And this report says that he said “fuck you” when Trump told him why he didn’t support him during the ouster:

During a phone call with McCarthy weeks after his historic Oct. 3 removal as House speaker, Trump detailed the reasons he had declined to ask Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and other hard-right lawmakers to back off their campaign to oust the California Republican from his leadership position, according to people familiar with the exchange who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose a private conversation.

During the call, Trump lambasted McCarthy for not expunging his two impeachments and not endorsing him in the 2024 presidential campaign, according to people familiar with the conversation.

“F— you,” McCarthy claimed to have then told Trump, when he rehashed the call later to other people in two separate conversations, according to the people. A spokesperson for McCarthy said that he did not swear at the former president and that they have a good relationship. A spokesperson for Trump declined to comment.

Apparently, it was just a lovers spat though. Trump and MyKev are still in touch, texting and calling each other frequently. MyKev needs to keep that relationship strong, after all. As a lobbyist he’ll want to keep his options open. And, who knows? Trump’s going to need to fill that cabinet if he wins. “Kevin McCarthy, Secretary of State” sure sounds good.

Even misogyny is bigger in Texas

Published by Tom Sullivan on November 30, 2023

Don’t mess with Texas (women)

This week the Texas Supreme Court heard a case brought by 20 women denied emergency care under the state’s radical abortion ban (Texas Tribune):

In August, state District Judge Jessica Mangrum ruled that the near-total abortion ban cannot be enforced in cases involving complicated pregnancies, including lethal fetal diagnoses. The state immediately appealed that ruling, putting it on hold.

Texas law allows abortions only when it is necessary to save the life of the pregnant patient. But this lawsuit, filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights in March, claims that doctors are unsure when the medical exception applies, resulting in delayed or denied care.

“No one knows what [the exception] means and the state won’t tell us,” Molly Duane, senior attorney for the Center for Reproductive Rights, told the justices Tuesday.

The state argues the judge went too far in her injunction by reading exceptions into the law beyond what the Legislature intended.

Plaintiff Taylor Edwards and Duane spoke to PBS about the suit.

The penalties for doctors who perform abortions outside the ban’s restrictions “could not be more extreme,” Duane said:

We are talking about life in prison, loss of medical license, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in civil fines. So, quite understandably, physicians are terrified. They don’t know when or how close to death a patient needs to be before they can provide abortion care. And they have been begging the Texas Medical Board and the rest of the state for guidance for years.

And it has fallen on deaf ears. So here we are. We came to court. Courts are places that can vindicate constitutional rights, and Taylor has constitutional rights, just like everyone else in Texas.

PBS asked Duane to comment on the state’s position in light of those severe penalties for doctors:

Beth Klusmann, Texas Assistant Attorney General:

If, as she said, a woman is bleeding or has amniotic fluid running down her legs, then the problem is not with the law. That is with the doctors. I mean, that woman clearly would qualify for medical emergency exception.

And so if she has to come to court to make that happen, that is not the state’s fault.

Geoff Bennett:

So, Molly, what’s your response to that argument?

Molly Duane:

Well, my response is that the state has been saying over and over again the exception is clear, yet they have never once told us what they think the exception means.

In fact, contrary to what they said today, they have made every attempt to show that amniotic fluid does in fact need to be running down a patient’s leg before they can come to court.

What Taylor said that her doctor said to her is verbatim what I have heard from every single one of my clients, which is, my doctor said that her hands were tied. And who tied them? It was the state of Texas.

Beto O’Rourke spotlighted some of the women’s stories Wednesday night:

Texas Republicans forced these women to continue dangerous, nonviable pregnancies that almost killed them.

I hope you’ll read their stories, and then commit to the work of overturning Texas’ extreme abortion ban🧵:

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These women are sharing their stories so that we understand the true cost of the total abortion ban in Texas.

My hope is that their courage in coming forward will be matched by our resolve to change the laws so that this never happens again. 

With a year before the ‘24 elections that will decide our state’s future, it’s time for each of us to decide what we’re willing to do.

There are millions of pro-choice Texans who aren’t registered to vote. Getting them on the rolls would have a seismic impact on these elections. 

This is and needs to be a major issue in 2024, as it was in 2022 when President Joe Biden said this: