It Is Long Past Time...

...to end the charade that the Right can be reasoned with, or that they will be satisfied with anything short of a Theocratic Nanny State.  From The New York Times:

Lawmakers Vote to Effectively Ban Abortion in Alabama

It is long past time for the Beltway media enablers of the Right's agenda -- the equivocators,  the Both Siderists -- be seen clearly as what they are: Quislings and collaborators in an escalating war between the Fascism and The Enlightenment.  From me, a year ago...

...we are still deep in the shadow of Ptolemaic Flat-Earth Punditry, where suffocating myths about our politics and our media are now held in place by nothing but the brute force of our wealthiest and most powerful institutions.  Dissent from the empty ritual and superstitious drivel of  the High and Holy Church Both Siderism will never be permitted from the pulpits of that church, and so dissidents are forced to take the long view and try as best we can with our naked eye and our crude instruments to record the characteristics of our political cosmos Tycho Brahe-style against the day when the Reality-centric Political Cosmology which those observations support finally up-ends the toxic Both Siderism Cosmology which is killing this country.

Which, as I mentioned, can get to be kind of tedious.

But every now and then a comet streaks across the sky --

The Abortion Memo

David Brooks

FEB. 1, 2018

To: Democratic Party Leaders
From: Imaginary Democratic Consultant
Re: Late-Term Abortions
Dear Democratic Leaders...

-- and suddenly everybody notices that something is drastically wrong with a system that keeps a blithering idiot like Mr. David Brooks employed and respectable as he waddles into the thresher blades over and over and over again, decade after decade.

It won't last long because, without a sufficiently robust and well-funded Liberal media infrastructure to sustain them, no Liberals critiques of the status quo -- no matter how exhaustive or irrefutable -- can prevail against the inexorable, corporate pressure of the High and Holy Church Both Siderism,

But while it lasts it is a sight to see.

Here, Erin Matson takes Mr. Brooks apart point by point (click through to Twitter to read all of it):

Access to abortion is indivisible part of progressive agenda — there is no economic justice without reproductive justice. Progressives believe in science, access to healthcare, ending discrimination, gender equality, racial justice. Abortion rights part of all those things. (1)

— Erin Matson (@erintothemax) February 2, 2018

Here, Jamil Smith takes Mr. Brooks' ignorant, insulting piffle out behind the barn:

Abortion is not a bargaining chip, @nytdavidbrooks. Bodily autonomy is not available in a trade. I wasn’t even going to bother sharing this rubbish, but other men need to speak up and tell you about yourself. You obviously aren’t listening much to women. https://t.co/dqhsvRzabb

— Jamil Smith (@JamilSmith) February 2, 2018

Andy Richter:

Late term abortions occur in instances where the development of a fetus becomes so abnormal that the mother's life is endangered, or she is faced with carrying to term a baby that cannot survive outside the womb. It is a necessary, humane procedure. Fuck you, David Brooks. https://t.co/BB0giffvmr

— Andy Richter (@AndyRichter) February 2, 2018

Jesse Lehrich:

David Brooks should've taken like 10 minutes to learn why some women get abortions after 20 weeks before writing this crap.

protecting their rights is worth fighting for, even if it's not politically expedient.

here are some of their stories:https://t.co/qtz5gZR2Tw https://t.co/acA4JJM53R

— Jesse Lehrich (@JesseLehrich) February 2, 2018

Finally, it is long past time to not only admit the Left has been right about the Right all along,  but that unless the Left starts investing in the kind of long-term, structural support for its writers and thinkers and talkers that every third-tier wingnut lunatic can depend on, we are going to lose this war.

Behold, a Tip Jar!