Open Thread July 8, 2022

Yesterday, I finished the last cartoon for July, and set up the template to work on August. I also learned from Heather Cox Richardson that a trailer for the Trump** documentary which was being filmed right around the 2020 election (to include the period of the insurrection) has been released. I scouted around for it and eventually found it – but it’s not embeddable, so it won’t be in the video thread, but here’s a link if anyone’s curious.

Cartoon –

Short Takes –

The 19th – When abortion clinics close, low-income people will also lose access to other reproductive care
Quote – Robin Marty has three months. That’s how long the money will last. The abortion clinic she runs in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, halted abortions following the reversal of Roe v. Wade last month, but it has enough cash reserves to provide other reproductive health services, including birth control, HIV treatment, prenatal care and gender-affirming care through about September. In that time frame, her staff is working to implement a new model that would keep West Alabama Women’s Center in operation, serving as a key access point for thousands of low-income people in the region who rely on abortion clinics for other services — the kind that are unavailable to them through insurance or that they otherwise would have to get on months-long waitlists to receive.
Click through for story. I probably don’t need to remind anyone that this is a feature – not a bug. Robin saw this coming (and wrote a book about it) – if she isn’t prepared, no one is.

HuffPost – Washington Post Editorial Board Offers Grim Warning About Supreme Court’s ‘Next Move’
Quote – “Our democracy’s path rests mostly with the Supreme Court. If five justices overturn the North Carolina decision, they will know what they are doing, which is writing a recipe for election tampering,” the Post editorial board wrote. “They will also know why they are doing it: not because the Constitution demands it, but because they can.”
Click through for details. Should the Court decide wrongly on this, it will not affect the 2022 midterms – which means the 2022 midterms could just be the last free and fair national election in the United States for the foreseeable future -certainly the last in our lifetimes. How do we convince Democrats that it’s not illegitimate or immoral to campaign on fear when the threat is real?

Food For Thought