Cassandra, Congress, Political Crack, Stupid Republican Tricks

We’re Going To Need A Bigger Toolbox

You are most likely aware of Tommy Toolerville’s vow to hold up all military promotions. You might not be aware that it is predicated on a lie.

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade, the Department of Defense implemented a policy to make it easier for service members who had to travel to receive reproductive health care by approving paid leave and granting permission to use official travel. Otherwise, it’s a recruiting and retainment nightmare.

OK, that doesn’t seem like a reason to throw a tantrum, right? Well, it’s worse than that. The guidelines cover in vitro fertilization and other pregnancy assistance which may not be available locally. But do you know what the program doesn’t pay for? Abortions. In fact the only abortions that are performed at Defense Department locations are those to save the life of the mother and for victims of rape or incest.

And do you know how many of those abortions have been performed in the last 5 years? 91 from 2016 through 2021. Mmmmhmmm. All of this chaos is because of a lie.

On Wednesday we saw that several GOP Senators are very upset about this impasse, partly because it puts national security at risk, and partly because it puts the job security of GOP senators up for reelection in 2024 at risk. Toolerville stood firm for several hours on Wednesday evening as his fellow GOP senators brought up each nomination one by one.

The only way forward right now is for 9 Republican senators to join the Democrats to approve a rules change to get around the giant tool from Alabama (it’s not sending its best). Who knows if that will happen since abortion is, ironically, an issue the GOP can’t back down from even as it has killed their chances in every election since Roe was overturned.

Because the GOP is nothing if not a group of people with both no good ideas of their own and no capacity to tell good ideas from bad ideas, J.D. Vance, AKA the Nancy Mace of the Senate, has decided this is the model he’s going to emulate:

Vance, you might not know, is the pet senator of Peter Thiel. That’s pretty much all you need to know but it’s good to also remember that he’s the author of an egregiously bad fake memoir about (not actually) growing up in Appalachia. Oh and that he went to law school at Yale, despite his claims to be a put upon rural hillbilly.

Vance doesn’t appear to have any self-awareness of what a total buffoon he is, either. Back when the country was losing its collective mind over the Chinese balloon, he, without a shred of irony, posted this on his Twitter account:

He is a deeply unserious person, kind of stupid, and a shameless liar. And now he’s Toolerville’s Mini-Me.

This sounds right:

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