Cedric's Big Mix: 2022-11-20

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Shonda Rhimes got it wrong

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL AID TABLE

SHONDA RHIMES -- ON TIME T.V. DYNAMO, NOW STREAMER WITH A MUCH SMALLER AUDICENCE -- DECLARED THAT A GROUP OF MEN AT ABC TOLD HER YEARS AGO THAT NO ONE WOULD WATCH GREY'S ANATOMY.

WE REACHED OUT TO THOSE MEN -- MUST CREDIT BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- AND THEY CLARIFIED THEIR REMARKS.

NO ONE SHOULD WATCH.

THEY SAID NO ONE SHOULD WATCH GREY'S ANATOMY.

AND THEY WERE RIGHT.

FROM THE TCI WIRE:

Abortion and marriage equality. A number of e-mails have come in about those two topics which are related in many ways. Let's start with marriage equality.

There will be a floor vote in the Senate. Here's Senator Tammy Baldwin's statement on what took place this week:

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) released the following statement following the Senate vote, 62-37, to advance the Respect for Marriage Act.

“Today, we took a step forward in our fight to give millions of loving couples the certainty, dignity, and respect that they need and deserve. A bipartisan coalition of Senators stood with the overwhelming majority of Americans who support marriage equality. We came together to move the Respect for Marriage Act forward and give the millions of Americans in same-sex and interracial marriages the certainty that they will continue to enjoy the freedoms, rights, and responsibilities afforded to all other marriages,” said Senator Baldwin. “I am proud to have worked across the aisle to earn broad, bipartisan support for this legislation, and look forward to making marriage equality the law of the land.”

And it should be the law of the land. But it's not yet. I'll celebrate when it is.

In the meantime we're getting garbage coverage.

So-called reporters printing lies. I've got four to choose from, they all go with the same lie, but we'll just use one. Playground honor will prevent us from identifying the author of the one we're using but Google will snitch on her if you copy and paste the paragraph below into a Google search:

If you’re wondering why protecting same-sex and interracial marriage is even something that needs to be voted on in the year of our Lord 2022, the legislation was prompted by comments from Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who recently said that the Court should reconsider opinions protecting access to contraception and same-sex and interracial marriages. (It’s worth noting that Thomas is also in an interracial marriage, having been married to Virginia “Ginni” Thomas since 1987.)

Do you see the problem? Three other outlets also can't get it right.

And worst of all, she thinks she's cute with her parenthetical.

No, Clarry Thomas did not bring up LOVING V VIRGINIA. That's the case that overturned bans on interracial marriage. He listed marriage equality, he listed sodomy and he listed birth control. LOVING is founded on the same due process aspect. But Clarry omitted it precisely because he is in an interracial marriage -- exposing himself as a hypocrite. Many of us called him out on it when his concurring opinion (what the reporter calls "comments") was issued -- that includes Samuel L. Jackson who was very vocal about the hypocrisy (I would praise anyone for speaking out but, disclosure, Samuel is a good friend of mine).

Now I hope it becomes the law of the land and we'll be thrilled here if it does. But, again, we'll celebrate then, we'll breathe easy then.

We thought ROE was the law of the land until a cabal conspired to shred precedent and overturn fifty years of settled court law.

And during those decades, we watched as Democrats chipped away at it. Our 'friend' Hillary, of course, was part of the attack on abortion rights in the immediate months after the 2004 election. You had a plan by the party -- by leaders in the party -- to push the Democrats away from abortion. They paid various little peons to write non-thought pieces on it. And you had various politicians come forward to move the party away from abortion rights. Hillary took part in that. THE NEW YORK TIMES documented it.

So let's step pretending that We the American People have any groups of friends in Congress when it comes to reproductive rights. As Elaine noted, while people are listing Nancy Pelosi's supposed accomplishments as Speaker of the House, the reality is that she was Speaker of the House when women lost significant rights. Way to go, Nance.

We had ROE and we had years of chipping away at it. Poor women were, of course, the first to suffer. And we can blame men because men were in Congress and women really don't come into Congress in significant numbers until the 1992 genderquake (resulting largely from the country seeing the way the Senate demonized Anita Hill). But the reality is, ROE continued to be sliced and diced.

And when it wasn't being chipped away at, it was being used as a political football.

Codifying it not only would have saved reproductive rights, it would have pulled a get-out-the-vote tool from the Democratic Party not to mention a fundraising tool for the party.

And that, let's be honest, is why Nancy never led on codifying it and why Barack Obama broke his campaign promise that the first thing he would do as president was codify ROE.

If you supported ROE you were held hostage for years by the Democratic Party.

They didn't protect it by making it law, they didn't protect it by ensuring that all women had equal access.

They used it.

And some are e-mailing saying that I'm not celebrating our victory in the midterms.

I don't see it as a victory and I'll explain why.

But we did note WSWS's live coverage blog when they noted the victories in various states in this month's elections.

I've waited and waited -- in vain? -- for the Feminist Majority Foundation to put out some statement. Maybe they're not feeling it -- I'm not feeling it -- and maybe we're both wary for the same reason.

The American people turned out and supported the right to privacy. They did a great job.

But the people usually do.

It's the politicians that don't.

The Democrats lost the House. That's reality. They should have lost it by a bigger percentage, they should have lost the Senate.

Abortion is what saved them.

And as I write that I cringe because they don't have a history of standing up. They have a history of using and abusing.

I'll use an example from this century. As a party, they supported the Iraq War. After the people turned against it, the party began to find its voice. (There were members against the war who were in Congress, they did not steer the party.) Finally, in 2006, Nancy promised us that if the Dems could get control of just one house of Congress in the midterm vote, they could end the Iraq War.

The American people gave them control of both houses.

And they didn't end it.

They didn't end it because no one had expected control of both houses. Despite the fact that the public had turned against the war, the idiots leading the Democratic Party hadn't expected that turnout. So instead of ending it, it was decided to carry it over for at least two more years. If opposition to the war could get them control of both houses, it could also lead to control of the White House.

The dying didn't matter. The Iraqis dead and wounded didn't matter, the US troops dead and wounded didn't matter. The violations of international law didn't matter.

To the party, the Iraq War was nothing more than a get-out-the-vote tool.

And, to this day, we still have US troops stationed in Iraq.

Yes, abortion is probably the biggest reason that Dems were not wiped out in this month's mid-terms.

But why I'm not feeling a 'victory' here is because the party tends to use women and I can see very easily the Democratic Party refusing to address abortion by codifying it so that they can use the issue as a get-out-the-vote and fundraising tool for several more election cycles.

I hope that doesn't happen.

But already Joe Biden's declared this week that ROE won't be codified.

Really.

Because before the election, when he needed people to vote Democrat, he said what?

That he was fine with suspending the filibuster to codify abortion rights. Or does no one remember that?

And Dems may not control the House, but they have 212 seats to the Republicans 218 and there are still five more seats to be called. Let's say that they all went Republican. That would be 223. That's eleven seats.

Isn't Joe the reach across the aisle guy?

He can't get 11 votes in the House from the Republicans?

The Dems can't make deals that would garner the support of 11 Republicans.

Abortion is not a fringe issue, it has majority support.

There's no excuse for not putting this to a vote. There's no excuse for not demanding bipartisanship on this issue. It is what the American people support.

So this nonsense that Joe offered this week of how the results of the election mean nothing can be done is nonsense and garbage and too many of us have seen this over and over. So, yes, I fear abortion is an issue that they are going to string us along on for several election cycles unless we make it clear that we're not playing that game.

That means stop lying, stop spreading lies, stop being silent. It means that we stop pretending that backstabbers like Hillary Clinton are our friends. Again, she used the aftermath of the 2004 election to trash abortion rights -- even THE NEW YORK TIMES called her out on it.

The lines were drawn long ago and if you're not going for our right to privacy, you're not our friend and we're idiots if we pretend otherwise.

Sorry if I took the buzz off the victory. I was biting my tongue. Ahead of the elections and now. I'd planned to address that when we did the year-in-review here. But that is the reality of the way the party is with abortion. We have the numbers, we just don't have the representation in Congress. We would if we'd stop treating them like our wayward spouses and clucking over them and acting like it was okay that they forgot to take out the garbage and aren't they cute. They aren't our spouses. They are our public servants. And we need to remind them of that.

I am very hopeful that marriage equality will be the law of the land due to an act of Congress. And, if that happens, it will be something to celebrate. But I've watched the Democratic Party with ROE for too many years and Joe's remark this week indicates nothing has changed or been learned there.

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