Below is my column in the New York Post on the decision of the Virginia Supreme Court to nullify the result of the recent gerrymandering to eliminate virtually all Republican representatives in the purple state. The reversal of fortunes for the party, however, could lead to an even more dangerous agenda.
Here is the column:
“Eff around and find out”: That taunt from Hakeem Jeffries celebrating Virginia’s gerrymander did not age well.
On Friday, the House minority leader found out that Virginia’s Supreme Court was not quite as gleeful as he about Democrats’ attempt to virtually eliminate Republican representation in the purple state.
The court just cooked the party’s infamous lobster, a district over 100 miles long that was designed to help devour the GOP’s slender majority in the House of Representatives.
It also cooked the ambitions of Gov. Abigail Spanberger and the Democratic establishment, which tossed aside any pretense of principle in a raw political gambit.
The resulting faceplant is nothing short of legendary: Spanberger’s Democrats have succeeded in alienating half of the state.
For the governor, the court’s decision was particularly embarrassing.
Before assuming power, Spanberger denounced gerrymandering as “detrimental to our democracy and weakens the individual voices that form our electorates.”
She ran as a moderate, but Spanberger immediately turned sharply left once in office and called for the most extreme gerrymander in the nation.
The court found that effort was not only unconstitutional, but “wholly unprecedented in Virginia’s history.”
It characterized the state’s position as “a story of the tail wagging the dog that has no tail.”
While some of us had previously expressed skepticism over the rushed effort to circumvent the state constitution, the media almost exclusively relied on liberal experts who predicted the new districts would be upheld.
It was a calculated risk for Democrats, who have now burned their bridges with Virginia conservative and Republican voters.
As Winston Churchill said, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”
Exhilarating and unforgettable: In a purple state where politicians often require crossover votes to prevail, the redistricting push was not just partisan but personal for voters.
National Democrats will soon “find out” whether Jeffries was right to prematurely celebrate a victory that seemed to secure his anticipated elevation to Speaker of the House.
The party is facing a potentially catastrophic reversal of fortune.
When Democrats declared a gerrymandering war, some of us warned that the party, with its already heavily gerrymandered blue states, had far more to lose than the GOP did.
It was particularly comical when Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey pledged to join the redistricting fray, even though her state is so badly gerrymandered that it’s elected zero Republicans to the House since the 1990s.
Virginia, a state long opposed to gerrymandering, has been considered the fairest state in the country, with a distribution of congressional seats that closely matches its partisan divide.
Once Spanberger sought to eradicate Republican representation, total war broke out — and now red states like Florida and Tennessee have moved forward with their own redistricting.
On top of the fact that GOP states have more room for partisan gerrymandering, the Virginia Supreme Court decision comes on the heels of the US Supreme Court’s ban on racial gerrymandering.
That means a dozen or more Democratic districts could now be deemed unconstitutional — and Louisiana and Mississippi are moving to redistrict in line with the Supreme Court’s decision.
The result could be a dramatic shift in districts favoring the GOP.
To make matters worse for the Democratic Party, a new census in 2030 will correct the mistakes that erroneously awarded them multiple districts after the 2020 census.
Those corrections, and the ongoing exodus from high-tax blue states to booming red ones, could translate into even more congressional gains for the GOP.
That prospect of a political apocalypse has Democratic strategists pushing for radical changes in Washington before it’s too late.
Top priority: packing the Supreme Court as soon as they retake power.
As Virginia has shown, an independent court can unravel the best-laid plans.
Democratic politicians, pundits and professors have been openly pushing for expanding the high court to 13 members with four new liberal additions, in order to rubber-stamp the radical changes needed to keep the party in power.
James Carville recently told Democratic politicians that they have no choice but to pack the court, declaring “F–k it . . . Just do it.”
He suggested, however, that they might not want to tell the voters.
“Don’t run on it. Don’t talk about it,” he said. “Just do it.”
Last week, Jeffries declared the Supreme Court “illegitimate” as he blasted its ban on racial gerrymandering.
After the Virginia court’s ruling, the frustrated Democratic establishment is ever more likely to echo him — and to go beyond.
Many Democrats are now “all in” with this radical agenda.
With the courts declaring their redistricting efforts unconstitutional, it is the constitutional system itself that will now have to go.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
I am winning time and energy by not arguing! I am the champion!
You can find cans of Turley Slop in the soup aisle of your local grocery store, next to the botulism chowder.
Do you have an argument ?
The only way to win the arguing game is not to play, so I am always the winner.
I sympathize with the agony of your defeat, loser.
The only winning move is not to play. You save lots of time and energy. What has all of this arguing ever won for anyone?
To make such an inane comment, the good professor is clearly winning.
How often do you physically enforce your own views and opinions?
Never.
I am just making an observation to such an inane comment.
You’re just jealous because you didn’t think of this first.
Don’t trolls ever take a day off?
Don’ you ever take a day off ???
You are just one of the band of tired old geriatric regulars that comment here all day, every day.
Just like Pavlov’s dogs, when Turley rings the bell with his stupid articles, the same tired old geriatric regulars here come running with exactly the same tired old comments that they make every day, and then congratulate each other on their great “well said” comments in a veritable lovefest of self-gratification.
Well said!
Ohhh!! Poor, poor annony! PT points out the stupid and crazy of the illiberal Democrats, which any sane and normal person would, like traditional Democrats and annony has to cry. He then tries to attack us for calling out the stupid and crazy illiberal Democrats do or say by claiming we are nothing but a “band of tired old geriatric regulars that comment here all day, every day.” Never mind the fact he, a Gen Z failure to launch, is also here all day, every day, making inane comments that add nothing to the conversation.
When you multiply zero times a billion, it is still zero!
The pot calling the kettle black
Mr Bug – At least the geriatric commentators do not immediately approve their own comments, which is a characteric of your modus operandi.
Most of the pro-Trump, pro-Turley commenters are working from a Moscow suburban office to destabilize America.
May you eat the chowder and never post again!!
..the coup de grâce in the Virginia ‘Debacle’ is that the same Democrat dazzling legal minds who purposefully violated the Virginia Constitution to hold a ‘special election’ with deceptive Ballot Language to trick the Voters into voting for their Deceit, went on to file a Motion with SCOTUS that had glaring spelling errors, including the most important word ‘Virginia…’
Misspelled Virginia? The mind boggles.
eighteenthhole,
I was just reading about that! Virginia Dems Make Glaring Errors In Rushed Court Motion To Save $64,000,000 Gerrymandering Scheme
“The joint motion’s first page misspells “Virginia” in the section identifying the plantiff and, just below it, misspells “senator” when identifying the defendants.”
https://dailycaller.com/2026/05/09/virginia-democrats-make-glaring-spelling-errors-supreme-court-motion-save-gerrymandering/?utm_source=referral&utm_medium=offthepress&utm_campaign=home
The “plantiff”
It’s ironic for Upstate to comment on spelling errors.
I bet the Democrats wouldn’t be so excited to pack the Supreme Court if President Trump and the GOP suggested doing it. They should. They could add 2 seats now and say the next President could add an additional two to make it a total of 13.
Trump and the republicans should beat them to the punch…and pack the court with conservative texualists judges.
I’m not for packing the court…but I might be persuaded to adjust positions just to watch their reaction (especially Carvilles)
What do you mean by “beat them to the punch”? How is that possible? If Trump adds 4, that just means they’ll add 8 when they get the chance, or 10 or 12.
There aren’t any “conservative texualists judges.” There are, however, judges who will cherry pick small fragments of cases to build a Frankenstein’s monster of an opinion to support a Republican activist position. I can hardly wait for them to declare that all but the original amendments are unconstitutional and claim it’s because the Founders didn’t add them.
The Commonwealth of Virginia is currently run by Democrats. Before the election they petitioned the VA Supreme Court NOT to review the constitutionality of the proposed amendment. The VA SC majority opinion makes that known. Thus Democrats are lying once again when they now claim the VASC should have ruled on the amendment before the election.
It is fair to ask whether we could have or should have reviewed the constitutionality of
the proposed amendment prior to it being presented to the voters. But it is not a question the
Commonwealth should ask. Throughout this litigation, the Commonwealth has insisted that we
cannot lawfully decide this case prior to the referendum. In its motion for a stay in this case, the
Commonwealth argued that longstanding Virginia precedent, Scott v. James, was “virtually
indistinguishable” from this case and that it clearly held that “courts cannot interfere to stop any
of the proceedings while this permanent law is in the process of being made,” and “[o]nly ‘upon
the completion of the proceedings, [if] the validity of the amendment is assailed[] on the ground
that the several provisions of the Constitution have not been complied with, then the courts can
pass upon the validity of the amendment.’” Emergency Mot. to Stay at 11-12 (emphases and
alterations in original) (quoting Scott, 114 Va. at 304).12 The Commonwealth concluded that
“[t]he lesson is clear: Courts may not preemptively invalidate a proposed constitutional
amendment before it has been passed by the voters.” Id. at 12 (citing Scott, 114 Va. at 304); see
also id. at 14-15 (“Scott makes clear that the ‘process’ of amending the Constitution is not
complete until the voters approve or reject the amendment.” (emphasis in original) (quoting
Scott, 114 Va. at 304)).
p. 7
—
Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia mandates a detailed process
governing the lawful adoption of constitutional amendments. These procedural requirements
may seem laborious to some, perhaps even painstakingly so. The ambition of a constitution,
James Madison said, is to create “a Government for perpetuity” grounded by “permanent
principles and not on those of a temporary nature.” Debates of the Virginia Convention (June.
12, 1788) (remarks of James Madison), reprinted in 10 The Documentary History of the
Ratification of the Constitution 1184, 1206 (John P. Kaminski & Gaspare J. Saladino eds., 1993).
For this reason, amending the Constitution “necessitate[s] compliance with the requirements of a
deliberately lengthy, precise, and balanced procedure.” Coleman v. Pross, 219 Va. 143, 153
(1978). “[S]trict compliance with these mandatory provisions is required in order that all
proposed constitutional amendments shall receive the deliberate consideration and careful
scrutiny that they deserve.” Id. at 154.
p. 12
https://www.vacourts.gov/static/opinions/opnscvwp/1260127.pdf
The Republicans could have ignored that and brought a request for injunction. Clearly Republican leadership, likely the Federalist Society, conspired with the court to not ignore the Democrats and not review the case before the election, the way they instead ignored the will of the People after it.
Iran is yanking the old man’s chain. Jack Keane warned that Iran will divert to buy time to rearm. You got it. I knew that. Trumples, Wake Up, Boy!
The Bee is reporting that Mark Hamill shrank in horror as Trump revealed to him, “I am your father.”
https://babylonbee.com/news/i-am-your-father-reveals-trump-to-horrified-mark-hamill
In other, more topical news, it is now reported that in response to the Virginia Supreme Court’s decision, Virginia is considering a new law simply making it illegal for Republicans to vote.
https://babylonbee.com/news/virginia-considering-new-measure-that-just-makes-it-illegal-for-republicans-to-vote
“The Bee is reporting that Mark Hamill shrank in horror as Trump revealed to him, “I am your father.”
I will not stop laughing.
Don’t give them ideas. The VA legislature can’t actually make a law barring Republicans from voting. But it can make a law ending presidential elections in Virginia, and instead providing that the state’s electors shall be appointed by the Democratic National Committee. That would be perfectly constitutional, at least as far as the US constitution goes, and Congress could not interfere.
“it can make a law ending presidential elections in Virginia, and instead providing that the state’s electors shall be appointed by the Democratic National Committee. That would be perfectly constitutional, at least as far as the US constitution goes, and Congress could not interfere.”
That would also risk becoming the last straw in starting an actual revolution in several deep red (and very well armed) counties in Western Virginia. Talk about FAFO…
And Trump would be obliged to call out the army to put down the insurrection. The constitution would require it.
I look forward to Trump sending the US Military to kill millions of voters. Perhaps we can get a Rawanda situation going in America, but with nearer 50/50 instead of the 90/10 that Rawanda saw. The massive loss of life on both sides would bring a smile to my face. The best part is when preppers realize that having hundreds of guns and years of food saved up make them targets where hundreds of people armed with high-powered rifles come to plunder their hoard. \
Trump would be known as the President who killed America on its 250th birthday.
In Star Wars, the way that goes on, we would expect Trump to turn against the billionaires and destroy the oligarchs.
That would be extremely funny.
For the sake of my mental health I could only read part of today’s serving of Turley slop. Let’s begin with the simple premise— DEMOCRATS ARE NOT the ones in Virginia who wanted gerrymandering— the VOTERS of the Commonwealth wanted it and chose it in a free and fair election. AND the reason they chose it was in response to Texas obeying Trump’s command to get him more districts so Republicans can cheat the American people out of the power to kick them out of office, which is what all the polls show is the will of the people.
In Texas and the other red states, Republicans can’t risk letting the voters decide—-because they KNOW they will lose. So, the Legislature simply votes to eliminate all districts with black, brown and Democratic voters. That is undemocratic, but Republicans know they can’t win without cheating. Turley should be ashamed to write crap like this.
Typical Gigi lunacy. If Dems do it, it’s democracy. If Republicans do it, it’s denying the voters a choice.
Do you realize how mentally ill you sound. Make that, how mentally ill you *are*?
You mean Gigi slop. She leaves out:
– Massachusetts: 36% GOP, 0 seats
– Connecticut: 42% GOP, 0 seats
– Maine: 46% GOP, 0 seats
– New Mexico: 46% GOP, 0 seats
– New Hampshire: 48% GOP, 0 seats
– Rhode Island: 42% GOP, 0 seats
– Vermont: 32% GOP, 0 seats
– Hawaii: 38% GOP, 0 seats
– Delaware: 42% GOP, 0 seats
So there are nine states averaging approximately 40% Republicans, with zero House seats among all nine states. But no, gerrymanding had nothing to do with any of that. The Dems who control those states don’t deny Republicans an undiluted vote at all, no, no.
Welcome to Gigi’s house of smoke and mirrors.
As is MAGA usual, you cite NO source for what you claim are facts.
That’s about the stupidest reply anyone could come up with. This is public information, you moron.
Here you go, moron. Next you’ll be asking for a link to prove the sun rises in the east.
https://x.com/Shawn_Farash/status/2052496709859549543
There is nothing posted “X” that is a reliable source.
So liar hypocrite I see NO cited source by you for your claim of fact!
Of Connecticut:
After the re-apportionment following the 2000 census, Connecticut lost one representative, reducing the state’s delegation from six to five. The redistricting process was shared between the Republican governor at the time, John G. Rowland, and the Democratic-controlled General Assembly. Before the census, the state’s House delegation was split evenly between Republicans and Democrats, and the solution finally agreed upon by the redistricting committee would ensure an even match-up between incumbents, the 6th district’s Nancy L. Johnson, a Republican, and the 5th district’s James H. Maloney, a Democrat. In the 2002 elections, Johnson defeated Maloney by a surprisingly large margin in the new 5th district.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut%27s_congressional_districts
What is surprising is that the districts haven’t changed in notable ways since 2002, but the voters in those districts decided to stop electing Republicans.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut%27s_congressional_districts#Historical_results
You want to talk about mental illness—- everything I wrote is FACTUALLY TRUE and verifiable by checking reliable sources. Your only response is to accuse me of mental illness. You MAGAS are the ones who are mentally ill, falling for Trump’s endless lies, soaking up MAGA propaganda and denying reality. Our country is in crisis now— our economy is suffering from the effects of Trump and his utter incompetence, the war he started and is losing, Here is a dose of reality:
-Trump is a massive failure pretending to be qualified to be president. Polls consistently show him slipping as time goes on. Fully 2/3 of Americans disapprove of him and his performance, the war he started and lies about, his handling of the economy, of immigration, and his abuse of the legal system to seek revenge against his perceived enemies.
-polls show that MAGA Republicans are massively unpopular among Americans. We can’t wait to vote them out.
– Trump is fully implementing Project 2025, which includes gerrymandering away blue districts to prevent the Republican bloodbath predicted by the polls and to be able to “win” elections even when they lose the popular vote.
– you and Turley are distorting the facts by claiming that Democrats “gerrymandered”Virginia. Voters of the Commonwealth are the ones who decided to redistrict. And the reason they chose to do so is in reaction to Texas obeying Trump’s order to create more Republican seats to deny the American people the right to throw out Republicans. Allowing the people the right to choose is called “democracy”.
– in Texas and other red states, the Legislature moved immediately after the Trump SCOTUS gutted the Voting Rights Act to unilaterally carve up black and minority districts, on the command of Trump. That’s called “autocracy”, which is the opposite of democracy. Voters had NO say in these red states. And that’s all the difference and what makes America truly great. Republicans can’t risk letting voters decide because they know they will lose.
– that reason America is in this crisis of democracy is because of the Federalist Society- vetted judges put onto the Supreme Court. If things were fair and honest, they wouldn’t be there. Obama was denied a SCOTUS pick when Scalia died. That’s how we got Gorsuch. Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett were chosen by the Federalist Society because they espoused a view that Roe v. Wade could be overturned. They were each extensively questioned about the preclusive effect of stare decisis and each testified that Roe was settled law. Then, they overturned it. In other words, they lied to get onto the court.
– A simple and inconvenient truth is that Republicans have to undermine democracy in order to maintain power. And they don’t care what the American people want. They HAVE to deny the people free and fair elections in order to stay in power because they, their president and policies are such failures. They will go to literally any lengths.
Replies of this length (TLDR) are the online equivalent of crazy liberal qomen with the whites of their eyes showing all around their irises. That dems think they can pull a stunt like this in purple Virginia without repercussions shows how derached they are.
Crying about a Supreme Court decision while secretly planning to pack SCOTUS underscores this.
How, exactly, did “Dems pull a stunt” when it was the voters who decided to do redistricting? Virginia voters included Republicans and Independents. Republicans spent a fortune in attack ads trying to defeat the measure, but it passed, only to get struck down in a 3 to 4 vote on a technicality.
It was the Republicans in Texas who started this redistricting war— on the command of King Donald. And the reason is because he KNOWS he can’t win without cheating and rigging the vote. Republicans have failed to do their job and voters are fed up with them too.
Look at the deepest blue states to see where this started. All 21 seats in New England are democrat, but the popular vote shows a strong enough republican percentage that at least 4-5 should be competitive or a few seats for the R’s. California has 42 of 52 seats on the D side, but only a 45%-25% advantage in registered voters. Illinois breaks 54-45 democrat, but 14 of 17 seats are D. New York is a little better, but D policies are driving an exodus of the tax base. By threatening to make every seat blue, they are disenfranchising a significant portion of their population. California has 4 or 5 illegitimate seats due to counting illegal residents. Tell me again how the Republicans in Texas started this…
More MAGA unverified lies. What is the proof that California is counting non citizens? There are Republicans in California— if what you say is true, don’t you think they would be able to prove it and seek a remedy?
Just like Trump who lies when something doesn’t go his way and then doubles down when an investigation proves he is lying—it is a MAGA lie that non citizens are voting or being counted in elections. That’s because your exalted leader can’t accept the truth that he is wildly unpopular— the only possible explanation must be cheating. The alternative is impossible for a malignant narcissist. He can never be wrong or fail on the merits. Since he lacks anything resembling a conscience, the lies come fast and easy. Any lie that protects that ego is necessary.
Trump’s mental illness requires that he “prove” he “won” in 2020, so he’s wasting government resources to try to create a “truth” that doesn’t exist. Since he has already doubled down on this lie, (suggested by disgraced former attorney Rudy Giuliani who lost his law license for lying on Trump’s behalf), the J6 insurrectionists have not only been pardoned, they are going to receive compensation for their “wrongful” prosecution—even those who pleaded guilty and those who were found guilty by a jury. Anything less would disprove Trump’s victimization. So beating up police officers and trashing the Capitol to try to prevent Biden from taking office after winning a free and fair election is OK if it’s done in the name of King Donald.
Stupid Susie Wiles already said that the ballots Gabbard seized in Fulton County Georgia will “prove” Trump “won”. Those ballots have been recounted multiple times, under the direct supervision of both Republicans and Democrats, and still show he lost. How many of you MAGAS will believe the grand announcement that Trump has discovered that he really won? Susie says it’s coming.
All of which brings us to the midterms. Trump would be likely to lose even if he hadn’t started a war after campaigning on “no new wars”, if gas and grocery prices weren’t soaring, if he wasn’t implementing Project 2025 after lying about it being his agenda and if he hadn’t alienated our allies and ICE thugs hadn’t murdered US citizens in Milwaukee. He HAS to do everything possible to try to rig the midterms , which is why he started the gerrymandering war that Turley is trying to blame on the Democrats.
And you call those of us who oppose this loser “mentally ill”.
The problem for Republicans in New England is they haven’t created contiguous enclaves where they can be in separate districts. This is unlike the use of redlining and racist limitations which left concentrated areas of segregated African Americans where such districts are relatively easy to create.
Started in Texas! LOL. Then explain the nine 40% Republican states with 0 (ZERO) Republican representatives prior to the Texas gerrymander! I’ll wait fabricator!
“explain the nine 40% Republican states with 0 (ZERO) Republican representatives”
The Republicans are not segregated – there is no way to build districts that don’t go house by house to select Republican voters.
By ANTHONY IZAGUIRRE
Updated 3:52 PM PDT, February 28, 2024
Comments
ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed a new Democrat-drawn congressional map on Wednesday that gives the party a modest boost in a few battleground districts, helping their candidates in a heavily contested election year when House races in the state could determine control of Congress.
HEY GIGI 2024 NY!! I had already posted this to you but it slipped your TDS filled mind!!!
Mush.
This rhetoric is demonstrably wrong, but too much trivialized talking points which are easily rebutted, but would be ignored.
You provide no reliable sources. Just far leftist Democrat talking points, aka, lies.
Meanwhile, you Democrats are making threats of violence in the streets via Jeffries, Waters, Carville, calling for packing the court, and to ensure no one but Democrats win elections again.
The good professor has pointed that out time and time again.
Remember when Republicans attacked the election process by climbing the walls and staving in windows and beating cops in the head with fire extinguishers because they were lied to by Trump and don’t trust their own representatives?
The Republican redistricting didn’t go to a vote of the people.
Nice try. Illinois started this gerrymandering mess; not Texas. California gerrymandered before Virginia.
It is not a one-way street. It shouldn’t happen, but it already did.
What a load of nonsense.
The Texas legislature decided to redistrict, as is its right under the Texas constitution. Trump had nothing to do with it; of course he was happy with their decision, but he can’t give them orders and didn’t try.
In Virginia and California the situation was very different because their constitutions forbid gerrymandering. So California amended its constitution to allow it, and then did it. Very well. Virginia, however, had no time to amend its constitution before the 2026 election, at least if the constitution were understood as it generally had been.
So the Democrats (yes, the Democrats) came up with a very risky idea; they adopted a legal theory that would allow them to rush through an amendment and put it to the voters quickly, and then let the courts decide afterwards whether it was valid. They gambled that if the voters approved the amendment the courts would endorse their theory. It was a nice try, and might have succeeded, but it failed. The voters did approve the amendment, but the court found that the Democrats’ theory was incorrect. The entire process was invalid, so the constitution was not amended.
The fact that the voters approved the amendment is irrelevant. Virginia voters have NO RIGHT to approve a constitutional amendment until is properly put before them by the legislature, having passed it, then let an election go by, then passed it again, then let 90 more days go by, and then pose a question that honestly presents what the amendment would do. Without that the constitution cannot be amended no matter HOW many voters want it to be, just as the US constitution can’t be amended without a lengthy procedure in which the voters themselves play no part.
Milhouse,
Great comment and thank you for bringing facts to the table.
LOL no. Texas redistricted by court order, and NY started the entire thing. VA Democrats indeed pushed the issue, raised and spent 64 million to do it, against their own Constitution, then had the gall to word it as they did on the ballot.
Now they want to retroactively remove the VSC and have a re-do.
“DeMoCrAcY!”
OT, but free-speech related:
An elderly preacher named Clive Johntson has now been convicted of a criminal offense in Northern Ireland for preaching on John 3:16 – For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believes in him shall have eternal life.
Why would that be a criminal offense? Because the preaching happened to take place not too far from a hospital that provides abortions. I guess preaching on John 3:16 – in a sermon that has absolutely nothing to do with abortion, pro-life, or pro-choice – now constitutes “harassing” abortion-minded women in the U.K., or some such garbage. The U.K. has fallen.
https://www.christian.org.uk/case/clive-johnston/
“My Body My Choice”
And here are some bonus scientific facts that prove it’s not just an organ or part of the mother.
During its early stages of development, the placenta of the unborn child secretes neurokinin B-containing phosphocoline molecules, which protects the child from detection by its mother’s immune system, because it can be interpreted as a foreign body and is subject to attack. This is because the fetus is of non-identical genetic material to the mother due to their different DNA.
Also present in the unborn child are lymphocytic suppressor cells which stop interleukin 2 (IL2) cells from signalling cytotoxic T cells to kill the child. The purpose of IL2 cells is to distinguish between self and non-self (parts of the mother and foreign parts). The lymphocytic cells would not need to inhibit the response of the cytotoxic T cells if the IL2 did not signal the feuts as a foreign body. This would not occur if it was one of her own organs because the response would not be initiated.
An organ does not have its own organs. The fetal heartbeat begins at around 22 days after fertilisation as I said earlier, and brain waves are detected at about six weeks, which means the unborn child has a heart and a brain. At seven weeks, all other organs are present, although not fully developed, which would mean not only did the mother have an organ with different DNA to her, but this organ also has its own organ systems, and so the mother has an extra heart, brain, stomach, liver, etc.
– Emma Greenland-Broadsmith
Yes, women are like little boats carrying passengers across the river Styx.
Omfk, as a simple question , what do you think the penalty for rape should be? Include, separately, 2 unmarried people and the female is pregnant after a date. The punishment for the male for having no license to engage in known risky behavior is nothing?
There is zero data regarding males involved in abortion stats. 80% of the females are unmarried, ages 17-40.
Oh baby I love you? I’ll call you later? Have another shot of whiskey?
What’s the answer to lust or the coercion by the biological imperative, tyranny of an age group?
Just wondering about the males.
^ Unintelligible gibberish ^
Not at all. 80% of females seeking abortions are unmarried , ages 17-40. Other stats regarding these females available.
Nothing about the males as stats are provided. Not a name, age, married or single, socioecon– nothing. Who are these men? Punish them.
No one presents an option to the females of birth and custody to the impregnator. Why not? She can’t care for the child, adoption? Custody goes to the male after birth. Why isn’t that a mandatory option?
He might frame the charge and place it in a prominent place.
“Because the preaching happened to take place not too far from a hospital that provides abortions.”
I must ask, how far is “not too far”? Because if the answer is that he was standing in the entrance and blocking people from coming in, then his arrest and conviction were justified, and the same would have happened in the USA. In the USA, where we have the freedom of speech, protesters against a facility must stand far enough away that people are free to enter and leave, but they must be allowed close enough that those people can hear their message.
He wasn’t blocking the entrance. He was across the street on a patch of grass. He wasn’t impeding anyone from entering or exiting the hospital.
If he was across the street then in the USA it would be unconstitutional to arrest him for it. But of course the UK has no freedom of speech.
But of course the UK has no freedom of speech.
True, and that’s a shame. The nation that gave the world Magna Carta has fallen into tyranny.
Ask yourself, why would democrats be pro-racial gerrymandering?
“He suggested, however, that they might not want to tell the voters”
maybe it’s another one of those things the democrats don’t want to tell you.
Democrats are a dead party. Democratic is the new name. Fyi.
Use math as was intended in compact to specifically fight gerrymandering. People are cheaters. People are dishonest of ill will. It’s the reason there are laws.
Democratics will lose 2026. First order of business a law forbidding gerrymandering for any reason. Use mathematics. Maybe STEPHEN HAWKING can help.
Is there any possibility that a lawsuit could be brought styled Commonwealth ex rel Youngkin v. Spanberger — perhaps for waste of state funds in the unconstitutional attempt to redistrict Virginia? If so, please pass on the idea.
Hurd Baruch, Esq.
Democrats have declared civil war. Buy more ammo.
Repudiating the principle of Peaceful transition of power is tantamount to war.
What’s this if not a declaration of civil war: “We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America?”
Isn’t that what Hitler said to Poland to commence World War Eleven?
😂
Yep
Here is the context for the quote from Obama. https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-columbia-missouri-0
Yes
@Stan
I dunno. I think the radicals have, but they are nothing without their funding or directives, and you may have noticed they mainly only cause trouble in cities or states where they know DAs will not prosecute them. I personally think the more states shift away from the modern left, and it would appear we mostly agree about that – it would be ineffectual. I do not deny it’s concerning, but time will tell, and I think a lot of it is bluster, myself.
I can tell you this: if that is how they want things to go down, they will regret it. Look to Iran for the breakdown. It would not last long in 2026 in a country where citizens would be supplemental, and we would be.
And honestly: I think they realize that, if not the useful idiots, then at least those pulling the strings. They are, in their speech and their politics, just that scummy. But for the young and stupid (who would quickly be put down) they’d attack the courts and Constitution before they attacked anything or anyone else. The modern left, particularly the likes of AOC, are pampered people used to getting their way, having temper tantrums, not people who have been oppressed for generations who have finally had enough. Dem leadership are really only a footstep behind.
There is no room for a new aristocracy, and they are witnessing that in real time. It terrifies them.
Agreed—-yes Spanberger has now shown her true stripes and has done precisely what she promised not to do, and this is just the start of perfidy! From 2A issues on, she and the democrats in this state have insured that our state will be at war with itself over constitutional issues for years. Also, we had a fiscally sane and sound government for the past 4 years; Youngkin left Spanberger a surplus. Now it seems that if the 50 or so bills put forth by the D’s, are in fact signed by Spanberger, that will be gone as well.
Isn’t it ironic that VA democrats spent millions of dollars to prevent a marvelously experienced, immigrant, Republican black woman the governorship only to elect the pastiest, remarkably inexperienced AWFL imaginable?
The failed $1.5 trillion “War on Drugs” which gutted 4th Amendment restraints and created MORE drugs helped create our 21st Century of lawless governing.
Had we legalized, it would have greatly benefitted the economy, lowered taxes and reduced drug abuse.
Most harmful it destroyed the 4th Amendment and was then severely abused by the George W. Bush Administrations “War on a Tactic” in 2001.
Bush’s response to 9/11 harmed more than 40,000 Americans with no ties to any terrorism. Many with no criminal record and no evidence of criminality.
Solution: restore the 4th Amendment and other constitutional restraints on lawless officials. Let’s start there!
It’s really hypocritical for most Republican leaders to be complaining about law breaking and disloyalty to their Oath of Office. Conservatives created this lawless environment.
“Had we legalized [drugs], it would have greatly benefitted the economy, lowered taxes and reduced drug abuse.”
Your inability to think critically is exactly why we didn’t legalize drugs.
Didnt Oregon try to decriminalize drugs and the situation got even worse to the point they reversed the law?
Details, details, details. Don’t expect facts to be used in leftist arguments. And reasoning, forget about it….
All children must trans! Abort all babies!
UF – no the situation did not actually get worse.
Yes they did reverse the law.
Legalizing drugs does not significantly (if at all) increase drug abuse – but it does bring it out from back alleys on to main street.
Oregonians voted to drive drugs back into the alleys.
I would further note that all criminal laws come at a very large cost.
moving Drug abuse back into the shadows in OR will come at the expense of civil rights and of higher cost law enforcement.
It is important for those advocating for drug law reform to be clear – legalizing drugs does NOT make drug problems go away. It makes crime problems go down. That is worthy goal – but it will result in drug addicts back in the public eye.
How much will you pay in taxes to hide an eyesore – not fix it, just shove it into a closet ?
OT, JS, you seem intelligent and liberal. What was the purpose of opening borders and increasing the population by millions? Did the increased noncitizen population have any impact upon elections, voting, the process in states and nationally?
I seriously don’t know. Thanks in advance.
Anon
@Upstate
Yes, they did. They also tried universal basic income, and had to retract that hastily because it simply did not work (no pun intended). The Biden years were a catastrophe, an object lesson, and a warning, all wrapped into one.
There is nothing about radical progressive ideology, and I sure wish they’d just admit they are communists, that makes any sense in the actual light of day. These are the people that are gobsmacked when their credit cards stop working, and I wish it were a joke. It isn’t. These folks are uniquely unprepared for a world of actual equality, where they actually have to contribute something, however small, and again, it terrifies them. To the core.
Are drugs illegal? Wait! Let me ask the guy on the corner—every corner in every town. Are illegal immigration and illegal presence illegal? Are illegal “learing centers” illegal? Was Roe v. Wade illegal? Are affirmative action and racial redistricting illegal? Are forced busing and forced integration illegal? Are Social Security and Medicare illegal? The whole ——ing place is illegal and unconstitutional.
EF
While I mostly agree with you – until recently both parties have been falling over each other to prove they were tougher on drugs and on terrorism.
As far back as the 60’s Democrats were instrumental in passing bad drug laws.
Through the 70’s until the recent present Democrats have striven mightyly to portray a tough on crime attitude
The most heinous drug laws we have were demanded by democrats – the black caucus in congress and none other than Joe Biden.
The Patriot act and the war on Terror were bipartisan – until they weren’t – only libertarians have consistently opposed them.
Absolutely we need the 4th amendment back.
But that will not happen until BOTH parties agree.
Bush’s conduct with respect to the war on terror is egregious – but despite campaign rhetoric – Obama was actually worse.
Trump has been the least sucked into this nonsense – but that does NOT make him on the right side of issues – just the least bad.
Hypocracy abounds – few in Washington are not drowning in it
And WE elected them.
More recently democrats have shifted from “tough on crime” to fawning over criminals.
While there are real criminal justice reforms that are possible that would both make people safer reduce crime and dispense justice more fairly – these are nearly all – in addition to not iin leiu of traditional law enforcement.
They are also mostly expensive – they are luxuries. We can and should afford them.
But it is lying to say that they will not be expensive or that they will be more than ON NET an improvement.
Our best approaches WILL result in people released from prison committing heinous crimes.
But LESS that the alternatives. Reducing recidivism from 70% to 50% is a major improvement – it still means 50% of those released re-offend.
But RECENT democrats have shifted from trying to prove they are tougher on crime than republicans to pretendng that criminals are just misunderstood and that police are the bad guys.
There are bad police and we have bad policies that make that worse, but law enforcement is necescary and will never be done perfectly. Work to improve it fine. But pretend that you can eliminate it and substitute something else is nuts.
Worse still democrats have polarized the people – and that means none of the reform that is possible and would be an improvement is likely to happen.
democrats have given republicans a powerful political weapon with crime – and they are going to use it.
I have little hope for meaningful criminal justice reform that actually reduces crime and makes us safer and reduces our prison populations anytime soon. The failure of left wing nut stupid policies has left a bad taste in peoples mouths that makes good policies impossible to move forward. That is not the fault of the right.
Pretty universally the party that pushes policies that make things worse deserves the blame – regardless of the position of the other party.
Republicans are far from perfect – but actual GOOD compromise on myriads of issues – criminal justice, government spying on people, immigration – WERE possible, before the left decided tnot to compromise but to do what it wanted by any means necescary legal constitutional or not.
That played into republican hands, but more importantly – it soured the majority of the people.
Comments and replies….Not War and Peace.
You are not important or engaging enough to read all that.
While I strongly favor fully legalizing drugs.
There is little to no evidence that doing so reduces drug abuse.
What it does is reduce crime.
“What it does is reduce crime.”
You don’t know that and neither do I. We do not know what will happen downstream when we produce zombies that are users and not workers. Check out Oregon. What happens to these zombies and their futures. Where does it lead them. We do not have enough criminal data on this.
Secondly, the arrest data does go down, but that is a meaningless number when one is looking at societal benefit. Arrests for possession fall reducing the number of arrests because it is no longer illegal, but the crimes due to drug activity continue. The addicts still need to feed their drug addiction.
This is nonsense and needs to be seriously considered, because drugs cause significant deterioration of our society.
I’m no fan of George W, but surely you’re last paragraph is not serious ?!
“OUR DEMOCRACY”
“Dictatorship of the Majority” “Dictatorship of the Poor” “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” “Dictatorship of the Parasites”
How in the world did America go from “a [restricted-vote] republic, if you can keep it” to “our [one-man, one-vote] democracy” — a term increasingly used to justify majoritarian rule resembling what Karl Marx called the “dictatorship of the proletariat” — when democracy itself originated in ancient Greece in 508 B.C. and allowed only a limited class of vested citizens, roughly 20% of the population, to vote?
______________________________________________________
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury.”
– Alexis de Tocqueville (but see Tytler/Prentis)
___________________________________________________
Was the intent of the American Founders to create wealth only to have it sinfully coveted and stolen?
Who exactly were “Ourselves and Our Posterity” to whom the blessings of liberty were to be secured?
And how did those whom the Founders did not admit to the United States as citizens come to regard themselves as its owners?
I have said it for about 4 years. The Democrats no longer believe in our constitutional system of government.
I’ve been saying it for 166 years.
My man! Exactly! Secession was prohibited because secession was not prohibited. Stinkin’ Lincoln didn’t like the constitutional legislation by the duly elected representative-government Congress that caused slavery to be legal, so he sent his thugs out to kill everybody. All he had to do was pass legislation, but no! Being outvoted in Congress was pure hell for “Crazy Abe.”
Democrats haven’t even read our Constitution. Too busy reading their little red books.
“AOC claims American Revolution was fight against ‘billionaires’ as critics school her on actual history”
Idiot AOC certainly hasn’t read the Declaration of Independance where we laid out our grievances quite clearly.
Spanberger? Spookberger, more like it. Winsome Sears made her look like a complete and total buffoon during the debate, but ‘somehow’ she managed to win. “Abigail…? Abigail…?” …Bueller? …Bueller? I’m sure she has the best interests of Virginians (and the nation) up front and center. (eye roll)
“It’s the [dictatorship of the majority], stupid!”
– James Carville
___________________
The “dictatorship of the majority” is the one-man, one-vote dictatorship of the poor and the doltish, aka the dictatorship of the proletariat per Karl Marx.
By comparison, the Founders restricted the vote to a turnout of 11.6% per voter qualifications such as being male, European, and 21 with 50 lbs. Sterling/50 acres.
The Founders made voting administration a state power. Some states had limited offices by religious faith. The Religious Test Clause, to prevent this, l was added well before the Bill of Rights. Universal voting is no communist plot. It grew out opposing slavery. Sorry about that to all Jim Crow advocates.
How about a column on how the GOP in Ohio and Florida flagrantly violate their state constitutions with their gerrymanders.
If that’s true then a plaintiff will have an easy time getting those maps invalidated, so you have nothing to worry about.
Are OH, or FL state constitutions similar to VA?
They don’t. The OH and FL maps are fully consistent with their respective constitutions, and not gerrymandered.
What FL just did was get rid of the court-imposed racial gerrymander, which we now know was illegal, and return to the rational non-partisan boundaries that it would have adopted in 2021 had the courts allowed it to.
As we all know most of the state is Republican, and there are only four areas where the majority of the voters are Democrat. The courts, however, illegally ordered Florida to artificially draw four extra districts with black majorities, just because it was possible to do so. Now that we know that order was illegal the legislature has reversed it. That’s all.
A partisan gerrymander might have reduced the Democrats to 2 seats, or even fewer.
How about a column on how Ohio and Florida flagrantly violate their state constitutions with their gerrymanders?
How about we gerrymander the democrats out of existence instead?
Say goodbye to your undeserved representation!
Democrats can’t exist without cheating.
They don’t.
The lawless 21st Century! Miss the old 20th Century checks & balances on both parties!
You arent old enough to remember anything from the 20th Century. STFU and get out of your mother’s basement