Editors’ Blog

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and the rest of the bipartisan group of senators working on the passage of a same-sex marriage bill announced today that they’re going to table their efforts until after the election. Baldwin in a statement noted that she’s confident the group will get enough Republicans on board post-midterms for the bill to pass the Senate.

From TPM Reader PP …

I just wanted to add a slightly different perspective to how women feel post-Dobbs and one reason for their anger.  I am a lesbian.  I have never been pregnant, I have never wanted to become pregnant.  I can have all the casual sex I want without being in danger of getting pregnant, so abortion doesn’t matter to me personally except … I can still be raped and end up pregnant as a result. 

A new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast is live! This week, Josh and Kate discuss Lindsey Graham’s new national abortion ban and whether or not Democrats can trust the polls.

You can listen to the new episode of The Josh Marshall Podcast here.

It’s a given that this new GOP governor (with presidential ambitions) tactic of shipping migrants and asylum-seekers to symbolic “liberal” parts of the country as a sort of “own-the-libs” performance art is gross, degrading and the kind of thing that awful people do. That’s a given. But I’m very curious about this latest stunt by Ron DeSantis. First of all, Martha’s Vineyard? Again, it’s using these scared and generally helpless people as a stunt guffaw. But is this legal? In some cases migrants might be perfectly happy to be transported from Texas to New York. Maybe they have relatives there. Maybe the social climate seems more inviting. Who knows? But there’s news coming out today that these people shipped to Martha’s Vineyard were told they were being sent to Boston to get special job permits.

From TPM Reader JS …

As a native Kansan, my astonishment began with the media reaction day after KS primary where the mostly ladies in KS “surprised” many and even “shocked” others. Really? No polls but we knew registrations by mostly younger women spiked day after Dobbs and continued upward until the election. In one KS county, Douglas, home of KU and fondly labeled “one of the most liberal counties in the US”, the vote was roughly 80% no to 20% yes. My native county, rural, strongly Republican, Catholic, the vote was far closer than recent elections.

TPM Reader GX (not her initials) on the current Dobbs moment

I’ve listened with interest to your discussion of Dobbs and the political fallout, and I wanted to add my perspective. I’m a middle-aged lady, late Gen X, professional, no kids. 

One of the biggest generational difference I’ve noticed – comparing my group of female friends and women in their late teens/early twenties is how younger women don’t have the internalized shame around sex and female bodies that many in my generation carry. This really came into focus for me with this: Women allege sexual misconduct by Burger Records musicians – Los Angeles Times (latimes.com)

Kate Riga and I spent most of today’s episode of the podcast marveling at what on earth Lindsey Graham was thinking or smoking when he decided to push abortion even further to the center of the national campaign dialog. Nicole Lafond discusses the issue below, with Mike Pence getting on board with Graham’s proposal. What really surprises me though is Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Ted Bud who’s running for a Senate seat in North Carolina.

While vowing his undying allegiance to the “pro-life” movement, Turning Point USA founder and far-right provocateur Charlie Kirk could barely contain his ire with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) this week as he sweatily yelled at the senator for his abortion ban legislation. Kirk described the introduction of a bill that would ban abortion federally at 15-weeks just weeks out from the midterms as synonymous with “election interference.”

With the morning we have a bit more clarity on the national abortion ban Lindsey Graham announced last night and says he will be introducing today in the Senate. It appears to be a national ban on abortions past 15 weeks, with as yet unspecified exceptions. It’s still possible that the number will be 20 weeks. We’ll have to see that detail. This NBC News piece explains the strategy, which is more or less what we thought: an updated version of the GOP playbook over the last couple decades which is to move the debate from absolute bans, where their position is overwhelmingly unpopular, to “late term” abortions where a broad swathe of the public gets more squeamish and uncertain.

I’m still trying to understand the precise details of this. But Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) just announced that he will introduce a national abortion ban bill in the Senate tomorrow. The news just surfaced a short time ago. And I’m still seeing conflicting reports as to whether his bill is a ban at 15 weeks or 20 weeks. The first report was from TPM alum Alice Ollstein.