Reading List: December 15, 2016

`Thursday y’all.

Hamilton Elector hero John Kasich signed a 20 week abortion ban, showing just how reasonable he is. The Chicago Tribune reports that Kasich likely vetoed the “heartbeat ban” because of fears it would be overturned.

The so-called heartbeat bill would have prohibited most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, which can be as early as six weeks into pregnancy — or before many women know they are pregnant. Its provisions cleared the Republican-led Legislature during a lame-duck flurry last week after being tucked into separate legislation.

Similar measures elsewhere have faced legal challenges, and detractors in Ohio feared such legislation would lead to a costly fight in the courts. Opponents predicted it would be found unconstitutional, a concern Kasich shared.

Kasich, an abortion-rights opponent, chose instead to sign off on a 20-week ban similar to those now in effect in 15 states and blocked from enforcement in two others. The measures are based on the assertion that fetuses can feel pain then, which opponents characterize as scientifically unsound.

Doug Henwood, at The Guardian, writes that blaming the Russians for Clinton’s defeat avoids dealing with the reality that it was Clinton, not Putin, who lost the election to Trump.

What exactly are the claims made by these Putin-did-it stories? That were it not for Russian chicanery, Hillary Clinton would have won the popular vote by five million and not almost three million? That displaced machinists on the banks of Lake Erie were so incensed by the Podesta emails that they voted for Trump instead of Clinton? That Putin was pulling FBI director James Comey’s strings in his investigation of the Clinton emails? That those scheming Russians were clever enough to hack into voting machines but not clever enough to cover their tracks?

It’s strangely reminiscent of the days of the Red scare, minus the Reds.

Adam Johnson targets revolting Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitasis’ latest terrible blog post, this time about why Democrats should celebrate the misfortune of duped Trump voters, for FAIR.

In the wake of this loss, some of the more hardcore Clinton partisans have chosen, in lieu of self-examination and internal criticism, to simply lash out at the voters they failed to win over.

With the punitive glee of a medieval executioner, Moulitsas proclaimed: “Be Happy for Coal Miners Losing Their Health Insurance. They’re Getting Exactly What They Voted For”

And finally a clip from the Benjamin Dixon Show on the futility and idiocy of the Electoral College movement.

See you all on Friday.