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Former First Lady Michelle Obama raised eyebrows with her spelling of the word woman in a new Instagram post about the recent leaked Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion.

The leak, first reported by Politico, indicated that the court, in an opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito, was poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. Obama became the most recent prominent leader in the Democratic Party to release a statement on the court leak and what it may mean for American women.

"State lawmakers will have the power to strip womxn of the right to make decisions about their bodies and their healthcare," she wrote last weekend in one slide of a lengthy post.

Pro-choice activists rally at the Washington Monument before a march to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, May 14, 2022. (Jose Luis Magana/AFP via Getty Images)

The spelling of "womxn" has in recent years been used as an alternative because, according to some progressives, the word "woman" has problematic, patriarchal roots.

"Democrats, dont expect the Obamas to save you from weird woke terminology," Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini quipped as he posted a screenshot of the slide.

"Just asking a practical question here, how does one pronounce "womxn?" former CNN political commentator Doug Heye asked.

NPR REPORTS HOW OVERTURNING ROE V. WADE IS A 'SHARED PROJECT OF SUPREMACIST MOVEMENTS'

In her larger message, Obama opined on how women may lose rights to make decisions about their own bodies.

"Its been a tough couple of weeks since we saw the leaked SCOTUS draft opinion on abortion," she wrote. "If it comes to pass, we may soon live in a country where millions of women not to mention our children and grandchildren lose the right to make decisions about their bodies and their health. Even if we knew the courts were heading toward this day, it doesnt make the frustration, grief, and fear any less real.

Former first lady Michelle Obama during "Becoming: An Intimate Conversation with Michelle Obama," in Atlanta. Netflix says a documentary portrait of Michelle Obama titled "Becoming" will premiere on its streaming service Wednesday. (Paul R. Giunta/Invision/AP, File)

WASHINGTON POST COLUMNIST SAYS OVERTURNING ROE V. WADE IS A 9/11 ATTACK ON AMERICAS SOCIAL FABRIC

"But we dont have to stand idly by while others try to turn back the clock on progress," she continued. "Im so inspired by everyone out marching today. And I know that were going to see so many folks carrying this energy forward to the elections in November and in every election after that."

Obama completed her message by encouraging her followers to check their voter registration status.

Security fencing is in place outside the Supreme Court in Washington, Saturday, May 14, 2022. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)

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Liberal pundits have similarly sounded the alarm on the controversial leak, with some making radical comparisons and predictions.

MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell and former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder discussed the possibility of the overturning of Roe leading to the end of interracial marriage or even reversing the Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing racial segregation in schools. "The View" co-host Joy Behar suggested the court would next target gay marriage.

MSNBC "The ReidOut" host Joy Reid suggested several other rulings in the wake of Roe.

"That could apply to almost anything," she said. "Contraception, same-sex marriage, interracial marriage, civil rights, integration, womens rights to vote."

Continued here:
Michelle Obama worries overturning Roe v. Wade will strip 'womxn' of their right to health care - Fox News

First, will Democrats allow people to practice their faith even if some tenets of that faith conflict with progressive principles? For example, two bills in Congress demonstrate that clash. They both would amend federal civil rights law to require fair treatment of L.G.B.T.Q. people in housing, employment and other realms of life. One, the Fairness for All Act, would allow for substantial exceptions for religious institutions. A Catholic hospital, say, wouldnt be compelled to offer gender transition surgeries. The other, the Equality Act, would override existing law that prevents the federal government from substantially burdening individuals exercise of religion without a compelling government interest.

Right now, Democrats generally support the latter bill and oppose the former. But supporting the Fairness for All Act, which seeks to fight discrimination while leaving space for religious freedom, would send a strong signal to millions of wavering believers, and it would be good for America.

Second, will Democrats stand up to the more radical cultural elements in their own coalition? Jonathan Rauch was an early champion of gay and lesbian rights. In an article in American Purpose, he notes that one wing of the movement saw gay rights as not a left-wing issue but a matter of human dignity. A more radical wing celebrated cultural transgression and disdained bourgeois morality. Ultimately, the gay rights movement triumphed in the court of public opinion when the nonradicals won and it became attached to the two essential bourgeois institutions marriage and the military.

Rauch argues that, similarly, the transgender rights movement has become entangled with ideas that are extraneous to the cause of transgender rights. Ideas like: Both gender and sex are chosen identities and denying or disputing that belief amounts is violence. Democrats would make great strides if they could champion transgender rights while not insisting upon these extraneous moral assertions that many people reject.

The third question is, will Democrats realize that both moral traditions need each other? As usual, politics is a competition between partial truths. The moral freedom ethos, like liberalism generally, is wonderful in many respects, but liberal societies need nonliberal institutions if they are to thrive.

America needs institutions built on the you are not your own ethos to create social bonds that are more permanent than individual choice. It needs that ethos to counter the me-centric, narcissistic tendencies in our culture. It needs that ethos to preserve a sense of the sacred, the idea that there are some truths so transcendentally right that they are absolutely true in all circumstances. It needs that ethos in order to pass along the sort of moral sensibilities that one finds in, say, Abraham Lincolns Second Inaugural Address that people and nations have to pay for the wages of sin, that charity toward all is the right posture, that firmness in keeping with the right always has to be accompanied by humility about how much we can ever see of the right.

Finally, we need this ethos, because morality is not only an individual thing; its something between people that binds us together. Even individualistic progressives say it takes a village to raise a child, but the village needs to have a shared moral sense of how to raise it.

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Opinion | How Democrats Can Win the Morality Wars - The New York Times

The Democratic Party has a lot of problems right now. Many of these problems lie outside its control: A global wave of inflation and continuing waves of coronavirus infection have prevented the recovery Joe Biden imagined when he took office last year, and the partys slender majority gives it very narrow room to maneuver legislation through Congress.

That said, Democrats still have some room to improve their situation. They retain their congressional majority until January, and Joe Manchin has expressed his willingness to negotiate a bill to raise taxes on the rich and fund at least some new programs, including support for green energy. And yet their main response to a looming political and policy catastrophe appears to be fatalistic acceptance.

The Manchin situation is exceptionally strange. Manchin has outlined in public the contours of a deal he would accept, while privately conveying to fellow Democrats that he expects them to write a bill that meets his terms. This is an extremely counterproductive and maddening way to operate. At the same time, Democrats need to accept the world as it is and try to make the deal.

Instead, they seem to be shrugging their shoulders. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is trying to negotiate with Manchin, which is good, but everybody else seems indifferent or resigned to failure. Politico reports that Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin laughed incredulously when asked about a last-gasp party-line bill and said:

I put so much time into immigration on reconciliation. It took a year of my legislative life. I have nothing to show for it. I wish Chuck well on reconciliation. Im going to focus my legislative efforts in the 60-vote world.

Homer Simpson once told Bart, Son, you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try. The point of that line was supposed to be that it was terrible advice, but Durbin appears to be following that idea in earnest. He worked really hard on some provisions in Build Back Better that any clear analysis would have shown from the outset never stood a serious chance of enactment. And now hes tired of working and just wants to give up.

Ive seen progressives express a similar exasperation. When confronted with the idea of making a deal with Manchin, they reflexively insist he cant be bargained with. And maybe not! But the chances of a deal are not zero. There is very little to lose by trying. Even a failed effort would at least demonstrate they exhausted every possible avenue.

A similar passivity comes through in some reporting via Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell. Trying to figure out why the administration has failed to reverse the Trump tariffs, a step that would at least partially bring down prices and alleviate the worst economic threat they face, she finds:

From my own conversations with senior officials, the answer seems to involve perceived short-term political liabilities. Politicos worried about how Republicans might portray measures such as tariff repeal (soft on China!). Democrats also feared alienating important constituencies, such as organized labor.

The Biden administration has done an enormous amount for organized labor. Biden has steered the National Labor Relations Board in a staunchly pro-organizing direction while giving a historic public endorsement to new organizing drives at Amazon and Starbucks. These are morally and strategically correct decisions. But tariffs are an area in which the narrow interests of labor diverge from the national interest. Allowing the fear that a couple unions will complain despite Bidens overall record of support for labor to prevent concrete steps to alleviate a crisis is utterly self-defeating.

The Biden administration and Democrats in Congress have been highly solicitous of the demands of their constituent interest groups. But now they are headed into a disaster. They are going to lose control of Congress without having even passed any significant social reforms. They may well be headed into a recession. An increasingly dangerous Republican Party may win control of the government without even needing to subvert the election.

None of the options are great, but simply coasting into November as if the plan might still work out is foolhardy. Democrats should instead be acting as if their party is on a course for disaster, because it is.

Irregular musings from the center left.

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Is the Democratic Party Giving Up Already? - New York Magazine

Elon Musk moved to Texas and now appears to embrace the politics of the Republic Party and Texas Governor Greg Abbott

In the weeks since Tesla CEO Elon Musk began his gambit to acquire Twitter, hes grown comfortable voicing partisan political viewsusually on the social media platform he covetsincluding insults aimed at California, President Joe Biden and the libs. Musk now plans to vote Republican, he saysjoining a party that derided him in the past as a crony capitalist who benefited from Democratic policies but now sees him as an ally.

California used to be the land of opportunity, and its a beautiful state, Musk said during a video appearance at this weeks All In Summit in Miami. He then listed factors he says would make it impossible now to build a plant in the Golden State such as Teslas massive new Austin-based Giga Texas factory. California's gone from a land of opportunity to the land of taxes, over-regulation and litigation, the Tesla CEO added. This is not a good situation, and really, there's got to be like a serious cleaning out of the pipes in California.

For years, as he built Tesla from a moonshot startup into the worlds dominant electric-vehicle company, Musk courted Democrats in California, where most of Teslas customers live, and nationally. He and his company benefited from the partys policy and environmental prioritiesespecially electric-vehicle subsidieswhich helped Teslas customer base grow. In recent months, both before and since he began his pursuit of Twitter, Musk appeared to veer to the rightfor example, crossing swords with Democratic Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren over their proposals to raise taxes on billionaires and lobbing insults at Biden for failing to include him at White House EV events.

Last year, Musk moved Teslas headquarters to Texas from Silicon Valley (and his residence to Austin from Los Angeles) to take advantage of lower taxes, lower cost of living and a more relaxed regulatory environment. Since then, his rhetoric has skewed ever more definitively toward the conservative side, culminating in a tweet yesterday in which he announced his intention to vote for Republican politicians going forward.

In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party, he tweeted Wednesday after Tesla was dropped from S&Ps ESG Index. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican.

GOP via Twitter

California-bashing from naturalized American Musk, the worlds wealthiest person based on his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX, is notable partly because his former home state remains by far the best market for Teslas electric vehicles in North America. Its also debatable whether the company could have survived its rocky early years without Californias Zero-Emission Vehicle program, which created an opportunity for Tesla to sell emissions credits to other automakers that resulted in billions of dollars in free revenue over the years. (Teslas Fremont, California, plant, essentially a gift from Toyota in 2010, was also massively helpful.)

Nobody ever accused Elon Musk of gratitudeor even a sense of proportion, says Mary Nichols, former chair of Californias powerful Air Resources Board, which crafted the ZEV program and championed Tesla as it evolved from a startup to high-volume manufacturer. He certainly would not be where he is without the ZEV mandate and the cash he got from selling his credits to the other OEMs.

Nobody ever accused Elon Musk of gratitudeor even a sense of proportion

Musk hasnt elaborated on why he now sees Republicans as kinder than the rival party that helped Tesla get its start, although the GOP welcomed his newfound loyalty by immediately using it for fundraising. Musk has echoed conservative talking points about woke progressive extremists and owning the libs on Twitter in recent weeksalong with crude jokes about transgender people and his opposition to plastic straw bans intended to help the environment.

The billionaires confirmation that he would invite former President Donald Trump back to Twitter after his ban for comments supporting the Jan. 6 insurrection and lies about the 2020 election was cheered by some conservatives. Likewise, Musks intention to make the platform welcoming for controversial views in pursuit of an absolutist view of free speech has boosted his popularity among outspoken politicians and commentators, including Representatives Marjorie Taylor Green and Matt Gaetz and Fox Newss Tucker Carlson.

Prepare for blue check mark full scale meltdown after @elonmusk seals the deal and I should get my personal Twitter account restored, Green tweeted on April 25.

Twitter

Shares of Tesla were little changed on Thursday, closing at $709.42 in Nasdaq trading, the lowest since August 2021. Theyre down 41% this year.

Texas is the capital of Americas oil and gas industry and not synonymous with the clean-tech endeavors Musk is associated with, but he praised its greater flexibility, relative to California, this week. The Lone Star States further shift to the political rightincluding strict new policies on abortion, treatment of transgender youth and voting rights, while relaxing rules on gun ownershipalso dont trouble Musk, according to Governor Greg Abbott.

Elon had to get out of California because in part of the social policies in California, Abbott told CNBC last year, noting that he speaks with Musk frequently. Elon consistently tells me that he liked the social policies in the state of Texas.

Elon Musk at the opening of Tesla's Giga Texas plant on April 7 in Austin, Texas.

When asked about whether his more polarizing views could hurt Teslas image with some consumers, Musk was unfazed. Im confident that we will be able to sell all the cars we can make, he said this month at a Financial Times conference. Currently, the lead time for ordering a Tesla is ridiculously long, so our issue is not demand, it is production.

His newfound conservative orientation carries both risks and a potential upside for Tesla, says auto-industry analyst Ed Kim.

Conventional wisdom says that its generally good business sense for CEOs to stay away from regularly expressing their politics, but Tesla has always bucked conventional wisdom in just about every way, says Kim, president of AutoPacific, an industry consultant in Santa Ana, California. As electric vehicles continue to be more mainstream and become more common away from the traditionally EV-friendly and liberal coasts, Musks continuing proclamations of his politics could potentially strengthen his popularity as well as Teslas in more traditionally conservative parts of the country.

Musks frustration with Biden stems from the presidents failure to reference Tesla when praising efforts by U.S. manufacturers such as General Motors and Ford in accelerating the production and sales of electric vehicles. The White House also excluded Musk from meetings with U.S. CEOs to discuss battery and EV technology, though Biden acknowledged Tesla as an EV leader at a February briefing on charging infrastructure.

Conventional wisdom says that its generally good business sense for CEOs to stay away from regularly expressing their politics, but Tesla has always bucked conventional wisdom in just about every way

But it was the Obama-Biden Administration that, like California, helped get Tesla off the ground. The Energy Department awarded Tesla a low-interest loan for $465 million in January 2010 that allowed the company to set up its Fremont plant to begin production by 2012. Though it proved a good investment by the U.S.Tesla repaid the loan with interest many years ahead of schedule in 2013the support from a Democratic administration was derided as crony capitalism by 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

When government rather than the market routinely selects the winners and losers, enterprises cannot predict their prospects, and free enterprise is replaced with crony capitalism, Romney said in a March 2012 speech in Santa Barbara, California. Solyndra, Ener1, Fisker and Tesla are examples.

Three of the four companies Romney referenced ended in bankruptcy (though Fisker is back with a new EV startup), but Tesla become the worlds most valuable automaker and top EV seller.

Nichols, currently a visiting fellow at Columbia Universitys Center on Global Energy Policy, said regardless of Musks comments, shes glad of Californias impact on Tesla.

I own a Tesla Model 3 and will always be proud that our regulations made him the worlds richest man (maybe) while prodding all the others to move much more aggressively into the age of electric transportation.

Read more here:
Elon Musk Bites The Hand That Fed Him By Bashing California And Democrats - Forbes

Millions of dollars in attack advertisements are hitting television screens in Illinois castigating Aurora Mayor Richard Irvins (R) track record as an attorney for defendants accused of violent crimes.

But the advertisements targeting Irvin arent coming from his main rival for the Republican nomination for governor. They are funded by Democrats, more than a month before the Republican primary takes place in late June.

The Democratic Governors Association has spent millions in both Illinois and Nevada, where incumbent governors are seeking reelection, in an apparent effort to weaken their likely Republican opponents.

The DGA is wasting no time in educating the public about these Republicans, said Christina Amestoy, the groups senior communications advisor. These elected and formerly elected officials want to deceptively retell their histories, and were just filling in the gaps.

So far, the DGA has dropped $8.4 million on television ads across Illinois, including more than $4 million in the Chicago market alone. Those ads target Irvin, the leading Republican ahead of next months primary, in which he faces state Sen. Darren Bailey (R) and a handful of other contenders. The winner of the GOP primary will face Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) in November.

And Democrats have spent $2.3 million in Nevada, targeting Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo (R). Lombardo leads attorney Joey Gilbert (R) and former Sen. Dean Heller (R) in the race to take on Gov. Steve Sisolak (D).

The group is also spending early money on what is likely to be an effort to boost an independent candidate in Oregon in hopes of syphoning votes away from the newly minted Republican nominee. The DGA has funneled at least $61,000 to a group called Oregonians for Ethics, which is preparing advertisements that will paint former state Sen. Betsy Johnson, an independent, as a conservative.

Johnson, elected as a Democrat to represent a timber-heavy district on Oregons Pacific Coast, is trying to build a multiparty coalition in her bid to become the states first independent governor in nearly a century. This week, she touted support from both former Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) and former Sen. Gordon Smith (R).

Instead of standing up for our values, she sided with the right wing to advance their agenda, says a digital ad paid for by Oregonians for Ethics, citing Johnsons votes against raising the minimum wage and a cap and trade proposal.

Johnson will vie against former state House Speaker Tina Kotek (D) and former House Republican Leader Christine Drazan (R), who won their respective primaries this week.

The early spending comes after Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D) ran an unconventional advertisement spotlighting state Sen. Doug Mastriano (R) and his support for former President Donald Trump. That ad reminded both Republican and independent voters of Mastrianos ties to Trump, dual missions with two very dissimilar goals.

On Tuesday, Mastriano and Shapiro both won their primaries in the race to replace term-limited Gov. Tom Wolf (D).

Republicans say the early spending is a sign that Democrats have already hit the panic button in the midst of an unfavorable political climate.

The DGAs spending decisions indicate they are very worried about their incumbent governors chances as their failed records are being litigated for voters, said Jesse Hunt, a spokesman for the Republican Governors Association. There isnt enough money for them to meddle in the nearly dozen states where Democrats are in danger of losing their hold on the governors office.

Meddling in another partys primary, or goosing an independent candidate in hopes of syphoning off votes from a rival, is a rare but not unheard-of occurrence in modern politics.

In 2012, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) ran advertisements slamming then-Rep. Todd Akin (R) as too conservative ahead of the Republican primary a message that conservative voters wanted to hear. Akin won the GOP primary, and McCaskill trounced him that November.

That same year, allies of Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) ran advertisements attacking Dan Cox, the Libertarian Party nominee, as an arch conservative. Cox took just 6.5 percent of the vote a share that might otherwise have gone to then-Rep. Denny Rehberg (R). Tester won with just 48.6 percent of the vote.

Republicans in 2020 tried their own late trick, paying for ads that elevated state Sen. Erica Smith (D), a progressive Black woman. Smith took almost 35 percent of the vote against former state Sen. Cal Cunningham (D), national Democrats preferred candidate though Cunningham lost to Sen. Thom Tillis (R) after details of a sordid affair sunk his campaign.

Thirty-six states will elect governors this year, including eight states where incumbents are not seeking a new term. Democrats have strong chances to pick up seats in Maryland and Massachusetts, where popular Republican governors are retiring, while Republicans are aiming to knock off Democratic incumbents in key states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine and Kansas.

See more here:
Democrats spend big in GOP governor primaries - The Hill