NATIONAL RATIONALIZATION DAY UPDATES

I Suppose If You're Busy You Might Wait To Read This - BUT WHY?!

-Three more clinics in the state of Alabama announced they will stop in vitro fertilization procedures in the wake of that state's Supreme Court decision that declared unfertilized humans embryos as "extrauterine children," and thus treating any disposed of or failed fertilized eggs as potential murder victims. The ruling - reportedly shepherded through the court by Chief Justice Tom Parker, who used Old Testament scriptures and 16th-17th century theology in his decision - has been cheered and embraced by MAGAt and religious extremists on the right who promise to use the decision in combination with the Dobbs decision throwing the question of abortion rights to the states to pass national laws to not only ban IVF nationally, but also birth control access, no-fault divorce, LGBTQ marriage, and the promotion of radical religious theology with elements supported by Project 2025, which also intends to gut civil service and centralize power in the Presidency (and is supported by the Heritage Foundation, Koch money, and Leonard Leo's Federalist Society).

-If this seems like hyperbole, just yesterday the AL decision was applauded and promoted by GOP MAGA leaders including alleged semi-moderate GOP candidate Nikki Haley, dumbass military-hating doofus Sen. Tommy Tuberville, and most importantly Ex-President Trump (R-apist) XCI, who continues to brag in between slurred words and continued degeneration of verbal and motor skills that he "killed Roe when nobody thought it could be done" and promising to pass a 16-week abortion ban nationally.

-Trump made an appearance in TN yesterday to continue to display his mental decline. Among other moments, he tried to praise "Evangeli...cal...e-van-gelists like Rob Robertson," took credit for making Israel the capital of Israel, called respecting pronouns "sick" "if you study it," somehow tried to criticize Democrats for eliminating baseball and "knocker fields," called Biden supporters more dangerous to America than Vladimir Putin, and evoking wisdom like this: "They want you to say what they want you, what they want to have you say. And we're not gonna let that happen. You're going to say as you want & you're going to believe & you're going to believe in God. You're gonna believe in God because God is here & God is watching."

-If you think this may be a good source for several news stories ... well, you don't run the national media. As Trump blathered through this, the story of Russian assets feeding House members to create impeachment charges out of thin air, and the Alabama IVF ruling as a stalking horse for far more draconian theocratic rule should Republicans get power in 2025, the major news sources ... kept on with their preferred narratives. The New York Times buried the Russian witness story deep in their web site while keeping at least four Biden-B-OLD! stories on their front page, Axios decided to run a 'major' story about Biden using index cards for speeches at fund raisers, and CNN has spent the last two days on an expose about Biden's dog Scout continuing to bite Secret Service agents.

-All of which has somehow managed to ... see Biden start getting a little bit of a lead in national polls - NOT THAT POLLS ARE ALL THAT ACCURATE IN FEBRUARY. It also seems to have dampened so many Democratic voters and supporters that the Biden campaign ... raised over $40M in January and have over $130M in cash on hand for the upcoming election (in contrast to the Trump campaign, who spent more money than was raised last month and is seeing small donor donations dry up and seats constantly being removed in halls where Trump spews live). Someone might tell that to New York Times columnist Ezra Klein, who appealed for Biden to drop out of the election and let the upcoming Democratic convention pick his replacement - oh, WAIT, someone DID tell Ezra what an idiotic idea that was! This space recommends you find Lawrence O'Donnell's explanation of why Klein's Pha-REEK!-Out is kind of asinine.

-It already is a long election season, isn't it?

-With the two-year anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine tomorrow, Democrats in the House have begun the parliamentary procedures to create a discharge petition which would bring a $93B Ukraine aid bill onto the floor despite the resistance of Trump/Putin ally Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Jay-EE-zuz!, LA) and MAGAt leader Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (who told the world she "cud kare leess" about the death of Alexander Navalny) who continues to refuse to bring a Ukraine aid bill to the floor. It is widely believed Ukraine aid would pass in a wide and bipartisan vote if it got to a vote, and the petition can bring pressure on Johnson amid other pressures including an imminent government shutdown, pleasing and doing the bidding of Dear Leader Trump, and keeping his job.

-SLAVA UKRAINI!

-Speaking of MAGAts, they are gathering in DC at the yearly Conservative Political Action Conference. CPAC, whose co-organizer Matt Schlapp has still not lived down charges by an intern that Matt schlapped the intern's penis while trying to pick him up, is kind of the usual blather of hard-right politicos (the aforementioned Tuberville showed up yesterday), authoritarian embracing (with paeans to Viktor Orban and Argentine President Javier Milei), and hardcore conspiracies that continue to become standard GOP policy (witness Jack Posobiec, the man who promoted the insane theory that a pizza parlor was a cover for a pedophile ring run by Hillary Clinton, who started his workshop by cherilly saying "Welcome to the end of democracy! We didn't get all the way there on January 6 but we will!" then twirling a necklace with a cross on it).

-That's kind of hard, so let's start with Spring Training Fashion News! Baseball spring training games begin in earnest today, and while on the field the talk is all about a number of big-name free agents represented by super-agent Scott Boras that have not been signed yet (no Cody Bellinger signing for the Cubs yet? M'kay), the talk of the clubhouses have been new uniforms designed by Nike that have gotten less-than-stellar reviews from players. Created to make money, of course, and for "performance," the uniforms have been criticized for colors that are too far off from traditional uniform colors, numbers and names that are "amateurish" and too large, seams that can be felt by players, and pants that have been described by some as being "see-through" - or, as MLBPA Executive Director Tony Clark put it, "Each conversation (about the unis) with the guys is yielding more information than we're seeing." Play ball, indeed!

-On this date in 1836, Mexican forces began a siege on The Alamo. On this date in 1945, the American flag was raised on the island of Iwo Jima, its image captured in one of the most iconic photos of World War II. And on this date in 1954, the first polio vaccines were given in Pittsburgh, PA.

-Notable debuts on this date: the city of Boston (chartered in 1822), the Rotary Club (1905), "This Land Is Your Land" (1940), PINNOCHIO (1940), TRAINSPOTTING (1996 movie).

-Happy Birthday to George Frideric Handel, W.E.B. DuBois, Victor Fleming, Dante Lavelli, Michael Bilandic, Louis Stokes, Elston Howard, Tom Osborne, Peter Fonda, Fred Bliletnikoff, Ed "Too Tall" Jones, Brad Whitford, Howard Jones, Bobby Bonilla, Michael Dell, Niecy Nash, Robert Lopez, Kelly Macdonald, Charles Tillman, Josh Gad, Emily Blunt, Dakota Fanning, and Andrew Wiggins.

-Rest in Peace/Rest in Power to John Keats, John Quincy Adams, Edward Elgar, Stan Laurel, James Herriot, Howie Epstein, and Katherine Helmond.

-Mayer Amschel Rothschild, scion of the Rothschild banking empire, and Aziz Ansari were born on this date. You decide if they get a Happy Birthday or if they Feed the Worms.