Other people’s problems they overwhelm my mind
By 
The Republican Senate conference is such a revolting shitshow you sometimes forget what a puling, sanctimonious phony this guy is:
Senator Ben Sasse, a Republican from Nebraska, used the debate Wednesday over whether to codify an expansive right to abortion to ask members of both parties to focus American politics on what he called “an ethic of life” — including more prenatal care and an expanded social safety net for expectant and new mothers.
The prospects of a nation where the right to an abortion is no longer guaranteed by the Constitution have become very real after a draft Supreme Court decision came to light that would overturn the decision that recognized that right, Roe v. Wade.
Facing a brewing political backlash, some Republicans have tried to reassure Americans that even in states where abortion would become illegal, a new sense of compassion and governmental largess could make it easier for women to bear and raise children.
“” Mr. Sasse asked on the Senate floor as he accused Democrats of promoting “brutal indifference hiding behind euphemisms” by holding on to abortion rights instead of policies that would help mothers, babies and children.
“Where’s the tolerance? Where’s compassion? Where’s the humanity?” are the questions that a guy defending the regime of terror and constant surveillance about to be unleashed upon American women should be answering, not asking. And — as the story at least goes on to observe, albeit later than it should — there’s the larger problem that Sasse is lecturing Democrats about supporting programs they support and he (and virtually all “pro-life” public officials in the United States) don’t:
The governor of Mississippi, Tate Reeves, took to the Sunday political shows this past weekend to make the case that his state, whose abortion law is expected to be the vehicle for overturning Roe, would follow the Supreme Court decision with laws to promote adoption and child care.
Democrats have greeted such pledges with something bordering on apoplexy. Mississippi ranks at or near the bottom in infant mortality and other measurements of child welfare. And in Congress, Republicans were in lock-step opposition to the Democrats’ expansive social safety net bill, Build Back Better, that would have created paid family leave for new mothers, greatly offset the cost of child care, and made prekindergarten universal, all measures designed to make having and raising children easier.
“What laws are these states prepared to pass?” Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, asked. “What resources are they prepared to provide to support these women and the children they’ll bear? The answer, we know — and I fear — is none.”
It is within Ben Sasse’s power, right now, to take away Joe Manchin’s veto over welfare state expansion, and any other “pro-life-pull-my-finger” Republican senator could take Sinema’s. This won’t happen because upward wealth distribution is the only Republican answer to economic questions. What Republicans are offering is “we use state coercion to force women to carry pregnancies to term, and during and after the pregnancy you’re on your own.” Any Republican giving pompous lectures otherwise needs to be treated with a no-tolerance “put up or for the love of God shut up” policy.
…Ben Sasse, in meme form:
pic.twitter.com/e16bLm8FsQ— Scott Lemieux (@LemieuxLGM) May 12, 2022