George W. Bush, the infamously anti-gay and neoconservative former U.S. president who invaded Iraq on a lie, has criticized congressional Republicans for threatening to defund the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a largely successful African HIV-prevention program that he launched back in 2003. “There is no program more pro-life” than PEPFAR, he wrote.
Though PEPFAR is estimated to have saved over 25 million lives, its funding is set to expire on September 30. Congressional Republicans are falsely claiming that the program promotes abortion and using its re-funding as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations. Republicans have threatened to defund the entire federal government at the end of the month unless they’re allowed to slash military diversity programs and military aid to Ukraine and to increase anti-immigration measures at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We are on the verge of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To abandon our commitment now would forfeit two decades of unimaginable progress and raise further questions about the worth of America’s word,” Bush wrote in an a Wednesday opinion article in The Washington Post.
How dare modern republicans put me in even a situation where I have to agree with GW Bush.
What is reality
Things I agree with George W. Bush on:
- Stay out of a brawl if Bo Jackson is on the other side
- This
He shouldn’t get credit for 1, that’s just common sense. Bo knows
I did however also agree with him about Trumps inauguration being some “weird shit”
“Real pro-life republicans” are now calling for death penalty for women. There was nothing pro-life about republicans. Ever.
Bc it’s always been probirth or pro forced birth. They’re infamous for naming things against what they actually do. But people vote and empower them all the same bc they fall for it
The world is in a sad state when George W Bush is the voice of reason for the GOP.
They’re pro-birth. “Pro-life” is just marketing.
They aren’t pro-birth. If they were pro-birth they would be for universal healthcare coverage of birth expenses.
They are pro-controlling women’s bodies.
Universal healthcare would also give women access to birth control.
They want women to have babies for some combination of a various number of reasons. There are some who view it as a means of breeding a cheap compliant labor force, some who think it’ll reinforce a more traditional family role on them and diminish their influence on society, and those who see it as a way to punish women for sleeping around. It’s about more than just their bodies, it’s about controlling society and women’s place in it.
I think it’s about causing poverty and an endless supply of hopeless, low-wage workers.
These people aren’t pro anything specific, they just get off on causing as much suffering as possible. They are pure evil.
I’d say they’re more anti-sex, but also not really, because most conservatives I’ve talked to on the subject just pretend it doesn’t exist.
They just kind of bury their head in the sand. There’s no way their daughter might have sex on Prom night. Don’t talk about it, it might put ideas in her head. There’s no way my son and his girlfriend would have sex; they’re Christians. Talking about contraceptives will just pervert their young, pure minds.
It’s not about controlling women’s bodies, it’s about ignoring women’s bodies. Banning abortion or eliminating sex education just helps to ensure that no conversations happen.
I think a lot of people miss this. Most of the voters, at least among the religious base, are just useful idiots who don’t put any thought into it because thinking is scary. Those with actual malice toward women, or a desire to control them, are a minority, even among those who get to write the laws.
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity” or something like that.
How fucking crazy times I must live in if my French leftist ass is now cheering the once most hated man in the World’s common sense.
Gotta deep fry some freedom potatoes I guess.
I find it depressing that common sense is so uncommon that this broken clock scenerio is grounds for praise… we will meet you half way on the taters with poutine.
I’ve never actually met a Republican who was FOR life. They’re just FOR control.
100%. There are plenty of studies showing that supposed “pro-life” sentiment explains little of the left-right difference in abortion support.
A 2014 study analyzed the data of more than 7400 people and found that “perceptions of preborn humanness explained very little of right–left differences in abortion support, and the association between preborn humanness perceptions and abortion opposition was no stronger for those on the political right (vs. left).”4 And a 2022 poll by Pew also found that a third of Americans simultaneously believe that a fetus is a person with rights and that the decision to abort should be up to the woman. This means that the majority of people who believe that life starts at conception (about 59%) still believe that women should have the right to an abortion.10
By contrast, a 2017 study found that sexism accounted for 30% to 70% of the left-right difference in abortion stance even after controlling for other relevant variables.5 An earlier study found that authoritarianism had a significant correlation with an anti-abortion position and aggression towards women,6 and a 2019 study found that right-wing authoritarianism had a significant correlation with anti-abortion stigma both before and after controlling for other variables.7
The core value is “There are out-groups the law must bind but not protect, and in-groups the law must bind but not protect.” Hence the republicans who get abortions for themselves and close ones, but don’t want it for anyone else.
You can also describe it as “No one tells me what to do. I tell other people what to do.”
Haha. He’s a born Republican. Or a hexbear, I can’t tell.
They’re for whatever the fuck gets them corporate money, same as Democrats (to a lesser degree).
You know who else benefits from anti-abortion laws and lowering the working age requirements? Corporate businesses do.
Hey dumbass they ain’t prolife they’re procontrol of women’s body and reproduction.
aaand racist. They don’t want money going to help Africa. At all.
PEPFAR has been surprisingly successful and has been more successful now that it is no longer linked to pushing Christian values. Republicans can’t have that though.
“Bush has gone woke and is a commie radical librul just like the pope. Guns and jeezus fuck yea!! Murica fuck yea!!” - someone you know
“No wait, Jesus is too woke now.” – actual right wing psychos
“Hold my prejudice”
- Global Methodist ChurchRepublican Jesus 2 trailer tagline “When Jesus comes back, he won’t be woke, he’s gonna be pissed.”
Excuse me, that someone is my father you’re speaking about!
That someone for me is my uncle.
I sent him a custom mug with trump’s mugshot and listing all the indictments under “Donald J Trump; the most felonious president”.
He’d be pissed if he could read.
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Like it or not, he’s right.
But…
Republican politicians don’t give a shit about life. They give about their base and their base wants people to convert and become good Christ followers. Having sex for fun isn’t part of that, so they can die and burn in hell, fuck those people.
Hey George, go fuck yourself sideways. You have the blood of hundreds of thousands Iraqi children, women and men all over your hands and face and you’re pissed that the ghouls you enabled are repealing maybe the only redeemable legacy you have. Go fuck a cactus you war criminal piece of shit.
I do agree with you… but even still, a broken clock is correct twice a day… he can be completely immorally wrong and also say something correctly
How often are war-crime clocks correct? I’m not arguing with your point, I’m just asking if there’s a conversation rate because most of the broken clocks I know didn’t do a war crimes.
Hmmm UTC-5, i’d say. Or maybe -6? With daylight crimings, its hard to keep track of
That feels sciencey enough to repeat
It’s just a metaphor…
Finger to the throat means death… Metaphor.
I mean, sure.
But are you petty enough to want the PEPFAR to die for all your issues with the guy?
You can want PEPFAR to survive and yet feel like W weighing in here is nakedly self-serving - it’s going to change the minds of exactly zero Republicans while improving his reputation with everyone else.
Personally, I want PEPFAR renewed, and when W dies I want him to be remembered as a war criminal and his death treated with all appropriate disrespect and malice; these comments do nothing for the former and slightly reduce the chances of the latter.
Thank you. Well said.
That’s what I’m saying haha. Everyone in here seems to be relishing in the fact that this program might go away simply because of who put it in place. I’m getting more and more convinced every day that the majority of people who left reddit for the Fediverse are young angry teenagers who think they’re sticking it to “the man”. So many comment sections look exactly like this; no nuance, only anger at anything remotely right wing. Even an HIV resource program is too far right for these people.
Never said I wanted it to die. But I don’t think anything GWB will do or say will sway anyone in the current party he helped build and enable. If he wanted to protect his legacy he should have ensured that truth, evidence and facts are the standards we use to make and maintain policy.
If he’s really interested maybe he should put some of the family wealth where his mouth is and start supporting democrats who would protect a program like this.
This is just like Mitt who has a lot to say about how things are going to shit but it’s just words and way too late. Fuck them all in a chicken basket.
I like to think that this is just him realizing something that happened under his administration.
Dick Cheney: " Let’s defund HIV programs."
Bush:" OK. "
22 years later
Bush: " Wait a second… that isn’t Christian!"
Laura: “Dear, you haven’t been president for 15 years.”
Someone who is really “pro-life” also probably wouldn’t have started a war that killed 400,000 civilians either.
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The shitshow we’re dealing with today makes me miss that idiot.
