Proposed bill in Mississippi: “Contraception begins at erection” | Opinion | Salt Lake City Weekly

Proposed bill in Mississippi: “Contraception begins at erection” 

Smart Bomb: The completely unnecessary news analysis

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Well Wilson, this is going to be hard ... er uh, difficult. A Mississippi state lawmaker has introduced a bill called the “Conception Begins at Erection Act.” It is a mouthful. The legislation would make it illegal for a man to masturbate or engage in other sexual acts when he has no “intent to fertilize an embryo.”

Yikes! Well Wilson, we don't know if it's a joke. But the bill's sponsor, Democratic Sen. Bradford Blackmon criticized anti-abortion measures that only focus on women.

“All across the country, especially here in [deep red] Mississippi, the vast majority of bills relating to contraception and/or abortion focus on the woman’s role when men are fifty percent of the equation,” he said.

The “Conception Begins at Erection Act” outlines penalties: The first infraction would carry a fine of $1,000, the second would be $5,000 and a third offense would cost $10,000. How it would be enforced remains unclear.

Abortion is illegal in Mississippi, except when the pregnancy threatens the mother's life or when the pregnancy was caused by rape.

"[But] when a bill has been filed that would regulate what a man is able to do with his own body in his own home, it suddenly has people in an uproar," Blackmon said.

Well, there is a silver lining Wilson. If men use condoms when they masturbate, then it would not be against the law. Will it pass? Not a snowball's chance in hell.

Fact Checking? Who Needs It
Hey Wilson, what's 2 plus 2? It could be 4, or anything else you want. It could be 22. Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta—Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp—announced those platforms will no longer be fact-checked.

It's such a bother and probably just a coincidence that it comes as President Donald Trump is back in the White House, winding up his own truth machine. As you might know, Trump won the 2020 election and Jan. 6 was a “day of love.”

More good news: House Speaker Mike Johnson announced a new committee to investigate “false narratives” about Jan. 6. Ah-hah! Fact checking the fact checking. All those false narratives we saw on TV that day should be checked.

“House Republicans are proud of our work so far in exposing the false narratives peddled by the politically motivated January 6 Select Committee ... but there is still more work to be done,” Johnson said.

But we digress. Zuckerberg and Meta will also loosen some troublesome restraints. “We’re getting rid of a number of restrictions on topics like immigration, gender identity and gender that are the subject of frequent political discourse and debate.”

That's a good thing if you like freedom of hate speech. According to The Washington Post, during Trump's first term, he made more than 30,000 false and misleading statements. Fact checking? Who needs it.

Top 10 Quotes by George Orwell
10. In a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.
9. If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they don't want to hear.
8. Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four.
7. You are free to be a drunkard, an idler, a coward, a backbiter, a fornicator; but you are not free to think for yourself.
6. Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectful and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
5. Intellectual honesty is a crime in any totalitarian country, but even in England it is not exactly profitable to speak and write the truth.
4. Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious.
3. Political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness.
2. The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.
1. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.

Postscript—That's it for another scrambled week here at Smart Bomb, where we keep track of the price of eggs so you don't have to. Hold on to your spatula—the price of eggs is forecast to increase 20% in 2025, campaign promises from Donald Trump notwithstanding.

Overall, grocery prices are expected to rise 2.9%. According to the Consumer Price Index, a dozen large, grade-A eggs went up 50 cents from November through December. That'll take the air out of your souffle. During that period avian flu killed over 17 million egg-laying hens.

Prices vary: in New York they are an average of $7.24; in the Midwest a dozen eggs average $6.84; and in California they are $8.35 per dozen.

To add a little perspective, it's the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp at Auschwitz, where more than 1 million jews were killed. It comes as billionaire Elon Musk told the German right they no longer have to feel guilty about Nazism. That was just before he gave a Nazi salute at Trump's inauguration. Let the gaslighting begin.

Speaking of which, Pete Hegseth is the new Secretary of Defense, promising to fix the military immediately by scrapping any and all DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion) initiatives, including keeping all trans people out of the service. The few, the proud, the straight white men. Who-ah!

Well, Orwell was right, in a time of deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. And there's no getting around it, this is a time of deceit. So Wilson, maybe you and the guys in the band can pull something out of your pocket to gird our loins, stiffen our backs and get our minds right:

I am just a poor boy
Though my story's seldom told
I have squandered my resistance
For a pocketful of mumbles
Such are promises
All lies and jest
Still, a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest

Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie

Asking only workman's wages
I come looking for a job
But I get no offers
Just a come-on from the whores
On Seventh Avenue
I do declare
There were times when I was so lonesome
I took some comfort there

Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of ev'ry glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie

Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie … Lie-la-lie
“The Boxer”—Paul Simon

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