Thursday, October 31, 2024

Before It Ends, Anyway 🎃

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Still Unclear About The Concept

Four rich white guys as symbols of American working men. And they label icons of America “thugs”? And he protects them, whether they like it or not. MUST STOP THE VOTING!!! 🗳️  Okay.... Maybe they should stop campaigning. Our guys on their side.
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🚮 Pwned

Newt served divorce papers on his last wife while she was in the hospital for cancer treatments. He’d been cheating on her with his second wife. So maybe he should sit this one out. 

It’s none of my damned business who the Lovely Wife votes for. If I’m such a big asshole I get upset by her votes, I deserve to be lied to on the subject.
Until I see Trump picking up the garbage can and dumping it in the truck, it won’t be driving me crazy enough. 🤪 If he doesn’t put the vest back on, I won’t feel pwned. And Truth Social is doing so poorly they suspended trading in it twice today. Twice. Today. Trump lost about $1 billion in value. Today.

😈
I guess he still has money to burn. Thanks largely to these rubes cheering him on. Like 🗑️?
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Hallowe'en

Yes, those are my jack o' lanterns, from 19 years ago.  I've seldom been so ambitious since.

Upon that night, when fairies light
On Cassilis Downans dance,
Or owre the lays, in splendid blaze,
On sprightly coursers prance;
Or for Colean the route is ta'en,
Beneath the moon's pale beams;
There, up the cove, to stray and rove,
Among the rocks and streams
To sport that night.

Among the bonny winding banks,
Where Doon rins, wimplin' clear,
Where Bruce ance ruled the martial ranks,
And shook his Carrick spear,
Some merry, friendly, country-folks,
Together did convene,
To burn their nits, and pou their stocks,
And haud their Halloween
Fu' blithe that night.

The lasses feat, and cleanly neat,
Mair braw than when they're fine;
Their faces blithe, fu' sweetly kythe,
Hearts leal, and warm, and kin';
The lads sae trig, wi' wooer-babs,
Weel knotted on their garten,
Some unco blate, and some wi' gabs,
Gar lasses' hearts gang startin'
Whiles fast at night.

Then, first and foremost, through the kail,
Their stocks maun a' be sought ance;
They steek their een, and graip and wale,
For muckle anes and straught anes.
Poor hav'rel Will fell aff the drift,
And wander'd through the bow-kail,
And pou't, for want o' better shift,
A runt was like a sow-tail,
Sae bow't that night.

Then, staught or crooked, yird or nane,
They roar and cry a' throu'ther;
The very wee things, todlin', rin,
Wi' stocks out owre their shouther;
And gif the custoc's sweet or sour.
Wi' joctelegs they taste them;
Syne cozily, aboon the door,
Wi cannie care, they've placed them
To lie that night.

The lasses staw frae 'mang them a'
To pou their stalks of corn:
But Rab slips out, and jinks about,
Behint the muckle thorn:
He grippet Nelly hard and fast;
Loud skirl'd a' the lasses;
But her tap-pickle maist was lost,
When kitlin' in the fause-house
Wi' him that night.

The auld guidwife's well-hoordit nits,
Are round and round divided,
And monie lads' and lasses' fates
Are there that night decided:
Some kindle coothie, side by side,
And burn thegither trimly;
Some start awa, wi' saucy pride,
And jump out-owre the chimlie
Fu' high that night.

Jean slips in twa wi' tentie ee;
Wha 'twas she wadna tell;
But this is Jock, and this is me,
She says in to hersel:
He bleezed owre her, and she owre him,
As they wad never mair part;
Till, fuff! he started up the lum,
And Jean had e'en a sair heart
To see't that night.

Poor Willie, wi' his bow-kail runt,
Was brunt wi' primsie Mallie;
And Mallie, nae doubt, took the drunt,
To be compared to Willie;
Mall's nit lap out wi' pridefu' fling,
And her ain fit it brunt it;
While Willie lap, and swore by jing,
'Twas just the way he wanted
To be that night.

Nell had the fause-house in her min',
She pits hersel and Rob in;
In loving bleeze they sweetly join,
Till white in ase they're sobbin';
Nell's heart was dancin' at the view,
She whisper'd Rob to leuk for't:
Rob, stowlins, prie'd her bonny mou',
Fu' cozie in the neuk for't,
Unseen that night.

But Merran sat behint their backs,
Her thoughts on Andrew Bell;
She lea'es them gashin' at their cracks,
And slips out by hersel:
She through the yard the nearest taks,
And to the kiln goes then,
And darklins graipit for the bauks,
And in the blue-clue throws then,
Right fear't that night.

And aye she win't, and aye she swat,
I wat she made nae jaukin',
Till something held within the pat,
Guid Lord! but she was quakin'!
But whether 'was the deil himsel,
Or whether 'twas a bauk-en',
Or whether it was Andrew Bell,
She didna wait on talkin'
To spier that night.

Wee Jennie to her grannie says,
"Will ye go wi' me, grannie?
I'll eat the apple at the glass
I gat frae Uncle Johnnie:"
She fuff't her pipe wi' sic a lunt,
In wrath she was sae vap'rin',
She notice't na, an aizle brunt
Her braw new worset apron
Out through that night.

"Ye little skelpie-limmer's face!
I daur you try sic sportin',
As seek the foul thief ony place,
For him to spae your fortune.
Nae doubt but ye may get a sight!
Great cause ye hae to fear it;
For mony a ane has gotten a fright,
And lived and died deleeret
On sic a night.

"Ae hairst afore the Sherramoor, --
I mind't as weel's yestreen,
I was a gilpey then, I'm sure
I wasna past fifteen;
The simmer had been cauld and wat,
And stuff was unco green;
And aye a rantin' kirn we gat,
And just on Halloween
It fell that night.

"Our stibble-rig was Rab M'Graen,
A clever sturdy fallow:
His son gat Eppie Sim wi' wean,
That lived in Achmacalla:
He gat hemp-seed, I mind it weel,
And he made unco light o't;
But mony a day was by himsel,
He was sae sairly frighted
That very night."

Then up gat fechtin' Jamie Fleck,
And he swore by his conscience,
That he could saw hemp-seed a peck;
For it was a' but nonsense.
The auld guidman raught down the pock,
And out a hanfu' gied him;
Syne bade him slip frae 'mang the folk,
Some time when nae ane see'd him,
And try't that night.

He marches through amang the stacks,
Though he was something sturtin;
The graip he for a harrow taks.
And haurls it at his curpin;
And every now and then he says,
"Hemp-seed, I saw thee,
And her that is to be my lass,
Come after me, and draw thee
As fast this night."

He whistled up Lord Lennox' march
To keep his courage cheery;
Although his hair began to arch,
He was say fley'd and eerie:
Till presently he hears a squeak,
And then a grane and gruntle;
He by his shouther gae a keek,
And tumbled wi' a wintle
Out-owre that night.

He roar'd a horrid murder-shout,
In dreadfu' desperation!
And young and auld came runnin' out
To hear the sad narration;
He swore 'twas hilchin Jean M'Craw,
Or crouchie Merran Humphie,
Till, stop! she trotted through them
And wha was it but grumphie
Asteer that night!

Meg fain wad to the barn hae gaen,
To win three wechts o' naething;
But for to meet the deil her lane,
She pat but little faith in:
She gies the herd a pickle nits,
And two red-cheekit apples,
To watch, while for the barn she sets,
In hopes to see Tam Kipples
That very nicht.

She turns the key wi cannie thraw,
And owre the threshold ventures;
But first on Sawnie gies a ca'
Syne bauldly in she enters:
A ratton rattled up the wa',
And she cried, Lord, preserve her!
And ran through midden-hole and a',
And pray'd wi' zeal and fervour,
Fu' fast that night;

They hoy't out Will wi' sair advice;
They hecht him some fine braw ane;
It chanced the stack he faddom'd thrice
Was timmer-propt for thrawin';
He taks a swirlie, auld moss-oak,
For some black grousome carlin;
And loot a winze, and drew a stroke,
Till skin in blypes cam haurlin'
Aff's nieves that night.

A wanton widow Leezie was,
As canty as a kittlin;
But, och! that night amang the shaws,
She got a fearfu' settlin'!
She through the whins, and by the cairn,
And owre the hill gaed scrievin,
Whare three lairds' lands met at a burn
To dip her left sark-sleeve in,
Was bent that night.

Whyles owre a linn the burnie plays,
As through the glen it wimpl't;
Whyles round a rocky scaur it strays;
Whyles in a wiel it dimpl't;
Whyles glitter'd to the nightly rays,
Wi' bickering, dancing dazzle;
Whyles cookit underneath the braes,
Below the spreading hazel,
Unseen that night.

Among the brackens, on the brae,
Between her and the moon,
The deil, or else an outler quey,
Gat up and gae a croon:
Poor Leezie's heart maist lap the hool!
Near lav'rock-height she jumpit;
but mist a fit, and in the pool
Out-owre the lugs she plumpit,
Wi' a plunge that night.

In order, on the clean hearth-stane,
The luggies three are ranged,
And every time great care is ta'en',
To see them duly changed:
Auld Uncle John, wha wedlock joys
Sin' Mar's year did desire,
Because he gat the toom dish thrice,
He heaved them on the fire
In wrath that night.

Wi' merry sangs, and friendly cracks,
I wat they didna weary;
And unco tales, and funny jokes,
Their sports were cheap and cheery;
Till butter'd so'ns, wi' fragrant lunt,
Set a' their gabs a-steerin';
Syne, wi' a social glass o' strunt,
They parted aff careerin'
Fu' blythe that night.


--Robert Burns

You cannot make heads or tails of this without Burns' annotations, which you can find here (and you thought Eliot invented the self-annotated poem), complete with an Eliotesque headnote (he expected you to read Greek and Latin; Burns expects you to read Scots dialect and know that Cassilis Downans is not just a place, but a fairy haunt.  What did people do before Google?).

Yes, I’ve done this once or twice before. But the point of the poem is that it describes the Hallowe’en parties of yore, recounting all the practices usual for the celebration. Most of them were aimed at prognostication, usually around who one would marry. It’s really fun to read, and following Burns’ notes will repay the effort. What it doesn’t have to do with is ghoulies and ghosties and things that go bump in the night. Which tells you our modern Hallowe’en is a very modern invention, and probably says more about us than about our ancestors.

Who seem to have had a much better time of it.
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Political News Is Gossip

QED
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At The End Of The Day 🎃

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Wednesday, October 30, 2024

Some People Are Just Askin’

100 years of medical history is fake news.
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Luke 12:25

I’m trying to remember how that worked out last time.  It was a long time ago, but I’m pretty sure some people still remember.

Meanwhile: Because, of course they are.
"The likelihood of violence "is higher if Trump wins," Bacon said. "Like we saw on Jan. 20, 2017."
Bacon is a Republican, of course. Who’s gonna tell him? 200 protesters were arrested that day. Compared to…

Or this:
Your right to vote stops at the end of my nose. And at the limit of what the law allows you to bring to the polling location.  If poll workers can handle it…

“Can any of you add an hour to life by fretting about it?” (SV) 
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The Needs Of The Many Outweigh The Needs Of The Few

For the sake of the rest of us, Massie can just give up drinking milk.🥛 

No reason the rest of us should be at risk for him.
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Comedy Tonight! 🎭

It’s official: Trump’s campaign staff hates him. It's beyond argument. I mean, come on! FoxNews is through with him, too.
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The Liberal Media Is Liberal

OTOH, there aren’t that many voters taking their directions from Politico. Still: “objective journalism.” See that you do. Biden is objectively worse. As journalists use the term “objectively.”
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Edgelording Into The Abyss

All day long. So he treats them the way he treats Twitter and Tesla employees?

Nobody coulda foreseen….
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A Concept Of A Theory Of An Evil Plan

But I wouldn’t be so sure they’ll do so again, especially because this time the Trump people will not necessarily be asking the court to overturn the results of a state’s election. They’ll just be asking them to delay certification of those results, until some later date. In addition to ruling for the Trumpers outright, the court could simply delay hearing the case for as long as the delay is helpful for Trump. The Supreme Court can put its thumb on the scale for Trump simply by pretending to “stay out of it” and allowing the “process” to play itself out. 
If enough states refuse to certify the results of the election and submit a slate of electors—with the Supreme Court’s blessing—the math is not actually hard for Trump. Let’s say Vice President Kamala Harris wins the bare majority of Electoral College votes necessary, 270, but the Republican legislature in Wisconsin refuses to submit the state’s 10 electors by the deadline. In this scenario, the new total number of electors becomes 528, not 538—and Trump needs only 264 electoral votes to “win.” If you take Wisconsin and Nevada’s six electors out of the mix, Trump needs only 262 electoral votes to “win.” He’ll likely achieve those numbers without having to win one of the “blue wall” states.
Well, sure, that could happen. If the rule if law is abandoned by the courts and the red tide of anarchy is loosed upon the land. But short of that, the Electoral Count Reform Act (which Mystal cites but doesn’t seem to have read) says the states “shall” certify their electoral results according to state law enacted before Election Day. If they don’t, a court authorized certification can be used to appoint electors.

In other words, for “if enough states” substitute “if any state,” and insert “the certification happens anyway,” you have the real state of the law.

So, how do a number of states conspire to withhold certification of their votes until after the College meets? Magical thinking? Complete abandonment of the rule of law by all concerned?

Speaking of which:
And this is where Speaker Johnson becomes critical to the whole “secret” plan. In 2020, Nancy Pelosi was speaker of the House. If states had tried to get cute and not submit their electors by the December 11 deadline, Pelosi would just have extended the deadline. But Speaker Johnson surely won’t. If electors are not submitted by December 11, he’ll likely declare the process “over” and say that the electors appointed by that date are the only ones allowed to vote for president.
She could have? He could? Based on what provision of law, pray tell? There’s nothing in the ECRA that allows for this. 
Meeting and vote of electors The electors of President and Vice President of each State shall meet and give their votes on the first Tuesday after the second Wednesday in December next following their appointment at such place in each State in accordance with the laws of the State enacted prior to election day.
3 USC sec. 7.  

And while I have you here, sec. 13 is pertinent, too:
When, after the meeting of the electors shall have been held, no certificates of votes from any State shall have been received at the seat of government on the fourth Wednesday in December, the President of the Senate or, if the President of the Senate be absent from the seat of government, the Archivist of the United States shall send a special messenger to the district judge in whose custody one certificate of votes from that State has been lodged, and such judge shall forthwith transmit that certificate by the hand of such messenger to the seat of government.
Really not a lot of room there either for the Speaker to throw a spanner in the works, or for a state to withhold their electors (who are chosen on Election Day (3 USC sec. 1). Everything after that is just ministerial acts by the states. If they don’t do it, the district court will. Somebody with standing could force the issue and bring it to court. Plenty of interested parties would be happy to.

We’ve got enough problems without inventing new nightmares to worry needlessly about. Well, I guess it sells magazines. Isn’t that the excuse for keeping Trump in the headlines?
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Ironies Abound: A Continuing Series

Purcell in a nutshell:
Under the Purcell principle, courts should not change election rules during the period of time just prior to an election because doing so could confuse voters and create problems for officials administering the election.

 Purcell in practice:

Litigants typically assert Purcell arguments when asking an appellate court to block, or “stay,” a lower court decision that would change the rules for an upcoming election. In these circumstances, litigants seek to prevent the decision from taking effect until a higher court can hear an appeal on the merits of the case. In addition to the election-specific considerations discussed in Purcell, courts apply a broader standard for reviewing these motions. This standard involves weighing: (1) the likelihood of success on the merits of the appeal, (2) whether there would be irreparable harm to the party seeking to block the decision if it were permitted to stand, (3) whether blocking the decision would substantially harm other parties to the case, and (4) the public’s interest in the matter. Courts view the first two factors as most critical.
And we’re back to why the Court didn’t see fit to explain itself. Ironic because:
The Supreme Court [in Purcell] based its decision on the short amount of time between the 9th Circuit’s order and the election, the need of Arizona election officials for clear guidance, and the 9th Circuit’s lack of an explanation for its decision.
Of course, if 1) and 2) above are the most important elements (as they are in any consideration of a stay or injunction), the Supreme Court has already explained itself, without explaining itself.

Shadowy, indeed. 🗣️
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But! Joe Biden Is Old!

Never underestimate the importance of the apostrophe.
I think this is so absurd," Finney said. "You guys, if we're going to sit here and compare crazy statements by old white guys, let's please do that, because let's talk about what Donald Trump went on to talk about, right? When he talks about s--thole countries and he talks about rapists and murderers, and accusing him of putting children in danger in Springfield because 'they're eating cats and dogs.' I mean, Joe Biden misspoke, he said something stupid – he's not at the top of the ticket. Donald Trump is at the top of the ticket." 
"He has been racist, misogynist, sexist – I mean, he's been attacking everybody for everything," Finney added. 
"I'm just saying, if we're going to make a list, let's do that." Thompson pushed back, saying they had both taken part in discussions on various Trump remarks, but Finney said there's no comparison to the former president's repeated attacks and Biden's comment. 
"It's going to matter because the Trump campaign is going to make it matter," she said. "But to my mind, there's no comparison to that, based on the kinds of things that Donald Trump has been saying all campaign, every day, every single event that he doesn't even apologize for any of it"  
"I'm saying it's absurd also because, by the way, Steve Bannon, fresh out of jail yesterday, started talking about election sabotage and violence and fomenting violence," Finney added, "and we're talking about where an apostrophe goes. Are you joking?"
75,000 people in D.C. v a handful of whiners on Twitter. 

I like those odds.
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Heinous Fuckery


The application for stay presented to The Chief Justice and by him referred to the Court is granted. The October 25, 2024 order of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, case Nos. 1:24-cv-1778 and 1:24-cv-1807, is stayed pending the disposition of the appeal in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and disposition of a petition for a writ of certiorari, if such a writ is timely sought. Should certiorari be denied, this stay shall terminate automatically. In the event certiorari is granted, the stay shall terminate upon the sending down of the judgment of this Court.
Without comment from Professor Vladeck, I have to rely on Politico for the status of this case. 

This is what the Court just ruled on:
In a filing docketed early Monday, state Attorney General Jason Miyares requested a stay that would head off a deadline Wednesday to restore about 1,600 people to the voter rolls who were kicked off since Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order in August stepping up the computer cross-checks.
Per Politico
In an unusual Sunday ruling, a unanimous panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals largely rebuffed arguments from lawyers for Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin that an injunction the Justice Department and civil rights groups obtained against the program from a lower-court judge Friday was legally flawed and would be too disruptive to administer in the just over a week remaining before Election Day. 
Youngkin’s attorneys argued that a ban in federal law on systematic programs to remove voters in the 90 days before a federal election does not apply to efforts aimed at removing non-citizens, but the appeals court forcefully rejected that as an “argument that violates basic principles of statutory construction.” 
The three-judge panel’s order stressed that Virginia officials “remain able to prevent noncitizens from voting by canceling registrations on an individualized basis or prosecuting any noncitizen who votes,” but said a system Virginia uses to match citizenship data from the Department of Motor Vehicles with voter rolls appears to violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 when implemented during the so-called “quiet period” before elections.
The Supremes stayed the trial court order on restoring the rolls until the appeals court has finished its review, or until the Supremes take up the case. At least that’s how I read this based on the Politico report of what Virginia asked for, and what Politico is reporting now. . I can’t imagine (or understand) how a stay of the order telling Virginia to stop purging the rolls would work. Far easier to understand a stay of the order to restore the rolls. 

The Supreme Court did not treat the order of the appeals court (I assume that’s what Politico is quoting) as final, and so didn’t stay that order. It appears the appeals court ruled on the injunction alone, and withheld judgment on the rest of the appeal (whatever other issues there are). It would seem the Supremes don’t agree with what the appeals court has done so far, but this is not the time to say that. So they stay the trial court. Procedurally, much neater.

This is a procedural order, not a substantive one, so it’s hard to read anything into it, or out of it, without knowing more about what the application (the one three justices would deny) of Virginia to the Court, was. But there, Professor Vladeck comes in to clarify:
That’s where I come down. This is virtually a shadow docket ruling, making a substantive decision in the guise of a procedural one, and without explanation. It’s rather hard to say the Court isn’t ruling: “Let Virginia fuck with the voters.”

It’s worth noting here that Virginia’s substantive argument was the Feds weren’t giving them access to data the Feds said wouldn’t show what Virginia wanted to see, that is, absolute proof of citizenship. Whatever that would be. (For example: my birth certificate is accepted as proof of citizenship; but, it doesn’t have my picture on it (nor do I look like that now). How far down this rabbit hole do we go?). The trial court no doubt considered that in its order. What the Supremes are thinking is anybody’s guess, especially without the record before them.

Interesting side note, especially if true:
How the fuck do I do demonstrate my citizenship? Oddly (and I’m surprised no one is mentioning it), I had to prove my citizenship with a birth certificate in order to renew my DL last summer. Federal law (Real ID) now requires it so you can use the DL as ID to fly. Which effectively means you can’t get a DL without it. It’s entirely possible these 1600 have not yet renewed their licenses (or don’t have one), but if any have, why wouldn’t their DL be proof of citizenship? I’m assuming Voter ID laws are implemented somewhat uniformly (and that Virginia has one). I used to take my voter registration card and my DL to vote. Now they just scan my DL against the database and give me a ballot. My Real ID DL is proof of citizenship, no?

Voting in this country is SO fucked up.
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“Good People On Both Sides”

All Nazis are certainly garbage. History has not redeemed Nazism.

Are all Trump supporters Nazis? Clearly some people think so.
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“It Would Be A Crime To Give Her An Abortion”

 To start with, this happened three years ago:

Like all states, Texas has a committee of maternal health experts who review such deaths to recommend ways to prevent them, but the committee’s reports on individual cases are not public and members said they have not finished examining cases from 2021, the year Barnica died.
What should be done differently has yet to be reported. What was done is this:
Josseli Barnica grieved the news as she lay in a Houston hospital bed on Sept. 3, 2021: The sibling she’d dreamt of giving her daughter would not survive this pregnancy.  
The fetus was on the verge of coming out, its head pressed against her dilated cervix; she was 17 weeks pregnant and a miscarriage was “in progress,” doctors noted in hospital records. At that point, they should have offered to speed up the delivery or empty her uterus to stave off a deadly infection, more than a dozen medical experts told ProPublica. 
But when Barnica’s husband rushed to her side from his job on a construction site, she relayed what she said the medical team had told her: “They had to wait until there was no heartbeat,” he told ProPublica in Spanish. “It would be a crime to give her an abortion.” 
For 40 hours, the anguished 28-year-old mother prayed for doctors to help her get home to her daughter; all the while, her uterus remained exposed to bacteria. 
Three days after she delivered, Barnica died of an infection.
"Miscarriage” is the lay term. The medical term is “spontaneous abortion.” It does not mean “a willful act of murder.” It means a premature termination of pregnancy. In this case, the willful act of murder was refusing proper medical treatment of a condition. The crime was not providing medical care.

And three years later we haven’t heard about it because the mother was not a blonde, white woman whose husband was a white, English speaking professional.  She was, in fact, from Honduras. This wasn’t a fetus discarded by an uncaring abortionist. This is a family discarded by an uncaring system. It’s only surprising that they aren’t still invisible, and unheard.

After reviewing the four-page summary, which included the timeline of care noted in hospital records, all agreed that requiring Barnica to wait to deliver until after there was no detectable fetal heartbeat violated professional medical standards because it could allow time for an aggressive infection to take hold. They said there was a good chance she would have survived if she was offered an intervention earlier.
But:
Though proponents insist that the laws protect both the life of the fetus and the person carrying it, in practice, doctors have hesitated to provide care under threat of prosecution, prison time and professional ruin.
Feature, not bug. This is the outcome the Texas Legislature wanted. Because they got it; and they aren’t trying to change it. 
Many noted a striking similarity to the case of Savita Halappavanar, a 31-year-old woman who died of septic shock in 2012 after providers in Ireland refused to empty her uterus while she was miscarrying at 17 weeks. When she begged for care, a midwife told her, “This is a Catholic country.” The resulting investigation and public outcry galvanized the country to change its strict ban on abortion. 
But in the wake of deaths related to abortion access in the United States, leaders who support restricting the right have not called for any reforms.
Of course, until today, who had heard of Josseli Barnica?

Feature, not bug.
Last month, ProPublica told the stories of two Georgia women, Amber Thurman and Candi Miller, whose deaths were deemed “preventable” by the state’s maternal mortality review committee after they were unable to access legal abortions and timely medical care amid an abortion ban. 
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp called the reporting “fear mongering.” Former President Donald Trump has not weighed in — except to joke that his Fox News town hall on women’s issues would get “better ratings” than a press call where Thurman’s family spoke about their pain.
Colin Allred is campaigning against Texas’ draconian (i.e., devilish) abortion laws. Gov Abbott’s only comment on the situation has been to accuse Allred of trying to turn Texas into California.

Feature, not bug.

And this is America. It’s money that matters. Ms. Barnica was a patient in an HCA hospital:
Some HCA shareholders have asked the company to prepare a report on the risks to the company related to the bans in states that restrict abortion, so patients would understand what services they could expect and doctors would know under what circumstances they would be protected. But the board of directors opposed the proposal, partly because it would create an “unnecessary expense and burdens with limited benefits to our stockholders.” The proposal was supported by 8% of shareholders who voted. 
The company’s decision to abstain has repercussions far beyond Texas; the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain has said it delivers more babies than any other health care provider in America, and 70% of its hospitals are in states where abortion is restricted.
HCA  will not offer any help to doctors accused of the crime of abortion.  And medical malpractice insurance doesn’t cover criminal charges. A “jury of your peers” is not guaranteed to understand what the term “abortion” means to a doctor. And when the choice is between your liberty, and a Medical Board which is not going to suspend your license, the duty to your patient takes a back seat.

Which is how the state wants it.
In 2023, Texas lawmakers made a small concession to the outcry over the uncertainty the ban was creating in hospitals. They created a new exception for ectopic pregnancies, a potentially fatal condition where the embryo attaches outside the uterine cavity, and for cases where a patient’s membranes rupture prematurely before viability, which introduces a high risk of infection. Doctors can still face prosecution, but are allowed to make the case to a judge or jury that their actions were protected, not unlike self-defense arguments after homicides. Barnica’s condition would not have clearly fit this exception.
An affirmative defense is not exactly a “Get Out Of Jail Free” card. And patients? Fuck you, you're on your own.
This year, after being directed to do so by the state Supreme Court, the Texas Medical Board released new guidance telling doctors that an emergency didn’t need to be “imminent” in order to intervene and advising them to provide extra documentation regarding risks. But in a recent interview, the board’s president, Dr. Sherif Zaafran, acknowledged that these efforts only go so far and the group has no power over criminal law: “There’s nothing we can do to stop a prosecutor from filing charges against the physicians.” Asked what he would tell Texas patients who are miscarrying and unable to get treatment, he said they should get a second opinion: “They should vote with their feet and go and seek guidance from somebody else.”
So the next time you’re in the middle of a spontaneous abortion and the baby is crowning and the doctors are waiting for the baby to die, get up, get dressed, and try to find another hospital. But don’t try to leave the state; Ken Paxton wouldn’t like that. And if you die in the effort, well….

At least the Great State of Texas didn’t allow you to have an abortion.
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And Trump Knows Nothing About Project 2025, Either

A bottomless well of need.
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Tuesday, October 29, 2024

Mischief Managed

Probably a few Puerto Ricans there, too. And none of them will be required to lavishly praise the VP. 😮
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Hilariously Inept 🕛

Richest Man In The World tells country: you need to suffer!

And does this in support of Trump. 7 days before the election. When it won’t win any support, or likely cost any support. Although following hot after MSG, it’s bound to hurt. 

As well as mark him as truly and incredibly stupid.
While previous leaders have avoided openly endorsing policies that might hurt working Americans, Musk’s comments reveal a different approach, where short-term pain is not only acknowledged but welcomed. Critics argue that this plan—prioritizing austerity over growth—could destabilize the economy and deepen inequality, impacting essential services for millions of families who rely on public support. But Musk and Trump’s perspective appears to frame these hardships as collateral damage in a broader strategy for “long-term prosperity.”
Elmo just thinks he’s saying the quiet part out loud. He also thinks that makes him “disruptive,” and clever. Like Project 2025, however, he’s going to find out why it’s called “the quiet part.” And why you don’t say it out loud.
Meanwhile, under the Biden-Harris administration, the U.S. economy has seen record growth. This month, The Economist called the U.S. economy "the envy of the world" amid historic growth, low unemployment, and the lowest inflation of any nation in the G7. The major stock market continue to hit record highs on a near daily basis. Yet Trump and Musk want to replace this prosperity with pain.
Can’t imagine why that wouldn’t be popular. Especially at the 11th hour.
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The Explanation For Early Voting Turnout

That doesn’t involve incipient violence, chaos, or the death of the Republic.

Just people ready to be done with it.
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There Are No Simple Problems

But there are simple minds.

My mother was diabetic from early in her adult life. She controlled it with diet for decades, and only late in life had to rely on insulin. By her last years, she had to test her blood and take insulin shots four times a day.

Diet wasn’t going to cure her then, though she still had to eat carefully. Then again, diet never cured her. It just kept her from needing insulin until it couldn’t do that anymore.

I don’t know of a cure for diabetes, except avoiding it as much as you can. I’ve been told for years now I’m on the verge of diabetes (my grandmother was diabetic as well, as were my mother’s sisters). I keep it at bay, but I regard it like alcoholism: if you have it, you’re never cured. You just control it as best you can.

(Apparently Ozempic is for weight loss. My mother never had a weight problem. Diabetes is not dependent on weight, per se. Then again, there’s “type 2” and “type 1,” and I don’t know the difference. It is, in other words, a complex subject, and simple answers are usually stupid answers.)

(In the last months of her life I understood my   mother’s diabetic condition better than anyone, including and especially the ER doctors she saw repeatedly. (Senior housing facilities default to the ambulance/ER; understandably, but that can make the situation worse. However, it moves the situation elsewhere, which is all they care about. Again: understandably.) Every ER visit broke the cycle of her insulin/diet regimen, and I alone understood that problem and the consequences (it could take two weeks to recover from one day in ER). The last visit she had (she died of complications days after), I pleaded with everyone I could to get help for her. No chance. I wasn’t, after all, a doctor.

So many of our problems arise from communication, and the inability to receive information.)
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Ellipses…

The capacity of MSG is 20,000.
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Very Low Energy

This seems to be the first new thing he’s said at his “emergency press conference.” Kamala Harris is speaking on the Ellipse tonight, where Trump rallied the troops in J6. This “emergency” seems to be his attempt to grab some attention. 

CNN has already bailed. Fox almost did.
And it seems to be so dull Ron and Aaron aren’t updating very often. Well, that explains it. You get the idea. I added that only because the monitor behind Trump finally showed something legible on camera. His campaign staff hates him.
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Really? Worse Than Clarence Thomas?

Because that was a lifetime appointment realistically only reversible by death (Thomas threatened to quit, which is why he’s so well off now).
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But! But! But…

...all the Republicans are turning out to vote for Trump, right? Right?
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When Is Merrick Garland Going To Wake Up…

...and indict the Volvo? Justice delayed is justice denied!
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Monday, October 28, 2024

MGAnon Ad Nauseam

One sovereign is not greater than the other in all matters.

And to the argument Garland should have acted on 1/21/21 (yes, that’s the reply tweet), or even the day he was approved by the Senate, recall the lesson of the 64 challenges to the 2020 election, all of which were rejected. Why? Say it with me now: “LACK OF EVIDENCE!”

Which leads into this:
Criminal indictments have to go through grand juries (it’s in the constitution), and grand juries have to be presented with evidence. Which is why the preliminary to going to the grand jury is an investigation. There are also issues of due process (privilege, 5th amendment rights, etc.) As I’ve said ad nauseum, reality is not a TeeVee show.  Knowing someone is guilty and proving it in court: two very different things.

“Lock ‘im up!” is MAGA’s idiot cry. It doesn’t suddenly become clever when we do it.  Expecting Merrick Garland to have magic prosecutorial powers is Trumpian shit. Leave that stupidity to MAGA.
He who fights too long against dragons becomes a dragon himself; and if you gaze too long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze into you.
I’m not a fan of Nietzsche, but he got that one exactly right.
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He Freelanced. They Didn’t Know What He Was Going To Say

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“HERE I COME TO SAVE THE DAY!”

So, this just happened: "Just happened” as in: yesterday. And Merrick Garland should have already bigfooted local and state police and buried the culprits under the jail?

That’s not how this works! That’s not how any of this works!
Not springy enough! Somebody should already be tried and convicted! WE NEED PUBLIC EXECUTIONS! HANG ‘EM FROM A LAMPPOST WITH A SIGN AROUND THEIR NECKS: “MOMMA, HERE’S YOUR BOY!”

Okay, I stole that last bit from Vonnegut, but still: sound like Trump yet?

I understand there are cameras and probably evidence. Besides, voters who think their ballots were lost can cast new ones (this is why you sign the envelopes. Nobody gets to vote twice because of this.). The arson is just stupid. But maybe avoid drop boxes in Washington state, to avoid the inconvenience.

In the meantime, CALM THE FUCK DOWN!

Meanwhile:
Coincidence? I think not. 🤔 
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I Got A Lotta Problems With You People!

Two problems with all this handwringing:

First: I’d expect a ConLaw professor to know Mike Johnson is not automatically Speaker in 2025. That will require a vote of the new House sworn in on January 3rd.

Second, you have to get to a tie coming into J6. Not impossible, but how do you engineer that? Complain about the outcome? Storm the meeting of the elected college? Storm the Capitol on J6? Been there, done that. How did it work out for Trump?

What else ya got?
Okay, that invokes the 12th amendment.  Let’s look at that:
The Electors shall meet in  respective states and vote by ballot for President and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of the same state with themselves; they shall name in their ballots the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted for as Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons voted for as President, and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of the government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate;–the President of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the certificates and the votes shall then be counted;–The person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be the President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of Electors appointed; and if no person have such majority, then from the persons having the highest numbers not exceeding three on the list of those voted for as President, the House of Representatives shall choose immediately, by ballot, the President.
This is why January 6, is January 6. I cut off the language about the House electing the President, because to get there, you have to get here: “and if no person have such majority….” That usually means a tie, since 270 is a majority, and with only two candidates, if both parties get less than 270, it’s a tie. I suppose you could start throwing slates out. But that involves the ECRA. How else do you get there? By throwing doubts on the election?
Historian Heather Cox Richardson in her popular Substack newsletter wrote: "It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically lost the popular vote."
Sure, that’d work; if not for the ECRA.

First you have to go through the ECRA. You know, 1/5th of the House, 1/5th of the Senate, then each chamber a majority, then the whole Congress a majority. And then all you do is toss out a state’s slate. You don’t replace it, you lose it. How many Reps and Senators want to do that to their voters? Especially when it just lowers the number of electoral votes available. It doesn’t create an opening to present an alternate slate. You just trash your own constituents votes. Who wants to run on that record in two years?

Yeah, Trump’s lawyers might challenge the constitutionality of the statute.* But they can’t do that until the statute is used against their interests. (Bringing the case pre-emptively would be seeking an “advisory opinion,” something courts don’t do. Even if the Court decides a Constitutional issue can always be decided, Congress could just adopt the ECRA as its rules, and you’ve wasted a lawsuit. It’s probably the one thing that would unify Congress to do so.) If the case comes after J6 (when the “harm” is done), no Court is going to reverse the result of an election, even if they find the statute unconstitutional.

So do we ever get to the “nightmare scenario”? How, pray tell?

The fact is, you just can’t “create that much confusion.” Not unless the vote count is on your side already (and then, who needs it?) Even challenges to state vote counts go through the ECRA now (again, that’s how the Supremes stopped the Florida recount, even though the Florida Supreme Court authorized it. Federal law trumps state law on federal election questions, and the old ECA set a deadline Florida couldn’t ignore. That will come around again, to stymie Trump.**).

These are all good reasons to vote for Democrats. They are not good reasons to fear the future.

*The new Congress could agree to adopt the ECRA as their rules, which would make it bulletproof.

**This is why Trump is challenging state procedures in state courts now. After Election Day, the ECRA controls those challenges. Even now, federal law barring changes to election law is stopping states like Virginia and Georgia from messing with voter rolls and counting ballots. Elections are a complex web of laws, both state and federal. Imagining Trump overthrowing the system is like imagining Rambo defeating the Viet Cong single-handedly. Maybe in the fevered imaginations of MAGA, but never in real life.


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