Thurs - Save the Fetus. Kill the Mother. Create Orphans.

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Today's Worst Joke in the World

Pollen:  When flowers can't keep it in their plants.
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Today's Worst Person in the World Nominees

Social Distancing 


This is From The Washington Examiner, An Extremely Right-Wing Newspaper

Hutchinson’s testimony confirmed a damning portrayal of Trump as unstable, unmoored, and absolutely heedless of his sworn duty to effectuate a peaceful transition of presidential power. Considering the entirety of her testimony, it is unsurprising that Hutchinson said she heard serious discussions of Cabinet members invoking the 25th Amendment that would have at least temporarily evicted Trump from office.

Trump is a disgrace. Republicans have far better options to lead the party in 2024. No one should think otherwise, much less support him, ever again.

The Most Dangerous SCOTUS Decision of This Year

The Supreme Court will hear arguments in its fall 2022 session on whether or not state courts play any role in judging the constitutionality of election laws and legislative district maps passed by state legislatures.

The case of Moore v. Harper is brought by Republicans in the North Carolina state legislature who claim that state courts have no say on whether the voting laws they write or the district maps they adopt are unconstitutional under their state’s constitution.

If the court accepts these arguments, it would wipe out the last remaining protection available against extreme partisan gerrymandering and greatly increase the ability of state’s adopt highly restrictive voting laws.

It could also play a role in any future attempt by presidential candidates to steal an election, as former President Donald Trump attempted in the 2020 election. Siding with the North Carolina Republicans could effectively give all electoral authority to state legislatures, including in the approval of the winner of the state’s electoral college electors.

Another Attack on Free Elections

Republicans and other conservative groups are undertaking a huge effort to recruit election workers, a push that could install people with unfounded doubts about the 2020 election in key positions in voting precincts where they could exert considerable power over elections.

At the forefront of this push is Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who was on Donald Trump’s legal team in 2020 and played a key role in his effort to overturn the election. Over the last few months, Mitchell has held “election integrity summits” in several battleground states, convening groups and citizens who continue to believe the 2020 election was stolen. The summits offer in-depth training on how to monitor election offices and how to work elections. At a mid-June summit in North Carolina, Mitchell mocked the term “election denier” and said “whether the outcome was correct, that’s all I deny”. Voter fraud is extremely rare and there was no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020.

Meanwhile SCOTUS Will Kill More Americans

In a blow to the fight against climate change, the Supreme Court on Thursday limited how the nation’s main anti-air pollution law can be used to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.

Save the Fetus.  Kill the Mother.  Create Orphans.

US. maternal mortality rates are certain to rise as more states restrict abortion following the fall of Roe v. Wade, experts said, a sobering prediction as new statistics show the Covid pandemic’s already outsize effect on maternal deaths.

With a higher rate than any other developed country, maternal mortality in the United States is astonishingly high, particularly for people of color.

Statistics from before the pandemic showed that about 700 people were dying of pregnancy-related complications each year, with Black and American Indian/Alaska Native women about three times as likely to die from a pregnancy-related cause compared to white women, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

An analysis published Tuesday in JAMA Network Open found that maternal deaths increased in 2020 by as much as 41% after the pandemic was declared. The increases were starkest for Hispanic and Black women.

As states across the country curtail access to abortion, women’s health advocates and researchers foresee the maternal mortality rate and its racial disparities only getting worse — particularly because states that are banning abortion are often the ones that already have high maternal mortality rates.

The Best About the Worst

Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) asked a question on Twitter on Wednesday, but he probably didn’t like the answers he received.

Jackson, a conspiracy theorist and Donald Trump acolyte who as White House physician once claimed the then-president could live to 200, wrote:



He received some 20,000 replies over the course of the day. 




One of the Best Things About Previous Guy Is That He Supports Candidates Like Herschel


Here's to Sodomy, It's Between God and Me.

Shortly after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) appeared to express support for Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion that the high court could review other precedents that may be deemed “demonstrably erroneous,” including those affecting the LGBTQ community.

One of the cases mentioned by Thomas was Lawrence v. Texas, which prevents states from banning intimate same-sex relationships. The landmark 2003 ruling struck down a 1973 Texas law that criminalized the act of sodomy. But as Roe was overturned, Paxton said he would defend the state’s defunct sodomy law if the Supreme Court were to follow Thomas’s remarks and eventually revisits Lawrence.

“I mean, there’s all kinds of issues here, but certainly the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don’t think there’s any constitutional provision dealing with,” Paxton said in a Friday interview with NewsNation anchor Leland Vittert. “They were legislative issues, and this is one of those issues, and there may be more. So it would depend on the issue and dependent on what state law had said at the time.”

When asked whether the Texas legislature would pass a similar sodomy law and if Paxton would defend it and bring it to the Supreme Court, the Republican attorney general, who is running for reelection in November, suggested he would be comfortable supporting a law outlawing intimate same-sex relationships.



How Did It Take Mick So Long?

Mick Mulvaney, Trump's former Acting Chief of Staff, explicitly stated that he can no longer support Trump in the wake of Hutchinson's testimony.

"I've been defending the president against the charges of incitement to riot. I've seen the same speech he's given dozens of times. I've seen him accused of trying to foment violence with no violence coming as a result, so I've been defending him," Mulvaney told CBS Mornings on Wednesday.

The Dirty Little Secret (Service)

The relationship between the Secret Service and former President Donald Trump is ringing alarm bells amid revelations from testimony given to the House of Representatives' Select Committee that is investigating the January 6, 2021 Capitol riots.

Former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson testified before the committee on Tuesday that Tony Ornato, who is currently assistant director of the Secret Service Office of Training, told her that Trump became irate while in his vehicle on January 6 after he was told he could not go to the Capitol.

Hutchinson said that Ornato had told her Trump had tried to grab the steering wheel and that Ornato had made those comments in a room with Robert Engel, the Secret Service agent in charge of Trump's detail on the day.

Ornato was White House deputy chief of staff for operations at the time. He had been permitted to leave his Secret Service role temporarily in order to serve as deputy chief of staff in an unusual move for the service.

Following Hutchinson's testimony, Secret Service sources told various media outlets that agents were ready to testify and refute the claim. Those agents reportedly include Engel and Ornato as well as the driver of the car.

That has placed renewed attention on the Secret Service and that attention looks set to intensify after investigative journalist and author Carol Leonnig told MSNBC on Tuesday that some agents in Trump's security detail appeared to support the Capitol rioters, while Ornato and Engel are considered to be "aligned" with Trump.

"There was a very large contingent of Donald Trump's detail who were personally cheering for Biden to fail," Leonnig said.

"Some of them even took to their personal media accounts to cheer on the insurrection and the individuals rioting up to the Capitol, as patriots. That is problematic," she said.

"I am not saying that Tony Ornato or Bobby Engel did that but they are viewed as being aligned with Donald Trump, which cuts against them," Leonnig added. "However, if they testify, under oath, 'this is what happened,' I think that is going to be important."

This isn't the first time questions have been raised about the role of Secret Service agents on January 6. In April, Democratic Representative Jamie Raskin highlighted the fact that former Vice President Mike Pence had refused to get into an armored limousine manned by Secret Service agents during the Capitol riot.

Raskin, who is a member of the select committee, suggested that Pence had refused to get into the vehicle because he knew it was part of a "coup" attempt.

"He knew exactly what this inside coup they had planned for was going to do," Raskin said. "It was a coup directed by the president against the vice president and against the Congress."

Some have theorized that the intention was to drive Pence away from the Capitol in order to prevent him from carrying out his role in certifying the 2020 Electoral College votes, though this theory has not been proven.

In 2019, then President Trump removed the director of the Secret Service, Randolph "Tex" Alles, in what one unnamed official called "a near-systematic purge" of the agency. Trump then appointed James Murray as his replacement and Murray is still in the post.

This Man Claims to Be an MD

In a since-deleted tweet (preserved by ProPublica’s Politwoops), NC Republican Congressman Greg Murphy insisted on Sunday that abortion is unnecessary because “no one forces anyone to have sex.”


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Today's Best Person in the World Nominees

What's the Committee Doing?

In each hearing, the committee has skillfully built on a foundation of fact. It previously showed that Mr. Trump was informed repeatedly that he had lost the election; he was also told it could be illegal to attack the election results, but he did so anyhow. Whatever he believed about winning or losing an election, he could not lawfully conspire to find 11,780 votes that did not exist, counterfeit electoral certificates or trigger violence. Indeed, previous hearings focused on and bolstered cases for two possible crimes: solicitation of election fraud (in a Georgia state case) and conspiracy to fabricate electoral certificates (which federal authorities seem to be pursuing). [...]

Each hearing has saved a surprise for the end. Last Thursday’s, for example, ended with the revelations that six members of Congress had sought presidential pardons. On Tuesday it was screenshots, presented by Representative Liz Cheney, of messages presumably from supporters of Mr. Trump to witnesses, insinuating that Mr. Trump was watching and “does read transcripts” and “knows you’re loyal.” They showed possible witness tampering and potential obstruction of justice.

The hearings have very gradually introduced villains, first focusing on Mr. Trump, then on legal helpers for his attempted coup, John Eastman and Jeffrey Clark. On Tuesday we met a fourth, Mr. Meadows. That is part of how the committee has been so shrewd; it has slowly expanded the cast of characters.
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Invasions Have Consequences

Day 127

Fighting

Evidence suggests twin Russian air strikes deliberately targeted a theatre used as a shelter in Mariupol, Amnesty International said in a report.

Russia is stepping up its attacks across Ukraine with several regions beyond the Donbas targeted on Wednesday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. Ten missiles hit a residential area of the Black Sea port city of Mykolaiv, killing at least five people with rescue efforts continuing.

Rescuers are attempting to evacuate residents from the front-line eastern city of Lysychansk, with about 15,000 people remaining in the city, Ukrainian authorities said.

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin denied that Moscow’s forces were responsible for the missile raid on a crowded shopping centre in the Ukrainian town of Kremenchuk earlier this week, in which at least 18 people were killed and many remain missing in the rubble.

Diplomacy

Ukraine carried out its biggest exchange of prisoners of war since Russia invaded, securing the release of 144 of its soldiers, including 95 who defended Mariupol’s steelworks, Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said.

The European Union is close to reaching a compromise deal to defuse the standoff with Russia over Kaliningrad as trade through Lithuania could return to normal within days, Reuters reported.

US President Joe Biden thanked Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for striking a deal with Finland and Sweden for the two Nordic countries to soon become NATO candidates.

Biden said he would deploy more American troops, warplanes and warships across Europe as NATO agreed the biggest strengthening of its deterrents since the Cold War in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Economy

The United Kingdom will provide another 1 billion pounds ($1.2bn) in military support to Ukraine, as NATO has branded Russia the biggest “direct threat” to Western security.

NATO agreed to a long-term financial and military aid package to modernise Ukraine’s largely Soviet-era military. 

Victory On Snake Island

A tiny Ukrainian islet has held the key to control for dominance of the eastern Black Sea since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

Situated 48km (30 miles) off the coast, Snake Island, or Zmiinyi, was seized by Russia on the opening day of the full-scale invasion.

The occupation of Snake Island is of vital strategic importance as it enables the control of approach waters to Ukraine’s last three remaining commercial ports – including its main Black Sea port of Odesa, where a Russian blockade has prevented grain exports from one of the world’s main suppliers.

The island is also well known for an incident in which Ukrainian sailors stationed there reportedly told a Russian warship to “Go f*** yourself!” when it called on them to surrender on February 24, the day Moscow invaded Ukraine.

Yet after months under Russia’s control, Russian forces announced on Thursday that they had abandoned Snake Island – a significant victory for Ukraine.

Russia had long struggled to hold onto the island, as Ukraine launched repeated attacks to attempt to dislodge Russian forces.

Russia’s initial efforts to reinforce its presence on the island were partially successful. Air defence radar and anti-aircraft missiles helped fend off Ukrainian attacks as Russia tried to build the island up into a fortress capable of dominating the region’s air space and sea lanes.

Ukrainian air attacks on the island, while successful, proved costly as Russia shot down several TB2 armed drones.

So Ukraine turned to its complement of anti-ship missiles which have been used to great effect against Russian warships, most notably when Ukrainian cruise missiles sank the pride of the Black Sea Fleet, the Moskva, on April 14.

This forced Russia to pull back most of its ships out of range but left Snake Island exposed as it needs resupply by sea. A ship carrying valuable stores, ammunition, weapons systems and personnel was hit and destroyed by Ukraine, forcing Russia to rethink its position on the island earlier in June.

Despite its heavy defences, regular Ukrainian attacks were making Russia’s position on the island untenable.

Russia’s defence ministry described the decision to withdraw as a “gesture of goodwill” that showed Moscow was not obstructing United Nations efforts to ship grain from Ukrainian ports.

But the abandonment of Snake island is a major reversal for Russia in the battle for control of the Black Sea, and shows that – despite Russian gains elsewhere – the war is far from over.

Ukraine claimed it had driven out the Russian forces after an enormous assault on Wednesday night.



Izyum

Russia expended a great deal of effort to both capture Izyum, and to flood it with the bulk of its army. It’s now been almost three months since Izyum fell on April 1, and Russia has pushed just 30 kilometers (~18 miles) south of town. Their inability to advance forced Russia to settle on the limited Lysychansk-Severodonetsk approach that has netted them the latter, almost the former, and trapped just a handful of Ukrainian troops. (Seriously, Russian Telegram paraded 10 POWs from their approach south of Lysychansk.)

So what happened in Izyum? The same thing that happens everywhere else where Russia tries to extend from friendly territory—it can’t manage its supply lines.

Here is a supply convoy north of Izyum:


Here’s an equipment/supply depot of some sort:


Drone Warfare

The war in Ukraine is no stranger to drones, but the kamikaze drone strike on the Russian city of Rostov last week marked the beginning of a whole chapter in drone warfare. A small ramshackle Ukrainian drone with a tiny warhead flew across the heavily defended front line and smashed into an oil refinery in Russia on June 22, causing a large fire. Given how cheap it is to make a drone, and its successful evasion of Russian air defenses, Russian officials might soon have to worry about defending oil facilities, supply depots, and military installations deep in Russian territory.

Long-range kamikaze drones are a new threat to Russia. Most observers of the conflict in Ukraine are familiar with the Switchblade drones provided by the U.S., but these have a relatively short range and require operators to direct it onto a target. Kamikaze drones like the one used in the Rostov attack can go hundreds of miles without the need for an operator, and are small enough to slip by much of Russia’s air defense, which is designed to detect and engage fighter jets and missiles. With the use of GPS and inertial guidance systems, a Ukrainian operator would simply need to give the drone a point on the map before sending it on its way.

For Russia, the biggest concern is that Ukraine can make these cheaply and easily. Press reports claim the drone used in the Rostov attack was produced by Ukraine or a was model available on the internet for less than $10,000. Airframes, engines, and guidance systems could all be bought commercially and assembled without too much technical expertise. The payloads are likely small and the drone can’t re-adjust if the coordinates are wrong, but it costs a fraction of its American and Turkish-made counterparts and can do millions of dollars in damage if it hits a fuel tank or sets fire to a docked naval vessel. Depending on the final unit cost, Ukrainian drones could conceivably be cheaper than the missiles Russia would use to shoot them down.
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Better Late Than Never, Joe

President Joe Biden said Thursday that he would support making an exception to the Senate's rules to codify Roe v. Wade's protections for a woman's right to an abortion and privacy rights.

"I believe we have to codify Roe v. Wade into law. And the way to do that is to make sure that the Congress votes to do that and if the filibuster gets in the way, it's like voting rights, it should be ... an exception ... to the filibuster for this action to deal with the Supreme Court decision," Biden said in remarks at a press conference in Madrid when asked if he would declare a public health emergency in response to the Supreme Court's ruling overturning the 1973 landmark decision.
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What Liberals Need to Learn.  No, It's Not About Wokeness

The first lesson Democrats can take from the Court’s latest rulings is that persistence pays off. When the Court reaffirmed a right to abortion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, in 1992, the conservative activists didn’t give up. Groups such as the Federalist Society intensified their efforts, making staunch rightist views and allegiance a litmus test for any prospective Court appointment—a test that, in 2005, Harriet Miers, the White House counsel to George W. Bush, failed to meet. Miers’s alternative, Samuel Alito, is now a key member of the ultra-conservative bloc that dominates the Court.
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Tamper At Your Own Risk

The congressional panel investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack may make a criminal referral to the Justice Department recommending that anybody who tried to influence testimony be prosecuted, Representative Liz Cheney told ABC News in a report broadcast on Thursday.
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Somehow, They Forgot to Arrest the White Woman

The family of Emmett Till is calling for the woman linked to the Black teen’s kidnapping in 1955 to be arrested after a team searching for new evidence into the infamous lynching found an unserved warrant for her that was never executed almost 70 years ago.

Leflore County Circuit Clerk Elmus (Elmus??) Stockstill told the Associated Press on Wednesday that the search group, which included two of Till’s relatives and members of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation, discovered a warrant for the arrest of Carolyn Bryant Donham — identified as “Mrs. Roy Bryant” on the document — in a file folder in the basement of a Mississippi courthouse last week.

Donham, who is White, had accused the 14-year-old Till of making improper advances at a family store in Money, Miss., in August 1955 — an accusation that started the chain of events that led to Till’s lynching. Donham was married to Roy Bryant, one of the two White men who were acquitted weeks after Till was abducted from a relative’s home, lynched and tossed into a river.

While the documents are sorted by decades, it’s unclear where the warrant, dated Aug. 29, 1955, was located for all these years. Stockstill told the AP that he certified the warrant to be real after it was found on June 21.

“They narrowed it down between the ’50s and ’60s and got lucky,” Stockstill said.
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Vermont Has a Republican Governor.  If Leahy Dies, Mitch is Back in Power.

Vermont U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy, 81, will undergo emergency hip surgery after falling Wednesday night, depriving his fellow Democrats of any majority in the chamber until he returns.

Leahy, who is third in line to the U.S. presidency given his role as Senate president pro tempore, broke his hip at his house in the northern Virginia suburbs outside Washington, his office said on Thursday, adding that he is expected to make a full recovery.

"Having been born blind in one eye, the Senator has had a lifelong struggle with reduced depth perception. He has taken some remarkable dingers over the years but this one finally caught up with him," his office said in a statement.

While Leahy has said he will not seek re-election in the Nov. 8 midterm elections, his vote is critical in the 50-50 split Senate where Democratic U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris holds the tie-breaking vote.

Leahy also chairs the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee, which oversees federal spending, at a time when President Joe Biden is still pressing his Build Back Better economic plan.
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