The Weak in Review
This is pretty weak.
Essentially, he argues Arizona towns and cities would go bankrupt if the prison system can’t supply more slave labor. And the ones who get rich off this scheme are not those towns and cities but the slave owners.
And most are slaves for driving under the influence, with less than 14% gaining access to substance abuse treatment.
Also:
An Arizona Republic investigation found that Arizona lawmakers invested more in private prisons after record-high campaign contributions from the industry in recent years.
Meanwhile, we learned today there were nearly 400 police officers inside the school in Uvalde, Texas. Well armed, well shielded…. and once again the myth is exposed that guns are the way to stop a gunman.
Good leadership can limit fatalities and casualties. There’s a serious shortage of that in this country where only the wealthiest gain protection, control most of the assets and lawmakers.
Every other explanation is weak.
Canada’s covid rules prevent unvaccinated baseball players from crossing the border when they have an away series with the Toronto Blue Jays.
The Kansas City Royals are a baseball team from Kansas City, Missouri. The minimum salary in major league baseball is $700,000/yr.
Two-thirds of their starting line-up and 10 players in all were blocked from this weekend’s games. It forced the managers to call up many vaccinated minor leaguers to cover the asses of spoiled jocks who dismiss science, who don’t care about the vulnerable people they put at additional risk, and don’t even pretend to compete for anything for their fans.
Yes, many teams - not all - have a few unvaccinated players, but this team collectively is the worst.
Maybe it has something to do with Missouri, long known as the Show Me state, and politically, it was a swing state for many years. It is no more.
On August 9, 2014, police officer Darren Wilson shot and killed Michael Brown, an unarmed Black teenager, in Ferguson, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. He and a friend were walking down the middle of a street and when Wilson saw them, he ordered them to the sidewalk. The ensuing confrontation ended with the death of Brown. Though Wilson was exonerated, the Department of Justice determined the Ferguson Police Department routinely violated the civil rights of its African American residents. Remedial action was taken to straighten out that PD.
And now, with Roe v. Wade overturned, Missouri was the first state to ban abortion, including for victims of rape or incest. Its law outlaws abortion except for medical emergencies or to save the life of the mother, but it's not clear what medical issues qualify under that exemption.
That confusion caused a large Missouri hospital chain to briefly stop providing emergency contraception known as the morning-after pill out of fear it could put doctors at risk of criminal charges for providing the medication, even for sexual assault victims.
The attorney general has said the morning-after pill is legal, but questions remain. Medical professionals and their attorneys say the law is vague and have sought clarification and guidance from Republican Gov. Mike Parson's administration and Republican AG Eric Schmitt.
So any doctor has to make their own judgment about what medical emergencies may qualify, then they’re at the mercy of prosecutors who may interpret the emergencies differently. The Governor has refused to call a special session to get the law further clarified.
Per the Kansas City Star:
Missouri’s abortion ban defines medical emergency as a condition that, using reasonable medical judgment, “so complicates the medical condition of a pregnant woman as to necessitate the immediate abortion of her pregnancy to avert the death of the pregnant woman” or a condition in which delaying an abortion “will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function of the pregnant woman.”
The definition is similar to the one in the Mississippi abortion law upheld last week by the U.S. Supreme Court, and allows abortions when when pregnancy will create a “serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function.”
Before the case was argued, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) argued in a brief that the definition was too narrow and will prevent abortions for women with medical complications that “while posing grave risks to their health, are not urgent or extreme enough” to qualify for an exemption.
The brief listed lupus, diabetes and pulmonary hypertension among the conditions that may not fall within the exemption.
“These oppressive laws will force many people to face the known risks associated with continuing a pregnancy, including potential pregnancy-related complications and worsening of existing health conditions, as well as the morbidity and mortality associated with childbirth,” Iffath A. Hoskins, president of ACOG, said in a statement.
Missouri is also the first state to have a law pending that would bar women from traveling out of state to obtain an abortion. The proposal would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident have an abortion, which includes the out-of-state physician who performs the procedure as well as anyone who helps transport the woman across the state border to a clinic.
The Kansas City council passed a bill to provide monetary assistance to city employees who needed to travel to obtain an abortion. But Republican AG Schmitt - now running for US Senate - says he’ll sue any city or town that attempts to do that.
So maybe it’s not just a problem of inconsiderate over-privileged jocks. Maybe the majority of Missouri citizens are just racist, sexist a**holes.
Whatever. The Missouri majority is just incredibly weak in its support of human rights.
This, too, is as weak as it gets. As regards outcomes after the overturning of that half century old law, from the Washington Post on Saturday:
A woman with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy sought emergency care at the University of Michigan Hospital after a doctor in her home state worried that the presence of a fetal heartbeat meant treating her might run afoul of new restrictions on abortion.
At one Kansas City, Mo., hospital, administrators temporarily required “pharmacist approval” before dispensing medications used to stop postpartum hemorrhages, because they can also be also used for abortions.
And in Wisconsin, a woman bled for more than 10 days from an incomplete miscarriage after emergency room staff would not remove the fetal tissue amid a confusing legal landscape that has roiled obstetric care.
In the three weeks of turmoil since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion, many physicians and patients have been navigating a new reality in which the standard of care for incomplete miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and other common complications is being scrutinized, delayed — even denied — jeopardizing maternal health, according to the accounts of doctors in multiple states where new laws have gone into effect.
It’s my personal human rights motto: People are people are people are people. From your first gasp of breath to your last, if you identify as a person, you have a set of human rights, the same as any other person does. No exceptions.
The Supreme Court’s recent ruling - voiding any right to privacy in our actions and deeds and leaving human rights decisions to the whims of state legislators means the rights of different groups will be subject to the loss of human rights. LGBTQ people sense what’s bound to come next. Non-Caucasians have similar and fully understandable fears. The majority of women - itself the majority group in this country - are outraged that their right to bodily autonomy has been stolen from them by a court.
Who will decide what medical procedures can be done? Based on past practice it’ll be the insurance companies who cover medical providers. Great going SCOTUS!
Among developed nations, the US has the worst mortality rate for expectant mothers. It’s much worse for Black and Brown mothers here. More women will die and we’re now seeing the leading edge of why. The Roberts Court will be remembered as one of the weakest in US history and I predict more human rights robberies will come from it.
And it turns out the Secret Service has become one of the weakest links in the chain of evidence about Trump’s incitement of the January 6th insurrection effort.
Some people in this country, possibly as many as one-third of the adults in America, by my math calculations, would prefer an authoritarian, top down form of government. I presume they believe they’re members of the group that would benefit a lot from the new form of government. In occupations where rigid authoritarian rules currently exist, that desire is more pronounced.
Which is why ex-military members figure prominently in rightwing domestic terror groups like the ones in fatigues and formations on January 6th. It’s why many in police agencies hate peaceful protesters and show visible affinity with the white nationalist terror groups. So it only stands to reason that some in the Secret Service wanted Trump to win. It now appears that some will go to great lengths to protect Trump still.
Via the Guardian:
The Secret Service’s account about how text messages from the day before and the day of the Capitol attack were erased has shifted several times, the inspector general for the Department of Homeland Security told the House January 6 select committee at a briefing on Friday.
At one point, the explanation from the Secret Service for the lost texts was because of software upgrades, the inspector general told the panel, while at another point, the explanation was because of device replacements.
The inspector general also said that though the secret service opted to have his office do a review of the agency’s response to the Capitol attack in lieu of conducting after-action reports, it then stonewalled the review by slow-walking production of materials.
After the inspector general raised his complaints, he then discussed the feasibility of reconstructing the texts. But the issues so alarmed the select committee that the panel moved hours later to subpoena the Secret Service, according to participants at the briefing.
So we’ve already heard that Mark Meadows burned papers in a White House fireplace. And the Secret Service has erased texts from that day. These desperate cover-up efforts reflect well beyond Trump now. He has accomplices, both before and after the fact. They should be charged with conspiracy too.
Enough of the weakness for now but you can bet your bottom Russian ruble there’ll be more to come very soon.