Immigration, Abortion News You'll Want to Know
I’ve got questions.
What if people traveled great distances for the hope of a better life and then contributed to make this country even better than it was?
Why is the former President saying a rejected border compromise in congress wasn’t necessary because the President can simply decree the border closed? Why didn’t he do it when he had the chance?
Immigration, known in Republispeak as “Open Borders” is what the GOP has settled on as the path to unseating Democrats and retaking the White House. This strategy depends on reinforcing the notion that migrants are a threat to people’s personal security.
A mini-version of this campaign strategy is playing out today (Thursday) on Long Island in a special election to replace disgraced Congress member George Santos.
Democrats hope centrist and former House member Tom Suozzi will narrow Republicans’ slim House majority and help write a playbook for the path back to power in November. But with fear in the air, Republicans are looking for an upset in a district President Biden won by eight points to send an ominous warning about who voters believe is to blame.
Facts can be an antidote to fear mongering, but only if they are presented in a manner convincing people to look at things differently. I doubt you’ll ever hear Fox News telling viewers that, relative to undocumented immigrants, U.S.-born citizens are over 2 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes, 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for drug crimes, and over 4 times more likely to be arrested for property crimes.
Amid the “invasion” narrative it’s unlikely that the actual impact of migrants get mentioned. Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office published an analysis showing that, due largely to an unexpected surge in immigration, the U.S. economy will be about $7 trillion larger - and federal revenues about $1 trillion higher over the next decade.
Because Democrats don’t believe they can sell a bi-partisan border control and asylum initiative on its own, this latest GOP failure is being touted as evidence of do-nothing extremists obeying the orders and threats of a private citizen. I wish there was a way of incorporating the right’s inhumanity and nihilism into this messaging.
Meanwhile, the question of a re-do vote in the House on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is still unanswered. Having proven no high crimes or misdemeanors, even an affirmative vote will end this crap, because the Senate won’t take up the case.
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Why doesn’t abortion as an issue get continuous coverage? There is good news, but some of the bad news is downright terrifying.
Voters in seven states — California, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Montana, Ohio and Vermont — have sided with abortion rights supporters on ballot measures. Maryland and New York will definitely have ballot measures affirming a women’s right to choose.
Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, and South Dakota all have signature campaigns in progress. Forced-birthers in some of those states are working on competing measures hoping to confuse voters. State officials in Florida and Montana are using the courts to keep measures off the ballot.
The Supreme Court is about to consider a case brought by state attorney generals challenging the FDA’s approval of mifepristone. One use of this drug (there are many) is as part of a medically induced abortion. Facts should matter in this sort of case, like the statistical safety of the drug (better than Tylenol and Viagra) and the more than 100 studies affirming its safety, but they haven’t mattered to a far right judge in Texas and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals.
Now, the two (and only two) studies used to justify the plaintiffs' assertions have been withdrawn by their publisher.
Via Jessica Valenti:
In its retraction notice, Sage Publications writes that an independent reviewer and two subject matter experts found the articles had “unjustified or incorrect factual assumptions,” “material errors” and “misleading presentations” of data that “demonstrate a lack of scientific rigor and invalidate the authors’ conclusions in whole or in part.” Whew.
Anti-abortion activists don’t just rely on fake facts to make their case. Threats and harassment are everyday events, along with burglary (up 231%), stalking (up 229%) and arson (up 100%) as part of their arsenal.
Right-to-life types set up a web page in Florida and a telephone hotline in Missouri so ‘concerned citizens’ could report pro-abortion signature gatherers. Both volunteers and people stopping to sign petitions were subsequently harassed.
Trump won’t need a national abortion act. Teen Vogue has a rundown on how the Comstock Act will rise from the ashes during a Trump administration.
In an 887-page blueprint for a potential Republican administration, the vice president at America First Legal, the nonprofit Miller runs, urges a new administration to withdraw the Biden legal interpretation, and instead enforce the Comstock Act’s “criminal prohibitions,” against “providers and distributors of abortion pills.” Implementing such a policy would fall to the attorney general, a post for which Miller is apparently on the shortlist should former president Donald Trump win in November 2024.
If upheld in court, the enforcement strategy would outlaw medication abortion – the most common form of abortion – overnight. Comstock convictions carry prison sentences of up to ten years. Even if manufacturers of abortion pills could somehow operate without using the postal service, express companies, or common carriers – each expressly proscribed by Comstock – a Trump-appointed federal judge recently suggested that a 1996 amendment makes it “illegal to use the internet to ship or receive abortifacients.” What doctor or pharmacy could continue to dispense medication abortion under even the mere threat of such legal jeopardy? The grim answer is none.
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News Links for a Soggy Thursday
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ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery team up to launch sports super-streamer by Oliver Darcy at CNN Business
The executives are banking on the prospect that by teaming up they can together take on Netflix and major technology companies, such as Amazon and Apple, that have far deeper pockets.
Iger called “the launch of this new streaming sports service” an “important step forward for the media business.” Zaslav said the partnership “exemplifies our ability as an industry to drive innovation.” And Lachlan Murdoch, chief executive of Fox Corporation, said he believed the streamer “will provide passionate fans outside of the traditional bundle an array of amazing sports content.”
Making sports available via a direct-to-consumer product is likely to accelerate the decline of the cable subscription business, given that such live events have long been a pillar of consumer demand holding together the traditional bundle.
Eds. comment: I cut the cable cord years ago, but it’s unlikely I’ll add another streaming service as a casual sports fan. What’s next? The cooking show bundle? Sounds like cable redux.
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Trumpwatch by (the real) Adam Kinzinger
Who wants to be Donald Trump’s running mate? With the list of contenders starting to look like a Black Friday crowd waiting for the doors to open at Walmart, the better question may be: Who doesn’t want a place on the Trump ticket?
Names mentioned so far include Republican Senators Tim Scott (SC), J.D. Vance (OH.), and Lindsey Graham (SC). Among the governors, former governors and one-time gubernatorial candidates are Kristi Noem (SD), Henry McMaster, (SC), Sarah Huckabee Sanders (AR), Doug Bergum (ND), and Kari Lake(AZ).
Think I’m finished? Think again. The field also includes Senators Marco Rubio, (FL), Katie Britt (AL), Tom Cotton, (AK), Masha Blackburn, (TN),and Joni Ernst, (IA.) And don’t forget Representative. Elise Stefanik, (NY), former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, (IN), former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson, and one-time presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy,
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Climate Scientist’s Defamation Suit Over Comparison to Molester Goes to the Jury By Adam Lowenstein at DeSmog blog
As the trial began entering its final stages last week, attorneys for Michael E. Mann continued to challenge witnesses who sought to cast doubt on his research showing that global temperatures rose sharply during the 20th century — a key finding in establishing the connection between the burning of fossil fuels and climate change.
Mann, currently the Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, sued right-wing commentators Rand Simberg and Mark Steyn for defamation in 2012, after Simberg made allegations of scientific fraud against Mann on the website of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, comparing him to convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky, Penn State’s former football coach. Mann was a Penn State professor at the time.
“Mann could be said to be the Jerry Sandusky of climate science,” Simberg wrote, “except for instead of molesting children, he has molested and tortured data.” Steyn cited these comments in the National Review shortly after.
