Electoral Count Reform Act

The Daily Escape:

Clunker gold, Goldfield, NV – July 2022 photo by Ted Matzek

Sens. Joe Manchin (D-WVA) and Susan Collins (R-ME) aren’t Wrongo’s idea of Senators who exhibit statesmanship. Both are more his idea of how political hacks look and operate. And for Collins at least, that viewpoint is based on several unproductive meetings with the Senator from Maine.

But Wrongo could be – well, wrong in the case of their authorship of the Collins-Manchin Electoral Count Reform Act bill, (ECRA) which fixes some of the deficiencies in the 1887 Electoral Count Act (ECA) that controls how Congress counts Electoral College votes.

The entire process was a ceremonial afterthought until Trump and his henchmen tried to subvert the ECA via occupying the US Capitol in the Jan. 6 coup. According to Slate: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“The Collins-Manchin Electoral Count Reform Act bill would fix a lot of the ambiguities and contradictions in the (Electoral Count) act and do much more. It…would confirm…that a vice president has no unilateral power to accept or reject election results. It would also raise the threshold for senators or representatives to object to valid electoral college votes, eliminate the chance that a state legislature could rely on that “failed election” language to send in alternative slate of electors, and provide a mechanism for federal judicial review of any action by a rogue governor to send in a fake slate of electors.”

Sounds promising. What does the new bill do to prevent these things? From the WaPo: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…the proposal would require a state to appoint presidential electors in the manner dictated by the state’s laws as they existed before Election Day. As long as every state’s laws require appointment of electors in keeping with the popular vote, this would prevent a state legislature from appointing electors in defiance of that vote.”

More: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Second, the proposal would require the governor to certify the correct electors by a hard deadline before Congress counts them. This is supposed to prevent a governor from certifying the electors for the losing candidate. What if a state legislature and governor simply ignored those requirements and their constitutional duty? [T]he proposal would allow an aggrieved candidate to trigger expedited judicial review by a federal three-judge panel, subject to expedited Supreme Court appeal….[then] Congress would be required to count the electors that the courts deemed the correct one.”

The proposal clarifies that the vice president’s role is purely ceremonial. And while the ECA currently requires one member from each Congressional chamber to force a vote on whether to invalidate electors, a very low bar, the proposal would require one-fifth of each chamber to force the vote for each state.

It begs the question of whether this Congress’s law would bind a future Congress to count only electors the courts deem legitimate. It’s likely that a future Congress would have to repeal this new law to wiggle out of following it. And it would also require a presidential signature, all of which might be difficult (but possible) to pull off in the middle of a contested post-election.

And it raises the question of whether we can count on the federal courts to do the right thing.

Wrongo thinks we should do away with the Electoral College, or at least pass the National Popular Vote Compact in enough states to eliminate any effort to steal the EC votes.

If American had a modern suffragette-type movement, maybe the oligarchical Senate could be changed. Think about an Amendment that created 50 Senatorial Districts, roughly equal in population, across state lines where necessary, with 2 Senators per District.

You know, letting us begin to act like a real democracy.

But in 2022, we shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good. Slate says that right now, there are nine Republican senators who have co-sponsored the ECRA, just one short of the 10 necessary to overcome a potential Senate filibuster, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has indicated his general support for this kind of reform.

The ECRA has a realistic chance of passing if enough Democrats and Republicans are willing to compromise. This opportunity is unlikely to last past the convening of the 118th Congress next January. If Democrats lose the House, there’s no way that Kevin McCarthy, the likely Speaker, would willingly bring it up.

Even though the ECRA doesn’t address voter suppression, its introduction was welcomed by a coalition of civil rights and voting rights leaders who recognize that election subversion must be fixed urgently.

Let’s leave the last word to Slate’s Rick Hansen:

“On top of all this, we need legislation on a state and local level to prevent election subversion, such as that which guarantees transparency in vote tabulating by election officials and removes discretion of election officials when they fail to do their jobs as mandated by state law.

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Tuesday Wake Up Call, Unhappiness Edition – July 26, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Smoke in Yosemite Valley from the nearby Oak fire – July 25, 2022 photo via Today’s California

At a family party this weekend, my daughter who owns an upscale restaurant, mentioned that while post-Covid, the restaurant is full again, the patrons are much more mean and nasty. That made Wrongo revisit the answers to the latest data on the happiness of Americans from the General Social Survey (GSS), produced by NORC, a nonpartisan research organization at the University of Chicago.

The GSS has been monitoring societal change since 1972. The last GSS survey came out in January 2022. Here’s a significant chart:

Since 1972, the GSS has asked the question: “Taken all together, how would you say things are these days–would you say that you are very happy, pretty happy, or not too happy?” As you can see above, historically the “very happy” people have outnumbered the “not too happy” group by about 3:1 for about 45 years.

But in 2021, the very-happies plummeted from 31% of the population in 2018 down to 19%, while the not-too-happies surged to 24% (the “pretty happys” remained constant at about 57%). For the first time in polling history, Americans are more likely to say they’re not happy than to say they’re very happy.

The Institute for Family Studies (IFS) has taken a look at the GSS data to see what’s driving this precipitous change. Here’s their chart of unhappiness by age:

Until 2018, fewer than 18% of Americans ages 35 and over claimed to be “not too happy”, while fewer than 16% of Americans under 35 had done so. But in 2021, unhappiness rocketed upwards for both groups, to 22% for those 35 and over, and to 30% for those under age 35.

The sharp increase for those under 35 indicates young adults are carrying a unique burden. They’re taking an extraordinarily dim view of the world and their own lives.

Among young adults, different groups had different levels of unhappiness even before Covid. For example, only 6% of married people said they were “not too happy,” versus 16% of the unmarried. The question is whether all groups saw the same spike in unhappiness. Here’s another chart from the IFS:

Unhappiness rose for every group: In each case, the red bars are higher than the blue bars.

In the GSS, social class didn’t protect people very much: Unhappiness rose about 16% for people with prestigious jobs vs. 15% for other people. People who attended college saw their unhappiness rise by 16% vs. 15% for people who didn’t attend college.

Some demographic traits did matter: Men saw their unhappiness rise 18%, vs. 12% for women. Unhappiness rose about 17% for non-Hispanic whites, vs. 12% for racial and ethnic minorities.

Religion seems to have buffered unhappiness. Among people who attended religious services at least two times per month, unhappiness rose only 4%, the smallest increase of any group.

Liberal Americans saw the largest increase in unhappiness of any group, by 19%. For moderates, it was 15%, and for conservatives, 13%. Despite what Tucker Carlson might try to make of this, the IFS says that given the sample sizes involved, those differences aren’t statistically significant.

We can blame the Covid pandemic for much of the increase in unhappiness, but we’ve also seen huge social disruption. Here’s a chart showing the percentage of 25-34 year-olds living with parents or relatives in the US:

In 1970, 11% lived with their parents, while in 2020, it was 29%. Note the decline in living with a spouse. From 80% to 38%. While people are getting married later, living alone is relatively unchanged since 1980.

This has occurred during a period when there was very little upside in real wages, and a huge increase in financial assets, which few young adults have, and in the cost of housing. This may also partially explain why young people are unhappy.

We’re about to head into a global recession and most of our politicians have zero idea how bad it will be, or how to fix it. When it comes to the midterm elections, nearly a third of voters say it doesn’t matter who wins.

Time to wake up America! We’re hoping that demography will save us before climate change slays us, or fascism overtakes us.

To help you wake up, listen to 9 year-old musical prodigy Ellen Alaverdyan perform a cover of Geddy Lee‘s iconic bassline on the classic Rush song “Tom Sawyer”:

Scroll away from the video, and she sounds like a pro. Very nice!

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 24, 2022

(The Monday Wake Up Call will be published on Tuesday, July 26)

Sunday is always time for a laugh along with a little outrage. Ecowatch reports that: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Pearlita Foods, a cell-cultured seafood startup, has revealed its vegan prototype for oysters made from ingredients like mushrooms and seaweed. The plant-based oysters will even come served in a no-shucking-necessary shell that is biodegradable.”

The article says that until an artificial shell is developed, they will be served in oyster shells. So they will still have to kill/eat/otherwise harvest the shells of living oysters anyway. And the company is looking to create a bio-degradable “shell.” In real life, oyster shells are already biodegradable – into sand. And the market for oysters creates a major economic reason for keeping bays and estuaries clean.

Oysters are a product of where they grow. Wellfleet oysters taste different from the Kumamoto oysters of the Pacific Northwest, or from the Belons from the Brittany region of France. On to cartoons.

The video of Sen. Hawley (R-MO) first giving a power salute to the Jan. 6 mob and later, fleeing the Capitol when the mob breached security, will live in infamy. He’s such a pathetic wuss:

Jan 6 Committee succeeds:

Trump henchman and walking triglyceride, Steve Bannon guilty of contempt of Congress:

Secret Service CYA:

According to the US Secret Service website, Tony Ornato has returned to the Secret Service after previously being Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff. He’s now Assistant Director overseeing “required training and professional development for all Secret Service personnel.”

The Secret Service agents and leaders that deleted texts must be prosecuted:

An armed guy in an Indiana mall killed an armed shooter. The day before the shooting, the killer of three was just another good guy with a gun. The next day HE BECAME A BAD GUY WITH A GUN. But at least it’s not a shut-out for the NRA’s good guys:

Be thankful that more weren’t killed, but a vigilante in a mall isn’t a cause for celebration:

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Saturday Soother – July 23, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Mount Teneriffe, WA, with Penstemon flowers in foreground – July 2022 photo by Edwin Buske Photography

Wrongo and Ms. Right watched the House Select Committee hearing on Thursday night. It was supposed to be the final hearing, but it turned out to be only the “season finale”. The Committee members made it clear that additional witnesses are giving up their reluctance to testify on the record, so there’s more coming in September.

Thursday night laid out that Trump and his enablers had a plan to subvert our democracy even after their legal effort to change votes in swing states had failed. And it’s frightening how close they came to pulling it off.

The 18-month focus of the media about how Trump did nothing while the rioters took over the Capitol was absolutely the wrong way to look at the White House’s inaction. Charlie Sykes has it right: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Trump didn’t call off the mob because it was doing precisely what he wanted; and he was using the delay caused by the attack to lobby his allies to help execute his coup. Only when it was apparent that the assault on the Capitol had failed, did he bother to call off his Insurrection.”

The Committee charged that Trump was derelict in performing his duties as president. He was aware in real time of the violence at the Capitol. He could have given orders to his followers to end the attack, or counter it with troops, but he did nothing.

Given every American president’s Constitutional obligation to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed,” Trump was derelict. Liz Cheney said it best:

“Can a president who was willing to make the choices Donald Trump made during the violence of Jan. 6 ever be trusted with any position of authority in our great nation again?”

You already know the answer.

And if you think that it might be acceptable for Trump to return to the office of president, check out what Axios reported on Friday: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Former President Trump’s top allies are preparing to radically reshape the federal government if he is re-elected….Trump allies are working on plans that would potentially strip layers [of staff] at the Justice Department — including the FBI, and reaching into national security, intelligence, the State Department and the Pentagon, sources close to the former president say.”

They’re building the breeding grounds for a new wave of right-wing personnel to infiltrate and run the US government should Trump be elected president:

“The heart of the plan is derived from an executive order known as “Schedule F,” developed and refined in secret over most of the second half of Trump’s term and launched 13 days before the 2020 election.”

That’s when Trump started selectively placing his toadies in key positions in various agencies in case he needed to get shit done. More from Axios:

“Well-funded groups are already developing lists of candidates selected often for their animus against the system….The preparations are far more advanced and ambitious than previously reported…..These groups are…curating an alternative labor force of unprecedented scale and preparing for legal challenges and defenses that might go before Trump-friendly judges, all the way to a 6-3 Supreme Court.”

Scary, or what?

Trump signed the executive order, “Creating Schedule F in the Excepted Service,” in October 2020, which established a new employment category for federal employees. It was rescinded by Biden after he took office.

Axios says that an initial estimate by the Trump official who came up with Schedule F found it could apply to as many as 50,000 federal workers, enough to make a profound difference in shaping and interpreting US policy, or to help Trump succeed in establishing an autocracy.

Schedule F could make many civil service managers political hires, meaning nearly 100% turnover when a new Party takes the White House. That would take us back to how the civil service operated in 1883, prior to the Pendleton Act.

Both Parties are lining up. Democrats have attached an amendment to this year’s defense bill to prevent a future president from resurrecting Schedule F. The House passed Connolly’s amendment but Republicans plan to block it in the Senate.

If democracy survives only because America gets lucky, or because pro-democracy forces play an almost perfect game, then we’re in big trouble.

This should give you the jitters. But it’s Saturday, and time for us to chill out in a hot country. Here on the Fields of Wrong, the grass is brown and crunchy. There will be no fixing that until the heat wave breaks and the rains return.

To help you chill, grab a mug of iced coffee, and sit by a window with an air conditioner. Now, listen to the most melodic of the 37 concertos for solo bassoon composed by Vivaldi. Here’s his “Concerto in E minor for Bassoon“, played in 2015 by the Karol Szymanowski School of Music Orchestra in Warsaw, Poland with Klaudia Abramczuk, bassoon soloist. These are school kids:

Bach never wrote a bassoon concerto.

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Schumer and Manchin Love Bipartisanship, Hate Diabetics

The Daily Escape:

Full moon, 4:00 am, Burlington, VT harbor -July 2022 photo by Adam Silverman Photography

Senate Democrats have been working on a prescription drug pricing reform proposal aimed at lowering the cost of prescription drugs by allowing Medicare to negotiate prices for up to 20 drugs.

The House passed similar legislation which was considered by the Senate last year. That bill included language that would have made all insulin products subject to Medicare price negotiation and would have capped Medicare beneficiaries’ insulin copays at $35 per month.

Earlier this month, Senate Democrats (including Manchin), reached a deal on a plan that would allow Medicare Part D to negotiate the prices of up to 20 prescription medications directly with pharmaceutical corporations, a proposal that is overwhelmingly popular with voters across party lines.

But the Senate Finance Committee has just left insulin out of the package they plan to send to the floor of the Senate. From Yahoo News: (parenthesis by Wrongo)

“Staff for the Democrats on the Senate Finance committee said the provisions were removed because a separate bipartisan Senate bill (the Insulin Act) includes the monthly $35 insulin cost cap for people with Medicare or private insurance.”

But that separate bill is facing an uphill battle because it would need 60 votes in the Senate to cross the filibuster hurdle, while the drug pricing reform bill is expected to be part of the Senate’s reconciliation process, requiring only 51 votes to become law.

Bloomberg Law reports that Schumer: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“…has said he plans to hold a vote soon on a measure from a bipartisan duo to cap the out-of-pocket cost of insulin at $35 a month. But passing the legislation from Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) requires the support of Republicans, and key GOP senators say they’re not ready for a vote right now.”

Naturally, diabetics and their interest groups are up in arms. That people have to pay huge sums for insulin is a very visible problem among all of the problems with America’s health care system. That Democrats may cave on fixing this in favor of making the path harder reveals much about the Dem’s ability to govern.

From Common Dreams: (brackets by Wrongo)

“Insulin prices in the US [are] seven times higher than those found in peer countries [and] are so steep that experts have accused the federal government and pharmaceutical industry of violating human rights. More than 37 million people in the US have been diagnosed with diabetes….Because just three pharmaceutical corporations control the nation’s lucrative insulin market, the century-old drug can cost a person without adequate health insurance more than $300 per vial.”

So, an oligopoly controls insulin.

The massive coverage gaps inherent in our for-profit healthcare system have left millions of people across the US who rely on insulin, unable to afford it. Corporate profiteering is forcing many people to ration the drug or forgo it, often with deadly consequences.

Considering the fact that insulin is more than 100 years old, it should be as close to free as possible. Why not set up a not-for-profit co-op to manufacture insulin, which would then be available for the cost of production? One such organization that’s trying to do just that is the Open Insulin Foundation. However it isn’t clear that they have launched production of insulin at this point.

The drug pricing reform bill would start negotiating with drug manufacturers sometime in the next three years and wouldn’t be fully implemented until 2030, so it’s weak tea to begin with. And it’s only for 20 drugs, and the most used one is no longer included.

Schumer and Manchin are responsible for taking insulin out of the bill that will certainly pass, in favor of it being in a stand-alone bill that probably won’t pass, because they still don’t have the Republican votes they need to pass a separate insulin bill.

Unless Democrats abandon their efforts to convert Republicans to bipartisanship, Wrongo’s days of funding their election campaigns are over.

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Is Garland On the Right Track?

The Daily Escape:

Moulton’s Barn with Tetons and clouds in background, Jackson WY – July 2022 photo by Peter Mangolds

Lots of bees buzzing around AG Merrick Garland because they’re concerned that he won’t indict Trump before Trump announces a re-run for president. From Marcy Wheeler at Emptywheel:

“Yesterday, Rachel Maddow reported the exciting news that Merrick Garland released the same memo that Attorneys General always do during election years….the memo requires Garland to do what everyone has long assumed: that Garland would have to approve any investigation into Trump”

The pundits concluded immediately that by releasing the memo, Garland had nixed any further indictments before the election, including of Trump and his coup henchmen.  But that’s not true, Wheeler says: (brackets by Wrongo)

“….that’s not true is because after Garland released this memo, DOJ arrested…[Republican] candidate for Governor of Michigan, Ryan Kelley [for Jan. 6 activities]….in addition to charging him with entering restricted grounds (that is, entering inside the barricades set up around the Capitol), DOJ also charged him with vandalizing the scaffolding set up in advance of the Inauguration. The charging documents also cited some of his other efforts to undermine democracy in the lead-up and aftermath of the 2020 election.”

All of this concern about Garland occurred after a Rolling Stone report that Trump sees an early announcement of his candidacy for 2024 as a shield against possible investigation/prosecution. That prompted Harvard’s Laurence Tribe to tweet words of caution to his former pupil, Merrick Garland, warning against letting Trump play him in any decision about investigating Trump:

Whether the DOJ has already opened an investigation into Trump’s activities or not, Marcy Wheeler says: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“….I’m also confident that if the investigation isn’t open now or soon, Trump’s campaign roll-out would do nothing to thwart opening an investigation. It would require the same Garland approval that would be obtained in any case. Trump wouldn’t even be affected by the DOJ policy on pre-election actions, because he’s not on the ballot this year.”

But criminal prosecution by Georgia’s Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis is a more proximate threat to Trump. The recordings of Trump pressuring Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” 11,000 votes seems clear-cut enough to justify a criminal indictment.

Willis has already warned several high-profile Georgia Republicans they could face charges over Trump’s fake electors scheme in her state. She subpoenaed Rudy Giuliani and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is fighting a Georgia subpoena to answer questions about his calls to Georgia officials about 2020 election results.

Trump’s pondering of an early announcement may have more serious objectives than avoiding prosecution. He’s seeing polls that show him trailing badly in his home state of Florida. Allahpundit gathers Florida polling data:

”For the second time in five days, a pollster from Florida with whom I’m unfamiliar sees DeSantis leading the former guy comfortably in their mutual home state. Last week Blueprint Polling had the race 51/39 there. Today Victory Insights has it 61/39 if “leaners” are included and 51/33 if they aren’t.”

Maybe Trump is trying to clear the field of primary rivals. But Dems think an early (before the mid-terms) announcement by Trump would be a gift. The GOP wants to keep voters focused on Biden, rather than transforming the contest into a referendum on Trump.

Many pundits underestimate what Garland is doing. They’re after a quick legal fix. He’s moving deliberately, gathering evidence. There’s an abundance of low hanging fruit (the fake electors, Eastman, Giuliani, Powell) and many others. The strategy of the DOJ following behind the J6 hearings will create a groundswell of public support.

We now know the story about the build up to the attempted coup, and we’re seeing who was involved at all levels. When Garland indicts, the majority of the voting public will say “it’s about time.”

Calm down Dems.

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US Military Needs Recruits

The Daily Escape:

Old Victorian farmhouse between Santa Cruz and Salinas, CA – photo by Dave Alvin

The NYT has a report about how hard it is for the US military to find new recruits:

“Almost across the board, the armed forces are experiencing large shortfalls in enlistments this year — a deficit of thousands of entry-level troops that is on pace to be worse than any since just after the Vietnam War. It threatens to throw a wrench into the military’s machinery, leaving critical jobs unfilled and some platoons with too few people to function.”

More:

“The Army is the largest of the armed forces, and….As of late June, it had recruited only about 40% of the roughly 57,000 new soldiers it wants to put in boots by Sept. 30, the end of the fiscal year.”

Still more: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“Less than a quarter of young American adults are physically fit to enlist and have no disqualifying criminal record, a proportion that has shrunk steadily in recent years. And shifting attitudes toward military service mean that now only about one in 10 young people say they would even consider it.”

This is shocking. You don’t have to be a competitive athlete to join the Army. Too many young men have prison records. The military should seriously consider issuing waivers for criminal history. A willingness to die for one’s country should be seen as a gigantic step towards rehabilitation.

And since just 10% of potential recruits are willing to consider serving, young people have obviously understood the lessons of Afghanistan and Iraq. Why would young people want to die for wasteful wars of choice that have nothing at all to do with protecting their country?

These shortfalls put pressure on the military to bring in people who are either marginally qualified or unqualified. Wrongo ran a US Army unit in Germany during the Vietnam war. Back then, the US Army couldn’t recruit enough people who met its basic standards. The DOD came up with a program called Project 100,000 in October 1966 to recruit new soldiers who previously had been below the military’s mental or medical standards.

Project 100,000 personnel died at higher rates than other Americans serving in Vietnam. In Germany, more of our Project 100,000 soldiers served time in military jails than did our regular recruits. The project was ended in December 1971.

It looks like the Army is currently walking toward implementing a similar solution to the same problem it had 45 years ago.

Since jobs are plentiful in America, and wages have increased, the military has to compete by sweetening their deal with signing bonuses (up to $50,000). The military has also downsized. The number of active-duty service members is now about half of what it was in the 1980s and it’s projected to keep decreasing.

Also, the shabby way we treat our veterans hasn’t gone unnoticed by young people. The Watson Institute researches the cost of the Afghan war. They say that more than 40% of the troops who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan have already been approved to receive lifetime disability benefits. This is what happens when you continually redeploy the same soldiers into a 20-year long battle. Many get permanently injured.

And most of the costs associated with caring for post-9/11 veterans have yet to be paid, and will continue to accrue for years into the future.

July marks the 40th anniversary of doing away with the draft. We instituted the all-volunteer army because during the Vietnam War, significant numbers of draftees didn’t want to serve. The all-volunteer army was a bad idea then, and it’s still a bad idea. The post-9/11 wars were the first major test of our all-volunteer military.

Leaving aside their bravery and personal sacrifice, which was profound, how do you think they did?

On September 11, 2001, roughly one in every four American men were military veterans. But over the past two decades, the number of veterans in the population has declined to fewer than one in eight.

We need to re-institute the draft to spread the responsibility for our defense to all Americans. Barring reinstituting the draft, the number of military in our population will continue to decline. The Census Bureau projects that the number of veterans will be just 1 in 14 by 2040. By 2050, when the costs of providing medical care and benefits for veterans of the post-9/11 wars reaches its peak, few Americans will have a direct relative who was involved in those wars.

The other benefit of a draft is that it exposes young people to others of all races, ethnicities, and beliefs, and forces them to find ways to get along to accomplish a mission.

That would be both a refreshing and necessary change.

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Monday Wake Up Call, Abortion Editon – July 18, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Barn with cotton candy clouds, Allegre, KY – July 2022 photo by Fuller Perspective Photography

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe has opened a Pandora’s Box of ethical and legal issues. The infamous story about the pregnant 10 year-old Ohio rape victim who was forced to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion is the best example. It was reported in the Indianapolis Star on July 1.

After the Dobbs decision, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) had issued an executive order putting in force a 2019 law that had banned nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The 10-year-old was reportedly six weeks and three days pregnant.

Then we saw a Right-wing smear campaign:

  • A WSJ editorial called the Indianapolis Star’s report a “fanciful tale“, and claimed that there is “no evidence the girl exists.”
  • Tucker Carlson said that the story of the 10-year-old girl who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion was “not true.”
  • Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in an interview with USA Today, that the story was likely a “fabrication.”
  • The New York Post, which, like Fox News and the WSJ, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, published an opinion piece by law professor Jonathan Turley under the headline “Activist tale of 10-year-old rape victim’s abortion looks like a lie.”

All of those shouts and murmurs soon disappeared when a 27-year-old man from Columbus, Ohio, Gershon Fuentes, was arrested and charged with impregnating the 10-year-old Ohio girl. Apparently, Fuentes “confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions.”

Subsequently,  the WSJ recanted and published a different editorial correcting the record. Why would they accuse the Star of fabricating a story? From Judd Legum: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“There is a reason why so many people, particularly on the right, were eager to push the idea that Bernard’s story was a lie. If they acknowledged the story was true they would have to answer this question: Do you believe that a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to give birth?”

By the way, Covid appears to have increased early-onset puberty around the world. Getting your period “early” now means when you’re younger than 8. People who think a pregnant 10-year-old strains credulity should bear this in mind.

The Nieman Lab, a Harvard-based group focused on journalism on the Internet, took the WaPo’s Glenn Kessler, author of their “Fact Checker” column to task for not checking his facts about the Star’s reporting. One of Kessler’s so-called “facts” was: (brackets by Wrongo)

“An abortion by a 10-year-old is pretty rare,” Kessler notes…..[but] The Columbus Dispatch reported that in 2020, 52 people under the age of 15 received an abortion in Ohio.”

Your mileage may vary, but if one under-15-year-old gets an abortion every week in Ohio, it can’t be thought of as “pretty rare”. The press needs to wise up and get the data before diving headfirst to a conclusion.

There are other ways the Dobbs decision will impact lives. Unsure doctors in Texas are already turning away ectopic pregnancies, fearing legal liability. According to The Lily (a WaPo newsletter):

“…a South Texas woman diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy was refused an abortion by her doctor…..she was advised to seek help out of state.”

Under the unclear Texas law, a doctor who removes an ectopic pregnancy that is not actively causing the patient to bleed to death may face legal consequences.

It doesn’t end there. The laws surrounding in vitro fertilization (IVF) could also be facing threats of lawsuits even though these women aren’t seeking abortions. Slate reports:

“Fertilizing eggs in a Petri dish often results in extra embryos, which are usually frozen….Leftover embryos are frequently discarded or donated to research….In some abortion-restrictive states, this may no longer be possible. Louisiana defines “a viable in vitro fertilized human ovum” as a “juridical person which shall not be intentionally destroyed,” and at least five states have introduced bills establishing fetal personhood.”

States probably won’t ban IVF outright, but as some countries have done, they may limit the number of embryos that can be created in an effort to prevent embryo destruction. All of this would make IVF far more difficult and expensive than it is, and it could possibly reduce the number of IVF clinics in those states.

This is the tip of the iceberg of the issues women will have post-Dobbs. Technology will always be ahead of our laws and ethics. Just as will some men’s (and religions’) need to control women.

Time to wake up America! Elect a filibuster-proof Senate this fall. To help you wake up listen to Willie Nile, perform his ode to Covid, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”:

Sample lyric (that could be about the end of Roe instead of Covid)

So if you feel some heartache
And if you feel some pain
And if you see some lonely soul
Standing in the pouring rain
Offer up some kindness
Compassion if you will
And remember well the way it was
The day the earth stood still

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 17, 2022

Joe Manchin has done it to the Dems again. After laying out his conditions for supporting a scaled-down version of Build Back Better, he decided at the last minute that he couldn’t support his own conditions.

For nearly two years, the Dems have tried to create a package that Manchin could support, including funding for renewable energy and electric vehicles. Manchin has now indicated he can’t go that far, which jeopardizes Democrats’ chances in the Midterms.

Manchin blamed inflation (now at a 40-year high). Backing a $300bn bill that offers tax credits and funding to clean energy would, he argues, push pocketbook costs higher for Americans, although economists have disputed this. From the Guardian:

“A less charitable view of Manchin is that he is dangerously conflicted due to his own investments in fossil fuels… and that his judgement has been warped by the largesse of the industry, which has donated more money to him than any other senator.”

Congress hasn’t been able to pass anything to reduce climate change, despite public opinion being clearly in favor of doing just that. We expect Congress to pass laws that reflect the public’s opinion. But finding 60 Senate votes for anything vaguely controversial isn’t likely to happen in America today. The result is a set of federal laws that do not reflect what Americans actually want. On to cartoons.

Biden’s Saudi visit went well:

The fake (not fake) very real dilemma of the pregnant 10 year-old:

Back to school clothes for 4th grade:

Pence was nearly kidnapped by his Secret Service detail. The fly knew:

Is the Dem’s 2024 flavor appealing or appalling?

Images from the Webb telescope enter popular culture:

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Saturday Soother – July 16, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Pamet Harbor, Truro, MA – June 2022 photo by Andrew Mckniff

The chaos caused by Trump never ends. The WaPo reported that the US Secret Service (USSS) deleted text messages from the phones of most of its employees in January 2021. Many of those messages related to Jan. 5 and 6:

“A government watchdog accused the US Secret Service of erasing texts from Jan. 5 and 6, 2021, after his office requested them as part of an inquiry into the US Capitol attack, according to a letter sent to lawmakers this week. Joseph V. Cuffari, head of the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, wrote to the leaders of the House and Senate Homeland Security committees indicating that the text messages have vanished and that efforts to investigate the Jan. 6, 2021, attack were being hindered.”

Anyone see something suspicious about this?

It was simply a routine procedure, says the USSS spokesperson. The Secret Service by policy requires employees to back up and store government communications when they retire old electronic or telephonic devices. But the WaPo says that in practice, staff do not consistently back up texts.

By the time of the IGs request, as many as a third of Secret Service personnel had been given new cellphones.

Joseph Cuffari was nominated by Trump in 2019 to be the USSS Inspector General. He has faced significant criticism since he took the office. First-year audits plummeted to historic lows under his administration. He also blocked investigations into the Secret Service’s handling of protests in Lafayette Square, and the spread of Coronavirus in the agency’s ranks. The Project On Government Oversight (POGO) has called on President Biden to remove Cuffari.

Secret Service spokesman Anthony Guglielmi pushed back about the missing texts:

“…the Secret Service has been fully cooperating with the OIG in every respect – whether it be interviews, documents, emails, or texts….in January 2021, before any inspection was opened by OIG on this subject, USSS began to reset its mobile phones to factory settings as part of a pre-planned, three-month system migration. In that process, data resident on some phones was lost…DHS OIG requested electronic communications…on Feb. 26, 2021, after the migration was well under way. The Secret Service notified DHS OIG of the loss of certain phones’ data, but confirmed to OIG that none of the texts it was seeking had been lost in the migration.”

Despite what the USSS spokesperson says, it’s a certainty that some texts are missing. OTOH, it would be surprising if the telephone carrier for the Secret Service didn’t retain a record of all the texts. That means that the DOJ could have them already or can easily retrieve them.

It’s interesting that the Trump-appointed director of the Secret Service, James Murray, announced his retirement last week. Most likely, he knew this was coming. It’s probable that he was given a choice to retire before getting canned.

Since leaving the Treasury Department and going under the DHS umbrella, the USSS has become a shitshow. Just last week in Israel, one of Biden’s SS agents was detained and deported after allegedly assaulting a woman outside of a Jerusalem bar.

Murray may have fallen on his sword, but the missing texts for such a significant event in US history implies that the USSS has been infiltrated by Trumpists. Remember that the Secret Service wanted to take Pence away from the Capitol during the attempted coup, but Pence refused. Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) as president protempore of the Senate was in line to take Pence’s place. He could have nullified the Electoral College vote and seemed to know something, since he tweeted that Pence wouldn’t be at the Capitol so Grassley would preside over the vote.

Did Grassley have prior knowledge of what the SS planned for Pence?

Have you had enough for this week? Wrongo certainly has, so it’s time for our Saturday Soother, when we take a break from reading about the latest outrage and reconnect with nature for a few minutes. Weeding and watering are high on our to-do list for this weekend on the Fields of Wrong.

Let’s start by grabbing a mug of cold brew coffee and a chair in the shade. Now, listen to Alan Hovhaness’s “Meditation on Orpheus op. 155”, written in 1958 for Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony. Hovhaness was an Armenian-American 20th-century composer who died in 2000.

His “Meditation” is a musical reflection on one of Greek mythology’s most memorable stories: Orpheus’ loss of his wife, Eurydice, and his attempt to find her by descending into the underworld, where he meets his tragic fate. It’s performed here in 2012 by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra conducted by Gerard Schwarz:

Hovhaness is well worth your time.

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