The WaPo reports about abortion battles in Missouri, where the state supreme court allowed a pro-abortion ballot measure to stay on the ballot. Anti-abortion authoritarians had challenged the measure claiming it was too ambiguous:
If approved by voters, the constitutional amendment would allow abortion until fetal viability. The state currently bans the procedure in nearly all cases.Just several hours before ballots were to be finalized, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday afternoon that a measure to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution is specific enough to present to voters in November.
The decision came after a short but politically fraught morning hearing before all seven judges — four of them women, five of them appointees of Republican governors. Only days earlier, a lower-court judge had ruled the ballot measure invalid because it does not identify which laws it would repeal.
“By a majority vote of this Court, the circuit court’s judgment is reversed,” Chief Justice Mary R. Russell wrote.The outcome means that Missouri will remain among more than half a dozen states with measures to protect abortion rights on their ballots this fall, including in presidential battleground states such as Arizona and Florida. Since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022, every ballot measure that has sought to preserve or expand abortion access has passed in red and blue states alike. Measures that have sought to restrict access have failed, including in conservative Kansas.
This is an unexpected bit of good news. A majority of Republican judges allowing an anti-abortion a ballot measure to stay suggests that the Missouri court Republicans aren't MAGA judges. Instead they may be far better pro-rule of law conservatives. Two points:
- Authoritarians are shameless hypocrites, even when it endangers human life. The forced birth laws that many red states passed are intentionally ambiguous to create uncertainty among doctors and nurses about what procedures are legal and what aren't. That forces doctors to not treat patients in unclear situations, sometimes calling their lawyers before deciding if a treatment is legal or criminal. Here and in some other states with pro-abortion ballot measures, radical right authoritarians are whining about ambiguity in pro-abortion laws. Worse yet, arrogant authoritarian anti-abortion legislators reject complaints about ambiguity and say their laws are crystal clear, implying that the doctors and their lawyers are stupid. The insulting arrogance of the morally rotted anti-abortion authoritarians mindset is extremely insulting to say the least.
- Although the situation is complicated and apparently fluid, poll data for 2019 indicated that there was majority public opinion in only four states favoring banning abortions in most or all situations, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky, and Louisiana. Data from 2024 suggests that support for abortion rights are increasing nationwide. The increase in abortion rights support apparently started in response to the May 2022 leak of the Dobbs decision about a month before the USSC released the decision overturning Roe v. Wade. Missouri is not one of the states where majority public opinion favor a strict abortion ban. The point is this: Authoritarianism includes acting against majority public opinion when it suits authoritarians in power, which is what most red state forced birth laws do.
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The NYT reports about how some companies deal with their unrecyclable disposable plastic products -- they lie about it: The SEC said Keurig, in its financial filings, had claimed its pods could be “effectively recycled” but didn’t note that two big recycling companies wouldn’t accept them. Financial regulators on Tuesday charged Keurig Dr Pepper, the maker of popular K-Cup single-use coffee pods, with making inaccurate claims about the recyclability of the plastic pods. The fine, $1.5 million, is small for one of the world’s largest beverage companies. Keurig Dr Pepper has a market capitalization of more than $50 billion.
To recycle the pods, the foil at the top, the coffee grounds and paper filter all have to be removed and the plastic pod clean. Does anyone do that? Probably very few.
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Taylor Swift Brings 283 Million Fans to Razor-Thin 2024 Election -- Maybe that will help some
“Concepts of a Plan”: Trump Roasted for Having No Clue What He’s Doing -- DJT's plan to replace Obamacare is concepts of a plan, which is clear as mud
Megyn Kelly has a meltdown over Taylor Swift backing Harris–Walz -- Kelly falsely claimed a Minnesota law allows trans children to ‘chop off their body parts’ without parental consent -- The election seems to be heating up, while Faux News seems to be a bit overheated
Researchers say meeting your dog's gaze and petting them causes brains to synchronize | Additionally, dogs who had genetic mutations that cause them to have social impairment symptoms showed a loss of synchronization, as well as reduced attention during their interactions with humans
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