Red Pilling 🌻 🌻 🌻

Bad Bunny:  As had been long dreaded, on Friday right before the beginning of the Easter weekend, Texas federal district court Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk issued his long-dreaded abortion pill ruling.  Kacsmaryk turned the reproductive rights clock back twenty-three years by invalidating the FDA’s approval of mifepristone and by also ruling that abortion drugs cannot be sent by mail or other delivery service without violating the Comstock Act, an 1873 anti-vice law.  Mifepristone, which together with another drug misoprostol, is used in more than 50% of US abortions is safer than over the counter Tylenol, so Kacsmaryk’s decision had nothing to do with protecting women from a drug’s lethal side effects but was instead all about making it difficult for women to control their own reproductive destinies. Recognizing that his ruling which effects access to mifepristone in all 50 states would be appealed, Kacsmaryk put its effectiveness on hold for a week to give the Department of Justice which almost immediately filed a notice to appeal, time to act. To complicate matters in a good way, another federal district court judge, Thomas Rice, ordered US authorities not to make any changes that would restrict access to mifepristone in 17 Democratic-led states that had sued over some longstanding FDA restrictions on the prescribing and dispensing of mifepristone, arguing that those restrictions had nothing to do with the drugs safety but everything to do with politics. The two at odds decisions are headed to the Supreme Court and though we already know how this SCOTUS feels about abortion, even they might, or should, have a hard time ruling in favor of their mini-me Kacsmaryk, not because his ruling is based on phony science, with its Dobbs ruling SCOTUS already signed on to decision making based on faux science, but because it’s based on really faulty law that puts the validity of the FDA’s drug approval process into jeopardy.  On the subject of SCOTUS, when they weren’t talking about the abortion pill ban, a number of pundits went all in on Justice Clarence Thomas and his habit of obfuscating his acceptance of absurdly generous gifts from right wing billionaire Harlan Crow. GOP megadonor Crow, another one with an appropriate moniker, is an avid collector of Nazi memorabilia.  Why isn’t that surprising?

Bugs Bunny:  Trump celebrated his Easter weekend by golfing and “truthing.”  There’s nothing, new about that as our comically frightening former president does both frequently however, this weekend his Truth Social posts were worse than usual, even for him.  In one, he tersely posted “WORLD WAR III” and in another he went all in on his daily word allowance wishing a HAPPY EASTER TO ALL INCLUDING THOSE THAT DREAM ENDLESSLY OF DESTROYING OUR COUNTRY BECAUSE THEY ARE INCAPABLE OF DREAMING ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE……ALL THOSE WEAK & PATHETIC RINOS, RADICAL LEFT DEMOCRATS, SOCIALISTS, MARXISTS, & COMMUNISTS WHO ARE KILLING OUR NATION.” That was only part of it, the long post also included some comments on borders, same day voting and paper ballots.  While it’s easy to dismiss Trump’s idiotic posts as the rantings of an eccentric madman which they are, they can’t be ignored.  He’s running to retake the Oval Office and polls indicate that his lead over that other evil mouse baiting character Ron DeSantis have grown in part because of his recent indictment and in part because DeSantis has no charisma so at this point it’s fair to believe that he will be the nominee of the Republican Party. Trump can’t be counted out and we can’t assume that he’ll lose the general election because we’ve been here before.  As to mouse-baiter DeSantis, having lost his last skirmish with Disney, he’s now threatening to raise tolls on the roads leading to the Magic Kingdom.  Can someone explain why imposing more fees on tourists to a state’s biggest tourist site and why fighting with its biggest employer is a good thing?

Roadrunner: When it comes to health issues, the Democrats can’t get a break, well they can but not in a good way.  Over the weekend, a Connecticut basketball celebrant accidentally knocked into Connecticut’s Senior Senator Richard Blumenthal.  Though the 77-year-old Blumenthal was hit hard he bounced up and kept walking, however, it turns out that he suffered a “minor” femur fracture. He was operated on yesterday and reports that he and his new pins will be back next week.  Let’s hope so as Senator Diane Feinstein remains MIA.  Though they won’t be back in their seats next week, expectations are that Tennessee’s two Justins, the two Black legislators who were punished for protesting gun violence while Black are likely to be back very soon as it’s looking more and more likely that their districts will reappoint them to fill the spots, they were forced to vacate pending special elections where they are expected to win back their seats.  As much as those on the right are trying to present the Justins as out of control violators of decorum, we know they are really thinking uppity, it’s the Republicans who have lost this truly stupid and also very racist battle.

Keystone Kops:  Dozens of pages of leaked Pentagon documents concerning Ukraine and Russia’s military strength and tactics as well as some internal discussions between some US allies have been leaked and are floating around the Internet.  The source of the leaks and the intentions of the leaker are not yet known but the information about both Ukraine and Russia’s weakness appears to be substantially accurate.  There’s likely a bigger story here, one that addresses the source of the leak, the leaker’s motivation and whether any of the leaked information is intentionally misleading, that we will probably learn soon enough or judging by the success at identifying the SCOTUS Dobbs leaker, never.