Debunking Fake News.
(Photograph by Erin Schaff/Getty Images.)
Article was originally here.
A viral tweet claims that Supreme Court Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Samuel Alito justified overturning Roe v. Wade in the leaked draft majority opinion because “the US needs a ‘domestic supply of infants.’”
The draft was written by Alito, not Barrett and Alito as the tweet suggests. The section of the opinion from which the quote is pulled is a footnote, with the line not being written by Barrett or Alito, but coming from a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention paper on adoption. The line reads: “[N]early 1 million women were seeking to adopt children in 2002 (i.e., they were in demand of a child), whereas the domestic supply of infants relinquished at birth or within the first month of life and available to be adopted had become virtually nonexistent.”
This paper is cited in a paragraph summing up arguments from pro-life Americans, specifically being cited in a sentence noting that a newborn put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a home. The footnote appears in the following section, following the italicized portion (italicization added):
“Americans who believe that abortion should be restricted press countervailing arguments about modern developments. They note that attitudes about the pregnancy of un-married women have changed drastically; that federal and state laws ban discrimination on the basis of pregnancy,42 that leave for pregnancy and childbirth are now guaranteed by law in many cases,43 that the costs of medical care associated with pregnancy are covered by insurance or government assistance44; that States have increasingly adopted ‘safe haven’ laws, which generally allow women to drop off babies anonymously45; and that a woman who puts her newborn up for adoption today has little reason to fear that the baby will not find a suitable home46.”
From the context of the footnote, it’s clear that the CDC quote appeared in the footnote only to highlight the fact that unwanted babies put up for adoption in the United States will likely find a family—not, as the tweet implies, that domestic birth rates need to increase to meet adoption demands. What’s more, the paragraph in which the footnote appears is about the arguments of pro-life Americans, taking place in a summary of the public debate surrounding abortion. Immediately preceding the above paragraph is another summing up the beliefs of pro-abortion Americans, which reads:
“Defenders of Roe and [Casey v. Planned Parenthood] do not claim that any new scientific learning calls for a different answer to the underlying moral question, but they do contend that changes in society require the recognition of a constitutional right to obtain an abortion. Without the availability of abortion, they maintain, people will be inhibited from exercising their freedom to choose the types of relationships they desire, and women will be unable to compete with men in the workplace and in other endeavors.”
Following both summaries, the opinion continues:
“Both sides make important policy arguments, but supporters of Roe and Casey must show that this Court has the authority to weigh those arguments and decide how abortion may be regulated in the States. They have failed to make that showing, and we thus return the power to weigh those arguments to the people and their elected officials.”
Parishioners confronted several pro-abortion protesters in costumes from The Handmaid’s Tale who attempted to disrupt Sunday mass at Our Lady of the Angels, the “mother church” of the L.A. archdiocese.
The Catholic News Agency confirmed the disruption, and reported:
The description of the protesters’ attire provided by the parishioner, Bradford Adkins, resembles costumes worn by members of the pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us, which threatened to disrupt Catholic Masses on Sunday, Mother’s Day.
As of 10 p.m. EDT on Sunday, the group did not appear to have taken responsibility for the protest in Los Angeles. Representatives of the group did not respond to CNA’s request for comment prior to publication.
…
Ruth Sent Us has taken responsibility for disrupting Catholic churches before, such as at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Assumption in San Francisco in February. During Mass at St. Mary’s, video footage shows protesters walking down the aisle toward the altar wearing red robes and white bonnets or “handmaids” costumes frequently worn by abortion activists. The costumes symbolize enslaved women who are raped and forced to give birth, inspired by Margaret Atwood’s 1985 dystopian novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Pfizer likely knew that Paxlovid did not work in the vaccinated, and removed them from the EPIC-SR trial
Paxlovid was not AT ALL tested on children in both trials, but the FDA approved it for children anyway.
Introduction
You can skip this introduction and head straight into the next section if you are familiar with the Paxlovid story. Briefly, I wrote the following article on April 13, pointing out that the Internet is full of stories of Paxlovid-treated patients relapsing and having Covid re-emerge on Day 10 of their illness.
Igor’s Newsletter
Paxlovid, “Snake Oil” of the 21st Century?
Paxlovid is a combination of a protease inhibitor Nirmatrelvir and a HIV medication Ritonavir. At $895, it is definitely going to be a moneymaker for Pfizer. But how well does it work for the patients? This is what we all heard: The first study, that lasted for four weeks only, reported amazing success and “89% prevention of severe symptoms”. That first s…
Hundreds of stories are all over Twitter and Reddit. This one from yesterday 4/30/22:
Pfizer Purposely Excluded Vaccinated People from Trials. It had a Reason!
Two Pfizer trials for Paxlovid (High Risk and Standard Risk) had long lists of patients to exclude. Some, like HIV patients with complicated problems, are understandably excluded.
But why did Pfizer decide to exclude vaccinated people from the trials? That decision seems crazy since Pfizer intended to ”vaccinate the world” and have everyone vaccinated. So, considering that Pfizer knew about “breakthrough infections,” why did it decide to ban vaccinated people from both trials if it expected that most people would be vaccinated? Seems strange to exclude most people from being potential customers, no?
Well, it looks like Pfizer knew more than it disclosed. (hat tip, Dr. Buzz)
Actually, Pfizer did NOT want to exclude the vaccinated from at least one trial, EPIC-SR, from the start. In the beginning, EPIC-SR allowed vaccinated people with comorbidities. Original Epic-SR exclusion read:
Has received or is expected to receive any COVID-19 vaccine, except for participants with an underlying medical condition associated with an increased risk of developing severe illness from COVID-19. Participants with these conditions who are fully vaccinated are considered to be at lower risk of developing severe disease and are therefore considered eligible.
So, according to the above, vaccinated patients with comorbidities were considered “standard risk” and were in the trial.
However, between March 9 and April 5 of 2022, Pfizer decided to change the criteria and excluded ALL vaccinated people:
What made Pfizer change this criterion? My speculative answer is that Pfizer knew that Paxlovid did not work in the vaccinated. Having failed to hit the target when it came to vaccinated people, Pfizer decided to remove them from the trial and “move the target,” so to speak. This way, the EPIC-SR study would end up being a “success,” technically.
They removed their main target market — the vaccinated — from the trial, to make sure that the trial looks good. Then Pfizer turned around and asked the FDA to sell the drug to the very people whom they consciously excluded from the trial.
Despite intentionally removing and ignoring vaccinated people in both trials, Pfizer asked for and received FDA approval for all patients, vaccinated or not. So now, Pfizer gets $895 per treatment course and makes a lot of money. Does this treatment benefit vaccinated patients? You decide.
Paxlovid was not tested in Children; FDA Approved Paxlovid for Kids Anyway
It gets worse. Both EPIC-HR and EPIC-SR excluded children under 18.
I am slightly puzzled by this. I mean, surely the FDA cares for our children, right? So wouldn’t it want to ask Pfizer to at least test Paxlovid for children? Of course, it is just a few million dollars for Pfizer. Not a big deal. But testing on children was not done at all, and the FDA recommended Paxlovid for children anyway.
Mind you, Paxlovid is not a little harmless vitamin pill. It is a repackaged HIV/AIDS medication blocking certain liver functions, combined with a radically novel protease inhibitor affecting intricate intracellular processes. Who knows how Paxlovid affects growing kids going through puberty? I surely do not know, but does anyone else?
Controversy over “herd immunity” has been with us since beginning of Covid-19. “Herd immunity” is defined as a critical percentage of people who are immune to the virus, that is so high that the pathogen does not have enough susceptible hosts to jump to and from to sustain transmission, and thus the pandemic stops or remains at extremely low level.
Narratives of mainstream media and the so called “health experts” about herd immunity changed several times. Before vaccines, “herd immunity” and the Great Barrington Declaration, calling for smart ways to reach herd immunity, were vilified and declared to be a very dangerous concept:
Later, during the period of promoting “Covid Vaccine’“, herd immunity was declared to be the a desirable, but elusive goal requiring higher and higher percentage of people to be vaccinated:
Lastly, as vaccine failure became most evident to all except the most ardent supporters, herd immunity was declared unattainable by the same “health experts”:
It turns out that all three of these messaging campaigns were false:
Herd immunity is a good thing when it is reached
Herd Immunity is attainable
Many countries in the world reached herd immunity already
Look at the chart: the herd immunity countries listed above, barely register on the bottom of this graph. You have to make a visual effort even to identify their recent curves, way below the crazy infection curves of vaccinated countries.
The Mistake of Vaccination is NOT Reversible.Unfortunately, there is no way to “un-vaccinate” people. The highly vaccinated countries and regions will have to suffer endless Covid infections and reinfections for a long time.
California’s nonpartisan Legislative Analyst Gabe Petek had some bad news for the Legislature last week. His office conducted an analysis of 10,000 possible scenarios of tax revenue collections to see how the state’s general fund would be affected.
“In 95 percent of our simulations, the state encountered a budget problem by 2025-26,” Petek wrote.
The “budget problem” is that the state has taken in so much revenue from its high tax rates that it has triggered the so-called Gann limit, a state appropriations limit that was approved by voters in 1979. An “appropriation” is a legislative authorization for spending, and the Gann limit, named after its proponent, Proposition 13 backer Paul Gann, was intended to prevent local and state government from intentionally raking in surplus tax revenue and then spending it all.
The Gann limit, also known as 1979’s Proposition 4, has specific and complicated rules about how revenue is counted and which types of appropriations are limited, but what it means is that surplus revenue can’t simply be spent on anything lawmakers choose.
Voters have had their say more than once about the state should be allocating tax dollars. Under 1988’s Proposition 98, a percentage of revenues must be spent on education, and under 2014’s Proposition 2, the Legislature must put money toward budget reserves. The Legislative Analyst’s Office determined that once the state appropriations limit (SAL) is reached, the “budget problem” kicks in with a vengeance. “We estimate that for every dollar of tax revenue above the SAL, the state faces approximately $1.60 in constitutional funding obligations,” Petek wrote.
So if the economy is strong and revenues continue to rise, the budget is in trouble by 2025-26, and if the economy goes into a recession and revenues fall, the budget is in trouble by 2025-26.
While this would seem to indicate that nothing lawmakers do will change the outcome, that’s not the case. The recommendation from the Legislative Analyst’s Office is for the Legislature to reject “the lion’s share” of $10 billion of proposals in the governor’s budget.
You might as well try to get a raw steak out of a lion’s jaws. Even the LAO admits that rejecting new spending programs is “the most jarring of the options” for the Legislature.
Still, the governor’s budget plan “is not a fiscally sustainable starting point,” Petek writes. Rejecting $10 billion of the governor’s “non-SAL-excludable spending proposals” would help by “constraining growth of the state’s spending base,” another way of saying new programs are an ongoing commitment, not a one-time expense. Rejecting the governor’s spending proposals would also help by “saving the unspent funds” to put the state on “more solid fiscal footing for whatever economic conditions the future holds.”
In a worse-case scenario, the LAO’s analysis found, the state’s budget reserves, estimated at $25 billion, “would be depleted within one year.”
It would be a good idea, Petek, wrote, for lawmakers to apply “close scrutiny to the governor’s spending proposals,” and if it’s not possible to reject them all, to at least adopt a “high threshold for new programs.” The LAO recommends approving only proposals that “address a well-defined problem with a policy strategy that has been evaluated and found to be cost-effective.”
As long as we’re indulging in daydreams, the state should cut its highest-in-the-nation tax rates and stay within the spending limits in the state constitution.
An Associated Press investigation published Wednesday found Russia’s March 16 bombing of the Donetsk Academic Regional Drama Theater in Mariupol actually killed closer to 600 civilians, about double the number of casualties originally reported. The United Nations’ Human Rights Office has confirmed 3,238 civilian deaths and 3,397 civilian injuries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began—but it continues to believe the actual figures are “considerably higher.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday outlined the bloc’s sixth Russian sanctions package, proposing an EU-wide ban on imports of Russian crude oil within six months and a ban on more refined oil products by the end of 2022. The package—which will require sign off from all 27 member states—would also remove three major Russian banks from the SWIFT financial-messaging system, ban several Russian state-owned broadcasters from the EU, and impose sanctions on Russian military officials accused of war crimes in Bucha and elsewhere. Hungary and Slovakia have signaled they won’t support a broader ban on Russian energy.
Several thousand Finnish troops are conducting a two-week military exercise alongside American, British, Estonian, and Latvian soldiers in anticipation of Finland’s forthcoming NATO application. Major General Joe Hartman—head of U.S. Cyber National Mission Force—told reporters yesterday the United States sent cyber forces to Lithuania to help defend against Russian cyber threats.
North Korea conducted another ballistic missile test on Wednesday, according to Japanese and South Korean military officials. The projectile reportedly traveled about 310 miles before landing in the sea, and the launch comes just days before South Korea is set to inaugurate its new, more hard-line president.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed an executive order and issued a national security memorandum aiming to advance the United States’ development of quantum computing technologies, establishing a National Quantum Initiative Advisory Committee and directing federal agencies to “pursue a whole-of-government and whole-of-society approach” toward harnessing the economic and scientific benefits of quantum information science. The memorandum also directs government agencies to update their cybersecurity capabilities by transitioning to quantum-resistant cryptographic standards.
The Census Bureau reported yesterday the United States’ international trade deficit in goods and services hit a record high in March, increasing 22.3 percent month-over-month to $109.8 billion. Imports increased more than 10 percent in March, with clothing, computers, and cars driving much of the surge.
Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell had some shocking news yesterday: “Inflation is much too high.”
In fairness, Powell wasn’t trying to break new ground. He was emphasizing the Fed’s shift from months of “don’t worry, this inflation is transitory” to the more recent “OK, yikes, inflation is eating Americans’ wallets and we should do something.”
“We understand the hardship it is causing, and we’re moving expeditiously to bring it back down,” Powell said. “We have both the tools we need and the resolve it will take to restore price stability.” And so, as previously telegraphed, the Fed hiked interest rates on Wednesday by 50 basis points, or half a percent—the highest jump since 2000.
The Fed had already raised rates a quarter percent in March, its first hike since 2018. But it’ll take much more than that to bring inflation under control. The central bank’s favored price index reported 6.6 percent year-over-year inflation in March, more than triple the Fed’s goal of 2 percent. Powell said continued strong employment numbers—U.S. job openings reached a record-high 11.5 million in March—give him confidence the Fed has room to cool the market and slow hiring without triggering mass unemployment.
Punditry With Sen. Mitt Romney
Sen. Mitt Romney had some choice words for the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. “The Federal Reserve is primarily responsible for maintaining the integrity of our monetary system,” he told Steve on yesterday’s Dispatch Podcast. “They were far too loose, far too long.” Here are some additional highlights from the conversation:
On the Biden administration’s contributions to today’s inflationary environment.
My guess is that would not have been the problem it was but for the fact that COVID threw off the supply chain in ways that were far more extreme than any would’ve anticipated. But then added to that, you had the president do a couple of things that really added fuel to the fire. One was the $1.9 trillion that went out in March, and that was just after the $900 billion that had gone out in January. So just a couple of months after $900 billion went out, he sent out $1.9 trillion.
I was speaking yesterday with the Secretary of Health and Human Services in one state, not my state, but another state. She said that her state’s budget for childcare for the indigent was $55 million a year. She received a check on the American Rescue Plan for $500 million for that program. She said, “What are we supposed to do with all this money?” And that happened in state after state.
I don’t think the White House anticipated the impact of what they had done, what the Fed had done, and the supply chain would be as great as it is. And the American people are suffering as a result of that.
Worth Your Time
It may seem like everything’s coming up Republican ahead of November’s midterms, but Noah Rothman argues in Commentary the GOP could very well still blow it. “Despite the many advantages Republicans enjoy today, a bad candidate can still lose a winnable race,” he writes. Robert Regan—GOP candidate for a Michigan House seat—pushed to decertify the 2020 election, suggested Ukraine deserved to be invaded by Russia, pushed antivaxx rhetoric, dabbled in anti-Semitism, and “joked” about telling his daughters to “lie back and enjoy it” if they are raped. And this week, he lost a special election in a +26 Republican district that had never elected a Democrat. “The GOP’s primary voters got what they wanted: not a lasting political victory at the polls but a thumb in the eye of those who dared warn against touching that hot stove. This cautionary tale could have broader relevance with primary season now fully upon us.”
In a piece for National Review, Kevin Williamson does his best to answer pro-choice critiques of overturning Roe v. Wade. “The Constitution says what it says even if 70 percent of Americans wish it said something else. The Constitution says what it says even if 99 percent of Americans wish it said something else,” he writes. “If 95 percent of Americans don’t like the First Amendment or 100 percent want to reinstitute slavery, that doesn’t change what the Constitution says. It means that the majority can go jump in a lake—which is what constitutions are there to do. That being said, if it really were the case that overwhelming majorities of Americans wanted the same abortion rules that Planned Parenthood wants (meaning, essentially, none) then having the elected representatives of the people take up the question in the legislatures and vote on it seems like it would be a winning outcome for the pro-abortion side. The fact that the pro-abortion side is terrified of working out the question democratically tells you that they know they do not have the support they claim to have.”
In this week’s Capitolism (), Scott is starting to wonder if the Biden administration is actively trying to boost inflation. “Inflation may be the nation’s top economic challenge and may be top of mind for most American voters, but it plays second fiddle to the narrow interests of certain groups—unions, environmentalists, college grads, etc.—that the White House sees as essential for political success this fall and beyond,” he writes. “So those squeaky wheels will continue to get the oil, regardless of the insular decisions’ broader economic effects.”
President Biden publicly said the word ‘abortion’ out loud this week for the first time in his presidency. “I think the reason for this is pretty obvious. Most people don’t like abortion,” Jonah writes in Wednesday’s G-File(). “[Biden] may be locked in, as a political matter, to abortion rights maximalism, irrespective of his personal views. But the White House has decided that this is not the way it wants to frame the issue. Democrats want to say that if ‘they’ come for abortion tomorrow, ‘they’ll’ also come for privacy, gay marriage, etc., tomorrow. … And because Biden can’t say ‘safe, legal, and rare,’ he’s blocked off from a popular position on abortion.”
What can J.D. Vance’s victory in Ohio tell us about Trump and the 2022 midterms? “Based on my read of the available data, Trump’s endorsement was worth about 3-5 percentage points in terms of people who immediately switched their vote,” Sarah writes in this week’s Sweep (). “But the real value was with undecided voters.” Plus: The electoral effects of overturning Roe, 2024 GOP primary “lanes,” Evan McMullin and Mike Lee in Utah, and which political coalition has shifted more in recent years.
In a bonus Wednesday Uphill, Haley uncovers another House Democrat abusing proxy voting to campaign for higher office back home. “[New York Rep. Tom Suozzi] has voted in person only five times since the start of the year, over the course of three days in January,” she writes. “Suozzi voted in person once on January 18, once on January 19, and three times on January 20. Beyond those three days, Suozzi has had colleagues cast votes on his behalf under the House’s proxy rules 134 times out of 141 roll call votes in 2022 thus far.”
Anyway, it turns out that Pfizer’s COVID vaccine was not 95% effective: the data shows it has a 12% efficacy rate.
Let me repeat: 12%. That’s a “1” followed by a “2.”
But wait: it gets worse.
There were no human clinical trials to determine if the experimental COVID vaccines were safe for pregnant women. They were excluded from all the trials.
None. Zero. Zilch. Nada.
Instead, they tested it on 44 rats.
Sean Conway – UAP 🇦🇺 ACT Bean Candidate @seancondev
Pregnant women in the U.S. military who were coerced into taking the jab have suffered horrific side effects and “congenital malformations” in their babies. There were more than 18,900 babies born with abnormalities in 2021.
There’s much more news to come out about the COVID vaccines — and all of it is bad. For example, doctors around the world are starting to notice an explosion in the cancer rates among the vaccinated.
Like I said: lots of doctors are noticing that cancers are increasing dramatically. Here’s a chart with data pulled from VAERS that will make your heart sink.
Let me finish with this thought: perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to re-program the DNA of half the world to produce spike proteins to “fight” a virus with a 99% survival rate?
The Public Interest Legal Foundation went to Pennsylvania with a list of tens of thousands of people who were likely dead, but still on the state’s voter rolls in the weeks before the 2020 election. (Associated Press/File) ** FILE **
I used to do these recaps a few years back. I’m going to try this again to see how it works. Fell free to comment on all or one or two.
Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed yesterday that the leaked draft of an opinion that would overturn Roe v. Wade is authentic—though not final—and ordered the Marshal of the Court to conduct an investigation into the source of the leak.
Ohio and Indiana conducted their 2022 primary elections on Tuesday, with competitive races taking place in both states. Republican author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance will face off against Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan in Ohio’s U.S. Senate race, and incumbent GOP Gov. Mike DeWine will be challenged by Nan Whaley, the Democratic former mayor of Dayton. In Indiana, state Sen. Erin Houchin won the GOP bid to succeed the retiring Rep. Trey Hollingsworth.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Tuesday that U.S. job openings reached record highs at the end of March, when there were 11.5 million unfilled jobs nationwide, up from 11.3 million a month earlier. The quits rate—the percentage of workers who quit their job during the month—hit a record high 3 percent as well, though many of these workers quit for different or better opportunities.
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Tuesday it will extend the work permits of most immigrants whose authorization recently expired or is about to expire, citing the agency’s inability to process applications quickly enough to keep pace with existing labor shortages. The extension—up to a year and a half—is expected to affect about 420,000 immigrants over the course of the policy.
That doesn’t mean the ruling itself is set in stone—justices could still change their votes or narrow the decision’s scope before it’s issued later this summer—but Chief Justice John Roberts confirmed yesterday the document published by Politico this week was written by Justice Samuel Alito and circulated in early February.
“To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed,” he said in a statement. “The work of the Court will not be affected in any way.” The marshal of the court will launch an investigation into the source of the leak.
If the final numbers reflect the split as seen in the leak—again, an important if—Alito’s opinion will overrule nearly five decades of abortion jurisprudence. But as we noted in a recent TMD, a full overturning of Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey wouldn’t outlaw abortion nationwide—it would return the power to regulate the procedure to state legislatures and governors, who can be as permissive or restrictive as their voters will allow. At least 17 states have preemptively moved to guarantee abortion’s legality, while at least 13 others have passed “trigger laws” that would implement new restrictions in the event Roe and Casey are reversed. Monday’s news will certainly spur more into action, one way or the other.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, for example, called on the legislature this week to amend California’s constitution—a process that requires voter approval—so “there is no doubt as to the right to abortion” in the state. “We know we can’t trust the Supreme Court to protect reproductive rights, so California will build a firewall around this right in our state constitution,” he said in a statement. California accounted for about 15 percent of all abortions in the United States in 2017, and in 2019, Newsom signed a proclamation “welcoming women to California” for the procedure.
For as much attention as Monday’s leak has understandably received, it’s far from certain how such a ruling would affect the overall abortion rate. What percentage of women seeking an abortion in states where it’s illegal will undergo the procedure illicitly, or travel to another jurisdiction? Will states actually be able to crack down on abortion pills, in light of last December’s Food and Drug Administration decision allowing providers to prescribe the pills—used up to 10 weeks’ gestation—via telemedicine and mail them to women?
A 2019 analysis from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute and university researchers estimated the United States’ abortion rate would fall between 25 and 40 percent in the year after a Roe reversal, but that potential drop fell to about 14 percent when the researchers updated the analysis in 2021. Thanks to Texas’ implementation of a six-week abortion ban last year, we have some real-world data on how this might play out. Two groups of researchers at the University of Texas released studies this spring showing the state’s new restrictions reduced the total number of abortions in the state by about 10 percent when accounting for women traveling to nearby states or ordering abortion pills online.
“A post-Roe United States isn’t one in which abortion isn’t legal at all,” Middlebury College economist Caitlin Knowles Myers told the New York Times. “It’s one in which there’s tremendous inequality in abortion access.”
Progressives expressed immense frustration with Alito’s leaked draft. “How dare they tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her own body?” Vice President Kamala Harris said at an EMILY’s List conference on Tuesday. “How dare they try to stop her from determining her own future? How dare they try to deny women their rights and their freedoms?” President Joe Biden issued a statement promising his administration would be prepared to respond to “the continued attack on abortion and reproductive rights.”
But a series of similar articles published yesterday pointed to a purported silver lining for the Democratic Party.
Politico: Democrats hope draft abortion opinion will jolt midterm elections
NBC News: Democrats energized after leaked abortion decision jolts midterms
Washington Post: A decision to overturn Roe v. Wade might upend the midterms
Reuters: Democrats look to abortion-rights threat to boost midterm election prospects
Roll Call: Democrats see midterm election boost from abortion ruling leak
Axios: Dems look to abortion fallout to salvage midterms
Maybe. Most of the stories point to recent polling—from Washington Post/ABC News, CNN, etc.—that shows a majority of voters oppose overturning Roe v. Wade, and it’s certainly possible a sweeping Supreme Court decision could prove a vulnerability for the GOP in November. Several elected Republicans were cagey about the implications when asked about it on Tuesday. “I don’t know [that] it’s necessarily a party issue,” Sen. John Thune of South Dakota told CNN. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas wouldn’t say whether he backed his own state’s restrictions, simply saying it’s up to the legislature.
Well, Republican primary voters in Ohio still very much care what Donald Trump has to say. “Without the Trump endorsement, we’re not talking tonight about Vance winning the nomination,” said David Cohen, political science professor at the University of Akron. “He would’ve had no shot.”
Vance, in this instance, refers to J.D. Vance, the U.S. Senate candidate who was polling at 10 percent three weeks ago—a distant third place—when the former president decided to make his choice in the race. The author-turned-venture-capitalist-turned-populist-bomb-thrower won the state GOP primary last night with slightly more than 32 percent of the vote, handily beating former state Treasurer Josh Mandel (24 percent), state Sen. Matt Dolan (23 percent), businessman Mike Gibbons (12 percent), and former Ohio GOP Chair Jane Timken (6 percent). All of the losing candidates conceded the race—that’s not a given anymore!—and each pledged their support to Vance in November, when he’ll take on Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic nominee who ran away with his own primary on Tuesday.
Vance was magnanimous in victory, expressing gratitude to each of his opponents for the races they ran. “A lot of disagreements with Matt Dolan—let’s just be honest,” Vance said of the only major candidate in the race who wasn’t courting Trump’s endorsement. “He could have ran an ugly campaign, but instead he ran a campaign about issues, about substance. He has been a great public servant for this country, and I think our party was better for the campaign that Matt Dolan ran.”
But that magnanimity comes after a vicious campaign that saw a record $66 million spent on TV and radio ads—many of them negative. In a particularly suggestive 30-second clip, Timken accused her rivals of trying to “overcompensate” for their “inadequacies.” A Gibbons ad labeled Mandel as a “con man.” The conservative Club for Growth—which was supporting Mandel—dropped millions on TV spots reminding Ohioans that Vance in 2016 called himself a “NeverTrump guy,” said he “might have to vote for Hillary Clinton,” and suggested that some of Trump’s voters “definitely” supported him for racist reasons.
Vance sought to neutralize those attacks early in the campaign. “I ask folks not to judge me based on what I said in 2016, because I’ve been very open that I did say those critical things and I regret them,” he told Fox News last summer. “I regret being wrong about the guy.”
It was good enough for Trump—who not only believed Vance to be Republicans’ best shot in November, but reportedly viewed Mandel as “f—— weird”—and the pretty transparent flip-flop may have actually worked to Vance’s advantage. “A lot of Ohioans had the same feelings about all of this, which is, ‘You know, I changed my mind on Trump after he was president, because he was a fighter for the team,’” David Kochel—a Republican political strategist—told The Dispatch. “John Kasich won the primary there in 2016, and he’s a NeverTrumper. There were a lot of NeverTrumpers in Ohio in that coalition, and they all had the same sort of conversion that J.D. did.”
Speaking at the Reagan Library as part of its Time for Choosing series, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan on Tuesday presented what he sees as the GOP’s best path forward. “Republicans will likely make big gains this year, simply because of the complete failures of the Democrats in Washington, but we can’t let that fool us into complacency,” he said. “The problems that have caused our party to repeatedly lose have not been addressed. It’s easy to make excuses for the failures on our side by simply pointing out that the other side is often worse. But better than the Democrats isn’t good enough. That is not a winning strategy or a long-term roadmap to success. Americans are completely disgusted with the toxic politics, and they’re sick and tired of all the lies and excuses. Excuses, lies, and toxic politics will not win elections or restore America. Only real leadership will do that.”
Strong women like Governor Noem are pledging to lead the fight against those sniviling women who are using a bad hair day as an excuse to abort the children. But hopefully no more.
Gov. Kristi Noem, R-S.D., responded to the alleged draft of a forthcoming Supreme Court opinion in Dobbs v. Women’s Health Organization striking down Roe v. Wade with a pledge to convene a special session of the South Dakota legislature to limit abortion should the Court’s final ruling strike down the 1973 precedent.
The draft, which the Court refused to confirm or deny and which appears to date back to February, would reverse Roe v. Wade and allow the states to make their own laws on the hot-button issue of abortion. Since this is a draft, reported by Politico, and not an official signed opinion, Roe v. Wade remains the law of the land. Drafts circulate and change.
Most likely voters support anti-groomer laws such as Florida’s Parental Rights in Education law, a survey from The Federalist/Susquehanna released this week revealed.
The survey, taken April 19-27, 2022, among 800 likely voters, presented respondents with the following: “Florida recently passed a law prohibiting public school teachers from introducing sexual topics to elementary school children without parental consent. Do you support or oppose proposals that protect young children from being exposed to sexual topics by school employees without parental consent or knowledge?”
The vast majority, 70 percent, said they support such laws designed to protect children, and of those 61 percent “strongly” support it.
Less than a quarter, 23 percent, said they oppose such measures, and of those, 11 percent “strongly” oppose. The survey has a +/- 3.46 margin of error and comes one month after Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) signed the parental rights law, which prohibits classroom discussions on sexual orientation and gender identity for children in kindergarten through third grade.
), Scott is starting to wonder if the Biden administration is actively trying to boost inflation. “Inflation may be the nation’s top economic challenge and may be top of mind for most American voters, but it plays second fiddle to the narrow interests of certain groups—unions, environmentalists, college grads, etc.—that the White House sees as essential for political success this fall and beyond,” he writes. “So those squeaky wheels will continue to get the oil, regardless of the insular decisions’ broader economic effects.”
