Roberts Rules of Disorder

The Pro-Life movement suffered another setback on Monday, when Supreme Court Justice John Roberts sided with the court's liberal wing to strike down a Louisiana law that said abortions could only be performed by doctors who had admitting privileges at nearby hospitals.

The court's liberals, among whom we can certainly count Roberts at this point, found that the law could make it more difficult for a woman to exercise her Constitutional right to abortion (a right which we wish the court would circle with a yellow highlighter, because damned if we can find it in there). They also declared that there was "no medical benefit" for a woman getting quick hospital  treatment in case her hoo-haw was geysering blood and her own organs, rather than those of her child, were skittering across the floor.

Interestingly, an almost identical case had previously been decided by the court, and Roberts had voted that the law was just fine and shouldn't be overturned (although it still was).  Which is why it was surprising that he completely flip-flopped his vote this time, while saying that he still thought he was right the last time. He changed his vote only because precedent had already been set, and he didn't want to mess with precedent even if it means raping the Constitution a little.

Then again, rape is no big deal in a country that makes access to abortion easy by stripping away protections to make it safe.

And speaking of safe, we still aren't here in the United States of Confusion when it comes to coronavirus and  Covid-19...

"It's okay, folks - she's a patriot!"

We've about given up hope that our nation will really be able to get this virus under control, mostly because the simple measures needed to reduce transmission have been hopelessly bungled, distorted, lied about, and politicized.

So just let us vent for a moment and share some truisms which you're free to believe or not:

• We are not starting a second viral wave. We're still near the beginning of the first wave.
• People can be entirely asymptomatic and still spread the potentially deadly virus to others (and yes, Typhoid Mary felt fine for the years she spread her illness).
• Any mask is better than no mask.
• Wearing a mask will not make you sick or cause you to hyperventilate (although fear might, so calm the heck down).
• Individual virus particles are small enough to travel through masks. Virus particles wrapped in snot and saliva - which is to say MOST of them - can not.
• If virus particles DO enter your system, the fewer you get initially, the greater the likelihood that you'll have a less severe case (starting with a lower "load" gives your body more time to gear up for the fight).
• There are no really good remedies or treatments for Covid-19 yet, although some helpful meds are being looked at.
• Of those hospitalized for Covid-19 and eventually released, as many as 50% are still suffering symptoms - including severe symptoms like chronic "10 out of 10" pain and brain injuries - which may be permanent.
• "My mask protects you, your mask protects me." This is a fact. And the only one that can possibly restore a bit of normality to our daily lives.
• "Opening up" doesn't mean it's free-for-all time again. It means SOME business can occur again if (and only if) people take the important and logical measures of wearing masks and observing social distancing.
• There is no guarantee that an effective vaccine will be found.

And there's more, but the bottom line is: put politics aside and, for now, wear a mask whenever you're mingling with other people in public. Other countries are doing it and it works. We did it here during the Spanish Flu and it worked.

Besides, keeping up to date with good pandemic procedures may be even more useful in the near future...

Yes, those happy-go-lucky Chinese have announced that a new flu virus with "pandemic potential" has popped up and may soon be winging its way to our shores. Because while pigs can't fly, swine flu most certainly can.

This being a "new" virus, there is - again - no human immunity, and the virus has already jumped from porker to person in at least two cases.

Although if China is admitting two cases, God only knows how many people have really sprouted curly tails and are currently shnuffling amongst tree roots for truffels.

An Act of Wampum Destruction

According to a Washington think tank (and yes, we find that oxymoron hilarious), if Joe Biden is elected as our next president, Elizabeth "Many-HaHa" Warren will be his likely choice for Treasury Secretary with primary responsibility for financial and economic policy. Leaving Joe to concentrate on giving the country a sense of direction by growing moss on his north side.

Such an assignment would be popular with young voters who would have liked Warren to be the VP candidate owing to her solid dedication to socialism, mathemagic taxation plans and, most importantly, the chance that Kate McKinnon would again play her on Saturday Night Live.

But that's not going to happen since Joe has already announced that his VP candidate must be a "woman of color" who is fully qualified and ready, at a moment's notice, to take over the job of stroking Biden's blonde leg hairs when he's sitting poolside.

At the moment, the leading contender for the position is Kamala "I'm not saying Joe is a racist, but he's a racist" Harris who, we're assured by former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, has plenty of stroking experience.

But just how much damage could Warren do as Treasury Secretary? Plenty - as we pointed out last September:

Warren would introduce a concept she calls "accountable capitalism," which the Wall Street Journal succinctly summarizes as a plan which is "an assault on retiree wealth" which would "destroy savings built over a lifetime and sink the economy."

Think they're exaggerating? Warren wants every business in America worth $1 billion or more to be compelled to become a "federal corporation" in which 2/5 of the directors must be elected by the workers. And rather than primarily serving stockholders, these "federal" corporations would be ordered to serve "the workforce, the community, customers, the local and global environment, and contribute to the betterment of community and societal factors."

In other words, every large company in America will go belly up, taking retirement investments with them.

And there's plenty more where that came from, like Warren's multi-trillion dollar plan for "Medicare For All" which can be fully funded by taxing millionaires and billionaires "pennies" on their fortunes. All of which would, by law, have to be converted into pennies.

It's all a reminder that even if elected, Joe Biden will never be president. This vacuous, grinning shell of a man will merely be a trademark character used for branding purposes, like Uncle Ben or Aunt Jemima, while the real decisions and presidential policies will be handled by a cabal of the most extreme radicals the Left has to offer. 

FROM THE VAULT...

Cape Diem

Sometimes there's a man...we won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero? But sometimes, there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And with apologies to the Coen Brothers and "The Big Lebowski," at this time and place, it's Pessimism Man.

Granted, like all superheroes, he just does his thing and quickly departs - for which we can all be grateful. But he paid us a visit earlier today, which sort of derailed our train of thought for anything very useful.

See, the news was already just godawful no matter what direction you look in, but at least we felt fairly secure here at home. Then, over our morning coffee, we noticed that our quiet little residential street was teeming with speeding traffic. But why? It turns out that they were all detouring from our nearest major intersection, which had been closed off after an "incident."

Specifically, there was a car crash (which didn't look too major), and a helpful police officer arrived on the scene and went to check on the occupants of the cars. The driver of the first car jumped out and stabbed him. The officer fell back, and the driver then rushed to the other car and started stabbing its driver. Lacking a Rapid Response Social Worker on scene, the officer shot the offender - who died at the scene.

We don't know the race of any of the people involved, and it wouldn't make any difference to us anyway (though it might to mobs). It was a horrible event, and the police officer acted appropriately to save a life.

With this gloomy cloud hovering our head (and an unending parade of cars roaring past our home), we at least tried to come up with a topical cartoon or two, but couldn't conjure anything which wouldn't get our house burned down.

An especially dangerous proposition when you've stockpiled as many flammable bottles of Clan MacAccelerant as we have.