July 8

 The last two weeks have been depressing. The dental work is almost finished for now. I still have one cavity that will be filled next week and then a follow up appointment to see how the healing from the two extractions, scaling and root planing, and antibiotic treatments for pockets of infection. The good news: I still have most of my teeth and hope to have them still whenever in the future I shuffle off this plane of existence.

I think I mentioned before--I HATE dental or medical appointments. And I have been lucky in my 73 years to have needed very few of them.

The news adds to the glum feeling. A 10 year old girl from Ohio had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion that resulted from an incestuous rape. Ohio's abortion ban kicked in before they could deal with the matter there. I regret that by the end of this month we might have the same situation arising here because our governor has called a special session of the legislature for July 25. Our state's attorney is pushing for a total ban with no exceptions whatsoever.

In Illinois the Repthuglican candidate for governor promises that everything will be all right if we just placate his god by banning abortion and eliminating other evils their great White Daddy in the Sky doesn't approve. Every time I hear one of those sanctimonious nutcases spout off I want to get in their faces and say "I'm not a member of your church; I don't sing in your choir. Keep your damned religion out of my life."

Most of the "conservative" justices on the Supreme Court went to some pains to insist that the decision only affects abortion rights because abortion is different because it concerns the taking of life. Well, Clarence Thomas said the truth plainly in his concurring separate opinion: he thinks they should revisit Griswold v Connecticut (right to marital privacy and contraception), Lawrence v Texas (right to privacy and sexual relations between same sex adults), and Obergefelt v Hodges (the right of gay couples to marry). I noticed at the time that he left out Loving v Virginia (the right of interracial couples to marry) which was argued on the same basis as the others.

The case of West Virginia v EPA questions whether the agency or any agency can make enforceable rules. The decision holds that the legislative branch must make specific regulations (not administrative agencies authorized by previously passed legislation) to deal with "major questions." What exactly constitutes a "major question" is not spelled out. But the court has already queued up another possibly far reaching case dealing with voting rights which questions whether state courts have the right to review voting districts for adherence to state constitutions. In a previous case which basically ruled that "political" gerrymandering was permissible while "racial" gerrymandering was not, Chief Justice Roberts insisted that the state courts could still rule on exactly what was permissible in drawing voting districts. Well, his five "conservative" colleagues are about to hear a case that may totally upset that. I keep using quotes around the word conservative because those guys and gal are not conservative. They are radical.

Perhaps Margery Taylor Green should change her name to Grima Wormtongue: "Putin just wanted to be our friend and ally, but we blew the opportunity by supporting Ukraine." Quoted on the Direct eZine.