October 23, 2021

Abortion in the Court: The Supreme yesterday refused to block the Texas law that effectively bans abortion after six weeks but fast-tracked arguments by Justice Department and Texas abortion providers for November 1st.

  Only Justice Sonia Sotomayor dissented. “For the second time, the court is presented with an application to enjoin a statute enacted in open disregard of the constitutional rights of women seeking abortion care in Texas,” she wrote. “For the second time, the court declines to act immediately to protect these women from grave and irreparable harm.”

  At the same time the court turned down a request by Texas officials to use the ultimate decision for completely overturning the right to abortion established by the court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.

  The Texas law was designed to avoid state responsibility by essentially deputizing the general public to enforce it through lawsuits. Doctors, staff members at clinics, counselors, people who help pay for the procedure or even drive them to a clinic are all potentially liable.

  Texas authorities have basically told people who violate the law, go ahead and violate it to see if you can overturn it in the courts.

  “The court’s order is stunning,” Justice Sotomayor wrote in her dissent regarding a previous decision on the Texas law. “Presented with an application to enjoin a flagrantly unconstitutional law engineered to prohibit women from exercising their constitutional rights and evade judicial scrutiny, a majority of justices have opted to bury their heads in the sand.”

Live Ammo: Actor Alec Baldwin was handed a gun loaded with live ammunition moments before he shot and killed the director of photography and wounded the director of his low-budget Western “Rust” being filmed in New Mexico, according to a search warrant filed in a Santa Fe Court.

  Baldwin, however, was told he was being handed a “cold gun,” according to documents. The shooting  appears to be accidental and several news reports quote anonymous crew members saying there had been concern about safety on the set. 

  In a terrible irony, the movie is about  a teenager who goes on the run with his estranged grandfather, played by Baldwin, after the boy is sentenced to hang for the accidental killing of a local rancher. 

  The 63-year-old actor said in a statement issued on Twitter, “There are no words to convey my shock and sadness regarding the tragic accident that took the life of Halyna Hutchins, a wife, mother and deeply admired colleague of ours. I’m fully cooperating with the police investigation.” 

Covid Deadline: Journalists have filed a lot of stories about cops, firefighters, and employees in general fighting Covid-19 vaccine mandates and sometimes losing their jobs.

  Not reported so prominently is that plenty of journalists also are refusing the vaccine. The Washington Post reports about Kerri Hayden, a reporter at KGWN television in in Cheyenne, who was fired after refusing the vaccine contrary to a company mandate. “I wanted the decision to be my choice,” she told the Post, “not a billion-dollar company’s.”

  Of course, she’s free to decline the vaccine and the company is free to fire her for refusing a safety requirement, like not wearing a seatbelt in the news van.

  Fox News hosts don’t say much about this, but the network requires employees to disclose their vaccination status and to get regular testing if they haven’t had the shot.

  We reported on Allison Williams, an ESPN sideline reporter who was sidelined for refusing the Disney vaccine mandate. She has since been hired by the right wing outlet, The Daily Wire.

  Karl Bohnak, a meteorologist for WLUC in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, told the Post that viewers threw him a party after he chose to get sacked rather than vaccinated.  He said he calls himself an “activist” against mandatory employer vaccinations, which he calls a “violation of human rights.”

The Risks of Riding: The ride service Lyft says more than 1,800 sexual assaults occurred during rides in 2019, in the company’s first-ever safety report on sexual and physical assaults, fatalities, and various serious incidents.

  Sexual assaults were up 64 percent from the year before, Lyft admitted. The service said that it received 4,158 reports of sexual assault in 2017, 2018, and 2019.

  Four people were killed in physical attacks in 2019, and 49 died in motor vehicle accidents. They reported four homicides.

  Lyft says the “reporting parties” in sexual assaults broke down as follows: Drivers: 38%; Riders: 52%; Third parties: 10%. They did not break down the statistics on how many assailants were drivers and how many were passengers.

The Spin Rack: The drug company Pfizer says its coronavirus vaccine has a 90.7 percent efficacy rate and is safe in children ages 5 to 11. — A record 1.7 million migrants from around the world  were encountered by US authorities trying to enter the United States illegally in the last 12 months, according to government records. — Robert Durst, the 78-year-old real estate heir just sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his good friend Susan Berman, has now been indicted in the murder of his wife Katie, who went missing in 1982. — A Nevada Republican voter who claimed someone used an absentee ballot to vote in the name of his late wife has been charged with doing just that.

Stuff: Celebutante Paris Hilton is engaged to get married and her wedding registry has $60,000 worth of goods on it. The list for the woman who’s famous for being famous includes a $985 Christofle party tray, a $1,000 crystal caviar server with a spoon, and a $4,885 Baccarat vase.

  It’s shocking that at age 40, Paris Hilton doesn’t already have a $1,000 crystal caviar server.

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