Messing With Texas: A federal judge in Texas has blocked enforcement of the state’s strict abortion law, which bars the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

  US District Judge Robert Pitman in a 113-page order granted the Biden administration’s request to temporarily halt the law that has stopped most abortions in the state. Pitman said Texas lawmakers had crafted an “unprecedented and aggressive scheme to deprive its citizens of a significant and well-established constitutional right.”

  A half dozen states have banned abortion at the six-week limit, but only Texas made it possible for anyone in the state to sue the doctor who performs an abortion, or anyone who administers or cooperates in the procedure, for a $10,000 award.

  Pitman wrote “women have been unlawfully prevented from exercising control over their lives in ways that are protected by the Constitution.” And he said, “This Court will not sanction one more day of this offensive deprivation of such an important right.” 

Just a Pinch: In a major breakthrough, the World Health Organization endorsed the first ever malaria vaccine that could save the lives of tens of thousands of children in Africa every year.

  Malaria kills about half a million people a year, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa. More than half the dead are children under age 5. 

  The new vaccine, made by GlaxoSmithKline, blocks the deadliest of five malaria pathogens, the one most prevalent in Africa. It is the first vaccine developed for any parasitic disease.

Revolting: High ranking officials in the Justice Department threatened to resign in the first week of January if President Trump carried out a plan to install a loyalist at the head of the department who would pursue an investigation of the president’s unfounded claims of election fraud.

  This comes according to a preliminary report by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

  Even Pat Cipollone, the White House counsel, and his top deputy threatened to resign during the three hour meeting on January 3^rd, The NY Times reports.  According to others at the meeting, Mr. Cipollone indicated that he and his top deputy, Patrick Philbin, would also quit if Trump acted on his plan. The Times reports that Cipollone described Trump’s plan as a “murder-suicide pact.” 

  Sen. Richard Durbin, the Illinois Democrat who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a statement, “Thanks to a number of upstanding Americans in the Department of Justice, Donald Trump was unable to bend the department to his will. But it was not due to a lack of effort.”

  Durbin said that he believes the former president, who remains a front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2024, would have “shredded the Constitution to stay in power.”

Un-American News: One America News, the far-right network and purveyor of lies and conspiracy theories about the pandemic and 2020 election,  has flourished with support from AT&T Inc, the world’s largest communications company, Reuters news reports.

  AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms, including satellite broadcaster DirecTV, according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant.

  Reuters says it has seen court records showing that OAN founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.

   “They told us they wanted a conservative network,” Herring said during a 2019 deposition reported on by Reuters. “They only had one, which was Fox News, and they had seven others on the other side. When they said that, I jumped to it and built one.”

Simple Addition: A student at an Arlington, Texas high school in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area opened fire during an argument and wounded four people. Police arrested an 18-year-old who drove off in his car after the shooting.

The Platinum Solution: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, the troll under the bridge, has offered to allow the federal debt limit to be raised high enough to fund the government into December. But he’s still refusing to vote for a full hike in the debt limit.

   With economic crisis looming over the Republican threat, the idea is floating around that one way out for the Democrats is for the Treasury to mint a single coin, a $1 trillion platinum coin. The Treasury could then use the coin as backing to pay the national bills in cash.

  A 20-year old law says the Treasury “may mint and issue platinum bullion coins and proof platinum coins” in any denomination.

  Of course, the grownups in the room are slapping down the idea as a gimmick, which it is, and not real financial management. But then, Mitch McConnell is not proposing real financial management either.

The Spin Rack: The sheriff of Riverside County, California, outside Los Angeles, is downplaying the significance of his former membership in the extremist Oath Keepers, one of the largest groups in the far-right patriot militia movement. Sheriff Chad Bianco joined in 2014. Seventeen members of the Oath Keepers  were indicted in connection with the January 6th Capitol insurrection. — ESPN has suspended host Sage Steele after she criticized the company vaccine mandate as “sick” and “scary” even though she has tested positive for Covid-19. — The White House announced that it will buy $1 billion worth of rapid, at-home coronavirus tests, quadrupling the number of tests available to Americans by December, 

Heavy Breathing: A Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy has been fired for having sex while on duty at the Universal Studios theme park. He left his microphone keyed so the dispatcher could hear it all. The encounter is reported to have happened near the Bates Motel, the location for the movie “Psycho.”  And nothing says “romance” like the Bates Motel. 

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