SUPREME LEAK SOLIDIFIES DEMOCRATIC CONTROL OF CONGRESS AND WHITE HOUSE

When I worked as a staff member of the U.S. Senate, the most emotional issue had to do with abortion rights. Anti-abortion lobbyists were a lot more passionate, sometimes giving out roses for their cause.

An unprecedented Supreme Court leak to Politico, just hours ago confirmed, revealed that Roe v. Wade would be overturned, allowing states to outlaw abortion.

How significant is all this?

The New York Times indicated that abortion in the U.S. would decline by 14%.
26 states will probably ban abortions.

What exactly is Roe v. Wade?

In 1821 Connecticut passed the first anti-abortion ruling in the U.S. leading to all 37 states banning abortion in 1900.

In 1969 two Texas attorneys, Sarah Weddington (top left) and Linda Coffee (bottom), represented 21-year old Norma McCorvey (top right) in seeking abortion of her third child, which was nevertheless born in 1970 and adopted.
Soon following, Coffee and Weddington filed a suit in Texas on behalf of McCorvey, under the legal pseudonym Jane ROE, where the defendant was Dallas Country District Attorney Henry WADE (right).
The court declined to grant an injunction against enforcing the law, and the case went to the Supreme Court.
By 1971 several states, including Hawaii, made elective abortion available.
A Supreme Court decision of 7-2 49 years ago (1973), ruled that the U.S. Constitution protected a pregnant women's liberty to choose to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.
The Supreme Court revisited the case in a 1992 decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and ended up actually making it easier for women to get an abortion. Casey is the Pennsylvania Governor Robert Casey who was behind this case in his state.

This was totally unexpected, for by then there were 8 Republican-appointed justices, leaving only one Democrat appointment.
The then Bush administration urged the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Now Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito in those days sat on that particular Court of Appeals and sided with the anti-abortionists. He is the one whose draft was leaked.
The 1992 Supreme Court was amazingly bipartisan in decision-making.
The 2022 Supreme Court is almost totally partisan, and Roe v. Wade will be repealed.

All this turmoil will seal Democrat-control of both houses of Congress in the November vote, and probably lead to a Democratic president in 2024. Why?

The economy/inflation, Ukraine war, immigration and other issues will continue to be important, but this sudden abortion banning decision will further:

Convert perhaps 5% more Independents to vote Democratic.
Convert perhaps 5% more Republicans to either not vote or vote for a Democrat.

The specter of Trump will further weaken several Republican candidates in November.

First, as he appointed three Conservatives to the Supreme Court, part of the blame on what happened will be placed on him.
Sure, this will seem like victory for Republicans, but those feeling so would vote Republican anyway. The fringe Republicans and Independents will make a significant difference in favor of a Democrat.

More than this Supreme Court decision to come, just his awful character and January 6 attempt to illegally stay in power will sway a sufficient number of votes away from anyone getting his support to run against the Democrat.

Mind you, I haven't seen any particular pundit advocating this attitude today. I think in time much of what I'm saying above will prevail, to be confirmed by those votes on November 8.

A NEXT COVID SUBVARIANT?

By now most know that the Omicron BA.5 subvariant has become the dominant infectious agent, now accounting for more than 80% of all COVID-19 cases. Very few are aware that a new one, BA.4.6, is sneaking in and steadily rising, now accounting for 13% of sequenced samples . However, as BA.4.6 has emerged from BA.4, while there is uncertainty, the scientific sense is that the latest bivalent booster targeting BA.4 and BA.5 should also be effective for this next threat. One concern is that Evusheld--the only monoclonal antibody authorized for COVID prevention in immunocompromised individuals--is not effective against BA.4.6. Here is a reference as to what this means. A series of two injections is involved. Evusheld was developed by British-Swedish company AstraZeneca, and is a t ixagevimab co-packaged with cilgavimab . More recently, Los Angeles County reported on subvariant BA.2.75.2 . which Tony Fauci termed suspicio...

Part 3: OUR NEXT AROUND THE WORLD ODYSSEY

Before I get into my third, and final, part of this cruise series, let me start with some more newsworthy topics. Thursday was my pandemic day for years. Thus, every so often I return to bring you up to date on the latest developments. All these subvariants derived from that Omicron variant, and each quickly became dominant, with slightly different symptoms. One of these will shock you. There has been a significant decline in the lost of taste and smell. From two-thirds of early patients to now only 10-20% show these symptoms. JN.1, now the dominant subvariant, results in mostly mild symptoms. However, once JN.1 infects some, there seem to be longer-lasting symptoms. Clearly, the latest booster helps prevent contracting Covid. A competing subvariant, BA.2.86, also known as Pirola , a month ago made a run, but JN.1 prevailed. No variant in particular, but research has shown that some of you will begin to lose hair for...

HONOLULU TO SEATTLE

The story of the day is Hurricane Milton, now a Category 4 at 145 MPH, with a track that has moved further south and the eye projected to make landfall just south of Sarasota. Good news for Tampa, which is 73 miles north. Milton will crash into Florida as a Category 4, and is huge, so a lot of problems can still be expected in Tampa Bay with storm surge. If the eye had crossed into the state just north of Tampa, the damage would have been catastrophic. Milton is a fast-moving storm, currently at 17 MPH, so as bad as the rainfall will be over Florida, again, a blessing. The eye will make landfall around 10PM EDT today, and will move into the Atlantic Ocean north of Palm Bay Thursday morning. My first trip to Seattle was in June of 1962 just after I graduated from Stanford University. Caught a bus. Was called the Century 21 Exposition . Also the Seattle World's Fair. 10 million joined me on a six-month run. My first. These a...

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