The Full Belmonte, 6/26/2022
Americans face a new abortion landscape in the wake of Roe decision.
“A new and rapidly shifting reality took hold across America on Saturday as abortion, a basic legal right for nearly a half century, was outlawed in some states, and the initial bursts of elation and shock from the overturning of Roe v. Wade gave way to action.
At abortion clinics across the country, providers hastily canceled appointments out of fear of prosecution, and stunned women abruptly made plans to cross state lines into places where abortion was still allowed — traveling from Missouri to Illinois, from Wisconsin to Minnesota.
In Arkansas, where a trigger law banning abortions went into effect on Friday, 17 patients had been scheduled for abortions on Friday at Little Rock Family Planning Services, but none were performed before the Supreme Court’s decision shut down operations. About 30 more patients had been scheduled for an ultrasound and consultation that was required under Arkansas’ previous law before women could get an abortion.
The Yellowhammer Fund, which is based in Alabama and provides financial support to women seeking abortions, has received an influx of calls in the last day from people confused about the changing laws and seeking guidance and money to travel elsewhere for abortions.
‘People who had appointments for next week no longer have appointments,’ said Laurie Bertram Roberts, the executive director of the fund. ‘The person who runs the call line is very overwhelmed.’
Legal experts confronted a quickly changing landscape of abortion laws. In the newly redrawn map of the United States that was taking shape on Saturday, abortion was banned in at least nine states, prompting vows of swift enforcement from officials in conservative states. Prosecutors in liberal states and counties responded with defiance, saying they would not violate their own values by pursuing criminal cases against doctors who had performed abortions.
Demonstrations continued to roil cities across the country. Americans said they were steeling themselves for a fight in the wake of the court’s decision, whether that meant pushing for still more restrictions on abortion, or working to elect politicians in the midterm elections who favor abortion rights.
‘I fear for my child. I worry that she isn’t going to have choice,’ said Abbye Putterman, 36, who stood outside an abortion clinic in Overland Park, Kan., on Saturday and spoke of the impact the decision could have on her 12-year-old daughter. ‘I feel like a whole bunch of white men are trying to decide what my daughter should do. Those men don’t know anything about what it’s like to carry a child — what pregnancy does to your body.’
Abortion is still legal in Kansas but was banned in neighboring Missouri on Friday. In August, a ballot initiative will ask voters in Kansas to decide whether the State Constitution should continue to protect the right to an abortion.
Ms. Putterman was at the clinic to show support to the women receiving services there, while anti-abortion protesters gathered outside.
‘We don’t believe in moral compromise, and we don’t want them to be guilty of murder,’ said Valley Scharping, 26, who stood on the sidewalk. He held a sign that read ‘Love your preborn neighbor as yourself.’
On Saturday, President Biden spoke of the Roe decision. ‘Jill and I know how painful and devastating the decision is for so many Americans,’ he said, adding that the administration would focus on states and ‘how they administer it and whether or not they violate other laws.’
Some states imposed new abortion restrictions on Saturday, and others tried to accelerate timelines for the bans to take place.
After the Supreme Court handed control over abortion restrictions back to the states, at least nine states that are home to roughly 40 million people quickly put bans in place. Other abortion prohibitions that had been passed in anticipation of a post-Roe legal landscape were working their way through the courts.
In Idaho, North Dakota and Texas, officials said they would wait the 30 days stipulated in their laws for their so-called trigger laws to take effect, banning abortion.
In Ohio, a law outlawing abortion after about six weeks of pregnancy took effect after a federal judge lifted an injunction that had blocked the law for the past three years. Gov. Mike DeWine reiterated his opposition to abortion on Friday, saying he believed ‘that the life of a human being is at stake and we have an obligation to protect that innocent life.’
Planned Parenthood Association of Utah and the American Civil Liberties Union of Utah filed a lawsuit in state court on Saturday seeking to block the state’s ban on abortion, which went into effect on Friday. The lawsuit argues that the ban violates several protections in the state’s constitution, including the right to determine family composition. Planned Parenthood in the state said that it had to stop performing abortions immediately after the ban went into effect and that it would have to cancel 55 abortion appointments scheduled for next week unless temporary relief was granted.
In many states, residents were left to grapple with a confusing array of pronouncements as local and state officials clashed over the legalities of abortion restrictions and how they would be enforced.
In Tennessee, Herbert Slatery, the attorney general, filed an emergency motion on Friday asking a court to lift an injunction and allow a ban on abortions after six weeks to be made law.
‘After nearly 50 years, today’s decision gives the people of Tennessee a say on what the Court called ‘a profound moral issue,’’ he said in a statement.
But Glenn Funk, the district attorney in Nashville, said in a statement that he would not prosecute doctors performing abortions or women who choose such a procedure.
‘I will use my constitutional powers to protect women, health providers and those making personal health decisions,’ he said.
Officials of Mississippi’s only abortion clinic, which was the center of the case decided on Friday by the Supreme Court, predicted that conservative activists would soon seek limits to rights related to birth control and same-sex marriage.
Diane Derzis, who owns the clinic, the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, said it would most likely remain open for 10 days after the Supreme Court’s decision, before shutting its doors when a new law is expected to take effect in that state.
‘It has begun,’ she said. ‘In the next few days, weeks and year, you will see half of the states have no abortion services. We are continuing to do services. We are not laying down.’
In states where abortion remains legal, leaders promised to reinforce protections.
Governors in California, Oregon and Washington issued a joint ‘commitment to reproductive freedom,’ saying they would welcome people who sought abortions in their states and push back on efforts by other state governments to prosecute people who did so.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat, called for a special session for lawmakers to strengthen abortion rights, anticipating that women from other states would be flocking to Illinois for abortion services.
At a Planned Parenthood clinic in Waukegan, Ill., just miles from the Wisconsin border, a group of about 20 anti-abortion protesters stood with signs and prayed on Saturday.
The clinic was opened in 2020 in anticipation that Roe would be overturned and Wisconsin would ban abortions, said Mary Jane Maharry, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of Illinois. ‘We do have enough staff to meet the needs today and we are working at increasing our staff to meet the anticipated surge of 20,000 to 30,000 additional out-of-state patients per year,’ she said.
In Charleston, W. Va., the state’s lone abortion clinic ended all appointments, fearing that an abortion ban from the 19th century was suddenly enforceable again after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
One of the appointments had just been made on Thursday by a 21-year-old pregnant woman in West Virginia who had weighed whether she was ready to have a child and decided that she was not.
On Friday, a clinic employee called to tell the woman, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared her parents would disown her if they knew she was planning to have an abortion, that her appointment would be canceled.
‘When I went to bed, I had my appointment and everything was set,’ she said, ‘and then today it’s like pre-1973.” [New York Times]
“OSLO, Norway (AP) — A gunman opened fire in Oslo’s nightlife district early Saturday, killing two people and leaving more than 20 wounded in what the Norwegian security service called an ‘Islamist terror act’ during the capital’s annual LGBTQ Pride festival.
Investigators said the suspect, identified as a 42-year-old Norwegian citizen originally from Iran, was arrested after opening fire at three locations in downtown Oslo.
Police said two men, one in his 50s and and the other his 60s, died in the shootings. Ten people were treated for serious injuries, but none of them was believed to be in life-threatening condition. Eleven others had minor injuries.
The Norwegian Police Security Service raised its terror alert level from ‘moderate’ to ‘extraordinary’ — the highest level — after the attack, which sent panicked revelers fleeing into the streets or trying to hide from the gunman.
The service’s acting chief, Roger Berg, called the attack an ‘extreme Islamist terror act’ and said the suspect had a ‘long history of violence and threats,’ as well as mental health issues.
He said the agency, known by its Norwegian acronym PST, first became aware of the suspect in 2015 and later grew concerned he had become radicalized and was part of an unspecified Islamist network.=
Norwegian media named the suspect as Zaniar Matapour, an Oslo resident who arrived in Norway wbut he cautioned against speculation on the motive.
‘He has not given any reason. It is too early to conclude whether this is hate crime or terrorism,’ Elden said in an email to The Associated Press.
Upon the advice of police, organizers canceled a Pride parade that was set for Saturday as the highlight of a weeklong festival. Scores of people marched through the capital anyway, waving rainbow flags.
Police attorney Christian Hatlo said it was too early to say whether the gunman specifically targeted members of the LGBTQ community.
‘We have to look closer at that, we don’t know yet,’ he said.
Police said civilians assisted them in detaining the man in custody, who was being held on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and terrorism, based on the number of people targeted at multiple locations.
Investigators seized two weapons after the attack: a handgun and an automatic weapon. Hatlo described both as ‘not modern’ but did not give details.” Read more at AP News
“The Supreme Court’s decision to end the nation’s constitutional protections for abortion has catapulted businesses of all types into the most divisive corner of politics.
Some companies that stayed silent last month — when a draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico — spoke up for the first time Friday, including The Walt Disney Company, which said it will reimburse employees who must travel out of state to get an abortion.
Facebook parent Meta, American Express, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs also said they would cover employee travel costs while others like Apple, Starbucks, Lyft and Yelp reiterated previous announcements taking similar action. Outdoor clothing maker Patagonia went so far as to post on LinkedIn Friday that it would provide ‘training and bail for those who peacefully protest for reproductive justice’ and time off to vote.
But of the dozens of big businesses that The Associated Press reached out to Friday, many like McDonald’s, PepsiCo, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Tyson and Marriott did not respond. Arkansas-based Walmart — tlowing the Friday’s Supreme Court ruling — also kept quiet.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON — In the spring of 1985, a 35-year-old lawyer in the Justice Department, Samuel A. Alito Jr., cautioned the Reagan administration against mounting a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that declared a constitutional right to abortion. The Supreme Court was not ready to overturn it, he said, so urging it to do so could backfire.
In a memo offering advice on two pending cases that challenged state laws regulating abortion, Mr. Alito advocated focusing on a more incremental argument: The court should uphold the regulations as reasonable. That strategy would ‘advance the goals of bringing about the eventual overruling of Roe v. Wade and, in the meantime, of mitigating its effects.’
More than three decades later, Justice Alito has fulfilled that vision, cementing his place in history as the author of a consequential ruling overturning Roe, along with a 1992 precedent that reaffirmed that decision, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. The reversal means tens of millions of women in conservative-controlled states are losing access to abortion.” Read more at New York Times
“After more than a year of silence, the mysterious figure behind the QAnon conspiracy theory has reappeared.
The figure, who is known only as Q, posted for the first time in over a year on Friday on 8kun, the anonymous message board where the account last appeared. ‘Shall we play the game again?’ a post read in the account’s typical cryptic style. The account that posted had a unique identifier used on previous Q posts.
The posts surprised disinformation researchers and signaled the ominous return of a figure whose conspiracy theories about an imaginary ring of elite sex traffickers marshaled support for then-President Donald J. Trump. Message boards and Telegram channels devoted to QAnon lit up with the news, as followers speculated about the meaning of Q’s return.
The QAnon conspiracy theory emerged in late 2017 from anonymous message boards where it quickly appealed to a large number of Trump supporters. Q published a series of cryptic messages about overthrowing an elite ‘cabal’ of sex traffickers. Followers believed that Q had a role in the Trump administration or the military and that Mr. Trump was working to arrest and prosecute child abusers and Democrats.
The movement seemed to culminate in the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. Some people who stormed the building wore QAnon T-shirts or held signs reading ‘Q sent me.’ Polling around the time showed that one in five Americans believed the conspiracy theory.
When President Biden was sworn into office, it seemed clear that none of Q’s most fantastical and gruesome predictions — about Mr. Trump arresting and trying Democrats in a series of military tribunals and public executions — would come true. Q’s account stopped posting soon after Mr. Trump’s defeat in 2020.
While the QAnon community limped along in the months since Q’s disappearance, it seemed to bristle again this past week with a series of groundbreaking Supreme Court rulings, culminating Friday with a decision that ended the constitutional right to an abortion. To QAnon followers, the decision signaled a turning point for the country that could make Q’s predictions a reality.
‘Leveraging social and cultural instability has kind of been a hallmark of QAnon for a very long time,’ said Bond Benton, an associate professor at Montclair State University who has studied QAnon. ‘This very much throws gasoline on the fire and leverages the fear that people have about the future.’” Read more at New York Times
“A Biden administration policy that prioritized the arrest of undocumented immigrants who are considered a threat to public safety and national security has been suspended as of Saturday, rendering millions of people vulnerable to deportation.
A federal judge in Texas had ruled the prioritization policy illegal on June 10, a ruling that took effect late Friday after a federal appeals court failed to issue any decision blocking it. The Department of Homeland Security said it effectively had no discretion under the ruling to set priorities for how its agents enforced the nation’s immigrant-removal laws.
‘While the department strongly disagrees with the Southern District of Texas’ court decision to vacate the guidelines, D.H.S. will abide by the court’s order as it continues to appeal it,’ the department said in a statement.” Read more at New York Times
“SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Mitt Romney isn’t up for reelection this year. But Trump-aligned Republicans hostile toward the Utah senator have made his name a recurring theme in this year’s primaries, using him as a foil and derisively branding their rivals ‘Mitt Romney Republicans.’
Republicans have used the concept to frame their primary opponents as enemies of the Trump-era GOP in southeast Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The anti-tax group Club For Growth, among the most active super PACs in this year’s primaries, used ‘Mitt Romney Republican’ as the central premise of an attack ad in North Carolina’s Senate primary.
But nowhere are references to Romney Republicanism as common as they are in Utah. Despite his popularity with many residents here, candidates are repeatedly deploying ‘Mitt Romney Republican’ as a campaign trail attack in the lead-up to Tuesday’s Republican primary….
The fact that his brand has become potent attack fodder reflect how singular Romney’s position is in U.S. politics: He’s the only senator with the nationwide name recognition that comes from being a presidential nominee and the only Republican who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump twice.” Read more at AP News
Hundreds of people were slaughtered in a village and its surroundingse small farming village in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, frightening residents already on edge after recent clashes between government troops and rebels.
‘The militants assured us that they will not touch us. They said they are not after us,’ resident Nur Hussein Abdi told The Associated Press. ‘But in reality, they were surrounding our whole village for a deadly massacre. What happened the next day was a total bloodbath.’
Abdi escaped by hiding on a rooftop, a horrified witness to one of the worst mass killings in Ethiopia in recent years. Hundreds of people, mostly ethnic Amhara, were slaughtered in Tole village and the surroundings on June 18 in the latest explosion of ethnic violence in Africa’s second most populous nation.
Multiple witnesses told the AP they are still discovering bodies, with some put in mass graves containing scores of people. The Amhara Association of America said it has confirmed 503 civilians killed. Ethiopian authorities have not released figures. One witness, Mohammed Kemal, said he has witnessed 430 bodies buried, and others are still exposed and decomposing….
Residents and Oromia regional officials have blamed the Oromo Liberation Army, an armed group that Ethiopia’s government has declared a terrorist organization. An OLA spokesman denied it, alleging that federal troops and regional militia attacked the villagers for their perceived support of the OLA as they retreated from an OLA offensive.
Again, Ethiopians are left wondering why the federal government failed to protect them from the violent side of the country’s ethnic tensions — and why ethnic minorities in a federal system based on identity are left so vulnerable…
Ethnic Amhara are Ethiopia’s second-largest ethnic group but have found themselves under attack in some areas where they are in the minority. Several dozen were killed in attacks in the Benishangul Gumuz and Oromia regions over the past three years alone.” Read more at AP News
“WASHINGTON — As Russian troops press ahead with a grinding campaign to seize eastern Ukraine, the nation’s ability to resist the onslaught depends more than ever on help from the United States and its allies — including a stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training, according to U.S. and European officials.
Much of this work happens outside Ukraine, at bases in Germany, France and Britain, for example. But even as the Biden administration has declared it will not deploy American troops to Ukraine, some C.I.A. personnel have continued to operate in the country secretly, mostly in the capital, Kyiv, directing much of the vast amounts of intelligence the United States is sharing with Ukrainian forces, according to current and former officials.
At the same time, a few dozen commandos from other NATO countries, including Britain, France, Canada and Lithuania, also have been working inside Ukraine. The United States withdrew its own 150 military instructors before the war began in February, but commandos from these allies either remained or have gone in and out of the country since then, training and advising Ukrainian troops and providing an on-the-ground conduit for weapons and other aid, three U.S. officials said.” Read more at New York Times
“ROME (AP) — Pope Francis celebrated families Saturday and urged them to shun ‘selfish’ decisions that are indifferent to life as he closed out a big Vatican rally a day after the U.S. Supreme Court ended constitutional protections for abortion.
Francis didn’t refer to the ruling or explicitly mention abortion in his homily. But he used the buzzwords he has throughout his papacy about the need to defend families and to condemn a ‘culture of waste’ that he believes is behind the societal acceptance of abortion.
‘Let us not allow the family to be poisoned by the toxins of selfishness, individualism, today’s culture of indifference and waste, and as a result lose its very DNA, which is the spirit of welcoming and service,’ he said.
The pope, noting that some couples allow their fears and anxieties to ‘thwart the desire to bring new lives in the world,’ called for them not to cling to selfish desires.” Read more at AP News
x
“LONDON (AP) — The World Health Organization said the escalating monkeypox outbreak in more than 50 countries should be closely monitored but does not warrant being declared a global health emergency.
In a statement Saturday, a WHO emergency committee said many aspects of the outbreak were ‘unusual’ and acknowledged that monkeypox — which is endemic in some African countries — has been neglected for years.” Read more at AP News
“COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — Denmark’s Queen Margrethe opened a new museum Saturday that tells the story of the generations of refugees who have shaped Danish society, starting with Germans who fled the Soviet advance during World War II.
Flugt — Refugee Museum of Denmark was created on the site of a camp in Oksboel, a town in southwestern Denmark, that housed up to 100,000 refugees from Germany in the postwar years.
Flugt — which means escape in Danish — also tells the story of immigrants from Iran, Lebanon, Hungary, Vietnam and elsewhere who fled their homelands and found shelter in the Scandinavian country. They tell their stories in their own words on large video screens.
‘Being a refugee is not something one decides. It is not one’s personal choice, it is something that happens,’ Sawsan Gharib Dall, a stateless Palestinian who was born in a refugee camp in Lebanon and lived there until she fled and arrived in Denmark in 1985, says in one video.” Read more at AP News
Jeffrey Escoffier, whose remarkably varied career included helping to shape public health campaigns in New York City and writing extensively on gay identity and how it has been influenced by gay pornography and other factors, died on May 20 in Brooklyn. He was 79.
His family said the cause was complications of a fall he took while on his way to teach a class at the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research.
New Yorkers encountered Mr. Escoffier’s work on trains, buses and elsewhere for years, although few knew it. From 1999 to 2015 he was the director of health media and marketing for New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which meant that he was directly involved in numerous public health campaigns.” Read more at New York Times
“Out of a field that included a ‘hairless mutant’ with no teeth and a crooked face, a creature that resembled ‘a hyena or mandrill baboon,’ and a canine with a ‘gorilla-looking head,’ a Chihuahua mix named Mr. Happy Face emerged on Friday as the foulest of them all, winner of the 2022 World’s Ugliest Dog contest.
Mr. Happy Face, who once lived in abusive and neglectful conditions with a hoarder, has tumors and neurological issues, requires a diaper, struggles to stand upright or walk, and holds his head askew.
Yet he has reached the age of about 17, sports a natural mohawk and makes a sound ‘like a Dodge Ram diesel truck’ revving its engine when he is happy, according to an online biography.
The dog and his owner, Jeneda Benally, won $1,500 and a trip to New York City to appear on the ‘Today’ show.
The contest says it promotes the adoption of dogs, even ones that might have ‘missing fur, crossed eyes, duck waddles or mismatched ears.’ Eight dogs walked the red carpet at the event, which is held during the Sonoma-Marin Fair in Petaluma, Calif., and has been going on for nearly 50 years. It resumed on Friday after being suspended in 2020 and 2021 because of the pandemic.
‘They’re promoting rescuing dogs, that all dogs regardless of their appearance deserve to be loved,’ Ms. Mathy said.” Read more at New York Times
“Deshaun Watson will get a hearing in front of the NFL and NFL Players Association's jointly-appointed disciplinary officer, Sue L. Robinson, beginning on Tuesday, a person with knowledge of the details confirmed to the Akron Beacon Journal.
The league source requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. ESPN's Adam Schefter first reported the development. NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy declined comment in an email to the Beacon Journal.
Watson has been under investigation by the NFL for potential violations of the Personal Conduct Policy since the spring of 2021 while he was still with the Houston Texans. It stems from what had grown into 24 total lawsuits in Texas alleging some degree of sexual misconduct while getting massages dating back to March of that year.
When Watson was acquired from the Texans on March 18, he faced 22 lawsuits that were filed against him in March and April 2021. Two more lawsuits were filed since May 31, the first since he arrived in Cleveland.
The Deshaun Watson lawsuits:Dozens sued Cleveland Browns QB Deshaun Watson for sexual misconduct. Here are their stories
On Tuesday, Watson reached confidential settlements in 20 of the 24 lawsuits. The four remaining, including that of original plaintiff Ashley Solis, are expected to go to trial next March.” Read more at USA Today