Tomorrow will mark three weeks since the Dobbs decision overturned Roe vs. Wade, and the consequences, as expected, have been seismic. 
 

• A 10-year-old Ohio girl was forced to travel across state lines to Indiana to obtain and abortion shortly after the state’s trigger law went into effect. When President Biden mentioned the story in a speech, several mainstream-media outlets (and many right-wing ones) sowed doubts about the case since the child was unnamed (as most underaged victims of heinous crimes are) and no police report was filed (according to a DOJ analysis in 2016, 80 percent of rapes go unreported, and that number is even higher among child survivors). The Wall Street Journal ran an editorial with the disgusting headline, “An Abortion Story Too Good to Confirm,” suggesting the child’s story was a “fanciful” figure of the Left’s imagination. The Washington Post ran a slightly less egregious but still deplorable piece alleging that the story didn’t have enough “solid grounding.” Since then, a man has been charged for the rape and identified by the victim. Both paper’s editorial boards softly backpedaled, but the damage was done.
   

• The response to this horrifying story is a microcosm of a larger trend among powerful people and institutions, which frequently dismiss the prevalence of sexual assault, child rape, and incest, and treat them as the exaggerations of political activists. In a bizarre exchange today before the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) pressed Catherine Glenn Foster, president and CEO of Americans United for Life, about the 10-year-old girl after she falsely insisted that anti-abortion laws do not apply to such cases. The moment crystallized how desperate the anti-choice movement is to conceal the full extent of the cruelty of the laws, which they foam at the mouth to enact.

• The reality is that while the 10-year-old girl in Ohio was thankfully able to access an abortion by driving across state lines, many like her will not be so lucky. And many choice advocates fear the next frontier will be to criminalize those who cross state lines to have the procedure. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV) sought unanimous consent to pass a bill that would prevent states from punishing people seeking out-of-state abortions, and would also protect the healthcare providers treating out-of-state patients. Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) blocked the bill, on behalf of his party. And sure enough, Indiana’s Republican attorney general has promised to prosecute the doctor who treated this child.

Democrats face a flurry of legislative hurdles in the years ahead in the wake of Dobbs, so some of them are throwing any solution they can think of at the wall. 
 

• Senate Democrats have called on Biden to declare a public-health emergency, which would greatly expand the powers and reach of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Biden Administration discussed the idea in the days following Dobbs, but ultimately decided against it. Even incremental responses have triggered aggressive Republican nullifying tactics. The State of Texas has sued the Biden Administration over new HHS guidelines instructing hospitals that they must terminate pregnancies in life-threatening situations, as federal law trumps state bans. The “pro-life” crowd doesn’t want doctors to terminate pregnancies that will result in maternal death. Got it. 

• The simplest solution would be to pass legislation codifying Roe into federal law, but it does not have the votes in the Senate because of opposition from (do we even have to say it) Joe Manchin. Short of that, Democrats are also readying legislation to codify nationwide contraception access, gay marriage and parenting rights, and even the longstanding precedent of interracial marriage, in a plan to force Republicans to publicly cast votes in opposition of nationally-popular, settled civil-rights statutes. I don’t love a plan that hinges on daring Republicans not to out themselves for the cretins they are, but we’ll take it for now. 

On the new Crooked show Imani State of Mind, psychiatrist and TV personality Dr. Imani Walker and co-host comedian MegScoop Thomas normalize the conversation about mental health through insightful and witty discussions about what’s happening in news, pop culture, and our daily lives.

Get real of your relationship with yourself, your parents, your friends so much more with new episodes of Imani State of Mind each Friday. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Housing shortages and resulting skyrocketing rent and home prices have long plagued cities like San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC, but in the years leading up to the pandemic, the plague moved inland, often to places where affordability was taken for granted. Now, the housing problem has become a national one, and there are far-reaching consequences for American families and therefore the health of the national economy more broadly. Freddie Mac, The Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, estimates that America is in a housing deficit of 3.8 million units. Washington-based housing policy and research group Up For Growth reported that the deficit doubled between 2012 and 2019, and in that time, housing supply worsened in 47 states and DC. Widening income inequality also harms affordability, as much of the new housing construction that does happen is of high-end homes. There are also the issues of local zoning laws, abutters opposing new housing, corporations buying up what little housing exists in cash and charging exorbitant rent. What does a healthy housing market look like? “It looks like the ability to live where you want to work. It looks like not having to worry about housing instability. It looks like a reasonable chance of eventually buying your own home,” Up For Growth’s chief executive answered. Anyone who has taken even a cursory glance at the housing market knows that we are a long way from that goal. Members of Congress have increasingly called for construction of new and affordable housing, and President Biden released a five-year action plan back in May. The tide of opinion is indeed shifting among those who control the levers of power in the U.S. housing market, though not far enough to finally think of housing as a human right, and not quickly enough to stop the bleeding.

The Secret Service erased messages from January 6th and the day before after the Inspector General requested them. Wow! Classic definitely-innocent-guys behavior!

Ten unvaccinated players on the Kansas City Royals will not be able to play in the upcoming series against the Toronto Blue Jays due to Canadian COVID-19 rules, the largest number of unvaccinated players on a single team the Blue Jays have faced yet. One unvaccinated player said he thinks COVID “isn’t a threat” to him. Good luck with that, pal!

The City of Detroit agreed to pay a $7.5 million settlement to a man who served 25 years in prison for a 1992 murder the police allegedly framed him for. The University of Michigan Innocence Clinic called it, “a truly egregious case” of police misconduct.

A statement from the World Health Organization warns that “new waves of the [SARS-CoV-2] virus demonstrate again that COVID-19 is nowhere near over,” with BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants comprising about 80 percent of current U.S. cases, and more waves expected this fall and winter. 

Embattled Texas abortion provider Dr. Alan Braid was forced to close his clinics in Texas and Oklahoma following the Dobbs decision, but he will be opening new clinics in nearby New Mexico and Illinois.

The family of slain Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh has requested to meet with President Biden during his trip to Israel this week, as the U.S. has not joined the U.N. and other members of the international community in holding Israeli forces directly responsible for her murder.

A Texas man filed a lawsuit today accusing a police officer of using excessive force that left him paralyzed from the chest down.

Pennsylvania GOP gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano used $5,000 in campaign money to pay for “consulting services” from Gab, a social media platform home to violent conspiracy theorists and antisemites, including the shooter who killed 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in 2018. 

Amazon admitted to handing over video footage from their Ring doorbells to police without customer consent in at least 11 instances that are known so far. Maybe someone can send them a book on corporate ethics for Prime Day! (jk buy from your local bookstore obviously)

Italy’s government collapsed again, Mama Mia! Today, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi said he would resign to make way for a new government, only for the Italian president to reject his resignation. Italians know how to do drama! This is an especially shocking turn of events because for the last 17 months, Draghi has been a rare unifying force in Italian politics, which have been marked by a colorful recent history of upheavals and government disintegration. But his support faltered as pandemic concerns converged with rapid inflation and a record drought in Europe. With the president’s refusal of his resignation, the political situation hangs in the balance until Draghi addresses Parliament next week. An important political faction, the Five-Star Movement, issued a statement announcing that they will not take part in the parliamentary confidence vote, and other coalition parties have warned they will quit the government without Five-Star’s participation, and Draghi says he will not govern without their support. Weirdly, this seems to stem in part from an economic package Draghi agreed upon, including building a giant trash incinerator in Rome, which Five-Star has always opposed. And this is a big deal because Rome has a serious trash problem. But this withholding tactic from Five-Star risks undermining Italy’s efforts to secure billions of euros in E.U. funds, and could lead to entirely new national elections. We’ll be watching, and hoping someone makes it into a miniseries for HBO.

The Postal Service heard our roar against their plan to replace the United States Postal Service with 90% polluting trucks and has opened another comment period. The fight is far from over. Urge Postmaster DeJoy today to go 100% electric.

If the Postal Service bought 100% electric mail trucks instead, we could:

• Save 110 million gallons of fuel per year

• Create more clean energy jobs

• Reduce air pollution in every community

• Save money on truck maintenance

The legal team at EarthJustice is in court to challenge USPS’ failure to consider the environmental justice impacts of buying combustion mail trucks that will deliver pollution to every neighborhood in the country. The Postal Service has an opportunity to reverse course and upgrade to electric vehicles in order to cut dangerous air pollution across the country and help put us on a path to an all-electric future. Send a letter to the Postal Service and tell them to buy 100% electric mail trucks. 

Federal health inspectors have cleared the way for thousands more doses of monkeypox vaccines to ship to the U.S.

Canadian regulators authorized Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccines for infants and preschoolers today, as the U.S. did last month.

U.S. officials approved an American Airlines request yesterday to resume flights to five destinations in Cuba, a reversal of Trump’s 2019 decision to curtail air service between the two countries. 

A previously-unknown self-portrait of Van Gogh was discovered on the back of another one of the artist’s paintings hanging in the National Galleries of Scotland. You’re telling me you guys forgot to look on the BACK?!