31-38

Whew! The good guys just got a win today at SCOTUS on reproductive rights. Mifepristone can stay on the market. See this from USA Today:

WASHINGTON − Two years after erasing the constitutional right to an abortion, the Supreme Court on Thursday (today) went the other direction and tossed out a challenge to the widely used abortion drug mifepristone that would have curbed access to the drug and jeopardized the independence of the Food and Drug Administration.

The unanimous court said the anti-abortion doctors who challenged the FDA’s loosening of rules for how mifepristone can be prescribed and dispensed lacked a legitimate basis to bring their suit.

Deciding the case on procedural grounds allowed the justices to avoid the politically thornier question of whether to second guess the FDA’s expert opinion that the changes it made were based on extensive evidence.

Stay tuned!

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Here they go again. Commentary is talking about the MAGA infested GOP trying to take a convenience factor away from voting. How many of you folks out there are glad that you can vote at any voting center on Election Day? See this from the Trib:

A long-running conservative push to get rid of countywide polling places is winning growing interest from state lawmakers, as well as a spot on the state Republican party’s list of legislative priorities for next year.

But election officials are warning that if legislators scrap the state’s countywide voting program, they will struggle to pull off the changes that would be required — beginning with increasing their numbers of polling places. That means paying for hard-to-find additional locations, recruiting and paying workers to staff them and obtaining more voting equipment.

Election officials also worry that confused voters could be disenfranchised by the shift.

Currently, 96 counties allow voters to cast ballots anywhere in their county on election day, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office. The list includes counties in every part of the state, collectively encompassing roughly 14.9 million, or 83%, of the state’s registered voters.

Banning the program would force those voters to again cast their ballots only at their assigned precinct, after years of allowing them to go to any voting site in the county.

Voters who mistakenly go to the wrong site would be offered a provisional ballot, said Roxzine Stinson, the Lubbock County elections administrator, and if they aren’t able to instead go to their assigned precinct, “then that’s their only option. And voting provisionally, that’s no guarantee that that vote is going to count, because they’d be voting outside of their assigned polling location.”

Critics of countywide voting — who testified before a Senate State Affairs Committee hearing last month — allege without evidence that it makes elections less secure because it allows people “to double or triple vote.” Countywide voting relies on using electronic voting equipment, and critics also say that election officials manipulate such equipment to change votes and sway election outcomes, but they haven’t shown evidence to back up those claims, and experts say they are false.

Here is the entire Trib read: Texas voters could be impacted if countywide voting ends | The Texas Tribune.

I am pretty sure that GOP voters in Harris County think voting centers are convenient. I can’t even remember what the old days looked like on this.

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31-38 and 8 ½ out in the AL West. It is certainly not a good look and disappointing. They certainly don’t look like contenders. I don’t want to say they have checked out, but I don’t have a lot of hope that they can make a run for the playoffs. Losing starting pitchers, blown saves, lack of clutch hitting, and not getting much offense out of our first base position are factors that have contributed to our losing record. I am not ready yet to say adios to the new manager and GM, but right now they are probably on shaky ground behind the front office walls.

I have run out of superstitions to apply on game days like wearing certain team gear and stuff like that.

The Astros have today off, then host the Tigers this weekend.

The featured photo represents remembering the good times.