Heavy heat this late-afternoon Friday here in California’s Central Valley — near 100 degrees again today and the same mean-hot shit is supposed to continue through next week.
Friday, too, is usually news dump day.

However, today was just a dump, one big-old shit-dump. The news cycle near-completely dominated by the SCOTUS shit decision to shuttle Roe v Wade and the Interwebs has been ablaze with terror tales of clinics closing, women already denied abortions/health care, asshole Republicans blubbering about justice, and on and on. Despite having a few week’s notice (the leaked SCOTUS draft opinion early last month), the announcement this morning was like a surreal slap in the face. The horror mean-spirit, hard-callous sense from not only SCOTUS, but all kinds of Republican douchebags.
Even Liz Cheney was gleeful — she lost a lot of ground with everybody.

One sad-comforting sign — out here on the Left Coast there’s still a care and refuge

California, Washington and Oregon are launching a "West Coast offense" to protect reproductive rights — vowing to set up protections against states that target medical professionals who provide abortions and patients who receive reproductive services. https://t.co/DfEIOXZ7GF

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 24, 2022

Story via Axios late this afternoon:

California, Washington and Oregon are launching a “West Coast offense” to protect reproductive rights following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the states’ Democratic governors announced Friday.

Why it matters: The three liberal states are expected to see an influx of patients seeking abortion care now that Republican-led states have enacted trigger bans.

Details: The commitment vows to set up protections against states that target medical professionals who provide abortions and patients who receive legal reproductive health care services in California, Washington and Oregon.

It also pledges to “protect against judicial and local law enforcement cooperation with out-of-state investigations, inquiries and arrests” related to abortions performed in the three states.
The three states will “[r]efuse non-fugitive extradition of individuals for criminal prosecution” related to accessing legal reproductive health care.

What they’re saying: “More than half the nation’s population now lacks safe access to a medical procedure that only a patient and their doctor can and should make for themselves,” Washington Gov. Jay Inslee (D) said in a statement.

Washington, which protects patients and abortion clinic personnel from harassment outside of clinics, “remains steadfast in our commitment to protecting the ability and right of every patient who comes to our state in need of abortion care.”
“Abortion is health care, and no matter who you are or where you come from, Oregon doesn’t turn away anyone seeking health care,” Oregon Gov. Kate Brown (D) said. Oregon became the first state to codify the right to an abortion in law in 2017.
“We will not cooperate with any states that attempt to prosecute women or doctors for receiving or providing reproductive care,” tweeted California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who signed into law Thursday a bill to protect abortion providers and patients from bans, lawsuits and penalties in other states.

Horrible to consist this may be the ‘new normal,’ and maybe not for long, either.

Yet here we are once again…

(Image out front by illustrator and portrait painter, Tim O’Brien, and can be found here).