Todd Akin: The Gift That Keeps On Giving

What I really wanted to write about was tribal law.
Honest.
My friend Nick F. was a public defender on a reservation.  From him I learned that the Bill of Rights does not apply on the rez.  At least, not in the tribal courts.  Of course, there's an argument (and not a frivolous one) that the Bill of Rights doesn't apply in any of our courts, but that's in practice.  In the tribal courts, it doesn't even apply in theory.  (I gather there may be an exception here or there for parts of the 6th Amendment, but that's getting way beyond my expertise.)
Anyhow, that's what I really wanted to write about.
One of these days.

* * * * *

Then I wanted to write about the quest of 82 year old Bernice Mable Graham Telian.  Seems that her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother, Mary Barnes, was hanged by the Godfearing paranoids lunatics friends and neighbors who populated Hartford, Connecticut in 1663.  They having concluded that she was a witch, you see.  Bernice wants to clear her name.
Mary Barnes was just one of 11 purported witches hanged in Connecticut between 1647 and 1663, and Bernice is trying to clear them all.  Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Virginia, they've all admitted they screwed up and killing innocent folk.  Not so much in the Land of Steady Habits. 
Bernice is aided in her quest to get the Connecticut legislature to act by the ACLU, NRA, Communist Party, Taliban Connecticut Wiccan & Pagan Network.
Ann Marie Somma of Religion News Network, in the Washington Post.

Now members of the Connecticut Wiccan & Pagan Network are pushing Gov. Dannel Malloy to sign a proclamation to clear the names of the victims. Supporters are asked to send Malloy a postcard that reads: “I am a Pagan/Witch and I vote. Clear the names of Connecticut’s eleven accused and executed witches.”
Anthony Griego, who is heading the effort, said the proclamation is nonbinding and doesn’t open up the door for lawsuits.
“The witch hunts were about fear and intolerance,” said Griego. His group even wrote to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II seeking a pardon for the accused. The queen’s office wrote back, denying the request.

Drat that Queen.

Look, I tend to be wary of innocence claims, but I think we have a good one here.  Just ask no les an authority than Frank Kirkpatrick (that's him on the right).  He's the Ellsworth Morton Tracy Lecturer and Professor of Religion at Trinity college in Hartford.  He told Somma that

the evidence presented during the trials was flimsy at best. 

You think?
But no, I don't really have anything to say about that.

* * * * *

And anyway, Todd Akin's back.

You remember Todd Akin?  He of the claim that women don't get pregnant when their rapes are legitimate because they have a legitimate-rape-detecting somethingorother that stops those legitimately raping little spermies from interacting with their virginal ova. 

It turns out that Todd's been medically misinformed for a while.  It was back in 2008, we now know (and would have known sooner if we'd paid more attention to C-Span) that he explained how doctors perform abortions on women who aren't pregnant.  Commonly.

Don't want to watch the whole thing?  Here's the money quote.

You find that along with the culture of death go all kinds of other lawbreaking. The not following good sanitary procedure, giving abortions to women who are not actually pregnant, cheating on taxes, all these kinds of things. The misuse of anesthetics so that people die or almost die. All of these things are common practice, and all that information is available for America.

Put aside Todd's medically improper language.  (If there's no pregnancy, there's nothing to abort.  If there's nothing to abort, it's not an abortion.)  I mean, it's possible to do a procedure that would cause an abortion if only the woman were pregnant.  Presumably, that's what he had in what passes for his mind. The man is, after all, a mere lawmaker, charged with writing laws with such precision that the court's cannot misinterpret them.  We can't expect him to use words properly.
Instead, consider the claim that it's "common practice."  You know, like it happens all the time.

• You have the flu?  Get lots of rest and then come in for a D & C.
• Broken arm?  Let me just get that splint on and then we'll do a D & C.
• Heart palpitations?  Let's just do a D & C.
• Hey, maybe a hysterectomy while we're at it?  Or would prefer a mastectomy?
• Oh, and may I recommend a fatal dose of anesthesia?
• By the way, if you pay in cash, I won't have to report it.

h/t Gideon (for Bernice Telian) & Turley (for the latest on Akin)