The House voted Wednesday to pass legislation to create a partisan select committee to investigate the January 6 insurrection on the US Capitol.

The House approved the legislation introduced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, House Resolution 503, by a vote of 222-190 with just two Republicans, Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Rep. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, voting along with their Democratic colleagues to create the panel.

The committee will be made up of 13 members that Pelosi will select, with five selections made "in consultation" with Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

Arlington came to prominence as a part of the Philadelphia Nationals reserve team. Discovered out of the Pennsylvania coal region, she played baseball with her father and brothers against other competition. She would end up playing second and pitching for the Nationals, where she proved to be just as good as her male counterparts.

History was made on this day in 1898 when she suited up for the Reading Coal Heavers, now known as the Reading Phillies, of the Atlantic League. With Reading holding a 5-0 lead over the Alentown Peanuts, Arlington entered the game in the ninth inning.

Her appearance had quite the rocky beginning. Arlington allowed two hits and a walk to load the bases before retiring a batter. However, she settled in after that, retiring the next three batters and emerging without allowing a run. Newspaper reports said that Arlington did not have the command needed to perform well at that level, but nonetheless, her outing was a success.

Arlington was expected to appear against the Hartford team, but was not allowed to. Local authorities forced Reading to cancel her appearance, as Hartford was concerned about losing to a female. Afterwards, Arlington disappeared, fading away into obscurity.

Jackie Mitchell was born on August 29, 1913. Her full name was Virne Beatrice Mitchell. She was only the second professional female baseball player in the history of the game. The first was Lizzie Arlington. She pitched in a game for a team known as the Reading Coal Heavers in 1898. [snip]

The Chattanooga Lookouts were scheduled to play an exhibition game with the New York Yankees. It was played on April 2, 1931, after being rained out the previous day. Jackie Mitchell took the mound in the first inning as a relief pitcher. The starting pitcher was Clyde Barfoot, and he'd just given up a single and a double. The next two scheduled batters were baseball legends Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

Mitchell was throwing her trademark sinker. Her first pitch to Babe Ruth was called a ball. During the next two pitches, Ruth swung at both and missed. He asked the umpire to inspect the ball. A new one was thrown out to Mitchell by the umpire. The fourth pitch delivered to Ruth was a called third strike. Ruth was furious. He glared at the umpire and started screaming at him. Other Yankee players had to come onto the field and lead him away. He was calm by the time he reached the bench.

During this time, the crowd was screaming their approval for Mitchell. After the game, Ruth told a Chattanooga newspaper that he didn't know what would happen if women were permitted to play baseball. He felt they were too delicate, and it would be too difficult for them to play every day. [more]

The misogynists -- or at least Mitchell's detractors -- had their day nonetheless. Elsewhere in The Times, it was written that Ruth "performed his role very ably" by striking out and that Gehrig "took three hefty swings as his contribution to the occasion," the occasion implied being yet another promotional stunt from Engel in which the sluggers allowed Mitchell to strike them out. The fact that it was originally scheduled for April Fools' Day was another data point cited against the authenticity of Mitchell's feat.

If Gehrig or Ruth did strike out on purpose, neither owned up to it in subsequent years. While it would surprise no one if Ruth were in on such a setup, it would be out of character for Gehrig. Given Mitchell's tutelage from Vance and the fact that her sidearm lefty delivery gave her the platoon advantage against both sluggers, it's not a huge stretch that she struck them out on merit. [snip]

It was widely reported that baseball commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis voided Mitchell's contract in the aftermath of the game, citing that baseball was too strenuous for women. Though there is no proof of this, it wouldn't exactly be out of character for Landis.

Citing the high volume of illegal border crossings, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has declared a state of disaster for relevant state agencies and border counties and embarked on a slew of actions to fill in areas that he believes the Biden administration has neglected on immigration enforcement. Most important among these are directives to build additional barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border, ramp up arrests of unauthorized immigrants by state and local police, and revoke the licenses of shelters in Texas that house unaccompanied child migrants for the federal government. [snip]

The federal government and border states have repeatedly sparred over authority for immigration enforcement, particularly while Democrats have inhabited the White House. From 2014 to 2016, Texas led the opposition to the Obama administration’s attempt to expand legal protections for DREAMers brought to the United States as children and the parents of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, taking the challenge all the way to the Supreme Court. Texas now seems primed to resume its position as chief foil for the Biden administration on immigration. While the state has allocated more than $4.4 billion for episodic border enforcement since 2008, its policies may be less likely to materially alter the situation on the ground than to advance a political agenda and embody a political spirit of opposition. [snip]

While Abbott, a Republican, based his [disaster] declaration on his assessment of the current situation at the border, with activity at a 20-year high, Texas has experienced periods of sharply increased illegal crossings in the past, most recently in spring 2019 during the Trump administration, when no state emergency designation occurred. There are some differences between the current situation and that of 2019. From October 2020 through May 2021, the U.S. Border Patrol encountered migrants and asylum seekers in Texas border sectors nearly 606,000 times, which was 180,000 more than during the same period in fiscal year (FY) 2019, during the previous spike. However, 70 percent of migrants encountered at the Texas border in FY 2021 were blocked from entering U.S. territory and immediately expelled to Mexico or their country of origin under a pandemic-prompted restriction that was not in place in FY 2019. There is thus a question of whether the pressures at the border changed significantly this year compared to 2019. What had certainly changed, however, was Biden entering office. So the timing of the declaration and other immigration measures raised some eyebrows. [snip]

Arizona has also sent state troopers and National Guard forces to the border. In addition, Abbott and Arizona Governor Doug Ducey, a fellow Republican, announced in June that they would activate a state mutual-aid agreement known as the Emergency Management Assistance Compact and request that other states send their own law enforcement officers to assist with arrests along the border. This compact has been used many times to provide support when a state experienced fallout from a natural disaster or hosted an event needing extra security, but it had never before been used for immigration enforcement. By mid-June, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, and South Dakota had sent law enforcement officers to the border, and Georgia and South Carolina had sent National Guard troops, according to Abbott. [more]

Meidas_The Grape Vine @AndreaS68168384
Replying to @ReallyAmerican1

Doesn't Abbott have his own National Guard?

1:11 PM · Jun 29, 2021

Bette V.accinated Collins 🌊🇺🇸 @BetteVCollins
Replying to @ReallyAmerican1

50 NG to help cover 1,241 miles of border? That's nearly 25 miles per soldier. Is she sending transport as well? It takes 7 hrs to walk 25 miles. 14 round trip.

What a waste of time & money. Not to mention taking soldiers away from family. Stupid PR stunt.

1:56 PM · Jun 29, 2021

Toys-in-the-Attic🕸 @Drew86413331
Replying to @ReallyAmerican1 and @mmpadellan

Who the f cares. Nothing is going to change no matter how many people go to the fn Texas border. Nothing changes until what they are fleeing from changes.

1:31 PM · Jun 29, 2021