Sam Alito Strips Women of their Bodily Autonomy [Updated]
I won’t have much to say about the Sam Alito opinion taking away women’s right to bodily autonomy.
I will point to this concurring opinion from coup plotter Ginni Thomas’ spouse, calling to revisit same sex marriage and birth control.
For that reason, in future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U. S. ___, ___ (2020) (THOMAS, J., concurring in judgment) (slip op., at 7), we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents, Gamble v. United States, 587 U. S. ___, ___ (2019) (THOMAS, J., concurring) (slip op., at 9). After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions, the question would remain whether other constitutional provisions guarantee the myriad rights that our substantive due process cases have generated. For example, we could consider whether any of the rights announced in this Court’s substantive due process cases are “privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States” protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. Amdt.
I guess he needs something to rile up the brownshirts going forward.
………………………………………………………………….
Okay, bmaz here with an add on update.
Okay, I have a couple things to add here. First, Marcy hit on exactly the most important thing today. We knew Alito’s opinion was coming, and we knew what it was going to be. But the Thomas part is terrifying. They are coming for all of it. Thomas wants the Supreme Court to overrule Griswold (right to contraception), Lawrence (right to same-sex intimacy), and Obergefell (right to same-sex marriage).
That is the whole kit and kaboodle. And make no mistake, this Coney Barrett court will give it to him. Stare decisis is officially dead. I know for a fact that the test cases for accomplishing this are already long in the works by a myriad of conservative groups in anticipation of today’s Dobbs decision. And that was even before the leak of Alito’s craven draft opinion. They knew it was coming after Amy Coney Barrett replaced RBG non the Court. They think ahead in ways that Democrats and their feckless octogenarian leadership never do.
Notable what prior decision Clarence Thomas did NOT call out. The Loving decision that allows his interracial marriage to the hideous Ginni Thomas. He conveniently stands mute on that one. Funny that.
And Justice Kavanaugh, in his concurring opinion, tries to preemptively declare that states cannot prohibit and prevent, and theoretically criminalize, interstate travel to obtain an abortion because of the constitutional right to interstate travel. I actually think that is right, so credit for trying Beer Boy. But that is not at all clear, because interstate travel is yet another right not specifically delineated in the Constitution, so is very much in the lurch under the Thomas attack discussed above. So that is not bankable in the least.
Second, back to the main force of today’s Dobbs decision, a lot of states have trigger laws that make the ban on abortions effective, or easily effective after certification, after this decision. Other states, like Arizona for instance, have statutes totally banning abortion still on their books, that are effective and can be enforced immediately. Today. This morning. Now. This is not something about to take effect, it is effective right now.
All in all, the Dobbs opinion puts all healthcare for women in peril, not “just” abortion. There is about no health issue a woman can face that cannot impinge on fertility or pregnancy. Southern and deeply red states either have already or in the process of creating laws that criminalizes medical professional in this regard. Some want the death penalty for it. It is hard to imagine that most citizens really grasp the hell the Supreme Court has unleashed today.
The right to privacy is unenumerated as is the right to autonomy and agency.
This court has too many incompetent jurists if they can’t grasp the Ninth Amendment’s assurance that we retain unenumerated rights.
“The right to privacy is unenumerated”
I take issue with that part of your comment. to wit, 4th Amendment.
“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated,”
Yeah, the WORD “privacy” is not there, but “secure in their persons…against unreasonable searches and seizures, [the right of the people] shall not be violated…”
People can spare me the “unenumerated” thingy. How can one be “secure in her person” absent a presumptive right to privacy? Abstract “substantive due process” my ass. It’s enumerated. (And, yeah, of course, I know that’s not how it’s seen. Nonetheless…)
I am no lawyer, but I’ve given much study and thought to this for a long time.
https://www.bgladd.com/drugwar/chapter5.htm
Excellent point. I’ve had the 4th Amendment filed in my brain as a prohibition against the state’s policing, but if the state will police reproductive health care, then the state is attempting to police women’s bodies.
There you go. Precisely my point. More broadly, I am totally with you.
I really lack much patience for these endless “yes, but” synonym games. “Secure in their persons…” Need we really get out the Textualist Ouija board to determine what that phrase meant in the aggregate at the founding?
These “originalists” are trying to return us to the “original” constituency of the Constitution: white, male landowners. The rest of us won’t be afforded any privacy, agency or security.
Also, these “originalists” don’t know that during the founding of this country women had abortions with approval or acceptance of the men. Terminating a pregnancy wasn’t always illegal or even controversial. The men with power didn’t really care or consider the fact that women got abortions. It was a woman thing. They had better things to.
Until the mid-19th century, people believed that life didn’t start at conception, but at the quickening, when a woman can feel the fetus moving in the womb. This was a highly subjective test, and usually took place around the 18th-20th week.
All of this changed in the mid-19th century, partially due to physicians trying to eliminate the competition ( abortions were mostly performed by midwives and others who were not certified doctors), and partially due to reactionary and misogynistic response to the first wave of feminism and women’s liberation.
Also, these “originalists” don’t know that during the founding of this country women had abortions with approval or acceptance of the men. Terminating a pregnancy wasn’t always illegal or even controversial. The men with power didn’t really care or consider the fact that women got abortions. It was a woman thing. They had better things to.
If I could “like” this comment, I would do so. Thanks.
California explicitly has a right to privacy in its constitution, and since the 10th amendment permits states to define rights not otherwise enumerated I foresee another SCOTUS battle when women come here for their health care. CA’s also explicitly permitted full women’s health care including abortion.
In many of the Dominionist states, there are legislative attempts to prevent and/or criminalize travel to get an abortion so at some point one or more of them will sue CA to enforce their restrictions as defined by Article IV Clause 1 (Full Faith and Credit). IIRC, that makes SCOTUS the first court to hear the case. So, it appears to me that the GQP talking point of ‘she can just drive to another state so no one should worry’ will turn out to be bullshit like all GQP talking points turn out to be. We don’t have to speculate how the current SCOTUS would rule.
Right on cue, from the guy that has his finger in the breeze (not realizing it’s really a fart):
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/06/mike-pence-calls-national-abortion-ban
They have already started the media campaign to destroy abortion rights state by state:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/27/abortion-dobbs-roe-fetal-personhood-core-question/
Heard a historian the other day (can’t remember who, but NPR, of course), explaining why “privacy” as we understand the word, did not exist in the 18th century, and hence in the Constitution. Privacy, same as “privy” referred to toilet functions. I agree that the 4th amendment comes closest to what we mean today by privacy, that area where the state cannot reach in to regulate our lives.
I listen to NPR a lot, too, and I wish I had heard that historian because the explanation doesn’t sound right to me. A quick search of “evolution of the concept of privacy” comes up with a blog by the European Digital Rights (EDRi) organization that includes a March 25, 2015 article entitled “The Evolution of the Concept of Privacy”.
The article begins: “In 1776, John Adams wrote that it had been the British right to search houses without justification that sparked the fight for independence. In other words, John Adams thought it had been an unjustified violation of privacy that had kindled one of history’s most noteworthy revolutions.” So it appears the concept of privacy was alive and well in the 18th century, and probably much earlier.
Do you suppose Alito would respect that explanation? Or wouldn’t he reject it because it fails to include a reference to witchcraft to support the notion of “well established”?
PS – snark, just to be clear. Well, snark from my perspective, anyway. Not at all sure about his.
The OED lists the meaning “The state or condition of being alone, undisturbed, or free from public attention, as a matter of choice or right; seclusion; freedom from interference or intrusion” as dating back to 1534, so that historian is mistaken.
WP – “Even during the Protectorate of Oliver and Richard Cromwell, the position of Lord President of the Council of State, known during this period as the Protector’s Privy Council, remained in existence until the re-establishment of the monarchy in 1660. ”
As stated above, “privy” here means private.
Thomas Cromwell became part of the Privy Council before he got the axe under Henry XIII. But Henry also instituted the role of Groom of the Stool, who was responsible for that other throne (whether it was gold plated like TFG’s I don’t know).
Secure in their persons works for me though.
I suppose this is the logical conclusion of the ascension of the very few nerds in Law Schools during the ‘70s steaming over Wm. O. Douglas, and his admittedly tortured path of “substantive due process. This too will have 50 years of ramifications. I’m not sure of the final jurisprudence that will emerge over reproductive rights in this extreme iteration of “religious rights”, but the pendulum will surely swing.
The current Court doesn’t care about any Constitutional rights. They have discovered the awesome power they now have and they are going to use it. I expect many more outrageous unconstitutional ruling against our citizens from this partisan 6 in the next decades. They are only getting started. Environmental laws, Employment protections, Contractual rights, Legal protections, etc. Only Democratic majorities in power may be able to curtail them.
My nightmare scenario is Trump indicted and convicted of a felony but the conviction appealed to this SCOTUS.
That could be but it is still more than worth it to indict and convict him. It will be a reminder to all future criminals who abuse the power they are granted as government officials that they are not above the law.
The SC doesn’t need Trump anymore. And hearing his appeal might bring up Ginni Thomas’s name. The SC is an overtly religious organization now (with 3 observers). They will make decisions and hunt for cases to suit their religious proclivities. Trump said the Radical Evangelicals would not just have a voice with him they would have power. And they sure do. (Also I can’t be alone in thinking Thomas’s hit list of rights to obliterate is partly his revenge on women and ‘liberals’ for the Anita Hill hearings.)
Good points about Ginni Thomas and Anita Hill. One good thing if that’s true is that if Trump is found guilty, he will stay guilty and not be pardoned by a later republican president…if he lives that long.
Why do you think President DeSantis would not pardon Trump?
I don’t say this with confidence, but I am definitely getting the vibe that the GOP is looking to use Trump for a scapegoat:i.e. in its technical sense–one animal is chosen, all the sins and misconduct of the community is laid on the back of the single goat and it’s sent off into the desert to die.
The point would be to assert that they were all good conservatives, unlike that bad apple and now we should listen to them and accept that they are serious people.
Thus letting Trump rot in opprobrium would serve their purpose–to build undeserved confidence that they give a shit about the rule of law, etc. And they DO need to get some respect for the rule of law back in place, at least notionally, so that their dictates and statutes don’t just get ignored or worse.
Doing a Gerald Ford is less likely since Trump’s conduct is so much more overt and egregious, the hurt is more intense and there’s even less inclination to trust Republicans.
So, the real question would be, what could Trump do for DeSantis that he couldn’t get otherwise?
That could very well be right. And probably smart of them if so.
DeSantis has also been evolving a stiff-arm stance regarding Trump (e.g., not attending his rally) since using him as a stepstool to get elected. It’s a canny if craven strategy; DeSantis has the wiles to carry it off, and the will not to beg for Trump’s favor, which latter quality seems to have stunned/intimidated Trump into silence. When there’s no weakness he can exploit, he has a tendency to be baffled. Vertebrates confound him.
I’ve got a different view of how religious zealot judges would approach a Constitution.
But the outcome is unchanged.
Their holy work would be to harmonise it with God’s will.
There will be no tension, in their minds, between their understanding of God’s will* and how the Constitution should be understood.
* Jewish and sharia law AIUI is heavily constrained by a lot of historical precedent.
Modern American Christian theologies not so much.
“Jewish and sharia law AIUI is heavily constrained by a lot of historical precedent. Modern American Christian theologies not so much.”
Modern American Christian theocratic theologies aren’t even constrained by the words of Christ. They avoid his words, because his way is not their way.
Their way is the Old Testament Lord smiting the locals to make room for his chosen white male people. Kill everyone but the female children.
To be very specific, modern American Christian theocrats intentionally come from a theological movement that aggressively ignores or opposes all cumulative Christian theology and tradition. The fundamentalists pared down Christian theology to 5 “fundamentals” which boil down to a particular sort of surface reading of the Bible–a type of reading that was entirely foreign to those texts–and treating the Bible’s words as an infallible data set (more rigidly established than any scientific data). This enabled authoritarian leaders (and this was always an authoritarian movement) to pick and choose which words to emphasize and how they will be interpreted. So foreign to both Jesus and the historic traditions of the church, from the get-go.
The American Catholic authoritarianism is equally bizarre in that it totally ignores Catholic Social Teaching – an early 20th c. body of papal pronouncements, etc which is all about the dignity of labor, proper treatment of the poor, and generally anti-capitalist. (Pope Francis is obviously guided by this, but if you read even John Paul II or Benedict XVI, or Ratzo Ratzinger as I prefer to call him, you will see these things embedded in their writings)
The American conservative Bishops appointed by JP2 & Ratzinger quickly forgot their theology and cleaved to their political confreres. This is without diving into the Catholic “Integralist” craziness that formalizes & rationalizes theocracy that has become popular in the past few years with Steve Bannon exploiting and promoting it.
Let him add Loving v Virginia to that list of cases to be reconsidered.
It is a sad, sad day for SCOTUS and for our nation. We are in for political battles such as we have not seen since 1850.
And no, I am not exaggerating.
Overturning Loving v Virginia would undo Thomas’s marriage to Ginni.
It’d also upend my parents’ marriage.
This bullshit is so fucking personal. I spent an hour on the phone last night with my daughter discussing alternatives for her and all her 20-something friends if Roe was overturned — and here we are.
Somehow I have the feeling their undoing of Loving would leave existing marriages in place. Ostensibly to “honor the sanctity of marriage” but strategically to underscore to anyone with the poor judgment to not have been born purely white that there are views and behaviors you can adopt that will earn you acceptance. Well, “acceptance”.
Rayne, I can’t imagine what you are going through. And yes, of course it is personal! Yet for them it’s anything but. This is an area they’ve decided to view as societal. So none of the militant insistent on personal rights and liberties and freedoms here. We often think of the far right as not interested in living in a society, but they absolutely do want to live in a society — just not a civil one.
Undo Loving? or rather prohibit inter-racial marriages going forward: “I got mine, but sucks to be youthful and you.”
Of course, there would have to be a test — there always needs to be a test.
how many drops of blood this time?
re Griswold: I hope the condom lobby can wrap itself around these pricks.
“I hope the condom lobby can wrap itself around these pricks”
I’d expect that line from Punaise.
Nice to have a little humor in the midst of such horrible news.
This may not be the time or place to wonder of their counsel was working pro-boner.
Since we now have DNA testing… implement the one-drop rule. I dare you! And do Pacific Islanders and Aboriginal Australians count as Black? And what about Arabs or either Native Americans or Asian Indians?
Uh, let’s not make this about races. Frankly minorities will be harder hit by Dobbs than anybody.
Or those who are mutts, like me?
We’re all mutts, thank dawg! My long-ago Y-chromosome test came back with my ancestors (at least the male ones) traveling up from Asia (fertile crescent) (and probably Africa before), looping up through the steppes and Urals, across northern Europe and eventually getting on some boat to the Americas.
Along the way I have lots of wonderful grand-grand-pappy’s with lots of colors of skins and languages.
Guess only the southern dixiecrats are purebred white toast.
“Guess only the southern dixiecrats are purebred white toast.”
And that only in their own minds. I suspect they are afraid of what genetic testing would reveal.
Mutts are, generally speaking, healthier than non-mutts. It’s the inbreeding that brings problems, both in and outside royal lineages.
In the Dobbs case, I believe we’re seeing the latest results of years of intellectual inbreeding and anti-science in the GOP and its fundamentalist base.
you got that right!
“years of intellectual inbreeding”
I grew up knowing I would never be able to marry a person I loved. I never even bought into the fake ‘marriage’ ceremonies some of my friends did to call themselves ‘married.’ Then Obergefell happened. I was in an over decade long relationship at the time but still did not rush to get married because I kind of couldn’t believe it was true. Then 2 days before Trump was inaugurated we married. The ceremony was beautiful to us but most would have viewed it as kind of desperate. But today we’ve been together for almost 20 years and married for almost 7 of those years. Several months ago we finally had the good fortune to have a child. I am scared to distraction that my marriage is inches away from being voided. I’ve lived under oppression most my life but I’m so frightened for my child and his future. On one hand though I tell myself that they want me to be frightened and I will not give that to them. But on the other hand there is my child. So what can stop this steamrolling of our rights? What are the chances Biden will appoint more SC justices? (Even just to make the appointments McConnell stole?)
Exile in Europe. I did it. 40 years ago, soon after Reagan got elected. All my friends said I was exaggerating. I wasn’t.
Yeah? So you were basically Sir Robin? And are proud of not standing and fighting? You are an un-American jerk.
??
No Max, your gazillion word manifesto screed is not going up.
Could you be more flippant to a heart felt post?
Don’t be cruel. Neither of you. I fought. I have done many things to advance the good cause. I lived my life honestly and have no remorse. The world is a big place and the US is not the only place on earth. When my same sex partner was forbidden to enter the US because he was HIV positive, it became clear that I could not come back. What would you have done?
Fascism sneaks up in full view.
I have friends who are making plans to leave the country. I worry that violence is coming and I hope my gay friends in Louisiana move to the west coast at the least. Moving to mature, adult areas is the right decision.
To Krisy @ 12:51
Congratulations on the arrival your child! I am so happy for you! Life changes so much with a child and makes you a new person. . . . . even with all the fear around today!
IANAL, but I’ve been reading today about the importance of putting ALL your papers, POA, estates, deeds, titles, guardianships, etc. in order for the coming times. When we adopted, during the probation period (i.e. foster care), we had to comply with the ICPC (Interstate Compact on Placement of Children (violated by Betsy DeVos, btw) regarding taking our child out of state . . . every single trip! Try doing that in DC where every other doctor, therapist, etc practices in either VA, MD, DC, PA, etc. It was massive amounts of documents for only ONE requirement. I’m so sorry you have to think and plan for all of this. Still, I wish you both years of enjoyment (and sleep, too) with your child! It goes way too fast! Our adoptive son just graduated from HS last week!
Join Posaune. There are good and serious folks out there fighting on this. I highly suggest Brigette Amiri of ACLU. Consistently awesome.
Thank you Rayne. Your clear thinking and writing, plus bmaz is my only source of solace right now. Yes, my parents-in-law marriage would be undone by reversal of Loving, as well. It’s going to be a long long sad sick weekend.
Oh my.
The disserters went there (emphasis added):
Also this:
They are not letting Thomas off the hook here – they are skewering him on his own marriage.
Perhaps, when they come for Loving, his brethren/sistren will finally force Thomas’ recusal? /s
They will not come for Loving while Thomas is alive.
If the rightwing on the Court goes after Obergefell, the dissenters will force them to say why they leave Loving alone.
It’s hard to think of a legal logic that would preserve the latter that does not also apply to the former.
Would that logic and consistency meant anything to these ideologues, Peterr. They don’t give a damn what the dissenters point out. They have the power.
What this essentially points out is the endless destruction of the “union” through these types of rulings that create nothing but dissension across the country with every state now looking to outlaw another and another formerly federal unifying construct. It is absolute madness. The Church for all practical purposes is now the state. Gang of 6 respects no union.
Clarence thinks he’s white by association.
I’m immensely saddened for all of the women whose lives will be endangered by this barbaric ruling.
The xtian extremists are finally getting their pseudo-theocratic wishes granted.
“Christian” Sharia?
Please don’t call this sharia. It’s not fair to the Muslim faith.
You’re right. My apologies. And to be truthful, it’s not fair to most Christians.
I’m not sure where to point my finger, so maybe I should keep it holstered for a while.
Welcome to Gilead.
Start by pointing it at the Federalist Society who chose this majority, and their wealthy donors who have ridden minoritarian rule (ginned up by causes like this) to ever-greater wealth and power over the rest of us.
Point it at Christian Nationalists
“Christian” extremists are doing their level best to give Christianity such a black eye it will never recover.
That said, I had the same thoughts about Republicans and the election of Trump. I need to keep my hope in check.
They’re doing a fine job of trashing their legacy, such as it is, and whatever authority they still had. (Saw a poll, a day or so back, where their approval rating was something like 25%. My thought was “it’s that *high*?”) Why should we pay attention to a court that’s stuck in the 18th century?
Oh yeah.
Two things: elect a D Senate and then expand SCOTUS. These last two days ought to have given all democrats (small-d intentional) reason to buckle up and fight all of the GQP interferences to get item 1 done. Courtesy of McConnell, cloture doesn’t apply to SCOTUS nominees so we need 50 + 1. The reactionary six have proven themselves to be liars (remember all paid fealty to stare decisis at their respective confirmations) and unscrupulous judicial activists (so, abortion goes to the states but gun laws are too dangerous for states to manage?). They have to be diluted into irrelevance.
And please hold hearings on the Supreme Court. I want to know why Thomas didn’t recuse himself from a judgement involving his wife. I want to know who bought Kavanaugh’s gambling debts.* I want to know why Sam Alito thought it was OK to base his majority opinion in Roe V. Wade on the opinions of a witch-burner.
* IMHO, the Democrats should announce that they’re going to do the background check on Kavanaugh that the Republicans utterly failed at.
Re Alito, the answer is simple: because he could. “I’m on SCOTUS and you’re not – so I get to decide using whatever logic I can persuade four of my colleagues to accept.”
Speaking of Kavanaugh!
“Who Owns Kavanaugh #5: Closing Arguments & Next Steps
We summarize the case against Brett Kavanaugh and argue that he should resign from the Supreme Court.”
https://gregolear.substack.com/p/who-owns-kavanaugh-5-closing-arguments?utm_source=url
Lol.
I can’t stand Greg, but K’s finances really did seem like low-hanging fruit that any halfway decent opposition party ought to have made more of.
unfortunately, I expect this is going to provoke significant violence. I do think the Justices are going to be at risk now, and that’s probably what they’re hoping for.
[Welcome back to emptywheel. SECOND REQUEST: Please use the same username each time you comment so that community members get to know you. This is your fourth user name; you’ve commented previously as Matt/matt/Matt Reingold. Please pick a username you prefer and stick with it. Please avoid using Matt or matt unless you differentiate it as we have quite a few community members named “Matt” or “Matthew.” Thanks. /~Rayne]
Because women are so prone to buying weapons and instigating shootings. Right.
Don’t start pushing that crap here. Millions of women marched on Washington DC and cities across the country and the globe in January 2017 and they didn’t attack the Capitol and obstruct the operation of government.
The problem with that march was that there was no ask, no followup. This time there will be a demand for action of any protests.
I’ll use this username. This is more common for me.
People are well capable of protesting without violence, but I do suspect the responses to this are not going to be peaceful is what I meant. Do I want to encourage it? Hell no. But it’s pretty predictable in this circumstance. It’ll probably take 1-2 people dying from being unable to abort, and then we’ll have a situation like Ireland on our hands.
By the way, I am your child, Cogito, Ergo’s Son.
[Is this your new username? Let me know because I don’t want to waste more time validating another name just for your shits and giggles. /~Rayne]
No. It’s a one-off for the joke.
lol, I get that there’s moderation concerns but apparently I’m on Rayne’s radar which is a bit concerning, to say the least
lol, alright. understand, rayne. Wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. What’s wrong with wanting to use Matt? Not my fault, tbh. I’ll pick a username I guess.
Hey, even “MattX” or something is fine!
Also, don’t cheer for violence.
I legitimately hope we won’t see violence. But I’m worried people will take it that way
That’s fair. Just don’t want the left to do any of that, would just play into the nutter hands.
The more you repeat it, the more likely it is to be normalized. Knock it the fuck off now.
okay. Just go ahead delete all my posts here then, if you have concern. I don’t mind them being deleted.
No, that is not happening. You are fine, just steer clear of violence things.
okay? I mean, I don’t exactly know the rules around here. I am a lurker more than a poster, which at this point I will probably return to.
Naw, stay involved! You’re fine.
I don’t think the danger of violence is coming from pink-hatted feminists and raging grannies.
Anti-choice nutjobs will see Planned Parenthood clinics in blue states as their next targets.
The overwhelming majority of violence at the protests so far has been attacks by police on protesters engaged in First Amendment free speech.
There’s an attack in that thread against protesters by someone in a pickup truck, but the rest are police. So much for public safety.
Expanding the court (which might fail anyway) would almost certainly lead to a tit-for-tat response when the R gang next holds the White House. Probably two tits for every tat – i.e., Biden adds 2 justices, the next R president adds 4. Would only help for a few years and would have terrible longer-term consequences. (What would we do with a Supreme Court of, say, 21 justices? And what would they do with us?)
That’s where the term limit scenario should be addressed with legislation, to ensure a planned and measured replacement of jurists apart from accidents/disability/death. Ditto preventing any further abuses like McConnell stealing a seat from Obama.
Obama should have appointed Garland for a two-year replacement term the second the Senate recessed. Would have served the bastards right. (Of course, Garland might not have consented to the move.)
I don’t really see a problem with expanding the court. The more judges you add, their power gets diluted. Which is better than the current situation. Escalate it. Expand the court to 100 judges if need to. The GOP needs to see and understand that their long term game is really not that clever.
The only way expanding the court is dangerous, the case when GOP would hold power for 50 years, and no appointments are possible by democrats.
Expand the court and impose term limits. This way you can get an experienced, qualified justice confirmed without worrying about their age.
Apologies in advance. a longtime lurker, I rarely comment. I believe I last commented using this user name…
Imposing term limits on the federal judiciary requires a Constitutional amendment. Not happening with the current political alignments of the state governments.
Expanding the SCOTUS to 13, one for each district, seems like a good move. We have to keep the House and build a filabuster proof Senate to get it done under Biden.
Just my $0.02
Ironic Chef.
I see nothing in either Article II or III which says any federal jurist has a lifetime appointment.
There’s a nifty clause in Art. III Sect. 1 about “good behavior,” though, which is worth examining.
It comes from Article 3, Section 1 “holding offices during good behaviour”. They can resign, die or be impeached. That’s about it.
Does it say they are appointed for a term to last their lifetime? Does it pointedly say the legislative or executive branch can’t limit jurists’ terms? There’s nothing there — it’s an assumption it’s for life, and that “good behavior” is a life term.
The other officers in Articles 1 and 3 have specified terms.
Sure. But that is the interpretation.
Yeah, well, we’ve just seen this past week other interpretations applied to words which simply don’t say what 6 fucking conservative jurists think they say.
Well, they are not going to interpret that otherwise!
That is right. And don’t be a stranger. Pretty doubtful there can be any Constitutional amendment, of any form, on anything, for a very long time.
Regarding: one for each district
What do you mean by district?
I could find congressional districts, but there are more than 13, so you are talking about some other districts.
Looks like this is more doable than amending the constitution.
If so, it means Biden can appoint 4 new judges, 5 total. I’ll take that.
One small ray of hope is that the two oldest members of the Court are Thomas (74) and Alito (72), with Sotomayor and Roberts (both 67) next down the line. I always worry about Sotomayor’s health status (diabetes since childhood and all), but with any luck we’ll see the first two retire or otherwise leave the bench before any of the remaining non-reactionary justices. The bad news is that that may not happen for 5-10 years.
Maybe it will happen to Thomas sooner. The lifespan for Black men in America is 72.2 yrs old. He is 74. He does get the best healthcare money can buy, but he has been hospitalized recently and he is overweight.
Life expectancy changes as one lives longer, because you’ve eliminated the cases where early death actually happens. Given that he is 74 years old, overweight, and (I think) someone who uses alcohol and tobacco pretty regularly, 5 years is about right as an estimate. Though it could be next week or not until 2037. “Quite without wishing a man to the devil…”
Also a long time lurker and not a lawyer but for the life of me I can’t understand why Thomas is not in deeper kimshi. Ginni Thomas actively conspired to overthrow our government. Surely this is not a protected right. At the same time her husband was deciding on Trump referrals to SCOTUS about the 2020 election. Call me naive (IANAL) but this certainly must be addressed.
I always thought that the Constitution ENUMERATES the responsibilities of, and bounds imposed on The Government of the United States.
Guess I was misinformed.
To your point, I just re-read the first two lines of Dobbs:. Alito writes:
“Abortion presents a profound moral issue on which Americans hold sharply conflicting views. Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception and that abortion ends an innocent life. Others feel just as strongly that any regulation of abortion invades a woman’s right to control her own body and prevents women from achieving full equality.”
What am I missing? Never mind the 4th and 14th Amendments. Isn’t this statement about the most powerful pro-choice statement you can make based on the 9th Amendment? What gives the state government, anymore than the federal government, the right to restrict human behavior on which Americans have sharply conflicting views? Is it the 10th Amendment? I don’t get it, but I am no constitutional scholar.
I like it because he manages to illustrate opposite points of view — one on each side of two different subjects/arguments. Intellectual dishonesty — though we didn’t expect otherwise from him.
You’re right about the dishonesty of his contrast. Another dishonest element is that,he ignores that a significant majority of Americans believe that abortion should sometimes be legal and sometimes illegal (though within that, people may still disagree about where to draw the boundary between legal and illegal), but that doesn’t fit his desire to present people’s views as “sharply conflicting.”
I am trying to behave, but your point is important.
“Pro-life vs. pro-abortion” is bullsh*t.
With the recent willingness of people to share their abortion stories openly, I’ve discovered that I have *3* friends who had abortions to end ectopic pregnancies.
I’m not “pro-abortion, and I think everyone should have one”. I’m against having (in my case) the state of Texas insert itself between a woman and her doctor, to make decisions for her, because religious extremists are afraid she might not pick the way forward that they think she should.
Exactly.
They use the language of law, but this is politics by party hacks.
“Some believe fervently that a human person comes into being at conception” – this is not a moral position, it is a statement of a religious belief. I think Roe could have been decided and all of these fucked up state laws thrown out on the simpler basis of them violating the First Amendment prohibition against establishment of a religion.
Since the Supreme Court is leaning on historical precedent, then I guess the Loving decision should come into question. Eh, Clarence?
The specific language Thomas used is in the quote in the original post.
Thomas is announcing that he’s one vote for overturning all three of these, and implicitly asking for someone to send them three good cases to challenge Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.
If none of these are “settled law”, then neither is Loving.
Be careful what you ask for, Clarence: you might get it.
If they did it, it would not be retroactive, so Clarence would be fine. He does not care about others.
In theory, I’d agree but in practice it only takes a drive into Gilead’s lair to get pulled over by the local yokels. I’m sure it was the same before the Civil War where ‘free’ blacks had to produce papers (which could then be ripped up as fakes).
“…it would not be retroactive…”
Probably, but there is no guarantee.
If they managed to squash Loving, retroactivity decision(s) might be left up in the air or even forcibly annulled.
They have the power and have shown no reluctance to abuse it.
Clarence may be getting tired of his aging wife and have a good excuse for a divorce. And maybe he’s not interested in a new contractual marriage – just ISO a fun relationship.
I’ll bet Anita Hill is more uneasy than usual on reading that.
Thomas trolling for cases? Shameless.
I’m sure that Fed Soc has the framework for these cases already fully developed, and they are scouring the bushes to find candidates.
Per bmaz above, is KKKavanaugh not signaling with his interstate travel comment?
Caroline Kennedy and Ellen Alderman wrote a book some years back, “The Right to Privacy.” It goes over this history of the establishment of privacy through rulings by the SCOTUS over a period of 100 years or so, since the 1890s I believe. Of course with stare decisis over, they will begin dismantling all of this. But I thought the book worthwhile at the time.
I am wondering how the miscreants will prove someone is pregnant or not, pregnancy tests at the borders, airports or harbors?
It won’t matter. All women of childbearing age will be under his eye.
Seems pretty obvious, it’s like “I can push a political agenda, so long as it doesn’t impact myself”. That or maybe it’s a weighting of the voting populace in who would be impacted by such views, for example. Doesn’t look good in any way, though.
This decision will cost a lot of women their lives
There are trolls screaming in the bin about the fetuses but they ignore the Constitution’s 14th Amendment:
No unborn fetus has more rights than a born citizen. No woman’s life should be cut short for an unborn fetus.
Glad those Screechers are caged.
THANK YOU!
Rights mean whatever the GOP wants them to mean in their pursuit of power. Wasn’t it legal contortioning about rights that enabled the last Bush administration to carry out their torture agenda at Guantanamo?
I hope that the point is made again and again that this ruling is a ruling in favor of a specific religious belief, a belief that weighs against all other considerations of health, privacy and personal autonomy. The belief is that each zygote is a sacred child of God (until birth, at which point it ceases to matter), and that the loss of that zygote somehow overturns the apple cart of God’s designs- another Moses or Joshua not born. Why not another Hitler, or Charles Darwin for that matter?
“Fetal Personhood” will be next. It is coming and I suspect the Right will want it before the courts whilst they still enjoy a majority. That ruling when it inevitably comes will outlaw abortion for the entire country in all situations and make every miscarriage a potential crime scene.
Again, I point to the 14th Amendment – the criteria is birth to become a citizen. If SCOTUS shoots for fetal personhood, they have fully self-nullified themselves because they have wandered far away from the Constitution.
Especially if Alito pulls out more citations from 17th century Britons who embraced execution of witches.
Was I the only one who was disappointed that the witchcraft part in Alito’s draft opinion seems to have disappeared on the cutting room floor?
We know he still relied on it. What utter bullshit.
“No unborn fetus has more rights than a born citizen. No woman’s life should be cut short for an unborn fetus.”
Haven’t they more or less just decided otherwise?
Six conservatives led by a man whose wife has been trying to overthrow the government, including 2-3 who lied to Senate Judiciary Committee members during their nomination and approval, does not confer rights on fetuses which can’t survive without their host, especially when one of the six relied on a 17th century British witch hunter to support their case. If anything these six conservatives proven they are not legitimate jurists and the court must be overhauled.
Jesus Christ, they don’t even recognize what the United Nations has recognized — access to abortion and prevention of maternal mortality are basic human rights.
“Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make”
—SCOTUS Republicans and handmaiden Barrett
Pretty sure that’s a direct quote, since it’s the Republican view of everything.
The NRA’s too.
It will also cost them freedom, productive futures and healthy lives. The ability to have fun sex. This ruling infantilizes and vilifies women by saying they are evil for wanting to “kill” babies if not stopped by banning abortions and by saying women are not mature enough to make this decision themselves, so politicians must make the decision (banning abortion) for them. Everything about this SC ruling is a major major setback for women.
If it could be rationally argued that a human embryo was in fact a person, a rightful recipient of moral concern, that would be one thing. Reasonable people can and do disagree about at what stage of development legal “personhood” should be granted, which should be when a sufficient level of sentience is reached. But the SCOTUS majority is apparently neither sufficiently rational, moral or sentient to figure that out.
This whole decision is a narrow religious decision. For one example, in the Jewish faith, life explicitly begins at birth and the drawing of the first breath. Not mysteriously at some unknown moment 9 months before birth. In Islam it is also long after conception, I forget the explicit rule, maybe 4 months in.
So the decision is against the constitution’s explicit ban on religious action by the state. All six of those “justices” should be fired for attempting to implement a religious doctrine imposed by the federal state in contradiction to explicit constitutional requirements.
Agree, entirely, though IANAL.
Who can bring impeachment charges against the justices?
Lol, what a waste of time. And Pelosi would never allow a serious effort anyway.
It would appear that in the eyes of the current “Supreme” Court, human bondage (forcing a woman to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term is its most cruel form) is not illegal after all.
As much as I wish a pox on all the houses supporting this travesty, it would be much more fitting for unwelcomed pregnancies to be their reward.
Mary got pregnant from a kid named Tom that said he was in love
He said, “Don’t worry about a thing, baby doll I’m the man you’ve been dreaming of”
But three months later he say he won’t date her or return her calls
And she swear, “Goddamn, if I find that man I’m cuttin’ off his balls”
And then she heads for the clinic and she gets some static walking through the door
They call her a killer, and they call her a sinner and they call her a whore
God forbid you ever had to walk a mile in her shoes
‘Cause then you really might know what it’s like to have to choose
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
Then you really might know what it’s like
~Everlast~
Welcome back to the 19th century.
[I have posted only once before and cannot remember under which name, or which email address. I will henceforth be using John T… my given name, and this email address.]
The Republicans are going to lose in November VERY BADLY at all levels.
They will lose control of ten states. They will lose seats in the House and Senate.
AND WHEN THEY DO
1. Roe will be codified in federal law
2. The Democrats will reform and expand the Supreme Court
It’s my belief that my beloved Old Joe will resign sometime after Jan 21st 2023, so that Kamala Harris can become president for ten years and appoint four more justices.
Maybe five or six.
And they will be emboldened and rewarded in other states. The Missouri AG, Eric Schmitt, is running for the GOP nomination for the US Senate seat to replace Roy Blunt. He’s up against Eric “I’m a crazy gun-totin’ abuser” Greitens, Mark “I’m just wavin’ my gun at Antifa to keep them off my lawn” McCloskey, and Vicki “Trans is icky” Hartzler.
It is no accident that within minutes of the ruling coming down from SCOTUS, Schmitt was in front of microphones, signing the proclamation that invokes Missouri’s trigger law and declaring that he was proud to represent the state that was the first to effectively ban abortions completely.
I think about all the young women in college and high school that I deal with on a regular basis. They already think long and hard about their choice of college and where they want to get their first big job. Now they can add “how well does state X respect me and my ability to control my own destiny?” to their list of questions to ask.
Lol Thomas, send me what you are smoking.
A blend of Torreon violet with dried psilocybin and maybe just a sprinkle of belladonna. Window onto a happier, though imaginary, world.
Time will tell. It is possible that those who, for fear of being called names, did not object to extreme anti-abortionists locally because there was Roe & Casey, will quietly object in November by voting for the other side.
My god, Thomas, that is the most beautiful thing I’ve read in weeks.
I genuinely hope so. I do think this will hopefully energize the populace to vote, but that raises gerrymandering concerns as well.
I love this journey for Joe and Kamala. A very large percentage of women voters said that having Kamala on the ticket mattered in 2020. I think we’re unrepresented by the media, and our influence downplayed in 22 as well. I think a lot of the doomsayers yapping about the focus on “Id Pol” look downright stupid right now. The same people who “hate Kamala” are the ones who mocked vagina voters in 18 and ignored that women put Biden in the WH in 2020. No one wants to watch them sneer at women and LGBTQ Dems any longer. Not now that the court has done this, in defiance of all their predictions.
Madonna’s song Oh Father has the refrain “You can’t hurt me now / I got away from you…” The Court reminds us that no matter what J6 committee or even DOJ accomplishes regarding Trump’s lawlessness, we will not get away from him for a long time. He put this majority on SCOTUS for his usual transactional reasons, and because he had no principles to stand on anyway. After he dies they will be remain.
It would no be ideal to be sure, but in the interim could grass roots organizations setup funding for women in those states that will celebrate this ruling to transit to-from those states that will not change or strengthen women’s bodily autonomy rights to get the medical care and abortions in a safe and secure manner?
IIRC these were the Janes back in the days before Roe. We’ll need them again.
There is a story out there somewhere (maybe in a recent documentary?) that while the Janes had a common purpose, they mostly hated each other. No clue if that is accurate or not.
Don’t know if that is factually true to those women’s experience but any time women get together, especially if they are accomplishing something, the narrative becomes that they overtly and/or covertly hate each other. You can count on it. Men can disagree, even dislike each other but women…. Cat fight!!!
Yeah, absolutely, and I do not know either. There are pictures of a lot of them together and smiling. Who knows? Frankly I almost kind of doubt that report. But wherever it was I saw it was not a crank place.
Janes, hell! Underground Railroad 2.0.
Longtime reader/lurker here, and I thank all of you for your enlightening way of explaining complex issues. You sometimes make me re-read some segments because you don’t K.i.s.s. which is both refreshing and educational. Thank you for the “continuing education program”; it’s nice to be awed and just read and learn. And the check really is in the mail . . . Louis DeJoy willing.
Thank you!
There’s an organization in NY called the Haven Coalition looking for volunteers to host and escort out of town patients to clinics in the NT area. I would post a link however it is nonsecure.
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/09/1097540931/illinois-influx-seeking-abortions-roe-v-wade . I think this was somewhat expected as a possibility.
IL has a RWNJ xtian fanatic running against Gov. Pritzker (who is said to be a potential pres candidate?) running TV ads claiming that IL is “an abortion destination state”.
LOL I just reminded my daughter that IL is the closest state in which abortion has been codified as legal.
Missouri’s Planned Parenthood set up a clinic in 2019 right across the Mississippi River in Fairview Heights IL, as they saw their clinic in St. Louis come under increasing legislative and political pressure. At this point, they will shift all MO patients there for abortion services.
More recently, a Memphis clinic has been working quietly for weeks to set up a new clinic in Carbondale IL, near the local Amtrak station.
Among the organizations raising funds to help women obtain abortions, including travel: the National Network of Abortion Funds, abortionfunds.org
Another useful site: https://www.ineedana.com/about (“We show everyone their closest clinics, but if you enter that you’re a minor in a state with parental consent laws, we show you that information too. If you click a button asking saying “How am I going to afford this?,” we show you your state’s Abortion Funds and Practical Support Networks. … Our goal is to make it as easy as possible for people to find the information and resources that apply to them, without having to sift through a lot of noise or, worse, misinformation and stigma from anti-abortion organizations.”)
abortion assistance in each state – https://abortionfunds.org/funds/
Women in the shithole states should probably be careful about their internet searches. They will be used against them in a court of law
I don’t have anything pithy to say because I’m stunned, even with the leaked opinion I’m still just devastatingly stunned.
And I’m frightened.
My feeling is that if we got here because we didn’t hold the line against the Christofascists on Roe how are we going to mobilize and stay mobilized long enough to codify into law the right to bodily autonomy, contraception, LGBTQIA+ rights and everything else these people want to take away? Do we as a nation have the will and drive to do this? I’m really not sure that we do.
It is indeed scary that this has happened here in the US. It is yet another sign of how flawed and rickety the legal reasoning in the US has become with regard to the individual right to autonomy and independence. Now we go back to the injury and abuse that women faced prior to Roe vs Wade in the United States, perhaps worse even, for it appears that this court may be prepared to rule that there is no right to abortion in the case of rape or incest, thus giving the rapists further power over the bodies of women, possibly even embracing the evil that comes with state power to force pregnancy upon women as legally sanctioned policy.
Its been at least a couple of years now that I read of one state (Florida?) that all girls 18 and under had to have their parents’ permission before being able to access birth control pills. Is this still the case?
The court has lost all legitimacy to a large number of citizens.
True believers are perhaps the most dangerous humans of all.
I think what’s important to understand is that the Supreme Court,* (I call them the Supreme Clown Posse these days) is at this point, illegitimate, for a number of reasons:
1.) The Republican refusal to consider Merrick Garland in 2016.
2.) Thomas’s refusal to recuse himself from a decision involving his wife. (One of the Jan. 6th cases.) There may also be other reasons involving Ginni for why he should not be on the court. We know he’s lied about her income (and who gave her the money.)
3.) The question of who either paid off, or bought, Kavanaugh’s gambling debts has yet to be answered. (The FBI also never followed up complaints about Kavanaugh’s rough treatment of women in the time leading up to his hearing.)
4.) In his anti-Roe opinion, Alito quoted the thoughts of an English jurist and witch burner who openly violated British law, and allowed spectral evidence** in his court. The fact that he would do so, in my mind, means that he’s not fit to be a judge.
* This comparison is probably unfair to the rap group which is said to control a criminal gang/cult that’s widely considered a terrorist group.
** Evidence from visions or dreams.
“Legitimacy” is a fraught word. “Credibility” is a far better one. The Constitution specifies there is a Supreme Court. The history is that the President appoints and the Senate confirms. That has happened with all nine Justices, irrespective of whether they lied, and McConnell gamed the system etc. Legally, the Court is nominally “legitimate”.
Our republic is dependent on “norms” being followed. When those in political power choose to disregard those norms for partisan reasons the republic is at risk of legally and legitimately failing.
It’s hard to follow norms when there aren’t any.
Legitimate yet unsupportable is not a good place for the Republic nor its citizens to be in at all. And even now, who is and isn’t a citizen may be changing…since this ruling today seems to fly in the face of the 4th Amendment in a number of ways; the implication is not good.
Wasn’t that the purpose of the group behind the installation of trump, the big lie, and the insurrection – to weaken all institutions of governance in the US?
I fear that as we think that SCOTUS or Congress or the Executive is somehow not credible (good word, bmaz), we are also contributing to the perception that our government is also not totally legitimate.
Whooaaa, to the team of white horses on the beach
the lie is running out of gas
can we have alternate energy now?
Yes I think your fear has a sound basis. And that the way to increase the perceived legitimacy is to have a credible Supreme Court, a credible Congress and a credible President demonstrating that the US government, as constituted, is an effective way of governing the nation for the people.
I wish I could envision a pathway to undoing this ghastly ‘decision’ in the short term, but I can’t. Not really. There are just two I can imagine and neither is likely (or necessarily wise). President Biden could try to expand the court, bringing its number to 11 or more. But he might fail, and the Other Side would respond as soon as they held the presidency by blowing it up to 17 with hard-right extremists. Or the House could impeach two of the sitting justices: Thomas for his serious unacknowledged conflict of interest (due to his insurrectionist wife) and Kavanaugh for perjuring himself during his confirmation hearings (which he pretty obviously did and probably could be established beyond a reasonable doubt). But the Senate would never convict either one, and again, this would be taken as a license for Republican-controlled chambers to impeach anyone and everyone they disliked – as is already happening in some State houses. So neither of those approaches has a snowball’s chance of really fixing the problem.
If anyone has a better idea, let us all know! For now, I think it’s going to come down to (a) states controlled by Democrats enshrining abortion rights with clear legislation and expanding funding to provide services to poor women, including those from out-of-state [further subsidizing the ‘taker’ states down south, incidentally], (b) the DOJ looking hard at state-level overreach, like the Texas effort to outlaw going elsewhere for an abortion [which will only last as long as Dems hold the White House], and (c) the Long Game: what the right-wing did for the last 40+ years, placing people with compatible political views in the courts at every opportunity and promoting them relentlessly. Which will take at least 20 years to produce measurable change.
Please, clever people – tell me what I’m missing here…
I don’t know that I’m clever, but I think adding justices is just kicking the can down the road – the Republicans are playing a long game, and will happily colonize a couple extra seats twenty years from now.
What we need are democrats that fight.
They got their pony. Now, they have to live with it. It is a bit like Brexit: when you shoot yourself in the foot, it is a loss for everybody, but the first one to suffer is yourself. All these states will bear the consequences of their choice: their poor population will be the first victims as always, but they will also see fewer people moving in from elsewhere.
“That’s OK” the red states say. “We don’t need more people when we can siphon dollars from the blue states. Besides, it just means we’ll have fewer of them cuhlid types, and them Jews and Mooslims and all the rest.”
Then, adding in a moment of reflection, “Too bad all the wimmin got away tho…”
More lonely red state incels. Just greeeat.
If Thomas is impeached (or tried for treason – either works for me) then Biden has another appointment to make, which could – maybe – possibly – push Roberts to try to salvage what’s left of his tattered reputation, so that he’d be the 5th of 9 votes … or am I being naive?
We need 60 votes in the Senate to impeach. Roberts’ reputation is already torched, nothing but ashes. He will not stir himself.
And we’d still have 2-3 jurists who lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
The people clamoring for impeachment are idiots. Not. Happening. Waste. Of. Time. And, no, DOJ is not going to charge Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett with false statements or perjury either.
And, JFC, Susan D. Einbinder is yet another newbie wandering in and blabbing about “treason”. NO, Susan, it is NOT treason, and you are exposing yourself when you say such a ludicrous thing. We treat things seriously here, that comment is not even close to that standard.
Did I say those three liars would be charged? No, we’re stuck with them, but their votes need to be diluted because they are fucking liars and now proven hacks. Expansion of the court to match the number of federal court of appeals circuits would assure better representation.
ADDER: and I will not rule out impeachment of Thomas if 1) we get 60 reliable Dem votes, and 2) there’s evidence Thomas was somehow involved in his wife’s conspiracy to defraud the US.
Agreed. But, currently there are likely not even 48 Dem Senators for that. It likely is not just Manchin and Sinema.
Yeah, I can do the math, bud, I did publish a post about taking back real control of the Senate.
Math is hard!
Okay, I have added a substantial update to the main post, please take a look at it and comment considering that too.
Very intelligent in all it’s points. “The Face-Eating Leopard Party won’t every eat my face – I’m a loyal Face-Eating Leopard voter!”
Here’s my comment. You think this just ends with those decisions? Think again. Your entire ability to receive proper health care is in jeopardy, folks.
As we are seeing in FL, the state believes it has the right to decide what can and cannot be prescribed independent of a licensed prescriber’s or a pharmacist’s expert opinion.
What’s to stop states from enacting laws banning drugs or procedures that are too costly? If you gut the 14th amendment protections for self-autonomy, neither you, nor your doctor have any say in what happens to your health.
Is this hyperbole? Maybe. But as a medical professional I am really really worried.
Ah, no, I did not say that at all. Did you read all of my update, because it does not sound like you did.
Sorry bmaz, I wasn’t aiming the comment at you. I did read your update and 100% agree. I’m trying to give some perspective…this is really about self-autonomy, not just abortion.
We can undo 2 centuries worth of medical ethics progress just like that, and we will be back to forced sterilization, unethical human experimentation and people dying in the streets. All because some jackass governor decides it’s ok to do that in his state.
No worries, and yes you are right about the implications.
This nation is finished. We can work hard trying to jail the coup plotters. But in the end, it doesn’t matter if there is no nation left to defend.
Aw jeez, stop. Would you rather live in Ukraine, Russia, China, Sudan, or any number of other places now? If not, suck it up, quit doom barking at the moon and get to work. The mid terms are on the horizon maybe point your energy there.
No, we are far from finished.
Here’s the last sentence of Marcy’s quote from the Spouse of the Insurrection Supporter:
As I pointed out recently there is nothing stopping these religious freaks from considering those arguments before deciding to overturn Roe. Is abortion a privilege and immunity protected by the 14th Amendment? Is it a right left to the people under the 9th Amendment? In passing Alito says it isn’t, that issue was not thoroughly briefed and argued as the central point. If something as personal and private as abortion isn’t protected, then what is?
Also, what does it mean that we are citizens of the US? We can’t control our own lives without the consent of our state government. There is no such thing as an American with rights. Your rights are strictly what the state you happen to be in says they are. We return to the era of the Articles Of Confederation.
Here’s what I wrote after reviewing Alito’s draft. https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/05/07/alitos-horrifying-opinion/
Maybe people should have listened to the Her Emails lady.
To which the counter-argument was always “but the Supreme Court, because you can bet Trump will appoint Bozo* the Justice rather than a real jurist.”
* Sorry, not Hoho the Justice.
Exactly!
That IS pretty funny [and true], but this is what “Email Lady” is really saying today:
https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1540345482186309632
10:45 AM · Jun 24, 2022
Now, I’m going to find what Elizabeth Warren is saying.
Both of these women are FIGHTERS.
https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1540342006546927618
10:32 AM · Jun 24, 2022
Hillary is right. And Warren is very strong today. Less so Pelosi and Klobuchar, who are basically fundraising and campaigning off of it with “vote harder, more Dems, we will codify Roe!”. Dem leadership is simply pathetic and unprepared for the moment. At this point I am not sure the Coney Barrett/Thomas court would not strike such a law down.
bmaz, I like and respect you, but what exactly would you have Pelosi and Klobuchar doing today other than calling for people to vote ?? You just told “Mister Sterling” to do the exact same thing above.
I know you are not a fan of Pelosi’s but this is an unfair swipe.
I would like for Nancy Pelosi to go away and let somebody younger and less fossilized carry the battle forward. As to Klobuchar, tell us what your plan is.
As long as she is effective, and I believe she is, her age is not so important. You scream ageism.
Nice catch-all defense you have there; be a shame if reality happened to it. Ms. Pelosi still knows how to wield power – when surrounded by like-minded octogenarians.
What’s missing is the drive to do anything with it but promote conservative Dems (e.g., Henry Cuellar), and raise money from large corporate patrons. Also apparently missing is any form of succession plan, something pointed out, below, regarding there being no apparent succession plan to replace the obviously frail and ineffective DiFi.
I always considered Pelosi to be talented politically, BUT still a Wall-Street democrat following in the path of Bill Clinton, who “ended welfare as we know it.” and abandoned the democrats who are working class, poor, unfortunate.
I scream Pelosi is sclerotic and not doing squat. Dems need to get younger or further wilt away.
Beautiful! I love it!
This thread discusses Alito’s decision sensibly. Pretty impressive, since I’m sure Cohen is as angry as I am.
https://twitter.com/AkivaMCohen/status/1540345417140936708
‘Sensibly’ implies the fear people are expressing does not make sense. A better word is maybe ‘detailed?’
Interesting, to me. Tossing it to the lawyers in the group: https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/hyde-amendment-abortion-biden/
That was … interesting.
He missed suggesting clinics attached to casinos on tribal lands. /s
Only the Native Americans can make that suggestion with regard to the use of tribal lands. Let’s not advocate undermining sovereign autonomy of a group of people without their consent.
Agreed! Hence the “/s” …
On Instagram, @lakotaman suggested opening abortion clinics on reservations yesterday. I think it is an excellent idea, and would have the additional benefit of creating jobs.
… and if you thought you heard “Build the Wall” too often before, wait until clinics start to appear on native lands.
Re: Bmaz on State border shopping
I think you’re right that a possibility technically does exist for a State to criminalize its person, I have to take heart knowing at least the solution is simple federal legislation, under the Constitutional Commerce Clause Art. 1 Sec. 8: “To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes”
As I see it this would be a variant of Roberts’ own opinion in upholding ACA in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius through the use of Constitutional Interstate Commerce power.
It’s not slam dunk and as easily undone, but easy enough to redo as well that I think it may eventually be resolved and reasonably put to bed as Kavanaugh sought to do.
Be not afraid…Pray this is true:
https://youtu.be/5r6A2NexF88
Thomas is terrifying. Wanting to overrule right to contraception and right to same sex- intimacy. However, interracial marriage was left out. Wonder why?
Religious radicals on the Supreme Court want to go backwards. No forward progression because that is too liberal. Perhaps women in burkas, handmaiden outfits and wearing chastity belts is to their liking.
Theology controlling women’s biology. All about control and power over woman.
“I ask no favor for my sex. All I ask of our brethren is that they take their feet off our necks.”
― Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Not chastity belts! The men need access to what they want, regardless of whether we consent.
How about this little proposition – How about we mandate DNA testing for every male of reproductive age? Remember how Abbott was just going to do away with rape, perhaps with his magic wand? Wonder if that’s worked?
So, let’s DNA test all men and make them pay for their babies. Pretty sure there’d be an uproar; but it’s a sweet (minor) revenge fantasy.
The best short-term solution is a wholesale boycott of all shithole states. Hit them in the pocket books, that will get the string pullers attention.
Agreed, but the trick is, some of us have been avoiding those states for years, so they aren’t counting on our funds. Let’s take it up a notch and boycott companies who do business there – but we must all let them know why. Silent boycotts rarely register. Those “contact us” links are often (intentionally) hard to find, and the emails usually ignored; but perhaps they’ll notice if the emails start piling up (maybe use the same subject line; something simple like “Roe”), or their switchboards are swamped – and they’re losing money. Hit them in their wallets, it’s the next best thing to gonads.
Every pregnancy results from sex between a man and a woman.
To prevent the need for an abortion, why not provide reversable vasectomy’s to every single male.
No sperm, no fertilized eggs.
This would not burden women solely.
Only partially snarky
Sperm cause 100% of all abortion. I’m with you.
My reading of Justice Thomas’ statement is that he has become drunk on power.
I have heard that the legislature could legalize abortion and remove the Supreme Court from having jurisdiction over the law. The legislature (per the Constitution) has the right to limit the jurisdiction of the Court. So, after the next election, Congress should use it.
I am not sure about that at all. Any codification of Roe would still be subject to judicial review.
There is no reason not to try stripping the Supreme Court of jurisdiction over a statute, and declaring that Dobbs is not to be deemed precedent by any Federal court and anything else better lawyers than I think of. As Akiva Cohen shows in his thread, the Holy Six are incompetent at judging, and Congress has plenty of power to make it stick.
Lol, are you dining on some special French mushrooms? No, congress really does not have that power, and such would never clear the Senate in the first place. If it did, SCOTUS would scupper it. And I like Akiva quite a bit.
Exactly. How has this not been a bloodless coup by the Gang of Six? They are the arbiters of laws passed by Congress, by legislatures, and signed by the President/Governors. They pick and choose which pieces to uphold or not. Voting Rights Act? Chip away. Guns, no rules. Their side has most of the guns, and I think the GO6 have eliminated the other two branches of government. Unelected and serving for life. The Church is now the state. I am so so angry.
Too early in the morning here, but yes. But this has been the project of the right for a very long time. You have been around here long enough to recall me bitching about “judicial policy”. The GOP has been laser focused on it forever, the Dems very little. And it shows. It was bloodless. Was it a coup? I dunno, because it happened openly and in plain sight. As much as I hate the phrase, elections matter. But we don’t get to vote for SCOTUS (probably a good thing generally) and this court is going to be around for a long time. They can do great damage, irrespective of what the citizenry wants.
” It was bloodless. ”
Actually, not bloodless at all. They just haven’t had time to die yet — give it 9 more months and we’ll see lots of blood from women who should have had medical intervention to save their lives, but could not receive such medical care legally.
Concur. If and when the adults get control of the House and Senate under Biden. They need to revisit both the Electoral Count Act and the Judiciary Act. Both are enabling authoritarian rule, legally, in our “Shining City of a Hill”.
Changes to the Judiciary Act could include limiting the SCOTUS to only cases of original jurisdiction. Appeals of any Circuit Court opinion would then be reviewed “En Banc” by ALL 179 Judges of the Appellate Court who would vote on every opinion. That change would make such decisions inherently less authoritarian and more in keeping with the notions of the Founding Fathers. A lot of work – sure, but these folks have clerks to help them and they can handle it. Most decisions would simply be to let the circuit court decision stand or to take up the appeal. They can handle this.
That is completely bonkers. Seriously nuts. Have you ever been around or dealt with Federal appellate judges? I have, and many of them. They do not have enough clerks or time to get anywhere near this. NO, they cannot “handle it”. That is absolutely ludicrous on its face. Simply insane.
If the dems actually control the house and senate, make medicare/medicaid funding contingent on access to abortion. Abortion need not be funded through M/M, but starving the shithole states of money might get their attention
Hello, “Thomas Paine”. Someone has used your name before so please choose a more differentiated one.
If you are the same “Thomas Paine” who shows up in our records, your IP address does not match the prior one. Actually the former TP’s IP was apparently stealthed to show NUL:NUL:NUL:NUL.
Either update your name or contact the former TP to discuss proper identify management.
[It’s the same ‘Thomas Paine’ who’s commented here since 3/2018. Thanks for the effort but let us handle it. /~Rayne]
First they came for Roe
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a woman
Then they came for Obergefell
And I did not speak out
Because I was not in a same-sex marriage
Then they came for Lawrence
And I did not speak out
Because I was not “like that”
Then they came for Griswold
And I did not speak out
Because I was not affected
Then they came for Loving
And I did not speak out
Because I was not married to someone of another color
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Excellent
I’d say you know how it works.
First they came for Steve Bannon, and I did not speak out— because seriously, fuck that guy.
— Jeff Tiedrich
Let’s go back in time. Justices statements at Senator confirmation hearings:
Amy Coney Barret: “Cases [like Roe] are so well settled that no political actors and no people seriously push for their overruling. I’m answering a lot of questions about Roe…which I think indicates Roe doesn’t fall in that category [of super precedent].”
Brett Kavanaugh: “[Roe] is an important precedent… [Roe and Casey] have been reaffirmed many times. Casey is precedent on precedent.”
Neil Gorsuch: “Roe v. Wade…is a precedent of SCOTUS. It has been reaffirmed…A good judge will consider it as precedent.”
John Roberts: “[Roe] is settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis. It is settled.”
Samuel Alito: “When someone becomes a judge, you really have to put aside the things that you did as a lawyer…I would approach the question with an open mind.”
AND today, Susan Collins and Joe Manchin comments:
“This decision is inconsistent with what Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh said in their testimony and their meetings with me, where they both were insistent on the importance of supporting long-standing precedents that the country has relied upon.”
Susan Collins
“I trusted Justice Gorsuch and Justice Kavanaugh when they testified under oath that they also believed Roe v. Wade was settled legal precedent, and I am alarmed they chose to reject the stability the ruling has provided for two generations of Americans.” Joe Manchin
And here, in the midst of the sixth extinction, I was worried for the future generations of our/my children and grandchildren, what with the acidification of the oceans, global warming, topsoil and permafrost loss leading to the release of diseases and plagues dormant for centuries, and all the other horrors of the Anthropocene, when who but the medieval minstrel show of Sam & Clarence, with the extraordinary participation of Neil, Brett and Amy (and sometimes John), would soothe my fevered brow by enabling their own brand of theocratic fascism where guns and the control of women’s bodies trump bodily autonomy of women and the actual lives of living, breathing viable humans.
May the voters in their states be less gullible going forward. Being a Senator and regularly believing the lies that are told you is not good enough if the Republic is to be saved from the erosion of personal rights that we are currently experiencing.
It all derives from money in politics. Before almost anything we need laws stating that only live humans can donate to campaigns – no corporations, PACS, etc. (And corporations are not persons.) And no invisible donors. This should be in the best interests of politicians; no more spending some hours of every day dialing for dollars, bending the knee to oligarchs, etc.
Of course, most media would be totally against it, campaigns being their Christmas every couple of years.
I’d be for rules that officials may not receive anything of value from anyone while in office. And many years before ex-officials can lobby anyone. Don’t get me started. Money is the root. Money does not equal free speech; it equals bought speech, bought votes.
Little of this is even remotely possible. For these purposes, corporations are indeed persons. Money is indeed speech. Citizens United is indeed law (and not even necessarily wrongly decided law at that if reasonable restrictions can hold). The Coney Barrett court will go after Roe and many other things, but will “never” allow what you seek. And they will be in power for at least another twenty years, if not more.
There are words to describe Collins and Manchin. The one that comes to my mind is “gullible”.
Gettable. Ownable. Easily acquired.
I was thinking disingenuous.
Liars. Collins, despite her BS, is absolutely fine with this; and Manchin doesn’t really care.
lol! Our minds sure do work differently!
First time, long time…
I haven’t seen anyone remark that Roberts could have avoided this awful ruling by assigning himself the opinion of the court, making his concurring opinion the majority position. Instead, he gets to fashion himself as a moderate and “serious” person while achieving his true aims.
Welcome back, and good point.
No, it’s not a good point.
The Chief Justice only assigns the majority opinion’s authorship if the Chief votes with the majority. In this case, he wasn’t in the majority to overturn Roe, so he didn’t get to assign who wrote for the majority.
If the Chief is in the minority, the assignment is made by the most senior justice in the majority, which in this case was either Thomas or Alito. Either Thomas assigned it to Alito, or because Thomas clearly wanted to go further but was the only one willing to put his name to that right now, that might have made Alito the senior justice in the majority in this case.
And note that the vote taken in that initial conference meeting is just that: an initial vote. The vote on the case isn’t final until the negotiating over drafts is done (“if you include xxxx or delete yyyy, I would be willing to join your opinion . . .”), all the writings are complete, and the justices put in their names on the opinions, concurrences, and dissents. In rare cases, the person assigned the task of writing the majority opinion finds themselves in the minority at the end of the process, as other justices bail on their original position and are persuaded to join a dissent that becomes the new majority opinion when it gets 5 votes.
This might arguably have changed optics, reporting, and headlines but not the practical outcome.
Parsing Dobbs: on upholding Dobbs’ 15-weeks, the vote was 6-3 (5-3, + Robert’s concurrence). But overturning Roe V Wade, the vote was just 5-3, with Roberts abstaining; the 5-3 majority would still overturn Roe V Wade, even if that was in concurrence to 15-week opinion.
Now the Roberts Court gets to be despised as historically, one of the very worst courts ever. (He probably could have avoided this by voting in favor of the Voting Rights Act when it came up in the last few years…) But nobody deserves to be the head clown in the Court of Shame more than Roberts.
Yeah, one of the angry troll accounts here conveniently forgets Roberts’ role in trashing voting rights.
We need call him what he is — a white supremacist.
Agreed completely. He’s one of the main assholes responsible for this shit-show.
Roberts is one of those students of the Comey philosophy for winning friends and influencing neighbors: he’s just not doing it his right way unless his actions piss off everyone of every persuasion.
The Roberts court:
Corporations are people; women – not so much.
The Chief Justice only assigns the majority opinion’s authorship if the Chief votes with the majority. If the Chief is in the minority, the assignment is made by the most senior justice in the majority, which in this case was either Thomas or Alito. Either Thomas assigned it to Alito, or because Thomas clearly wanted to go further but was the only one willing to put his name to this right now, that might have made Alito the senior justice in the majority in this case.
And note that the vote taken in that initial conference meeting is just that: an initial vote. The vote on the case isn’t final until the writings are complete and the justices put in their names on the opinions, concurrences, and dissents. In rare cases, the person assigned the task of writing the majority opinion finds themselves in the minority at the end of the process, as justices bail on their original position and are persuaded to join a dissent that becomes the new majority opinion when it gets 5 votes.
I’d like to add the 1st amendment to the list of Constitutional considerations over Roe. Many of the arguments I heard over the start “person-hood” have revolved around the “soul” entering the body. This is a religious concept and, as such, should violate the separation of Church and State. It seems that SCOTUS is driven more by the acceleration religious liberty than by law. The Hatch Act prohibits spending any Federal money on abortion, but does the opinion in Carson v. Makin lead to the prohabiton of spending State funds on religious training? My guess is not; it’s the unenumerated right of religious liberty.
The 14th Amendment pointedly says “persons born” “are citizens.” Frankly, a fetus unwanted is an illegal alien because they didn’t ask for permission to enter the country and they don’t have citizenship.
Conservatives want a border crisis? There’s the border crisis.
Tongue in cheek — and the 2nd Amendment references “a well regulated militia”, but what does that matter to an Originalist.
You’d think an originalist would have paid attention to the reason why arms weren’t restricted like the inability to raise a standing army back in the day. Now we have the world’s largest army spending more than the next 7-14 countries combined. I think we can let go of the worry we can’t raise an army.
Will the time come when a woman dies in child childbirth and the new born child is charged with murder? Seems like a gross idea, but consistent with the radical right.
The newborn could never be charged with murder in such a scenario because the woman is disposable, fungible to the Christianist far right.
As the right thinks she’ll be charged posthumously with neglect.
A little OT but here’s a NYTimes article on the practical effect of Carson v Makin in Maine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/23/opinion/supreme-court-guns-religion.html
” Anticipating this week’s decision, Maine lawmakers enacted a crucial amendment to the state’s anti-discrimination law last year in order to counteract the expected ruling. The revised law forbids discrimination based on gender identity and sexual orientation, and it applies to every private school that chooses to accept public funds, without regard to religious affiliation……
The impact was immediate: The two religious schools at issue in the Carson case, Bangor Christian Schools and Temple Academy, said that they would decline state funds if, as Maine’s new law requires, accepting such funds would require them to change how they operate or alter their “admissions standards” to admit L.G.B.T.Q. students”
So make your own judgements but IMHO these religious schools rather than accept public funds they fought for, will decline those funds if it means they cannot discriminate against gender identity and sexual orientation.
The article went on to gun control and that states could limit where guns could be carried, such to include “include public transportation, crowded venues, university campuses and places where alcohol is served.” Crowded venues could mean anything, grocery stores, high school football games, church etc.
*Hyde Amendment, yeah?
Edit: seeing a correction below, I’ll try and delete this – “deletion: IME is not always successful.
Ops. meant Hyde Amendment.
The Democrats are complicit in this. They could end the filbuster and pass the women’s healthcare bill today. But they won’t. Biden won’t support ending the filibuster, and there are no political penalites for corrupt Democrats like Manchin and Sinema for sabotaging the President’s agenda. And Leader Schumer is equally hopeless.
Biden is a very weak President and inept political leader for the Democratic Party. He has failed to pass meaningful bills to address the existental challenges of global extinction, voting rights, and women’s healthcare. He has shown himself to be incompetent in negotiating with both Republicans and intransigent members of his own party who have repeatedly lied to him.
But he does take time to tell Mitch McConnell “You’re a man of your word, and you’re a man of honor. Thank you for being my friend.” (February 3, 2022)
And let’s not forget that Clarence Thomas owes his seat on the SCOTUS to Senator Joe Biden. And Senator Joe Biden consistantly supported the Hyde Ammendment that barred the use of federal funds to pay for abortion.
“The Democrats are complicit in this.” Weak sauce bullshit using a wide brush. You know exactly which two are to blame.
“Biden is a very weak President and inept political leader for the Democratic Party.” First, we’re talking about a former senator elected to 6 terms and a former VP elected to two terms. Not exactly someone who hasn’t been able to lead Democrats. As for weak: he’s made two major errors — the first was not to listen to progressives about keeping the infrastructure and Build Back Better Bill bundled together, and the second was to continue to maintain faith in comity with the Senate based on his past experience.
But sure, weak. ~eye roll~
Your one true beef is with his role in Thomas’s appointment to SCOTUS. For that he needed to appoint a young and better jurist which he has in Ketanji Brown Jackson. Biden hasn’t been the only one to support Hyde but I can see you’re on your anti-Biden hobby horse trolling here in our threads; you’d better come up with better than this bullshit next time.
Else your career here will end at the two entire comments approved to date, Mx. Drive-by Anonone.
Spot on about mistake #1. And more or less correct on #2, though I’m not sure what else he could have done but try to re-establish the old comity. He is a “weak” president in that he cannot count on support from the Senate, even in his first 2 years in office, despite his famous razor-thin majority. Could Lyndon Johnson style arm-twisting work nowadays and coerce “people” like Manchin, Sinema, or Collins into acquiescence? I’m not sure. Kinda pessimistic TBH.
Mistake #3 was the failure to pass the voting rights bills. President Biden has described voting rights as an “existential” issue, and he is right.
So instead of coming out full-force in support of ending the filibuster to pass the women’s healthcare bill, the President Biden and the Democratic leadership’s response is to exhort us to vote harder, while they do nothing to stop massive voting suppression laws enacted in dozens of states.
Also, note that President Biden has said nothing about reforming the Supreme Court.
Good luck with the reforming the court with 50 GOP+2 DINOs. Jesus, talk about a fucking waste of time.
History will record that women’s rights to healthcare were taken away under a Democratic President with Democratic Majorities in both the House and Senate.
It will also record that the Democratic President and the Democratic Majority in the Senate preferred to preserve the Jim Crow filibuster over protecting women’s rights to healthcare. It will also record that the last Democratic President with strong Democratic Majorities in both Houses of Congress also failed to codify women’s healthcare rights.
President Biden’s “major mistakes” (as you describe them) will be fatal to thousands of women in the short-term and millions, probably billions, of people in the long-term.
But, hey, comity, right?
Yeah, that is horse manure. As lame as the Dems can be, this is entirely on GOP, FedSoc and Trump. Don’t pull that here.
When your team loses, you can’t pretend that they weren’t even on the field.
What in the living fuck are you talking about, Willis?
Seriously, fuck off. Women’s rights were taken by GOP-nominated and approved justices who lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
” Women’s rights were taken by GOP-nominated and approved justices who lied to the Senate Judiciary Committee…”
While the Democrats stood by and did nothing. And are still doing nothing except giving speeches telling people to send money and vote harder.
Some of us actually remember these things:
““This has been one of the best set of hearings that I’ve participated in,” said Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.). “It leaves one with a lot of hopes, a lot of questions and even some ideas perhaps of good bipartisan legislation we can put together.”
If that wasn’t enough to anger Democrats — who have spent this week trying to paint Barrett’s nomination process as a sham — Feinstein also thanked the committee’s chair, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), and then walked across the room to wrap him in a hug.”
Feinstein was the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sure DiFi is bad, your comment is still trash. “Some of us” have been here forever. Don’t screw here. Just do not.
“Don’t screw here. Just do not.”
Nothing I am saying here is false. Why don’t you knock off the ad hominem stuff? I understand you disagree.
[This is not your pool where you get to piss in it adding nothing constructive to the conversation. Find some other place which doesn’t mind your urine. /~Rayne]
You are barking up the wrong tree, and can fuck right off.
“Nothing I am saying here is false.”
Really?
“strong Democratic Majorities in both Houses of Congress” seems objectively false.
““strong Democratic Majorities in both Houses of Congress” seems objectively false.”
Obama had 60 vote super majority in the Senate Democratic Caucus and a 77 vote majority in the House when he started his first term. The Democrats could have codified Roe then, but in reality, they have done essentially nothing to protect abortion rights for the last 50 years on the Federal level. They have left it to the courts. One could argue that they did the opposite by regularly voting for the Hyde amendment.
President Biden’s support for abortion rights has been wobbly his entire career, including his vote FOR a constitutional amendment in 1981 giving states the right to decide, much like the SCOTUS just ruled. He later voted against it.
We need to elect more and better Democrats.
Well then, what do you contend were the “women’s rights to healthcare were taken away” under Obama?
You are not too good at this, are you.
Feinstein has been having cognitive difficulties for some time, and this comment was one that raised considerable concern at the time, among her colleagues and many others. Yet she has been re-elected. It would be good if she would resign or retire, but as noted often here, the Democrats have any number of sclerotic members who have not, as some others have suggested, resigned or retired, as most likely RBG should have done. Of course, there is no perfect time to do it, though some have made that tough call for themselves. But this quote for your purpose, should be looked at in the broader context. IMO.
Californians need to address this. Why did DiFi get re-elected? What’s wrong with CA’s candidate pipeline and succession process?
As for RBG: the failure happened when Obama lost Scalia’s seat to McConnell’s maneuvering. She likely would have retired then but ended up gambling on a HRC presidency. To some extent it’s on us that we didn’t raise hell with McConnell’s theft and early on with Trump during the GOP primary.
I have been a nonpartisan voter in CA for over 20 years. The 2018 US Senate election was the second one governed by our nonpartisan blanket primary law. After the primary, our choices were DiFi (44.2% of the primary vote) and Kevin de León (12.1% of the primary vote, and another Democrat). Kevin had been endorsed by the CA Democratic Party, but had problems with fundraising and low name recognition.
Bottom line: despite the concerns about her age and many people thinking she should retire, she did get re-elected. However, it was 54-46% (~1M votes), which was her closest election since 1994.
If you check out this wiki article, Dianne carried the most-densely populated parts of the state, but Kevin took every other county: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_United_States_Senate_election_in_California
We have plenty of younger talent that has been gaining a lot of experience, but even with the backing of the party it seems to be hard to break the grip of incumbency and name recognition.
Kevin needed to commit to run for that seat 2X and have a plan to do it. That’s what it takes to break an entrenched position. He also needed to gather and continue to build upon a strong posse willing to commit to the two runs. Not easy, but if name recognition is the problem that’s what it’s going to take.
I have an old friend, Shahid Buttar, that has tried running against Pelosi at least twice, maybe thrice. He is a brilliant and absolutely great guy, Here is about what he gets. He would truly make a fine representative, but he will never get even remotely close. Pelosi is not senile though, just bad. DiFi is off the mental acuity edge.
If de Leon got 46% it’s doable. In Buttar’s case, he’s up against money and bigotry as well as a non-partisan primary; it doesn’t surprise me he never broke 25% in all his runs against her.
Yep. I love Shahid. But that ain’t happening as long as Pelosi is around. Maybe not even after.
Hopefully history will record who the real villains were, who won by cheating up to and including armed insurrection, while the Democrats were trying to uphold the rule of law. The crimes have taken place with cameras rolling, and with analytic commentary such as this site provides being written in real time. “History” will not forget the basic facts. Hopefully the malefactors’ “1/6 Subcommittee” hearing days, in some form or another, aren’t too far off.
If history records anything, it is that there are popinjays full of poppycock flitting about…and seeking to blame all those who fought against what has occurred for what has occurred. You appear to be on of those popinjays.
Reductionist clickbait that misses the actual dynamic at every turn.
Republicans have now ruled that a 13 year old is competent to have and raise children but she is not competent enough to get married,to drive, to rent an apartment, to sign up for healthcare, to adopt, to vote, to buy a gun, to drink alcohol or to get a job . Things are seriously wrong with Republicans.
Hillary Clinton was so right yet people were to lazy or found her unlikeable to vote for her. Elections definitely have consequences. The previous 5 years were horrendous and will affect women for decades. Women, the American citizens who have less rights than American citizens as of today.
Much of the ‘HRC is unlikeable’ theme came from the courtier press who really turned on her for ‘not sitting around to bake cookies’ like a good political wife, amplified by the RWNM. It’s only partly a joke that without Hillary, Bill would still be pumping gas in Hope, AK (bait shop optional).
Hillary could walk on water, and the press/RWNM would scream, “She refuses to swim!”
No matter the crap thrown her way or how she gets knocked down, she picks herself back up and gets on with her life.
Nothing but respect for the lady, the example she sets, and how hard she has fought for women and children her whole career.
Republican hypocrisy to the extreme. They support bringing unwanted children into this world, however, they have no problem with children being murdered with AR-15s in schools.
Let’s hope these two rulings by the Supreme Court on guns and abortion will get people out to vote in mass who want a more temperate country rather than theocratic extremism.
Republicans of today need lots of unwanted children to be born into poverty and oppression. They need them for cheap labor. They need some of them to grow up and become sex workers. Most of all, they need them so they can have someone to be contemptuous of. Contempt is their most desired emotion. (Sorry moderators if I’m over the top. Will stop now.)
LBJ said it best” “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
With the rapid growth of automation they don’t understand they’re simply growing and further enraging a group of people who will eventually help send them packing.
Here is something good. Dicks Sporting Goods are stepping up!
Yes, that is what a woman CEO will do.
So is my source for native plants: https://mailchi.mp/izelplants/right-to-choose
[FYI, link edited to remove tracking; it also revealed your name. /~Rayne]
This is a very sad day in American history. I feel as if a barrier has been breached and we have recklessly wandered into territory that I don’t think anyone fully understands how it all resolves. I have a daughter of child-bearing age, contemplating children and it pains me to think her life is now diminished. She has fewer options than her mother and I did and that is simply wrong. Liberals need to think hard about what our common goals are, memorialize them and work towards them with the relentlessness and sureness of purpose that has defined the modern conservative movement since Reagan. Liberals squander time, money and energy bickering amongst themselves about nits and conservatives steam roll us on the big issues with their single-mindedness. It is asymmetrical warfare and we are losing badly.
Nicole Wallace, on MSNBC just interviewed a reproductive rights Law professor from UC Irvine (maybe? One on the SoCal UCs). She was talking about the 13th Amendment and the involuntary servitude clause actually referencing the forced birthing by enslaved women. She was suggesting that this might be a way to attack the overturning of Roe, that forcing women to carry pregnancies to term would be in conflict with the 13th Amendment.
Not being a lawyer nor Constitutional scholar, I don’t know how to assess this, but it was intriguing.
Well, I’m sure better legal minds than ours are on it, but I know the nonsense of ‘fetal personhood’ and ‘life begins at conception’ markers being laid by Dominionist legislatures will complicate this gambit, regardless of Rayne’s pretty valid logic above regarding the 14th Amendment. We will have to have the fight now about when life begins in the legal sense. As it is, there are already laws on the books in a lot of places that include a fetus as a person in the murder / injury of a pregnant woman for the purposes of criminal charges (i.e. special circumstances in CA).
‘Enslaved’ is a pretty valid description as well considering how the forced-birthers refuse repeatedly to pay for the unavoidable costs of raising a child between food, clothes, education, actual parental love versus Old Testament indoctrination, etc., et al. The forced birthers must be compelled to own all of it or get none of it IMHO.
The Constitution requires that all legal persons be counted in the decennial census. If legal personhood begins at conception, then a large frozen embryo bank could count as half a congressional district.
Don’t forget that ‘corporations are people, my friend’ because Mittens said so. They’ll need to be counted and with as many startups as we have in CA we’d get our lost seat back.
I’m still feeling angry and sad, and initially I felt powerless, but now I’m trying to figure out next steps, and I’d love to hear others’ thoughts. Possibilities:
* for those who can afford it: contribute to abortion funds (e.g., the National Network of Abortion Funds, https://abortionfunds.org/ )
* work to register new voters, especially in anti-abortion states (e.g., https://www.rockthevote.org )
* help with voter turn-out (e.g., the Postcards to Swing-states effort: https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/, also https://votefwd.org/ )
* work against voter suppression efforts
What would you add to this list? What organizations would you add?
That’s one of several arguments; where in the Constitution does it say a citizen is obligated to give up their organs for the support of another lifeform which isn’t viable without the use of those organs?
No man would ever put up with that shit, being used as a host body against their will.
rant:
Where is it stated in the Constitution that the gd Government has
ANYthing to say about what any person does?
It’s [mostly] white [mostly] MEN who have been writing ALL the laws;
and then it’s [mostly] white [mostly] MEN writing ALL their
erudite interpretations of those same laws
ever SINCE the gd FOUNDING of the gd Republic.
/ rant
“If men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrament.”
This. The illogic of the ruling today is laid bare. A sad day for the US, this poorly (if at all) reasoned ruling is the bellwether of the rise of anti-intellectualism in our country.
a little ot but a concept of ‘women’ from Frank Herbert’s Dune I found horrifying – the Axolotl tanks
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Axlotl_Tank
re: interstate travel to obtain an abortion —
I wonder, is it possible that an attempt to short-circuit interstate travel might somehow end up pitting Art IV, sec 2 (Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several states.) against Art IV, sec 1 (Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records and judicial Proceedings of every other State.)?
I believe the Court has long understood sec 2 as pertaining to freedom of unimpeded travel from state to state. Could the concept of “public Acts” be somehow contorted to apply to the case of a Mississippi resident traveling to seek an abortion in, say, Massachusetts?
Or going another way, might not an interstate kidnapping and murder charge apply, given the further development of the insane push among numerous state legislatures for blastulate or embryonic personhood? (It is doubly insane to call a dime-sized mass of undifferentiated tissue a “fetus.”)
and now I duck and head for cover…
Good luck with that. The problem is that the majority of women who are most vulnerable can’t afford to leave their state anyhow.
yes, true enough…
it’s very simple: apparently woman are not people, but fetuses are.
jesus christ on a pogo stick — this supreme court is making itself more and more irrelevant every day! why does the nation even have to listen and obey anymore?
such a top heavy number of right wing catholics? what other demographic would be accepted? Muslims? Jews? POC’s? (when asked, RBG suggested nine woman was about the right number of female SC justices.)
I’m still feeling angry and sad, and initially I felt powerless, but now I’m trying to figure out next steps, and I’d love to hear others’ thoughts. Possibilities:
* for those who can afford it: contribute to abortion funds (e.g., the National Network of Abortion Funds, https://abortionfunds.org/ )
* work to register new voters, especially in anti-abortion states (e.g., https://www.rockthevote.org )
* help with voter turn-out (e.g., the Postcards to Swing-states effort: https://www.turnoutpac.org/postcards/, also https://votefwd.org/ )
* work against voter suppression efforts
What would you add to this list? What organizations would you add?
Democrats need to take over the Democratic party and turn it into something that fights.
Hoyer needs to go. So does Durbin. Pelosi won’t be around for much longer. And Manchin and Sinema need to see the light.
What we need is the 50-State program again. I can’t forgive Obama for killing that.
And it was Obama who killed that.
And it was Obama who dismantled the organizations built of all of the millennials who worked on his campaign. Stopped them right in their election day tracks.
Didn’t read the next comment, did you.
OFA couldn’t be used by the White House because it could have been a Hatch Act violation.
The DNC had responsibility for acquiring and deploying campaign resources. And the DNC chair was…
Tim Kaine as DNC chair owns the the responsibility for the excision of the 50-State Strategy. It was not Obama though Obama had some input about Kaine as chair.
The entire party from grassroots up also owns responsibility, because they had evidence 50SS worked and they failed to ensure the party top to bottom retained it and entrenched it. Jaime Harrison as DNC chair now is making a feint at a new strategy but the party isn’t calling it 50SS. https://democrats.org/the-50-state-strategy/
The bigger problem right now is whoever the dipshit motherfuckers are who are advising Democratic PACs to invest in GOP primary races throwing behind the craziest morons while Democrats go without adequate funding — Texas CD-34 flipped to GOP with the winner Flores having millions to spend and the competitive Democrat Sanchez had less than $200K. There was a second Dem in that race as well who should have been asked to step out by the Texas Dems; they ended up peeling away votes which would have put Sanchez in MOE without additional money.
I’m going to be so pissed if whoever the dipshit motherfuckers are decided to use Claire McCaskill’s playbook because that Missouri and that GOP is long fucking gone when it will throw behind Trump and QAnon. No Democratic PAC should spend one goddamned cent on GOP races, ever. NEVER.
Claire McCaskill even said that it would be foolish to try it in the current climate,Thursday night after the last J6 broadcast.
Good. I hope she makes a stronger effort to smack that into some jackasses behind Democratic PACs.
I’d rather Claire McCaskill just go away altogether.
On a campaign to leave mothers out of this. Ratfuckers. Let’s call them ratfuckers.
Isn’t partitioning of Red and Blue States the obvious solution? Your government is broken beyond repair and no longer representative of the majority.
That’s what the right-wing wants because they believe Democrats will move to blue states and GOP to red states and the Electoral College system won’t provide equitable representation just as it doesn’t now. Red states will continue to have more representation than blue while siphoning off blue states’ tax dollars.
I guess I was unclear in my choice of words. I referring to dissolution of the USA. How much longer are the vast majority of peoples living in California and New York willing to allow Arkansas Baptists to dictate how they should live their lives?
There is no guarantee demographics will ever sort this out, minority rule is firmly entrenched at present and the GOP has shown a willingness to go to any length to preserve it.
What exactly are the so-called Blue states getting out of this deal any more?
Red states will tell you blue states are getting food, but at the rate climate change is screwing up crops like wheat this year, I don’t think they can even say that.
Secession requires ratification of a majority of states so we’re 50 states for a while. I’d rather see us find a way to starve red states of blue states’ tax dollars.
They are delusional in the food respect too. California truly feeds America. From Farm Progress:
This is because our state produces a sizable majority of American fruits, vegetables and nuts; 99 percent of walnuts, 97 percent of kiwis, 97 percent of plums, 95 percent of celery, 95 percent of garlic, 89 percent of cauliflower, 71 percent of spinach, and 69 percent of carrots and the list goes on and on. A lot of this is due to our soil and climate. No other state, or even a combination of states, can match California’s output per acre.
Lemon yields, for example, are more than 50 percent higher than neighboring states. California spinach yield per acre is 60 percent higher than the national average. Without California, supply of these products in our country and abroad would dip, and in the first few years, a few might be nearly impossible to find. Orchard-based products specifically, such as nuts and some fruits, would take many years to spring back.
Better figure out how to do all that with FAR less water.
First we stop expanding irrigated farming in the southwest San Joaquin, where they’re growing pomegranates and pistachios withe water they’re paying below-market for (thanks, Gavin!), and make them pay full price. Then we tell farmers that they can’t replace lower-water-use crops with stuff like almonds (grown mostly for export, and they’re a luxury item in the US). That will save a lot.
Yep, exactly. There is some of that going on here too, though more there. The shift needed to be made years ago, but has to be done now.
Many, many almond orchards in the central and southern San Joaquin are being pulled out because of the water situation. While a lot of this crop is for export, they had to find additional things to do with it to keep the price up, hence ‘almond milk’.
And the pomegranate/pistachio company started under Brown. The pistachio crop is often exported to Middle Eastern countries.
Almonds are especially water-intensive to cultivate. Almond milk even more so.
Yeah, blue-purple state Michigan is nearly as diverse as California in the crops it produces. If you ate a pickle on a sandwich at a restaurant it was probably grown and produced here in Michigan. I guess we’re going to have to change up our pepper crop to accommodate the chilis needed for sriracha now that climate change has screwed up the crop elsewhere.
Yep. California is by far the largest agricultural state.The last time I looked, it’s output was greater than adding up the output of the next 8 or 9 states. Heck, the Central Valley alone is a 500-mile long, 50-mile wide farm. Combine that with very fertile soil and nearly perfect weather and you’ve got the most productive agricultural area in North America. However, as bmaz noted, it does take a lot of water.
Yes. Not like there, but western AZ has some massive agriculture too. It can’t go away either place, but both need to be seriously reimagined as to water usage. They both can be and must be. Immediately.
This. Yes. Maybe something as simple as a rule that no state can receive more than 110% of what its citizens pay in federal taxes unless the governor & legislature declare that they have failed in the management of their affairs and need federal intervention/oversight until the situation improves. Only other exception for bona fide emergencies.
Won’t really work, I’m afraid (even if Congress would enact such a rule) because so much of the money being paid out is in the form of social security (including disability and SSI) plus Medicare/Medicaid expenses, all to the many non-working, and poor, people of those states. Can’t just cut that off to spite the evil plutocrats and their enablers.
Is there a way to make clear to recipients of federal largesse where the money is coming from? That is, from the federal government (not the state or county) and from the citizens of more prosperous & generous states? Some kind of reminder every time a deposit or payment is made?
“Can’t just cut that off to spite the evil plutocrats and their enablers.”
Why not? (I mean, as long as we’re fantasizing here…) Not to go all Ayn Rand, but aren’t these the same folks who keep voting in those same rethuglican turdballs at the state & federal level?
You broke it, you bought it.
If you’re going to fantasize, why not instead imagine a lot of liberals choosing to move to red states and flipping them? There are more liberals than conservatives in the U.S., enough that some redistribution need not endanger the states they’d be moving from.
I like your proposal better than fleeing red states, but would prefer folks in the state they are in to dig in and work together for justice and democracy.
You haven’t given thoughts to the secondary effects of overturning Roe.
Blue staters aren’t going to want to move to red states and give up their rights and in the case of women of childbearing age, their assurance of protection against maternal mortality during pregnancy.
I wonder why it hasn’t been tried in Montana though. 2 senators, population 1.1 million. Beautiful place – so I’ve heard.
It’s a swing state, could use more blue voters but it’s in need of more infrastructure to support remote workers.
No, I’ve given plenty of thought to the diverse effects. That’s why I described it as a fantasy. I gave a serious response elsewhere (https://www.emptywheel.net/2022/06/24/constructive-action-taking-back-real-control-of-the-senate/#comment-943761 ) in which I said a bit about why it’s not realistic. Here, I was simply comparing one fantasy with another.
That said, as a single post-menopausal woman, I’ve considered moving within the DC area from blue MD to purple VA to help turn VA more blue.
If you can do it, more power to you. It’s not a safe answer for women of childbearing age (and I did so specify). Take other friends with you, but make sure you get your vaccines+boosters regularly.
It’s definitely their plan to Balkanize the US.
In my ignorance I’m having trouble understanding what is to stop “The 6” from doing a soft coup for the Red team.
IMO they have done it. They have eliminated the other branches of government. Picking and choosing which laws to uphold, which parts to dismantle, whether it is a federal or state law. It’s what they decide. The Gang of 6 rule it all now. The Church IS the state.
I’m going to appropriate your “Gang of Six” [GO6], if you don’t mind?
Of course I don’t. Thank you for all the good work you do.
No they have not eliminated the other branches of government.
They’ve neutered several regulations that were working fine, because they want less executive branch.
Overturning Roe and deliberately ignoring 50 years of precedent is the equivalent of writing new legislation — essentially bypassing Congress. Doing so with the votes of jurists who lied to the Senate Judiciary about respecting 50 years of precedent only cements their intent to ignore the legislative branch.
In doing so they’ve left the executive branch little to use as a safety net.
Both the FDA aand USPS are in the executive branch, so abortifacient drugs by mail could be a significant safety net for ~1/2 of women seeking abortions.
The problem for them is when the drug doesn’t work completely. Some women may not fully understand Plan B doesn’t work for women 155-165lbs or more. It’s not going to work for pregnancies which are well established, either. If they have an incomplete miscarriage and try to get treatment at the hospital they could be prosecuted — one woman has already been arrested for this after a hospital worker reported her.
The executive branch needs to dig deep to get around this attack on its powers.
AOC has posted a video response to the SC ruling today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwrA6ySZpvI
I haven’t been able to read or listen to commentary about this. I did read the post but haven’t read the comments yet. Sorry.
My daughter is an ob/gyn. She came by after work yesterday and burst into tears. She said, “No one who works with poor women would be able to support this.” Just the day before she had operated on someone with an ectopic pregnancy. Under some laws, this woman would be forced to carry the fetus until her insides burst and she died a painful death. This is to Bmaz’s point–a hell has been unleashed. She spoke of a woman she saw yesterday. This woman had two children two years apart. Her father was the parent of one of them. And a few years earlier her father had murdered another child of hers that he had fathered. And her husband died two weeks ago. This is not an unusual day at the office for my daughter.
I listened to two minutes of NPR the day of the opinion. Here and Now opened with an interview with a “pro-life” person. The interviewer asked her to respond to the fact that the AMA, the College of Obstetricians, and virtually every other medical society supports the right to abortions. That an AMA study revealed that after the right to abortion was made legal, illegal abortions dropped dramatically. l wish that I could have challenged the answer to these questions. In a typically far-right arrogant ignorance, the woman answered that after abortions became legal, there was no such thing as an illegal abortion. Hmm. Fact-checking that claim, we would discover that indeed illegal abortions were possible and, to the extent that they still occurred, they continued to lead to horrendous outcomes for mother and child. Her second response was even more egregious: after abortion became legal, the medical profession became involved in it so that explains their continued support. From this answer, as far as I can tell, this woman believes that the medical profession should not be involved in the care of a pregnant woman.
That’s all i could tolerate. There really is little to say. To me, not being female, I think the most painful aspect is the heart of hate that underlies the decision. It is a super creepy feeling. I know there are anti-abortion people who come from a place of integrity and compassion, but these aren’t the people who unconstitutionally stacked SCOTUS with unqualified jurists lacking in integrity.
If I could boil my response down to one angry, bitter point, it would be that there is a non-zero chance that Justice Kavanaugh should have recused himself on the basis that he has fathered a child through rape. We don’t know that he has, but from what we do know, it is possible. Cruelty and hate underlies this decision. It is possible to debate the depressing question whether misogyny or racism is more of a motivating force for the fascists.
Adam SERWER:
The Constitution Is Whatever the Right Wing Says It Is The Supreme Court majority’s undead constitutionalism is transforming right-wing media tropes into law. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/06/roe-overturned-supreme-court-samuel-alito-opinion/661386/ Adam Serwer JUNE 25, 2022, 7 AM
I have several constitutional bone to pick on this “judicial decision” — first, the 9th amendment to the constitution spells out the fact that the list of enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights shall not be construed to interfere with those un-enumerated rights. So the lack of a mention of abortion in the Constitution is meaningless.
Second, this ruling is institutionalizing one small and peculiar religious belief — that a person is “ensouled” upon conception. This idea is very recent, and most established religions, including most Christian religions, Judaism and Islam differ. In Judaism life begins after birth with the first breath. Islam believes that abortion in the first 4 months of pregnancy is allowable. So this ruling imposes a religious belief that is quite different from most religions practiced in this nation. A belief that did not exist prior to Roe v Wade becoming a right wing cause celebre. These “justices” are ignoring this nations foundational religious freedom by imposing their peculiar religious belief on everyone, and should be shamed into resignation based upon the scorn of the nation.
Thirdly, several of the “justices” who have supported this revelation swore under oath that they believed that Roe V Wade was settled law, and that they would do nothing to interfere with that legal viewpoint. Thus, at this moment, those “justices” have committed perjury, and should be indicted, tried and convicted, sentenced and suffer loss of their law license. That should be enough to inspire a resignation, if it doesn’t we can watch them attempt to sit in judgement from their jail cells.
I’m pretty steamed… these people have no right to the title of “justice”.
So with the death of privacy as a substantive due process right, maybe laws that have the men put some skin in the game are in order? How about mandatory child support based on current DNA technology? Surely the state will have a compelling interest in seeing the care of these forced births are financially supported, so collecting the DNA at birth or a forced DNA registration should be easy peasy? Checking into a cheap motel, just spit into a tube!
The possibilities are indeed frightening. Game them out, Justice Thomas already told us what he is willing to go for. These issues transcend the economic pains of the moment for many, make them relevant to the fathers of daughters, young men not ready to support a family but still have a vote. Get them all registered to vote, start conversations with other citizens. Build movements locally. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
Ironic Chef
Alito wrote that Rowe – which has been upheld multiple times by multiple Supreme Court justices over 50 years – was egregiously wrong when it was decided. If that’s true, it’s hard to figure out why any precedent should be given respect. What’s stopping us from concluding that so many other decisions were egregiously wrong too, and that the justices just haven’t figured it out yet?
Roberts knows what this will do to the Court’s institutional credibility. That’s why he would have upheld the Mississippi law but left Rowe/Casey alone. It would have been possible, as he explained, to uphold a 15-week ban but leave Rowe/Casey intact. One may not agree with that reasoning, but at least it’s not as likely to destroy what little credibility the court has left.
Alito and the others in the majority presumably know what this will do to the Court’s credibility too, but they don’t care. For them, this is about having power and using it fully.
I used to think Rowe/Casey would have been safer if they’d been anchored in equal protection (as RBG advocated as a lawyer) or the Ninth Amendment (as an aside, why is this amendment virtually nonexistent as a factor in anything?). However, after reading Alito’s screed, I don’t think it would have made a whit of difference. Those justices were put on the Court to nullify abortion rights,and they damn well were going to do what they were going to do.
Roe.
Indeed, thanks.
Alito opined that Roe had been “egregiously decided” and had resulted in great division within our nation. Sammy has always been interested in uniting our nation. We see that in all of his decisions!
Isn’t it time for a broad national discussion about which un-enumerated rights the Ninth Amendment was meant to protect?
“Those justices were put on the Court to nullify abortion rights,and they damn well were going to do what they were going to do.”
Not to mention a sizeable to do list to come.
So…What could some unintended consequences (from perspective of five members of the GO6) be?
Take a big federal enterprise.
DoD has a significant interest in the well-being and availability of several categories of workforce: Military personnel; military dependents; DoD civilian personnel and dependents; DoD contractors and dependents; and individuals and centers engaged in research and analysis for DoD (think universities and non-profit entities).
How far can the Executive Branch go, on its own authority, to ensure that adequate reproductive health services are available? Providing those services could include providing capabilities on federal property, providing access and logistical support to individuals needing to access those services in “friendly” states, relocating bases and infrastructure, language in commercial contracts, or as a factor when evaluating new DoD locations or scheduled moves (e.g. Space Command’s potential move from Colorado to Alabama).
Legislation to implement this is unlikely, especially on the Senate side. But attempts by Congress to stop Executive Branch moves would need to be veto-proof at least until early 2025.
So…What could some unintended consequences (from perspective of five members of the GO6) be?
Take a big federal enterprise…
DoD has a significant interest in the well-being and availability of several categories of workforce: Military personnel; military dependents; DoD civilian personnel and dependents; DoD contractors and dependents; and individuals and centers engaged in research and analysis for DoD (think universities and non-profit entities).
How far can the Executive Branch go, on its own authority, to ensure that adequate reproductive health services are available? Providing those services could include providing capabilities on federal property, providing access and logistical support to individuals needing to access those services in “friendly” states, relocating bases and infrastructure, language in commercial contracts, or as a factor when evaluating new DoD locations or scheduled moves (e.g. Space Command’s potential move from Colorado to Alabama).
Legislation to implement this is unlikely, especially on the Senate side. But attempts by Congress to stop Executive Branch moves would need to be veto-proof at least until early 2025.
A discussion from last night that might interest some:
https://www.aspenideas.org/sessions/breaking-news-session-the-impact-of-roe-v-wade-overturned
Participants:
Elizabeth Cohen – Senior Medical Correspondent for CNN
Paula Johnson – President of Wellesley College
Katie Keith – Director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University
Ashley Kirzinger – Director of Survey Methodology at the Kaiser Family Foundation
Alina Salganicoff – Senior Vice President and Director at the Kaiser Family Foundation
Linda Villarosa – Contributing Writer at The New York Times Magazine
Steve Vladeck – Chair in Federal Courts at University of Texas School of Law
The actual discussion starts about 5:30 minutes into the video
Coup Clucks Clan
All decked out in chains & leathers,
Clarence & Amy revel in tethers,
Neil & Brett join in get-togethers,
buttery males our bellwethers.
As we near the 4th of July,
with brains the size of a tsetse fly,
Uncle Sammy set loose his drive by,
Supremely proud was this wise guy.
He doesn’t care that he’s an out liar,
and can’t see how this may backfire,
He just wants to fill a sadistic desire,
like any other vulgar vampire.
And as voices rise in a hue and cry,
He smirks at how he can decertify
anything that might underlie
rule of law that he lives to misapply.
John was set up as the fixer
but got lost in his own elixir,
His feeble attempt to do a nixer
couldn’t contend with this fascist mixer.
Something’s gone completely berserk
with this judicial neural network,
It’s contaminated with a sickly Quirk
that only knows how to do a knee jerk.
Feathers go well with peanut butter,
Grin & Barrett as we shudder,
AI is not sentient but it can mutter,
just like a textualist or originalist nutter.
https://theconversation.com/googles-powerful-ai-spotlights-a-human-cognitive-glitch-mistaking-fluent-speech-for-fluent-thought-185099
“Mistaking fluent speech for fluent thought”
Re: AI and scarecrows, John A and Clarence T singing from the Wizard of Oz:
I could while away the hours
Conferrin’ with FedSoc powers
About how to bring the pain.
And my head I’d be a scratchin’
While the pain is busy hatchin’
If I only had a brain.
I’d unravel ev’ry lib riddle for my
fellow court individdles
To help them cause more pain.
With the thoughts that they’ll be thinkin’
They could even shit on Lincoln
If they only had a brain.
Oh, I could tell you why
we hate women and the poor.
I could think of things to repeal
That I’d never thunk before.
And then sit down and repeal some more.
I would not be just a muffin,
My head full of textualist stuffin’,
My heart joyous at the pain.
Perhaps I could kiss me,
Hug, rub, and slurp me,
If I only had a brain.
Apologies to Harold Arlen and Yip Harburg
Sorry, I meant Sammy A and Clarence T
Re: Emptywheel’s tweet about Ginni Thomas. It’s interesting. Just yesterday I sheepishly said to my wife that what if Clarence Thomas thinks his time on the SC is relatively short and he wants to push through the repeal of Roe, Griswald, etc before he exits. Reasoning being Ginni. Maybe to take some heat off her (‘The insurrection failed and I’m no longer on SC so what does it matter if I aided Ginni and Co?’)? Maybe to take heat off himself? (Same reason). My wife, who doesn’t follow this as closely as I do, said this was the first thing she thought of when she read Clarence’s remarks.
Don’t think his time is that short, and don’t think he will retire. Odds are Thomas is there for another decade at least.
I can’t imagine what it would take for him to leave. That would require something I don’t think he has in his character.
Sadly, yes. But if DeSantis gets elected, maybe. Short of that, nope.
Ya know I don’t know if anyone said this above, but it kinda seems that the spineless repubs are waiting for the dems to do their dirty work to over rule their freak wing. Just a thought that keeps recurring to me. And they can keep profiting off of them all.
Q for bmaz – I know you hate it when anyone here mentions RICO. What do you think of Atlanta’s gang indictment of the Young Slime Life gang which is apparently a RICO thing?
https://theintercept.com/2022/06/26/atlanta-gang-violence-music-young-thug/
The kind of thing, for once, RICO is actually designed for, although done under Georgia state law, not federal.
I remember a “Get well” card with a picture of a sexy nurse chasing a man in a medical gown around with a pair of scissors, while the doctor yells “Stop, nurse! I said ‘slip off his spectacles’!”
Somhow that seems appropos for this moment in history.
Perhaps someone has raised this point already, but with regard to a woman’s right to abortion shouldn’t a physician’s Hippocratic Oath take precedence over a Supreme Court ruling, especially if the Court is willing to reverse its own 50-year-old decision on abortion whereas the Hippocratic Oath, in some form, has been around for over 2,000 years? I saw the story on Rayne’s twitter feed where a nurse told of how a woman with a life-threatening ectopic pregnancy was forced to wait nine hours for treatment because, due to the end of Roe v. Wade, the surgeon felt the need to consult with a lawyer before performing the required operation.
Situations are often more complex than they first appear and taking a quick look at the history of the Hippocratic Oath I found that, even in the ancient world, there was uncertainty about the Oath’s position on contraceptives and abortion. But setting that aside, I don’t see why the health of the patient–in this particular case, the woman with the ectopic pregnancy–shouldn’t take precedence over all other considerations, even a Supreme Court ruling. Do not death row inmates continue to receive medical care even though they’re scheduled to be executed? I’d like to think that, if I were in the above surgeon’s shoes, I would have carried out the surgery on the woman first and contacted the lawyer afterwards, but the Supreme Court should not be putting heathcare workers in the situation where they have to make such decisions.
To your point. This post is on Reddit now, I’m pasting the message and the link is to the original TikTok.
https://www.tiktok.com/@travelingnurse/video/7113507376388394282?_t=8TUKtsw3cXD&_r=1
A nurse sent this message to a nurse on TikTok who has a large platform:
I don’t have a platform so I can’t reach people like you can, but please share this! I work in (red state) on a small (garbled) floor. Our trigger laws went into effect immediately after the decision. ofc we had a woman walk in with an ectopic at 11:30pm last night. We had to basically sit on her until the doc could speak with a lawyer. Her ectopic RUPTURED. She then did not get her procedure done for another 9 hours because the doc was working with the lawyer for so long trying to work around the laws and not lose his license. By the time she had her procedure she had over 600cc of blood in her abdomen and she almost died. I am so scared of how often we as nurses are going to see things like this now and not be able to do a damn thing about it. We’re all livid at huddle tonight, several of my coworkers were in tears.
ofc = of course
Thanks for doing that!
Because the laws in some states make zero allowance for the life of the woman. She has fewer rights than the fetus even if the fetus isn’t viable or already dead.
The surgeon has other patients to serve in addition to this one patient in extremis. To allow themselves to be at risk over one patient means they may not be able to serve their other patients who may also be in extremis for other reasons.
It’s fucking grossly unfair but that’s the entire point: the GOP’s brand of conservatism doesn’t care about fairness.
The outcomes in Dobbs and Bruen are getting the attention they merit but keep your eye on West Virginia v. EPA when it comes down this week. I believe the potential of that case to hobble the authority of the administrative state is a marker of the true objective of the donor class of the Republican Party. Abortion rights and gun regulation were among the most conspicuous contents of the grab-bag of grievances assembled to pull together disparate constituencies and attract them into the Republican Party to drive the right-wing takeover of the judiciary and its crown jewel, the Supreme Court. The excitation of the base over its various issues masks the incoherence of and contradictions of the state – the bugbear of its nightmares – being handed legal authority over the bodies of half the population, with much, much more of the same to follow. These headline issues and their judicial “solution” have succeeded in setting in place the means to dismantle governmental authority to set limits on the accumulation, concentration and preservation of private wealth. This is the long-term project of the Republican donor class that lives in its bubble, unaffected by the grotty stuff that aggrieves the great unwashed and whose rage they manipulate in the great game they play among themselves.
Protest Sign:
He Who Hath not a Uterus should Shut the Fucketh Up.
Fallopians 13:13
Stephen Colbert – The Late Show
The Conservative Supreme Court Justices Sing “This Land Is My Land”
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZdMXoeCZ3Q)
What Will Be The Punishment For Illegal Abortions? | How To Know If You Still Have Rights
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L66aPRQQ9AQ)