@BenKMoss pic.twitter.com/Pa8MHv6Bmt
— Ben Moss (@BenKMoss) June 27, 2016
When SCOTUS struck down Texas’ HB2 regulations yesterday, Richard Mayhew predicted “A lot more from lawyers later.” Here’s a couple of respected legal analysts. Linda Greenhouse, in the NYTimes, “The Facts Win Out on Abortion“:
… There is no poetry in the 40-page opinion, which strikes down a Texas law that would have closed most abortion clinics in the state in the name of protecting women’s health. The dry, almost clinical tone could scarcely be more different from the meditative mood the Supreme Court struck the last time it stood up for abortion rights, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 24 years ago this week. “Liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt” was Justice Anthony M. Kennedy’s mysterious opening line in that opinion…
Although nearly one-third of American women will have an abortion in their lifetime, a goal of abortion opponents has been to carve out abortion practice from ordinary health care, to ghettoize and delegitimize it. Those days are now over, too. Singling out abortion for regulation that can’t be justified on medical grounds is unacceptable, as Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg emphasized in a concurring opinion.
When I first read Justice Breyer’s opinion, my sense of relief struggled against a feeling that something nonetheless was missing: not necessarily the aspirational rhetoric of the Casey decision but some explicit acknowledgment of what it means to women’s equality and dignity not to be trapped in an unwanted pregnancy.
Then I realized that while the court in Casey called upon “the contending sides of a national controversy to end their national division by accepting a common mandate rooted in the Constitution,” it didn’t really work out. Maybe, after all, this is not a moment for poetry, but for facts. There’s not much in Justice Breyer’s opinion that’s quotable. But there’s not much that’s debatable either, and that’s what matters.
Linda Hirshman, in the Washington Post, “How Ruth Bader Ginsburg just won the next abortion fight”:
She has written into law the factual finding that abortion is safe.
… The strategy of purporting to help women, which has, until today, been stunningly successful, started with the attack on so-called “partial birth abortion” in 1995. It reached its high water mark with Justice Anthony Kennedy’s hotly contested 5-to-4 decision upholding the restrictions on such procedures in Gonzales v. Carhart in 2007. Kennedy found medical disagreement about the safety advantages of the procedure. Importantly, he then deferred to the findings of the legislature that women would be safer and better off without partial birth abortion…… When the news broke that RBG was concurring, the initial reaction was puzzlement. Why would Ginsburg need to write separately from a pro-choice opinion by her liberal colleague Breyer? Looking at her concurrence, however, the explanation is clear.
The concurrence is less than two pages. She dismisses Texas’s argument about its interest in protecting “the health of women who experience complications from abortions,” by countering that “complications from an abortion are both rare and rarely dangerous.” She recites a laundry list of studies of how safe abortion is, and then she delivers the message: “So long as this Court adheres to Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U. S. 833 (1992), Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers laws like H. B. 2 that ‘do little or nothing for health, but rather strew impediments to abortion,’ Planned Parenthood of Wis., 806 F. 3d, at 921, cannot survive judicial inspection.” [Emphasis added.]She is writing into law the factual finding that abortion is safe, full stop. When the court turns to the Alabama law, with its “finding” that women need abortion to be restricted, she wants that future court to be able to cite to her opinion that they do not.
And finally, a healthcare provider, quoted in the NYTimes:
… Dr. Willie Parker, who as a roving doctor who performs abortions at two Alabama clinics in cities where he cannot obtain admitting privileges and at the one clinic in Mississippi, said with relief that the Texas decision was “a huge victory.”
After years in which ever more forceful anti-abortion laws spread in the South, he said, “now the chain reaction can go in the other direction.”…
rikyrah
Yeah!
Good Morning ?, Everyone ?
Baud
Yay! I vote Remain!
rikyrah
Noooooo
Not the Hamilton reference
BWA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA ???
rikyrah
RIP, Ms. Summit.
You were a giant.
Only 64.
Damn ????
JPL
@rikyrah: Yes she was a giant. RIP
Cermet
Now the real fights begin; first, the standard “But our law is different” arguments that takes months to finally be knocked down. Next, new regulations that throw a small bone towards this decision that again, takes months to knock down. Finally, regulations that attack all health care equally – making even minor procedures too costly – will get passed and have to be fought as people (males, this time) end up suffering all in the false flag of protecting women. If anyone thinks these fuckers will stop or even slow down, forget it. They are determined to create Sharia law here and Talibize our society.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
The Obama Court moves left
***
OzarkHillbilly
@Cermet:
They expect it to take 2 years to strike down Missouri’s law, the one on which the Texas law was modeled.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Too late!
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Thanks Obama!
qwerty42
@rikyrah: good morning, rickyrah.
Baud
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
The cases mentioned in the article are from the last term.
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
I’m concerned he isn’t focusing on a positive message.
Luthe
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Antonin Scalia: still dead, praise Goddess.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: Too late for Britain, not for Balloon Juice.
Patricia Kayden
@Cermet: And our side has to keep fighting back vigorously. Abortion is legal so we have that going for us. When President Clinton nominates a progressive Jistice to replace Scalia, and that person is confirmed, future attempts to dilute abortion access will be struck down. I don’t see how forced birthers can win this war.
TheMightyTrowel
@Luthe: i was skyping with my dad yesterday and he asked how mr. Trowel was coping with the brexit bollocks, we talked about brexit and Europe, about the various douchecanoes in power or wanting to be in the states, britain and oz and just as we were getting really grim he looked me right in the eye and said, ‘but at least Scalia is still dead.’
qwerty42
@Cermet: … They are determined to create Sharia law here and Talibize our society.
We will have to be just as determined to stop them. The RWNJs did not spring up in full force, they were slowly winning small elections for years without being noticed.
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden: 240 years too late.
Luthe
@Cermet: Next stop: getting laws against tele-medicine pharmaceutical abortions struck down.
Baud
@Luthe: Never heard of such laws.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: Didn’t know exiting BJ was up for a vote. Interesting.
Love how ABC Morning started with the Republican report on Benghazi, which of course goes after Secretary Clinton. As if that is anything but a witch hunt.
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: They need something. Although now GMA is onto Clinton/Warren.
Baud
Matt Dowd is the worst.
satby
Oh, here we all are! I was lost in the Oliver thread.
Good morning again!
Kay
Ugh. The only thing worse than pro-lifers who stalk women at abortion clinics are the smarmy, cooing “we love women” pro-lifers. I felt like I could identify them when I was pregnant and I just had no patience for the whole “mother and child on a greeting card” crowd. It felt much more basic to me, much more physical.
I always found practical people to be the most helpful when I was pregnant. I think that’s also true for caring for babies and small children. I’d much rather have RBG around in a bad situation than Kennedy, with his dithering and ridiculous flights of fancy. Just go away. Go write an essay on motherhood and ponder the meaning of life.
sherparick
Yep, I guess Ralph Nader, H.A. Goodman, Glenn Greenwald, and Thomas Frank, who I note are all upper middle class or higher white men, are right, that there is no difference between Republicans and “corporate” Democrats like Obama and Clinton and its “Bernie or Bust,” and heighten the contradictions NOT!!!
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
.
debbie
@Kay:
Just listened to one on NPR from the Susan B. Anthony organization. There should be a law against using the name of someone who would be totally against your purposes.
Yesterday, someone from Texas Right to Life said they would now focus on legislation protecting fetuses from pain. Fun times ahead.
satby
@rikyrah: “Complications of Alzheimer’s” at 64. Terrible. RIP
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Girl Power!
Cincinnati
(Photo #1)
(Photo #2)
(Photo #3)
OzarkHillbilly
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Just so!
Baud
@debbie: We should start the Ronald Reagan Foundation for Choice.
debbie
@Baud:
Ha! Their pointy little heads would explode!
satby
@Baud: I say we do it!
Jeffro
@debbie:
I’d like to get to a point where every reporter’s follow-up question to statements like that is, “Is your group interested in increasing women’s educational opportunities and access to birth control? Because those two have been proven to decrease unwanted pregnancies and therefore decrease abortions.”
Also, I’d like a pony.
Kay
@debbie:
I was older when I had my youngest child and you wouldn’t believe what strangers think they can say to pregnant women. They feel they can just put their entire philosophy on you in the grocery store. “Get away from me- I’m not a member of whatever club you’re in and I don’t care about whatever ax you’re grinding”.
Does Texas have special rules regarding the relative safety of any other medical procedures? Are they protecting any men from making unsafe medical decisions or are we just the lucky recipients of all this phony “caring”?
They should go make themselves useful. Poor women always need disposable diapers. Stop paying Federalist Society lawyers and buy some diapers.
Richard Mayhew
@Cermet: that would involve real money as on a risk adjusted basis laws that target similar risk profiles to abortion. Would be laws that target basically everything more involved than putting Band-Aids on Boo-boos
debbie
@Jeffro:
Planned Parenthood keeps pointing out that more than 90% of funding goes to women’s health and education. Anti-choice groups always point out there are other clinics, but I have yet to hear them respond to the bit about education.
rikyrah
@Kay:
Kay,
I was wondering if you are going to front page and discuss the Supreme Court ruling on wages for health care workers?
Jeffro
@satby: Please do it, and be sure to send us all a link so we can donate. Heck, I might not even wait – that one’s good enough to have printed up on a t-shirt.
Wait…now there’s a potential gold mine…head-splodin’ progressive t-shirts…”Ronald Reagan Foundation for Choice”…”Norquist Tax Enforcement Agency”…”Nugent Fans for Firearm Sanity”…ok, that last one is a stretch but still…
BillinGlendaleCA
Lets see if this works. Since no one wanted my old computer, I decided to turn it into a Hackintosh. Balloon Juice looks a bit different on a “Mac”.
RIP to Coach Summit.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
Girl Power!
Part II
(Photo #1)
(Photo #2)
(Photo #3)
rikyrah
@Kay:
You are so right about those smarmy muthaphuckas.
debbie
@Kay:
You saw this, right?
I drove by a clinic last week and protesters were swarming all over the sidewalk surrounding the building. This law can’t start soon enough for me.
satby
@Jeffro: Yeah, the fact that they don’t care about preventing pregnancy in the first place is the tell that it’s not really about the precious baybees.
The Right to Life movement was also founded on racism, because in the 1970s it was all about how better educated white women were more likely to get abortions and poorer, browner women more likely to carry their pregnancies to term. And that birth rate disparity would leave whites a minority. They openly said those kinds of things back then and most of them still believe it today.
Baud
Ugh. Nancy Grace is saying something sensible on GMA. I need a shower.
rikyrah
@debbie:
Remember the bullshyt in Louisiana when they wanted to defund Planned Parenthood, and they gave the judge a bullshyt list of all the “alternative ” providers to PP, and thought that the judge would just take them at their word?
They had dentists, and other unqualified providers. The judge called them on their shyt. Made them redo the list and come back.
Original list had a couple of thousand listed . Final list of qualified alternative providers was under 50- FOR THE ENTIRE STATE
Kay
@rikyrah:
I am busy at work (which is good!) so I generally just comment. I’m not really a good “blogger” because I write really long and then it takes me forever to edit. I’m not fast enough – it was never natural to me, like I think it is for some people.
I also have to figure out how to turn the comments on in the new format. AL will help me if I email her- she’s always been really helpful explaining Word Press to me :)
Patricia Kayden
@Kay: Pro-lifers have made it pretty clear that they love the fetus but couldn’t care less about the baby. That’s probably why they come off as fake. Plus the whole “you’re the one who is pregnant, but we know what’s best for you” is nauseating. Let women make decisions about their own bodies and mind your business.
I know what would happen to me if I stood outside of a gun shop and tried to interfere with someone trying to buy guns. I don’t see why women have to be subjected to interfering protesters when exercising their rights to a safe abortion.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud:
Or a stiff drink.
Jeffro
@debbie:
Also, while I am dreaming of a world where reporters ask sensible follow-up questions and people wear “Nugent Fans for Fiream Sanity” t-shirts, I’d also like an organization – Media Matters, I may be looking in your direction – to publish lists of right-wing organizations with deceitful names and do PSA-type campaigns on a regular basis. List the name, list what the organization is REALLY up to, and list its left-wing opposition (maybe even with a donation link).
Heck, every Dem running for office, from President to dog-catcher, could help themselves and the party out by adding a small blurb or URL on all of his/her campaign materials – “For a complete list of right-wing front organizations with lovely sounding names and horrible agendas, go to ________”
Kay
@Patricia Kayden:
I think given their druthers they will choose the baby over the woman every time. I think they’ve proved that in the numerous cases where they were willing to let women die in crisis pregnancy and birth situations. That’s very real to me, having had babies. I don’t trust them.
I just don’t want them involved in my medical care. I don’t want their religious and philosophical overlay put on me- I don’t think it’s fair. I can’t even describe how intrusive it feels to me- I cannot imagine imposing that on someone else.
debbie
Between this and the ruling on affirmative action, it’s been a pretty decent session. How fast must Scalia be spinning about now?
randy khan
@satby:
Terrible, indeed. I know Geno Auriemma will end up with the most championships, but she always will be the most important women’s basketball coach, and the disease robbed her and us of years of her steely-eyed glare. I hate it.
OzarkHillbilly
Head? Meet desk:
Oh, well in that case….
Jeffro
@debbie:
I’m surprised PP doesn’t have some sort of counter to this – not counter-protestors, but a simple pop-up stand or sign to erect next to any clinic that has protestors at it. Any day there’s even 1 protestor, you put up the sign. The sign could just say “Support women’s health and rights? Tired of harassment by the Right? Text 12345 to donate $10 to your local PP” or “Text 12345 to donate $1 per protestor you see here”
Baud
@Kay:
Wasn’t it only a little while ago that some in the GOP were taking on the life of the mother exception?
debbie
@Jeffro:
They’d rip it down. They’re pretty boisterous.
Jeffro
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s pretty innovative, you have to admit. We’re going to cut taxes on rich people by $12T, unless we aren’t, in which case we won’t. But we might.
The Thin Black Duke
@OzarkHillbilly: “Tell your stupid facts to shut up.”
Jeffro
@debbie: Have the clinic aim a camera at it, have the ‘vandal’ arrested and charged after the fact – arrest goes on their record, they have to pay a fine and restitution. Lather, rinse, repeat.
David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch
@Baud: why not – as governor, real life reagan signed the most liberal pro choice law in the US
I hope
CerseiHillary has a rye sense of humor and names immigration reform the “ronald reagan amnesty act of 2017”germy
The “Yes Men” group fooled an audience at the Reagan library (at least at the beginning) with their “Share The Safety” campaign.
Buy a gun, and a second gun is donated to a deserving person in the inner-city!
Just like Tom’s Shoes!
Iowa Old Lady
The people writing these laws turn around the next day and complain about the government interfering in their lives. They astound me.
OzarkHillbilly
@Kay:
Not to mention unconstitutional.
Chyron HR
@debbie:
Can foetuses hear Fox News in the womb? If so, I know a good place to start.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: Slogans > numbers.
Patricia Kayden
@OzarkHillbilly: What evidence do we have that Trump will stick to his neutrality plan? He is about to change his “ban all Muslims” plan to be more presidential. The man changes his mind like I change underwear. Trump has given no evidence that he’s someone whose word should be trusted so Navarro is being naive to give any credit to Trump’s so-called neutrality plan.
Iowa Old Lady
At an Atlanta rally yesterday, Trump said Belgium is a beautiful “city.”
Baud
@Patricia Kayden: What part of “believe me” is confusing to you?
Jeffro
@Iowa Old Lady:
He really is Palin in a suit, isn’t he?
OzarkHillbilly
@Patricia Kayden:
Navarro isn’t being naive, he’s being paid. He is Trump’s economic advisor.
Gotta go see a Doc. Y’all play nice now, ya heah?
Kay
@Baud:
They take apart “health of the woman” exception because they equate women with infants. They think we are being coddled- they need serious bodily injury or organ failure or we’re just whining. I just cannot describe how offensive I find this whole line of inquiry. It goes back to archaic ideas about how women are not reliable as to their own condition. How fucking dare they second guess an adult on the shape she’s in. John McCain does this absolutely outrageous wave of the hand regarding women’s mental health thus the insistence on organ failure and near death. That goes back to the 12th century. Women were not considered reliable witnesses- they needed oversight and review. There’s so much harshness underneath the sappy sentimentality about women. It rings false. I don’t believe it and I reject the idea that I need them to guide me through a pregnancy. No, I do not. I picked my team- the people I trust. They’re not on it.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: The part where the “believe me” comes out of Trump’s big mouth.
@debbie: Wow. They just don’t give up, do they? In their world, abortions just cannot be legal because there is no way to square protecting fetuses from “pain” and abortion rights.
Baud
@Kay: Now you’re just being hysterical.
gogol's wife
@rikyrah:
Best meme yet!!!!
Bobby Thomson
Work!
MomSense
@Iowa Old Lady:
There was a state rep from Texas who said that the Repubs want a government sooo small it can fit inside your uterus.
Best description of this bullshit yet.
Baud
raven
@Iowa Old Lady: Minor point, that was not yesterday.
Elmo
I lived in East TN from 2003-2011, and my then-boss was acquainted with Coach Summitt. God what a loss. That glare was a thing to be treasured.
Loviatar
@rikyrah:
Damm.
Pat Summitt was one of my sports heroes. She’ll be missed.
She was one hell of a role model growing up in the 70s, and 80s. I was so pissed when Geno Auriemma started winning in the 90s, I lost so much money betting against UConn when they played Tenn. -lol-
I must be getting old, the towering figures who comprised my music, culture and sports youth are dying.
The Thin Black Duke
@Baud: No, but two more Supreme Court justices might.
Baud
@The Thin Black Duke: Yep. And fix a lot of other things too.
Jeff Spender
@The Thin Black Duke: The one argument that a Bernie or Buster has literally no argument against so far as I’ve been able to prod out of them is the composition of the SCOTUS.
They have a long list of excuses. Oh, yes. But no counter arguments.
Patricia Kayden
@Baud: True but this decision is moving us in the right direction.
Baud
Buddy Ryan is also dead.
Kay
So one of my hobbies is reading a poll like this and then checking Donald Trump’s Twitter. Bad polls drive him crazy. The only thing better is “double digit”. I hope he lashes out again :)
Baud
@Kay: He’ll be all Benghazi today.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@Cermet: Some Teabagger was part of a Nina Totenberg story about the decision on NPR yesterday. He said, explicitly, that they were going to go after “fetal pain” now and try to outlaw various abortion procedures that way. As you say, it will go on for years.
The only way to end the continuing battles over abortion rights is to vote-in sensible people in every election. We can’t ever get complacent.
As J.S. Mill (not Burke) said:
– Wikiquote
(Emphasis added.)
Cheers,
Scott.
BruceFromOhio
@OzarkHillbilly:
It works because I SAY SO.
philadelphialawyer
“She has written into law the factual finding that abortion is safe.”
Strictly speaking, what RBG wrote in her concurrence is not really “the law.” Breyer’s opinion for the Court is the law. RBG’s concurrence (which no other Justice joined) is just her opinion, her characterization of what was going on.
“She is writing into law the factual finding that abortion is safe, full stop.”
Again, that “factual finding” (if that is what it is), has NOT been written into “the law.”
“When the court turns to the Alabama law, with its ‘finding’ that women need abortion to be restricted, she wants that future court to be able to cite to her opinion that they do not.”
The future Court can, of course, cite her opinion, if it wants to. But, sad to say, Breyer’s opinion for the Court in this case actually leaves a lot of wiggle room for accepting the “findings” of a smarter legislature. Texas did not even bother with factual findings, and Breyer stresses that failure in his opinion.
I think RBG’s pithy and entirely accurate summary of the phoniness of the whole “protect the woman” argument is right on, and well done. But it doesn’t mean that five justices have accepted it.
Kay
@debbie:
I feel like there’s a basic right to medical privacy that should bar anyone from “surrounding” anyone else going into any clinic.
I feel like camping out in front of the medical group here and just wandering up to people and “counseling” them. Let’s see how much men like it. “What’s up with you? Are you going to the doctor, Judge? I hope it’s not substance abuse, or God forbid a sexually-transmitted disease” My gut response is not legal- it’s like “the nerve of these people!”
Kay
@Baud:
I haven’t heard one word about Benghazi from one actual voter. I always felt like it was a DC thing and I still do. The part that amazes me is how they’re still flogging it- all of them. They never found jack shit- nothing- but that doesn’t matter. Jake Tapper will insist there “are questions” until they cart him off the set. He had a chance to ask questions. He followed his own stupid theory which was based on nothing but a boilerplate “diplomat” statement from Rice which he trumped up into a scoop. If there WERE questions they blew it by focusing on Rice. Too late. Better luck next time.
philadelphialawyer
@Kay:
Totally agree, and I do think it is, or should be, at least, “legal.”
The First Amendment is more than flexible enough to allow a complete ban on protesting anywhere near a medical facility, like a PP clinic. First of all, street protests are not “pure speech,” they are speech plus action, and thus more subject to restrictions, particularly “time, place and manner” restrictions like this would be. Secondly, even the most clearly “political” of street protests, ie protesting not the decisions of individual, private persons, like women seeking PP care, but politicians doing what they do, which are supposedly at the heart of Free Speech doctrine, are routinely subject to “First Amendment zone” type restrictions. Want to protest what Congress or the President is doing? Guess what, you are NOT allowed to stand wherever you want to in proximity to the Capitol or the White House and yell and scream and act like an asshole. Why should a woman seeking care at a medical facility be MORE subject to the alleged First Amendment rights of protesters than elected officials entering and leaving public buildings?
greennotGreen
I have a question about the abortion rate of “one-third of women” in AL’s block quote. Is that the number of abortions divided by the number of adult women? In other words, does the “one-third” take into account that many women who’ve had abortions have more than one?
hovercraft
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch:
And that is why Scalia is still dead.
Good morning
rikyrah
@Kay:
they wouldn’t like it, Kay. Not one little bit.
rikyrah
Quick Takes: More Brexit Fallout
by Nancy LeTourneau
June 27, 2016 5:37 PM
POLITICAL ANIMAL BLOG
* Apparently British Labour Party MP’s are not happy with their leader Jeremy Corbyn.
At an extraordinary meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party in the House of Commons Monday, Jeremy Corbyn fought for his political life.
MP after MP lined up to attack the Labour leader and demand his immediate resignation, according to several MPs who were at the meeting. Corbyn point blank refused…
The Labour Party now faces an internal constitutional crisis, unable to remove a leader his MPs will not serve.
MPs emerged shell-shocked from the meeting, and told POLITICO they were contemplating the very real possibility that it will have to split. The Parliamentary Labour Party is now considering electing its own leader in a move which would essentially create a separate party. This nuclear option is being referred to by MPs as a “universal declaration of independence.”
* Here is some fallout from the Brexit vote that isn’t getting enough attention:
Despite being an issue that knows no borders, affects all, and is of vital interest to future generations, the environment was low on the agenda ahead of the United Kingdom’s historic vote to leave the European Union.
The short answer to what happens next with pollution, wildlife, farming, green energy, climate change and more is we don’t know—we are in uncharted territory. But all the indications—from the “red-tape” slashing desires of the Brexiters to the judgment of environmental professionals—are that the protections for our environment will get weaker.
There is one immediate impact though, right here, right now: The crashing financial markets will damage the huge investments needed to create a cleaner and safer environment and will dent the nation’s fast-growing green economy, one economic sector where the UK could lead.
rikyrah
There’s no other way to put this:
He’s just a phucking embarrassment.
………………………
Justice Thomas Passionately Argues That Convicted Domestic Abusers Need Easier Access To Guns
BY LAUREL RAYMOND
JUN 27, 2016 2:25 PM
Today the Supreme Court handed down two decisions: The first is a monumental, headline-grabbing defeat for anti-abortion groups. The second is a highly technical case about gun rights that’s being mostly overlooked.
In the dissenting opinion for the latter case, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas argues that convicted domestic abusers have been defrauded of their right to deadly weapons.
At-issue in Voisine v. United States is a technical question of whether two men with convictions for “reckless” domestic assault fall under a federal law prohibiting people convicted of a “misdemeanor crime of domestic violence” from possessing a firearm. The law prohibiting domestic abusers from possessing firearms wasn’t the question under discussion — instead, the question was how far that law reached over certain states’ differing domestic assault laws.
Justice Thomas, however, was very concerned in arguments about the broader law that domestic abusers at large can’t have guns — breaking 10 years of silence on the Court to complain at arguments in February.
Anonymous At Work
What were are seeing is the divergence of the words used to defend Republican policies and the underlying facts that can defend them. Even more so than usual. The Supreme Court is in the balance, though, because some of the justices look at the words and some look at the facts, and there isn’t an “Owner’s Manual” for which approach must be used.
rikyrah
The Supreme Court’s Abortion Decision Is An Unmitigated Disaster For Abortion Opponents
BY IAN MILLHISER
JUN 27, 2016 11:50 AM
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt is a beat down of Texas’ anti-abortion law HB 2. Justice Stephen Breyer’s majority opinion piles facts upon evidence upon statistics to demolish Texas’ supposed justification for the law. At one point, Breyer even damns the law with words uttered by Texas’ own attorney. By the end of the opinion, it is surprising that Breyer did not finish with the two words “HULK SMASH!”
Even more significantly, Whole Woman’s Health leaves the right to an abortion on much stronger footing than it stood on before this decision was handed down. It’s difficult to exaggerate just how awesomely anti-abortion advocates erred in urging Texas to pass HB 2 in the first place. This law was supposed to provide those advocates with a vehicle to drain what life remains in Roe v. Wade. Instead, reproductive freedom is stronger today than it has been at any point in nearly a decade.
HB 2, and the litigation strategy used to defend it, took advantage of an apparent contradiction in the Court’s abortion jurisprudence. Roe itself held that the “State has a legitimate interest in seeing to it that abortion, like any other medical procedure, is performed under circumstances that insure maximum safety for the patient.” More recently, in 2007’s Gonzales v. Carhart, a 5-4 Court held that lawmakers enjoy “wide discretion to pass legislation in areas where there is medical and scientific uncertainty.” The question in Whole Woman’s Health was whether a state could enact a sham health law that did little to advance women’s health and a great deal to shut down abortion clinics, and then claim that enough “medical and scientific uncertainty” exists to permit such a law to stand.
rikyrah
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
So now, ‘fetal pain’ would become more important than the mother.
uh huh.
SiubhanDuinne
@Iowa Old Lady:
Not to be picky, but that was two weeks ago, not yesterday.
rikyrah
@Patricia Kayden:
When they try and rationalize why the woman who was RAPED should be forced to carry that baby….
they sicken me.
they really do.
hovercraft
@Iowa Old Lady:
The regulations they don’t like are the ones that affect them silly, abortion laws are to protect the innocent, like little ladies who know not what they do and precious babies. It’s important to protect women from the choices they want to make and those wrong headed inclinations they may have to work and be independent.
rikyrah
@Kay:
tell it, Kay.
TELL IT!!!!
Betty Cracker
@Kay: Excellent point. HIPAA regs compel individuals and companies of all types to take extraordinary measures to protect patient privacy, and yet these fetus fetishist assholes routinely insert themselves into people’s medical business uninvited.
philadelphialawyer
@greennotGreen:
“I have a question about the abortion rate of “one-third of women” in AL’s block quote. Is that the number of abortions divided by the number of adult women?”
No, it is much more sophisticated than that.
“In other words, does the ‘one-third’ take into account that many women who’ve had abortions have more than one?”
Yes.
http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Fulltext/2011/06000/Changes_in_Abortion_Rates_Betweeen_2000_and_2008.14.aspx
hovercraft
@Patricia Kayden:
Drump surrogate was asked yesterday if his new terror nation ban would apply to France and Belgium and the answer was no those other countries where terrorists come from. I would like reporters to follow up with, shouldn’t the ban be on countries whose citizens have recently attacked the west, and if so why not France ?
Paul in KY
@Loviatar: Coach Summitt disliked Geno as much as you did.
Paul in KY
@rikyrah: That is an evil thought: That a raped woman has to carry to term the fetus of her rapist.
We need to hilite that odious thought as much as possible when advertising against those asswipes.
Iowa Old Lady
@raven: Oops. When I saw the quote, I assumed he was reporting on his European vacation.
hovercraft
@rikyrah:
Can we disown him ? How about we refer to him as the overly tanned disgrace to his race. The meaness and lack of empathy of this man is staggering.
greennotGreen
@rikyrah: It’s actually more internally consistent for “pro-life” proponents to oppose abortion for rape victims if their purpose is to protect the life of an unborn child. If, however, the purpose is to punish the slut, then the rape victim may be excused. (Unless she was drunk which I think is the modern, “Well, look what she was wearing!” excuse.)
Gavin
http://neweconomicperspectives.org
This week is essential reading at the above link for anyone interested in a non-neoliberal interpretation of Brexit.
This link is home to Bill Black, lead prosecutor of the federal investigators who last shut down members of the elite – today known as the S&L crisis.
Patricia Kayden
@hovercraft: That would be a great question. If we had a functioning media, someone would have asked him once it became clear that he’s now backing off on banning all Muslims.
Iowa Old Lady
@greennotGreen: I also wonder about terminations of ectopic pregnancies, which many of the people trying to forbid abortion don’t put into that category.
Patricia Kayden
@rikyrah: If you put the life of the fetus above the life of a woman, I suppose it would be logical to ban rape under all circumstances unless the life of the woman is at stake. It sickens me that anyone feels that they have a right to control whether or not a woman decides to end a pregnancy. It’s as if forced birthers believe that women are not individuals with their own consciences and desires.
Kathleen
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: Thanks Bernie.
liberal
Yeah, and it would be marginally less important if that selfish egotist named RGB had resigned during Obama’s first term.
liberal
@rikyrah: no connections between the thalamus and neocortex, no pain. (It’s odd, to me at least, how late in fetal development those connections are made.)
liberal
@hovercraft: Uh, you guys should have thought of that a little bit earlier.
I know that, if we go by presidential elections, whites are statisically the ultimate dumbfucks, but there’s plenty of stupid to go around.
gene108
One thing that disappointed me about the recent abortion debate is when Trump said women having abortions should be punished, and everyone was aghast and he walked back his statement.
Women are already going to jail for abortions. The crime is not an abortion per se, but illegally obtaining abortifacients over the Internet, for example, i.e. an illegal drug purchase. Women do this because access to abortions has been restricted.
I wish someone would have pointed out these cases.
Iowa Old Lady
I’m listening to Maddow from last night and I hear words like “protect” women’s health and showing “compassion” for women from an advocate for abortion rights. I realize the govt does have some obligation to protect its citizens, and we should all feel compassion for others, but that vocabulary annoys me because it seems to infantalize women.
hovercraft
@liberal:
Stop trying to use ‘facts’ they are know to have a liberal bias. And anyway they will trot out their own ‘experts’ who will trot out their own theory. And then the Roberts court will declare that there is no consensus therefor fetal pain can be the basis for new restrictions.
The one positive is that regardless of the Turtles tantrums Hillary will appoint the still dead Scalia’s replacement.
scav
People, espcially men, in some states are allowed to kill actual adults without consequence if the feel threatened, but the little ladies can’t be trusted with decisions of such sort, not without the help of random nosy bystanders with an agenda. If abortions were performed with firearms, many ‘mercans would be protesting in the streets for more of them.
Iowa Old Lady
@hovercraft: It’s hard to believe the difference made by the death of one evil man.
Soprano2
I heard that interview with the pro-lifer on NPR this morning. Interviewers are usually woefully unprepared to counter their arguments. He kept talking about colonoscopies in doctor’s offices. I would have asked her if she thought everyone should have the same level of medical care for their procedures as the Texas legislature mandated for abortions. If not, why not? What about childbirth? The mortality rate for women giving birth is much higher than the mortality rate for abortions, yet it’s legal for women to give birth at home with absolutely no advanced medical care available. If they really care about women’s health and safety then shouldn’t they immediately begin lobbying for laws mandating that women giving birth be required to only give birth in a facility that is at least as good as the one they mandate for abortions? If no, why not? Don’t they care about the health and safety of the woman who is giving birth and the child she’s having? What’s wrong with them that they would insist that abortions are done in safer and healthier facilitiess than childbirth? They should put those people back on their heels about these ridiculous, transparent laws whose only purpose is to deny abortions to women. Instead he let her get away with the lie that abortion clinics are being closed all the time because they are unsafe, and the doctors who perform abortions are the bottom-of-the-barrel practitioners who are unsafe. *rolleyes*
ellie
@satby: Yes, let’s do this! I am on board.
Paul in KY
@Iowa Old Lady: You can damn guarantee that they’ve focus grouped that language, etc. etc.
hovercraft
@liberal:
Oh we all have plenty of stupid within our ranks, I am merely suggesting that as Thomas has now proved himself to be a blight on humanity, that we hide our shame by having him reclassified as something other than one of us. This is a man who is so shamed by the fact that his rise was facilitated by affirmative action that he has spent his entire career toadying up to the wingnuts to prove himself worthy. His inferiority complex has both cost and ruined the lives of countless people.
But yes we supported him when he was nominated, we also supported OJ, not our finest hours.
Paul in KY
@Iowa Old Lady: Anyone have any idea where he’s buried? Want to know so if I’m ever near there I can take a trip over & piss on his grave.
Corner Stone
This smarmy Trey Gowdy piece of garbage.
Paul in KY
@hovercraft: I didn’t support his antediluvian ass, nor did I support OJ. During the Anita Hill hearings I was generally cursing at the TV (and several Democratic senators too).
OJ, I could see where the prosecution was just woefully out lawyered & the freaking LAPD, grrrr, but I thought the jury wouldn’t want a dude capable of butchering 2 people out on the street. What if one of their daughters pissed him off?
burnspbesq
@OzarkHillbilly:
Perhaps. But there is no longer any reason for laws like that to ever go into effect. The second-order effect of Whole Women’s Health is that it is much easier now for folks challenging one of these ridiculous state laws to argue probable success on the merits, which is a key part of gettimg a preliminary injunction.
This comment is brought to you by the letters T, R, and O.
burnspbesq
“Still Bernie,” still delusional.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/27/still-sanders-activists-cling-to-hope-of-flipping-california/?wpisrc=nl_daily202&wpmm=1
Immanentize
@Baud: my guess is Garland will go through, Kennedy and Ginsburg will retire after one more year.
hovercraft
@Paul in KY:
Me neither, back then I was young and stupid, I had no idea what was going on I wasn’t even aware of the hearings. I was responding to the poll in @ liberal’s comment showing that the majority of black people supported his appointment. As for OJ I thought he did it from the get go, but I agree that the trail was a s**t show and the jury was right. All the proof you need to know that the jury got it right is that Mark Furman is a regular on FOX News, nough said.
Edit: young drunk college kid
wenchacha
Freakin’ Benghazi Investigation.
Corner Stone
@wenchacha: Tell me about it. I have it on mute and just looking at them I know all the lying lies they are spouting. What a bunch of hosers, eh.
Corner Stone
Granted that all male R congresspeople are dumb – but why do the female R congresspeople also seem really mean?
Elizabelle
@burnspbesq:
Tee hee. Them can be some fine letters you got there.
hovercraft
Herr Drump will be very angry From the WaPost
Grifters always gonna grift.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@David ?Canadian Anchor Baby? Koch: But but but everybody hates Hillary, my Facebook tells me so! /snark
Paul in KY
@hovercraft: See what you meant by your comment. I’ve certainly done a lot of stupid stuff & thought various stupid things in my time. Probably have some more before I shuffle off to the clearing at the end of the path.
Paul in KY
@Corner Stone: That’s how those women get elected, silly.
Immanentize
@rikyrah: or how about “21 Days of Protest” at a gun dealer. Create fliers with gun death statistics. Have pictures of the Sandy Hook kids. Headlines of toddlers shot to death playing with guns — nothing at all about mass murders —
And “counsel” every one who goes in. Explain the risks they are taking. Ask if they have ever had drugs or alcohol? Have they ever been charged with assault or domestic violence?
And if that isn’t getting through, people could through blood at the customers.
artem1s
I was in the camp that RBG should retire while Obama was still around to pick her successor. She made a pretty good case, IMO, when she explained that all those little bombs she left in her dissents were going to come in useful one day. And she wanted to contribute as much as she could while she could. Thank the FSM Notorious RBG knew better and was thinking about the long term. I have a feeling that lots and lots of lawyers arguing cases before SCOTUS over the next few decades, are going to be thanking RBG for paving the road all these years. Also,too Antonine Scalia is still dead MFs. :-)
Han
@Baud: Telemedicine
Bill
@rikyrah: Sotomayor joined him in this dissent. Although she didn’t joining him on the broader 2nd amendment argument. Still, it’s baffling.
Han
@Han: Can’t get the fucking link to work on my iPhone. Google “Iowa telemedicine abortion”. That only just got struck down last year, I don’t know if it’s being appealed or not.
sherparick
@Jeffro: Are about increasing taxes to pay for post-natal care and enrichment, day-care for working mothers, early child hood education, etc. if they are so interested on “saving the children” and “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness” that the want to force women to bear birth?
p.a.
Hope this thread isn’t running out of steam; this just wouldn’t be right to post in the thread above about the loss of a class person.
WaaaaaaaHaaaaaaaHaaaaaaaaHaaaaaaaaHaaaaaaaaaa
*choke* *gasp*. I just wet myself.
Let me tell you something, Jesus is a YUGE, CLASSY savior. There’s no better Messiah than Jesus, and my Trump brand means he’s just a SPECTACULAR savior.
sherparick
@Chyron HR: Again, “right to life” in Texas appears to end at birth. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-mom-who-killed-daughters-called-family-meeting-shootout-n599961
Also, funny about this story is that Justice Thomas has gone back to back in decisions with screeds about how trying to keep guns out of persons with a record of domestic violence is completely offensive to the 2d Amendment. He really is in the running every day for world’s worse person.
catclub
Washington Monthly had an article on how to escape brexit.
I noticed this bit:
They misspelled ‘effective liars’.
catclub
@p.a.: Tell Trump that pride is the first sin and humility is the first virtue. I guess he would say that he would be so humble it is amazing.
LAO
A reminder to all B-J NYers represented by Carolyn Maloney — there is a primary today so, get out and vote.
catclub
@hovercraft:
You have pointed out that Trump is actually not charitable. The next level of this is that all those rich people generally are only a half step better than Trump. They give to THEIR OWN charitable foundation rather than to actual charities. Do their own charities give that money away? Maybe.
There was another article on Vanguard and Fidelity ( and others) setting setting up accounts that are called charitable trusts, in which the money goes so the donor gets the deduction right away, but the money never gets to actual charitable organizations. Greedy bastards want to keep control and watch it grow. It is too painful to actually give it away. Unlike real charitable foundations, these trusts are not even required to give away some proportion ( usually about 5%) of their assets every year.
Greg
@germy:
Just need one liberal billionaire to announce that in 1 year, they’ll commit a few $100M to give one AR-15-class weapon free to any nonwhite registered to vote, unless federal gun control laws happen to regulate them. Just like Brexit, except it’ll work. Maybe. But fun to watch.
catclub
@Bill:
Taking away a (possibly) unrelated right because of a conviction for a crime sets a bad precedent. Folks here think that taking away the right
to vote from felons is not ok. I think this was Sotomayor’s bias in favor of defendants extending even to gun rights.
J R in WV
@greennotGreen:
And where did you get that precious datum that many women have more than one abortion?
Because I believe that very few women even have two abortions.
Unless you count the monthly lack of pregnancy caused by birth control medications, like the brain-washed religious nuts.
Emma
@Greg: OOOOH. Wouldn’t that be fun?
catclub
@Jeffro: Yep. Besides not knowing what the nuclear triad is, he did not know what Brexit was, either.
Paul in KY
@shomi: Weak sauce, shomi. You can do better.
gene108
@sherparick:
Why not start with free pre-natal care, so women don’t have miscarriages or complications from pregnancy.
There’s plenty that can be done, in 9 months, to improve health outcomes for women that don’t involve abortion.
J R in WV
@rikyrah:
Yes, or an ectopal tubal pregnancy, which will never result in a child, but only in a woman dead in agony. An aunt had one of those, thank god she got proper medical care….
p.a.
@catclub: I’m just surprised it took him this long. Of course there is the possibility that the liar Dobson is lying.
catclub
@p.a.: There is a phrase that Christians ‘are to be innocent as doves and wise as owls’.
I think Dobson translated that to ‘gullible as ducklings and greedy as Croesus’.
Mnemosyne
@sherparick:
The saddest part is that it’s an absolutely classic domestic violence story: the abusive spouse kills the kids to get back at the estranged spouse. The only twist is that it was the wife who was the murderer in this case (and even that isn’t that uncommon — only the use of the gun is).
Mnemosyne
@p.a.:
I can hear the conversation now:
Dobson: “Mr. Trump, do you accept the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior?”
Trump: “Yeah, sure, whatever.”
Dobson: “Praise Jesus!”
gene108
@catclub:
I think the difference between the voting rights argument and restricting gun ownership is that restricting voting rights does nothing to improve public safety, whereas restricting gun ownership for those with domestic abuse convictions may improve public safety. There’s nothing negative that’s being restricted or positive that’s being encouraged by restricting voting rights. There is a possible negative outcome that’s being restricted by limiting gun ownership to people convicted of domestic abuse.
And I do think rights get restricted, when public safety and general imposition on the public becomes an issue, such as requiring permits to protest.
Miss Bianca
So, tell me again how “selfish” it was for Notorious RBG not to retire…?
Paul in KY
@p.a.: If he said that to Dobson, I guarantee you Trump was lying.
Paul in KY
@Mnemosyne: ‘I love this Jeebus fellow! He’s so classy! Just like me!’
Miss Bianca
@rikyrah: “fetal pain” is, of course, a bogus issue. But anything to make life more painful for the pregnant woman who chooses not to become a mother.
boatboy_srq
@Patricia Kayden:
That is what they think. Plain and simple. They’re not just after Roe but Griswold and the 19th Amendment as well. This – that women and Those People aren’t entirely human and need Good Caucasian Xtian Men to guide them – is the foul glue that holds Tenthers, antichoicers, ammosexuals and racist/sexist ars3holes together in one single toxic stew.
Miss Bianca
@J R in WV: Actually not necessarily true – having worked in abortion clinics, I know we saw more than one woman who had more than two abortions. It’s not common, but it’s not uncommon either. (anecdata, take it in what sense thou wilt).
liberal
@hovercraft: fair enough. Good chatting with you.
liberal
@artem1s: sorry, but as a cost/benefit analysis goes, that’s just fucking stupid. The benefit of RBG over an Obama appointee is, in the big scheme of things, marginal. The risk (in early 2009) of her dying during a Republican admin elected in 2012 or 2016 was much higher than zero.
You’re either a foolish RBG groupie, or someone with zero intuitive feeling for risk and cost/benefit trade offs.
TriassicSands
@Cermet:
And the real fights will all have to deal with the outrageous dishonesty of Justices Alito, Roberts, and Thomas. Since they have shown they are willing to accept any rationale for curbing abortion, no matter how flimsy or even non-existent is the empirical support for that rationale, there will always be at least 3 votes to curb or overturn Roe v. Wade.
My first question for those three dishonest justices would be, were I able to ask them questions, “Which is more important in your opposition to abortion, your allegiance to the doctrines of the Catholic Church or your fealty to the radical right wing agenda you champion in your decisions?”
planetjanet
@burnspbesq: Within the next day or so, the number of uncounted ballots will be less than Clinton’s margin. With that, I hope this nonsense dies down. Right now there are 519,000 ballots unprocessed and Clinton leads by 417,376, per the CA SoS website.
Mnemosyne
@liberal:
Just out of curiosity, are you ever going to stop being enraged about a hypothetical situation that didn’t happen?
She’s still alive. The thing you say you feared didn’t actually happen. Get over it.
philadelphialawyer
@Bill:
Not really baffling. Thomas actually made a decent, technical argument that the Federal statute banning gun ownership was not triggered by the particular State misdemeanor domestic violence conviction at issue.
The Second Amendment stuff, which nobody else joined, was, of course, BS.
philadelphialawyer
@catclub:
I don’t think so. Sotomayor did not sign on to Thomas Second Amendment argument, but only to his construction of the Federal statue
SFAW
Was listening to “On Point” talking about the SCOTUS decision, one of the yakkers had clerked for Scalia — who is STILL DEAD, by the way — and is now a Prof at Vandy law school. A lot of thiat assholes whine was about how Kennedy decides based on his feelings, not the law, and he spent a lot of time talking about Kennedy’s “predilections.”
Now, I don’t have a lot of love for Kennedy, but someone should have pointed out to this moron that his love object, Scalia, for the last N years had based any number of his decisions on his political calculus, not any incisive or insightful reading of the Constitution. Kind of like Cardassian “justice”: first declare the defendant guilty, then hold the trial.
SFAW
@Mnemosyne:
You’re kidding, right? That’s like telling Trump to stop being a narcissistic asshole.
SFAW
@Miss Bianca:
Consider yourself told.
Although I’m sure “liberal” will be along to do so as well, in case he hasn’t already.
Corner Stone
@SFAW:
Wait, what?? Can someone confirm this for me and please check on Gen Franco as well?
Thanks
SFAW
@Corner Stone:
I’d have to ask Chevy Chase re: el Generalissimo, and I’m afraid Chevy and I are no longer on speaking terms.
Regarding Scalia: I’m pretty sure that I saw a news item that he had passed on, perhaps he was pining for the fjords a little TOO much?
One rumor I’m still trying to confirm: did Andy Breitbart die? I’m assuming so, because I sometimes see people refer to him as “Dead Andy Breitbart.”
mohagan
@Miss Bianca: I’ve had 2 abortions. I thought physical barriers were less intrusive to my body than hormonal fiddling, so I had an IUD inserted rather than taking the pill. I got pregnant twice with an IUD in place (this was in the late ’70s – early ’80s). Hopefully the new generations of IUDs work better!
pseudonymous in nc
The most significant part of yesterday’s ruling was that it sets a precedent that just because a state legislature made up of misogynists and mendacious muppets says a set of laws is “for women’s health” doesn’t make it true.