Russia has reached negative levels of self-awareness. https://t.co/qFvSnsHN7Y
— Slava Malamud ???? (@SlavaMalamud) May 1, 2022
my “we are definitely totally not the nazis” t-shirt has people asking a lot of questions already answered by my shirt https://t.co/CWTq2hjqIy
— GOLIKEHELLMACHINE (@golikehellmachi) May 1, 2022
Russians have long ago made it a national pastime to find Jewish origins in all people they don't like. So, naturally, espousing the "Hitler was a Jew" conspiracy theory was the logical next step. I am just surprised it's taken them so long to make it official. https://t.co/0UDSXq73Pe
— Slava Malamud ???? (@SlavaMalamud) May 1, 2022
I just want them to start hating the founder of Kievan Rus, Ryurik, so that he can become Isaac the Varangian, and we can have a real badass Viking Jew.
— Slava Malamud ???? (@SlavaMalamud) May 1, 2022
When my parents and I left the Soviet Union as refugees in 1980, we were told that our feet will never touch Soviet soil again. I guess the Kremlin waited more than four decades (and an unprovoked war against a former member state) to make it this official? ??????? https://t.co/FYnP3Nehhq
— Bianna Golodryga (@biannagolodryga) April 21, 2022
Russian oligarch bingo is crazier than US MAGA bingo. https://t.co/hHTcbA0T0w
— Rachel Vindman ?? (@natsechobbyist) April 27, 2022
Mindblowing conversation with an old friend in Ukraine. He was always pro-Russian to the point that when I spoke to him on the day of the invasion he said "Finally – everything is happening as it should".
His house is in an area that was close to being occupied in the early…
— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) April 27, 2022
– "People will not forgive the Russians for what they've done here. This wound will not heal for generations"
I was totally gobsmacked. He is the most stubborn person I've ever met (coming from me!) and he is a different man after 2 months of the war. ??????
— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) April 27, 2022
I've heard a lot of people in Ukraine say that Putin has done something Ukrainians have been struggling with for centuries: forged a nation.
I'm starting to think they're right.
— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) April 27, 2022
Increasingly convinced that Putin—the man who wants nothing more than to be seen as the figure restoring Russian empire—will be the one who ends up unraveling it instead. https://t.co/TQPWBeSItP
— Casey Michel ???? (@cjcmichel) April 29, 2022
trollhattan
Invasion by fucking monsters will do that to your outlook on life. Link carries trigger warning, level 9.
Elizabelle
Very interesting tweets. Thank you.
Perhaps helped Ukraine cement its status as an independent nation (and soon a NATO member). Also reminded the US what is at stake, WRT our own schlerotic democratic functions. (Not speaking of the party, one of whose leaders is Nancy “Badass” Smash Pelosi. The aged one. Right.)
Spanky
Yeah, things worked so well when Hitler took over the war, too.
trollhattan
Hi Georgia, can we talk about Kandiss Taylor, governor-hopeful?
I like how she pronounces schools “skulls.”
“Georgia: the Molest State” checks out as fitting on a license plate.
lowtechcyclist
When I first saw that pic, a couple of days ago, I had to look closely to make sure those weren’t actual swastikas on the armbands. They look like the graduating class from the Leni Riefenstahl School of Charm.
HinTN
That’s what happens when you give power to a mid-level bureaucrat.
Sure Lurkalot
@trollhattan:
So it was parents that molested their own children while the schools were closed? I thought it was the teachers who molest kids now that the schools are open.
I’m so confused.
trollhattan
@Sure Lurkalot:
Right?
“The parent-teacher association knows what they did.”
dr. bloor
I wonder if this will affect Israel’s recommendation to Ukraine that they just lie back and enjoy the inevitable?
HAAHHAAAHHAAHAHAAH sometimes I crack myself up.
Sure Lurkalot
@trollhattan:
Somebody needs to touch base with Mike Pompeo about the parent child molesters. Obviously, he doesn’t know what really happened.
NotMax
@Spanky
Not long after, when the realization became clear how inept he was in taking on that role, Churchill directly ordered the intelligence services to immediately cease crafting any plans for Adolf’s assassination. Took some time longer for the light bulb to illuminate in the recesses of the Kremlin, at which point Stalin did the same. Both came to the conclusion that leaving him in place was, tactically and strategically from a purely military staandpoint, a net plus for Allied efforts.
different-church-lady
Dunno — they’re acting self-aware as all hell with this shit.
different-church-lady
@Sure Lurkalot:
That also strikes me as self-awareness.
Jinchi
@Sure Lurkalot:
I wonder if Mike has spoken to Greg Abbott recently.
Another Scott
Unfortunately, if you believe Galeev’s long threads, it’s not just or even mostly VVP. It’s a whole, long, corrupt history of viewing states conquered by the Russian empire as being subhuman and having a duty to submit to Moscow.
His latest:
In particular:
That may be what it takes, but it’s hard to see it happening cleanly and peacefully. And I’m reluctant to accept that there’s no opposition to Putin that isn’t also a Russian imperialist in waiting.
Again, to be clear, I have no idea if his analysis is well accepted. It seems to be well supported, and it makes sense to my western eyes, but I’m no expert and there’s a ton of stuff tied up with the culture and history of these peoples that I could not even begin to understand. I appreciate him showing some of that complexity, even if I’m not quite willing to accept his conclusions.
Cheers,
Scott.
Dangerman
@trollhattan: We (and I mean that globally, perhaps even the Soviets) did a fine job in denazifying Germany.
Now we gotta do the same with Russia. Starting with War Crimes tribunals. I believe in a fair trial and appropriate justice being served (but if their Generals, et al, keep getting their tickets punched in theater, oh well).
Rumors of Putin going in for surgery (but have no reliable confirmation). Hope his Hospital Room doesn’t have high windows.
Mike in NC
Who the hell are those women supposed to be??? I read somewhere that Khaddafi had a unit of female bodyguards but that didn’t save his life. Are these Putin’s auxiliary SS Kremlin Stormtroopers?
Chacal Charles Calthrop
@trollhattan: I think there was a point when the good citizens of Montana, right after Kaczynski and a few other local crazies had been arrested, voted in favor of the license plate slogan: “Montana: Where You’re Wanted” (originally floated to encourage tourism).
The state didn’t choose it after the FBI allusion became widespread, despite the vote
It just went back to calling itself “the treasure state.”
zhena gogolia
@Another Scott: There are a lot of takes out there that are the ostensive definition of cherry picking.
Jinchi
From the Kameel Galaev thread:
Am I reading that right? Conscripts in the Russian Army don’t get paid?
NotMax
Trio of fast takes from one site.
lowtechcyclist
@Dangerman:
Who will bell the cat?
We (including our then-allies) won a complete and total victory over the Third Reich. We occupied the country.
Is Russia going to be on the receiving end of something like that? Like hell they are. They’re too big, and they’ve got nukes. End of story.
Leto
Russias plan for tortured Ukrainian POWs Copied Twitter thread on Imgur (so you don’t need a Twit account to view).
japa21
From Kisin’s tweet:
I don’t think that he means that Ukraine did not have a national identity before this, as I am sure G&T will be happy to confirm. But I do think that he means that, like a lot of countries, Ukraine had a lot of sectionalism and fractiousness. But most of that is now gone, hopefully not to recur post war.
This reminded me of something I have been thinking about in regard to Zelenskyy. This is specially true reading the Time article which reported on the first night and the ambitious Russian attempts to assassinate him. I think if the Russians had been successful at that time, it would have changed things in their favor dramatically.
I think if they were to succeed at getting rid of Zelenskyy now, it would do the opposite. At the beginning it would have been demoralizing. Now it would create even more of a determination, if that is possible, on the part of the Ukrainians. Before it would have been getting rid of a leader. Now it would be martyring a hero.
Needless to say, I have no desire for this theory to be put to the test. But he has done a magnificent job of bringing Ukraine, all factions, together and it can not be ripped asunder.
Kropacetic
@Sure Lurkalot: Everything comes back to child molestation now. All they have is demonization. People can’t seriously be buying this.
This is just too stupid and will likely harm the cause of actually protecting children.
JPL
OT Twitter is ablaze because the Supreme Court overturned Rod. Ruling was leaked because the cowards were hoping to soften the blow. I’m old enough to remember teen age girls using what ever means necessary to end a pregnancy, while often ending up in the hospital ICU. fkem
what’s next birth control?
PsiFighter37
Politico somehow got their hands on a draft SCOTUS opinion dated nearly 3 months ago that says that Roe and Casey will be fully overturned.
Not surprising, but still shocking – and hopefully will awaken enough of the youth vote to get out and vote this November. Still pretty pessimistic about that happening.
PsiFighter37
@JPL: Yes, that’s absolutely next on the list. Griswold is going to be next up on the chopping block.
Citizen_X
@NotMax: Ukrainian tractors will only fight for Ukraine! Glory to John Deere!
JPL
@PsiFighter37: for sure.. two birds with one stone. If there is no right to privacy, then the government is allowed to know who you are sleeping with.
debbie
@Leto:
Do you think the Ukrainian prisoners will comply?
NotMax
@Citizen_X
Deere prudence.
;)
Keith P.
@JPL: National abortion ban (everyone knows the states’ rights stuff was just BS to get the ball rolling)
MagdaInBlack
@NotMax: Ouch ?
debbie
@JPL:
On the one hand, it’s Politico; on the other, the opinion is said to be written by Alito. ??♀️
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Looks like Russian police cadets.
JPL
@Keith P.: fyi In the early seventies I taught for a few years in high school, and one of my students almost died from trying to abort a few cells. I hate these people. They could care less about life.
btw I fking hate these people.
Jeffro
Sorry, GQP, I guess y’all thought the mid-terms were going to be about (this spring’s Big Oil price-gouging) gas prices. Oops.
Between this SCOTUS/Roe news and the upcoming J6 hearings, (knockonwoodDemsdon’tfuckthisupforonce) the party of MTG, Alito, Putin, and treating women like chattel is going to destroy its own self.
Leto
@debbie: I honestly don’t know. Considering how the Russians are just killing everyone, regardless of status…
eversor
@PsiFighter37:
Conversely. Maybe this blow to things will finally force the Democrats to cave on what the youth want which is UBI, debt forgiveness, rent controls, lower college fees, green energy, and UHC?
Young people don’t vote because they know the gun of social issues is held to their head so they can’t get what they want on other things. As a child of the 80s that’s my group. And the thought has long since been that unless we are to say “fine, if we can’t get what we need bring on the hellscape till you feel it”.
I don’t think most people over a certain age get how willing “the youth” on both the left and the right are to burn the house down with them in it if they don’t get what they want.
If there is anything youth action expect violence not voting.
This is not the way I feel. But when I talk to people that is the overwhelming sentiment. Along with a feeling that civil war is coming and may be the only way to ever make progress.
debbie
This is the link to the article.
Lots of people think (tweeting) this will cost the GOP the midterms.
Another Scott
@NotMax: Yay John Deere!
I guess it’s true what DPRK_news said:
(Points to the same CNN story.)
Cheers,
Scott.
JPL
@debbie: apparently the court is in disarray.
Ohio Mom
The other day we drove down a street that’s had one of those pregnancy crisis centers for as long as I can remember, maybe twenty years?
Anyway, the storefront was empty and I wondered if they didn’t renew the lease because they figured they don’t need to be in business any longer.
debbie
@Leto:
Yeah, but Ukrainian pride?
Sure Lurkalot
@Kropacetic: Spot on.
Soprano2
@debbie: Neal Katyal thinks it’s legit, says it’s 60 pages and sounds like Alito’s writing. This has never happened before, a leak like that. Wonder if it was deliberate.
batgirl
Roe hasn’t been overturned yet. Alito is circulating his draft opinion. He needs to get 4 justices to sign on, which he very well might. This is the process. Justices circulate draft opinions looking to get other justices to sign on. This isn’t surprising. There has always been at minimum 2 votes to outright overturn Roe. We will know soon enough. A clerk must of leaked this.
Cameron
@PsiFighter37: As America’s greatist eschatological philosopher predicted: “Eh-de-eh-de-eh-de-eh-dat’s all, folks!”
debbie
@JPL:
Article says it’s the usual five suspects vs. the three libruls with Roberts as the unknown.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
I drove by a nearby PP. It was open, but there were no protesters. First time I’ve seen that.
Suzanne
Well, time to move.
JPL
@batgirl: It’s really a bad leak. We all knew it was going to happen but to leak the entire 60 pages showed that Roberts has no control over the court.
debbie
@Soprano2:
I assume someone just lost their career.
LAO
Well, I’m depressed. I expected Roe to fall but if Alito’s draft stands (and I believe it will) this is a real body blow.
ETA: And the damage this court will inflict on American society for the next 20 years is horrifying. I’m so pissed that the Democratic Party never made the Court central to its election plans like republicans have. I just fucking sick
JPL
@LAO: Glad to see you comment. Who leaked the report? Fitting justice would be a Roberts clerk
also to your edit, shoulda, coulda doesn’t work. It was the republicans that did this.
Another Scott
@JPL: Leah Litman was reading the tea leaves last week:
Thread:
Note all the caveats in the later part of the thread.
tl;dr – They’ve been after Roe for 30+ years and have a big enough majority now. We should not be shocked that they do it. Plus, as Kay reminds us, they gutted Roe in the Texas non-decision.
We knew this was coming. What matters next is how voters and legislatures respond.
Forward!
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@debbie: I’d refer you to the American POW experience during the Vietnam War. As we’re taught during POW training, there’s only so much a human can endure. You resist as long, as hard as you can, but there will be a breaking point. I just don’t know for those guys. In the patriotic version, every single one of them says, “Fuck you, Russian warship” and credits roll. In reality? Some might march, some might defy… the only thing I do know are that the Russians are fucking monsters.
debbie
@Suzanne:
Where to? ??♀️
LAO
@JPL: Hey there — I know I disappear for years at a time — nice to be seen. Who do you think leaked it? I actually think it came from the liberals although I can be convinced otherwise. I just think there’s quite a bit of rancor on the Court at the moment.
ETA : I mad at EVERYONE right now — but I hate the Republican party. I’m sure I’ll calm down in about a month
JoyceH
@JPL: That’s part of the problem. Nobody under 60 personally knows someone who died or almost died because abortion was illegal, and it shows. There will soon be plenty of younger people with that knowledge.
debbie
@Leto:
No argument from me.
different-church-lady
Talk is cheap.
batgirl
I hate to say this, but the outright overturn of Roe may be preferable to it being completely hollowed out — which would be the other result — politically. The overturn of Roe is something Dems should be able to run on easily–harder when Roe “stands.” There are already states where it is practically impossible to get a legal abortion.
zhena gogolia
@eversor: Want to live in a totalitarian state? That’s your alternative. Grow up.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@LAO: a few Democrats tried to make it an issue. They got shouted down.
Another Scott
@LAO: It is indeed good to see you. I hope you and your pup are doing well.
Comment when you can.
Cheers,
Scott.
LAO
@batgirl: I agree with you to a point — but Griswold and Oberfeld are next — and the Christianist are going to keep up the fight. The current Court is not favorable to maintaining the right to birth control or gay marriage. This is going to be very ugly. I only hope that you are right in the long run cause the short run is going to suck.
different-church-lady
@batgirl:
Thanks for sobering perspective. I wonder if the leak has the intent of rallying opposition to the effect of discouraging any justices on the fence.
Gin & Tonic
@Leto:
Except here the Russians are the Americans, and the Ukrainians are the Vietnamese. They are defending their home and their freedom. That’s a different calculus.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@eversor:
The platform that could make Herschel Walker a Senator.
different-church-lady
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The contradictions certainly seem high now, don’t they?
LAO
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: People in real life (other democrats) laughed at me when I made this argument in 2016 — I’m still pissed off. So I get it, I’m just unbearably frustrated by all of this.
Shalimar
@PsiFighter37: It’s a draft opinion, circulated to gain votes. We know Alito’s clerks wrote it, but we don’t know if it was assigned by Roberts (if he is in the majority) or Thomas (the senior justice of the other 5). We also don’t know if any other Justices have signed on to it. It is possible that this opinion won’t garner 5 votes and will instead become a concurring opinion to a majority written by someone else that doesn’t go as far.
3 months from issuing an opinion is a long time, and this thing from Alito is part of a negotiation among the Justices, not a final product.
LAO
@Another Scott: Thank you. Maggie is currently living her best life. She’s going to be very upset next month when have to go on trial for the first time in 3 years. The girl likes this work from bullshit.
Damien
Cool how they’re totally fine with unwanted children being born to unloving families. Cause that’s great.
How about this, how about we can ban abortion once all half million foster kids are being loved and cared for?
What pieces of shit
JPL
@LAO: My gut tells me that the real prize is the EPA
so pleased that Maggie is doing good.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Another Scott:
It makes sense to me, especially in light of the imprisoned Russian opposition leader who’s criticized Trump’s banning from social media after he incited a riot following January 6th. I know some explained it in the context of this giving Putin ideas to ban opposition leaders from social media, but I really don’t think Putin needed the precedent to do that; he’s the type that will do it anyway
schrodingers_cat
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I got called a crank on this fucking blog last week for pointing out the dangers of populism which is not just a right wing phenomena.
All the BS stans, red roses who poisoned the well in 2016 and continue to do so even now (some while sitting in the Congress and voting with the likes Cawthorn etc) are culpable too.
Another Scott
@batgirl: I’m no grand strategist, and am generally not a burn-it-all-down/heighten-the-contradictions fellow, but if they do overturn Roe and Casey and continue to try to eliminate the power of government agencies and all the rest, then it’s hard to see a more stark contrast between the parties.
Fight for 15!!
Cheers,
Scott.
LAO
@JPL: I think you may be right. EPA for the business side of the Republican party and gay marriage for the Christianists. It’s going to be awesome.
Brachiator
@JoyceH:
I am an old man. It is not just the increased risk of death because of abortion that angers me. When I hear a conservative woman politician say that having and raising a rapists baby might be a useful life lesson for a woman makes my blood boil.
I do not understand how these anti-choice absolutists can erase a woman, reduce her to a shell because they think a baby is the only life that matters.
JPL
@LAO: Awesome for liquor sales, but that’s about it.
different-church-lady
@Brachiator: Don’t be ridiculous: they don’t care about the baby either.
batgirl
@Another Scott: Either am I. In this case, however, Roe is already an empty husk.
Leto
@batgirl:
Guttmacher Institute 4 APR 2022
batgirl
@LAO: Yes, Overturning Griswold is there ultimate objective.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JPL:
@PsiFighter37:
@PsiFighter37:
Abortion is one thing, birth control is another. Too many middle class people use birth control. The SCOTUS would be grossly overstepping. The public reaction would be incredibly negative
prostratedragon
Look for Raskin’s remarks on Rachel’s show. Lays it all out.
JPL
@Leto: It will no longer be legal to seek an abortion anywhere. Sure if you are a resident of MA, you can find one, but not if you a resident anywhere else.
JPL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It doesn’t matter. If you can’t access birth control across state lines, it’s irrelevant.
You would think stripping the rights of females was overstepping but I guess not.
Leto
@Gin & Tonic: And there goes the point…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I’m no fancy attorney, but Alito isn’t exactly hiding the ball
the Politico reporter who broke the story (Gerstein?) said on the Maddow program that Alito uses the word “abortionist” repeatedly, which he said is Clarence Thomas’s language, and strikes me as the rhetoric of a House candidate in the deep rural South. Or Nebraska.
Leto
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): yes yes, that’s what this SCOTUS is worried about. Grossly overstepping. Yes.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
All they would be doing is placing targets on their backs
mrmoshpotato
I see the Kremlin has gone way beyond the “Coo coo for Cocoa Puffs” stage. Wow.
different-church-lady
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yes, none of the conservative SCOTUS judges would have a snowball’s chance at re-election.
JPL
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They have lifetime positions. This is what they worked for.
Brachiator
@eversor:
This is nonsense. “I won’t vote unless you give me what I want.”
Probably followed by “I don’t need to vote anymore now that you have given me what I want.”
One of the fun things about being old is that I can still vividly remember the excuses made by my youthful contemporaries for not voting. And The excuses made by those who came later. There is some variation, but it’s the same old dance.
If you really want something then participate and vote. Because it is an absolute certainty that the GOP will make sure that you get nothing.
Ohio Mom
What I don’t get is, how do you overturn same-sex marriage — are all current marriages annulled? How does that work legally?
Another Scott
Virginia Democrats are already responding. BlueVirginia.US:
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@Brachiator:
Oh, Paw Paw Black Lung will make sure it dies waaaay before the GOP gets to it.
Bill Arnold
@LAO:
Perhaps we need a proper debate about the constitutionality of judicial review. (E.g. “Marbury v. Madison was a SCOTUS power grab”)
Particular when the SCOTUS majority is blatantly partisan.
Do they really want to tempt the other branches to tell it to pound sand?
VeniceRiley
Roe goes and they’re coming after my marriage next
Percysowner
@JPL: Birth Control, Same Sex Marriage, Trans Rights. Then they go for a national ban on all of that. Gut all the Regulatory Agencies, EPA, Labor, OSHA. This will be a horror show.
We have to hold the House and Senate AND get the Senate to where Manchin and Sinema don’t have the power they have now. Expand the Supreme Court, and hope they don’t declare THAT unconstitutional.
I betting this is what made Breyer decide he had to retire now. I mean he did have to retire now, but watching this new majority burn it all down made him realize he couldn’t take any chances.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I misread that at first. I thought he was going with the theory, which I’ve seen a few times tonight, that Roberts leaked this (or more likely let it be leaked) to dissuade the other five from going all in, but he’s positing that Alito and Thomas are trying to box everyone in.
Who knows?
Shalimar
@LAO: I wonder if the leak came from Roberts, as a way to let Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett see what the outrage will look like in the hopes that he will regain control of the opinion and write it himself to be more incremental. As long as those 3 vote with Thomas and Alito, this draft is what we’re getting.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it? Gay marriage has widespread public support.
Hell, maybe all previous same-sex marriages will be “grandfathered” in? Maybe get “civil unions” as a consolation prize?
I just can’t see the Dems holding the House and the Senate if this inflation isn’t gotten under control soon. The problem (well, one of many) is that this will involve slowing the economy down, hopefully without throwing it into a recession
Cacti
Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s plan to live forever really worked out well.
Elizabelle
@Shalimar: I am wondering that myself.
Also if they’re getting it out early, to try to make it stale news by the midterms.
Shalimar
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: The opinion itself only has Alito’s name on it, so Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett being on board is information that came from the leaker. There has to be an agenda for sharing that.
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
There are conservatives who believe that the Court grossly overstepped with the Griswold decision. It may be hard to imagine that there was a time when some people believed that the state’s had an interest in making sure that men and women married someone of the same race, and that these couples should have sex and have children as a result of that sexual activity.
And to put it into context, I admit that I am old enough to remember when you bought condoms that came with the warning “for prevention of disease only.” Pregnancy prevention was a protection that dare not speak its name.
LAO
@Bill Arnold: Marbury v, Madison, Judicial Review since 1803. It’s not going anywhere, And it shouldn’t. Even if we don’t like the result,
Leto
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Roe has widespread public support. Roe has 50+ years of standing and they’re gonna chunk it. Gay marriage is coming up on a scant 6 years. Lol.
sdhays
@JPL: It seems to me that the increasingly lawless way that the conservatives on the Court have been acting have made this inevitable. Shadow docket abuse, practically identical cases with opposite decisions depending on whether Democrats or Republicans were the plaintiffs, etc.
The Court is broken and lawless, so why shouldn’t decisions be leaked before they’re released?
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
Leaking Alito’s draft opinion is likely a trick.
The plan has always been to regulate Roe to death, not to outright overturn it because of the feared political backlash.
The Casey case upheld Roe but allowed for state regulations that didn’t unduly burden a woman. They’ll likely just say that a 15 week ban doesn’t unduly burden a women’s right. And then the lame stream media will say, “well at least they didn’t overturn Roe like Alito wanted”, even though a 15 week ban effectively ends Roe as a large number of women don’t know they’re pregnant for months.
LAO
@Shalimar: Maybe, I don’t know. And I have a feeling that we may never find out. The fact that the opinion was leaked has, however, caused legal twitter to lose it’s mind. I really don’t care if this was a breach of the Court’s decorum. Do you?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Cacti:
My understanding is that there was never an ideal time for her to step down and Obama appoint her successor with a Senate majority in place. She also didn’t have a crystal ball
Another Scott
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): DNFTT.
Cheers,
Scott.
Elizabelle
@LAO: Hi LAO. Fabulous to see you. A pat on the head to Maggie.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
But I feel like same-sex marriage is an entirely different animal. Lots of people know LGBTQ+ people who are married
LAO
@Elizabelle: Hi Elizabelle! I’ve been lurking since the Russian invasion of Ukraine but it took the gutting of a fundamental right to bring me all the way back, Hope you’re doing well.
debbie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
How much of the Midwest and South have you lived in? Had it been much time, you would realize you’re incorrect. They all hate them both equally and totally.
LAO
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m happy that you feel that birth control and gay marriage are so popular this court wouldn’t touch them. Respectfully, you are wrong.
Elizabelle
@LAO: Doing well, thank you. Although a tad incensed since this news broke.
Another Scott
@LAO:
Wow. Destroying the government and people’s rights is Ok, because it’s done by votes and arguments and stuff, but leaking a draft opinion is the destruction of all that’s good and holy, or something.
Do these SCOTUSBlog lawyers listen to themselves??
(groucho-roll-eyes.gif)
Cheers,
Scott.
Bill Arnold
@JPL:
Goku was being coy. You are correct, but lifespan can vary. “Second Amendment Solution” 335 million Americans, many of them already angry, millions of the angry ones with long guns, and the SCOTUS radical majority is apparently oblivious to the extreme dangers of making 10s of millions more Americans angry, or angrier. The US just barely survived its first Civil War.
Argiope
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): well, I guess you don’t know that many people who have faced unintended pregnancies, then. Wait until the 1 in 3 American people with uteruses who have had abortions start coming out and telling their stories. Then we’ll see how things stand. The reason LGBTQ marriage became acceptable is that people started telling their truths and it turned out everyone knew someone. When people start making their abortions public, guess what?
You definitely know many people who have had one. You just don’t know it yet.
ETA also it doesn’t matter, as others have pointed out—this SCOTUS will go after it all.
Elizabelle
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Bullshit.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator
I find that concept very creepy. Like people are just livestock, we have no individuality, our skin color is our most important trait, and the only “freedom” that matters is the dominant ethnic group’s “freedom”
I hate to make this about myself, but I think of myself as demisexual. I’m a white male, but what if I never married? Could the state come after me?
Glory b
@Leto: AND in slate.com, there’s an article saying that Thomas is hinting strongly about Brown v. Bd of Ed.
Leto
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I feel like when people with decades, and decades, and decades of experience tell you you’re wrong, you’d get a damn clue. But here we are, as usual.
LAO
@Another Scott: I know. I love Scotusblog — but come on legal twitter. Way to bury the lede. I really can’t. I think I’m going to buy a pint of ice cream when I take Maggie out. What the hell.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
What’s bullshit?
Kay
@LAO:
laura
THAT MOTHERFUCKER. I hope that Justice Alito enjoys the same late in career loss of life standing at his kitchen sink that he so respects.
Who, in your family or friends group is the likely Becky Bell, because EVERY AMERICAN FAMILY is likely to have a Becky Bell. If you’ve got a potential Becky Bell, what’s your plan to save her life? If you dont have a plan to save a Becky Bell, get the fuck off your ass and make a plan to save a Becky Bell.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
Look, I get what you all are saying. Maybe I’m in denial, I guess. This is very hard to process
Another Scott
@Another Scott:
+ Ω.
Cheers,
Scott.
Glory b
@eversor: Why are you so sure that you’d come out on the winning side of a civil war?
Leto
@Glory b: there were sitting House members who were questioning that decision. I did learn through further reading that a lot of the black community wasn’t happy with the decision either. Not because they didn’t want equality but because it devastated the black teacher community, and the extensive home grown network of black teaching/learning excellence they’d cultivated over the many decades. It’s the monkey claw paradox. Yes you now have “equality”, but the institutions you built are now destroyed and you’re in a worse place now than before. White supremacy continues to keep us in it’s death grip.
Elizabelle
@laura: I hope that Alito never has another day of peace in his life.
Shabby, awful man. Deplorable.
khead
@JPL:
Yes. Obergefell and Griswold are on the clock. Plus school sanctioned prayer is coming.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
On that Mark Joseph Watson tweet linked above, one of the comments confidently asserted that just because the SCOTUS were to strike down the decision legalizing “sodomy”, doesn’t mean “sodomy” would become illegal. They highly doubted even Mississippi would pass a ban. We just don’t understand federalism ?
Bill Arnold
@LAO:
Sure. And exactly how much “not liking the result” are you willing to suffer? How many absurdly argued blatantly partisan decisions?
Glory b
@Elizabelle: Seconded. We saw what happened with Thurgood Marshall/Clarence Thomas. RBG started getting high on her own supply.
Cacti
It’s the same sort of logic that gets brought out by feckless Senators who couldn’t possibly get rid of the legislative filibuster.
What is there mere right of the people to vote, after all, when compared to the august traditions of the upper chamber of Congress?
NotMax
@LAO
So good to again digitally encounter you!
Would suggesting Rocky Road be too on the nose?
;)
Leto
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s hard to process but we’ve been talking about this direct reality, here on this blog, since 1) McConnell stole Garland’s seat 2) Trumpov was elected on the promise of seating FedSoc anti-abortion judges and 3) Gorsuck, Beerbong, and Handmaid’s Tale were confirmed. We passed denial back in 2016 and we need you up to speed yesterday.
laura
@Elizabelle: if his darlingest, most beloved female family sperm bank dies of an ectopic preg or a Becky Belling, he still won’t care
I am fucking livid and so very STABBY.
Elizabelle
@Glory b: Yesterday I went to “Arts in the Park.” Someone had painted a portrait of RBG (you can believe, there was no other Supreme Court art. That I saw.)
And I felt sad that she tarnished her legacy. Because her arrogance got herself replaced by Amy Fucking Barrett. Days before a presidential election, and after early voting states had already opened the polls.
I get that RBG is beloved. I love her, and appreciate her. Wonderful woman. But: terrible judgment, since no one knows the outcome of an election months or years away. Enough.
Anyway, I hope that Biden can expand the Court. 13 is a lucky number; 15 might be even better.
This is an illegitimate Supreme Court. From protestations some of them have made, they recognize their peril. (The self aware ones. Which does not include Scalito or Ginny Thomas’s pillow talker.)
Cacti
Next goal for repukes will be a 21st century equivalent of the Fugitive Slave Act for pregnant women.
Salty Sam
Dude! So does abortion, and yet, here we are…
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
For me, I’ve lost patience with “they will never…”.
They will do what they want to do. These are the people who gutted the Voting Rights Act- the “crown jewel” of the civil rights movement, a law that was reauthorized by 98 senators. Threw it in the trash.
They announced racism was over. By decree.
Avalie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Lots of people also know or are women who might get pregnant
Alison Rose ???
Since so many of you have deep pockets, or even if you can only spare a few bucks, please consider donating to either your local abortion fund or one in a red state. The site is down right now, hopefully because people are rushing to donate! They also tweeted this:
Also, if you or someone you care about who might need abortion care lives in a red state and is able and interested in moving, California may be expensive as fuck but we have a governor who will protect your rights over your body and treat you like an actual human being.
eversor
We’ve had decades to confront the economic issues facing people and instead screamed meritocracy more female CEOs get a degree. We’ve had decades to confront Christianity as being as big of a problem as racism conservatism abs Republicans. And unless we start doing both of those this will get worse, and we will have earned it and been complicit in it.
Shalimar
janesays
According to the Politico article, he’s got them – Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett will all join him in the opinion. Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan will dissent, and what Roberts will decide to do is unknown.
It’s done. Thanks to everyone who said that there was no meaningful difference between voting for Clinton or voting for Trump in 2016. And by “thanks”, I mean “go fuck yourself and die in a fire”.
LAO
@Bill Arnold: I don’t know how to answer that. As a lawyer (a criminal defense attorney) I have to have some basic faith in the legal system. I am not blind to it’s flaws by any means — but what do you propose to replace Judicial review with? Have you seen some of the state legislatures?
@NotMax: very poor selection at my local bodega. I had to settle for plain coffee ice cream ( I really wanted coffee chip).
Nice to see you too NotMax!
Another Scott
Something something consent of the governed something something.
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
Back then, it still seemed like things could be turned around. Everything just keeps going from bad to worse, it seems
Leto
And this, from Dec 2021, popped right up on WaPo:
If the Supreme Court undermines Roe v. Wade, contraception could be banned. This explains how.
Shalimar
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Tens of mIllions of people feel like it just can’t change. Until it does. You’re all wrong, but you yourself aren’t doing any harm speaking for that opinion here. We will all be absorbing these massive changes as best we can over the next few years.
Brachiator
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Hmm . OK. Let’s make it about you. There was a time when tradition let companies discriminate against single men. You might not get hired or promoted if you don’t have a wife. Your raises might be smaller if you don’t have children to support. And of course even now married couples get more tax breaks than single people.
Of course things might be worse if you were a single woman. You might not even be considered for some jobs since it would be assumed that you would be looking to become a housewife.
The good old days.
Cacti
And for everyone who said “Tell me why I should vote for Clinton without mentioning the Supreme Court”, might I add:
You’re a bunch of fucking idiots.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
They’ll be an IMMEDIATE rush to minimize this, and it will be the same people who scolded women for 20 years that they were overreacting and Roe would never be overturned. They don’t care about the “rights”- they care about the legitimacy of the “institution” and if protecting that “legitimacy” means propping it up although it’s hollowed to its core- well, they’ll do that too. Because their idea of the court is more important to them than the reality of the work it produces.
LAO
@Cacti: It’s a reoccurring problem. Democrats worry about process and republicans worry about results. Drives me mad.
Another Scott
@Alison Rose ???: Thanks for the reminder. Donated.
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): seriously, back when? I want you to explain your thought process to us here. Back when McConnell denied Obama a SCOTUS pick? When Trumpov won? When three catholic fundamentalists were placed on the court with the express intent of overturning Roe? When did it seem like things could turn around? You need to listen, and take to heart, Kay’s comment at #153.
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: uh no… this is the elimination of the right to privacy- it’s fundamentally going to undo the 21st century so whether it happens now or in June it won’t be stale for the mid- terms. In fact, the GOP is exactly what we warned of- a theocratic menace to all.
Kay
@Another Scott:
The institution protects itself rather than protecting civil rights. Perfect.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Peterburg
@Cacti:
“I dissent” (with that stupid fucking collar) is a genuinely weak sentiment.
Jackie
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
“Gay marriage has wide support.”
The right to have abortions has 60% approval.
Did you watch the KBJ Supreme Court hearings??? Same sex marriage was brought up. Interracial marriage was brought up. Integrated schools were brought up.
Republicans are determined to roll back all the above and make it 1950 again.
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
“I dissent” (with that stupid fucking collar) is a genuinely weak sentiment.
Ksmiami
@Another Scott: paint targets on the 6…they just set the stage for the end of America
Another Scott
We can still shape the country’s future. Don’t give into despair. Channel your anger to work for progress.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anon
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): that of course is only because the court by 5-4 legalized gay marriage. Had the vote gone the other way, you wouldn’t even have gay marriage in California!
Glory b
@schrodingers_cat: Exactly.
Brachiator
@Leto:
Some experience must be lived. And it is easy to take even substantial social change for granted.
He’ll, I am surprised by the degree to which I see that some conservatives yearn for an authoritarian populist and are willing to chuck democracy out the window.
Kay
What is the fucked up thinking here? That leaking this Right wing manifesto is more important than the loss of a substantive right to bodily autonomy?
Glad we have our priorities straight! PROP that insitution up! Heave…HO! Maybe if enough columnists declare its legitimacy we can all be harangued and lectured into agreeing, or at least bullied into shutting up.
debbie
@Another Scott:
Not just for a city anymore.
Craig
@different-church-lady: Alito, Kavanaugh, Thomas, Barrett, Gorsuch are not on the fence. That’s 5.
khead
@Jackie:
More like 1900. Welcome to the new Lochner era.
Suzanne
@Kay:
I don’t know if anybody is ready for the black market network of Plan B and misoprostol/mifepristone that is about to emerge.
Glory b
@Leto: I think they were afraid of that, but I don’t think it happened. First, because you still need the same numbers of teachers, because you have the same number of kids to teach. Also, because we now see, desegregation was only faintly done, at this point, American schools are as segregated as they were before. If anything, integration worked for teachers more than students. Black teachers teach in predominantly white schools, and vice versa.
Brachiator
@Ksmiami:
For Republicans, pretense of caring about religion is just a means to mobilize Christian fundamentalists. The GOP leadership is about as religious as was Trump.
Ogliberal
Here’s my cynical take. Majorities say they support Roe. They say they support gay marriage. But neither affects them, at least not now. What pisses them off is $4.50/gallon gas and high grocery bills – all of which are temporary and happen all the time – so they’ll vote for the other guy because they feel like they need to shake things up. Or they’ll stay home because but her emails.
In 2016 we got a scripted game show host as president because too many assholes who are ostensibly on our side or who wouldn’t like a court like this either stayed home or voted for Jill Fucking Stein because her emails or because they just didn’t like her because reasons. So now you have this – you showed us!
And John Roberts is ecstatic because he can be history’s “wadn’t me” and get credit for trying to save the nation while seeing all the shit he really wants go into place.
This could have likely been avoided if the people who say they cared about these things all voted for the person who did care about these things in 2016. But some pouted, some didn’t take it seriously enough. I get the media sucked but some of the people I’m talking about now who could have made this avoidable in 2016 did not…many, many of them did but some did not….and that matters in a tight election.
Maybe this is what this country wants. Or maybe they just don’t care enough.
Glory b
@Suzanne: This month’s Atlantic Magazine has a cover story about groups preparing for a post Roe America. How coincidental.
Ksmiami
@LAO: No. the Republicans are our fucking enemy- they want to live in the 14th century and I say we push them into Mississippi and build a wall. Give them each one bottle of water and a gun with 2 bullets. Then see what happens.
Craig
@different-church-lady: This. For all the hit dog sqwaukin they do at political functions, the RWNJs on the court don’t care about public opinion.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
When we won the House in 2018 and later the presidency and the Senate in 2020. I’m not sure what your point is, I basically have internalized it. I’ve known it all along, really
I feel like I’m fucking trapped. I feel like I have no future. I’m never going to be able to retire and I’ll probably die in poverty. There will be no Social Security or Medicare. I’ve always had a hard time establishing deep relationships with other people and I don’t have a large family either, many members are older
Ksmiami
@Brachiator: nah – with the Court, the lunatics have taken over the asylum. The party is controlled by evangelicals now…
Glory b
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg: I wish there was a “like” button.
James E Powell
@Shalimar:
We have yet to see any widespread outrage at the rulings from the Roberts court.
It is true that the small portion of our nation that both stays informed & leans Democratic haven’t been anything but outraged at them since 2010. But the great mass of Americans don’t give a shit about abortion rights, voting rights, or democracy. It never changes their votes.
Anon
@Ogliberal: you have a lot of liberals and moderates living in red states like GA FL TX etc because their right to gay marriage and abortion are protected. Maybe that will make them think twice.
@Ogliberal:
Brachiator
@Shalimar:
This will make the Court more partisan, or more openly so. Appointments will be made with replacements in mind.
Another Scott
Meanwhile, a reminder that it’s all connected…
(via EclecticBrotha)
Cheers,
Scott.
Leto
@Brachiator: they do. I had NCOs tell me things that didn’t click until I went through them. Same with my parents. But when my NCOs/parents made a point of repeatedly bashing it into my head, when the situation did occur I wasn’t surprised. Idk, I just see this as a wider issue of: how many times do we have to tell you (not just Goku, but *gestures widely about*) that this shit is going to happen? Why are you acting surprised when we tell you it’s going to happen? When I’m talking, are you hearing the Peanuts teacher’s voice? Are the words being replaced by “chocolate” over and over? It’s like how we were talking about Brexit down below.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Brachiator:
I’m sorry
Elizabelle
@Brachiator: I disagree.
I would like to see 18 year terms, with rolling replacements.
Brachiator
@Ksmiami:
Evangelicals have never and will never be in control of the GOP. But the illusion is necessary. And useful.
MomSense
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
You’ve got friends. I’m one. You are going to be ok. You are resourceful. I’m not worried in the least about you – but there are millions who are not as equipped as you are to survive the bullshit. So we pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and start all over again.
Maybe now the disaffected and disappointed will realize what we are up against and join this fight.
We all feel the worry about what is to come. I’m glad you share here. We will get through this.
Another Scott
Very briefly there was a tweet on Schumer’s feed saying that he and Pelosi had a joint statement about the leaked draft opinion. Then it disappeared. I assume it will be out shortly.
And here it is:
Click for the text in the image.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@James E Powell:
Exactly right.
They care about their taxes and their relative status.
Kay
Just blown away by the priorities of the fancy lawyer community. It’s not the RIGHTS that matter- it’s the “trust” among the justices and staff!
How do you fix this? What kind of class or seminar would help them find their way back to remembering why courts exist? They unlearned it.
Elizabelle
Be nice if we had a front pager who might put up a dedicated thread about this.
Breaking news, front pagers.
Elizabelle
What do you know? The FTF NY Times made the Supreme Court leak their top across the site headline.
They’ve been all Ukraine all the time for 2 months now.
But this one got their attention.
Emails, emails, emails, you fuckers.
Martin
@eversor:
Young people turned out in record numbers in 2018 and 2020, or maybe you didn’t notice that Dems won in both of those years?
You know a good way to get people to stop doing what they are doing? Don’t recognize that they are doing it.
Leto
@Glory b:
Not exactly.
If you only have to hire 20% black teachers, how many is that? Not many. Where do the rest go? Just from a small personal anecdote, my dad was one of the only white teachers in an all black school in Charleston County, SC. From approx 1974 to 1999 (?)
The Troubled History of American Education after the Brown Decision (Via The American Historian, courtesy of the Library of Congress) It’s an interesting article. Long. Complicated topic, as everything is.
the pollyanna from hell
@Kay: This leak is similar to the publication of intelligence about the coming invasion of Ukraine. Let us hope it wrong-foots the bad guys just as the previous leaking did.
Shalimar
@Elizabelle: Me too. Or longer if you increased the number of justices. But every 2 years a justice is retired and a replacement is appointed. Give the Senate some confirmation rights, but at some point (say 3 months of consideration and no more than 2 rejections), the President’s appointee automatically joins the court.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@MomSense:
I appreciate you saying that. I really do. I consider all of you my friends.
But I don’t see myself as resourceful. I don’t think I’m well-equipped at all. I have no real skills, I’m not getting any younger, and the Republicans are hell-bent on destroying the social safety net. I feel like I can’t fail, or else I’ll completely ruin my life through bad financial/career decisions
Kent
Or said the hell with it if they were clerking for one of the Nazis and had finally seen enough.
Kay
Oh, God. These people. I wasn’t this easy to bamboozable since I was 6 years old. Well, jigs up now. I take some comfort in that. I don’t have to listen to this ridiculous bullshit anymore. Now they can pretend they’re outraged about the leak to distract from the fact that either they were tricked or they tricked their voters.
Martin
This leak likely came from the majority with the intent to put the outrage on the leak and not on the opinion. Lots of process stories will be written.
And yeah, the court would strike down Biden’s debt elimination. All the more reason to do it. Show the voters what Dems want to do. Tell voters they need to turn out and elect Dems to achieve it. If this leak is correct, look for the cases designed to overturn Ogberfell and Griswold. The court may not want to overturn them, but a few states are almost certain to force their hand to at least make a ruling to that effect.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
I’m sorry
Kay
@the pollyanna from hell:
I don’t know who leaked, but I’ll need proof. For all I know one of them leaked it. Keeping all options on the table. No earthly idea what these people will or won’t do.
Martin
I blame Cole for stating that he feels like things are looking up.
Served
@Martin: Yes the almost instantaneous and aligned messaging from the right in response to the leak has Ginni’s or a Kavanaugh clerk’s fingerprints all over it.
Kent
I disagree. You can’t win a closed GOP primary in most of the US anymore without being the preferred candidate of the Evangelicals. And they TOTALLY control the party at the local and state levels
I’ve lived in Waco TX. There is zero daylight between Evangelicals and the GOP down there. ZERO.
the pollyanna from hell
@Martin: You don’t believe the majority’s august dedication to sanctimony? How can you be so cynical?
Kay
@Martin:
I don’t want to be the people who make every decision based on what Republicans will do in response.
I just don’t accept this lesser position. I don’t want to be on that team anymore. Just make the decision. Let them sue. We’re worried about precedent? What precedent? They don’t follow any of it anyway.
Elizabelle
@Martin: This is an illegitimate Supreme Court.
VOR
Attacking Ukraine may convince both Sweden and Finland to join NATO. Germany has decided to spend 100B euros more on their military one-time and increase their on-going spending. These outcomes are massive strategic blunders for Russia.
Leto
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m going to tell you what Silverman has told you a few times: stop apologizing. And listen to MomSense. I’m not mad at you, but I do need you up to speed. Now. Listen to Kay: if you don’t think they’re going to do it, they’re going to do it. There’s literally nothing they won’t do to achieve/maintain their power. They used to not say the quiet parts out loud, now they’re all too happy to shout that shit to the rooftops. If you center your base at: they’re here to destroy everything you hold near and dear, then nothing will really surprise you. Make you angry? Fuck yeah. Surprise? Not really.
Like MomSense said, we’re glad you’re here. We want you here and commenting. My 2 cents: always listen to the women here. They know wtf is up, how long that shit has been going on, and wtf needs to be done.
Another Scott
@Served: Yeah, the instantaneous over-the-top lizard-brain screeching about the leak (rather than the contents) seems to show that it was orchestrated by the RWNJs.
Everything is disingenuous bad-faith screeching with them. They know that’s the only way they can win with voters. We have to do the work to reduce their power, and not get distracted.
Cheers,
Scott.
debbie
@Kay:
I think Gorsuch’s, Kavanaugh’s, and Comey Barrett’s lies need to be emblazoned on the Supreme Court, just like that group who projected Ukraine’s flag on the Russian Embassy and then dodged Russian attempts to bleach it out with a white spotlight.
Martin
@Kay: @Elizabelle:
I agree. Dems need to stop deferring to what they think the courts will do. It’s not like the GOP ever bothers with that. They make the court strike everything down. So do that. Pass the debt elimination. While you’re at it, start an impeachment inquiry into Thomas.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Fair point. But I still think that the national GOP and even state level is controlled by amoral and largely non religious big money donors who manipulate evangelicals.
On the national level I thought that evangelicals were initially skeptical of Trump. And even though he ultimately won big with this group, they were only about 20 percent of the 2016 electorate.
But I acknowledge that evangelicals have become more enthusiastic.
Glory b
@eversor: I remember seeing a documentary or PBS program, quite a while back, about the anti Vietnam protests ans the youth “revolution ” at the time. The white former protesters were now middle aged people sitting in their libraries and talking about the classes they were teaching as professors or or they were talking about their practices as attorneys and other professions. The black protesters were all in jail, dead, or working menial jobs. I wonder if this latest revolution you’re talking about will wind up the same way.
Tom Q
@Kent: It doesn’t matter if many elected Republicans in private don’t believe this stuff:; they have to pretend to support it to get elected. And, as Vonnegut famously said, you are what you pretend to be.
Ogliberal
@Anon: I have a good and long time friend who has been Republican curious for a while – not sure of exactly why but seems to be around taxes and hypocrisy. He did not like Hilary. His partner, who is from the Mid/Southwest is full on Trumper. I just don’t know what you do with that if the answer is “If my taxes are low until I go to the ovens, I’m all good.” Sounds harsh but isn’t that what we’re kind of talking about?
Mingobat (f/k/a Karen in GA)
@Alison Rose ???: Thanks for this. Just donated.
Kent
Your mistake is in viewing Evangelicals as religious people with actual values. They aren’t either. They are rank and file older white Republicans. Evangelical and Republican means the same thing to them. It is all part of a conservative white nationalist ideology. That is why they went so quickly and heavily for Trump. Because they have no actual religious values and many of them never attend church despite self-identifying as evangelicals.
Kent
You are missing the point. Evangelicals don’t believe it either for the most part. They are just Republicans. Wrapping themselves in the cross just lets them be more racist and sexist without getting called out for it. If you say you are anti-LGBT because of your faith then people and the media tend to give you a pass. A lot of it comes down to race actually. Being evangelical lets people let their racist flag fly without ever being called on it. I knew a shitload of men in Texas who voted GOP because it was the white party but what they said was that they voted GOP because of abortion. When every last one of them would have paid for an abortion in a heartbeat if it came to it. Religion is a get out of jail free card for being sexist and racist.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Leto:
Thank you for that, Leto. I try to take it to heart
Kay
Is it a norm or a rule that they don’t leak opinions?
I ask because conservatives have told us since 2016 that if there wasn’t a specific, on point, rule or law barring their behavior “norms” didn’t matter.
Ethical norms don’t matter to Clarence Thomas and his spouse. There’s no rule barring their blatant conflicts of interest, so they charge ahead. Norms only apply to lesser people? Norms about Supreme Court justice nominations don’t matter to conservatives- they blew through all of those with Garland and then Barrett. What did they think would happen? Everyone else would continue to be on their best behavior, while they do whatever they want?
Kent
@Kay: I’m guessing that 99% of what happens at Scotus is norms not rules. They aren’t an administrative body like the executive branch that sets out codes of conduct and regulations.
But then again, that’s just a guess. I don’t really know.
Kay
And institutions don’t break down because of one clerk. That’s not how it works. The clerk is the symptom of the weak institution, not the cause. The leaders of the institution should take responsibility for it. They won’t, because they’d literally rather die than admit it’s weakened and that’s on them, but they should.
debbie
@Kay:
Can I at least say the treason committed by a member and his wife would be the cause? //
Kay
@Kent:
Well, then in our new norm-breaking environment I don’t see a problem.
The staff are simply following the leaders. They make their own rules. Predictable. Inevitable, really.
Leto
@Kay:
Even when it was black letter law (Trumpov’s tax document request), they still broke the law. They don’t give a shit about norms/laws.
@Kent: I’m going to say most of it is norms, as when the Senate even started mentioning passing some bare minimum rules for them, Roberts wrote that op-ed basically saying, “WE CAN TAKE CARE OF OURSELVES, GO AWAY!” Just from some of the basic reporting it seems that everything from the direct level below SCOTUS has laws/rules attached to them… except SCOTUS.
janesays
@Another Scott: There is a 0.0000% chance that Joe Manchin would ever vote to break the filibuster to pass this bill.
It’s not happening.
Martin
@Kay: This isn’t one clerk. We now have a leak on where Roberts is on this. This is multiple leaks from multiple corners.
The nature of the Roberts leak suggests to me that it was someone on the majority trying to make sure the majority holds. It’s now been reported that Alito is writing the opinion with Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett concurring. The 3 liberals opposed, and Roberts siding with MS but opposing the breadth of the opinion. If the 5 in the majority don’t hold, and the opinion isn’t a full takedown of Roe and Casey, the GOP is going to be apocalyptic. Any ability for Roberts to pull one of the 5 down to a lesser opinion is now gone.
My prediction has been that if Roe is overturned, then the FDA will approve Plan B the next day for over the counter use, allowing most people to obtain a chemical abortion through federal mechanisms that states cannot regulate. That may now happen before the opinion if the WH judges this leak to be real. Katie Porter thinks it’s real, btw.
James E Powell
@Brachiator:
Completely agree. They are the foot soldiers of the rich. And a very useful shield against any press criticism.
Kay
The leak is LITERALLY their first priority. It’s a kind of brain damage. They got off track somewhere along the line and they’ll never find their way back.
Where do they imagine “trust” and “crediblity” spring from? Who exactly would be charged with upholding norms? Just the staff?
If the leaders don’t follow the rules no one else will either. Why should they? What’s that based on?
It’s like the CEO of Enron blaming a secretary.
Shalimar
@Kay: It’s a norm, not a rule. There are very few actual Supreme Court rules since they are all equals and have no way of enforcing any punishments on each other.
As for this being the worst thing that has ever happened to Supreme Court secrecy, I would say it is maybe 1% as bad as everything revealed in Woodward’s The Brethren 45 years ago. That book went into great detail about previously private deliberations over a decade-long period. This was just the text of one preliminary opinion that probably won’t change much in the two months before it is officially released.
Kay
@Martin:
It’s amusing to watch all of media leap to the assumption it’s some liberal outlaw. What’s that based on?
Just pure imagination.
I don’t know who did it, but do I rule out the drafters of the majority? No. The opinion is all larded up with completely unneccesary moralizing directed at liberals. Paragraph after paragraph of scolding finger wagging that adds nothing other than a politicallly motivated Right wing rant.
sab
@Martin: Chemical abortion is fine until complications and you need medical assistance. Then they charge you with murder ( see Texas.)
As Kay has been saying for months, this is about to become govenment regulation of pregnancy from conception to birth, with serious scrutiny of miscarriages.
I am old so this is all academic to me on a personal basis. But I had cardiac issues and couldn’t take the pill, but a pregnancy might have killed me. But the risk wasn’t so severe that doctors in a hostile legal climate would sign off on an abortion, We would just hope that my less effective contraception would work, and if not that the pregnancy wouldn’t kill me.
So I don’t have much sympathy for the twenty something age women who couldn’t be bothered to get to the polls in 2016.
Shalimar
@Kay: The lead author is Josh Gerstein, who is as well-connected as anyone in Washington. I won’t go so far as to say Alito leaked it, but I will say if Alito wanted the story held so he could shoot it down with Gerstein’s bosses, it wouldn’t have been published tonight. The majority who support the opinion want to have this fight now.
Kay
@Shalimar:
Political timing. Tactics. I’m glad Biden is in the White House for the sake of the protestors. If Trump had managed to retain power despite losing the election they’d be discussing how best to shoot them.
Martin
@sab: Didn’t say it was a solution, just a prediction. We can’t change the calculus of USSC or the Senate until the end of the year. But the executive has been taking some steps here.
Did Democrats need a GOTV message for Nov? They just got one.
gene108
You guys are WAY TOO OPTIMISTIC about future Supreme Court decisions.
Once Roe, Griswold, Lawrence, Lochner, Brown v. Board, etc. are all gutted, the Supreme Court will work to make sure alternate electors can be selected by state legislatures regardless of how people in the state vote, in order to guarantee perpetual Republican rule.
Since whatever passes for Republican economic and foreign policy sucks ass and will fail, Republicans will have two choices: (1) admit they were wrong, or (2) scapegoat racial minorities, and LGBTQ folks.
As the latter is the most likely outcome, and many conservatives have been jonesin’ for a race war since <i>The Turner Diaries</i> were published, I expect a full on state sanctioned ethnic cleansing to occur.
laura
Anyone thinking plan B or self managed abortions is an answer misunderstands the risks inherent in pregnancy. Neither are solutions to an ectopic pregnancy or a fetal abnormality. Women are going to start dying right now. Women are going to start being investigated and prosecuted for miscarriages right now. Same for girls. Same for other pregnant people. Becky Bells on every block, a Becky Bell soon to be missing at every family holiday.
Kay
Oh, look! Norms and rules are back in fashion on the Right! But only if one of the institutions they control loses credibility. Oh, well. Too late.
Insurrection wasn’t “intolerable” but a leak of a draft opinion by the far Right 5 is the end of democracy.
Kay
@laura:
I never understood why woman believed that regulation of pregnancy would only apply to women seeking abortions. It seems insanely obtuse to me, as a person who has been pregnant. How do they imagine this works? They think there’s some category of “pre abortion” pregnancies that will be regulated and theirs won’t be in that category? Will there be a questionaire with the pregnancy test? “Whew- NOT looking a me- I checked the “no abortion” box.
RaflW
This Schooley tweet wins. Good night & good luck.
prostratedragon
A moment of intersectionality. Oscar Brown Jr. brings together “CRT” and women and girls being forced into childbearing:
Shalimar
@gene108: I’m not sure where the line will be, but the big problem with the Republican grand plan for dominance is they want everyone to thank their billionaire masters for making life worse until we’re all slaves. It seems like giving us all easy access to weapons that kill at 1000 yards is probably not going to be a decision they’re happy about at some point.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
@Kay: This is an old right wing tactic – try to distract people and the press by screaming about the leak. For example, when it was revealed Dubya was doing warrantless wiretaps they screamed about the leaks and not the impeachable acts.
I’m sure every right wing clown got the same text message: “go on social media and scream about the leak”. Of course the same people had no problem when the FBI was leaking disinformation on Clinton before the election.
SiubhanDuinne
@prostratedragon:
I have loved OB Jr for many decades. I can’t say this is my favourite of his songs, but it is without question his most powerful.
Thank you for making the insightful and timely connection between forced birth and CRT.
Bruce K in ATH-GR
In re that Kevin McCarthy tweet: the integrity of the court? It’s already long gone. The fact that nobody’s wondering about Supreme Court Justice Merrick Garland’s opinion on Roe is a big hint on that front.
It’s like inter-war Germans wondering about the sanctity of their constitution after the Enabling Act was passed.
NotMax
It doesn’t take a fortune teller to predict what will be dominating the blog for the remainder of the week.
No way a complaint, merely an observation.
Stuart Frasier
For what it’s worth, I think that overturning Roe is an overreach that is going to develop not necessarily to the GOP’s advantage. Until now, opposition to abortion has worked out for them. It’s kept the one-issue voters showing up for every election. However, humans are loss averse. Taking away rights from the majority of Americans that support choice in the runup to the midterms is going to motivate Democrats. The GOP already didn’t get the bump they hoped for from redistricting. They won’t have the voters that show up only for Trump and they won’t have the Russians troll farms.
Matt McIrvin
@Ohio Mom:
You overturn Lawrence too and just round ’em all up into prison camps for “sodomy”, then it hardly matters.
Another Scott
For people into podcasts, this should be a good one today.
(Leah Litman (who noted last week, reading the tea leaves about who apparently was assigned opinions, that Roberts didn’t seem to be in the majority in the MS abortion case) is one of the principals.)
Cheers,
Scott.
SWMBO
@Jackie:
Bullshit. Back to 1850. They will overturn Dred if they can.