According to Politico, a draft of the SCOTUS decision on Dobbs v Jackson has been leaked, and the five radicals on the court are going to completely dump Roe. It’s a pretty shocking document full of right wing legal pablum that we have all heard over and over again, but at the same time, it’s not surprising. This is what the the marriage of the Republican party to the radical christian right in the Reagan era has been working towards for five decades, and the movement is about to birth their baby, personal assurances to Sen. Collins about stare decisis aside.
It’s worth noting that the anti-abortion movement is not organic, evangelicals and their ilk had no immediate widespread opposition to abortion at the time, and the issue was created out of nothing. Evangelicals needed something to motivate and captivate their sheep, Republicans needed the votes, the money and moral posturing of both was too good to resist, and a marriage of convenience and grift was born. Decades of agitprop and bullshit got us where we are today.
Will there be a backlash at the polls? I’d like to think so, but one thing Republicans have learned is that they never have to pay consequences for anything, so I am not hopeful. With gerrymandering and voter suppression, any impact will be limited, and with the antiquated composition of the the Senate, giving populations the size of a dorm room the same representation as Los Angeles, any backlash will be diluted.
What it means for abortion rights? Basically in half the states they are soon to be non-existent. The next issues will be national bans advocated at the federal level, as well as punitive measures at the state level aimed at punishing their citizens for partaking in abortion services in other states. Some of these state laws are already in the works, and numerous states already have trigger laws for when Roe is overturned. At the national level, we can expect bills being introduced every single session to ban abortion across the country, and don’t worry, Republicans will have no problem voting for these bills despite having said that all they really wanted to do was address the unconstitutionality of Roe and “send it back to the states.” Hypocrisy is their native tongue. Would such a law pass? Yes. If they see no backlash to the overturning of Roe and feel no political pain, they will pass the very first time there is a Republican majority in the House and Senate and a Republican Presidency.
What does it mean for everything else? As this will be the first time the Supreme Court has rolled back a right, be warned, they are coming for it all. Expect rollbacks on gay rights, a renewed and reinvigorated assault on trans individuals, contraception, interracial marriage, anything involving the regulatory state but in particular environmental laws, gutting of OSHA, and on and on. As we tapdance towards a fascist state, the only thing that is safe is your right to be armed to the god damned teeth. The rest of it is subject to the whims of whatever Tucker Carlson and his masters tell their audience what matters. Rick Scott already has an 11 point plan for “rescuing” the nation, and Social Security and Medicare are on the line.
And while dim bulbs like Greenwald and company think it is the left coming after free speech, that will soon be on the line, too. “Free speech” is only popular on the right as we speak today because free speech has meant being allowed to say the n-word or other racist shit or harass women and minorities on twitter and other social platforms without repercussion or removal from the platform, but that will soon change. The right has been amassing power to exert their power, once they have it, they will switch to maintaining it, and silencing the opposition will soon become necessary. It already happens quite frequently (there have been multiple cases in Florida during the pandemic including the silencing of the Florida professors), with left wing voices continuously fired and silenced for their views. In short, Ward Churchill would like to have a word with you about cancel culture.
So, from my standpoint, the outlook is grim, yet predictable. A lady you might have heard of told everyone this in 2015 and 2016, but something something emails. That does not mean you should despair or give up, of course. It means you should fight harder and don’t let the bastards win. But yet, this is a bad day and there will be more to come, and not acknowledging that is akin to putting your head in the sand (in before the pedants- they are actually checking on their eggs). Personally, I knew this was coming, and it has just strengthened my resolve to give the lying evil fuckers no quarter.
MazeDancer
No stare decisis, no Supreme Court.
No established law, no nation of laws.
Just as scary as no abortion and no right to privacy is a country where law does not exist.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Worse than that from what I read, basically according to these SCOTUS dimwits the only rights we have were the ones in 1788. Conservatism to the pig ignorant insane extreme.
Kay
It’s so sad how people keep brazenly lying to Susan Collins. I wonder if she’ll think about why that might be. She must have enormous trust issues by now. They all lie right to her face.
danielx
They have gained the power and they are not going to give it up, elections, public opinion and everything else be damned.
Eta: from Our Lady of the Furrowed Brow: she is shocked, shocked to find two USSC nominees who she took at their words were lying through their fucking teeth.
And Kay beat me to it.
Elizabelle
@Kay: LOL. Susan Collins was “lied to.”
It’s not that she is a terrible judge of character and probabilities.
Fuck her. Besides which, this isn’t about YOU, Susan.
Kay
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
It really is a decree that there may be no progress. It’s that broad. I guess they didn’t have time to dress it up in weasel words sufficiently, but, wow.
Damien
@MazeDancer: Agreed. It’s clear to me that there will in fact be very bad days ahead, with the growing eliminationist rhetoric and lawless shit coming out of the right-wing. Violence is almost a certainty, because I’ve been saying FOr YEARS that no fascist movement has ever been defeated fully peacefully.
And I hate feeling like we’re gonna add another tally in that column in America
matt
@Kay: This is the kind of savvy, no bullshit, high IQ leadership that has the people of Maine lining up to re-elect her.
TheTruffle
The GOP will have lost more women voters. This is the dog catching the car
Either this or the country finally splits apart, with blue and red deciding they can’t make it work
Now would be a good time to vote for an expanded Senate majority so the Dems can eliminate the filibuster and expand the court. They should be having secret meetings about it soon.
The GOP just unleashed a shitshow.
Kay
@Elizabelle:
It isn’t that she’s a poor judge of character, although obviously she is since people keep lying to her, it’s that you know she’s convinced she’s a GREAT judge of character, even today.
Can’t fix that! It’s a belief system and she’s at the center of it.
Quaker in a Basement
Yes, it will. Back before Roe, it was a crime in Florida to publish information about where and how to seek abortion counselling. The editor of the student newspaper at the University of Florida defied the university president and state law to publish a list of resources. He was fired and charged with a crime.
So I’d expect legislatures to cook up similar laws pretty damn quick.
Dangerman
Assuming free and fair elections, the blowback should be ugly…
…but if they go after Griswold (and I think that they have to as that led to Roe), there should be a shitstorm.
Betty Cracker
@Kay:
Thanks for the first laugh of the day.
Elizabelle
@TheTruffle:
That’s what I think, although dogs are more noble creatures than Republicans.
Betty Cracker
@Quaker in a Basement: That was the birth of what is now known as The Independent Florida Alligator, a damned fine student newspaper that is not controlled by the university.
MisterDancer
Here’s historical evidence on the shift in Abortion from the Southern Baptist convention’s resolutions, over years (warning — that site is overall right-leaning). Note the shift from 1979’s language:
to 1980:
The takeover can been seen in the years leading up to 1979 in the evolution of that resolution…but it really was that sharp a turn, and absolutely aligned to how the politically aligned Evangelicals fell in with the Reagan movement, and its radical shift into power in American society.
This has been building up for a long time.
TheTruffle
@Kay: Wow. Senator Collins is too stupid to live.
Can we just add Senate seats to expand the court? Codify abortion laws? Blunt the impact of this? Because the alternative is not just fascism but basically the breakup of this country.
@Dangerman: There already is a shitstorm. Someone suggested that the Dems codify Roe anyway, and by the time it makes its way to SCOTUS, at least some right-wings justices will be gone (Alito and Thomas are in their seventies).
Almost Retired
@TheTruffle: This! I would think the right should be thinking, oh shit, now what? I don’t think the right is anticipating the backlash coming their way, or the potential complacency of their own single-issue voters on this issue. At least I hope.
Leaking a draft is, of course, highly unprecedented (what isn’t these days), but the tiny little optimist within me, who has largely been strangled by recent events, wonders if this wasn’t leaked because someone felt that one or more Judges was still persuadable and wanted to give them a taste of what was to come? Wishful thinking, probably.
This sucks (my eloquent summation of the situation).
Damien
Also, these fucking morons think adopting is the answer? Have they tried? A friend’s family had to spend 20k to adopt a special needs baby, and another 20k for a refugee child. Does your average idiot anti-woman douchecanoe have $40k lying about to follow through on their rhetoric?
No, obviously not. Just piling cruelty on top of cruelty
Elizabelle
This is an illegitimate Supreme Court, far to the right of the citizens it allegedly serves. Its membership was artificially manipulated, too.
I am hopeful that we will see a lot of structural changes, for the good, because we cannot let the fascists and retrogrades win.
The Moar You Know
The right is only pissed because this came out now, rather than AFTER the June elections.
dmsilev
@Kay: I’m not sure who comes out worse, Collins or the Maine voters who buy her line.
ETA. From your subsequent comment,
My interpretation is different. I think she knows and knew full well what Kavanaugh etc. really believed, but was deliberately pretending otherwise..
TheTruffle
@Elizabelle: Yes. And I like and respect Mr. Cole, but we need to stop any further attacks on rights. So…suggestions?
Joe Falco
Exactly. Republicans are always what they say they are when they do tell the truth on occasion. They want to take away every right that does not benefit the rich and powerful (and white). They have the advantage now with their majority of Injustices on the Supreme Court, but we need to keep on fighting to restore and advance human rights whenever and wherever possible.
danielx
@TheTruffle:
But where would the capital of the New Confederacy be? Every place with a population of 50,000 or more is too hot, too cold or has too many of those people living there.
Oops, I forgot – public safety would require relocation of certain elements of the population.
Elizabelle
@TheTruffle: How do we expand the Supreme Court, and soon?
Although, obviously: get out the vote this fall, and retain the House and Senate and then make the motherfuckers wish they never got this ambitious.
They want medieval on their heads? Bring it.
Bupalos
We will either learn to talk about these issues in the broader context of common values and why they will make our communities and society more free and better places to live in the future, or we’ll lose and America will close up shop. Common values language is simpler and more accessible to more people. It’s always a winner.
The wingers and authoritarians win because they’ve managed to encode their project of extreme individualism and inequality in common values language, and bound it up with a lionization of a mostly imagined past. This is deadly effective in an age where almost everyone is so fearful of the future that the past, real or imagined, becomes an irresistible place to dwell.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Cheri Beasley
Val Demmings
Tim Ryan
Maggie Hassan
Catherine Cortez Masto
Raphael Warnock
Mark Kelly
House candidates
Statewide candidates
MisterDancer
That’s the endgame of Originalism, yes. The Right abandoned the mythology of The Founders as soon as that started to prove less-than-useful for their purposes, but there’s a reason The Federalist Society is named as such.
Of course, the idea that you have to articulate in Amendments every single right anyone could ever have — or the “regulations can’t make law” bollicks they also wan to sell us — works great in a world where bothsiderism and filibusters lead to no new laws on one side.
Kay
@TheTruffle:
I know this is FORBIDDEN in liberal circles, but I think we should sit with it a bit and think it through.
It’s done. Let them make the next move. They’re radicals, and they’re entirely beholden to the boiled down base. It will be radical. And for God’s sake don’t overpromise. Don’t tell our voters the next election will fix this. It’s not true. Just be straight with them. We’re pushed back 50 years and it’s a long way back.
schrodingers_cat
You were a Snowden and a GG fan. You supported the Iraq War. Now you are spreading doom. Congratulations these are the results of your cumulative actions and those of many like you. This didn’t happen in a day or in the last 4 years. This is what the Republicans have wanted for the last 50 years at least.
Congratulations to all those who voted for Bush II and Nader. Sat out the elections in 2010. Also brocialists and Jill Stein voters. And above all white women who voted for Trump in 2016 and in even greater numbers in 2020.
Take a fucking bow.
dmsilev
@Elizabelle: The size of the Court is set by Congress. We would need 50 plus a few Senators, enough to nuke the filibuster and then to pass (among other things) an ‘expand the Court’ bill. And keep control of the House as well of course.
trollhattan
@Kay: And also too, Trump “learned his lesson” went forth and never again sinned.
Too right Cole, we knew this was coming because like Achilles, only one dart needed to find the weak spot and they’ve been throwing darts half a century. Nice free society, while we had it. Nullification, it’s what’s for dinner.
BBC found an especially awful Oklahoma female state legislator to interview this morning. Laid out the line of thinking quite nicely, for all the world to hear. Rape and incest victims? They’re “barely one percent of total cases” so too fucking bad for those little sluts, who knew what they did.
This will galvanize folks for awhile, like Trump’s election, but that won’t change much.
different-church-lady
There will not be a full fledged backlash at the polls for a simple reason: this exactly what most conservatives voted for in the first place.
What we might get is increased marginal victories. Maybe… maybe… this will motivate enough of our non-voters to get off their asses and tip enough contests to change things.
But it will not lead to mass rejections of the GOP.
Almost Retired
@The Moar You Know: That’s an interesting point that I hadn’t thought of. I assumed the leaker was hoping one of the Judges was persuadable, but maybe the leaker wanted this out in time to affect the primaries?
Chris Johnson
@Damien: “Violence is a certainty” is certainly the message that Russia has been working hard to establish for a lotta years now, including all through the administration of their US President, who tirelessly hammered that message.
Hell, they stormed the Capitol and still weren’t able to get the liberals to abandon rule of law, and look what happened: Biden won and rule of law persisted.
We got renegade Supreme Court Justices. That’s all. Not the first time. We will overrule their bullshit. Grind ’em down, they are the lawless ones.
This is an important moment. What would Nancy Smash do? Go to Ukraine, apparently.
We got this. Don’t get knocked off course by Republican/Russian death spasms. We are supposed to freak out and be frightened. Don’t give the motherfuckers the satisfaction.
taumaturgo
That lady that you mentioned, Bill, her husband had complete control of the Senate and House, yet women right to choose was not codified. Same with Obama. Compare and contrast to the imbecile Trump who pack the court in one term, while the erudite, very concerned democrats complained in dismayed. To the impartial observer it is obvious, one side had a plan and the desire to see it thought while the other talk a good game with no desire to change the status quo. Here we are today.
Nettoyeur
@Kay: All she has to do is work with Sen what’s her name from Alaska to vote down the filibuster and then vote a reproductive rights bill thru. But I bet she won’t.
MazeDancer
@Damien: Have thought, grimly, that the following of war in Ukraine has gotten everyone used to the necessity of violence when unjustly invaded.
America has been unjustly invaded by self-absorbed, power-crazy minority that has no problem with raping women, girls, and anyone else with a uterus.
Dangerman
As the saying goes, the Moral Majority is neither one and there should be blowback for a Minority that goes too far.
Same thing in Russia, right? I don’t think the crazy fuckers are a majority there either; their rule will hopefully end in some (almost certainly bloody) way.
Interesting times.
Geminid
@TheTruffle: Democrats can’t codify Roe without 50 votes and I don’t think Manchin would vote yes on such legislation.
I see a lot of people and politicians saying we have to codify Roe now, but if they aren’t calling for an all out effort to flip Republican Senate seats this November I don’t take them seriously.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: The dude changed his stripes years ago. (14 now? More?) You can’t give him any credit for that?
Elizabelle
@dmsilev: OK. So there is a path.
FWIW, I wish we as voters/citizens could also do something about the terrible US Senate rules, that give one retrograde Senator the ability to prevent appointments to high positions, etc.
They work for us. At least, that’s the idea.
James E Powell
Me neither. I spent a lot of time & effort in 2000 & 2016 talking to tote-baggers – begging & pleading even – about the importance of the supreme court. But they were focused on shit like Al Gore not being the environmentalist he claimed to be or Hillary Clinton giving speeches to Goldman Sachs and other completely ridiculous, trivial things. They didn’t get the picture after Citizens United & Shelby County.
The low information voters who determine outcomes do not connect rulings by the supreme court with Republicans they’ve voted for because they are low information voters who never think about how the federal government works.
Anyone believing in the backlash helping Democrats has to think about whether Mark Kelly, Raphael Warnock, Tim Ryan, John Fetterman, and whoever in Wisconsin are going to make it a big issue in their campaigns. I could be wrong, but I’m guessing they will be talking about dollars & cents and avoiding all other topics.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Yeah I saw that infuriating tweet about codifying Roe and ending the filibuster by the Red Rose of Vermont. His misogynist and xenophobic ass needs to sit down and shut up,
different-church-lady
At this point it’s impossible to believe other people lie to Susan Collins more than she lies to us.
Elizabelle
Expand the Supreme Court and end the lifetime appointments. 18 year term, with rolling replacements.
trollhattan
@taumaturgo: When, exactly, did Obama have “complete control of the Senate and House” so that he could have made abortion access the law of the land. Show your work.
Nettoyeur
@Damien: case pending in TN: Jewish couple applied to adopt, turned down because TN contracts adoption services to a Christian organization that only approves Christian parents
Kay
@trollhattan:
I don’t think anyone knows what will happen. Alito doesn’t, I sure don’t, no one does. That’s what makes it radical. We’re not “going back” to anything. “Pre-Roe” is not a valid measure. It’s a brand new loss of rights. Uncharted.
But you can’t just “go back” 50 years. That’s a lie the Right is telling.
schrodingers_cat
@different-church-lady: I will give him credit for being better than most of the people who voted for Bush Ii.
BTW this blog was a GG fan club in the Obama years when the Snowden business came out, that is more recent.
The current makeup of the Supreme Court has a lot to do with the Bush II election. Alito and Roberts is the Bush II legacy. This court didn’t materialize in one day.
Geminid
@schrodingers_cat: I’ll put you down as undecided!
Bupalos
@The Moar You Know: They aren’t pissed about it leaking at all. This is performative and useful for them. If the leaker wasn’t on the right, (which I don’t expect but could be the case) then someone on our team did us an oopsie in my opinion.
Just One More Canuck
@danielx: Devon Island[1] (Inuktitut: ᑕᓪᓗᕈᑎᑦ, Tallurutit)[2] is an island in Canada and the largest uninhabited island (no permanent residents) in the world. It is located in Baffin Bay, Qikiqtaaluk Region, Nunavut, Canada.
different-church-lady
@schrodingers_cat: I will never claim the man’s judgement is flawless.
Elizabelle
@James E Powell: I think you are wrong.
Women’s rights are huge, and there is one party that will protect them.
And can walk and chew gum at the same time. Protect women’s rights, and handle the economy and work to ameliorate climate change.
When the Republicans just abandoned their mask, point out the ugliness that is now there, for everyone to see. Incontrovertibly.
Not a time for timidity.
gene108
This SCOTUS will, if given the chance, overturn every progressive 20th century SCOTUS ruling.
It’s really just up to Republican states and their AG’s, if they can come up with half-assed legal arguments against a minimum wage, labor unions existing at all, overtime pay, the 1964 Civil Rights act provisions on public accommodations, and so on. We will see all that and more overturned.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
tell me you don’t know dick about American politics without saying “I don’t know dick about American politics”
Everybody remembers McCain’s thumbs-down, right? When Gee Dumbya declared he was had political capital and intended to use it to privatize Social Security? Presidents do not, in fact, “control” the co-equal branches of government (or, for that matter, state houses) even when there is nominal partisan alignment.
I know trauma-turd is a moron and a troll, but he’s far from the only one here given to these childish, counter-productive fantasies
TaMara
Cool. I see many are in the camp of it’s hopeless and might as well give up.
That’ll work.
Peale
@different-church-lady: Yeah. The problem is that while cumulatively many women have had abortions, at any given time, very few need to. And it will take awhile for the results of this to be felt. Sure, 2% of all pregnancies are ectopic, but it will take years for banning abortion to show up in a meaningful way in deaths and long hospital stays. Lots and lots of still births happen each year. The idea that the first thing you need to do if you find yourself pregnant is hire a lawyer to walk you through it will take awhile to sink in because the states will need to hire the investigators. I’m expecting a dozen or so think pieces over the next year noting how little has changed post roe being written by middle aged people who aren’t actually suffering through the new pregnancy regulations. And the women who die will just do so anonymously.
PaulB
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
I thought the word “corporation” didn’t appear in the Constitution. Could we get a judge to use this bad ruling to overturn Citizens United based on Alito’s tortured logic?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
Pretty sure even low info voters would be outraged if parts of 1964 Civil Rights Act were overturned. That would generate blowback
schrodingers_cat
@TaMara: The privileged don’t deal well with adversity.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s the thing, Alto is negating the 14th Amendment to do this. So, the law now is the only the most narrow, petulant, anal retentive interpretation of the Constitution.
Bupalos
Absolutely. I’m afraid a lot of us are going to fall into the trap of boosting this lie, without realizing we are cutting ourselves off at the knees in doing so.
This is going to be a major shock to the system that will cross and blur a lot of the political borders that made The United States what it has been.
Kay
@Geminid:
Just say you’re not going to get to 60 seats in November. It’s the truth. I have no idea why you think overpromising to people again and again is effective or even respectful. The response to “codify Roe” is “we can’t”. They’re going to have to come out for some real reason. Just go right to that.
It’s defensive to me, and it doesn’t inspire trust. Admit it. Start there. If you’re asking them to embark on a long haul, well, tell them they’re doing that. Drop the “this cycle!” focus. They don’t believe it anyway, and they shouldn’t, because it’s not true.
Peale
@gene108: Apparently the standard is that if it isn’t enumerated and isn’t a customary right for time immemorial, that’s going to be sufficient grounds to overturn it. Let’s note that 8-9 generations have been alive under Roe over 50 years. So the standard for “many generations” is quite long.
gene108
@MisterDancer:
President Carter, in 1980, was a Southern Baptist evangelical (he’s still an evangelical, though he’s no longer Southern Baptist).
The political takeover of the SBC was so quick and complete, they shunned their only President in favor of Reagan.
debbie
@different-church-lady:
The youngs will show up. This is a big deal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@different-church-lady: one theory I have about Susan Collins: She’s a fraud, Mitch McConnell in an Ann Taylor suit, but there’s some part of her that needs to believe in her own act. She lies to herself. Not as much as she lies to everybody else, but some.
trollhattan
We should have a betting pool for first House Republican to declare his intention to hold hearings next January into identifying who this vile leaker person was. That’s the real crime here.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
IDK, wouldn’t that just be subject to, “And they Didn’t. Even. Try!” that many voters engage in?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Yes, this, I always as told the real mission of the Federalist Society was protect the myth of the Corporate Citizenship and Roe was just BS to keep the wingnut voting without thinking.
gvg
@Betty Cracker: Which is almost dead these days. Students don’t read print papers and Craigslist killed the classified which were what supported most newspapers including the alligator. As a student I read it every day and most did including the professors. Now…they sit in the racks unread. But let’s stick to talking about Roe.
debbie
@MisterDancer:
Yep, thanks to Ralph Reed, who I believe is still causing trouble.
Mike in NC
Abortion in this country will be soon outlawed because three far right-wing Supreme Court justices were installed by a rapist and sexual predator. Oh, the irony doesn’t get any better than that.
Nettoyeur
An interesting side effect of banning abortion by red states will be the explosion of their non-white child populations. I read that in Arizona, primary schools populations are already majority Hispanic. I also expect costs for services to abandoned children will skyrocket, triggering tax increases. The GOP dog just caught up with the garbage truck it was chasing. Kinda like Putin using NATO expansion as an excuse for destroying Ukraine, and instead triggering multiple new applications for NATO membership.
Josie
@schrodingers_cat: This is the truth. Right now we need to take lessons from black people, who have been fighting for their own survival for more years than we can count. They haven’t given up and neither should we.
UncleEbeneezer
@James E Powell: The Women’s March and 2018 Mid Terms suggest there is the possibility for substantial blowback. Whether we will see it or it will be enough, who knows.
LAO
I need to rant. Feel free to ignore,
So this morning I was out walking my dog in NYC. I saw, across the street, another dog owner (I’ll call her Tara) who I know to be a republican that simply doesn’t care about social issues. We have discussed this many times, I avoided her because I just didn’t have the space to deal kindly or neighborly with such a selfish, entitled person. She chased me down to say hello and I told her, point blank that today was not the day and I am not the person. She was absolutely shocked — she wanted to talk about Roe — and couldn’t understand why I think she’s the worst fucking person in the world. (I didn’t say that but I wanted too).
These fucking people.
PS — Of course her dog is a doodle
taumaturgo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: “To the impartial observer it is obvious, one side had a plan and the desire to see it thought while the other talk a good game with no desire to change the status quo. Here we are today.”
debbie
Absolutely. This is just too fundamental of a right to go away quietly. This is no less momentous than any argument or action about the Second Amendment.
Omnes Omnibus
This, if it is a real draft of the majority opinion, is a gut punch. Even if it isn’t though, no one should expect a good result in June anyway. So do the opposite of what I say when a good thing happens. Take a day or so to vent and rage. Then take your anger and disgust and focus it on defeating these bastards. Maybe start in the next thread. There are more of us, let’s make sure they know it.
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
The SCOTUS doesn’t care about blowback. Given the power of right-wing media to control Republican voters, Republican politicians can be well insulated from political blowback.
If 1/6 didn’t kill and bury the Republican Party and their allegiance to TFG, nothing will. If an insurrection, broadcast live by every major news outlet in the country, hasn’t discouraged people from voting Republican, I doubt the chance to go out and eat dinner knowing there’d be no black people allowed in the restaurant will cause blowback.
Dangerman
Clarence Thomas was just in the Hospital, right? Damn, it would suck if Mr. Actuarial came for his ass before they had a vote on the final draft. They DO have to vote on a final draft, right? This isn’t a done deal yet then.
CT kicks, it’s 4 to 3 and who the fuck knows what Roberta does.
Cassandra
The troll takes about how the Dems had total control of the government under Clinton and Obama and did nothing so this is their fault and you should not vote Dem again are all over twitter and…without naming nyms…even here.
I’d personally be OK with banning anyone parroting that propaganda and if both-sidesism and equity demand a return ban in kind than drop the hammer on me. It would be a great way to go out.
And just for the record, neither president had the senate votes for that.
Bupalos
@debbie:
The only way the young show up for this in backlash fashion is if Democrats are able to speak in broader language about the type of unfree world this is represents a march towards. It actually can’t be about “abortion” or “reproductive rights” it has to be about “a free and open society.” That’s what the right does so well in reverse.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gene108:
So basically, you’re saying we’re fucked and doomed so why bother, right?
gvg
We haven’t heard anything about the commission to expand the supreme court since Biden set them up. Right after the Court actually ends Roe, would be a good time to report on the commissions results IMO.
And give blowback to every congress person and SC judge about this.
mrmoshpotato
@Kay:
I wonder how much concern is showing in her eyebrows today. The asshole.
schrodingers_cat
Alito Hearings: A blast from the Balloon Juice past
Rome was not built in a day and neither was this Supreme Court.
Senator Ted Kennedy was spot on about Alito.
germy
Out of curiosity I checked in with a conservative blogger to see her reaction. I won’t link to her because commenters here get mad when I do that. One valued commenter called it a “kink” and another commenter always replies with “Yawn. Part 8000 of this blogger is an idiot” etc.
But I wanted to see what conservative bloggers are thinking about this, and interestingly some of them are pissed. They accuse the court of handing the elections to Democrats. They hate the timing and they hate that Democrats will be energized.
So there’s that.
zhena gogolia
@Cassandra: Thank you.
zhena gogolia
@Bupalos: Why can’t the young see this for themselves?
ETA: I’m glad that when I was young, I wasn’t as stupid as you all paint the present-day young people.
germy
@mrmoshpotato:
Collins voted against Amy Coathanger. But she was fine with Justice BeerPong.
TheTruffle
@Kay: I don’t think that is the answer either. Just run on this for the elections. Make this an issue. Don’t talk about expanding the court yet. They’ve been making “next moves” for about a year and hopefully people are sick of this.
Most Americans are pro-Roe. The GOP lost its wedge issue. Time to go on the offense
@Bupalos: Here I agree. There are lots of ways to frame a “free society” and how the GQP is opposed to it.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@germy:
Let’s hope their fears are correct and try to make it so
EmbraceYourInnerCrone
@dmsilev: yes, she knew they were lying to her, it’s what she wants. It gives her plausible deniability. So the people on her state who want to fool themselves that it’s not her fault, she’s really a moderate, can keep lying to themselves.
hueyplong
@germy: Collins voted against Justice Coathanger because the GOPers had the votes to let her put on a show.
Her comment about being lied to is nothing more than making a record for later reference. She’s in the GOP fold, as literally anyone paying attention knows.
debbie
@Bupalos:
Disagree. What it is actually about is that there IS a difference between the two parties. Period. We may not end up with the best world, but we’ll have the better world. Get that, and then fight for all the open society stuff. Stay home and pout, and it’s Ralph Nader all over again.
different-church-lady
@germy: Two contradictory conspiracy theories can’t be wrong!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
the far right spent fifty years working toward that opinion. I think back to Charlie Pierce’s story about a race for county agricultural commissioner in Iowa. Five candidates, all talking about their stance on abortion. In 1992, the wry slogan conservatives used about Poppy Bush was “only four more years”. No distractions, no demands to be inspired! no quest for self-actualization in the voting booth, no fantasies about “after four years of Clinton/Gore/Obama/HRC, the people will come to us!”, no “sending a message” to the RINOs. They kept their eyes on the prize and bored through that board.
germy
@hueyplong:
Who was her show for, though? She didn’t impress us. And she didn’t impress conservatives.
I think she’s a doddering idiot.
Kropacetic
@different-church-lady: There will not be a full fledged backlash at the polls for a simple reason: this exactly what most conservatives voted for in the first place.
I wonder what my pro-Trump mom will say who every time this issue came up in political debates would always just dismissively say “they aren’t going to overturn Roe.”
gene108
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Gutting the past 150 years of 14th Amendment jurisprudence is a goal of right-wing legal scholars, since repealing it seems a heavy lift.
Without the 14th Amendment a whole bunch of laws become invalid, and Republican controlled states can pass discriminatory laws to their hearts’ content.
Geminid
@Kay: I did not say we are going to get 60 seats in November. I am advocating getting as many as we can.
CliosFanBoy
@schrodingers_cat: Basically if you live in a swing state that went red, and you did NOT vote for Gore in 2000, Kerry in 2004, and Clinton in 2016 some of this blood is on your hands.
LAO
CaseyL
Take it as a given that any Republican who poses as a moderate is a liar. Susan Collins is a liar, and Maine loves her. I was in Maine last Fall, and as I noted at the time, the picturesque little towns are all Red, deep deep Red. Never mind the Trump flags (of which there were many), I saw LePage signs in some windows.
I don’t know what’s going to happen. SCOTUS has done a number of things over the course of our history to shred its credibility to ribbons (Dred Scott, Plessy, Korematsu) and each time it took 50+ years to reverse the decision and/or undo the damage. So we could be looking at 50 years of shit this time, too. (Boy, am I glad I’m an Old with no kids!)
The rage coming from our side is coming from the usual suspects, and Biden’s statement (welcome though it was) is more of the same: He pledges to work with a Congress that has already stymied large parts of his agenda, including the two traitorous pseudo-Dems Manchin and Sinema. So nothing new or hopeful there.
It will take a veritable wave of Blue in this year’s midterms, to take Congress with an overwhelming, filibuster-proof majority, to undo this (by expanding SCOTUS, first thing). The odds of that may have increased over the last 24 hours, but who the hell knows.
Damned at Random
Emily’s List has been supporting pro_choice Democratic women for decades – I’ve been contributing through them for 30 years. Check their endorsements and put your $$ where your uterus is
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Goku, I like you but you have to learn to operate within uncertainty. They can’t give you an answer. They don’t know. I don’t know either.
You still have to put one foot in front of the other, right? Even without a magic 8 ball that says “DOOM” or “VICTORY” ? :)
You’re not getting a guarantee. I hate suprises. I would love one. But they can’t give you one.
James E Powell
@Elizabelle:
This has been true & obvious since Reagan. It has not worked out that well for Democrats. The two things that determine national elections are white supremacy & the economy. Everything else is just talk.
gene108
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
As Lenin understood, and subsequent communist revolutions proved, a determined and focused minority can impose its will on an unfocused majority, no matter how unpopular the revolutionaries ideas may be.
Edit: The radical Right, in this country, have very much internalized Lenin’s insight.
debbie
@LAO:
That trust disappeared long ago, Sir.
trollhattan
Precisely. It seems forgotten the tiny slice of time that made it possible to pass ACA. And then what happened to the late Ted Kennedy’s seat? Who remembers Senator Dreamypants? There’s a guy who would have voted for Abortion for All!
Smarter trolls.
Elizabelle
@germy:
I think that is absolutely the case. I almost wondered if the decision was leaked now (additionally) to take away the anger and urgency months before November. Give it a chance to cool down.
Although: we are not the people with the memory of a goldfish (no slag on goldfish).
CliosFanBoy
@trollhattan: Not to mention Clinton. They each had Democratic majorities for 2 whole years! And they never had the votes to codify Roe as there were still anti-choice votes among the Dems. hell, Clinton couldn’t get health care through his “complete controlled” Congress.
Elizabelle
Hate me for being a pollyanna, but maybe this is along the lines of Putin’s glorious invasion of Ukraine.
They don’t know what they are up against, or what the blowback will be.
LAO
I find the focus on the “leak” and not the substance to be infuriating. Apparently popehat agrees:
ETA: I give up
Geminid
@Kay: You are swatting down an argument I did not make. I did not say we are going to get 60 seats in November. I am advocating getting as many as we can.
And how does doing as well as possible this cycle inhibit pursuing long term growth? It seems to me they go hand in hand.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@zhena gogolia:
May god bless and keep you always. I figured who and what Ronald Reagan was a few years before I was old enough to vote. It wasn’t that hard, as I recall.
trollhattan
@LAO: That’ll learn ’em. “Darn you, leaker!” [SCOTUS fistshake]
If Roberts truly values the “dignity of the court” then he has watched it go down the sewer from the best seat in the arena. Nice legacy there, mister justice.
Dangerman
@LAO: OK, I’ve flipped. Robert’s leaked it.
Kinda like the he who smelt it dealt it rule.
Martin
So, I’m still optimistic long term. I see this as a reactionary action, not a durable one. Dems in Congress have never been as consistently pro-choice as they are now, and I’m guessing we’ll continue to increase female representation in Congress on the Dem side – and that may speed up now.
This is about signaling who are deserving of making the rules in this country, even when they are in the minority. One way or another that minority will find themselves unable to exert power, and these things will be rapidly undone.
In the meantime, as part of your outreach pitch, return to the topic that abortions rights are women’s health. CA has the lowest maternal mortality rate in the US, and that progress is hand in glove with the role of abortion in the state, how it’s studied, how medical professionals are trained, how funding is provided, and so on. The next lowest state is Mass, where the rate is twice as high. When you get down to the states with the most severe abortion limits, the maternal mortality rate is 10x-20x higher. That’s a lot of moms that want kids not having a kid, or in some cases a kid that won’t have a mom.
The two issues cannot be separated. And there are no Republicans, at any level, that won’t advance either policies or judges that oppose abortion. Susan Collins can call herself pro-choice all she wants, she still voted for these assholes and gave them cover.
LAO
Kay
@Geminid:
Acknowlege the fix we’re in. We’re in. Them too. The push by them – the poking at the lever to get the reaction- and then the pushback is a knot. Just let go of the rope.
Tell them the extent of the problem (big) and offer what you can reasonably deliver, which is “hold Congress”.
Suzanne
@Nettoyeur:
The entire state of Arizona, below age 18, is majority-minority, mostly Latino but also Native (and Chicano). Despite the stereotype of it being full of old white snowbirds, it is one of the younger states on average. So.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
It’s not just that. I’m pissed at them for spreading this doom and gloom. All it does is discourage people and give the impression that the GOP is invincible; that nothing we do actually matters. Sometimes I do feel that way and sometimes I express it, but never (at least I try not to) with the absolute certainty some are here. It’s as infuriating as it is frightening
Elizabelle
@Kay: Hold the House. Hold — actually — expand our numbers in the Senate.
Spell it out.
germy
Betty Cracker
I see we got about two dozen comments in before the circular firing squad began in earnest, and I haven’t read every comment yet, but appears lots of people aren’t taking the bait! This is progress! Wow!
JML
@trollhattan: to be fair, Obama had a 60-40 senate majority in July of 2009 with the house in Democratic hands as well.
But the filibuster was still in place and we had to deal with Saint Joe of Lieberman.
germy
Kay
@Geminid:
Because I think you enjoy swatting back and forth with them as much as they do. I completely get that, being one of those people myself, but is it getting anyone anywhere? They LOVE it. Their absolute favorite thing is for you to say “Democrat” so they can say “useless”. They’re saying “all is lost”. There’s nothing left for them to say after that, unless someone jumps in and says “Democrats!” Just let it sit there. They have nothing past that, other than relitigating back to Bill Clinton. Don’t take the opening they need.
trollhattan
@germy: I’m-a brain the next person who says “stare decisis.” It’s just shorthand for “shut up and leave me alone, Senator Flyspeck.”‘
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
Back in the halcyon days of my youth, I accompanied more than one young woman to a clinic (sometimes as a favor, sometimes on a personal mission). It was not a big deal – there were no pickets and no stigma – that was this town in the 70s and 80s.
Nowadays, you have to cut through lines of assholes who pray in one breath and curse you in another.
schrodingers_cat
All men should observe a day of silence and STFU.
BTW even FDR couldn’t get away with packing the courts despite huge majorities in both the Houses.
catodthedog
@Martin:
Orban and Modi would like a word with you.
The Democratic politics of civility should end. This one sided civility and respect for norms from Democrats should end. Otherwise it would be their end. And by Democrats I don’t mean the politicians. I mean the voters. They should elect more combative, extreme politicians. Even if it means short term losses.
The goal of Democrats should be to destroy the Republican Party. Not to work with them, but to decimate them. After that, the Democrats can think about allowing an alternative opposition.
If they don’t do this, the Democrats will be destroyed. They would have been civil and fair and just, following all the norms, but it all amounted to nothing.
Politics exists to achieve ends. It does not exist for itself or it’s norms.
I’ll repost my comment from an earlier post……
The left is still trying to parse this in the framework of the existing order — pass new laws, expand the court, win elections. There is no way you can politically, via civic action, work out of the present because that only works in the political system of government, that existed till yesterday. And that system, that political order, just got demolished. The rightwing court is ready to adjudicate future elections on whatever reasoning that will allow the right to win. This is already clear – gerrymandering and voting right cases have already paved the way, and all elections in the immediate future will be contested in court and adjudicated in favor of the right.
There is only one goal of the right now – get absolute power, and crush the opposition to the level that it cannot win ever. The right will crush all the political institutions and organs of the left, ruthlessly and without qualms. Everything – government regulation, social welfare, civil rights.. all are dead men walking as of now……….
These rightwing changes will not be rapidly undone. It will take decades, _if_ you have a no-holds bar scorched earth fight politically. Else it will take _generations_.
There are no quick fixes
Nicole
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hell, Ayn Rand was on to him: “Now I want to give you a brief indication of the kinds of issues that are coming up, on which you might want to know my views….The Presidential election of 1976. I urge you, as emphatically as I can, not to support the candidacy of Ronald Reagan. I urge you not to work for or advocate his nomination, and not to vote for him. My reasons are as follows: Mr. Reagan is not a champion of capitalism, but a conservative in the worst sense of that word—i.e., an advocate of a mixed economy with government controls slanted in favor of business rather than labor… This description applies in various degrees to most Republican politicians, but most of them preserve some respect for the rights of the individual. Mr. Reagan does not: he opposes the right to abortion.”
Martin
@Bupalos: Why do people think that young voters haven’t been showing up?
FFS, the very people who decry how disengaged young people are also complain about how unhelpful AOC is. Who the fuck do you think put her in office against the #4 Democrat in the House? Who do you think enabled the 2018 Dem House victory? Who do you think flipped the VA legislature? Who do you think ran up the score against Trump in 2020? Record GOP turnout. Pfff. Dems beat that by 11 million, and they did even when young people didn’t get their preferred candidate. They showed up.
From the summary on a youth voter poll from a week ago. Don’t mistake them not showing up on a blog full of 50+, or not tuning into Meet the Press for disengagement.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Well then you’re their victim. Why does what they think affect your whole world view?
When they drop the nugget don’t pick it up. Just leave it there. Are you voting this cycle? Yes? Then you’re not really “hopeless” are you?
Another Scott
@dmsilev: +1
It was all performative mouth noises for her. She’s a GQP hack that plays a moderate and it’s all playing. She only cares about keeping her seat and her power.
Cheers,
Scott.
Suzanne
@germy:
Feature not bug.
The evangelical right wing really, really wants more children to adopt. White children would be a bonus for them, but look at Barrett… they also love the white savior narrative so they are okay with interracial adoptions. There are many more infertile couples than there are children to adopt without going through a long foster-to-adopt process, which is most domestic adoption these days.
However, they’re fine with killing off women.
oatler
@different-church-lady:
Welcome to my church. Five dollars.
Kay
@Martin:
I was happy that they were at the SCOTUS last night. That was a young group. I don’t know what it means for voting, but I was glad they were out.
trollhattan
@JML: IIRC Al Franken took his seat the first week of July after Coleman conceded June 30. Ted Kennedy died August 25. So if there was a window for doing something to buttress Roe, it would have been then. Would every Democrat and independent have voted for it? Magic 8-ball says “No fucking way.”
Ksmiami
@Elizabelle: blowtorches and pliers motherfuckers. Ps where does Alito live?
Kelly
Sandy Hook didn’t break the gun nuts.
Nothing touches Republican hearts.
kindness
That whole Christo-nationalist (fascist) movement to rule rather than govern….it sticks in a lot of American’s craws. Didn’t stop many of those same Americans from voting for Trump in ’16 because her e-mails. And we won’t even touch Susan Collins shitshow feigned horror now that she’s been shown to be a complete idiot or liar/hypocrite, take your pick. It won’t end at Roe. Those people want to take us back to the 1850’s. We’re already hearing from those people that gay marriage was also wrongly decided and so was Griswald. I wonder how long it’s going to take for one of those same yahoos to start saying slavery should also be ‘investigated’ in this new light. Slavery after all, IS mentioned in the Constitution.
We’re fucked. It’s going to come to Gilead or civil war. There isn’t a middle ground here.
HinTN
@Nettoyeur: We have become such lovely people.
Mike in NC
Republicans have studied Putin’s Russia for 20 years, and they liked what they saw. We are indeed, tapdancing towards fascism.
Xentik
@Kay: I’ve had this ‘hopeless’ discussion with my father a few times. He grew up under a fascist regime in Europe and sees the current trend in the US as heading to that end. He often accuses me of being naively optimistic, but my response to him is this: “I know things are bleak, I know success isn’t guaranteed in this election or the next one, even if we win, but there is literally nothing to be gained by declaring we’ve lost. I choose to look for reasons for optimism because those generally represent places we can direct our efforts to try to change things and make progress.” I work hard to make sure that my optimism isn’t pie-in-the-sky, and I think the current situation is far from settled.
I understand my Father’s pessimism, because he lived through fascism. But those on the left today who grew up in the US under our imperfect but otherwise functional democracy who claim it’s over aren’t on our side. Either they’ve truly given up, at which point they are not worth engaging with, or they actively believe in some fantasy hogwash about how the people will rise up magically after fascism to enable their new liberal paradise, which is also not worth engaging with.
We have to choose our battles carefully, get as many people to join us as we can, and fight a holding action until we can start to push things in the right direction again.
Kay
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Here’s what happened to me as I got older, and I think this is connected to be a political minority where I live, because you have to get really solid in what you believe because people are always telling you you’re not just wrong but no one else believes any of these things either.
If 150 Americans believed in bodily autonomy and agency for women I would still be one of them. That’s the bottom line. It saves a lot of anguish and defensiveness. You’ll feel better immediately, because it’s a more powerful position.
Ksmiami
@Omnes Omnibus: or just arm up and give the right the fight they really want
Geminid
@Kay: I am all about holding Congress. That is my goal. But I’d like to see us pick up a few Senate seats and not lose any of the ones we already have. I think we can and I’m not shining anyone on when I advocate this.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Kay:
I guess because deep down I worry they’re right and that terrifies me. Not just for the vulnerable people that will be hurt, but myself as well.
I’m not some highly-paid professional that could uproot myself and flee to another country if I needed to. ATM, I’m a poorly paid worker with few real skills, who’s approaching 30. I don’t think the kind of lawless world the GOP is creating is one I want to live in or one I could survive in.
While I’m trying to figure out what to do with my life, I’m trying to save a little for retirement. What if the country becomes an economic basketcase because of GOP policy dysfunction? And axing SS and Medicare just makes things even more complicated. Something else I won’t be able to rely on, so I’ll have to work until I literally die, assuming society doesn’t collapse first
Martin
@catodthedog: Understand that when I say ‘one way or another’, you need to put that in the context of my other comments that the GOP will not give up power without violence. That’s the lesson of Jan 6.
It is worth observing the level of desperation in the efforts of the right. The have lost the war of ideas. They have lost the ability to affect change within the existing institutions and are turning to antidemocratic actions. That’s not a positive indication for their ability to sustain this. Yeah, Democrats could sit back and allow this to happen, but I don’t think they will. It’s taken decades for Democrats to get clearly on one side of these issues. That investment is already done. What remains is how far they are willing to go to protect the democratic institution. We’ll find that out next month, I suspect.
Ksmiami
@kindness: I’ll take Civil War for 100 Bob.
Martin
@Ksmiami: I suspect that is unavoidable at this point. Question will be whether it’s 1960s levels of violence or 1860s levels of violence.
Betty Cracker
@Xentik: I don’t know how old you are, but I’m in my 50s, and I think I and my 23-year-old have very different experiences of growing up as Americans. Think of coming of age never knowing a second where your country wasn’t at war, in an age of soaring wealth inequality and institutions crumbling around you. Inaction is inexcusable, but I don’t blame young folks a bit for being pessimistic. I’m grateful they as engaged as they are.
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: Indeed. Not to mention climate change, which has come calling. Loudly.
And covid. Unaffordable college. The gig economy.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
How do Manchin and Sinema (and others like them) come into play here?
trollhattan
@Betty Cracker: Curious to the vibe on my kid’s Catholic campus today.
Funny story, as a freshman on learning they have two “pro-life” student groups on campus she petitioned to start a pro-choice group. They politely declined.
Elizabelle
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
Goku: stop looking for clouds. Further, no one can answer that one at this time. Pointless to ask. There are more serious questions at hand.
I hear you re the challenges you face. There is a nation of Gokus out there. To make common cause with.
Pessimism and despair only aid the oppressor.
Martin is right, in his comments above. These GOP actions are born of desperation. They are losing on every level, but retain some structural advantages, which they are playing to the max.
Another Scott
@schrodingers_cat: As Pelosi says, every election starts with a clean slate. BC and me voting for Nader didn’t put TFG in the White House – Comey did.
Beating up on voters doesn’t win elections. Getting more people to vote for Democrats wins elections.
Eyes on the prize.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): One reason why I’m long-term optimistic is that the US enables state sovereignty, which means that the states can serve as effective bulwarks against that kind of thing. If SS/Medicare was killed off, states like California would replace it at the state level. You’d get state compacts. And you’d get an escalated version of the kind of economic warfare already taking place between the states. Texas just lost out on the cross-border railroad with Mexico due to their border stunt. Mexico will be talking to New Mexico about it now. Companies will disinvest in red states. You can’t run 40% of the country just off of Chick Fil A and Hobby Lobby.
CA isn’t backing down, nor do I expect NY, MA, etc. to.
different-church-lady
@Kelly: Can’t touch what doesn’t exist.
Elizabelle
@Martin: Agreed.
Virginia too, despite the stunt with our ridiculous governor sweater vest (CRT! CRT! CRT!)
I think this leak might have helped Abigail Spanberger and Elaine Luria, FWIW. The stakes are that much clearer. They are not blowing smoke about the threats to citizens’ lives and health.
Jinchi
”Free Speech” is not popular on the right as any Florida math textbook publisher could tell you. Or Rebecca Jones, arrested for publishing accurate Covid data by DeSantis’s goons. Or Disney for mildly criticizing the state’s gay bashing bill, etc., etc., etc.
Kay
This is an acceptably honest pitch to me. “We will need“. That’s it.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): They don’t. Dems need to pick up 2 new seats and then Manchin and Sinema become completely irrelevant. Chris Coons becomes the inflection point for nuking the filibuster (CA needs to do something about DiFi as well – I would love that seat to go to Barbara Lee.)
I’m not saying this is easy. I’m not saying there won’t be damage and harm. There will. What I’m saying is that there’s certain inevitability to where this winds up. I’m not happy about that, I’m not trying to convince people it’s a good thing, it just is what it is. The Christian Nationalists have had a hold on this country for four centuries, and they won’t hand that over easily. So its going to have to be a fight. Jan 6 was them being pushed to violence. We need to keep pushing, and be ready when they try to hold power through force.
Ksmiami
@Martin: bring on the drone wars…
trollhattan
What’s the status of the Texas bounty for slut-catchers bill? Did SCOTUS kick it back to district court, or what? I can’t remember, just that they left it in force rather than act.
Barbara
@Elizabelle: What they must realize but don’t seem to connect the dots on is the percentage of affluent white women who have had an abortion. Or their daughters or sisters or cousins have. The rate of abortion has gone down as contraception methods have increased and become more effective, especially the longer term and emergency types of contraception, but for women between 45 and 65, a history of having an abortion just isn’t rare. The threat against abortion rights has been made so loudly for so long without transpiring that many have, even if unconsciously, made it a lower priority.
All I can say is that the Court as a whole has descended to a level of buffoonery and is not going to be nearly as politically untouchable going forward as it has become. Yeah, John Roberts, you failed.
P.S. Seeing the rightwing agonistes in various quarters, e.g., Rich Lowry, tells me that they know the longer and more drawn out this is the worse off they are. Being able to shape reaction with immediacy is their best friend — slow leaks allow others to dilute and weaken their own message, which will be to minimize its impact.
It also wouldn’t surprise me if Roberts or Kavanagh engineered the leak to force Alito to temper his language. Roberts is unlikely, but you never know.
eversor
@trollhattan:
Anyone who remains Christian after this is complicit in this. That battle has to be fought first or they will keep coming. If you have Christian friends politely explain to them that you can no longer be friends with them and your kids can’t be friends with theirs. Take your kids out of Christian schools. Push coporations not to donate to Christian charities and to speak up for abortion. Protest Churches on Sunday and do so loudly like they did abortion clinics. Get up and leave the room when you see Christians you know. Do not give money to coporations owned by Christians.
Also push corporations to leave states that pass these laws. Cripple them financially and leave them broke and smile at their suffering.
Either play dirtier than they do and admit Christianity is the target or give up.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
And what if Dems can’t because of voter suppression and elections being decided in slanted courts? Well, I guess you answered that in your last paragraph
Kay
Guffaw. Not so unprecedented after all! Christ. NOTHING they say is true. Nothing.
Last night I was up late reading Federalist Society assholes, as I do when I’m mad to really enjoy madness, and they NAMED the leaker they were all sure had done it. Of course, a Sotomayor clerk. Sotomayor is their hate object.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: I remember my brother in law, who now brays he is a “proud conservative” being really upset about the Terry Schiavo case.
As in, that was a decision best left to her husband. Not just her parents, who were blinded by magical thinking.
He really did understand what an overreach it was to have “the state” making a decision like that. (We all remember Bill Frist diagnosing poor Terry from miles away.)
There is going to be a lot of that out there.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Yeah, but don’t those states have a higher COL? And it costs money to relocate
Barbara
@Elizabelle: Our own blog host considers Terry Schiavo’s case to have been a transformative moment.
Updated to say, as if it weren’t obvious, a lot of professional women wouldn’t be where they are today, wouldn’t have the families they have today, if it weren’t for access to abortion when they weren’t ready to be pregnant.
Kay
He’s a good candidate and I think it’s telling that both he and Tim Ryan, who is also a good candidate, are not running from this at all.
They think it’s good for them. It’s interesting.
MisterDancer
@Kay: I stumbled on a whole thread documenting a long history of SCOTUS leaks:
Barbara
@Kay: Well, I would lay odds that Justice Jackson will shortly assume that mantle from Justice Sotomayor’s shoulders.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): There is a bit of an old tradition in the US: that the electorate will determine how they are governed. That has manifest in a lot of different ways, but in the end that’s where we wind up. We fought a civil war over that. We burned down cities over that.
Push the electorate too far, and the electorate will respond. Look at the BLM protests. Unlike the civil rights fight, where most of the protesters were people of color, BLM was mostly white people. The fight between slave owners and abolitionists were between white people and white people. It’s hard for minority populations to push fully against the system, but this is a majority on majority fight which means it’ll probably escalate until resolved. I’m not calling for things like political assassinations, but I won’t be surprised when it starts.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Elizabelle:
Thanks for trying to cheer me up. I mean that.
Elizabelle
@Kay:
I agree. I think this is good for Democrats, as an issue with clear implications.
Good opportunity to educate voters, especially younger and sporadic voters, about what underlies other Supreme Court decisions we rely upon, too. Environmental, privacy, voting rights (which were gutted).
Barbara
@eversor: What an obnoxious comment. Seriously.
Soprano2
If we’re going to attack people for using the word “women” to talk about abortion rights, then we’ve already lost that fight. “People with uteruses” will get us laughed right off the stage, sorry if that offends someone but it’s the plain truth.
Martin
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): How bad do you want it? Lot of cheap housing in CA. Needles is pretty unpleasant by CA standards, but pretty nice by TX standards.
Elizabelle
@Barbara: So relieved that Justice KB Jackson was confimed before this blew up. That was enough of a circus, as it was.
wenchacha
@MazeDancer:
I think of all the women and children who have been raped in Ukraine since this war began. What sort of stone for a heart do you have to tell a pregnant rape survivor that this rapist’s spawn is a gift?
trollhattan
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Pay is better, but it won’t cover the cost of living on the CA coast, where everybody and their uncle dreams of living. In the interior can work for transplants.
UncleEbeneezer
@Cassandra: Those people can F all the way off! These are the same people who complain about being told to vote, despite the fact that the Supreme Court balance is a direct freaking result of voting/not-voting (for President and Senators).
John Cole
@schrodingers_cat: Are you on crack?
Dee Lurker
@eversor: Umm hell no. I am a Christian and will remain so and my hands are not dirty. I am there to be a thorn in the theofascist side. I will not cede the Sermon on the Mount to the crazies. I show up and I make my opinions known. When I am in a conversation with fellow Christian men, they can not and will not engage in nasty rhetoric and are forced to defend their heinous inhuman and unChristian arguments.
Alison Rose ???
@eversor: This is a shitty thing to say, but I suspect you know that.
Dee Lurker
The youth vote has been picking up and will continue to. I don’t think Gen Z is going to put up with this shit. God bless them. I think this is where Dem focus should point. Get the youngs engaged and righteously angry. We can and will win. To lose is to become Rwanda. We must not let that happen.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: You know, it’s always tempting to find a culprit in your own camp. For one thing, they ostensibly care what you think.
And self-directed blame comes so naturally to women. I mean, how many women blame themselves when they are raped? If only I hadn’t [fill in the blanks.]
Sure, we’ve been urging people to care more about reproductive rights and vote accordingly and it’s disappointing when that doesn’t happen. None of it matters right now. The responsibility for stripping those rights lies squarely with Republican politicians and their refusal to value the freedom, lives and choices of women, and no matter how blase you were in the past about that you can still make up for it. I see your comment as being totally, almost willfully counterproductive.
Kay
@wenchacha:
Not just that. Children are a life long connection. They’re handcuffing the victim to the rapist. Who, incidentally, will have rights to the child (which will be codified in the next round of legislation) so the “adoption!” bullshit is just that. He’d have to consent to adoption. So the choice becomes I hand this child to the rapist or I stay handcuffed to him for at least 18 years. Just brutal. How’s you like to engage in say, a 15 year custody battle with your rapist? You’ll need about 50,000 dollars.
The rapist could seek a specific woman to impregnate, with the intention of holding her hostage in legal proceedings for years. Rape has about a 30% clearance rate, so 70% will be out and about, dogging their vicitim for 18 years. It’s nightmarish.
sdhays
@Kay: It makes sense – she’s a poor judge of character, including when she’s judging her own.
eversor
@Dee Lurker:
Than you are just as dirty as the Republicans who support their party but claim to be good Republicans. You support the evil until you stand against it and leave.
Bugboy
Thank you, thank you, for not forgetting that guy. Chickens coming home to roost, indeed!
Kay
@Elizabelle:
I don’t know if it’s good for Democrats. I wasn’t convinced attacking all public school teachers as pedophiles and vowing to abolish public schools was good politics, just because I’ve been following “public school politics” so long and public schools are REALLY resilient as an institution. People are ordered to hate them all the time but they don’t. Still. Despite national campaigns to kill them every ten years.
But the midterm polls look better for us than they did before the big pedo push on the Right. So maybe they were wrong.
Alison Rose ???
@eversor: You need to fuck off with this. “Christian” is a very broad term and encompasses a wide range of beliefs and actions and values. I’m Jewish but I’m not Orthodox and no one is going to accuse me of believing the way TPTB in Israel do. You sound no different than people who insist all Muslims are terrorists.
Dee Lurker
@eversor: No that is stupid. Just plain stupid. The rise of fundamentalism, rapturism, and other really dumb theologies is due to good people abandoning the church. Compare the theology of the Westboro Baptist Church to the Ebenezer Baptist Church. The difference is good people who strive to live according to the Beatitudes. If you think Raphael Warnock is as dirty as the Republicans, then you are delusional.
Honestly this kind of horseshit atheist take is the height of DERP. I will not engage with you further.
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: It lies with the Republicans first and foremost but also those ostensibly on “our side” who couldn’t see it coming because they were blinded by their own privilege.
Those are the facts.
gene108
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka):
No.
I’m pointing out it’s going to be a much harder slog than many think it will be. Be prepared for disappointments, and to get up again.
schrodingers_cat
@John Cole: Why because I don’t fawn on your every utterance? What did I say that is not based in fact.
Dangerman
@eversor: Fuck you. Questions?
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: No. Those are your opinions, not facts. Yes, we could have and should have done better, but your comment sounds like the voice of someone who is more interested in being right than trying to preserve if not advance progress. And, ironically, it is often the favorite mode of critique among those that you are blaming for the current state of affairs.
schrodingers_cat
Voting for Nader or Bush II made Bush II president.
Bush appointed Alito.
The author of the opinion that leaked.
Voting for Trump or sitting out the election made Trump the President.
Trump appointed Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.
Elections have consequences. All of them.
Felanius Kootea
@eversor: You know that there are left leaning churches that support reproductive rights, so I think you’re just trolling to distract from the real issue. We have an extreme right wing Supreme Court that is about to test what it means to be a country, when every state can just create its own set of rules. I believe we will prevail but it’s going to be a long, long battle and so many women will needlessly suffer.
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: Clapping louder and louder to applaud your own virtue in being right won’t help a single person keep their rights and will likely alienate natural allies.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Martin:
Thanks to you too, for trying to reassure me. It’s helped a bit
Omnes Omnibus
Lovely. We have Goku making this all about him and eversor making it all about Christians. And anyone who is not making this about the GOP isn’t helping either. Come on, people, get it together.
Soprano2
@germy: That’s funny, because they had to know the decision would be coming out in June, and that it would be something like this.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Biden is exactly right. The only course is to elect pro-choice Democrats. It isn’t going to be easy, but there really is no other way to deal with this.
Soprano2
Absolutely 1000% right about this, because it encompasses everything they want to roll back. If you make it about “abortion” or “reproductive rights”, lots of people will yawn and lose interest because well, that doesn’t involve them.
Soprano2
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I bet they weren’t telling people they couldn’t use the word “women” when talking about abortion, either.
James E Powell
@Kay:
A woman of color, as usual. Their band only knows three or four songs.
MisterDancer
HAMMER IT HOME.
James E Powell
@Kay:
Good for Tim Ryan. I am surprised, somewhat, but good for him.
The Truffle
@Peale: There have been alarming thinkpieces about the Texas law. So I don’t expect anyone to accept this quietly.
Barbara
@Soprano2: But June, you know, busy with weddings and graduations and getting ready for summer camp and all your July 4th and vacation plans.
The Truffle
@James E Powell: That can lead to a desire to expand the court.
Gravenstone
@Cassandra: There’s a reason 90% of us have that moron in pieland.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
John Fetterman
Timurid
@Martin: Still need to figure out what you’ll do there, unless you have a job that can done remotely.
geg6
@taumaturgo:
Well, aren’t you the helpful one. Yeah, let’s blame Democrats.
I really despise assholes like you who write stupid shit like this.
TonyG
@MisterDancer: Huh. That’s a 180-degree change in just one year. By sheer coincidence 1980 was the year of Reagan’s successful presidential campaign. Reagan was essentially brain-dead at that point, but people on his staff apparently made a deal with the evangelicals. It was a win-win for both sides.
TheTruffle
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Someone explain to them there is a reason we have amendments.
debbie
I really wish this thread had a like button. There are a few comments I’d really like to hug.
JimV
“It’s worth noting that the anti-abortion movement is not organic, evangelicals and their ilk had no immediate widespread opposition to abortion at the time, and the issue was created out of nothing.”
I first heard this opinion on another blog several years ago. Having grown up in a semi-evangelical family, it clashed with my childhood memories back in the 1950’s. The fact that abortion was illegal in those days suggests to me a) it was not a a political issue for that reason (that it was illegal) and b) that a lot of people were fine with that law or it would not have existed. So I did some research.
Billy Sunday was a preacher in the late 1890’s through 1930’s who packed theatres and tents and more or less founded the evangelical movement. I asked myself, what was his position on abortion. According to a source I found at Google Books, he gave a special sermon on it, for women only. His message was that America had a secret sin: the murder of unborn children. That is, despite the fact that abortion was illegal, too many women were resorting to it anyway.
In the blog post I had read, the author cherry-picked some religious journal to find two ministers who had given Biblical rationales for abortion (based on Leviticus). Whereas in none of the Sunday Church sermons, campground revival sermons, young adult Sunday Evening Services, Daily Vacation Bible Schools, or Thursday Afternoon Release-Time (from high school) Religious Education meetings I had to attend, was there anything but anathema for abortion. (The sect my family was in, Wesleyan Methodism, considered drinking alcohol a sin, much less abortion.) Several unmarried teenagers with swollen bellies could be seen in the small town I lived in in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
I have had arguments within my own family, advocating pro-choice, and almost lost access to nephews and nieces as a result.
For me, Billy Sunday thoroughly trumps the two obscure sources mentioned in the blog article, and ever since I have considered the above view debunked. It is a real issue to most evangelicals, albeit not one I agree with.
Quaker in a Basement
@Betty Cracker: I know! I was a reporter there in 1975.
sdhays
@Martin: I’m not actually worried about turnout. I think there will be a backlash. And it’s bad enough that a couple more Senators and holding the House could be enough to do things that were previously considered beyond the pale.
I am worried, however, about gerrymandering and an increasingly corrupted elections administration process at the local level, launched in response to Tramp’s 2020 debacle. It seems our only real tool against that is massive turnout and reduced GQP turnout so that Democrats break through gerrymandering because the Court has removed the Federal Courts from providing any voting protections.
That’s a dangerous place to be.
Betty Cracker
@JimV: Interesting. I had also heard (from more than one source, I’m pretty sure) that evangelicals were generally indifferent to abortion pre-Roe and assumed it was true. Will have to look into that. My grandfather was a Southern Baptist preacher, and he and that side of the family were anti-choice, but my firsthand experience of that was mostly post-Roe.
Betty Cracker
@Quaker in a Basement: Very cool — I didn’t know that!
tybee
@Timurid:
Didn’t Goku graduate with a BSN and hasn’t yet bothered to take the NCLEX? He has had the opportunity to have a profession that will allow a great deal of mobility but chooses to whine about his future…
StringOnAStick
@Betty Cracker: I suspect that the underlying nut to this is that anti-abortion was not official Southern Baptist doctrine until 1980. I’m sure there were evangelicals opposed to abortion before then, but it wasn’t the word coming down from the annual confab of the highest leaders. That all changed in 1980.
Another Scott
@gvg: Probably already mentioned by now, but the Biden SCOTUS Commission issued their report in December. Their remit was not to suggest changes, but to give a history and talk about the various issues in the existing system and previous changes.
The report is 294 pages (and a link to it is on the page above).
Cheers,
Scott.
Raven Onthill
They will come for women’s right to vote. It is the only way they can make this stand.
Raven Onthill
@StringOnAStick: here’s a discussion, with extensive citations, from progressive baptist Fred Clark.
“The ‘biblical view’ that’s younger than the Happy Meal.”
schrodingers_cat
@Barbara: Does one have to satisfy certain criteria to express their frustration?
Afterall it is going to be people like me who are going to first reap the consequences of votes for Nader, Stein, Bush or Trump.
I have had to miss weddings and funerals of close family members when Trump was the President, my family members could not visit because of the onerous visa requirements (this is pre-COVID) and I am one of the lucky ones whose life was not completely upended during the reign of error of the Orange Man.
To meet your approval am I only allowed to join in the amen chorus of approval of everything said on the frontpage posts?
TheTruffle
Can we not be hopeless or moan over 2016? What’s done is done. For now, it is telling that the GQP is fuming over the leak. They won’t gloat. They will continue to fume. Time to put them on the defense.
Ghost of Joe Liebling*s Dog
This thread really helped me by identifying some folks who are ready to fight hard to keep the progress gained, and progress more, and some who are hell-bent on scourging those among us who are doin’ it wrong (in their view – which is always the ironclad one-and-only view).
Heartfelt thanks to the folks who implemented the pie filter (I think Major^4 was one but there were more).
Barbara
@schrodingers_cat: You don’t need my approval. Ever. You can say what you want. But there is a point when raw feelings, however justified and authentic, get in the way of doing something to make things better or at least avoid making them worse. It’s up to you to decide how much you want to let blame casting lead your response even if blame is well-deserved.
Betty Cracker
@StringOnAStick: Makes sense — thanks. My evangelical relatives were definitely anti-choice well before 1980, but I don’t know how widespread their attitudes were among the sect. Also, I don’t recall them fetishizing fetuses as much as wanting to ensure fornicators didn’t escape the consequences.
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
It wouldn’t surprise me if Roberts leaked to bring Kavanaugh into his 15 week opinion and split the court. Kavanaugh was a political operative at one point. Wouldn’t shock me if Roberts was trying to spur that mindset in Justice Beer.
schrodingers_cat
@schrodingers_cat: Alito hearings
Fixed the broken link.
schrodingers_cat
Deleted duplicate comment.
Starfish
@schrodingers_cat: Using this moment to pile onto Democrats when Republicans are handing us the flaming bag of poo is mindbogglingly stupid whether it comes from the radical leftists who are complaining about how their support for Susan Sarandon didn’t do this or from radical centrists complaining about the Susan Sarandon dodos.
Ruckus ??
@Elizabelle:
Senators were never intended to work for us. The original concept was that they worked for the monied, the land owners. Now that many of the normal (not wealthy) folks actually own property it should be obvious that senators work more likely for the wealthy, protecting their right to be rich and own the country. And no, I’m not a far, far lefty, I’ve just seen that while there are good senators, very good in fact, there are many whose main function is the same as it always was – to protect the wealthy and their right to get wealthier and hold it over the rest of us. Notice the number of reps doesn’t get bigger with the population and the reason is that the house would end up being more powerful. Too powerful for the senators to overcome and we really can’t have a nation owned by the citizens. Money may not talk but it does have an overwhelming say in what the country does.
RaflW
@EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo): This gets to an area of SCOTUS arcana that I don’t grock. If the Mississippi case is decided 6-3, with a 4 person opinion that eliminates Roe, and a 2 person concurrence on the case outcome to uphold MS law, but doesn’t have the same reach in the opinion, does it matter?
Is the Roe ‘wipe out’ a loser at 4-5, but the Mississippi law somehow stands with a reduced sweep?
schrodingers_cat
@Starfish: Bernie Sanders is not a Democrat and yes his supporters who eventually voted for Jill Stein or sat out the election are to blame for the current state of affairs along with those who voted for Trump.
WTF is a radical centrist.
LadySuzy
@James E Powell: However, overturning Roe is BIG, BIG, BIG. I think that this will get the attention of even the low-info voters.
Many people seem to be able to wake up ONLY AFTER they’ve lost rights.
I think there WILL be a certain backlash at the polls against the GOP. Big enough to counter their electoral shenanigans ? I don’t know.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
People who insist on recognizing the anti-Democratic left is a giant bag of assholes.