Donations to U.S. abortion rights groups, clinics surge after Supreme Court leak https://t.co/cQAP033ThL pic.twitter.com/bRxWKsoUSo
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 4, 2022
Apparently a lot of people, both pro-choice and otherwise, were surprised by the leak of Alito’s draft. (History tells us that a lot of people were surprised by that incident at Fort Sumter, even if in retrospect it seems to have been very much a question not of if, but of when.) Certainly it seemed that a retrogressive movement with so many billions of dollars and tens of ‘brilliantly rationalist’ minds behind it would produce something a little less crude than LOL WE LIED — SUXX TO HAVE A UTERUS!!! to backstop its gleeful misogyny, but why bother with crafting a scalpel when you’ve already got a big club?
People have been procuring abortions for as long as there have been people; the problem has been finding a method that didn’t kill the womb-owner as well as the fetus, hopefully one that might preserve the woman’s ability to have children in the future. I will reiterate, as often as necessary: If this horror must be faced down, again, we are in a *much* better place than we were in 1972, when I was in high school.
Fifty years is long enough for a lot of (incredibly lucky, I know) people of child-bearing capability to grow up assuming they’d always have a choice as to when, and if, they’d have children. It’s not long enough for the historical memories of generations of social work-arounds to have been lost. And it’s been fifty years of amazing medical advances, including much-improved birth control methods, post-coital contraception (Plan B), and the development of safe at-home pharmaceutical abortions. Also, the global internet, which is a miracle women sharing illicit mimeographed pamphlets and ladies-lounge whispers about ‘Aunty Jane‘ could only dream of.
Panic is one of our enemies’ best weapons; we can’t let them use our perfectly understandable despair to keep us from organizing and fighting back.
The leak of a U.S. Supreme Court document not only exposed its intention to overturn the Roe v. Wade abortion rights decision, but also pulled the curtain back on a court whose lofty reputation as the grown-up branch of government could be slipping away https://t.co/IJn2ng59jD pic.twitter.com/G7zuuQSCIv
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 5, 2022
Abortion pill provider sees spike in U.S. interest after SCOTUS leak https://t.co/mGdYTi4JdC
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) May 5, 2022
Explainer: Can pill prescriptions overcome U.S. state abortion bans? https://t.co/VtxJsS3H1n
— Reuters Health (@Reuters_Health) May 5, 2022
Republicans are the problem, along with Sinema and Manchin. https://t.co/juEaBnRnYK
— Cheryl Rofer (@CherylRofer) May 5, 2022
I don’t care how the draft leaked. That’s a sideshow.
What I care about is that a small number of conservative justices, who lied about their plans to the Senate, intend to deprive millions of women of reproductive care.
Codifying Roe isn't enough. We must expand the court.
— Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) May 4, 2022
The Reddit group offers a glimpse into a post-Roe era where people resort to informal networks to assist those locked out of an abortionhttps://t.co/hjzDmh8cJG
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 4, 2022
Stacey Abrams switches gears from campaign fundraising to aiding abortion rights https://t.co/dUCUZTEXtE
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 4, 2022
The anti-choice SC(R)OTUS gang wouldn’t be scrambling around looking for a figleaf, if they weren’t ashamed of being caught discussing their worst intentions:
Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered an investigation into the leak of a U.S. Supreme Court draft opinion on abortion. Questions remain about how the probe will be carried out. https://t.co/f4AspKSZNT
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 5, 2022
Opinion by Jennifer Rubin: If media outlets keep up that distorting language, they are going to find it hard to explain the firestorm that awaits the overturning of Roe v. Wade, if the leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. prevails. https://t.co/71vNy1TvVO
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) May 4, 2022
New Deal democrat
A sliver of daylight through the thunderhead from political scientist Larry Sabato:
“Big change: Americans want term limits for Supreme Court justices by 66% to 21%, and favor expanding the Court by 55% to 36% (Morning Consult poll for @politico). When I tested public appetite for Court reforms in 2007 (part of “A More Perfect Constitution”) resistance was great.”
https://mobile.twitter.com/LarrySabato/status/1521885099041730563
Then there’s this from Constitutional scholar Sanford Levinson of the University of Texas:
https://balkin.blogspot.com/2022/05/conversing-about-courts.html
“I am grateful to the four participants who prepared very interesting and illuminating contributions to an important discussion….
“I think it is telling that all of us seem to be fully comfortable with the idea of term limits. It is getting harder and harder to find anyone who genuinely defends either as “necessary” or even “proper” the truly exceptional national American practice of “full-life” tenure that allowed John Paul Stevens to serve for 34 years until he turned 90.”
Term limits (usually proposed as 18 years with a new appointment every two years) would take a Constitutional Amendment, but there’s no reason not to start loudly banging the drum, especially if the broad public support continues.
Obviously expanding the Court does not. I happen to think if Congress came close to passing a court packing proposal, Roberts would agree to retire quietly in return for shelving the proposal. If I were President, I would turn him down unless another GOPer also retired.
[More generally, I have spent the last few years studying the history of republics and the rule of law. The US Constitution broke a longstanding axiom about preventing tyranny from destroying the rule of law; namely, the more the power of the office, the shorter the term. Anti-federalist Brutus wrote several essays decrying exactly this failure in the proposed Supreme Court. Hamilton had no good answer; in Federalist #78, he posited that the Supreme Court would be “the least dangerous branch” because it would be increasingly bound by state decisis and would not have the power to compel enforcement of its decisions.]
lowtechcyclist
Speaking of Constitutional amendments, how about the E.R.A.?
Sure, it wouldn’t pass this time either, but make the fuckers have to explain having voted against it.
Bupalos
“Someone wrote a column about something, if you’ve paid them you can find out what it is” seems less and less like content and more and more like embedded click advertizing
How bout if you want to cite it we at least excerpt it or summarize.
Butch
Excuse me, Reuters, but “could be slipping away?” Barn door meet horse.
cmorenc
If Roe is overturned, the anti-abortion fanatics are going to push to make ANY contraceptive method that impedes a fertilized egg from successfully implant in the uterus. In their minds, no method that potentially impairs the viability of a fertilized egg must be outlawed, and that would leave only barrier methods of contraception (condoms for men, diaphragms for women, or the rhythm method of trying to avoid sex around ovulation).
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think the big shock was they are willing to burn the entire legal system to the ground to do it. That and Alito is pining for the good old days when Charles II was king.
Considering the rumors it was Ginni Thomas who leaked it, that does put an intresting spin on all those “This leak is breach of sacred trust” from the Establishment Conservative Types. I never read Frankenstein, but I am sure I can imagine the doctor saying something like that to the Monster after the Monster killed the doctor’s wife.
Anne Laurie
@Bupalos: Reuters, the AP, and the individual tweeters aren’t pay-walled. Yes, the Washington Post is, but once you’ve read the headline you can probably google the info elsewhere.
It’s past my bedtime, and it’s been a long day.
Ken
If you stick to the text of the Constitution, the court’s power isn’t that huge. We’d be in quite a different world if Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the gang had taken John Marshall aside and said, “Look, we wrote the thing, and if we’d wanted the court to do judicial review, we would have put it in there…”
It’s actually not very binding, when they’re allowed to go back to decisions made by sixteenth-century witchfinders. I assume the Code of Hammurabi is being mined by the Federalist Society as we speak.
germy
A few nights ago:
Bupalos
Sure there are some as-of-now still available modern technology workarounds for this undemocratic, unamerican loss of rights. And thats good. Like the underground railroad was good. Is that teally a thing to talk about right now?
Shalimar
Expanding the court isn’t necessary. I see no sign the justices are over-worked. The real necessity is to term-limit them so a new justice is appointed every 2 years, twice per presidential term, rather than the lifetime randomness we have now. A positive side effect is no more jockeying to nominate 40 year-olds who don’t have the qualifications yet to serve on our highest court.
TS (the original)
This existed in my world (& no doubt lots of other places) when I was a student in the 1960s. If someone needed a safe abortion, an address/contact were able to be found.
I thought we had moved forward.
Bupalos
@Anne Laurie: That came off wrong from my own frustration. I do appreciate your effort.
Barbara
@Shalimar: It’s easy not to be overworked when you get to decide how much work you will actually do.
p.a.
Sarcasm alert: When can we expect a media critter to ask Roberts etc why an investigation is needed when no law was broken, and no one has claimed a crime was committed?
Starfish
@Shalimar: Expanding the court is absolutely necessary. The number of things that Alito’s scribble scratch is going to strike down is immense. Since all the latter 20th century stuff is now up for debate, a lot of rights are going to be lost.
Texas is now trying to say that it does not have to provide a public education because it does not want to educate illegal immigrants.
Ken
Probably, but I would so love to see the court-expansion legislation introduced with a line like “In the belief that overwork and stress have led to many of the Court’s recent bad judgments….”
rikyrah
Good Morning Everyone ???
Ken
I will be fascinated to see how they close the high schools but keep the high school football programs going.
(I’m assuming the Texas GOP is still sane enough to realize that stopping high school football is a form of political suicide, and possibly physical murder.)
narya
I’m waiting for the religious objection to this opinion. I’ve seen threads from rabbis that say that their religion REQUIRES the option of abortion.
Shalimar
@Barbara: Part of the job description is that they choose which decisions need review. They have very limited original jurisdiction. The vast majority of their job is resolving differences of opinion between appeals courts and setting rules and criteria for review in new areas of law.
Most of our law is settled at lower levels based on law that has been the same for decades or even centuries. The Supreme Court shouldn’t be looking over that many cases per year. It isn’t necessary to the system.
Betty Cracker
Deleted
rikyrah
Uh huh
Uh huh
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/04/republicans-abortion/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjQzMTc2OTgxIiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY1MTc1NTQzOSwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY1Mjk2NTAzOSwiaWF0IjoxNjUxNzU1NDM5LCJqdGkiOiIwMzFmYTAzYy1kODdkLTRjOTItOTI5ZS1iYTI2MzA5MmI3YzIiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vcG9saXRpY3MvMjAyMi8wNS8wNC9yZXB1YmxpY2Fucy1hYm9ydGlvbi8ifQ.TooRhAbJafGkLWmTXuEhSJeGNdwfa4e1E7RmdvuXHQg
germy
Shalimar
@Starfish: There will be a string of cases that take away long-established rights, but the results of those cases won’t be ambiguous for lower courts to follow. The number of cases needing Supreme Court review will still be very limited, even with this kind of active, reactionary court.
Barbara
@Shalimar: There are many reforms that could make the Court more useful and more accountable, including rules around the selection of cases. There is no magic here. For a long time, the Court was trusted as a branch that was responsive to the needs of society. Now it isn’t. Exertion of greater control is possible and necessary. For instance: You could just have a rotating court, with a single justice being appointed for 3-5 years from each of the circuits, and then going back to being an appellate judge. That would give you 12 judges (or 13 if you want to include the Federal Circuit, which you might not) that did not function as Supreme Court justices for their whole life, but did have lifetime tenure as federal judges.
You could initiate senior status rules for justices: their successors would be appointed when they reach the age of 70 (or earlier if they decide to take senior status), which would reduce the political gamesmanship we see, at least to an extent. That’s how we do it for every other court, including courts of appeals. That would result in a floating number of justices, but again, that seems to be perfectly fine for other appellate courts sitting en banc.
You could have a system where the Supreme Court decides cases with a panel of 3 or 5, and comes together only upon agreement that the whole court is necessary. Again, that’s how it works with the lower courts.
All of these should be considered, and adopted or not as we the people see fit. All without a constitutional amendment.
Patricia Kayden
Thank you, Rep Schiff. The leak is not the issue. Forcing women into back alleys to procure what should be a safe, routine medical procedure is the only issue that matters. Unfortunately, Manchin and Sinema aren’t going to allow the Senate to get rid of the filibuster to protect reproductive rights. Sigh.
Butch
@rikyrah: I’ve heard it observed (maybe it was even here) that the fight was the point because it could be used for fundraising and getting out the vote; the GOP never actually intended to win this battle. I’m seeing an awful lot of “dog that caught the car” reaction from the GOP.
Shalimar
@rikyrah: The one definite is that whatever message they settle on will still be offensive. The rightwing assholes only do offense.
JanieM
@Ken: There are all kinds of sports programs for kids that are not connected to schools. Anynow, if public schools are abolished, towns can just take the money that was being spent on frills like math and history and spend it on even more lavish football programs!
germy
Shalimar
@Barbara: All good ideas too, I agree.
Betty Cracker
Great post, and the above is a great point. 50 years is also not quite long enough for the lives lost to botched back-alley abortions to pass from living memory.
Geminid
@p.a.: There probably are institutional policies that Supreme Court clerks agree to, and Roberts can investigate the leak on this basis, even fire a clerk for it.
But when I heard Tom Cotten calling for an immediate full-court press by the FBI to find the leaker, I thought, “Yeah you joker, under what criminal statute? There is none.”
germy
Omnes Omnibus
@Shalimar: Expanding the Court can be done without amending the Constitution. Term limits cannot.
Bupalos
@TS (the original): We had moved forward. Now we’ve moved backwards. We’re always moving and always will be moving. Progress is not inevitable and nothing achieved is safe.
ian
@Geminid: You expect the guy ‘who wrote send in the army’ as a response to the Floyd protests to have a legal basis for his demands?
debbie
@Patricia Kayden:
Anyone who reaches back to a 17th century Puritan for legal guidance and justification is full of shit.
I like term limits over expansion, but in the immediate future, I want Senate hearings that will deal with perjured testimony. There needs to be concrete consequences, even to the point of removal from whatever position they’re in. Dishonest breeds nothing but more dishonesty.
Ohio Mom
@Ken: There will still be public schools and high school football, students will have to prove their citizenship before being allowed to attend, that’s all.
What happens to say, the children of a foreign scientist here on an academic exchange (or other not “illegal” non-citizens), private school I guess.
Before Congress passed the first special education law in the late 1970s, public schools were under no obligation to accept children with disabilities. Some school systems did but they were the exception.
The spec ed law is based on the idea that if going to school is required, then it is a civil rights issue — all children need to be treated the same, and thus children with disability are entitled to a “free, appropriate public education” (FAPE).
I can imagine that recognized right being rescinded too.
JAFD
There are workarounds for paywalls. In Waterfox, for example: For full URLs, like the one in Rikyrah’s post above, left-clicck on it, go down to ‘Save link as …’, right click on that, and the article will appear in your download folder, labled with meaningless letter string. Open in browser and read.
More on this later. busy day, gotta get movin’
Enhanced Voting Techniques
this SCOTUS decision is going set off a contest between all the wingnut politicians over who can be the biggest asshole and piss off the most people.
Shalimar
@Omnes Omnibus: Which means term limits won’t happen soon. But expanding the court could backfire and end up with Trump or DeSantis appointing 4 more justices in 2025. It’s only a solution to the current problem with the right president and senate.
Ken
@germy: Response: “We didn’t overturn Roe, we found that all legal decisions involving civil rights since 1650 are wrong. Roe just happened to be one of those.”
Old Man Shadow
Wow. Jennifer Rubin really has seen the light. Good for her.
Dangerman
I remember the T-shirts. No, not the fuck your feelings shirts (a greatest hit, to be sure)…
…but the ones that said they’d rather be Russians then Democrats. The Gratingest Generation.
Welcome to the Tyranny of the Minority. In Russia AND the U.S., both largely driven by religious zealots. What an ungodly mess.
There will probably be Civil War in Russia. Who knows what happens here. Our Minority had best wake up to the fact that they are the minority or there will be very dark days. We’re only at dusk right now.
Geminid
@Geminid: And if the leak came from or through a Justice, Roberts has no recourse. I guess he could yell, “Bad Justice! Bad Justice!”
I suspect that if Roberts finds the bread crumb trail leading to a Justice (or a Justice’s spouse) he will stop looking.
Old Man Shadow
@Ken: i look forward to reading the court’s reasoning on why all of the Constitutional amendments other than the 2nd are unconstitutional.
Geminid
@Geminid: But I repeat myself.
Old Man Shadow
@Dangerman: they are pushing us towards Civil War here.
Geminid
@ian: No.
germy
Then there’s this theory.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Since most of this minority are over 50, I am predicting an escalation of right wing terrorism rather than open civil war.
germy
MisterDancer
If we’re going to do “solve the problem”: The solution is to do the heavy lifting to get Amendments like the ERA in place, with clear and compelling language that Alt-Right Justices can’t just ignore because they feel like it.
It’s important, yes, to fix SCOTUS. But bear in mind, also, the entire Federal Court system is broken in many ways, and it all needs a re-working. And that includes reworking the appeal system, such that the “revoke these rights!” cases that stream into SCOTUS every term have to meet a much higher burden to be accepted…
…which leads back to the above Amendments. Amendments meant to make crystal clear the set of Rights Americans in the 21st Century deserve, and that all parts of the Federal, and all State and Local Governments, must defend (not just respect!).
Reforming SCOTUS is a stopgap — a critical one, but one, nonetheless. I submit it’s past time to think and plan how to curb stomp these incursions into our rights for good, y’all.
Kropacetic
I like the idea of expanding the court, but it has nothing to do with work load. These positions shouldn’t be so rarified. That’s part of the reason we have people clinging to the job until death and playing political games around retirements and appointments. Personally, I think it should be at least as big as the Senate.
Matt McIrvin
@cmorenc:
And also the ones that don’t actually do that but that they can lie and say they do that. (E.g. “Plan B” seems to actually prevent normal conception if taken before the sperm gets to the egg, but since its manufacturer never excluded the possibility that it could be preventing implantation, that’s what the anti-abortion people say it does–they also deliberately confuse it with the abortifacient RU-486.)
debbie
Captain C
@Omnes Omnibus:
But what if they only got paid for the first eighteen years? It’s not involuntary servitude after that, as they could quit at that point and take their pension (which only kicks in after they quit in this case).
Captain C
@germy: Feature, not a bug with Alito. And probably Thomas and Amy Covid Barrett as well, at minimum.
New Deal democrat
@Ken:
“If you stick to the text of the Constitution, the court’s power isn’t that huge. We’d be in quite a different world if Thomas Jefferson and the rest of the gang had taken John Marshall aside and said, “Look, we wrote the thing, and if we’d wanted the court to do judicial review, we would have put it in there…”
Absolutely correct. It’s pretty clear the Founders did not think about the issue of Court throwing out laws as Unconstitutional. And as to your hypo re Jefferson, a very important Founder, Madison, once he did, came to the conclusion that some sort of majority in Congress should have the right to set aside Supreme Court decisions.
“It’s [stare decisis] actually not very binding, when they’re allowed to go back to decisions made by sixteenth-century witchfinders…”
The thoroughgoing callous disregard for the decisions made by their predecessors going back 100 years (all the way to Pierce vs. Society of Sisters) is breathtakingly dictatorial. These Five think they know better than all of those who sat on the Bench before them, and better than all of society which for a lifetime has acquiesced to the precedents they have made clear they intend to overrule. Especially when the more conservative Casey court explicitly made clear that they believed that stare decisis must be honored, even if they would not have agreed to the Roe decision when made.
Fundamentally, this has become not a Court of law, but a lawless Court.
laura
@Betty Cracker: Becky Bell is back baby, and she’s coming to a family near you! Will your family have a classic Becky Bell, young with a back alley or incomplete abortion who slowly dies of sepsis in her room, or will you have a more mature Becky Bell who has a pregnancy go south in a second or third trimester despite prenatal care? Will your best friend or niece or coworker be your Becky Bell? Will your Becky Bell have an ectopic pregnancy at work or school, or will your Becky Bell be one more victim of sexual assault? If you are a woman, or know a woman, it might be time to explore scenarios and making a plan for the Becky Bell nearest you, because Sam Alito is making plans to ensure so many Becky Bells die a miserable avoidable death be cause his wrathful vengeful god demands punishment for jezabel and Becky Bell.
Peale
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: The good news is that we’ve accrued so many rights, that whittling away at them one at a time will always give them a well to go back to for the foreseeable future. The undocumented can get outraged all they want. They can’t vote and the people in their circles who can usually don’t. So there is never a backlash at taking something away from them. There really aren’t enough gays and lesbians out there to swing any election. Once you convince the electorate that we can’t be around children without posing a safety issue, the sky is the limit on the restrictions you can place on us. Since children happen to be everywhere, gays can’t be anywhere. Women who die of infections or hemorrhages during pregnancy don’t vote by definition. Sure maybe their immediate families will feel badly and might change their minds. But for the most part, its a statistical blip.
Gin & Tonic
@Dangerman:
Not a chance.
Immanentize
@Captain C: unconstitutional:
Art. I, Sec. 1:
“The Judges, both of the supreme and inferior Courts, shall hold their Offices during good Behaviour, and shall, at stated Times, receive for their Services, a Compensation, which shall not be diminished during their Continuance in Office.”
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That’s the truly loathsome thing about Alito’s draft – he basically nufflies the 14th amendment on the excuse it wasn’t law when Charles II was king of England.
Josie
These court decisions and state laws will be very difficult to enforce. I think the minority decision makers will find themselves very much the “dog who caught the car” when it comes to actually forcing people to comply.
Captain C
@Immanentize: Is ‘good behavior’ defined such that a law could be passed declaring that staying on the Court past the 18th year is not ‘good behavior?’ Or alternately, what if all compensation is actually a loan which only becomes recursive if the recipient resigns by their 18th anniversary on the Court?
I mean, given the bullshit ‘reasoning’ the unqualified Fed Society appointees have been coming up with in their rulings (assuming they’re not outright legalese for ‘because I said so, peasant!’), this hardly seems more ridiculous.
(And yes, I know neither of these are remotely likely.)
New Deal democrat
@Shalimar:
“expanding the court could backfire and end up with Trump or DeSantis appointing 4 more justices in 2025. It’s only a solution to the current problem with the right president and senate.”
Since, as you acknowledge, a Constitutional Amendment enacting term limits isn’t going to happen soon, and the emergency is *now*, we have to take the second best route.
If the GOP appoints more Justices in 2025, we appoint more in 2029. And so on. Or we enact a law allowing one new appointment every year, or every two years, regardless of the size of the Court (also permissible without an Amendment). If the Supreme Court becomes a joke, they brought it on themselves when they crossed this Rubicon.
And the end result of that process would be both sides agreeing to a Constitutional Amendment enacting term limits, another good thing.
Ruckus ??
but also pulled the curtain back on a court whose lofty reputation as the grown-up branch of government could be slipping away
Since the moron now out of the WH was elected and decimated the concept of an actual government by anyone but idiots, morons, and assholes, including the “grown-up” branch of the federal government and proved that one of our political parties is absolutely not about actual, realistic, government, but about stealing everything not tied down. None of them know how to actually earn money but all of them know about grifting money and think that makes them special. It does, it makes them especially bad. And they got 3 of their own in power in the branch of the government that validates laws, that their lying asses said under oath that they weren’t going to overthrow, but which is exactly what they want to do, so that they can steal not just all the money but the government and the country as well.
This country is supposed to run on the concepts of freedom and equality, although it has been a long torturous road of almost anything but to get to where we are today, this concept that these assholes are trying to establish is a sham of a government, especially one that is supposed to be about freedom and equality. They want blind power and authority, control and submission. This was a an attempt at a complete overthrow of our government, our lives and our concept of government. Over 200 yrs we have grown the premise that we could govern, that we could be a democracy, a nation of, by and for the people.
And these people wanted, and still want to destroy that. Because they can’t earn money or respect because they are dishonest assholes who only know how to steal something they can not earn.
Jackie
@Betty Cracker: I can’t link from my phone, but the WP has an article out today, titled “Memories of Pre-Roe America, From People Who Were There.”
Brought back memories – I graduated from high school in ‘73 – so the fear of getting pregnant was very real. Back then, if you got pregnant, you had to quit school!
germy
Last month
New Deal democrat
@Captain C:
“Is ‘good behavior’ defined such that a law could be passed declaring that staying on the Court past the 18th year is not ‘good behavior?’”
‘Good behavior’ is whatever the Congress says it is.* It is completely undefined in the Constitution or laws. It is a direct carryover from the English ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 which codified that exact standard, word for word, in English law.
The difference is, in England, a judge could (and can) be removed by an “Address to the Sovereign” (equivalent to a Joint Resolution of Congress) by simple majority of both Houses. In the US, the Constitution requires Impeachment and removal by 2/3’s of the Senate, which has all but nullified the provision.
*For the record, I think the direct lying to Congress during their confirmation hearings by 3 of the 5 Justices ought to qualify as bad behavior, let alone Justice Thomas probably knowing and acquiescing at least to Ginni’s behavior around January 6, not to mention his openly partisan public and closed door appearances.
schrodingers_cat
I am waiting for the smart take by politics knowers on how Alito’s draft opinion is end-stage capitalism and/or neoliberal.
Jay
@Anne Laurie:
thank you so much Anne,
you are a Superhero.
MisterDancer
Right.He knew it’s the only hat he could hang this effort on, given his clear goals of claiming to be “narrow” AND to lay groundwork to rip up pretty much all the Rights gained over the last century.
And I’d bet anything his original idea was to “go big” in Draft, but the Final decision to be more narrow. To have the “scaffolding” still, but not lay out the blueprint so obviously.
That’s fucked, now.
Steeplejack
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Speaking of Ginni Thomas . . .
Mike in NC
The Republican goal is to turn the clock back a minimum of 100 years. We’ve all seen those photos of massive KKK marches down Pennsylvania Avenue in the early 1920s. That’s where we’re heading. The chaos that followed WW1 turned much of the world upside down. Globalization and COVID are doing much the same today.
Have rural uneducated white people here really changed that much in the past century? They have much better access to far-right propaganda than they did way back then, what with FOX News, Breitbart, talk radio, and the alt-right Internet.
Voters in their 70s and 80s interviewed for the Ohio GOP Senate primary were crying about how much they “loved” Donald Trump.
Back then they had Father Coughlin; today they have Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity. Back then they had demagogues named Hitler, Mussolini, and Huey Long; now they have Trump and Viktor Orban and Ron DeSantis. And so on and so forth.
I never cared to know much about Justice Alito, but like his colleague Scalia I sensed he was a reactionary and he openly despised President Obama. After they ban abortions, Republicans plan on outlawing same-sex marriage, banning interracial marriage, returning to mandatory school prayer (the Baptist version, of course) and doing away with as much separation of church and state as they think they pull off. Buckle up!
At the same time, the GOP is working to assist dictator Valdimir Putin in rebuilding the USSR and everything that entails. Genocide in Ukraine makes them giddy, all in the name of White Supremacy. I’m just glad to be old and not have any children or grandchildren to be tormented by these fascists.
Ruckus ??
@cmorenc:
These people are insane, what makes you think they will stop at other than a 100% ban on ANY process that disrupts their ideal, that only their god has the right to a decision about conception? Once again I state, these assholes are insane.
Ksmiami
@Old Man Shadow: ok first let’s turn off all their technology…
germy
How will that work out for Justice Thomas?
Ksmiami
@Ruckus ??: them or us. We can defeat these aholes in 3 days
Kropacetic
They will allow states to ban interracial marriage. His marriage will be safe.
Ksmiami
@New Deal democrat: eh restrict the Court’s jurisdiction and upgrade our Democratic institutions to represent the population- fuck it. America either adapts or dies
New Deal democrat
@MisterDancer:
“If we’re going to do “solve the problem”: The solution is to do the heavy lifting to get Amendments like the ERA in place, with clear and compelling language that Alt-Right Justices can’t just ignore because they feel like it….
“Reforming SCOTUS is a stopgap — a critical one, but one, nonetheless. I submit it’s past time to think and plan how to curb stomp these incursions into our rights for good, y’all.”
Here’s the problem with your reasoning, which makes eminent sense to reasonable people: The Fifteenth Amendment is exactly that sort of Amendment. Makes it pretty damn clear what is permissible and what isn’t. In fact, during the Congressional debates, a Senator explained how the Amendment would strike down attempts by States to discriminatorily limit voting locations in minority areas. It also makes pretty damn clear that Congress has its own authority to enforce the Amendment by “necessary and proper” laws of its own making, and not have to rely on the Supreme Court finding a practice against the Amendment. In other words the text of the Amendment itself is pretty clear that Congress can go beyond what the Court itself would do.
And then along came Chief Justice Roberts and Shelby County, declaring that the Court knew better, and even inventing a theory of the Equal Diginitude of the States, found nowhere in the Constitution (and which the Civil War Amendments certainly violated in their adoption requirements, didn’t they?), to essentially set not just the Voting Rights Act, but really the Amendment itself, aside.
Also, how is the Ninth Amendment, explicitly declaring that Americans have rights not enumerated in the Constitution, faring under Alito’s opinion, that the only rights Americans have are those explicitly declared in the Constitution?
That is why we need to heed Madison’s change of heart, that means short of a Constitutional Amendment ought to be in place to set aside a Supreme Court interpretation of the Constitution.
germy
Kay
NYtimes runs what is essentially a big, splashy political ad for JD Vance on the front page.
Tim Ryan should demand an equal in-kind contribution to his campaign.
PST
Laurence Tribe tweeted something today that should ring true to anyone who studies Alito’s draft opinion.
I think the specific arguments embodied in the opinion matter as much as or more than the result because they will establish the framework for applying this precedent and for further development of the principle the conservative justices are pushing. This language will guide both SCOTUS and the lower courts even if decent judges struggle to avoid its implications. As I understand Tribe, he is saying that the opinion is internally contradictory to a gross degree. If Alito means what he says in 98 percent of the opinion, then every right extended under the Fourteenth Amendment incorporation doctrine, other than those specifically enumerated in the Bill of Rights, is up for grabs. And of course many rights we regard as fundamental today were unimagined in the late 18th century. You can’t really separate the application of Alito’s reasoning on abortion from contraception, same-sex marriage, “sodomy” laws, and myriad other issues. While I sincerely doubt any court would now overturn Loving v. Virginia, I can’t see how even that would not be in play logically under Dobbs if handed down as written. (Sorry Ginni!) The protestation that this is not precedent on other issues is either a fig leaf, offered disingenuously, to blunt opposition to this giant step in the originalist program of neutralizing the Fourteenth Amendment, or it proves that the decision is purely an act of naked political power intended only advance a religious belief of the majority and to appease a particular constituency. I believe the former. The decision is still a naked act of political power, of course, but it has more in mind than abortion. Alito has most certainly gone to an enormous amount of trouble to develop an argument that can be used as a universal solvent to wipe away any non-enumerated right. This isn’t one of those ignorant hack jobs sometimes issued by unqualified Trump lower-court appointees. This is finely crafted work that preempts in detail the anticipated counterarguments. The only point Alito doesn’t develop in depth is “don’t worry, abortion is different from everything else.” That is asserted over and over but never really argued, and it is the element of the opinion that will be swept aside. Even if we all knew a bad opinion was coming, we didn’t all anticipate one this revolutionary. May it prove a bridge too far.
EZSmirkzz
My inner Republicant informs me there is a temple to Moloch in the basement of the Supreme Court of the United States, with religious sycophants chanting “Religious freedom for me, not for thee.”
I could be wrong according to my inner Democrat. YMMV
I find using the power of the state to enforce Christian religious scruples to be a proof of Christians own failure to adhere to their own scruples. Faith is not the possession of all men, and faith being the assured expectation of the thing hoped for though not beheld, cannot therefore be compelled.
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
@p.a.: Around the same time they figure out that if there is no right to privacy (as the draft opinion says), no leak matters.
Alce_e_ardillo
The leak of the Alito opinion should be both horrifying and galvanizing. If there were any doubt that the SCOTUS is broken and illegitimate, that in itself would dispel it.
To me the question is how do we frame the expansion of the court. McConnell and Co. will bray about “court packing” and portray the attempt as sour grapes. However the courts have needed reform for some time, and a good case can be made that expansion is necessary for the judicial system to operate properly. We should not talk about “expansion” so much as “reform” along with several other initiatives to improve all the courts. Adding 4 seats to the court is needed to properly supervise the appeals and circuit courts which have been strained for decades. We should also institute term limits for the SCOTUS justices, perhaps 12 years to allow for new blood into the system. Finally we should limit the power of the “shadow docket”. I’m sure that there are other reforms needed, but when we speak about our goals, it should ALWAYS be about REFORM, not merely expansion.
Jerzy Russian
@germy: How does “codifying” the right to an abortion help if the Supreme Court declares that law unconstitutional?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: Snooze Hour did the same
@Kay: NYT loves well educated white bigots.
schrodingers_cat
deleted.
Captain C
@Kropacetic: Or alternately, it will provide a convenient pretext for him to get rid of her (or vice versa).
schrodingers_cat
@Jerzy Russian: Left wing populist talking point so that Ds can be blamed and to depress the turnout for 2022 midterms. According to left wing populist mythology and the MSM, only Ds have agency and they are always wrong.
Patty M is responding to the Do Something Twitter.
Kay
That there are “work arounds” means absolutely nothing in the face of a fundamental loss of legal agency and autonomy for adult women.
Women could get a straw man male buyer before they were permitted property rights too- a “work around”. So US women will all be outlaws? Furtively sharing forbidden information on the internet is supposed to replace fundamental legal rights? What a raw deal.
Geminid
@germy: I was dismissive the other day about efforts to codify Roe because I thought Manchin would be a no vote. Then I heard Amy Klobucher say it was worth trying because some of her Republican colleagues were pro-choice.
A vote on codifying Roe will require a filibuster carveout and then a vote on the actual legislation. This would certainly put Collins and Murkowski to the test. I don’t see a political downside for either. Collins is almost certainly in her last term, while Alaska’s new election system favors Murkowski.
It also may be worthwhile getting Rubio, Grassley and other Republicans on record. They’ve long claimed to be pro-life, but now it appears the Supreme Court will no longer shield them from the consequences of holding that position.
Jeffro
Hmm…
Louisiana just introduced a bill to make all abortions prosecutable as homicide.
Texas’ Gov wants to end public education for all.
Many anti-abortion states are looking at how they can subpoena womens’ phone data (travel to other states + menstrual tracker apps) to ensure no one travels anywhere to get an abortion
GQP lawmakers and pundits are opining about overturning Obergefell, etc.
(And that’s just the past couple of days, and doesn’t even include the insurrection denial/excuses, etc!)
Ds, you actually have just one issue to run on this fall and it is this: The Utter Insanity of the Modern Republican Party.
Tie it all together for voters: These People Are Insane, and They Are Out To Get You.
schrodingers_cat
@Geminid: Its a good effort and should be tried. But I am seeing the usual suspects pile on to Ds for this opinion. Blaming everyone from Bill to Obama. So color me skeptical on this and I am also keeping my fingers crossed and hope that they succeed.
Steeplejack
@germy:
What the hell is Homeland Security even doing out there anyway, as opposed to the local police? (Not saying that would be better.)
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
@PST: If Alito were to argue that this applies to abortion and nothing else, it would become crystal clear that the made up right to privacy still fully applies to men, despite his denigrating it. Not so much women.
schrodingers_cat
I do not like this term
So women after menopause are no longer women? We can be inclusive without reducing women to their ability to bear children. Let’s leave that to Alito and gang.
Kay
@schrodingers_cat:
I followed their live blog on election night. The team announced early on that both Vance and DeWine would be winning the general election in Ohio, 2 hours into their “primary election coverage”.
I knew they’d promote Vance but it seems like a really fucking nasty thing to do to Nan Whaley, the D candidate for governor. Can they at least stay out of state politics and just cover Donald Trump?
schrodingers_cat
@Kay: NYT is Fox News for the erudite.
PST
@Jerzy Russian:
That’s an excellent question, of course, but Dobbs as written has nothing at all to say about the power of Congress to regulate abortion nationally and preempt contradictory state laws. I would be worried that a majority of the current justices would find a way to do that, but they couldn’t just say, “Nope. See Dobbs.” Adjudication would have to start from scratch, and by the time if reached the Supreme Court we might have a different one. I don’t have the knowledge to speculate whether the judicial philosophies of some of the justices might balk at the latter, but I wouldn’t assume it would be futile to pass such a law. Who thought Gorsuch would find a right to same-sex marriage? (By the way, that makes me wonder whether Gorsuch might concur in the result rather than sign on to the Alito opinion.)
MisterDancer
@New Deal democrat: You might have missed the bits where, for example, I mentioned we also need to reform the Courts, including reducing the risk that such cases can be just appealed until you get a Court you like.
Look. We’ve had 100 years of legal jurisprudence since those Amendments were codified. My reasoning stands on us actually putting the lessons to good use, and using a set of new Amendments to close up the overall Rights gap, as well as the “rolling back rights” process we see in play, right now.
I don’t think taking away the overall SCOTUS role is useful, as a singular objective. I do think codifying a set of fundamental rights, and making clear that you can’t just sue until you find the right court to overturn them, is far more critical. Without that, this just devolves into the same Federal legislative fights SCOTUS was trying to avoid with decisions like Roe, and puts marginalized people in crosshairs, over and again.
After all, this fight is about those marginalized people, at its core. Our response should be to do what it takes to stop them from being pawns, to give them — hell, yes me — the full set of rights deserved. And that doesn’t happen without, I think, clearly enumerating those rights, with the best of modern legal structure, as a starting point.
From there, I submit you’ll have a lot more room, politically speaking, to get other key legislative and judicial reforms in place. To stop not just having SCOTUS work around stuff, but to stop lawsuits that seek to push back on those rights to being with. I’m sure smart people can come up with other ways to manage these situations.
So it’s a win both ethically, and politically for other key issues, like Climate Change (which has key ties into how marginalized people get treated in America.)
Mind you, I don’t mind doing it in any order, so long as it gets done. It just does take far more that stopping SCOTUS, in my opinion, and that’s the core of my argument — we’re too narrow in our thinking! Let’s push ideas that can actually resolve the full range of issues at hand, AND also the imagination of our voters.
Just as The Right has had a host of long-term goals, let us also develop similar. Let’s stop fighting defense, and start to figure out our clear push forward, into the future.
JanieM
@Geminid:
At least a dozen current senators are older than she’ll be when her current term is up. So what are you basing this on? If she’s said she might retire, you can put as much stock in that as in anything else she says, like her promise when she ran the first time that she wouldn’t stay for more than two terms.
Kropacetic
When those on the left make these “they never even tried” arguments, I generally see them shut down pretty quickly. It might also help circumvent this problem if Democrats are seen trying.
Also, to me at least, the “usual suspects” trying to tear us apart include you.
Kropacetic
@JanieM: Collins can try to run again. After this…
Kay
Just gushing coverage. Oh, well. The paper of record has spoken. JD Vance is the new senator from Ohio and the team could not be happier.
Throw a couple bucks to Tim Ryan if you can. He’ll need it to to counter the millions and millions in free ads they’re going to run for Vance and they’re just warming up. Expect Trump-level 24/7 coverage.
Geminid
@Jeffro: I heard Youngkin’s response to the Roe news. Our Governor sounded unenthusiastic about catching the car. He said needed to see what the opinion will actually be mumble-mumble before mumble-mumble knowing what action the General Assembly mumble-mumble should take. Youngkin did say he thought a majority of Virginians did not favor third term abortions but did not even say he would propose legislation banning them.
One reason Youngkin won last year is because he intentionally and successfully kept abortion rights in the background. He knows that the issue is a loser for Republicans outside of red states.
germy
@Steeplejack:
They were there to assist the local police.
tam1MI
If I was a Mormon, I’d be seriously rethinking my allegiance to the Republican party right about now, given how they are openly angling for an Evangelical fascist theocracy in this country. They are going to put the LDS’s right to exist directly on the chopping block.
“But I never thought the leopards would eat MY face!”
Kay
@germy:
They were there to justify their 52.2 billion dollar annual cost. That ridiculous behemoth should have been busted up long ago. Another legacy cost of the War On Terror.
They failed to detect an insurrection, but they’re johnny on the spot when 11 women gather.
JanieM
@Kropacetic:
That’s exactly what I thought after her speech at the end of the Kavanaugh hearings. (I live in Maine.) Yet in 2020 she got IIRC 8% more of the vote than her D opponent
ETA: I have been reading people on blogs talk about the demise of Collins for 15 years. That turns out to be the imaginary Collins, not the real one. Mind you, I would love to be proven wrong about this, but I don’t think she’s going anywhere if she doesn’t want to.
Geminid
@JanieM: So are you saying that Collins will run in 2026? Or just that I shouldn’t say she is “almost certainly” in her last term?
Anyway, I said it and you can argue otherwise but I’m not qualifying the asssertion any more than I have aleady.
Jeffro
Yup.
Why should there have to be ‘work-arounds’? Why should there have to be underground networks? Why should women have to have straw purchasers involved when it comes to birth control?
F that. It’s absolutely outrageous. Get. Theocrats. Out. Of. Americans’. Personal. Decisions.
germy
@Kay:
I don’t disagree.
Even their name has always given me the creeps.
Bupalos
@Josie: I have no idea what you mean by “forcing people to comply.” There will be no legal providers of abortion services in places that outlaw abortion. That’s the main way compliance is enforced. And in states that fully criminalize and don’t craft broad exceptions in the language, every miscarriage will be subject to legal investigation, every trip out of state while pregnant, etc.
You can’t really talk about “forcing people to comply” when you’re removing a right that requires a legal infrastructure to enjoy. Gay marriage is the same.
JanieM
@Geminid: I don’t care what you argue. But there’s the fantasy Collins and the real Collins. In 2020 my town in Maine voted for Ds by no less than 7 percentage points last time, from Biden down to county sheriff. It also voted for Collins by a significant margin, despite her execrable sneering at the rest of us in her Kavanaugh speech.
She’ll run if she wants to (I’d bet a lot on her wanting to), and she’ll stay as Teflon as she always has been with voters.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Jeffro: I think the good news is the Republican compulsion to be the biggest asshole in the room means they will help with that message. I mean, sheesh, it’s really not hard to foresee in a few years the GOpers drowning in kittens on TV in their desperate need to be seen as cruel. We got Gaetz cruising high schools and Crawthford punching trees as it is.
cain
@Patricia Kayden: Sinema is dead meat – if she doesn’t say she will change her mind and allow the GOP to turn back everything.
In fact, I’m puzzled as to why even Manchin would not be taken aback by the extremeness. LIterally, they are pushing the conservative court is pushing to break down everything in the past 100 years, and he’s still having a conniption about “process’ and “fairness” that the filibuster is doing?
Maybe we should sue the SCOTUS and get them to overturn the filibuster since that prick, Alito wants to go back to the 17th century. They didn’t have a filibuster then.
Jeffro
@Geminid: yes – completely agree about ‘catching the car’.
“I’ll have to think about it, study it, get back to you” – really Glenn? You’re the governor of America’s 12th-largest state, you’re 55 years old, and you…need to study what you believe about making abortion illegal? Is that even possible?”
Oh and on that late-term abortion thing: I’ll agree to hear his argument (not agree with him or let him have his way) if he can even guess (+/- 3%) what percentage of abortions are performed in the last three months of pregnancy. I like my odds of never hearing another word from him about it, ever again.
Kay
@germy:
I thought they were police? Only one side of the abortion split has been violent, the anti-abortion side, and they have been very, very violent- bombings, murders, kidnappings, chemical attacks.
Is this good police work? To send all the resources to patrol the people who don’t use bombs?
They better hurry back to DC. Another insurrection might be happening right under their noses.
MisterDancer
Not that this’ll shock anyone, but this is exactly the kind of BS potential lawsuit we need to consider mechanisms to constrain before it even gets to SCOTUS:
These states eagerly spend millions of taxpayer dollars to take away every right they can. And, of course, the right-lurching Judicial system inflames their hopes — but they also do it just for the publicity of it, when they know they are going to lose. The prior case Abbott mentioned, FYI, was in 1982.
Another Scott
I had NPR on during my drive late yesterday afternoon.
A teaser for Michael Barbaro’s FTFNYT “The Daily” had some oldish white guy intoning very seriously that even if Alito’s draft is the final result, “it doesn’t mean that abortion is outlawed, it simply means that it becomes a state issue…”
Nothing better than getting “insight” from old white guys about the real-world impact of the SCOTUS on American women’s health and reproductive rights, amirite??!!ONE.
Even Nina Totenberg, when she was interviewed about it, spent about 90% of the time talking about how the leak was such a historic betrayal that had never happened before, etc., etc., and maybe 5% about what was in the draft. (I’ll cut her a little slack because she had to answer the questions asked.)
And another thing! There was an afternoon show where a woman was interviewing a COVID expert and asking about how things are going to be different now that “COVID is turning into something like the seasonal flu”. And the expert woman was saying, (roughly) “Well the first COVID strain had a reproduction rate R of 2-3 while the flu is typically 1-2. So COVID was a little more infectious. The strains we have now are more like measles with R ~ 10-12 so …” And the segment ended with “thank you Dr X for telling us what to expect as COVID becomes more like the seasonal flu.”
Grr…,
Scott.
Jeffro
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yes – they’ll keep their ‘greatest hits’ coming, we just have to play them.
I think it needs a unifying theme, though, since the current GQP covers so very many varieties of whack-job. Folks need to realize that the whole. fucking. party. is like this now. Sorry, “Rockefeller Republicans” (snort) – it’s a national psycho movement now, you might want to hang with the Dems for a cycle or two.
The Utter Insanity of the Modern GQP. Covers it all. They’re NUTS
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I think that’s a fine question to ask Republicans “So what exception do you have planned for Justice Thomas when you restore the traditional families value of miscegenation?”
taumaturgo
@germy: Is Ginni Thomas a leak suspect?
germy
@Kay:
Did you see the police response to the climate scientists’ protest a few weeks ago?
Geminid
@tam1MI: I think many LDS members have been aware of this for a while. They noticed the contrast between the tepid support political evangelicals gave the morally upright Romney in 2012 with the enthusism with which evangelical leaders backed the reprobate Trump in 2016 and 2020. And LDS Church members have not forgotten their own 19th century history of violent persecution by more orthodox Christians.
JanieM
@Geminid:
Why don’t *you* explain what you’re basing your fuzzy “almost certainly” on?
Do you think she’s not going to run? Or do you think she’ll run and voters will reject her?
I would like to be wrong, but I think she’ll run and I won’t be at all surprised if she gets re-elected.
cain
We are in a civil war – it’s just not violent yet.
The moment, the rest of us decided to start buying guns and stock piling weapons – they’ll know that shit is going to go down – will love when they start passing anti-gun laws in the red states when they find that the ‘others’ are also buying guns.
Steeplejack
Scorching video from MeidasTouch:
Kay
@germy:
I did, because my youngest texted it to me. I don’t care that they’re all Right wingers but this ideological picking and choosing they do is not actual professional police work, just so we’re all clear. I don’t recall signing on to pay 52 billion a year for an ideological enforcement apparatus.
They’ll be assisting rounding up the women who flee Texas for Colorado to get medical care. On my dime.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Possibly it’s meant to include people who can bear children but don’t identify as women. That was my assumption anyway.
lowtechcyclist
@schrodingers_cat: The point is that not all “people of child-bearing capability” are women.
Hoodie
@Omnes Omnibus: There is some disagreement about that. For example, this could be viewed as a jurisdictional issue, e.g., the Constitution gives jurisdiction to the Court, not individual judges, and all that the Constitution requires is that anyone appointed remains an Article 3 judge (e.g., at some lower court level or some special senior status) and receives compensation for that. Of course, the problem is that the SC would likely rule against the constitutionality of that, which could cause a constitutional crisis.
Geminid
@JanieM: I am aware of Collins’electoral strength in Maine.
But what do you think about the main point I was making, that I did not see a political downside to Collins voting to codify Roe?
lowtechcyclist
@Steeplejack:
I was wondering that too: what fucking jurisdiction do they have over a local protest? Other than sniffing around for undocumented immigrants, what possible business could they possibly have there?
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: I’ve started to wonder if that compulsion may be what saves us. IANAL, but it seems to me that the Court could have overturned Roe and Casey by saying medical science had advanced enough since Roe and Casey that current viability and undue burden standards were void and the ability to save life trumped the constitutional right to privacy. Therefore this should be a legislative decision. And called it a day. Would have put us trust science liberals in a hell of a spot.
Instead, we get this barfed up hairball of “originalism” meaning pre-constitutional law, the first eight amendments being the only ones that count, and a “made up” right to privacy that applies fully to men and not fully to women. Seems too clever by half to me and when the dust settles, a lot of pick apart.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: @lowtechcyclist: I understand what they meant but I am not a fan of this terminology. We can be inclusive without contorting the language so much. YMMV
I would be okay with women and people who can bear children.
brantl
Kay
When you read the “sincere” assertions from anti-abortion religious advocates that women will not be subject to criminal penalties for abortion, be aware that they have absolutely no basis to guarantee this.
Pure politics on their part. They can’t make that guarantee. It’s not within their power, which they know. It’s meant to mislead the public.
Stop letting them deny things that are already happening. The one advantage we got from this leaked opinion is it’s a roadmap of how they plan to proceed. Look at the map. They didn’t want you to have it, but you have it. Use it.
Another Scott
@EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo): AFAIK, the necessity for working lungs still means that there is a pretty hard limit in how young a fetus can be and survive outside the womb. Roughly 36 weeks.
Cheers,
Scott.
cain
@tam1MI: Same with Catholics – you can absolutely believe that they will come for the other religions. They will want the evangelical faith to be supreme. They will start a full on war with the rest of the faiths. They don’t give a shit.
Sure Lurkalot
@Kay:
Says the hedge fund manager financially backed by a billionaire venture capitalist and endorsed by the greatest businessman ever born (the reason some claim to have voted for him), contradictions I’m sure the FTFNYT noted.
Bupalos
@MisterDancer: THIS, this, 1000X this.
We are actually very lucky that the federalist society court is acting on this now instead of with the patience that Roberts wisely prefers. Republicans are not yet fully secure in their electoral engineering and/or ability to nullify elections and install authoritarians. They really still kind of need these midterms to go their way. This could be the last election where they really need much of a particular outcome.
This does kind of look like our last best hope in that regard. A decision that is so nakedly anti-democratic, anti-American, and unpopular might wake people up in a way that is less particular to the issue of freedom for women of reproductive age, and more generally about all of our collective freedom. For that to happen it’s absolutely critical we fight like hell for it to be viewed for what it is: another attack on democracy and the fundamental founding tenets of the United States. Of a piece with the Trumpist insurrection.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: I am trying to write a post about this — I think there’s got to be a linguistically inclusive balance that doesn’t erase women. But I keep getting wrapped around rhetorical axles! ?
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Looking forward to reading it. You have a way with words, I have faith in you. If anyone can do it you can!
JanieM
@Geminid:
As to that I’m not sure. I think people swallow whole her framing of the “moderate” votes that she casts when they don’t matter. And four years is a long way away. In that sense there may not be a political downside to voting to codify Roe, so the question may be: does she see an upside? She was sneeringly angry about the fund that was created for her prospective opponent during the K hearings. She was upset when she lost relevant endorsements that she’d had before (PP I think).
The framing “there’s no downside” implies that she’d like to codify Roe but wouldn’t do it if there’s a political downside. I’m not convinced that she’d like to codify it in the first place, at this point. See e.g. this article from a couple of years ago:
https://mainebeacon.com/collins-attends-fundraiser-at-4m-mansion-of-nations-leading-anti-choice-judicial-activist/
(Sorry, this is complicated and I’m writing in haste now.)
Eunicecycle
@Jackie: I remember. A girl in my class (1974) got pregnant and was allowed to stay in school but couldn’t attend the graduation ceremony. But the father had no consequences at all. And he admitted he was the father, so it wasn’t a mystery. Also my mother worked at the local hospital and later told me she knew several of my classmates who had come in for D&Cs pre-Roe.
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
@Another Scott: I’m not saying there aren’t arguments against that kind of decision. But they’re tougher to make and the mushy middle might not buy them. An incubator in the NICU is outside the womb. You need a lot of money for that but an America that wants restrictions on legal abortion, as polls consistently show, probably wouldn’t care.
Soprano2
@Ken: No, what they want is the right to check everyone’s immigration status and turn away anyone who can’t prove they live here legally. It’s just another way to keep as many brown kids out of their schools as possible.
Kay
I have to say I love the legal commentary that goes “women just lost a fundamental right, yawn, whatever- but what if they come after the rights of people who matter?!?”
That’s why 90% of the elite media commentary is on the leak rather the loss of the right. The important figures here, the “hook”, are John Roberts and Samuel Alito. Women may only be discussed as a secondary topic and only if they somehow intersect with powerful men.
Bupalos
@cain: As soon as it comes down to disorganized violence, they’ve won. The state will have been functionally destroyed, and all the rights they object to will suddenly have no real backing.
As the founders knew and generations of educated Americans have known, our rights are only backed by our common agreement to defend each other’s rights. However much we dress them up in flowery language about what is supernatural or natural, that’s reality.
Medicine Man
I feel like we’ve failed the younger generations.
Bupalos
@Betty Cracker: One solution might be to focus on how this isn’t as much a particular decision about the particular folks carrying zygotes and fetuses and more a decision about all of us. And whether a highly motivated minority faction is going to derail constitutional democracy and dictate the terms of American society.
Kay
@Sure Lurkalot:
None of these people read his book. I read it. It blamed rural white poverty on the lack of self discipline and inherent lower nature of poor people. Absolutely nothing about “elites”.
He’s only blamed Mexican immigrants for his mother’s drug addiction in the last 4 weeks. In the book he blames her, FDR, labor unions, etc. etc. but that’s obviously an inconvenient message for the tens of thousands of white rural families who have been affected by drug addiction, so he’s decided to blame Mexicans so they can feel better about themselves.
Ken
Now I’m imagining some future decision by a liberal circuit court stripping corporations of their status as “persons”, and citing Alito’s opinion.
Steeplejack
@germy:
I should have been clearer: “as opposed to only the local police?” No answer necessary—rhetorical question.
Geminid
@JanieM: I said that I saw no political downside to Collins voting to codify Roe. That assertion did not imply that she wanted to, as you infer it does. I preceded that by saying the issue would “put Collins and Murkowski to the test,” and that does imply uncertainty that they will follow through on their representations of being pro-choice.
Kay
@Medicine Man:
I do too. I have two grandaughters. I just don’t want them under some kind of restrictive religious rule that their parents would never have voluntarily chosen for them, because I don’t think Roe is now or ever was just about “abortion”. It’s a fundamental issue of women’s autonomy and agency. It’s a profound loss and it will ripple, legally, sure but also culturally and how women think of themselves and are treated.
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
No, you should know they’re just lying. Women in Texas and Indiana have gone to jail for miscarriages already.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Aww, thank you! I don’t have the answers, but I think it’s worth discussing.
@Bupalos: That’s the overarching context of the discussion for sure! I’m getting into the word weeds, which is a related but different kettle of fish.
Kay
@EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo):
How stupid do these people think we are? Their entire argument is life begins at conception and abortion is murder. Of course Louisiana will attempt to criminalize it. Why wouldn’t it be a crime?
germy
JanieM
@Geminid: Heh. I’m done, should never have started. But I did learn something.
cain
@germy: Someone should remind Graham that DeSantis is doing exactly that.
gvg
@Kropacetic: States are required to recognize marriages in other states. So people will go across the border and get married…I don’t think this is going to work out. They will argue and sue and act in bad faith about treating gay couples and inter racial couples married in other states equally and I am not sure how it will go except badly.
germy
@cain:
Chris Smalls gave great testimony. He was challenged by Republicans and he challenged them right back. Good for him.
Citizen Alan
@Ken: Simple. Keep the public schools open but retain the discretion to kick out every black or Brown child who’s not good at sports.
Kropacetic
@gvg: Do we have any recent examples of how this played out more recently with gay marriage? I remember reading about legislation (don’t know if it passed) to effectively nullify the marriages of couples entering the state that didn’t comply with their vision of marriage.
schrodingers_cat
@Betty Cracker: Your post with your sister in the cockroach outfit is my all time favorite post. As an older sister with an annoying sibling (when we were children) it was totally ROTFLOL
Geminid
@JanieM: Wishing you a nice day, free of further encounters with prickly people like myself.
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
@Kay: The sole truth Donald Trump told was when he said if abortion is a crime, women who get abortions should go to jail. And that sole truth was the one of the few things his voters ever gave him pushback on. That life what a beautiful choice mantra must come with some good drugs.
Eunicecycle
@Steeplejack: that is a very scary video!
germy
Peale
@Soprano2: And just remember about 10 years ago, Texas stopped giving out birth certificates to children of undocumented immigrants, which may or may not have included legal immigrants who didn’t have the right IDs. Those children who are citizens have no way of proving it. Yeah, they claim to have settled this in 2016, but yeah, right, I’m sure they worked really really hard to correct those records. Those children will now be school age.
Kay
I have no idea why people keep saying this. There has been an anti abortion movement for 30 years. The states they control are the poorest states, with the worst outcomes for women and children.
How does it follow they will “spend more”? They won’t do shit for women and children, just they haven’t done shit in the stateds they control for three decades.
They don’t even CLAIM they’ll help. When they are asked the point to the fake “health clinics” they run and muse about the “maternity homes” they will open where women will be indoctrinated into far Right ideology in exchange for basic shelter.
You’re getting cut rate “clinics” where they hand out religious tracts and “maternity homes” and that’s all you’re getting and you’re only getting that if you agree to be hijacked into their religions.
Betty Cracker
@schrodingers_cat: Older sisters represent!
My sister and I are really close now, but damn, she used to irritate the hell out of me, mostly on purpose, too. I once launched across the kitchen table to make her stop crunching her cereal so loudly — she was definitely doing it on purpose to annoy me! Hahaha!
The Pale Scot
I’ve read thru reddit and blogs topical about abortion, B-control and the childfree movement. The ability of younger women to get tubal ligations is extremely restricted, especially compared to young men getting vasectomies, who do have to deal with resistance also. I’d support a sterilization on demand movement for women and men. Especially with climate change obviously is not going to be dealt with. I know the pro forced birth cadre would flip out. Their only desire is to make sure there are many thralls and serfs to keep their version of society
Add: The BS that doctors are against tubal ligations for young women is because they are afraid of being sued because the woman can’t have children is BS. The only lawsuits I have ever found were about women suing because they got pregnant, or the man got someone pregnant.
Everybody makes mistakes they regret, why is this the only mistake that doctors get to interfere with
Add2;
Janelle Monáe
And we gon’ start a motherfuckin’ pussy riot
Or we gon’ have to put ’em on a pussy diet
Look at that, I guarantee I got ’em quiet
Look at that, I guarantee they all inspired
Peale
@Kay: An inquest after every stillbirth. Fortunately, there won’t be any reason why wealthier women who lawyer up to get through that process won’t fare better than others who have to DIY proving that they did everything possible not to miscarry.
gvg
@Jerzy Russian: The right to an abortion is currently based on the Supreme Court prior decision in Roe V Wade which reasons the right is implied by the constitution, therefore no further laws were required. If Roe is overturned, then regular state and Federal laws apply. Just as we pass new laws all the time, which go into effect unless a higher court says they are unconstitutional.
This decision does not forbid abortion rights, it just says the constitution doesn’t already require it.
Federal laws override State laws, so it will help, if they can pass it. Senate is still a problem. The down side is even if it passes, it can be changed by a future Congress and President.
Strategically, I would like to see the politicians and judges who schemed for this face a firestorm and for idiot voters who think it is a good idea to find out how bad it is, but the only way that can happen involves many dead women and much less free lives so I can’t want that. I hope it doesn’t quite happen, and people get mad enough and remember.
Be a good time to get networks and streaming services to show historical drama about pre Roe and promote good shows on it.
Tarragon
@Bupalos: You can almost always copy a link to a Washington Post article and then look that up on archive.org.
In this case it’s: https://web.archive.org/web/20220505161923/https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/05/04/culture-wars-diminishes-danger/
Kay
@EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo):
It’s also nonsense they’ll stop at states, which one far Right US Senator admitted yesterday.
I didn’t develop their legal, religious and ideological framework- they did. It states that life begins at conception and abortion is murder. Their laws are now and will continue to follow from that.
The Lousiana politicians aren’t as sophisticated politically as the fancy lawyers on the Right, they just followed the doctrine they were given. The rubes always give the game away.
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
@Kay: Michael Steele must still be hung up on defending his old party. You only have to spend 10 minutes with an anti-choicer to know that their charity is the only plan they have. And that little slut and her baby better prove they deserve that charity, by God.
Peale
@Kay: The debate they have is going to be about those “heartbeat” bills. We already know that those heartbeats they claim to hear aren’t heartbeats. But LA now goes two steps back from that. Fertilized eggs are when “conception” happens. This is what happens when you throw out viability. Life now begins with a fertilized egg. Its alive! It doesn’t even need a not real heartbeat!
Kay
@Peale:
Yup. And they can get access to anyone’s health records they want if they’re investigating a crime. Hell, they already did in Missouri, thru the powers of a state health agency. They got the records of every woman who went to Planned Parenthood- date of last period- ostensibly to see if they were “harmed”.
Kay
@Peale:
Every girl and woman of childbearing capacity will be treated as presumptively pregnant. There’s no other way they can clothe this religious rule in some kind of real world state code.
Steeplejack
James E Powell
@Geminid:
What that means is that there are Republicans who claim or hint that they are pro-choice in carefully worded statements issued at carefully chosen moments. But when it comes to votes in the senate, not so much.
No person who is pro-choice would have voted to confirm Amy Coney Barrett for any reason. The only reason she was nominated was because she is a guaranteed vote to overrule Roe.
Peale
@Kay: Yep. How do I know you’re not taking illegal birth control pills? You’re 30, married and never been pregnant? If I’m a DA, I’m looking into your life to make sure no murder has taken place.
Citizen Alan
@Kay: I stand by my belief that Vance’s mother could have kicked addiction if we have been able to get an abortion she probably wanted rather than be saddled with a worthless sack of s*** for a son. I would give anything to say that to the f*****’s face.
Matt McIrvin
@gvg: When Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage by court decision, and Mitt Romney was cheesed off about it, one of the things he did was to enforce a 1913 law saying the state couldn’t marry out-of-state couples if the marriage would be illegal in their home state. It was originally passed as sort of a backdoor anti-miscegenation law, effectively recognizing other states’ bans on interracial marriage if their residents came here to get married. Massachusetts repealed it in 2008.
Barry
@Geminid: “does. I preceded that by saying the issue would “put Collins and Murkowski to the test,” and that does imply uncertainty that they will follow through on their representations of being pro-choice.”
I must have missed the time that Collins passed any test of integrity. ?
Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg
“Roe v Wade was a bad thing. Getting rid of it is a good thing.”
– by Glenn Greenwald, really
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/the-irrational-misguided-discourse?s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email
germy
Citizen Alan
@Kay: I just had a horrific thought and started wondering how many women will get raped and impregnated in evangelical run maternity homes and then have to have to carry another fetus to term. And then I threw up in my mouth a little.
The Moar You Know
@The Pale Scot: In my younger days I could not find a doctor that would even consider allowing me a vasectomy until one of two things had happened:
Women face at a minimum the same barriers to sterilization. The reasons are bullshit.
I knew when I was 15 years old I didn’t want to have kids. I never wavered once on that.
We do not have sterilization on demand, we have the exact opposite; universal denial of sterilization.
Geminid
@James E Powell: You may have a good argument but it’s with Amy Klobucher not me.
Soprano2
@schrodingers_cat: I agree, it drives me crazy when people try to use phrases like that, because to the average normie it sounds stupid, so you’ve already lost the argument. Just say “women”, good grief.
CliosFanBoy
@Ken: Except Jefferson had nothing to do with writing the Constitution. He was the US Minister to France at that time. But Madison could have.
Betty Cracker
@Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg:
The Moar You Know
@Medicine Man: they feel the same and will have no compunctions about telling you so.
StringOnAStick
The only reason the R’s are unhappy about the leak of the draft opinion is because they were planning on using it’s release as a way to draw our energy away from the Jan 6 committee presentations on national TV.
Geminid
@Barry: My response is best expressed by my comment at #202.
CliosFanBoy
@Geminid: Yeah, but our nutjob Lt.Governor and Atty general are full on-board for banning abortion, banning birth control, etc.
Betty Cracker
To clarify, that’s directed at Greenwald, not @Deputinize Eurasia from the Kuriles to St Petersburg!
CliosFanBoy
@Barry: I must have missed the time that Collins passed any test of integrity.
She passes them all the time, if by “passing” you mean “drive past without stopping”
Soprano2
@Kay: It would actually be more consistent for them to advocate that women who get or try to get abortions should be charged with murder or attempted murder. That they have consistently said this shouldn’t happen, that only the doctor should be charged, says that they know the logical position is unpopular with the vast majority of people. I have mixed feelings about Meidas Touch, but that ad absolutely nails the world they want all of us to live in, where you can be arrested for trying to travel to another state if you’re pregnant. They will absolutely be persuaded that women should go to jail for getting or trying to get an abortion.
Soprano2
@Kay: Their whole answer to this is “charities will take care of it”. Sure, for a few months, then you’re on your own with that child you didn’t want in the first place.
You’re right about the horror their “maternity homes” would be, too. Probably like the Magdalene Laundries. Right now here there’s an ongoing lawsuit about sexual abuse of children at Kanakuk Kamps – it was a horror. One of the accused men was known about for years, but he was charismatic and popular so they just swept it under the rug by making families sign non-disclosure agreements with settlements. Two of the abused boys (now in their 30’s) have revealed their identities in the paper, which took a huge amount of courage on their part. For some reason whenever religious organizations do things around children there seems to be a significant amount of sexual abuse with it.
Kay
@Citizen Alan:
I think it’s so telling that the thought process on the Right as far as rape was “women will lie about being raped to get an abortion”. That’s why they got rid of the rape exception. Women are all liars.
I immediately thought “rapists will be able to pick a victim to impregnate”. They will, too. They’ll be able to handcuff the victim to them through the child, for at least 18 years. You’ll be forced to have a legal relationship with your rapist for at least 18 years. You could have a 16 year old victim sharing custody with a 40 year old rapist. He’ll know exactly where she is and what she’s doing thru his legal relationship to the child. These woman promoting this are monsters. Sorry, but they are. Their sloppy, careless, thoughtless work is going to do harm to millions of women. Women are so unimportant to them they do no thinking at all when they draft these laws.
The Moar You Know
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: none. Justice Thomas will be quite surprised, as will his spouse.
germy
“A clownshow state, folks.”
germy
Kay
Except for the fundamental right of bodily autonomy and agency for more than half the US population nothing has really changed.
Are other modern democracies like this? It’s unbelievable.
germy
Kay
The ability of Right wing women in media to soothe themselves imagining they will still enjoy all the benefits of liberal cultural and legal norms, what they have enjoyed their whole lives but not worked for, contributed to or even voted for, while under a new set of far Right, restrictive religious laws is just amazing. It’s delusional.
Every fucking day- “MY LIFE will be unaffected”.
Megan’s happy to let you roll the dice on a county prosecutor. After all, she lives in a modern, progressive blue state. They all do. Hey Megan- Republicans have just one really good cycle and the laws you support might affect you. Better watch your back.
EarthWind&Fire (formerly bluegirlfromwyo)
@Kay: As I’m sure you know, lots of these delusional women exist outside the media too. In my experience, they spend a lot more of their time and energy on their husbands and sons than their daughters.
Love Megan’s blasé attitude about IVF. Yep, that’s a lady who believes no one can change her cushy life.
Geminid
@CliosFanBoy: They can try, but Virginia Republicans have to hold the House of Delegates and win the State Senate in 2023 if the Lieutenant Governor and Attorney General are to get their wish. I don’t think they can do it on an anti-choice platform.
...now I try to be amused
@Eunicecycle:
Perhaps we should stop saying the word “abortion” and use the medical procedural terms instead. Many if not most of the forced-birth idiots won’t know to associate one word with the other.
Catatonia
@germy: That woman would fit right in on Dimitry Kiselyov’s program.
The Lodger
@Soprano2: Oddly enough, you never see it acknowledged that 99 percent of people who can get pregnant and don’t identify as women are girls. Let’s not ignore anybody here.
Ruckus ??
@Shalimar:
Expanding the court 200 yrs ago wasn’t as necessary as it is now but the population wasn’t 330 million and we had somewhat decent representation. But look at the court makeup and how that affects literally millions of people negatively. That should not be the case. The same applies in the house, in that the people, you know, all of us are not reasonably represented. Right now it’s wealth and religion that are dictating our lives and I for one think that is fucking wrong. The court needs to be bigger so that it takes a larger amount of people to fuck us over. The house needs to be bigger so that we actually will have representation. And absolutely there has to be a term of the judges on the court. I’m a bit hazy on the time frame for that, likey something like 10 yrs, with possibly a second term available, maybe shorter with a second term possible, if congress decides they can stay. I also think that there should be overall term limits for congress. Otherwise those in power get to be way to fucking powerful. I can name names if necessary.
This is not a country of, by and for the people, all of them, every last damn one, if one or two people get to run/ruin the place. They are supposed to work for all of us, not for their bank accounts, stock portfolios, pillowcases of cash.
Ruckus ??
@Eunicecycle:
I graduated HS in rethuglican city in the mid 60s. Of course you don’t get your actual diploma during the ceremony, you got that when you turned in your cap and gown. The girl in line in front of my was an acquaintance but not a close friend and she handed the clerk her cap as she was taking off her gown. The clerk handed her the diploma and then noticed that the girl was pregnant, very noticeable so. Tried to grab back the diploma and the girl blocked her with the gown. I wanted to stand there and applaud her for that. I didn’t know she was pregnant, she had covered this up very well. But being pregnant was against school rules, a female couldn’t possibly be pregnant and have a functioning brain or not show that she’d had, dare I say it, sexual relations. Dirty filthy woman! Needless to say this is horrible, rethuglican bullshit. Never once was I told that, as a male, I couldn’t have sex.
Kathleen
@Kay: A WaPo “reporter” tweeted a picture of Nina and ABG which included a link for donations. The “reporter” has a real “maybe they’ll let me sit with them at lunch” vibe.
Kathleen
@Kay: That headline has a “peeing in their pants with glee” vibe.
Kathleen
@schrodingers_cat: Or people who think they’re erudite.
Kathleen
@Kay: A local Cincy reporter from a station I used to watch had a gushing interview with Vance in which he framed Trump’s coronation of Vance as the wacky unpredictable rich uncle who really had a heart of gold. It was really sickening.
OT but I just read yesterday that John Cranley did not carry the City of Cincinnati or Hamilton County! I did not know that. The reporter who wrote the story wrote, “Do you think he’ll get a clue?” I voted for him but am pleased that Nan is the candidate.
JanieM
@Ruckus ??:
Heh, you obviously didn’t go to Catholic school. Or at least my Catholic school.
H-Bob
@New Deal democrat: “I happen to think if Congress came close to passing a court packing proposal, Roberts would agree to retire quietly in return for shelving the proposal. If I were President, I would turn him down unless another GOPer also retired.”
So two switches in time will save nine?
sab
@Kathleen: Me too. I think Cranley started way too late. Whaley has had an organization in place for at least a year. I am fine with the result, although the misogyny of Ohio voters scares me.
JR in WV
@Betty Cracker:
My mom, a life long republican, on her death bed back in the mid-90s. told me that she had quit voting for republicans because of their opposition to abortion. “Don’t tell your father” she also said, and I didn’t. Had been in bed for years with COPD from Phillip Morris carcinogens.
I’m pretty sure she lost a beloved friend or cousin (she had a ton of cousins she was close to) to a botched abortion in the late 1930s or early ’40s! She was surprisingly vehement in her attitude. she died in 1997….
I think of Mom when we donate to liberal politicians, Planned Parenthood, etc. But I’m still angry we’re still fighting this battle. Wife used to help with Aunt Jane in college in the late ’60s and early ’70s.
JR in WV
Ninth Amendment:
I rest my case… all those rights are spelled out right there in the Bill of Rights.
JR in WV
@Mike in NC:
…most of the Supreme Court is Catholic… no matter how RWNJ they are.