Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

“woke” is the new caravan.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

The willow is too close to the house.

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

You cannot love your country only when you win.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

When we show up, we win.

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Not loving this new fraud based economy.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

Fuck these fucking interesting times.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Anne Laurie is a fucking hero in so many ways. ~ Betty Cracker

T R E 4 5 O N

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Three Days, Filled with Pain and Sorrow

Three Days, Filled with Pain and Sorrow

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Looks like the Supremes are going to make the slightest nod to letting women have the same rights as human beings by letting Idaho hospitals stabilize them if they’re bleeding out due to a pregnancy.  Clarence Thomas and Sam Alito are taking turns whipping the ass of the intern who accidentally posted that decision on the court’s website as we speak (it apparently wasn’t supposed to be released today).

The mercy shown by acknowledging that in the 21st century there are ways to save women’s lives even if they happen to have a non-viable embryo implanted in their uterus would make me want to pen numerous breathless encomiums to the new-found “moderation” of the court — if I were an idiot journalist living in DC.

Speaking of the rights that women don’t have, if you’re a member of the GOP, as these three are, you certainly don’t have the right to fight for even a modest restriction in abortion rights:

Three Days, Filled with Pain and Sorrow

These are three state legislators from South Carolina all lost to their primary challengers because they did the unthinkable:

They only rejected a newer version of the [South Carolina abortion] ban that didn’t allow minors a right to petition a judge for an abortion at up to 12 weeks, and Shealy tried and failed to amend the abortion ban from six weeks to 12 weeks. But this doesn’t change the fact that Shealy and Gustafson did vote for the ban at one point. Meanwhile, Senn previously said she supports an abortion ban after the first trimester, which is still an abortion ban.

Since they’re Republicans, they received a JFK Library “Profile in Courage” award.  If they were Democrats, they would be told to shut the fuck up.

Two more days of Supreme court rulings to come, and a debate to boot.  I hope my liver can handle it.

Reader Interactions

115Comments

  1. 1.

    Princess

    I wrote this on that at  the end of a dead thread: The thing is, when it comes to abortion and the health of the mother, Catholics have a loophole called the doctrine of double effect. If you do something to save the life of a pregnant woman, and the baby dies as a result, as long as the first intention was saving the mother, that’s okay. So Barrett as a Catholic can rule with the liberals in comfort. So could Kavanagh, Thomas and Alito but then fewer men would have the chance of scoring hot younger wives when their old wife died in childbirth, and we can’t have that.

    Also too: No accident.  Alito leaked this so the Fed Society could put the squeeze on Barrett and possibly Roberts before it’s announced. Is Roberts the weakest most pathetic chief justice ever? He has zero control of his court.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

    Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) posted at 3:19 PM on Wed, Jun 26, 2024:
    Many news agencies report a coup is underway at this minute in Bolivia. The elected, civilian govt is under siege from the military — appears to be a right-wing takover.
    Pres. Luis Arce warns, naming a key General as responsible.
    https://t.co/MS6B3d7DYY
    He said “democracy must be respected.”
    (https://x.com/Laurie_Garrett/status/1806059681133035953?t=GVf59Xa8MLKTomutwaaSQg&s=03)

     

    CNW (@ConflictsW) posted at 3:02 PM on Wed, Jun 26, 2024:
    Bolivian military armoured vehicle breaks down the doors of the Palacio Quemado (former presidential residence) in La Paz and soldiers enter to secure the building.
    #Bolivia

  7. 7.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Princess: While I don’t disagree that Roberts is weak, I always wonder what kind of control people think he might be able to exert.

  9. 9.

    rikyrah

    Why the Leaked SCOTUS Ruling Isn’t a Victory
    The Court will allow emergency abortions, but it’s not a win

    JESSICA VALENTI

    JUN 26

     

    Well this is unexpected! The Supreme Court accidentally released their decision in Moyle v. United States, and it appears that they are poised to allow emergency abortions in Idaho.

    That doesn’t mean this is a win. If the draft ruling obtained by Bloomberg stays the same, the justices will dismiss the case as “improvidently granted”—meaning the Court shouldn’t have accepted the case to begin with. The ruling would reinstate a lower court’s decision to allow Idaho doctors to perform life-saving and stabilizing abortions, and is not a decision on the merits of the case.

    In that way, it’s similar to the SCOTUS decision on mifepristone: while it may seem positive at first glance, all the ruling does is kick the issue down the road. It’s a way to ensure that the Court doesn’t release an unpopular anti-abortion opinion that would hurt Republicans before November.

    As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson wrote, the ruling “is not a victory for pregnant patients in Idaho.”

  10. 10.

    gene108

    The SC primary just reinforces my view that the Republican Party are religious fanatics, who want to impose their will on everyone else.

    Their “policies” are either about self-enrichment and/or imposing their religious beliefs on everyone else.

  13. 13.

    $8 blue check mistermix

    @rikyrah: Yeah, I don’t think any of these decisions on abortion (or gun rights) are “permanent” in any sense…the court wants to get through the election before they really start throwing down.

  14. 14.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    the slightest nod to letting women have the same rights as human beings by letting Idaho hospitals stabilize them if they’re bleeding out due to a pregnancy

    Sadly no.

    They punted on the case. They made no ruling. Instead they sent the case back to a lower court. After the lower court finishes then they’ll take their turn to make their final ruling. In short they didn’t want to further hurt Dump a few months before the election, so they’re gonna do it next year.

  17. 17.

    Baud

    @JPL:

    The good news is this litigation was brought by the Biden DOJ. Trump can be asked if he would allow his DOJ to continue litigating.

  18. 18.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    Coup in Bolivia?   I thought Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid retired.

  20. 20.

    David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch

    @Cacti: I think anyone who stays at a Holiday Inn Express understands how the court works

  22. 22.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Cacti: The Chief Justices who have had some measure of control over the associate justices have had it because of their personal strength/charisma/moral authority not due to the inherent power of their position.

    Not arguing with you.  Just expanding on the point.

  23. 23.

    Martin

    So, the coup seems a bit like the Wagner coup in Russia. General gets pissed off, grabs a bunch of guys, makes a run at the guy who fired him, and it sort of fizzles out? The general and president met, but the president wasn’t arrested and appears to have left. There isn’t really a military presence – just the general and some guys.

    I wonder how much smartphones and social media have done to quell coups now that the foot soldiers can in real time get feedback on what is being claimed and how the public is reacting.

    But there appear to be no shots fired, everyone standing around.

  24. 24.

    NotMax

    @rikyrah

    So old can remember when the independent states of South America were referred to as the LP countries.

    33 revolutions per minute.
    //

  25. 25.

    Martin

    Need to ask Adam if a llama with a machine gun on its back counts as a ‘technical’ because I just saw a photo of one.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Martin: But there appear to be no shots fired, everyone standing around.

    To be fair, most military operations consist of a lot of that.

  28. 28.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @David 🌈 ☘The Establishment☘🌈 Koch:

    They punted on the case. They made no ruling. Instead they sent the case back to a lower court. After the lower court finishes then they’ll take their turn to make their final ruling. In short they didn’t want to further hurt Dump a few months before the election, so they’re gonna do it next year.

    Which is probably why Coathanger Amy could vote the way she did.  Assuming this gets back down the line, she’ll vote with the bitter, old, right-wing cranks.

  33. 33.

    Martin

    Sounds like the coup is basically over. President named new generals, sounds like the coup leaders troops have arrested him after getting new orders.

    Good job Bolivian president for ending a coup with less violence than the typical American traffic stop.

  35. 35.

    Baud

    @Martin:

    less violence than the typical American traffic stop.

     
    I haven’t been stopped in a very long time, but I’m going to express some skepticism over your claim that violence is typical.

  37. 37.

    Martin

    Sounds like the guys the general brought with him to arrest the president didn’t know why they were there. Cell phones and TikTok save the day once again.

  38. 38.

    Martin

    @Baud: Ok, typical is an overstatement. How about less violence than occurred across all traffic stops today. Guarantee we don’t get through the day without shots fired in a traffic stop.

  40. 40.

    Jay

    We are being asked that Assange be given privacy.

    Da. You read that right. – Darth Putin

  41. 41.

    Martin

    @Baud: Bolivian Karen asks to talk to the manager, brings a llama with an M-60. Beta american conservatives die of shame.

  42. 42.

    Kay

    @Princess:

     someone should tell Catholic hospitals about the loophole- they’ve been refusing to provide emergency medical care to pregnant women for 100 years. They’ve been sued over and over and over again on it.

    Both Italy and Ireland modernized their abortion laws because Catholic hospitals killed women rather than allow risk to the fetus. The woman who spurred change in Ireland’s abortion laws died in agony of an untreated infection over five days. They tortured her.

    New reports from the ACLU and MergerWatch reveal that one in six hospital beds in the U.S. is in a facility that complies with Catholic directives that prohibit a range of reproductive health care services, even when a woman’s life or health is in jeopardy. In some states, more than 40 percent of all hospital beds are in a Catholic-run facility, leaving entire regions without any option for certain reproductive health care services.

  43. 43.

    Martin

    @Omnes Omnibus: Like, stylishly? Your lt is m-4 propped on right shoulder, left hand on back hip, leaning back a bit, sassy little smirk. That feels like a power coup pose.

  44. 44.

    Trivia Man

    @Omnes Omnibus: Never assign them to write an opinion? I recognize everyone is free to write a concurrent opinion on either side, but getting author credit might be a teeny tiny carrot?

  47. 47.

    Martin

    @Trivia Man: I mean, you could agree to the request from Congress to explain why one of your justices has take $4M in bribes. That’d be a start.

    I have a hard time believing that the most political institution in the US is led by a guy that can’t politically outmaneuver a guy in an RV and another who can’t figure out what side is up on the flag.

  48. 48.

    Jackie

    Re TCFG taking full credit for overturning Roe, made me think. He, alone, didn’t overturn Roe; he had help from three Democrats. Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp and Joe Donnelly voted to confirm Gorsuch.

    Manchin voted to confirm Kavanaugh.

    No Democrats voted for Barrett.

    Heitkamp and Donnelly are long gone. Manchin soon follows.

  49. 49.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Martin: Yep, are you all lined up in formation like someone is the boss of you or are you standing around in the shade like an independent person?

  50. 50.

    Frankensteinbeck

    @Jay:

    Assange is a racist, misogynistic narcissist, a grifter and a major league asshole*, but at this point I don’t care what happens to him.  He’s not working to bring down America with lies anymore.

    *I don’t know what kind of sexual assault he was accused of, so I’m leaving that out.  Even without it he’s a terrible person.

  51. 51.

    Balconesfault

    @Baud: 

    Is Roberts the weakest most pathetic chief justice ever?

    He was a Corporate lawyer. Is there any such thing as being too much a suck ass to power for a Corporate lawyer?

  53. 53.

    Gretchen

    @Princess: that Catholic law of double effect comes into play in treatment of ectopic pregnancy in Catholic hospitals. If you give a drug to stop the pregnancy, that’s abortion and forbidden, since the intent is to stop the pregnancy,  But removing the whole tube is ok, since the intent is to keep the tube from bursting, and removal of the pregnancy is incidental. Of course, that makes getting pregnant again harder, and IVF is forbidden…..

  54. 54.

    Gretchen

    Idaho has been helicoptering an average of 1 pregnant woman every other week to another state to get an emergency abortion that was forbidden there. I wonder who paid the tens of thousands of dollars that cost?

  55. 55.

    Kay

    We knew anti abortion people would choose the fetus over the woman because they’ve done that in every country that follows their religious edicts. Of course they would do it here in the US – they’ve done it everywhere else. God knows how many Irish women they’ve killed – the only reason the one case in Ireland where they killed the mother came to public notice and outrage was because the woman killed was not Irish – she was Indian, and a dentist, and her husband wouldn’t shut up once they killed her. She just had the misfortune to be in one of the women-killing countries and 17 weeks pregnant.

  56. 56.

    Trivia Man

    @Omnes Omnibus: Now I’m wondering what “power” past CJ actually had. Maybe it was 100% “comity” and we know THAT isnt worth a bucket of spit now.

  57. 57.

    Baud

    @Kay:

    We knew anti abortion people would choose the fetus over the woman because they’ve done that in every country that follows their religious edicts.

     
    Plus, they told us.

  58. 58.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    @Jackie:

    Heidi Heitkamp, now that brings back (bad) memories.

    In all the times I would curse Feckless Claire (McCaskill) when I was back in Misery, I always told myself, she could be a lot worse as in Heitkamp Worse or Manchin Worse.

    This prompted me to see where she is now.  She became a fellow at, of course, the Univ of Chicago.  She’s now associated with the McCain Institute.  And gee, about a month ago wrote a piece for the Washington Examiner slamming Biden about some health care issue.

  60. 60.

    Martin

    @Omnes Omnibus: These guys looked pretty organized. They got as far as ramming the gate of the building with the APC but there were no shots fired.

    Can’t say who their loyalty was to, but orders were being given and followed. Honestly they looked more organized than LAPD usually does during one of their tactical cosplays.

  61. 61.

    smith

    @Gretchen: I guess if they start airlifting pregnant women out of TX to save their lives they’ll have to start arresting the helicopter pilots.

  62. 62.

    Misterpuff

    Did Alito show up for work today?

    It’s been news even in the right wing news that he was absent last week from the decision drops.

  63. 63.

    VFX Lurker

    @Gretchen: Idaho has been helicoptering an average of 1 pregnant woman every other week to another state to get an emergency abortion that was forbidden there. I wonder who paid the tens of thousands of dollars that cost?

    If a private insurer covered it, then the cost would show up in higher premiums for employers and individual subscribers.

    If insurance did not cover it, then the individual received the bill.

    That’s only my guess, though.

  64. 64.

    wjca

    @Omnes Omnibus: The Chief Justices who have had some measure of control over the associate justices have had it because of their personal strength/charisma/moral authority not due to the inherent power of their position.

    So, Roberts is basically 0 for 3.

    I’m not sure anybody could have the least control over Thomas or Alito.  But he doesn’t show signs of having any over the political hack trio either.

  65. 65.

    wjca

    @Martin: Need to ask Adam if a llama with a machine gun on its back counts as a ‘technical’ because I just saw a photo of one.

    Except that’s in Argentina,  not Bolivia.

  66. 66.

    Trollhattan

    The issue of sharing license plate camera images across state lines has been banging around our metroplex ever since Dobbs. Well, a grand jury did themselves some digging and guess what our sheriffs have been up to?

    A Sacramento County grand jury investigation into the use of license plate readers by local law enforcement accuses the Sheriff’s Office of violating California law in its handling and oversight of data collected by the scanners. The conclusions of the seven-month investigation by the grand jury, released Wednesday, come just days after the state Attorney General’s Office asked the agency to disclose how it is sharing the data, according to a document obtained by The Sacramento Bee.

    Officers say the readers are a powerful aid to solving crimes. Along with scanning license plates, law enforcement officials tout how the cameras can help identify the type of vehicle in question, which can help them more quickly find suspects. Departments can share the data they collect with other agencies. But how the information they collect is shared has concerned advocacy groups that fear it could be used by authorities beyond California’s borders to track the vehicles of people who seek an abortion or gender-affirming care.

    State lawmakers in 2015 passed a bill that said police departments are only allowed to share the information they gather from license plate readers with other public agencies. Those include cities and counties and entities that are a part of them, like a law enforcement agency.

    The Attorney General’s Office has said that means California agencies can’t share that data with federal or out-of-state departments. Some departments have disagreed with that interpretation. A state audit published in 2020 found the Sheriff’s Office made images its cameras took available to over a thousand entities across the country. What’s more, the auditors could not always determine how the agency decided whether out-of-state departments had a right or need to access the information.

    The grand jury report also accused the Sacramento Police Department of violating state law. An agency spokesperson told The Bee it has changed its practices. “After meaningful discussion, we have amended our policy to no longer share data with agencies outside of California,” the spokesperson said in an email.

    The Sheriff’s Office did not respond to questions posed about the agency’s sharing of data more than a week before the report was released and were not immediately available Wednesday to comment on the grand jury’s report. But the agency said it would stop sharing data with departments outside of California, Steve Caruso, the grand jury’s foreperson, said in a statement.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/article289551076.html#storylink=cpy

    Legislature and AG’s office: “You can’t do that.”

    Cops: “The hell we can’t.”

  67. 67.

    Jackie

    @Gretchen: I saw an interview a few weeks back that OB/Gyns in Idaho were congratulating their newly pregnant patients, then strongly suggesting they get medi-vac insurance “just in case their pregnancy took a bad turn” and were forced to be helicoptered to WA or OR.

  68. 68.

    Prescott Cactus

    Speaking of pain and sorrow, Joe Manchin.

    He’s involved with a new (& improved ?) pack of hyena’s called “Americans Together”. New website, new money beg. If only *_______ didn’t have a cure.

    *choose your own disease

  69. 69.

    Doc Sardonic

    @Gretchen: A few years ago my mother in law had to be airlifted after a car accident. It cost 30 grand just to spin up the rotors.

  70. 70.

    Trollhattan

    Since we’re already talking about awful people, what’s one more? Sorry to learn she came back here from vacay, but I can’t ethically wish her on Hawaii.

    UC Davis published a statement Tuesday about “offensive comments” made by employee Beth Bourne while she was on a family vacation in Hawaii. Bourne, the local chapter president for parents rights group Moms for Liberty, posted a video of herself confronting a group of drag queens who were filming a video at the hotel Bourne was staying in, the Alohilani Resort in Waikiki, on Sunday.

    “We reject all manifestations of discrimination, including those based on gender and gender expression,” the university’s statement said. The video shows Bourne verbally accosting the people dressed in drag, including drag queen Marina Del Rey.

    “This woman saw us filming and came to a slow burn and then she popped off,” Del Ray said in a Facebook post. “Her rant went on and on — possibly with the attempt to get a riled angered response. She didn’t get one.”

    Bourne also verbally accosted hotel staff, and demanded a refund from the hotel, which she received after briefly being detained by Honolulu police. Bourne shared a video on X, formerly known as Twitter, which went viral after content creator Michael McWhorter’s own version went up on TikTok, X, and Instagram.

    Bourne posted a follow-up video of an interaction she had with law enforcement officers at the Honolulu Police Department, who briefly detained her before the hotel refunded her for her stay and encouraged her to stay elsewhere.

    “This type of behavior is unacceptable,” Hawaii Democratic Governor Josh Green said in a statement Monday. “It is not aloha and we will not tolerate it from anyone.” As the videos continued to garner views, social media users began tagging UC Davis, Bourne’s employer, demanding she be fired. Bourne works at the university’s Institute for Transportation Studies.

    “I’m used to my colleagues thinking I’m a terrible person,” Bourne told The Bee in an April story about Bourne and her estranged trans child.

    The university said that Bourne’s comments “are protected by the First Amendment,” but that the school condemns them nonetheless.

    https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/article289526072.html#storylink=cpy

    Maybe UCD can start pepper-spraying their employees in lieu of the students.

  73. 73.

    PatrickG

     I hope my liver can handle it.

    It is a hard week for amateur drinkers. Professionals have liver damage baked in, so we can focus on the awfulness in a way you can’t! /s

  75. 75.

    Starfish

    @Princess: I know the barrier to removing justices is pretty high, but I think Alito should be impeached for leaking opinions for political gain.

  76. 76.

    Jackie

    😂 Saw this Rolling Stone headline:

    Trump Allies Urge Him Not To Be a ‘Raging Asshole’ at Debate

    Article is paywalled, but the headline made me giggle.

  77. 77.

    Starfish

    @Omnes Omnibus: The Rule of STFU where Supreme Court Justices can STFU and not go giving so many speeches for monetary gain OR if they do go give speeches, the organizations that they are giving speeches too have to be the neutralest of neutrals.

  82. 82.

    Starfish

    @Omnes Omnibus: Does he get to decide the order of the cases? A lot of the 5:4 decisions are at the end of each session. Is it because those were really the hardest?

  87. 87.

    comrade scotts agenda of rage

    Much to my surprise, if you google:

    worst supreme court chief justices

    It’s not apparently been a topic of hot debate.  You’ll get a lot of hits on “worst supreme court justices” and a lot of hits on some pod cast that does call Roberts possibly the worst.

    I think it’s too early to compare Roberts to Taney in terms of worst but how the former deals with Felonious D’s various cases will determine that “worst”.

  88. 88.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @TBone: one wonders, in dread and burgeoning dismay, what terms the new alliance contains between n Korea, and Russia/Putin.

    I guess we’ll find out. Oh Jesus, sweet God ..

    Y’all know, when you pronounce Putin’s name in French, the pronunciation is the same as, or close to the word for bitch, right?  Putain.. it’s been discussed, here, hasn’t it?

  89. 89.

    Gloria DryGarden

    letting women have the same rights as human beings

    Not sure whether to coil

    up in silent raging helplessness, or sigh, or go to the bar and throw darts. A lot of darts.

  90. 90.

    Jay

    @TBone:

    The NORK’s have said that they will deploy an Engineering Battalion to Ukraine to aid the ruZZians by July 19th.

    Will they?

    This is not the first time that ruZZians and NORKs have made “threats” about the NORKs deploying to occupied Ukraine.

  92. 92.

    Princess

    @Omnes Omnibus: honestly, I did not mean it as a rhetorical question. I don’t know what kind of levers the Chief Justice has to pull. One hears about the X court versus the Y court where the chief seems to exert a personality over his court.  Is that just a product of comity and norm-following? Are these justices an exception? That seems unlikely.

  95. 95.

    Jackie

    @Jay: May be more than a rumor…

    Pyongyang announced early this week that it will be sending troops in the form of a military engineering unit to support Russian forces on the ground in the Donetsk region. The troops are expected to arrive on the battlefield as soon as next month.

    https://www.kyivpost.com/post/34893

  98. 98.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @frosty fred: well, she is kind of a whore for trump. I see your point.

    But I don’t care if women are sex workers. So whore isn’t my first choice word. I don’t want to shame people for doing that work. Besides, I’m rooting for Stormy Daniels..

  99. 99.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Gretchen: it seems to me the Catholics could step up to the plate and get miscarriage care to be allowed.

    It’s so distressing.. I’d like to see enough Catholic folks who are pro choice band together and flow influence up to this mostly more liberal pope.

    I’m sure they can put together a treatise combining their values and the doctrines, and get it to the point of admitting women are humans and have the right to say whether our organs can be harvested or used against our will. Or of caring for women in all the ways this can go wrong. And etc

  100. 100.

    Gretchen

    @Baud: I have a standing $20 a month to Blue Missouri. I’m an admirer. The head ran unsuccessfully for state legislature as a “dirt road democrat” in a rural district, and is trying her best to recruit and fundraise for candidates in every district. She maintains that you lose all the shots you don’t take.

  101. 101.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Kay: is this the case where one woman died of sepsis, and next election, everyone with any kind of Irish rights to vote went back into the country, to vote to make abortion legal there? Even though it’s a Catholic country?

    I’d like to understand more of  how this unfolded, maybe there are strategies we can apply. I know it’s evangelicals here, not Catholics, running the anti choice show, but it seems like a big Catholic influence might help..

  104. 104.

    Gretchen

    @Gloria DryGarden: I think most of the pro choice Catholics have already left the church. I’m one of them. The remaining ones seem to be trending more extreme – see Supreme Court justices.

  105. 105.

    Keith P.

    Conservatives sure did scratch out “except to save the life of the mother” pretty quickly.  Not really much fanfare.

  106. 106.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @rikyrah: cool. south American news. When I went abroad down there, a coup was announced, and rhen no more news appeared in the US for a week. It was pretty  sparse. My poor mom was unhappy about it. It’s always seemed harder to get news about things in the southern hemisphere. And I don’t know how the Bolivian government affects the world stage. But I’m glad you told us.  This can’t be comfortable for the people there..

  108. 108.

    satby

    @Gloria DryGarden: @Gretchen: concurrent with the young woman’s death from an ectopic pregnancy that ruptured, the Catholic Church in Ireland was also dealing with the fallout of the unmarked graves of babies that died after their mother’s in the Magdalene laundries gave birth, and of the survivors being sold in adoptions. There were sex abuse scandals too, and the Churches hold on the country was pretty well shattered.

  109. 109.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Gretchen: it would be cool to gather them up, and try to make big influence that affects women around the world. “Catholics and former Catholics for choice”. It depends on who has time, and the stomach for it. And on whether it seems it’s a useful strategy.

    I remember being shocked when I first heard Catholics were starting to use birth control, never mind what Vatican said.. Shocked because it had sounded so immoveable.

  110. 110.

    Gloria DryGarden

    @Gretchen: thank you. We need someone to get real loud, in the right way.

    I wonder what it will take, here? Death of a politicians daughter?

    And, I hope Idaho has to pay for all those helicopter rides for weekly abortion emergencies. Imo, it’s the fault of their legislature..

  111. 111.

    wjca

    @Jackie: Saw this Rolling Stone headline:

    Trump Allies Urge Him Not To Be a ‘Raging Asshole’ at Debate

    Consider his reflexive resistance to being told what to do (“It looks weak!”).  This, if true, pretty much guarantees that he will be a “raging asshole” — just to prove that “nobody is boss of me!”  If there was every any other possibility to begin with.

  112. 112.

    wjca

    @TBone: I just read that North Korea will send troops to Ukraine within 30 days to support Russia.  June 19 agreement.

    Immediate first thought: Wow, Putin must be in worse manpower shape than we thought!  Second thought: Wonder what that is going to cost him?  Because Kim won’t be willing to lose troops** for free.  It’s going to be a serious big ticket item.

    ** And, given demonstrated Russian military practice, even being in nominal behind-the-lines support positions won’t be safe.  Meat cubes are interchangeable for Russian leaders.

  113. 113.

    cmorenc

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    @Cacti: The Chief Justices who have had some measure of control over the associate justices have had it because of their personal strength/charisma/moral authority not due to the inherent power of their position.

    One power of control the Chief Justice does have over the others is – if he is in the majority, he gets to write the opinion (if he wants) or else choose which associate justice writes it.  OTOH if he is in the dissent, whomever is the most senior justice among the majority gets to write the opionion (or choose which other associate justice in the majority gets to write it).  This dynamic can often produce a majority e.g. 6-3 opinion in which three of the justices in the majority join in a concurring opinion that strongly hints at limiting qualfiications to the reasoning of the nominal majority opinion’s text.  Or sometimes joining the majority, but dissenting in part.

  114. 114.

    cmorenc

    @wjca: It’s likely that an important element of Biden’s debate prep is training how to best provoke Trump into raging asshole mode.  OTOH, Trump’s debate preppers are likely trying to train him to go into at worst Eddie Haskell mode (obsequiously polite and suck-up) when provoked by something Biden says.  IMO the Trump debate preppers have the more challenging goal.

  115. 115.

    RaflW

    @$8 blue check mistermix: Very late to this thread, but want to say I don’t think anything in American law is “permanent”.

    The Radical Six have made it clear that they are not respecters of precedent. They will Calvinball anything they feel they need to.

    And not in some long and careful way like saying “Eghad, Dred Scott was bad must be annihilated” but like, bribes are now OK if paid in arrears because we personally need it to be like that.

    The Court is in ruins, much of America just hasn’t really had to realize it yet.

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