At yesterday’s hearing of the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol, we heard overwhelming proof that former president Trump and his congressional supporters tried to overturn the will of the voters in the 2020 presidential election and steal control of our country to keep a minority in power.
Thank you for having the stamina after such a day/week to write so measured and historically-grounded an analysis. Your historian’s detachment coupled with gimlet critiques sustain us during times that challenge, anger, and dismay.
Such Originalist hypocrisy concerned about state's rights and the will of voters in each state. Barf! Where was that concern in Bush v Gore when it stepped in to stop vote counting in Florida to give the Presidency to W Bush on grounds that the use of different standards of vote counting in different Florida counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution? So much for deference to states. More bad stuff to come from SCOTUS, guaranteed. BUT if you don't vote from now on, you can not complain. If everyone voted, these clowns would be run out of town.
It's been obvious for years that the GOP wants what it wants and will use States Rights to get it, or a Federal ban or Presidential proclamation if that works. There is no consistent theory or process here. They want a white, male dominated, Christian (their definition, not mine) free of oversight (except the oversight they want) gun toting country that celebrates Thanksgiving without Indians and Columbus Day with statues in place. They want some of the wild west with Puritan overtones. That's an interesting combination. Doc Holiday and George Hearst meet Carrie Nation & Jeff Davis in McCarthy's 1950's. That's pretty surreal isn't it. Rod Serling or Ray Bradbury could probably do something with that in a time travel "Something Wicked this Way Comes" meets Nightmare at 30,000' with Shatner & Lithgow.
One of the DARKEST days in history. It portends more to come for Women, making us not only 2nd class Citizens, but Chattel! Welcome to the 18th century! There is only one thing to do! The BALLOT BOX in November. Vote only BLUE. Do NOT let any Republiclithug win any seat in the house, in the Senate, in your State, turn the Country BLUE. Then let's see what happens! Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does!
We are witnesses to America going down a drain that empties into a cesspool in which an oligarchy of monied, propertied men rule, corporations have more rights than people, women's sole functions are to produce children and serve their husbands, civil rights no longer exist and people of color, LGBTQ Individuals, immigrants , people of the wrong religions are treated as less than human. The beliefs of the most conservative fundamentalist religions will be codified into laws sanctioned by SCOTUS.
We are not living in a dystopian novel . This is real. This is the Movement Conservatives' wet dream.
Our only way out is to vote like your life depends upon the outcome. It does.
One of your best, ever, Heather. With your courageous letters, you are doing for America what Zelenskiy is doing tor Ukraine - looking the Dark Side unflinchingly in the eye.
Minority rule, voter suppression, delegation of power to the states when it serves a warped conservative vision, expansion of power for the federal government when it serves a warped conservative vision, falling back on the Leviticus style logic and lexicon of the Constitution when it was legal to enslave dark skinned people… it is fast becoming time to seriously consider leaving this gerrymandered hamstring of a union, or expect violence as Adam Schiff stated:
“If you can convince Americans that they cannot trust their own elections, that any time they lose it is somehow illegitimate, then what is left but violence to determine who should govern.”
And regarding the pain suffering and death that making abortion illegal will cause, not to mention the violation of women’s autonomy, the New England Journal of Medicine editorial board today published a piece entitled “Lawmakers v. The Scientific Realities of Human Reproduction” and stated among other things:
“Common complications of illegal procedures included injury to the reproductive tract requiring surgical repair, induction of infections resulting in infertility, systemic infections, organ failure, and death. We now seem destined to relearn those lessons at the expense of human lives.”
These 6 ultra conservative justices from another century have inserted themselves between doctors and patients, shredded female patient autonomy, and opened the legal flood gates for physicians and citizens to be criminalized for pursuing medical treatment.
Open the legal floodgates against them. Shouldn’t Alito and the rest be named in every lawsuit of every woman hereafter harmed, disabled, and killed by their legal and medical malpractice?
This is off piste, but I was forcibly struck by this comment, summarizing the hypocricy prevailing in the so-called GOP.:
“If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I’d vote for him again.”
— Ariz. GOP House Speaker Rusty Bowers, just after telling the January 6 committee that he was “appalled” at the “tragic parody” of Trump aides and supporters who’d tried to get him to “do something counter to my oath
The only solution is to VOTE, help others to vote....
Let us not forget Moscow Mitch and his role in stacking the court. Obama not being allowed to appoint a judge yet they push through Amy. It is clear Trump has little regard for Democracy. The Jan 6 committee shows us how corrupt he is. He needs to be prosecuted.
Two of the numerous comments from readers of Le Monde: One was "It was a misfortune that the clown was elected. The world will suffer for it for a long time." Another (ironic) was "Contrary to what we were led to believe, Afghanistan won the war against the US. The proof? the Taliban are installed in the Supreme Court."
I am wondering about possible perjury on the part of Trump's nominees, who declared that Roe vs. Wade was "settled law" during Congressional confirmation hearings.
What we are seeing currently is that:
1. the Supreme Court is not subject to ethical rules governing the remainder of the judiciary;
2. Justices of the Supreme Court are in fact above the law, in that there is no institution that can rule on misfeasance, even misprision, on their part. Individual Justices are their own judges.
If I have understood correctly, Chief Justice Roberts claims he would have upheld the Mississippi law without completely overturning all of the Roe vs. Wade precedent. This fine cavil is indicative of Roberts' awareness of the weight of precedent in law and the almost endless implications of invalidating precedent, thus in effect undermining the rule of law....
*
Since the Chief Justice seems to have lost any influence, let alone control, over a body in which colleagues are actively undermining the rule of law which they were appointed to protect and preserve, should he not perhaps consider resigning?
"In its imposition of minority rule first by insisting on state’s rights and then by demanding federal protection of laws it wants, the Republican Party is echoing the southern Democrats before the Civil War. "
Dr. Richardson, I have never read a single sentence that so most brilliantly uses justaposition to make the meaning of the writing and goals clear.
Thank you.
However, now we have an interesting situation if we want to make use of that situation.
For example: New York can just ignore the Supreme Court and continue to arrest people who open carry guns without a permit.
Why not? I don't want someone walking down 5th avenue in NY City with an AR15 and nobody else does either? So, when some nut decides to do that, just arrest him and toss him in jail.
Why not?
What is Clarence Thomas going to do? Break the guy with the AR15 out of jail?
Than you Professor for providing live history in full context. Reuters Thomson has been reporting all day, major companies are moving in to provide for the immediate travel & employee support costs for women seeking full reproductive medical care after the loss of Constitutional rights including substantial support from Alaska Airlines, Disney (itself already under attack in Florida) J.P. Morgan Chase, Amazon, META Platforms & a growing list of Others. Substantial assistance needed in South Texas where travel distances are lengthy.
This is such a powerful piece, Heather! You have interwoven the then and the now to present us with the reality of what has just occurred.
“Today, thanks to three justices nominated by Trump, the Supreme Court stripped a constitutional right from the American people, a right we have enjoyed for almost 50 years, a right that is considered a fundamental human right in most liberal democracies, and a right they indicated they would protect because it was settled law. Today’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. For the first time in our history, rather than conveying rights, the court has explicitly taken a constitutional right away from the American people. “
Thank you for having the stamina after such a day/week to write so measured and historically-grounded an analysis. Your historian’s detachment coupled with gimlet critiques sustain us during times that challenge, anger, and dismay.
Such Originalist hypocrisy concerned about state's rights and the will of voters in each state. Barf! Where was that concern in Bush v Gore when it stepped in to stop vote counting in Florida to give the Presidency to W Bush on grounds that the use of different standards of vote counting in different Florida counties violated the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution? So much for deference to states. More bad stuff to come from SCOTUS, guaranteed. BUT if you don't vote from now on, you can not complain. If everyone voted, these clowns would be run out of town.
It's been obvious for years that the GOP wants what it wants and will use States Rights to get it, or a Federal ban or Presidential proclamation if that works. There is no consistent theory or process here. They want a white, male dominated, Christian (their definition, not mine) free of oversight (except the oversight they want) gun toting country that celebrates Thanksgiving without Indians and Columbus Day with statues in place. They want some of the wild west with Puritan overtones. That's an interesting combination. Doc Holiday and George Hearst meet Carrie Nation & Jeff Davis in McCarthy's 1950's. That's pretty surreal isn't it. Rod Serling or Ray Bradbury could probably do something with that in a time travel "Something Wicked this Way Comes" meets Nightmare at 30,000' with Shatner & Lithgow.
One of the DARKEST days in history. It portends more to come for Women, making us not only 2nd class Citizens, but Chattel! Welcome to the 18th century! There is only one thing to do! The BALLOT BOX in November. Vote only BLUE. Do NOT let any Republiclithug win any seat in the house, in the Senate, in your State, turn the Country BLUE. Then let's see what happens! Vote as if your life depends on it, because it does!
We are witnesses to America going down a drain that empties into a cesspool in which an oligarchy of monied, propertied men rule, corporations have more rights than people, women's sole functions are to produce children and serve their husbands, civil rights no longer exist and people of color, LGBTQ Individuals, immigrants , people of the wrong religions are treated as less than human. The beliefs of the most conservative fundamentalist religions will be codified into laws sanctioned by SCOTUS.
We are not living in a dystopian novel . This is real. This is the Movement Conservatives' wet dream.
Our only way out is to vote like your life depends upon the outcome. It does.
One of your best, ever, Heather. With your courageous letters, you are doing for America what Zelenskiy is doing tor Ukraine - looking the Dark Side unflinchingly in the eye.
Minority rule, voter suppression, delegation of power to the states when it serves a warped conservative vision, expansion of power for the federal government when it serves a warped conservative vision, falling back on the Leviticus style logic and lexicon of the Constitution when it was legal to enslave dark skinned people… it is fast becoming time to seriously consider leaving this gerrymandered hamstring of a union, or expect violence as Adam Schiff stated:
“If you can convince Americans that they cannot trust their own elections, that any time they lose it is somehow illegitimate, then what is left but violence to determine who should govern.”
And regarding the pain suffering and death that making abortion illegal will cause, not to mention the violation of women’s autonomy, the New England Journal of Medicine editorial board today published a piece entitled “Lawmakers v. The Scientific Realities of Human Reproduction” and stated among other things:
“Common complications of illegal procedures included injury to the reproductive tract requiring surgical repair, induction of infections resulting in infertility, systemic infections, organ failure, and death. We now seem destined to relearn those lessons at the expense of human lives.”
These 6 ultra conservative justices from another century have inserted themselves between doctors and patients, shredded female patient autonomy, and opened the legal flood gates for physicians and citizens to be criminalized for pursuing medical treatment.
Open the legal floodgates against them. Shouldn’t Alito and the rest be named in every lawsuit of every woman hereafter harmed, disabled, and killed by their legal and medical malpractice?
This is off piste, but I was forcibly struck by this comment, summarizing the hypocricy prevailing in the so-called GOP.:
“If he is the nominee, if he was up against Biden, I’d vote for him again.”
— Ariz. GOP House Speaker Rusty Bowers, just after telling the January 6 committee that he was “appalled” at the “tragic parody” of Trump aides and supporters who’d tried to get him to “do something counter to my oath
The only solution is to VOTE, help others to vote....
Let us not forget Moscow Mitch and his role in stacking the court. Obama not being allowed to appoint a judge yet they push through Amy. It is clear Trump has little regard for Democracy. The Jan 6 committee shows us how corrupt he is. He needs to be prosecuted.
Two of the numerous comments from readers of Le Monde: One was "It was a misfortune that the clown was elected. The world will suffer for it for a long time." Another (ironic) was "Contrary to what we were led to believe, Afghanistan won the war against the US. The proof? the Taliban are installed in the Supreme Court."
We need to begin the process for impeachment of supreme court justices.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/03/30/impeach-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-00021480
I am wondering about possible perjury on the part of Trump's nominees, who declared that Roe vs. Wade was "settled law" during Congressional confirmation hearings.
What we are seeing currently is that:
1. the Supreme Court is not subject to ethical rules governing the remainder of the judiciary;
2. Justices of the Supreme Court are in fact above the law, in that there is no institution that can rule on misfeasance, even misprision, on their part. Individual Justices are their own judges.
If I have understood correctly, Chief Justice Roberts claims he would have upheld the Mississippi law without completely overturning all of the Roe vs. Wade precedent. This fine cavil is indicative of Roberts' awareness of the weight of precedent in law and the almost endless implications of invalidating precedent, thus in effect undermining the rule of law....
*
Since the Chief Justice seems to have lost any influence, let alone control, over a body in which colleagues are actively undermining the rule of law which they were appointed to protect and preserve, should he not perhaps consider resigning?
"In its imposition of minority rule first by insisting on state’s rights and then by demanding federal protection of laws it wants, the Republican Party is echoing the southern Democrats before the Civil War. "
Dr. Richardson, I have never read a single sentence that so most brilliantly uses justaposition to make the meaning of the writing and goals clear.
Thank you.
However, now we have an interesting situation if we want to make use of that situation.
For example: New York can just ignore the Supreme Court and continue to arrest people who open carry guns without a permit.
Why not? I don't want someone walking down 5th avenue in NY City with an AR15 and nobody else does either? So, when some nut decides to do that, just arrest him and toss him in jail.
Why not?
What is Clarence Thomas going to do? Break the guy with the AR15 out of jail?
Just ignore the Supreme Court.
Welcome to American Sharia Law, courtesy of the American Taliban Tribunal.
The first domino has fallen. What comes next?
Than you Professor for providing live history in full context. Reuters Thomson has been reporting all day, major companies are moving in to provide for the immediate travel & employee support costs for women seeking full reproductive medical care after the loss of Constitutional rights including substantial support from Alaska Airlines, Disney (itself already under attack in Florida) J.P. Morgan Chase, Amazon, META Platforms & a growing list of Others. Substantial assistance needed in South Texas where travel distances are lengthy.
This is such a powerful piece, Heather! You have interwoven the then and the now to present us with the reality of what has just occurred.
“Today, thanks to three justices nominated by Trump, the Supreme Court stripped a constitutional right from the American people, a right we have enjoyed for almost 50 years, a right that is considered a fundamental human right in most liberal democracies, and a right they indicated they would protect because it was settled law. Today’s Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that recognized a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy. For the first time in our history, rather than conveying rights, the court has explicitly taken a constitutional right away from the American people. “