In 1985, President Ronald Reagan’s team made a conscious effort to bring evangelicals and social conservatives into the voting base of the Republican Party.
It seemed that Republicans were ready to take over at least the House or Senate or maybe both in the mid-terms to more fully shut down the Biden Administration’s attempts to govern and further rig the 2024 vote. But in the wake of the Putin wing’s resistance to defending the U.S. and the world against fascist atrocities, this stacked SCOTUS over-reach may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Many columnists are recognizing the horror of overturning Roe and its wider implications. If the Republican Party has its way, we will no longer be “one nation.” Each state will make its own laws in a party line that will make us a confederacy of Red versus Blue. People will flee their states for states supporting their political orientation and will only be able to hope that the other party doesn’t prevail after they have relocated, because there will be few federal norms that bind us under the rule of law. We can hope that the dog HAS caught the car and will suffer the consequences. Let’s do better than hope and get out the vote of the majority of us!
Hoping your observation becomes reality, perhaps what was once the moderate wing of the GOP will awaken from its deep sleep and rid the party of the zealots that they have allowed to take control of their party.
Mike In Schindler’s List, Schindler, despite being a generally despicable individual, in rescuing over 1,000 Jews did a marvelous thing. Liz Cheney, who reflects much of her parents’ despicable heritage, has launched an anti-Trump crusade from her political base in staunchly Republican Wyoming.
I am uncertain whether Liz is being noble and courageous or whether she is playing her cards for a post-Trump Republican Party.
You left the door open, Arrow Man. That is a good thing. Stereotyping and scapegoating infect us all. I hope that your arrow provokes self-reflection. Defending with 'like father like son' is so easy to grab hold of.
I think Keith's alternative to Liz being noble and courageous is probably correct. However, she is one of the few Republicans who have done anything good, regardless of her motivations. She deserves credit for that.
Never in a million years would I have thought I would see Liz Cheney as a hero, but in the case of bringing Trump and the insurrectionists to possible justice, she is....
She is 100% rated by every gop org and has been anti choice and anti gay including her own sister! Nice thought for a movie but not in this environment
Liz admitted her mistake in voting against LGBTQ legislation and reconciled with her dad and gay sister But that doesn't really have much bearing on her stand on abortion.
Liz Cheney has taken her current stance in order to distance herself from the crazies currently in control of the right wing. I believe she's positioning herself for a run for the presidency in the future, preferably when the Trumpies are no longer dominant. I doubt that she'll do much to promote Democratic ideals. Don't forget the specter of her Dad.
Nancy I believe that Liz Cheney will be a credible presidential candidate just after the College of Cardinals elects me Pope (and I'm not Catholic--so far)
I think it will be quite some time before she is viewed as anything other than a traitor to the cause. It's going to take time to erase the stench of TFG. Whatever her motivations, I'll have to give her credit for being on the January 6 commission.
And the “zealot” J.D. Vance wins the Republican primary in Ohio.
“Addressing supporters in Cincinnati, Vance thanked Trump for his endorsement and attacked the media for highlighting his past criticism of the former president. “They wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s America First agenda,” Vance said. “It ain’t the death of the America First agenda.””
I do have a positive note about Republicans however. I live in Cincy and we were assaulted with political ads 24x7. One anti Vance ad (I think it was a PAC) listed Vance's earlier fealty violations against Trump which included this gem: "He even compared Trump to Hitler". BUT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE AD BEING COMPARED TO HITLER IS A BAD THING! Someone tip off the NYT so they can flood Ohio with reporters scouring diners to profile kinder, gentler Republicans!
The purpose of the Constitution was to bind the individual states together into a common government. Federal law had to take precedent over state law or there would have been no common ground. A bunch of little states would have been picked off by the greater powers at the time. Welding themselves together under the Constitution made them safer the founders thought. The justices trot out originalism when it suits their purposes. Originalism is just legal bs. If the right to privacy does not exist, what happens to HIPPA protecting healthcare privacy? What happens to searches and seizures? What the hell is the “party of small government” ( yeah, right) doing trying to stand in people’s bedrooms, but they won’t try to regulate corporate behavior in boardroom? This is a hateful decision to hurt and punish women based on religious dogma and political ideology.
There was a wonderful scene in The West Wing in which Josh Lyman said to a gay (but closeted, of course) Republican congressman that he’s amused to see how the party wants to shrink government until its just small enough to fit in our bedrooms.
Jenn, you are absolutely correct that this decision is designed to punish women. In my minds eye it removes full citizenship from women, turning us into chattel and stripping us of the rights to make healthcare and quality of life decisions for ourselves. In other words, we woman are fit enough to work and pay taxes but must not have agency over our own bodies.
You bring up HIPPA. Many folks do not understand what HIPPA is and how it works. Here is an excerpt in re the HIPPA Privacy Rule and who/what it applies to Llink follows.
"HIPPA Privacy Rule
The Privacy Rule standards address the use and disclosure of individuals’ health information (known as “protected health information”) by entities subject to the Privacy Rule. These individuals and organizations are called “covered entities.” The Privacy Rule also contains standards for individuals’ rights to understand and control how their health information is used. A major goal of the Privacy Rule is to ensure that individuals’ health information is properly protected while allowing the flow of health information needed to provide and promote high quality health care and to protect the public’s health and well-being. The Privacy Rule strikes a balance that permits important uses of information while protecting the privacy of people who seek care and healing."
Right. So *unless* and individual who had the abortion shares information publicly that she had an abortion, what information are these lawsuits being initiated with? They can bring a person to court, based on their observation of a woman entering a facility on suspicion of having had an abortion, but then how do they prove that she did indeed have 1) a pregnancy and 2) a therapeutic abortion without violating HIPAA?
Maybe she went in for a consult, or to do some provider education, or to paint a mural on their wall. Lying about that couldn't be any more egregious than lying in front of a legislative hearing to get onto the court, right?
Your questions/concerns are spot on. Basically, law enforcement is relying on "concerned" friends and family members ratting out other family members OR prosecution is being based on speculation/circumstantial evidence.
Hi, Daria! I've been interested in your perspective on this, since you live in a place where the highest court has "decriminalized" abortion as recently as last year (according to Wikipedia), leaving enforcement to the several Mexican states. Have you gotten any impression as to the effect that has had on the people there?
I haven't read all the comments above, but a glance implies that some people might be confusing the fundamental difference between Constitutional law and statutory law. Alito is advocating eliminating most or all of the rights that stem from the "penumbra" of the Fourteenth Amendment, rights that aren't specifically spelled out, but implied as being necessary for the named rights to have meaning.
I don't know what right HIPAA is based on (I'd have to read the statute), but if it's based on a federal "right of privacy," then it would be jeopardized by Alito's decision, because there is no such right expressly listed in the Constitution. If there is no such federal right, then, under the Tenth Amendment, the States can do as they please.
That's why you see commentators saying that this threatens to permit states to outlaw contraception, since this "penumbra" logic was used to justify the Court's decision to bar States from mucking with it. Whether Alito's decision would directly affect the Loving decision, which prohibited States from barring interracial marriage, would depend on how the intersection of race and privacy issues works out. Litigation looms, wicked lawyers rub their hands! The Court would have to revisit these issues, if it does at all, one Right at a time because Alito and his cadre will have severed the underpinnings of an entire class of settled law that dates back to WWII.
Dirk--I think you are quite correct about the implications of "devolving" federal laws back to the states, allowing a divide and conquer approach on any given hot-button issue. But your citing of possible Tenth Amendment-based threats to privacy issues raises a question I have rarely seen addressed in the flood of originalist hogwash: the Ninth Amendment very simply states "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The notion that people have privacy rights beyond those specified in the Fourth Amendment, and that the content of and contexts for exercising those rights have changed since 1789, seems to me eminently defensible in con law. Even if true, this approach still leaves all the substantive due process expansions for "small government" types to contest and wail about. But at least we wouldn't have to go searching for penumbras.
[Add: I now see that others have brought up the 9th Amendment issue further down the thread. I would only add that "liberty" seems to me to definitely be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”]
Hi Dirk, Yes, each of the 31 states of México has the right to decide exceptions for abortion and whether to prosecute a woman or not. Right now abortion is still fairly restricted throughout the country, including Yucatán. However in February, "A Federal Judge granted the injunction against the regulation of the crime of abortion in the Yucatan Penal Code and against the life protection clause established in the state Constitution." Still, as the law stands in Yucatán abortion is "Illegal with exception for rape, maternal life, fetal defects, if abortion was accidental, or economic factors (if woman already has 3 children)."
It's interesting to me that the economic exception in Yucatán is tied to the number of children a woman has not whether or not she can provide for herself and even a single child adequately. The minimum per day wage in México is $172.87 MXN or the equivalent of $8.50 USD. The Méxican work week is 6 Days so one's supposed monthly legal minimum wage would be equivalent to $212.50 USD. I can guarantee you there are plenty of people, especially women, who do not make that wage and struggle mightily day in and day out to provide for their families. There are areas all throughout this state and country where families live in shacks cobbled together from shipping pallets, cardboard and tarps. No electricity. No running water. Minimal access to basic healthcare. These are the women who have zero access to reproductive healthcare as well. And there is rarely any way out of that situation for their children (despite the fact that education for all is a constitutional right in México).
So, what about abortion here. First and foremost it is not something generally talked about by women who are economically struggling and uneducated and/or rural. Theoretically speaking, birth control is absolutely legal and over the counter, no prescription is required, so one would think that contraception availability would address some of the issues. Not so. A woman's ability to acquire birth control depends on such factors as age, socio-economic status, and ethnicity, in other words, the counter person at the pharmacy decides who gets it and who doesn't. Dead serious. And, of course, that means the indigenous population is hardest hit There are serious attempts by Méxican feminist organizations to provide information, contraception and abortion support but the influence of the Catholic church, family and an individual woman's community generally have far more influence on their decision making process than a stranger.
The bottom line here is if you are educated and have the financial means you can get anything you want, including an abortion, on demand.
Let us not kid ourselves. HIPPA is about as private as my dog's arse, meaning everyone can see it but the dog. It was devised during GWB's administration to facilitate the flow of info so insurances and medical practitioners could do or not do as it best suited their profit motives. All it says is "you should not look at this information if you have nothing to do with the patient/client." That leaves a lot of room for clerks, lab assistants, medical professionals, insurers, et al to access whatever.
And they have legal exposure for doing so. Maybe it's time that some of the resources we pool get directed to supporting women, who's private medical information has been breached by anyone within the practice, etc, to sue that entity responsible for protecting the info. The reason HIPAA appears to have no teeth is that the states are not willing to do any enforcement, and individuals do not know how or have the resources to seek remediation.
I agree having been a psych administrator both pre-and-post HIPAA. Integrity fell on my shoulders and I took that role very seriously. What I saw others doing with confidential information, however, makes me cringe.
However, if the Republicans take the House and Senate, and trump wins in 2024, will there be a Federal law passed by Congress to outlaw abortion everywhere do you think?
I think that is the pipe dream of some. However, I'm guessing the outcry will be so loud, those weeny R pols will trip over their own feet trying to appease the majority of Americans. (Ex: "Republicans are all about personal freedom and privacy.") Just maybe there will be light shown on their facetious motivations for courting the religious right.
This current iteration of SCOTUS has been IGNORING the Federal Supremacy clause of the Constitution and keeps pushing to ship things back to the states so the ultra RW SCOTUS agenda is carried out. " SCOTUS is Nonpolitical"-hogwash!.
Holy cow, our thoughts are traveling on the same wavelength. I've had nearly identical thoughts in the last 24 hours. HIPAA, small government except when we're up in your bidness, inflicting misery on others, etc.
Yes, total hypocrisy in terms of "small government." The radical regressive right wing is beside itself with all the gains made by people who should either be barefoot and PG or out of sight. Here in the PNW in Washington and Oregon clinics are already preparing for lots of new patients. The governor's office is up for grabs here in Oregon. All the Ds would be OK and even the D running as an I. (She knew she had no shot as a D) The Rs are trying for the most part to sidestep this one. Their ads are about homelessness, crime, schools, mandates. I have no idea who will prevail on the R side and it might be close on the D side.
Yes, HIPPA crossed my mind as well. Why doesn't HIPPA (as long as we still have it....) make it impossible for anyone to learn that a woman has had an abortion?
Technically, HIPPA makes it impossible for anyone to learn a specific woman (name, Date of Birth, Medical Record #) is pregnant. Does anyone think that will be a deterrent?
Sadly, it's *theoretically* impossible. The prohibition on providing medical information w/o a patient's consent extends to information about what their medical issue is and what the treatment may be. And no, I don't think HIPPA will be a deterrent ...to determined data miners... or 'leaks'.
I don't think it's a good idea to write off ANY states. Many states have been "captured" by Republican politicians who do NOT represent the majority. We owe those folks the protection we have constructed through our federal government. It is fair to say that the Republicans do not have the "consent of the governed."
All those we know in SoCal have been fleeing to Prescott, AZ. It's the craziest thing...5 households in the past year. All Trumpers, highly educated, Evangelicals or very conservative Catholics. They believe we are in the end of times.
We True Blue folks, starting with LFAA students currently dwelling in super-sanguine states, ban together and find a spot, thinking Europe, and set up shop?!
Gary: As I posted yesterday, this makes it soberingly clear that all the rhetoric about "states' rights" is simply the Trojan Horse for Confederacy 2.0. It is the next turn of the screw. Just as the notion that the Texas legislature is free to legally encourage vigilantism by codifying bounties for citizens to sue each other for exercising a constitutionally-protected right offends basic jurisprudence, this brazen move to reverse long-standing precedent under the guise of "states' rights" portends some rough sledding for the Nation up ahead. Potential adversaries in China, Russia and elsewhere who wish us no good will delight in this self-inflicted wound that can only further unravel the national fabric. It is becoming eerily evident that this Court thinks each state gets to write its own rules on pretty much everything, and we know how that works out....W/r, cdl
Beyond "self inflicted" woulds, I'd postulate that the US seems to be engaging in conduct similar to a circular firing squad. There will be no survivors.
Funny initials story: For a time, when I went in service with my local law enforcement agency, we had to use our initials and badge number. Now, I know that the military (I don't know if you are Army or USMC) uses letters to denote such things...FUBAR comes to mind. We always referred to a person acting in a manner to be consistent with an anal orifice as an "Adam Henry", utilizing the common vulgar reference to hat part of the human anatomy.
We had a retired SPC 5 as a dispatcher, and I went into service as "Adam Adam Henry, 540" He about died laughing.
I had read this phrase a couple months ago over on Stonekettle Station; it roughly translates to "I got what I wanted and now I have no idea what to do next".
I have often wondered why the 100th Monkey Effect (evolution accommodates learning when repeated actions harm the species) doesn't seem to apply to dogs chasing cars.
Yes but the Red's gerrymandered control of what will be left of the Feds will ensure that the Blue States continue to make massive financial transfers to them......suckered by good intentions, political blindness and inertia. As Benjamin Disreali wrote, "Hope for the best, plan for the worst". The Dems have neglected their classic literature for far too long.....a new reading of Macchiaveli's "The Prince" might help them a little.
Ok Stuart, here’s the plan. Capitol: Washington DC, Maryland county, Virginia county, North Carolina county, Idaho county, Texas county, Florida county, etc. Oops no more states rights. Codes gone.
Morning, Gary. I’ve been waiting for Politics Girl (Leigh McGowan) to use a podcast to speak out on the bully dogs attack of public education. She did so this week. Validating. And our voices suddenly became more clear and peal like the Liberty Bell.
Not to mention the public hearings on 1/6 to be held in June. This has the appearance of being the moment in time when the lid blows off. The next 6-12 months might be seriously ugly. There’s a momentum building.
The Supreme Court justices knew “the dog was chasing the car” when several went to friendly forums and made speeches asserting their legal purity and complete lack of political affiliation in the fall. They wouldn’t have had such an agenda had the nation been slumbering. That wing of the court is shredded now. The Supreme Court’s reputation for probity has flown until those 6 justices have retired. And this moment will define their lives. One wonders how they slept last night.
Finally, the draft decision itself is, effectively, 95% of of the story. But the leak itself is not unimportant. This was not whistleblowing in any sense of that honorable word. This was a political cri de coeur, which in its own way reinforces how political the court has become. Either side could have done the leaking. Either way there was a political reason behind it. And it serves as further evidence that this Court is utterly broken.
This has been what SCOTUS has been working toward by their continually saying "Send it back to the states." IMHO, they have decided to IGNORE the Constitution's Federal Supremacy clause so their donors can do what they want, regardless of laws.
“We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work,” he wrote. Excuse Me?
Morning Lynell. Awful to say but.....With a political gift like this and the number of people that they should be able to get riled up enough to vote for them, if the Dems can't create an electoral landslide in November and dominate sufficiently both houses then they are not the party of the future. They are going to disappear under the waves. Resistence to the GOP autocracy will have to organize around them....and without them as they will not be a player.
That is a very true statement, Stuart. We have to hold our representatives feet over a fire and make certain they get the message that we’re mad and we aren’t gonna take it anymore! I know you wrote to Lynell, but thought I’d chime in too. :)
Let us form the reasonable hyptothesis that those 59% are city and suburban voters with some college education.
That leaves 41% in the rural areas to provide the votes necessary to keep a minority opinion in place after an election in which Gerrymandering insures the votes of those 41% are over counted relative to city dwellers.
For more information see how Harris County, the most populous county in the US I think, has been corralled by Gerrymandering to deliver almost no representatives in Texas.
So, the leak is not exactly the gift to dems that it seems at first blush.
Hi, Jeri, I keep thinking we Dems can come up with a way to act in good faith and still be politically savvy. So far we're having trouble with the "realpolitik" part. However, I do have to say that I don't think we do ourselves any favors--those of us who are seriously considering all this--to overestimate the good faith of our Democratic politicians. The best of our elected representatives are still politicians and those who run for these offices are, on their finest days, still running for offices that carry great power. Granted, men like Obama and Biden at least partly want power to do some good, but possibly our ineptitude can be blamed on our belief in our own "We lose because we're too pure at heart to play dirty." line.
The Democrat who comes to my mind as a man of startlingly clean motives is Adlai Stevenson--and the received wisdom around the Beltway was that the Kennedys chewed him up and left him in a roadside ditch. There was an article about Stevenson when he was first running called something like "The Man from La Mancha" and it's thesis was that he was "better suited for the presidency of Plato's Republic than the United States."
"So, the leak is not exactly the gift to dems that it seems at first blush."
I agree completely. Alito, who declared in this opinion that “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives” also wrote the majority opinion last year that gutted the Voting Rights Act, letting stand an Arizona law despite the fact that it was demonstrated it had a greater negative impact on minorities. Alito dismissed this selective disenfranchisement as merely “inconvenient”. James Madison worried about the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Perhaps he should have been more fearful of the tyranny of a minority that successfully guarantees that they will always be the ‘people’s elected representatives.’
If they can't make it into a positive, Mike, then they are dead from the neck up and have killed a great majority of the people. If they have the votes in both houses to overturn a Bidon veto, watch out Blue States as they will control you too.
I am not sure that there are enough American voters to, necessarily, overcome the recent highly effective state Gerrymandering of city dwellers into a small number of representatives Stuart.
Plus, a bunch of the Secretary of State race outcomes might put nutjobs in place that simply ignore the actual vote outcome.
It is not as simple as "we have the votes". We do have a bit of a majority, (60/40) but, not that large and likely located in Gerrymandered areas that have been minimized where representation is relevant.
In other words Stuart, we might be dead from the feet up.
I was thinking the other day that the meaning of baselessly pushing the big lie, that 2020 election was stolen, is preparing for real republican cheating in the 2024 election. Even if Democrats would protest, with good evidence, and the cases were brought up in court; to republican voters it will look like justice is biased in favour of Democrats.
And the Republicans will cheat with abandon loudly claiming that they are doing exactly what you d*** Democrats did in the 2020 election. They perfect justification then and when the do the next gerrymandering.
Jeri, hard to believe that Trump became the American "shiny object" is it not?
Or maybe not. American's also became mezmerized by a bunch of women walking around in their house in their underwear who are now massively rich. Kardashians.
Too true, Mike, could be...if nobody creates a shit storm of sufficient magnitude that it just blows them away...or people hit the streets massively when they try.
Ive been a part of those massive marches. I question the myth that says that accomplishes anything. The truth is gerrymandered control of voting districts has a knee on our necks, and the judiciary is owned by gop, and the media just want spice for outrage sauce for their vomit.
Stuart, I'd like to put what is happening in a positive light, as people are now awake to what the 'right' has been doing for years. We are galvanized, so why put it in the negative '...if the Dems can't … ? It is what the people and leaders such as Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar, Stacey Abrams and more are doing.
I agree Stuart, this is a phenomenal opportunity. This decision should mobilize even the "I'm not really political" crowd, the youth, women, and yes, even men, to vote in the mid-terms. It is up to the leadership of the Democratic party to ride this to an
historic and unprecedented crushing defeat of these autocrats.
Morning, Stuart. Here's what Rebecca Solnit says about hope:
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”
"You may be certain that the world is headed for destruction, but it is a good thing, a moral thing, to behave as though there's still hope. Hope is contagious as despair: your hope, or show of hope, is a gift you can give your neighbour, and may even help to prevent or delay the destruction of their world". -Auschwitz survivor Primo Levy
I almost mentioned MLKjr earlier in a comment because HE is the kind of orator (yes orator) the dems must have going forward to send out the message of transformation and hope. Positive vision needed to crush the autocrats!
Stuart, I'm negatively impressed by your backward gaze as though it speaks for the future. I don't know and you cannot know that Einstein would look back at America's recent history as though it is predictive of our future in the next few years.
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein
Einstein wasn't saying that the past is predictive of the future but rather that if we don't learn from it we are liable to be served up the same dilema in the future. Hope for the future must suggest that one is trying to prevent the repetition of those past errors while facing new challenges. Einstein was firmly connected to the collective unconscious in which past and future are inscribed and this sphere of the ether fed abundantly his "imagination"
Thank you, Stuart. I am familiar to a degree with Einstein's thoughts about society. He was a founding member of the German Democratic Party, and later became a socialist in opposition to capitalism. I have the impression that you lean in the other direction, but open to learning more about your political philosophy, if you like.
I too believe that this leak is a gift that needs to be seized, this decision if it comes to pass will unite a lot of people who previously held views opposed to each other. This is a uniquely clarifying moment that should be able to bridge the vast divide that has separated us. The senate judiciary committee should immediately hold hearings about whether they were lied to or not, this court is so out of wack that an action that attacks their integrity might tend to focus their minds. It’s my understanding that they can be impeached and removed and while removal might not be a plausible outcome the stain on their legacy will give most of them pause.
The insipid imbecile is lacking a functioning brain, greed is the only motivation that he understands, he could be up to his neck in ink and have no idea that he was stained. The Justices on our SC do have functioning brains, I think anyhow, so they might not want to have their legacy forever stained.
Stuart – While I truly hope that you are right, I am pessimistic that Democrats can avoid big losses in the midterms. As disturbing as this SCOTUS case is, the biggest motivator for voters traditionally has been the economy, and unless inflation improves, the typical voter will choose based on the balance of their checkbook rather than the state of our democracy.
And even if we organize rather than agonize, crafting and delivering the Democrats’ message to those who need to hear it most will prove exceedingly difficult, because they reside behind an information firewall not unlike the citizens of Russia.
It doesn’t mean I’m giving up the fight, but I fear we are in deep, deep guano.
This was my reaction, too, at the day's news. Democrats should be able to use the SCOTUS' leaked decision to their benefit. It should stir enough people on the political fence and even in the R party to vote for Dems in order to preserve the right to abortion guaranteed by our laws for 50 years! Hopefully the 72% who believe abortion rights should stand will vote.
Not to mention those affected by the loss of other rights centered in the 14th. Curious to see how C. Thomas votes if the Virginia v. Loving décision were challenged. Talk about goring HIS ox.
Well said Stuart! But do they have the wisdom and the willpower to go for it? Haven’t seen that thus far alas. Maybe this will do it! Where is the leader with a voice to send the message/call?
“Excuse me?” is big time correct, Lynell. I had to catch my breath before finishing after reading that from “not an original thought in the brain” Alito. Who in the sam heck does he opine about serving? I hate to spill the beans to him, but first and foremost, he IS a part of of, by, and for the people. Unless he is remote working from Moscow.
Supreme Court nominees should be sworn in before their hearings and be subject to perjury penalties if they straight out lie as we have witnessed them doing so, and if they avoid answering, their motives would be crystal clear....
Supreme Court nominees are sworn in under oath. To confirm this (although there are numerous 2d- and 3d-hand sources saying so), I just viewed, on C-SPAN, Day 1 of Judge Jackson's confirmation hearings. She did swear under oath to be truthful etc.
Therefore, several of the current Justices supporting nullification of Roe v. Wade committed perjury if the draft ruling accurately represents their positions on the case. Which, I believe, we all believe to be true. That's why some are calling for impeachment of those Justices.
Yes, they are under oath (I completely space out) as I have commented today. I speculated that perhaps the DOJ can bring action, but isn't impeachment in the hands of Congress?
Yes, impeachment is up to Congress. The fact that it requires a 2/3 vote makes it a non-starter at this time and probably, IMHO, at any time. Further, I think we all have way too much on our plates to add another highly divisive advocacy.
I respectfully disagree! The same "let's move on" approach was held with the majority of the Republicans during the Trump impeachments. Why let the Justices slide after committing perjury and setting such a precedent in place?
I thought the government was supposed to reflect the will of the people. Some branches intentionally slower than others, but still... the legislative and judicial branches at least seem to be running as fast as they can in the other direction. It's time for the public to reassert control over their government. Election Day should begin that realignment, but it will be exceptionally slow going to reverse all the changes the Republicans have effected since Reagan.
Maybe we can speed things up a bit by impeaching Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett for perjuring themselves during their confirmation hearings. But probably not until Democrats have a Senate majority without Manchin and Sinema.
Courts, however, are required to "follow the law" and not simply reflect the will of the people. That, theoretically, establishes fairness under law. The reality, as we all know, is subject to judges' and Justices' interpretation of the law. I find it ironic as well as disgusting that so many Republicans and right-wing individuals rail against "judicial activism" yet that is exactly what a majority of the Supreme Court seems about to do.
Protesters and the Public at large will have many surprises for these wanna be Fox News hosts posing as jurists on the Supreme Court. “ No where to run to, and nowhere to hide.” These justices have made themselves unwelcome everywhere in civilized society for the rest of their lives.
I vow never to vote for anyone who puts an R by their name ever again. It is time to smother the Republican Party out of existence. .No one is going to take away my rights.
My folks were moderate, common sense Republicans. Feels more like a viral cancer that has metastasized and needs eradication. Rumor has it there was a lab leak at Mara Lago...
There's been the occasional sane Republican that I've voted for. However, the cult embedded in the GOP has convinced me that I can never do that again in good conscience until the cult is gone.
A bit of good news this morning, and hopefully a bellwether for the midterms: Michigan’s 74th district held an election yesterday to fill a state house seat vacated by Mark Huizenga who was elected to the state Senate in Nov 2021. A Democrat WON the house seat yesterday with 52% of the vote. The first time a Democrat has held this seat in 30 years!!! CHEERS!!!!!!
I fear that one of the most critical positions out of this is NOT being discussed- its not how long Roe has been law/ precedent- what scares me is the assertion right out of the Federal Society is that the STATES should decide what is provided, intended, allowed rather than the Federal Constitution- are we really going to let states decide womens' rights? civil rights? voting acts? Treaty Rights under Article II? educational standards? Democracy is a FEDERAL aspiration- Its not that they care that much about women its that a majority of the GQP justices believe in states rights- and we've already fought one ciivl war on that issue and won. . . let's act like it!
The Federalist Society is funded by the Kochs and Mercers who are not even slightly interested in states rights OR Democracy. They are interested in dictatorship. That's why the court wrote that "the public (the voter) cannot be allowed to influence us".
None of John Adams writings, originalist as they come, would support states rights. Zero.
So, all that BS about originalist is just BS. John Adams IS the originalist and his writings are there for all to read (but nobody does).
One of the things that I wonder is what would happen if someone challenged Citizens United, to say that since corporations are not mentioned in the constitution, then constitutional right of free speech doesn't apply to them. Id love to see SCROTUS articulate that one.
All women are an “after thought” just like black slaves, in their opinion. The rampant pace of these states thinking they can do whatever the hell they want to comes from the late 1800’s in the Southern region. Monsters, all of them!
Well if they’re not stifled like black and brown women, poor whites with gerrymandering. We people, who believe in fairness and equality for all have been long duped. The Traitor Party gave us inches while they took miles.
The masks are off. The extremist justices are now revealed as not serious jurists but political provocateurs. They’ve delivered in spades to the dark forces that put them on the court for life. Let’s hope they’ve unleashed an angry opposition that can somehow stop this now-clear agenda to make America not the land of the free.
As her robot children and husband with his evil menace stare at her looked on. I said yesterday to another group that I’d like to kidnap her, take her to Harlem, and deprogram her Stepford brain.
I doubt it, Lynelll, but if they do, it will be watered down in the teachings of Christianity and being saved. Their lives will be shattered when they find out the truth. Again, I pray they rebel.
May I please assist you with that? Sounds like fun. After Harlem, we can visit with folks in Minneapolis near where George Floyd was murdered. You know, visit a drug house or two; then chat with the good homeless folks who camp near by. God’s children, all of them so she’d be doing her good “Christian” duty, right? (Or puking in fear but that might help too, don’t you agree?) 😇
One of my Conservative friends during “ Little Amy’s” confirmation hearing said Barrett reminded her of RBG. I wanted to blow a gasket. What a stretch of the imagination
Robert Reich asked a question this morning in his substack letter. Should the Supreme Court be expanded? Here is my comment/response:
"Yes, but expanding the court now is not apt to be a successful project considering the current makeup of the Senate. But, sure add it to the list. Along with term limits. Asking a person to serve until death or resignation is nuts. It makes them regal. SCOTUS should serve no longer than 8 or 10 years. And their terms should rotate in a manner that every president gets to nominate justices instead of the country being on an endless death watch. And those nominations MUST be considered by the Senate or POTUS could simply appoint them after a reasonable waiting period.
And add to this package of SCOTUS reforms the requirement that these justices live under the same ethical standards as all other federal judges. "Self supervison" is ridiculous and again elevates them to regal status. They are people. People do bad things. Let's start with Thomas and his wife. Then we could move to the lies to Congress told by Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. Watch their testimonies and then read their decisions and consider impeachment hearings.
And then there is the lazy shadow docket stuff. No testimonies, no presentation of legal theory - no consideration of evidence. Just back room blow offs of key issues.
So yeah, let's do something. A lot. Because what we have now are six judges that are characters out of The Handmaids Tale. They represent radical fringe religious nutcase thinking. They are not judges anymore. They are hit men for the Federalist Society and the Oligarchs who buy them."
"Asking a person to serve until death or resignation is nuts."
Yes, watching Ginsberg sleep, all day, on the court for the last four years of her tenure was difficult in the extreme. We all knew someone else was writing her briefs.
I adored her but yes, she should’ve resigned. In her mind, she felt she was doing the right thing by hanging on and we admired her for that, but in the end, she screwed us.
What is this nonsense about the 14th amendment covering only those rights “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition”? I find this an intellectual stretch of infinite proportion to be made by an originalist, especially since is nothing in the text of the amendment limiting its own scope. Have justices forgotten that the 9th amendment explicitly states “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”? Perhaps they think the 9th amendment gives members of the Supreme Court the right to pick and choose which rights they will respect and which they will disparage, depending on their individual political and religious beliefs.
The real originalist was John Adams who wrote, in 1780, the first representative constitution for Massachusetts. That document served as the model for the 1787 constitution.
All of his "Thoughts on Government:" are available for ANYONE to read.
"The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times,
it should be an equal representation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it.
Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections. Such regulations, however, may be better made in times of greater tranquility than the present, and they will spring up of themselves naturally, when all the powers of government come to be in the hands of the people’s friends. At present it will be safest to proceed in all established modes to which the people have been familiarised by habit."
Thank you Fran for citing the 9th Amenment to the U.S. Constitution. Law Professor Joyce Vance (often a MSNBC panelist) has the forensic legal skills to call out BS & gaslighting. Absent from the draft Appendix is a list of the existing state "Trigger Laws" that will vaporise Roe v Wade rights . The Guttmacher Institute (www.guttmacher.org) has the details & a graphic on the 26 states where there is an immediate risk of the loss of more human rights.
We must protect women, families & health care providers now. California has a written right of privacy in the state Constitution & a robust economy to support health care. Going to California.
Lets see now.... rights "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition"....
That would be enslavement of blacks (without their unpaid labor, the economy of the fledgling country would never have made the advancements that it did), or the theft of the very land from the Indigenous peoples and the attempted genocide thereof, and the natural superiority of white male property owners. I do not ignore that women had no "seat at the table" and in fact were the last at the table (after black men) to be "granted" the right to vote.
Yes, that would eliminate 3 current Justices and prevent a 4th from being seated to replace retiring Justice Breyer. Justice Thomas better be careful what he wishes for -- just might just be inadvertently forced off the Court should Alito have his way.
I don’t know about any of you but today I was seething. Susan Let-Me-Dangle-the-Carrot Collins has always been a plant by the Repubs. She manages to be so “concerned” about issues or candidates. She is responsible for giving the green light to the latest extremist justices, especially the excessive beer drinker, Kavanaugh. Like Warren angrily voiced today, this party of liars and thieves (my words) has been planning this takeover of the Supreme Court for many years. Alioto’s draft incensed me terribly when he mentioned that Roe v. Wade should have never become law in the first place. How damning is that for a justice who sits on the highest court of the land, question the validity of women’s rights to make her own choices?? I despise them all and believe me, no tears will be shed when they croak. I pray I will be around to see that happen.
Susan Collins' performance outrage and shock that Kavanaugh lied about Roe under oath during his confirmation hearings was particularly galling to read, especially in light of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony, which had already shown Kavanaugh to be a liar, and a predator, and finally an ugly angry man incensed by a victim speaking her truth.
Alioto is still smarting from the decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the Supreme Court not to overturn Roe v Wade in 1992. This is opportunity for him to payback the courts and pro choice advocates for ignoring his Appeals Court dissent.
It is rich that McConnell is "shocked, shocked" over the fact of the leak while proud of denying Obama a court nomination and then whisking in a Trump's nomination of Barrett while voting had commenced. Is it possible to identify a more two-timing, craven, amoral politician that McConnell?
" Alito declared that what Americans want doesn’t matter: “We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work,”
We are the ubermensch - you vill do vat we say.
Surely there is a mechanism for ejecting judges that lied under oath (but there's ... oh- "that's what I thought at the time, I have a different opinion now".)
The nerve of that Hypocrite so called “Justice” John Roberts to say "To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed."
UNDERMINE THE INTEGRITY?
Just as the previous president undermined the integrity of his office and put three of these lying, perjured hypocrites on that court, (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh & Barrett) it no longer has any integrity and is now seen as another tool of the fascist Repugnant Party movement in the United States.
Add to that Clarence Thomas, whose wife was active in the insurrection attempt of Jan. 6, 2021, John Roberts apparently has no idea of what is a "singular and egregious breach" of trust.
I woke up at 5AM, a full hour less of my required sleep and I am in that lack of sleep daze.
I will likely crash-nap sometime today. But, I read HCR's letter early and made my comment & now e-mailing it around.
I think the reason I woke up and could not get back to sleep was the anxiety / outrage of the CORRUPTED SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES' impending decision to overturn an accepted civil right for the past half-century. That is unprecedented and if they can do that, it is just a matter of time before other recently established civil rights will be overturned on the federal level, leaving it up to these backward, christian fundamentalist sharia states to overturn others.
Targeted will be same-gender marriage, which if done on a state-by-state basis will create all sorts of problems for married couples traveling from modern civilized states to medieval theocratic states. Will they reinstate the laws against same-sex relations as it was for most of my lifetime, where it was criminal just being homosexual?
Even tho "Uncle" Thomas is a miscegenator, will interracial marriages be outlawed in these backward states? Not everyone agrees with black & white ppl marrying and to gain fundy cult political points you can be sure it will happen. For that matter, can segregation be legal again as it was for much of my lifetime?
These hard-won CIVIL RIGHTS on a national level could be lost just as easily as Roe vs Wade with the current make-up of the Supreme Court.
I, too, was forced to arise a bit earlier than my planned time due to this very thing. Outrage is a good starting point for articulating my feelings. Yup, same gender marriage is next. That worries me considerably, since we've built all of our retirement decisions on my wife being able to receive my retirement and social security benefits, which were made under existing law that I am positive is on the chopping block.
I truly hope you are wrong even though I fear that that could be next. I would not be personally affected if same gender marriage would be challenged but we have a lot of friends that would be.
I absolutely ADORE Trae!! He talks exactly the way everyone I'm surrounded by talks, minus the profanity maybe, but the accent I recognise. I can talk that way if I need to--it's a handy skill to have around here because you can more easily ingratiate yourself with folks down here if you sound like them. They'll more readily trust you, even though at heart you're about as far away from most of what some of them believe as is possible. Trae speaks for a lot of folks down here.
The only thing that pissed me off more than listening to that sanctimonious motherfcking scumbag Ted Cruz go on about how Democrats have "politicized the court" was the memory of the fucking morons like Susan Sarandon saying in 2016 that a Trump victory would "speed the revolution" and when I mentioned to some of the Berner morons I knew that the next president would likely nominate two supreme court justices, having them respond that "the court doesn't matter."
The morons who claim they're on our side are the ones I'd really like to paste in the kisser. The other side, it's expected.
The current "Supreme" Court is down there with all the hack "judges" that a judge I used to know called "Politicians' ball-shiners" (and he wasn't talking about baseballs).
Always love the message in your posts, but, am always somewhat offput by the extraneous components of the English language in use, those not needed and a detraction/distraction.
Right now we need all the fucking words! Pardon my French but my grandfather taught me those were the only words his cows understood and right now we need to get them across the damn river.
TC we have 5 former sailors turned fishermen on the Paciific. While none can hold a candle to your speaking ability, they all can talk “salty”. Some currently reside in Davy Jones Locker.
If you have time look up The Crew of the Liebling. My uncle, my cousins, and friend Mike perished. Unsolved mysteries. And the dog was found dead on the beach.
That was exactly the argument that I made to many of my friends, who could not be bothered as their "unicorn politics were not being given their proper due" <sarcasm font>.
Call the current SCOTUS majority "conservative" or "right-wing" if you like, but they are truly Regressive. If Roe (1973) and Casey (1992) are not settled law, certainly Obergefell (2015) is not settled law. If Roe and Casey are not settled law, why not throw out Loving (1967)? Why stop there; why not throw out Brown (1954)? Maybe SCOTUS Regressives think we should return to Plessy (1896) and reinstitute "Separate but Equal". What is settled law if Roe is not?
Regressive is such a good word. When FK (in)justice Alito said "rights "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition".... he was talking all that and more. Slavery, genocide, white male property owners at the helm.
FK: A slice of profanity (perhaps vulgarity) that slides past most of the language examiners in the algorithms. The first letter might stand for " for unlawful carnal knowledge" and the other refer to the middle joint of someone's finger.
As I understand it, Regressive justices would have us turn back the calendar to the days of the Salem witch trials. Burning at the stake is certainly in their arsenal.
They are clearly in bed with mostly white extremists and attacking the civil rights of ALL women! All three of the Trump appointed justices lied under oath when they said that Roe vs. Wade was settled law and they would not be challenging its legitimacy. They should be held accountable for those lies. No one should be above the law and lying under other is against the law! They clearly do not believe in or support the 14th Amendment. They are political operatives and nothing more. What will be the next civil right they will attack?
Thanks to gerrymandering and the Electoral College, the republican Taliban is above the law. Will Social Security be next? Reagan wanted SS thrown out decades ago.
He took aid away from black and brown folks plus poor whites. He couldn’t stand seeing brand new cars in their driveways. Despised him! The only decent thing he did was getting rid of the Berlin Wall (at the time) so that my uncle in England could find out how my grandparents died. They were gassed by the Nazis in the camp known as Chelmno.
I don't think any of us here in the room were surprised by yesterday's Supreme Court news. I do think we were dismayed, pissed off and disgusted by how we were lied to by the Supreme Court Justices. Now it's out in the open. This exposes more than the Justices.
This exposure has brought out in the daylight that the Supreme Court is nothing more than another bought and paid for branch of the Government.
What I feel is really frying Justice Robert's ass, is that we found out what they had done in February in private and now they can't level us with this just prior to the midterms.
No one on this planet can convince me that this was not a well timed diversion to hit pre-midterms and we found out early.
I think that CJ Roberts realizes that his tenure as Chief Justice will be forever known by its (un)judicial activism, which is something that he (allegedly) wanted to avoid. This court is stained, nearly as badly as CJ Roger B. Taney's is. It may well end up in the dissolution of the SCOTUS, or at least the denigration of it.
It seemed that Republicans were ready to take over at least the House or Senate or maybe both in the mid-terms to more fully shut down the Biden Administration’s attempts to govern and further rig the 2024 vote. But in the wake of the Putin wing’s resistance to defending the U.S. and the world against fascist atrocities, this stacked SCOTUS over-reach may snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Many columnists are recognizing the horror of overturning Roe and its wider implications. If the Republican Party has its way, we will no longer be “one nation.” Each state will make its own laws in a party line that will make us a confederacy of Red versus Blue. People will flee their states for states supporting their political orientation and will only be able to hope that the other party doesn’t prevail after they have relocated, because there will be few federal norms that bind us under the rule of law. We can hope that the dog HAS caught the car and will suffer the consequences. Let’s do better than hope and get out the vote of the majority of us!
Hoping your observation becomes reality, perhaps what was once the moderate wing of the GOP will awaken from its deep sleep and rid the party of the zealots that they have allowed to take control of their party.
I nominate Liz Cheney to lead that charge.
If Liz Cheney is the hero of this story then we are all in serious trouble.
Mike S, I agree! As much as I respect Liz Cheney for not taking “the bridge too far” she did side with Trump over 90% of the time.
And, her father is the very model of evil, if such a thing exists.
If the "devil" is her father, then, what is she?
Mike Liz Cheney’s dad is still a Dick.
:-o
The devil’s spawn?
Yup
Sounds pretty bad does it not?
I wonder what she thinks of him? It would be interesting to hear a conversation between her and Mary Trump.
Mike In Schindler’s List, Schindler, despite being a generally despicable individual, in rescuing over 1,000 Jews did a marvelous thing. Liz Cheney, who reflects much of her parents’ despicable heritage, has launched an anti-Trump crusade from her political base in staunchly Republican Wyoming.
I am uncertain whether Liz is being noble and courageous or whether she is playing her cards for a post-Trump Republican Party.
Trust me! She is playing her cards to lead a post-Trump Republican Party
Sharon Any thoughts on who would be dealing? I think I’ll rewatch THE STING.
Keith, you are dating yourself😉. She does have the backing of a lot of business interests. Daddy can make calls
I should hope so. That we can trust and not if it was for any higher reason.
Trust me, Sharon, I cannot trust you under this circumstance. I'd rather wait a bit until I know before deciding in advance.
You left the door open, Arrow Man. That is a good thing. Stereotyping and scapegoating infect us all. I hope that your arrow provokes self-reflection. Defending with 'like father like son' is so easy to grab hold of.
Yup.
Keith, as always, great point. Sometimes bad people do good things.
I think Keith's alternative to Liz being noble and courageous is probably correct. However, she is one of the few Republicans who have done anything good, regardless of her motivations. She deserves credit for that.
Probably a combination. But she had the courage for this moment!! Courage to put it simply IS courage and she has it. The future will reveal the rest.
Never in a million years would I have thought I would see Liz Cheney as a hero, but in the case of bringing Trump and the insurrectionists to possible justice, she is....
I'll wait and see if she really does.
😂
She is 100% rated by every gop org and has been anti choice and anti gay including her own sister! Nice thought for a movie but not in this environment
My point is things have gone so far down the rabbit hole that the likes of Liz Cheney represent Republican political sanity.
First step; wrest control of the party from the MAGA mob.
Agree 1000%, Ralph.
Liz admitted her mistake in voting against LGBTQ legislation and reconciled with her dad and gay sister But that doesn't really have much bearing on her stand on abortion.
She has repudiated her position on gay marriage. She seemed genuinely contrite about how her sister had been affected.
Yes, but being a person with incredible political power, her “OOOPS!” Destroy peoples lives. And she is doing squat to rectify that.
Liz Cheney has taken her current stance in order to distance herself from the crazies currently in control of the right wing. I believe she's positioning herself for a run for the presidency in the future, preferably when the Trumpies are no longer dominant. I doubt that she'll do much to promote Democratic ideals. Don't forget the specter of her Dad.
Nancy I believe that Liz Cheney will be a credible presidential candidate just after the College of Cardinals elects me Pope (and I'm not Catholic--so far)
I think it will be quite some time before she is viewed as anything other than a traitor to the cause. It's going to take time to erase the stench of TFG. Whatever her motivations, I'll have to give her credit for being on the January 6 commission.
And the “zealot” J.D. Vance wins the Republican primary in Ohio.
“Addressing supporters in Cincinnati, Vance thanked Trump for his endorsement and attacked the media for highlighting his past criticism of the former president. “They wanted to write a story that this campaign would be the death of Donald Trump’s America First agenda,” Vance said. “It ain’t the death of the America First agenda.””
Trumpism is alive and well it seems.
Maybe alive, but not well.
I do have a positive note about Republicans however. I live in Cincy and we were assaulted with political ads 24x7. One anti Vance ad (I think it was a PAC) listed Vance's earlier fealty violations against Trump which included this gem: "He even compared Trump to Hitler". BUT IN THE CONTEXT OF THE AD BEING COMPARED TO HITLER IS A BAD THING! Someone tip off the NYT so they can flood Ohio with reporters scouring diners to profile kinder, gentler Republicans!
🤬🤬🤬
Fractured States of America—just when u think things can’t get any worse.
"Fractured States of America" now there's a catch phrase to run with...simple, to the point, and easy to remember.
The purpose of the Constitution was to bind the individual states together into a common government. Federal law had to take precedent over state law or there would have been no common ground. A bunch of little states would have been picked off by the greater powers at the time. Welding themselves together under the Constitution made them safer the founders thought. The justices trot out originalism when it suits their purposes. Originalism is just legal bs. If the right to privacy does not exist, what happens to HIPPA protecting healthcare privacy? What happens to searches and seizures? What the hell is the “party of small government” ( yeah, right) doing trying to stand in people’s bedrooms, but they won’t try to regulate corporate behavior in boardroom? This is a hateful decision to hurt and punish women based on religious dogma and political ideology.
There was a wonderful scene in The West Wing in which Josh Lyman said to a gay (but closeted, of course) Republican congressman that he’s amused to see how the party wants to shrink government until its just small enough to fit in our bedrooms.
Jon, truly one of the best shows - writing and casting treasures!
Have you noticed how much Joe Biden resembles Jed Bartlet? And not just the initials.
Jenn, you are absolutely correct that this decision is designed to punish women. In my minds eye it removes full citizenship from women, turning us into chattel and stripping us of the rights to make healthcare and quality of life decisions for ourselves. In other words, we woman are fit enough to work and pay taxes but must not have agency over our own bodies.
You bring up HIPPA. Many folks do not understand what HIPPA is and how it works. Here is an excerpt in re the HIPPA Privacy Rule and who/what it applies to Llink follows.
"HIPPA Privacy Rule
The Privacy Rule standards address the use and disclosure of individuals’ health information (known as “protected health information”) by entities subject to the Privacy Rule. These individuals and organizations are called “covered entities.” The Privacy Rule also contains standards for individuals’ rights to understand and control how their health information is used. A major goal of the Privacy Rule is to ensure that individuals’ health information is properly protected while allowing the flow of health information needed to provide and promote high quality health care and to protect the public’s health and well-being. The Privacy Rule strikes a balance that permits important uses of information while protecting the privacy of people who seek care and healing."
https://www.cdc.gov/phlp/publications/topic/hipaa.html
Right. So *unless* and individual who had the abortion shares information publicly that she had an abortion, what information are these lawsuits being initiated with? They can bring a person to court, based on their observation of a woman entering a facility on suspicion of having had an abortion, but then how do they prove that she did indeed have 1) a pregnancy and 2) a therapeutic abortion without violating HIPAA?
Maybe she went in for a consult, or to do some provider education, or to paint a mural on their wall. Lying about that couldn't be any more egregious than lying in front of a legislative hearing to get onto the court, right?
Your questions/concerns are spot on. Basically, law enforcement is relying on "concerned" friends and family members ratting out other family members OR prosecution is being based on speculation/circumstantial evidence.
Hi, Daria! I've been interested in your perspective on this, since you live in a place where the highest court has "decriminalized" abortion as recently as last year (according to Wikipedia), leaving enforcement to the several Mexican states. Have you gotten any impression as to the effect that has had on the people there?
I haven't read all the comments above, but a glance implies that some people might be confusing the fundamental difference between Constitutional law and statutory law. Alito is advocating eliminating most or all of the rights that stem from the "penumbra" of the Fourteenth Amendment, rights that aren't specifically spelled out, but implied as being necessary for the named rights to have meaning.
I don't know what right HIPAA is based on (I'd have to read the statute), but if it's based on a federal "right of privacy," then it would be jeopardized by Alito's decision, because there is no such right expressly listed in the Constitution. If there is no such federal right, then, under the Tenth Amendment, the States can do as they please.
That's why you see commentators saying that this threatens to permit states to outlaw contraception, since this "penumbra" logic was used to justify the Court's decision to bar States from mucking with it. Whether Alito's decision would directly affect the Loving decision, which prohibited States from barring interracial marriage, would depend on how the intersection of race and privacy issues works out. Litigation looms, wicked lawyers rub their hands! The Court would have to revisit these issues, if it does at all, one Right at a time because Alito and his cadre will have severed the underpinnings of an entire class of settled law that dates back to WWII.
Dirk--I think you are quite correct about the implications of "devolving" federal laws back to the states, allowing a divide and conquer approach on any given hot-button issue. But your citing of possible Tenth Amendment-based threats to privacy issues raises a question I have rarely seen addressed in the flood of originalist hogwash: the Ninth Amendment very simply states "The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." The notion that people have privacy rights beyond those specified in the Fourth Amendment, and that the content of and contexts for exercising those rights have changed since 1789, seems to me eminently defensible in con law. Even if true, this approach still leaves all the substantive due process expansions for "small government" types to contest and wail about. But at least we wouldn't have to go searching for penumbras.
[Add: I now see that others have brought up the 9th Amendment issue further down the thread. I would only add that "liberty" seems to me to definitely be “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition.”]
Hi Dirk, Yes, each of the 31 states of México has the right to decide exceptions for abortion and whether to prosecute a woman or not. Right now abortion is still fairly restricted throughout the country, including Yucatán. However in February, "A Federal Judge granted the injunction against the regulation of the crime of abortion in the Yucatan Penal Code and against the life protection clause established in the state Constitution." Still, as the law stands in Yucatán abortion is "Illegal with exception for rape, maternal life, fetal defects, if abortion was accidental, or economic factors (if woman already has 3 children)."
It's interesting to me that the economic exception in Yucatán is tied to the number of children a woman has not whether or not she can provide for herself and even a single child adequately. The minimum per day wage in México is $172.87 MXN or the equivalent of $8.50 USD. The Méxican work week is 6 Days so one's supposed monthly legal minimum wage would be equivalent to $212.50 USD. I can guarantee you there are plenty of people, especially women, who do not make that wage and struggle mightily day in and day out to provide for their families. There are areas all throughout this state and country where families live in shacks cobbled together from shipping pallets, cardboard and tarps. No electricity. No running water. Minimal access to basic healthcare. These are the women who have zero access to reproductive healthcare as well. And there is rarely any way out of that situation for their children (despite the fact that education for all is a constitutional right in México).
So, what about abortion here. First and foremost it is not something generally talked about by women who are economically struggling and uneducated and/or rural. Theoretically speaking, birth control is absolutely legal and over the counter, no prescription is required, so one would think that contraception availability would address some of the issues. Not so. A woman's ability to acquire birth control depends on such factors as age, socio-economic status, and ethnicity, in other words, the counter person at the pharmacy decides who gets it and who doesn't. Dead serious. And, of course, that means the indigenous population is hardest hit There are serious attempts by Méxican feminist organizations to provide information, contraception and abortion support but the influence of the Catholic church, family and an individual woman's community generally have far more influence on their decision making process than a stranger.
The bottom line here is if you are educated and have the financial means you can get anything you want, including an abortion, on demand.
https://www.theyucatantimes.com/2022/02/women-won-protection-against-the-crime-of-abortion-in-yucatan/
❤ Heart broken, on substack and in reality. Thanks, Daria.
Let us not kid ourselves. HIPPA is about as private as my dog's arse, meaning everyone can see it but the dog. It was devised during GWB's administration to facilitate the flow of info so insurances and medical practitioners could do or not do as it best suited their profit motives. All it says is "you should not look at this information if you have nothing to do with the patient/client." That leaves a lot of room for clerks, lab assistants, medical professionals, insurers, et al to access whatever.
And they have legal exposure for doing so. Maybe it's time that some of the resources we pool get directed to supporting women, who's private medical information has been breached by anyone within the practice, etc, to sue that entity responsible for protecting the info. The reason HIPAA appears to have no teeth is that the states are not willing to do any enforcement, and individuals do not know how or have the resources to seek remediation.
I agree having been a psych administrator both pre-and-post HIPAA. Integrity fell on my shoulders and I took that role very seriously. What I saw others doing with confidential information, however, makes me cringe.
However, if the Republicans take the House and Senate, and trump wins in 2024, will there be a Federal law passed by Congress to outlaw abortion everywhere do you think?
I think that is the pipe dream of some. However, I'm guessing the outcry will be so loud, those weeny R pols will trip over their own feet trying to appease the majority of Americans. (Ex: "Republicans are all about personal freedom and privacy.") Just maybe there will be light shown on their facetious motivations for courting the religious right.
This current iteration of SCOTUS has been IGNORING the Federal Supremacy clause of the Constitution and keeps pushing to ship things back to the states so the ultra RW SCOTUS agenda is carried out. " SCOTUS is Nonpolitical"-hogwash!.
Holy cow, our thoughts are traveling on the same wavelength. I've had nearly identical thoughts in the last 24 hours. HIPAA, small government except when we're up in your bidness, inflicting misery on others, etc.
Yes, total hypocrisy in terms of "small government." The radical regressive right wing is beside itself with all the gains made by people who should either be barefoot and PG or out of sight. Here in the PNW in Washington and Oregon clinics are already preparing for lots of new patients. The governor's office is up for grabs here in Oregon. All the Ds would be OK and even the D running as an I. (She knew she had no shot as a D) The Rs are trying for the most part to sidestep this one. Their ads are about homelessness, crime, schools, mandates. I have no idea who will prevail on the R side and it might be close on the D side.
❤️
Thank you for your thoughts. You have just said what I was thinking but put it so much more succinctly and far better.
Yes, HIPPA crossed my mind as well. Why doesn't HIPPA (as long as we still have it....) make it impossible for anyone to learn that a woman has had an abortion?
Technically, HIPPA makes it impossible for anyone to learn a specific woman (name, Date of Birth, Medical Record #) is pregnant. Does anyone think that will be a deterrent?
Sadly, it's *theoretically* impossible. The prohibition on providing medical information w/o a patient's consent extends to information about what their medical issue is and what the treatment may be. And no, I don't think HIPPA will be a deterrent ...to determined data miners... or 'leaks'.
attempted like
Yes and true— I think many will be moving to the kinder blue states.
I don't think it's a good idea to write off ANY states. Many states have been "captured" by Republican politicians who do NOT represent the majority. We owe those folks the protection we have constructed through our federal government. It is fair to say that the Republicans do not have the "consent of the governed."
Understood but they’re sure looking to control the states.
Or some like my Trump neighbor moved last fall from blue to red, CT to FL. Said she couldn't live in a blue state.
Bye bye Felicia!
All those we know in SoCal have been fleeing to Prescott, AZ. It's the craziest thing...5 households in the past year. All Trumpers, highly educated, Evangelicals or very conservative Catholics. They believe we are in the end of times.
Maybe they just have a subconscious death wish.
If only we weren't so old!
Liz, here’s another thought:
We True Blue folks, starting with LFAA students currently dwelling in super-sanguine states, ban together and find a spot, thinking Europe, and set up shop?!
Europe has so many problems now—Canada has tons of room and Toronto is a vibrant city. Just sayin.
Yukon
Very good point!
Untied States of a mer rica.
Untied States of Amerika
Gary: As I posted yesterday, this makes it soberingly clear that all the rhetoric about "states' rights" is simply the Trojan Horse for Confederacy 2.0. It is the next turn of the screw. Just as the notion that the Texas legislature is free to legally encourage vigilantism by codifying bounties for citizens to sue each other for exercising a constitutionally-protected right offends basic jurisprudence, this brazen move to reverse long-standing precedent under the guise of "states' rights" portends some rough sledding for the Nation up ahead. Potential adversaries in China, Russia and elsewhere who wish us no good will delight in this self-inflicted wound that can only further unravel the national fabric. It is becoming eerily evident that this Court thinks each state gets to write its own rules on pretty much everything, and we know how that works out....W/r, cdl
Trojan Horse indeed.
Beyond "self inflicted" woulds, I'd postulate that the US seems to be engaging in conduct similar to a circular firing squad. There will be no survivors.
With respect I see, LTG Charles, but how are you using "cdl"?
Just my initials...tends to be an old habit! :-)
Funny initials story: For a time, when I went in service with my local law enforcement agency, we had to use our initials and badge number. Now, I know that the military (I don't know if you are Army or USMC) uses letters to denote such things...FUBAR comes to mind. We always referred to a person acting in a manner to be consistent with an anal orifice as an "Adam Henry", utilizing the common vulgar reference to hat part of the human anatomy.
We had a retired SPC 5 as a dispatcher, and I went into service as "Adam Adam Henry, 540" He about died laughing.
Good one! Have an awesome day. Keep pounding...cdl
Thx!
Exactly right!
Dogs become addicted to chasing cars. It’s hard to break them of the habit. Generally, car chasing dogs get run over by the car.
Thanks JennSH. I was completely puzzled by the analogy.
I had read this phrase a couple months ago over on Stonekettle Station; it roughly translates to "I got what I wanted and now I have no idea what to do next".
https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/dog+that+caught+the+car
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=dog%20that%20caught%20the%20car
I have often wondered why the 100th Monkey Effect (evolution accommodates learning when repeated actions harm the species) doesn't seem to apply to dogs chasing cars.
And in the end, half the country will be "well above average" and half will be "well below average."
Yes but the Red's gerrymandered control of what will be left of the Feds will ensure that the Blue States continue to make massive financial transfers to them......suckered by good intentions, political blindness and inertia. As Benjamin Disreali wrote, "Hope for the best, plan for the worst". The Dems have neglected their classic literature for far too long.....a new reading of Macchiaveli's "The Prince" might help them a little.
Ok Stuart, here’s the plan. Capitol: Washington DC, Maryland county, Virginia county, North Carolina county, Idaho county, Texas county, Florida county, etc. Oops no more states rights. Codes gone.
Unfortunately that’s what appears to be true.
The NsUS: The not so united states. Another check on the Vladimir Putin wish list!
Vote we will, and vote we must, for this GOP and this SCOTUS are ABOMINATIONS!
Morning, Gary. I’ve been waiting for Politics Girl (Leigh McGowan) to use a podcast to speak out on the bully dogs attack of public education. She did so this week. Validating. And our voices suddenly became more clear and peal like the Liberty Bell.
Salud!
https://youtu.be/ihUWwFuJOvU
She thoroughly covers the history of public education in America, right up to DeVos's efforts to privatize education and the current variant.
Not to mention the public hearings on 1/6 to be held in June. This has the appearance of being the moment in time when the lid blows off. The next 6-12 months might be seriously ugly. There’s a momentum building.
The Supreme Court justices knew “the dog was chasing the car” when several went to friendly forums and made speeches asserting their legal purity and complete lack of political affiliation in the fall. They wouldn’t have had such an agenda had the nation been slumbering. That wing of the court is shredded now. The Supreme Court’s reputation for probity has flown until those 6 justices have retired. And this moment will define their lives. One wonders how they slept last night.
Finally, the draft decision itself is, effectively, 95% of of the story. But the leak itself is not unimportant. This was not whistleblowing in any sense of that honorable word. This was a political cri de coeur, which in its own way reinforces how political the court has become. Either side could have done the leaking. Either way there was a political reason behind it. And it serves as further evidence that this Court is utterly broken.
This has been what SCOTUS has been working toward by their continually saying "Send it back to the states." IMHO, they have decided to IGNORE the Constitution's Federal Supremacy clause so their donors can do what they want, regardless of laws.
I know this might be an off the wall thought, but I'd like to see HCR appear on Colbert so she becomes even more widely known.
Perhaps then with an even greater audience, more and more sensibility would be in the forefront.
“We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work,” he wrote. Excuse Me?
Morning Lynell. Awful to say but.....With a political gift like this and the number of people that they should be able to get riled up enough to vote for them, if the Dems can't create an electoral landslide in November and dominate sufficiently both houses then they are not the party of the future. They are going to disappear under the waves. Resistence to the GOP autocracy will have to organize around them....and without them as they will not be a player.
That is a very true statement, Stuart. We have to hold our representatives feet over a fire and make certain they get the message that we’re mad and we aren’t gonna take it anymore! I know you wrote to Lynell, but thought I’d chime in too. :)
The more voices the better, Marlene!
Morning Marlene, you're very welcome.
Stuart,
59% of Americans say abortion should be legal. (So, 41% say something else).
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/
Let us form the reasonable hyptothesis that those 59% are city and suburban voters with some college education.
That leaves 41% in the rural areas to provide the votes necessary to keep a minority opinion in place after an election in which Gerrymandering insures the votes of those 41% are over counted relative to city dwellers.
For more information see how Harris County, the most populous county in the US I think, has been corralled by Gerrymandering to deliver almost no representatives in Texas.
So, the leak is not exactly the gift to dems that it seems at first blush.
Repubs have made sure of that, all day every day for decades. Dems tried to govern in good faith, what a stupid idea…
"in good faith" is what John Adams wanted and visualized.
So, I am OK with that.
"In good faith" is never the problem UNLESS you are getting your "faith" told to you by the white man at the front of the church.
And that, says Sherlock, is the problem …
Yes. That is how a Trump is born.
Faced with bad faith on the part of the perenial other you lose every time...except when you get your halo and pass the pearly gates for good
Hi, Jeri, I keep thinking we Dems can come up with a way to act in good faith and still be politically savvy. So far we're having trouble with the "realpolitik" part. However, I do have to say that I don't think we do ourselves any favors--those of us who are seriously considering all this--to overestimate the good faith of our Democratic politicians. The best of our elected representatives are still politicians and those who run for these offices are, on their finest days, still running for offices that carry great power. Granted, men like Obama and Biden at least partly want power to do some good, but possibly our ineptitude can be blamed on our belief in our own "We lose because we're too pure at heart to play dirty." line.
The Democrat who comes to my mind as a man of startlingly clean motives is Adlai Stevenson--and the received wisdom around the Beltway was that the Kennedys chewed him up and left him in a roadside ditch. There was an article about Stevenson when he was first running called something like "The Man from La Mancha" and it's thesis was that he was "better suited for the presidency of Plato's Republic than the United States."
I believe I am now officially rambling.
"So, the leak is not exactly the gift to dems that it seems at first blush."
I agree completely. Alito, who declared in this opinion that “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives” also wrote the majority opinion last year that gutted the Voting Rights Act, letting stand an Arizona law despite the fact that it was demonstrated it had a greater negative impact on minorities. Alito dismissed this selective disenfranchisement as merely “inconvenient”. James Madison worried about the ‘tyranny of the majority’. Perhaps he should have been more fearful of the tyranny of a minority that successfully guarantees that they will always be the ‘people’s elected representatives.’
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/01/998758022/the-supreme-court-upheld-upholds-arizona-measures-that-restrict-voting
If they can't make it into a positive, Mike, then they are dead from the neck up and have killed a great majority of the people. If they have the votes in both houses to overturn a Bidon veto, watch out Blue States as they will control you too.
I am not sure that there are enough American voters to, necessarily, overcome the recent highly effective state Gerrymandering of city dwellers into a small number of representatives Stuart.
Plus, a bunch of the Secretary of State race outcomes might put nutjobs in place that simply ignore the actual vote outcome.
It is not as simple as "we have the votes". We do have a bit of a majority, (60/40) but, not that large and likely located in Gerrymandered areas that have been minimized where representation is relevant.
In other words Stuart, we might be dead from the feet up.
I was thinking the other day that the meaning of baselessly pushing the big lie, that 2020 election was stolen, is preparing for real republican cheating in the 2024 election. Even if Democrats would protest, with good evidence, and the cases were brought up in court; to republican voters it will look like justice is biased in favour of Democrats.
I can’t heart your comment Olof, so I will write and they’ll you. I think you have some clear insight here.
And the Republicans will cheat with abandon loudly claiming that they are doing exactly what you d*** Democrats did in the 2020 election. They perfect justification then and when the do the next gerrymandering.
True Mike, we all watched it happen. Gerrymandering and party over country have ruled while the country has been mesmerized by the shiny object, chump
Jeri, hard to believe that Trump became the American "shiny object" is it not?
Or maybe not. American's also became mezmerized by a bunch of women walking around in their house in their underwear who are now massively rich. Kardashians.
Maybe I am the real anachronism now.
Too true, Mike, could be...if nobody creates a shit storm of sufficient magnitude that it just blows them away...or people hit the streets massively when they try.
Ive been a part of those massive marches. I question the myth that says that accomplishes anything. The truth is gerrymandered control of voting districts has a knee on our necks, and the judiciary is owned by gop, and the media just want spice for outrage sauce for their vomit.
Mike S upstateNY, yes but SEVENTY percent (70%) believe Roe should not be overturned. That extra 11% will make a difference in the outcome. I hope. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/06/17/key-facts-about-the-abortion-debate-in-america/
Interesting to read more Americans are in favor of abortion than in 2007 - and the painted picture is that we are more conservative...
The huge generations born since 2007 never questioned they have full reproductive rights. That's why it's more popular now than in 2007.
Stuart, I'd like to put what is happening in a positive light, as people are now awake to what the 'right' has been doing for years. We are galvanized, so why put it in the negative '...if the Dems can't … ? It is what the people and leaders such as Warren, Sanders, Klobuchar, Stacey Abrams and more are doing.
I agree, Fern.
You betcha, Lynell! We're going up and forward - strong!
Hear hear! Is that the Liberty Bell pealing for us? Yes!
Is there a visible effect coming from there efforts....it don't see the numbers showing it.
Let's see what happens with the mid-terms.
Time to brush up on Survival Skills for Medieval Periods 2.0
I agree Stuart, this is a phenomenal opportunity. This decision should mobilize even the "I'm not really political" crowd, the youth, women, and yes, even men, to vote in the mid-terms. It is up to the leadership of the Democratic party to ride this to an
historic and unprecedented crushing defeat of these autocrats.
Opportunity knocks in the midterms for sure.
Morning, Stuart. Stark reality. But I hold out hope that November will deliver for Dems.
Many learned words are hardly enough, now Biden and co have to go out and kick butt
“We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.
“Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.” –Albert Einstein
Morning, Stuart. Here's what Rebecca Solnit says about hope:
“Hope is not a lottery ticket you can sit on the sofa and clutch, feeling lucky. It is an axe you break down doors with in an emergency. Hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures and the grinding down of the poor and marginal... To hope is to give yourself to the future - and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable.”
"You may be certain that the world is headed for destruction, but it is a good thing, a moral thing, to behave as though there's still hope. Hope is contagious as despair: your hope, or show of hope, is a gift you can give your neighbour, and may even help to prevent or delay the destruction of their world". -Auschwitz survivor Primo Levy
Thanks for this quote!
Sorry, substack won't let me edit. :-(
I almost mentioned MLKjr earlier in a comment because HE is the kind of orator (yes orator) the dems must have going forward to send out the message of transformation and hope. Positive vision needed to crush the autocrats!
How about Rev. Warnock?
I’ve heard him preach at Ebeneezer church. He has the power and the vision
Stuart, I'm negatively impressed by your backward gaze as though it speaks for the future. I don't know and you cannot know that Einstein would look back at America's recent history as though it is predictive of our future in the next few years.
“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.” – Albert Einstein
Einstein wasn't saying that the past is predictive of the future but rather that if we don't learn from it we are liable to be served up the same dilema in the future. Hope for the future must suggest that one is trying to prevent the repetition of those past errors while facing new challenges. Einstein was firmly connected to the collective unconscious in which past and future are inscribed and this sphere of the ether fed abundantly his "imagination"
Thank you, Stuart. I am familiar to a degree with Einstein's thoughts about society. He was a founding member of the German Democratic Party, and later became a socialist in opposition to capitalism. I have the impression that you lean in the other direction, but open to learning more about your political philosophy, if you like.
Great post Stuart. Thanks.
I too believe that this leak is a gift that needs to be seized, this decision if it comes to pass will unite a lot of people who previously held views opposed to each other. This is a uniquely clarifying moment that should be able to bridge the vast divide that has separated us. The senate judiciary committee should immediately hold hearings about whether they were lied to or not, this court is so out of wack that an action that attacks their integrity might tend to focus their minds. It’s my understanding that they can be impeached and removed and while removal might not be a plausible outcome the stain on their legacy will give most of them pause.
Errrr! Just like double impeachment without removal "stained" Trump?
Errrr Look back as much as you like⬇️ that is not the direction in which we are going ⬆️✈️⬆️
The insipid imbecile is lacking a functioning brain, greed is the only motivation that he understands, he could be up to his neck in ink and have no idea that he was stained. The Justices on our SC do have functioning brains, I think anyhow, so they might not want to have their legacy forever stained.
Stuart – While I truly hope that you are right, I am pessimistic that Democrats can avoid big losses in the midterms. As disturbing as this SCOTUS case is, the biggest motivator for voters traditionally has been the economy, and unless inflation improves, the typical voter will choose based on the balance of their checkbook rather than the state of our democracy.
And even if we organize rather than agonize, crafting and delivering the Democrats’ message to those who need to hear it most will prove exceedingly difficult, because they reside behind an information firewall not unlike the citizens of Russia.
It doesn’t mean I’m giving up the fight, but I fear we are in deep, deep guano.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned..WILLIAM congreave 1697
This was my reaction, too, at the day's news. Democrats should be able to use the SCOTUS' leaked decision to their benefit. It should stir enough people on the political fence and even in the R party to vote for Dems in order to preserve the right to abortion guaranteed by our laws for 50 years! Hopefully the 72% who believe abortion rights should stand will vote.
Not to mention those affected by the loss of other rights centered in the 14th. Curious to see how C. Thomas votes if the Virginia v. Loving décision were challenged. Talk about goring HIS ox.
But the self-righteous churches are politicized to the point of insanity, and they want us all to be.
Yes, but if you ask the members, they think they are being "religious," that God doesn't want abortion.
Which is why we have separation of church and state - supposedly.
Can’t ❤️ but that is the most flagrant crime the Traitor Party has committed in the 20th and 21st Centuries.
Thanks for that hit to the Dems, just what they need
Sadly, the Democrats have a long history of snatching defeat from the jaws of victory
Well said Stuart! But do they have the wisdom and the willpower to go for it? Haven’t seen that thus far alas. Maybe this will do it! Where is the leader with a voice to send the message/call?
“Excuse me?” is big time correct, Lynell. I had to catch my breath before finishing after reading that from “not an original thought in the brain” Alito. Who in the sam heck does he opine about serving? I hate to spill the beans to him, but first and foremost, he IS a part of of, by, and for the people. Unless he is remote working from Moscow.
Morning, Christine. And now we have the revelation of the Big Lies told by the not-so-venerable SC.
THAT was the quote that sent chills. Flagrantly anti-democracy, and more so, anti-Constitution.
“Extraneous influences”. Just the majority of citizens of the USA, what clap trap and outright “screw you” to the majority of citizens of the USA
FWIW, color me an Extraneous Influence, Jeri.
Lynell, to be honest, those weren't the first 2 words I thought of when I read his statement.
Honestly, Linda, I love tongue in cheek humor. Good one. You are fabulous.
Well, yeah, Linda. I admit, I took a pause before posting.
Yeah, Lynell, my first two started with an F, and had way too much emotion behind them. 😒
🤣 Nor me.
Magnificent! Mark Twain couldn't have put it better, but in his case it would have been irony.
This is the highest form of arrogance— why? Are you Gods.
Supreme Court nominees should be sworn in before their hearings and be subject to perjury penalties if they straight out lie as we have witnessed them doing so, and if they avoid answering, their motives would be crystal clear....
Supreme Court nominees are sworn in under oath. To confirm this (although there are numerous 2d- and 3d-hand sources saying so), I just viewed, on C-SPAN, Day 1 of Judge Jackson's confirmation hearings. She did swear under oath to be truthful etc.
Therefore, several of the current Justices supporting nullification of Roe v. Wade committed perjury if the draft ruling accurately represents their positions on the case. Which, I believe, we all believe to be true. That's why some are calling for impeachment of those Justices.
Yes, they are under oath (I completely space out) as I have commented today. I speculated that perhaps the DOJ can bring action, but isn't impeachment in the hands of Congress?
Yes, impeachment is up to Congress. The fact that it requires a 2/3 vote makes it a non-starter at this time and probably, IMHO, at any time. Further, I think we all have way too much on our plates to add another highly divisive advocacy.
I respectfully disagree! The same "let's move on" approach was held with the majority of the Republicans during the Trump impeachments. Why let the Justices slide after committing perjury and setting such a precedent in place?
Yup. Decisions have consequences. Let’s teach them that lesson.
I thought the government was supposed to reflect the will of the people. Some branches intentionally slower than others, but still... the legislative and judicial branches at least seem to be running as fast as they can in the other direction. It's time for the public to reassert control over their government. Election Day should begin that realignment, but it will be exceptionally slow going to reverse all the changes the Republicans have effected since Reagan.
Maybe we can speed things up a bit by impeaching Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Barrett for perjuring themselves during their confirmation hearings. But probably not until Democrats have a Senate majority without Manchin and Sinema.
Courts, however, are required to "follow the law" and not simply reflect the will of the people. That, theoretically, establishes fairness under law. The reality, as we all know, is subject to judges' and Justices' interpretation of the law. I find it ironic as well as disgusting that so many Republicans and right-wing individuals rail against "judicial activism" yet that is exactly what a majority of the Supreme Court seems about to do.
Agree with everything you say, except that removal requires a 2/3 vote in the Senate, and that won't happen.
Protesters and the Public at large will have many surprises for these wanna be Fox News hosts posing as jurists on the Supreme Court. “ No where to run to, and nowhere to hide.” These justices have made themselves unwelcome everywhere in civilized society for the rest of their lives.
I vow never to vote for anyone who puts an R by their name ever again. It is time to smother the Republican Party out of existence. .No one is going to take away my rights.
AMEN, Cathy!!
Cathy, I never have voted for anyone with an R. Seems fitting that I continue this habit.
Set the tone, Sister Cathy. Set the tone. I’m listening. With my ears and my heart.
My folks were moderate, common sense Republicans. Feels more like a viral cancer that has metastasized and needs eradication. Rumor has it there was a lab leak at Mara Lago...
So were my folks. And they're all Democrats now. Proud of them.
🤣😂
There's been the occasional sane Republican that I've voted for. However, the cult embedded in the GOP has convinced me that I can never do that again in good conscience until the cult is gone.
A bit of good news this morning, and hopefully a bellwether for the midterms: Michigan’s 74th district held an election yesterday to fill a state house seat vacated by Mark Huizenga who was elected to the state Senate in Nov 2021. A Democrat WON the house seat yesterday with 52% of the vote. The first time a Democrat has held this seat in 30 years!!! CHEERS!!!!!!
This district is a very red district, so this makes me hope that gerrymandering may not be enough to save the GOP in November.
Oh, good news, Cathy!!!!! Yay!
This is also being considered an “upset” here. How SWEET it is!
Yes!!
👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼🎉🎉🎉
This should link to an article in Rolling Stone about this election.
https://flip.it/SPwL6C
I fear that one of the most critical positions out of this is NOT being discussed- its not how long Roe has been law/ precedent- what scares me is the assertion right out of the Federal Society is that the STATES should decide what is provided, intended, allowed rather than the Federal Constitution- are we really going to let states decide womens' rights? civil rights? voting acts? Treaty Rights under Article II? educational standards? Democracy is a FEDERAL aspiration- Its not that they care that much about women its that a majority of the GQP justices believe in states rights- and we've already fought one ciivl war on that issue and won. . . let's act like it!
Kbaril,
The Federalist Society is funded by the Kochs and Mercers who are not even slightly interested in states rights OR Democracy. They are interested in dictatorship. That's why the court wrote that "the public (the voter) cannot be allowed to influence us".
None of John Adams writings, originalist as they come, would support states rights. Zero.
So, all that BS about originalist is just BS. John Adams IS the originalist and his writings are there for all to read (but nobody does).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_Society#:~:text=Donors%20to%20the%20Federalist%20Society,each%20year%20in%20Washington%2C%20D.C.
One of the things that I wonder is what would happen if someone challenged Citizens United, to say that since corporations are not mentioned in the constitution, then constitutional right of free speech doesn't apply to them. Id love to see SCROTUS articulate that one.
mumble mumble bumble stumble.
Very good point, Ally, and I would like to see that articulated about now!
❤️
John Adams didn’t write any of the Federalist Papers.
Right?
All women are an “after thought” just like black slaves, in their opinion. The rampant pace of these states thinking they can do whatever the hell they want to comes from the late 1800’s in the Southern region. Monsters, all of them!
This should motivate those women in the southern states to vote for their own agency and rights. But...
Well if they’re not stifled like black and brown women, poor whites with gerrymandering. We people, who believe in fairness and equality for all have been long duped. The Traitor Party gave us inches while they took miles.
The masks are off. The extremist justices are now revealed as not serious jurists but political provocateurs. They’ve delivered in spades to the dark forces that put them on the court for life. Let’s hope they’ve unleashed an angry opposition that can somehow stop this now-clear agenda to make America not the land of the free.
They're not provocateurs. They're third rate hacks, complete with kneepads for servicing their political overlords.
Like the kneepads image!! Go TCinLA....
If it wasn't for Barrett, I never would've thought they were political hacks. Glad she put the notion in my brain.
I feel Barrett's vote is more religious than political. Hasn't she just been co-opted by the Republicans?
I agree, Mary.
Yes---clearly religiously motivated---but then read Alito with that in mind......
Pretty little Amy? She smiled so sweetly, there in the Rose Garden.
As her robot children and husband with his evil menace stare at her looked on. I said yesterday to another group that I’d like to kidnap her, take her to Harlem, and deprogram her Stepford brain.
I know this is none of my business, but I do wonder whether her two adopted children are allowed to learn about their own heritage as Haitians.
I doubt it, Lynelll, but if they do, it will be watered down in the teachings of Christianity and being saved. Their lives will be shattered when they find out the truth. Again, I pray they rebel.
Her adopted black children will eventually find out what their mother did to their race and my hope is that they will rebel.
❤️
May I please assist you with that? Sounds like fun. After Harlem, we can visit with folks in Minneapolis near where George Floyd was murdered. You know, visit a drug house or two; then chat with the good homeless folks who camp near by. God’s children, all of them so she’d be doing her good “Christian” duty, right? (Or puking in fear but that might help too, don’t you agree?) 😇
🤣
Oh, good reprogramming tips. Straight from the hood. You are officially on the team, Sheila. 🙋🏻🙋🏼🙋🏽🙋🏾🙋🏿
One of my Conservative friends during “ Little Amy’s” confirmation hearing said Barrett reminded her of RBG. I wanted to blow a gasket. What a stretch of the imagination
As you say! What on earth could she have been thinking of?
Conservative friend....thinking. Oxymoron.
WHAT???????
Shocking her was a political science major
‼️‼️‼️‼️
Are you 💩ing me??
I am not
Say what?
Have to watch out of the ones who smile sweetly.
Robert Reich asked a question this morning in his substack letter. Should the Supreme Court be expanded? Here is my comment/response:
"Yes, but expanding the court now is not apt to be a successful project considering the current makeup of the Senate. But, sure add it to the list. Along with term limits. Asking a person to serve until death or resignation is nuts. It makes them regal. SCOTUS should serve no longer than 8 or 10 years. And their terms should rotate in a manner that every president gets to nominate justices instead of the country being on an endless death watch. And those nominations MUST be considered by the Senate or POTUS could simply appoint them after a reasonable waiting period.
And add to this package of SCOTUS reforms the requirement that these justices live under the same ethical standards as all other federal judges. "Self supervison" is ridiculous and again elevates them to regal status. They are people. People do bad things. Let's start with Thomas and his wife. Then we could move to the lies to Congress told by Barrett, Kavanaugh and Gorsuch. Watch their testimonies and then read their decisions and consider impeachment hearings.
And then there is the lazy shadow docket stuff. No testimonies, no presentation of legal theory - no consideration of evidence. Just back room blow offs of key issues.
So yeah, let's do something. A lot. Because what we have now are six judges that are characters out of The Handmaids Tale. They represent radical fringe religious nutcase thinking. They are not judges anymore. They are hit men for the Federalist Society and the Oligarchs who buy them."
https://robertreich.substack.com/p/office-hours-what-to-do-about-the?s=r
"Asking a person to serve until death or resignation is nuts."
Yes, watching Ginsberg sleep, all day, on the court for the last four years of her tenure was difficult in the extreme. We all knew someone else was writing her briefs.
I adored her but yes, she should’ve resigned. In her mind, she felt she was doing the right thing by hanging on and we admired her for that, but in the end, she screwed us.
Yes, I came to believe that her ego would not let her resign.
Not sure it was ego as much as she thought it was her responsibility to stay.
Well said. I agree.
💙 x 100
Ha! I read your reply in Reich's substack earlier. Well-said.
What is this nonsense about the 14th amendment covering only those rights “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition”? I find this an intellectual stretch of infinite proportion to be made by an originalist, especially since is nothing in the text of the amendment limiting its own scope. Have justices forgotten that the 9th amendment explicitly states “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people”? Perhaps they think the 9th amendment gives members of the Supreme Court the right to pick and choose which rights they will respect and which they will disparage, depending on their individual political and religious beliefs.
Fran,
The real originalist was John Adams who wrote, in 1780, the first representative constitution for Massachusetts. That document served as the model for the 1787 constitution.
All of his "Thoughts on Government:" are available for ANYONE to read.
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-04-02-0026-0004
"The principal difficulty lies, and the greatest care should be employed in constituting this Representative Assembly. It should be in miniature, an exact portrait of the people at large. It should think, feel, reason, and act like them. That it may be the interest of this Assembly to do strict justice at all times,
it should be an equal representation, or in other words equal interest among the people should have equal interest in it.
Great care should be taken to effect this, and to prevent unfair, partial, and corrupt elections. Such regulations, however, may be better made in times of greater tranquility than the present, and they will spring up of themselves naturally, when all the powers of government come to be in the hands of the people’s friends. At present it will be safest to proceed in all established modes to which the people have been familiarised by habit."
That is all pretty clear to me.
Thank you Fran for citing the 9th Amenment to the U.S. Constitution. Law Professor Joyce Vance (often a MSNBC panelist) has the forensic legal skills to call out BS & gaslighting. Absent from the draft Appendix is a list of the existing state "Trigger Laws" that will vaporise Roe v Wade rights . The Guttmacher Institute (www.guttmacher.org) has the details & a graphic on the 26 states where there is an immediate risk of the loss of more human rights.
We must protect women, families & health care providers now. California has a written right of privacy in the state Constitution & a robust economy to support health care. Going to California.
Lets see now.... rights "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition"....
That would be enslavement of blacks (without their unpaid labor, the economy of the fledgling country would never have made the advancements that it did), or the theft of the very land from the Indigenous peoples and the attempted genocide thereof, and the natural superiority of white male property owners. I do not ignore that women had no "seat at the table" and in fact were the last at the table (after black men) to be "granted" the right to vote.
Hi Ally, I saw this after posting a similar reply.
And what rights are "deeply rooted"? The rights of white men property owners and no one else.
Yes, that would eliminate 3 current Justices and prevent a 4th from being seated to replace retiring Justice Breyer. Justice Thomas better be careful what he wishes for -- just might just be inadvertently forced off the Court should Alito have his way.
Preach, Fran!
I don’t know about any of you but today I was seething. Susan Let-Me-Dangle-the-Carrot Collins has always been a plant by the Repubs. She manages to be so “concerned” about issues or candidates. She is responsible for giving the green light to the latest extremist justices, especially the excessive beer drinker, Kavanaugh. Like Warren angrily voiced today, this party of liars and thieves (my words) has been planning this takeover of the Supreme Court for many years. Alioto’s draft incensed me terribly when he mentioned that Roe v. Wade should have never become law in the first place. How damning is that for a justice who sits on the highest court of the land, question the validity of women’s rights to make her own choices?? I despise them all and believe me, no tears will be shed when they croak. I pray I will be around to see that happen.
Agree about Collins, Marlene. I consider Murkowski the more intelligent of the pair. I was struck by her reaction: "...rocks my confidence in the court." https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-fc-2212&ei=UTF-8&hsimp=yhs-2212&hspart=fc¶m1=7¶m2=eJw1jcsKgzAQRX9llgoSZ5KoFT%2BjqyIuUk01GI34wNKv7wjt4sK55zJM77q6au4PQlRKqzppZu7cSsZrQo0kJZf28sTgFiZJhSB948grrHsb2B8b42GYpvBx3ps0EwjR6eYunBvMOxAKrIBFrit45zoGsyzenvY5uj3NVCFUDtE47JNPwLvRQm%2FbMcTQDmuYbEpIAoUuMxKaYDMvs7r%2Fme36306S%2Fyj5BWyXP%2FY%3D&p=murkowski+reacts+to+leaked+opinion&type=fc_A30C76C6185_s58_g_e_d040122_n1009_c11#id=1&vid=db6339a0674781a0bddbb6d30c5051ba&action=click
Yes, Murkowski is the adult in the room.
Except, Murkowski forgot what it means to be an adult as she followed Collins down the SCOTUS rabbit hole.
True
Think about his arrogance is declaring the earlier Supreme Court was just WRONG. He knows better.
Susan Collins' performance outrage and shock that Kavanaugh lied about Roe under oath during his confirmation hearings was particularly galling to read, especially in light of Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's testimony, which had already shown Kavanaugh to be a liar, and a predator, and finally an ugly angry man incensed by a victim speaking her truth.
She was horrendously vilified just like Anita Hill!🤬 Those bastards tried it with Ketanji Brown Jackson but she is so much smarter than they are.
Alioto is still smarting from the decisions of the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit and the Supreme Court not to overturn Roe v Wade in 1992. This is opportunity for him to payback the courts and pro choice advocates for ignoring his Appeals Court dissent.
It is rich that McConnell is "shocked, shocked" over the fact of the leak while proud of denying Obama a court nomination and then whisking in a Trump's nomination of Barrett while voting had commenced. Is it possible to identify a more two-timing, craven, amoral politician that McConnell?
No. It. Is. Not.
F%$k McTurtleneck. Evil incarnate.
Not. At. All.
" Alito declared that what Americans want doesn’t matter: “We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work,”
We are the ubermensch - you vill do vat we say.
Surely there is a mechanism for ejecting judges that lied under oath (but there's ... oh- "that's what I thought at the time, I have a different opinion now".)
Hugh,
Lying is perfectly acceptable and normal in Washington D.C. The people who are fooled by the lying are the problem.
Murkowski and her ilk who are now claiming they did not know a Harvard Party boy, Kavanaugh were lying, well, THEY ARE LYING.
They knew who Kavanaugh was. We all did.
Murkowski is hiding behind BS.
Impeachment. But the required 2/3 majority vote after trial in the senate means that these Republican Taliban Supreme Court Justices won't be removed.
Is it not perjury?
Marlene,
It is only perjury if you can PROVE that he was lying. Which, nobody can.
So, no, lying on the stand during the confirmation hearings is not perjury in his case.
Nobody can prove he was lying. He can say things in society changed, he can cover easily.
Anyway, nobody will charge him. He is white and wealthy.
🥺🙄 sigh…
THE DAY AFTER A CORRUPT SCOTUS
ENDED ABORTION RIGHTS
The nerve of that Hypocrite so called “Justice” John Roberts to say "To the extent this betrayal of the confidences of the Court was intended to undermine the integrity of our operations, it will not succeed."
UNDERMINE THE INTEGRITY?
Just as the previous president undermined the integrity of his office and put three of these lying, perjured hypocrites on that court, (Gorsuch, Kavanaugh & Barrett) it no longer has any integrity and is now seen as another tool of the fascist Repugnant Party movement in the United States.
Add to that Clarence Thomas, whose wife was active in the insurrection attempt of Jan. 6, 2021, John Roberts apparently has no idea of what is a "singular and egregious breach" of trust.
I woke up at 5AM, a full hour less of my required sleep and I am in that lack of sleep daze.
I will likely crash-nap sometime today. But, I read HCR's letter early and made my comment & now e-mailing it around.
I think the reason I woke up and could not get back to sleep was the anxiety / outrage of the CORRUPTED SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES' impending decision to overturn an accepted civil right for the past half-century. That is unprecedented and if they can do that, it is just a matter of time before other recently established civil rights will be overturned on the federal level, leaving it up to these backward, christian fundamentalist sharia states to overturn others.
Targeted will be same-gender marriage, which if done on a state-by-state basis will create all sorts of problems for married couples traveling from modern civilized states to medieval theocratic states. Will they reinstate the laws against same-sex relations as it was for most of my lifetime, where it was criminal just being homosexual?
Even tho "Uncle" Thomas is a miscegenator, will interracial marriages be outlawed in these backward states? Not everyone agrees with black & white ppl marrying and to gain fundy cult political points you can be sure it will happen. For that matter, can segregation be legal again as it was for much of my lifetime?
These hard-won CIVIL RIGHTS on a national level could be lost just as easily as Roe vs Wade with the current make-up of the Supreme Court.
I, too, was forced to arise a bit earlier than my planned time due to this very thing. Outrage is a good starting point for articulating my feelings. Yup, same gender marriage is next. That worries me considerably, since we've built all of our retirement decisions on my wife being able to receive my retirement and social security benefits, which were made under existing law that I am positive is on the chopping block.
I will fight for you to the nth-est degree, Ally. Like Gandalf said to the Balrog….”you shall not pass!”
I truly hope you are wrong even though I fear that that could be next. I would not be personally affected if same gender marriage would be challenged but we have a lot of friends that would be.
I, too, am losing sleep every night!
Rob, I was tossing and turning too, for the same reasons. Planning a nap today as well.
We weren’t the only ones. This was in my e-mail this morning.
An old friend of mine in Mississippi sent me this video.
If you are not familiar, he uses indecorous language
You been warned.
Liberal Redneck - SCOTUS Overturning Roe v Wade
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404lKddM65E
I absolutely ADORE Trae!! He talks exactly the way everyone I'm surrounded by talks, minus the profanity maybe, but the accent I recognise. I can talk that way if I need to--it's a handy skill to have around here because you can more easily ingratiate yourself with folks down here if you sound like them. They'll more readily trust you, even though at heart you're about as far away from most of what some of them believe as is possible. Trae speaks for a lot of folks down here.
He’s great! That was a good one from him. Thanks.
I adore Trae Crowder. “Gettin’ fitted for pilgrim clothes and forgettin’ how to read.”hahahahahahahahahaha.
Thanks for that link. I love his stuff.
Yes, it’s wonderful! Saw it yesterday.
I woke up at 1:30 am and *could not* get back to sleep, feeling anxious. As I write this, my mind began repeating "One more brick in the wall..."
I, too, had a hard night.
Yes, this! They have undermined their own integrity.
Yes, my thought was, what integrity?
The only thing that pissed me off more than listening to that sanctimonious motherfcking scumbag Ted Cruz go on about how Democrats have "politicized the court" was the memory of the fucking morons like Susan Sarandon saying in 2016 that a Trump victory would "speed the revolution" and when I mentioned to some of the Berner morons I knew that the next president would likely nominate two supreme court justices, having them respond that "the court doesn't matter."
The morons who claim they're on our side are the ones I'd really like to paste in the kisser. The other side, it's expected.
The current "Supreme" Court is down there with all the hack "judges" that a judge I used to know called "Politicians' ball-shiners" (and he wasn't talking about baseballs).
I can’t tell how you really feel TC. <sarcasm>
I'll work on more effective composition. :-)
I threw a couple drops of water on that hot griddle of a comment and voila! Sizzlin, TC, sizzlin’!
TC.
Always love the message in your posts, but, am always somewhat offput by the extraneous components of the English language in use, those not needed and a detraction/distraction.
:-)
Right now we need all the fucking words! Pardon my French but my grandfather taught me those were the only words his cows understood and right now we need to get them across the damn river.
❤️
😂😄
I'm a former sailor and a screenwriter, what can I say? :-)
TC we have 5 former sailors turned fishermen on the Paciific. While none can hold a candle to your speaking ability, they all can talk “salty”. Some currently reside in Davy Jones Locker.
I actually Laughed Out Loud! :-)
If you have time look up The Crew of the Liebling. My uncle, my cousins, and friend Mike perished. Unsolved mysteries. And the dog was found dead on the beach.
None of that today please. May this be a place for venting if necessary.
OK. I understand.
Get over it
That was exactly the argument that I made to many of my friends, who could not be bothered as their "unicorn politics were not being given their proper due" <sarcasm font>.
Call the current SCOTUS majority "conservative" or "right-wing" if you like, but they are truly Regressive. If Roe (1973) and Casey (1992) are not settled law, certainly Obergefell (2015) is not settled law. If Roe and Casey are not settled law, why not throw out Loving (1967)? Why stop there; why not throw out Brown (1954)? Maybe SCOTUS Regressives think we should return to Plessy (1896) and reinstitute "Separate but Equal". What is settled law if Roe is not?
Regressive is such a good word. When FK (in)justice Alito said "rights "deeply rooted in this Nation's history and tradition".... he was talking all that and more. Slavery, genocide, white male property owners at the helm.
FK: A slice of profanity (perhaps vulgarity) that slides past most of the language examiners in the algorithms. The first letter might stand for " for unlawful carnal knowledge" and the other refer to the middle joint of someone's finger.
Is there a way for laws to flex reasonably as change is required or are we just to burn at the stake and rise from the ashes?
As I understand it, Regressive justices would have us turn back the calendar to the days of the Salem witch trials. Burning at the stake is certainly in their arsenal.
They are clearly in bed with mostly white extremists and attacking the civil rights of ALL women! All three of the Trump appointed justices lied under oath when they said that Roe vs. Wade was settled law and they would not be challenging its legitimacy. They should be held accountable for those lies. No one should be above the law and lying under other is against the law! They clearly do not believe in or support the 14th Amendment. They are political operatives and nothing more. What will be the next civil right they will attack?
Thanks to gerrymandering and the Electoral College, the republican Taliban is above the law. Will Social Security be next? Reagan wanted SS thrown out decades ago.
Yes. Social security the slimmest vestige of hope for those trampled workers who’s labors anchor this ship of state.
And for American jurisprudence For Whom the Bells Toll.
Romney’s plan vs. Dem plan
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/mar/31/mitt-romney-cut-back-retirement-benefits-younger-americans
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/26/social-security-what-a-new-plan-in-congress-would-mean-for-benefits.html
He took aid away from black and brown folks plus poor whites. He couldn’t stand seeing brand new cars in their driveways. Despised him! The only decent thing he did was getting rid of the Berlin Wall (at the time) so that my uncle in England could find out how my grandparents died. They were gassed by the Nazis in the camp known as Chelmno.
Yes.
Thank you Heather.
I don't think any of us here in the room were surprised by yesterday's Supreme Court news. I do think we were dismayed, pissed off and disgusted by how we were lied to by the Supreme Court Justices. Now it's out in the open. This exposes more than the Justices.
This exposure has brought out in the daylight that the Supreme Court is nothing more than another bought and paid for branch of the Government.
What I feel is really frying Justice Robert's ass, is that we found out what they had done in February in private and now they can't level us with this just prior to the midterms.
No one on this planet can convince me that this was not a well timed diversion to hit pre-midterms and we found out early.
Be safe. Be well.
I think that CJ Roberts realizes that his tenure as Chief Justice will be forever known by its (un)judicial activism, which is something that he (allegedly) wanted to avoid. This court is stained, nearly as badly as CJ Roger B. Taney's is. It may well end up in the dissolution of the SCOTUS, or at least the denigration of it.
Ally, I completely agree. This is on par with their abuse of the show docket.
You’re right, Ally. Roberts is really seen as a non-entity now.
Agree 1000%, Linda. We are a lot smarter than liars can ever imagine.
Christine, I honestly don't think they realized what they have done.
That is why the dog (that they are)having just caught the car has no idea what to do next. Good. We do.