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babylonsister
babylonsister's Journal
babylonsister's Journal
June 25, 2022
Sens. Warren and Smith urge Biden to declare public health emergency following abortion ruling
From CNN's Sonnet Swire
Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota on Saturday urged President Biden to declare a public health emergency and take other actions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, writing in an op-ed: “We need action, and we need it now.”
The two Democrats also pointed to a letter they had issued earlier this month as a part of group of more than 20 senators who urged the White House to take executive action to protect abortion rights, listing several routes they say Biden could take.
The senators also urged voters to press candidates on their stances over reproductive rights and for their commitment to changing the filibuster in the Senate ultimately needed to pass most legislation, alluding to the expected uphill battle facing Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.
“We can’t undo in five months the damage it took Republicans five decades to accomplish, but we can immediately start repairing our democracy,” they wrote.
Sens. Warren and Smith urge Biden to declare public health emergency following abortion ruling
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/abortion-roe-v-wade-supreme-court-06-25-22/index.htmlSens. Warren and Smith urge Biden to declare public health emergency following abortion ruling
From CNN's Sonnet Swire
Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Tina Smith of Minnesota on Saturday urged President Biden to declare a public health emergency and take other actions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, writing in an op-ed: “We need action, and we need it now.”
“On Friday, with the release of the Dobbs decision, we entered a perilous time that threatens millions of women across this nation,” the Democratic senators wrote in the op-ed published Saturday in The New York Times.
“We urge the president to declare a public health emergency to protect abortion access for all Americans, unlocking critical resources and authority that states and the federal government can use to meet the surge in demand for reproductive health services,” they continued. “The danger is real, and Democrats must meet it with the urgency it deserves.”
The two Democrats also pointed to a letter they had issued earlier this month as a part of group of more than 20 senators who urged the White House to take executive action to protect abortion rights, listing several routes they say Biden could take.
The senators also urged voters to press candidates on their stances over reproductive rights and for their commitment to changing the filibuster in the Senate ultimately needed to pass most legislation, alluding to the expected uphill battle facing Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections.
“We can’t undo in five months the damage it took Republicans five decades to accomplish, but we can immediately start repairing our democracy,” they wrote.
June 25, 2022
There is only one proper response to this travesty
Published by digby on June 24, 2022
Vote out the right wing miscreants
We can’t do much about the Supreme radicals but we can stop the right wing from doing even more damage. This is on Mitch McConnell more than any other single person. When he refused to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland, thus holding that seat open so the wingnuts anti-abortion zealots would even vote for the orange libertine, he sealed our fate. There would be no Gorsuch and Anthony Kennedy would not have retired if Hillary Clinton were president. (If he did, he would have been replaced by someone more liberal.) We would have a at least a 5-4 court to uphold Roe today if Mitch had not blown up all norms in service of his own power.
It’s vitally important that Democrats do everything they can to prevent these Republicans from winning majorities and the presidency. This court is going to do their worst but if the Democrats can control the other two branches there are ways they can mitigate some of the worst excesses on a national level. And they have to work hard in their states to deprive these anti-democratic far right Republicans of power to dominate from the minority. It’s a grave situation but it isn’t hopeless. But it’s going to require that everyone gets out of their funk from Trump and the pandemic and re-engage immediately. It’s a matter of survival.
Josh Marshall puts it this way:
more...
https://digbysblog.net/2022/06/24/there-is-only-one-proper-response-to-this-travesty/
There is only one proper response to this travesty
There is only one proper response to this travesty
Published by digby on June 24, 2022
Vote out the right wing miscreants
We can’t do much about the Supreme radicals but we can stop the right wing from doing even more damage. This is on Mitch McConnell more than any other single person. When he refused to even hold a hearing for Merrick Garland, thus holding that seat open so the wingnuts anti-abortion zealots would even vote for the orange libertine, he sealed our fate. There would be no Gorsuch and Anthony Kennedy would not have retired if Hillary Clinton were president. (If he did, he would have been replaced by someone more liberal.) We would have a at least a 5-4 court to uphold Roe today if Mitch had not blown up all norms in service of his own power.
It’s vitally important that Democrats do everything they can to prevent these Republicans from winning majorities and the presidency. This court is going to do their worst but if the Democrats can control the other two branches there are ways they can mitigate some of the worst excesses on a national level. And they have to work hard in their states to deprive these anti-democratic far right Republicans of power to dominate from the minority. It’s a grave situation but it isn’t hopeless. But it’s going to require that everyone gets out of their funk from Trump and the pandemic and re-engage immediately. It’s a matter of survival.
Josh Marshall puts it this way:
As I wrote last month here and reiterated in this Times oped earlier this month, this is the one path to reviving Roe’s protections. Get 48 Senators on the record clearly and publicly promising to pass a Roe law in January 2023 and change the filibuster rules to make that possible. That puts abortion rights and Roe protections clearly on the ballot. It’s not a certain path by any means. But it is certainly the only path available right now.
more...
https://digbysblog.net/2022/06/24/there-is-only-one-proper-response-to-this-travesty/
June 25, 2022
Molly Gum/FB
"I'm sick of living in a country..."
https://www.facebook.com/molly.gum.3Molly Gum/FB
I’m sick of living in a country that continues to move backward while the rest of the world moves forward.
I’m sick of living in a country where a radical religious minority disproportionally holds power and continues to impose their theology on the rest of us.
I’m sick of living in a country that values guns more than children.
I’m sick of living in a country where women are relegated to second-class status.
I’m sick of living in a country where five unelected justices can curtail the rights of millions of people.
I’m sick of living in a country where fascist mentalities are mistaken for patriotism.
I’m sick of living in a country that serves corporations instead of people.
I’m sick of living in a country where politicians care more about their power than doing what’s right.
I’m sick of living in a country that refuses to confront how racism has shaped and continues to influence our institutions.
I’m sick of living in a country that tries to shame and disparage LGBTQ+ humans for simply living their truth.
I’m sick of living in a country that doesn’t believe healthcare is a basic human right.
I’m sick of living in a country that prioritizes banning books over funding education.
I’m sick of living in a country that demonizes and dehumanizes immigrants fleeing violence and oppression.
I’m sick of living in a country that rejects science and disregards public health and safety in the name of “freedom.”
I’m sick of living in a country that has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its incarcerated people so private, for-profit prisons can rake in millions of tax dollars.
America is no longer great. America no longer deserves to call itself a beacon of freedom and liberty. We are at a crossroads as a nation. Your vote has never mattered more than it does today.
I’m sick of living in a country where a radical religious minority disproportionally holds power and continues to impose their theology on the rest of us.
I’m sick of living in a country that values guns more than children.
I’m sick of living in a country where women are relegated to second-class status.
I’m sick of living in a country where five unelected justices can curtail the rights of millions of people.
I’m sick of living in a country where fascist mentalities are mistaken for patriotism.
I’m sick of living in a country that serves corporations instead of people.
I’m sick of living in a country where politicians care more about their power than doing what’s right.
I’m sick of living in a country that refuses to confront how racism has shaped and continues to influence our institutions.
I’m sick of living in a country that tries to shame and disparage LGBTQ+ humans for simply living their truth.
I’m sick of living in a country that doesn’t believe healthcare is a basic human right.
I’m sick of living in a country that prioritizes banning books over funding education.
I’m sick of living in a country that demonizes and dehumanizes immigrants fleeing violence and oppression.
I’m sick of living in a country that rejects science and disregards public health and safety in the name of “freedom.”
I’m sick of living in a country that has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of its incarcerated people so private, for-profit prisons can rake in millions of tax dollars.
America is no longer great. America no longer deserves to call itself a beacon of freedom and liberty. We are at a crossroads as a nation. Your vote has never mattered more than it does today.
June 25, 2022
Merrick Garland Says States Can’t Ban Abortion Pills
June 24, 2022 at 3:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
Merrick Garland Says States Can't Ban Abortion Pills
https://politicalwire.com/2022/06/24/merrick-garland-says-states-cant-ban-abortion-pills/Merrick Garland Says States Can’t Ban Abortion Pills
June 24, 2022 at 3:34 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard
Attorney General Merrick Garland said, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, “that states cannot ban mifepristone, a medication that is used to bring about an abortion, based on disagreement with the federal government on its safety and efficacy,” Axios reports.
According to the Washington Post, Garland also signaled the Justice Department “is preparing for legal battles on a host of related issues — from women traveling to states where the procedures are legal, to accessing pills that can induce abortions.”
According to the Washington Post, Garland also signaled the Justice Department “is preparing for legal battles on a host of related issues — from women traveling to states where the procedures are legal, to accessing pills that can induce abortions.”
June 25, 2022
Dear Pelosi and Schumer: Cancel recess. Expand the court. Nuke the filibuster
Joan McCarter
Daily Kos Staff
Friday June 24, 2022 · 3:40 PM EDT
Democratic lawmakers’ response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s destruction of reproductive rights for the nation has been, let’s say less than urgent. Less than cognizant of the absolute earthquake that just rocked us. Less than aware that we are all looking to them to DO. SOMETHING.
Start with canceling recess. Start with acknowledging that the nation is on fire and that it is their job to start putting the fire out. Recognize that that is what we elected them to do in 2018 and 2020. Show us that they understand that we put our faith in them to do this job. We’re paying them to do it. It is their responsibility.
Then act. Don’t just hold hearings on how awful it is that we just witnessed the end of federal protections for abortion rights. Put legislation on the floor to codify abortion rights and put everyone on the record. Take Justice Clarence Thomas at his word and put legislation on the floor to codify our right to birth control, and put every Republican on the record on that. Put legislation on the floor to codify protections for same-sex relationships and marriages, and put every lawmaker on record on that. Put legislation on the floor to codify the right to interracial marriages, and make every Republican vote on that.
End the filibuster. Don’t let Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski off the hook. They all voted once already this Congress to carve out a filibuster exception for raising the debt ceiling. Make them do the same to preserve abortion rights.
Fix the Supreme Court. Nothing this Congress could do to protect our rights will stand as long as the Supreme Court as it is currently constructed stands. Address that fact.
Address the fact that every one of the extremist judges who did this lied to Congress in their confirmation hearings and that we all know that. Show there will be consequences for those lies, including reforms that could end their lifetime tenure on that Court. Including adding justices to dilute their toxic influence. Including imposing a code of ethics that every other federal judge is supposed to adhere to. Including constraining their power legislatively.
While you’re at it, start impeach proceedings—and investigations--against Clarence Thomas. Because there’s every likelihood that he’s as much an insurrectionist as his wife and a danger to the republic.
Most of all, wake the fuck up and recognize that this is war.
https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1540398276238770180
This. Is. War. Republicans declared it decades ago, and too many Democrats not only didn’t acknowledge that—they didn’t even recognize it.
We, the base of loyal progressives and Democrats will continue to fight and will continue to vote and get out the vote and donate and every other thing. But if you’re going to get more people than just us to do all that, you’ve got to show that you deserve it.
Prove that you deserve it.
Dear Pelosi and Schumer: Cancel recess. Expand the court. Nuke the filibuster
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/24/2106087/-Dear-Pelosi-and-Schumer-Cancel-recess-Expand-the-court-Nuke-the-filibusterDear Pelosi and Schumer: Cancel recess. Expand the court. Nuke the filibuster
Joan McCarter
Daily Kos Staff
Friday June 24, 2022 · 3:40 PM EDT
Democratic lawmakers’ response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s destruction of reproductive rights for the nation has been, let’s say less than urgent. Less than cognizant of the absolute earthquake that just rocked us. Less than aware that we are all looking to them to DO. SOMETHING.
Start with canceling recess. Start with acknowledging that the nation is on fire and that it is their job to start putting the fire out. Recognize that that is what we elected them to do in 2018 and 2020. Show us that they understand that we put our faith in them to do this job. We’re paying them to do it. It is their responsibility.
Then act. Don’t just hold hearings on how awful it is that we just witnessed the end of federal protections for abortion rights. Put legislation on the floor to codify abortion rights and put everyone on the record. Take Justice Clarence Thomas at his word and put legislation on the floor to codify our right to birth control, and put every Republican on the record on that. Put legislation on the floor to codify protections for same-sex relationships and marriages, and put every lawmaker on record on that. Put legislation on the floor to codify the right to interracial marriages, and make every Republican vote on that.
End the filibuster. Don’t let Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema and Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski off the hook. They all voted once already this Congress to carve out a filibuster exception for raising the debt ceiling. Make them do the same to preserve abortion rights.
Fix the Supreme Court. Nothing this Congress could do to protect our rights will stand as long as the Supreme Court as it is currently constructed stands. Address that fact.
Address the fact that every one of the extremist judges who did this lied to Congress in their confirmation hearings and that we all know that. Show there will be consequences for those lies, including reforms that could end their lifetime tenure on that Court. Including adding justices to dilute their toxic influence. Including imposing a code of ethics that every other federal judge is supposed to adhere to. Including constraining their power legislatively.
While you’re at it, start impeach proceedings—and investigations--against Clarence Thomas. Because there’s every likelihood that he’s as much an insurrectionist as his wife and a danger to the republic.
Most of all, wake the fuck up and recognize that this is war.
https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1540398276238770180
This. Is. War. Republicans declared it decades ago, and too many Democrats not only didn’t acknowledge that—they didn’t even recognize it.
We, the base of loyal progressives and Democrats will continue to fight and will continue to vote and get out the vote and donate and every other thing. But if you’re going to get more people than just us to do all that, you’ve got to show that you deserve it.
Prove that you deserve it.
June 25, 2022
The Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
6/24/2022
The Supreme Court vs. the United States, Part 1: Alito Loves Fetuses, Hates Women
snip//
Alito and the rest of a cruel quintet who overruled Roe and Casey are quite literally splitting the country in two so that the quality of health care a woman receives will be dependent on which state she lives in. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is that a fetus might live outside the womb if born prematurely a couple of weeks earlier in a city than in a village in the mountains of Ecuador? About 1% of all abortions happen after 21 weeks. How does that in any way justify a decision that will allow states to outlaw the 99% of abortions that clearly occur before the fetus can live on its own? Even John Roberts thought that was fucked. I mean, it's a fucking game to the majority. It's absolutely nonsensical, so much that it only makes sense if you say that Alito loves fetuses and hates women, which is part and parcel with a Christian extremist view of the sexes.
Because that's what this is, you know. It is a cabal of Christian extremists, radical Catholics and nutzoid fundamentalists, deciding that women have had enough freedom and those whores deserve whatever hell they have to go through. They are imposing their radical, extremist doctrine on the rest of us and pretending that it's freedom.
In my home state of Louisiana, the anti-choice Democratic governor signed an update to the state's trigger law on Monday that said abortion would be outlawed in the state the second Roe was overturned. And so it was. The three remaining clinics in the state, in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, stopped performing abortions. While the morning after pill remains legal, other drug-induced abortions are also outlawed, and there are no exceptions for pregnancies for rape and incest. With Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi also banning abortions, the closest place for a safe, legal abortion right now is in Pensacola, Florida, and who knows how long that will last with Ron DeSantis fascisting up the joint. Then women in Louisiana would have to travel to North Carolina or Illinois. Madness. And then states might pass laws that say you can't travel through them to get an abortion because of course they will.
Sorry. I'm not thinking completely rationally today. We've known this day was coming for a long time. We've been waiting for it since at least the 1990s, probably since Clarence Thomas was confirmed. Many of us have been waving our arms and screaming that this was coming, to stop trusting any motherfuckers who said not to worry, to stop pretending that anyone on the right was honorable. We knew it would happen.
But that expectation doesn't make it hurt less. It doesn't reduce the feeling of panic. It doesn't mitigate the despair for what a fucked beyond fucked nation we've become, what backwater we've turned into. We're not a shining city on a hill. We're a teetering shack on a pile of shit.
Mostly, though, it doesn't make me feel less sorrowful for women, from the preteen rape victim to the mother who doesn't want another child to any woman or girl who fucking wants to choose when she has children. If my nieces get pregnant, I will fly them anywhere they want to go if they want to get rid of the fetus. Fuck that fetus.
We failed. We fucked up and we failed. We let the worst fucking people keep winning. We can't let that keep happening. There's going to be a pile of women's corpses to remind us of that.
The vile Christian pricks have tasted blood. They are completely unleashed, and they are heading for a feeding frenzy. We better be ready.
More on that coming up.
Rude Pundit: The Supreme Court vs. the United States, Part 1: Alito Loves Fetuses, Hates Women
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2022/06/the-supreme-court-vs-united-states-part.htmlThe Rude Pundit
Proudly lowering the level of political discourse
6/24/2022
The Supreme Court vs. the United States, Part 1: Alito Loves Fetuses, Hates Women
snip//
Alito and the rest of a cruel quintet who overruled Roe and Casey are quite literally splitting the country in two so that the quality of health care a woman receives will be dependent on which state she lives in. But that doesn't matter. What does matter is that a fetus might live outside the womb if born prematurely a couple of weeks earlier in a city than in a village in the mountains of Ecuador? About 1% of all abortions happen after 21 weeks. How does that in any way justify a decision that will allow states to outlaw the 99% of abortions that clearly occur before the fetus can live on its own? Even John Roberts thought that was fucked. I mean, it's a fucking game to the majority. It's absolutely nonsensical, so much that it only makes sense if you say that Alito loves fetuses and hates women, which is part and parcel with a Christian extremist view of the sexes.
Because that's what this is, you know. It is a cabal of Christian extremists, radical Catholics and nutzoid fundamentalists, deciding that women have had enough freedom and those whores deserve whatever hell they have to go through. They are imposing their radical, extremist doctrine on the rest of us and pretending that it's freedom.
In my home state of Louisiana, the anti-choice Democratic governor signed an update to the state's trigger law on Monday that said abortion would be outlawed in the state the second Roe was overturned. And so it was. The three remaining clinics in the state, in Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and New Orleans, stopped performing abortions. While the morning after pill remains legal, other drug-induced abortions are also outlawed, and there are no exceptions for pregnancies for rape and incest. With Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi also banning abortions, the closest place for a safe, legal abortion right now is in Pensacola, Florida, and who knows how long that will last with Ron DeSantis fascisting up the joint. Then women in Louisiana would have to travel to North Carolina or Illinois. Madness. And then states might pass laws that say you can't travel through them to get an abortion because of course they will.
Sorry. I'm not thinking completely rationally today. We've known this day was coming for a long time. We've been waiting for it since at least the 1990s, probably since Clarence Thomas was confirmed. Many of us have been waving our arms and screaming that this was coming, to stop trusting any motherfuckers who said not to worry, to stop pretending that anyone on the right was honorable. We knew it would happen.
But that expectation doesn't make it hurt less. It doesn't reduce the feeling of panic. It doesn't mitigate the despair for what a fucked beyond fucked nation we've become, what backwater we've turned into. We're not a shining city on a hill. We're a teetering shack on a pile of shit.
Mostly, though, it doesn't make me feel less sorrowful for women, from the preteen rape victim to the mother who doesn't want another child to any woman or girl who fucking wants to choose when she has children. If my nieces get pregnant, I will fly them anywhere they want to go if they want to get rid of the fetus. Fuck that fetus.
We failed. We fucked up and we failed. We let the worst fucking people keep winning. We can't let that keep happening. There's going to be a pile of women's corpses to remind us of that.
The vile Christian pricks have tasted blood. They are completely unleashed, and they are heading for a feeding frenzy. We better be ready.
More on that coming up.
June 25, 2022
Justices Are Not Kings
There is no court legitimacy without public trust in the court.
By Dahlia Lithwick
June 24, 2022 5:57 PM
snip//
Today, for the first time in constitutional history, the United States Supreme Court, by a 6–3 margin, took a fundamental constitutionally protected right away from half the population, a right around which generations of women and families have ordered their lives. Make no mistake, the same court that just 24 hours earlier had determined that the decision to carry a gun on the streets is such an essential aspect of personal liberty that states may not be permitted to regulate it has now declared that decisions about abortion, miscarriage, contraception, economic survival, child-rearing, and intimate family matters are worthy of zero solicitude. None. In their view of liberty, women were worthy of zero solicitude at the founding, and remain unworthy of it today. As Mark Joseph Stern notes, women will suffer. Some will be refused treatment for miscarriages, and some will be turned away from emergency rooms. Some will be hunted down, spied on, and prosecuted for seeking health care, medication, and autonomy. The majority glibly tells us that because the harms to these people are unknowable, they are not urgent—or at the very least, less urgent than the harms faced by people who would like to see more guns in public spaces.
But ordinary Americans do not think these harms are trivial. On Thursday, Gallup polling showed public approval for the Supreme Court to be at a historic low—25 percent. It’s a precipitous drop from the prior historic low the court received in September, which sat at about 38 percent. The six justices in the majority of Dobbs will comfort themselves that this doesn’t matter. They will tell themselves that they corrected a historical injustice and that they saved unborn babies. They will say that they have lifetime tenure in order to protect against the whims of the majorities. They will blame protesters and they will continue to blame the press. Even the much-vaunted centrism and pragmatism of Chief Justice John Roberts seems to have left the building. Notwithstanding the fact of his seemingly moderate concurrence—in joining with a majority that could not wait to do in three years what they could do in one—it is clear that he has lost his court, and that he is surely less worried about the public regard for the institution than we had believed.
snip//
The dissenters understand where to place the blame for this loss of legitimacy. Even in the notoriously collegial Supreme Court, they place it squarely, and fairly, on a majority that has spent a year proving itself unwilling to moderate tone, language, conduct, and pace in exchange for the appearance of sobriety. The “stench,” as Sotomayor once warned, will not dissipate just because the majority can’t smell it.
There will not be a glorious peace that settles over the land now that this issue has been sent back to the states, no matter how much Justice Brett Kavanaugh wants you to believe it. There will be infighting among states, and vicious criminal prosecutions, and joyous theological efforts to secure future harms for gay partners and families struggling with IVF and women seeking contraception. The people who suffer the most will be the poorest, the youngest, the sickest—the people whose interests don’t even warrant acknowledgment by the majority opinion.
The dissenters sign off in “sorrow.” It is a sentiment that is surely directed at millions of women who will suffer appallingly as a result of this ruling. But it is also sorrow for an institution that was always rooted in an idea that there had to be a relationship between the public trust and judicial power. Justices are not kings. They can demand silent reverence, but it is not assured them. There have been plenty of us warning that this relationship was in jeopardy for many years, and the warnings were dismissed as efforts to undermine the court. Today’s decision confirms that, if and when the public is finally ready to give up on the court, there will be nobody to blame but the six justices who gave them nothing to believe in.
Dahlia Lithwick: Justices Are Not Kings
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/06/dobbs-decision-supreme-court-legitimacy.htmlJustices Are Not Kings
There is no court legitimacy without public trust in the court.
By Dahlia Lithwick
June 24, 2022 5:57 PM
snip//
Today, for the first time in constitutional history, the United States Supreme Court, by a 6–3 margin, took a fundamental constitutionally protected right away from half the population, a right around which generations of women and families have ordered their lives. Make no mistake, the same court that just 24 hours earlier had determined that the decision to carry a gun on the streets is such an essential aspect of personal liberty that states may not be permitted to regulate it has now declared that decisions about abortion, miscarriage, contraception, economic survival, child-rearing, and intimate family matters are worthy of zero solicitude. None. In their view of liberty, women were worthy of zero solicitude at the founding, and remain unworthy of it today. As Mark Joseph Stern notes, women will suffer. Some will be refused treatment for miscarriages, and some will be turned away from emergency rooms. Some will be hunted down, spied on, and prosecuted for seeking health care, medication, and autonomy. The majority glibly tells us that because the harms to these people are unknowable, they are not urgent—or at the very least, less urgent than the harms faced by people who would like to see more guns in public spaces.
But ordinary Americans do not think these harms are trivial. On Thursday, Gallup polling showed public approval for the Supreme Court to be at a historic low—25 percent. It’s a precipitous drop from the prior historic low the court received in September, which sat at about 38 percent. The six justices in the majority of Dobbs will comfort themselves that this doesn’t matter. They will tell themselves that they corrected a historical injustice and that they saved unborn babies. They will say that they have lifetime tenure in order to protect against the whims of the majorities. They will blame protesters and they will continue to blame the press. Even the much-vaunted centrism and pragmatism of Chief Justice John Roberts seems to have left the building. Notwithstanding the fact of his seemingly moderate concurrence—in joining with a majority that could not wait to do in three years what they could do in one—it is clear that he has lost his court, and that he is surely less worried about the public regard for the institution than we had believed.
snip//
The dissenters understand where to place the blame for this loss of legitimacy. Even in the notoriously collegial Supreme Court, they place it squarely, and fairly, on a majority that has spent a year proving itself unwilling to moderate tone, language, conduct, and pace in exchange for the appearance of sobriety. The “stench,” as Sotomayor once warned, will not dissipate just because the majority can’t smell it.
There will not be a glorious peace that settles over the land now that this issue has been sent back to the states, no matter how much Justice Brett Kavanaugh wants you to believe it. There will be infighting among states, and vicious criminal prosecutions, and joyous theological efforts to secure future harms for gay partners and families struggling with IVF and women seeking contraception. The people who suffer the most will be the poorest, the youngest, the sickest—the people whose interests don’t even warrant acknowledgment by the majority opinion.
The dissenters sign off in “sorrow.” It is a sentiment that is surely directed at millions of women who will suffer appallingly as a result of this ruling. But it is also sorrow for an institution that was always rooted in an idea that there had to be a relationship between the public trust and judicial power. Justices are not kings. They can demand silent reverence, but it is not assured them. There have been plenty of us warning that this relationship was in jeopardy for many years, and the warnings were dismissed as efforts to undermine the court. Today’s decision confirms that, if and when the public is finally ready to give up on the court, there will be nobody to blame but the six justices who gave them nothing to believe in.
June 24, 2022
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3535841-thomas-calls-for-overturning-precedents-on-contraceptives-lgbtq-rights/
Thomas calls for overturning precedents on contraceptives, LGBTQ rights
by Harper Neidig - 06/24/22 11:08 AM ET
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday called for overturning the constitutional rights the court had affirmed for access to contraceptives and LGBTQ rights in an opinion concurring with the majority to decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In his separate opinion, Thomas acknowledged that Friday’s decision does not directly affect any rights besides abortion. But he argued that the constitution’s Due Process Clause does not secure a right to an abortion or any other substantive rights, and he urged the court to apply that reasoning to other landmark cases.
Thomas wrote, “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
snip//
In Griswold v. Connecticut, the court ruled in 1965 that married couples have a right to access contraceptive. In 2003, the court said in Lawrence v. Texas that states could not outlaw consensual gay sex. And the court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
Thomas calls for overturning precedents on contraceptives, LGBTQ rights
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/3535841-thomas-calls-for-overturning-precedents-on-contraceptives-lgbtq-rights/
Thomas calls for overturning precedents on contraceptives, LGBTQ rights
by Harper Neidig - 06/24/22 11:08 AM ET
Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas on Friday called for overturning the constitutional rights the court had affirmed for access to contraceptives and LGBTQ rights in an opinion concurring with the majority to decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
In his separate opinion, Thomas acknowledged that Friday’s decision does not directly affect any rights besides abortion. But he argued that the constitution’s Due Process Clause does not secure a right to an abortion or any other substantive rights, and he urged the court to apply that reasoning to other landmark cases.
Thomas wrote, “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell.”
snip//
In Griswold v. Connecticut, the court ruled in 1965 that married couples have a right to access contraceptive. In 2003, the court said in Lawrence v. Texas that states could not outlaw consensual gay sex. And the court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges established a constitutional right to same-sex marriage.
June 24, 2022
Trump Told DOJ 'Just Say Election Was Corrupt And Leave The Rest To Me'
DOJ senior official Richard Donoghue testified in great detail about the many ways Trump tried to overthrow the 2020 election results, using the DOJ.
By John Amato — June 23, 2022
Richard Donoghue, a senior DOJ official under the Trump administration gave very explicit and minute testimony to the January 6 Select Committee of all the efforts Trump tried to overthrow the 2020 election, including trying to make them accomplices in his criminality.
snip//
Kinzinger asked again, "So let's now put up the notes where you quote the president. As you're speaking to that, he said the president said 'Just say the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen' so, Mr. Donoghue, that's a direct quote from President Trump, correct?"
Donoghue replied, "That's an exact quote from the President, yes."
Forget about evidence, truth, or honesty. Trump wanted the DOJ to tell the American people that the entire 2020 election was corrupt. Even after the DOJ investigated many of the false claims he was being fed with and found there was no voter fraud that made him lose the election.
Please get the handcuffs out as soon as possible.
Trump Told DOJ 'Just Say Election Was Corrupt And Leave The Rest To Me'
https://crooksandliars.com/2022/06/trump-just-say-its-corrupt-and-leave-it-meTrump Told DOJ 'Just Say Election Was Corrupt And Leave The Rest To Me'
DOJ senior official Richard Donoghue testified in great detail about the many ways Trump tried to overthrow the 2020 election results, using the DOJ.
By John Amato — June 23, 2022
Richard Donoghue, a senior DOJ official under the Trump administration gave very explicit and minute testimony to the January 6 Select Committee of all the efforts Trump tried to overthrow the 2020 election, including trying to make them accomplices in his criminality.
snip//
Kinzinger asked again, "So let's now put up the notes where you quote the president. As you're speaking to that, he said the president said 'Just say the election was corrupt, and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen' so, Mr. Donoghue, that's a direct quote from President Trump, correct?"
Donoghue replied, "That's an exact quote from the President, yes."
Forget about evidence, truth, or honesty. Trump wanted the DOJ to tell the American people that the entire 2020 election was corrupt. Even after the DOJ investigated many of the false claims he was being fed with and found there was no voter fraud that made him lose the election.
Please get the handcuffs out as soon as possible.
June 24, 2022
Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t find anyone who had been watching the proceedings, and that included one woman in a red Trump visor who was demanding an “investigation” to prove her theory that Nancy Pelosi was behind the insurrection.
Another pair of young women didn’t even know what Klepper was talking about when he mentioned January 6th. “Election Day?” one of them asked. They seemed similarly unfamiliar with the term “insurrection.”
more...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jordan-klepper-confronts-clueless-trumpers-with-jan-6-hearing-clips?ref=home
Jordan Klepper Confronts Clueless Trumpers With Jan. 6 Hearing Clips
THIS is our challenge.
Jordan Klepper Confronts Clueless Trumpers With Jan. 6 Hearing Clips
BLINDSIDED
This is what happened when ‘The Daily Show’ correspondent showed Trump supporters what they don’t want to see.
Matt Wilstein
Senior Writer
Updated Jun. 23, 2022 9:28PM ET / Published Jun. 23, 2022 9:10PM ET
One of the biggest questions surrounding the January 6th Committee hearings this month is whether Donald Trump’s most loyal supporters would even tune in let alone be open to seeing him in a new light. Only The Daily Show’s Jordan Klepper had the idea to bring the hearings to them.
In his latest dispatch from MAGA country, Klepper traveled to a Trump rally in Mississippi to first find out whether anyone waiting to get in had been watching the hearings and then play them some of the most damning clips on an iPad and see what they made of them.
Unsurprisingly, he couldn’t find anyone who had been watching the proceedings, and that included one woman in a red Trump visor who was demanding an “investigation” to prove her theory that Nancy Pelosi was behind the insurrection.
Another pair of young women didn’t even know what Klepper was talking about when he mentioned January 6th. “Election Day?” one of them asked. They seemed similarly unfamiliar with the term “insurrection.”
more...
https://www.thedailybeast.com/jordan-klepper-confronts-clueless-trumpers-with-jan-6-hearing-clips?ref=home
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