Can you stand one more post about the Supreme Court’s attack on our fundamental freedoms?
To begin with, when he was asked to comment on Alito’s draft decision, “Mayor Pete” knocked it out of the park. You need to watch this.
Then, in a Facebook Post, my lawyer friend David Honig pointed to Alito’s deeply dishonest “history.”
May I take a moment to comment on one aspect of the shocking dishonesty of Alito’s draft abortion opinion? It’s just one, but it highlights the rest.
Alito and his ilk claim to be “originalists,” wise jurists who look to the meaning of words at the time the Constitution was written, in 1789, to glean their meaning.
One fact first. The 9th Amendment says, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” That means there are rights that aren’t written down, rights that people retain. That would include all the rights, according to an “originalist,” that they held in 1789.
So Alito, in his draft decision, spent paragraphs on the sudden explosion of anti-abortion laws in the mid 19th Century, many decades after the writing of the Constitution, to support his position that abortion wasn’t an existing right to be preserved.
Why would he do that? Why would an “originalist” look, not to the time of the writing of the Constitution, but to a century later, for the very core of the originalist argument?
Because he’s a damned liar.
During Colonial times abortion was quite common. The usual method was actually drinking oil of peppermint, or perhpas black root or cedar root, carefully measured to be enough to cause spontaneous abortion, while not threatening the life of the mother. In English colonies, contrary to Alito’s blatant lie that abortion was illegal from the beginning of Common Law, it was legal until “quickening,” when the fetus could be felt moving.
So my point here isn’t to dive headlong into the abortion debate.
My point is to start the discussion with a fact – the opinion coming down is a lie premised on a lie based on lies.
Whatever you think of abortion, this must color what you think of the Court. The United States Supreme Court has been an actor for good and for ill in our nation over time. The same entity that gave us Plessy vs. Ferguson gave us Brown vs. Board of Education.
But today, that Court is giving us lies in favor of a political, and to some extent religious,* opinion, and doing so boldly and without apology. The end justifies the means, even if it means the United States Supreme Court is a filthy den of liars with as much credibility as the three card monty player on a dingy street corner.
As a man who has spent nearly 40 years working for and believing in the rule of law, while recognizing it is imperfect, the indisputable fact that it is now, from its highest temple, not merely imperfect, but dishonest, is crushing.
Finally, in a footnote, David warns us not to underestimate the degree to which the opinion codifies a conservative version of Christianity as our nation’s one true religion and source of law; as he notes, other religions do not hold the same tenets about abortion that Alito privileges in his dishonest diatribe. Jewish law, for example, considers abortion permissible, as do several Christian denominations. This Court prides itself on what it calls “religious liberty,” but–as David points out–it is really protecting and elevating one version of Christianity, while ignoring the liberties of those who hold different religious, beliefs.
It’s America’s version of Sharia law.
Another bit of info comes from PBS –
It gets into HOW the R’s became so Anti Roe
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/sandra-day-oconnor-and-reconsideration-roe-v-wade/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_4200539
Wait until Amy Coney Barrett’s comments hit the mainstream…Twitter is having a blast!
They wouldn’t have agreed to a conservative bench if the oligarchy didn’t want the abortion laws dismantled.
What has the Democratic Party done to oppose all the appointments under Trump?
They are too busy selling weapons and spending our money to buy the weapons so our Defense Industry can maximize profits. Where are Biden’s diplomacy efforts? Where is Mr. Unity when you need him?
What group of oligarchs want states to decide abortion matters? That would be the Koch network. Why hasn’t Charles Koch been brought in front of Congress to answer for their involvement in the 1/6 insurrection? Charles is also ignoring the sanctions against Russia. What has been Biden’s response?
Once again, in this clown world of propaganda, pay attention to the inaction as much as the actions. 😉
Even the Progressive Caucus has lost so much credibility in Washington that I don’t think Dems have a chance in November or 2024. The oligarchy needs a GOP victory, and they’ll get it.
Note to Todd: The only clown in the room is you. What utter nonsense you drool.
“It’s America’s version of Sharia law.”
And it has been coming on gradually since McConnell loaded the Supreme Court with “conservatives” (CATHOLICS) who are running the show. And it is a show of White Nationalist strength which has been embedded in our government by the MAGA party. Under the guise of pseudo religion we are losing our rights; the male dominated society will only pay if women stick together and boycott sex without birth control. Brett and Amy swore they would not overturn Roe vs. Wade when directly asked by the Senate; both said they would not overturn a standing SCOTUS decision. We knew they lied, Republicans knew they lied and the sitting members of SCOTUS knew they lied. “This Court prides itself on what it calls “religious liberty,” which is upholding and enforcing their personal CATHOLIC beliefs and restraints on women.
Like the fleeing Afghanistan government who entered the pact with Trump to remove our troops and turned the country over to the Taliban; Trump’s pact with the GOP turned over women’s lives to SCOTUS and the CATHOLICS. The Taliban government in Afghanistan has systematically removed Afghan women’s rights and now ordered that they cover their faces. How far will SCOTUS go; should we study Sharia Law or Catholicism for the answer?
We should never forget that the impetus for making abortion illegal was from slave owners who didn’t want future profits aborted.
Terry,
Ad hominem attacks? Lol
How about attempting to answer just one of the questions or raise a counterpoint? Isn’t that how you learn what you don’t know?
Don’t be lazy.
Consider that the fact of the leak might be more damaging than the leak. From a traditional conservative blogger:
“I called up one of the smartest professors I know at one of the top law schools in the country, and he echoed that: “To my knowledge, it’s never happened before in the modern history of the court. It is the most serious possible breach.”
Serious, severe, shocking, he said. But in the end, not surprising. Why not? Here’s how he put it: “To me, the leak is not surprising because many of the people we’ve been graduating from schools like Yale are the kind of people who would do such a thing.”
What did he mean by that? “They think that everything is violence. And so everything is permitted.”
He went on: “I’m sure this person sees themselves as a whistleblower. What they don’t understand is that, by leaking this, they violate the trust that is necessary to maintain the institution.”
Perhaps some of you feel that the institution had already been betrayed. That the Court, long before this leak or this explosive decision, had already been diminished. Maybe the refusal to consider Merrick Garland put you over the edge. Or maybe it was the revelations about Clarence Thomas’s wife and January 6th. Or maybe it was the Kavanaugh hearings. How he was grilled. Or that he was nominated. Or maybe it was earlier: Bush v. Gore or Anita Hill or Robert Bork. no
This feels different than all of that. Why? Because all of those other instances were moments of outrage bookended by long periods of sobriety and seriousness. They were the exceptions that proved the rule. Now, everything seems to have been turned upside down, and the outrage, the uncontrollable or unslakable partisan fury, seems to have overtaken everything. Our sense of history, our respect for the institution, for norms, for even more basic human things: like trust, devotion, privacy, integrity. Jonathan Turley put it this way late last night: “There appears no ethical rule or institutional interest that can withstand this age of rage.”
To the jaded and hardened who have already crossed over into this new age—an age in which power and winning are the only tests of virtue, and the old ideas, like civility and respect, now seem twee—the leak might seem normal or even necessary. But it is nothing more than the most recent salvo in our race to the bottom.”
Lester,
Should our cynicism be amplified since the leak was followed by heavy doses of fundraising by both political parties? Lol
Sorry, couldn’t resist…
Both Mayor Pete and David Honig hit the ball out of the park! Mitch McMcConnell should never have been allowed the power to deny President Obama his legal right to nominate Merrick Garland to the supreme court. McConnell and his cabal of right wing members of congress that willingly and blatantly refuse to follow the law in their quest to gain illegitimate power is worse than despicable. Even worse were the nominations of Kavanaugh and Barrett. They both lied when answering questions by the senate. It was obvious to everyone that watched the hearings, yet both of those liars were confirmed. That is when I lost respect for the supreme court and began referring to it as a Clown court.
When faced with the misfortune of having to deal with extremists of any kind I’ve found that the only way to shut them down is by fighting fire with fire. They are used to gaining power or the upper hand by being the loudest one(s) in the room. The anti-abortionists will win if the pro-life citizens don’t challenge them. Some of you (maybe even most of you) may find my idea on this subject to be extreme, but I believe extreme measures are necessary in this battle for the right of women to have complete control of their body.
I believe women should have an equal right to control men’s bodies if abortions become illegal again. We women should have the legal right to demand the castration of every male that believes abortions should be illegal. The fathers of many members of congress/religious orgs/churches should have been castrated long before they had the chance to impregnate their wives to create horrible members of our society that believe laws don’t apply to them.
Is SCOTUS too old to bother with Dextrol?
Published yesterday 5/7/22, “trending on Twitter,” Vice President of Pfizer Rady Johnson was arrested by federal agents for multiple counts of fraud following release of documents regarding vaccine data.
Because pharma is such a big advertiser, I don’t expect MSM to carry this story, and below Bitchute link may disappear. Reportedly, a judge has granted a media blackout; Google is suppressing search results.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/eG26QJHTDGlW/
Former Mayor Pete’s concluding remarks should be chiseled above the entrance to every voting location:
“In Washington, ultimately, if things that hurt people help you get more power, people will continue to do them. The rest is up to us.”
Gordon Evans… Honey, “trending on Twitter” is not evidence of anything. And Google is not blocking information on this Satirical story.
“Consider that the fact of the leak might be more damaging than the leak.”
Lester; much wisdom is contained in your few words above. Many elements of the future of this entire nation depend on the outcome of the facts in that leak. Thank you!
The nature of the abortion debate is religion. Conservatives have determined that the only way that their fears of the present much less future will be assuaged is by legislating their religion as our state religion, legislating their culture as everyone’s culture.
If that sounds familiar that is also what Putin is doing in the Ukraine. He wants to restore Czarist culture to Russia with him as Czar and to show Russians the consequences of disagreeing with their new Czar he’s using Ukraine as an example.
JoAnn, Theresa, Lester,
All very well put and all points well taken! Gordon, Bitchute or Bitch-ute (UTE, a utility vehicle, usually used to haul a lot of crap) put those together, and you have the core meaning of a site that’s full of conspiratorial angry crap! Theresa nailed it!!!!
Lester,
Absolutely, it might seem more doomsday-ish, but, very accurate! A lot of this hopelessness is going to get worse before it’s time to pay the piper. This particular blogger is one of those don’t do what I do, do what I say folks! It’s okay if we do it, but you can’t! I like the part of the violence and anger, but the only violence and anger come from his ilk! Projection? Yeah projection!
JoAnn,
My friend, thank you for coming over to the dark side lol! Haven’t I been saying the same thing for years? I tried to be nuanced about what I say so folks can connect the dots themselves. Although it seems that many don’t like to draw that picture that the dots represent. Your comment today was excellent!
When we go back in time, as JoAnn pointed out concerning Catholicism, the Catholic church is the Church of rome. It’s the very Church that emperor Constantine put his stamp of approval on, and, manipulated the church Dogma from the original first century Christian Dogma to the Roman and Greek philosophical Dogma.
I’ve tried to point this out for years, but, people have a whole lot of things to say! Usually negative. That being said, the Church is trying to bring back their influence to the world stage just as it was during the beginnings of the dark ages and all the way through the “Age Of Enlightenment” which also included the “Renaissance.”
And, Sheila,
Absolutely! The reason they had the knowledge to induce a miscarriage or abortion was because there were so many stillbirths and dead fetuses killing women. Of course, there were instances where individuals tried to get rid of unwanted pregnancies, but the majority were induced to purge decaying fetuses from women in an attempt to save their lives. Before that knowledge, the mortality rate was for women giving birth was 1,000 women for every 100,000 births. Stillbirths and death within the first year was between 3 and 500 per 1000 births!
If the mother was to survive, those dead fetuses had to be purged. Conveniently, the Church also claimed that killing a child as soon as it was born was not a sin because there was no soul in the child yet! So, there’s that!
Might I state that the Catholic Church’s position on abortion has not always been so restrictive. In fact they followed the writings of Thomas Aquinas, who posited that the fetus became human at the quickening.
This might be the first time in history that an entire draft of a SCOTUS opinion has been leaked, but it is not the first time there have been leaks on the court. In fact, part of the draft opinion in Roe v. Wade was leaked. To focus on the leak, which isn’t illegal, only serves to distract from the force of the opinion itself, which will turn the Constitution upside down for many years to come.
If the Roe decision was based on the right to privacy, what right does Mr. Alito believe has not been retained by the people?
Norris, you hit the nail on the head.
There are so many ways in which McConnell;; is responsible for the situation in which we find ourselves. Of course, we ought not
loose sight of the point that GWB, whose presidency was made possible by the foul legacy of St. Reagan, and his “America needs to
get back to its spiritual roots,” nominated Alito. We have, here, 2 presidents who lied and bullied their way forward.
Mayor Pete, and David Honig, certainly laid out the cards appropriately!
Mitch D.
P.S.: If memory serves me properly, it was GWB who insisted that the words Global warming,” or anything related to it, would not be allowed
in federal reports; Newt Gingrich has never apologized for saying that there was no such thing as acid rain; and Jim Inhofe will never take
responsibility for his inane “snowball” in congress, and point out whose payroll he was on, when he presented it. The party of “Personal responsibility”
NEVER accepts responsibility…they have been living one lie after another, for decades!
Thank you, I just had to get that out.
In the mindset of Mitch, I have to agree.
One other thing, if all of this stuff passes, if all of these things come to fruition, you’re going to see something a whole lot worse than the covid pandemic, the morgues are going to be full of dead women and children. They are definitely not promoting sanctity of life! The use of appropriate contraception would eliminate any need for abortion unless it’s some sort of medical emergency, including abuse! Therefore, they work against their own self-proclaimed self-interests! There is no rational argument to be had concerning being against contraception.
The real global political issue behind abortions is that in the developed world babies per woman have fallen below replenishment rates so Europeans (whites) are falling behind Asian/African/Indigenous/South&Central Americans (coloreds) in population growth.
Will that lead to European Supremacy falling? Yes.
The authoritarian solution?: get to work women making Caucasians as fast as possible.
Mayor Pete never ceases to amaze me with his intelligence and capability of empathy that has been lost in politics. His ability to tell a story and his experience as a cabinet member and family man is going to win him many hearts. I look forward to the day I get to vote for him for President. My hometown Pete. His take about late term abortions last campaign was just as excellent. More of that please Democrats.
Sorry what we’re we talking about?
AgingLGirl – I so agree with you. I have been a major fan of Pete since I met him in French Lick back in 2010 when he was running for Treasurer. He is smart, reasoning, and never condescending.
Lester – I think that Prof. Turley and others are indulging in distraction. “NO, it isn’t the outrageous decision of the court to take away a right because five or six people have decided that after 50 years, it doesn’t exist, or it is for the ‘states’ to bestow or withhold. It’s the fact that we know about it now.” Yes, knowledge of very unpopular actions is a “bad” thing.
Sorry, and “it’s the liberals” could be as disingenuous as well. It is just as likely that it was leaked by conservatives (Justice Thomas to Mrs. Thomas?) to pressure the court majority against backsliding into a partial roll back rather than negating the whole “right to privacy in the bedroom” thing.
Just saying.
As for rage, I remember peaceful protests and I remember riots. Rage, yes. Black lives matter/The Jews will not replace us. There is rage, but think where is started and think who nurtures it. The more we succumb to the “both sides –> ergo both sides equally” thinking, the more the autocratic white nationalists slip by unnoticed.
Again, just saying.
I ordered a few hits of Plan B from Amazon yesterday to hand out to parents of teenage girls. $12 a hit.
Don’t panic.