There is a proper response to this travesty
Tonight, I wish to pull a response from one of my favorite bloggers. It is a good read. I think you will enjoy it too after enduring all of the BS coming out of SCOTUS. Then there is the Republican caused national crisis. It is the proper response to both issues.
“There is only one proper response to this travesty,” Hullabaloo, digby, on June 24, 2022
Vote out the right-wing miscreants
digby; 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 (If he did, he would have been replaced by someone more liberal.)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.
Nearly two-thirds of Americans said they are more likely to back candidates who support the right to abortion in the November midterm elections, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted on Tuesday.
The poll of 998 voters also found that a plurality of Americans – 41% – said the country would be a worse place to live if the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that established the right to abortion nationwide.
It was conducted hours after the publication of a draft opinion by the top court signaling that the justices were ready to do just that. The court on Tuesday confirmed that the opinion was authentic but also said that it was not final. read more
Some 63% of respondents, including 78% of Democrats and 49% of Republicans, said they were more likely to support candidates who support abortion rights in the Nov. 8 election that will determine control of Congress for the next two years.
That certainly seems like something to work with.
Me: This is the meat of digby’s commentary today. I did not include two tweets. To digby’s point. If what is happening this week does not anger people, wanting to vote these jackasses out, I do not know what will.
Kavanaugh Gave Private Assurances. Collins Says He ‘Misled’ Her.
NY Times – June 24
(‘Right-to-Life’ jurists and legislators apparently decided some decades ago that the only way to advance their cause was to lie or ‘mislead’ about their intentions.) To be fair, Alito never said during his confirmation that ‘Roe v Wade’ was settled law, in his opinion.)
Collins wasn’t interested in the truth, she was only interested in political cover. That’s what she got. Of course, now she’s “shocked, shocked.”
Feh.
Yes . . .
Just like a little old lady next door. Chalk in a message on her sidewalk. Let her know. Oh, what a surprise, they lied!
This strikes me as the negative image of 1965 when the Democrats passed the Civil Rights Act. They expected that it would be tough sledding for a time but there weren’t many people who thought they would be locked out of the South for over sixty years. This is going to cause a major re-alignment of a magnitude that is being vastly underestimated by most current analysis. The Republican Party has made a pact with the zealots that involved a wink a nod to the pragmatic wing of their supporters. “I’ll take that tax cut and don’t worry about the abortion thing, its never going to happen” Well the dog has caught the car now. It is going to be interesting watching it fumble around with the keys.
I hope you are right. However, while I agree many people did not think it would last 60 years and still going on, many people looked at Wallace’s numbers in 1968 and saw the future.
Abortion Ruling Poses New Questions About How Far Supreme Court Will Go
NY Times – June 24
If America is effectively a center-right quasi-democracy because certain Constitutional provisions lead to too-frequent right-wing presidencies & senate majorities that yield far too many reactionary Supreme Court justices, appointed for life. The middle of the country, including the south and much of the west, seems to believe this is ‘right & proper’.
Of course, the Senate Filibuster is NOT a Constitutional provision, but neither party truly supports doing away with it, because the Senate enshrines minority dominance in ‘their house’.
The filibuster is a Senate rule. Making Senate rules is in Article 1, Section 5.
The GOP for some decades has controlled the Senate, whether or not they are in the majority, relying on the filibuster (*) when they are in the minority, even preventing a Dem majority from selecting a replacement for Tony Scalia upon his death. Now, when the Dems are quite possibly going to lose their tie-vote-from-the-VP senate majority, they are not inclined to end the filibuster.
* – However, all it takes is an objection from one Senator to halt proceedings & nominations, nothing to do with filibusters. Just another rule.
Christ, you really should stop commenting. The Reps had a majority when Scalia died. “C’mon, Man!”
The GOP has controlled the Senate for decades, regardless of whether they are in the majority or minority. But at least Scalia was not replaced until Trump could do the nomination, after Clinton lost.
Big exception: Obama’s first term.
GOP Senators Say Obama Supreme Court Pick Will Be Rejected
NY Times – Feb 24, 2016
(That would been Merrick Garland.)
The main problem for us on the left is that the GOP, though a minority party demographically, will most likely be able to stay ‘in power’ for the foreseeable future
Be very afraid. There is a reasonable probability that the court will find a way to rule that every zygote is a full citizen; so that anyone in the country who aids an abortion will be prosecuted for murder.
@rick,
At that point tens of millions of Americans will reply with a paraphrase of Andrew Jackson: “John Marshall has made his decision, now let him enforce it.” Blue states will simply ignore such a ruling and there will be no way to impose it in such cases.
SCOTUS rulings are like money; they’re only worth something if people believe in them. That, not zygotic citizenship, is the real threat to civil order in this country.
Even the blue states are full of religio-fascists armed with assault rifles. What will stop them from making “citizen’s arrests”?
Rick:
Another person with a weapon claiming he though the dead vigilante was a robber. If we go with what Clarence the federally protected with his assigned guards Justice Thomas says, we can start packing weapons of choice.
@rick,
The SCOTUS didn’t restrict the right to own firearms to the religio-fascists. I don’t own a gun presently, but I’ve fired several different pistols and long guns in the past. They aren’t that different now. I think a guy with a PhD can figure out how to operate a firearm.
The religio-fascists get their ideas of vigilante justice from TV and the movies. When someone starts shooting back, they’ll lose sphincter control mighty fast.
When SCOTUS does the political pandering, then it comes with zero budget cost; i.e., no new taxes. At least during the first trimester, then a home EPT followed by an outpatient D&C will cover most abortion needs while still remaining legal in all 50 states and the D of C.
Wrong.
How so? Physician is not legally required to perform pregnancy test before D&C. Other tests often precede D&C, but are also not required. In anticipation of most physicians willing to still get abortions done under the wire, then this is the most obvious way. The only problem posed by more liberal use of D&C is that it poses risk to the future viability of a pregnancy if one is later desired.
Roe was decided in 1973, but OTC EPT only came to market in 1975. One reason that the Roe decision did not get greater informed criticism at the time was that literate people realized that anti-abortion laws were about to become unenforceable.
Importantly as well lots of ob-gyn physicians accept Medicaid.
So, since Medicaid does not cover abortion, then the D&C workaround has likely been being used all along.
I wish everyone would stop meandering and see this for what it is: a broad based attack on science and medicine. Just ask Galileo and Kepler and Copernicus and Da Vinci and Newton. Get with the program it’s about faith in science over dumb unproven beliefs. More importantly it’s about cash flows and all the money shifted to scientific innovations over faith based bs. The theocrats know it’s over. In the great olden days they could burn people at the stake: just ask Savanarola!
They really are angry that science stop Covid and science got all of the cash to stop Covid. In the great olden days that Alito and the Taliban five yearn for all the cash during the plague went to religion. Religion does not save; it promises eternal life but you have to die first. Science saves the living.
dd
You are right with your viewpoint. In later posts and maybe here too, I took it more as a matter of control. The court is trying to force us into one view. Roberts had a controlled approach. Sans the liberal point of view, the rest approached this as might the Salem Puritans(?). Force the issue.
Even more disconcerting for the Taliban five, Science has demonstrated that impregnating a virgin is no big deal. OMG if science can do that what about Jesus?
To clarify, impregnating a virgin who remains a virgin after impregnation is no big deal.