I remember a few arguments I had back in2016 with “progressives” who were in favor of a woman becoming president, “just not that woman,” and arguing with them that the vote in 2016 was not over who was going to be president, but what that president would do to the Supreme Court.
And more than a few said “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” No, I always know what I am talking about.
So, for all those over-educated, under-intelligent,politically-illiterate morons, here’s today’s news.
In oral argument at the court this morning, Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban wasn’t on trial.
Roe v. Wade was.
Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart decided to pull the hood off and goad the six Republicans to not just change the “viability rule” from 24 weeks to 15, but to overturn Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood altogether.
The Just-Uses liked the argument, particularly the two newest TRUMP-NOMINATED members, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
All six responded by bringing up Plessy v. Ferguson, Dred Scott, and other dark marks on the court’s history that were later overturned.
Clarence Thomas repeatedly tried to muddy the waters on where the basis of Roe’s protections come from, intimating that its lack of enumeration in the Constitution invalidates abortion access as a right. “What is confusing is that if we were talking about the 2nd Amendment, I know exactly what we’re talking about. If we’re talking about 4th Amendment, I know what we’re talking about because it’s written. It’s there.”
Brett “I like beer” Kavanaugh liked Mississippi’s arguments that “the constitution is neither pro-life nor pro-choice on the question of abortion” and leaves the decision up to the people.
He even went to “it wouldn’t be so bad” if we did.“If you were to prevail, the states, a majority of states or states still could — and presumably would continue to freely allow abortion,.”
Apparently Kavanaugh is unaware of the 28 laws in different states that are set to “spring into life” when Roe is overurned.
Both Kavanaugh and Barrett teamed up at different points throughout the oral arguments to say that actually, overturning precedent is a good thing! They were the ones who brought up the value of overturning Plessy by the ruling in Brown vs Board of Education.
Justice Samuel Alito reiterated the state’s argument, roundly rejected by the respondents, that there is considerable doubt about the “personhood” of the fetus, when it can feel pain. In amicus briefs, groups like the American Medical Association pushed back on that doubt, saying that science still holds unambiguously that a fetus has not developed the structures necessary to feel pain pre-viability. Instead, he argued, “There are those who say that the rights of personhood should be considered to have taken hold at a point when the fetus acquires certain independent characteristics. But viability is dependent on medical technology and medical practice — it has changed, it may continue to change.”
Kavanaugh berated Julie Rikelman, attorney for the abortion clinic, for forcing the court to make a big decision, despite the fact that it is Mississippi that is asking for a judgment on abortion precedent when the state appealed the case to the high court in the first place: “The other side would say that the core problem here is that the court has been forced, by the position you’re taking and by the cases, to pick sides on the most contentious social debate in American life. They are saying here that we should return to a position of neutrality on that contentious social issue rather than continuing to pick sides.”
Roe v. Wade isn’t the only decision at stake here. Once the reactionary radicals on the court have adopted the ability to “correct” previous “wrong decisions,” you can safely bet your last dollar that the following things will be brought before them:
“Griswold v. Connecticut”, which established ther “right to privacy” and is what allows the use of birth control. Expect the argument that “preventing God’s will” in the creation of a “person” will become the next big cry. Griswold was what they were always going for, they just decided it was easier to establish the precedent of rolling back precedents with Roe, since Griswold enjoys even more populat support by the public.
And then there’s the reactionary “Lochner v. New York” they have wanted to restore for the past 84 years, removing government altogether from regulation of the economy.
To that list of the Guilty Parties we can also add Rahm Emmanuel, who - first thing after becoming Obama’s Chief of Staff - fired Howard Dean, the man who created the 50-State Strategy responsible for the Obama victory in 2008, then decommissioned Obama For America at the same moment the GOP was creating the “Tea Party,” who then lost the 2010 elections by only supporting “sure win” candidates, giving the GOP the power of reapportionment that led to the Democratic losses in the House in 2012 and the Senate in 2014, which allowed Mitch McConnell to prevent President Obama nominating a Supreme Court justice in 2016 so that the Republicans could attain their 50 year dream of taking decisive control of the Supreme Court.
Every single Lefty Moron who voted for Jill Stein or wrote in Bernie Sanders’ name on their ballot, in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan back in 2016 owns this. YOU DID THIS!!! It was clear 40 years ago this is what The Enemy would do.
From TPM - This article was first published in 2015:
The future composition of the Supreme Court is the most important civil rights cause of our time. It is more important than racial justice, marriage equality, voting rights, money in politics, abortion rights, gun rights, or managing climate change. It matters more because the ability to move forward in these other civil rights struggles depends first and foremost upon control of the Court. And control for the next generation is about to be up for grabs, likely in the next presidential election, a point many on the right but few on the left seem to have recognized.
When the next President of the United States assumes office on January 20, 2017, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg will be nearly 84, Justices Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy will be over 80, and Justice Stephen Breyer will be 78. Although many Justices have served on the Court into their 80s and beyond, the chances for all of these Justices remaining through the next 4 or 8 years of the 45th President are slim. Indeed, the next president will likely make multiple appointments to the Court.
Yes! My husband and I voted with pride for HRC. We live in Rochester, NY and visited the grave of Susan B. Anthony with thousands of others at Mt. Hope cemetery to place our "I voted" sticker on the headstone ( Frederick Douglass is also buried there). I never felt as proud as I did that day.
As a student of history I should not have been surprised at the results.
As Roe is overturned as well as Griswold, and every fucking law put into place to protect people from the overreach of government and corporations, ( except for their sperm covered 2A), this fucking country is doomed. Everyone is in danger except for white, male, property owning christo-fascists. As Heather Cox Richardson wrote, the south did indeed win the civil war.