"This ruling will take a sledgehammer to the idea that the Supreme Court is an impartial, non-religious, non-political body." (Tell the nice lady what she's won!!) Mitch McConnell denied a hearing to Merrick Garland. Donald Trump then nominated Neil Gorsuch and followed that up with two more avowed abortion foes, all of whom lied through their teeth at their confirmation hearings.
The Supreme Court has never been immune to politics. It's an institution composed of humans, after all. Now it's gone much farther and stripped away the veneer of being an apolitical body. If this decision holds, it represents the Court's Conservative majority indicating the willingness- nay, the eagerness- to revisit other rights the Far-Right doesn't like. This may include, but isn't necessarily limited to, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights, interracial marriage, the DH, key-lime pie, and the list goes on.
As Trevor Noah said at the WHCA over the weekend- All these years the GOP railed against Sharia Law. Turns out they were just jealous.
A particularly great post among your many great posts. I haven't read the draft opinion, but the fact that Alito says that "there is no mention of abortion in the Constitution" is the biggest joke of all. My fav line of yours: "the entire GOP was a a retention pond for misogynist scum." Glorious!
(First, a bit of an aside: I'm seeing remarks on FB that say there are a number of legal experts who share your opinion that the leak was produced by a conservative actor in Alito's office. So while I remain skeptical for the reasons I've stated elsewhere, you are not a lone prophet shouting in the desert.)
Margaret Sanger, based on the estimates of experts in her day, placed the number of back alley abortions in the neighborhood of 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 a year. (Also, the claim that she favored birth control to eliminate black babies is a bald faced lie. In one of her personal letters to a friend she described the racist lies the reichwhiners were telling about Planned Parenthood 100 years ago. Those selfsame reichwhiners today cut and paste her remarks as something *SHE* advocated.)
Alito's "opinion" -- and it is ONLY an opinion; no one can truthfully assert that real intelligence, that logic, principles, evidence, and facts, played any active role in its fabrication -- effects everyone because it is the foundation for a general attack on the right to privacy. So not just gay marriage is at risk, but any form of non-cis, non-binary will be open to immediate criminalization. And don't imagine that being cis and binary makes you safe. Those books on your shelf (whether physical or electronically saved on your eReader) are no longer a private matter. Because there will no longer be any *private* matters. Oh yeah, and that website you visited? I don't just mean the porn (which consumes much of the internet bandwidth in the Bible Belt states), I mean that political discussion about the history of socialism; I mean that documentary you watched.
And the breathtaking baselessness of Alito's opinion utterly buggers the imagination. (There are no spelling errors in the preceding.) The claim that there must be some historical basis for a right to be said to exist itself is devoid of any shred of historical justification. Most of the rights the founders explicitly enumerated were themselves devoid of any historical basis. Sure, Milton eloquently argued for freedom of the press in the Areopagitica, but pretty much everything from the Oh-So-Beloved 2nd onwards they were pulling out of their asses. Absolutely nothing in the 9th ("the enumeration of certain rights in this Constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" -- that's from memory), nor in the Federalist papers even suggests such monstrous mutilation of legal and constitutional interpretation as even a possibility, nevermind a standing rule.
Your response is bracingly magisterial in its scope, and clarity, Gary. Would that I could disagree with any of it, you've essentially nailed it, as has Stacey with her precise and authoritative essay. Our best hope is that this has sufficiently unnerved the silent majority who overwhelmingly support abortion rights so that we come out in force in November, and repeat it 2024. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the edge that Democrats need to just retain their narrow majorities in the House and the Senate.
"This ruling will take a sledgehammer to the idea that the Supreme Court is an impartial, non-religious, non-political body." (Tell the nice lady what she's won!!) Mitch McConnell denied a hearing to Merrick Garland. Donald Trump then nominated Neil Gorsuch and followed that up with two more avowed abortion foes, all of whom lied through their teeth at their confirmation hearings.
The Supreme Court has never been immune to politics. It's an institution composed of humans, after all. Now it's gone much farther and stripped away the veneer of being an apolitical body. If this decision holds, it represents the Court's Conservative majority indicating the willingness- nay, the eagerness- to revisit other rights the Far-Right doesn't like. This may include, but isn't necessarily limited to, same-sex marriage, LGBTQ rights, interracial marriage, the DH, key-lime pie, and the list goes on.
As Trevor Noah said at the WHCA over the weekend- All these years the GOP railed against Sharia Law. Turns out they were just jealous.
Love me some Trevor Noah. He always gets it right. I'm just glad you're spreading the word on Substack, Jack. Love reading your stuff.
Thanks. Backatcha. If I wasn't writing, I'd probably be in a straitjacket and hopped up on Thorazine.
A particularly great post among your many great posts. I haven't read the draft opinion, but the fact that Alito says that "there is no mention of abortion in the Constitution" is the biggest joke of all. My fav line of yours: "the entire GOP was a a retention pond for misogynist scum." Glorious!
John won't let me be as snarky and sarcastic as I am IRL (he's correct to rein me in a little), but I was determined to get in at least one zinger ;-)
I just shared on my FB page.
We've got daughters, you and me. We've got plenty of skin in this game. Thank you for being you--and for being on the right side of history.
THANK YOU FOR WRITING ABOUT THIS TRAVESTY.
(First, a bit of an aside: I'm seeing remarks on FB that say there are a number of legal experts who share your opinion that the leak was produced by a conservative actor in Alito's office. So while I remain skeptical for the reasons I've stated elsewhere, you are not a lone prophet shouting in the desert.)
Margaret Sanger, based on the estimates of experts in her day, placed the number of back alley abortions in the neighborhood of 1,000,000 to 2,000,000 a year. (Also, the claim that she favored birth control to eliminate black babies is a bald faced lie. In one of her personal letters to a friend she described the racist lies the reichwhiners were telling about Planned Parenthood 100 years ago. Those selfsame reichwhiners today cut and paste her remarks as something *SHE* advocated.)
Alito's "opinion" -- and it is ONLY an opinion; no one can truthfully assert that real intelligence, that logic, principles, evidence, and facts, played any active role in its fabrication -- effects everyone because it is the foundation for a general attack on the right to privacy. So not just gay marriage is at risk, but any form of non-cis, non-binary will be open to immediate criminalization. And don't imagine that being cis and binary makes you safe. Those books on your shelf (whether physical or electronically saved on your eReader) are no longer a private matter. Because there will no longer be any *private* matters. Oh yeah, and that website you visited? I don't just mean the porn (which consumes much of the internet bandwidth in the Bible Belt states), I mean that political discussion about the history of socialism; I mean that documentary you watched.
And the breathtaking baselessness of Alito's opinion utterly buggers the imagination. (There are no spelling errors in the preceding.) The claim that there must be some historical basis for a right to be said to exist itself is devoid of any shred of historical justification. Most of the rights the founders explicitly enumerated were themselves devoid of any historical basis. Sure, Milton eloquently argued for freedom of the press in the Areopagitica, but pretty much everything from the Oh-So-Beloved 2nd onwards they were pulling out of their asses. Absolutely nothing in the 9th ("the enumeration of certain rights in this Constitution shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people" -- that's from memory), nor in the Federalist papers even suggests such monstrous mutilation of legal and constitutional interpretation as even a possibility, nevermind a standing rule.
Love what you wrote here. And I truly believed that Alito is a sociopath.
Your response is bracingly magisterial in its scope, and clarity, Gary. Would that I could disagree with any of it, you've essentially nailed it, as has Stacey with her precise and authoritative essay. Our best hope is that this has sufficiently unnerved the silent majority who overwhelmingly support abortion rights so that we come out in force in November, and repeat it 2024. Maybe, just maybe, this will be the edge that Democrats need to just retain their narrow majorities in the House and the Senate.
You had me at "bracingly magisterial," Andrew. I loved that. Gary really is, you know.
Yes, "precise and authoritative " is a great description of Stacey's essay.
Politically, you and I are on the same damn page.