All ur Uteri Are Belong To Us

by Ugh

Well here it is.  Roberts concurs in judgement.

Thomas is explicitly coming for Obergefell, Lawrence, and Griswold.

I blame the butterfly ballot.

What a sh1t country.

Comments

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

See my June 24, 2022 at 11:38 AM on The Politics of Personal Projection thread.

Otherwise, I'll shut up on this thread.

Mainly for fear that some here might convert to conservative movement fascism merely to get me off the streets.

[wonkie]

They are coming for representative government. They are coming for the federal government's role in regulation--expect the Clean Air Act to be gutted along with any other federal protections for the environment and for people. They are coming for social services such as unemployment. The goal of the Republican party for decades has been to create a one -party state with a permanent Republican majority in support of oligarchy.

And of course they will support gerrymandering and voter suppression.

[wj]

Sadly, I think wonkie is right.

The only hope I see on the horizon is that Thomas and Alito are old enough that they might kick off at a time where a Democratic President could get replacements confirmed. That's a hope, nothing like a likelyhood, let alone a certainty. But what else is there?

(Yup, the resident optimist is pretty damned pessimistic at the moment, when it comes to anything touching the Supreme Court. Which, with this Court, is damned near everything.)

[wj]

I confess to a small-minded hope that one of the decisions, based on the same 14th Amendment rights that supported Roe, that this Court will overturn will be Loving v Virginia. There would be something poetic in Thomas finding out that his marriage is illegal in Virginia.

[Hartmut]

He will take care that there is a grandfather clause that exempts him by means of a strategically chosen cutoff ("does not affect marriages conducted before [insert date one year after his own marriage]").

[hairshirthedonist]

If Al Qaeda hated us for our freedoms, they were playing an even longer game than they knew.

[JanieM]

He will take care that there is a grandfather clause that exempts him by means of a strategically chosen cutoff ("does not affect marriages conducted before [insert date one year after his own marriage]").

And he will take care to have no such clause for same-sex marriages.

I wonder how they'll frame the necessity to unwind millions of existing interracial and same-sex marriages.... Or if even they think that's a bridge too far in practical terms, what kind of paperwork people will have to carry to prove that they are in fact married. Or for that matter, what kind of paperwork people will have to have to establish which race they belong to. And for that matter again, I doubt it will be just black/white marriages that get some scrutiny if they overturn Loving.

Fun times.

There would be something poetic in Thomas finding out that his marriage is illegal in Virginia.

There will be nothing poetic about it for millions of other people.

The only hope I see on the horizon is that Thomas and Alito are old enough that they might kick off at a time where a Democratic President could get replacements confirmed.

Alito is my age, so I'm not really thrilled with that line of reasoning. In fact, we were at Yale at the same time (I was in grad school, he was in law school). I had friends who were his law school classmates, but unsurprisingly, they were not his kind of people and v.v., so I never met him. I note that in a cosmic joke by the FSM, Alito's birthday is April Fool's Day.

Looking at the dates, I must have overlapped Thomas for a couple of years too. Ew to both of them.

[wj]

On the upside, consider that this Court was going to overturn Roe sooner or later. No real question about that. By choosing to do so, and do it completely, right now they may have provided Democrats with leverage to win some contests in November. Especially in states which have "trigger laws" on abortion. Often without women there being aware of them.

What wss previously hypothetical has just become real.

Timing, after all, is everything.

[wj]

Alito is my age, so I'm not really thrilled with that line of reasoning.

Fortunately, women generally live longer than men.** So we'll be blessed with you for a while longer.

** Unless, that is, they die in a back-alley abortion.

[Girl from the North Country]

Janie, what does v.v. stand for? I can only think of viva voce, but that doesn't seem very applicable here.

wj, there is no upside. And your hope for a Dem president ever being in a position to get SCOTUS justices through again is adorable.

But one can have a desperate hope that this affects the midterms in November. And it's nothing but a desperate hope.

As for any idiotic (sorry) speculation about Loving v Virginia, you've got to realise that they're not going to do anything to inconvenience or hurt themselves. The only hope for gay rights might be Peter Thiel, and even then, the paymasters probably become irrelevant to people who have a job for life...

[JanieM]

vice versa

[wj]

there is no upside.

Completely agree that there's no upside to the ruling. But there might be to the timing.

[Girl from the North Country]

vice versa

Oh of course. Thanks.

[Pete]

Otherwise, I'll shut up on this thread.

I’m not encouraging anything, but this seems like an odd time to dial it back.

Congratulations, America! Your “Freedom Rating” has been upgraded to:

Qatar

[Tony P.]

I would like to congratulate The Honorable John Roberts on his historic achievement: becoming the last Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

Don't get me wrong. I don't think we are about to Abort the Court in any formal way. For one thing, we'd have to get wj to agree:) But "Chief" and "Supreme" will both be meaningless brand names very soon, and the jury is out on "United".

--TP

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Dialing it up in "The Politics of Personal Projection" thread, Pete.

[Pete]

Yes, but even that seemed relatively reserved. Which is somehow more chilling.

I think we’re all shell-shocked.

[Pete]

I think Roberts saw the way things are going and YOLOed it. He’ll get his wish and the Roberts Court will be featured prominently in historical texts. Excepting the Gilead version, I expect the word “respected” featured less so.

[wj]

I don't think we are about to Abort the Court in any formal way. For one thing, we'd have to get wj to agree

I'd have a problem with the word "Abort" in that.

But I have no problem at all with the thesis that the current Court demonstrates that a massive restructuring is needed. Which (assuming that the Constitution survives) will necessarily happen in a formal way.

[JanieM]

As for any idiotic (sorry) speculation about Loving v Virginia, you've got to realise that they're not going to do anything to inconvenience or hurt themselves. The only hope for gay rights might be Peter Thiel, and even then, the paymasters probably become irrelevant to people who have a job for life...

Of course they're not going to inconvenience themselves. They're just going to continue living in the bubble they're already in, where stuff that the peons have to put up with doesn't apply to them, one way or another. That doesn't mean they're not going to continue unraveling the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in ways that will hurt most people, but that they'll be insulated from by wealth or position or geography. Alito is back in the sixteenth, last I heard.

Also curious as to which among wj, Hartmut, and me you thought was (were?) being idiotic about Loving. First, there was a lot of snark involved. Secondly, we're not the only ones to think it might be on the block too.

[wj]

the Roberts Court will be featured prominently in historical texts. Excepting the Gilead version, I expect the word “respected” featured less so.

On the contrary, "respected" will feature prominently, too. As in "quite properly and reasonably disrespected."

[wj]

stuff that the peons have to put up with doesn't apply to them, one way or another.

For example, no restrictions on guns are allowed. Anywhere in America . . . except within the Supreme Court building, where no guns are allowed at all. (And, if they think of it, within range of any Justice's house.)

[JanieM]

Speaking of respect, the last paragraph of the dissent:

“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” they wrote.

Apparently it's customary to say "we respectfully dissent."

Only a gesture, but good for them.

[JanieM]

For example, no restrictions on guns are allowed. Anywhere in America . . . except within the Supreme Court building, where no guns are allowed at all.

I haven't had the heart to read the details of that ruling. But there are lots of places where guns are restricted -- e.g. anywhere the president appears; the Secret Service requires it if I understand correctly.

I have also been wondering: can I say that someone can't bring a gun onto my property? I believe I can, but enforcement would be an interesting dilemma.

IOW, my home isn't a public place. There are property rights, too, after all, and I think this falls out differently for "public" property like stores and factories than it does for private homes. Ugh? Any other lawyers? Can anyone clarify this?

[JanieM]

From here (not going to try to format it), a summary of Maine laws about concealed carry permits:

The law does not otherwise change where a person may carry or who may possess a firearm. It will still be illegal to possess a firearm in the following places, with some very limited exceptions:

Courthouses (17-A M.R.S. § 1058)
State Parks (12 M.R.S. § 1803(6), (7) and Bureau of Parks and Lands Rules Chapter 1)
Acadia National Park (12 M.R.S. § 756)
Schools (20-A M.R.S. § 6552)
Federal buildings (18 U.S.C. § 930)
State Capitol area (25 M.R.S. § 2904 & DPS Rule Chapter 41)
Private property when prohibited by the property owner
Establishments licensed for on-premises consumption of liquor, if the premises are posted. Note that even if there is no posted prohibition, it is illegal to carry on these premises while under the influence of intoxicating liquor or drugs. (17-A M.R.S. §1057)
Wildlife Sanctuaries (as listed in 12 M.R.S. § 12707)
Labor disputes and strikes (32 M.R.S. § 9412(5))
Baxter State Park (as prohibited by Rules)
Allagash Wilderness Waterway (as prohibited by rules)

[Pete]

my home isn't a public place.

With this Court? If your uterus is public domain, I kinda feel like all bets are off.

[JanieM]

Men own homes too. Probably any day now, they will be the only ones allowed to do so, or to have a credit card in their name, or take out a mortgage.

[wj]

But there are lots of places where guns are restricted -- e.g. anywhere the president appears

The thing is, the way that the political hacks on this Court are treating the 2nd Amendment, those restrictions may well be invalid as well. At least, I can't see any way to square those restriction with their views.

[Hartmut]

That assumes that they care about such things as consistency.

[wj]

That assumes that they care about such things as consistency.

Pretty certain that Thomas and Alito don't care in the slightest. But Roberts and Kavanaugh might prefer at least the appearance of consistency. Hence their concurring opinions: letting the lunatics' position win, while maintaining plausible deniability (as they see it) for themselves.

[Pete]

Appearance? Maybe if one squints hard enough. What the majority of SCOTUS is doing, is undermining any faith in the Rule of Law. And if DoJ remains as feckless as they’ve so far been, the end game is on the horizon.

The vast majority of the citizenry is opposed to these “opinions”. I don’t want a society that says “fuck it, I’m screwed either way, so why not?” This doesn’t end well, no matter how high the tower.

[Girl from the North Country]

Also curious as to which among wj, Hartmut, and me you thought was (were?) being idiotic about Loving. First, there was a lot of snark involved. Secondly, we're not the only ones to think it might be on the block too.

It was wj, and his naive idea that that there was any chance that the current SCOTUS would strike down Loving, while Thomas and his (so very busy) wife were around. Yup, there was a ton of snark involved. I can only plead mitigating circumstances. It's not that I think the current court wouldn't under other circumstances go for interracial marriage, just like all the other progressive, civilised law they have in their sights, it's that I wanted to emphasise that (contrary to wj's sweet fantasy), since it would affect one of their own, they would steer clear.

[wj]

What the majority of SCOTUS is doing, is undermining any faith in the Rule of Law.

What they are doing is undermining any belief that they (SCOTUS, or at least the political hack majority) care about the Rule of Law.

The Court's power has always stemmed from the belief that they did care about that. They might be wrong from time to time. But the justices in previous Courts weren't willing to just abandon any principle beyond getting what they want.

This Court's reputation is toast for the foreseeable future. And that's just with the decisions that they have announced so far. The country needs some kind of neutral arbiter. But I don't see any path to get there without, at minimum, a total membership change.

[Pete]

You say tomato…

They’ve Foxified the law.

Fake News! Stolen Elections!

Fine.

Fake Laws! Stolen Rights!

En Garde, sez me.

[Snarki, child of Loki]

We can now all thank the Supremely Deplorable Six for providing USians with both the right, and the motivation, for obtaining an AR-15+bump stock+extended magazine.

[Girl from the North Country]

En garde, aux armes, and any other call to action that works.

The abortion bans, the looming Griswold issue, these alone should make just about every woman in America vote D in November. And if you add all the LGBT folks of whatever sex for Lawrence and Obergefell it looks hopeful, even neglecting the possibility that all these people will vote with their allies' protections in mind, on principle. Trump has apparently been privately worried that the Roe decision will have this effect. For the only time in my life I say: FHLTGE.

[wj]

Trump has apparently been privately worried that the Roe decision will have this effect.

To be a successful conman, which Trump has been, you have to be able to read the marks. If he thinks there's going to be a problem due to these rulings, it's more likely than not that he's correct.

[Girl from the North Country]

With much more alacrity and enthusiasm: FYLTGE

[nous]

Let us hope that a massive GOTV on the part of the Ds gets past the structural and obstructionist sabotage and suppression of the Rs to get a result. Otherwise we end up again with a minority in position to enforce an unjust and unpopular decree with a veneer of technical legality.

The GOP is not going to stop drinking, and it's not going to stop abusing everyone else in the household while it's drunk. At some point there must be either open confrontation and conflict, or separation and a custody battle. We are well past anything else.

[Girl from the North Country]

Amen.

[GftNC]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/25/us-supreme-court-illegitimate-institution

An article bringing together many of the elements we have been discussing here.

As of 24 June 2022, the US supreme court should officially be understood as an illegitimate institution – a tool of minority rule over the majority, and as part of a far-right ideological and authoritarian takeover that must be snuffed out if we want American democracy to survive.

***

And now, this court, stacked with far-right judges appointed via ignoble means, has stripped from American women the right to control our own bodies. They have summarily placed women into a novel category of person with fewer rights not just than other people, but than fertilized eggs and corpses. After all, no one else is forced to donate their organs for the survival of another – not parents to their children, not the dead to the living. It is only fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses that are newly entitled to this right to use another’s body and organs against that other’s will; it is only women and other people who can get pregnant who are now subject to these unparalleled, radical demands.

***

The conservatives on the court rightly understand that individual rights and women’s freedoms are incompatible with a system of broad male control over women and children, and a broader male monopoly on the public, political and economic spheres.

But that authoritarian vision is also incompatible with democracy.

And so Democrats now have a choice. They can give speeches and send fundraising emails. Or they can act: declare this court illegitimate. Demand its expansion. Abolish the filibuster. Treat this like the emergency it is, and make America a representative democracy.

[nous]

IMO the USSC has had no moral or ethical standing since at least 2018 when Roberts allowed the brutal partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin to remain. So I have no disagreement with what Filipovic is saying.

The right has declared us all enemies and feels no need to justify any behavior towards us as a result.

[JanieM]

IMO the USSC has had no moral or ethical standing since at least 2018 when Roberts allowed the brutal partisan gerrymandering in Wisconsin to remain.

I would put it back further: to McConnell ignoring Obama's nomination of Garland. From there forward it was an illegitimate institution IMO.

[nous]

Garland was political rot, though. The WI case was a SC decision, and so directly reflects on the court and the Chief Justice. The nomination process has been garbage for longer, but if the court itself won’t act to protect the integrity of one person, one vote…

[wj]

but if the court itself won’t act to protect the integrity of one person, one vote…

Which would put the Court's lack of integrity back to the 2000 election. That might well have been a recoverable hit to the Court's standing. But it turned out it was a precursor rather than an anomaly.

[nous]

Which would put the Court's lack of integrity back to the 2000 election.

Under Chief Justice Rehnquist, with Thomas and Breyer the only current justices involved. With that much turnover there was ample opportunity to chart a more honorable path. Alas...

[Hartmut]

It also started the trend of putting stuff like "this is NOT a precedent" or "this does not mean we will do X next" into the decisions while fully knowing that it is a blatant lie.
Niemand hat die Absicht, eine Mauer zu errichten.

[wj]

All those caveats, especially when some of the concurring opinions explicitly reject them, mean that the Law has lost one of its critical features: predictability.

At this point, one can guess that the political hacks on the Court will join the ideologues in doing crazy stuff. But which rwnj crusades is difficult to impossible to predict with any reliability. You just cannot say: "The Court will never support this" and have any confidence that you are right -- no matter how blatantly illegal or unconstitutional it is. .

[GftNC]

Yup.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/26/women-must-be-allowed-to-defend-abortion-as-a-sex-based-right

The case against abortion bans is overwhelming. It is impossible to abolish abortion altogether: desperate women will always find ways, putting their own lives at risk and making them vulnerable to sexual and financial exploitation. The only effective and safe way to reduce abortion is to expand access to contraception, something Republicans have impeded under Trump. It has been estimated that maternal mortality will increase by 20% in places with a ban. It is always inhumane and degrading to force a woman to give birth against her will, but there is something particularly chilling about doing it in a country as unequal as the US, where half of women seeking an abortion live below the poverty line. The US is a terrible place to be a poor woman: exceptional among nations belonging to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development in having zero national entitlement to maternity pay, it has no universal healthcare, the highest rates of maternal mortality of any wealthy nation and barely any support with the costs of childcare.

[bobbyp]

Which would put the Court's lack of integrity back to the 2000 election.

That was a turning point, when a conservative court laid down a partisan marker obliterating any concept of "law". However, you have to put that 'decision' in the context of the Court's long march toward inequality that started with Nixon's takeover (or Johnson's fumbling) of the Court's makeup in 1968. See Adam Cohen's Supreme Inequality for more in the way of detail.

[JanieM]

From the subhead to GftNC's link:

For generations, US liberals relied on the Roe v Wade ruling to support sex-based rights. Last week’s reversal shows how misguided they were

I'm sick to death of this kind of crap.

At least half the commentary I see is about how liberals and/or Ds fucked up and that's how we ended up here.

Sure. Every woman (or man, for that matter) battered by a partner was misguided too. So was everyone who got in the way of a tornado or tsunami. So was everyone who happened to live in the wrong country in WWII. Poor foresight! Poor planning! Poor strategy and poor tactics!

And of course, half the pundits and commenters know perfectly well how to get out of this mess, it's just all the mistakes and dopey ideas of the rest that are holding back the perfect remedy.

I think I'll go outside.

[Girl from the North Country]

Hmmm. While obviously the blame for the fall of Roe, and other developments, lies squarely with (an unholy alliance of) the right, evangelicals and the Republicans, liberals have not covered themselves with glory in taking evasive action. Unlike tornadoes and tsunamis, that unholy alliance has been telling America who they are, what they want, and what they intend to do, for a long time, as the above discussion about the start date of the illegitimacy of the SCOTUS makes clear.

I know from past discussions how unbearable it feels to have the left/liberals/Dems criticised or blamed for inaction, or inadequate strategy etc, but we are where we are, and unless this kind of analysis is performed it is unlikely that these problems can ever be solved. If people can't examine where they fucked up before, it is rather unlikely that they can avoid doing so in the future. An example is RBG's refusal to retire while Obama would have been able to get a replacement nomination through. Breyer has learned that lesson. It doesn't mean one can't see where the blame for the necessity of the tactic lies, it just means that one understands the true perfidy of one's opponent, and is determined to thwart them.

[Girl from the North Country]

unless this kind of analysis is performed it is unlikely that these problems can ever be solved

For example, on another thread, I noticed that russell now supports (among other things) increasing the number of SCOTUS justices. I can't remember whether or not he did when we discussed it before, but I do know that many liberals who opposed it once are coming round to it. This is because they are seeing that their (principled) previous objections have allowed this ongoing rightward march to go unimpeded, and they now see the absoluate necessity of stopping it.

[GftNC]

I think of it as analogous to the increasingly acknowledged value of red teaming:

https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/red-teaming

(I do not have any hope of converting anybody here, let alone Janie.)

Let a hundred schools of thought contend!

[CharlesWT]

Social conservatives may find that rolling back Roe v Wade will be like the dog catching the car.

[JanieM]

Liberals who rely on the courts to the exclusion of talking to people who don’t think like them ultimately only undermine the progressive change they seek to achieve.

Straw-idea-ing, condescension... the "misguided" in the subhead is basically a sneer.

Not the way to win hearts and get people to pay attention to *your* ideas, IMHO.

Overall, I'm a great believer in recognizing the fact that we can't police other people's approaches or words. Let a million pundits opine. They will anyhow, with or without my permission; but I don't have to give them my attention.

There are positive ways to say things and nasty ways. Taking gratuitous potshots at everyone else who's "doin' it 'rong" is ego gratification for the writer, but I'm not sure it accomplishes much else.

Two comments from BJ that have a whole different vibe:

https://balloon-juice.com/saturday-evening-open-thread-well-worth-sharing/#comment-29328

https://balloon-juice.com/sunday-morning-open-thread-graphic-commentary/#comment-29710

Carry on.

[wj]

Social conservatives may find that rolling back Roe v Wade will be like the dog catching the car.

With the dog having broken its leg, and lost several teeth, in the process.

They won't notice immediately, which will let them do more damage to their political position for a while. (And more damage to the rest of us.) But I expect they will eventually find that not only are their "victories" rolled back, but the social and political trends they have been fighting got a big boost as a result.

[Nigel]

“Friday was a singular day in our history: the first day in living memory that Americans went to bed with fewer inalienable rights than they had when they woke up.” Not just in living memory. Ever.
https://twitter.com/tribelaw/status/1541016133448368129

[Hartmut]

They will be happy, if they can stem progress for long enough that the changes won't affect them personally. Since many extremists have shown that they do not even care about their own offspring, a few decades of regression (i.e. just until after they die) will do.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apr%C3%A8s_moi,_le_d%C3%A9luge

[Girl from the North Country]

And the headline of the Boston Globe piece tweeted by Tribe, which includes that quote:

A Travesty Foretold

whatever prevents such travesties in the future, I support it.

[Nigel]

The most notable part of the dissent for me was this:
“The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them. The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law.”

Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan plainly saying that the Supreme Court is no longer a court of law worthy of respect.

There’s no walking that back.

[Hartmut]

But they committed the mortal/deadly offence of leaving out the 'respectfully' before the word 'dissent' thus completely invalidating anything they say. Even more than in the senate decorum is of pre-eminence (although only for the non-right side of course).

[wj]

The other reason the rwnjs are celebrating:
GOP lawmaker calls Roe ruling ‘victory for white life’ as Trump rally cheers

Her staff is frantically trying to walk it back. But there's no walking back the cheers.

[wj]

Hartmut, you left out the
/sarcasm
at the end.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The old saw of the "dog who caught the car" doesn't mean anything happens to the dog.

It means the dog, once having caught the car, doesn't know what to do with the car.

Maybe the dog decides to catch another car.

Maybe we aren't dealing with dogs at all.

What instead if it is like the Tyrannosaurus Rex catching the car, or like the 16-wheeler armed military transport catching the car.

The Federalist Society and the malignant conservative movement have been collecting the license plates on all of our cars, great lists of them, enumerated or not, for decades and outfitting and now unleashing thousands of rabid legal dogs (OK, let's stick with dogs) around the country with legal armor, steel jaws, acetyline torches, and car compactors to dismantle and convert our cars to scrap, and now they have the Supreme junk yard dogs running the joint to make sure we don't even get to use the spare parts on pain now of being shot.

They are well-oiled machines:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=um-Ohl-NTNc

We are permitted to carry weapons in our cars just about anywhere now, so there is that.

Maybe turn the car around and chase the dogs. Maybe use the cars for what libertarians imagine they were invented, to run the dogs over.

Maybe we could wrap our cars in strychnine-laced meat and the legal dogs from Hell will grow weary of the taste of their catch ... eventually.

Unless we ARE dealing with Tyrannosauros Rexes.

[Hartmut]

wj, I assumed around here that would not be necessary. This isn't youtube where even adding the tag is often insufficient.
And you know that I would not mind, if certain senators would receive a slap in the face on the senate floor from their colleagues from time to time (decorum demands that (non-boxing) gloves should be the maximum tool use in the context. No canes, bats or projectile weapons. I am split on liquid manure or offal. The user would at least have to pay for cleaning the carpet).

[CharlesWT]

The old saw of the "dog who caught the car" doesn't mean anything happens to the dog.

According to my parents, when cars still had spoked wheels and someone became sufficiently annoyed with a neighbor's dog chasing their car, they would attach a burlap bag to a rear wheel and drive slow enough for the dog to catch them. The dog would sink its teeth into the bag, problem solved.

[Hartmut]

nooneithinkisinmytree, around here* bicyclists used to carry whips, firecrackers and pistols loaded with non-lethal shot to use against chasing dogs in the past. Bikes from some companies even got holders and dispensers for that. Okay, that was about a century ago but that's where the US are seemingly going.

*Germany in the late imperial and early republican age.

[CharlesWT]

"In the early conflict between canines and bikers, bicycle guns aimed to give velocipedes an upper hand.
...
Some of the advertisements of the era made one purpose explicit. Pre-leash-law free-roaming dogs hated the new-fangled gizmos and were wont to attack rider and vehicle alike! A .32 or .38 lead pill struck the marketers as the perfect prescription for persistent petulant pups."
Bicycle Gun: The Doggone History Of These Pocket Pistols

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

"According to my parents, when cars still had spoked wheels and someone became sufficiently annoyed with a neighbor's dog chasing their car, they would attach a burlap bag to a rear wheel and drive slow enough for the dog to catch them. The dog would sink its teeth into the bag, problem solved."

You Libertarians certainly are resourceful when it comes to repurposing just about any object into a weapon. %-&

Do you know of any way I can use an AR-15 semi to manicure my toenails? Or don't these conversions ever go in the proper direction?

Ah well, the sun's out, sort of, or will be tomorrow. Think I'll go get some:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfq1dJc5kbk

If only.

[nous]

We wouldn’t have all these problems with dogs if it weren’t for all the dog whistles on the right.

[wj]

I would not mind, if certain senators would receive a slap in the face on the senate floor from their colleagues from time to time.

At which point, it becomes necessary to overturn any rules against carrying guns in the Capitol, including on the Senate floor. Because, you know, that's how you achieve a more polite society....
/sarcasm

[Hartmut]

And, as history tells us, this HAS a tradition in the senate. To my knowlegde guns were drawn regularly but never discharged in the chamber. The infamopus case of violence involved a cane, not a firearm.
So, if Alito and accomplices took their own words seriously...

/sharkism

[wj]

if Alito and accomplices took their own words seriously...

IF they did, they'd allow guns the the Court. Which, of course, they do not. Gotta restrict the risks to school children. Since, once they're born, they aren't sacrosanct.

[hairshirthedonist]

https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-samuel-alito-66c301d223759e842ad95e89f597d587

Alito said the justices who decided Roe v. Wade “usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social importance that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people.

I don't understand this. Allowing states to ban abortion isn't leaving it to the people. It was left to the people by the constitutional protection from such bans. That was just gutted.

From the liberal dissent:

The justices warned more restrictions could come: “Most threatening of all, no language in today’s decision stops the Federal Government from prohibiting abortions nationwide, once again from the moment of conception and without exceptions for rape or incest.”

I'm not sure why a bigger deal isn't being made of this. Alito says they're leaving it to the states, but there's nothing in this decision preventing a federal ban. A federal ban wouldn't be leaving it to the states, and certainly not to the people.

[JanieM]

For hsh: You were expecting honesty? Logic?

Tranlation of Alito: 'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean–neither more nor less.'

But to your other point, maybe it isn't a bigger deal because there's so much to make a big deal of -- so much grief, anger, befuddlement, fear, uncertainty about what to do next -- that any particular piece can get lost in the maelstrom.

Allowing states to ban abortion isn't leaving it to the people. It was left to the people by the constitutional protection from such bans. That was just gutted.

By "the people" he doesn't mean you and me as individuals with rights, he means "the people" whose votes count. White, "Christian," etc. etc.
It's the minority of true and righteous believers who get to rule the lives of the rest of us.

Blah blah, you know all this.

[JanieM]

Not quite ready to let this go. I think you know that "leaving it to the people" is generally a way of saying "let it be decided by popular vote." Again, "the people" doesn't mean individual people, it means the voting public.

Of course, right off that bat that obscures all sorts of issues about who has the franchise, how easy or hard it is being made to cast your vote, etc., especially ironic coming from someone who not that long ago helped nullify the Voting Rights Act.

But setting that aside for a moment, the Bill of Rights was created to prevent the tyranny of one set of citizens over another; there are certain rights that the founders thought were so important that they were not going to leave them up to the voting public.

Alito is basically saying that there's no such thing as an individual right to control your own body if a "majority" of "the people" in your state don't want to grant it. In his view, the Federal government shouldn't lift a finger to guarantee that right.

Bodily autonomy, interstate commerce, the pending criminalization of leaving your state to get an abortion: they think they own you, and Alito can't wait for the day.

The more I think about it, the more I think this is the big fault line that is going to bring violence and/or extended chaos and/or some sort of split: states getting into partly law-related and partly/randomly violent fights over the right of one state to arrest people: for, e.g. actions that are crimes in Alabama that are undertaken by citizens of Alabama while they're visiting California. Or Maine. Or etc.

They think they own our bodies. Welcome back, fugitive slave laws.

As for the Bill of Rights, I can't wait to see how Alito and crew justify gutting freedom of religion by imposing theirs on the rest of us when a federal ban on abortion comes around in a few years. (I hope it doesn't. Seems like it will depend.....)

[novakant]

Time to watch "The Handmaid's Tale" again - good heavens.

What's next? "Soylent Green"? "The Day After"?

I think we're already living "Don't Look Up" for the most part.

Seriously, I feel very sorry for everyone living in the US right now.

[wj]

I think you know that "leaving it to the people" is generally a way of saying "let it be decided by popular vote." Again, "the people" doesn't mean individual people, it means the voting public.

Actually, I think he means "leave it to the state legislatures". Which (thanks to other decisions that he has supported) are allowed to restrict who can vote, how those votes are gerrymandered, etc., etc.

He can read the polls, so he knows damn well that, in a flat popular vote (i.e. with everybody voting), his views would lose big time. And not just in blue states.

[JanieM]

Actually, I think he means "leave it to the state legislatures". Which (thanks to other decisions that he has supported) are allowed to restrict who can vote, how those votes are gerrymandered, etc., etc.

Absolutely. I skidded over that, but we have representative government, so that's always the implication of letting "the people" decide. The people vote for representatives who do the actual deciding.

Although Maine has an exceptionally easy path to getting people's vetoes and statewide referendums on the ballot. But I won't go into that right now.

[wj]

This could get interesting:

A Monday ruling from the Supreme Court will make it harder for the government to prosecute doctors who overprescribe drugs.

The court held that the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a doctor knew or intended to prescribe drugs in an unauthorized manner when dealing with cases of overprescription.

So suppose (I am not a doctor either) that there is a drug which, in small doses is quite benign. But which, when overperscribed, can result in an abortion. Could a doctor, being persecuted prosecuted for performing an abortion, defend himself by claiming he had merely overperscribed the drug?

[wj]

Although Maine has an exceptionally easy path to getting people's vetoes and statewide referendums on the ballot.

There seems to be a bit of a correlation between a state providing for initiatives/referendums and a state being relatively liberal overall. Not perfect (New York, for example doesn't allow them, while Wyoming does), but moderately strong.

So in most cases, the reactionaries in state legislatures that they control don't have to worry that "the people" might overrule them. And DeSantis is trying to show how he can flat ignore a initiative that he finds inconvenient.

[Hartmut]

Since in cases of suspected abortions the presumption of innocence will be abolished soon (GOPsters with high aspirations will have to tighten the screw constantly to stick out of the crowd), no one will be protected (except maybe the highly aspirational GOPsters themselves). Some states are considering to make even talking about abortion illegal as abetment (conservative preachers and GOPsters exempt of course). It will be 'you should have known that this drug can work as an abortificent so the mere fact that your prescribed it for whatever reason makes you guilty').
The court decision is about unhealthy not immoral stuff, so the cases are clearly dictinct.
The Pill is prescribed for other purposes than contraception too but contraception foes assume that this is just a pretense (in countries where contraception is illegal this has at least a basis in reality).
Some US states already tried to persecute (prosecute does not really fit) women for "endangering" the unborn by alcohol consumption and tried to make any claimed miscarriage the basis for a mandatory murder investigation (again: presumption of guilt).
The closer the next presidential election comes the more will GOP governors with aspirations to the White House try to outdo each other by more an more insane laws. And I do not expect SCOTUS do do anything about it (except as a pretense to double down).

[Hartmut]

Btw, I finally caught Corona (or did it catch me?), my old parents too.
Light fever and moderate coughing.
Three times vaxxed, so risk probably moderate.
But rather inconvenient timing. This is the last full week of school before summer break so I'd preferred it to be either 2 weeks ago or the week after the next.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Michael Cain et al will read this:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a40436565/lake-mead-water-level-dead-pool/

[nononeithinkisinmytree]

Q is back:

https://www.mediamatters.org/qanon-conspiracy-theory/qanon-community-celebrates-return-q-after-18-month-absence

I'd like to know why Federal law enforcement and software and communications tech wizards can't identify who this is.

If Osama Bin Laden announced he was back, they'd goddamned be on it, and Q may be capable of inciting more genocide in America that that other guy.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Too much mayonnaise, but still not enough guns:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/28/2106936/-Subway-employee-in-Atlanta-shot-dead-over-a-sandwich-having-too-much-mayo

And all this time I thought it was the mayonnaise, not murderous conservative weaponry, that made American society so polite.

I wonder if too much mustard requires a flamethrower.

The separation of condiments and sandwiches must not be permitted to continue:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/28/2107054/--The-church-is-supposed-to-direct-the-government

Better steal all elections in perpetuity:

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/27/2106852/-Disgraced-Colorado-clerk-says-Lauren-Boebert-encouraged-her-to-compromise-election-security

One piece of bad news I've never considered is how many heavily armed fascist women are going to have to be dealt with unreserved savagery in the coming Civil War.

In the last one, nearly all white Confederate women took to the fainting chaize on the veranda .... except for Scarlett O'Hara.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Trump ordered mass murder, not merely violent insurrection:

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2022/06/theyre-not-here-to-hurt-me

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Vermin murderer Trump, who represents all scum subhuman Republicans, attacked the individuals I pay to protect his worthless fascist corrupt conservative ass from ME:

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/live-blog/january-6-surprise-hearing-june-28-hutchinson-meadows?entry=1421882

Remember, the only piece of malignant dog shit in this country who will profit from Trump's indictments, if there are any in asshole America, is an anti-government fascist killer .. Ron DeSantis.

DeSantis WOULD have succeeded in taking over the Capitol and killing every one of his enemies trapped inside.

Trump is a hapless Mussolini.

DeSantis is the Putin 80 million conservative deplorable vermin long for.

[Nooneithinkisinmytree]

Has Trump ever thrown any food worth eating.

Swill.

Barr, McConnell, and DeSantis, if he doesn’t steal the 2024 nomination, all have pledged to vote for Trump next time.

We’re surrounded by Death merchants.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

This is horrific, must reading:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/07/04/we-are-not-going-back-to-the-time-before-roe-we-are-going-somewhere-worse

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

All ur Uteri can now kiss subhuman Texas and Manchin genocidal mass-murdering anti-American butt hole:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/27/manchin-obamacare-subsidies-catastrophe/

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/supreme-court-limits-epas-role-in-combatting-climate-change-11656598019?siteid=bigcharts&dist=bigcharts

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/6/30/2107458/-Republicans-plotting-laws-that-will-pay-bounties-on-those-who-leave-red-states-to-obtain-abortion

Maybe Democrats will .....

.... wait ...

https://www.rawstory.com/massive-betrayal-biden-cuts-deal-with-mcconnell-to-nominate-anti-abortion-judge/

Liz Cheney voted for Donald Trump in 2020 and then voted with him on nearly every issue before Congress, even more times than John Birch did.

By all means, let us wait and see, maybe chew over the fascinating bits as they unfold:

https://democrats.org/news/lindsey-graham-confirms-republicans-are-coming-for-medicare-and-social-security/

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/morning-memo/mississippi-gop-philip-gunn-incest-pregnancy-abortion

It's common knowledge that this is why when racist Christian conservative movement Republicans in Mississippi rape the plumbing of their 12-year old nieces, they force anal sex on the innocents to perhaps avoid their imposed honey traps, but they still keep armed bounty hunters on retainer in case the kid runs for it across state lines, because the lives of children are so sacred to the fucking murderers.

That ain't porn. That's despicable conservative southern family values hospitality, now whitely gone national and reported accurately.

I've always wondered why Susan Collins's lipstick was smeared and her clothing appeared disheveled after her little tete a tete pillow fight with killer Kavanaugh on that fateful day.

I can't think what must be done except to remark that there aren't yet enough military grade weapons and ammo available to the American people.

Headline: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/roe-overturned-the-fight-begins_n_62b5db01e4b0c77098bb7721

The fight ..... "BEGINS"?

I don't recall Mike Tyson waiting until the 12th round to start kicking vermin subhuman ass.

The silence and the maintained politeness are as deafening as the reveille call on the morning of July 1 1863 in a meadow outside a little town in Pennsylvania.

That massive ice shelf in Antarctica isn't the only collapse that is going to make worldwide waves because conservative genocidal filth forced the rest of us to live their imposed horror.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

https://digbysblog.net/2022/06/30/burn-in-hell-yall/

Why are conservatives the only criminals permitted to hire bounty hunters?

My state of Colorado should treat every drop of water produced by our watersheds and crossing state lines escaping to states governed by fascist subhuman Republicans like Texas treats pregnant 12-year-olds, as all our uteri to be hunted down and returned for impounding.

We can send fleets of tanker trucks full of fresh water to California and other remaining free states not contiguous with us.

[nononeithinkisinmytree]

There is nothing in the Constitution that prevents anything this genocidal monster wishes to enact as law:

https://www.mediamatters.org/diversity-discrimination/jarrin-jackson-said-hes-not-beholden-jews-and-listed-jews-evidence-evil

His views are originalist, and therefore eminently hateful and subhuman to the core, just as the original Founders would be (Would be? They are still alive and well in their originalist white nationalist prejudices) aghast that any Papist Catholics at all are permitted to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court.

What could be more originalist than the high-tech lynching Clarence Thomas claims nearly stopped his pubic hairs from becoming legend.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Sociopaths and psychopaths adjust their inner thinking and beliefs about what is true and not true according to the response of whatever audience they are attempting to fuck with and control.

If simple lying and grifting doesn't get them what they want, then for them it is very small beer to flip the switch and believe the shit they are flooding the zone with.

It's pointless to spend time wondering which way the psychopathic toggle switch is pointing ... both sides point to our destruction.

That's their innate talent. It's how they control whatever room they are in, and even switching back and forth between the two modes serves their goal of keeping everyone off balance so they may achieve their ends.

While we pause to psychoanalyze and understand them, which is a type of empathy decent normal liberally-minded folks employ, they'll have your wallet, your hymen, and your life.

Trump is no different that Hitler and Manson in that regard.

It doesn't matter to them that they lose by a landslide.

They are the landslide that will murder all of us.

And in the case of Hitler or any other fascist despot, Trump has succeeded because he has trained the entire conservative movement and its perverted institutions to behave as psychopaths do, cunningly, ruthlessly, and inexorably, like aliens and monsters in horror movies.

Those movies all end the same way, and its NOT with some kind of co-living arrangement with the EVIL.

Unfortunately, Hollywood required sequels. So the evil is not killed off completely and utterly, as it should be, because we know why.

You can sense the media, even what once was called mainstream, those jackasses, are nearly erotically excited about the awful sequels due for release Next Fall and in 2024.

The drama of it is a boon to their box office receipts.

They, and many other so-called Americans, are like the mission tech scientists sent along on the "Alien" movie series .. to give equal weight to BOTH SIDES, including pure psychopathic but fascinating subhuman EVIL, but against all human interests.

Those tech officers are like Susan Collins.

Clueless?

How many sequels of "Alien" do we have to watch before we figure out that we are the clueless ones and the evil Collins is merely the enabler on board to shepherd us to doom.

Let Liz Cheney explain:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA8jv1M6Y2g

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Does Putin really believe in that black heart of his George W. Bush looked within with the perspicacity of a dumb Christian shithead, that Russia should be returned to its Peter the Great stature?

So what if he does ... or doesn't?

Either way, Putin needs to be taken out.

Along with his treasonous admirers at TAC.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

They will steal every election in perpetuity:

https://digbysblog.net/2022/06/30/the-rogue-supreme-courts-threat-to-democracy/

It will never stop until it is stopped, which I think is what Harry Truman said before launching the missions to Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It doesn't matter the damage to America that solution entails.

America, the idea, is already a corpse under the boot of the malignant murderous conservative movement.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

Sodomy up the hoo-haw, Texas-style:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/06/29/texas-sodomy-supreme-court-lawrence-paxton-lgbtq/

I don't know where else Texas Christian libertarian vermin are going to stick it.

Can onanism be far behind as a populator of Texas' prisons and death row?

They can always fall back on bestiality out on the ranch and now that the FDA won't be be able to grade or label beef any longer, the question once again becums: "Where did this beef come from?"

Texans still have guns, right, because it's hard to tell as the silence is deafening.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

The Freedman's Bureau, first abolished in 1872 by white nationalist subhuman conservatives of both parties, is now abolished again, except this time its the entire federal government that is fucked.

I don't recognize any regulation whatsoever, including taxation, from any level of government fucked by the Republican Party, so I guess they are planning on murdering me in the line of duty.

I'm going to start small, by littering when and where I please.

I feel a chemical spill, or maybe a forest fire coming on, and I don't believe Congress addressed the particulars of my actions, so the EPA and the Forest Service, or any of their unauthorized state and local regulatory busybodies are fucking out of luck.

I don't understand how they any federal agency is going to regulate pregnancy on a national basis, except by murdering women and their fetuses by preventing them federally from seeking medical care.

The gun is now the instrument of moderating every human interaction between individuals and between individuals and any other unit of society, public or private, in what once was considered American civilization.

[nooneithinkisinmytree]

A roundup of the coming troubles:

https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a40477862/karianne-lisonbee-semen-remark/

All of those murderous dumb perverted Christian libertarian (self-described) vermin are A-OK with their targeted prospective victims walking around in their presence with fully loaded military-grade weaponry.

They want it.