The US Supreme Court and its decisions

Patch

Active member
Citizen
The Court heard arguments today on a Mississippi law that limited abortions at the 15-week mark. Tellingly, Mississippi pivoted from defending the law to outright asking for Roe v Wade to be overturned after the appointment of ACB.


It went about as well as you'd think.



If January 6th, the assault on voting rights and the democratic process, and the gerrymandering of state congressional maps didn't already make it clear, the right wing increasingly believes only in its own right to hold power and wield it with impunity.
 

Patch

Active member
Citizen
More: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...s-likely-to-kill-roe-in-mississippi-case.html

This is how Roe v. Wade ends — without pretense or pretext, the conservative movement’s tireless dream of forced birth, brought to fruition through the naked promises of Donald Trump, who said if he could put “another two or perhaps three justices on,” Roe would be overturned “automatically, in my opinion, because I am putting pro-life justices on the Court.” On Wednesday, all three of Trump’s justices hearing a case challenging Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban seemed ready to prove him right. Even John Roberts’s feeble attempts at describing, if not actually finding, a compromise would mean overturning all the prior Supreme Court decisions that have made abortion legal.

Oral arguments have misled people into making false predictions before, but if any of the conservatives were inclined to pull a surprise move, there was no sign of it in the almost two-hour-long session. For the first time in nearly 30 years, everyone arguing about abortion before the Court and the justices had to put their cards on the table.

By Supreme Court standards, the session was unusually blunt and at times heated. Stephen Breyer crankily noted that anyone could see it was the arrival of “new members” that had emboldened the right, perhaps hoping the justices Trump nominated might not want to be pawns. As Roberts noticed aloud, the solicitor general of Mississippi had technically been defending a 15-week abortion ban, a stalking horse for overturning Roe, but in later briefs had abruptly pivoted to openly asking for Roe to be overturned. Roberts didn’t say it, but the only thing that changed in between was that Ruth Bader Ginsburg had died and Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed. “Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Sonia Sotomayor asked pointedly.
 

Wheelimus

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I'm sure my state (Indiana) will be among the first to outlaw abortion. Ugh.

Very sad day for democracy and women's rights.
 

Patch

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Michigan has an old law on the books outlawing it. And with the state legislature in Republican hands, that's not going to change anytime soon.
 

Wheelimus

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Council of Elders
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I was shocked to learn on the nightly news that Indiana isn't among the 13 (I think) states with automatic bans in the event that Roe falls. So our dumbass state House will have to do it. Which they probably will. Again ugh. Just ugh.
 

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
A lot of women are going to die senselessly because of this.
But somehow I doubt the rich and powerful will be among them.
A sin for thee, not for me.
 

Pale Rider

...and Hell followed with him.
Citizen
You'd think something like this would galvanize the left for the midterms, but I bet that's too much to hope for.
 

Rust

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It's kind of hard to be galvanized when even when elected, the left bends over backwards to give the right everything they want and more.

"Meet me in the middle." The right says, taking yet another step backwards.
 

Patch

Active member
Citizen
It's kind of hard to be galvanized when even when elected, the left bends over backwards to give the right everything they want and more.

"Meet me in the middle." The right says, taking yet another step backwards.
Just like in 2016, "Why vote for Hillary? She might as well be a Republican." Except if Hillary had made it into office, we wouldn't have Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, or Barrett. If Breyer doesn't retire before the midterms, we'll probably lose his seat too.
 

Rust

Slightly Off
Citizen
And then McConnell just stalls for four years until a Republican gets into office to fill those seats anyway. He effectively blocked Obama from filling a seat for a year and nothing was ever done about it.
 

Corvus

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Citizen
It's kind of hard to be galvanized when even when elected, the left bends over backwards to give the right everything they want and more.

"Meet me in the middle." The right says, taking yet another step backwards.

I'm going to have to disagree. "The left" are progressives who champion the more leftist causes, and at least protest the GOP bullshit, it's the centrist Liberal Dems who ignore (and occasionally deride) those in their party who are actually to the left, and who play the role of the Washington Generals to the GOP Globetrotters. The progressives in the party are relatively few, and have little power.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: the neoliberals that comprise the backbone of the DNC are not leftists. Oh sure, they'll embrace a few progressive causes, like Gay marriage, and they'll talk a good game in other areas, but will largely disappoint because in the end, they just don't fight.

Now, I agree with the second line. The GOP has pulled the Overton window so far to the right over the last 30 years (especially in the last 15) that it has warped political discourse and perception in this country. The Dems have been pulled rightward in a sop to "bipartisanship", while GOP has so tainted the perception of the electorate, that they can deem people like Bernie Sanders, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as "far-left extremists", which is hugging ridiculous on its face. In most of the western world, people would correctly perceive the progressives in the party as simply being left-of-center.

But no, not in the good ol US of A, where we've painted progressives as communists, and have a corporate-run press-machine to help normalize such lackbrained ideas. Gawd bless 'Murica!
 

Patch

Active member
Citizen
Biden currently has the power to get judges appointed, and has done so. If the Democrats lose the Senate in the midterms (and it's looking more likely every day) that may no longer be the case.

I get that most of us are weary of Democrats falling all over themselves to appease Machin and Sinema, but we don't *have* to reduce everything to nihilistic comics from Left Twitter. The boring parts of governing the country matter as well, and this here is exhibit A for showing why.
 

Corvus

Member
Citizen
If you find my take to be overly-simplistic and reductionist, then I'm not going to disagree, because I absolutely know that this shit is a hugging complex morass, because politics is a reflection of human nature, and human nature is anything but simple. Regardless, I stand by the overall gist of what I said.

The boring parts of government work when the parties act in good faith. The GOP wouldn't know what good-faith governance was if Christ himself gave them a picture-book that easily laid it out.
 
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Patch

Active member
Citizen
Sorry, I was replying to Rust's post at the time, I mostly agree with what you've said there.
 

Corvus

Member
Citizen
Oh! Oops! Well thank you.

I'm really off my game today. Stressful day yesterday, and then...well...everything we're discussing. I'm exhausted.
 


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