Democrats, Roe, and Voting
Last week was rough. When the Roe v. Wade decision came out, being embedded in social media, was rough. And then comes the messaging from Democrats of "Well, just vote" - and, yes they aren't wrong. But it's an incredibly frustrating message for voters.
I feel it's sort of like the people who get angry when people in entertainment, sports, or gaming (and other fields) bring up politics and they go "Leave politics out of this." But. We can't. This is life. Politics is part of life.
This isn't an achievement to be had once and then forgotten. It's an ongoing effort and it requires folks to continue to give a shit. Roe v. Wade being overturned is a big moment and going to make people care and pay attention again.
Will it be enough to bring in two more Democratic senators? Who knows. But that's the point of this messaging. There isn't much which can be done until something changes. And to change it, people have to be invested in the country's politics and vote.
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Reddit poster dispels explains the Supreme Court and what the Democrats would have to do to stop the Roe v Wade being overturned
Found courtesy of my friend Bill:
So I’ve seen a number of comments blaming Democrats for this that say it’s their fault that Roe v Wade wasn’t “codified into law.” This shows a misunderstanding of how the US legal system works, so here’s a quick primer.
Role of the Supreme Court
At the very inception of the USA the Supreme Court took it upon themselves to be the interpreter of the US Constitution and the arbiter of whether laws passed within the US abide by the Constitution in the Marbury v Madison ruling. This has been an accepted role of the Court ever since, and falls within the notion of checks and balances. The Court acts as a check on Congress and the states to ensure that all laws passed follow the Constitution. For example, if Congress passed a law saying that no one could say bad things about the president, the Court would rule that this is not a law because it violates the 1st Amendment. Or if Congress passed a law saying that there are no more elections, they get to stay in Congress for life, the Supreme Court would overrule that law by saying “no the Constitution says elections every 2 years.” These Supreme Court rulings have the force of law.
So then can’t the Supreme Court just say whatever they want?
Well not quite but sort of. Supreme Court has a policy called stare decisis which means that they generally should respect previous decisions that have been made. Technically it’s up to them though. Theoretically another check on the power of the Supreme Court is that the President appoints them, so the people have a say in the Supreme Court based on who they elect as president. Finally, another way that the people can overrule the Court is by passing Constitutional Amendments — actually changing the most important document in the USA. However this is incredibly hard. Not only do 2/3 of BOTH houses of Congress (Senate and House of Representatives) have to agree but then 3/4 of the State Legislatures have to pass it as well.
So how does this apply to Roe and abortion?
So Roe v Wade was a Supreme Court decision that interpreted the Constitution as saying that women have the right to an abortion within certain limits. Remember, this has the force of law, and that only the Supreme Court can interpret the Constitution. If Republicans in Mississippi passed a law saying “there’s no right to abortion” the Supreme Court would say “nope we decided that and stare decisis says we stick with that decision”. And this happened time and time again. The restrictions changed somewhat but basically they continued to agree with their previous ruling. Except that’s not what happened THIS TIME. This time the Court said “you know we were wrong back then, changed our minds.”
But what about Democrats in Congress?
So like I said before, if Democrats passed a law last week saying “women have a right to an abortion”, then the Supreme Court could still say “nope that’s not in the Constitution.” If Democrats pass one tomorrow, the Court could still say the same thing. The only way to change it without the Court is to pass a Constitutional Amendment, which is impossible in today’s America. This is why republicans have been laser focused on the Supreme Court. Hope this has been helpful!
EDIT: This is not to say that passing a law protecting abortion today would be not allowed — that’s not what Dobbs says — but highlighting the fact that no matter what law is passed (except a Constitutional amendment) the Supreme Court could (and based on today’s ruling would) overrule it.
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Justice Clarence Thomas Just Said the Quiet Part Out Loud
On Friday morning, Alito’s conservative colleague on the court, Justice Clarence Thomas, disagreed with that. In his own individual opinion, Thomas wrote that, in fact, overturning Roe should only be the first step. “In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell,” he writes. “Because any substantive due process decision is ‘demonstrably erroneous.’”
“Demonstrably erroneous.” There is very little that is vague about those words. With the death of abortion rights in America, Thomas has now come out and said, in no-uncertain terms, that cases that enshrined Americans’ rights to marry whomever they want and to make personal decisions about their intimacy and child-bearing are flat-out wrong. For now, that is just Thomas’ opinion—none of what he’s written is legally enforceable. But the fact that he’s stating this explicitly affirms the fears of advocates that for many conservatives the demise of Roe was never meant to be the end—but rather a bleak beginning.
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Donations to fund Abortion Access in Every State
Another option is to donate to the Center for Reproductive Rights, which as of this posting, is having donations matched 10-1.
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Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade
A dark dark day. Just awful and upsetting. I am so angry.
Edit: I will add, it is important that laws can and should be changed. Those who cling to the Constitution as if it is a religious document, not to be challenged are, to be blunt, ignorant misguided assholes who see perfection in an era where slavery was legal, women couldn't vote, etc.
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Alex Holder Subpoenaed by Jan. 6 Committee for Trump Footage
Two former senior Trump administration officials, who were still working in the administration after the Jan. 6 riot, also claimed that they each had no idea the documentary was being shot in that timeframe, reportedly intimate access to Trump, his vice president, his family members, and his White House. Stephanie Grisham, who at that time was chief of staff to First Lady Melania Trump, told Rolling Stone she wasn’t aware of this documentary project either.
In other words: many of the people actually running Trump’s reelection operation are now saying they somehow had zero clue that an entire documentary was being filmed largely about Trump and his reelection campaign. And now the fruits of that doc are being mined for evidence by the congressional committee investigating Trump and his multi-pronged efforts to shred the American democratic order.
Holder released a statement later on Tuesday noting that he had “unparalleled access” to Trump and others over the final six weeks of his presidency and that he has “never-before-seen footage” of the Capitol attack. “When we began this project in September 2020, we could have never predicted that our work would one day be subpoenaed by Congress,” he wrote, adding that he had “no agenda coming into this” and only “wanted to better understand who the Trumps were and what motivated them to hold onto power so desperately.”Holder released a statement later on Tuesday noting that he had “unparalleled access” to Trump and others over the final six weeks of his presidency and that he has “never-before-seen footage” of the Capitol attack. “When we began this project in September 2020, we could have never predicted that our work would one day be subpoenaed by Congress,” he wrote, adding that he had “no agenda coming into this” and only “wanted to better understand who the Trumps were and what motivated them to hold onto power so desperately.”
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Heather Cox Richardson on Monday's Jan. 6 Panel Session
I have really come to enjoy Heather's Substack and her daily insights and on thoughts on US politics. I was glad to get to read her summary and analysis of the January 6th committee's session from Monday as I did not get to follow it closely.
I especially found this insight interesting. In hindsight, it is logical, but it definitely wasn't something I had considered when McCarthy withdrew the Republican nominees from the committee.
Observers have commented that House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) made a bad mistake in pulling his Republican nominees off the committee. He likely expected that such a move would discredit the committee, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) inclusion of Republicans Liz Cheney (R-WY) and Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) made the committee bipartisan anyway, and subsequent judicial decisions have concluded that the committee was constituted legally. What McCarthy really lost in pulling Republicans was not the ability to sway the story—the evidence is so clear that no one is challenging it—but the ability to create chaos and make it impossible for people to figure out what was happening, as Representative Jim Jordan (R-OH) did at the first impeachment hearings for Trump by yelling over witnesses, badgering, and bullying.
The strategy of causing chaos to disrupt something that isn't going your way is a well known tactic in all areas of life. But I find myself most frequently thinking of it through the lens of chess.
Very often, when I am playing chess and I find myself in a losing position, I know that if I can cause some chaos and distract my opponent, it gives me some chance that they will mess up and either misorder their moves, or just genuinely make a blunder. Their misstep gives me a chance to pounce and regain the upper hand.
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At Last, a Bipartisan Effort on Gun Safety
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Let's move the ball on gun control. I think the fear is that if we give them this, they won't give more. That's a fallacious way of thinking. Not taking this only furthers the message on the right that Democrats want to take their guns and the fact the law doesn't do that is why the Dems didn't pass it. It also shows voters that these rights CAN change and are not immutable, meaning more change in the future is still possible.
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89 Tweet thread with peer reviewed studies in favor of gender affirming care for trans kids
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The Daily - Why the Police Took 78 Minutes to Stop the Uvalde Gunman
A good episode that shines a bit more light on what happened in Uvalde. Far from conclusive, and it left me angry and frustrated that this keeps happening.
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The Science Is Clear: Gun Control Saves Lives - Scientific American
What research we have is clear and grim. For example, in 2017, guns overtook 60 years of cars as the biggest injury-based killer of children and young adults (ages one to 24) in the U.S. By 2020, about eight in every 100,000 people died of car crashes. About 10 in every 100,000 people died of gun injuries.
While cars have become increasingly safer (it’s one of the auto industry’s main talking points in marketing these days), the gun lobby has thwarted nearly all attempts to make it harder to fire a weapon. With federal protection against some lawsuits, the financial incentive of a giant tort payout to make guns safer is virtually nonexistent.
[...]
A study comparing gun deaths the U.S. to other high-income countries in Europe and Asia tells us that our homicide rate in teens and young adults is 49 times higher. Our firearm suicide rate is eight times higher. The U.S. has more guns than any of the countries in the comparison.
As we previously reported, in 2015, assaults with a firearm were 6.8 times more common in states that had the most guns, compared to the least. More than a dozen studies have revealed that if you had a gun at home, you were twice as likely to be killed as someone who didn’t. Research from the Harvard School of Public Health tells us that states with higher gun ownership levels have higher rates of homicide. Data even tells us that where gun shops or gun dealers open for business, killings go up. These are but a few of the studies that show the exact opposite of what progun politicians are saying. The science must not be ignored.
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Firearms are leading cause of death among U.S
Firearms are now the leading cause of death for children and adolescents 0-19 years of age, with a staggering 83 percent increase in youth firearm fatalities over the past decade, according to a commentary published in Lancet Child and Adolescent Health. Nearly two-thirds of youth firearm deaths were from homicides. Strikingly, Black youth had an unprecedented 40 percent increase in firearm fatalities between 2019 to 2020.
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The fact that Ted Cruz has landed on the "Just one door with an armed guard" as a reasonable answer is mind boggling.
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Jim Jordan demands material on him before complying with January 6 subpoena
[Auto Generated Summary]:
In the six-page letter sent to the select committee and obtained by the Guardian, Jordan demanded House investigators share with him all materials they intended to rely upon in questioning, materials in which he is referenced, and legal analyses about subpoenaing members of Congress. "Because your subpoena is an unprecedented use of a committee's compulsory authority against another member," Jordan said in his letter, "I respectfully ask for the following material so that I may adequately further respond to your subpoena."The response puts the ball in the select committee's court, forcing House investigators to decide whether they will acquiesce to Jordan's demands in the hope that it convinces him to give some testimony, or refuse and potentially close off any chance of cooperation. The response from Jordan - finalized on Tuesday and sent to the panel on Wednesday - also included complaints that House investigators had not acted in good faith by issuing a subpoena around four months after Jordan apparently declined to give voluntary assistance. The select committee's subpoena to Jordan - which came alongside four other subpoenas to House minority leader Kevin McCarthy, Scott Perry, Andy Biggs and Mo Brooks - demanded testimony about his December 2020 meetings with Trump in the White House and other communications.
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George Carlin on the Bill of Rights
To whom it may concern:
Unfortunately, the above document will be obsolete within one hundred years. It will be considered a quaint artifact. Americans simply don't care enough to protect it. They'd rather have a blender. Sorry, I cannot lie to you.
- George Carlin
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