[Items of correspondence are not attributed; they remain anonymous. They have been chosen for their inherent interest as journalism, story, or provocative opinion, which may or may not be shared by the editor or other members of the staff of Moristotle & Co.]
Congressional Hearings
into Attempts to Overturn the Results
of the 2020 Presidential Election
I have watched every public hearing so far, and for me they clearly demonstrate that Donald Trump is full of hate, has absolutely no moral compass, and will never quit promoting his vicious lies and attacking our electoral system. I am sickened at the support that he is still getting from the majority of the Republicans in Congress.
Riot or in- sur- rec- tion? |
Hats off to the Republicans who saved our democracy.
Yes, a very few Republicans should be congratulated for actually doing the jobs they were hired or elected to do and following the laws of this country and the cConstitution. But let's not forget to thank the Democrats who had the fortitude to pursue this matter and put the facts in front of anyone interested in knowing them.
If not for the Democrats who pushed this investigation, the January 6 terrorists would have been explained away by the Republicans as nothing more than a few rowdy tourists who got out of hand, and the attempted overthrow of this country's democracy would have been little more than a historical footnote to the 2020 election. At least now the Republicans who still support and enable Trump can no longer claim they didn't realize the choice they were making.
Trump will have to go to jail before the nightmare will end.
June 24, 2022:
The Supreme Court’s
Ruling on Roe v. Wade
The Supreme Court has made their ruling. I’m very apprehensive. Will metal hangers make a return? How many injuries wil we have? Deaths? Will jails in Texas fill up with girls who had abortions? Will they go to prison for taking the day after pill? And crime from unwanted children. Don’t know. Seems our country is entering Alice in Wonderland mazes.
SCOTUS on trial |
Roe v Wade came about because the rich could get abortions in a hospital while the poor went to the back alleys and more than likely died. The Supreme Court has taken us back to 1959.
I no longer have the days left, nor the energy to fight this battle again. But it is a battle that must be fought. Overturning Roe v Wade is only the beginning, for, as Judge Clarence Thomas has said, all of the Court’s rulings are subject to review under the Constitution. The Court’s knife will cut deep.
Now, the pro-choice crowd can admit defeat and disappear, or fight like they have, or increase their fight. Just as Floyd’s death galvanized – indeed created – BLM, this Supreme Court decision creates a symbolic event that can (probably will) be the single rallying event that increases the fight and power of the pro-choice crowd. Individual voters tend to be focused on 1-3 issues (not the big picture). If done well, this will replace one of those 1-3.
So, anti-abortion won the first quarter of this nasty game. There are still three quarters left.
Read the anguished words of Canada’s Justin Trudeau: He called the decision “horrific” and added, “My heart goes out to the millions of American women who are now set to lose their legal right to an abortion. I can't imagine the fear and anger you are feeling right now. No government, politician, or man should tell a woman what she can and cannot do with her body.”
Boris Johnson and other European leaders have weighed in similarly.
We are now the only country in the known world, except for Nicaragua and Poland, which has gone backwards, denying or restricting abortion rights which were formerly allowed. All others have affirmed or extended them.
American “exceptionalism” has a new meaning now.
The situation has flipped |
The situation has flipped. The pro-choice were defending an established position; the anti-abortionists were trying to create a new position (by upending the established position). Now pro-choice has to fight to get that position back. In my view, the general population, economics, second-order effects, willingness to work, and core beliefs all say the pro-choice crowd has the edge.
November will be really interesting, where this issue may cost the Republicans seats in national, state, and local government where the choice between Democrat and Republican is on a knife’s edge.
Must-read commentary in the New Yorker: “Selective Memory in the Supreme Court.” Pay particular attention to this paragraph:
Originalists have an evidentiary rule that seems, at first glance, like a good one. What counts as evidence…has to have been written and enacted by an elected body. But the problem with this rule is that during the eras of American history that originalists say they care about—roughly, 1787 to 1791 and 1865 to 1870—the majority of people living in the United States could neither run for office nor cast a ballot. They could not elect, and they could not enact; the historical analysis employed by the Court to make decisions about the constitutionality of laws concerning everything from guns to abortion relies on a fundamentally anti-democratic historical record. It deliberately excludes, as inadmissible, all constitutional and legal thought authored by women and people of color….Everyone living in the United States today has to abide by decisions made by Supreme Court justices, even though most of us, if we’d been alive during the times that originalists look to, would have had no vote and no voice in what laws were passed. The most democratic jurisprudence, then, would go searching for historical evidence that can tell the court what people disenfranchised in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries—and well into the twentieth—would have wanted, if they’d been able to influence the writing and rewriting of the Constitution [the editor’s emphasis].
It is no wonder that public regard for the Supreme Court is declining and will continue to decline until the Court stops trying to enact the justices’ own view of public good and return “the issues...to the people’s elected representatives.”
| Grateful for correspondence, Moristotle |
A personal thanks to contributing correspondents. You know who you are.
ReplyDeleteMorris, and thanks to you for pulling all this together.
ReplyDeleteWe have -- and have had for a long time -- a supreme court that is better suited to the Vatican than the US. If anyone is serious about stemming the tide of minority conservative rule, they need to deal with that much broader and more dangerous problem before they become bogged down in the minutiae of multiple individual issues such as abortion rights, political corruption and gun rights. With a conservative tilted judiciary in general, and a stacked conservative supreme court in particular, the will of the people doesn't matter, no matter how large their majority.
ReplyDelete“The Final Days of Mississippi’s Last Abortion Clinic” [NY Times]
ReplyDeleteThe Jackson Women’s Health Organization was at the center of the case that overturned Roe v. Wade. Already, supporters are planning new ways to help women in one of the poorest spots in the nation get access to abortions.
Published June 26, 2022, Updated June 27, 2022, 11:56 a.m. ET
Opening paragraphs of the NY Times abortion clinic article:
DeleteJACKSON, Miss. — A young woman entered the parking lot of the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, her shoulders hunched. She was accompanied by an older woman and a stone-faced young man with a handgun on his hip. She appeared terrified.
All around them, the noise was deafening. It was early Saturday morning, and a man with a powerful P.A. system was preaching about Jezebel being eaten by dogs. Dozens of evangelical Christians had come to pray. Volunteer clinic escorts, sweating in the summer heat, directed patients’ cars through the throng and blasted music they thought the evangelicals would hate: At the moment, it was the cheeky alt-rock song “Stacy’s Mom.” Posters of aborted fetuses lined the street.
A pastor named Doug Lane huddled with the older woman and encouraged her to persuade the younger woman not to go through with the procedure. “I wanted her to have the baby,” the woman said, her voice unsteady.
I'll start with the party line: Roe has no constitutional basis. Smoke and mirrors. That said, it's about as good as we are likely to get, at least nationally. And we could all live with it. This is also like the cop seeing your beer. If he didn't see it, he wouldn't have to bust you. The case basically claimed there either was or was not any such right, and they had to make a decision. Personally I don't see a right, but I dearly wish they had left it the hell alone. Just denied taking the case. The problem with SCOTUS decisions, like executive orders, is that all it takes is another one to overturn it. If Congress did their job and made it into law, we wouldn't have to battle it out in the courts. I can't be the only one to notice where most of these trigger laws are. Great. All we need is more gap-toothed tobacco-spitting redneck knuckle-draggers.
ReplyDelete