Defenders of the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade insist that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health does not outlaw abortion but simply returns the decision about reproductive rights to the states. “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote. He quoted the late Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote: “The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations, upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting.” This, Alito wrote, “is what the Constitution and the rule of law demand.”
Here we are, back in an America "half slave and half free" and this time I cannot share Lincoln's expectation the Union would hold.
Last week on Tuesday, we saw the Establishment Clause of Article I attacked.
On Wednesday, the meaning of the Second Amendment was smashed.
On Thursday they assaulted the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and called the Warren Court criminal justice civil rights cases "prophylactic" law the court didn't have the right to create.
Friday they went after the "substantive due process justice" of the Fourteenth Amendment.
And next Thursday they go after the ability of the government to enforce the laws that are passed.
The marauding reactionaries of this illegitimate super-majority are now the Enemies of America.
Wondering how Rusty Bowers, Brad Raffensperger and Bill Barr can discuss tfg’s threats, stupid ideas, physical intimidation and such, and then say “Yeah, I’d vote for him again.”
Citizens of the United States of America the majority opinion of the justices on the Supreme Court responsible for abolishing a constitutional right repeatedly let us know their opinion of us. They wrote quote, “We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work.” We are 'extraneous'. They are taking our rights away because we are 'extraneous'. Can we change their minds about that?
I hope you will soon write about The influence of Opus Dei and The Federalist Society on our Supreme Court and USA Civil Rights law. Having lived in Italy from 1976 to 2002, I have witnessed the irrigue and power plays that Opus Dei wields. It’s about time the public knows what’s going on. BTW: they loathe Pope Francis and his progressive Christian tendencies.
Today. I attended a memorial for a dear friend who suddenly died at a restaurant. She was picking up dinner for she and her husband after returning from their trip to a beach. She paid for the meal and then fainted, hitting her head on the floor. She later passed away. My friend was about 5 years younger than me. She and I met in 1974 at Planned Parenthood where we were volunteers. We both stayed for years and in that time period, we developed a great relationship. She is the third of my girlfriends who I have lost in 2 years. All of them were strong advocates of women’s rights and the rights of all people. I tell you this story because my generation is now seeming to leave this earth and it’s my lifelong goal to make certain my daughters and your children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren, will be protected from these evil forces called white people with the exception of Clarence Thomas who thinks he’s white. As HRC so brilliantly pointed out, the 14th Amendment is being challenged by the illegitimate court. The only way we, the people, can make changes is to demand term limits for those in Congress and on the Supreme Court. In this day and age, there is no way that I want my tax dollars supporting white supremacists for a lifetime!
Dr. Richardson, I have noted a shift in the tone of your nightly epistles over the past few months. I found your letters hopeful and positive after Biden’s election.
But the realization that the stacking of a multigenerational extremist Supreme Court will open the door to the exact behaviors Lincoln warned us about. Tyranny of the minority is at hand, aided and abetted by rogue band of legislators and a complicit judiciary.
Lately your letters have become more urgent, a clarion call for decent and honest people to resist. You have gone from intellectual neutralist to an activist. I applaud this shift!
By framing our current political situation in historical context, you do a great service to all of us. You’re telling us , “Do not imagine that these times are the worst ever. We’ve been here before, and came through it a better nation.”
“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.”
“ When the majority says that we must read our foundational charter as viewed at the time of ratification (except that we may also check it against the Dark Ages), it consigns women to second-class citizenship.”
The forces pushing the anti choice agenda aren't being led by people guided by the Constitution, they're religious zealots blinded by narrow-minded personal beliefs.
Ironically, these are the same people who constantly rail against the similarly minded narrow-minded zealots running the show in much of the Mideast.
I am not "new" to this group really as I have been reading all of your comments for probably a year now. I was afraid that should I begin commenting I will find myself here much more than I should, not that it's a bad thing but, the rabbit hole feels like it is widening every day. The events of the last week or so though (and the rage I feel) have prompted me to change that so, here we go. This feels like the most educated and thoughtful group of those I read (by far) though and I thank you all in advance for staying the course and helping me get through this difficult time with you. I have many thoughts built up but will try to stretch them out so as not to over-do it. I also apologize in advance for any ill remarks as I feel I have reached a breaking point as I am like many of you almost 70 and the idea that we would now be literally fighting to save our country (internally) from the very forces (externally) that our/my parents fought and gave their lives for is simply unthinkable.
After reading the good professor's post for today and the move of current GOP members to return to states rights as they have done many times over the years and in this case are now using it as cover for their long-laid wicked plan to extinguish a woman's control of her own reproductive rights, note how it is always selective and hypocritical as they want it only for some things but not others. Well, personally I am done with that. As HCR points out that Lincoln said, "It will become all one thing or all the other".
One cannot stand on the unilateral control of a woman's rights in a state (and many other similar issues as you wish) and then turn around and take billions of (our) federal dollars to support your own unsustainable habits all the while using those dollars as a cudgel to slash our throats and thumb your nose at us while taking it. Moscow Mitch has been doing it forever as just one state example. An article on states rights I have always thought so very pertinent is the one linked below that says it much better than I can. It is now 5 yrs old but, the underlying points seem more appropriate than ever. It's slow to start but bear with it and I am betting this group will like it.
I will stop here for now and try to ease into the flow. BTW I have no idea what name it signed me up as. It may even be the email address since I have been using it to read for so long and it didn't give me an option to provide a login name. Will try to correct it if it is. Thanks again for all your thoughts during this time. There are almost no outlets for such direct dialog as this in my community so I come here and read. HCR is a Godsend. I am hoping that mainstream begins picking up more on her so her work gets more and more exposure and out to those that need to hear / read this even more than we do.
It's also from this amendment that we derive "substantive due process," which has been the penumbra under which rights like the following have been held to exist by necessary implication: rights of parent and child, the rights of unrestricted travel among states, the right of privacy, the rights of consenting adults to have intimate relations outside marriage or with the same sex (or opposite, or both), the right of privacy between doctor, pharmacist and patient to obtain contraceptive medications and devices, the right of couples of different skin color to intermarry, the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
This is the substantive due process that Clarence Thomas - after nearly 160 years of precedent that he thinks is egregiously incorrect - now wants to reverse as a follow-up to Dobbs' reversal of the right to reproductive choice including abortion.
He's fully comfortable with the cabal referenced by Professor Cox leading and dictating to the rest of us what policy at every turn should be - will of the majority be damned.
Thank you Heather. Your writing gives me hope every day. Some days it is a little less uplifting than I would choose but that is the lesson of life - you don't get to have it your way all the time. Should I blame Burger King? Would Mr. Eastman take my case? Should I ask him? I love your insight and history "lessons" that apply to current events. I look back at the education I received in the public school system of Los Angeles in the 60's and 70's and realize so much of the information I was given was far more important than I could have ever dreamed of at the time. Thank you for helping me to be pulled back into a more useful orbit. My only dilemma is figuring out how I can make a difference. I am a voice which is loud at times. but pretty much insignificant on its own unless you are a person that loves me. However, if I join with likeminded voices, we can be excruciatingly loud. I just have to figure out how to do that. Thanks for waking me up. Dmitri
Every day, it seems, the divide between “North and South” is widening. Maybe or maybe not a civil war but red and blue and purple states. Lincoln: “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” What would he say? That the Civil War didn’t end? What has it become? If women must travel thousands of miles for reproductive health care, abortion that is banned in their residential states, then how are we the “United” States? How are all people equal under the law?
From the Auslander - this ruling has made the US a pariah State for much of the world. So much for "the light on the hill". On the positive note - it has made many countries go "whoops, we better enshrine woman's health in our constitutions". Sweden and a number of other countries seem to be doing this. Yes - it seems that the GOP/Christian right, want Gilead.
Stephen Douglas spoke of "personal liberty and personal freedom".
Maybe someone can explain to me the distinction between "freedom" and "liberty".
Meanwhile, I am left with the feeling that American politicians, the only people who, to my knowledge, use the two words in combination, are... drowning the fish... dissolving, weakening the force of the one concept.
It seems that, for Douglas and his ilk, every puddle, every pond must have a big, free fish like himself, while the small fry shall be free to be eaten.
*
Brecht --paradoxical poet if ever there was one -- wrote well of this.
His little piece is entitled "If Sharks were Men".
Here we are, back in an America "half slave and half free" and this time I cannot share Lincoln's expectation the Union would hold.
Last week on Tuesday, we saw the Establishment Clause of Article I attacked.
On Wednesday, the meaning of the Second Amendment was smashed.
On Thursday they assaulted the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments and called the Warren Court criminal justice civil rights cases "prophylactic" law the court didn't have the right to create.
Friday they went after the "substantive due process justice" of the Fourteenth Amendment.
And next Thursday they go after the ability of the government to enforce the laws that are passed.
The marauding reactionaries of this illegitimate super-majority are now the Enemies of America.
Wondering how Rusty Bowers, Brad Raffensperger and Bill Barr can discuss tfg’s threats, stupid ideas, physical intimidation and such, and then say “Yeah, I’d vote for him again.”
Citizens of the United States of America the majority opinion of the justices on the Supreme Court responsible for abolishing a constitutional right repeatedly let us know their opinion of us. They wrote quote, “We cannot allow our decisions to be affected by any extraneous influences such as concern about the public’s reaction to our work.” We are 'extraneous'. They are taking our rights away because we are 'extraneous'. Can we change their minds about that?
I hope you will soon write about The influence of Opus Dei and The Federalist Society on our Supreme Court and USA Civil Rights law. Having lived in Italy from 1976 to 2002, I have witnessed the irrigue and power plays that Opus Dei wields. It’s about time the public knows what’s going on. BTW: they loathe Pope Francis and his progressive Christian tendencies.
Today. I attended a memorial for a dear friend who suddenly died at a restaurant. She was picking up dinner for she and her husband after returning from their trip to a beach. She paid for the meal and then fainted, hitting her head on the floor. She later passed away. My friend was about 5 years younger than me. She and I met in 1974 at Planned Parenthood where we were volunteers. We both stayed for years and in that time period, we developed a great relationship. She is the third of my girlfriends who I have lost in 2 years. All of them were strong advocates of women’s rights and the rights of all people. I tell you this story because my generation is now seeming to leave this earth and it’s my lifelong goal to make certain my daughters and your children, nieces and nephews, grandchildren, will be protected from these evil forces called white people with the exception of Clarence Thomas who thinks he’s white. As HRC so brilliantly pointed out, the 14th Amendment is being challenged by the illegitimate court. The only way we, the people, can make changes is to demand term limits for those in Congress and on the Supreme Court. In this day and age, there is no way that I want my tax dollars supporting white supremacists for a lifetime!
Dr. Richardson, I have noted a shift in the tone of your nightly epistles over the past few months. I found your letters hopeful and positive after Biden’s election.
But the realization that the stacking of a multigenerational extremist Supreme Court will open the door to the exact behaviors Lincoln warned us about. Tyranny of the minority is at hand, aided and abetted by rogue band of legislators and a complicit judiciary.
Lately your letters have become more urgent, a clarion call for decent and honest people to resist. You have gone from intellectual neutralist to an activist. I applaud this shift!
By framing our current political situation in historical context, you do a great service to all of us. You’re telling us , “Do not imagine that these times are the worst ever. We’ve been here before, and came through it a better nation.”
Thank you for doing this!
from the dissent...
“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.”
“ When the majority says that we must read our foundational charter as viewed at the time of ratification (except that we may also check it against the Dark Ages), it consigns women to second-class citizenship.”
The forces pushing the anti choice agenda aren't being led by people guided by the Constitution, they're religious zealots blinded by narrow-minded personal beliefs.
Ironically, these are the same people who constantly rail against the similarly minded narrow-minded zealots running the show in much of the Mideast.
As the dumbing down of America continues.
I am not "new" to this group really as I have been reading all of your comments for probably a year now. I was afraid that should I begin commenting I will find myself here much more than I should, not that it's a bad thing but, the rabbit hole feels like it is widening every day. The events of the last week or so though (and the rage I feel) have prompted me to change that so, here we go. This feels like the most educated and thoughtful group of those I read (by far) though and I thank you all in advance for staying the course and helping me get through this difficult time with you. I have many thoughts built up but will try to stretch them out so as not to over-do it. I also apologize in advance for any ill remarks as I feel I have reached a breaking point as I am like many of you almost 70 and the idea that we would now be literally fighting to save our country (internally) from the very forces (externally) that our/my parents fought and gave their lives for is simply unthinkable.
After reading the good professor's post for today and the move of current GOP members to return to states rights as they have done many times over the years and in this case are now using it as cover for their long-laid wicked plan to extinguish a woman's control of her own reproductive rights, note how it is always selective and hypocritical as they want it only for some things but not others. Well, personally I am done with that. As HCR points out that Lincoln said, "It will become all one thing or all the other".
One cannot stand on the unilateral control of a woman's rights in a state (and many other similar issues as you wish) and then turn around and take billions of (our) federal dollars to support your own unsustainable habits all the while using those dollars as a cudgel to slash our throats and thumb your nose at us while taking it. Moscow Mitch has been doing it forever as just one state example. An article on states rights I have always thought so very pertinent is the one linked below that says it much better than I can. It is now 5 yrs old but, the underlying points seem more appropriate than ever. It's slow to start but bear with it and I am betting this group will like it.
https://newrepublic.com/article/140948/bluexit-blue-states-exit-trump-red-america
I will stop here for now and try to ease into the flow. BTW I have no idea what name it signed me up as. It may even be the email address since I have been using it to read for so long and it didn't give me an option to provide a login name. Will try to correct it if it is. Thanks again for all your thoughts during this time. There are almost no outlets for such direct dialog as this in my community so I come here and read. HCR is a Godsend. I am hoping that mainstream begins picking up more on her so her work gets more and more exposure and out to those that need to hear / read this even more than we do.
It's also from this amendment that we derive "substantive due process," which has been the penumbra under which rights like the following have been held to exist by necessary implication: rights of parent and child, the rights of unrestricted travel among states, the right of privacy, the rights of consenting adults to have intimate relations outside marriage or with the same sex (or opposite, or both), the right of privacy between doctor, pharmacist and patient to obtain contraceptive medications and devices, the right of couples of different skin color to intermarry, the rights of same-sex couples to marry.
This is the substantive due process that Clarence Thomas - after nearly 160 years of precedent that he thinks is egregiously incorrect - now wants to reverse as a follow-up to Dobbs' reversal of the right to reproductive choice including abortion.
He's fully comfortable with the cabal referenced by Professor Cox leading and dictating to the rest of us what policy at every turn should be - will of the majority be damned.
Wait for it: “But choosing your voters to make sure the results will be what you want is a different kettle of fish altogether.”
As a good friend of mine said the other day: “Once again, America, welcome to Mississippi.” This court is bent on restoring us to oligarchy.
Thank you Heather. Your writing gives me hope every day. Some days it is a little less uplifting than I would choose but that is the lesson of life - you don't get to have it your way all the time. Should I blame Burger King? Would Mr. Eastman take my case? Should I ask him? I love your insight and history "lessons" that apply to current events. I look back at the education I received in the public school system of Los Angeles in the 60's and 70's and realize so much of the information I was given was far more important than I could have ever dreamed of at the time. Thank you for helping me to be pulled back into a more useful orbit. My only dilemma is figuring out how I can make a difference. I am a voice which is loud at times. but pretty much insignificant on its own unless you are a person that loves me. However, if I join with likeminded voices, we can be excruciatingly loud. I just have to figure out how to do that. Thanks for waking me up. Dmitri
Every day, it seems, the divide between “North and South” is widening. Maybe or maybe not a civil war but red and blue and purple states. Lincoln: “I do not expect the Union to be dissolved—I do not expect the house to fall—but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.” What would he say? That the Civil War didn’t end? What has it become? If women must travel thousands of miles for reproductive health care, abortion that is banned in their residential states, then how are we the “United” States? How are all people equal under the law?
From the Auslander - this ruling has made the US a pariah State for much of the world. So much for "the light on the hill". On the positive note - it has made many countries go "whoops, we better enshrine woman's health in our constitutions". Sweden and a number of other countries seem to be doing this. Yes - it seems that the GOP/Christian right, want Gilead.
A footnote:
Stephen Douglas spoke of "personal liberty and personal freedom".
Maybe someone can explain to me the distinction between "freedom" and "liberty".
Meanwhile, I am left with the feeling that American politicians, the only people who, to my knowledge, use the two words in combination, are... drowning the fish... dissolving, weakening the force of the one concept.
It seems that, for Douglas and his ilk, every puddle, every pond must have a big, free fish like himself, while the small fry shall be free to be eaten.
*
Brecht --paradoxical poet if ever there was one -- wrote well of this.
His little piece is entitled "If Sharks were Men".
A parable for our times...